A couple of days ago, I posted about a tweet from Celestalon saying that they’re looking into some changes in Signature Cards design. Today Blizzard has shared some more details, including some positive surprises. Here’s a quick summary:
- Overall reception of Signature Cards wasn’t very positive and community has given a lot of great feedback.
- For future Signature Cards, they plan them to be more colorful, card banner (with name etc.) might be moved out of the way to showcase full art better, the cards will be animated like Goldens and they will have thinner borders to showcase more of the artwork.
- While the reroll system has been working great to make Signature Cards feel like a bonus, it didn’t apply to all of the cards and they want to fix that. Players who own Signature Lor'themar Theron will get a random March of the Lich King Legendary as compensation. Player who own both Signature & Diamond Grand Magister Rommath will also get one random MotLK Legendary as compensation.
You can read the full post below:
The following is being posted on behalf of Lead Features Designer, Chadd Nervig:
On the Hearthstone team, we’re always looking for ways that we can surprise and delight our players. That means taking risks, trying new things, and iterating if things don’t go as planned.
It’s safe to say that the reception to Signature cards hasn’t lived up to our hopes. We wanted to take a moment to respond to all the great feedback you’ve been giving us about them and tell you a bit about our plans for them.
First, our goals for Signature cards. We want to celebrate the art, putting it front and center, focusing on appealing, exciting, high-quality, and unique full art. We want them to be special items that you want to collect. And we want them to feel great to get; it should feel like a bonus, pure upside.
Your feedback has been clear: we haven’t hit those goals. We’re taking that feedback to heart and are already planning significant changes for our next round of Signature cards.
- Many people have shared how Hearthstone’s colorful art is one of their favorite aspects of the game and the “icy sepia” tone we chose worked against that. Each expansion will feature a different approach to Signature card art, and we’re already planning for the next expansion’s Signature cards to be bright, vibrant, and colorful. They will also feature animations similar to what Golden cards have.
- You’ve also told us that you love the idea of full art cards, but that the name banner across the middle fights against that. We hear you and are exploring potential options to get the name banner out of the way for the next expansion’s Signatures.
- We’re also thinning out the card frame itself for next expansion’s Signature cards, both in hand and on the board, to make more room for the art, and reduce confusion about whether the on-board frame has some gameplay impact.
- Finally, you’ve told us that they haven’t felt like a pure bonus in all cases. While a bit confusing (and we’re looking into ways to make things clearer), the new reroll system has worked well to make Signatures a pure bonus in most cases. But there have been a few edge cases where that system hasn’t protected you from missing out on something, and we’re going to provide compensation for those affected, while we iterate on the systems involved for the future.
- If you own Signature Lor’themar, you effectively missed out on a Legendary card, so we’ll be giving you 1 random Legendary card from March of the Lich King.
- If you own both Signature Grand Magister Rommath and the March of the Lich King Tavern Pass, you effectively missed out on a Legendary card, so we’ll be giving you 1 random Legendary card from March of the Lich King.
Eligibility will be based on the above criteria as of December 20th at 10am PDT. Eligible players will be granted this compensation at login, later that week.
Thanks for all the great feedback on Signature Cards, and all the passion and excitement you’ve shown for Hearthstone and March of the Lich King!
I also opened a signature Rommath and it has been making me not want to purchase the pass. If i purchase it will i receive the compensation upon purchase?
If you purchase Pass before December 20 (that’s the cutoff from what I understand) then yes, you will be eligible for the compensation. Compensations will be given after December 20 so you won’t get anything right away, but you should get a random MotLK Legendary next week.
Erm… and why no compensation for Blood Matriarch Liadrin? I got her as a Signature Card and in Diamond form as well.
Maybe their line of thinking was that Diamond Liadrin is obtained by getting all of the MotLK Legendaries, so you don’t really “need” another random MotLK Legendary if you own all of them already?
Erm… just because I already have a replacement for something that’s ‘broken’ doesn’t mean that I have no right for compensation. 😉
I know you just listed a possible reasoning but that would be a very shallow reasoning on Blizzard’s side. All in all, as a collector, I’m very disappointed by the whole ‘Signature Card’ concept … to the point where I – for the 1st time in a long time – thought about not buying the Mega Bundle anymore.