Perils in Paradise is the first Hearthstone expansion without a new, unique game board (and thus a related in-game theme). It’s also the first expansion without a cinematic trailer (we did get a cool video with content creators, but not everyone enjoyed it as much as they did an actual trailer). Players were rightfully angry and wanted some answers, more information about what’s happening.
Last week, Blizzard promised to answer our questions and share more details about the future of Hearthstone. Some players were afraid that the game will be put in “maintenance mode”, others were more optimistic and thought that we’ll hear some good news.
The promised blog post has just dropped. And I’ll be honest, I’m not happy about what I read. Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom – the game is still doing fine, we’re in for a long haul etc. However, outside of the vague statements and promises about “cool things that are coming in the future”, we haven’t actually learned much about the “future of Hearthstone”. It’s a lot of words to say almost nothing about their actual plans.
My biggest takeaway is that we will no longer get 3 boards per year – only 1. Apparently, they want to use those resources to give us more “dynamic boards” and cool new cosmetics, like pets… But for me that just sounds like taking away stuff from the players to sell it back to them. I hope that’s not the case, and if we get truly customizable boards we will be able to earn some cosmetics for free. And if that’s how it works, they should say so! I actually don’t mind the general idea, I think that making board-related cosmetics is a cool and they should have done it a long time ago. But not by taking away stuff from non-paying players!
We also have absolutely no timeline for those new things. Will it be later this year? Next year? Who knows?
I don’t want to be rude to whoever wrote this post, but the part about “fun, focus, fearless” made me physically cringe. Even in the world of corpo-PR-speak it sounds so, so bad.
Also, maybe most importantly, if that was their plan all along, it’s something they should have shared BEFORE taking away the boards, not AFTER that. It feels like they hoped that players wouldn’t notice or get mad. And it’s not the first time it happened, the last few years are a long string of poor decisions, players’ outrage, apologies from Blizzard, fixing those poor decisions… and then repeating it all over again.
I have a lot more to say about it, but for now, I’ll just let you read the official statement and form your own opinion:
Well met, Hearthstone community.
Nathan Lyons-Smith here, following up on last week’s promise to give you more visibility on our strategy for Hearthstone.
As someone who’s been playing Hearthstone since the Beta days, I’m passionate about making sure this game we all love keeps thriving. As the Executive Producer, it’s also my job to look after the game’s health, our incredible team, and our equally incredible community.
We are doing meaningful research and development for the future of Hearthstone to ensure that the Tavern will be a home for you for another decade and beyond. While we are not ready to share any information about this work yet—and will not be for a while—I want you to know that we are committed to Hearthstone as we know it today, and that this work is happening alongside what I will detail below.
We made some changes over the past 18 months that were not what you’ve come to expect from Hearthstone. We didn’t do a good job communicating our strategy around those changes. I apologize for that. Going forward, it is my goal to be more open. We should proactively share changes we are making with our community, alongside context around why we’re making these changes. I will start addressing that now.
Fun, Focus, and Fearless
Our strategy for Hearthstone is based around three words: Fun, Focus, and Fearless.
Hearthstone delivers a special kind of fun; the ah-ha moments and the puzzle-y combat, alongside the game’s unique look and feel. We strive every day to provide tools that inspire you to experience the game your way, so that Hearthstone can offer you your own brand of fun.
Constructed, Battlegrounds, and Arena are the modes that our community plays the most, and where you see us making the largest updates—like you saw with Battlegrounds Duos earlier this year. Focusing on these modes allows us to make more meaningful improvements to areas that impact the vast majority of our community.
We want to be fearless in the pursuit of discovering more fun experiences and strive to move beyond the status quo to do so. We saw one such opportunity in Arena. Over the last eight months, the Arena community has been energized by some small-yet-impactful design changes. Early access to expansion cards, new draft rules, and curated card pools have had a profound impact on the game mode. This has worked out great – the popularity of Arena has shot way up, and so we want to do more. We are now working on a substantial and very cool update for Arena, and we are aiming to release it at the beginning of next year.
Taking bold and focused steps are the kinds of decisions our team are committed to. We appreciate your passion for Hearthstone, and we won’t always be perfect, but our promise is that we will listen and react as quickly as possible. We will keep an eye on what isn’t working as well as we would like, while also doubling down and pushing further when we find something great.
Making space for innovation in personalization
When we decided not to make a board for Perils in Paradise, we should have let you know earlier. Moving forward, we will ensure that you get early visibility on changes like this and give you more information on what we’re working on instead.
We are still planning to release one new board per year, but we also have some ambitious ideas that we know will be a significant undertaking. Pulling back from three static game boards per year to one allows us to begin work on the coolest possible dynamic stuff – like a system to choose your favorite boards, and pets(!). We’ve also heard so much positive feedback about C’Thun and so are working on some truly groundbreaking new hero skins. It’s TOO SOON to go into more detail about what’s coming, but we will fast-track putting all existing Hearthstone boards into the Standard format board rotation.
We also surveyed a large group of you to ask what cosmetics would be most interesting. The responses were predominantly around further personalization of the playspace, and this feedback reinforced our desire to innovate and challenge what we have always done.
Thank you for the feedback
Hearthstone is here to stay. While it has evolved and adapted over the past 10 years, one thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that there is an amazing team behind it, with as much passion and energy as ever. We have a fantastic upcoming slate of cards and themes, exploring new stories that can be told within Azeroth and beyond, as well as events and features that we hope will surprise and delight you all.
Many members of the team (myself included) lurk in the Hearthstone communities because we’re huge fans of the game AND because we want your feedback. We have a shared passion and love for this game and want it to be the best it can be so we can enjoy it together. As a team, we frequently talk about what we are seeing and hearing from you, and we need to make this more of a two-way conversation. With that in mind, I commit to checking in here with you again before the end of the year to keep you updated with any further strategy changes.
Until then, we hope you’re enjoying Perils in Paradise and exploring new fun with the Tourists. We’ll see you in the Tavern!
-Nathan
It’s basically just a bunch of promises without anything to back them up for now, but I’ll take a glass half full approach with this one and say “ok fine” and hope they will hold on to those promises. Yeah lately they have been doing some questionable decisions to say the least (especially the corridor sleeper thing was the number one for me), but if we look at the big picture of hearthstones entire lifetime i think the game has been more good than bad, especially in the last couple of years. We haven’t had anything the likes of “your charge minions have +1 attack”, we have been getting more frequent and better quality balance changes to the game, the other game modes have been doing good as well, so yeah, I think overall it’s a net positive and i hope it stays that way.
Those more frequent balance changes are the issue. They are using the player base as beta testers, simply because they can.
It costs the players time and money to keep up with the whiplash like changes they make each and every set.
Can you imagine a physical ccg making changes at this rate? There would be an uproar
i heavily disagree with pretty much everything you say here, having experienced the alternative in the past.
They didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to lay out all the ways they will increase the gouging and predatory business practices.
It started with the 70%+ win rate decks each set release. First, they would nerf a legendary, so you would get back 1600 dust. Now, they nerf a common so you only get back 40 dust and just spent all your resources on all the other legendaries and epics needed. Want to keep playing this set cycle? Pony up some dough.
Any now, tourists is just a fancy way to increase the card pool and legendary count of deck, which will make the above problem that much worse.
I get that hearthstone is f2p, but there are ways to do it, and ways not too.
While we are not ready to share any information about this work yet—and will not be for a while—
(They maked a statement for explain why make poor decisions and then pull this crap of “not say anything, no ready”. WTAF)
We didn’t do a good job communicating our strategy around those changes. I apologize for that.
(Sorry, but no sorry. They still communicate nothing)
This is hilarious as enraging. It’s like “we hear you guys. Chill out, Mama is cooking and don’t give a f*ck while cooking the best thing ever.”
lool that’s funny
Too bad Kotick poisoned the company long ago
They’re putting the Fortnite on the Hearthstone.
I’m personally hoping many of these dynamic cosmetics are available with gold.
My main concern is the UI and how they keep it clean, readable, and not cluttered by fancy board/hero interactions and animations.
I think the whole idea of more dynamic boards that players can customize is great as long as you will be able to earn pieces by playing (like from the in-game events) or with Gold.
But it’s something they should absolutely say in the blog post instead of leaving us in the dark. Most players will just assume the worst.