Mike Donais Explains the Quest Mechanic & Talks Journey to Un'Goro Card Expectations
Shaun of Tempo Storm got a chance to speak with Mike Donais on the upcoming Questing mechanic, mentions details on the new set, and briefly touches on Arena.
Quote from Mike DonaisJourney to Un'Goro
- There will be at least one other card in Un'Goro that works with Deathrattle minions.
- Adapt will be seen on more than just Battlecry activation. There are spells for Adapt similar to those that make use of the Discover mechanic.
- Elementals are a focus in the set. They are "important" and "very cool". Not ready to talk about interactions yet.
Quests
- Quests are meant to be late-game cards that you build up to so they don't feel like they need to add ways to slow them down.
- Quests take up a secret slot, which means you can only drop 4 secrets if you have a Quest active.
- Only one Quest can be active at a time per player.
- Quests can activate on either players turns - much like the old version of secrets!
- Quests were the most challenging part of the set due to the iterations of fleshing the mechanic out.
- At one point, Quests started in-play.
- Quest design was kind of like the Old Gods design but with 9 cards (18 with tokens) instead of 4.
Arena
- The team is exploring more ways to iterate on Arena and Mike thinks they'll start experimenting with them over the next year.
- Any specific first iterations to the Arena won't be permanent. It may even be interesting to change it up every few months.
- With their new Arena technology, Quests aren't available in drafts.
Game Design
- Mike thinks we'll see less high-attack one-drops.
- They don't want to nerf things so fast that it punishes deck innovators but they'll keep an open mind about it.
Cool, what are those four cards you are going to sacrifice to get this powerful combo?
Enemy turn: Plays coin
Yeah you just need to draw a 2 card combo on turn 1 and have your opponent not play around it. Sure, meta defining.
AND PEOPLE SAID IT WOULDN'T WORK XD
We'll have to wait to see it in play in the new meta of course, but I do think people are overestimating Adapt, as you have less than a third chance of being offered any one of the options. From what we've seen so far, it seems too inconsistent to base a deck around when you could be all ready for your Adapt KO and then be offered "taunt", "cannot be targeted by spells or hero powers", and "divine shield". I mean, Enhance-o Mechano had a third chance to give windfury, but no one built a serious deck using it as a finisher. But, I am prepared to be proven wrong.
Since quests are treated like secrets can they be dispelled and/or stolen?
No, they aren't secrets, they just take up a secret spot.
Not by current methods however who's to say if there aren't cards in the set that interact with quests.
Hope that this month team 5 will analyse in depth quest cards and they won't introduce something that will destroy the game like pirate package.I'm encouraged by "late game" quest cards cause that means they look into bringing the game in a more control meta..Now after nerf patch I clearly see that you can't kill the aggro decks... (zoo,pirate face warrior,aggro rogue etc)
It's awesome that they wanna do cool stuff with elementals and all, but if you pay attention to the Un'Goro video, most of the old cards shown becoming elemental tribe are Shaman. Please don't push him into the top of the game right after nerfing him out of it! D:
new hunter 1 drop:
1 mana 1-1
deathrattle: adapt
new hunter quest: face plays taunt
reward: still go face
That's a kick in the nuts for secret classes considering the other 6 classes don't get penalized for having a quest up. Yea, granted you don't always have 5 secrets up, but depending on how the game goes it can happen.
How long ago have you seen a mage taking all secret slots simultaneously? How long ago have you seen a viable deck with such an ability? What are the other two classes with secrets? =D
Wow, seriously, get a grip.
Some people will bitch about literally anything.