Honnestly, I can't remember most cards exist so I'm super grateful for reminders of what is already out there and how it compares to my cards. That being said, I think the balance that we try to infuse in our custom cards is always a guesstimation. Even Blizzard designers don't come up with the perfect balance on their first go, it takes hours of playtest and feedback to get there. We can used existing cards as a benchmark but I'm not too worried about making something stronger than an underwhelming card.
Thanks for the feedback on Backstreet Cutthroat. While designing that card, I kind of wanted it to be strong. As a point of reference I used SI:7 Agent, which is a class card and a relatively old one too. For 1 more mana I changed the combo effect for a Battlecry (which is worth around 0.5 mana usually), added 1 attack (worth around 0.25 mana) and added 1 damage to the effect (worth around 0.25 mana). I know my logic won't work with some of the cards you mentioned, but:
a) some of them are neutral, so they should be weaker than class cards.
b) They are expansion cards (older ones too). Even if you compare the power level between them, you can find out that some are just naturally under- or overpowered. It's Blizzard's card design philosophy.
ugh, I somehow forgot about Eggnapper when making Toadmancer, was thinking more about Haunted Creeper. Still, I believe my card isn't strict powercreep, 'cause you can't play it in any other class, and my class lack area buffs, I'm kinda worried that makes Toadmancer not realy original though. If I will ever expand Witch Doctor outside of comp, I'll probably try to tweak it a bit.
Edit: also, it's arguable if a class card is a powercreep, if the powercreeped card is neutral, or of another class. Like, it may prove to be difficult to play Treenforcements over Blazing Battlemage in Warlock, becuase you just can't. Furthermore if you have two Exact cards, one is a class card, the other neutral, I'd say the Neutral one powercreeps class one, simpl because you may put it in other classes.
@JeanTheMedicRat Its a fair point about the text but sometimes there ain't many ways to shorten text without it becoming confusing to understand. And as for the shuffle, I actually looked back at all shuffle cards and found out there are like 2 cards in total that shuffle stuff from your hand into your deck so there wasn't much to go on but like you said, the mechanic about choosing cards doesn't exist yet so one can only presume it's random :P Also I have noticed on cards in the game that they do fluctuate with including the word "random" Like when they say "Add a spell to your hand" or "Add a random spell to your hand", If you you at Wandmaker for example or Nexus.
However if they're the only negatives you can find, I don't think I've done so bad... I did notice a grammar mistake in one of my showcase cards however, I'd take complete blame for that one.
Sorry I've been inactive towards the end part of phase 1. Feedback now is a bit useless but i thought i'd at least comment on a few balance problems i saw a lot of people make in the submission thread.
My main criticism is your Keryword. It works fine as an *expansion* keyword, but as a class one it's kinda bad. Lets look a bit at class keywords in game: Combo is a condition for an effect, Choose one is a choice between 2 effects, Outcast is a condition for an effect, Overload is the only bad one, like all shaman things in general, but it acts as a drawback to powerful effects. You get the trend? None of them are things in of themselves, but conditions for other stuff. How is infected going to work out? You'll have cards that infect minions, ok, but they all do the same thing, they won't be original. What i'm trying to say is that it's too limited, it doesn't allow for innovation. It's not the condition of something cool to happen, it IS the "cool" thing that's happening.
The mill cards are fine but i believe they won't be received well by the audience, mill decks are pretty hated by the community at large.
Hey mate, thanks for your feedback. I totally understand what you mean and I thought about it before going into development of this class. It's a fair point but i tend to disagree with it because of Freeze. Even though is not an exclusive mage keyboard is largely featured in its cards and playstyle and mechanic wise is pretty similar. I'll try my best to get the most out of it and be as creative as possible with what i got...if it doesn't work i know what to avoid in the future :P
About the mill Cards i got a bunch of DOT ready to be shuffled into the opponent deck and a few interaction in mind with Fatigue... hopefully I will have the chances to showcase them :)
I agree a lot of old cards are bad, but we have to use something for reference still. I try to not just copy an old card and slap an extra efect or +1 attack or health on top in an effort to find original and fresh ideas. Plus, the basic set is supposed to be pretty low power level in general with vanilla level balance.
Of course i am only 1 person i don't devide the absolutes, but i do believe that if powercreep is generally not liked by the community and your card is an obvious powercreep, you will leave a less favorable impression on the voters.
I only point out how cards stack up with already existing cards, mainly cause i played this game for so long i know every single card in it. It's up to everyone to device whether to change their cards or not.
Cards that seem "strictly better" than other cards can get a negative impression (ice rager to magma rager) but if there's even a tiny difference, such as Steel Rager to Magma Rager, the community generally doesn't mind. Being in a different class can be one of those things.
Btw, Balance is really not very important early in design. First you've got to figure out if the card's design is fun, elegant, and thematic - and if the decks it encourages are fun to play with too. Balance needs to be kept somewhere near sanity (no 3-cost 10/10s), but I wouldn't focus hugely on balance when reviewing if the card isn't obviously, blatantly overpowered or underpowered. Espescially within a new class, as different classes have different power levels for their cards (warlock cards have to be weaker because their hero power is so strong, classes with awesome classic cards need to be weaker, etc).
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Honnestly, I can't remember most cards exist so I'm super grateful for reminders of what is already out there and how it compares to my cards. That being said, I think the balance that we try to infuse in our custom cards is always a guesstimation. Even Blizzard designers don't come up with the perfect balance on their first go, it takes hours of playtest and feedback to get there. We can used existing cards as a benchmark but I'm not too worried about making something stronger than an underwhelming card.
Thanks for the feedback on Backstreet Cutthroat. While designing that card, I kind of wanted it to be strong. As a point of reference I used SI:7 Agent, which is a class card and a relatively old one too. For 1 more mana I changed the combo effect for a Battlecry (which is worth around 0.5 mana usually), added 1 attack (worth around 0.25 mana) and added 1 damage to the effect (worth around 0.25 mana). I know my logic won't work with some of the cards you mentioned, but:
a) some of them are neutral, so they should be weaker than class cards.
b) They are expansion cards (older ones too). Even if you compare the power level between them, you can find out that some are just naturally under- or overpowered. It's Blizzard's card design philosophy.
ugh, I somehow forgot about Eggnapper when making Toadmancer, was thinking more about Haunted Creeper. Still, I believe my card isn't strict powercreep, 'cause you can't play it in any other class, and my class lack area buffs, I'm kinda worried that makes Toadmancer not realy original though. If I will ever expand Witch Doctor outside of comp, I'll probably try to tweak it a bit.
Edit: also, it's arguable if a class card is a powercreep, if the powercreeped card is neutral, or of another class. Like, it may prove to be difficult to play Treenforcements over Blazing Battlemage in Warlock, becuase you just can't. Furthermore if you have two Exact cards, one is a class card, the other neutral, I'd say the Neutral one powercreeps class one, simpl because you may put it in other classes.
@JeanTheMedicRat Its a fair point about the text but sometimes there ain't many ways to shorten text without it becoming confusing to understand. And as for the shuffle, I actually looked back at all shuffle cards and found out there are like 2 cards in total that shuffle stuff from your hand into your deck so there wasn't much to go on but like you said, the mechanic about choosing cards doesn't exist yet so one can only presume it's random :P Also I have noticed on cards in the game that they do fluctuate with including the word "random" Like when they say "Add a spell to your hand" or "Add a random spell to your hand", If you you at Wandmaker for example or Nexus.
However if they're the only negatives you can find, I don't think I've done so bad... I did notice a grammar mistake in one of my showcase cards however, I'd take complete blame for that one.
Hey mate, thanks for your feedback. I totally understand what you mean and I thought about it before going into development of this class. It's a fair point but i tend to disagree with it because of Freeze. Even though is not an exclusive mage keyboard is largely featured in its cards and playstyle and mechanic wise is pretty similar. I'll try my best to get the most out of it and be as creative as possible with what i got...if it doesn't work i know what to avoid in the future :P
About the mill Cards i got a bunch of DOT ready to be shuffled into the opponent deck and a few interaction in mind with Fatigue... hopefully I will have the chances to showcase them :)
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Cards that seem "strictly better" than other cards can get a negative impression (ice rager to magma rager) but if there's even a tiny difference, such as Steel Rager to Magma Rager, the community generally doesn't mind. Being in a different class can be one of those things.
Btw, Balance is really not very important early in design. First you've got to figure out if the card's design is fun, elegant, and thematic - and if the decks it encourages are fun to play with too. Balance needs to be kept somewhere near sanity (no 3-cost 10/10s), but I wouldn't focus hugely on balance when reviewing if the card isn't obviously, blatantly overpowered or underpowered. Espescially within a new class, as different classes have different power levels for their cards (warlock cards have to be weaker because their hero power is so strong, classes with awesome classic cards need to be weaker, etc).