Hearthstone

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
That doesn't matter. We're talking about a very basic card game here. And even with more complicated games, it's not like they don't have the money to do whatever. Games been out for long enough now to add some real content to it. Especially when content is basically 2 numbers a special rule and a picture.
Dude, you're preaching to the choir right now. But that doesn't change the fact that Blizzard doesn't do anything fast. Ever. Look at the gap between StarCraft and StarCraft II or Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. Or the once every 3 year WOW expansion. Blizzard has a culture of moving slow and we're not going to change it. I agree that it's a terrible philosophy for a collectible card game but I don't see Blizzard moving things along faster.
 

Palum

what Suineg set it to
29,215
48,949
Dude, you're preaching to the choir right now. But that doesn't change the fact that Blizzard doesn't do anything fast. Ever. Look at the gap between StarCraft and StarCraft II or Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. Or the once every 3 year WOW expansion. Blizzard has a culture of moving slow and we're not going to change it. I agree that it's a terrible philosophy for a collectible card game but I don't see Blizzard moving things along faster.
I know which unfortunately sucks, because MTGO client is a bag of dicks and Hex has really disappointed me in how unfriendly their UI is. Even the text and scaling, it's just a pain in the ass to pick out what is going on in that game. Hearthstone is very playable but yay Blizzard, fuck depth.
 

Sinzar

Trakanon Raider
3,149
269
I don't want to see them start flooding out new cards at the rate some of you expect unless they're free cards. The whole point of hearthstone is that it's a free'ish, accessible game. As it is, 30 cards from Naxx are costing us 2,800 gold (3,500 gold after the launch event). If they start adding entire sets of 100+ cards per few months, it loses a lot of the f2p crowd.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,319
2,424
The naxx cost is for the PvE content shit. If they added a set of 100cards, you wouldn't be losing shit, they'd just drop from packs and arena runs like usual and you'd craft them with dusts like usual. They could make the new cards special so that you can't buy them with current ressources and force people to regrind, but I'd assume they'd just have a shittier conversion rate instead or something like that. Also it isn't really like a mmo where you add more powerful cards, you just add more different cards. Having a new deck type like say paladin secret deck wouldn't instantly invalidate the current decks like handlock or miracle rogue, so you wouldn't be at a disadvantage besides in mirror if there's a really strong card for your particular deck, but you'd just need to focus on getting that. And obviously regardless of what they add it would have no effect for arena players.
 

Famm

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
11,041
794
They'd probably add a new kind of dust AND a shitty conversion rate on the old stuff.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,319
2,424
They'd probably add a new kind of dust AND a shitty conversion rate on the old stuff.
Yeah what I said, new ressource but instead of forcing people to regrind they'd have a shitty conversion rate(and a grind obviously but both). That said I don't quite see a problem because you'd get the new ressource full time and the conversion from new to old would be 100% so you'd just pick the cards you want and keep collecting stuff.

Anyway don't think it'd have a huge impact on people even if they don't have every current cards, just like you do now with the current pool you'd be working towards specific goals, there would just be different cards to work for and more of them total, but it's not like having every card makes a difference as long as you have the right cards. And since there's only 30cards in a deck, the amount of "right" cards doesn't change much for a particular deck style.
 

Famm

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
11,041
794
I would think maybe a new class would come with expansion too? There could be the leveling to get those cards too. I guess they'd have to add a slot for another deck then. Shit they could make that an unlockable thing too.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,319
2,424
I would think maybe a new class would come with expansion too? There could be the leveling to get those cards too. I guess they'd have to add a slot for another deck then. Shit they could make that an unlockable thing too.
I doubt they'd gate general cards behind a new class, but obviously the new class would need to get to 10 to get their own class cards. They could add more PvE shit to unlock cards and depending on Naxx success, it might be what they do but what that means is a lot slower release. I think the game could benefit from having just a large amount of cards dumped on it that do new and old stuff and fill some current holes in mana cost/relative power and shit like that.

So that if you want a small mob that heals but doesn't suck, you have another choice than just farseer. Voodoo is crappy, naga aoe heal instead of single makes it meh and priestess of elune is self heal only and is insanely overpriced/shitty stat spread, farseer is the only good healing card and it's insanely better than the others. Having a 4 or 5 mana card that heals and maybe does something else would be cool. Having a card that does the +1/+1 of argus but without taunt would be nice. Having a Pyromancer alternative that works off creatures played would be nice. Having more counters to weapons and secrets would be nice. Tons of really basic shit could be added, the current set doesn't cover a lot of aspects or covers them in very limited way.

That's why you see some cards in every decks, it's because there's just no good alternatives for them. You can keep nerfing them instead but in the end they just get replaced by the next most efficient card and become useless forever half the time, so it's pointless especially when the values are only whole and the difference between one increment is so huge. Like you add 1mana cost to a card and it changes the card entirely from being super good to being dumpster tier. It's hard to balance perfectly in these conditions, it'd be faster to just add another card that does the same thing but with a different balance of cost/tradeoff/effect and now people will pick one or the other depending on their decks and goals.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,395
289
There's really no reason that they cannot do a release like Naxx three times per year. Alternate that with a small set of 80ish cards and you have bi-monthly releases that add up to 330ish cards per year. Now that isnt close to MTG, but I would say it's good enough.

I have no idea why they arent doing that besides "we're blizzard and our corporate mascot is a sloth, so suck it." At least I cant imagine that the schedule I describe would be a bad move financially. As far as making cards goes, steal from the 4 years of WoW TCG, MTG and a dozen other card games like there's no tomorow. Hell take the artwork from the paper version too. Your target audience either wont notice (they dont know those games) or will applaud you for it (see demands for MTG remakes in this very thread).
 

Amzin

Lord Nagafen Raider
2,917
361
Is there any reason to expect cards in Hearthstone to "rotate out", like they do in Magic? I don't expect to ever see 150+ card expansions in a game where every card introduced is intended to stay in for the life of the game.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,395
289
Yes - the reason for rotating cards out (and possibly in again) is to switch up the general play environment to keep the game interesting. That's as valid for hearthstone as it is for MTG. Although rotating cards is really step 2. Blizzard is still stuck on step 1, which is keeping the environment fresh/interesting by introducing interesting new cards at regular intervals.

One interesting thing is that given the digital nature of the game, they could opt for radically changing existing cards instead of releasing new cards. The effects on the play environment would be similar to having new releases. I assume player reaction to that approach would be very though. At least it would reduce my own interest in the game to a fraction of what it is. I kinda fear they might be heading that way because their other games are handled in a similar fashion.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
44,500
54,042
I would probably cut novice engineer for mad scientist in freeze mage. I also really like Deathlord
 

Zulst_sl

shitlord
264
0
Spectral Knight is probably my favorite one out of the new cards they showed off today. Now I'll have a decision to make about what 5 drop to put in my decks rather than just auto-include Azure Drakes in everything.
 

Neph_sl

shitlord
1,635
0
Bump. Looks like all 30 cards (31 if you count Thaddius) are up on their Facebook now. Kel'Thuzad, Nerub'ar Weblord, and Wailing Soul look pretty sick.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
44,500
54,042
As predicted, Thaddius is garbage. Couldn't even be bothered to come up with a mechanic for him inspired by his raid encounter.

Wailing Soul looks terrible. Fails the vanilla test and comes with an ability that's only relevant against freeze mage. Weblord looks very interesting, but that's a pretty useless body to stick such an important hate card on.

Unstable Ghoul looks like the sleeper card of the set to me.