Hearthstone devs answer a number of interesting questions on Zephrys, Solo Adventure, Brawls, Arena, and more, in this Community Q&A Roundup!
Regarding Zephrys
- [S] Zephrys doesn't take into consideration that you're drawing two cards out from him (double battlecry effects), each one will be evaluated independently.
- [S] If a lot of your minions died this turn, Zephrys should give you a High Inquisitor Whitemane as an option.
- [S] If you want to get a value card other than Tirion Fordring out of the 3 choices (Ysera, Jarraxus or other 9+ cost cards), you should play Zephrys at the end of your turn.
Regarding new Adventure
- [S] We should see more information about the upcoming solo adventure in about a week or two.
- [S] We should see more quests coming leading into the solo adventure.
Regarding Brawls
- [S] The Webspinners brawl has been soft-retired and we won't get it in the immediate future if ever.
- [S] Raven Idol brawn isn't completely retired and we still might see it in the future, because It isn't completely random and you can control the game a bit.
Regarding Arena
- [S] There is going to be a change regarding arena drawing buckets in the patch 15.4:
Quote fromMicroadjustment balance changes are based on a formula that takes into account the current bucket information, which is why they don't happen until at least a few days after bucket adjustments. I believe we sent over the public bucket information a few days ago to our community team but it's possible it didn't get to the right folks. I'll doublecheck Monday.
For 15.4, we're going to try doing an arena patch without buckets and have all cards be part of one giant pool. This is similar to how the early days of arena worked. Theoretically, buckets made individual arena decisions a little more interesting and put more weight behind how a card works in the deck you are drafting vs its power level in a vacuum. While I think there is some truth to this, I don't think it's been a well received change overall. For players new or inexperienced with Hearthstone, the idea of having 'obvious' choices is a win. For hardcore players, if the change to buckets is not a clear upside (which has been most of the feedback we've received here) then it's probably just not worth doing. One positive part of not doing buckets is that the micro-adjustment patches should happen faster in the future because there does not need to be a preliminary bucket adjustment patch to set the stage.
Miscellaneous answers
- [S] They're working on a bunch of different things, BUT, they just aren't quite ready to share what those things are.
- [S] Elise should be copying cards from left to right, but she is currently copying cards randomly - that should be fixed in the next major update.
- [S] Iksar likes the idea of adding Rush to the base set at some point.
- [S] They have been very happy with the gameplay of the Rush mechanic and there is a lot of design space with it.
- [S] The goals of the classic and basic set have changed over the years:
Quote fromI think our goals now can afford to be a little more narrow. Mechanically, we want to teach players the base level interactions of the game and give each class a core identity and toolkit of stuff to help them realize that identity expansion to expansion. Power level aside, I think Rogue is a good example of a class that does this pretty well. Regardless of what cards exist in an expansion, Rogue gameplay still tends to feel unique on the back of a simple mechanic (combo) and some core toolkit cards that aren't win conditions on their own (Backstab, Evis, SI, Etc). Some of our other classes could do better at having a core toolkit, so it's something we want to address.
Editor's note: These answers were gathered from developer responses to community questions on Reddit/Twitter. We have made formatting and wording tweaks to improve flow. You can find the original source for each answer by clicking on the [S] icon.
IMO the player going second in arena needs a bigger compensation than in constructed. The coin and an extra card is fine for prebuilt decks, but in arena going first is still too much of an advantage
Finally no more webspinners clownfiesta!
Can we get Zephyrs out of arena though? Feels bad to get bloodlusted at 25 health by a warrior. Now THAT was a surprise.
In my linked write-up, I suggested 3 different ways that they could lower the power level of Conjurer's Calling without destroying it. FYI, Hall of Faming Mountain Giant was not one of them, because it solves absolutely nothing while still removing a viable card from standard. Kibler hates the non-rotating basic and classic cards, and while I can respect that, I can also disagree. Hearthstone already has tons of worthless cards. Removing a playable (but not oppressive) card like Mountain Giant and replacing it with a worthless card (like Icicle or Barrens Stablehand) only gives players more pack filler.
In a perfect world, most of the cards in the game would be playable. Players could build decks to suit their personal preferences. In the current game, there are terribly broken cards all the way down to utterly pointless cards.
Broken cards are cards like:
Useless cards are:
In general, you should nerf the broken cards and buff the useless cards. However, you should never nerf a broken card down to useless status (Warsong Commander) or buff a useless card to broken status. You also should not print broken cards to compete with existing broken cards.
Imagine we have a new card printed called "Iksar's Iridescent Idiot" which is a 1 mana 1/1 with a battlecry of "1 in 10 chance of destroying the enemy hero". It would be broken and everyone would use it. The solution would not be to print "Iksar's Indigo Iguana" next expansion which has a battlecry of "1 in 9 chance of destroying the enemy hero"! Sadly it appears that's what Hearthstone "balance" has come to at this point.
Rush should (and I am sure it will) stay in the game. In competitive HS, minions just aren't good unless they do something on the turn they are played, while Charge is often OP. Honestly I don't understand it took so long for Rush to be added to the game.
I agree, however they need to make more neutral Rush cards to make it balanced. Allocating the Rush mechanic to only 2 classes and a minimal neutral presence creates potential issues.
NOT SAYING IT IS A PROBLEM NOW - it is a potential problem if handled improperly.
so the arena change is like we are failing horribly to make a bucket lists so we are deleting it?
I think it's more like they invented buckets to make it easier for new and casual Arena players, but that didn't actually make Arena more popular. So they figure they might as well appease the hardcores and go back to the old way.
Just take off the twinspell of cc and it would still be really good, but not stupid broken.
I think that Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is blamed too often without reason. Boom may be the most OP card in HS, but without it warrior will have no chance against other classes. Warrior right now has too much power in one card. Even now, warrior cant catch up with mages (and it doesnt matter cyclone or highlander version). For example Mech pally is pretty situational match up where if he out tempo you, you cant answer to all his mech. Hunters are over power too, quest druid too. Actually Dr Boom is the reason, warriors can have a chance in meta. I am not even pretty sure what can be done to weaken warrior without killing it. Any nerf will actually only lower his survival against agro decks (which should actually be match in a favor of warrior), but not against other midrange decks, which this days, has infinity resources.
F this .... F that ..... it's just too easy, you would want to destroy these cards to let others classes flood the meta, and 2 weeks later complain about those ? try to give constructive crisicism, i usually don't agry with kibler, but the points he made in his video were really good because they gave options to lower power lvl of CC and not destroy it, same for Dr Boom ... for those who hate Dr Boom and CC, just play highlander hunter or Combo priest (WAY cheaper btw) and you'll just destroy these decks
I agree with you - my thoughts to go with this:
A single card which makes a class successful should be reason for concern - this same situation happened to priest.
There should never be a SINGLE card that represents a class there should be MULTIPLE cards to represent a class.
This goes back to the class identities - they need to rework all of the basic/classic cards to fit a specific identity and can be integrated with new mechanics. Currently new machanics and cards create the class identity.
Where did they say No Barnes nerf? They said several times they were watching Barnes.
https://teamrankstar.com/hearthstone-dev-sheds-light-on-big-priest/
There's still hope Barnes finally gets nerfed to 5 or even 6 mana. Read the latest article on big priest being a big problem for wild.
Actually the best nerf is what I've seen on Order of Rexxar (probably from reddit). Make the 1/1 of Barnes an actor that copies the effect of a minion in your deck. When it dies, if you want to resurrect it, you resurrect a 1/1 with no effect. I think it answers the problem ideally since it's not the 1/1 that kills you but the repeated resurrection of the full-stated minion.
Barnes would still be broken in a number of other decks, especially spell hunter that can cheat out a 3/4+1/1+10/10 on turn 4. Just bump Barnes to 5 or 6 mana and call it a day.
There's a difference between a problem, and an advantage. To start with, an early Mountain Giant was an 8/8 on turn four (ignoring Baku the Mooneater shenanigans) and the trade-off was that you gave up tempo on the previous turns. There was a chance that your opponent would just trade their board into your giant to kill it, or at the very least, wound it so they could kill it with spells or taunt minions. Sometimes you were able to have an unanswered giant stick and be able to get a face hit or two. This was advantageous but not oppressive. Getting an early giant was equivalent to pumping up an early Mana Wyrm or spending all of your resources to get a large Edwin VanCleef.
The problem with Conjurer's Calling is that when the giant hits the board, it must be answered immediately and completely. Trading minions to simply wound the giant is simply throwing board resources away because CC is essentially a heal and duplicate spell. Even if you don't trade, your opponent gets a free trade into your strongest minion. As long as it doesn't kill the giant, CC will provide two full health minions for you to deal with... which since it has twinspell means that your problems aren't over. Explain how this is a problem with MG and not CC. Seriously, I really don't understand why people can think CC is a balanced card.
If you read my write-up I explain why it's broken and suggest several ways to fix it. My favorite fix is to apply a modifier to a minion on the board that shows how much mana it took when it was played. If you play a 3 mana Mountain Giant, hovering over it shows a yellow 3 on the mana gem instead of a white 12. Playing Conjurer's Calling (or evolve effects, etc.) would treat it as a 3 cost minion. Silencing it or returning it to the hand would reset it back to the normal stats.
Kripparian has brought this up as well. https://youtu.be/ec5sQM37aHY?t=815
Conjurer's Calling would still be undercosted at 3 mana but at least wouldn't be so stupid oppressive.
I believe there is big mage that doesn't use giants or at least doesn't go for hand size to play them early and still runs conjurer's calling with success. LPG into 1 mana Alex, tortolans and other stuff teach you that conjurer's calling is just not a balanced card. I'll be very sad if they nerf mountain giant just because Kibler and the community's logic is flawed.
[S] They're working on a bunch of different things, BUT, they just aren't quite ready to share what those things are
i've never read a statement like this before, thanks for your insight Team 5
Meaning probably some adventure stuff, but not new modes or achievements.
Mountain giant was a problem in warlok since handlock existed for first time, just because 1 or 2 clases can abuse it it doesn't mean the card isn't a problem when it happens, as i said, nerf the new cards every time you want, the core problems will come back again and again and you will point expansion cards again