One person, Jengus, has asked me if he was allowed to add mechanics such as Sidequests into expansions that did not originally have them. In this particular case, I said no, but the questions was then expanded to other semi-permanent mechanics, namely Hero Cards.
Would you guys like an option to add Hero Cards and/or Quests into expansions that did not feature them?
In my own opinion, I personally stand against quests and sidequests. There is always more than one class that receives them in an expac. Although Jengus makes a comparison to sidequests being a bit like Secrets and how Rogue randomly got some, my point still stands that multiple classes need to get quests at the same time, *and* Secrets are a permanent keyword, unlike Quests.
As for Hero Cards, I have had a restriction on them for a very long time since they just inherently give any class with them a huge boost compared to the others. In addition, I suspect if I allow them, everyone's going to make one. And, lastly, we all know what happens when just one class gets a Hero and the others do not, it ain't pretty.
I think hero cards should be allowed. Warlock has had one since forever and it currently doesn't break the game. Hagatha and Zul'jin also weren't very game breaking imho. I wouldn't allow quests in nun-quest expansions because I agree that they would look out of place in a lot of expansions.
A hero card doesn't need to be gamebreaking, it just needs to give a large advantage to a class, and zuljin did that. Hagatha was possibly the weakest hero card, but then you also have Dr. Boom.
Warlock's hero card is different since it used to set your health down to 15. It was brought back due to having been in the classic, so that's a different scenario.
You have a point, but limiting where there can be heroes might end up being pretty weird. For example, Boomsday could have heroes just because warrior got one but an expansion where getting a hero might make thematic sense for a contestant's class could not have heroes.
The whole core set thing is a nightmare to deal with, so the contest needs to be post-core. If some people had their class start in GvG, someone else did uldum, then it's just so difficult getting everyone to do the same number of cards with the same number of rarity ratios. Therefore, the whole banning before kft is a moot point.
This also makes your second point moot, since no post-core expansion set had a hero card.
To address your final point, if you are only coming from a thematic standpoint, then I must say no. You can still stay on theme by just making a legendary minion. Balancing among the custom classes as well as the in-game classes needs to be at the forefront.
To be clear, I asked this question to foster discussion, so if you do bring up a point that makes me change my mind, I am happy to agree. Already, I am considering some sort of compromise which involves allowing the use of a single hero card, but giving you a lot of restrictions on your other cards that week.
I'm against adding Quests and Heroes to expansion that didn't give one to every class. These types of cards where introduced very deliberatly as part of the flavor of the expansion they were in. Also, they are pretty limited in terms of design : Quests have to be 1 Mana spells that you build your deck around and then rewards you with a bug spike of power ; Heroes have to be high cost big power boosts that change your hero power. At the end of the day, I think designing a class is more than making flashy legendaries.
Side question : now that a new expansion should be out when we get to week 5, do we go with that ? It seems to have the same "issue" of being really tied to WoW but I gotta admit that it fits the class I have in mind pretty well. I liked being able to choose an expansion that fit my class in previous contests, I think that can make things easier.That being said, I also like the idea that all the contestants are working on the same/most recent expansion. I think one week of each would be cool. Maybe week 4 is any expansion we choose for flavor and then week 5 we have to choose Horde or Alliance ?
After much discussion with my friend, here is what I came up with:
So week one and two are still Basic and Initiate.
Week Three is now *any* Pre-Core set. I realized the fact that I am making you guys do both a Basic and Initiate set basically allows you to set up anywhere pre-core like DH did. This makes the Basic set even more important than ever.
In-between Weeks three and four, you compile your Core set.
Week Four (or Five, we'll see) is now any Post-Core set. Since we're already jumping around anyways, giving people the flexibility to choose between Horde or Alliance might help a bit. If there are five weeks, then we will do both post-Core expansions.
So, the rules around Hero Cards are now if the expansion had multiple hero cards, then you are allowed to make one.
For the record, I was trying to pass a card like this by McF4rtson and he probably, quite rightfully said no;
I was trying to stretch some of the established 'deciduous' concepts to fit into my class frame. I'm of the mind that though we haven't seen examples of Quests or sidequests appearing in a single class only for an expansion, it's still within the spirit of Hearthstone design ethos. Quests, Heroes and few other minor effects tend to cycle in and out of design space, and with situations like Rogue secrets I believe that the team can easily expand their parameters to encompass a broad stroke of design space that we as creators tend to think of as inaccessible without a prior example.
What I don't have however, is a way to point to what is and isn't a balanced use of that broad stroke. While I'm suggesting more freedom in design space, generally the motto that limiting design space promotes creativity holds true. And, in the end it's McF4rtson's contest so his wisdom will hold true. I'm advocating for more space to construct interesting new concepts in the vein of Hearthstone, but as I don't have a solid limiter and yardstick to hold ideas by I'm not going to be upset if we go ahead with the usual lockouts on design space. No doubt that running any given contest is hard enough without us bringing in some of the harder to police tangent ideas we all have.
Looking forward to when the full contest starts off!
Since both jengus and thenameforgotten both want hero cards, a tentative compromise that I stated above is in consideration, where if you want a hero card in an expansion had only a single hero card, that would come with hefty challenges. In al honesty, I do not like this approach, so this runs the risk of just causing your hero card to hard carry your class and when it rotates, it'll be like shudderwock rotating out of shaman. However, since a hero card does have the potential to be overbearingly strong, I cannot think of another way to balance out a brand new class with a strong initiate set also having a hero card over most other classes not having one.
I can get behind a hero card if there is a specific challenge associated with it. Maybe make a hero card that costs 5 or less ? Or make a hero card that actually downgrades your hero power ? Making a card for a specific WoW character (kinda like Jaraxxus) ? I would be okay with that but this is kinda hard to make sure that everyone is on board. I think if nothing else saying no to hero cards will avoid issues down the line. Folks can still pick KotFT as their 1st expansion if they really want to make that hero card, or they can rework their card into a legendary minion or spell, or they can make a card that givs the hero power they want to give. I see how limits can be frustrating but we're always working with them and like I said I don't think hero cards open enough design space to warrant an exception. Truth be told, I'd be happy to have upgrading cards or dual-class cards available in any expansion but I think we're better off sticking to established boundries, if only for the sake of fairness and consistancy.
Regarding Hero cards, I believe it would be fair to allow them, as in Hearthstone we have an example of Lord Jarraxus. I myself have already prepared most of my initiate set and don't plan on making a Hero card, but I see no reason why we shouldn't allow other participants to do so. Yes, Hero cards are usually very strong, sometimes even a buildaround, but we can really say the same about Legendaries in general. Balance can be an issue, but it's the participants' job to make their class fair and not over- or underwhelming. It's not a big deal for me, but again, I don't see a reason to make Hero Cards forbidden in the initiate set.
I don't think you need to register anywhere. Just post your basic set during the first part and you're in.
All rules and information will be written in a new thread by McF4rtson as soon as the competition starts.
One person, Jengus, has asked me if he was allowed to add mechanics such as Sidequests into expansions that did not originally have them. In this particular case, I said no, but the questions was then expanded to other semi-permanent mechanics, namely Hero Cards.
Would you guys like an option to add Hero Cards and/or Quests into expansions that did not feature them?
In my own opinion, I personally stand against quests and sidequests. There is always more than one class that receives them in an expac. Although Jengus makes a comparison to sidequests being a bit like Secrets and how Rogue randomly got some, my point still stands that multiple classes need to get quests at the same time, *and* Secrets are a permanent keyword, unlike Quests.
As for Hero Cards, I have had a restriction on them for a very long time since they just inherently give any class with them a huge boost compared to the others. In addition, I suspect if I allow them, everyone's going to make one. And, lastly, we all know what happens when just one class gets a Hero and the others do not, it ain't pretty.
I think hero cards should be allowed. Warlock has had one since forever and it currently doesn't break the game. Hagatha and Zul'jin also weren't very game breaking imho. I wouldn't allow quests in nun-quest expansions because I agree that they would look out of place in a lot of expansions.
A hero card doesn't need to be gamebreaking, it just needs to give a large advantage to a class, and zuljin did that. Hagatha was possibly the weakest hero card, but then you also have Dr. Boom.
Warlock's hero card is different since it used to set your health down to 15. It was brought back due to having been in the classic, so that's a different scenario.
You have a point, but limiting where there can be heroes might end up being pretty weird. For example, Boomsday could have heroes just because warrior got one but an expansion where getting a hero might make thematic sense for a contestant's class could not have heroes.
What about allowing heroes in expansions where there was at least 1 hero in standard? So, basically just banning heroes before Frozen Thrones.
The whole core set thing is a nightmare to deal with, so the contest needs to be post-core. If some people had their class start in GvG, someone else did uldum, then it's just so difficult getting everyone to do the same number of cards with the same number of rarity ratios. Therefore, the whole banning before kft is a moot point.
This also makes your second point moot, since no post-core expansion set had a hero card.
To address your final point, if you are only coming from a thematic standpoint, then I must say no. You can still stay on theme by just making a legendary minion. Balancing among the custom classes as well as the in-game classes needs to be at the forefront.
To be clear, I asked this question to foster discussion, so if you do bring up a point that makes me change my mind, I am happy to agree. Already, I am considering some sort of compromise which involves allowing the use of a single hero card, but giving you a lot of restrictions on your other cards that week.
I'm against adding Quests and Heroes to expansion that didn't give one to every class. These types of cards where introduced very deliberatly as part of the flavor of the expansion they were in. Also, they are pretty limited in terms of design : Quests have to be 1 Mana spells that you build your deck around and then rewards you with a bug spike of power ; Heroes have to be high cost big power boosts that change your hero power. At the end of the day, I think designing a class is more than making flashy legendaries.
Side question : now that a new expansion should be out when we get to week 5, do we go with that ? It seems to have the same "issue" of being really tied to WoW but I gotta admit that it fits the class I have in mind pretty well. I liked being able to choose an expansion that fit my class in previous contests, I think that can make things easier. That being said, I also like the idea that all the contestants are working on the same/most recent expansion. I think one week of each would be cool. Maybe week 4 is any expansion we choose for flavor and then week 5 we have to choose Horde or Alliance ?
After much discussion with my friend, here is what I came up with:
So week one and two are still Basic and Initiate.
Week Three is now *any* Pre-Core set. I realized the fact that I am making you guys do both a Basic and Initiate set basically allows you to set up anywhere pre-core like DH did. This makes the Basic set even more important than ever.
In-between Weeks three and four, you compile your Core set.
Week Four (or Five, we'll see) is now any Post-Core set. Since we're already jumping around anyways, giving people the flexibility to choose between Horde or Alliance might help a bit. If there are five weeks, then we will do both post-Core expansions.
So, the rules around Hero Cards are now if the expansion had multiple hero cards, then you are allowed to make one.
For the record, I was trying to pass a card like this by McF4rtson and he probably, quite rightfully said no;
I was trying to stretch some of the established 'deciduous' concepts to fit into my class frame. I'm of the mind that though we haven't seen examples of Quests or sidequests appearing in a single class only for an expansion, it's still within the spirit of Hearthstone design ethos. Quests, Heroes and few other minor effects tend to cycle in and out of design space, and with situations like Rogue secrets I believe that the team can easily expand their parameters to encompass a broad stroke of design space that we as creators tend to think of as inaccessible without a prior example.
What I don't have however, is a way to point to what is and isn't a balanced use of that broad stroke. While I'm suggesting more freedom in design space, generally the motto that limiting design space promotes creativity holds true. And, in the end it's McF4rtson's contest so his wisdom will hold true. I'm advocating for more space to construct interesting new concepts in the vein of Hearthstone, but as I don't have a solid limiter and yardstick to hold ideas by I'm not going to be upset if we go ahead with the usual lockouts on design space. No doubt that running any given contest is hard enough without us bringing in some of the harder to police tangent ideas we all have.
Looking forward to when the full contest starts off!
Since both jengus and thenameforgotten both want hero cards, a tentative compromise that I stated above is in consideration, where if you want a hero card in an expansion had only a single hero card, that would come with hefty challenges. In al honesty, I do not like this approach, so this runs the risk of just causing your hero card to hard carry your class and when it rotates, it'll be like shudderwock rotating out of shaman. However, since a hero card does have the potential to be overbearingly strong, I cannot think of another way to balance out a brand new class with a strong initiate set also having a hero card over most other classes not having one.
I can get behind a hero card if there is a specific challenge associated with it. Maybe make a hero card that costs 5 or less ? Or make a hero card that actually downgrades your hero power ? Making a card for a specific WoW character (kinda like Jaraxxus) ? I would be okay with that but this is kinda hard to make sure that everyone is on board. I think if nothing else saying no to hero cards will avoid issues down the line. Folks can still pick KotFT as their 1st expansion if they really want to make that hero card, or they can rework their card into a legendary minion or spell, or they can make a card that givs the hero power they want to give. I see how limits can be frustrating but we're always working with them and like I said I don't think hero cards open enough design space to warrant an exception. Truth be told, I'd be happy to have upgrading cards or dual-class cards available in any expansion but I think we're better off sticking to established boundries, if only for the sake of fairness and consistancy.
Regarding Hero cards, I believe it would be fair to allow them, as in Hearthstone we have an example of Lord Jarraxus. I myself have already prepared most of my initiate set and don't plan on making a Hero card, but I see no reason why we shouldn't allow other participants to do so. Yes, Hero cards are usually very strong, sometimes even a buildaround, but we can really say the same about Legendaries in general. Balance can be an issue, but it's the participants' job to make their class fair and not over- or underwhelming. It's not a big deal for me, but again, I don't see a reason to make Hero Cards forbidden in the initiate set.