14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Blizzard has recently delivered a new hero for Heroes of the Storm, but the company is already working on a major new patch for the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena experience, which is at the moment offered on the Public Test Realm for all gamers who are interested in testing the changes that it is implementing.
The studio says in the official announcement that the PTR with the new patch is live until February 1 and that all players who try it out should deliver a detailed report if they find any problems with it.
Blizzard is also suggesting that the featured tweaks do not represent the entirety of the changes that will be made when the update goes live for all Heroes of the Storm players.
Gamers will get two new portraits if they reach level 10 with Cho'Gall or with Artanis, Tassadar, and Zeratul, and some matches will feature a mysterious creature that might offer information about the future of the MOBA.
Li-Ming, the wizard from Diablo, is now featured in Heroes of the Storm and can use the following abilities: Magic Missiles, Arcane Orb, Teleport, Disintegrate and Wave of Force.
New art and shop items are also introduced to the game and gamers can take a look at a list of the gameplay-related changes by clicking on the button at the end of this article.
Changes to the characters featured in Heroes of the Storm are extensive, and the best way to track them is to head to the official site.
Blizzard is also introducing a new replay file system designed for data mining
The studio says that it has made improvements to the feature and that it is making it open source so that the player community can use them to analyze match data and get more information about their performance.
Blizzard states, "Some of the information that can now be pulled from replay files includes Battleground mechanics, Mercenary Camps captured, and Talent choices, as well as just about everything you’d find on score screens, such as Kills, Deaths, and Assists, hero damage, siege damage, healing, and much more!"
The company is also working with members of the player community for Heroes of the Storm to make sure that it can improve the replay system further during the coming months.
A Global Championship for the MOBA is also running at the moment, featuring the best teams in the world and a total prize pool of more than 4 million dollars (3.7 million Euro).
Blizzard has made it clear that it wants to improve matchmaking for the game in the coming weeks, making sure that gamers quickly find matches and that solo players are no longer asked to deal with already organized teams.
Heroes of the Storm is competing with both League of Legends from Riot Games and with DOTA 2 from Valve, and the developers need to deliver a constant stream of new content and balance improvements to keep the MOBA alive in the long term.