Interview With Blizzard's Matthew Cooper - HotS has 200+ upcoming Heroes?!

Today our Heroes of the Storm boost team introduces you Matthew Cooper, the man behind the balance in Heroes of the Storm: HotS season 1 has not even started, but we have seen a great number of changes in the preseason, mainly a lot of new champions releases.

It’s very hard not to make an overpowered or underpowered hero, especially because competitive play is pretty different from the casual scene; and the new maps surely make it even more difficult. But these challenges don’t stop Cooper from adding new heroes, maps and content to the game. If you missed the new article about Lt. Morales, check our Heroes of the Storm boost team’s Guide for her.

The most crucial aspect is balancing heroes. In Heroes of the Storm we see characters from Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft. It’s almost an endless source, and surely Cooper’s team is working hard to add those characters in game. Lately Heroes is adding new heroes very often, almost one every three weeks. Cooper himself says that his team has a list of 200 characters and more, and we surely don’t expect to see them all soon (Check the list of possible Heroes here), but it’s very likely to see a different meta during the Heroes of the Storm Season 1, since in the preseason the balance changes so quickly.According to Cooper, the hardest challenge is considering both the pro and casual players: Zeratul, for example, is surely a contested pick in the professional scene, but he is really balanced in the Hero League. So nerfing him just for his competitive popularity would have bad results in the casual play.

There are a lot of aspects to consider: statistics, professional play, players feedback but mostly how a new hero would perform on each different battleground. We already have nine different maps, and Blizzard is thinking about a map rotation. Cooper says that there 4 or 5 experts working only on the new battleground, as the goal is to create a different play style for every map.

And again we have to remember that competitive and amateur metas can be pretty different, so the balancing process is even harder. For a list of map specific picks, take a look at our Heroes of the storm boost team's guide!

Cooper’s team is doing a great job at balancing the game, and their experience is surely helping, as they are long time fans of MOBAs. According to Cooper, what makes HotS unique is the union of the best elements of MOBAs: fast games, different maps with different play styles, and our favorites Blizzard heroes. As long as his team keeps balancing every feature in the game, we can expect a lot of new heroes and maps in the oncoming HotS season 1.

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