Hearthstone’s next expansion, Scholomance Academy, will launch in August. The new set will feature 135 new cards, including 40 new “dual class” cards, a new Spellburst mechanic, and more. GameSpot spoke to game designers Chadd Nervig and Liv Breeden about the upcoming set, the new normal of how the company approaches balance adjustments, and how a Demon Hunter power from Ashes of Outland helped create the new Spellburst in this set.
The last expansion [Ashes of Outland] it was very gloomy and dark and metal. This is much more cheerful and cute. When deciding the order of expansions, how much do you consider what came before and what comes next to achieve balance?
Chadd Nervig: We definitely take it into account. In general, Hearthstone tends to point to fantasy and charm. Ashes of Outland was one of our darkest outfits, and this lightened things up. There is still, “What is Kel’thuzad doing in the basement?” There are still some darker nuances here and there.
Liv Breeden: I think the benefit of changing it is that it doesn’t create a new normal. If it’s just dark all the time, it starts to feel really sad and it’s not really Hearthstone anymore. But if we just make the sets happy and excited, then they feel the same. It’s nice to have that top-to-bottom balance between very dark and very light. That way you can play with the differences.
Dual-class cards
You mentioned the double class “double specialization” cards. From a visual design point of view, they look unique to Hearthstone cards, divided in half. That’s a different way of signifying duality than the way he marked it with Gadgetzan.
Nervig: Yes, the Gadgetzan ones were a little different. Those were these three factions within Gadgetzan that those three-class cards had as their theme, and they had their own specific mechanics. These are explicitly double-themed, thematic after the combination of those classes. Each double class represents a course that you can take at the Scholomance Academy. For example, the Illusions course is taken by both magicians and rogues. You see different mechanics and on those cards that form the overlap between them.
Breeden: Gadgetzan is very much a “What faction do you belong to? What is the banner you have?” This really is “What makes these two classes special?” I think when you look at it what’s the best way to do it? What is the best way to show that this card is not like this other faction, it is really a Rogue card, but it is also really a Mage card.
Nervig: There is also something related here. We created these new card frames to visually show you the different colors of the cards, to show the different kinds. But we also take a look at the gun frame. [The existing weapon frame] it doesn’t really show clearly which class it belongs to. “What kind is this weapon?” It has been a very common feedback point. At the same time, by making these new card frames, we also renew the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.
“‘What kind is this weapon?’ it has been a very common feedback point … We have revamped the weapon frames. Now you can clearly see the class in all weapons. “
You have been much more open in the last few months talking about class identity. That’s something that needs to be clearly stated before doing an expansion like this, in which different classes are combined so they have in common.
Nervig: Class identity has been a major focus for us for a couple of years. Dual classes are interesting in the sense that, at first glance, you might think it blurs the identity of the class. Actually, the point of identity of the class is to think about what are the capabilities of the class. The way they do it is often tasty. It doesn’t do what you expect a wizard to do, it doesn’t violate that by allowing them to have a combo card. We can use mechanics from both sides. You are not going to see Priest get a lot of cards through dual class cards.
Breeden: It really made it a lot easier because we had recently done the class identity stuff. We have this sheet that says, “What are these classes good at? What are they bad at?” And then we were able to refer to that and say, “Well then, what works in this circle?” It is a complete circle of each class that is mixed into two other classes. But it also means that we can also do really cool things. Druid and Hunter make beasts, so at the crossroads of classes, it’s all about beasts. But how they make beasts is very different. You can look at the hunting beasts in general, they are very swarming, but the druid beasts are huge.
Was finding matches for Demon Hunter different since he’s so new and not so established?
Breeden: Demon Hunter is fairly new, but many of these games are focused on flavor and mechanics. The showdown between Demon Hunter and Hunter, I mean, come on.
Nervig: I could have gone to Demon Hunter / Rogue, for example. There is also an overlay that we could have removed. We ended up going Demon Hunter to Warlock.
A dual-class card, Devolving Missiles, is a combination of two popular cards. Was that often the spark of design?
Nervig: Absolutely. That kind of thing happened, at least at the starting point, many times. Lightning Bloom is basically Innervate, when he was extremely dominated. Now, we can do that, but make up for that with the overload mechanics. That is a little tidy. It’s like stealing two mana from the next turn to go crazy this turn.
Breeden: We also rely on the Demon Hunter / Warlock as one of the new mechanics. They have a mechanic for their soul magic that is exclusive just to them, just this set. It’s super cool, because we can explore new spaces.
The transfer student has different effects depending on the board. Is there a plan to continue adding new effects as you add more boards?
Breeden: Our plan is that we will update it while it is still in Standard, and when it opens it will be an “Discover card from this card set”.
How the Demon Hunter influenced the spell
What was the origin of Spellburst mechanics?
Nervig: We wanted to have a mechanic that really fits the fantasy here, you are at the Scholomance Academy, this is a place to learn magic. We experiment with things like when you cast a spell, this happens. By turning it into a unique, non-repeatable effect, it allows us to expand to make many different designs with it, not just things that can infinitely scale. We also get some really cool stuff, like Goody Two-Shields. You probably don’t want to cast a spell right after playing it. You must let your Divine Shield run out and then cast a spell, probably next turn.
“We tested Bloodthirst on the previous set with Demon Hunter. While we didn’t save it, we really liked the trigger all at once.”
Breeden: We tested Bloodthirst on the previous set with Demon Hunter. We wanted to do something really aggressive. We had a one-time trigger when your opponent takes damage. You play these cards, then you hit him in the face, then your Bloodthirst trigger would fire. We played around with that for the Demon Hunter before we settled on Outcast. He pushed him into this extremely narrow space, where this was all they did was confront each other.
While we didn’t save that, we really liked the one-time trigger part. Create this really cool gameplay dynamic where it’s not just about Battlecry, but later. There is more gameplay than just playing my cards. I have to play other cards, or I have to make decisions. It really is a test of skill when I do it, what spell do I use, how do I build my deck to make use of this. I think iterating over Bloodthirst to find Spellburst really shows that single triggers are really exciting, and we could do even more in the future.
Quick response balance adjustments
Introducing Ashes of Outland, in interviews, Blizzard said that he consciously made Demon Hunter’s cards a little higher than normal on the power scale, because it was so new. In the following months they have been nerfs, nerfs, nerfs. Is the team still making Demon Hunter’s cards a little stronger?
Nervig: Our goal for Demon Hunter was always to be competitive with the other classes. We also knew that this is a whole new class, and much of what we know about balance classes or balance cards is based on this existing knowledge about how one class plays, what its expectations are, how they interact with the other classes, that kind of thing. We didn’t have that solid knowledge base with Demon Hunter yet, because it’s brand new, and internal testing can only show us a lot.
We knew about it that, realistically speaking, there was a good chance that we would have to make balance adjustments. So we braced ourselves for that, and took a different approach, more ready to react quickly and make balance changes, starting with Ashes of Outland. I think the results there speak for themselves.
Are you going to be so prepared and agile to make quick changes, not necessarily just for Demon Hunter? Is that the philosophy in the future?
Nervig: I think this new philosophy has worked very well for us. Keeping things alive, keeping things fresh and new is really important to us. I wouldn’t expect the same level, but we are ready. We can make changes quickly.
“Keeping things alive, keeping things fresh and new is really important to us. I wouldn’t expect the same level, but we are ready. We can make changes quickly.”
Breeden: We like to experiment with different launch programs. We try something really different with our patch program too, to balance. The feedback has been really positive. I think that’s the best way the community can show us that they like something, is to provide positive feedback. I think this expansion shows that every time we talk to people or have interviews, people mention how positive the rate at which we are fixing and adjusting things is getting.
The only criticism I heard of the patches recently was how close this upcoming group of nerfs is to the Masters Tour tournament. Was that a consideration when planning this next one?
Nervig: We try to take electronic sports into account. It is really important to us. In this case, this patch comes out coinciding with the ad, so there isn’t much flexibility there. Due to the proximity to the Masters Tour, we may soon announce what the changes will be, so players can start tweaking their decks based on that, or making predictions, or at least just thinking about it, giving them more time to think about it. The fact that Masters Tour is still around was definitely a factor in why we announced the changes before actually making them.
