Actually I am pretty rusty but I took today off work for my Birthday and I am streaming Hearthstone Ranked Ladder with my daughter Melody.
Feel free to stop by. I won't be spoiling anything new but happy to talk about my thoughts on existing stuff. Game Design questions are especially good.
twitch.tv/melodyserafina
External link →Happy Birthday Man
Thanks man!
Some answers from memory, paraphrased. Watch vod for exact answers.
He is playing highlander mage at rank 2 on stream on his own account.
Rank 1 now.
Q: unnerf warsong?
A: potential for broken shit with charge, won't do it, but may design a better version in the future.
Q. SOU was good for wild, did you design cards specifically for wild in mind?
A: nope just design cool cards and happened to be cool for wild this time.
Q: design how many expansions in advance?
A: 1 year ahead is setting theme (like good vs bad guys/ league of evil etc), 1 set in early stage, 1 set in balance, 1 set in shipping preparations (marketing, golden animations, giving cards to streamers to reveal)
Q: Do you guys ever tweak expansions last minute to adjust for the meta from the current expansion since they're balanced so far in advance?
A: yes, deadline is 2 weeks prior to ship date, we have meeting to playtest with meta in mind and make tweaks.
Q: favorite coke?
A: dr pepper. the flavor is flavored with plum, did you know that?
Q: fav deck that community made that you didn't see coming?
A: zephrys rogue, chef nomi in druid, res priest didn't expect to be top tier
Q: consider 'counter' keyword?
A: sure
Q: still talk to brode?
A: yup still text him. good guy. my bro was his boss 15 years ago.
Q: can you nerf my opponents when he's winning?
A: yes i have a big red button i press when i'm about to lose.
Q: what is the wackiest card you thought of that the UI team laid down a hard 'no'.
A: lol i made some time travel cards, that didn't get very far.
Q: What are your feelings regarding alternative rule sets and game modes?
A: 100+ tavern brawls. repeat the most popular ones.
Q: octosari he or she?
A: yes
Q: When you guys are making nerfs, how do you decide which cards to nerf if you think a deck is too powerful?
A: find most op deck, find the card that's contributing most to that deck, find the cards that feel bad to play against, and badly perceived by community.
Q: Are you planning on adding more interactions between certain cards and heroes like rexxar and animal companion or garrosh and cairne?
A: a little bit, but not too much because a lot of upkeep to keep up with everyone.
Q: more unnerfs like molten giant?
A: if appropriate yes. molten giant we playtested a lot. most nerfs are design restrictions, like making hero power cost 0 is a no.
Q: pocket galaxy buffed too aggressively monkaS
A: they're right. people on internet are always right.
Q: unnerf saronite chain gang?
A: no, still good with shudderwock in wild. dopplegangster is slow and sucks by himself.
Q: full golden collection?
A: no, blizz gives up $500 bnet balance. most goes toward HS, some toward overwatch. bliz gives us 1 box for other games.
Q: Has there ever been discussion about reworking the coin to not count as a spell?
A: we talked about it
Q: why did brode leave?
A: variety of reasons.
Q: How long did it take to create the tech behind “the perfect card?”
A: all of the time. bunch of algorithms: whiteboard coding, script, then C#, script again, then C++.
Q: Have you guys ever considered any sort of in-game deck tracker?
A: discussed it. bunch of work for UI and upkeep but prioritizing other stuff for now. Our team used to only make cards, but now team is bigger so we make more stuff like tavern brawl and PvE.
Q: genn/baku?
A: playtested a bunch before making the decision.
Q: cards that had less impact than expected?
A: combo druid. i thought druid would be crazy dominant. chakki had some crazy elise deck that goes infinite during playtesting.
Q: Typical work day?
A: walk to work, call ben brode, ask him what do i do, so many challenges. then i go on reddit, everyone is angry, and i cry. then i go home.
Q: why you move from Magic to HS?
A: worked on magic for 10 years, did all the magic stuff i could possibly do. some dude called me up from blizzard to work on wow tcg so i said sure. then i worked on marvel heroes, then HS.
Q: QOL updates?
A: did some in the past, but will continue. finding the balance. qol stuff or cool stuff like Zephrys.
Q: Blizzcon announcement?
A: will be better than previous blizzcon for the past 10 years.
Q: most powerful card that almost saw print?
A: 5 mana luna's pocket galaxy kappa. when i make a card i ignore the balance of it, i just work on the textbox and worry about cost/stats later.
Q: fav art?
A: that reddit post on front page today was good. the pizza card packs and food related ones are great.
Q: talk to jeff kaplan?
A: yea he came to my desk the other day and played a new thing i'm working on.
Q: wild specific buffs?
A: ppl play wild for cards in its purest form. we don't want to detract from that. so no.
Q: % of cards that make it into set?
A: 1%. out of 100 cards we make, 1 makes it in.
Mike: I'm really good at drawing pocket galaxy, someone should nerf that shit.
Q: nerfing pocket galaxy?
A: Probably
Q: chakki highest ranked dev?
A: chakki is good but many final designers have been top 10 legend.
Q: how many cards come out “perfectly” and make it into the game without any tuning?
A: OG sir finley was made on the last day without playtesting. peter whalen knows how to program, programmed it immediately.
Q: Barnes?
A: yea might do something about him.
Q: reuse new keyword?
A: prob twinspell
Q: inspire?
A: maybe, but too snowbally so hard to design. we tuned inspire cards lower cuz of this.
Q: any chance of priest getting a half decent board-clear in classic/basic?
A: priest has some good board clears in expansions, but this guy wants to play against the same board clear FOREVER.. which is something that i wouldn't really want.
Q: why remove bucket in arena?
A: just taking a break from it for now while we contemplate something else.
Q: hero cards?
A: yes but slower. we wanted to hype Boom and Hagatha before their expansions came out so we will still do them for important characters.
Q: buffs every expansion?
A: nope. we mix it up. did buffs last time, will do something different next time.
Q: fav deck of all time?
A: Reno Mage
Q: why did you print EVIL Totem if one of shaman's weaknesses is card generation?
A: That was a meme. Shaman's actually have no weakness.
Q: How often do you get recognized in public?
A: never
Q: freeze shaman?
A: not fun getting your shit frozen, esp playing against it in mage for 5 years. if we do it will be single target freeze since it's like killing a minion.
Just a quick heads up that these are not my literal answers, many of them could be taken differently without my words and my context.
Also, I didn't spend a lot of time on the answers, it was a live stream while I was ranking up, so please keep that in mind too.
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