Mar 4 Hotfixes, Level 100 Neutral Pandaren, Hearthstone at GDC, Blue Tweets, NerfNow

Changes to Vanilla Sets, PTR Legendary Buff Off, Fire or Ice DH

Hearthstone UI Design, Mobile Start Screens, Deck Spotlight: Spark's Deadly Tactics

Closed Beta Test Friend Invites Incoming, Upcoming Mount Changes

Patch 6.1 Hotfixes - March 4
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Darkmoon Faire
  • Tonk Challenge
    • Players are no longer able to destroy other players' Tonk Targets.
    • Increased the number of Tonk Targets spawned at the start of a Tonk Challenge session to 9 (up from 7). This should make the Ace Tonk Commander achievement more obtainable.

Classes

Raids and Dungeons
  • Blackrock Foundry
    • The Blast Furnace
      • Phase 1: Security Guard's Defense ability now reduces damage taken by most allies by 90% (down from 99%).
  • Grimrail Depot
    • Skylord Tovra: Fixed an issue where Rakun may not placing pools of Diffused Energy correctly while flying overhead.
  • Legacy
    • Icecrown Citadel: Players should now be able to change between Normal and Heroic difficulty after defeating Valithria Dreamwalker.

Pet Battle
  • Battle Pet Abilities
    • Sandstorm should now correctly reduce damage dealt to all pets.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a graphical issue that could occur by using Reflecting Prism on a character that's transformed and riding a mount.
  • Fixed an error in calculating the shortest flight path from Ironforge to the Isle of Quel'Danas.

Doubleagent - Level 100 Neutral Pandaren
Doubleagent has finally hit level 100!



Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Character / Items
6.1 and Monk transmog set from the salvage yard is still broken. Gloves and shoulders can't be used for transmog. Frustrating.
This is the intended functionality for those items as they are "invisible". (WarcraftDevs)

Seriously, , why change the way the coffee and mining picks worked? Now I'm getting 0 picks, have coffee coming out of my ears
You can obtain a permanent mining speed bonus from a treasure in Spires, and the coffee buff now stacks! (WarcraftDevs)

Can't use my Chauffeured Chopper on my brand new Panda Monk the tool tip says "you are not the right faction for this mount"
Mounts (code-wise) don't support a non-faction, and these mounts are also visually faction-specific. Unlikely to be changed. (WarcraftDevs)

PvP
why make it so wins in the main event in ashran don't give conquest? alliance can't win side events so now it's impossible
The two factions were avoiding each other in Ashran. We are altering rewards to encourage competition. (WarcraftDevs)
how about making a continent wide buff to encourage PvP in ashran
thanks we're on it (holinka)

Please make a post and explain your intentions in hunter/feral buffs in an pvp environment.The burst is just crazy.
We're monitoring how recent damage increases are affecting PvP and we'll make any adjustments accordingly. (WarcraftDevs)

GDC 2015 - How Blizzard's Warcraft Brought Hearthstone to Life
Gamespot has a nice video of the talk Blizzard gave about creating the Hearthstone UI. Some of the highlights are below:

Early Concepts
  • The initial game that got approved was Warcraft Legends, with a build called Fire and Ice.
  • One concept had players traveling across the world doing single player quests and content.
  • The game was initially created entirely in Flash.
  • The pre-alpha board was complicated and looked boring.
  • Other ideas that came up were an Adventure Book, 3D Cards, Hologram Cards, a board that was a tree stump
  • The initial matchmaking screen had an over the top hero selection animation with sound effects, hero voice emotes, and ending with a "Fight" sound.
  • The next itteration had a box that opened to a map of the world. You then selected your hero, the map ripped in half to reveal a Google Earth like video of Azeorth, zooming in while showing names of players battling. Once your match was found, both player names were displayed and the somewhat familiar Hearthstone board appeared.
  • The box still exists in a more polished form in the live game. Treys and keys are used in the UI to go along with the box theme.
  • The box had to sit somewhere, so the team decided it was sitting on a table in a tavern, which you can see in different loading and other screens.
  • The same idea was fully realized for Blizzcon, with a very nice Hearthstone tavern stage set.

Physical UI
  • The UI started with a flat parchment style UI, then they decided it should be more 3D. Next they made it more physical, added magic, added some charm, and then made it feel valuable and constructed.
  • The current trend is building flat UIs, which didn't fit Hearthstone. The team went for a more physical UI, as it fit the game better.
  • The physical UI made things like keys, card backs, and card packs feel more valuable.
  • Opening a pack of cards is an important part of the experience. The team tried to replicate the physical experience of opening a card pack with the game's sounds and visuals.
  • Many parts of the UI bounce or rotate, giving them a more physical feel.
  • The physical UI worked out well when the team decided to bring the game to mobile devices. The UI already had a lot of nice elements for touch, such as the cards tilting when you moved them around and clicking the board causing dust to fly up.
  • The game has a lot of over the shoulder appeal, which is important for a collectable card game. Someone walking by and seeing you play it will be interested.
  • The physical UI is hard to expand. Currently the screen has nine hero slots, but how can it be rearranged for more.
  • It took a long time and a lot of tries to get the UI right, but it was important because that is a huge part of the game.
  • The physical UI also is designed for flavor over efficiency, to a certain extent.

UI Importance
  • Some games come up with mechanics and gameplay and then treat the UI as an afterthought. The Hearthstone team realized that the UI design was as important as the game design.
  • If the UI was too complicated, it was a signal to design that things may be too complicated.
  • The board could only fit 7 minions as designed, so rather than scaling them down the team capped it at 7.
  • Decks were initially 60 cards, with the list on the right scrolling down over three pages. It was too much for new players to keep in their head.
  • An older concept allowed for chains, where your opponent could play a card, you could play a card in response to that card, and so on. This was a mess visually and complicated to design and play, so it was removed.
  • The team starts with a feature by some simple wireframing, then iterates on it in 2D until it feels right, and then brings in 3D to make sure it will work.

Q&A
  • There are no plans to allow modification of Hearthstone like addons allow in WoW.
  • There is a UI group that meets and the other teams are taking note of how the physical UI worked well.
  • No effects are sacrificed for the mobile versions of Hearthstone, they just optimize them so performance is acceptable.
  • Hearthstone on phones is pretty far along and looks awesome, so expect to hear more in the next couple of months.
  • The need for more deck slots is a known issue that is under discussion.



NerfNow #1503 - Token
NerfNow #1503 takes a look at the impact of the WoW Token.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Mar 4 Hotfixes, Level 100 Neutral Pandaren, Hearthstone at GDC, Blue Tweets, NerfNow started by chaud View original post
Published on 2015-03-05 06:54 AM
39 Comments
Comments 39 Comments
  1. Candy Cough's Avatar
    c00l, glad im not playing that hearthstone tournament looks fun though
  1. Sin Cara's Avatar
    Looks really fun
  1. Aeula's Avatar
    Conga rats, Doubleagent!
  1. Koloss's Avatar
    How and why does Doubleagent has so many WoTLK 5man HC boss kills?

    It's so hard to tell what he has done since this x-realms stuff, but i see only pet battles wotlk heroics and gather prof stuff. I don't know how much of these is actually this character's progress.
  1. mmocc0da7240b2's Avatar
    I'd really like to know how he got those. He still doesn't seem to have a faction? How can he do HCs and raids?
  1. avolation's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Janin View Post
    I'm confused how he seems to have stages of the Pepe achievement. Wouldn't that mean he has a Garrison? And wouldn't that mean he has managed to get to Draenor? Are these possible whilst neutral?

    I'd guess the WoLK boss kills give good exp, since I can't work out what is available when neutral if no quests are acceptable?
    He is still on the pandaren starting turtle mining and picking herbs to level. He hasn't rdf'd or left the turtle to go out into draenor. Those achievements are from other toons on his account showing on his stream. If you look at yours it works the same way. Account achievements show up on all of your toons stream.
  1. Korru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by avolation View Post
    He is still on the pandaren starting turtle mining and picking herbs to level. He hasn't rdf'd or left the turtle to go out into draenor. Those achievements are from other toons on his account showing on his stream. If you look at yours it works the same way. Account achievements show up on all of your toons stream.
    Also look at the gear he has, he still has L10-15 greens. If he did dungeons, he would have dungeon gear on.
  1. Plast's Avatar
    When you look at doubleagent's achievement, it says he earned the lvl 100 achiement in 2014?
  1. mmoc650e753a1c's Avatar
    ''Please make a post and explain your intentions in hunter/feral buffs in an pvp environment.The burst is just crazy.
    We're monitoring how recent damage increases are affecting PvP and we'll make any adjustments accordingly.''

    A conceited,mongoloid answer as always.
  1. VanishO2's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by avolation View Post
    He is still on the pandaren starting turtle mining and picking herbs to level. He hasn't rdf'd or left the turtle to go out into draenor. Those achievements are from other toons on his account showing on his stream. If you look at yours it works the same way. Account achievements show up on all of your toons stream.
    How he did that with only 75 herb/39 mining? I know that now we can pick our heirlooms from a screen instead of a mail (and maybe armory is bugged and do not show that he has the 2/2 version that goes to 100), wich helps since we can't get mail until we choose a faction and leaves the place (and armory shows that he got all those heirlooms last week, only one week with it to help do the job???)...

    But how did he get to 100 with gray mobs, 75herb/39mining? Do we have pet battles there (can't remember)???
  1. pouca's Avatar
    He probably leveled mining and herbing to max, then forget it, then leveled again, etc.
  1. mmoc837e89e126's Avatar
    Congratulations, Doubleagent. Really disappointed about some people instead of congratulating him, their first reaction was to question the guy.

    To those guys, please go to wowpedia or something, read about how account wide achievement works. Some of these questions here are just embarrassing.
  1. Zabatakis's Avatar
    Either you can still get xp from herbs that are grey to you (and thus do not grant skill ups) or he just keeps unlearning herb/mining everytime they go grey to him.
  1. avolation's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by VanishO2 View Post
    How he did that with only 75 herb/39 mining? I know that now we can pick our heirlooms from a screen instead of a mail (and maybe armory is bugged and do not show that he has the 2/2 version that goes to 100), wich helps since we can't get mail until we choose a faction and leaves the place (and armory shows that he got all those heirlooms last week, only one week with it to help do the job???)...

    But how did he get to 100 with gray mobs, 75herb/39mining? Do we have pet battles there (can't remember)???
    Mining and herbing (with 75/39) give EXP ALL the way up to 100. It's just damn slow, and he only has the nodes on the turtle to pick from. That's why this is such an achievement. I'm assuming the herbing is 39 because he probably has to drop it and relearn it every time he maxes it out to keep the nodes from turning green/grey and giving less EXP.
  1. Jasper Kazai's Avatar
    I do think it's stupid that the Monk/Hunter salvage gear can't be transmogged to (at least the shoulders), but the people complaining about it are amusing. It is not "transmog-only" gear as they are claiming. The gear actually has stats and is 610. Yeah, it's not good gear, but it is usable. Regardless, Blizzard just needs to give us the ability to toggle the appearance of shoulders/gloves/boots already.

    Kind of can't believe someone is actually complaining about the coffee/pick change. It is an amazing change and I love it. They items stacked to 5 before, and now you can have up to 20. They also had a 2 min CD, which made it a pain to stack coffee buffs. It was also buggy - the coffee effect stacked on 2 of my characters, but did not on the rest for whatever reason. Now it stacks on everyone with no issue. And now the treasure pick effect stacks and gives practically instant-cast mining, which is great. I regret that I deleted it on my main like 2 days into the expansion. I've tried to go item restore it from the site, but it was too long ago. At least I still have it on one of my alts.
    Also, I wonder if that person who has "coffee up to their ears" knows that the coffee effect stacks. Because by using 3 each day I find myself barely maintaining enough coffee for the next day. But if I was only using 1, then I would have a surplus too. They probably aren't taking advantage of the super buff.
  1. Dastreus's Avatar
    How did... how is it possible to get to 100 on the island? ..Dungeon que??
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dastreus View Post
    How did... how is it possible to get to 100 on the island? ..Dungeon que??
    Gathering professions.
  1. Tripax's Avatar
    I just wonder how many times Doubleagent listened this through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doFnCzUxLU8
  1. thebdc's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jasper Kazai View Post
    I do think it's stupid that the Monk/Hunter salvage gear can't be transmogged to (at least the shoulders), but the people complaining about it are amusing. It is not "transmog-only" gear as they are claiming.
    The primary purpose of the sets is transmogging. They look like the sets from the character creation screen, which are otherwise unobtainable (for most classes). And they weren't 610 in the beginning, but only 483. So yeah, introducting transmog sets that can't be used for transmog is rather stupid (even though I understand the reasoning).
  1. pankind's Avatar
    That Holinka tweet, he just doesn't give a shit anymore. Also, he's still picking out the worst tweets to reply to, purposely, to make himself look like he's dealing with unreasonable people.
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