DREAM Paragon Heroic Lei Shen World First, Oondasta Hotfix, Hearthstone Gameplay

Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas noticed this thread last night and has these thoughts to share:

Yes, Oondasta's maximum health has been reduced by 50%. The design intent behind this boss was for the primary audience to be guilds rather than pickup groups. That is why we placed Oondasta on a relatively remote island, surrounded by powerful elite dinosaurs that make solo travel in the area a dicey proposition. It's why he has mechanics that will outright kill you without the coordinated use of cooldowns, and careful positioning. It's a very different philosophy than our approach to designing bosses like Sha of Anger or Nalak. Of course, things didn't exactly play out as we envisioned -- as we all know, it was possible to overwhelm Oondasta with sheer numbers. While not intended, that was not entirely negative. There have been some pretty epic experiences on the Isle of Giants in the last couple of weeks. There's something to be said for the sight of a hundred spells and missiles flying through the air at a huge dinosaur.

We could have made a number of changes that would have made this approach entirely impossible: Consider a version of Oondasta with a Spiritfire Beam that could hop to 99 targets instead of 20, and a Doomwalker-style debuff that prevented players who had died during the encounter from re-engaging. Definitely not zergable. But that doesn't mean that people would stop trying, and the result would likely be a boss that no one could kill, and a frustrating experience for most participants. So we didn't do that.

Ultimately, while our server hardware is much, much more powerful than what we had in place during the days of events like the Opening of Ahn'Qiraj years ago, it still has limits. And what we have increasingly been observing was players massing around Oondasta in such great numbers that it brought servers to their knees. As word spreads that Oondasta has spawned, more and more people flock to the Isle of Giants for a piece of the action. Many people have been in Oondasta fights where spells took multiple seconds to cast, and the dinosaur perhaps stopped using its abilities entirely. Players with anything but the very best computers saw nothing but a slideshow. And in extreme cases, the entire continent of Pandaria crashed. That simply isn't an acceptable experience for our players, and so we reduced Oondasta's health, so that smaller groups are more likely to be successful, and he'll likely die before so many players arrive that it degrades the experience for everyone present. If server capacity were limitless, we wouldn't have made any of these changes, but alas that is not the case.

Oondasta clearly did not deliver on our original expectations. We'll apply the lessons learned from this experience to any future world bosses we add.

PvP
In terms of PvP this is one of the worst patches i've ever witnessed in 4 years of playing. Healers are virtually invincible.
Whenever we tone down burst, this is a risk (and why we often nerf burst so gently). (Source)

Dang does this mean it'll be like vanilla again where PVE geared folks can do just as good in PVP with their PVE gear? Hope so
Two pieces with the same ilevel means PvP Power wins. (Source)

how about world pvp? How about duels. I practice my skills in duels for arena. Soon raid gear will be king. Bad change.
When is the last time you engaged in world PvP with a fair setup on both sides? (Source)
with the change on 65% resil on players. not having pvp power should look abysmally bad for pvers tryin to join bg
Not necessarily. They will blow up less but won't be able to put out as much damage. Better design hopefully. (Source)

Is 5.3 coming before arena season ends?
Yes. New seasons coincide with new raid tiers, and there is not one in 5.3. (Source)

From a former SWTOR player, easy way to fix AFKing in bg - reward honor for personal performance (medals), not for win/loss.
Guarding a flag can be a huge benefit to the team but doesn't score well (and is easy to fake). (Source)

Now that PvP items don't give resi, how do you ensure heroic raid loot doesn't make its way to arenas? #shadowmourne
That answer is in the patch notes, but we are preparing a blog next week that will explain our intentions with all of this. (Source)

If this situation goes, PvP users must raid to win PvP fight. We don't want this situation. plz think about Asia PvP users.
We have a plan. It should also help with the fact that you can ugprade 5.3 PvE gear but not PvP gear. (Source)

when are you guys gonna talk about balancing random bg's to have an amount of dps healers and tanks instead of wildcard? unfun
Soon (tm). (Source)

Purchasing Cards Required?
I just read the FAQ and I extract from it that you have to pay real money for your cards. Kind of like, each time you buy a booster, you do it with real money. And that defeats the purpose for me, because one of the reasons I don't play CCG's is because they're moneysinks.
We really focus the game on being fun first and foremost. You can get in and have fun with it, playing and building decks, for as long as you like. You can buy and open packs to gain cards, but you can also win the same packs just by playing other people. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Duration
So I am wondering, will games be shorter or longer on average, can players squeeze a game or two on launch / cofee break or you need to dedicate bit more time to play a game?
Yeah it's about 10-15 minutes. Depending on the classes and card pulls the game lengths can vary quite a bit. It's a good amount of time, even when I lose I'm not as angry because it's not that double-whammy of "I lost AND spent an hour doing it." Plus I feel like the mechanics of the game and the matchmaking make it feel satisfying. Pretty rare I feel like I was just utterly decimated, and even then the game is just fun to look at and listen to... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trading Cards
Will players be able to trade cards with each other or not?
Right, we're really focusing on players building up their own collections and playing the game. If you have duplicates there's a crafting system, which allows you to break down (disenchant) what we call Expert cards and then use the subsequent Arcane Dust to craft new cards.

Expert cards are those you get from opening packs (packs are either won or purchased), or the ones you choose and get to keep if you win a game in The Forge. Basic cards are ones you earn just by playing a class, win or lose. Expert cards are denoted by a rarity jewel in the center of them. You can see both types in the screenshot here. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Formats
One thing I enjoy in all TCG is the limited format - that is to create a deck from cards you get from boosters and only those cards you open, rather than constructed decks. Will this format be in Hearthstone?
Yup, you're looking for The Forge! You "buy into" a game with packs of cards, which you could have earned by just playing others (or purchased, if you so choose), you and your opponent draft a deck with randomly presented cards, and if you win your Forge match you get to keep all the cards you chose to play with as well as some additional unopened packs. The specifics of that may change throughout testing of course, but that's the premise. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mana Progression
I think one of the main drawbacks of the MTG series is countering unlucky starts with the proper ratio of mana (which is why you have mulligan rules generally when you play) but I really like how HeartStone seems to be taking a proactive role in pushing forward mana progression.
A 10 mana game is a long game in my experience, most of mine end around turn 7 or 8. It's going to depend on the players and the hero and deck comps, of course. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Android Availability
We’re looking into the possibility of supporting additional platforms in the future, but it's not something we have any info to share on just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Future Game Modes
Similar to the WoW: TCG, is there any plan on implementing in the future possible Dungeon and/or RAID formats? Either something that pits a group of players online against a single player (with special deck/enhancements/boss) or an AI?
We're focusing on the 1v1 dueling format right now, but certainly we'll be looking into many different ways to build upon and evolve the game after release. We want to get the game into your hands as soon as possible! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Explanations in the UI
Not to keep using this example, but something similar to Duels of the Planeswalker. During a game, you can check out cards in play/in your hand/in graveyards and get a detailed description of them. You can check out each card's abilities and see what each ability does. Like, I know what Taunt does, but can we highlight something like Taunt, and it explain what it does?
If not then we probably missed something! Everything should either be self explanatory or explained within the game. You're not going to have to come to the forums and ask "rules experts" or judges how cards or mechanics work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battle.Net Integration
Does Hearthstone work with Battle.net?
It does use Battle.net, and will use your existing (BattleTag and RealID) friends lists for chatting with and challenging your friends. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Number of Cards
They're 30 card decks (minimum and maximum), and two maximum of any one card. There are over 300 cards to collect, meaning over 600 to build out a 'complete' collection if you want two of each.

Edit: Actually, you can only have one of each Legendary so slightly less than 600 total to collect, but if you include Golden cards then you're up near 1200 I suppose. Anyway... a lot of cards. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Chatting With Opponents
Will we be able to communicate with our opponents either during or post game?
You can chat with people on your friends list (RealID and BattleTag), and you can challenge them to friendly duels.

You can't chat with opponents not on your friends list met in normal matches (those found through the Play matchmaker), but we have emotes built in that allow you to use a series of predetermined taunts and remarks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Will Hearthstone have player to player trading ? Does Hearthstone have any synergy with cryptozoic TCG? loot cards for WoW?
We're looking into a few possibilities as far as Hearthstone interacting with World of Warcraft, but nothing to announce right now. (Source)

I've been playing wowtcg since Azeroth. I'm excited about hearthstone, will there be additional class heroes after beta?
We're focusing on the original 9 for now, but certainly we'll be looking to grow the game in the future. (Source)

Where are the packs going to be sold at? In game, Blizzard store?
They're purchasable within the game itself. (Source)
Any word on using our Blizzard balance?
Yup, on PC and Mac you'll be able to use Battle.Net Balance to purchase card packs.

Hey, uhm, do you have a special like, level of requirements that you need to be in the beta? With the computer specs?
We don't know yet what the minimum specs are, but rest assured the game runs on a very wide variety of hardware. (Source)

At the Forge, you have to win your duel to win the cards you would normally earn?
You keep playing until you get 20 wins or 3 losses, and each additional win rewards you with more unopened packs. (Source)