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So, I played lots of TCGs (MTG, Might & Magic:Duels of Champions, Carte, Shadow Era, Tyrant, Etherlords / Etherlords 2, and even World of tanks:Generals here in Wargaming.net, where I work as Senior Game Designer). And I played 3 Hearthstone matches at 1st day of Gamescom =) And question "how should minion respond when another minion attacks it?" disturbs me. This question is hard one from game design perspective, no surprise it's answered differently in different TCGs:
- MTG and clones say "minion distributes its attack between blockers". Important part here is: minions (or creatures, if you will) are healed at the beginning of every turn. So if you attack small minion with huge one, small dies and huge likely survives till next turn and get healed to full. That approach is overcomplicated, stil it creates a lot of depth.
- Might & Magic:Duels of Champions say "minion retaliates, if it survives attack". So you try to kill a minion with attack, to avoid retaliation. Important part here: battlefield in M&M:DoC consits of rows and lines, and to attack enemy minion, your minion must be on the same line. And you either change line with your minion, or attack. So it creates a lot of depth as well, without taking control from attacking player (as MTG does), and it's less complicated. Still, not that simple as Hearstone tries to be.
- World of tanks:Generals say "every minion retaliates only to first attack vs him every turn". Actually, in Heroes of Might and Magic same approach is used (and in many other games). This approach also creates depth (attack with fat unit first, then finish with assasin), and pretty simple to understand. That may fit Hearthstone mechanics, still it creates some complications (you need to show if minion retaliated already, at least). The problem here is: in environment where any minion can attack any minion (well, in absence of taunt and stealth), the depth it adds is minimal.
- Hearthstone and Carte say "minion always retaliate, that simple". The problem I found in Carte with this approach is: nearly no depth. You have sum of attack and hitpoints of your minions, you apply your attack and pay with hitpoints. And you do that until card or tempo advantage results in someone's victory.
So I worry if Hearthstone will suffer from same problem with minion to minion combat. To illustrate the problem, let's model:
Situation: 2 paladins in duel, only allowed to use hero power (not allowed to play cards). And paladin who starts first always tries to attack hero with his minions.
So 2nd paladin have 2 obvious simple strategies: 1) to kill enemy minions with his minions, or 2) to attack enemy hero with his minions. In most TCGs, strategy 1) is better, 'cause when you need to catch on tempo, you need to stop enemy attackers first. But not in Hearthstone! You'll probably be surpriced how much strategy 2) is better. With strategy 1) enemy always can hit us once with every minion, and all we can do is to trade his minions on our minions. So enemy needs 30 turn to kill us - well, fatigue system (when we have no cards left in deck) will kill us a bit earlier, whatever. And we do no damage to enemy with minions. But what about strategy 2? We hit enemy for same amount as he hit us - for 1 on 2nd turn, for 2 on 3rd turn and so on. We still lose, and we lose faster - but at least we did some damage to the enemy. Counter intuitive for many players, I suppose.
As long as we use same simple units in such model, it doesn't really matter how many attack or HP the minions have (as long as both heroes use same minions). Just because you always pay with hitpoints of your minions when you attack enemy minion, so you decrease total HP of your minions by the same amount you decrease total HP of enemy minions. While enemy happily attacks hero who have 0 attack by default.
it's easy to see that in M&M:DoC retaliation mechanics attacking enemy units is much more profitable and would eventually give huge board advantage to 2nd paladin (and victory as result). MTG mechanics won't make a difference with 1/1 minions, but with 1/2 (or any other numbers where HP is greater than attack) it would lead to board dominance as well. Same for HOMM retaliation mechanis.
Finally, I want to say that in real Hearthstone game things aren't that deterministic, as you have many sources of card & tempo advantages, different decks and random factor. And with weapon equipped your hero will retaliate. Still, all I've written above may indicate that retaliatiation mechanics in Heartstone isn't deep enough and need some work.
Want to hear your thoughts on the topic.
I like this way best because it allows things to change drastically. If minions heal at end of turn, if I have board control im much more likely to keep it and win. with this always retaliate, if you have control I can get it back.
I certainly agree that this mechanic could use some adjustments. In particular, I noticed earlier that a frozen minion is able to mindlessly retaliate... it's FROZEN, that doesn't make sense to me.
how does shooting a ball of lava make sense or freezing someone in the first place? as zeriyah said, it doesnt need to make sense for it to work. thats what imagination is for! maybe you hurt your hand punching it or a piece of ice breaks off and the shrapnel hits you.
Haha, I loved when she talked about a demon flying out of the portal at 50 mph.
Just imagining the conversation on the other side...
"Quick, throw that useless imp at the portal! Quickly now!"
so... I freeze a 10/2 minion.... I receive a backlash of 10 damage from this mob if it is frozen... What kind of "shrapnel" are you talking about?
The game is balanced around it, it makes sense.
Well, if a warrior is frozen (think frost nova, not deep freeze) he can still attack back, as long as the target is in range. The devs just decided to not differenciate ranged and melee cards, so you could in a way say that everything is melee, so if something hits the warrior for 2, in melee range he can alao hit back. Your frozen therefore can't attack argument is quite narrow, and is even contradicted by the gameplay in both WC3 and WoW, I see no reason why a frozen creature should not be able to retaliare until it is dead Imho
On the topic: The best part of Hearthstome mechanics is simplicity IMO (including its retaliation mechanics). And I'm actually OK with more depths that come from cards and less from core mechanics. Still, discussion like that may be benefical for the game. Blizzard did dramatical improvements for Diablo 3 during beta period (rune system etc), same may happen for Hearthstone. So here is idea how to make core mechanics deeper without making it more complicated:
Bandage mechanics: at the end of turn, if minion was able to attack but didn't, heal it.
* yes, it adds another rule - but with straightforward animation (bandage-style red crosses? druid-style green leafs?) player will discover this mechanics accidentally, rather soon
* not sure how much should it heal - maybe 1hp, maybe to full, maybe half of HP lost rounded up, maybe in amount of minion's attack... maybe anything else
* in any case, that mechanics allows to establish board domination via attacking enemy minions, then skipping attack to heal. Which adds a lot of depth
* minions with 0 attack may become too strong - they never attack unless buffed, so they'll always heal. Maybe "Heal in amount of minion's attack" isn't that bad idea
* strange situations may appear, when no one wants to attack 'cause they heal
* bit strange that minions heal but hero doesn't (still, in MTG players don't seem to be confused with that)
On "frozen" offtopic: assuming minions fight in melee, and one of them unable to move due to root effect (kinda Frost Nova from WOW) or slowed with Chill-like effect (hello WOW frost mages), and that effect is called Frozen - its not that strange that minion who can't move is unable to attack, still able to retaliate.
I have no doubt that blizz will take the needed actions to improve the game if needed, but a heal stuff to full after your turn mechanic (either by choice with your attack example or automaticly) will make some cards abit wierd and sill need rebalancing, think healing totem and lightwell for instance, if they dicide to make new mechanics i personally believe they will implement something that won't make old cards void or in need of a complete mechanics change :/
So, you are playing WoW as a Mage and you use Frost Nova to freeze a Warrior that it's trying to hit you with an axe big as a f*cking truck. So you cast frost nova and simply stay there... looking at him, at axe range... ¿right? No, you Blink and run as if you where mental cos he is there, frozen, but even with that he can chop you as a little turkey.
You are considering freeze as stun... and this are 2 diferent mechanics in WoW.
Well, game with super simple mechanics can be ultra deep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) - deeper than chess, despite having simpler mechanics. Same way, Hearthstone potentially can be deeper than MTG, even without complicated things like stack, combat phases etc.
Indeed, and I mentioned it above: "minions with 0 attack may become too strong - they never attack unless buffed, so they'll always heal. ". Still, I believe Blizzard want Hard to master as much as Easy to play, and beta isn't too late to make change that requires to rebalance some cards. Not sure the change worth it, not sure it's benefical change at all - ths's what forums for, to discuss ;) Bandage mechanics may be good opportunity to put some additional depth in core mechanics in form of emergent possibilities.
Plus, Bandage may end up as another card affix.
Only 2nd paladin attacks minions: