"There Are Big Changes Coming To Hearthstone In 2021" - Alec Dawson
Senior Game Designer Alec Dawson has shared some information about the upcoming Hearthstone year & more!
Also sorry this didn't get into the notes but: Yes Edwin will still rotate later this year and yes we will be reverting the nerf (along with others) at that time.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
Want to take a second to clarify our plan for Edwin VanCleef. There are big changes coming to Hearthstone in 2021. We aren’t quite ready to share the full details, but they will be positive changes for both gameplay and the ease of getting into the game with a limited collection.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
As one small part of this, Edwin’s time in Standard will come to a close. However, Hall of Fame as it has existed will be no more. This means there is no additional benefit to crafting or hoarding extra Edwins today.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing some more details about what the changes are and why you should be hyped for them no matter what type of player you are.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
We'll be looking at Wild more frequently throughout the year, setting some things up to help us do that better.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
Any card release has the chance to shift Wild to some degree, the upcoming mini-set being no different. There's some good stuff!
We talked about Broomstick for quite a bit, want to see how these changes and upcoming new cards shift things first.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
It’s one of the most important things for us and weighs heavily into any balance decisions we make. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about Evolve, will approach it differently in the future. Less of a focus on cost reduction with cards like Mogu.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
Stickyfinger certainly did its job but it does so in a swingy way (heightened by the weapon it was stealing as well). Tech cards shouldn’t be seen as a must but rather an option for you to include in certain matchups. The prevalence of Stickyfinger was too high for our liking.
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) January 8, 2021
I'm optimistic in the hearthstone team, there will be good changes for the game.
Given the zero Christmass freebies we got, among other thing as well, I am convinced that the new CEO of Blizzard is Scroutz Mcduck.
So get ready everyone. Secure your pockets and have your pitchforks ready.
No more hall of fame? So what does that mean, they are completely rotating the classic set?? What the... Even as a wild player, if that's the plan, I hope they give a new free set for players to use in standard. People should be able to play the way they want, and if you require f2p players to play wild to have enough cards, then that's effed up.
They should have rotated the classic set from the start. Instead they picked away at the classic set over time, removing most of the worthwhile cards via nerfs/HoF. That is worse for new players, as they are encouraged to get bad cards.
Big Changes:
and most importantly, more money for us, yay!
Cry me a river suckers,
Alec Dawson & Hearthstone Team
I’m not sure why it’s being downvoted since we’ve seen nothing that proves otherwise for the last few years
I don’t understand. So Edwen will rotate to wild only but there won’t be dust refund? Where is Zeddy? I need him immediately!
The usual Blizzard blabber. "Big changes incoming! We're not gonna tell you anything but we promise it's gonna be big."
Cha-ching.
wait a minute, if a card is OP won't be nerfed, instead it will be sent to wild?
Welcome to earth...
BAD NEWS EVERYONE
1. Is a corporation greedy? Of course it is, it's a corporation! Duh! That's not really a practical lens through which to examine Hearthstone.
2. The useful frame is whether or not the game is fun. That's card mechanics, sure, but it's also rewards. Quests and gold and dust and packs are fun. Even Chess has an ELO system where you can grind for points and rating. If the "investment"--be that time or money--goes up significantly, that's also less fun. Folks can grind for loot in WOW and Diablo, and the games have been less fun when it's been a lot harder to gear up. If the grind isn't worth it, the game isn't fun and folks quit.
3. It's a silly way to think about "HOF Changes Means No Dust Means Blizzard Greedy And Bad." It'll be worth it to look at the whole picture, and approach with the mindset: do these changes make the game more fun, or less fun? We don't actually know what things will look like. It could be the final nail in the coffin of a dying game that's been becoming steadily less enjoyable for a few years, or it could be the spring needed to bring some joy back into the tavern.
4. This isn't standing up for corporations. Because they cannot be anything other than greedy, I want unions for the workers, I want taxes for the owners, I want regulation to keep people safe from the products and byproducts. But being shocked at the very-real excesses of late Capitalism isn't going to make games more fun: what can make games fun understanding what makes them enjoyable, and demanding that Bliz keep them engaging.
This is nothing else but standing up for small indie company that only acts when people are outrageous. Quests that don’t work properly are not fun, cutting the gold rewards are not fun. Shitty legendaries in each set that won’t see any play are not fun as well as INSANELY low dust refund for them. Dust 4 legendaries or 16 epics to craft 1, thanks blizzard. Also stupid gigs and fake excitement at the card announcements are not fun.
The game became a casino in every aspect from the gameplay to the reward system to the company politics.
And to top the whole thing, don’t forget that if the people were quiet about the recent changes, nothing would’ve changed.
So I am REALLY skeptical about this kind of news and statements. I hope I’m wrong
OK, Edwin nerf is a good example.
Keeping Edwin un-nerfed meant it was one fewer card folks had to craft. Rogue could keep scamming wins with the card they opened in a pack six years ago, and barely having to build the new decks. Forum-Brain "Bliz Too Greedy To Give Dust, So No Nerf" folks have things backwards. Nerfing Edwin is a 1-time dust refund, but folks looking to play rogue decks probably would have had to craft new cards for rogue that much more often. Boring rogue which does the same Edwin tricks for years and years also discourages folks from crafting new stuff.
Sure, Blizzard is greedy. But more important to the lack of an Edwin nerf for years is the fact that Blizzard is stupid.
///
As to standing up for a "small indy company"....
Personally, I think Hearthstone is trash these days, because the game isn't fun anymore. My thought is that the power levels on cards are too high, and gameplay is too polarized because of this. Aggro is that much faster. Game-ending combos that much easier, if they aren't finished by aggro. It all makes the game just less enjoyable to play. A deck has to be razor-focused, and there's a lot less room for playing something silly and interesting.
The quest update changes were bad, because they made the game less fun, rather than some nebulous "Blizzard is greedy" thing. No duh. Do I have much trust in what the changes will be? Not really, but I also don't know what they are.
Meanwhile, I don't give a ****ing dime to Blizzard anymore, due to the massive layoffs when Bliz had record profits and the inappropriate overreaction against Blitzchung standing up for democracy.
It's not about standing up for Blizzard. It's about better analysis and understanding the reasons why Hearthstone has been a lot worse than it used to be.
no hall of fame = no free dust.
small indie company needs other money from us
I'm quite sure they will make up for the HoF dust loss.
One assumes that said "small fortune" is exactly what they're targeting, given the number of regular streamers (aka Blizzard's primary advertisers (for free!)) that have recently been citing the main problem of growing the game's audience, which is the ridiculous cost. It's why I got out after having started in the open Beta.
One thing we can be sure of: the "changes" will cost the players a small fortune. LUL