Year of the Mammoth Clarifications Roundup
We've gone through recent posts from the Hearthstone team which help clarify some stuff about the Year of the Mammoth.
- The team is considering unnerfing Molten Giant and putting it in the Hall of Fame set for the 2018 rotation.
- Ben Brode thinks Shatter would make a great Classic card one day.
- No extra cards being added to the Classic set for classes which are losing a card. That isn't set in stone.
- Cards in all the expansions this year will only come from card packs. The missions that come with expansions do not reward cards.
- Missions in expansions do not require payment.
- There are no current plans to make Wild cards available in the shop.
- Druid of the Claw's wording has been updated and will be available in a future patch.
- Yong Woo stated they're thinking of adding a profile page with a player's favorite decks and cards.
Quote from BlizzardCould you please unnerf Molten and put it in Hall of Fame?
We're considering it for the next rotation. (Ben Brode)
I was talking about the one in 2018, sorry for the confusion. You can take your upvotes back. (Ben Brode)Thanks for clarification. Whilst you are available, what is the end goal of Hall of Fame? Will cards being removed from standard-classic possibly be replaced with interesting but weak cards from other wild sets?
Definitely possible. As an example, I think Shatter might make a great Classic card someday. (Ben Brode)
Why do Blizzard put so much care into "returning" players as opposed to their "currently" playing customers
Time and again one of their go to excuses why something cant be done is because of returning players but if they have left they should no longer be the consideration if they ever return anyway
On top of that I feel Blizzard may be missing one part of why players leave which is waning interest in the current game design
Should a developers interest not be in keeping their current customer happy not a customer that may never come back?Often I give several reasons for doing something or not doing something. Sometimes we think about our returning players. But I don't think we've ever made a decision at the expense of current players exclusively because of returning players. People see that one bullet point and assume that's the whole reason.
Part of the reason to keep them in mind is that it helps us find solutions that are good for everyone. If we never think about new and returning players, we miss opportunities to make the game better for them at the same time we are making the game better for current players.
We just take them into account. (Ben Brode)
Maybe not related to 'returning' players, but things like not changing inconsistencies (i.e. Druid of the Claw transformation) because of 'new player experience' do happen.
Inconsistencies are generally understood by the engaged playerbase. Players know Wild Growth gives an extra card at 10 mana, for example.
Inconsistency is worse for players seeing cards for the first time, usually. But you're right, card wording is almost entirely the domain of new players. Experienced players know what a card does just from looking at the art.
Either way, Druid of the Claw's wording has been updated. You'll see the change in a patch later this year. (Ben Brode)
So Hall of Fame cards will disappear from packs?
That is correct. Hall of Fame cards will no longer appear in packs when Hall of Fame is live. (Zeriyah)
So Jesse, does this announcement mean that there will be NO more Single Player Adventures in Hearthstone except for the "optional single-player missions that will help develop the expansions’ thematic narratives"?
As announced, there will not be any new Adventures for Hearthstone this year. I think you will find the new single player missions to be equally enjoyable though! (Aratil)
I'm excited for this news, but I have a big question. Maybe I missed it in the announcements, but will Blizzard be keeping to the old model that Wild Adventures and cards are no longer purchasable through the store?
There are no plans to change that at this time. (Aratil)
Can you explain what you mean by the new design for the expansion? It sounds like to me its the regular single player story modes but this time each wing will be free?
In the new expansion design, you will acquire cards through packs - just as we have in the past. Additionally, there will be free thematic missions to help tell the story and lore of the expansion! (Molly)
Is hearthstone going to replace the phased out classic cards with new ones? Or will these classes have 5 commons instead of 6 now?
for now, it'll be less cards for those classes. But we could change that some day (Ben Brode)
Do you have any plans to provide statstics or game records through official means?
We are thinking of adding a profile page that might have something like a player's favorite decks and cards, but it's not something that we'll add soon. (Yong Woo)
I miss playing the old face hunter with 3 cost Buzzard, 2 cost Unleash the Hounds and an eaglehorn longbow which gains durability when any secret activates. It was the first deck that I have played.
Nah you don't want legacy to play unnerfed cards. After all, you think you do but you don't.
???
People have been fighting Blizzard to get legacy servers for World of Warcraft for years, to no avail. So everyone plays vanilla WoW on Elysium and other private servers now. Can't see Blizz making an exception for Hearthstone.
What about leeroy why they dont move it wild?
There is no point. Leeroy is a pretty balanced card and we will see him not really often, after nerf PO. Also its cool combo card, which helps rogue class a bit.
I would suggest that each year certain basic and classic cards are moved to wild for 12 months. This could match the time period for Year Of the Krakken etc and perhaps actually given some meaning to the years theme.
The cards would return to Standard and other basic and class cards would be moved to wild for 12 months. It's a flexible system that would give Blizzard a lot more flexibility with card design because they can manage all card availability.
Blizzard should really do this for the reasons you've stated. It's a win-win.
However I do believe it could also be for longer or shorter periods of time. Like a card could be announced to go into Wild for the remaining of the Year of the [Insert]. Sometimes this announcement could be made at the start of the year giving the card 1 year on the bench. Sometimes the announcement for the card to go to the bench could be made 7 months into the year which would give the card a break from Standard for about 5 months. Longer and shorter temporary hall-of-fame-ish ;)
Then those cards wouldn't be wild.
Main difference is about newcomers, if they would just acquire those cards through packs, how would it be different than what we have in standard right now.
Also, its not like they completely vanished the cards, you can just craft the cards you want from wild sets, adventures too even if you didn't have them when they are released.
Oh, so it takes an entire year to change a mana value on Molten Giant. You guys continue to amaze. Oh, here's an idea. Since no one is using it now after you intentionally nerfed it into oblivion and admitted you didn't want anyone using it, how about you lower the mana cost by 3 and see what happens. If no one continues to use it, lower the mana cost again. If people use it constantly and it becomes a problem again, raise the mana cost back up. If people use it sometimes and it's neither overpowered nor worthless - you leave it!
It's like........balancing a game through iterative testing or something. But who would ever do that?
This is the upside of having a digital card game. You can change cards over and over again until you hit a good spot. It's win-win.
The player base got their full dust value so they should be able to afford the card back.
If you did some of your own research you'd also find out that Hearthstone is run on Unity so that makes it extremely difficult for them to push out a client update because they need to replace the entire file on your device. Why they haven't built their own engine yet is another story, but if you researched you would understand why it is so difficult for them to do something like that (i.e., they can't push out a full client update to change the mana cost of one semi-garbage card every week).
You don't need a PTR. You can absolutely make these changes live. Or do the "internal testing" they keep telling us they do so much of.
And they literally said they nerfed it so hard because they didn't want people playing it anymore. We all saw what they said. So if that's what they really wanted (and I'm fine if they decided they actually don't want a card with that kind of mechanic playable) then why does Brode keep teasing undoing their nerf.
Im good. As long as Jaraxxus summons infernals, rogue still has leeroy cold blood combo. Witch makes me think why not put leeroy to hall of fame.
Most likely because then there would not exist any aggro finisher at all on the game. They want to keep stuff in the game but on a more contained way.
Indeed, there is a fine line in well coordinated zoo and a mindless pirate aggro.
This would limit future design possibilities and make some future op combos, it will probably be god in a few years tho.
Ben Brode thinks //insert any bad card// would make a great Classic card one day.