Heroes Of The Storm: Technical Alpha Patch Notes

 

It’s happening. Today is the day that we finally get to destroy each other to the death throes of an army of  Murlocs. For anyone who just scrunched their face up at that statement, wondering what sound that would be, the trailer above will help you out.

For those of you that have been lucky enough to grab an invite to the Technical Alpha, there are some huge changes coming your way with the May 22nd patch.

First up is something that the current players like myself will be very happy with.

 

Inactive Player Removal.

Very early implementation for removing inactive players from a game has been added with today’s Tech Alpha patch. Please note that much like Rejoin above, this system is a work in progress, and will likely receive changes in the future. Here’s how it works right now:

o   If a player does not issue a game command for 150 seconds during a match, that player will receive an inactivity warning via chat.

o   If a player does not issue a game command within 30 seconds after receiving a warning, that player will be dropped from the game and returned to the Heroes login screen.

o   Inactive players who are dropped in this way will be prompted to rejoin from the out-of-game menus after logging back in.

o   As with leaving or disconnecting from a game before it is finished, the A.I. will take over the dropped player’s hero until that player rejoins the game. Additionally, that player will earn no experience points, quest credit, or rewards if they do not rejoin the game before it concludes

 

This kind of behaviour has been of a huge annoyance in the Alpha so far. Not just because it make the game uneven, but more so because there are countless people trying to gain access to the Alpha, and to have people abuse the privilege they’ve been given is beyond infuriating. Hopefully this will alleviate this behaviour so the rest of us can actually enjoy the game. For those that were doing this; you will not be missed.

Next up are some social features…

• Character Portraits

o   Character portrait selection has been added to the profile screen.

o   Access the profile screen by clicking the character portrait in the top right corner of the home screen, and then click the “Change Portrait” button to select a new portrait.

• Parties

o   The party panel has been moved to the top right corner of the screen and character portraits are displayed for current party members.

• The menu button has been moved to the bottom right corner of the screen next to the Friends List button.

o   The party panel no longer appears during Hero Select, but party controls can still be accessed by right clicking a player’s selected hero.

o   The “Play with a Friend” bonus is now detailed in profile tooltips.

o   Players can now request a party invitation.

• Looking for Party Panel

o   A new Looking for Party panel has been added to the home screen and the Friends List.

• The Looking for Party panel will display players who are looking to join a party, as well as existing parties in search of more members.
• Players can indicate that they would like to join a party by clicking the checkbox in the Looking for Party panel on the home screen or in the friends list.
• Players of similar skill will have a star displayed next to their names in the panel.

• Friends list

o   Messages can now be broadcast to all friends using the new text box found at the top of the Friends List.

o   The Friends List now displays what each friend is currently doing in the Heroes of the Storm client.

o   Hover the mouse cursor over a player’s name in the Friends List to display whether or not that player is currently in a party.

• Chat

o   Chat windows now disappear instantly rather than fading out and individual lines of chat now fade over time.

o   Objects behind the chat window can be clicked so long as no text is present.

 

Smaller, quality of life changes here, the biggest being the “Looking for Party Panel”. At the moment it can be fairly clunky trying to find a party via the general chat, this sort of streamlining will hopefully make finding games much easier as all the new players join.

Some opinions have been voiced during the Alpha in regards to “snowballing”. Anyone familiar with the MOBA genre will have heard this term many a time. Since the levelling system in game is team wide, any advantage gained is shared, so matches can get out of hand rather quickly on some maps. This is something that has also been addressed in the latest patch.

Snowballing

• Additional efforts have been made to prevent snowballing for teams that are down by 3 or more levels during a game.
• Raven Court

o   The Curse mechanic on this map was a major contributor to snowballing

o   To reduce the snowballing on this Battleground the Curse no longer reduces building health by 50% when the Curse is active

General

• The team level cap has been increased from 25 to 30
• Mount speed has been increased from 20% to 40% and mounts no longer gain speed per level.
• Attack orders are no longer cleared after using most abilities
• Activated Talents can now be self-cast by pressing “Alt” and the associated number key
• Hero rings have been added underfoot to improve hero clarity
• Mana bars now display a preview for the amount of mana being restored over time while a hero is under the effects of an ability that returns mana (Malfurion’s Innervate)

There has also been some other significant changes, mount speed being a poignant one. The “hero rings” might seem odd, but battles can become incredibly hectic and this is another welcome change.

We do also have a large amount of changes to some of the heroes. I won’t list them all as there is a huge amount of information. Instead I will just talk about the changes to Illidan…

• Now has a flat attack speed of 0.6 and Illidan no longer gains attack speed per level
• Illidan’s ability kit has received a massive overhaul.

o   Mark of Azzinoth (Trait), Betrayer’s Strike (Q), Crescent Sweep (W), Lunge (E), and their supporting Talents have been removed.

• New Trait: Betrayer’s Thirst

o   Basic attacks lower ability cooldowns by 1 second and heal Illidan for 15% of damage dealt

o   New Talent (Level 1): Spar for Blood

• Basic attacks now heal for 30% of damage dealt

o   New Talent (Level 7): Ultimate Duelist

• Betrayer’s Thirst can be activated to double the cooldown reduction from basic attacks for 5 seconds
• 25 second cooldown

• New Ability (Q): Dive

o   Illidan dives toward target enemy, dealing damage on impact, and flipping over the target

o   New Talent (Level 4): Marked for Death

• Illidan’s next basic attack on the Dive target deals 100% additional damage

o   New Talent (Level 7): Rapid Chase

• Illidan gains 20% movement speed for 2 seconds after casting Dive

o   New Talent (Level 13): Betrayer’s Ally

• Dive can now be cast on allies

o   New Talent (Level 13): Lunge

• Increases Dive cast range by 30%

• New Ability (W): Sweeping Strike

o   Illidan dashes to target location, damaging all enemies in his path. If he hits an enemy his basic attacks deal 25% increased damage for 4 seconds.

o   New Talent (Level 1): Battered Assault

• Increases the Sweeping Strike’s basic attack damage bonus from 25% to 40%

o   New Talent (Level 4): Additional Reach

• Increases the range of Sweeping Strike by 20%

o   New Talent (Level 4): Immolation

• Sweeping Strike causes Illidan to burn nearby enemies for a few seconds

o   New Talent (Level 13): Endless Bounds

• Illidan ignores all collision while using Sweeping Strikes

o   New Talent (Level 16): Second Sweep

• Illidan can store up to 2 charges of Sweeping Strike

• New Ability (E): Evasion

o   Illidan evades all basic attacks against him for 2 seconds

o   New Talent (Level 1): Demonic Life-Force

• Evasion also grants a shield that lasts for 5 seconds

o   New Talent (Level 7): Lingering Evasion

• Illidan gains 2 charges of Block (50% reduced basic attack damage) which last for 5 seconds after Evasion wears off.

o   New Talent (Level 13): Spell Evasion

• Illidan takes 50% reduced damage from abilities while Evasion is active

• Metamorphosis

o   New Talent (Level 20): Demonic Form

• Illidan remains in Demonic Form until killed
• Allows Illidan to mount while in Demonic Form
• Attack speed of Demonic Form is increased from 20% to 30%

• The Hunt

o   Cooldown increased from 45 to 60 seconds

o   New Talent (Level 20): Nowhere is Safe

• Cast range becomes global, and the acceleration of The Hunt is greatly increased

The reason I wanted to talk about Illidan, is to show you the amount of changes some of the heroes are going through. This is almost a complete redesign for this character, one that most people felt was a little too “squishy”. It’s great to see this level of feedback taken from players. It’s one of the reasons Blizzard has remained one of my favourite developers over the years. We ma not always agree with the changes, but they do come, and they do listen.

There is a ton of other changes to look over, you can head on over to their official site for the full details. It’s not yet clear when the Beta is coming and there is no random invites going out in the EU just yet. For my money, this is looking to be an absolutely superb game, one which I am enjoying hugely. it’s only going to get better the close we get to the full release, I can only hope we will stave off the toxicity that comes with the MOBA genre.