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Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Praise for the Mecha skins quality, features, and pricing. This is the way to get people to spend gems on skins!

I'm not even a fan of any of the source material the Mecha skins are based on... and I still love them/bought some instantly! There are 2 major reasons why.

1) They feel like old school, real deal, full featured Legendary skins from pre-2.0: All have altered voiceovers and EVERY ability has (awesome) new art/animations/sound effects. Tyreal has a custom mount. Tyreal and Rehgar have custom hearth animations. (Some might complain that many abilities don't change colors, but I'm guessing much of that is based on wanting things like Abathur mines and Rehgar Lightning Shield to always be visually consistent across all skins. Personally I don't mind in the case of skins that are otherwise packed full of unique features.)

 

2) If you choose to buy them with gems, they are reasonably priced: I own the heroes in question so your bundles may vary in price, but for me the bundles for 3 tints of a skin range from 1000-1300 gems (approx $10 to $13). Once again, this compares favorably to Legendary skins in HotS 1.0 which cost $15 for a Legendary skin (3 tints). The bundle with all the skins is a slight discount from buying them separately at 2700 gems (~$27). As well you can still craft individual tints for 2400 shards (assuming they drop to 1600 shards in a few weeks like all skins). I crafted a tint of Mecha Tyreal and bought Abathur and Rehgars bundles. This kind of flexibility felt awesome and I was happy to spend some real cash in the form of gems.

 

TLDR: With some lower quality skins being labeled "Legendary" since 2.0 launch and the recent controversy surrounding "gem only" launch skins, it felt good to log onto HotS, find that the quality of the skins and their features exceeded my expectations and that I was actually excited to buy some at a price that felt more than fair from a consumers perspective. If this type of content and pricing is a viable way for Blizzard to make money and fund the game I'd be so on board to spend more "real money" in the game again. Basically: More like this please!

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 6 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    Okay, praise where praise is due, but let me just point out the usual inconsistencies we've come to expect from Blizzard, and they didn't fail to deliver this time either:

    • Tyrael and Rehgar have special animations for (B), while Abathur does not.
    • Tyrael and Rehgar have special voicelines (not just altered voices) with new phrases, while Abathur does not.
    • The voiceline bug is still present, which annoys the fuck out of me (picking a preferred voiceline is not saved as soon as you switch to another skin, or is even flat out 'forgotten' if you close the Loadout screen) - not related to those skins in particular, but to their rarity as a whole (Epic and Legendary ones), thus applicable here.
    • Rehgar's Mecha bundle is cheaper than Tyrael's and Abathur's by about ~200 Gems or so, for inexplicable reasons.

    Visuals are great all around, the SFX are amazing, animations and everything else is truly spectacular!

    Though, as an Abathur main, who was very much looking forward to these skins, I do enjoy them greatly, but Abathur's a tiny bit less, because they underdelivered on him compared to the other two in the aspects I've mentioned.

    /u/Blizz_KinaBREW, what's up with that :(?

    Unsure about the bug but I can pass that along.

    Abathur is a model and fx heavy hero. Think about it this way. You have the locust, the Symbiote as a model and with its abilities, Monstrosity, the vile nest, and the locust nest. Not to mention the morph fx that need to be done which sometimes require a separate 3D model. There was a lot of love that went into that hero and though you say there are no special animations the mechanical pumping of the vials had to be made unique. There are probably some things I'm missing.

    Sorry we didn't put a unique hearth animation in for him. On top of the higher model output He's just not as visible as Rehgar and Tyeal when he hearths.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 6 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    I have a quick related question to skin animations. You mentioned Abathurs vials as being one of the reasons for the custom animation tag.

    Is there certain requirements for a skin to receive the custom animation tag?

    I can think of model animations, ability, Hearth, dance, but it seems to me like there is some hierarchy to which animations qualify. As I have seen some skins can say have a custom dance and hearth with the tag while another wouldn't.

    Every new model that Abathur has on his mecha skin has been touched in some way by an animator. Getting something to move in a mechanical way opposed to an organic way requires different a movement language.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 6 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    Thanks for the reply! I totally understand that Abby has a lot more assets that need to be made for his skins from every discipline. Makes sense that you guys would decided to pass on the hearth animation but I would have loved to see a cool unique burrow animation. Seems pretty far off thematically for this skin to dig with his hands.

    That aside I do have a question that might be about a bug? I noticed he has sick new VFX and SFX on his Q and W while in symbiote, but his E keeps the same VFX and SFX as his base skin. Was this a design choice? Possibly a bug? Or did it just not make the budget?

    I don't know. I can check with the sound guys to see if there's a bug there. Thanks for the reports.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 6 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    What I meant is that his E shield on the skin is the same as his base skin (organic goop) as opposed to his Q and W which both have new visual effects and new sound effects.

    His E shield is actually different than his base. I spoke with our sound guys. There's further discussion going on. We'll see what happens.

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