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.
Question, is this single player adventure paid in gold like Nax? or it will be free like KaC ?
the single player stuff from the 135 card expansions is always f2p. Usually also without a good reward, you`ll just get a card back
Exciting!
I agree with the replayability issue. That part was a bummer. On that note, I have replayed Kel'Thuzad's final mission a couple times just to hear those emotes again. Same with The Lich King and Dr. Boom. Anyone else?
replayability of adventures is zero, they need to give more reward during time
I don't agree at all. I still play it a lot and when I don't like the meta then it's my main play mode. Right now I have around 2000 bosses defeated in Witchwood a Kobolds. The replay value is nearly endless if you play for fun, not for rewards.
Given only like 4-5 cards from Boomsday see any serious play (and less so now that Giggling was nerfed), at least proportionally, there were more successful than now.
Zilliax, Super Collider, Dr. Boom, Dynomatic, Solarium, Myrna's Unstable Element, Spider Bomb, Demonic Project, Dream Petal Florist, Subject 9, Mecha'thun, Omega Assembly, Cosmic Anomaly, Shooting Star, Star Gazer Luna, CrystalSmith Kangor (if you count even paladin, which looks like it might be really good), Crystalizer is sometimes run in odd decks, Soul Infusion, Doubling Imp, Menacing Nimbus and probably some other things I have missed.
Yes only 21 out of 45 cards of that adventure were used in top tier decks.
Blizzard trying to make us believe they stopped adventures for anything else than a shitload more money is honestly just sad, especially with the whole Diablo Immortal thing
And HOW do they make "shitloads" more money from making adventure content free? Do you have data to back up this assertion? You're also forgetting that a ton of fans were demanding three full expansions per year because they were bored with the meta. DAMN BLIZZARD for listening to the community and giving us exactly what we asked for!
Yes I have data, look at blizzard activision's financials in the past year and you'll see that Hearthstone is more profitable than ever because instead of charging 25$ per adventure they can sell enormous pre-purchase bundles. Put down your knight helmet dude, nobody ever asked for adventures to disappear, just like nobody asked for Diablo on mobile. Blizzard is getting greedy with its player base and that's that
You must be new here. A TON of people were asking for three full expansions a year. Free-to-play players complained incessantly about the high gold-only cost of unlocking wings, and about the fact that you couldn't craft Adventure cards. The pro-scene applauded quite loudly when Blizzard finally went to three full expansions a year. You're mistaking your personal opinion for a universal opinion, just as the absurdly overreacting mobile Diablo haters are - a proposition which is nearly always foolish. Note that I'm not suggesting that "everyone" wanted three expansions. The fandom is not a monolith, and pretending it is is childish and silly.
I love how you think it's rational to say they're getting "greedy" with a free-to-play game that requires zero dollars to be successful, and which has one of the most benign microtransaction models in gaming. This argument would carry more weight if it hadn't been the exact same thing people have been howling since the game came out. If it was greedy when they introduced Adventures (which people said) and it's greedy when they take away Adventures (which you're saying now, and others have said before) - what would a non-greedy model look like? Tell us exactly how much they're allowed to charge and how many expansions per year they could release without crossing your made up "greedy" line, and we can discuss it. But I don't think you have any specific criteria - you just want to be angry because it feels good to get angry on the Internet.
It's great that you took your whole lunch hour to compose this paragraph of fancy words but you can't do your research and admit that blizzard as of late has done little to nothing to please its core fanbase, as they have been focused on pleasing the shareholders instead.
You're just blindly defending a company and personally attacking me because bashing someone's opinion on the internet makes you ''feel good''.
Took me about five minutes to write, kiddo. Git gud. ;)
Generic outdated meme to close this up, good job man you've earned my respect
Well you didn't answer a very reasonable question, so I assumed you were only interested in being angry: what does it look like for Blizzard NOT to be greedy in your book? Name the price, and let's have a real discussion. I'm game. Join me in a true discourse!
I'm not joining an asshole with a superiority complex in a ''true discourse'' because whatever I say you're just trying to make me look like an idiot.
Self reflect a little bit, I've just checked your post history and literally all you do is bash people's opinions with your big words trying to look smart. Maybe it's time to get off your high horse and propose YOUR ideas instead of whining about people whining.
My idea is: enjoy this Hearthstone game! It's a game! It's fun! The content is engaging. The pricing model is fair (for a CCG). But you don't like those ideas as you've made quite clear, so let's talk about yours. But again, you'll never tell us the secret to not being greedy, because it's a secret you've kept even from yourself. It's a really simple question, but you'll always have another reason why you won't say it. People like you always do.
I tried to only use two-syllable words since you don't like "big words" for some reason. But "engaging" and "another" are three syllables. Many apologies. Aw damn! That one's four!
"asshole" "superiority complex" "Self reflect" "whining"
Wow. The projection is palpable.