Monday afternoon, members of the Hearthstone's development team released a blog post that outlined what's to come in an upcoming patch. The three main talking points where: two cards being Hall of Famed, the development team wanting to create class identities and 10 new cards being added to the game in the near future.
Contents of the blog post can be found here.
After the blog post had gone live, member of Hearthstone's subReddit (r/hearthstone) and popular members of the game's community, took to the internet to give their two-cents on the news.
The general consensus was:
- The new cards being introduced into the game are moderately weak (rightfully so) but good for the game.
- Vanish and Mind Blast being sent to the Hall of Fame over more worthy options is a bit disappointing.
-The "Class Identities" don't seem entirely accurate.
In the blog post, the Hearthstone team stated that they want to help create a foundation of what to expect with a given class in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.
"When defining a class’s identity, we’re primarily concerned with staying true to the following three guidelines: adhere to a class’s “fantasy”, define the things the class should excel at, and establish where the class should struggle.
When looking at the fantasy of each class we want to capture the emotion of the class through gameplay. That could mean charging headfirst into battle as a Warrior, wielding devastating magical spells as a Mage, or plotting the perfect combination of moves as a Rogue. Once we know what makes a class tick, we can make better decisions about what cards fit and empower that fantasy.
Establishing stronger class identities serves several purposes. Giving classes better defined characteristics allows us to have more freedom when creating new mechanics. We can push further into the extremes knowing that each class has downsides to balance out new power. It also enables more counter-play when there is a clearer understanding of a class’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, the knowledge that a Druid is weak against big minions lets you start planning your strategy from the start of the match, with little to no knowledge of your opponent’s specific deck."
After the statement of what they want going forward, they broke down what they view as the future of each class and a bit of insight into their thinking. The community overall did not have much of an issue with this, aside from Shaman's entry which mentions "card generation" as a weakness.
Currently, Shaman has numerous tools to generate cards, which is what members of the subReddit jumped on. What they failed to mention is that the design team said this is what they view as a weakness for the class going forward. Numerous card generating tools will rotate out of the Standard format once the next year rolls around so the mentality that Shaman will forever be a class that can create cards out of thin air going forward is misguided.
A more immediate change coming in the next patch pertains to the two cards being sent to the Hall of Fame: Vanish and Mind Blast. According to the development team, they provide the respective classes the ability to do things that they, going forward, are not meant to do.
"While we like Rogues’ knack for getting out of sticky situations with targeted removal, Vanish allows them to effectively clear an entire board. This negates one of their intended weaknesses, reduces our ability to design towards their strengths, and makes it much harder for players to strategize against a Rogue.
Mind Blast gives Priests the ability to inflict a large amount of direct Face damage. We want to limit the amount of damage that Priests are able to deal from their hand, which will allow us to make cards that better emphasize their strengths in controlling the game."
Although they were replaced with two cards who fit the long-term design of the classes, members of the competitive community wanted to see other cards banished to the Hall of Fame.
While this does not mean that more meta-defining cards will not be moved to the Hall of Fame set in the near future or at the end of Hearthstone's year, the two announced just didn't tickle the fancy of some pros.
The date this patch will go live has not been made public at this time but presumably, it will be in the upcoming weeks.
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Tim Rizzo is the editor and a reporter for Inven Global. He joined the company back in 2017.
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