What I wonder regarding the new core set is if Blizzard is aware that lending the collectibles (even temporarily) destroys the concept of a collectibles game...
If every season all of us are to be lent all the essential cards free of charge... what is the point of collecting cards then? What is the benefit of having already those cards in my collection?
???
It seems unlikely that Blizzard is "aware that lending cards destroys the concept of collecting" - they've been giving away the Basic set for free for the past eight years without "destroying" anything.
It seems more likely that Blizzard is aware that giving players cards for free gives them an incentive to actually spend money in order to collect more of the 510 cards (135 + 35, three times every year) Blizzard doesn't give away for free every year.
Given that Classic format will soon be added to the game, I assume it's somewhat safe to guess that one of the goals of the mass un-nerfs is to limit the number of "dual format" cards - ideally, they likely don't want 50+ cards that are different in different formats. Wild likely won't break if Big Game Hunter is reverted to 3-mana, for example. In the "olden days," all BGH targets were hard-casted, so that the tempo loss that accompanied a successful BGH activation would often effectively end the game - but now, most BGH targets are "cheated" into play, often for less than 3-mana.
They might also preferentially target classes like Hunter and Shaman, which are currently among the weakest in Wild - reverting both Starving Buzzard and Flametongue Totem to 2-mana is unlikely to cause serious balance issues. A 5-mana, 2-card combo that summons three or four doggies, and draws three or four cards, isn't exactly out-of-place in Wild, while Even Shaman needs a good 2-drop to activate their turn-1 "press the button and pass," which is currently too low-tempo for an aggressive deck to be competitive on ladder.
Kind of amazing what a major controversy and a mass exodus to a much generous game can accomplish in the hearts and minds of the devs.
For the record- people have been suggesting (and begging for) something very similar to this for literally years. Now it shows up only a couple of months after the Hearthstone reddit exploded with people leaving (mainly going to LoR) ... there is no way this is a coincidence.
???
The reddit is constantly "exploding" - it's a reddit.
The devs are working on sets more than a year in advance of release.
Blizzard has posted that they are aware of the issue, and will revert the art in an upcoming patch.
A few years ago, hearthpwn posted an article on assets which are permanently "hidden" in the client - back then, there were a bunch of place-holder cards and phantom art pieces in the game. My guess is that Town Cryer had its art changed at some point, and the old iteration was never removed from the game - something in today's patch caused the old art to pop back on the card. It's kind of ugly - maybe that's why they changed it?
Looking at the HSReplays data, Glide has an overall "win-rate when played" of 33%, rising to only 35% against the slow decks the card is meant to punish. Most of the decks running the card don't run Skull of Gul'dan, because of the negative synergy - so the observation that SoG is the "only reason" Glide doesn't see play doesn't make a lot of sense.
In practice, the card is a lot like a 4-mana Secret Passage - but note that 1-mana Secret Passage current has only a 50% "win-rate when played." The potential upside of screwing a slow opponent also has to be measured against the potential downside of allowing a fast opponent to refill their hand (without first having to spend 4-mana.) It's also a fairly expensive Outcast card - SoG mitigates its higher cost by reducing the cost of the cards it draws, so you often do something the turn you play it, even if you cast SoG on curve. Glide just clogs up the hand - the kind of deck that wants to abuse Glide isn't the kind of deck that also wants to pass on turn four.
It's very likely that the author of the Windows Central article doesn't play HS, and is simply re-posting the ad-copy that Blizzard sent out to the media. It's also very likely that the person who wrote Blizzard's ad-copy doesn't play the game - just some random copywriter in marketing who was given a bunch of bullet points from the HS team. Somewhere along the way, a minor error squeezed its way into the WC post, and some random shit-poster on a HS fan-site drew attention to it . . . the Circle of Life.
Perhaps it's worth recognising that plenty of folks prefer the low-roll quests because they are easier to complete - isn't it simply a matter of taste, and what each individual player expects/wants from the game? It seems perfectly fine for Blizzard to have quests which appeal to the portion of the player-base that doesn't care about min-maxing . . .
I typically don't read the subreddit - is it a known issue that some folks aren't earning 400 XP per hour in Ranked?
Within my own group of friends, one complained that he had played for about three hours, and only received 12 XP. We figured out that he had started the day with 100ish XP, levelled up a few times without noticing, and finished the day with 112ish XP at his new, higher level. There seem to be quite a few bugs with the new patch, and from my own experience, the new "scrolling XP bar at the bottom of the screen" rarely appears after finishing a game, and I can only check how much XP I've earned by leaving the Queue screen, and opening up the new Reward Track window to take a look. As it is, I'm regularly earning 460ish XP per hour, having purchased the +15% bonus. With a little bit of math, it looks like I receive an additional +20% XP bonus for winning.
As far as HS being too expensive - it's worth remembering that the game became much cheaper about seven months ago. Extending "no duplicate" protection to our entire collection more than doubled the value of gold - it takes less than half as many packs to collect a new set, and much less than half as many packs to collect all the "good" cards that actually see play (looking at the HSReplays numbers, only 33 cards from Scholomance, for example, have play-rates above 5%, while only 57 have play-rates above 2%.)
FWIW - looking at the numbers on HSReplays, the most-popular build of Galakrond Rogue currently runs eight minions above 4-mana. They all have Battlecries. A third copy of Shadowstep seems likely to make the cut . . .
It seems quite weak for a Legendary weapon - 2-Attack won't deal with any premium on-curve minions the opponent drops, so you'll have to rely on the Secrets you discover to help you out in that regard. But, often enough, you simply won't find the right one. I can't think of any 4-mana, 2-Attack weapons that have consistently seen play in the past - Blood Razor doesn't really count, given its effect was to cast Whirlwind.
Five mana is pretty expensive in Wild, particularly for a relatively fast deck like Odd Paladin that's typically trying to win the game within a turn or two after this guy would drop. Steward of Darkshire already gives Dudes the bubble much earlier than this new card. Five-mana plays in Odd Paladin currently either have to win the game (Quartermaster, Leeroy) or set up a next-turn lethal (Loatheb locks the opponent out, Authority creates a giant Dude, etc.) Trying to do cute things by trading efficiently, making your Dudes sticky, etc, currently isn't worth so much mana. I expect folks to experiment with the new card, but it seems very unlikely to stick.
If Dude Paladin becomes a deck in Standard, this will likely see play - but otherwise, not. A Paladin deck that isn't trying to leverage its Hero Power likely won't care if they get a free Argent Squire after turn five (usually later, given that this guy won't be drawn on-curve the majority of the time.)
But - it'll see some play, and isn't awful, so I gave it 3 stars.
FWIW - Blizzard messaged all semi-finalists Saturday night, listing check-in times for participants. He had ten hours to sleep, and apparently chose to sleep one more, accepting but ignoring the pretty obvious consequences. You don't have to be a machine to simply arrange to have someone wake you up, if the matches start earlier than you'd hoped . . . there's honestly nothing "unrealistic" about any of this.
If I had to wager a guess, Glide is likely going to be nerfed. It wasn't fun when you got punished for having a large hand with Divine Favor, it won't be fun having your hand forcefully disrupted.
Lightning Bloom will also likely be nerfed, mostly likely up to 1 mana so it cannot be used in Even Shaman. Not sure what other changes it might see.
FWIW - looking at the HSReplays numbers, Glide currently has a 35% "played win-rate," which is the worst among all the cards in Scholomance.
It's also worth mentioning that Egg decks typically don't want to actually crack their own Eggs - they play them, buff them, trigger them, get lots of value off of them, and when they inevitably crack on board, you get a bonus 4/4, a 5/5 a 3/4, etc. It's possible that the new card will see play in Standard, but playing a bunch of stats in the mid-game, then passing the turn, isn't exactly a winning game-plan in Wild . . .
I don't care what comes out to be honest. Can we just please make Paladin a viable choice in Standard again? Librams are a joke and Pure Paladin is utter garbage. And please, please, please get away from the Resurrection Mechanic for Priest? It's just dreadful. One viable deck (Galakrond Priest) does not a Class Make.
This Meta has bored me shitless and I haven't been able to predict my opponents cards with such accuracy since the days of Pirate Warrior in Standard.
To be fair - judging by HSReplays, two of the top four decks in Standard post-nerf have been Paladin, including the "utter garbage" deck.
When you've been a part of something for a long time, sometimes you just need a change of pace or maybe even a greater challenge. Exploring new paths with your career can help you improve in so many different ways, and with how old Hearthstone is now, it isn't too surprising that the older, more known members of the team, have all been leaving.
I don't think Blizzard is in the clear though, you've definitely seen changes there over the past handful of years that in my eyes could cause people to want to jump ship. Even the leadership of the company left within the past couple of years which is pretty crazy.
Overall though, the Hearthstone team is a couple hundred people at this point so a couple of leaves over the past year isn't too crazy. And since a good chunk of those that left remained at Blizzard to work on other projects, it's not likely anything wrong internally but more so the desire to create new things has overtaken the deep love for Hearthstone. I can't speak for any of them, but I know I'd be excited about new projects.
FWIW - the Bureau of Labour Statistics estimates average tenure at a US company at about four years. Personally, I've held four different jobs since finishing grad school, none of them longer than three years (I'm Canadian, but I expect tenure is comparable between countries.) It's likely that half the current HS team will move on to other things, internally or otherwise, in the next few years. As far as leadership leaving - I'd suggest that it's far "crazier" that Morhaime (and Brode, for that matter) stuck around for nearly thirty years (fifteen, in BB's case.)
I wonder how many people actually watch these. I know that people would be bribed to watch before with pack via twitch... but unless they offer that I do not see people sitting and watching these. Is that just me?
The two English-language YT streams have a total of 50K and 80K views, respectively.
Perhaps the OP would have been better served explaining why he thinks the Paladin HP needs to be changed - "filling out the curve," "nerfing Baku/Genn," and "supporting hand-buff synergies" are consequences of his proposal, not reasons for a redesign . . .
It's worth remembering that basic HPs aren't really meant to be "good" - they are designed to be pretty inefficient so that game-play focuses on playing cards, rather than simply hitting the button every turn. I suspect the OP thinks that the core evergreens for Paladin are weak, and the class needs a redesign like Priest - but if that's true, why bother screwing around with the HP, instead of focusing on the actual problem?
???
It seems unlikely that Blizzard is "aware that lending cards destroys the concept of collecting" - they've been giving away the Basic set for free for the past eight years without "destroying" anything.
It seems more likely that Blizzard is aware that giving players cards for free gives them an incentive to actually spend money in order to collect more of the 510 cards (135 + 35, three times every year) Blizzard doesn't give away for free every year.
GLHF.
Given that Classic format will soon be added to the game, I assume it's somewhat safe to guess that one of the goals of the mass un-nerfs is to limit the number of "dual format" cards - ideally, they likely don't want 50+ cards that are different in different formats. Wild likely won't break if Big Game Hunter is reverted to 3-mana, for example. In the "olden days," all BGH targets were hard-casted, so that the tempo loss that accompanied a successful BGH activation would often effectively end the game - but now, most BGH targets are "cheated" into play, often for less than 3-mana.
They might also preferentially target classes like Hunter and Shaman, which are currently among the weakest in Wild - reverting both Starving Buzzard and Flametongue Totem to 2-mana is unlikely to cause serious balance issues. A 5-mana, 2-card combo that summons three or four doggies, and draws three or four cards, isn't exactly out-of-place in Wild, while Even Shaman needs a good 2-drop to activate their turn-1 "press the button and pass," which is currently too low-tempo for an aggressive deck to be competitive on ladder.
Reno Hunter is a Tier 3 deck in Wild - a 10-mana, two-card, 16-damage combo isn't exactly going to make the deck Tier 2.
???
Here's a link -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXN5rarLMrw
Blizzard has posted that they are aware of the issue, and will revert the art in an upcoming patch.
A few years ago, hearthpwn posted an article on assets which are permanently "hidden" in the client - back then, there were a bunch of place-holder cards and phantom art pieces in the game. My guess is that Town Cryer had its art changed at some point, and the old iteration was never removed from the game - something in today's patch caused the old art to pop back on the card. It's kind of ugly - maybe that's why they changed it?
Looking at the HSReplays data, Glide has an overall "win-rate when played" of 33%, rising to only 35% against the slow decks the card is meant to punish. Most of the decks running the card don't run Skull of Gul'dan, because of the negative synergy - so the observation that SoG is the "only reason" Glide doesn't see play doesn't make a lot of sense.
In practice, the card is a lot like a 4-mana Secret Passage - but note that 1-mana Secret Passage current has only a 50% "win-rate when played." The potential upside of screwing a slow opponent also has to be measured against the potential downside of allowing a fast opponent to refill their hand (without first having to spend 4-mana.) It's also a fairly expensive Outcast card - SoG mitigates its higher cost by reducing the cost of the cards it draws, so you often do something the turn you play it, even if you cast SoG on curve. Glide just clogs up the hand - the kind of deck that wants to abuse Glide isn't the kind of deck that also wants to pass on turn four.
It's very likely that the author of the Windows Central article doesn't play HS, and is simply re-posting the ad-copy that Blizzard sent out to the media. It's also very likely that the person who wrote Blizzard's ad-copy doesn't play the game - just some random copywriter in marketing who was given a bunch of bullet points from the HS team. Somewhere along the way, a minor error squeezed its way into the WC post, and some random shit-poster on a HS fan-site drew attention to it . . . the Circle of Life.
Perhaps it's worth recognising that plenty of folks prefer the low-roll quests because they are easier to complete - isn't it simply a matter of taste, and what each individual player expects/wants from the game? It seems perfectly fine for Blizzard to have quests which appeal to the portion of the player-base that doesn't care about min-maxing . . .
I typically don't read the subreddit - is it a known issue that some folks aren't earning 400 XP per hour in Ranked?
Within my own group of friends, one complained that he had played for about three hours, and only received 12 XP. We figured out that he had started the day with 100ish XP, levelled up a few times without noticing, and finished the day with 112ish XP at his new, higher level. There seem to be quite a few bugs with the new patch, and from my own experience, the new "scrolling XP bar at the bottom of the screen" rarely appears after finishing a game, and I can only check how much XP I've earned by leaving the Queue screen, and opening up the new Reward Track window to take a look. As it is, I'm regularly earning 460ish XP per hour, having purchased the +15% bonus. With a little bit of math, it looks like I receive an additional +20% XP bonus for winning.
As far as HS being too expensive - it's worth remembering that the game became much cheaper about seven months ago. Extending "no duplicate" protection to our entire collection more than doubled the value of gold - it takes less than half as many packs to collect a new set, and much less than half as many packs to collect all the "good" cards that actually see play (looking at the HSReplays numbers, only 33 cards from Scholomance, for example, have play-rates above 5%, while only 57 have play-rates above 2%.)
FWIW - looking at the numbers on HSReplays, the most-popular build of Galakrond Rogue currently runs eight minions above 4-mana. They all have Battlecries. A third copy of Shadowstep seems likely to make the cut . . .
It seems quite weak for a Legendary weapon - 2-Attack won't deal with any premium on-curve minions the opponent drops, so you'll have to rely on the Secrets you discover to help you out in that regard. But, often enough, you simply won't find the right one. I can't think of any 4-mana, 2-Attack weapons that have consistently seen play in the past - Blood Razor doesn't really count, given its effect was to cast Whirlwind.
Five mana is pretty expensive in Wild, particularly for a relatively fast deck like Odd Paladin that's typically trying to win the game within a turn or two after this guy would drop. Steward of Darkshire already gives Dudes the bubble much earlier than this new card. Five-mana plays in Odd Paladin currently either have to win the game (Quartermaster, Leeroy) or set up a next-turn lethal (Loatheb locks the opponent out, Authority creates a giant Dude, etc.) Trying to do cute things by trading efficiently, making your Dudes sticky, etc, currently isn't worth so much mana. I expect folks to experiment with the new card, but it seems very unlikely to stick.
If Dude Paladin becomes a deck in Standard, this will likely see play - but otherwise, not. A Paladin deck that isn't trying to leverage its Hero Power likely won't care if they get a free Argent Squire after turn five (usually later, given that this guy won't be drawn on-curve the majority of the time.)
But - it'll see some play, and isn't awful, so I gave it 3 stars.
FWIW - Blizzard messaged all semi-finalists Saturday night, listing check-in times for participants. He had ten hours to sleep, and apparently chose to sleep one more, accepting but ignoring the pretty obvious consequences. You don't have to be a machine to simply arrange to have someone wake you up, if the matches start earlier than you'd hoped . . . there's honestly nothing "unrealistic" about any of this.
FWIW - looking at the HSReplays numbers, Glide currently has a 35% "played win-rate," which is the worst among all the cards in Scholomance.
It's also worth mentioning that Egg decks typically don't want to actually crack their own Eggs - they play them, buff them, trigger them, get lots of value off of them, and when they inevitably crack on board, you get a bonus 4/4, a 5/5 a 3/4, etc. It's possible that the new card will see play in Standard, but playing a bunch of stats in the mid-game, then passing the turn, isn't exactly a winning game-plan in Wild . . .
To be fair - judging by HSReplays, two of the top four decks in Standard post-nerf have been Paladin, including the "utter garbage" deck.
FWIW - the Bureau of Labour Statistics estimates average tenure at a US company at about four years. Personally, I've held four different jobs since finishing grad school, none of them longer than three years (I'm Canadian, but I expect tenure is comparable between countries.) It's likely that half the current HS team will move on to other things, internally or otherwise, in the next few years. As far as leadership leaving - I'd suggest that it's far "crazier" that Morhaime (and Brode, for that matter) stuck around for nearly thirty years (fifteen, in BB's case.)
The two English-language YT streams have a total of 50K and 80K views, respectively.
Perhaps the OP would have been better served explaining why he thinks the Paladin HP needs to be changed - "filling out the curve," "nerfing Baku/Genn," and "supporting hand-buff synergies" are consequences of his proposal, not reasons for a redesign . . .
It's worth remembering that basic HPs aren't really meant to be "good" - they are designed to be pretty inefficient so that game-play focuses on playing cards, rather than simply hitting the button every turn. I suspect the OP thinks that the core evergreens for Paladin are weak, and the class needs a redesign like Priest - but if that's true, why bother screwing around with the HP, instead of focusing on the actual problem?