Iksar Explains why no Keyword Exists for "Can't be Targeted by Spells or Hero Powers"
Referred to as Elusive unofficially by many community members, this block of card text is a subject that's been brought up in the past and recently hit the front page of reddit again.
- There's now 10 collectible cards in the game with the exact effect or a variation on it.
- This year we've seen 5 cards added to the game with the effect, and an entire keyword that can add it to cards (Adapt).
- Interestingly, a change to a single word could make Deathstalker Rexxar's hero power change as it's shorter text.
Noteworthy historical blue mentions on the card text.
- 2014: Ben Brode stated the team had discussed Shroud, Untargetable, and Ethereal as potential keywords. (Source)
- 2014: Yong Woo stated when they have enough cards with the same effect they may turn it into a keyword. (Source)
Now, here's what Iksar is saying today.
- There isn't a great word for the effect that clues you in to what it does.
- Trying out Elusive or Ethereal ending up being more misleading than helpful.
- The effect isn't going to be used on many cards in the future as having too many of these minions decreases the ability to interact with an opponent.
Blue Posts
Quote from IksarWe've talked about this before but opted to spell it out. A keyword is essentially something we ask you to read and understand, so in the future you can look at a card and quickly understand what it does without having to parse through a bunch of text. Sometimes when we can use the right word, you already have a pretty good idea of what a keyword does without reading the description. Divine Shield does a pretty good job of this. People on the team have different opinions on this subject, but one of the reasons not to keyword it is that there isn't a great word for 'can't be targeted by spells or hero powers' that would clue you in to what it does. It's sort of a strange concept to begin with that something can be targeted by a battlecry or an attack but not by a spell. When we used something like 'elusive' or 'ethereal' or various other words I think it ended up being more misleading rather than increasing the ability to understand it quickly, which is counter to the point of making a keyword in the first place. Lastly, this isn't a concept we plan on using on many cards in the future. It's cool to have one-offs like Shimmering Courser or Soggoth but having too many of these types of minions greatly decreases your ability to interact with your opponent. (Source)
Or, and this is a long shot, but what if a keyword was a descriptive-enough single word that defined itself when you hovered over it.
We often state, then restate, then restate this again.... but trying to keep the game easy to pick up and grasp does not also equal a belief that the playerbase lacks intelligence. It's very rare that one particular thing is so complicated that no one will understand it, it's more that in order to protect against a death by a thousand cuts we have to stay vigilant when accessing all decisions (no matter how minor) to make sure that by adding an increase in complexity we are getting something valuable in return. (Source)
Say if you get an extremely high health taunt minion buffed with Anti-Magic Shell. If you remove Battlecry then some classes will have trouble removing it. Silence is a powerful tech option since it prevents players from making a minion that cant be removed.
Like if it weren't the case at least 98% of the time when your opponent uses Anti-Magic Shell. Or you just play Deathwing every deck because you hate 1 digit ranks so much?
If you have to "state, restate and restate" that you don't believe your players are idiots, maybe it's because your actions don't match your words.
It's going to end up like Lifesteal cards did and the past card texts will be rewritten (i.e. Wickerflame Burnbristle).
Spellshield seems like it would be a pretty good term for the effect, and even though it might imply that a card is shielded from just your opponent's spells, a lot of new players already make that mistake when they see cards with the current text anyway. I guess you might think that the card is able to block the effect of one spell, similar to Divine Shield, when you see the keyword, but the graphical difference, and the fact that that would be both way too similar to Divine Shield, would likely make it easy to distinguish the difference. Also, Shimmering Courser could simply stay with it's current text even if a keyword was added, or be changed slightly to say "Has Spellshield on your opponent's turn." or something like that.
Or just 'spell immunity'. Ala WC3.
Spell Immunity is better than shield. With Divine Shield in the game absorbing just a single hit, I think "Spellshield" may imply the same thing just that it absorbs a spell instead.
They probably wouldn't go with anything that has "Spell" in the name because it could make you think Hero Powers can still target it.
If only we had thigs that can express a certain explanation with some kimd of symbols or something
I guess Untargetable is a misleading, unintiutive, no good, very bad word.
EDIT: OK, fine it doesn't work.
Its not untargetable. weapon attacks and battlecries can target them
The problem is that the actual effect is "Can't be targeted by spells OR hero powers". The OR is the problem here. Anti-magic shell isn't a keyword that would cover this as some have suggested because hero powers can't target those minions too. I would hardly count a hunters arrow to be magic. Elusive sounds like you'd have a chance to miss it with any attack. Untargetable is just as misleading. As long as the effect is covering both of those immunities, its going to be a problem to have a single keyword that makes sense to a brand new player.
You have to remember that anyone on this website discussing this is not the person that this matters to when Blizzard makes this decision. We're already in. We already understand the game. We're coming at this from the perspective of someone who knows the effect already. The keyword discussion is 100% for new players to the game that don't have WoW as a reference. We're at a stage where the playerbase for Hearthstone has likely passed WoW with the occasional HS players who jump in on their phone or tablets. Referencing WoW effects won't help those people. It has to be a word that you see and know exactly what it means without needing to know Warcraft. If it isn't clear when you read it, then its not an effective keyword.
Laziness or incompetence. Easy answer.
why not using "arcane barrier"?
The taunt minions never made fun of me. My battlecry minion did something even though I never sent it into battle. (As noted) Lifesteal healed me and not the minion. I tried to discover something, but it was just cards that already existed in the game. I somehow was able to buff my on minion even though it had stealth.
Point is game interactions are inherently complicated, there really isn't a good single term to describe any effect, and no idea why the KISS explanation was rolled out again given it's poor showing in previous appearances.
Your criticism is a little willfully obtuse. Taunt comes with an obvious graphical representation, and is quite ubiquitous. Battlecry is too ubiquitous not to keyword. Discover is too complicated not to keyword. Stealth... is slightly problematic since you can target it yourself, but again, pretty ubiquitous, and hard to cram all the nuances into text on each card.
The effect we're talking about fits on the cards quite well, and is not ubiquitous. So comparing it to the rest of the effects clearly show that it's in a different category, so it's a judgement call at that point. But pretending it makes no sense at all to avoid keywording it is just a dishonest argument.
Another game developer used this excuse rather often in q&a, what followed was years of dumbing down that game until there was pretty much no interaction left. It certainly was profitable from a business perspective though as they've raked in millions by being attractive to bad players with big wallets.
Anyways what about "hollow" or something? All in all it's just a word and people will learn to know its purpose in no time even if that word was "potato"
Stupid potato taunt blocking my murlocs grr
Anyways my point is that if that's their excuse they may as well reverse lifesteal namechange because in a way it's confusing for a new player that the creature heals the hero and not itself.