Hearthpwn

Hearthstone Q&A - Live Recap

Join us as we watch the Hearthstone Q&A panel at BlizzConline and deliver all the information shared there!

• Ben Lee, Alec Dawson and Joe Killion will be answering our Questions today!
• This year we will see Expansions that harken back to the past of Hearthstone, starting with Forged in the Barrens.
• Reward Track future: Instead of 5000 experience for a level, for 300g, they will half things, so 2500xp for 150g, also increasing the rewards slightly. So more rewards, more often.
• Reward Track will get some surprise additions that the Team hopes we love.
• Duels will get new Heroes later this year, as well as seeing 2 new sets being added, not just Forged in the Barrens, but Journey to Un'goro as well.
• They try to find characters that fit the expansion to highlight and turn into Legendaries, like Mankrik for Forged in the Barrens.
• They are focused on refining class identity with the Core set, bringing them more to the modern identity, compared to the past. So Rogue might get a Burgle card, cause that's what they do now.
• Druid will lose Wrath and Swipe from the Core set, but will get Feral Rage and Pounce back as a way to remove minions in the new Core set.
• New Keyword Frenzy was inspired by the Horde, you get damaged, but come back with something awesome.
• Not every Core set will get 29 new cards, likely smaller number.
• They would like to change over the Core set by 30%, year over year..
• Legendaries that come back in new sets have call backs but need to be fun and interesting in a new way.
• They want to give Control decks finishers. That is better than infinite resources, like for instance Priest Galakrond did. They want big end game finishers that close out the game.
• Broad scope RNG needs to be limited, compared to more limited pool RNG like Lackeys where you sort of knew what you could expect and could play around.
• Flavour text is written with the whole team, and they pick the ones they found most funny from everyone.
• Dust Economy: They have made strides with things like Duplicate protection, the Reward Track, and this year the Core set. No concrete plans with regards to the dust economy however.
• Forged in the Barrens will see some Alliance presence. The 10 new Mercenaries characters will be split into 5 Horde and 5 Alliance.
• Classic Format: Current plans are for there to be no changes at all. But they are open to feedback.
• Will Death Knight Hero cards return in a Core set? They want to at some point in the future, but no current plans. IF they did, likely they would with changes.
• Which Hearthstone Meme is best? Mentions of Boulderfist Ogre and Rank 1 Legend.
• How do Mercenaries Upgrade in the new Game mode? You start with 1 Ability and add new Abilities and Equipment over the runs you do and gain levels. You can also evolve them into 3 forms.
• They would love to do a Murloc Expansion, like they did Dragons. They would have to increase the range of Murloc sizes.
• Core Set is great for new and returning players, due to better quality of the set compared to Basic and Classic and the unlock requirements are low. They also upgraded New Player quests and the game is much more generous than in the past. They'd love feedback from new players on how their experience with Hearthstone has been.
• They kept the mana and the stats for the reimagined Classic Dragons, to keep familiarity, but then added new textboxes to bring them into the new era.
• Fireside Gatherings are something they want to bring back, but they want to do it once it is safe again, but they will return.
• Quests are something they love. They learned a lot from the previous editions. If they do it again it will be with a twist and not the same.
• They really expanded the Team over the last 2-3 years, more capacity to try and do new things. They want HS to be a game that you can come back to at any time and have something exciting to do. They are no longer a game that just does 3 expansions a year, the game is much, much bigger now.
• Old Malygos OTK will still be playable in Wild, but he sometimes held them back in what they could design so they wanted to move him to create room.
• Asked about doing cross game Hero Skins, they said the new 3 Kingdoms skins were well recieved and if they do similar skins it will still have to fit in with the core of what Hearthstone is.
• They found board interaction an interesting mechanic, like Transfer Student. Something they would definitely revisit.
• They would love to do Class mechanics for classes that never had any.
• They wanted to bring back Shadow Priest and that meant face damage through chip damage. No longer 5 damage at a time.
• Sphere of Sapience was fun, and they would love to do something in that design space of Weapons again.
• They want to do Random Hero Skin and Random Coin, like they have the Random Card back, but don't have a fixed point yet when that is coming, but it IS coming. Coins are lower priority though.
• That's it for the Q&A!

Forged in the Barrens Card List & Expansion Guide

Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.