Max McCall Talks About Charge and Taunt - Concerns, Experimentation, and Execution
Our friendly neighborhood Game Designer, Max McCall, was out on the forums this afternoon responding to concerns regarding Charge and Taunt. He had this to say:
- Taunt allows players to defend themselves and add minion to minion combat.
- Charge can be problematic due to one-turn-kill combos, usually through cheap Charge minions.
- We'll see more charge in the future when they find safe ways to use the mechanic.
- Currently, experimentation is underway with more expensive minions that are harder to use in combos.
- The Hogriders in Gadgetzan are the first example of different ways to use the mechanic in a non-degenerate way.
What would you like to see out of the Charge Mechanic? Can you think of any cool cards that could work like Leatherclad Hogleader, Spiked Hogrider, or Tanaris Hogchopper?
Quote from Max McCallNeither taunt nor charge are inherently bad for Hearthstone.
Taunt is great. Taunt minions let players defend themselves and their other minions and add a lot of depth to direct minion combat.
Charge can be problematic, though. Minions’ ability to directly attack other minions means that a player who achieves control of the board early will tend to snowball their lead. When you control the board, you can arrange for minion trades that further cement your board control. Minions with charge are a useful tool for allowing players who have fallen behind on the board to catch up. Spells are a good way to catch people up as well, but cards like Stormwind Knight can kill a 3/2 and establish a board at the same time. Different ways to catch up when you’re behind gives the game more texture, and offers more strategic choices.
Charge becomes a problem for Hearthstone when you use it to kill your opponent out of nowhere in one turn. Playing Druid of the Claw as a 4/4 charge for 5 is good gameplay. Playing Bluegill Warrior, casting Power Overwhelming on it twice, then copying it with Faceless Manipulator to attack your opponent for 20 isn’t. In that example, charge is only a problem because of how efficient it makes converting minion buffs into direct damage. We could make more charge minions if we made minion buffs worse, but minion buffs have more design space than charge minions. Minion buffs are also fun and also enable you to catch up with weaker minions your opponent hasn’t gotten around to trading off yet.
Note that it’s specifically cheap charge minions that tend to cause problems, because they’re easier to combine with buffs and Faceless Manipulator. No one uses Reckless Rocketeer or King Krush for evil. We’re cautiously experimenting with more expensive charge minions that are harder to use in degenerate combos. The Hogriders in Mean Streets were the first example of this, and it’s reassuring to see that no one is using them to one-shot their opponents. We’ll do more charge stuff in the future as we figure out what’s safe.
So then let's just change the general charge mechanic so that it only works as long as the minion has its original stats.
So when it gets buffed it cancels the charge. Would be a very dramatic change, but if that's what they are so concerned about just do it and don't drag it behind yourself for years to come.
You deserve to be the top comment hahaha
They are so worried about Charge allowing for cheap, quick kill combos that they introduced a bunch of cards that cause even worse quick kill combos after they nerf it.
Brilliant....
Just make non-legendary charge minions unable to target heroes on the same turn they're played. You can leave legendary minions like Leeroy, Grommash, and others alone. This would then allow you to restore Warsong Commander (and therefore Patron Warrior) without fear of enabling over-powered OTK combos.
You can change the stats on non-legendary charge minions if you want, to reflect the fact they'd essentially be used as removal, but fixing charge isn't really that complicated.
The face has taunt ? Me still charge to face.
The problem with charge is the stat lines on the creatures they give it to. Almost all are severely understatted, so people ONLY use the charge minions with higher attack, and they use them like direct damage spells. Let's review:
Bluegill Warrior - higher attack than defense, used in Anyfin combos as damage burst.
Leeroy Jenkins - higher attack than defense, used in many decks as a damage burst to finish the game.
Kor'kron Elite - shockingly high stats for a charge minion (due to class specific on a non-aggro class....or so was the thinking at the time!) used by Aggro Warriors as a 4 mana 4 damage nuke to face.
Argent Commander - higher attack than defense, used to be used until better options came around. Had divine shield so you were hoping to get multiple hits in.
Argent Horserider - higher attack than defense. Has divine shield so you are hoping to get multiple hits in.
Wolfrider - used to be used, 3 damage for 3 mana nuke for Face Hunters.
Grommash Hellscream - is 10 attack if you can damage it, used frequently by Warriors in combos.
Murk Eye usually has as much or more attack than health when used in a murloc deck. Alexstrasza's Champion is actually an OVERSTATTED 3/3 charge minion for Warrior (what were they thinking on that one??).
The only card widely used that has more defense than attack isDoomguard, but it's really strong for the mana cost and still has 5 attack for 5 mana. Tundra Rhino is not used for its stat line or personal charge, but the effect.
The charge minions with less attack than defense, like Skycap'n Kragg, Stormwind Knight, or Gnomeregan Infantry are never touched because their stat lines are absolutely terrible.
If charge minions existed that had better stat lines like a 2/4 charge for 3 mana, or a 3/5 charge for 4, people would actually use them to trade and not for cancer as direct damage. How about you get on that, Blizz?
The higher health charges aren't played because they have bad stats for mana. You highly overrate attack compared to health and mana efficiency in aggro decks. If a charge minion with reasonable stats were made, it would guaranteed be played as an aggro tool you're essentially giving aggro decks the ability to give their on curve minions an extra attack to face, without giving up health. A 2/4 for 3 or a 3/5 for 4 with charge are insane for the same reason Alexstraza's Champion is.
The actual problem with charge is inherent to the effect, it gives way more choices to the aggressor than the reactionary player, charge is only used in high attack, low health minions as this limits that choice, you essentially are forced to go face with a charge minion, or lose a ton of tempo, higher health means you in essence have the possibility of a great trade when you want it, or can stamp away your opponents life and force them to remove.
I don't think lower attack higher health charge minions would be as beneficial to aggro as you think. If aggro purely goes face with every attack, you will be able to trade your way into board control eventually. Currently, a 4/3 charge minion trades into almost any 3 drop and many 4 drops as well - you do the damage AND they have to use a card to get rid of the threat. The defender gets no value, except through a board clear.
"it’s reassuring to see that no one is using them to one-shot their opponents."
-- because no one is using them.
"Who goes thar?" "I'm in charge ..."
They've already said that the Pirate package is NOT fine, and they are going to nerf it at the end of the month.
I guess maybe this page is the only internet you've read since New Years.
yeah like running PO+leeroy+faceless requires much investment.
not all otk are 9 cards combos.
loosing to 3 card combo without being able to react is stupid, just as cancerous aggro decks with disgusting high stats for their cost minion.
it seems that all the problems Blizzard has been addressing lately all lead to the fact that the power level of the cheaper cards is way too high...ya, im looking at you 1 mana cards!
A 1 mana minion that has dealed 10 damage to you by turn 3 = not fine
A very complex combo with charge which requires the perfect hand, settup and board and deals 20 damage to you in turn 10 = not fine
Flawless logic
Simplifying it to strawman logic doesn't prove anything.
There are things you can do to stop a minion from attacking you repeatedly over 3 turns. Whether the current 1-drops are too good is a question of numbers, something Blizzard has acknowledged, and is not even the topic of this post.
By comparison, charge-based combos are not something you can do much against, especially when slotted into decks that run plenty of other threats. These restrictions have kept them from being able to print cheaper charge cards because every time they do they're just used for OTK combos. Hence their concern for the future, as individual cards can be nerfed or rotated, but the mechanics of charge are persistent.
Let me answer your complaint about OTK decks the way Blizzard would :
"Play Reno mage you dumb f*ck, playing decks without Ice Block and Reno is why you lose to OTKs you piece of sh*t."
Of course the censored words are an addition of mine but that's still slightly less insulting than telling you that if you think the new Warsong Commander is bad, you're a new player who doesn't understand sh*t, isn't it ? I mean at that point, profanity is about consistency with the conveyed message.
...do you...do you seriously read Blizzard like that?
At this point I have to ask you honestly: has Blizzard ever replied to a comment about balance with "play another deck"? I'm pretty sure that's what the forums tell you, not what Blizzard tells you.
It's not me reading them that way, it's Ben Brode actually telling us we can play control warrior that is good against aggro shaman ( But loses against everything else. What a treat ).
So I'm gonna answer the same thing, that if you don't like OTK decks, just play Reno Mage or Control Warrior.
And, might I add, unlike aggro shaman, OTK decks aren't outrageously powerful and common.
Copypasting so more people read this because i think these are great interesting suggestions:
What if charge minions played more like a spell, and forced you to pick a target when you played them, (pick a target like whenever u summon abusive sergeant) whereupon they would immediately attack? (and take damage/die if it attacks a minion with attack, or take no damage if attacks face)This seems like it would solve all of the problems with buffing and/or Faceless Manipulator, allow for more powerful charge minions. (so u cant combo with PO or others)
The other, separate and different suggestion is : whenever a charge minion is played, your next action should be to attack with that minion,any other action such as playing another card would cancel the charge effect and it wont be able to move anymore on that turn.
either would work, but this is if people dont want to nerf PO etc for defensive options (PO then trading into a rag/thaurssian) for example, or as a burst option w/o charge. (since the charge mechanic would be changed already)