Greetings!

Thanks so much for all of your feedback on the Free Heroes System. We're currently mulling over your pages of suggestions and input, and will consider the best route to deliver a comprehensively awesome new-player experience. While 94% of you voted that the proposed system would be an improvement over the old one, we're still looking for the best route possible, and your feedback will figure into that heavily as we continue to think on it internally. Thanks again for the feedback, now let's move on to a hot button topic: Concede Votes.

How Concede Vote Rules Currently Function:
  • Normal Mode: 15 minutes 5/5 passes, 30 minutes 4/5 passes
  • Casual Mode: 15 minutes 5/5 passes, 30 minutes 4/5 passes


Issues:
  • The ability in both modes for 1 player to hold 9 others "hostage" in an attempt to grief.
  • A lot of negative intra-team harassment over when the team should concede.
  • Casual Mode games generally climax earlier, making the times inappropriate.
  • Casual Mode is intended to be a more relaxed way for new players to learn the game.


Adjusting Concede Vote always weighs two primary factors against each other: should 1 guy out of 5 be able to force a game to keep going versus should 4 guys deprive that 1 guy of the opportunity to convince them the game isn't over yet. So often we see a "bad egg" cause frustration for 9 other players and leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. We discussed extensively the pros and cons of changing the Concede Vote Rules, and here's what we're thinking of proceeding with:


  • Normal Mode: 15 minutes 5/5 passes, 22 minutes 4/5 passes
  • Casual Mode: 7 minutes (as soon as Remake option expires) 4/5 passes


In Normal Mode, we're looking at moving the 4/5 threshold down to 22 minutes. The goal is to lessen the gap between the 5/5 and 4/5 thresholds so that if a single player IS holding other players hostage, the amount of time he can do so is more than halved - diminishing both the incentive to grief and the result of griefing. We settled on 22 minutes because it is close to the midpoint between 15 and 30 minutes, and a lot of team-fights (which ultimately contribute massively to the outcome of a game) have usually taken place by the 22 minute mark, so at that time everyone should have a better gauge on whether the game is lost.

In Casual Mode, we examined our goals with the mode: to create a relaxed atmosphere to learn and enjoy the game with fewer punishments. To that end, we want to make sure there is almost never the frustrating feeling of being "held hostage" by a single griefer. With that said, we're looking at making conceding in Casual Mode extremely... casual with a 4/5 pass immediately after the Remake period expires. While this may result in Silver Coin farm abuse, our primary focus is to improve the gameplay experience. Should Silver Coin abuse become an issue, there are other ways for us to address it.

As always, we are extremely open to your feedback. Please give us your thoughts and opinions - they truly count!