Mike Donais Explains the Categories of Hearthstone's Mechanics
Card keywords, or mechanics, are a popular topic when new expansions are announced with discussions flooding in on the Hearthstone team not revisiting mechanics of old. Mike Donais explained on reddit that there's three different categories for mechanics and ones that they may bring back in the future could be tweaked or made more fun. Specifically, a change to Joust was mentioned.
Read his post about it down below and while we're at it:
Which mechanics do you like the best and are there any that you think should make a return?
Quote from Mike DonaisThis is a topic we discuss a lot. We have mechanics that fall into 3 categories.
Mechanics we use a lot: Lifesteal, Poisonous, Discover
Mechanics we use sometimes: Played an elemental last turn, Holding a Dragon, Mech build arounds
Mechanics we might bring back: Hero Cards, Joust, Inspire, Adapt, Quests.The nice thing is if people enjoy a mechanic they will be excited to see how we tweak it when it returns, or how we make it more fun the next time. If I was to bring back Joust for example I would probably make ties win instead of lose.
What mechanics from old sets did you all likes the best? Which ones would you like us to bring back sometime in the future?
Add a Steed keyword that works kinda like spikeridhe steed. You put it on a minion and you stack the stats. Then when it is killed the minion up top remains or maybe the one on the bottom.
More of the top 2 categories would be good. I’d like to see a few tribal synergy cards of each type on new expansions .
Also quests are fun. I like the way they start in your hand. The magic items of k&c are kind of like mini quests , which looks interesting
Steed idea sounds awesome and original
I'd like to see quests brought back however given the nature of most classes they are at a major disadvantage quite quickly. Maybe when a quest is played you get a 1/1 on the board or they cost 0 mana or something. You obviously should have to sacrifice something for playing quests to get an awesome reward however surely the penalty is enough by just having to cripple your deck. I mean there is no decent quest deck around now aside from warrior in the odd tournament match, and we are one expansion on from the quests being release and zero of them see play on a consistent basis, clearly something will need to be altered with them.
More dragons. Then a few more dragons. I would like Discover to be tweaked so it isn't so crazy on the RNG. I understand Discover is going to have RNG in it, but I would like any card that can discover to have a much smaller pool to choose from. I like the idea of Joust too, it felt like it rewarded careful deck building, similar to running Barnes (ya know, Barnes in anything that ISN'T Big Priest).
I'd love to get some Mech-related synergies back to Standard. Also the mechanic with the 3 Factions was very cool, where you got neutral Cards you can only play in 3 specific classes.
Oh, and please make "Elusive" an actual Keyword, thanx.
Joust was an annoying, unreliable and unsuccessful mechanic. Also, its animation time was way too long. I see no upside in returning it.
True, if I had to choose one mechanic I wouldn't like to see in the game it would have been Joust. I hope Blizzard will actually ask the players what do they want for once (by making a survey or something).
You know there are mechanics that haven't been touched that all that could use expanding. For example Counter. Yeah, turns out Counter is actually a keyword as it's bolded on Counterspell and gives a tooltip when you mouse over it. Maybe they could do more counter cards.
That would be great. It can be minions, too. Random example: 3/2 minion that reads "Counters first battlecry played each turn".
How about a neutral quest:
It will upgrade the hero power as the Justicar Trueheart does.
Edit: typo fixed
Zoolocks, as far as the eye can see...
Very nice.
zoolock would never play a quest. it costs 1 card in your hand. besides, zoolocks are good on tapping after tapping 5 times anyway
I'd like to see inspire return but I think it's not actually a possibility since it with be to powerful with the anduin dk + raza
Honestly for Joust if they bring it back, it should be like a real joust. If there is a tie joust again. Similar to a tie in War.
Each deck has one minion left, with matching cost. Infinite Joust.
I really hope they never revisit joust ever again.
Joust was awful. Discover and Adapt work because players don't mind RNG they have some say in. Joust was not only a minimally controllable 50/50 chance, but the effect often swung from pretty bad to insanely good on that 50/50. Leave it in the trash can.
Actually it is controllable through deckbuilding, similarly to a card like Resurrect, or the new Recruit mechanic. The bad part of Joust was when it was put on cards like Gadgetzan Jouster, since it has negative synergy with its own mechanic.
King's Elekk see play today in the Wild Giants Hunter deck, where it is extremely consistent since most of your minions are giants. Similarly imagine if Priest got a good Joust card, they could just put it into Big Priest where it would be consistent. Control Paladin also used Tuskarr Jouster for a while since it gave consistent healing against aggro, or a decent body against slower decks where value was more important anyway.
That is the strength of Joust, it's a way to give slower decks anti-aggro tools that the aggro decks themselves can't access, which has historically been a problem with cards like Tar Creeper or Sludge Belcher. It just has to be used correctly, and have decks around to support it.