Game balance, design and cards never appeared

IGN’s Cam Shea spoke with Mike Donais and Peter Whalen to learn how Hearthstone’s Kobolds & Catacombs expansion is developed and what some cards look like in development.

Summary of the interview

Here are the highlights of the interview. We also have the opportunity to see some cards that do not appear in Hearthstone or have been turned into other cards. Note that Rogue’s weapons were originally planned to include a “Dual-Wield” mechanism – but this structure is not yet complete.

Nerf

• Hearthstone will hit the balance in the game after the World Championship.
• Evaluation will look at the ranking table and what happens in the championship.
• Maybe there will be a balance update in February. (Ben Brode mentioned this)

Design

• Each Hearthstone expansion will target one or two (sometimes three) themes within each class.
• During internal testing, a lot Cubelock used.
• Strong defensive picks are very important to the team, which is why we see them “a lot” in the game. Kobolds.
• When calculating the mana cost of high-effect cards, the team looks at three things:
  • Similar effects and how much mana they cost. Is the current effect worse or better than similar cards?
  • How have similar cards appeared in tournament decks and data over the past four years?
  • Where will this card be placed? Does it make the game more fun?

• If the decks in Hearthstone appear too many, the team needs to be careful not to give the new cards too much, it will make players bored when they have to see it appear continuously.
• Leaves like Barnes and Emperor Thaurissan will be “great to be in Standard”, but not forever. It’s good for strong decks.

• Mike Donais likes to create more Rogue cards but it’s still unclear how they will be used. “We’ll let the players figure it out for themselves, and hopefully it won’t break the game.”

Meta

• Witness the leaves Quest used in a variety of ways “that’s great”.
• Corridor Creeper was noticed in need of rebalancing. Community sentiment and usage information are important in the assessment.
• We often see very strong decks after the last expansion of the year, because these strong cards will soon be put into rotation.

Dungeon Run

• One of the early hero power of King Togwaggle is the ability to ‘disenchant’ the cards in your opponent’s hand. It’s not really in anyone’s collection, it’s simply a Dungeon Run deck!

Cards in development stage

• • Possessed Lackey Initially tested was “Battlecry: If you control a Demon, Recruit a Demon”.
  • Dark Pact there was a time when it cost 0 mana
  • Carnivorous Cube got the idea from the team wanting to create a card that resembles the Moat Lurker since the days of Karazhan.

• Carivorous Cube at first called Gelatinous Trapezoid.
• Carivorous Cube extensively tested internally using the Druid, Hunter and Warlock classes.
• Rin, the First Dismple Initially it was intended that each seal would be much more complicated but there would be a total of five. Each of them will have a different effect.
• The effects of each seal are: Deal Damage; Restore Health; Summon a Demon; “Something else”.
• Azari, the Devourer Rin’s was originally intended to be 15/15 and was untargetable. When testing, people were not very interested in it, so they came up with the idea of ​​destroying the entire deck.
• A few years ago, they tried to create a version Psychic Scream to put minions into your deck. This leads to Priest always wanting to play the fatigue way.
• Psychic Scream originally named Run Away!
• One of the early ideas of Legendary Weapon for Rogue is the ability to wield two weapons. However, they do not work as originally intended.
• Another version of Kingsbane is “Battlecry: Discover a card, everything you draw is a copy of that” (Discover a card, everything you draw is a copy of that card). This effect was also tested on Warrior’s Weapon.
• King Togwaggle sometimes there is no random spell and there is another effect that occurs during Battlecry and Deathrattle. This information will be detailed later.
• Twilight’s Call The first is to resurrect any minions. But this can create a heady Malygos and Prophet Velen combo.
• Lesser Diamond Spellstone, and upgraded versions, did not initially require the revivals to be different. Because this could lead to a cool Malygos and Valen combo.

Source: hearthpwn