I wasn't aware of the artwork getting removed, I'll look into this. Might be a bug?

I have checked it for myself now. They were removed from one of the lower graphic quality option settings in the game. I usually run the game on a custom setting (maximum texture quality, low graphic quality) so my notebook won't get over 40° when I powergame for 3-5 hours.

I guess they were simply removed on the lower settings. I can see them now on Ultra.

How soon will we be blessed by Voice Comms and the ability to really appreciate HotS as the team synergy game it is?! :) :) :)

A lot of excited and some impatient mumblings in the community about this.

Is the uncertainty from the soft mmr reset tied to the first days of the season, or the first matches played that season?

That is to say, for example, is the uncertainty increased for the first 10 games of the season or first 10 days of the season? (numbers are hypothetical)

Will you also implement the ability to have a post game lobby chat? At least for the duration of the MVP awards, if not open until all members leave?

Hey Travis sorry I'm late, (from NZ) but I'd love to touch on The Lost Vikings and MVP. You mentioned they have special case work and I'd have assumed that to be the case and it must be hard to get it working right. I love love LOVE the lost vikings and are my most played hero, I was wondering how they do in fact get MVP i'm sure you cannot give specifics but i'm still curious as after playing a lot of vikings since the update and having a lot of success, I have never gotten MVP however I do get into the voting screen and get voted more often than not. http://imgur.com/a/7R2Ck here is one example. Just to clairfiy, I don't really care about getting MVP personally, but I do passionately care that TLV do stand a fair chance to get MVP against other heroes. In that game you can see deaths are 0, siege is siginficantly higher, soak is almost near perfect while also doing significant flanks with Play Again, collecting seeds and creating a lot of pressure. Using this game as an example, I'd say those stats are a lot better than the usual Viking games by me or other players and because of that, not getting MVP makes me feel like the bar for TLV to get MVP is too high, or that other players damage tanked for example (muradin got MVP with 1 death and 51k damage tanked) is weighed higher than vikings contribution. Can you explain more about TLV and MVP and if there is anything planned to tweak MVP for weird heroes such as TLV, Abathur and Murky? If you do not reply I understand this is late for the post but I'd really appreciate it.

you're playing to win

Definitely.

Thanks for the answer, but I'm saying the exact opposite. If I see my team has a duo on it, and the other team does not, I know we are more likely to lose due to the average MMR being so much higher on the other team.

In other words, it feels like you actually give parties too much weight.

I got the same placement(Gold 4) as I was last season. And I even did well(7-3), was kinda looking forward to being rewarded. :/

The game seems pretty certain to me.

Why not cap it at Plat 3 ? instead of D3 ? D3 seems like really high on my opinion.

I think he's saying it's already in, you just have to get enough votes.

judging by that it's safe to assume that if someone made a great damage tassadar build that got a lot of kills it could not get the MVP based on the supposed role he should be playing, right?

How about making HL solo queue only?

2+3 vs 2+3 could be a thing too (but not in HL), but 2+2+1 should not, and 4s should also not exist of course. 5v5 is TL then.

Have two suggestions for you:

1. At the end of game/MVP screen, please allow us to skip.

2. During the draft, is there a way you can indicate whether or not our team has teammates that are grouped? We can only see it on the loading screen and personally, I think it's helpful when communicating at the draft.

Thank you!

I know this is an old topic, but I'd like to ask a question about matchmaking.

Have you considered giving another look at how teams are balanced? In the general case, that is, 1.1.1.1.1 v 1.1.1.1.1, I think it does pretty good, as with any other mirrored configuration: 2.1.1.1 v 2.1.1.1 for instance.

However, as soon as one team has more groupings on one side or the other, I can Usually tell you how the game is going to go in the loading screen. In a 2.1.1.1 v 2.2.1, the 2.1.1.1 is going to win the majority of games. It feels like, at least to me, that mm is weighting groups a little too heavily.

This question is probably directed to /u/BlizzTravis.

I finished last season with a massive loosing streak, and went from 2000 Master to Diamond 3. After that, it seems like my MMR didn't really change that much because I was still constantly banning over Diamond 1 or even Master players, and got Personal rank adjustment of +37. So the system has been placing me in matches where it assumed I would play a lot better than my team, which might no longer have been the case (had a short break from heroes). Why is MMR adjusting so much slower than rank, I really would have had no problem in just playing usual Diamond 3 games, but it feels weird to be in Diamond 3 when you are still valued as Master - and also makes climbing actually harder, because +37 rank adjustment isn't even that much, if you can't get above 50% winrate because the system is giving you harder matches because of internal MMR. Personally, I feel like the Overwatch system is much better because it actually shows a rating and this rating isn't just always adjusted by +-200 - you get more adjustment in the first games (like MMR) and less once you played a lot of games.

Also, why can't you be placed above Diamond 3? The placement matches are supposed to feel more valuable, but as a Master player it feels much more like they are the least important games because you get to Diamond 3 no matter what and if your internal MMR is lower you at least get easier games and if the internal MMR is higher you get rank adjustment... There are even people who argue the best way to get to master is to loose the placement matches...

Is there anything more we as a community can do to help up voice chat's priority on the list? (I can only imagine it's a long list so whee it falls is important to everybody. :)

I and a lot of others think it would really change the game experience and would love HotS devs to appreciate the level of our anticipation! :)

Thanks for doing this - it's really cool to see some community questions answered by the dev team.

Now, onto a few questions, cause hey, it's fun to ask.

/u/Blizz_JDeShazer
With the addition of Braxis Holdout into the game, we see another two lane map - this two lane map features middle-gate defensive towers and globe spawners above & below top and bottom lane, respective, Has there been any debate for similar conventions for other battlegrounds, like bottom lane BHB gaining a globe spawner, or middle gate on BoE gaining defenses?

Additionally, I know this isn't a question you can likely ask due to how involved that it is, but there was a rather sizeable gap in time between Towers of Doom and Braxis Holdout - Is this something that we can expect in the future for other Battlegrounds, or just something that happened due to the additional development time put aside for Arena battlegrounds?

/u/Blizz_NLaMusga
Alarak feels really awesome to play, and something I feel really makes the talents more impactful is the heavily featured trade-off component - was Alarak's Sadism trait something intended from the start, or did it come up midway through his development?

/u/BlizzAZJackson
Lately I've felt like the balance team has been hitting it out of park, but something that slightly bothers me is that it sometimes feels as though there are still tiers on newly released heroes that feature one sole choice, one shining example of this being Medivh with his Master's Touch talent. With the Butcher rework, we see his trait reworked to feature a quest that heavily increases his power - Is there a chance this is something the balance team is investigating for must-pick talents?

/u/BlizzTravis
I don't really know if this is something I can direct towards you, as it's sort of a weird question that's not directly tied to anything, so systems makes the most sense, but of late I've taken to linking to a discord link when playing in draft modes - would it be at all possible to allow these links to be clicked on, with a pop-up to display "Will open in external browser, don't click links you don't recognise"? I think it would make for a good in-between whilst internal voice-chat is added to the game, and it would also be useful in many other scenarios.

/u/BlizzDev_PIGonzales
We want a hero that can summon infernals, you guys want a hero that can summon infernals, but don't want to have too many summon-capable heroes. Why not give Nazeebo a Legendary skin with Infernal replacing Gargantuan, Imps replacing Toads, and whatever else fits.

And lastly, a few questions that I know have been asked before.
I've just reached level 20 with Medivh - if this is anything like the other level 20 hero I've reached, I'll sort of feel less inclined to play him as I'll be "wasting" experience. Are there any plans to add in additional levels or goals post-20 hero level?
More gold skin mounts when? I've got 58k sitting here after purchasing Alarak with gold, and having bought all of the Master skins I want barring the one for Valla.
Emote Wheel? All-chat in Team League? Fanart Skin contests? These would be cool.

Post-game commendations are a great addition that helps in enabling and encouraging positive communication between players. Will there be more? Are you discussing it? Are there ideas?

Have you considered allowing players to highlight other players not only for their play, not only for that one game, but for their leadership/friendliness/Positivity, in a way that left a lasting impact on their profile..?

Meeting friendly people in random games is what builds community, and it is also these friendships that keeps the game going. However, negativity fueld by egotistical and cynical feelings constantly threaten making the general tone harder, making people stay quiet in chat, or strictly cynically defensive in their replies, or begin muting all chat at first opportunity. Or even making people quit the game!

... So, why not do more to empower and reward positivity?!?

Question from 네풋치, 바지락과홍합 in Korea:

I’m extremely satisfied with the addition of MVP system! However, I’ve also felt that the effects for the system are a bit too subtle and are not enough to fully convey the feeling of being commended, so it would be great if the game provides dance animations or voice lines from the most commended Hero, and a special voice line from Battleground announcers that praises the player who reached certain amount of commendations.

Hey guys, thanks for doing this AMA! It's always nice when devs let the community pick their brains.

My first question centers on the MVP system. I like the addition, I think it's a good way to ensure that people from both teams are recognized for their quality play during the game, win or lose. But to me, it feels like it's a little disconnected from the rest of the game. There's no way to see your MVP or other Commendations, Epics, or Legendaries on your profile once the MVP screen is gone, and you don't really get any kind of reward for being recognized, other than showing up on the screen with a special banner for a few seconds. Was there any kind of discussion internally about giving people gold or XP bumps if they got MVP, Commendations, or enough upvotes from the other players? Can we expect improvements in this regard in the future? Are you guys looking at ways of recognizing players who consistently get MVP or Commendations outside of the screen? As an example, letting them view their awards on their profile, or maybe making special profile pictures that you unlock by getting enough awards?

My second question is about hero roles. As far as I know, the 4 main roles have been basically the same since the game was in Alpha, though there seems to be a lot of variation within those roles (Sonya is a very different kind of Warrior than Chen, for example). What purpose do the hero roles serve in the game currently? Are they geared towards new players, letting them see what a hero is meant to do at a glance? Or do they inform your balance decisions? Do you have goals to achieve a sort of parity between heroes in a given role (each Support can solo-heal, as an example), or would you prefer to see heroes in a given role serve different purposes in different situations? Is there a point when the hero roster gets big enough that the 4 main roles won't cut it anymore? If so, would we see additional roles added to the game (Bruiser, Mage, Buffer, etc.) or will we see roles removed entirely?

Thanks in advance for your answers! Love the game, you guys are doing a great job!

When you were designing the MVP system, how much did you allow the concern of "We need to make sure that every role has an equal chance to get MVP" to override the concern of "We need to make sure that the MVP goes to the most impactful player every match"?