We know Ben Brode loves the paladin class (https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/533384468203974656), and, because of that, it's not a surprise we can find it everywhere, all the time, in Hearthstone, at any rank on ladder and Arena. But, I was wondering something else... Why there are so few cards featuring worgen and pandaren on the art? Why this two playable WOW races are so underrepresented in Hearthstone? Does Ben Brode / Team 5 dislike them so much that decided to ignore them most of the time?
So, why this happens? What do you think guys? Did they just forget about them (I don't think so, since Shado-Pan Rider was realeased on TGT), or they really want this classes almost out of Hearthstone? Is this bad game desing? This is Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft for god sake...
Some people are probably going to say that a lot of pandaren art is going to be used by the monk class in the future (if they release this class some day), but what about worgen? Yeah, there are some cool worgen death knight pictures out there (WOW TCG), but I don't think this could be an actual justification for that.
Also, if they make their decisions based mostly on personal preferences, isn't that a bad thing for the game? Aren't we the ones that, in the end, play, support, and (in some cases) pay for it?
They didn't really fit in any of the expansion/adventure themes we've had so far. I doubt it's something intentional, we should see more in the future.
Could it be maybe because we are dealing with Heroes of Warcraft as in Warcraft III and Vainilla. Worguen were until Cataclysm and Pandaren were seen in MoP.
More classes: seeing the 3x3 schematic the game show us, maybe when Demon Hunters are playable in Legion we will see all 3 classes and as we level them up or by doing specific bosses in PvE or even with an adventure based on ICC or ToeS we can unlock the cards and the other WILL be made with dust or special booster packs (like yu gi oh! boxes).
I doubt that there will ever be another class, and it gets less likely with every new release.
Think about it, they would need to add basic cards, add new cards to the classic card pack which screws people who already have a full classic set, add cards and a class challenge to naxxramas, add new cards to the GVG card pack which screws people who already have a full GVG set, add cards and a class challenge to BRM, add new cards to the TGT card pack which screws people who already have a full TGT set, add cards and a class challenge to LOE.
Its possible but highly unlikely. It is not as ridiculous as the idea of adding a 6th color to Magic: The Gathering, but it is still quite ridiculous.
That being said, i think pandaren and worgen are quite cool. They could make them into proper tribes the way they did with mechs.
Why would they have to add cards to all the past adventures and expansions? Why couldn't they just release a new expansion and adventure where the majority of the new cards are for the new class to catch them up. Seems way simpler to me.
It would lead to an inconsistent new player experience. As a new player, you start with basic decks and then you get cards from all 9 classes, and to complete a deck/class, you need cards from all over the place. This allows you to freely choose what class you want to try first, and encourages you to try different classes.
Now with a monk card pack that contains all the monk cards, guess what 99% of new players will play first. And with then 10 classes, in 90% of the cases it will not be their favorite class from WOW, it will also not be the one the player finds most stylish. So, your simple way would diminish the game for new players because they would all get stuck with playing one class first, and for quite a long time.
To do it right for the new players, you really need to distribute the cards in a way that matches the other 9 classes. But in the case of the older card packs, this screws over the long-time players by turning complete sets into incomplete sets. Its a choice between cholera and the plague. Either all the new players will be like "Well, i guess i have to play monk first, dammit", or all the old players will be like "Well, i guess blizzard found a way to force me to get more classic, GVG and TGT packs, dammit".
And the problem gets worse with every new release. They could have done it much more easily with naxxramas or GVG.
What they can easily do is add new heros using the same cardpool, like Medivh and his buddys. Pandaren and worgen are not even classes, they are races, missing classes would be monk, deathknight and demon hunter. Adding a pandaren priest hero or a worgen rogue hero is easy. They can also easily add new tribes/races, with GVG they just added the word "Mech" to some old classic and basic cards. MTG has 230 creature types and is doing just fine.
EDIT: You really have to wonder: Why are there 9 classes, but only 7 minion types (dragon, murloc, mech, pirate, beast, demon, totem) and only 4 card types? (Minion, weapon, spell and secret, with secrets being a subtype of spell).
Yea that is a fair point but that would only really matter if they choose to buy a bunch of the new expansions packs. Blizzard doesn't have to give out those packs for free for arena runs and tavern brawl rewards. But players could choose to buy those packs if they wanted to make a deck for the monk class, or they could choose to buy GvG, for example, if they want to make a mech deck.
Really though inconsistent new player experiences already exist. When I first started out there was no Reno, but now a new player can save up gold and buy the first wing of LOE, and play a Reno deck. The First wing of LOE is probably the strongest in the game offering the most cards and one card that opens up a new deck type. Making a Reno deck right now is probably the smartest thing a new player could do. Before LOE every new player was playing hunter if they actually wanted to win. Now it is Reno decks. So what would be the difference? The new players would play monk if they wanted to win, otherwise they play the class they like.
Adding new hero's like Medivh that just use the existing card pool really seems pointless to me. I can't speak for everyone but I really don't care about the character for the class i'm using. I would think most people would prefer a new class over a new portrait, but I never played WOW so I guess I could be in the minority with this opinion. I though would prefer if they made Worgens and Pandas there own tribe type like you said.
Really though Blizzard can choose any number of ways to introduce a new class and make it work. They could add a new class and it just not have as many cards. They don't have to have everything equal. Besides most cards aren't even playable. So as long as the new class has playable cards to begin with they wouldn't have to have cards added to past sets and adventures. They could just give them their starting cards like the other classes add a couple extra cards for them in the new expansion and adventure. It could be they just get five more cards than other classes in the expansion and 3 more in the adventure.
Eventually they will probably get to a point like you said where it will be extremely hard to introduce a new class, but I'm sure sets will be filtered out and that could be a good opportunity to add a new class.
Blizzard talked about some ideas about a Worgen expansion instead of TgT on the Live-announcement, so I'm pretty sure they will come in an upcomming pack. =]
We know Ben Brode loves the paladin class (https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/533384468203974656), and, because of that, it's not a surprise we can find it everywhere, all the time, in Hearthstone, at any rank on ladder and Arena. But, I was wondering something else... Why there are so few cards featuring worgen and pandaren on the art? Why this two playable WOW races are so underrepresented in Hearthstone? Does Ben Brode / Team 5 dislike them so much that decided to ignore them most of the time?
There are only three "worgen cards": Houndmaster, Worgen Infiltrator, and Raging Worgen.
And only four "pandaren cards": Shado-Pan Rider, Youthful Brewmaster, Ancient Brewmaster, and Lorewalker Cho.
I asked myself if this could be based on their popularity on WOW. I did some search about it (http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/276315/distribution-of-world-of-warcraft-characters-by-race.jpg) and both of them are still actually quite popular (pandaren are slipt in two (alliance / horde), so in total are even more than the worgen).
So, why this happens? What do you think guys? Did they just forget about them (I don't think so, since Shado-Pan Rider was realeased on TGT), or they really want this classes almost out of Hearthstone? Is this bad game desing? This is Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft for god sake...
Some people are probably going to say that a lot of pandaren art is going to be used by the monk class in the future (if they release this class some day), but what about worgen? Yeah, there are some cool worgen death knight pictures out there (WOW TCG), but I don't think this could be an actual justification for that.
Also, if they make their decisions based mostly on personal preferences, isn't that a bad thing for the game? Aren't we the ones that, in the end, play, support, and (in some cases) pay for it?
I'm sure there are more comming in the future.
They didn't really fit in any of the expansion/adventure themes we've had so far. I doubt it's something intentional, we should see more in the future.
Could it be maybe because we are dealing with Heroes of Warcraft as in Warcraft III and Vainilla. Worguen were until Cataclysm and Pandaren were seen in MoP.
More classes: seeing the 3x3 schematic the game show us, maybe when Demon Hunters are playable in Legion we will see all 3 classes and as we level them up or by doing specific bosses in PvE or even with an adventure based on ICC or ToeS we can unlock the cards and the other WILL be made with dust or special booster packs (like yu gi oh! boxes).
We need more blood elves also.
In a card game i played some time ago. 7th Sea they introduced new factions in 3 diferents ways:
- two of them ( Corsairs and Viking raiders) as 70% of cards in a normal expansion.
-Secondary "class" icon in neutral en clas cards ( los Vagos, invisible college)
-and a standalone especial expansion ( fixed cards, more like an adventure in HS) for theFlack Freither faction.
In HS we have at least the same posibilities.
Paladins used to be shit, they just over buffed them. Now they need to bring every other class on par with Paladins