Good news for folks in Heroes of the Storm’s closed beta (and people watching to see how Blizzard’s first in-house MOBA is developing)! The upcoming January 13 update is adding some big features, and changes. With the addition of ranked play, drafts, and custom games, expect the update to deeply effect the current community. Check past the break for more details on the upcoming Heroes of the Storm update!
First, ranked play. Blizzard is aware that some people just want to jump into the game, but without proper experience, may bring the team down. For that reason, just to access ranked play, you’ll need to be level 30 (out of 40 as of this writing) and own 10 heroes not including free characters from the weekly rotations. This is important because it means you either need to be spending gold or money to unlock heroes. To note, there’s currently 32 heroes, to give you an idea of what this may mean in terms of game scale (though we know Thrall is on the way, which will bring the roster to 33). Naturally, as you win games, you’ll gain points, and as you lose games, you’ll lose points. However, you’ll also gain or lose more points based on consecutive wins/losses, and ranking up provides a small bonus to help prevent a loss resulting in an immediate loss of rank.
It must be noted that the first official season won’t be starting with the update. After all, the game is still in beta, and not one that you can simply buy your way into, and this stage is meant for testing. After some polish and more players become eligible to play in ranked mode, Blizzard can begin a season, but don’t expect a hard date on that yet.
The update also brings more options for custom games, a draft mode, and some rather harsh penalties for people who rage quit games in progress, both in competitive and casual games. For the full details, check here.