The third stage could be completely removed and not impact the card at all, if anything gets directly nerfed in the deck it's probably going to be a different combo piece
Putting the reward to 7 severely limits it's power, given that Hunter is usually low on resources already by turn 5, if it's still an issue maybe increase the requirement for the second stage to 3 spells
Your guess on how to make this playable without making it broken or completely redesigning it is as good as mine, either it's unplayable or it's incredibly irritating, honestly wouldn't be opposed to just scrapping it and making a completely new questline with any relation to the things priest does
This seems fine with the reward at 5, Spymaster Scabbs could possibly even be buffed to add a random gizmo to your hand at the start of the turn for the rest of the game as well as adding one of each on battlecry if he went to 7
Don't even know where to start with this, as for the quest itself either make it 7/8/8 or reduce the rewards to 2 damage, make Blightborn Tamsin not redirect fatigue, make Crystallizer deal and gain 3, and drop Darkglare a health at bare minimum, possibly make Kobold Librarian a 2 mana 2/2 as well to reduce the massive cycling ability the deck has, would love to see Raise Dead hit, but doubt that will ever happen given that it hasn't already
dont nerf crystalizer, just change it convert. thats all that needs to happen to it.
and if make it less dmg and less armor its still just free quets progress with 0 donwside
I think the real problem is that Blizzard doesn’t design for the long-term viability of Wild. Powerful cards rotate out of Standard, new powerful cards rotate in, and there is no balance of the old and new ones when they mix.
I don’t play Wild, but I did see what Doom in the Tomb did to Standard a couple years ago. A few strong cards from the past were all it took to completely unbalance the whole meta. If Wild is that times 100, then I can understand why Wild players are frustrated so often. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of the fun Standard experiences the team creates.
They're still a problem in standard, albeit not as much in wild.
Tier 1 right now is basically quest shaman v quest warlock v quest mage. Each with pretty polarizing match-ups.
According to the Vicious Syndicate report I quoted above, that’s not true at all. The latest HSReplay stats are different, but still don’t put Quest decks at the top. In fact, NO Quest decks are Tier 1 right now. Quest Shaman is the 6th best deck, Quest Warlock is 10th(!), and Warrior/Rogue/Mage are barely reaching 50% at spots 14-16. That tells me that Quests are viable, but not your best options. And my anecdotal experience is that most of my opponents aren’t playing them. It’s nothing like the Uldum Quest or Galakrond days.
I think part of the reason why Bandle City is good is because they designed the set properly this time. It doesn't feel like anyone's missing X to make them good. Similarly none of the new champions feel bad to play. I think all of them are viable in this meta and their playstyle (even if they are slotted in old archetypes) feel unique in their effects. This has by far been the best expansion. Sure a couple things need nerfs but the meta feels fresh that I don't really mind much. I'm more optimistic of the next two expansions of the set now.
Questlines overall are my favorite version of the quest mechanic. The smaller rewards have a nice impact on the early game and they can stick around long enough to trigger your quests matter cards more often. The end rewards mostly feel really good too (was surprised by DH). However I do agree they can be completed way too quick. The priest one seems to be the slowest and probably should still be. But the others should be brought closer in line to that questline's completion time.
Stealer of Souls: I've talked about this in other places but static effects with unlimited cost reduction are very hard to balance. First off aura effects like this or Sorcers apprentice cause a lot of issues, especially on cheap cards. Second I understand the limit here is supposed to be your life pool but even with an opponent hitting them warlocks can spend 20-40 life on cards because of all the healing they have access too. That's an obsurd number. In most cases that would matter but because they are ending the game that turn or next it doesn't matter. It really should. I love the idea of price for power but this is just nearly free power.
Overload: Similar to the above if they keep printing cards that make overload a bonus or undo it's effects it is no longer an issue (same with discard). Cards get printed with a big overload cost at cheap mana but then you play a card that says overload never happened well that's just free mana. I don't know if they hit the breaking point here but just like exchanging life for mana in warlock they'll get there.
Weaknesess that have some bonuses and effects are fine but again too many that undo it just leads to a critical mass and makes the entire mechanic irrelevant.
Tenwu of the Red Smoke is one of my favorite cards ever because of the art but more importantly the name. Tenwu of the Red Smoke. (anybody) of the Red Smoke. Sounds cool.
Both the article and these comments have been a good read; thank you to everyone and especially Frosty as this is a tough topic to tackle well!
As a control player in Standard, I'm fine sitting out a season to let other people enjoy combo decks. However, what concerns me is similar to what others have already said better:
1) The powercreep required going forward to overcome these decks (plus the delicate balance needed to somehow not make the quests stronger)
2) The solitare nature of the current combos - that feeling of helplessness combined with the frustration of long turns watching card draw/animations
3) The combination of quick quest completion PLUS mid-quest rewards. I think the latter was a really cool addition, but that it'd work better as a way of softening the blow of longer quests.
4) The ease of piloting + completing meta quests makes them both popular and strong in the lower ranks + Casual. I understand the rationale of balancing a game from the top down (e.g. Mindrender Illucia nerf), but I also care about the metas not covered by VS where the majority of the playerbase experiences the game. Again, one expansion of an aggro + combos meta is fine by me, but pushing out the slower strategies until Quests rotate doesn't feel sustainable.
Lastly, on a design philosophy note, I love it when quests open up an alternative playstyle for a class and/or give life to underused cards. For example, Queen Carnassa gave Hunters card draw and an Unsealed Vault made Swarm of Locusts super useful. By comparison, some of the current quest rewards just feel kinda boring to me in the sense that we're doing the same old same - Mage spell dmg, Demon Hunter card draw/OTK, Hunter ignoring board to go face with spells + hero power instead of spells + rhino, etc.
You're either optimistic or not having played CCG enough to believe any expansion can be anti meta slaves. Give it 2 weeks and you'll be overrun with the same decks all over again. Also three previous meta deck are very much slaughtering as usual : Rally elusive, pirate MF and discard aggro.
And to go with that, another meta deck is a disguised elusive (nami Zoe) and the other is just the newer gross board domination through over average cheap followers (Poppy,Lulu) cards.
So much for a bad time for meta slaves when all S decks are aggro/almost aggro.
I do agree however than the expansion is filled with cool cards.
Ah yes it can be interpreted like that, my bad. I still want it to take damage but it should affect the hero's Health, i.e. if you have armor and take damage without your Health changing, you wouldn't get quest progress. I definitely think Warlock quest doesn't need any additional buffs so healing shouldn't count :D
Or maybe they'll all end up costing gold, thus alienating any F2P player who might enjoy the mode but sees it as a risk of a crucial resource for other modes they already play.
I probably sound like a broken record, but there's really no reason for Blizzard to care about the feelings of free players who are going to pitch a fit over a little bit of gold. If they refuse to spend gold, that's a sign they will never, ever spend cash. Blizzard has nothing to gain from keeping that kind of non-customer happy.
Free-to-pay games aren't free because of a company's generosity. They are free in the hope that free players will eventually spend money. Gating content behind a small gold expenditure is actually a pretty smart way to weed out the ones who will never pay a dime.
What you're saying about Free-to-Play games is entirely correct, but the idea that weeding out players that won't pay a dime is a good idea is ridiculous. Blizzard has no idea why any individual player is F2P. Maybe they're F2P because they like to spend on cosmetics in game but weren't offered any (that's clearly true for some players, as Blizzard introduced Diamond cards and tons of new hero portraits). Maybe they're F2P because their financial situation is difficult right now, but in a few months they'll get a new job or promotion and have a little spending money to put into a game. Maybe they've just bored with traditional Hearthstone and looking for a new game mode that they'll love enough to spend money on.
Regardless of reason, the way F2P works is to cast a wide net and convert players into customers. They will have less success if they intentionally weed players out before they've even had a chance to try the game. That's why the question of cost to reach some "base fun play" state is important.
I logged in especially to say this - thanks Flux for voicing the community's thoughts so well.
As well thanks to the Hearthstone developers for doing such a great job. We might discover Mercenaries was abducted by Activision's finance team, but the developers still have probably the best of intentions.
They're still a problem in standard, albeit not as much in wild.
Tier 1 right now is basically quest shaman v quest warlock v quest mage. Each with pretty polarizing match-ups.
If you're playing shaman or warlock, you can kind of concede the second you see a mage or rogue. Shaman also immediately folds to warlock.
On the other hand, if you're playing any sort of aggro deck, good luck trying to beat a quest shaman.
This all leads to quite the polarizing and unfun experience. Not to mention the whole "control is dead doomsayer talk".
And while above situation could probably be solved by a few good nerfs, most of these questlines seem like ticking timebombs. Hunter and warrior are just one or two good support cards away from becoming as problematic as their wild counterparts.
The issue with reducing the damage she does (or better put: the amount she reduces your health by) is that she is important for heal-focused decks to make sure they can be damaged to utilise their healing cards and synergies. You can only run 1 High Priest Thekal, so these decks still need Crystallizer for consistency. That collateral damage might not matter much to the meta, but since it is what she was actually designed for I would strongly oppose it.
I think in general when you take a look at Blizzard underestimating the power of decks before launch, their lists are usually unoptimized. Which is understandable, they can't do nearly as much testing as the entire playerbase. But we've seen many cases where the speed that a deck can pop off is drastically underrated by the design team, e.g. old quest rogue, corridor creeper, etc
I wanted to try out Raid the Docks Questline Warrior after seeing Kibler pilot it with some (probably limited) success. I didn't expect much, but it was a change of pace from slamming the same deck for two months.
Two Questline Warlocks and two Control Priests later, and I rage quit. I even managed to complete the quest into a coin + Mindrender Illucia for the instaloss, just to salt the wound. A serious misplay, to be sure, but dammmit. Daaaamit.
Once more I'm amazed by this awesome community. Frosty literally picked the most controversial topic there is right now, which is dividing the Standard and the Wild community in a most disgraceful way all over social media and all of you guys and gals in this place keep their cool and stay friendly. Glad to be a part of this :)
I wish they nerfed Crystallizer for Wild, because she is so damn powerful for Questline Warlock specifically she's become the new Spawn of Shadows in terms of their rise from zero to hero. Somebody mentioned that she should conver Health into Armor instead of dealing damage to your hero, but I'd say she can become a 1/1 and deal only 2 to you, but still grant 5 Armor - to shift her focus to a defensive card. Alternatively, nerf her to 2 Mana 2/3 to make her less spammable with Raise Dead.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
dont nerf crystalizer, just change it convert. thats all that needs to happen to it.
and if make it less dmg and less armor its still just free quets progress with 0 donwside
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
I think the real problem is that Blizzard doesn’t design for the long-term viability of Wild. Powerful cards rotate out of Standard, new powerful cards rotate in, and there is no balance of the old and new ones when they mix.
I don’t play Wild, but I did see what Doom in the Tomb did to Standard a couple years ago. A few strong cards from the past were all it took to completely unbalance the whole meta. If Wild is that times 100, then I can understand why Wild players are frustrated so often. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of the fun Standard experiences the team creates.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
According to the Vicious Syndicate report I quoted above, that’s not true at all. The latest HSReplay stats are different, but still don’t put Quest decks at the top. In fact, NO Quest decks are Tier 1 right now. Quest Shaman is the 6th best deck, Quest Warlock is 10th(!), and Warrior/Rogue/Mage are barely reaching 50% at spots 14-16. That tells me that Quests are viable, but not your best options. And my anecdotal experience is that most of my opponents aren’t playing them. It’s nothing like the Uldum Quest or Galakrond days.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
tldr:
Why Bandlewood Will Be The Best Region
I think part of the reason why Bandle City is good is because they designed the set properly this time. It doesn't feel like anyone's missing X to make them good. Similarly none of the new champions feel bad to play. I think all of them are viable in this meta and their playstyle (even if they are slotted in old archetypes) feel unique in their effects. This has by far been the best expansion. Sure a couple things need nerfs but the meta feels fresh that I don't really mind much. I'm more optimistic of the next two expansions of the set now.
Diamond Cards We'd Love to See From Hearthstone's Year of the Phoenix
I crafted Soulciologist Malicia in golden back in scholomance, i would love a Diamond version of her for sure
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
On phone so this may be messy:
Questlines overall are my favorite version of the quest mechanic. The smaller rewards have a nice impact on the early game and they can stick around long enough to trigger your quests matter cards more often. The end rewards mostly feel really good too (was surprised by DH). However I do agree they can be completed way too quick. The priest one seems to be the slowest and probably should still be. But the others should be brought closer in line to that questline's completion time.
Stealer of Souls: I've talked about this in other places but static effects with unlimited cost reduction are very hard to balance. First off aura effects like this or Sorcers apprentice cause a lot of issues, especially on cheap cards. Second I understand the limit here is supposed to be your life pool but even with an opponent hitting them warlocks can spend 20-40 life on cards because of all the healing they have access too. That's an obsurd number. In most cases that would matter but because they are ending the game that turn or next it doesn't matter. It really should. I love the idea of price for power but this is just nearly free power.
Overload: Similar to the above if they keep printing cards that make overload a bonus or undo it's effects it is no longer an issue (same with discard). Cards get printed with a big overload cost at cheap mana but then you play a card that says overload never happened well that's just free mana. I don't know if they hit the breaking point here but just like exchanging life for mana in warlock they'll get there.
Weaknesess that have some bonuses and effects are fine but again too many that undo it just leads to a critical mass and makes the entire mechanic irrelevant.
Diamond Cards We'd Love to See From Hearthstone's Year of the Phoenix
Tenwu of the Red Smoke is one of my favorite cards ever because of the art but more importantly the name. Tenwu of the Red Smoke. (anybody) of the Red Smoke. Sounds cool.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
Both the article and these comments have been a good read; thank you to everyone and especially Frosty as this is a tough topic to tackle well!
As a control player in Standard, I'm fine sitting out a season to let other people enjoy combo decks. However, what concerns me is similar to what others have already said better:
1) The powercreep required going forward to overcome these decks (plus the delicate balance needed to somehow not make the quests stronger)
2) The solitare nature of the current combos - that feeling of helplessness combined with the frustration of long turns watching card draw/animations
3) The combination of quick quest completion PLUS mid-quest rewards. I think the latter was a really cool addition, but that it'd work better as a way of softening the blow of longer quests.
4) The ease of piloting + completing meta quests makes them both popular and strong in the lower ranks + Casual. I understand the rationale of balancing a game from the top down (e.g. Mindrender Illucia nerf), but I also care about the metas not covered by VS where the majority of the playerbase experiences the game. Again, one expansion of an aggro + combos meta is fine by me, but pushing out the slower strategies until Quests rotate doesn't feel sustainable.
Lastly, on a design philosophy note, I love it when quests open up an alternative playstyle for a class and/or give life to underused cards. For example, Queen Carnassa gave Hunters card draw and an Unsealed Vault made Swarm of Locusts super useful. By comparison, some of the current quest rewards just feel kinda boring to me in the sense that we're doing the same old same - Mage spell dmg, Demon Hunter card draw/OTK, Hunter ignoring board to go face with spells + hero power instead of spells + rhino, etc.
Why Bandlewood Will Be The Best Region
You're either optimistic or not having played CCG enough to believe any expansion can be anti meta slaves. Give it 2 weeks and you'll be overrun with the same decks all over again. Also three previous meta deck are very much slaughtering as usual : Rally elusive, pirate MF and discard aggro.
And to go with that, another meta deck is a disguised elusive (nami Zoe) and the other is just the newer gross board domination through over average cheap followers (Poppy,Lulu) cards.
So much for a bad time for meta slaves when all S decks are aggro/almost aggro.
I do agree however than the expansion is filled with cool cards.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
I am so pissed off that Questline Mage is still alive. I hope Blizzard stomps this stupid deck to the ground in the next round of nerfs.
QUESTLINE MAGE IS FOR LOSERS. LOSERSSSSSS
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
Ah yes it can be interpreted like that, my bad. I still want it to take damage but it should affect the hero's Health, i.e. if you have armor and take damage without your Health changing, you wouldn't get quest progress. I definitely think Warlock quest doesn't need any additional buffs so healing shouldn't count :D
Mercenaries: My First Impressions
What you're saying about Free-to-Play games is entirely correct, but the idea that weeding out players that won't pay a dime is a good idea is ridiculous. Blizzard has no idea why any individual player is F2P. Maybe they're F2P because they like to spend on cosmetics in game but weren't offered any (that's clearly true for some players, as Blizzard introduced Diamond cards and tons of new hero portraits). Maybe they're F2P because their financial situation is difficult right now, but in a few months they'll get a new job or promotion and have a little spending money to put into a game. Maybe they've just bored with traditional Hearthstone and looking for a new game mode that they'll love enough to spend money on.
Regardless of reason, the way F2P works is to cast a wide net and convert players into customers. They will have less success if they intentionally weed players out before they've even had a chance to try the game. That's why the question of cost to reach some "base fun play" state is important.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
I logged in especially to say this - thanks Flux for voicing the community's thoughts so well.
As well thanks to the Hearthstone developers for doing such a great job. We might discover Mercenaries was abducted by Activision's finance team, but the developers still have probably the best of intentions.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
So you want to buff the quest? What?
Completing Hearthstone's Books of Heroes Will Reward a Golden Standard Pack Starting This Week - Reward is Retroactive
cz Dragonfire Potion is way cooler than Holy Water xD
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
well, the other quests take over and then this whole issue starts over again. pretty much all of them are a problem
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
they were very much a mistake in a way that they're waaay too easy to complete and pushed the game into a very bad position
they're even worse than genn and baku decks and should get the same treatment as those if they can't be nerfed in a better way
i feel like they should be a little bit risky to play with huge upsides of course, kind of like an alternate win condition type thing...
a quest imo should be hard and take a long time, which they're not in the slightest
it just doesn't feel like hearthstone anymore, which is a huge problem
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
They're still a problem in standard, albeit not as much in wild.
Tier 1 right now is basically quest shaman v quest warlock v quest mage. Each with pretty polarizing match-ups.
If you're playing shaman or warlock, you can kind of concede the second you see a mage or rogue. Shaman also immediately folds to warlock.
On the other hand, if you're playing any sort of aggro deck, good luck trying to beat a quest shaman.
This all leads to quite the polarizing and unfun experience. Not to mention the whole "control is dead doomsayer talk".
And while above situation could probably be solved by a few good nerfs, most of these questlines seem like ticking timebombs. Hunter and warrior are just one or two good support cards away from becoming as problematic as their wild counterparts.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
The issue with reducing the damage she does (or better put: the amount she reduces your health by) is that she is important for heal-focused decks to make sure they can be damaged to utilise their healing cards and synergies. You can only run 1 High Priest Thekal, so these decks still need Crystallizer for consistency. That collateral damage might not matter much to the meta, but since it is what she was actually designed for I would strongly oppose it.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
I think in general when you take a look at Blizzard underestimating the power of decks before launch, their lists are usually unoptimized. Which is understandable, they can't do nearly as much testing as the entire playerbase. But we've seen many cases where the speed that a deck can pop off is drastically underrated by the design team, e.g. old quest rogue, corridor creeper, etc
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
I wanted to try out Raid the Docks Questline Warrior after seeing Kibler pilot it with some (probably limited) success. I didn't expect much, but it was a change of pace from slamming the same deck for two months.
Two Questline Warlocks and two Control Priests later, and I rage quit. I even managed to complete the quest into a coin + Mindrender Illucia for the instaloss, just to salt the wound. A serious misplay, to be sure, but dammmit. Daaaamit.
Avalon's 12 Wins Questline Mage
I usually play Rise to the Occasion Paladin with Favored Racer, which is very underappreciated in my opinion.
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
Once more I'm amazed by this awesome community. Frosty literally picked the most controversial topic there is right now, which is dividing the Standard and the Wild community in a most disgraceful way all over social media and all of you guys and gals in this place keep their cool and stay friendly. Glad to be a part of this :)
Hearthstone's Stormwind Questline Cards Were a Mistake - Here's How We Can Fix Them
I wish they nerfed Crystallizer for Wild, because she is so damn powerful for Questline Warlock specifically she's become the new Spawn of Shadows in terms of their rise from zero to hero. Somebody mentioned that she should conver Health into Armor instead of dealing damage to your hero, but I'd say she can become a 1/1 and deal only 2 to you, but still grant 5 Armor - to shift her focus to a defensive card. Alternatively, nerf her to 2 Mana 2/3 to make her less spammable with Raise Dead.