Gamescom Roundup

by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Blizzard promised that big announcements were in store for Gamescom 2016 and they certainly delivered.

The event kicked off with the news that a new event is coming soon, the Machines of War, which will include two new Heroes and two new Battlegrounds. Blizzard quickly followed that up with a series of In Development videos providing even more details on what players can expect to see coming to the Nexus in the next few weeks. However, the news out of Gamescom wasn’t just limited to major announcements in official videos.

Players at the event were able to play what was essentially a PTR version of the game, and they noted several differences from the current live version of the game. Members of the Heroes team also conducted several interviews and sat in on live streams from the event, which provided even more details on what players can expect to see in the game going forward.

By this point I am sure everyone has heard the big announcements like Alarak and Zarya being added and the new Starcraft maps, but I thought it would be helpful to recap some of the smaller details that emerged throughout the event that people might have missed.

Without further delay, here is a quick rundown of what we learned at Gamescom 2016.

• More information on Arena Mode will be coming very soon, and by that they mean soon in the traditional sense, not a Blizzard soon^tm. What was shown at Blizzcon was just the beginning of Arena, and afterwards they decided to make it into a full fleshed out game mode.
• Content and Feature Teams are separate. The Content Teams are the people that work on things such as new Heroes, maps, or skins. The Feature Teams work on systems like Ranked Play or matchmaking. Because these are different teams, the fact that a new map gets introduced doesn’t delay something like matchmaking improvements. There are now three different Feature Teams, each working on various features.
• The five week gap between the releases of Auriel and Alarak is a by product of Season 1 being extended. It is also the reason there will only be a two week gap between Alarak and Zarya.
• The Machines of War event will hit the PTR the week of August 29th. This PTR phase will last for two weeks and will include among other things, Alarak, the Braxis Holdout map, and the MVP system. All of this content will then be scheduled to hit the live game the week of September 13th. Zaryra’s release will hit the live game the week of September 27th.
• A Butcher rework is coming, but there is no ETA at this point.
• There are no plans for Cross Region accounts at this time. This was a decision that was made pretty early on and they have no plans to revisit it.
• There are several parts to the new MVP system. At the end of the game one player will be selected as MVP based on their overall impact on the game. It should be hard for players to abuse the system since in theory the criteria needed to win MVP mirrors what players should be doing in order to try and win the game. In their internal testing they are seeing Heroes across all roles being able to earn MVP. In addition to the MVP, four additional players will be highlighted for various accomplishments. Other players are able to up vote these awards, with ‘something cool’ happening if players get enough up votes. It is important to note that this system is about recognizing players, not rewarding them. Being MVP or receiving up votes will not affect your Rank. The system that is being rolled out on September 13th is just the beginning. They will continue to improve the system and additional criteria that players can receive awards for.
• There are Ranked Play changes coming, particularly for Promotion and Demotion games. Currently when you hit a Promotion match, you essentially lose any points above what it takes you to reach the Promotion match. Going forward, you will now bank these points and receive them after the Promotion game, regardless of whether you win or lose that game. Demotion games will continue to function as they do now. This should make it easier to rank up as you will now gain the extra points when facing a Promotion game, but not lose the extra points for Demotion games.
• They are working on an integrated voice chat for Heroes. This will be separate for the Battle.net voice chat which is currently in Alpha.
• There is new quest functionality on the way that will award players with quest completion when playing Ranked Mode, regardless of whether or not the player actually fulfilled one of the criteria for their quests. The example given was that if you have a Play Support quest and you play a Ranked Match, you will get credit for one game towards your Support daily even if you didn’t play a Support. This change is meant to incentivize players to play Ranked, without making them feel as if they need to play certain Heroes in order to complete quests.
• Players will be awarded a free Hero in the next patch. They will be presented three Heroes to choose between. If they already own those three Heroes, they will be given another three Heroes to select from. Players who own all of the Heroes will receive a gold reward instead.
• Valla is being significantly reworked, and it appears as if her skill cap and play making potential is being increased. Her damage will now be much more dependent on the player’s ability to generate Hatred.
• Other Heroes receiving minor changes in the Gamescom build include Raynor, Murky, Lt. Morales, and Sgt. Hammer.
• Grandmaster is being reduced to the top 200 players for Hero League, and the top 100 for Team League.
• Speed bonus while mounted reduced from 140% to 130% in Gamescom build.

This information was compiled from a variety of sources, but a large portion of it came from live streams conducted by FollowGrubby and Chu8. Simply click on their respective names to watch the VODs of their developer conversations.

Gear up and prepare for war!