Hearthstone Live Q&A Recap - Nine New Arena Cards, Player Stats, Random Card Backs, Dungeon Runs
The BlizzCon 2017 Live Q&A has now concluded. Below you will find our recap which includes summarized answers from the Q&A portion of the panel and the nine new cards being added to the arena for a limited time. Be sure to join us on the forums to talk about the new arena cards. We've also got screenshots of the panel if that's your thing!
Present during this panel were Hearthstone's Ben Brode, Mike Donais, Peter Whalen ,and Yong Woo.
Quote from HearthPwnArena Cards
- The Dev Team has 27 cards for us to look at and vote on for inclusion in the arena.
- There are 3 cards per class with 1 card per class being added to the arena.
- The arena event will be a temporary thing, not permanent.
- The cards are not collectible.
Player Stats
- Doing player stats is something they want to do and recently they've been building infrastructure for it.
Druids
- They definitely want to add another Druid hero to the game.
- Finding the right hero to contrast with Malfurion is important. They liked how Nemsy was very different than Gul'dan.
- Druid and Ultimate Infestation are being watched. Statistically speaking though it's not a huge swing card, it just feels that way emotionally.
Random Card Backs
- They've been talking about card back randomization.
- The card back has been painted for the option, they just need to write the code.
Dungeon Runs
- Dungeon Runs should be fun for a long time due to all the different permutations available.
- They should learn a lot from Dungeon runs in how players consume that type of content.
- They've considered releasing more bosses to runs mid-expansion, but nothing concrete yet.
- They don't want to force people to play Dungeon Runs so there aren't any rewards.
- The only reward for Dungeon Runs is the card back for defeating the run with all 9 classes.
Fireside Gatherings
- Fireside Gatherings could be used to build a different type of drafting for arena.
- The Lich King event at Gamescom and Fireside Gatherings was really popular. They will definitely do similar stuff in the future.
Misc
- Morgl may be 10001 years old.
- They may rotate more cards to the Hall of Fame during the next Standard year. No announcements yet.
- Titan's Grip is Mike's favourite card that wasn't added to the game. He won't tell us what it does.
- In World of Warcraft, Titan's Grip allows a Warrior to dual-wield weapons.
- Peter keeps successfully denying the card in each set.
- Destroy a 4 attack minion is Ben's favourite Priest fantasy.
- They would like to add a replay feature at some point.
Winning Arena Cards
These cards will be added to the arena in a future patch. We've got a dedicated discussion thread up on our Arena Forums.
Panel Screenshots
Expansion Guide
Our expansion guide is up and running for Kobolds and Catacombs!
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Titan's grip - as having 2 TWO-HAND weapons.
Rogue's hero power is essentially duel wielding - as it shows 2 daggers.
However how I see Titan grip being implemented:
Allowing you to equip a second weapon (without destroying the first) and attacking would deal their combined damage and would take 1 durability off both. Dunno if thats good enough tho just ideas :D
Definition of duel
1 : a combat between two persons; specifically: a formal combat with weapons fought between two persons in the presence of witnesses
2 : a conflict between antagonistic persons, ideas, or forces; also: a hard-fought contest between two opponents.
Definition of dual
1 of grammatical number : denoting reference to two - a dual pronoun
2 a : consisting of two parts or elements or having two like parts: double - families with dual incomes - held dual citizenship in France and the U.S. - a dual function - a dual exhaust system
b : having a double character or nature.
TL;DR: dual wield, not duel wield.
Some of these actually seem like cool cards. I hope they don't just throw all of these ideas out. It would be a waste.
This must be the laziest way to say: we don't want to give more free things besides a legendary and a legendary weapon.
I don't get how blizzard things, this is a stupid reason. Why not give the players that want to play the dungeon some rewards? They could give packs, it doesn't hurt the players that don't play it, and it gives some sort of reward for playing the dungeon.
I am not going to play the dungeon after I get the card back, even if they add new bosses. I really like the mechanic of the dungeon, but if I don't get any rewards for it, it's not worth wasting your time.
*EDIT*: I wonder why the 11 dislikes don't like rewards in the dungeon or disagree with my statement.
So completing Dungeon Run, a mode all about descending through catacombs and fighting your way through bosses in a journey to find treasure, yields no rewards besides the card back?
I feel like something is missing here.
One of the main issues, I imagine, is botting. How do you stop people from creating a bot that just plays Dungeon Run all day, racking up rewards? Bots are the reason we're limited to 100 gold a day from winning games.
I'm not a fan of no rewards either, but I get the dilemma they have. Maybe they could have made it a weekly reward, like Tavern Brawl? But then players feel like they're forced to play it to min-max rewards, which is apparently not what they want. I dunno. Hopefully they hear the feedback on it, and can monitor how many people keep playing the mode after they get no rewards, and make changes.
It's something I'd be able to wrap my head around a little better if the setting were something other than treasure-encrusted caves, in which the reason we're going there (thematically) in the first place is for the explicit purpose of getting treasure. In this particular case, working out a way to dole out rewards to align with the theme would have been appreciated.
If we were, say, journeying through Icecrown in this format, not having any rewards would be easier to swallow since treasure isn't an explicit theme. One of the primary themes of Kobolds and Catacombs is treasure, and the fact that the flagship new mode does not yield actual in-game treasure results in the themes of the expansion ringing hollow.
Lava Shock not, but minion yes.
I think saying it makes arena unplayable is an exaggeration, but the card is pretty good. It lets you remove everything on the board in most cases and you still have the rest of your turn to develop anything. You really have to think about when you play it though since you won't be able to do anything on your next turn so even though it is 0 mana this card is like a last resort when you can't win any other way.
Is the arena team a different team than the one who designs constructed. Because there are a few very obviously powerful cards that could fix a lot of classes problems with ease (*cough* Deadeye *cough*)
They are intentionally trying to change things up for an undetermined amount of time.
Oh my god why can't these be collectable. Deadeye is exactly what Hunter needs for Control Hunter to be finally viable.
Though, I really hope these permanently stay in Arena. Arena is such a mess and Arena exclusive cards could help fix that.
These cards could always be added to real sets in the future. The arena, like brawls, is a good testing ground for things.
How is arena a good testing ground?You spend 150g to enter,its not free like Brawl...