Consistency is very important in a physical card game. If a card doesn't do what it says, you can't play the game.
Digital card games are different in that the game itself can have special rules and it will take care of it for you. Ysera and Dream Cards is an example of this.
Therefore, knowing immediately from the card text how something works, although important in a digital game, is not critical. You don't want to see all cards blank with surprise effects though.
They wanted to keep cards in the classic set easy to parse, which has lead to inconsistencies with Choose One.
It and Ancient of War read the same way but one gets buffed whereas the other one transforms. Silence only works on the buffed one.
Makes players wonder how a new card works before we get to test it in-game, such as Anodized Robo Cub which was released during GvG. You can't tell right away if it transforms or buffs itself.
Druid of the Flame reads differently than Druid of the Claw, yet they work the exact same way. Ease of parsability of the card has been cited as one of the reasons Druid of the Claw is still the way it is today.
They may go back later on and change Druid of the Claw to read like Druid of the Flame for the sake of consistency, but it does sacrifice the parsability of the card.
They felt like choice cards should be between two comparable things to keep it easier to understand.
There was a card in early development which was "Choose One: Change a minion's attack to 0 for a turn, or deal 2 damage to a minion who attacked last turn".
Some inconsistencies with how a card works vs the text is actually just bugs which will be fixed in upcoming patches.
He mentions Druid of the Saber but then doesn't look at it any further. You don't have to include 4/4 and 4/6 in the card text, just add "Transform to gain..." to the beginning. It doesn't sacrifice readability and is arguably less confusing to new players because you get a clearer picture of what is happening, plus you get the consistency. The answer is right there in front of their noses and instead they're making a big deal about parsability and such instead of just getting things done.
On a separate note, how come no one mentions the inconsistency between Injured Blademaster and Injured Kvaldir? It's a silly difference but totally unnecessary, and I believe it hurts the aesthetics of the game to leave these random oddities in card text when it would be so easy to fix.
If Transform was a keyword in Hearthstone proper (I know it's a keyword on this website), I think it would make sense to change the wording, probably just to highlight the "buff", like in Druid of the Saber. Maybe it's cause I've played HS for along time, but "Transform to gain..." makes perfect sense to me. I prefer that over Druid of the Flame actually, since it's easier to compare +3 health vs +3 attack than 2/5 vs 5/2. I mean, think about a case other than card games, say cell phone plans. You'd rather know what the benefits of each plan are, rather than 2 whole, detailed plans and trying to find the differences.
However, transform isn't a HS keyword. While it's understandable in the context of Polymorph, it might actually hinder parseability like Brode mentioned in the video, because first-time players now have to think what it means to "transform" to gain +2 health & taunt or charge, when the transform honestly doesn't matter 95% of the time.
Honestly, I'm rather ambivalent about the issue. I definitely understand the PoV insisting on consistency, but there are already many issues that new players have to face when playing against cards like Ysera and Arch-Thief Rafaam (where the card(s) given are unknown to the player playing against the card) that throwing one more in the mix doesn't sound as bad as making one more basic card hard to play. But in the end, I think Brode's justified in making Druid of the Claw easier to play and a bit harder/inconsistent to play against.
So is he arguing that changing the wording now (to be more consistent with the newer cards like Druid of the Flame) would be too confusing to new players? I'm not understanding what the downside is to changing the card text.
They sure are overcomplicating things, I mean if you wanted to be completely precise it would read:
CHOSE ONE: transform into a creature with charge, or into a 4/6 with taunt.
Because when you silence it, it only loses taunt, not his buff, so the inconsitence would be +2 health.
And I think their excuse of how it doesnt matter because its a digital card game and that in the end how It plays its determined by how it was programmed not how it reads its text its utter bullshit. Its like saying "we may change the card text to read (do random shit) and it would still have the same effect". Really blizzard?
while I don't always agree with everything blizzard does with this game I wish other games I enjoyed had their designers talking to us the same way they do I really applaud Ben for doing these videos
anyone who's being negative is just miserable with their own life this is a free online card game get over yourself, yeah you pay for expansions and stuff but I've paid a lot more and gotten a LOT less from other games
keep up the great work Hearthstone team and don't listen to the mean idiotic trolls just pity them
I think consistency takes priority when we are looking at a change of wording from
Choose one: Charge; or +2 Health and Taunt. Choose one: transform to gain Charge; or +2 Health and Taunt.
In the case of Dream cards not being fully explained, it is still consistent. If there was a different card that said draw a dream card and then listed all of the dream cards or pulled from a different pool of dream cards there would be a comparison and a problem.
Edit: I understand Dream cards is a way of showing digital card games allow for a hidden 'judge' but having consistency is still vital. It allows for players to understand and report bugs that may have slipped in.
Let me get this straight. Blizzard doesn't consider consistent card texts to be high priority because Hearthstone isn't a physical card game. However, they are simultaneously hesitant to "correct" card texts (or balance cards in larger extent) because it might make cards feel not physical?
bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla
TL;DR: Consistency is better for everybody, including the design team.
He mentions Druid of the Saber but then doesn't look at it any further. You don't have to include 4/4 and 4/6 in the card text, just add "Transform to gain..." to the beginning. It doesn't sacrifice readability and is arguably less confusing to new players because you get a clearer picture of what is happening, plus you get the consistency. The answer is right there in front of their noses and instead they're making a big deal about parsability and such instead of just getting things done.
On a separate note, how come no one mentions the inconsistency between Injured Blademaster and Injured Kvaldir? It's a silly difference but totally unnecessary, and I believe it hurts the aesthetics of the game to leave these random oddities in card text when it would be so easy to fix.
If Transform was a keyword in Hearthstone proper (I know it's a keyword on this website), I think it would make sense to change the wording, probably just to highlight the "buff", like in Druid of the Saber. Maybe it's cause I've played HS for along time, but "Transform to gain..." makes perfect sense to me. I prefer that over Druid of the Flame actually, since it's easier to compare +3 health vs +3 attack than 2/5 vs 5/2. I mean, think about a case other than card games, say cell phone plans. You'd rather know what the benefits of each plan are, rather than 2 whole, detailed plans and trying to find the differences.
However, transform isn't a HS keyword. While it's understandable in the context of Polymorph, it might actually hinder parseability like Brode mentioned in the video, because first-time players now have to think what it means to "transform" to gain +2 health & taunt or charge, when the transform honestly doesn't matter 95% of the time.
Honestly, I'm rather ambivalent about the issue. I definitely understand the PoV insisting on consistency, but there are already many issues that new players have to face when playing against cards like Ysera and Arch-Thief Rafaam (where the card(s) given are unknown to the player playing against the card) that throwing one more in the mix doesn't sound as bad as making one more basic card hard to play. But in the end, I think Brode's justified in making Druid of the Claw easier to play and a bit harder/inconsistent to play against.
I don't get.
So is he arguing that changing the wording now (to be more consistent with the newer cards like Druid of the Flame) would be too confusing to new players? I'm not understanding what the downside is to changing the card text.
i think the words he was looking for was "...because that would give players more full dust refound..." and i can see why he wouldn't like that...
Its not that bad, they can change it in the future to be like Druid of the Flame:
They sure are overcomplicating things, I mean if you wanted to be completely precise it would read:
CHOSE ONE: transform into a creature with charge, or into a 4/6 with taunt.
Because when you silence it, it only loses taunt, not his buff, so the inconsitence would be +2 health.
And I think their excuse of how it doesnt matter because its a digital card game and that in the end how It plays its determined by how it was programmed not how it reads its text its utter bullshit. Its like saying "we may change the card text to read (do random shit) and it would still have the same effect". Really blizzard?
while I don't always agree with everything blizzard does with this game I wish other games I enjoyed had their designers talking to us the same way they do I really applaud Ben for doing these videos
anyone who's being negative is just miserable with their own life this is a free online card game get over yourself, yeah you pay for expansions and stuff but I've paid a lot more and gotten a LOT less from other games
keep up the great work Hearthstone team and don't listen to the mean idiotic trolls just pity them
I've payed a lot less and gotten a lot more as well.
And if a time comes when the devs 'pity' us players for wanting a balanced game....well then the game will die. We pay their wages after all.
If that's what we were deciding between, I don't blame him for choosing the beer and nachos!
I think consistency takes priority when we are looking at a change of wording from
Choose one: Charge; or +2 Health and Taunt.
Choose one: transform to gain Charge; or +2 Health and Taunt.
In the case of Dream cards not being fully explained, it is still consistent. If there was a different card that said draw a dream card and then listed all of the dream cards or pulled from a different pool of dream cards there would be a comparison and a problem.
Edit: I understand Dream cards is a way of showing digital card games allow for a hidden 'judge' but having consistency is still vital. It allows for players to understand and report bugs that may have slipped in.
It's hard link short text with clear text and expliciting text. Some cases can be OK, but others really seems wrong typed.
i can't watch his blabla anymore. i simply can´t make it through the video. stopped at 4 mins.
stop talking ben brode and fix the game. gonna be a lot of work.
darnassus aspirant and knight of the wild are plain inconsistent with other cards for example.
Let me get this straight. Blizzard doesn't consider consistent card texts to be high priority because Hearthstone isn't a physical card game. However, they are simultaneously hesitant to "correct" card texts (or balance cards in larger extent) because it might make cards feel not physical?
I'm sorry but you can't have it both ways.
Why not simply:
Choose one: transform to gain Charge; or +2 Health and Taunt.