Heroes of Newerth: Reborn is a revival of the original Heroes of Newerth, a free to play MOBA. Developed by Kongor Studios - comprised of former S2 Games developers and community members.
Platform | PC
Roles | Balance, Hero Designer & QA
Duration | 14 Months
Development journey
For the past year I have been part of the development of Heroes of Newerth Reborn. It has been an incredibly fun and challenging journey were we have designed and balanced the game based on player feedback, early testing and data. Due to the NDA still being active I can't go into specific details.
I started in what they call SBT (Super Beta Testers) where we tested game balance, early concepts of heroes and abilities, and newly introduced systems. At the start it felt important to get back into the game properly, to understand the heroes strengths and weaknesses, to get a grasp of the economy and item progression, and what is seen as the games current meta in all skill groups. But now as a developer and not a competitor it was also important to identify heroes thematically, to try and understand the core design of each hero and how they tie into the character.
After a couple of months in the SBT I was invited to be a part of the design meetings. Where we discussed everything from higher gameplay and economy concepts, to hero and boss design. Heroes of Newerth Reborn is a revamp of the old game, so we also went through a process of deciding what heroes to port to the new engine and if they should stay in their current stage or if changes were necessary to fit the current state of the game.
The experience so far has been great but also hard, working with a small team with limited resources makes finding a solution to problems a little bit harder.
RESPONSIBILITIES
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Designed and balanced in-game economy systems to support fair and engaging player progression.
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Designed and tuned hero abilities and stats for balanced, competitive gameplay.
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Designed and balanced boss encounters, focusing on scaling and team dynamics.
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QA tested early design concepts, identifying issues and proposing improvements.
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Analysed and provided feedback on game systems and evolving metas to improve overall gameplay balance.