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By Stan
Heroes' Live Designer Adam Jackson explains how the team uses internal data for balancing decisions to give players more insight into all the different areas that affect the decision-making process when making changes to a specific Hero.
Blizzard (Source)
Dear developers & testers,
In your balance patches you often write notes that refer to internal data gathered by you when explaining a balance change or talents change.
I would appreciate it if you provided an example of how the data are organized of a talent or a hero and how different categories of data are given weight to push into a change decision.
For example if we chose illidan’s “Friend or foe” talent , and I am going to assume that data is collected from all game modes, do you have a system of point allocation depending on the rating of the player ? , Is team’s composition are taken into consideration ? Or is it just simple statistics of pick & win rates over all game modes & ranks ?
Your answer and example will help us to better understand how you evaluate a talent or a hero before changing something & perhaps lower the ranting rates against every balance change and lower the differences in opinions between players a bit about heroes and talents balance wise.
Thank you for your time & effort.
I’m not going to give away everything, but I can answer this question.
We get raw data on basically everything that’s happening in the game across all modes based on win/pick rate, as well as things like damage dealt/taken etc.
We are able to parse through this data to look at it through many lenses. This is where raw statistics become less useful and the skill and experience of a designer come into play more so that we can draw meaningful conclusions from the data, and decide what changes we want to make based on the results.
To get a full picture of what’s going on in the game, for example, I can and do look at things like win/loss data that’s filtered by different leagues and game modes. I can also see hero pick and ban popularity with this kind of granularity, which lets me see, for example, what the meta is looking like in the Bronze - Silver range as well as the Diamond - GM range.
While incredibly useful, I want to emphasize that it’s not just the raw data that’s important, but also having the game knowledge and experience to make correct conclusions based on the knowledge. This is something that’s a lot more esoteric, and there are often multiple right and wrong answers, which can and often does lead to a lot of debate within the design team and with the playerbase at large.
As an example, let’s say that you’re the designer and your job is to evaluate Samuro in the next balance patch with these facts (I made these up in my head right now because i’m at home, they are not what’s actually happening though there are truths in these statements):
He’s currently at a 55% win rate
He has a very low pick rate, let’s say he’s the 5th lowest pick hero in the game.
He’s considered a highly skilled but highly rewarding hero by the bulk of the community who argues that he should deserve a relatively high win rate as a reward for being hard to play. They argue that if you nerf or remove what’s unique about him, then why would anyone play a hard hero when they can pick someone like Raynor or Lili every game and just win more often?
Others feel he’s frustrating to play against and a different section of the community thinks he’s obviously way too strong and needs nerfs. They can and do show you videos of crazy things that he does that look and feel unfair.
The people that play him love the unique things he can do, like swapping to clones and tricking his opponents, which is what his entire design is based on. If you decide to change these things, the likelihood of having an extremely vocal and negative and reaction from his community is very high.
Do you make changes? If so, what do you do?
I can guarantee you not everyone will agree with your proposed changes, which is fine and normal. A large part of being a designer is having the courage to make these kinds of calls and dealing with the fallout, even if your ideas are not always perfect. Even so, there are many cases like this and there are many times where changes need to be made. That’s essentially what we spent the bulk of our time figuring out and doing.
Also as a side note, finding out community sentiment doesn’t come from data, and community sentiment is often a large part of the picture as well, so if you only rely on data to make changes, you’ll end up making a lot of weird changes that no one will agree with.
As an example, Probius has always had an extremely high win rate and statistically deserves heavy nerfs. I don’t think that’d go over too well with the community ?.
Latest Heroes of the Storm News
Heroes of the Storm Balance Update Patch Notes: February 12th Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: Week of February 18th Heroic Deals: Week of February 18th Weekly Brawl - Lost Cavern: Week of February 21st -
By Stan
This week's brawl is Lost Cavern and comes with the usual ARAM rules that include shuffle pick, standard play, and no Hearthstones at spawn. A game is won by destroying the enemy Core. Play three games to earn a New Toy Chest.
Blizzard (Source)
This week’s brawl is Lost Cavern! It’s all-out mayhem on our single-lane battleground – Lost Cavern. Queue up, choose your Hero, and try to best to bring down the enemy Core!
Rules:
Shuffle pick - Choose from one of three Heroes before entering the battle. Standard play - no talent or level restrictions. The first team to destroy the enemy Core wins! Rewards:
Complete three matches of Lost Cavern to earn a New Toy Chest! Find out more about the Heroes Brawl game mode on our Heroes Brawl site; and as always, you can find more information on this week’s Brawl by clicking the Brawl Info button at the bottom of the play screen when preparing to queue for the Brawl game mode.
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By Stan
The Lucky Red Envelope mount is no longer on sale and we have a new set of three Heroes available for purchase for 375 Gems in this week's sale.
Hero Sales
Heroes Old Price New Price Blaze 750 Gems 375 Gems Cassia 750 Gems 375 Gems Stukov 750 Gems 375 Gems Mounts
Wonder Billie is on sale for 12,000 Gold.
Latest Heroes of the Storm News
Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: Week of February 18th Heroes of the Storm Balance Update Patch Notes: February 12th Weekly Brawl - Silver City: February 13th -
By Stan
The free Hero rotation for the week of February 18 is here.
Free-to-Play Hero Rotation (Week of February 18)
This week's free Hero rotation includes the following Heroes:
Artanis Azmodan Chromie Diablo ETC Junkrat Kael'thas Kerrigan Li Li Medivh Rehgar Stukov The Butcher Zagara Latest Heroes of the Storm News
Heroes of the Storm Balance Update Patch Notes: February 12th Weekly Brawl: Silver City - February 13th -
By Stan
This week's brawl is Silver City. The single-lane map comes with shuffle pick, standard play, and disabled Hearthstones. The first team to destroy the enemy Core wins. Play three games to earn a New Toy Chest.
Don't forget to check out this week's Hero rotation, Heroic Deals, and the latest balance update notes!
Blizzard (Source)
This week’s Heroes Brawl is Silver City! Battle against the enemy team on this single-lane Battleground featuring a familiar design straight out of the High Heavens, Mercenary Camps ready to be swayed to your team’s favor, and tons of action. Queue up, choose your hero, and try your best to send the enemy team to the Burning Hells!
Rules:
Shuffle pick - Choose from one of three Heroes before entering the battle. Standard play - no talent or level restrictions. The first team to destroy the enemy Core wins! Rewards:
Complete three matches of the Silver City Brawl to earn a New Toy Chest! Find out more about the Heroes Brawl game mode on our Heroes Brawl site; and as always, you can find more information on this week’s Brawl by clicking the Brawl Info button at the bottom of the play screen when preparing to queue for the Brawl game mode.
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