Heroes of the Storm

Reddit AMA
Recap

by Rozai

On Wednesday, September 19th 2018, the Heroes of the Storm development team responded to community questions in a Game Design & Balance AMA on the Heroes of the Storm subreddit. The thread tackled issues of solo lane balance, overall game philosophy, and a plethora of other topics. This article serves as an overview and summary of the responses from the development team.

Game systems

Bugs

A bug that prevented catapults from being blinded is being addressed in the upcoming Kerrigan/Brightwing patch.

Maps

Map design is centered around driving the game forward, managing emotional tension, and providing mechanical and visual variety.
While recent maps and map reworks have focused around singular objectives, this is not the driving, standard design philosophy.

Matchmaking and Ranked Play

The devs are working on dynamic matchmaking restrictions that scale based on the number of players in the queue to help with off-peak hours.
Since the recent matchmaking changes, some players have had their MMR dramatically diverge from their rank, causing longer queue times. The devs find this unacceptable and are looking into these situations directly.
The devs are reconsidering the philosophy guiding the current ranked system for HotS and want to determine if its the right fit for the game.

Systems

The general design principle is for percentage based bonuses to be additive with one another.
A handful of tooltips do not match their actual percentage based enhancement effects as they perform in-game. These will be addressed soon.

Heroes

Design Philosophy

The devs would like to add more “quirky heroes” (eg. Abathur, Cho’Gall, Murky) but they have to ensure they are balanced and fun to both play with and against.
There were points in development where Stukov could revive dead heroes as Zerg constructs with unique abilities, Alexstrasza could heal enemies, Mephisto could make enemy heroes hostile to each other.
The devs value both large reworks and small balance tweaks.
Reworks are necessary to update older heroes to match current design goals, make them competitive with newer heroes, and to solve fundamental design issues in their base kits.
Small balance tweaks help refresh stale talent builds.
Dev Matt Villers feels there is room for more frontline supports.
Design philosophy for support heroes has shifted towards increasing emphasis on interactive & skill-based gameplay.

Hero Roles

Dev Adam Jackson was the main balance designer on Blaze. He is surprised that Blaze ended up in the off-tank role.
The devs would like Blaze to be in the role of a main tank.
Yrel would need a larger rework of her abilities to work as a main tank, so the devs are more resistant to that design goal.
The devs are not against revamping a hero’s role with reworks (e.g. Tyrande).
The devs will soon be discussing Tassadar’s role and may shift him more towards a High Templar design (assassin).

Balance

Tassadar’s shields and lifesteal have proven to be a balancing challenge. He will be looked at for future adjustments.
The devs will be meeting on Sept. 20 to discuss the role of mana and sustain as it pertains to hero balance and interactivity.

Talents

Baseline quests are always being looked at for their interactivity and contribution to gameplay.
Unlimited stacking quests provide great moments for carry heroes and allow players to find areas in which to improve.
Malthael’s Tormented Souls is being looked at to provide more attractive options since the addition of Malthael’s cleaving auto-attacks.
Ana may be getting a rework down the line.
Ana’s Healing Dart will be able to pass through full HP heroes in a future patch.
The devs are overall happy with Illidan’s design and balance, but he may need some small tuning changes to bring him into what is currently an unfavorable meta for him.

Solo Lane Balance and Interaction

While the devs would prefer offensive/aggressive play to be the most optimal strategy, currently pro play is encouraged to play safer.
Some members of the community suggest that infinite tower ammo contributes to the current solo lane meta, in which high-sustain and waveclear is prioritized over winning the lane or pushing. The devs recognize this, but believe it is a small part of many factors which affect solo lane balance.
They do not want to revert the tower ammo changes, but are open to tweaking other aspects of the game to achieve better solo lane interactivity.
The sustain of Blaze and Yrel were targeted by nerfs in the Sept. 19 balance patch to tackle their impact on the solo lane meta.
The devs are looking to address more Health and Mana management balance as it pertains to the solo lane, and provide more rewards for out-trading your opponent and winning the lane.
Dev Adam Jackson liked a suggestion from ChaosOS to give the mage minion more pushing power against structures.