Today, at the BlizzCon 2013 event, Full Cleared attended the Hearthstone Fireside Chat in which Blizzard Entertainment shared its future plans for the online card game. Before we get into that however, the Hearthstone team shared that two cards will be getting changes in an upcoming patch in hopes of helping balance gameplay. The Priest Mind Control card will increase from an eight mana crystal cost card to a 10 mana crystal cost card, while the Hunter’s Unleash the Hounds will be getting some changes, though the team is still unsure of which direction it will go.
Now as for the new ranked mode, Blizzard hopes to find ways to give players an incentive to play ranked mode, so ranked play has been revised. A new ranked mode will be joining Hearthstone in a future patch and will consist of 25 new ranks. Players will simply earn a star for each win, or lose a star for each loss, with five stars gaining a rank. That does mean that players will be able to lose a rank in the new ranked mode. Each month, a new season of ranked play will start and each night, players will be able to see how they rank within their region against other players. As an award for playing in the new ranked mode, at the end of each season, players will be rewarded with unique ranked play card backs that they can use in their deck.
Additionally, Blizzard confirmed that expansion packs will be coming to Hearthstone, but more importantly, the company wants to make sure that Hearthstone continues to cater to three different groups of players: the hardcore player, the casual player and the thrifty player. In order to do that, the company will be introducing a new feature called “adventures” which are focused single-player PvE experiences where players will compete against a boss or several bosses in order to earn new cards. Each adventure will have 20-30 cards and Blizzard’s aim is to “absolutely change the meta game” with new addition. That doesn’t mean it will necessarily introduce crazy mechanics however. Essentially, adventures will be different than expansions in which no player will have to purchase new packs in order to obtain the cards.
As we previously mentioned from the opening ceremony announcement, ranked play will also add golden hero cards which will animate the heroes. In order to obtain those, players will have to get 500 wins in ranked play, which will not be an easy feat. Other additions to Hearthstone heading the game’s way is three new keys in Arena mode, which means players will no longer cap out at nine wins, but rather 12. The team is also working hard at figuring out a solution for players who disconnect and will also be adding more animations and effects for Legendary cards.
Blizzard also shared some interesting statistics with us, including the fact that 44 percent of three-star Master players have yet to spend a single penny on Hearthstone, helping prove that the game is hardly play-to-win, which is something we agree with. Over one-million beta invites have been sent out for Hearthstone with more waves coming before the game enters open beta next month.
The team also touched on the first-turn advantage, and whether or not it is working as intended. Hearthstone’s original goal was to have a similar turn-one advantage as in the game of Chess, where statistically first-turn players in Chess will win around 54 percent of the time. For master level players currently, 51.3 percent of first-turn players win while 53 percent is the average for copper and silver league players. In other words, the team is satisfied with how the first-turn advantage is currently working in the game.
Finally, as far as class balance goes, Blizzard will continue monitoring to see if significant changes need to be made. But that’s not to say that the Hearthstone team hasn’t been paying attention to class balance. However, in the current state of closed beta, top classes has been fluctuating on a daily basis. For example, during mid-October Blizzard pulled a tally to see what was the classes with the most wins in three-star master class. One day it was the Hunter and the Paladin, while the very next day it was the Rogue and the Warlock. On a third day, it shifted to the Shaman and the Mage. The team will continually watch it however, to see how the meta game goes, especially once open beta starts.
You can read our impressions and thoughts of Hearthstone here.
