Blizzard Addresses Problems - Tess Greymane, Shudderwock, Quest Druid at HCT Seoul
- An update on June 8th, PDT, will change some cards.
- Tess Greymane's Battlecry will once again continue even if she is destroyed, silenced, or removed.
- Shudderwock's Battlecry limit will be increased to 30, from 20.
- Players with Quest Druid decks at HCT Seoul are allowed to submit a new list if they wish due to changes.
- Ultimately, they only want to give out dust refunds if a card has a "decrease [in] their overall power level for balance purposes".
Quote from Jesse HillGreetings,
Thank you for your feedback regarding the recent Update 11.2. We apologize for not offering notice in advance of these changes before they went live. We understand that this wasn’t a good experience and that it also had an impact on some of our esports competitors as well. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, and we’ll do better in the future.
Update 11.2 brought with it some changes as part of our ongoing, overall goal to make card interactions more intuitive across the board. The intention of some of those changes was to align four similar cards (Tess Greymane, Lynessa, Shudderwock, and Yogg-Saron). If you’re familiar with the way that one of these minions works, you should be able to guess how the others work. We added a cap to the maximum number of effects that can be generated by these Battlecries, and made Tess’ Battlecry end if she was destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed, just like Yogg-Saron.
After hearing your feedback to that change, we initially considered offering a full Arcane Dust refund for Tess. We also read feedback from players who use Tess in their decks asking for her to be reverted to her old functionality. In this case, we agree that it’s worthwhile to sacrifice some consistency so Tess is more fun to play, especially since our priority wasn’t to decrease Tess’ power level. With that in mind, instead of offering an Arcane Dust refund and encouraging players to disenchant the card, we’re reverting one of the changes to Tess Greymane so that her Battlecry will continue even if she’s destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed from the board.
This situation has also raised discussions regarding the definition of a card fix versus a dust-refunding nerf, so we thought this would be a good time to talk about our stance on the subject.
We will continue to provide full Arcane Dust refunds for changes to cards that decrease their overall power level for balance purposes — in other words, card nerfs.
We’re working to improve Hearthstone and make the underlying mechanics more intuitive. Bug fixes or system-wide mechanics changes to improve the game will not be grounds for a full Arcane Dust refund on a card. System-wide mechanical updates affect many different cards in ways that could make some more or less powerful, such as the interaction between Jungle Giants and Faceless Manipulator.
Lynessa Sunsorrow was never intended to apply her buffs in the order they were cast, so the update to her functionality in 11.2 was a bug fix for that card. The cap of 30 effects is a system-wide change intended to protect the service and players from potentially bad play experiences that have minimal player value. We’re planning to raise the cap of Shudderwock’s Battlecry from 20 to 30 when we implement the fix that reverts Tess, as well.
We’re currently planning to revert the change that caused Tess Greymane to stop casting her Battlecry when destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed on June 8th PDT.
HCT Seoul and Quest Druid
We also would like to take this moment to apologize to our player community for this update’s impact on the HCT Tour Stop taking place in Seoul this weekend, specifically the 15 players who brought Quest Druid decks.
After considering recent feedback and significant discussion, we felt that Quest Druid decks were most directly affected in terms of viability as a result of the changes that were introduced with Update 11.2. As such, we allowed players that brought Quest Druid an opportunity to resubmit their deck.
Balancing the health of the game with the needs and calendar of a global esport like the Hearthstone Championship Tour is always challenging. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, for us, our players, and competitors, and we’ll do better in the future.
Thanks again for your feedback and your understanding, and we'll see you in the Tavern.
what's the change to quest druid? didn't find anything in the patch notes? will we get a refund?
Apparently Faceless Manipulator was pretty significant for completing the quest (on a revenant - suddenly you're at 4/5; or a turn 4 Giant vs Evenlock...) and now that interaction doesn't work
It's not direct change to quest druid, but to tranaform in general.
Transforming cards don't count for "summon" or "play" effects like quest druid, so faceless manipulator and druid of the fang no longer count, but I think it also means these minions that are transforming become immune to secrets that care about minions being played/summoned...
Oh I see... hmmm well it's a nerf though.. I think they should refund quest druid and faceless.. it's a nerf for a none problematic deck..
Why would they refund for the Druid quest, they didn’t change the card?
They didn’t nerf faceless either, just changed how it interacted with the board when it is played
They directly nerfed the effectiveness of a deck, it's no different than nerfing quest rogue from 4 to 5 triggers, it makes the deck worse in general it's unintentional but people who did craft the deck are getting their deck nerfed.
besides the fact that this change made the card weaker on many occasions..
They acknowledged that this was indeed something that hit that deck, it's not a direct nerf so maybe not quest druid but faceless did got hit..
Well I guess I don't play quest druid, would be mad if I actually crafted the deck but fine.. poor fr0zen though.
This change marginally affected some fun decks for about a day.
Trust the Hearthstone community to be dramatic as fuck over tiny shit.
Yeah the Lynessa logic wouldn't be a problem for me if Kobolds wasn't released half a damn year ago. Come on Blizz.
Sooooo....can't we just submit a petition to 'buff' Yogg-Saron to his old version? (please)
I don't understand how some people can love this clownish card..
You don't need to. But Tess and Yogg share the same mechanics. Or should share the same mechanics. I never played Yogg but l'm all in for the reverse. I mean, they reversed Molten Giant too right?
No, we can't. Just focus and try to win games with brain and not a lotto lottery.
Yogg is fine where it is now. It's a fun card and if You JUST want to have fun then don't expect to win often.
Please no, wild is crazy enough without an un-nerfed Yogg in the mix.
Some? It was tournament meta card :P
But it's so much fun!
What about the bug with silence stopping shudderwock casting a battlecry?
That is not the bug AnAngryBadger talking about though. With the last patch there was a bug if you silence Saronite Chain Gang or Grumble. Shudderwock wouldn't cast their battlecries. They fixed it hours before hct with this patch.
Ah didn't realise it was fixed, thank you
Almost any other game provides with some apologizing gifts for such problems.
But never Blizzard.
Small indie company...
Firstly: No, not all games. Apparently just a few.
Secondly: Blizzard has given out apologizing gifts, as well. How are cards getting balanced a "problem" that need an apology? We can discuss, yeah, but none of these changes are game breaking.
Blizzard waits too long for a change ==> bad. Blizzard fixes it ==> bad, we want gifts. Could you just stop bashing and actually contribute something constructive? I mean, they even say they want constructive feedback, because people have yet to understand that you can interact with blizzard. Much more than with many other devs, by the way.