Blizzard Responds to Community Outrage on Purify
There has been outrage in the community over the weekend after Purify was revealed. It has lead to jokes, memes, countless threads, and a few big-time Hearthstone community members made videos addressing the card.
Iksar stated on reddit that they were already happy with the options Priests were getting from Karazhan through Neutrals and because of that wanted to try something different.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
Quote from /u/IksarHSWe've had similar articles in the past about design stories for particular cards, I think the most recent one I remember discussed all the design iterations that Yogg went through. Card designs have a number of different goals, sometimes those goals are immediate competitive play and sometimes they shoot for something else. Things like flavor, arena viability, or sprinkling in tools for a new or existing archetype. In smaller sets, it can be a little risky to take a gamble on a new toolkit because there are fewer cards to work with. In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of. In my mind there is some positive to the outcry over Purify because I think people will definitely try it out and report any successes/failures/stories they had building and playing a 'silence your own stuff' priest. None of this is to say anyone is wrong in their feedback, but just to communicate some of the ideas surrounding a card design. Hearthstone is important to all of us, and we're trying to do better in terms of communication and understanding what different communities (like this one) are most interested in. I've been happy to be here and have a conversation about what you all want from the game, thanks for being so passionate about it. :D
The community has been asking for a 2-drop for how long now? Don't tell me that adding something as playable as Undercity Huckster would break Priest wide open in its current state. I really enjoyed Priest when I first started playing Hearthstone more seriously last fall, everyone is just sad because it is a class with a fun playstyle that has been crushed into nothingness by Blizzard's focus on absurd tempo and little to no reactive play.
how-come priest has seen such a huge spike in gameplay? it's up past warrior now... did someone find the Unicorn? :'D
I have been playing the 'Unicorn Priest' that Disguised Toast stream a while back -- it is surprisingly effect considering almost half of the deck is 5 mana or more
So a class, that's already struggling, getting a boost from neutral cards that every other class can use, justifies making a blatantly terrible card.. #BlizzardLogic
Actually this card, and the state of Priest right now, makes sense from design perspective. Ben Brode and the team know a few things for sure:
1) You can't achieve perfect balance, so you need to make sure that some classes are very strong during some periods of time and very weak during others.
2) They designed Priest class to be incredibly annoying to play against, especially with the non-classic cards. Stuff like Entomb, if used by a class that constantly wins, would really make people rage quit en masse. Priest is most likely the 1 class Ben Brode does not want to be OP at any point.
3) They need to release a few stinkers in each expansion/adventure, so the good/fun cards shine even brighter, and players have something to strive for when they get bad/medicore cards in packs.
Still, it's kind of weird that they would make a card this bad. Obviously they were going for a card that would see very little/no play for this slot, but as many have said, this is just a few leagues worse than anything else in HS.
How dare you bring sense and logic to these comments! Only bitching and moaning about things you have no understanding of is allowed here!
its a common
i think everyone needs to calm down and think more before riding the hate bus, i'm not talking about the arena viability but in constructed you could build a deck around it and it "might" be fun, just wait till people try it out and find its place !
everyone hate how blizzard balance their games by making some OP cards for a class, if they made a 7/7 4 mana priest everyone will flip their shit saying "OP OP"
stop the drama and have a great time playing hearthstone :)
They should just make it draw 2 cards instead of 1.
apparently silencing your own minion costs 1 more mana than giving it +2 health(Power Word: Shield)... way to go by your own balance bliz
Just to rub it in more, PW:S is basic, so purify is supposed to be stronger than it.
@DireDoge not necessarily, basic class cards are meant to be some of the most powerful options to a class so that new players still have a chance e.g., Northshire Cleric, SW:P/D - purify still atleast should be playable though and it isn't
@Goatz: Shadow Word: Death/Pain are bad as they not only trade 1 for 1 (which is bad as its reactive), but they only trade with a condition. When many minions have battlecry/deathrattle it only makes them worse.
@Pixywing Yes but my point was they are still some the best removal options to the priest (regardless of how situational they are) and they are in the basic set
"we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of"
What he said doesnt make a lick of sense to me. Was he trying to say that, they were blown away by the good neutral minions priest could use that they were okay with throwing a shit class card into rotation? Am i misunderstanding him or is that what he really said?
That's what he really said. In fact, he pretty much spat on all three of Priest's class cards.
"Hey guys we think the power boost that Priest is going to get from neutral cards that any class can use is good enough to create a blatantly shit card for a class that's already struggling."
Once again, Blizzard spend way too many words to talk utter bullshit. The excuses they make for their own idiocy are getting so increasingly pathetic that I am THIS close to just saying "fuck it" and uninstalling Hearthstone altogether, because it's clearly in the hands of a pack of complete twats.
Oh, so they thought it was OK to strategically hand-craft the most useless fucking card in the entire fucking game for the class that's already the weakest in both constructed AND arena because they thought they'd be getting more benefit from the neutrals than any other class? Well ignoring the fact that that's a fucking RETARDED reason, there's also the fact that they're completely WRONG. As per fucking usual.