Home Gaming Artifacts get scrapped in Heroes of the Storm

Artifacts get scrapped in Heroes of the Storm

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Artifact

Many games today allow some sort of access before an official release. The benefit is that gamers get to play the game and give their feedback which developers then use to improve the overall game experience. Very recently, Blizzard added Artifacts to Heroes of the Storm. Feedback from the community has led them to scrapping the system.

Simply put, Artifacts were a way for players to customise their heroes, kind of like the League of Legends rune system. For example, I could choose to spend gold on an artifact which would reduce the cooldown times of my abilities. It’s clearly something the community didn’t want, and Blizzard have detailed their response over at Battle.net:

Artifacts were designed to provide you with a meaningful way to spend gold, while also providing additional options to customize your heroes. We wanted to test artifacts in the Alpha to find out if the system fulfilled those goals. As testing began, many of you voiced concerns around fairness issues, “correct build” issues, balance, new player tension, and other issues that made it clear that artifacts weren’t working as intended. We agree—those issues started to outweigh the benefits of the system. As a result, we have decided to remove the artifact system from Heroes of the Storm

I can understand why the system got such a negative response. Heroes of the Storm is easily the most beginner friendly MOBA I have played. Adding such a system may scare away newcomers, not to mention giving those with higher levels a slight advantage in actual gameplay. In terms of gold, I hated the idea. I already have to save up to unlock heroes. Spending on anything else would just be a nuisance.

Another recent system is also getting a slight change. When I started playing the game, you could pretty much choose whatever talent you wanted. The last significant update removed this freedom, only allowing complete talent selection after a person had played a hero a good few times. The community have also found this unnecessary, leading to Blizzard changing the rate of unlocking talents.

We’ve also seen a lot of feedback about changes we made to the talent unlocking system with our most recent patch. Our intention was to gradually expose new players to heroes and their talents, with meaningful progression that could be obtained relatively quickly on a per-hero basis.  Since making this change, many of you have shared your frustration with the time it takes to unlock a hero’s talents. Beginning with today’s scheduled patch, reaching hero level 4 will be more than three times faster than the original implementation

This change doesn’t really make sense to me. It was ideal for newcomers, easing them into the more complicated talent builds a hero may have. Regardless, I’m happy to see that Blizzard are serious about their community, implementing changes according to the feedback they receive.

(Header Source)

Last Updated: August 4, 2014

30 Comments

  1. I’m all for the cosmetics, but I loathe that guys with over-active credit cards have an advantage over other players.

    Good I say, good! GG Blizzard!

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      August 4, 2014 at 10:44

      • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

        August 4, 2014 at 10:56

        Indeed

        Reply

      • Kensei Seraph

        August 4, 2014 at 10:57

        I prefer this gif, it better conveys the ease at which paying users win.
        http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Free+user+Vs+Playing+user_7b03ff_4846735.gif

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

          August 4, 2014 at 10:59

          The cunt punt?

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            August 4, 2014 at 11:03

            O_o what?

          • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

            August 4, 2014 at 11:22

            That is what it looks like

          • Hammersteyn

            August 4, 2014 at 11:26

            No, I mean staff is allowed to use such words? 😛

          • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

            August 4, 2014 at 11:27

            Geoff uses many many bad words, his fault

        • Hammersteyn

          August 4, 2014 at 11:03

          Hehehe

          Reply

    • hairyknees

      August 4, 2014 at 11:15

      Yeah it wouldn’t be anything significant, but it is still a meh system. I’m glad it’s falling away too 🙂

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

        August 4, 2014 at 11:46

        So when are we playing?

        Reply

        • hairyknees

          August 4, 2014 at 12:03

          When you choose 😉 I am on 99% of the time!

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief Dovahkiin

            August 4, 2014 at 12:08

            Very true MBM, very true

  2. Hammersteyn

    August 4, 2014 at 10:45

    So if I want to MOBA I should try this first?

    Reply

    • hairyknees

      August 4, 2014 at 11:14

      Yip 🙂 the way it is at the moment, it is the best place to enter the MOBA genre!

      Reply

  3. Sk3tz0

    August 4, 2014 at 10:52

    The problem, correct me if im wrong, is that Experience MOBA players probably see it as not challenging enough and want Blizzard to make it their type of MOBA. which in turn makes it more like a pain in the arse to learn for Noobs like me. Guess i’m gonna be another feeder in this game once its available.

    Reply

    • DarthZA

      August 4, 2014 at 10:59

      You are wrong, and I am happy to correct you 😛
      They don’t take all feedback, and the hardcore guys seem to be getting ignored. Blizzard are not changing their vision on what type of MOBA they want, they’re just taking feedback with regards to how it is implemented. Blizzard will keep this the fun, relaxed, and quick MOBA that anyone and everyone can play.

      Reply

    • Kensei Seraph

      August 4, 2014 at 11:00

      I think it’s more intended for the people (like me) who tend to do some research before playing a game and thus go into it with a few pre-conceived ideas on what type of build I want only to be forced to play completely different builds for several days before finally being able to play how I want.
      That type of thing often puts me off a game.

      Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      August 4, 2014 at 11:03

      I don’t even know what a feeder is

      Reply

    • hairyknees

      August 4, 2014 at 11:17

      In a sense, yeah. Experienced MOBA peeps will tire of this game (depending on personal preference). Surprisingly, that artifact system is something that would benefit hardcore MOBA peeps, yet the community really didn’t dig it. I think many are aware that this game is not meant to be complicated.

      Reply

      • Sk3tz0

        August 4, 2014 at 12:02

        Thank fuck for that.. I was watching The Interantional games and was think sheeeeeeeeeeet, to be able to know all those characters and play like that, Sadly i dont have that time.

        Reply

        • hairyknees

          August 4, 2014 at 12:50

          Yeah it can be incredibly overwhelming :/

          Reply

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