Hearthpwn

Quote from nobravery >>

Now that the whole competition is over, finally I can write a review on the entire competition and our finalists and some of the semi-finalists.

Before starting to comment on the classes themselves, I think we must consider a rather general question: "why do we make new classes?" Well, you answer might be, "because that's what the competition requires us to do." So I'll ask the question in a more appropriate way: "WHY DOES BLIZZARD PROVIDE US WITH 9 DIFFERENT CLASSES IN HEARTHSTONE?"

The answer to this question is quite explicit (to me, at least): they want to provide players with alternative gaming experience (I'm not sure for the term. By 'gaming experience', I mean the part of the game that players enjoy, and by 'alternative gaming experience' I mean players can choose in what styles they want to play the game). In fact, it is a common sense in the online game circle that games should always provide players with alternative gaming experience, so that players with different interest can all enjoy the game. And the easiest way to provide alternative gaming experience is to make different heroes. All those MMORPG games, MOBA games, and even FPS games like Overwatch, they all have alternative heroes so as to attract different players. And I think that's why Blizzard divides Hearthstone into 9 classes: each class should provide one or more different playstyles that you cannot obtain by playing other classes.

Take the classic set for example. Control Warrior, Freeze Mage, Miracle Rogue, Face Hunter, Handlock, Ramp Druid - these decks have very different playstyles and thus anyone of them cannot be replaced by any other deck from the classic set. And this is why I don't like Paladin and Shaman in the classic set: these two classes didn't provide any unique gaming experience for players at that time; and since they don't contribute to players' gaming experience, why do you make them? Just for lore reasons and to satisfy all those warcraft fans? This is simply ridiculous since Hearthstone is not part of WoW but an independent card game (sorry for my lack of vocabulary; I don't mean the term 'independent game' but saying 'independent card game'. I just mean that Hearthstone should independently stand on its own). Even nowadays, the class identity of Shaman is still not clear; we already have Anyfin Paladin which is a unique deck, but it seems to me that every Shaman deck has its dual deck in other classes: Aggro Shaman and Face Hunter, Midrange Shaman and Midrange Paladin (in GVG), Totem Shaman and Token Druid, Malygos Shaman and Malygos Priest, N'Zoth Shaman and other N'Zoth decks. Since Shaman does not provide us with brand new gaming experience, why should the class exist? By the law of Occam's Razor, anything that brings no benefit to the game should not be added to it. (Since they can't delete Shaman due to lore reasons, probably they should redefine the class identity or even rework on the whole class; Shaman in the current game is just too boring to play)

When it comes to our CCC, the same issue also appears. When browsing the work of other competitors, I often wonder, "What kinds of gaming experience do you expect for you class? Why SHOULD we add a new class to the current game if it does not contribute to players' gaming experience?" I feel that, many of my fellow competitors have not paid much attention to this problem. They want their classes to be consistent on lore and flavor; they want their classes to be balanced; they want their classes to have flashy and shiny cards; but they ignored the most important part of their class - do players feel entertained when playing a deck from your class? Take Mysterious Challenger for instance. The card itself is elegant and neat; it pushes a brand new decktype; and it also helped Paladin out from one of the least played classes ever since Naxx. But, IS IT FUN TO PLAY SECRET PALADIN? No. Not at all.

OK, now you may be wondering, since we can't actually play a custom class in the game, how can we judge whether a class provides a good gaming experience? Well, it is absolutely right that we won't know how the class would behave if it were part of the game, but at least we can build our own decks and show the audience how the class is intended to be. Remember: when we are playing the game, the gaming experience of us is not decided by a specific class, but a specific deck; and thus, the basic unit of our design is in fact not a class, but a deck. This is why I've built several decks for my class through out the process of the competition and included 4 of them in my final post. I also saw @Turkeybag built several decks for their class and even playtested them. I think this is the proper attitude one should have when creating their own class - even if the decks are not well built, they at least show how the class is supposed to work.

Now let's come to the 4 finalists of this competition:

• "THE WORGEN" by nurgling13
• "THE CHRONOMANCER" by thepowrofcheese
• "THE FLAME WIELDER" by SanderNightsite
• "THE ALCHEMIST" by nobravery

After reading the work of my fellow competitors, I feel that these 4 classes can be roughly divided into two groups: Worgen and Alchemist are ones that care more about gameplay, and Chronomancer and Flame Wielder are ones that care more about lore and flavor. I'll review them one by one.

Worgen by @nurgling13: I thought @thepowrofcheese would win the finale according to the replies in this post. So when I woke up this morning and saw the result, I was quite surprised. In fact, I do like Worgen more than Chronomancer, because I can feel @nurgling13 's effort in trying to bring brand new gaming experience for players. The main theme of the class is form shift - you transform between human and worgen and each form benefits from different cards. This is something we don't have in the current Hearthstone. As for the other themes of Worgen class, I'm not quite keen on them, since most of them can be found in existing classes already. But the main theme of the class is enough for them to win the competition. I think @nurgling13 does deserve the crown.

Chronomancer by @thepowrofcheese: If I remember correctly, Chronomancer is always among the top 3 most-voted classes through out the whole competition. I understand why people vote for it, 'cause @thepowrofcheese did quite well in the flavor of their class, and people in this site always vote for 'delicious' cards in WDC. But I always feel that @thepowrofcheese did not put as much focus on Chronomancer's gameplay and gaming experience as they put into the flavor part of the class. Take the example cards for instance. While the card Paradox does have an astoundingly good flavor, it brings nothing new to players' gaming experience. This also happens to many of the other cards of the Chronomancer class. Also, the hero power is quite broken in arena (this is probably the only hero power you can always coin out to use on turn 1, which shows how broken it is). However, the class does have some themes that we can build around - Fatigue and Duplicates. But due to the way @thepowrofcheese sort their finale post (the post ends after listing all the cards of the class; no more explanations on them are made), I don't know if they have any ideas about how such a deck would be like.

Flame Wielder by @SanderNightsite: Asylum said in the finale discussion post that they didn't expect the class to go that far in the competition, and this is also what I feel about the class. As I've said before, Flame Wielder is a class that cares more about lore and flavor than gameplay; the class itself has so little identity (apart from all those fire-themed arts) that, when Asylum asked us to make 3 cards related to our fellow finalists, I did not know what I should do in order to show the Flame Wielder's theme. The Magma Rager theme is something similar to those Silver Hand Recruit synergies Paladin already has (Muster for Battle, Quartermaster, etc), but in a meme way so that people vote for it. 'Do something for each enemy minion' is a mechanic that you can't build around. Dragon synergy is just what we've seen a lot. I really don't see what kinds of new gaming experience the class can give to players.

Alchemist by @nobravery: I'm not going to review my own class. Anything worth mentioning are already said in my finale post. There's one thing I have to admit: I did not consider anything about lore and flavor when making the class, but focused on gameplay only. This may not be what people want to see in such a competition. I sorted my class by mechanic rather than expansion ever since Phase II; many people had complaint about the way I sort my class, but I never changed it. This is what I insist in. If you don't care about gameplay, what you make can only be 'fan creations'; but I do feel that this CCC is a competition where we attempt to make 'game designs'.

By the way, @maxlot 's THE KING was the class I adored most among all other classes apart from mine. It does provide a new playstyle and brings more things to consider, namely the rarity of cards, when building a deck. The keyword Promote is a bit complex and this is probably why they didn't make it to the final. But I strongly recommend anyone who sees this read their class.