We had a respectable turnout. Here are the constants that I used in the formula to calculate the scaled score for each entry:
Total number of all valid votes: 186
Total number of valid submissions: 19
Valid here means non-disqualified entries, and votes that were not given to disqualified entries.
Furthermore, some of the more experienced card creators might know a little... problem... Hearthpwn has had with its voting calculation. There are often times where people are very perplexed with how scores are calculated and are bewildered when a submission on a later page has a much higher calculated score than expected.
This has also led to the very unfortunate tactic of stalling. It is a known fact that, generally, people who post on later pages get a massive boost to their weighted score so participants would purposefully delay their entry until the last minute, and then call in on a few favours, getting a decent number of votes, just enough to ensure they would advance.
Now. This isn't as effective as it used to be as competitions used to be 5, 6, maybe even more, pages deep. We only have 2. That being said, with the old formula, participants still have a very high score.
As such, I have reworked the formula to better balance out scores. Entries on later pages still get a boost, but it is a much fairer amount. To keep it simple, the old formula does not scale very well with small extremes (values that are much smaller than the average). I have hoped to remedy that and, to keep it as transparent as possible, I will show you the two formulas I have used:
Formula One:(a × b) / c
Where:
a = total number of submissions
b = number of upvotes of a submission
c = total number of upvotes given
Formula One is used to calculate the base score.
Formula Two: ln(d) * b/e
Where:
b = number of upvotes of a submission
d = the page number
e = number of upvotes of a submission divided by the total number of upvotes on the page
Formula Two is used to calculate the page bonus. It is added to the base score.
ln(x), for those who do not know, is, simply put, is a curved line on a graph that increased as x increases, but does not scale in a straight line. As x grows, the value grows larger and larger in an upward curve. This allows for a much fairer increase in the boost page two, three, etc. gets.
Without further ado...
artimex723: 13 - 1.33
soupcake: 16 - 1.63
mcf4rtson: 25 - 2.55
ravennos: 25 - 2.55
rakio: 3 - 0.31
klipce: 18 - 1.84
whattheheck: 11 - 1.12
mardyvain: 6 - 0.61
mvontzeskagrad: 9 - 0.92
anatomy_of_time: 18 - 1.84
granduroi: 3 - 0.31
b3ckemon: 6 - 0.61
ballsmassive: 4 - 0.41
noah_mcgrath: 6 - 0.61
reizarion: 3 - 0.31
freddoccino: 5 - 0.51
sideitem: 7 - 0.72
jjgoldman: 3 - 0.31 + 0.26 = 0.57 (under the old formula: 0.75)
jengus: 5 - 0.51 + 0.43 = 0.94 (under the old formula: 1.25)
So... who makes it?
As there are 19 submissions, 4 phases, and the final phase must end with 4, this has forced me to cut five people each week.
You five have fought bravely and earnestly. Your submissions were excellent, but your competition was fierce. Better luck next time, and use this as a stepping stone for your next competition, should you choose to enter one.
For the rest of you fourteen survivors, I will drop the discussion thread around Thursday midnight, PST, along with the challenge and further FAQ.
Well congratulation for everone who made it ! It's good to see many entries but nowhere near the enormous numbers that made past competitions hard to follow. To those who couldn't make it, better luck next time. As far as the formula goes, it makes sense to me and I'll be satisfied as long as the number of votes is the most determining factor.
Since we get a break today, I figured I'd do a little something for everyone still in the race. I'm a self-proclamed huge Hero Power nerd so let's analyse Hero Powers ! I hope everyone can find something to think about for further designs and just enjoy the praise that might arise.
As general thoughts, I'd say a good Hero Power is simple and flexible. It should also be supported by class cards that make the most of it's effect and/or expand on it's applications. One should also have a few cards in mind when designing and balancing a Hero Power : Sir Finley Mrrgglton (Can your class work with a different Hero Power ? Can a different class work with your Hero Power ?), Justicar Truehearth/Baku the Mooneater (Can you find a simple way to improve your Hero Power ?) and Malygos (Only if your Hero Power adds a damaging spell to your hand or give extra mana).
@Artimex723 - Blood Drain
While I don't love the use of keywords on Hero Powers, it does save some space and allows the healing to scale with the damage. So you should mess with the damage a little bit. Mage has a few ways of boosting it's HP which you can use as inspiration (Fallen Hero, Ice Walker, Pyromaniac).
Overall, it's a good HP for a control playstyle but I can also see it supporting a more aggro/mid-range build, possibly with self damage as a way to gain tempo, Flame Imp style.
@SoupCake - Touch of Evil
The choice with your Hero Power is very intersting. I gives a lot of flexibility when ending the turn with extra mana to spend. Maybe you could make cards with bonus effects when you spend all your mana.
Hand buff also comes to mind. Bind is cool but maybe you can go a bit further with keywords or Beast synergy. You could also have minion summoning triggers like Crypt Lord.
You could also have hand size synergy, which would be another way to encourage players to keep the familars in hand.
Overall, I find the whole concept very interesting but you might want to give players more insentive to pick the more costly options.
@McF4rtson - Subterfuge
I've already talked a lot about this Hero Power but I must say I really like the current version. It gives the class a powerful weapon synergy. Being able to store damage for later is also quite interesting. If you go for a HP refresh theme, I think the class wcould really shine as a weapon expert.
You could also have effects triggered by your hero attacking or that improve your hero's attacks/next attack.
Overall, I like the flexibility that you have, being able to strike now or make the next attack more powerfull.
@ravennos - Serenity
Nice combination of offense and defense ! Both components open up a lot of interactions (Northshire Cleric and Satyr Overseer). I'm a bit worried that your return to hand mechanic might overshadow the healing in your class. Maybe you should add minions that benefit from being healed.
Overall, I like the options that you have and I hope you expand on them.
@whatTheHeck - Short-term Investment
First, I think you can simplify the wording to "Add a Gallywix's Coin to your hand".
Then, as far a synergies go, I think you started exploring them nicely with your basic set. Maybe you could add a few new things like "discard your lowest cost card" style effects to find new way to spend the coins. Also you could have effect that scale with the number of spells in your hand.
You might want to be careful with potential combos since your class offers a lot of extra mana. Malygos is my go-to problem card but you can also look at Mecha'thun shenanigans.
Overall, I like the potential of the class to stack a lot of mana for big swing turns but you have to be careful because mana manipulation often leads to problems in Hearthstone design.
@MardyVain - Sleep Stroke
I love the uniqueness of your Hero Power ! That being said, it seems a little weak to me. Healing isn't that strong and only being able to target your hero is a big constraint. Also I can almost only see the refresh restriction coming up in control matchups where healing face doesn't really matter. I think you should either give your HP a more powerful effect or drop the refreshing part.
In terms of synergy, healing is a bit limited but you can work with effects that trigger when your hero is healed or if your hero is at full health. Also refreshing your HP on you turn should be fine if it's just healing face.
Overall, it's interesting and a great base for a control playstyle, but it might need a little tweaking.
@MvonTzeskagrad - Enchanted Library
I'm not thrilled about the fact that your Hero Power does nothing on turn 2 but you make good use of the synergies. I've not seen hand size or hand buff so you could look at that.
Having a token minion can lead to personnalized synergy like Paladin and their Silver Hand Recruits.
Overall, I think you have a lot of options open to build upon your HP.
@Anatomy_of_time - Unstable Growth
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction.
In terms of opening up new synergies, I think you can work with hand size and low-cost discard to make use of the Razor Petals in a different way. You could also have effects triggered when you play a spell.
Overall, I think your HP is quite strong which you should take into consideration when balancing cards. It's basically Mage's HP but it's improved by Spell Damage and you can save the damage for later.
@B3ckemon - Create Concoction
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction. I'm especially concerned with Lightologist in conjonction with Dangerous Concoction.
You could explore hand size synergy and effects triggered when you play a spell.
Overall, I like the diversity and the flexibility but make sure it doesn't get out of control.
@Noah_McGrath - Blood to Fire
Great Hero Power and you already make good use of the synergies. I think you might want to explore switching damage to healing (reverse Auchenai Soulpriest).
Overall, I think you make good use of this HP but make sure to give the class enough healing options so it doesn't become impossible to use.
@Sideltem - Harness
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction. The randomness gives you more leeway but still.
Hand size and low cost discard could give you new ways of using the Vents. You can also have effects triggered by spells you play. Randomness can be manipulated which you might want to do.
Overall, I think your HP has a lot of power and you can give it a lot of depth but make sure that the combos aren't too easy to set up.
@JJGoldman - Contemplate
Interesting Hero Power but I think there are a couple of problems with it. Sir Finley Mrrgglton is the big one in my opinion. The thing is, Hearthstone is designed in a way that allows for a lot a shuffle between the classes. This is archieved by making sure that any class can use any card or HP regardless of what they started with. Here you add a secondary resource which might not be available in the course of the game or that can't be spend. This ends up creating many situations in which cards are useless.
Actually, if I remember correctly, Hearthstone designers wanted to give Demon Hunter this kind of mechanic (called Fury I think) and I think they had good reasons to scrap it.
So I think you could rework it by making Knowledge Crystals tokens, either spells or minions.
Overall, I like the new ressource pool but I think you should make sure that it works in the chaos of Hearthstone.
@Jengus - Six-shooter and Pinpointer
I love this Hero Power ! The improvement baked into it works really well and the pay-off is good but not busted.
It's a shame that none of your cards synergize with it... Maybe you could add manipulation of the randomness or HP refreshing effects to chain the damage. Mage cards from Rastakan's Rumble may be good inspirations.
Overall, I think your HP is great but could use a little more synergies.
I hope this helps a few people. See you tomorrow for week 2. I wonder if a class specific keyword will be required, I have a few things to say about that.
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The results are in!
We had a respectable turnout. Here are the constants that I used in the formula to calculate the scaled score for each entry:
Furthermore, some of the more experienced card creators might know a little... problem... Hearthpwn has had with its voting calculation. There are often times where people are very perplexed with how scores are calculated and are bewildered when a submission on a later page has a much higher calculated score than expected.
This has also led to the very unfortunate tactic of stalling. It is a known fact that, generally, people who post on later pages get a massive boost to their weighted score so participants would purposefully delay their entry until the last minute, and then call in on a few favours, getting a decent number of votes, just enough to ensure they would advance.
Now. This isn't as effective as it used to be as competitions used to be 5, 6, maybe even more, pages deep. We only have 2. That being said, with the old formula, participants still have a very high score.
As such, I have reworked the formula to better balance out scores. Entries on later pages still get a boost, but it is a much fairer amount. To keep it simple, the old formula does not scale very well with small extremes (values that are much smaller than the average). I have hoped to remedy that and, to keep it as transparent as possible, I will show you the two formulas I have used:
ln(x), for those who do not know, is, simply put, is a curved line on a graph that increased as x increases, but does not scale in a straight line. As x grows, the value grows larger and larger in an upward curve. This allows for a much fairer increase in the boost page two, three, etc. gets.
Without further ado...
So... who makes it?
As there are 19 submissions, 4 phases, and the final phase must end with 4, this has forced me to cut five people each week.
Rakio, Granduroi, Reizarion, Ballsmassive, Freddoccino.
You five have fought bravely and earnestly. Your submissions were excellent, but your competition was fierce. Better luck next time, and use this as a stepping stone for your next competition, should you choose to enter one.
For the rest of you fourteen survivors, I will drop the discussion thread around Thursday midnight, PST, along with the challenge and further FAQ.
Well congratulation for everone who made it ! It's good to see many entries but nowhere near the enormous numbers that made past competitions hard to follow. To those who couldn't make it, better luck next time. As far as the formula goes, it makes sense to me and I'll be satisfied as long as the number of votes is the most determining factor.
Since we get a break today, I figured I'd do a little something for everyone still in the race. I'm a self-proclamed huge Hero Power nerd so let's analyse Hero Powers ! I hope everyone can find something to think about for further designs and just enjoy the praise that might arise.
As general thoughts, I'd say a good Hero Power is simple and flexible. It should also be supported by class cards that make the most of it's effect and/or expand on it's applications. One should also have a few cards in mind when designing and balancing a Hero Power : Sir Finley Mrrgglton (Can your class work with a different Hero Power ? Can a different class work with your Hero Power ?), Justicar Truehearth/Baku the Mooneater (Can you find a simple way to improve your Hero Power ?) and Malygos (Only if your Hero Power adds a damaging spell to your hand or give extra mana).
@Artimex723 - Blood Drain
While I don't love the use of keywords on Hero Powers, it does save some space and allows the healing to scale with the damage. So you should mess with the damage a little bit. Mage has a few ways of boosting it's HP which you can use as inspiration (Fallen Hero, Ice Walker, Pyromaniac).
Your HP is also targeted, which you can manipulate as in Spirit of the Dragonhawk or Dwarven Sharpshooter.
Overall, it's a good HP for a control playstyle but I can also see it supporting a more aggro/mid-range build, possibly with self damage as a way to gain tempo, Flame Imp style.
@SoupCake - Touch of Evil
The choice with your Hero Power is very intersting. I gives a lot of flexibility when ending the turn with extra mana to spend. Maybe you could make cards with bonus effects when you spend all your mana.
Hand buff also comes to mind. Bind is cool but maybe you can go a bit further with keywords or Beast synergy. You could also have minion summoning triggers like Crypt Lord.
You could also have hand size synergy, which would be another way to encourage players to keep the familars in hand.
Overall, I find the whole concept very interesting but you might want to give players more insentive to pick the more costly options.
@McF4rtson - Subterfuge
I've already talked a lot about this Hero Power but I must say I really like the current version. It gives the class a powerful weapon synergy. Being able to store damage for later is also quite interesting. If you go for a HP refresh theme, I think the class wcould really shine as a weapon expert.
You could also have effects triggered by your hero attacking or that improve your hero's attacks/next attack.
Overall, I like the flexibility that you have, being able to strike now or make the next attack more powerfull.
@ravennos - Serenity
Nice combination of offense and defense ! Both components open up a lot of interactions (Northshire Cleric and Satyr Overseer). I'm a bit worried that your return to hand mechanic might overshadow the healing in your class. Maybe you should add minions that benefit from being healed.
Overall, I like the options that you have and I hope you expand on them.
@whatTheHeck - Short-term Investment
First, I think you can simplify the wording to "Add a Gallywix's Coin to your hand".
Then, as far a synergies go, I think you started exploring them nicely with your basic set. Maybe you could add a few new things like "discard your lowest cost card" style effects to find new way to spend the coins. Also you could have effect that scale with the number of spells in your hand.
You might want to be careful with potential combos since your class offers a lot of extra mana. Malygos is my go-to problem card but you can also look at Mecha'thun shenanigans.
Overall, I like the potential of the class to stack a lot of mana for big swing turns but you have to be careful because mana manipulation often leads to problems in Hearthstone design.
@MardyVain - Sleep Stroke
I love the uniqueness of your Hero Power ! That being said, it seems a little weak to me. Healing isn't that strong and only being able to target your hero is a big constraint. Also I can almost only see the refresh restriction coming up in control matchups where healing face doesn't really matter. I think you should either give your HP a more powerful effect or drop the refreshing part.
In terms of synergy, healing is a bit limited but you can work with effects that trigger when your hero is healed or if your hero is at full health. Also refreshing your HP on you turn should be fine if it's just healing face.
Overall, it's interesting and a great base for a control playstyle, but it might need a little tweaking.
@MvonTzeskagrad - Enchanted Library
I'm not thrilled about the fact that your Hero Power does nothing on turn 2 but you make good use of the synergies. I've not seen hand size or hand buff so you could look at that.
Having a token minion can lead to personnalized synergy like Paladin and their Silver Hand Recruits.
Overall, I think you have a lot of options open to build upon your HP.
@Anatomy_of_time - Unstable Growth
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction.
In terms of opening up new synergies, I think you can work with hand size and low-cost discard to make use of the Razor Petals in a different way. You could also have effects triggered when you play a spell.
Overall, I think your HP is quite strong which you should take into consideration when balancing cards. It's basically Mage's HP but it's improved by Spell Damage and you can save the damage for later.
@B3ckemon - Create Concoction
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction. I'm especially concerned with Lightologist in conjonction with Dangerous Concoction.
You could explore hand size synergy and effects triggered when you play a spell.
Overall, I like the diversity and the flexibility but make sure it doesn't get out of control.
@Noah_McGrath - Blood to Fire
Great Hero Power and you already make good use of the synergies. I think you might want to explore switching damage to healing (reverse Auchenai Soulpriest).
Overall, I think you make good use of this HP but make sure to give the class enough healing options so it doesn't become impossible to use.
@Sideltem - Harness
You Hero Power is interesting and the class seems to really revolve around it. Make sure Sir Finley doesn't mess up you cards too much. You should also be careful with Malygos and cost reduction. The randomness gives you more leeway but still.
Hand size and low cost discard could give you new ways of using the Vents. You can also have effects triggered by spells you play. Randomness can be manipulated which you might want to do.
Overall, I think your HP has a lot of power and you can give it a lot of depth but make sure that the combos aren't too easy to set up.
@JJGoldman - Contemplate
Interesting Hero Power but I think there are a couple of problems with it. Sir Finley Mrrgglton is the big one in my opinion. The thing is, Hearthstone is designed in a way that allows for a lot a shuffle between the classes. This is archieved by making sure that any class can use any card or HP regardless of what they started with. Here you add a secondary resource which might not be available in the course of the game or that can't be spend. This ends up creating many situations in which cards are useless.
Actually, if I remember correctly, Hearthstone designers wanted to give Demon Hunter this kind of mechanic (called Fury I think) and I think they had good reasons to scrap it.
So I think you could rework it by making Knowledge Crystals tokens, either spells or minions.
Overall, I like the new ressource pool but I think you should make sure that it works in the chaos of Hearthstone.
@Jengus - Six-shooter and Pinpointer
I love this Hero Power ! The improvement baked into it works really well and the pay-off is good but not busted.
It's a shame that none of your cards synergize with it... Maybe you could add manipulation of the randomness or HP refreshing effects to chain the damage. Mage cards from Rastakan's Rumble may be good inspirations.
Overall, I think your HP is great but could use a little more synergies.
I hope this helps a few people. See you tomorrow for week 2. I wonder if a class specific keyword will be required, I have a few things to say about that.