What would 2v2 (or any group-play feature) be translated to in Hearthstone. I think about this question all the time! Thanks for your ideas. Looking forward to what the community has to say on the subject.
For what it's worth, I think these are some reasonable goals.
- Easy to Learn (You mentioned this!)
- Not much longer than a normal Hearthstone game.
- I bring my own deck, and having synergy with my friend's deck is a bonus to fun, rather than a requirement.
- Not much more waiting to play my turn than a 1v1 Hearthstone game.
I think the biggest challenge is the game flow. I don't think you want to be in a situation where you are waiting for 3 players to take their turn rather than the usual one player. We've talked internally about the idea of taking simultaneous turns, this presents some technical challenges but could be overcome. You mention there are lots of game rules we'd have to figure out, which is a larger unknown in terms of how big of a deal that is.
Another path is to have a team of players playing simultaneous individual games against another team, and allowing players to interact with each other in some small way like requesting spare mana or cards from your deck. It's pretty hard to keep track of three games at the same time, but I think it's worth thinking about what this path might look like in it's simplest form.
Anyway, thanks for the pitch, gets me thinking again :).
Iksar
What would 2v2 (or any group-play feature) be translated to in Hearthstone. I think about this question all the time! Thanks for your ideas. Looking forward to what the community has to say on the subject.
For what it's worth, I think these are some reasonable goals.
- Easy to Learn (You mentioned this!)
- Not much longer than a normal Hearthstone game.
- I bring my own deck, and having synergy with my friend's deck is a bonus to fun, rather than a requirement.
- Not much more waiting to play my turn than a 1v1 Hearthstone game.
I think the biggest challenge is the game flow. I don't think you want to be in a situation where you are waiting for 3 players to take their turn rather than the usual one player. We've talked internally about the idea of taking simultaneous turns, this presents some technical challenges but could be overcome. You mention there are lots of game rules we'd have to figure out, which is a larger unknown in terms of how big of a deal that is.
Another path is to have a team of players playing simultaneous individual games against another team, and allowing players to interact with each other in some small way like requesting spare mana or cards from your deck. It's pretty hard to keep track of three games at the same time, but I think it's worth thinking about what this path might look like in it's simplest form.
Anyway, thanks for the pitch, gets me thinking again :).