Rumble Run - New Details On Upcoming Solo Content + Looking Back At Adventures
Like with the past few expansions, Hearthstone is getting some new solo content to play through! Here's everything we've learned about the mode so far.
- Rumble Run releases on December 13th, 9 days after the expansion launch.
- Shrines - Passives! They sit on the board giving you a special effect. They can be destroyed, but they will respawn after 3 turns.
- Like other solo content recently added to Hearthstone, successful wins let you add more cards to your run's deck.
- They really want to celebrate each of the teams (classes). Overpowered fights had to be done.
- You will fight eight opponents - all the other teams. Each team has 3 different shrines, and 3 champions so your runs won't always be the same.
- Rikkar is your champion you play with. He evolves over the run. He doesn't have a team to start with, that's up to you.
- You earn "Prize Fighters" for successful clears. Pick your own teammates.
- We'll get to play as the champions in "a series of" Tavern Brawls.
Adventures of Old
- The old way of doing solo content, adventures, didn't work out for them due to not having enough cards for a meta.
- Adventures needed to be easy so everyone could unlock the cards.
- The low replayability of adventures was also a problem that needed to be solved.
Frozen Throne - "Linear Battles"
- Knights of the Frozen Throne was the first expansion with the missions team. They went with the old formula, "linear battles" because it was known to work.
- The Lich King fight originally had you getting trapped into Frostmourne with a janky animation that made your game look like it bugged out.
- During QA of the Lich King fight, it was reported that the "Shut Up, Priest" could be stolen. They used that as an opportunity for an easter egg.
- There were several easter eggs within the Frozen Throne adventure that not many people found.
- One easter egg that didn't have many mentions online was the one when fighting The Lich King as a Paladin, turning yourself into Uther of the Ebon Blade and using hero power allowed him to collect your cards. When at 3 out of 4 Horsemen collected, he would say that it would be embarrassing it would be if he collected them all.
- Making the adventure more challenging then usual due to no card rewards turned out to be a positive. They learned players enjoy the challenge and lots of people played.
Kobolds / Witchwood - "Build As You Go"
- One of the big focuses was to make the content replayable. It's sad when they create content that doesn't get to be seen again.
- Making deckbuilding less intimidating was another priority. Lots of players beat the Lich King thanks to the deck copy feature.
- Increasing the challenge even more than before was their final goal for the modes.
- The initial prototype for Dungeon Run saw you playing as Mage and the entire running being just one very long game.
- When the boss died, the board would be reset, you'd pick your bucket of cards in a discover selection, and the new boss would start.
- A fun bug in the prototype caused Arcane Giant to be playable for 0 mana on turn 1 - they didn't reset the spell count between bosses.
- Thanks to that bug, it lead to the special treasure cards which got stronger as your run continued.
- Originally there were 12 bosses to beat each run instead of the 8 we got. They found the decks were too big and the bosses had too much health though which made it less fun.
- You were able to pick your boss in addition to the loot you got. It felt like a negative experience though if you didn't know what each boss did and you lost to them.
- They experimented with Tower Defense a lot with Witchwood. It's a mechanic they are always trying to get into the game.
- Darius Crowley became Hearthstone's Tower Defense and the first hero added to Monster Hunt.
- The final boss in the Witchwood prototype was Jaraxxus.
- Tess Greymane originally had a hero power which was a bag of weapons. Each time it was used, you would get a weapon out of the bag.
- Handgonne - 1 Mana 4/2
- Stake Thrower - 1 Mana 1/8 with Windfury
- Blunderbuss - 1 Mana 2/2 "Also damages the minions next to whomever your hero attacks.
- The weapons in Tess' bag ran out (there were only 3) and then her hero power became the one we have today, Scavenge.
- Magic Mirror allowed players to "break the dungeon" which is fun. Let the players do it.
Boomsday - "Puzzles"
- They always wanted to add Puzzles to Hearthstone.
- It was important to mix up the solo content after doing "Build As You Go" twice in a row.
- Boomsday thematically lead itself well to Puzzles. This was the set to do it.
- Puzzles originally got their start as a Tavern Brawl 2 years ago. They were Lethal-only puzzles. (We actually datamined this)
- The brawl created new tech that allowed them to save your state - absolutely needed for the real deal.
- Toki's replay turn tech helped out in the Puzzle Lab.
- First thing they tried to make was a Tower Defense puzzle.
- Netherspite laser beams tech was used to try and make a puzzle which required bouncing the beams off minions and into portals.
- Since they couldn't let you take extra turns, they instead gave you mana back to cheat in a multi-turn mechanic.
- Mirror was originally supposed to be seeing the solved board state and then having to replicate it. It was hard to remember in more difficult puzzles, even being able to see the solved state whenever you wanted.
- Sometimes there would be multiple developers behind one computer trying to get through a new puzzle they were given.
- One of the puzzles was accidentally unsolvable thanks to a number change and was given to Chakki shortly after he joined the team. Oops!
- They weren't really replayable, but there was very high engagement. They'll probably return to Puzzles again in the future.
Alright here is my (apparently) unpopular opinion about Blizzard's greed.
1. The topic of discussion in this thread, the disappearance of adventures to be replaced by full expansions.
Now, I work in finance and I know how to recognize a financial decision when I see one. We don't have the numbers but it is obvious that Blizzard noticed that full expansions were more profitable than adventures, so they decided to capitalize on the success of microtransactions (packs) and went all-in with those.
That makes the game increasingly difficult for low budget hearthstone gamers like me because we used to dish out 25$ on adventures and save our gold for expansions in order to remain semi-competitive and have fun (I know fun is subjective but to me and to a lot of players, playing cheap decks repetitively for months isn't fun.)
Then again, Blizzard is the market leader, they do what they want, they rake more profits, they can sell pricey bundles to dimish the grindy aspect of the game and some people will pay for that, fine. But that brings me to me next point:
2. Blizzard does the bare minimum to keep the fans entertained during this grind fest.
They reluctantly work on anything that does not earn them direct profit:
Where is the tournament mode that fans have demanded for so long? Oh, it's on hold
Where is the updated client that doesn't have fps issues whatever the device you're using for some reason?
Where are the fixes for well known and atrociously lazy bugs like the collection manager showing ''new'' cards all the time and the search function being absolute garbage?
Why are they so reluctant on nerfing cards or doing actual testing of their expansions to find out powerhouse cards that are obviously overtuned (see Corridor Creeper or Giggling Inventor. I know this is once again my opinion but I think online games like Hearthstone NEED to see frequent balance changes to keep the game fresh, not half-assed patches once per expansion like Blizzard does.
So THIS is why I think Blizzard is getting greedy. I have no problem paying very profitable companies a lot of money as long as the products they deliver are high quality. That's what Apple does, that's what Blizzard used to do, and that's what they're not doing anymore, notably with Hearthstone and Diablo Immortal.
Blizz obviously has more data than I do, but I feel like The League of Explorers, with Brann Bronzebeard, Reno Jackson, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton, had plenty of cards that saw a ton of play or powered new archetypes.
Almost no card besides the legendaries saw competitive play. Probably only Raven Idol.
I don't remember every competitive deck from back then, but I know a lot of cards from that adventure saw play - Finley was in tons of decks, Reno was the cornerstone of an entire archetype, Anyfin or Everyfin (forget which) was big for Shaman murloc decks, Entomb was a critical control piece for Priests, I think Excavated Evil saw a bit of anti-aggro play for priests, dark peddler was one of the better 2-drops in the game at one point, tunnel trogg was flat-out almost nerfed due to its heavy presence in shaman decks, and tomb pillager was a staple for rogues and one of their best arena cards ever.
And there you have all played cards from LoE (everyfin was never competitive). Now compare that to WoG, MSoG, KaC, Ungoro and KFT which each had at least 50-60 competitive cards. WW and BDP have less cards than those, yeah, but their time will come with the next rotation.
The adventures definitely weren't as impactful as the expansions - I should have clarified that. I just miss them! And in my nostalgic memory, I kind of forget how stale the meta may have felt between expansions w/ the adventures in between.
Ehm: Tunnel Trogg, Tomb Pillager, Keeper of Uldaman, Anyfin can happen (had to remove Old Murk Eye due to this card), Entomb, Excavated Evil, Dark Peddler, Forgotten Torch plus the Legendaries mentioned above , Elise and Naga Sea Witch. So sorry but especially for this adventure i think you are wrong
Arguably the most fun I had in heartstone was during that particular time period, healing 30 against aggro shaman was so satisfying.
oh man the feels.
We're gonna be rich!
That's because it did.
The first three adventures to date--are responsible for shaking up the meta.
1) Naxx is--Naxx. Undertaker, Death's Bite, Avenge, Sludge Belcher, Loatheb, etc.
2) BRM introduced Emp, Flamewaker, Imp Gang Boss, and Grim Patron, and also made dragon decks playable.
3) LoE was one of the first expansions to introduce "low cost competitive" Legendaries. Brann and Reno introduced new archetypes. And Sir Finley helped power agro decks in classes that had non-aggressive Hero Powers (Like Shaman and Warrior).
I think the biggest thing Adventures did--was they seemed to have a sense of cohesion. They'd put out a chunk of cards that would obviously change up the game.
Expansions now feel like we're just getting "filler" cards to put in already existing decks and if a new archetype comes out of those expansions, it wasn't by design, but by luck or ingenuity of the playerbase.
I wish Blizzard would take more control and push new ideas and decks, rather than taking a shotgun, luck of the draw approach.
yes
I mean it's really not that generous, that they can't do it. Like let's remember KnC when it came out: there was like 3 daily quests for every player, related to dungeon run like defeat x bosses, finish dr with specific class etc. And that's one of the reasons why people wanted to try it from the beginning of the exp, and why it was so popular on the beginning of the expansion. So yeah if they could do it again, it would be much more appreciated by community than any cardback (because tbh I'm already sick of all these cardbacks)
it was the most complained about feature, a lot of salty Eurowhiners didn't like the rng of the dungeon run and whined about the DR quest taking quest space and forcing them to play a mode that they didn't want and thus that's why we don't have rewards for Solo modes anymore....
Wait really? Didn`t know about that. Well, that`s really stupid of people that whining just to whine, and now because of them we lost an opportunity to gain free additional packs just for playing fun solo content. Wow what is wrong with some people..
i agree with the final boss thing but it should be capped, per day or even per week, to actually avoid abuse
As a digital game that doesn't strictly need to follow the block schedule that paper CCGs do, I think it would be a great idea to use single-player content for mid-expansion card releases. Eternal, probably the most popular online CCG after Hearthstone and MTGA, will puts out new promotional cards that tie in to the story, support deck archetypes from recent sets that didn't see much play, and work as counters to powerful meta cards, while also still releasing Adventures AND Expansions normally. Marin the Fox was a great example of how a new card can shake up the meta in isolation, similar to what Reno Jackson did in week one of LOE, and if Blizz were to release a small adventure pool 2 months after each expansion, it could have similar effects on the meta. Also, I'm a huge fan of the week-long partial metas we had during adventures, and if we had a chance for that again, it would go a long way to keep the game fresh.
Shaking my head at how well put and logical people can be. I wish I saw Card NameMarin the Fox more.
Totally agree - I love the 'micro-metas' that several other CCGs manage to create through inter-expansion drip releases of new cards. I've always been surprised that Blizzard never adopted this kind of approach just for story-telling sake. For example, beginning a storyline with the expansion launch and then progressing it with a new card and cinematic each month that ends with the announcement of the next expansion. It would be a great way to stay engaged with the community throughout the year while ensuring the meta gets a small shakeup each month.
Also on my wish list: achievements. I think expansion-related achievements that result in golden versions of some cards, in-game titles, new card backs, etc would help add a 'single player' flavor to the game. For example, if you're lucky enough to have Mecha'thun, the achievement 'win a match with Mecha'thun as all nine classes' could become unlocked. Winning the achievement grants a golden upgrade to the card (not dustable) and an optional player title of 'Player Name: Software Obsolete' (see the flavor text) or something like that.
Anyway... so damn much this game can do and yet, after several years, we still have the same old game modes.
Wait... with the druid shrine can you just get infinite mana by hero powering at the end of each turn?
New hero power I think?