by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

CM Spyrian posted an informative blog today previewing a new purchasable being added to the in-game Shop, called Stimpacks. The short story is that buying a Stimpack will increase your XP and gold rewarded for completing a match. No indication yet on exactly how much the Stimpacks will cost, but when the technical alpha servers come back up, we’ll likely know that detail fairly quickly.

In terms of addressing concerns that players might be spending a lot of time grinding out unlocks for their player or hero levels, this could be a solid solution, since Blizzard is asking players to exchange money in order to save time. Whether or not it’s a dealbreaker will depend a great deal on how much it ends up costing, of course.

Assuming the cost isn’t prohibitive, however, this does sound like an excellent way for players with limited play time to get to their goals faster. Of course, naysayers will likely immediately jump on the idea that Blizzard is intentionally slowing down the out-of-game leveling process in order to bait players into dropping cash on stimpacks in order to beef up the revenue stream for Heroes. The bottom line, of course, is that this is all still in an alpha state, and stimpacks might be something that gets iterated upon or scrapped completely before the game sees release.

Read on the full blog entry.

Please note: While a Stimpacks tab will appear in the Heroes of the Storm in-game Shop on patch day, Stimpacks themselves will not yet be available for purchase. We will be adding Stimpacks to the Shop in the days to come. Kindly read on for complete details that will apply to Stimpacks when they are added in the future.

In the days following the arrival of our next Technical Alpha patch, you’ll be able to give your out-of-game progression a serious pick-me-up with the addition of Stimpacks. A Stimpack is a timed buff that will net you an additional 100% XP and 150% Gold for each match you complete while a Stimpack is active on your account.

HOW DO STIMPACKS WORK?

You’ll see a Stimpack’s bonuses applied on end-of-game score screens for each Heroes match you complete while it is active. If you’re ever curious about how much time you’ve got left before your Stimpack expires, you can always mouse over your selected hero in the Party Panel at the top of the screen to view the amount of time remaining. You’ll also be notified of your active Stimpack’s remaining duration in the Chat box upon logging into Heroes.

There are a few things you’ll probably want to keep in mind about Stimpacks before they arrive:

• A Stimpack’s XP bonus will only affect your out-of-game Hero and Player Level Progression, and has no effect on actual gameplay during a Heroes match.
• Stimpack benefits are additive. This means the bonuses they provide are added to the base amount of XP or Gold you receive by playing a game of Heroes.
  • For example: Imagine you have an active Stimpack, and earned 100,000 XP and 30 Gold for winning your latest Heroes match. In this case, the Stimpack will award you with an additional100,000 XP and 45 Gold, totaling 200,000 XP and 75 Gold for that game.
• Stimpacks will not provide benefits to any Quest rewards or other XP bonuses (such as Play with Friend, Double XP Weekend, and etc.)
  • Another example: Let’s say that you partied with a friend for the 50% Play with Friend XP bonus, and also completed a Daily Quest for 200 Gold during the winning game mentioned above. In this case, you’d earn a total of 250,000 XP and 275 Gold for that match.

In order to pick up a Stimpack for your adventures in the Nexus, simply head to the Heroes of the Storm in-game Shop, and then click the new “Stimpacks” tab to view the options available to you. Your Stimpack’s timer will begin immediately after purchasing, and buying another will extend your existing duration by the amount purchased.

That just about does it for our primer on the addition of Stimpacks to Heroes of the Storm. Keep an eye on the official Heroes of the Storm site for more announcements from the Nexus, because our next patch is just around the corner!