Hearthstone Dev Interview - C'Thun / Reno / Inspire, Pirates, Spirits in Arena
The Hearthstone reddit had a chance to sit down with Peter Whalen and Liv Breeden to talk about the new expansion.
Here's what they had to say.
- Work started on Rastakhan's Rumble back in early January.
- Unsurprisingly, Battle for Azeroth inspired the set. The team didn't feel constricted by using it - lots of cool characters.
- Spirit cards will be available in the arena.
- The Shrine mechanic is only for the single-player content.
- Starting with Kobolds & Catacombs, they learned that build around cards are better when they are easier to obtain (rare).
- Using their newfound knowledge on build arounds, this set gave players a cheap and expensive version of the same build around to keep it more accessible. (Spirits and Loas)
- They are not opposed to bringing back older keywords / mechanics we loved such as Reno Jackson (Highlander), C'Thun, Inspire.
- We're going to see pirates in the set but not all of them will be cheap to play. Pirates are still an aggressive archetype though.
Quote from Peter Whalen and Liv BreedenPig: We won’t be seeing a return of old keywords anytime soon?
Peter: Certainly not in Rastakhan’s Rumble. But I think it's unfair to count anything out. I think especially old keywords that people have loved before, I think we'll continue to see them. Hero cards are a great example, right? We took a set off, we didn't do any hero cards in Kobolds and Catacombs, and then we've brought them back a small number over the past year.
Pig: One every expansion, it's been really fun!
Peter: One every expansion. So we'll figure out exactly what's the right cadence for hero cards or there's other mechanics that people have loved in the past. Reno Jackson was a cool card.
Pig: Highlander cards!
Peter: Or there's Inspire. There's C'thun, there's all these cool mechanics and none of these are things I'm saying "Oh, this is coming back soon". But there's lots of stuff that people love. And so why wouldn't we bring it back? That sounds great.
Learn More About Rastakhan's Rumble
Looking to learn more about Hearthstone's tenth expansion? Visit our expansion guide for Rastakhan's Rumble!
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uhmm i think he's critiscizig the power level of knights of the frozen throne and kobolds and catacombs, i mean he's got a point because the cards were oover the top but at the same time this is the first time control got real win conditions, DKS are fun and powerful and not designed for aggro decks, like in expansions before un'goro they kept printing broken aggro cards and didn¡t pint any control win condition making the game just way too annoying
I thought it was pretty obvious what I meant, but I will explain it better: The current decks in the game are way too high power level. Decks like Baku Pally, Baku Rogue, Even Shaman, etc. are just so insane that they will still dominate the meta regardless of the cards released this expansion unless they just print insane OP shit this time. The decks will continue to dominate until April, making this expansion totally useless if you play at a competitive level until April, when the rotation happens and things like Death Knights are gone from standard. That is what I meant: That this expansion will most likely see zero play for four months, with only 4-5 cards maybe being slotted into existing decks (again mostly Baku and Genn decks) until this decks lose too much in April and stop being dominant. In other words, I am tired of playing Baku Rogue #7645672435 or Deathrattle Hunter #5555555 or Baku Pally #69696969 when I have played against these decks for months and months with no new cards from the recent expansions.
They honestly just need to stop this stupid design policy they have in place where the first expansion of the year is the weakest, next is stronger, and last is strongest. It leads to imbalances that take literally years to fix through rotation. Balance is better. Balance the power level of expansions and we would not have this much of a stale meta.
at first i thought he was just salty, but now i gotta admit mastertygon is right!
Expansion BfA inspired.. I’m scared.
Every class will get their own custom designed Azerite armor!
WHERE ARE MY REVEALS AT, BLIZZARD!?
A couple of years ago a man widely considered as a top genius PR guru at Team 5 suggested that it was a good idea to hype and unveil an expansion, but then wait for a friggin' month to continue on with the card reveals. Team 5 never questioned his transcendent wisdom, not for a split second and decided to employ his PR tactics for as long as there's expansions to print.
This is now my sig xD
expected a reveal..damn.
I'm on the edge of my seat for these reveals, but it's cool to at least know that they're considering some of the older mechanics to be reimplimented into the game. Hopefully if Inspire comes back, they make it a lil better.
On the other hand...
What if that shark for the article thumbnail is card art!? That'd be neat. Sharks are cool, maybe it's the Rogue Loa.
It was already shown what it was: Spirit of the Shark
Wow, so much insight! Not. Even though I love HS it really feels like a dead game. It’s a sinking ship with every expansion so let’s enjoy while we still can.
Did you really say, 'Not'? What year is this? Did I wake up in the nineties?!
"Creatively bankrupt" is the term. Ever since Brode took his A-team with him, and one can see why: The last three expansions have been really, really boring.
There's a reason why the WoW TCG was so popular back in its day (and it wasn't just because of the loot cards!). It took established characters and lore and put them in a type of game that was very different. That's what HS started out as, but this increased emphasis towards original characters and wacky hijinks just isn't working out.
I keep going back to this year's BlizzCon when the expansion was announced. The place was dead silent. Almost as much as the Diablo Immortal announcement. And not at ALL helped by that twat's attempt at faux-Jamaican accent, which frankly, all it did was remind me of that tone-fucking-deaf Adrian Brody moment on SNL.
brode left in june I think, this expansion started development in january which means brode worked on all the expansions of this year.
Is that the only thing you noticed in my sentence? Did I wake up in a decade of stupidity?
Well...yeah. How else would you respond to such an over the top and subjective (not to mention baseless) statement other than snark? Were you not here when this very website reported on the 100 million player milestone that the game had reached?
Or are you under the impression that some half-baked opinion of some burnt out streamer is the same as being factual? At the end of the day, if you're feeling tired of HS, there are plenty of other games to play. Being melodramatically doom and gloom just makes you come off as a boring idiot.
Talking about smartasses.. here comes the one.
NO ONE CARES LOL we want them REVEALS