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12 Design Ideas to Improve Hearthstone

Here are my ideas to diversify Hearthstone's modes and add more variety to the game:

1: Re-playable Tutorial

The tutorial was brilliant and should be re-playable for everyone. I shouldn't have to search the internet to see amazing cards like Lorewalker Cho's Transcendence or King Mukla's Big Brother again. Simply adding the tutorial as an option within the game's 'Solo Adventures' menus would bring back a great sense of nostalgia for long-time players.

2: Sabotage / Choose Opponent's Deck Mode (Vs.)

Each player selects a deck for their opponent to play (any class) and starts a fun game with two of the worst decks ever built! Playable against random opponent or friends. Great example was Rachel vs. Frodan at the recent Viagame House Cup.

3: Random Deck Mode (Vs.)

Each player chooses a hero and the game would automatically start with both players receiving completely random decks. You could argue this is already in the game, but I disagree, you can only play with random decks against players from your friends list. This mode would automate and speed up the process. Arena is a great 'limited' mode but sometimes players may want a quicker, more casual, even more random mode against anyone. Playable against random opponent or friends.

4: Challenge Mode (Vs.)

Players would battle with one of two pre-made decks set by Blizzard; similar to a MOTD game mode in other games. Each week or month Blizzard would release two new themed decks for players to choose who they will fight for e.g. Alliance vs. Horde, Goblins vs. Gnomes, Pirates vs. Murlocs. Having a global and regional statistic within the game mode showing Alliance are beating Horde (64%/36%) could create fun lore-fueled rivalries within Hearthstone for Blizzard fans. Playable against random opponent or friends.

5: Challenge Mode (Two Identical Decks)

Challenge mode could also use two identical decks set by Blizzard, such as the 30 Webspinner vs. 30 Webspinner battle from Naxxramas. This would be a nice fun (and very silly) way to settle arguments of who is the greatest Hearthstone player! Could also playable against random opponent or friends.

6: Cards in Collection Sound Bytes

When bringing up individual cards in the collection manager there should be an option to play the minions Battlecry, Attack and Death sounds. This could also be an option exclusive to golden cards to increase incentive to have them.

7: Adventure Deck List Saver

Beaten adventure bosses should save the deck list you used to beat the boss (probably just the heroic bosses). Admittedly this isn't a vital inclusion, but in my opinion, this would be a massive quality-of-life improvement, especially with only 9 deck slots.

8: Achievements

Kripp recently spoke of Blizzard acknowledging how achievements could add value to existing modes, especially previous adventures. For example: Defeat Heroic Boss X with a certain class. More interesting ideas could be to beat bosses with all-spell or all-minions decks, via fatigue or within a set amount of turns. This would give new life to old adventures in a fun way. Extra achievements can always be added upon so rewards can be difficult to give out. Achievement hunting can be fun in itself, but my idea for a small achievement would be to unlock Hearthstone Lore and artwork of the bosses and heroes.

9: Artwork and Hearthstone Lore

This doesn't have to be accompanied by the previous point. Hearthstone's development history and artwork shouldn't ALL be relegated to hidden archives. Another idea could be to unlock hero back stories when you unlock their golden portrait. This would be fun, especially for players who may never of played WOW to gain further affinity to their favourite class.

10: More deck slots for experienced players

A way for players to 'earn' more deck slots. The simplest way I see to do this is to give one extra deck slot for each Golden Hero. This is not an easy thing to do for the average player, but would reward the experienced players who crave extra deck slots and require them for tournaments etc.

11: In-game Tournament Mode

Hearthstone has grow a competitive scene and this mode would add to that. In this mode's infancy, Blizzard could add a simple system to practise the 'Conquest' format to practise for the World Championships. Each player selects 3 decks and battles until one player has won with all 3 decks, then a 'Match Winner' screen would pop-up. After each game the available decks would be shown with unavailable crossed out. This seems like a fairly simple addition which would help tournaments as well as tournament practise with friends. This can be done manually, but an automated system would just make things a whole lot easier.

As this mode grows, more could be added, such as a bracket system for multiple player tournaments. This would help tournament organisers collate results and streamline the experience. Eventually the ability to play different formats (best of 5/7/9, pick/ban format etc.) could be added. As great as Twitch is, spectating tournaments could even be implemented within the game in some sort of tournament spectator mode.

12: Sandbox Mode / Training Mode

Allow players to freely place cards onto the field and into their hands for training or simply fun purposes. Can be played alone or with a friend. The arena could be a plain sand floor area to help everyone watching or viewing screenshots of a certain play to know that this was in sandbox / training mode. I could see this mode helping players report bugs to Blizzard. I could however see reasons why Blizzard would not want this debug type mode in the game.

Conclusion

With Blizzard's (Team 5) free-to-play model, I understand the need to release paid content such as expansions and adventures to make profit. The content they currently release is great, however I hope they haven't stopped trying to improve upon the game's more overall experience. The spectator mode was a great addition; I would love to see similar fun and quality-of-life improvements whilst the game is still young!

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