Iksar’s Twitter Q&A – January 13, 2021 – Roundup of All Answers

Yesterday, Hearthstone Game Designer Dean “Iksar” Ayala had a Q&A session on Twitter, with people asking lots of questions about the game’s balance, design, specific cards, mechanics and so on. Sadly, Twitter is kind of a mess when it comes to such things. Messages are short, you have to create long threads if you want to talk about something in detail, lots of comments get hidden, and it just doesn’t flow right. To make it a bit easier for all of you, I went through all of his replies and decided to make a quick summary of the most important talking points.

That said, if you want to read the full Q&A – all the questions and answers – here’s the Tweet you should go to:

Interestingly, he said that he will try to make it a weekly thing – we’ll see how that goes!

And here’s the summary. Of course, I didn’t cover everything. Instead, I tried to focus on the more interesting / important stuff:

  • Classic rework is “complicated” and questions about it “will be answered soonish”, but “it’s a good change”.
  • Duels update is coming soon. (My guess is that it will be a bigger update adding all the missing HP’s & Signature Treasures, since it’s about time.)
  • Duels sets will still contain limited number of Standard & Wild sets, and the available sets will rotate (which honestly is exactly what they’ve said when Duels were announced).
  • Malygos & Gadgetzan Auctioneer dodged Hall of Fame / nerfs a few times. They’ve also considered reworking Warlock’s Hero Power (Life Tap) in the early days of HS, but didn’t come up with any good ideas.
  • A more recent card that was close to getting nerfed was Animated Broomstick, but they didn’t because it’s an interesting card and it didn’t feel overpowered. They’re still looking into it, though.
  • A common misconception is that implementing some small features is “easy” – in reality with a big team working on multiple platforms, a lot of Q&A is required, then an extra approval from Google & Apple, so it all takes much longer than people think.
  • Power creep is a natural part of live service games –  if they want to make new, interesting things they need to compete with already existing ones, so they also need to be strong. But they can always go back and adjust something if it turns out to be way out of line. Gameplay is still fun despite power creep, and if it gets out of control, they will do a “big, sweeping nerf”.
  • Last balance patch went out just before Chinese Gold Series finals, and Iksar said that it’s unfortunate, but patches sometimes have to be pushed at those weird times, because otherwise they would need to wait too long with them. They have to prioritize the majority of players when it comes to things like balance update timing.
  • Cards like Tickatus are released even though they’re polarizing because some people just love this kind of design and plays Hearthstone just for them. But the design team tries to not make them too powerful just because they are frustrating to play against. They only become problematic if they become too popular (e.g. 20% play rate) and players are exposed to them too commonly.
  • Iksar would like to see two features getting added – esports directly in the client (to make it more accessible) and game mode where players can just get into without any preparation (like deck building etc.) – something like Battlegrounds, but with actual cards.
  • They will try to re-explore what “Shadow Priest” means, which is something that players might like.
  • There’s a good chance they will revisit Dual-Class cards in the future. He also wonders if HS would be more fun if it was permanently Dual-Class (but it’s not something they actually plan to do).
  • They will keep adding more “old” stuff to the shop – right now they’re doing card backs, but they might add old hero portraits too eventually.
  • Design-wise, they want to push Demon Hunter both in Aggro and Control direction, so their toolkit needs to be pretty wide. Ideally, Control Hunter is meant to be good with weapon-based removal and big minions, while it should struggle with hard single target / big AoE removal.
  • Team 5 will try to create less “annoying” or “very difficult” achievements that give XP, such as “Oh My Yogg!” (killing opponent with Oh My Yogg!).
  • One of the mechanics Iksar would like to see, but it’s hard to implement is graveyard / interacting with things that have died. There’s a lot of design space, the extra UI changes and complexity might not be worth it. It would have to make the game more fun in order to be considered.
  • There are still no plans to add auto-squelch option, because they don’t want to “add more buttons to the game”, and it’s something only a small portion of players asks for, so they never felt like it was necessary.
  • Current mindset behind nerfs is that they don’t want them to destroy the deck, just make it slightly weaker. As in you can still queue exactly the same deck and it will work, just won’t be as powerful. Most of core players are already used to card changes, so they can do them more commonly.
  • They don’t buff cards commonly as opposed to nerfs, because buffs have a much smaller impact on the meta. Nerfing the best deck in the game affects the entire meta – buffing a low tier deck might be impactful only for people who play that deck. Buffs might happen, but they won’t be used as the main meta balance tool.
  • “Random Hero Portrait” option like we do have with card backs is a “maybe”.
  • Tournament mode was scrapped because after trying it out they didn’t feel like quality was there and it would take way too much resources to try to fix it as opposed to exploring other ideas at the time.
  • Card generation has gotten a little wider than they would like, but it’s not a forever thing. E.g. in a hindsight, they would probably replace Draconic Lackey with something else. But next year we should see less of that, rotation should help.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

28 Comments

  1. Lanakias
    January 19, 2021 at 9:20 am

    “Just imagine what would happen if there’s no outrage? They could be more selfish and charge us more.”

    For that i’m talking. When someone (“from Blizzard” or someone that has money spend or do not care about the game) see your comment and the word “generous”, perhaps he/they think “we are ok. lets go in that direction.
    So I think everyone should think twice his words because many players do not care so much about the game and say stupid things that affect other players who want to play the game but not pay a fortune for it. That is what I wanted to say with my words.

  2. H0lysatan
    January 15, 2021 at 7:38 pm

    Good news, based on leaked info on reddit, the miniset will arrived on 21st Jan.
    You could buy the entire 35 cards with $15 or 2000 golds. (GA adventure took 2800 golds)
    So unusually generous from them. I had to praise them for this.

    @stonekeep. maybe add this article?

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      January 15, 2021 at 9:33 pm

      I’ve seen it, but I try to not post any leaks, only official, confirmed info. But if that’s true, then it’s really affordable.

      We’ll see next week anyway 🙂

    • Lanakias
      January 17, 2021 at 12:09 am

      So with miniset they want us to pay them again (in the middle of the expansion) or to lose our precious gold that was going into the next expansion. How this can be generous?

      • H0lysatan
        January 17, 2021 at 7:23 am

        well, instead of making us open up to 30 packs (3K) per miniset (and it’s still not guarantee all epic and legend cards), they just charge it 2K to get it all.
        while it’s true it’s expensive, it’s a better option nonetheless.

        OR.
        if you’ve been hoarding DMF packs, you can skip the bundle and save 2K, and it’s still guarantee to give you all new common and rare cards, but for the rest, you may have to craft it.
        As for myself, I can always save 2K gold and getting all the cards. The dust value is greater too.

        • Stonekeep - Site Admin
          January 17, 2021 at 8:25 am

          I’m holding onto like 50 DF packs because I thought that we’ll need to unpack all the new cards 😀 If I knew I would just spend less gold on launch and keep that 2k for the mini-set. But well, at least now I’ll know for the future.

          • H0lysatan
            January 17, 2021 at 1:32 pm

            Getting pretty optimistic with the leaks, even when it’s not confirmed huh? LOL.
            Anyway, they’ve taken down the info, so I guess it’s getting pretty obvious that this info is true. So please update this in the coming days. Thanks.

        • Lanakias
          January 18, 2021 at 6:52 am

          Whichever way you look at it, this is not generous from Blizzard. Many people they already paid them 80 or 50 Euros/bucks (EU always pay more for unknown reason..) in the previous expansion + they paid them another 20 euros/bucks for they getting extra xp in the reward track and now in the middle they want us to spend our gold or to pay them AGAIN another 20 bucks or dollars. This is not generous at all. This is by far the most expensive game i have played in my life. I playing everyday like a junky to follow this extremely expensive game and always Blizzard tried to find new solutions to earn more and more money from the ppl.
          All in all, that is NOT generous. Is offensive. Generous would be if they gave the cards free. Yes free .. A unknown “word” for this company.

          • H0lysatan
            January 18, 2021 at 9:21 am

            Let me try to clarify.
            Yes I agree Hearthstone is expensive. Don’t have to say that other pays a lot to make a point. The truth is, I never paid a cent to this game. I’m playing only when I have time. I’m pure F2P. I’m not a Blizzard fan either. If I can’t play or hate the game, then I won’t play.

            But please don’t make a game turns you into a hater. If you like playing the game, that’s already a good news. If you don’t like it, feel free to play other games. Don’t let the game dictate your life, (or makes you become a hater). You know better about your own life and how to enjoy it.

            As for the generous part. Free stuff is always welcomed, but it’s not happening, so we just have to accept whatever they’re throwing at our direction. I can say that they’ve think twice before doing anything now, because of the BP fiasco. Just imagine what would happen if there’s no outrage? They could be more selfish and charge us more.

  3. Deepfearr
    January 15, 2021 at 5:52 am

    It is not so hard to explore what is shadow priest !!!! Just brimg back something like Anduin. Thats all…

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      January 15, 2021 at 7:11 am

      I know that many people hated Raza Priest (and many still do in Wild), but it was one of my favorite decks ever. There was just something really fun about shooting your Hero Power like a machine gun.

      It would be interesting if Priest had an option to take a more offensive route instead of constantly relying on Control and big minions / resurrecting strategies.

  4. JakeRed96
    January 15, 2021 at 3:32 am

    Nobody asks for the economy of the game? 400dust for a legend card when costa 1600…

    • Millangue
      January 15, 2021 at 5:13 am

      the questions were only related to game design

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      January 15, 2021 at 7:08 am

      To be honest, even if someone asks (and many people do), it’s not like Iksar can answer the question. We just had a huge drama around Battle Pass and I’m sure that they no longer want to promise players anything if they aren’t 100% sure that they will deliver. The only thing he could say is some PR statement that doesn’t tell us anything.

      Plus, he’s a designer, so he’s mostly responsible for things like card mechanics, balance, game modes etc. and not necessarily monetization.

      • Pandamonium
        January 15, 2021 at 2:16 pm

        People who complain about the 400 dust for legendaries or whatever just want something for free. Just keep your cards and you’ll be better off much sooner than you’d think.

  5. H0lysatan
    January 15, 2021 at 2:57 am

    Classic rework is “complicated” and questions about it “will be answered soonish”, but “it’s a good change”. This point reminds me of the whole BattlePass fiasco. Nope, not gonna fall for it the 2nd time.
    Not gonna be very optimistic when it comes to the promises like this again.

    With the whole HoF gone, I feel like players will be disappointed when losing extra dust every rotation.
    And this is a bad thing. Issues like this makes me worry. Until I see the full details, I won’t believe them.

    • Pandamonium
      January 15, 2021 at 5:32 am

      Yeah taking away classic set is definitely a bone-headed idea. They said they are reverting Edwin to 3-cost after rotation so you know that they are taking away classic set which was supposed to be a safe set for beginners and everyone to collect. Blizzard morons think it’s a good idea to try to neuter the meta with new sets only and pushing limited narrow archetypes rather than let theorycrafting and off-meta decks be possible.

      • Stonekeep - Site Admin
        January 15, 2021 at 7:18 am

        I don’t know where you got that from (that they’re leaving the game with only expansions). I’m 99.9% sure that they won’t just take away Classic and leave the game without it… It would be the most stupid thing they can do and I’m sure they know that.

        And they probably wouldn’t call just removing a Classic set a “rework”, lol.

        • Pandamonium
          January 15, 2021 at 2:07 pm

          But just replacing classic set with a new set is stupid for so many reasons. What about someone (like me) who farmed the game since it was out and almost has every classic card. All that investment is thrown away. Isn’t that obvious? Not to mention that the new cards would be so narrow and bad compared to the classic set which is already perfect. Would they just randomly give you the same amount of cards of the rarities you already had? This is obviously going to be a joke of a mess. This is the same people who think it’s a good idea to release a mini set in the same card packs that already exist.

          • Pandamonium
            January 15, 2021 at 7:15 pm

            Not to mention all the gold cards gone. Cool idea way to make the worst possible choice devs.

          • Stonekeep - Site Admin
            January 15, 2021 at 9:47 pm

            I was thinking that they might give the new core set for free to everyone like I’ve mentioned in another comment. Again, it’s just something I’m hoping they do, but it would make most sense.

            And I’m not really worried, because if it’s terrible and people don’t like it, there will be another outrage and they will be forced to change it again… In the end, new progression system turned out to be much better than the old one, so it was worth it.

            But let’s wait until they announce it before judging it, okay? I can’t talk about something that we don’t have any information about.

      • H0lysatan
        January 15, 2021 at 5:40 pm

        No, they’re not taking away Classic, only Hall of Fame. They only gonna rework Classic (At least that is what I heard).
        It is safe to say that Basic & Classic set is always necessary, if not for the random shenanigans, it’s there to help new players to quickly understand the flow of card designs.
        But still, most of us don’t have any knowledge of what’s going to happen.

        • Pandamonium
          January 15, 2021 at 7:11 pm

          They said Edwin’s time in standard is coming to an end. So it’s going to be a bunch of bs changes.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      January 15, 2021 at 7:16 am

      You know what, I agree, but it’s more of an universal truth. Never trust something until you see it 🙂 It has been proven time and time again to not buy into hype about anything and just wait until it’s out and then judge it.

      That said, if anything, I believe that because of the Battle Pass outrage they will NOT do the same thing again just few months later. They’ve seen how the community can react if something is taken away from them and they get a worse outcome. They just can’t afford to make the same mistake again so soon.

      I really think that we’ll get a core set for free or something similar (and that’s why they won’t compensate for HoF, because we get new “replacements” for free). Of course I’m not saying that it will 100% happen because I just don’t know, but it would make most sense for me.

      In this case, Iksar said that it’s complicated and he can’t answer the question just because he doesn’t want to spoil anything before official announcement – the fact that they’ve teased it in the first place is already kind of surprising.

      • H0lysatan
        January 15, 2021 at 5:34 pm

        Gonna need to set my alarm for the next Wednesday session. Even if I don’t have high chance to get my question answered. Sadly, its PST time. I probably asleep already.

  6. Irish Seadog
    January 15, 2021 at 2:20 am

    Still no news on when the mini set is dropping? Or have I missed that?

    • IAardvark
      January 15, 2021 at 3:36 am

      Still no news on the set. They will add the mini-set to the cardpool, so keep any unopened packs. It’ll be somewhat like Descent of Dragons — but different.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      January 15, 2021 at 7:04 am

      No news 🙁 I would also love to learn more, but they haven’t shared anything yet. We’ll post about it as soon as we learn something, though.