The full notes for Hearthstone Patch 23.2 have just dropped, and you might've caught wind of 3 distinct Quality of Life game improvements coming to the tavern near you very, very soon (on May 10)! Blizzard has also shared a separate short blog post with us to go over each one of them in more detail, which also includes handy graphical previews.
- Even better news for rich card collectors out there: the Arcane Dust cost to upgrade a card is the difference between its base cost and the Golden cost. This way you get the full dust value of any of your cards rather than having to pay extra! It's still a ton of dust required, of course, and sadly won't work as such dust saving measure for any Uncraftable cards.
- With the multiple card backs option, in each game you will randomly equip a card back from those you favorited. Card back settings are now also being saved on a deck-by-deck basis.
- Sharing deck codes with friends will be very easy: just click 'copy' on your deck, open the chat, and you will be prompted with a message asking whether you'd like to proceed and paste it in there.
- It's also just the beginning for Year of the Hydra, as there are more quality-of-life improvements in the pipeline.
Let's go over everything more closely, with dedicated developer comments. We also include additional developer insights below as shared on Twitter - there are a few clarifications worth looking at!
Three New Game Features Coming Soon
Quote From Blizzard
In the year of the Hydra, Hearthstone is focusing on improving existing game experiences and building a better, more player-friendly game client. With that in mind, we’re happy to share that three exciting new features will be coming to Hearthstone as soon as Patch 23.2!
Upgrade to Golden
The long-awaited feature is now here! Fans of Golden cards will now have the option of Upgrading their normal cards into Golden versions, in addition to the original option of crafting Golden versions from scratch. The Arcane Dust cost to Upgrade a card is the difference between its base cost and the Golden cost. That means that you get the full dust value of any of your cards you decide to Upgrade! Now fans of Golden cards have an option to easily and efficiently bling out their favorite cards.
Developer Comment: We’re thrilled to get this feature out there and see how you all enjoy it. We wanted it to be a smooth and convenient experience, without getting in the way of the normal crafting flow. We knew from the start that we wanted this to be more than just a convenience feature; since it gives you the full dust value for any normal card you Upgrade, it’s also cheaper now to turn your normal cards Golden, making it more enticing for players to enjoy that attractive option!
Share Deck Codes in Chat
Now you can easily share deck codes through the in-game chat! Send your friend a deck code and they’ll be able to quickly copy it directly from chat into their deckbuilder. Show off your cool homebrew or grab the latest tech from ladder with ease as you fill up both your friends list and your deck slots.
Developer Comment: Deck codes were one of the largest convenience improvements ever added to the game, but actually sharing those deck codes in-game was always rough. We set out to solve that issue and make this powerful sharing tool an even better experience.
Favorite Multiple Card Backs
Lastly, you will be able to Favorite multiple card backs, instead of just one. This means that in each game you will randomly equip a card back from those you favorited. With so many great card backs now in the game, how could you choose just one?! Since card back settings are now saved on a deck-by-deck basis, out-of-match things like pack opening will use whatever settings you most recently selected.
Developer Comment: So many amazing card backs have been added to the game over the years, we felt like we needed to find some middle ground between picking one card back and picking randomly from your whole collection. Finding the exact user experience to solve this was a challenge that we’re looking forward to hearing player feedback on!
These are just the first of several quality-of-life improvements that we’re excited to develop this year. We’re working on tons of cool new features, including some that we hope to share very soon. Keep an eye out for more updates, and let us know if there are any features that you’d like to see added to the client.
Developer Insights
Hearthstone Features Lead Chadd Nervig (better known as Celestalon) and other members of the team have also been sharing some further insights and clarifications on Twitter.
We've collected them here for your convenience:
Upgrading to Golden
No need to craft Golden cards in advance of opening your packs anymore, if you've ever cared about this particular aspect. It was actually stopping some people from participating in the pre-release Fireside Gatherings.
Quote From Celestalon Upgrade to Golden gives you the FULL dust value of your Normal card put toward the Golden. Not just a convenience feature. WAY cheaper than disenchanting the Normal and crafting the Golden.
Quote From Celestalon for upgrade to golden, regarding UI… I see in the pic that it has 2 btns, Disenchant, and Upgrade… does that mean that you can upgrade only when you have 2 normal versions of it… what if I just want to upgrade 1 card, and I only have 1 normal version of it already?We didn't want to interrupt the most common crafting flow: View a Normal card you don't have, craft 2 copies of it. So when looking at Normals, it stays on just 'Craft' until you have 2 copies total. If you only have 1 and want to upgrade it, you can, by viewing the Golden.
Quote From Celestalon Does that mean that when gold “legendarys” are nerfed, the returned dust will be 1600?No changes to dusting or nerf refunds. A recently-nerfed Normal Legendary still disenchants for 1600, or a Golden for 3200.
Quote From Celestalon How will this work with uncraftable legendaries (i.e. Faelin)?Sorry, correction: Both Normal and Golden must be craftable in order to Upgrade. Will not work with Faelin, sorry!
Favorite Card Backs
Favorite multiple/random hero portraits and such should be just a matter of time now.
Quote From Celestalon How many cardbacks can you 'favorite' to which it will randomly pick one of those each game?As many as you want, no limit!
what happens if you pick the random cardback as a favorite?
The "Random Cardback" is gone, it's just part of the UI now.
Quote From WaltCodes multiple favorite card backs! one note on
randomness
using that setting outside of deck-editing is sort of an oddball solution, and maybe eventually we will want explicit controls in pack opening for "random favorite" vs "random owned", but we wanted to make sure we launched with full parity for Random-lovers who don't do favorites
In-Client Deck Codes
Some people just love the extra in-game convenience.
Quote From Gallon Be sure to thank @hypopyh for the in client deck codes, they are the absolute nuts
FYM = Free Your Mind, the informal and voluntary event taking place during the final weeks of the year, where Team 5 members are encouraged to work on various projects of interest to them, or pursue personal passions. As long as it's Hearthstone related. As you can see, it keeps bearing fruits.
Which of these are you most excited about?
Comments
So if you have a Legendary and want to upgrade it, it costs 1600 dust? Were people afraid it would be 2400 dust, i.e. equivalent of dusting the normal card and crafting it as Golden?
I'm slightly confused by the deck-by-deck basis business. Weren't you always able to assign card backs to your decks, or was that just hero portraits?
I'd expect downgrading a Legendary to give you 400 dust. Unless it was recently nerfed. i.e. the difference between the disenchant value of the Golden and normal version. I'm sure lots of players would even take that. I would.
And what about the opposite?
When will we be able to downgrade a golden card to normal and keep the extra dust?
As mostly 《They mostly come out at night... mostly, as Newt said》a mobile player I am pleased I will be able to easily share a deck code.
The inability to copy-pasta a deck code in the mobile app has been frustrating for far too long.
Definitely agree with you on this one. I've been playing on mobile more often and it's very frustrating trying to minimize the HS client, open browser, go to HSReplay or OoC, copy deck code, go back to HS client... oh it disconnected and I have to restart the client. Repeat process a second time...
The choose your own cardback pool is pretty smart. Considering that there's probably two hundred of them now, with less than 10 favorites in total, its nice to know that I'll be seeing only those I like rather than the deluge of others I dont.
Golden card upgrades...probably more of an option for whales. Most of us minnows are grateful to simply have a copy at all. Im not going to slag team5 for reducing costs, but in this case Im not entirely certain its smart. Most players that go out on their way to get golden cards tend to be big spenders or otherwise already really invested in the game, so its kinda like giving tax breaks to rich people. How many players ultimately benefit from such a change at all, compared to the gains they'd make from getting these whales to buy packs for it?
I'd love to see the data on which card is most often upgraded to golden. Tell us in a month, Blizzard!
And I will absolutely be setting a selection of favorite cardbacks. I like the Random idea, but it always seemed to result in a very Christmas (excuse me, Winter Veil) cardback in a non-Christmas season.
Mostly...
#Update: Added a number of developer insights from the Hearthstone Features team, as they've been sharing them on Twitter. It might clarify a thing or two you might've been wondering about. You can find them below the blog post!
Really great. Feels like first quality of life features sind adding more deck slots.
No option to downgrade from Golden to normal cards? I'd rather have the dust :/
The way I assume you want that to work would basically mean offering a full dust refund for every golden card as though they were nerfed, assuming you use some of that to re-craft the normal version. There's no way that would ever happen for obvious reasons. The only reason the golden upgrade is OK is that no-one gains any competitive or resource benefit out of the process; it just no longer feels bad when you open a card you planned on crafting golden anyway.
But hey, you're free to downgrade golden cards to normal all you like at no cost! You even get a nice 10 dust bonus for commons (I never understood why that was...).
Maybe not a full-refund, mas I'd be glad with 50% or something!
I obviously understand why players would be glad of that, but I don't see what would motivate Blizz to implement it. There was already a negative feeling associated with 'upgrading' to golden at nearly full cost. Meanwhile nobody is unhappy to open a golden version instead of a normal one since it is objectively better, and at worst a wildcard for any card of that rarity. So your suggestion isn't fixing a problem so much as it is asking the question of how much more generous the dust economy can be. I'm not going to argue HS is super generous here (it's not), but it is something Iksar has repeatedly said they don't plan on changing, as they'd rather just give players more cards (e.g. through the rewards track).
Ah, I do wish.
That's exactly why they don't have it.