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Heroes of the Storm Could Limit Map Rotation to Avoid Complexity

Plus, details on ranked matchmaking changes and a solution for buying bundles that include things you already own.

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As the selection of maps continues to grow in Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard may limit the number of them available in matchmaking at any given time in order to avoid making the game too complex.

This was revealed during a Gamescom livestream today by director Dustin Browder, who was responding to a question about how many maps are planned for the game. As Blizzard has said in the past, it doesn't "know what [its] limits at this point are. We're up to nine battlegrounds with Infernal Shrines, and we'll obviously be working on more battlegrounds going forward."

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One of the things that distinguishes Heroes of the Storm from other MOBAs like Dota 2 and League of Legends are its maps, which Blizzards refers to as battlegrounds. Each of these has a unique objective--collect coins and deliver them to a pirate who bombards the enemy base, or capture designated points so that an ally can take control of a huge dragon knight--that are critical to victory. This is on the top of the the primary objective on every map, which is to get into the enemy base and destroy their core.

But with every map that's added, there are even more mechanics for players to have to understand. While it's not a problem for veterans, it's potentially a lot for newcomers to deal with.

"We have heard some feedback from a lot of players now that our game has become too complicated and too difficult for them to really master, that there are simply too many battlegrounds in play at one moment," Browder noted. "In many games they're used to, [there is] only one map or a couple of maps, so now that we've got nine in play, that's a concern.

"We're certainly open to feedback on that, and there may be a point in the future--I don't know when this would happen--where we might go to a smaller set and rotate them over time," he explained. "So we might have a season, or a month, or a couple weeks [with only select maps available]."

He said Blizzard is talking with fans about how many maps should be in play at any given time and how often they should be rotated out, so all of this remains very much up in the air. It should be noted that the company did briefly do this in June after the release of the Battlefield of Eternity map, making it so that the four most recent maps were the only ones available outside of custom games.

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Also during today's stream, Browder discussed changes coming to ranked matchmaking. Team League is being done away with because of the difficulty involved with getting the same group of five people together on a consistent basis. Instead, the new "Ranked" mode will now have separate queues for teams of 1-4 players, and another queue for teams comprised of five people (but those five people don't have to be the same from game to game, as in Team League).

Additionally, players will play through roughly 20-25 placement matches before being assigned a rank. This will help to determine what rank a player should actually be, rather than having a situation where a player is shown as one rank but hasn't yet played enough matches to reach the rank where he or she actually should have. To allow for this to work properly, visible ranks are being reset, according to a new blog post, while hidden skill ratings will remain in order to keep matches balanced.

Browder also said that Blizzard will continue to listen to fans and will change the system again if need be. "We're not shy, we're not ashamed, we'll change it again if we absolutely need to," he added.

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Finally, we learned that Blizzard plans to introduce something called dynamic bundles "very soon." Currently, if you own something, such as a skin or character, included in a bundle, you don't receive any kind of discount on that bundle. Dynamic bundles will lower their price based on what you own, according to lead game producer Kaeo Milker.

"Players who have already purchased things and have double-purchased some items, we are looking out for you. We are going to take that into account," he said. "We do have plans on how to help you out with that. We'll have more information on it very soon here, but you can expect dynamic bundles shortly."

During today's stream, Blizzard also revealed that StarCraft's medic is coming to the game. She's the fourth character we've learned about at Gamescom this week, and we also got our first look at the upcoming Infernal Shrines map that Browder referenced. Both the map and one of those characters--Kharazim, Diablo's monk--are coming to the game soon.

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