Recently, InvenGlobal has interviewed Hearthstone’s Game Director Ben Lee and Production Director Nathan Lyons-Smith. They’ve answered some questions about everything that has been announced recently – new expansion, Demon Hunter class, ranked reworks and more. You can find the entire interview here.
I encourage you to check out the full interview, but if you don’t have time, here’s the summary of points that were discussed:
- Demon Hunter might not be the last class in Hearthstone – if players will receive it well, we might get a new class in the future. Right now they’re focusing on the upcoming year and Demon Hunter, though.
- They don’t plan to make a separate client for Battlegrounds. It’s still a single game, just different mode. Some people play Constructed, others play mainly Arena, while for some Battlegrounds is their main mode, and that’s fine.
- In general, they’re pretty happy with Basic/Classic sets of other classes (besides Priest, which got reworked), but if they require some changes, they’re willing to do it. In particular, right now they look closer at the Warrior’s cards like Charge and Warsong Commander. They’re also looking about the Basic/Classic sets in general and how many cards became irrelevant over the years, they have some plans regarding that, but can’t share anything yet.
- One of the points behind the new ranked system was for players to get as fair matchups as possible. They don’t like Legend players who haven’t been playing in a while and decayed to face new players etc.
- They don’t plan to push Battlegrounds as an eSport, but if it’s something that happens naturally (people will host tournaments), they can support it.
- Demon Hunter will get 15 cards per set this year to catch up with other classes. They do not plan to stick to 15 class cards for longer than necessary or give more cards per expansion to other classes. Neutrals are still important, because they can be played across all classes and thus make the game less expensive.
- They don’t mind releasing some disruptive effects (such as the Demon Hunter’s Mana Burn) or specific counter/hate cards. They don’t want to run into situations in which players run combo decks that can’t be interacted with in any way, because that’s frustrating for the players.
Monk and Death Knight waiting room !!!
I wonder what’s the more likely outcome:
Demon-Hunter aggressive strategies falling flat in terms of results, compared to the OP Hunter class which they continuously refuse to rework upon;
or Demon-Hunter beating down the Hunter competition and hopefully not resulting on a Day-3 nerf on a newly released class;
perhaps then will Hunter get some “Shaman style nerfs” and in that case, I’ll venerate Demon-Hunter for finally bringing balance.
Still waiting for some new deck slots. Maybe they will eventually have more classes than deck slots.
In a CCG that you don’t need to play mana from hand (like pokemon and MTG), 30 cards is probably the perfect balance between card consistency and deck complexity.
I agree on re-hauling Classic sets. Honestly, after seeing how strong Outland expansion is, Classic sets became obsolete now.
A few example I can mention is Disguised Wanderer 4 mana against Magma Rager 4 mana in Classic.
Summoning not a 4/1 body, not even 5/1 body, but a huge 9/1 body.
Imagine that 9/1 buffed with Shaman Windfury, or Lackey Rush, or other buffs. It’s too OP for a 4 mana drops.
Cursed Vagrant is similar to this. (or even worse)
Cairne Bloodhoof is crying in the corner.
Cursed Vagrant is a 7 mana 7/5 minion that… summons a Ravenholdt Assassin on Deathrattle 😀
I know that it’s a class card and it’s from an expansion, so it’s bound to be stronger. I just find it funny that it’s nearly like two Basic/Classic 7-drops combined into one (2 health away from War Golem on the main body + Ravenholdt Assassin).
And that’s just a few of them. There’s probably more, but I don’t wanna ruin my expectation before the card reviews. (Unless it’s too much of work within such little time, and there won’t be any).
And it only confirmed my feeling that nerfs will actually come very soon after launch.
I will try to make card reviews for the most interesting ones, I definitely won’t have enough time to do it for every card now 🙁 There was just too much stuff dropped at the same time this time around, and the reveal season was also super short.
This is the biggest problem with these least two expansions imo. Minions used to be mana cost x2 in stats with slight upside. Sometimes they have have lower stats for utility. i.e. novice engineer for 2 mana gets 1 mana in stats and 1 mana worth of card draw.
Then Blizzard started integrating more keywords/ utility. This may have led to stronger synergies between cards, but not the pure power level of individual cards. i.e. saronite chain gang is just 4 mana 4/6 taunt over two bodies, but when my jaws bite and claws attach…
Over the last two expansions, Blizzard has straight power crept (to keep players involved?). They write vanilla cards with better stat lines at lower cost, or same stat line, but more utility. This just forces out the basic and classic sets.
In short, yes, I agree with your comment.
Three if you include Galakrond’s Awakening, but who’s counting right?
I’m assuming there’s a reason for this behavior, especially in Outland where the cards is out of proportions.
I’ve been examining Demon Hunter cards for a while, and I found, it’s even more ridiculous.
Fast draw cards, with fast minion on board plus a card that makes damages not only on minion, but to enemy face.
It’s like they made Demon Hunter so overpowered that they need a counter for that, and that comes in form of OP Neutral Cards like I mentioned. Other class may or may not retaliated with how weak Classic cards is.
But again. All of this feels so wrong, and if they continue this way, Classic cards won’t be of any use (as it is right now).
Another new class? That’s great. We need to see and test all new material, wait a bit guys. xD