With 3 new YouTube videos, the Blizzard developers of Heroes of the Storm show us the plans for the comprehensive revision of their MOBA title.
Game Director Alan Dabiri first explains the evolution that Heroes of the Storm has gone through since its release. Heroes of the Storm 2.0 improves the game on many levels and changes many features fundamentally. The vision and concept of the developers for the future is comprehensive.
Starting with the progression system, players and hero levels will be revised. So far, level 20 was the end for heroes and especially the last levels were an immensely slow process. The player level became practically meaningless by reaching level 40.
With 2.0 the individual heroes no longer have a maximum level and the player level is redefined by the sum of all hero levels. In the course of this change, the experience point curve will also be adjusted and ensure continuous development.
Heroes of the Storm - New reward system ala Overwatch
The reward system will be changed accordingly, instead of fixed milestones such as 2000 gold when reaching level X, the developers are now introducing loot boxes. The player receives these boxes with each new hero level. Pretty much anything can be in them: skins, banners, mounts, even complete heroes!
Of course, you can continue to invest money to specifically buy the skins you want. There is the new gemstone currency, which can be purchased for real money.
In order to allow players greater individuality, there will also be new cosmetic items:
- banner
- announcer
- Sprays
- Emojis
- Hero sayings
All of these new items can also be found in the loot boxes. The whole new system is somewhat similar to the corresponding system in Overwatch. Accordingly, there is also the possibility of forging the cosmetic items specifically instead of hoping for chance. The new splinter currency for forging can be obtained directly from the loot boxes or for duplicates of cosmetic items.
With the new system it will be possible to get almost any cosmetic item just by playing it without investing real money.
The perfect overview of your entire collection
For a better overview, the Blizzard development team has given us an improved shop interface, which is now collection is called. There you can find all unlocked items and manage them using equipment sets. With the sets you can save several skin-mount color combinations for each hero and simply select them before each match. After all, we all know: even if you lose, it's still damn important to look stylish.
The changes are playable on the test server from today and also include a new hero and a new map that will be released in the next few weeks.
You can find more information in the video at the beginning and on the official Heroes of the Storm site from Blizzard.
Blizzard has also published a detailed video that only deals with the new progression system.