Blizzard Addresses Problems - Tess Greymane, Shudderwock, Quest Druid at HCT Seoul
- An update on June 8th, PDT, will change some cards.
- Tess Greymane's Battlecry will once again continue even if she is destroyed, silenced, or removed.
- Shudderwock's Battlecry limit will be increased to 30, from 20.
- Players with Quest Druid decks at HCT Seoul are allowed to submit a new list if they wish due to changes.
- Ultimately, they only want to give out dust refunds if a card has a "decrease [in] their overall power level for balance purposes".
Quote from Jesse HillGreetings,
Thank you for your feedback regarding the recent Update 11.2. We apologize for not offering notice in advance of these changes before they went live. We understand that this wasn’t a good experience and that it also had an impact on some of our esports competitors as well. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, and we’ll do better in the future.
Update 11.2 brought with it some changes as part of our ongoing, overall goal to make card interactions more intuitive across the board. The intention of some of those changes was to align four similar cards (Tess Greymane, Lynessa, Shudderwock, and Yogg-Saron). If you’re familiar with the way that one of these minions works, you should be able to guess how the others work. We added a cap to the maximum number of effects that can be generated by these Battlecries, and made Tess’ Battlecry end if she was destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed, just like Yogg-Saron.
After hearing your feedback to that change, we initially considered offering a full Arcane Dust refund for Tess. We also read feedback from players who use Tess in their decks asking for her to be reverted to her old functionality. In this case, we agree that it’s worthwhile to sacrifice some consistency so Tess is more fun to play, especially since our priority wasn’t to decrease Tess’ power level. With that in mind, instead of offering an Arcane Dust refund and encouraging players to disenchant the card, we’re reverting one of the changes to Tess Greymane so that her Battlecry will continue even if she’s destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed from the board.
This situation has also raised discussions regarding the definition of a card fix versus a dust-refunding nerf, so we thought this would be a good time to talk about our stance on the subject.
We will continue to provide full Arcane Dust refunds for changes to cards that decrease their overall power level for balance purposes — in other words, card nerfs.
We’re working to improve Hearthstone and make the underlying mechanics more intuitive. Bug fixes or system-wide mechanics changes to improve the game will not be grounds for a full Arcane Dust refund on a card. System-wide mechanical updates affect many different cards in ways that could make some more or less powerful, such as the interaction between Jungle Giants and Faceless Manipulator.
Lynessa Sunsorrow was never intended to apply her buffs in the order they were cast, so the update to her functionality in 11.2 was a bug fix for that card. The cap of 30 effects is a system-wide change intended to protect the service and players from potentially bad play experiences that have minimal player value. We’re planning to raise the cap of Shudderwock’s Battlecry from 20 to 30 when we implement the fix that reverts Tess, as well.
We’re currently planning to revert the change that caused Tess Greymane to stop casting her Battlecry when destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed on June 8th PDT.
HCT Seoul and Quest Druid
We also would like to take this moment to apologize to our player community for this update’s impact on the HCT Tour Stop taking place in Seoul this weekend, specifically the 15 players who brought Quest Druid decks.
After considering recent feedback and significant discussion, we felt that Quest Druid decks were most directly affected in terms of viability as a result of the changes that were introduced with Update 11.2. As such, we allowed players that brought Quest Druid an opportunity to resubmit their deck.
Balancing the health of the game with the needs and calendar of a global esport like the Hearthstone Championship Tour is always challenging. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, for us, our players, and competitors, and we’ll do better in the future.
Thanks again for your feedback and your understanding, and we'll see you in the Tavern.
Just a note on that first part: Charged Devilsaur uses a battlecry, not Rush. There is a major difference - if you use a card to resurrect it, it now has the original charge. If it was Rush, it would still not be able to attack the opposing hero.
I agree with Unstable Evolution - that seems to be the exact same thing as Echo.
Well, I see my point didn't carry through... sorry...
My point is that since Blizzard's main argument is CONSISTENCY, then Charged Devilsaur might as well be a target for change. I absolutely know that Charged Devilsaur mechanically works way differently than RUSH. But the changes in Tess, Shudderwok and Lynessa is AS DRASTIC as a change would be to Charged Devilsaur. But would make sense IF your ONLY argument is CONSISTENCY.
Now, we all know, that the argument of CONSISTENCY is bullshit, since other cards aren't targeted that would make as much sense to change IF it was about CONSISTENCY. My point is not to suggest changes to any of these cards, just to hint at bad arguments from Blizzard.
Anyhow, my example might still be confusing, the main problem still remains: REFUND or REVERT!
(not only pro players matter, we humble casual players also play the game, for god's sake!!!)
So, guys, forgive my ignorance, but i didn't get why exactly quest druid was affected, can any of you explain it pls?
In the last patch (11.2), Blizzard changed the order in which minions' card text affects the board and when a minion is played. In short, before the patch the minion Dire Wolf Alpha's text (adjacent minions get +1 attack) could buff a minion like Azure Drake to be 5 attack when it entered the battlefield, thus triggering Jungle Giants. After the patch the effects of minion card text on the board isn't counted until AFTER the minion that is being played has completed its battlecry and such. Hope that made sense!
Refund or revert Lynessa Sunsorrow...
"capitalism bad". uses products made because of capitalism. i sear some people have had it so good they dont know what bad is lol
We do havr recourse though and if falls in line with capitalistic ideals, they want to treat us like children well the children can bite back, boycott Blizzard or Hearthstone specifically. We may not be able to argue our point directly with the developers but if we hit them in the wallet and mess up their bottom line they will begin to listen. They want to cater to the pros of HS and ignore the masses well then let's see how much money they make when the handful of pros are the only ones playing or purchasing packs......personally I have been cutting down my overall play time and refuse to put another dollar into this game. With any luck I will be done with HS before the next expansion.
Complaining will accomplish little as you can tell from Blizz's response if you want real change you have to go about it in the correct way.
The change to Lynessa is annoying, but it really only impacts Blessed Champion, right? Still, I do think they should give back some dust.
Lynessa Sunsorrow functioned with the spells applied in strict order for 5-6 months, some players used this mechanic for some crazy combos. Changing her now with that excuse -that that is how she was meant to function- is pathetic. If she was meant to replay the buffs in a random order why wait so much to change that? Hell, why even release her like that? Don't tell me you didn't noticed that in the internal testing, that was quite obvious from the stat. So yeah, blizz started to make pathetic excuses to not refund the dust to players, basically stealing from players that happened to craft the card, so I think it's time to vote with our wallets!
Revert on Tess and Shudderwock are welcome, but based on the poor excuse that they made I think the real purpose was the same - not to give players dust cause in that case they may not buy so many packs in the near future. If that's true I hope it backfires at you hard.
When does the patch hit? Today I played Tess who shadowstep herself to my hand (I stole Gul Dan) and the Battlecry stopped.
It is so funny how they are so conservative with balance changes (cost, status, and text changes) with the excuse to respect card ownership but all of a sudden they modify fill cards without any balance reason and refuse to dust refund. Some changes even brought inconsistency to the game while they claim to make mechanics more intuitive... they change Rummaging Kobold for that reason but look how Grave Shambler interacts with Kingsbane HERE
All cards should be disenchantable for full value in case of any change.
If it's a nerf, refund it. If it's buff, refund it, no one will dust it anyway. If it's not buff or nerf, refund it, some people will dust it some will not.
Most likely: Different teams do different things and failed to communicate. The bug fixing/design team made these changes and did not effectively coordinate with the balance or esports teams.
In the end Blizzard effed up, but it is a very normal way for an organization to eff up.
What I'm really confused about is why T5 makes tournament impacting decisions while decklists are locked in or when a tournament is in progress.
Perhaps you two are mistaken or you simply didn't read. Jungle Giants itself was not nerfed. Cards that interact improperly with jungle giants were fixed to work consistently. Stop looking for free dust and complaining all the time.
I guess in your make-believe world in your head, people are infallible eh?
In Yogg we trust. The one true son of RNGsus.
Sute, but for a company making millions of dollars every year, this is really poor change management.
What happened to jungle giants?
Small change that if a creature receives a static buff from the board to get above 5 attack, it will no longer count toward the quest.
Example would be dropping a Chillwind Yeti next to a Dire Wolf Alpha. Used to count toward quest, now it doesn’t.
You mean facts like the literal thing Blizzard said when Yogg got nerfed? https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/20303031
A "man of science" who basically disregards doing minimal work to prove whether his hipothesis is right.