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.
Not really... PO feels abusive because there's no drawback in using it as a burst combined with charge to insta-kill your opponent... If charge minions can't be combined with this card, well, then they have a 1 mana buff that will kill their minion by the end of turn, and with this drawback, the card will achieve it's original design: to be a tool for trading, or to be used on a board-presence combo.
Buff cards are actually healthy for the game, allowing for more strategic trade and actually interactive "OTK-combos" (since you CAN respond before your opponent buff the minions already on the field) and they can't print any because charge minions can abuse the mechanic.
The two suggestions above are actually pretty decent, as well as the one that implies that no charge non-legendary minion can hit for face on it's charging turn, but it'd leave the leeroy-PO-faceless problem unsolved, though.
Blizzard's vendetta against combo decks is tiresome. Compared to all the other degenerate decks, dying to a good old fashioned Bluegill Warrior + Power Overwhelming + Power Overwhelming + Faceless Manipulator doesn't really bother me. It's not the best feeling in the world, but in most cases I had 10+ turns to beat the guy down, or force him to waste combo pieces, or play a taunt to completely shut the whole thing down. That feels fair to me. The only thing that bothers me is when Mage kills you from thirty with spells. Those games come down entirely to "did he draw Ice Block and enough Freeze cards to stall until his OTK," and that's just no fun.
It doesn't bother YOU but it bothers other players, in particular casual players. When they lose to a combo like this they feel there was nothing they could have done. Building a different deck to combat combo is not something on their radar.
If Faceless Manipulator is limiting the design space of all charge minions, why don't you nerf that instead?
Just change charge into --->
Battlecry: can istantly attack an enemy minion.
Can't be used to smorc, and wont trigger by copying summoning whatever.
Problem solved.
what an amusing example.
you use Bluegill, Manipulator and Power Overwhelming, and 'charge' is the problem? how about Power Overwhelming? 1 mana +4/+4 for the easy price of sacrificing a minion, in a game where minions constantly attack each other and die, and arranging creatures to stay alive usually requires you to play things like Frost Nova and Stealth, cards that are almost unusable except for very specific uses?
I also absolutely despise the 'charge' is a problem mentality, the idea that it is an unsafe mechanic because it allows OTK. This is the kind of stupidity that made them remove Worgen OTK from the game, a deck that was unplayable in Wild because Deathlord could dismantle it (and now Dirty Rat can too) and Sludge Belcher would block it, or at least pose a massive problem to it. How about that mentality, Blizzard? how about instead of deleting decktypes and combos, you increase the number of viable answers to them, allowing a meta of combo/control/aggro/fatigue and whatnot.
avoid degenerate combos? how about you avoid me dying on turn 3-4 to overpowered minions and let me do my 'degenerate' combo that requires me to cycle through most of my 30 cards and have like 10 mana and Emperor discounts to even work?
and here you create 3/2 + 1/1 1 mana cost pirates and you make a 5/9 taunt for 9, and you dare call Charge a problem....
Your Soggoth example really drove this point home and made me sad :< RIP Anti-Aggro tools..
So true. So sad.
Anything that is remotely close at good board control is turned into a giant unusable potato. Why? It's so frustrating I can't even anymore.
Anub'arak - 6 mana 5/3 that summons a 2/2 upon death would have been great.
Cenarius - 4 mana 2/3 that summons 2 1/1 taunts or gives your minions +1/+1
Magnataur Alpha - ...Blizz why the hell would you do that -.- just make it a 3/4 FFS
i WILL however thank them for their effort in MSG towards it with Sergeant Sally but the fact that they made even more flood decks possible makes her completely unusable. STOP MAKING IT WORSE.
Basically what OP is saying. its almost like their deliberately making something else the problem so that they can justify the past mistakes they made with tools, because we always need to have a way to deal 15 damage by turn 3 to keep the game fresh. *rolls eyes*
If Blizz thinks they can pin the blame on a mechanic instead THEIR OWN broken power curve then we have a serious problem on our hands in the future.
Point is that Aggro needs charge to stay as it is (Charge is not the main concern of decks like Pirate Warrior or Aggro Shaman).
While it can be abused into insane burst to face by decks that are already good in Control Mode.
For comparison: Leeroy Jenkins in warlock:
Same card in same class, but different decks and impact in the game.
Should be read as "No one uses Reckless Rocketeer or King Krush."
Also, for example, Weebstone has two separate mechanics: Storm, which is identical to Charge, and Rush, which is Charge that cannot hit face. So some minions are initially designed for smorcing and some are for board control. Pretty obvious way to solve the problem.
What is Weebstone?
It is very absurd to take haste mechanic from mtg, but there is possibility to block attack with any creature and HS does not provide this. Erase this ability from this game, it is bad design in terms of HS, print more spells
The problem with charge is that they are great for quickly finishing off a game. If you take Leeroy Jenkins, he has 6 attack, but add that with the low cost spells like Power Overwhelming and Cold Blood then you have quick sure way to deal 10 damage if not more on a single turn.
Now it may be a good idea to just have charge minions just allowing to attack minions only, but then you would have to worry about another problem. What about classes that have lots of burst damage? It wasn't that long ago that Shaman aggro were using things like Lava Burst and Doomhammer with Rockbiter Weapon. If you were to nerf charge incorrectly, aggro would just rely on high burst, which would also be a problem because you can't defend yourself unless you have lots of heals/armor.
While it's good they see charge as a problem, making a quick change could cause other problems if not thought correctly.
Having more situational charge minions like the Hogchoppers and Icehowl is a good way to continue the mechanic without it being problematic. Another good one would be "gain charge if opponent has three or more minions" because it encourages you to use it to regain some board control, but you cannot use it to clear entirely on its own. It would be a similar recovery mechanic to Second-Rate Bruiser, which I think is very well-designed.
Spells and weapons only get more powerful in a relative sense if charge to face is removed. The situation right now where the powerful spells and weapons you mentioned are not being used is only evidence of just how much of a problem the cards being used instead are. I don't think anyone needs to worry about Shaman being OP if charge is nerfed, for several reasons. 1) They will shortly lose their TGT and LoE tools, which were the beginning of its rise to prominence. 2) The Rockbiter/Doomhammer combo has been nerfed by Rockbiter's cost increase. And 3) Shaman's basic cards, eg Lava Burst are good, but its pre-TGT state of awfulness is evidence that this isn't enough. It would need some serious help from the next expansion to survive this without returning to trash-tier.
I don't get why this comment got down-voted. It's the best summary of the issue with changing charge to Charge I've seen. It doesn't matter about the specifics (will shaman be good next rotation?). It's a general issue:
The issue right now is really only a few cards being used for degenerate combos. People seem to mistake Blizzard saying, "Charge minions used for OTK combos are bad" with "charge is bad." Charge is fine, Leeroy Jenkins/Faceless Manipulator is not.
I can think of 3 potential solutions to solve the charge issue:
1) Make taunt minions more viable. Add cheaper taunts with more health, Dirty Rat is a great example of this. They don't even need a massive attack stat, just enough health to survive a turn or two.
2) Stop making charge minions with high attack or high value. Patches is an example of this, it has 1 attack but always hits face for 1, maybe 2 or more. But the value of Patches is what makes it so viable in most aggro decks. Not every charge minion needs to have ridiculous stats either, maybe toning down the attack and increasing their health would push them more in the direction of board control, if that is what Blizzard actually envisions charge minions being used for.
3) Change charge so that it cannot hit face on the turn it is played. This is the most controversial suggestion, but I've seen multiple people make it. The main deck it would affect is Aggro Warrior (As, from what I've seen and played against, Shaman doesn't play taunts and most rogues focus on Edwin VanCleef and Questing Adventurer as their source of damage.) but that doesn't mean it would outright kill it. Warriors could still go down the pirate/dragon route for aggro, it would just mean most players could survive past turn 5 and actually have a chance to counter their opponent.
1) I concur. Second-Rate Bruiser is another really good example. I hope we get more cards like this.
2) Yup. There's a reason that Gnomeregan Infantry was never a problem. I proposed above a minion like the Hogchoppers that only gains charge if the opponent has three or more minions. This encourages you to use it to trade (or forces you to, if we go with the next idea).
3) Yes, this. All charge should work like Charge. If not now, then at least give us a lower-cost version of Icehowl in the next expansion to prove that they can be very useful if their cost isn't prohibitively high.
I want to put an emphasis on the word, "potential." I think you sum up the possibilities, but I don't think that any one of those fixes is without its drawbacks.
1) The problem with printing good, non-conditional taunt minions is that they become the default for every deck. Remember Sludge Belcher? Amazing card. Ridiculously good on so many levels...and run by nearly every non-aggro deck in existence. While I certainly miss that card in this brave new pirate world, the point remains that generically good taunt minions immediately take over their mana slot. And in order for aggro to be competitive, it has to be even more aggro-y. And so forth. Good, neutral, non-conditional taunt minions are more of an instigator for generic decks and arms-racing than actually solving problems. The conditional nature of Second-Rate Bruiser and Dirty Rat are, by comparison, brilliance. So I guess in this sense they are already using this solution.
2) The problem here is that low attack charge minions are near useless. Stormwind Knight and Gnomeregan Infantry are dumpster cards because the whole point of charge is rapid interaction with the board. Low attack means low impact and essentially negates any purpose in giving a minion charge. I think Kor'kron Elite is the rare example of a charge minion with more balanced stats, and in practice it rarely gets good trades on board. Maybe a 3/4 charge would be better, but this is hard to say.
3) Despite this being the most popular suggestion, I think it is overall the worst. Aside from the necessity of rebalancing every charge card in existence, it would remove a lot of the dynamic nature of the charge effect and push players ever more toward spells. That is, if charge can only be used as a board control tool, and spells can be used as a board control tool OR a coup de grace against the opponent, which do you think people will gravitate toward? The only way Blizzard could balance that would be to make charge relatively cheap in budget, but then you run into other problems...etc...etc. It causes regressive issues that I don't think most players fully appreciate.
In the end, I think Blizzard really is pursuing the wisest course, which is to explore conditional variations on charge which encourage players to use charge for board control rather than face damage. They may end up retroactively rotating a few cards to make the new paradigm work, but I think the hogriders are only the alpha version and it will only be a short while before we begin seeing more finely-tuned and popular versions.