Hearthstone Game Designer, Matt London, was busy on Twitter over the weekend asking Hearthstone players about their favourite adventure content. Everyone had plenty of different opinions from all of Hearthstone's solo content but one that stood out, and prompted an additional, interesting question was Dungeon Run.
Dungeon Run was Hearthstone's first go at a roguelite game and was released on December 7, 2017 alongside the launch of Kobolds & Catacombs. The fresh mode spawned several iterations of the same product - Monster Hunt, Rumble Run, Dalaran Heist, and Tombs of Terror - but since 2019, we haven't seen new content in this realm.
Matt asked what the community thought about updating Dungeon Run with new cards, treasures, and bosses. Such an update would likely be trivial in the grand scheme of things and more importantly, would provide more value to the mode allowing players to have even more content to play in Hearthstone. This would also be a great opportunity to do a ton of achievements as well.
Keep in mind that nothing is set in stone. A developer asking for feedback on Twitter never guarantees that we'll see anything come to light in-game, but it certainly is nice to gain some insight into what they may be thinking about. These types of posts can help build more discussion within the community about what we all want to see Blizzard focusing on, so be sure to provide your feedback.
Quote From Matt London What is your favorite @PlayHearthstone Solo Adventure content? Why is it your favorite? *takes notes* (Source)
What do people think of this? Update Dungeon Run with new cards, treasures, bosses? (Source)
After a fascinating day of conversation about Hearthstone single player, I’ve concluded that everyone has a favorite adventure. I didn’t count, but Dungeon Run, Heist, and Puzzles seem like the Top 3. (Source)
What's your perspective on how storytelling can work in multiplayer content? Obviously single player is best suited for it, but I don't enjoy single player stuff. I'm sure it's more complicated but there's a lot of potential.
Long version: I love it. Huge potential, even beyond emergent narrative which has made past Blizzard games masterpieces. So much more to say about this.
Short version: We might be doing something in this realm this year. Small, experimental. Stay tuned. (Source)
Food for Thought
Respond with your answers to the following questions - more opinions are always great!
- What is your favourite adventure content?
- Why is that content your favourite?
- Dungeon Run: Would you like to see new bosses, treasures, and cards?
Comments
I'd like to see exactly the dungeon run from K&C (so without the initial deckbuilding stuff like Duels) but PvP instead of PvE.
Nooooo thank you.
I would rather have them doing something on the likes of puzzles. That I loved. To me dungeon run was fun but kinda more of the same, whereas puzzle had some strategic thinking sinergized with hearthstone's core, and it was fresh and different
What is your favorite adventure content? Why?
I may be the only one with this, but I loved Karazhan. The Hearthstone team shines when they're being silly - the Barrens, Book of Heroes, and Demon Hunter content of late that's featured long speeches, rhymes, and macho macho big epaulette vibes is real drag, comparatively. With a mixture of Beauty and the Beast, the Great Gatsby, and 80s vibes, Karazhan's theme made me happy to play it. There was some real innovation there, too - the chess puzzle! Plus others.
Would you like to see new Dungeon Run bosses, modes, or cards?
No, for two reasons. The most important reason is that the Hearthstone team obviously already has a hard time optimizing everything on their hands. Constructed is in a good place, but UI overhauls are needed, Wild is iffy, Duels still needs adjustment, Arena will get attention, cosmetics are ramping up, and Mercenaries is in the backyard listening to Engelbert Humperdinck while polishing garden gnomes. Far better for Team 5 to spend their time developing those existing projects than updating solo content.
My other reason is more personal: I don't enjoy the bucket system. Choosing buckets is always a compromise: which of these choices would corrupt my gameplan the least? Buckets are often filled with crappy cards, cards for other gameplans, or - quite often - two great cards and one crippling one you hope you don't ever draw. The addition of Bob's Tavern was a necessary band-aid on a larger, more persistent problem with the mode.
However! While new content, new bosses, modes, or cards, would be a waste, system improvements would be brilliant. Carry over the treasure updates from Duels. Have buckets offer applicable and powerful cards. Balance overpowered bosses. Let us complete quests in solo content. Several of these changes are applicable to both Duels and Dungeon Runs, so you can fix two birds with one hammer!
I did not play Dungeon Run for more than a year, so I do not care.
Sorry for not helping :-/
I'd like to see a Heroic mode for Dungeon Run. Additionally, some of the final bosses feel like coinflips (for example building a control deck and having to beat Azari). I'd love to see the mode made more challenging and less "do you have X thing".
Frogging YES!
No, leave it as a classic.
I would love a slight update on Dungeon Runs, to match the updates done in Duels, e.g. receive more relevant treasures to your deck, so that you don't have to repeat it 1000 times until you receive the treasure you need.
That would definitely be a hard no for me. I loved the first dungeon runs. Played them a ton with all the classes, experimented a lot. And once Bob's Tavern was added, it became even more interesting. But what I was looking forward to after that was new solo content not retreading the old. And no, Book of Heroes sure ain't it, that, for me, is just wasted development time, it's dull as dishwater.
Aside from that, it also seems like the HS team is stretched thin enough as is, without adding another thing to the plate. Let's see. The only formats that seem to receive what I would deem a proper amount of support is Standard and maybe Battlegrounds. BGs have received a burst of content recently but before that, after the removal of the Darkmoon Prizes, it was real samey and uninteresting for quite a while and I would definitely not call the format balanced. Wild has been in need of balancing for quite some time IMO (the same three to four oppressive decks have been dominating the meta for like a year) and nothing of significance has happened. Tavern Brawls are an afterthought. Duels need a complete overhaul/redesign/scrapping and coming up with something else, cause they're flawed from the very fundamental concept (you can have fun with builds and treasures in dungeon runs against the AI, you can't have much fun when all opponents are tryharding you, that will never change). Can't speak for Arena, haven't played it in years. I dread to think what the state of Mercenaries is going to be.
All these things need attention, that's not even mentioning the development of future sets and mini-sets. Adding constant updates to old Dungeon Runs when the team is obviously already struggling doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment of resources. When all modes receive their proper amount of attention, we can consider things like this. We're not anywhere close to there yet.
Dungeon run was my fav solo content. Duels is rather similar though, which is one of the things that makes it good.
An update each expansion for dungeon run would be great, as long as you get some pack/card rewards for at least the first time you beat it again after each expansion release. Some of the cool things in dungeon run are the unique monster opponents with their unique powers, the OP cards that are just for dungeon run, and of course, the treasures. So, these should all be added to and/or modified in each expansion release. I enjoy being able to create a deck, just like in duels.
I have had no interest in the recent solo content. I stopped playing a while ago. It's not worth playing even for the free packs as it is tedious and not fun. The long winded speeches by the characters are boring and can't be skipped. The rhyming of the demon hunter was obnoxious. If you want to do future story telling, it should be like it was with the league of explorers -- minimize the exposition and make the gameplay tell the story!
I would like a revamp. Worst case I don't and play a different mode.
I have not played solo content in the longest time, even with the free packs. I truly would not care.
Eh, not really up to it. Some of the encounters are just impossible to win against and the final bosses are more frustrating than anything. Hard pass for me.
yes
Nice, update them not only with cards and treasures, but also with achievements and probably Diamond cards.
An update to Dungeon Run could be cool. Or a better idea, just give us a new version DR to go along with an expansion.
As an example: If the three expansions this year go Horde, Alliance, H vs A in an old WoW BG setting like AV they could just do an updated type of Dungeon Run based around the BG.
1.- Uldum. The main idea of a challenging boss that doesn't really die in one shot (Sometimes you kill it sometimes you don't) is fantastic. Plus is the most customization heavy of the dungeon adventures. It adds even more replayability. The main idea of dungeon run in general is that of a Roguelite so, as a big fan of the genre. I love them all.
2.- As stated above, all the rogulite/likes are a must play for me. And adding that to a game I love, like Hearthstone, it's just a pair made in heaven! Wanting to see what Mercenaries looks like!
3.- One word. YES.
My favourite solo adventure content was definitely Icecrown. I just don't find content compelling if I can't build my own deck from my collection (solo content aside, I love Duels because I can build my own starting deck and often choose buckets that synergies well with what I've chosen, but I don't like BGs or Arena much at all; I would never play them just for fun). Icecrown was enough of a challenge that it felt like an accomplishment to win, and the card packs and legendary waiting at the end were a compelling reward. Older adventures were not challenging enough to have particularly fun gameplay for a player with a decent card collection, though I did enjoy them for the narrative and rewards. Older heroic adventures have enough of a challenge to them that I do like to play them just for fun, but because the rewards are purely cosmetic, I only play them when I have some reason for not wanting to do PvP content that day. Dungeon Run and Rastakhan's Rumble were a bit fun; I didn't mind doing them when I had a quest to do so, but I enjoyed them less than anything that let me build my own deck, and the lack of rewards meant that I would only play them when I had a quest for it. Witchwood was similar, but had a more compelling narrative, such that I definitely wanted to defeat each of the final bosses. The Puzzle Lab was also quite fun, but the lack of rewards made it not as compelling as Icecrown. The Dalaran Heist and Tombs of Terror sounded good in concept, but because the cost-reward ratio was worse than simply buying card packs, I just couldn't justify buying them. Book of Heroes and Book of Mercenaries are totally worth playing for the story, but the lack of deck building really cuts down on the fun factor for me.
Given the above, it's no surprise that I would not be at all interested in Dungeon Run being updated with new cards, treasures, and bosses. I would prefer that effort to be put into Duels, or more challenging and rewarding solo content like Icecrown.