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.
Bli$$ard prefers to keep inconsistencies instead of letting players having dust refunds… so they can continue to sell packs.
Wow, what an original and thoughtful take you've come up with. Please keep posting this below every. single. article on Hearthpwn. It's not at all boring.
Everyone wins!
*cough* YOGG *cough*
Un-nerf our Lord and Savior, too!
This does not mean that Yogg-Saron deserves to be un-nerfed for the sake of consistency. I played the card pre-nerf, an awful lot. In fact, more than that. Yogg basically read: "Battlecry: Roll a percentile die - 1-5: you lose, 6-25: remove some enemy threats, but not enough to save you, 26-65: level the playing field, 66-90: remove all enemy threats and create a strong but not yet winning board, 91-100: you win." For a card that is only played when you're destined to lose, that's ridiculously OP. Sorry, Yogg, but your nerf was deserved.
Haha now people are going to whine that th hey didnt get a dust refund lmao. This community sometimes...
They don’t want to see the card stop being used simply because they were making a consistency change, because god knows everyone would disenchant the card for the dust. They’d prefer it stays FUN, so they’re keeping it FUN
I want my dust!
well, go and dissenchaint Tess, and you'll recive 400 dust :D
what a great patch it was :)
Proof that the community can change blizzards actions.
However since they are reverting Tess they should revert everything in my opinion. Catering to esports is the moral of this revision.
What about the adapt bug that causes “can’t be targeted” to prevent future adaptations? (Ex. Paladin quest, volcanosaur)
Is that being fixed? Cause that’s a pretty big problem
think it's already fixed
Team 5 is making more frequent changes to HS cards since Brode's departure.
Does it mean that he was holding them from making too many changes between expansions or is because team 5 wants to prove its worth without him?
Wow, they would rather revert the changes than give away some dust OMEGALUL
I'm glad they allowed players with quest druid to change their decks, because the deck really wouldn't be able to compete with others with the Faceless Manipulator "balancing". It shows that they do still pay attention to the esports community even if there is some miscommunication from time to time.
Hi flux! <3
Whatup!
I like how you can say hello to Flux and know he'll be there with a response & friendliness :D <3
Wow. It is really weird to hear Blizzard admit they fucked up. It's even more weird when they actually REVERT a screwup and not just buff something to OP levels.
TAKE NOTES OVERWATCH!