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Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Blizzard, you want an easy straightforward way to add a bit more skill and consistency to the game? Add positional spells!

1) Positional spells are already in the game - see [[Betrayal]] and [[Explosive Shot]] and [[Power Shot]]. Adjacency bonus minions like [[Dire Wolf Alpha]] and [[Flametongue Totem]] continue to be played at higher ranks. And we keep getting powers like 'damage the left most minion' if you look at Heigan's hero power.

2) Positional spells are 'easy to get, but tough to master'. We can tell what looks like good minion order and we see it in game. But it is much tougher to execute and get good at. Players can continually practice this skill.

3) Position is consistent. Even more so than your discover card draw. You have a great deal of control over where a minion goes barring a little RNG. At least far more consistent than Yogg or Barnes. A professional can display superb positioning and distinguish themselves from others.

4) It allows for counter play and interesting executions. Want to apply a positional spell on the 2nd minion to the left, but need it to be the left most? You need to remove the left most guy first and then have it juggle up.

5) You can create tradeoffs and meta game cards at the same time. What if Rogues got a 'Assassinate left minion' and an 'Assassinate right minion' with their betrayal card? Not the most well thought out design, but even in this you can tell which player is playing around X or Y. You can create baits. Jukes. Metagame the opponent.

It is literally right there for you to get! Everybody wins!

New players get an easy to understand but hard to master mechanic to practice. Pros get to display their skill and distinguish themselves. Spectators get to see cool interactions and see things line up as more complex skill based plays emerge. AND it is easy for you to design, since well you've already done it Blizzard!

There's a recent post of Firebat's 'Bat Wisdom' that is making the rounds and generating some interesting discussion on why competitive play is inconsistent. How about we move away from potential RNG fiascos like Barnes and Yogg and move more towards positioning as the new 'thing'?

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Overall, I really agree that "left minion" and "right minion" are dangereous, confusing, and just not incredible design. I also agree that being more creative with positional stuff would benefit the game.

    For your counterargument to "outermost" ... How is it any different to Powershot. Most of the time, there's only three minions or left. The restriction is there for when there's not, and that cool enough.

    I think what I meant to say is we already have adjacent mechanics, so in order for outermost to be very useful it would have to accomplish something things like powershot/argus don't already do on a semi-regular basis.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    I hope you don't mind, but is there any place the average player could contact designers like yourself with suggestions or ideas? I know tweeting to a dev or the game on twitter exists but 140 characters gives a very frustrating limitation when asking somewhat extensive questions with the intention of wanting in depth answers.

    In short, which method of submitting ideas about hearthstone would be best if I wanted a dev to notice/respond?

    Most of us are reading here every day, but if you are looking for feedback in general I think the customhearthstone reddit is a good place to look. Lots of amateur and non-amateur designers are there discussing a variety of mechanic/card topics that I find really cool. In terms of pitching ideas directly, we're happy to read them and talk about general design principles when addressed to the community. There is some legal stuff I actually don't fully understand that makes soliciting and commenting on pitches not something we can do.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    You were at work before 7am? Great, now you're going to ruin the meme that Hearthstone designers don't actually do any work.

    I'm usually thinking about some Hearthstone idea when I wake up in the morning. Especially in times like this when people are experimenting with new decks I just wake up and come here to hang out.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    As a digital card game, wouldn't this be a great time to actually take advantage of it? Have the card text be dynamic. If it is in your hand it says "left" if your opponent plays it the text reads "right". The card can read two things depending on your perspective but it isn't confusing because you would never see it change.

    We do some dynamic card text stuff like with numbers and spell damage. I think in this scenario the confusing part is playing around it, not actually playing it. If my opponent has a minion on the right and I cast 'kill right minion' that isn't too bad. If I know my opponent probably has 'kill right minion' I'm not sure a large percentage of people would know how to position their stuff in the most optimal way to play around it.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Don't think about "left and right" from player icon perspective. Make it from the board perspective. If you're viewing the board from the top down (as we are) then left is always left and right is always right. The left side of the game board is always the side where the previous plays are listed.

    If you really think players will be confused, add "left" and "right" in the edges in the sand of the player arena. There are so many odd game interactions that are confusing, it's weird that this has stopped you. (ex: Two 5 attack minions on your side of the board, which one survives "Enter the Colisseum"?)

    There are so many minions and effects that would have been far better if they targeted a leftmost or rightmost (or opposite) minion. Flame juggler, Huge toad, Fiery bat, cleave, multi-shot, mind control tech, knife juggler, dark bargain, deadly shot, sabotage, demented frostcaller, fist of jaraxxus, bomb lobber, zealous initiate, ragnaros (both), sylvanis, lightwell, dark cultist, coghammer, selfless hero.

    You could have introduced left/right with regard to the hand, so that mind vision always stole the left most card (the one they'd been holding onto the longest) and soulfire always discarded the rightmost card (your topdeck).

    Instead you went with RNG for all of the above. You guys are addicted to RNG and with each expansion it makes the game worse and worse.

    Maybe I'm losing my mind but I think even when you look at the board state from a top-down perspective, depending on which way your head is facing left and right still swap. AM I? I just stood up and looked at my keyboard from both sides then put it above my head. My co-workers are probably wondering what is going on.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    What about something like a card that affects the 'outermost minions' i.e the ones on the far left and the far right, that way you wouldn't need the conplexity of defining left and right.

    Yep! This is cool and something I've seen in the past. An issue in my mind is that the term 'outermost' is cool when the board state is 3+ minions. Most turns in Hearthstone have 1-2 minions so 'outermost' usually just minions 'all enemy minions'. I think it still might be cool, maybe we could do it in a more controlled state like an adventure and create scenarios which you are likely to have many minions.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Maybe add some indicator to the board or leave it for player to play card and see what it does?

    I think if we had something like 15 designs we thought were totally awesome that dealt with left and right positioning, adding UI elements to help communicate that is a conversation we might spin up. It's sort of a 'death by a thousand cuts' scenario where adding one simple thing seems like it might be a good idea, then 5 years down the line the clean and beautiful Hearthstone UI starts to look like a command center of 100 mechanical elements. I think C'Thun was worth it because it was such a core piece of what made Old Gods a cool expansion. I think in this particular scenario we would have a hard time justifying the cost. In any case, we'll continue trying position matters stuff in the future and ideally we'll come up with cards that don't require extra work to explain.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    I think that to push the potential of something, sometimes you have to take certain risks and initiatives to push towards something new. I understand that this can become something that will be confusing for certain players at first, but here's my take on it.

    One of the most fun aspects I've had with HS and TCG (also MTG player) is learning how certain mechanics and interactions work and how I can use them to create good and positive impacts on the game. Yes, at first you may not be 100% sure how the spell you will use will pan out with a certain combo or such, but that's the fun part. You get to see how it interacts, and learn how to play the game better that way. I remember Ben saying that one of the reasons it's important to have bad cards is that weaker players will get to learn that these cards are bad by force of practice and testing. I don't see why this wouldn't be similar to introducing more positional spells/effects to the game. At first people won't be too sure of certain interactions, but we will want to try them out and test some cards together. We will build new decks, try new things and cards and learn how to play better with time.

    I think HS has one of the best communities in the gaming industry. If you go pass the BM, you can see that people are passionate about this game so much and we all know it has the potential to become even more if we introduce more skill-oriented designs. I have seen countless PSAs on this subreddit concerning certain card interactions that people have discovered. What may seem like "confusing situations" actually brings us together as a community because we can discuss certain effects and such that we discover.

    Anyways, that's my two cents about it. Thank you for your insight Iksar. Thank you if you read this to the end and please keep being involved with the community!

    TL;DR: IMO new "confusing" cards is FUN and leads to wanting to try new decks/combos and learning on how to play the game properly. People will learn how the interactions work and get better,

    I don't fully disagree with any of this, but I think a good goal is to try and capture the best of both worlds. Betrayal captures some minion positioning interactions but doesn't pose a bunch of questions to what adjacent means behind the scenes. I think the first time that card is played against you, you have a pretty good idea how it works and what you need to do to play around it. I'm sure there are more designs that can work in that space but still be interesting. An example of what you are describing is the fact minions will always summon on the right and what you might learn to do based on having that information. (Always put your Tuskarr Totemic's on the left!) I think that's cool, but we tend be careful introducing too many things that aren't easily communicated by reading the cards in your hand and in play.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Couple things here. We actually agree some positional stuff is cool, as you and many other people in the thread mention there are many such positional spells and minions that already exist in Hearthstone for that reason. Using the terms 'left' and 'right' has been pretty confusing in playtesting. We use it in adventures because there is only one player perspective. Say we were to give Priest a spell that said 'Destroy the left-most enemy minion'. If you were trying to play around that would you think to play your weakest minion on your left or your opponent's left? They are actually the same thing, strangely enough. Have you ever noticed that summoned minions always spawn to your right, but when your opponent summons a minion they summon to their left? If you have a Sunwalker, Taz'dingo, and a Huge Toad from left to right on your screen, your opponent actually sees the same thing even though you might expect them to see the order Huge Toad, Taz'dingo, Sunwalker. None of this is to say we shouldn't ever do positional spells, it's just a tidbit I thought I'd share from past playtesting.

    I like using adjacent for now, but I'm sure there are some other designs out there to capture the same things you are talking about. Thanks for the suggestions!

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