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Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Hearthstone AMA #28 5:30PM - 6:30PM PST Ask me a question about Hearthstone! Or Design! (or anime...) Some minor details for Mercs questions below 👇 https://t.co/4UajKAwNWI

Hearthstone AMA #28 5:30PM - 6:30PM PST Ask me a question about Hearthstone! Or Design! (or anime...) Some minor details for Mercs questions below 👇 https://t.co/4UajKAwNWI

  • Iksar
    Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
    Hearthstone AMA #28 5:30PM - 6:30PM PST Ask me a question about Hearthstone! Or Design! (or anime...) Some minor details for Mercs questions below 👇 https://t.co/4UajKAwNWI

    • Iksar
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      Due to having minimal involvement in the development of mercenaries myself, I won't be able to help answer questions on behalf of that team until post-launch. Once we release, I'll make sure to get educated enough to share information in these AMAs when appropriate.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        I'll be back later today to go through all the questions and knock out as many as I can. See you then!

    • Chadd Nervigg
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Who's your favorite Dragon? Who's your favorite Pirate?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Celestalon hmm.. Chronobreaker for Dragon... and Buccaneer for Pirate. Surely those two 🐉🏴‍☠️

    • Oakijak_HS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Ever thought about doing community polls through something like the https://t.co/KsgaWhpVt1 launcher? To gather feedback from players about the game? I feel like there is a massive disconnect between the players and the devs right now and I think we should both work to fix that

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Oakijak_HS We have a consumer insights team at headquarters and also run many polls, surveys, interviews, with players across all regions. We wouldn't run a survey on bnet for the same reason we wouldn't run it through twitter or reddit. Very bias sample.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @Oakijak_HS I don't believe there is a disconnect between players on social media and development. Disagreement on some topics for sure, but not disconnect. People that engage with twitter/reddit/bnet are the easiest to understand because they come right out and say what they don't like.

          • Oakijak_HS
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @IksarHS Ok, maybe disconnect wasnt the right word, but it seems that the game is taking a different turn than a lot of people would like to see it take. Do you see that as a problem or just a feature of new design decisions?

            • Iksar
              Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
              @Oakijak_HS Can you be more specific? What decisions do you disagree with that are new?

    • JohnEvMcIntyre
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS If you could transform into a Hearthstone minion, which would it be. If you could transform into an anime character, who would it be.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @JohnEvMcIntyre you know you could help me answer these questions instead of giving me more work john

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @JohnEvMcIntyre garrosh because he's the coolest anime question is too hard to answer, I tend to love edgy characters but they usually end up dying horribly or have a tragic life so uh.... my temp answer will be kakashi sensei

    • ZeddyHS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS If I'm the person of r/hearthstone who would be the person of r/hearthstonecirclejerk?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @ZeddyHS zeddy I don't make the jokes i just laugh at them

    • Elocvent1
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS When are you going to take other ideas into account. Ppl are asking more interactive modes and they detailed description, you decide to ignore it. According to an answer from last AMA, you care about is pro players. What are you going to do when that will be all your player base?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Elocvent1 I wish this wasn't a real comment, but it is.

    • adam_noodelman
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS The current meta seems to have a lot more polarised (65-80+% winrate) matchups among competitive decks than ever in recent memory. Is this something you and/or the team find concerning?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @adam_noodelman There are rarely ever any 65+% win rate matchups between any meta decks. In comparison to past metas, this one is statistically less polarized than most.

    • Elocvent1
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS I have never reached legend and always try to do this. Why do I have to play against legend players on ranked ladder, before legend?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Elocvent1 Matchmaker tries to find people of similar MMR to play against each other. If you match against someone in Legend, it's because we think that person is a very close match for you, better than anyone else in the queue.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @Elocvent1 Being legend is not an identifier for your skill level, your MMR is.

    • Tesdey
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS How ya doing mon?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Tesdey Hmm, good question. I was feeling a little spicy today but that probably isn't a good mood to do an AMA in. So now I am feeling happy and helpful instead. Thanks!

    • RavenSunHS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS A dressroom on website that lets you make a WoW character and choose equipment from db. Then an automated rendering/filter generates a portrait for HS to use. Classes would be marked with icon and HP. Feasible? Worth the effort?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @RavenSunHS Anything is feasible with enough time and money. If I could go back in time to original Hearthstone I think a change I'd make is personalized avatars. Hero skins these days are such a core part of the game's narrative and theme I don't think we'd go back on it for a new system.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @RavenSunHS I really like this idea, though. I'm hopeful we can allow for more representation of who you are as a player even if we don't realize that through custom avatars.

    • murasavictor
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Any Hero Cards Thoughs to the future? Or the fear of cards like Dr Boom and Rexxar Death Knight put an end to the exciting to create cards like that?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @murasavictor Hero cards are great, just not an every expansion thing. Similar to quests. We'll do them again!

    • TimRizzo
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Has the development team ever thought of changing the aesthetic of the main menu to match the expansion most recently released? Would be cool to have the jingle Stormwind-related.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @TimRizzo Yes! Just a time and effort thing. Our art and outsource teams pump out so much work expansion to expansion it's not something that's made the cut. We've done very light box dressing in the past, will continue to do at least that in the future.

    • BionicDoor
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Do you think you guys would ever push a Voodoo themed shaman in an expansion. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea and have even worked on custom sets for it and think it could be very fun! If it where to happen I gotta know, Shadow Shaman or Voodoo Shaman, what sounds better?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @BionicDoor This sounds awesome. I really like the idea of one-off spell school designs that rarely show up. Voodoo Shaman with shadow spells, Dragon Warrior with fire spells, etc.

    • SuperiorDavidHS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS What's a card that was hard to program that the playerbase wouldn't expect to be hard to program? 🤔

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @SuperiorDavidHS Our editor is pretty good nowadays. I think people would be surprised how basically every BG minion is hard to script, though. Our editor was definitely not built to script BG functionality so most of what we do is pretty hacky with huge scripts to do basic things.

        • derajn
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @IksarHS @SuperiorDavidHS Is there any internal push to do a complete overhaul of the editor/client to reinforce the idea that hearthstone is now a platform of multiple games?

          • Iksar
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @derajn @SuperiorDavidHS Doing a major overhaul of the game client is always one of those things players talk about but developers almost never execute on. It’s not like it’s a bad idea, it’s just unrealistic to rebuild 7-8+ years of code while simultaneously keeping content up to date in the old client.

            • Iksar
              Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
              @derajn @SuperiorDavidHS As for tools, we actually do have a whole new editor these days that was built in the last couple years. It allows for more designer flexibility for implementation, but it still doesn’t make the weird way battlegrounds was stood up an easy process to deal with.

            • derajn
              Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
              @IksarHS @SuperiorDavidHS I think it's unfortunate that its rarely executed on. Its definitely unrealistic from a profitablity standpoint since its unlikely to bring in many new players or maintain your core, but sits squarely in "I would really like it so it removes the limitations of the current client"

              • Iksar
                Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                @derajn @SuperiorDavidHS There are lots of things that are good ideas, the question is always what do you have to give up to get them. I think the idea of a new client sounds great, I’m not sure how much I like it if it means we give up content updates for a year+.

    • baney64
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Are you still playing wild? What’s your thoughts on the current meta?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @baney64 I played Galakrond Shaman to Legend last season and I'll probably do the same this season. Opinion on current meta is the population of warlock is too high, limits the range of experiences I could be having.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @baney64 In terms of what the deck does, I wouldn't consider it out of line. Just too consistently powerful. Haven't talked direct changes with @GW_Alec yet other than we should figure out something. I don't work directly with that team so it's possible the decision has already been made.

    • PizzaCardRips
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Withallduerespect, do you think that generally, designers or devs should be tasked with communicating to the base? It seems very out of the average devs skill set (and I manage devs every day!) And can just create problems. I was personally upset with some of your twts this week

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @PizzaCardRips It's not for everyone, and obviously not everyone has a talent for it. If you have devs on your team that are good communicators and have an interest in the work, I believe you should train them well, make sure they understand appropriate messaging, then let them loose.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @PizzaCardRips Lots of examples around the industry of people who are great at it. Rosewater, Greg Street, Kaplan, Luke Smith, etc. They all have said (many) things that some people in the playerbase disagreed or were upset with. I don't think the answer is we should all stop communicating.

          • Iksar
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @PizzaCardRips The goal is to have open and honest communication. If you don't like an answer, or if most players hate the answer, then I'd consider that partly a success. Now we know we might be misaligned and can talk about internally if we're still making the right choices.

    • cinco5cuatro4
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Any plans to tweak the practice mode? Currently, it's only "aggro practice" bc all the classes play exactly the same: go face as much as possible, even if that means you'll die, keep going face. If people are gonna test on Casual, what does this serve for, it's a race too ._. https://t.co/aKjWofrcis

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @cinco5cuatro4 Practice is meant to be fairly easily overcome, the intention isn't for it to be difficult or a test of player skill. Practice decks tend to be more tempo focused because tempo decks are simple and put players in common situations they can learn from.

    • MagikMilk25
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Thoughts on the custom card community? Does it provide useful insight in to what players want and help give the design team ideas or does it make it so its harder to come up with original ideas and not look like copying?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @MagikMilk25 I look at cards when they are posted directly but tend to avoid otherwise. I love that there are players that are passionate card designers but we don't use those designs as reference for things we make in game.

    • cinco5cuatro4
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS So no merc questions umm... just a little thing: can we call it Pokemonstone? I mean, I know VGC and Smogon, played almost all pokemon games, this one is REALLY similar. Only missing finding mercs in tall grass and capturing the, with bribes instead of pokeballs

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @cinco5cuatro4 Isn't it easier to just say pokestone? I think you should make your judgments on what the gameplay is like after you interact with the gameplay :)

    • CrunchTime4L
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Dean, is it possible to now separate the new expansion $80 bundles to just “Traditional” Hesrthstone players? What I mean is can the bundles just contain packs and maybe the tavern pass instead of battlegrounds perks or future mercenary packs? It should truely be separated now.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @CrunchTime4L As you can imagine, there is extensive research done on what types of bundles players like to buy vs the ones that are less successful. All I can say is that we'll continue to create the bundles that are most appealing to players, some obvious benefits to all parties.

    • AlonsoArrietaC1
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS MTG Arena has included Historic as a competitive eternal format, ranked system, qualifiers, official events, and even specific new products for it. Is there a world where that happens to Wild? Or will it continue to be just a casual environment.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @AlonsoArrietaC1 all esports questions go to @Abar_HS, give him a follow

    • MagikMilk25
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Are we likely to see a Pandaria theme expansion anytime soon?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @MagikMilk25 There is basically no way we'll not do a Pandaria expansion. The team is just split on whether we should just do it now or wait until we possibly release Monk someday (not in development). I'm personally on team 'let's just do it' but I'm not the only opinion in the room :)

    • imik_plays
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Are giants ever coming back? Do you personally think cards that read: "Costs (x) less for..." are healthy for the game if they don't have a cap? (Can't go below 1 for example).

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @imik_plays They are obviously dangerous, but there are plenty of cards that have the possibility to be reduced to 0 that aren't an issue. Just a question of individual card balance that we've missed on in the past.

    • kurgan_
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS 'Evening. When asked about dust economy, you said that you'd rather give players more resources than change it. How will this work with a new mode which will apparently require a substantial amount of dust/gold investment for f2p players? Will we all get more resources?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @kurgan_ Mercs will have it's own systems that offer rewards. So in that sense, yes, there will be more rewards for playing than there is in-game now.

    • Arkentass
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS All Game Modes awards XP for Reward Track but rewards are very Constructed focused, except some Tavern Tickets for Arena/Duels. Do you plan to add things for BG and Mercs in it ?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Arkentass Cosmetics on the paid track yes, but probably not on the free track. We'll keep it to packs and gold.

    • kolstIRL
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Are these Arena bugs on the team's radar? - Sphere of Sapience discoverable under weapon discovers despite being out of rotation - Epic offering rate bug

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @kolstIRL I'll look into the first one, can you help me understand the second? Our system for offering rates is unfortunately rather complex, did at some point epics just start appearing way more often? Was it after a patch or after a micro-adjust?

        • kolstIRL
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @IksarHS The epic bug seemed to have been propagated directly by the microadjusts. It appeared that once a class was microadjusted, those sets were impacted thereafter. Thus, warrior wasn't impacted last rotation. The last meta's sets remained impacted through this rotation...

          • kolstIRL
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @IksarHS And then once the newest round of microadjusts came in, the seven classes adjusted (either up/down) then had all the current sets impacted as well. At least, that's what it looks like from what we can see.

            • reerkat
              Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
              @kolstIRL @IksarHS My understanding is that card rarity has no effect on offering rate in arena now other than serving as a base of the data the macro-adjustments AI is feed. Might be a bug or it might be AI think some of the epics having different rates would balance classes best.

              • kolstIRL
                Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                @reerkat @IksarHS Well, for 3 classes, the rarities still behave normally for new rotation sets. I'm not sure how it affects rares - it's a little unclear from the data we have (due to offering bonuses, etc) but it might be true that affected sets simply have the rarity factor turned off entirely.

                • Iksar
                  Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                  @kolstIRL @reerkat Micro adjusts move good cards up in population for bad classes and down in population for good classes. Is it possible there were just some really good epics in bad classes and now they are appear more as a result?

                  • kolstIRL
                    Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                    @IksarHS @reerkat I think for a few reasons, this can't explain it: - It looks like a ~400% increase in offering rate, making epics closely match a common. - This increase is happening in nerfed classes, for the highest winrate epics. - It also seems to impact mediocre epics across the board

                    • Iksar
                      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                      @kolstIRL @reerkat ok, well after some initial investigation we haven't put our finger on exactly what happened, no intentional changes went in on our end we have some time on Tuesday set up to dig into it more deeply and come up with the answer

                      • Iksar
                        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
                        @kolstIRL @reerkat This is what happens when you make a wildly complex back end system to control arena drafts. Investigating bugs is an adventure 😭

    • machadogps
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Alright Iksar, third time is the charm right? Have you guys considered giving packs depending on your ranked chest? For example, if I got legend on wild, I got wild packs, if I got legend in classic, I got a classic epic, etc..

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @machadogps Not crazy, I would be afraid that some players view it as a downgrade. Generally old packs are valued less than new ones.

    • balanira_
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS In hypothetical future when you guys release new class: Death Knight, what do you think will happen to Lich King card and all the generated DK cards from him? will the card change into smth else with same power?(illidan treatment) maybe DK class core set legendary? or smth else?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @balanira_ I think Lich King from KFT would just stay the same functionality, we might change the text to say 'special dk cards' or something to that effect.

    • PMBoutin
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Have you considered making the Juggernaut reward from the warrior questline trigger at the end of your turn instead of the beginning, so it has some immediate impact on the board?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @PMBoutin Considering buffs this week. Can't comment on what the team is thinking until we have that meeting.

    • Frodan
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS What’s the internal sentiment for putting things into the game from real life like Hearthstone World champions? We rarely get anything other than an homage that isn’t officially recognized.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Frodan This is a relevant question. There are some very recent downsides that have come up from naming characters after real-life people (McCree). We had Master Nguyen in dev for some time and wanted to fulfill that promise, but unlikely to do any more characters named after ourselves.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @Frodan Not sure if this should also apply to people outside our work. You can't control the actions of a person you put in the game, there are some examples of influencers or esports players I think we might have regret paying homage to if we did.

          • Iksar
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @Frodan I think it's a little sad if that disqualifies us from ever doing it, but not something we've settled on that I'm aware of. Fortnite has gone the other direction with this and it's been cool for them, so we'll have to make a thoughtful decision as a group.

            • Iksar
              Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
              @Frodan And to be clear, we've made the decision about naming characters after ourselves, unclear to me whether a decision has been made about using the likeness of any real person.

    • Elocvent1
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Have you watched one piece anime?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Elocvent1 no, on the list

    • ChaosOS_59
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS What cards are you looking at for Wild Warlock? Any chance Crystallizer could be reworked to convert health like Thekal so it doesn't work with the questline?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @ChaosOS_59 We'll look at all the high-win-rate suspects. Crystalizer was brought up by @GallonHS as something high on the list.

    • GamingPatzer
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Follow up question: what are the current development plans/goals for Arena, now that Mercs are put?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @GamingPatzer I'd like for there to be ranked and I'd like for there to be matchmaking, and because of matchmaking I'd like there to be a different rewards structure than what currently exists. No timetable, been busy with mercs.

    • JockyRhonson
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Do you think an Auction House would work in Hearthstone? I heard it didn't work too well in Diablo 😅 would HS be any different? or do you think AH should stay in WoW? Here's a mock up I made. Players could use both dust or gold to purchase cards from other players. https://t.co/ZA3x2eT60G

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @JockyRhonson Been really thinking about this, massively complex, possibly economy breaking idea.... but the upsides to having player trading of some kind are really high. No plans currently but has been on my mind.

    • yggdreigon_hs
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Dean it's Thursday are you drunk Also remember when you brought back the minor mechanic from old gods; the "forbidden" spells. That was fun, are there plans to bring back other minor mechanics like that? Like Spellstones

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @yggdreigon_hs When you have a 2-month old baby in the house sometimes schedules change. And yeah, I think it's cool to bring back minor mechanics when they make sense. Omega was cool, spellstones were cool, could see doing some 'joust' cards again with the right set theme as well.

    • CBloodrider
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Kellen Goff has done a really good job as the voice of Thrall in some recent HS content, but are you able to elabourate on why Chris Metzen was not available to recite the voice? Covid-reasonings, scheduling conflicts, etc.?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @CBloodrider I wish I knew Chris Metzen's schedule, that would mean we might be friends. I'll look into it but I don't think this is the kind of thing we'd disclose for the sake of privacy.

    • Hijacke80152612
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Will tradinitionl control ever come back? I am not being mean-spirited here. I just really adored the archetype, and, it is lowering my levels of fun, sadly. Players shed some light onto is, my friend!

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Hijacke80152612 Traditional control has many different definitions. Personally, I'd define Barrens Priest as traditional control. That was around a month ago. Decks that play into the extreme late-game will always have a place in Hearthstone, just not in every meta.

    • Myti_7
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Can we get say Naxx and GVG added to classic mode ? I pretty much only play classic and would kill for this .

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Myti_7 Will consider. I think at this point it would be a good idea, just a matter of timing.

    • coolbeansjorge
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS any plans on making the league of explorers meet the mercenaries?? I feel like that’d be a very fun character dynamic!

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @coolbeansjorge no narrative plans for that, but it sounds like a great idea :o

    • Hyyyyl
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS If you were like Odakawa. Which animals would the different people on Team 5 (the public ones we know is easiest probably) be?

      • Hyyyyl
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @IksarHS Also; any chance there will be a GDC talk about the sound design on HS?

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @Hyyyyl Honestly there should be. Andy is a legend, maybe we can convince him to do it.

    • _thefinalunion
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Would you be willing to do something like Doom in the Tomb again? The last time you did that was really fun.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @_thefinalunion Yeah, we've been discussing that actually. Not exactly Doom in the Tomb but just some systemwide change for a limited time in addition to cards.

    • AkagiHs
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS If expansions are added to Classic, please tell me you guys know better than to add Naxx by itself with no nerfs, right? No one wants to play the Undertaker meta again. Naxx + GvG or Naxx + Undertaker nerf would be cool though.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @AkagiHs cman naxx with no undertaker meta!?!?! what if it was just for a little while

        • AkagiHs
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @IksarHS Ugh god it would just make the game worse. Classic is pretty damn good for what it is now and gvg and brm weren't bad but the undertaker meta was awful.😂 How long is "a little while?" that's the big thing.

          • Iksar
            Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
            @AkagiHs Probably a couple weeks.

    • VillalobosChamp
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Regarding achievements, how much split is there between completability and memorability? Because there are some EXP achievements that do feel bad for not completing, cuz' can be outright denied by your opp (Rokara's Juggernaut) while others are quite hard (Oh my Yogg's lethal)

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @VillalobosChamp Most should be completable in a predictable time frame. We're okay with having some hard to complete ones, but you shouldn't have to play some very weird suboptimal deck 100 times to (maybe) get an achievement you want.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @VillalobosChamp If it's out of your control but it takes a couple play sessions before you get it. That's mostly ok, they aren't supposed to be agonizing. Oh My Yogg was definitely on the edge of what we think is acceptable in retrospect.

    • troldann
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Do you understand Mercenaries better than we do after we saw that video? I’m just looking for a yes or no here, no need for follow-up if you don’t want.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @troldann I understand mercs very well from a player perspective, spent a lot of time playtesting :o

    • Unownknight7
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS what are your thoughts on the current meta developments in Battlegrounds? i know its only been a few days and its still very early in the meta but at least from what ive seen playing dragons and beasts feel oppressively dominant with no real counter since toxfin was removed

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @Unownknight7 We're really happy with bg release, tons of crazy stuff happening, room for innovation, generally positive feedback. That said, yes definitely considering balance changes. Locking down next week.

    • juniorgryphon3
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Hey Dean, i dont know if you can answer this, but i was curious. Since both mercs and standard share currency, will it be possible to "play" both game modes at the same time? Since standard "asks" for a big amount of gold, and i presume mercs will be the same. Thank you in advanc

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @juniorgryphon3 Mercs will have it's own rewards/questlike system in addition to what currently exists. There are also merc specific rewards for playing mercs.

    • shardbased
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS besides Gojo obviously, who are your top JJK characters? have you read the manga at all? watching anything else? reading anything else?

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @shardbased Not big on manga reading, mostly just anime watching. I just finished Megalobox season 1, will probably watch the next Megalobox. Also looking to finish up Attack on Titan then start To Your Eternity and Link Click.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @shardbased And I honestly love most of the characters in JJK. Probably the three main characters. https://t.co/ckAIdmeOa9

    • MikeGeeHS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Having Diablo showing up in the mercenaries reveal stream was one of the biggest surprises. How likely would it be to see a full "prime evil" expansion (or better yet full year) based on that IP? (Please consider it 🤞)

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @MikeGeeHS Personally, I love it. Team has varying opinions. I wonder if it could be a cosmetic thing. Say we release a miniset but also offer an alternate art diablo themed version of that miniset as well. Based on how the Diablo in mercs stuff went, considering doing this more often.

    • A_Minzatu
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS Does the team ever think of the game in terms of competitive integrity vs fun wacky stuff? Cards like Yogg Box are the reason I for one play the game but they can be really bad for people that want to play HS in a competitive manner. 1/2

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @A_Minzatu We try not to make over the top random stuff be the most powerful stuff in the game, but we still put a focus on making them for players like yourself. One of the more challenging balance questions to answer each set.

        • Iksar
          Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
          @A_Minzatu How we can make some wildly random and fun cards that are powerful enough to warrant experimentation but not so powerful that players only interested in winning feel obligated to play them? A question we answer very often.

    • KyMarieHS
      Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
      @IksarHS I'm hours late for this but in case you feel like answering more, do you play Battlegrounds and if so, which hero is your favorite? Master Nguyen has been amazing.

      • Iksar
        Posted 4 years, 5 months ago (Source)
        @KyMarieHS I play BG almost every day, I love Nguyen! Also Reno... I'm just terrible. I can't stop myself from going for low% highrolls.
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