Dean “Iksar” Ayala’s Twitter Q&A – February 17, 2021 – Roundup of All Answers – Bo3 & Other Formats, Starting Experience Revamp, Shadow Priest, More Focus on Cosmetics

And so, weekly Dean “Iksar” Ayala’s Q&A session on Twitter became a thing. He started them on January 13 and promised to do them every Wednesday (afternoon pacific time). People have been asking lots of questions about the game’s balance, design, specific cards, mechanics and so on. Sadly, Twitter is kind of a mess when it comes to such things. Messages are short, you have to create long threads if you want to talk about something in detail, lots of comments get hidden, and it just doesn’t flow right. To make it a bit easier for all of you, just like during the previous weeks, I went through all of his replies and decided to make a quick summary of the most important talking points.

Check out his last Q&A from February 10 here.

That said, if you want to read the full Q&A – all the questions and answers – here’s the Tweet you should go to:

Ask me a question about Hearthstone and I will try my best to answer. More likely I can answer your question if it relates to game design in some way, but can give other questions a shot.

5:30PM – 6:30PST pic.twitter.com/VBlt63Z7dZ

— August Dean Ayala (@IksarHS) February 18, 2021

Just like always, my summary is pretty long for a “summary”, but Dean always answers a lot of questions. Of course, I didn’t cover everything – instead, I tried to focus on the more interesting / important stuff. I also try to not repeat points that have been already discussed in his recent Q&A’s, so if you want to learn more, go back to them. And if you want to read his full replies on all topics, check out the Tweet above. Stuff in parentheses are my own notes and not Dean’s words. Let’s start:

• Dean likes the idea of Bo3 (playing to 2 wins) instead of Bo1 if they ever implement a more competitive format. However, he thinks that sideboard is adding too much complexity for little gain for an average player.
• He would also like to try EDH / Commander (MTG format) or a 4 players format in general, but 1v1v1v1 instead of 2v2. But obviously, UI is the biggest concern.
• They’re currently working on a revamp for starting experience (e.g. tutorial), but there’s no release time for that yet. Most of the new players now go straight to Battlegrounds after tutorial, so it’s just an unnecessary roadblock for them.
• Since Shadowform is returning, we can expect more support for “Shadow Priest” archetype.
• Ideas of expansions based on “old” lore like Warcraft 1/2/3 come up all the time in brainstorming. Dean would like to make expansion based on 1st or 2nd war and explore all the cool stories and characters.
• New card types are possible – e.g. Dean says that he loves Saga cards in MTG. But he thinks that there needs to be a reason to add them.
• Demon Hunter initially had an extra resource called “Fury”, but they dropped it because only certain cards/decks used it. He didn’t like to have a UI for a separate resource that might not get used for months at the time. But he would like to re-explore it.
• Answering question about why Hearthstone doesn’t focus on cosmetic monetization (which has “proven to work”), Dean replied that it’s not that easy and in fact only the biggest games survive on cosmetic-only monetizations. Most of the games sell power level to support themselves (e.g. gacha games). But they’re still adding more cosmetics now than ever and he would like them to focus on them even more.
• Rogue will get a new Hero portrait in 2021 (finally).
• RNG in Hearthstone is truly random and not like some people suggest depending on your win rate etc. Dean said that they barely have time to develop the content, let alone run experiments to create artificial bad luck for any reason.
• He doesn’t think that scouting in Battlegrounds (being able to see other people’s board at any time) is good. It adds some strategy, but he doesn’t think it would make the game more fun.
• Themes like dragons or dinosaurs that people love will definitely be back in the future.
• Banned Arena cards (those that can’t be drafted) can still be discovered by different cards. They can change that, but don’t think that there’s a need. There’s a difference between having strong, common cards in drafting pool and being able to discover them from time to time. But if discovering some powerful card will be too consistent, they will consider removing it from the pool.
• Some people have reported long queue times on 11x star bonus (on the way to Legend), especially later into the month – Dean said that they’ll look into it.
• He didn’t expect Animated Broomstick to be this strong. He like the card as a reactive play in minion-based decks and as a way to play some “too slow” cards in Control by giving them rush immediately. But it’s coming up in balance meetings and it might get nerfed if it starts showing up everywhere.
• They weren’t completely surprised by Ramp Paladin, but it’s better than they’ve expected. Lifesteal OTK DH is in a good spot – it doesn’t have a high win rate, it’s not unbeatable at all, but players who play it enjoy it.
• Dean thinks that all classes should have access to card draw, but not necessarily always have a full hand of resources. E.g. Hunter will always be strong in Aggro and Tempo strategies, but it won’t have a lot of value or healing.
• Designers often have interesting ideas, but they turn out to be too difficult to implement. Recently they wanted a card that destroys your deck and transforms your hand into a “vehicle that had 3 buttons that did some sweet things (being intentionally vague) but had to cut”.
• One of the weirest card designs that came up was Battlecry that added 1 to all numbers on the cards – mana cost, damage, health, effects etc. And so Arcane Missiles would deal 4 damage for 2 mana, but e.g. Ethereal Augmerchant would be: (2) 3/2 – Battlecry: Deal 2 damage to a minion and give it Spell Damage +2. But it was “weird, broken and almost impossible to implement”.
• Working from home has been quite difficult. Different designers have different needs – some prefer to be in constant communication, others like to check in once and work by themselves. A lot of communication is lost when they aren’t all in the office.