Dean "Iksar" Ayala - Game Director for Hearthstone - Leaves Blizzard
In a shocking turn of events, and less than 3 months after he officially announced his promotion to Game Director, Dean "Iksar" Ayala is announcing his farewell from Blizzard.
His current Twitter profile says "Unemployed" but it is reasonable to suspect we will hear from Dean in another capacity, and for another company, soon enough!
From us at HearthPwn, a heartfelt "Thank you for everything!" and a hope that Dean will use his great talents as a communicator to enrich some new gaming community!
After 11 years, I am leaving Blizzard.
— August Dean Ayala 💙 (@IksarHS) September 16, 2022
Hearthstone is an incredible game. To have played even a small part in its creation is an honor I'll never forget. Thank you to all the players, and a special thank you to my fellow game creators. I am proud of all we built together. pic.twitter.com/zhc0PBuOke
Alec Dawson was set lead for Stormwind. Iksar was on the balance team at that point in time.
Stop spreading wrong information.
Expansions are designed a year ahead of time. Iksar was in charge when Stormwind was designed.
FWIW - his wife left Blizzard two years ago to work for Ben Brode at Second Dinner.
Not sure how much he was responsible, but the game has certainly been in decline for a while.
do u mean during 2018-2020? because in the last 1-2 years game is improved a lot respect to the precedent period.
I think people are missing the fact that he's only been director for 3 months, that's only since this expansion and even then Blizz starts designing these expansions a year in advance so when it comes to balancing issues with quests or new hero cards he wouldn't have been the man who allowed them. He's been part of the team since the good days too which is what makes me worry. He might've not liked how the game is going and got the boot, which if it is the case then chances are Blizz is gonna double down being scummy and scammy.
we will have to see if he did a good job if an expansion is suddenly good in like a year and a bit
Dean "OTK is fun" Ayala is gone? Color me hopeful for future balance and design choices.
Anyone who takes the job knows exactly what they are getting into.
I fully support them abandoning communication with players like destiny devs do.
Good riddance!!!
Only reasonable move. Greedstone is bound to be beyond dead in 2023, soulless leeches in Suits who didn't even look what HS is are running the show now.
Runestones is just another Accelerating step into murdering Brode's Legacy.
Not bothered anymore, since I'll be gone too after the last expansion of the year. ✌️
bye
goodbye to mage's biggest defender
The OG game was great because one rule was followed religiously.
#1 Don't print cards that make other cards obsolete.
This prevented power creep, and let noob players create f2p decks that were competitive. Somewhere along the line this was thrown aside in the interest of making more money selling card packs and the game has gone downhill since then with each new expansion pushing out older weaker cards.
They had a formula where if card did extra things, it was supposed to cost more or have reduced stats. It mostly worked. They changed all that, for the unholy eternal greedy dollar sign. :/
Can they fix it? YES! Buff all the basic classic cards that don't for instance, both dredge and reduce mana cost or whatever OP crazy stuff they add... It would be time consuming and need several iterations but the game needs it. And for god sakes stop printing cards that make games last 30 mins. Vast majority of players are casual and don't want to spend 30 mins a match while a priest uses all 40 cards stalling till you fatigue or they destroy your hero.
>#1 Don't print cards that make other cards obsolete.
I dont think you have ever played Hearthstone, or a card game.
"Somewhere along the line"? News flash: The game was always about selling card packs. I'm sorry disillusionment is so painful for you, but Hearthstone would not exist if there weren't money to be made. As for the power level, the whole point of Standard rotation is that they can adjust the power level each year, or even each expansion if they need to. They don't do it to sell more cards, except as a side effect of making the game more pleasurable so that people want to play. They sell more cards simply by making more cards and rotating out the old ones.
If you thought you'd be able to play forever with just your Classic cards and never buy new packs, that's on you for being naive. And even so, they made an entire format for people who only want to play at the Classic power level and never buy new cards.
As for "vast majority of players," I'm one thousand percent certain you have not interviewed enough players to know what the vast majority of them want.
There are multiple blue posts about not putting out cards that make other obsolete. They called it power creep and tried to avoid it. It was a game design decision that worked well while it was enforced... I've Played Hearthstone since beta and many other card games and they didn't always used to be so money hungry.
The gameplay was WAY more interesting and diverse before the dreaded Standard... Standard is just a gimmick to make you buy more packs and make balancing easier.... Don't fall for the PR spin my brother in christ.
The first four to six expansions were the best IMHO. If you wanted to try to build a viable ________ deck you could, because most of the cards were pretty balanced against each other. Now, there are really only 1-2 maybe 3 viable decks per class, and if you don't play them you get smashed by turn 5 and/or you never have ANY chance of winning.
Long story short, Hearthstone is absolute garbage compared to what it was. Money hungry Actislizard, ruined it for profit...
The general direction for Hearthstone has drastically changed and is completely noticeable after ben leaving. We can't lie to ourselves and say its hasn't sunk that hard, yes, yes it did and with the recent additions its sinking harder. We can't completely blame a particular group at Blizzard as we don't know the general process for the decisions but people leaving and getting fresh thoughts at the leadership level might help a little, but as long as greed is there, nothing that "Benefits" the players will happen as it will always be about business and maximizing profit.