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Heroes of the Storm 2.0 announced: Overwatch-style loot boxes! (Also Diablo 2 Amazon)

Ashilyn

Member
I'm decidedly not okay with losing the ability to just directly buy what I want in favour of having to buy premium currency that probably never adds up to exactly the price of the one thing I want. I get tired of that with Smite and other games. I always liked that I never had to deal with it in HotS...

Everything else sounds great though. I'm glad the game is finally getting announcer packs, and loot boxes are always good gacha fun. The smoothed leveling curve sounds wonderful too.
 
I absolutely hate Overwatch gasha boxes, but I suppose if you can still buy stuff on the store this won't be as bad.

EDIT: Nevermind, it mentions box-exclusive skins. Ugh. I like the sound of the other changes, at least.
 
The current progression system is a shambling framework that was left over after many, many revisions that hollowed out the bad ideas (like unlocking talents over the first few levels), leaving nothing but a few scant benchmarks for recolours and extra gold. It clearly had to be replaced with something, and ideally a system that wouldn't make reward-driven players say, "Well, my favourite hero is at 10 or 20—no reason to play that anymore."

I'm not a reward-driven player—I'm here because this is the only MOBA I've ever found bearable—and I've never put any cash down on this game for cosmetics, so the impact of the 2.0 progression system for me is simply that I will now have access to all kinds of cosmetic rewards that were gated behind real money, but which I never cared about enough to pay for in the first place.

But the currency revisions (and specifically the introduction of gems as an intermediate buffer to real-money payments) are over-engineered, unintuitive, and especially disappointing so soon after real-money Blizzard credit became purchasable with WoW gold. And I dislike the removal of Master Skins: it's important to have something deterministically hard-locked to signal, unmistakably, a long-term commitment to a chosen hero.

Depending on how the pricing structure and gem system look in the open beta, I may spend some of my WoW gold Blizzard credit on hero bundles now instead of later, before 2.0 launches. (Essentially, I'd rather have leftover Blizzard balance than leftover gems.) The outgoing shop/currency system, for its faults, is intuitive, easy to follow, and efficient for the consumer in ways that needn't all be thrown out in the course of introducing loot boxes.
 

Seiru

Banned
I'm decidedly not okay with losing the ability to just directly buy what I want in favour of having to buy premium currency that probably never adds up to exactly the price of the one thing I want. I get tired of that with Smite and other games. I always liked that I never had to deal with it in HotS...

Everything else sounds great though. I'm glad the game is finally getting announcer packs, and loot boxes are always good gacha fun. The smoothed leveling curve sounds wonderful too.

You can still buy whatever you want.
 
So should I log in and blow all of my currency buying heroes or does that still carry over?

From what I'm reading, buying heroes with in-game gold is totally unchanged, but buying anything with real money now requires you to buy gems, then spend the gems. I'm not actually clear from their wording if this is also true for heroes themselves and their associated dynamically-priced bundles, or just for the cosmetics.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
No rewards for getting 30+ heroes to lvl 10?
 

Ashilyn

Member
You can still buy whatever you want.

But it's not a direct transaction anymore. I have to buy a secondary currency, gems, probably in predetermined amounts, and then buy what I want. So technically I can still buy whatever I want, but in a scheme that leaves me out money/encourages more spending and requires a needless extra step in the process.

It's fucking archaic and stupid. I can't begin to understand why they'd switch to that instead of keeping the direct transaction system they have in place.
 

JSoup

Banned
So, since all your levels combine together into one flat account level, I guess it would be a good idea to just get as many characters as you can to at least level 5 before this goes live.
 

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
So, since all your levels combine together into one flat account level, I guess it would be a good idea to just get as many characters as you can to at least level 5 before this goes live.

People are actually saying the opposite due to the retroactive crates capping at 70. You might actually be better off waiting for the patch and getting a bunch of quick crates from leveling at that point.

Someone with more knowledge of the situation/game in general can probably give you a better idea though.
 

Zackat

Member
But it's not a direct transaction anymore. I have to buy a secondary currency, gems, probably in predetermined amounts, and then buy what I want. So technically I can still buy whatever I want, but in a scheme that leaves me out money/encourages more spending and requires a needless extra step in the process.

It's fucking archaic and stupid. I can't begin to understand why they'd switch to that instead of keeping the direct transaction system they have in place.

$$$$$$$$$ of course.

doesn't bother me really. I bought what I wanted before and I will do it again.
 
People are actually saying the opposite due to the retroactive crates capping at 70. You might actually be better off waiting for the patch and getting a bunch of quick crates from leveling at that point.

Someone with more knowledge of the situation/game in general can probably give you a better idea though.

Probably a combo. Get to a combined level of 70 then sit on your players just under their next level for quick caps when it hits.

Beta is supposedly lasting for a month.
 

Alur

Member
No rewards for getting 30+ heroes to lvl 10?

Depending on your account's total hero level, you can get up to 70 free boxes once it goes live. Unfortunately, in 2.0 every single level gets you a box...so if you're like me and level 600+, you're getting majorly hosed for leveling up all those heroes before the progression system went in.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Depending on your account's total hero level, you can get up to 70 free boxes once it goes live. Unfortunately, in 2.0 every single level gets you a box...so if you're like me and level 600+, you're getting majorly hosed for leveling up all those heroes before the progression system went in.
Damn... this is really bad for some of us :(

Miss you btw bro. Miss the entire community, despite our small frustration towards each other at the start, I think we handled that pretty well
 

JSoup

Banned
Seems like it's set up pretty nicely actually.
Are you a regular/hardcore player who have 600+ combined levels? Well, you probably don't need any incentive to keep playing, but here is a few toys none the less.
Are you a casual who only plays for WoW freebies? Here's a pile of free shit, you want to play more now, maybe?
 

Seiru

Banned
But it's not a direct transaction anymore. I have to buy a secondary currency, gems, probably in predetermined amounts, and then buy what I want. So technically I can still buy whatever I want, but in a scheme that leaves me out money/encourages more spending and requires a needless extra step in the process.

It's fucking archaic and stupid. I can't begin to understand why they'd switch to that instead of keeping the direct transaction system they have in place.

It's so that they can reward you with the real-money currency at certain levels, for certain events, etc. They couldn't just give you Blizzard account money.
 

Alur

Member
Damn... this is really bad for some of us :(

Miss you btw bro. Miss the entire community, despite our small frustration towards each other at the start, I think we handled that pretty well

:D I saw you a bit in the FFXV thread while I was reading up and playing that over the holidays. Been holding off on getting much further in it waiting on the updates.

Agreed. Shortchanged big time which is unfortunate. The only saving grace is that if you saved your gold up you can use gold to reroll loot boxes so you can make sure you get something good out of every box. Beyond that, though, if you come back wait til after it goes live so you get those extra boxes.
 
So now we have loot boxes, gold, shards and gems? Seems a bit much.

I don't see how sprays can really work in an isometric game, and banners seem lame. And lol emoticons wow... Dota 2 ones only work because everyone has tons of friends on steam and uses steam chat, wtf is the point of hots ones.

Also are heroes still all different various prices?

Can you get skins for heroes you don't own?

I'll give it a try when it's out again maybe but I don't have that much hope.

With a name like 2.0 you'd think there'd be big gameplay changes or a new engine or something. I don't know a single game that as given friends more issues to play than the hots engine, no wonder it's a dead game. You'd think they'd prioritize that first. Have they fixed that dumb disconnect thing yet? Where you have to alt f4 and relaunch the game to get back in in any decent time if you DC?

This is objectively correct.

Naw, Cata was better and a far less dead game.

The numbers don't lie.

That's easily Hearthstone.

No hearth is and was far far far more popular. It's not my type of game but it's an objective fact.
 
So now we have loot boxes, gold, shards and gems? Seems a bit much.

I don't see how sprays can really work in an isometric game, and banners seem lame. And lol emoticons wow... Dota 2 ones only work because everyone has tons of friends on steam and uses steam chat, wtf is the point of hots ones.

Also are heroes still all different various prices?

I'll give it a try when it's out again maybe but I don't have that much hope.

With a name like 2.0 you'd think there'd be big gameplay changes or a new engine or something. I don't know a single game that as given friends more issues to play than the hots engine, no wonder it's a dead game. You'd think they'd prioritize that first. Have they fixed that dumb disconnect thing yet? Where you have to alt f4 and relaunch the game to get back in in any decent time if you DC?



Naw, Cata was better and a far less dead game.

The numbers don't lie.



No hearth is and was far far far more popular. It's not my type of game but it's an objective fact.

How can you not know how a spray would work? You press the button and it sprays on the ground in front of you. It's not that hard to imagine. They also show it in one of the videos.

Hero prices (largely) depend on release date. It ranges from 2,000-10,000 and it's almost universally based on release date. I say almost because there are a few heroes that are very complex (abathur and The Lost Vikings are pretty unique MOBA heroes, and they've been 10,000 gold pretty much forever becuase of that).

The game isn't dead. If the game was dead, people would be having issues with getting into games, don't you think? It's definitely not LoL or anything, but to suggest it is dead is just you showing your ignorance moreso than anything.

Balance patches (you know, gameplay changes) happen every couple of weeks. I think your point about that is kind of lame. They have reworked tons of heroes to varying degrees over the last couple of months anyways.

This whole thing is progression 2.0, so it's going to revolve around stuff regarding progression.

It's totally cool to not be into HotS, but I don't get why you are speaking about a lot of these things when it's very clear you don't actually know much about the game in general. I play HotS ~4 nights a week for about 2 hours per night so I'm not some HotS fanatic but it's really obvious that you don't really know what you're talking about.

I've had minor issues with HotS in terms of connectivity. It's not that far off from how often I've had issues with other multiplayer games in general. They do need to change how rejoining the game works though.
 
So, since all your levels combine together into one flat account level, I guess it would be a good idea to just get as many characters as you can to at least level 5 before this goes live.

I could be wrong on this, we don't know many details yet, but apparently existing skin color variations are going to be turned into random crate drops. So it might actually make more sense to get characters to level 8 so you can unlock them first.

I guess having these skins unlocked (and mount colors?) is one of the reasons the 70 crates thing isn't as bad as it initially sounds? Looking forward to more explanations tomorrow.
 

Yukinari

Member
Really feels like they just throw whatever they can at HoTS to make it stick considering the OW and WoW promo events they do. I installed the game for the genji skin and quickly uninstalled it.
 

jetsetrez

Member
PLAY THIS GAME GAF. This is the most underappreciated game I've ever played. I mean, it does pretty well, but the amount of creativity, content, support, and improvement this game has received is more than any other game I can think of in the history of video games, aside from perhaps WoW or another MMO. It really is incredible how much they've put into this game, and how amazingly creative its game design is. HotS really should be one of the most popular games in the world.
 
Really feels like they just throw whatever they can at HoTS to make it stick considering the OW and WoW promo events they do. I installed the game for the genji skin and quickly uninstalled it.

Some Genji text was found in the source code of the event page. Apparently he's going to be coming to HotS alongside an OW themed map.
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
This is a really fun game that is pretty easy to pickup and enjoy even if you're new to the genre. I would recommend it for anyone wanting to try out MOBAs. The matches usually aren't too long and its fun playing as all the blizzard characters.

There are some dickheads out there for sure, but I think in the overall context of MOBAs its got the tamest community if youre worried about people raging.
 

Concept17

Member
PLAY THIS GAME GAF. This is the most underappreciated game I've ever played. I mean, it does pretty well, but the amount of creativity, content, support, and improvement this game has received is more than any other game I can think of in the history of video games, aside from perhaps WoW or another MMO. It really is incredible how much they've put into this game, and how amazingly creative its game design is. HotS really should be one of the most popular games in the world.
This x1000

People overlook it because of LoL and Dota2. I personally think it solves all the fundamental design issues of those games and focuses on what makes them fun.

This update looks great.
 
Played Dota 2 for a long while but ultimately got tired of it.

This game looks like a ton of fun, will try it out during the weekend.
 

JP_

Banned
People are actually saying the opposite due to the retroactive crates capping at 70. You might actually be better off waiting for the patch and getting a bunch of quick crates from leveling at that point.
F3blyg1.png


oof

I could be wrong on this, we don't know many details yet, but apparently existing skin color variations are going to be turned into random crate drops. So it might actually make more sense to get characters to level 8 so you can unlock them first.

I guess having these skins unlocked (and mount colors?) is one of the reasons the 70 crates thing isn't as bad as it initially sounds? Looking forward to more explanations tomorrow.

Depends whether you value color variations more than loot boxes. Because yeah, now when you get a skin/mount, you just get one color at a time. But personally I usually stick with a single favorite color so having all 3 is kind of pointless. I think I'd rather have more loot boxes for chances to get brand new skins I didn't have before + all the new goodies like banners.

Overall I think I'll like the new system but it does sting a bit to have over 300 missing lootboxes. I guess I could count how many color variations I'm getting for free to see how many loot boxes that's worth, but again... colors of the same thing are a bit meh.

edit: I did some napkin math.

What I have:
8 premium mounts (didn't count horse/lizard, only counted mounts that have colors) = 16 extra mount colors
9 premium skins = 18 extra premium skin colors
31 extra default skin colors earned from hero leveling (is this still a thing in 2.0?)

If base skin colors are still unlocked through hero progression, I have 34 extra colors which is like 8 crappy loot boxes (crappy because I'm only getting alt colors of a skin I already had)
If you only get one color for a hero and unlock other 2 colors for default skins, that goes up to 65 extra colors which brings it up to 16 crappy loot boxes.

So, if this napkin math is correct, it's still quite the deficit. And I'm not even sure it's fair to count these colors as extra freebies in the new system because I paid real USD for much of this stuff in the first place.

I get why they're doing it this way -- if I got 378 loot boxes, I'd probably be able to get just about everything I wanted. I guess we'll see how it feels to get 70.

edit2: I watched how loot crates work and I think I'll be happy. I'm not super rich with gold but 250g is very affordable for re-rolls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O_e48XhINk

Hmm, I'm confused -- he was lvl 78 and only got like 15 chests?

edit3: found it

From http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/heroes20/progression/
Starting fresh:
LOOT CHEST TYPE REWARD FREQUENCY
Common Every Player Level that does not award a
Rare or Epic Loot Chest
Rare Every 5 Player Levels
Epic Every 25 Player Levels
Hero-Specific Every 10 Player Levels

So at lvl 378, if this was in since day 1, I would have gotten roughly

15 epic chests
75 rare chests
37 character chests
250 common chests

Existing players:
ACCOUNT LEVEL REWARDS
Completed at least 1 Heroes match 5 Common Loot Chests
Every 10 Account Levels +1 Common Loot Chest (35 Maximum)
Every 25 Account Levels +1 Rare Loot Chest (20 Maximum)
Every 100 Account Levels +1 Epic Loot Chest (10 Maximum)

3 epic chests
15 rare chests
37 - 2 (hit the cap) + 5 (first match) = 40 common chests

So I'm gonna get about 58 chests in total. I'm missing out on 12 epic chests, 60 rare chests, 37 character chests, and 210 common chests. Because of the way the maximums work, I think the only people that will hit the 70 chest cap will be accounts with 1000+ player levels total...

Additionally, because we've reduced the amount of XP needed to progress through later levels, those of you who already have lots of high-level Heroes will now level up—and unlock corresponding rewards—far more frequently than before.

I've seen some people interpret this as expecting your heroes to change their levels to reflect new xp requirements and adding to your total hero level instantly, but I read that as "moving forward, you'll lvl up faster" (which I think may actually be preferred because we'll get 1 loot box per lvl instead of going by the above table)
 

Alur

Member
So, since all your levels combine together into one flat account level, I guess it would be a good idea to just get as many characters as you can to at least level 5 before this goes live.

Just wanted to make it clear to anyone else who straggles in...do not do what the poster suggested above.

Save those heroes to level AFTER the 2.0 patch goes live in April.

Each level in 2.0 will grant you a loot box. Levels 1-5 are very quick, so you can rattle off several boxes a night if you would like and have heroes who still are below that threshold. If you level them now you're not gonna get shit come launch day. The more levels you have once it goes live, the less you are compensated due to the hard cap they put on back-issued rewards, so you're better off to save these things and then reap a lot of rewards when it goes live with very little work.
 

tmespe

Member
Really feels like they just throw whatever they can at HoTS to make it stick considering the OW and WoW promo events they do. I installed the game for the genji skin and quickly uninstalled it.

So surprising that Blizzard wants to improve their game and increase their playerbase... I'm quite sure a lot of people also decide to stick around after those promo events, and maybe that's why they keep doing them?
 

JSoup

Banned
Just wanted to make it clear to anyone else who straggles in...do not do what the poster suggested above.

Save those heroes to level AFTER the 2.0 patch goes live in April.

Unless all you care about is combined level. Plenty of the beta players are saying they'd rather have a higher level than more free junk simply because of how people view levels. I'd imagine most of the people who are likely to post in this thread are more interested in free stuff, so what you said is still the best advice.
 

JP_

Banned
Unless all you care about is combined level. Plenty of the beta players are saying they'd rather have a higher level than more free junk simply because of how people view levels. I'd imagine most of the people who are likely to post in this thread are more interested in free stuff, so what you said is still the best advice.

Because they're lowering xp requirements, work you put in today will be less efficient than work you put in after the update. So you should still wait if you want the most bang for your buck in terms of time vs levels.

Of course, if you just want to be the highest level asap, then this update won't change your incentive to play as much as possible either way.
 

Alur

Member
Unless all you care about is combined level. Plenty of the beta players are saying they'd rather have a higher level than more free junk simply because of how people view levels. I'd imagine most of the people who are likely to post in this thread are more interested in free stuff, so what you said is still the best advice.

That's true. The issue right now on PTR is that the load screen no longer shows your account level or your hero level which kinda sucks. You'll have this super high level but no way to show it off unless someone views your profile. Hopefully that will be re-implemented once the game goes live, however.
 

sobaka770

Banned
Damn, so this only goes live in a month...

(Although I think all the new heroes and balance changes come out earlier)

I want the new stuff NOW!!
 

You're making a lot of assumptions there pally.

1) I know it sprays on the ground I saw the video, it's dumb, not remotely as cool as spraying on the wall in an fps map. Sprays aren't interesting on an isometric moba style map.

2) I did have issues getting in games, queue times took ages in quickmatch, even if there were only two of us.

3) I meant big gameplay or engine changes.

4) When did I say I'm not into HOTS, it's the ONLY Moba I enjoy, doesn't mean I can't be objective about it.

5) 2 hours a night, 4 nights a week is pretty fanatical.

6) I never said anything about lag it's the DC thing, I don't really DC but when friends do it takes them eons to get back in if they don't alt f4 first.
 

hypotc

Member
Give it time. They *will* be special-edition lootbox-only season costumes. And eventually, there will be p2w options.

People who operate gambling businesses are not your friends. By selling lootboxes, Blizzard has already proven that they don't give two shits about making money off predatory practices targetting children and the mentally ill. They *will* bend the curve over time.

Just so you know, they tested an artifact system (similar to runes in LoL) back in Alpha. People hated it, so they removed the system entirely.

So yeah, I think your p2w predictions won't happen.
 

Alur

Member
There's really nothing they could implement that is pay-to-win in this game since everything is talent based. There are no items. Nothing.
 
You're making a lot of assumptions there pally.


5) 2 hours a night, 4 nights a week is pretty fanatical.

Wait, what? 8 hours a week in a MOBA is "pretty fanatical?" Have you ever actually looked into people that take MOBAs seriously? Those type would likely play 8 hours per day.
 
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