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Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Resource management needs to come back into the game

IMO, what makes Hearthstone an enjoyable game is the aspect of having limited resources and managing them perfectly. One of the greatest Hearthstone plays that will always remain in my memory is Game 4 of the Dreamhack Winter 2014 Semifinals between Kolento (Control Warrior) and Strifecro (Control Mage). A game that leaves you on the edge of your seat for 30 minutes which came down to the epic climax where Kolento won the game by keeping his Sludge Belcher against Strifecro's Black Knight.

However, the reason for that epic climax was due to both players having to manage their limited resources to the best of their abilities. From the reaction of the audience, we can see how powerful of an effect that aspect brought to the game. From this, I would like to highlight a BIG PROBLEM that I think this game has at the current moment.

There are too many cards in the current standard set that completely destroys the concept of having limited resources. We saw the beginning of this issue when Jade Idol was introduced into the game. However, Jade Idol was only 1 card that belonged to 1 class so the problem was still at a controllable state. It was the Wrath of the Lich King and Journey to Un'goro expansions that led to this problem being taken to extreme heights. Quests and Death Knights gave so much resources and raw power which made it less important to manage your resources. Taunt Warriors blasting you in the face for 8 damage every turn, DK Rexxar putting down a giant zombeast every turn, DK Jaina having infinite heal from water elementals, the list goes on and on. And the worst part is that the Quest cards and Death Knight cards were given to ALL 9 CLASSES.

Although I'm aware that Quests and Death Knights will eventually rotate out, I still hope that Blizzard sees the importance of resource management and controls the power creep of the game so that this skill remains relevant to the game.

  • Iksar
    Posted 7 years ago (Source)

    The idea of resource management isn't lost on any card designers as a concept, it's just something that is sacrificed a small amount every time a card like Frost Lich Jaina or Deathstalker Rexxar is made. Internally, we love Death Knights. They were, collectively, some of the coolest and most impactful cards ever made. Entirely different archetypes spawned from various classes that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. We also love that they are rotating out of Standard. As you mention, it's difficult to make managing long-term resources matter when there are so many standalone cards that out-value entire archetypes. The purpose of some cards will always be resource generation, but I think it's unlikely we'll make many generators on the level of Rexxar for some time.

  • Iksar
    Posted 7 years ago (Source)

    Will we still see single fatigue beater cards like Dead Man's Hand, Kingsbane, Jade Idol, Spectral Tiger? Because these cards skew the resource battle more than the Death Knights did. At least with the DK's I could run one of my own and try to counter.

    I'd also love to know why you guys persist on exploring the "negative" design space with cards like Rin or Void Contract or Togwaggle. Surely you know how awful it feels to lose to a deck that just deletes half your resources.

    I don't mind counter play like Dirty Rat that can backfire. But what's the downside to just meme deleting half my opponents deck?

    In comparison to most card games, Hearthstone is pretty light on hand and deck manipulation. Like some OTK or combo decks, cards like Rin and Contract are both some players least favorite things to play against and some players most favorite cards to play. We'll continue to make cards that can potentially mess with your opponent's gameplan, but I don't think we'll ever do a mechanic or set based around it unless our design philosophy changes quite a bit. For now, they live in a space where they are weak enough to not take over the game but playable enough that players who enjoy the feeling of ruining their opponent's gameplan have some avenues they can explore.

    As for the other cards you mentioned, I think Spectral Tiger and Dead Man's Hand are in pretty reasonable spaces for design. Both are extremely slow if you plan on taking advantage of the 'infinite resources' aspect. Most of the time taking advantage of either of those cards means you are beating a deck that is built around running you completely out of resources rather than a deck that is trying to win the game by dealing damage. I think that is probably a fine space to be in. Jade Idol falls more into the space that Jaina and Rexxar fall into. Kingsbane is in between. Even though Kingsbane lets players avoid fatigue, without the healing that Leeching provided, it's not really infinite resource generation considering you don't have infinite health to take advantage of all the extra attacks.

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