Change in Hero Release Schedule

[[S2]DivA]

Hey Guys,

After careful deliberation internally, and with the tremendous aid of community feedback, we have decided to slow down the Hero Release Schedule. From now on, you guys can expect a new hero to be released every 4 weeks instead of every 2 weeks, effective immediately. This means that the next hero will be released on July 6th. We thank you guys for your honest and passionate feedback, as well as for your participation in our survey concerning this topic, in which a large majority of you voted for a release period longer than 2 weeks. Here is what you guys can expect for this to mean:

• Higher quality heroes; more iteration on design and art
• A more digestible pacing of new hero content injected into the game
• More content and assets to complement new heroes
• More work put toward design feature projects (stuff like Mid Wars)

We hope that regardless if you love this decision or disagree with it, you will understand that we put a lot of careful thought and discussion into this move, and it is one that we as a company wholeheartedly stand behind in our quest to make Heroes of Newerth as enjoyable of an experience as possible for our players. S2 Games is dedicated to prioritizing the gameplay experience, and while this may have significant ramifications for us on the business model side of things, we are confident (in large part due to your input and guidance) that this is a positive move to ensure the long-term sustainability and enjoyment of HoN. Thank you guys so much for your continued support and feedback, as well as for sharing our tremendous passion for HoN. We look forward to learning more and more from you guys moving forward, and you guys can look forward to more changes and features to come.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to be attending Dreamhack Summer in a couple of days and want to discuss this or other topics, please seek me out! We're very eager to hear as many voices as possible from our passionate community members. Otherwise, ping me on twitter or continue your buzzing on the forums, Facebook, Reddit, and other hubs that our staff members follow every single hour.

[[f13]SomethingOdd]

Furst.
WOW, YAYZ!
Thank you for listening.
Mfw:

[xanderK]

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks to the community for being SO vocal about what they want from HoN and giving such amazing feedback. We all love the game as much as you do and are greatly looking forward to providing you with exactly what DivA talked about:

• Higher quality heroes; more iteration on design and art
• A more digestible pacing of new hero content injected into the game
• More content and assets to complement new heroes
• More work put toward design feature projects (stuff like Mid Wars)

I've already seen some of what we have in store and it's really exciting! HoN is going to be better because of this- because of YOUR feedback. We want HoN to be constantly improving and this is yet another way for us to ensure that.


Also to echo what DivA said, I'll be at Dreamhack this weekend! Come say hello and chat! :-D Or just tweet me or whatever you wish! :-D

[[TOUR]RoLanD]

or whatever you wish! :-D

Challenge accepted.

[Mediocre]

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks to the community for being SO vocal about what they want from HoN and giving such amazing feedback. We all love the game as much as you do and are greatly looking forward to providing you with exactly what DivA talked about:



I've already seen some of what we have in store and it's really exciting! HoN is going to be better because of this- because of YOUR feedback. We want HoN to be constantly improving and this is yet another way for us to ensure that.


Also to echo what DivA said, I'll be at Dreamhack this weekend! Come say hello and chat! :-D Or just tweet me or whatever you wish! :-D

Only took you guys over 1 year to understand how retarded it is too release one hero every 2 weeks, even tho the "community" has argued against it all along.

Still you didnt have the guts too take it all the way too 8 weeks.... Stay small HoN

[[E]iLieKBubbles]

Furst.
WOW, YAYZ!
Thank you for listening.
Mfw:

Sounds good.

Also, you browse /b/ or /mlp/ right?

[[Poni]_Scathach_]

Sounds good.

Also, you browse /b/ or /mlp/ right?

One does not have to browse /b/ (in fact, if one can avoid it he/she should avoid it very vigorously) or /mlp/ for pony pictures. Especially reaction images. Tumblr, the know your meme image gallery for mlp, and straight up google image search are great.

[[IMMS]Harakesh]

Awesome decision! Much appreciated, I know for a fact a lot of people find it annoying so many new heroes

[Daboomb94]

Awesome decision! Much appreciated, I know for a fact a lot of people find it annoying so many new heroes

atleast with my friend, it isn't annoying with new heros. we are annoyed with the fact that the new heros most often is more powerful than the older once and maybe not that well done/thought through!

[[TFLC]Andromeda]

This is what we really needed I think. Good to see S2 listening to the community a lot.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Sure hope this means we'll be getting more interesting heroes that might also deviate more strongly from what's considered 'usual' (oe, more than the 4 default abilities/qwer required).

Might also mean that designers will again have time to do the hero blogs?

[[Toho]Flandre]

I'm very skeptical about this change. I doubt hero designs will actually improve (and they're not even that bad). Although balance will probably benefit a lot from this change.

[[SBT]Renegateor]

I'm very skeptical about this change. I doubt hero designs will actually improve (and they're not even that bad). Although balance will probably benefit a lot from this change.

The heroes are fine and balance and design are two different parts of s2.

I'd liked to have seen 3 weeks instead of 2 since one hero per month seems a bit... slow? (Mabye that's because we got overwhelmed with too much heroes last months?)

[[Toho]Flandre]

The heroes are fine and balance and design are two different parts of s2.

I'd liked to have seen 3 weeks instead of 2 since one hero per month seems a bit... slow? (Mabye that's because we got overwhelmed with too much heroes last months?)

It doesn't matter that they are two different parts of s2. The point is that a hero now has 2 extra weeks in development before becoming available, which means it can be balanced and fine tuned during this time.
But I also voted for 3 weeks, 4 is a bit too long too keep a feel of constant 'refreshness' of the game.

[Jeroz]

Now the other question is, how would this affect EA?

last time you guys changed it to 3 weeks/hero they stayed in EA for 6 weeks. Is there going to be a revamp of the EA structure as well? I seriously don't want to see a hero stayed in EA for 8 whopping weeks.

[[KFB]Millikin]

Now the other question is, how would this affect EA?

last time you guys changed it to 3 weeks/hero they stayed in EA for 6 weeks. Is there going to be a revamp of the EA structure as well? I seriously don't want to see a hero stayed in EA for 8 whopping weeks.

This will definitly be the case as long as they want to keep the 2 heroes on EA rotation they have been using so far.

to much time for a hero - 12 heroes per year ...
it should be atleast 3 weeks ... It isnt that hard to learn 1 hero...

It's not about the time it takes to learn a hero, it's about the time it takes to create and design a new hero and have more time to develope other features such as Midwars.
Other modes/maps or just general alterations that divert from the normal gameplay that enhance the value that this game need to bring to further increase in popularity and keep it's current players satisfied.
And balancing the game will be "easier" when they don't have to constantly look at what will be comming up next.
There are only so many heroes you can have in development at the same time befor you lose aspect of what is more important: Bringing out the hero on time in a non-balanced(UP/OP) or broken state(bugged or bringing it out in a more timely matter when it doesn't need the imitiate attention for bugfixing, time taken from what could be used in working on above mentioned things.

They could go the route of hire more people to work with things but that would also in the end result in higher pricetags of things that is brought in to the game as there are more people on the payroll.

[[SBT]Tedde]

Awesome!

[[uP]XtremeFlash]

Good S2Guy

[[TTFR]Chime]

10 bucks people will complain about the next hero saying that it wasnt well designed.

[WaytooPro]

hahahahahah what a noob