Game Designer Ates 'Tabayrak' Bayrak Asks Players for Feedback on Hearthstone Duels

Recently, Hearthstone Associate Game Designer Ates 'Tabayrak' Bayrak posted a Tweet asking for players' feedback regarding all the Duels novelties implemented in the Diablo patch (21.6) on November 2nd.

Many players (including various pros and streamers) answered the call and dropped their impressions on the current state of the game mode, as well as some suggestions about how they would improve it.

Consider that this is not the first time Tabayrak asked for players feedback, and they've shown to care about it: occasions like these are incredible opportunities to express (with manners) your opinion on the game, as well as your possible concerns. If there's something you love or you'd like to see addressed, don't be shy!

Quote From Tabayrak

Diablo and the most recent round of Duels changes have been out for a little now. How are we feeling about this Duels meta. Seeing tons of diversity when I play. Hit me with your thoughts.

Our goal for this article is to sum up relevant suggestions that have been brought up in said Twitter thread, as well as to add our personal two cents. Have a good read!

General Impression

Overall, it feels like the community has more than well received the latest Duels update, which brought several adjustments to the Passive Treasures pool, as well as the introduction of Diablo - the first ever Dual-class hero.

In particular, players seem to have appreciated the cap imposed to certain Passive Treasures in order to limit their mana cheating effects, which were one of the biggest concerns prior this patch.

As you can see in the examples above, the effects may be a bit more wordy now, but it is a small price to pay for a better game experience across the board.

Another valid point brought up is that right now every class seems to have at least one playable strategy: sure, some are stronger than others, but there isn't a hero that is completely left out of the meta. One cause of this scenario is likely the be the already mentioned Passive Treasures overhaul, that powered up niche strategies and slowed down the most oppressive ones. All in all, right now a decent amount of decks can reach remarkable scores without having to draft a specific Passive, which is a good signal that Duels is a healthy game mode.

Diablo

Diablo is the first hero implemented into Duels since its release in October 2020. Many people were excited to try it out and experiment with combinations that mixed Warlock-Warrior card pool allows, and archetypes have started to emerge.

While Primal Power and Doom Charge are currently seeing plenty of play in the Questline and Big builds, Demonic Transformation is really struggling to see play. While Warlock provides a solid Discard package, the Demon pool (especially those which cost few mana) is rather underwhelming, and Demonic Transformation doesn't allow you to 'upgrade' your hand, meaning that a 2 mana Demon will always reroll into another 2 mana Demon (and not into a more expensive one), even though it costs 2 less.

To be more precise, AgentCroque says that "the deck gets held back by the low quality of random Demons. You take a lot of self damage playing them, have to discard more cards or lose mana."

Passive Treasures

Let's now talk about the elephant in the room. As we already stated, players appreciate the recent Passive Treasures overhaul, increasing the power level of the least popular ones and reducing the dominance of the most common/oppressive ones.

Due to this, many already existing strategies received the long awaited support to have a chance in the meta: let's think about Freeze Solid, Hagatha's Embrace or Deathly Death!.

However, players have expressed mixed feelings regarding some of these changes, as well as already existing powerhouses that escaped the nerf bat.

Avenging Armaments - WhyteKnoze thinks that Avenging Armaments, especially in combination with Righteous Reserves, is usually annoying to play against, and could use a buff reduction from +2/+2 to +1/+1.

Ever-Changing Elixir - This Passive passed from being underwhelming to possibly one of the best ones you can get from pool 1. The chances of snowballing out of control are very high, and is perceived as a potentially problematic tool.

Grommash's Armguards - Another Passive with the same story of Ever-Changing Elixir, with the only difference that the root of its problems has a name and a face: Turalyon, the Tenured and Royal Greatsword. We agree with ultrarotom when he says that "Grommash's Armguards into Royal Greatsword is completely bananas." If we were to take a look into this interaction, we'd say that the problematic part lies more towards Royal Greatsword, which is just too good for its statline and effect at 5 mana. The Passive should be left as it is to help other weapon-based strategies to flourish, and we shouldn't let the most popular one ruin the fun for all of them!

Fireshaper - Spell-based decks are among the most hated strategies in Duels, since their entire gameplan revolves around hitting certain Passives and then bursting down the opponent without leaving room for much interaction. Fireshaper, in particular, seems to be one of the major offenders. Being in Passive pool 1, this Treasure generates lots of one-sided games in the early matches, while also doubling the damage output of strategies like Outlander Demon Hunter and Mind Tether Priest. If we're not walking towards the 'rework' path, we'd like to see Fireshaper moved to Passive pool 2.

Legendary Loot - Probably the Passive Treasure that was brought up the most in the entire Twitter thread. While its previous iteration was decent but nothing amazing (if you don't remember, it equipped a random Legendary weapon), the current version of Legendary Loot is very high in power level and, as many players stated, has potential to cause a little too many non-games. Note: You actually still equip the Discovered weapon right away, the new card text was shipped with a bad wording. In fact, there are quite a few options (namely Woecleaver, The Runespear and Twig of the World Tree) that have remarkable chances to steal games in the first few turns. We may not be talking about the strongest tier 2 Passive in the game, but it's surely one of the most controversial. Kwareon suggests to change it so that it only shows two options, like Guidance does.

On the other hand, there are some Passives that may need some more love.

Elixir of Vigor - Some players think that the current iteration of Elixir of Vigor is neither fish nor fowl: for obvious reasons, spell-based decks are not interested in it, while minion-based ones usually have better alternatives. If I were to say my opinion, I's say that I tend to disagree with this statement: I recently experimented with the Elixir in a Rush Warrior full of card draw and impactful units, and I dare to say that it felt pretty good. Sure, we are not talking about the best Passive in the tier 2 pool, but I feel like it's still underused.

Orb of Revelation - The feeling is that capping Orb of Revelation's discount effect to 2 mana pretty much killed the Treasure. While we agree that the mana cheat it allowed before was excessive, we wonder if there's another solution for this Passive to still be competitive.

Moreover, Kwareon stated that they'd like to see more variety regarding spell-based Passive Treasures. Here are some suggestions:

• "Your spells cost X more and have +Y Spell Damage";
• "The Xth spell you play each turn costs Y less and/or has +Z Spell Damage";
• "Whenever you cast a spell with a very low/high cost, copy it."

Now, we'd like to remember you that Duels is about Passive Treasures and broken synergies: that's exactly what the game mode is about. What we're trying to say is that asking for Passives to be slightly toned down is definitely a reasonable request, but totally flatten them would just distort the game mode's founding concept. Therefore, we are not implying that all these Passives should be changed/deleted, but rather that all of them are somehow perceived as potentially problematic from part of the playerbase, which is indicative but still subjective!

Active Treasures

Another issue that's been perfectly brought up by AgentCroque regards the Active Treasures. For those who are confused by this term, we're talking about those Duels-exclusive cards that you get offered from time to time between your matches.

Active Treasures have vastly different power levels: some of them are decent, some are generally good, some are really damn strong, and some are... questionable at best.

Spot the ones that see play.

To be more precise, a good chunk of the Active Treasures seem just like minor upgrades to regular cards, like Greedy Pickaxe for Overgrowth or Mutating Injection for Blessing of Kings, while others, like Bag of Coins (incredibly frustrating when picked by spell-based decks with abilities like Fireshaper and Mind Tether), Ancient Reflections and LOCUUUUSTS!!! seem to be in a league of their own.

In the end, what we're suggesting is that Active Treasures should feel more like Duels cards rather than constructed ones, and not necessarily in a power level perspective: allowing players to do things they aren't normally allowed to, even if not particularly strong, is a good way to express a game mode's uniqueness. Units like Bubba, Gnomish Army Knife, Hyperblaster and Wish all fit the bill, and we'd love to see more!

On a final note, even the freshly introduced Black Soulstone could use some love. Diablo's Signature Treasures are really strong on average, but the fact that you have to spend 6 mana just to get a random one that may or may not help and for which you still have to pay its entire cost makes this Active Treasure extremely slow and therefore unappealing, which is quite a shame.

We get that Diablo being a limited-time hero in Duels, Black Soulstone was introduced as a way to remember it in the future, just like Tickatus was introduced in Battlegrounds to keep Darkmoon Prizes (they are so cool!) in the mode, but we think that its current iteration may not be the best way for this event to be looked at in the years. Either reducing Soulstone's cost, applying a discount to the generated card or making it Discoverable (or, again, a Guidance-like effect, in which you get to choose between two options instead of three) seem reasonable ways to improve the Treasure.

Class Balance

A couple players took some time to drop their two cents on how they're seeing certain classes in the meta.

Rogue

As we already said, players are glad that Rogue seems to be back on the menu. However, there may be some deeper issues within the class. In fact, yumeha_gbf stated that Infiltrator Lilian is now too one-dimensional of a hero, with pretty much only a hit-or-miss strategy that revolves around getting Oops, All Spells! and uninteractively blasting down your opponents.

They also brought up the fact that Rogue's mid-run buckets behave in a rather strange way that gives you two cards with rather high synergy (Shenanigans and Sparkjoy Cheat or Wild Pyromancer and Plague Scientist) and a card that doesn't have nothing to do with them. Revamping Lilian's buckets may be a good way for Rogue to be more successful in Duels.

All in all, what is asked is for Rogue to have different strategies than Oops, All Spells!.

Priest

TeamAmerica has the feeling that not banning Embrace the Shadow in patch 21.6 was a mistake by Team 5.

In case you're not familiar with the card, Miracle Mind Tether Priest is a spell-heavy deck that revolves around generating resources and relentlessly chipping down the opponent's health total. This archetype's finisher is made of Embrace the Shadow in combination with healing effects like Desperate Prayer and Flash Heal. The problematic part of this combo lies in the fact that Duels runs start with a low health total (20) and decks like this one inevitably cripple your score before you're able to get to 40 health.

Although it wasn't explicitly mentioned in the Twitter thread, Shadow Word: Void is another cards that usually finds itself involved in complaints by the Duels playerbase, and pretty much for the same reasons of Embrace the Shadow.

What's Next

Finally, players gave a few suggestions about the future of Duels: how current interactions can be changed, what could be added and how certain things could be handled. Tabayrak themselves left a couple interesting hints regarding what we may see in the future.

Hero Powers and Signature Treasures General Overhaul

Let's start off with an interesting suggestion by Persia. What this player stated is that, now that the Passive Treasures have been greatly revamped, it may be time for Team 5 to take a look at Duels' Hero Power and Signature Treasures. In fact, some classes are less lucky than other in this department, and are soft forced to play the same strategies over and over again: this way, there's fear that Duels may lose part of its variety and become stale.

For reference, here are some Hero Powers and Signature Treasures that have seen little to no play in the last year.

Have you ever met them? I personally haven't...

Persia thinks that giving classes more viable tools to compete with will also increase the game mode's variety, as it's definitely something we agree with. We are aware of the fact that all Hero Power and Signature Treasures are designed by having in mind what each class will receive in the future sets, but it's also true that, as flavorful and thematic they may be, they should still be appealing to players!

Bartender Bob in Duels?

More than one player suggested the fact that Duels could use some more shenanigans between the final matches of the run. In fact, after you pick your Second Passive Treasure post game 3, you only get to pick card buckets and Active Treasure until you eventually get to 12 wins or get defeated 3 times. One of said suggestions is made by Tars, who explicitly asked about the chances of Bob joining Duels.

In case your memory pulled a sneaky on ya, Bartender Bob's first appearance was in Rise of Shadow's adventure, The Dalaran Heist, in which Bob appeared as a friendly encounter and allowed you to modify your deck mid-run, adding or removing cards, as well as reducing the cost of your spells.

We know that Team 5 likes being original, so we do not expect so see this exact iteration in Duels as well, but something similar (maybe with a new twist!) could make up for a great addition to the game mode!

Passive System Redetermination and Third Passive

Another suggestion that's been brought up is the possibility of adding a third Passive Treasure draft phase. While we have no idea about what an implementation like this would look like, we have a few starting points to discuss:

• We think that the third draft phase could take place between game 6 and 8, so that you won't get the third Passive too soon but at the same time you won't have to be piloting a super strong deck to get there.
• By that time, you'll have your deck's strengths already figured out: for this reason, it is likely to imagine that this hypothetical Passive Pool 3 could be made of generally useful Passives rather than trying to push specific synergies like, let's say, Divine Shield.
• When you're deep in the run, the decks you meet are quite strong: therefore, we expect these Passives to be superior on average to those belonging to lower pools.

On a final note, when asked by Jack Harris about situations where you get offered three Passive Treasure that do not synergize at all with your strategy and that may end up irremediably crippling your fun, Tabayrak stated that this is an issue they're aware of, and they do not exclude that Team 5 may take a look at the determination factor for the Passive pool 2 Treasures in a future patch, so that they'll make more sense. No more Corrupted Felstone when you're playing a spell-based deck, yay!

What do you think about the results of this feedback thread? What suggestions you would give to Team 5? Let us know in the comments below!