The moment you've been waiting for is almost here. Check out this sneak peak of Circe the Deceiver, the hero slated to join Newerth on September 25. Also, be sure participate in our Deception contest in the General Discussion section of the forums as we slowly unveil her abilities.
09/19/2013 4:48 AM
Topic: Community
The Birth of Circe the Deceiver
Hey guys,
I'm Paul "Malloc" Dziadzio, and I thought I'd take the time to give you guys a behind-the-scenes look at how Circe the Deceiver came to be. Here at S2 Games, we recognize that good ideas can come from anywhere. In the case of Deceiver, "anywhere" happened to be me. I'm a programmer; I created HoN's bots and manage the Community Bot Team in addition to regular gameplay programming. I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to create Berzerker long ago, contributing to his skill design and avatars. I absolutely love that we have such a collaborative culture here, and it's because of this that Circe came to be.
I originally started working on Circe the Deceiver (then just called "Deceiver") well over a year ago in my spare time. I loved watching all the amazing plays on the top fives and tens, and wanted to make a hero that let players pull off even more incredible plays. I also drew inspiration from Tim Buckley's original concept for Cthulhuphant's ult, althought that didn't end up being used by either. So with trick, skillful play in mind, I presented my ideas to the Design team. After five iterations, Buro gave her the okay to be scripted and tested in SBT. Since then, we've taken my original hero and transformed her into the hero she is today. She's certainly changed, I'm incredibly happy that the core game remains intact.
Circe is a hero about misleading your opponents, and using guile to defeat them. The goal of the hero has always been to provide interesting tools for a skillful player to trick and ambush their opponents. It's a tough challenge to provide tricky abilities without making the hero incredibly frustrating to play against! We liked the play style of the hero so much that, throughout the course of her development, we ended up creating several other deceptive skills that might show up on future heroes. As is, Circe is a blast to play, and we think her addition will really have an impact on Newerth.
Look for Circe the Deceiver as she makes her debut to Newerth on September 25!
09/17/2013 2:12 AM
Topic: Development
Patch 3.2.3: The Staff (of the Master) is back!
Patch 3.2.3 is here and brings some new Staff of the Master effects as well as item and hero balance changes!
For this patch, we took a look at some of the late game and underused items in HoN. With the recent shift toward faster paced gameplay, these items needed to be re-adjusted to become more viable. We also added some new Ultimates to the list of abilities boosted by Staff of the Master. We will be continuing to look at these types of changes for future patches.
You will also notice a few significant hero changes that are in line with our direction previously stated in the blog post for the last patch: to tone down burst damage in the game in order to increase the skill, interaction, and viability of other strategies within HoN without reducing the fast paced, action-packed gameplay that we enjoy so much.
See the patch notes for details on all of the changes, as well as be on the lookout for Circe the Deceiver in our next patch on 9/25/2013! -Buro
09/11/2013 10:34 AM
Topic: Development
Community Question: MMR Change
The MMR system has been a long-standing hot topic; how would you feel if it were changed? In our effort to continually improve Heroes of Newerth, we would like to know how you would react to such a change.
1) Resetting all MMR to 1500 2) No longer showing MMR in the lobby 3) Creating a new account progression system and account scoring
The main purpose of this would not be to create a more accurate MMR system, but to use MMR as it should be, a measure to create accurate matches, not as a score or a way to "progress" your account. We should create other systems for that purpose.
Please visit our forums to read the full post, vote, and let us know how it would impact your HoN experience!
09/06/2013 10:20 PM
Topic: Community
3.2.2 Patch Insight
Hey everyone, Buro here! Patch 3.2.2 brings a couple things that I would like to explain a little, one being the courier rework, and another being a new focus on high burst damage heroes and how these changes affect other heroes.
You will all notice a difference in the UI while in-game; this is the new courier UI.It features two things: a courier status indicator as well as a new courier button.The status indicator will display what the courier is doing at all times, from delivering to player X, returning to base, idle, out (or scouting), dead, or private. You will also be able to see who is controlling the courier at all times.
The other change is the courier button. This button will be bindable and when activated will take everything from your stash and place it on the courier, deliver the item(s) to you, gaining speed boost when activated, and then return after the delivery. If the courier is already delivering to someone, the button will queue the action, having the courier do what was just stated directly after it returns from its most recent delivery. Among other benefits, this change will allow players to use the courier without ever de-selecting their hero!And for those of you who would rather use the courier how it has always been, the functionality of the courier has not changed at all.
The second thing this patch introduces is our focus on a certain type of heroes. This philosophy is shown in the nerfs to Monkey King. Patch 3.1 brought a large emphasis on ganking with the changes to hero kills. This effect has caused burst damage heroes to shine more than they already were. While we enjoy the action-packed game of HoN, and we don't wish to deviate from that, we do realize that it's time to tone down the burst damage in the game. Part of this goal is to increase the skill, interaction, and viability of other strategies within HoN. To emphasize this even more, we will be taking a look at the hero pool for heroes with low play numbers that create really good interactions and add a lot of enjoyability to the game, and seek to increase their playtime.
We hope you enjoy patch 3.2.2! Expect to see some exciting new Staff of the Master changes in the next patch on 9/11/2013 and a new hero soon to follow!
