Max McCall on Keywords in Standard Format
Max McCall was out on the forums recently and talked about Keywords in the Standard format. Specifically, he mentions:
- Too many keywords would be overwhelming.
- Keywords aren't needed to give people new strategic options and to make for interesting deckbuilding.
- Less keywords means more support for those mechanics through special interactions.
Check out his full post below. What are your thoughts on keywords in Hearthstone? Are there any that you'd like to see more of?
Quote from Max McCallHaving too many keywords in Hearthstone would be overwhelming. Most of our sets have a new keyword, and some of them have more than one. If, in addition to a set’s new mechanics, we also kept around Spare Parts and Inspire and so on, we’d quickly reach Peak Keyword. Every set is someone’s first set, and learning Hearthstone is tough enough without a bevy of cards with words you don’t understand.
The marginal benefit of the twentieth keyword in the same Standard environment is small. We don’t need many keywords to make deckbuilding interesting and give people new strategic options. So, we do most of our keywords on a set-by-set basis, and they naturally sunset when Standard rotates. Because we have fewer keywords, we can support those mechanics more; having a theme is more fun than having a card or two with Inspire. Instead, we can layer cards like Maiden of the Lake and Garrison Commander on top of Inspire to give the mechanic more depth. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we had more keywords, because we don’t have enough cards in each set to do so.Couldn't this be relatively easily rectified by simply adding some sort of appendix or something the website that lists all the in-game words as well as what effects those words apply? Screen shots for a visual aid could help a lot as well.
Far be it from me to question your design philosophy, but it just seems like a non-problem that could be easily fixed with a new player section on your website that provides useful information pertaining to the game as well as a list of key words.New players rarely use resources like these. It's a lot to ask for someone who may have only played the game for a couple of hours to hop out of the game, go to a website, and look up relevant information. It's even worse if you're playing on your phone and you need the information immediately.
I get the impression that some people think that reducing the number of keywords in Standard is catering to new players at the expense of experienced ones. It's not. It does reduce comprehension complexity, but it doesn't reduce the space for strategic decision-making. Consider if every card in a set had its text replaced with a keyword: the set would be no more or less complex strategically. It would just be harder to understand. Indeed, doing fewer mechanics and devoting more cards to them gives people more options for deck construction.
So there are 22 "keywords" present in hearthstone: http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Ability#Keywords
This is including wild, and only 2 keywords have been thrown into wild (Inspire and Mega - Windfury)
17 keywords originate from classic alone... so.... honestly dno wat blizzard is going on about, for a new "dumb" player, it may take them a while to become familiar with the classic set alone
In MTG the keywords are explained on card. Does not look too nice, but info is instantly available
After they just added adapt, the most complicated keyword yet to a new player?
I don't believe you, Max.
Don't believe him? Try making a game. Players don't want to remember all of the keywords unless they've been playing the game since it was introduced in which case they'll have no problem with it. (Like many of us reading this) Adapt was introduced because it's similar to the discover mechanic which is popular.
You don't need to remember anything - that's why you can hover over a card and get an explanation anytime you want.
Adapt - on the other hand, doesn't even explain itself properly, so their claims of focusing on new players ring hollow
so you can't give mechanic's more layered cards because there are not enough cards in each set???? Ever heard of adding more cards to the sets.
adding more new cards will also give more cards to build decks with and new strategic options.
also if you are worried about the new player experience then adding a way for new players to get more packs would increase player base. like adding a new quest that would say " Complete 2 quest today and receive 3 times the rewards". (For clarification: quest are the really quest in the homepage not the new quest cards. )
Adding more cards would only annoy all parties involved. The players would have more decklists available, but at the cost of having to buy a much higher amount of packs to open all the cards they need. People already complain about how stingy Hearthstone is now; imagine that with even more cards tacked onto each expansion.
Needless to say, having more cards also makes it harder to Blizzard to predict the meta and balance their cards. They wouldn't be happy about more work and we, as players, wouldn't be happy about anything like Grim Patron or Undertaker springing up again.
I'm sure that the 120-ish card limit they have for expansions is carefully calculated to maintain fun and variety, yet keep a manageable about of work and stability for all involved. Despite all the other changes they've made, that card limit hasn't fluctuated much.
Besides, what, Max says seems quite correct - having a fewer amount of keywords allows a greater amount of interplay between them, and that allows synergies which are the base for synergistic decks, which can be much more enjoyable than simply effective batches of cards. Having a card with three keywords on it is rare, but doable if they're simple - Al'Akir, for example. There's simply no reason for a card with four. We don't really need more layered cards. The game is fun, varied, and competitive as is.
Wait wut. This is a digital card game. Keywords can easily be explained to the apparent monkey literally every time they hover over a card. It renders the "MTG has 100 keywords zomg" argument null and void.
Blizzard:''We are keeping this game to monkey's level of simplicity for the new players' sake that don't exist thanks to our greedy policies''
Player types according the Blizzard:
1. Beginner
2. Stupid
3. Money Bag
Often this is the same person.
Stop using that argument every damn time.
Magic the Gathering gets 2-5 new keywords each expansion, which means it has over 100 total now.
Yes, that's way too much. No, you don't have to be mentally retarded to forget hald of them.
They think that most players are mentally retarded but very solvent!
It's a valid argument so it'll return as many times as Blizzard gives the same explanation. It's just not enough of a reason.
There is nothing wrong with making keywords, what they should focus on is how they'll TEACH people who have a hard time understanding it to understand it.
Sometimes is just better to remove the "caution hot" label on your fresh order of "hot coffee" so you burn your self. That's an actual life lesson.
Asking a person to do some 1 by 1 research isn't horrible to expect from a human.
Right, learning a dozen keywords is the reason new players would stop playing the game. Not the fact that they'll be hobbled because Blizzard gives content (packs) at less than a trickle and it'll take months to get a decent collection, but because having to exit the game and read a wiki article is simply too much effort and new players are too stupid to learn as they go.
Forget the wiki article. There's a helpful pop-up that shows every time you hover over a card!
That being said, I think it would be fine if they went down the Un'Goro path. It's essentially 3 keywords (which is the average amount of keywords MTG puts out every expansion):
Well since you seem fine with any reason. Sure.
The aesthetic of the card in Hearthstone is limited to four lines of text. Making a keyword out of i.e "Can't be targeted..." would open up more space to add additional effects/rule.
Why don't you try to type out effect in full words on cards that has 2 or more keywords and ask your self if those keywords perhaps are needed and actually LESS "confusing" in the end of it all. Try to type out Adapt for what it is.
E.g A card today that would be "Can't Attack, Can't be targeted by spells or hero powers" would fill up the card rule slot all by it self.
If an effect reoccurs in a vast number of cards, converting it into a keyword is a way to move the game forward in a design and design space argument.
This is how most other card games handle/introducing new rule sets.
This is the way they handled Poisonous, since we have new cards with more than one effect with Poisonous.
We'll just leave it there. I believe people won't have a hard time learning. New players must learn the game no matter how you look upon it. If it's a little less or more than at the vanilla state -- doesn't matter.
If you think there would be problems with that because there is a bunch that are incapable to remember such things, well. Different opinions.
...