#249 - Into the Nexus: “Customer Service & Marriage Counseling”

• Garrett • Kyle • Jeff or Guest

#Heroes #of #the #Storm #HotS #Blizzard #Entertainment #Warcraft #Diablo #StarCraft #Overwatch #Hearthstone #WoW #Garrett #Kyle #Weinzierl #Fergusson #Video #Games #kaeo #milker #ladder #patch #update

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/

Let the healing begin. On this final episode of 2018 we wrap up our discussion of the HGC cancelation scandal and prepare to move on to a brighter future in 2019 for the home game. Kaéo Milker and the Community management team let us know what to expect in the months to come. The Heroes team may be shrinking, but we are keeping many of our star members. Kyle and Garrett also attempt to peel back the Activision/Blizzard curtain to find our what is really going on with the company. Have a happy new year, we’ll see you next week!

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Intro:  Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!

To say “the game is the best it’s ever been is a useless statement” I went 8/1 yesterday

Exhaustion from other News outlets and Blizzard Games

Thought a lot about the Brack letter and how we weren't the audience

Streaming = Customer Service and marriage counseling

“Bring back HGC” “just kidding, game sucks

News
Content Update - Kaéo Milker

Dec. 21st

1. 85th Hero incoming early January.

1. Announcement coming soon
2. Hitting the PTR the first week of January

1. PTR is usually Monday. Do they mean the first full week? Because January starts Tuesday.
2. Speculation: Announcement late New Year’s week, PTR Monday, January 7th.

3. “First, the next few months will unfold much like we’d originally planned.”

2. More events and hero reworks following the 85th Hero.

1. “that hero will be followed by a string of cool events and hero reworks en route to our next hero release.”
2. Do you think it will be holiday themed? Valentine’s seems the most likely if that’s the case. Or a Nexus-born event like Nexxumania?

3. Smaller team working to make heroes better for players

1. “What we want to do beyond those releases (85th Hero & events/reworks) is currently under discussion across the Heroes of the Storm team.”
2. “And while I can’t give you all the details just yet, I will also say that we’re actively discussing not only the right cadence for our patches and content – we’re also reconsidering some very core areas of the game to identify more ways we can make Heroes even better for players.”

4. Still in discussion for 2019

1. Hero Role Overhaul

1. Kaeo said they’re finalizing this.

2. Rolling out the Ranked Play consolidation and improvements announced at BlizzCon
3. Bringing back the ability to directly purchase individual skins with Gems
4. Adding the ability to get more content like skins and mounts with Gold

5. Toy Event extended into February

Links

• https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/heroes-of-the-storm-content-update-december-21/10904

December 21st Matchmaking Update

The same day as Kaeo’s post CM Dylan Bates announced that the Matchmaking Update had just gone live in game.

Talking Points

• While Call of the Nexus was successful in making balanced teams, queue times are now too long. The rules have been loosened.

• Bates did say that this is “temporary” making it sound like this could be more of a test.

• Masters and Grandmaster queues are too long

• Diamond 1-5 players can now be brought in to fill during expanded searches

Hero League Matchmaking

When it comes to high level players (Master & Grand Master), the current iteration of the ranked matchmaker is heavily skewed towards focusing on match quality when it comes to creating a suitable game. This has the expected, but also less than ideal, side-effect of preventing certain high-level players from finding games in a reasonable amount of time. With that in mind, we are going to be expanding our rank difference requirements to allow the matchmaker to pull from a wider pool of available players if it can’t create a suitable game in an acceptable amount of time. With this update, the following ruleset will be enforced going forward:

Master and Grand Master players can now be matched with allies and opponents who are within Diamond league (Diamond 1 – 5)

Quality matchmaking will still be prioritized before expanding outwards into Diamond territory in times of need

As always, we will continue to iterate on our Ranked matchmaking rules and features following this adjustment and make changes wherever necessary moving into 2019.

Thanks!

Links

• https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/matchmaking-update-december-21-2018/10957
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/a898he/the_match_making_problem_the_metaphysics_of_mobas/

The Team Continues

Team was aloud to announce their status as of December 21st

Staying with Heroes:

Lana Bachynski - Senior Animator

Oscar Vega - Concept Artist

Andrew Kinabrew - Senior 3D Artist

Those moving on:

Alex Klontzas - Senior Game Producer: Live Ops & Live Design to “Different Project within Blizzard”

• This tweet has since been taken down

Matt Villers - Lead Hero Designer to Warcraft Team

Unconfirmed:

Cloaken Kevin Johnson - Unknown, on Paternity Leave

Pros Choose League of Legends

Arcaner - Team Liquid

BadBenny - Methodgg/Fnatic

Mopsio - Leftovers

Poilk - Dignitas

Schwimpi - Fnatic

Smexy - Fnatic

Justing - Simplicity

Sticking with Hots

KingCaffeine

Kaldor

Fan

State of Blizzard and Heroes: Cutting Costs

"Over the course of the last year, Blizzard has been trying very actively to find creative ways to cut costs that won’t draw negative press attention."

• That is until the complete axing of HGC

Armin Zerza Chief Financial officer became Chief Operating Officer in 2017

• Hires Activision business employees
• Brings in McKinsey consulting company

New Blizzard CFO Amrita Ahuja (Ah-Who-Ja)

• Moves over from Activision in March 2018
• Holds all staff meeting to reign in spending
• “Cut costs on a monthly basis”

Finance representatives start attending meets

• “A lot of decisions now are being driven by business folks, marketing and finance folks. There’s a real struggle now between developers and the business people… Strategic decisions are being driven by the finance group.”

Changing Employment

• Hiring game developers for more releases
• Rumors of layoffs in the new year

Career Crossroads Program. It offers healthy severance packages to people who voluntarily take buyouts and choose to leave the company. At first, Career Crossroads was designed for veteran customer service representatives who had been at Blizzard for more than five years, but this year, it opened up to QA and IT, according to one person familiar with the program. Blizzard has also lowered the number of years required to take a buyout, opening up Career Crossroads to even more employees, likely in hopes of increasing those numbers.

• Over 100 people accept buyout in Customer Service in Cork Ireland

“Poor decisions made under old blizzard/Mike Morhaime (Activision not always to blame)

• Titan Cancelation
• Diablo 3 expansion cancelation
• Loot Boxes, followed by their outlawing in Belgium and other countries

We were not the target audience of the Brack letter

Company expanded too quickly after WoW, now must walk back

Blizzard makes too many “Main” games

• TSR, Tactical studies Rules the original Dungeons and Dragons publisher had a similar problem back in the 80s-90s
• Came to a peak in 1996 when they had continued to power creep their campaign settings with supplements that discouraged exploring other game modes.

Links

• https://kotaku.com/with-activisions-influence-growing-blizzard-is-cutting-1831263741
• https://wccftech.com/decisions-blizzard-being-driven-finance/
• https://screenrant.com/blizzard-activision-problems/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/a7v1av/the_state_of_blizzard_right_now_has_me_worried/

Heroes Lounge Tournament Funding Progress

Heroes Lounge hit their $10k goal for Division S and is moving towards $15k.

Links

• https://www.dailyesports.gg/heroeslounge-10000-save-heroes-of-the-storm/
• https://www.pcgamer.com/heroes-of-the-storm-amateur-league-announces-new-competitive-division/

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, and Pythagos.

Patron Thanks Doc for keeping track

• Simon K
• Captain Riggs
• Beagleux

Strategy

Displacement is king

If we feel we need more stuff.

Top of the mountain :

• Probius
• Gazlowe
• Uther
• Zeratul
• Arthas
• Jaina
• Ragnaros

Alarak

Artanis

Emails

Lupus64

I've found that, with some heroes I have struggled feeling impactful with in the past, taking off meta builds has helped improve my performance.

For example: building Anub with regeneration master and then all W talents, building Dehaka with regenerative tissue and then all dark swarm talents.

What off meta builds can you give examples of that might help players see hero functionality in a different light? I know Garrett loves him some Chrysalis Kerrigan

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

ITN is supported by our badass Patrons. You can become a ITN Patron by going to Patreon.com/itn.

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, Pythagos, and CrusaderDave. ITN shirt at shirts.amove.tv. Coffee mugs and glasses are over at etched.amove.tv.

Catch the live show Thursday at 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio.

Follow the show on Twitter @ITNcast and ITNpodcast.reddit.com.

Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

• Follow Garrett @GarrettArt
• NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.
• The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast
• R2-T2

Kyle

• Twitch.tv/kylefergusson
• Kylefergusson.com

For future episodes