Hearthstone

[Dantski]

No, you don't want to shake up the metagame every month, because they you confuse your playerbase

Hearthstone is being played as an esport so it shouldn't cater to people who play a few times a week over their core players who login every day. Casual players add fairly meaningless numbers for the marketing team to brag about when they say our game has X million players, they have no impact on how the game is played for the most part and aren't tremendously important.

100% right! I bow to your superior knowledge.

You're welcome

[uberfish]

Blizzard's approach to the "no one plays this card because it's too weak" is apparently to create cards like Unstable Portal and Nefarian so that everything will see play rarely. however this approach also means that there have to be some crap minions so the likes of Portal and Piloted Shredder don't become OP.

[Azoth]

I can see the appeal of regular card changes to keep the game fresh, and I'm hoping the new brawl mode will address that. I don't expect any really interesting challenges in the first few weeks - they'll probably just have premade decks because, again, they're catering to the casual gamer. That doesn't mean it can't be fun (think 30 Webspinners vs. 30 Unstable Portals) but the mode has the potential to become something great. Think about it: a new variant every week, built into the game itself! This also avoids the possible pitfalls of a League of Legends-type system, where you have to dump your decks every month to adapt to the new meta brought in by the latest patch. (Note: I don't actually play League; I'm just going by what I've learned about it on this site.)

Buffing the power level of basic cards is a somewhat separate issue. The strongest argument for it, I think, is that it would help new players get into the game. It must be pretty brutal to hit Rank 20 right now, and get steamrolled by opponents with much larger card pools. That said, the point of the Dalaran Mage/Soot Spewer example is to show that Blizzard might not have much room to maneuver. Class cards are supposed to be better than neutral cards; in some cases, they are strictly better:

• Voidwalker is a strictly better Goldshire Footman.
  
• Druid of the Flame is a strictly better Magma Rager.
  
• Druid of the Claw is a strictly better Fen Creeper.
  
• Cruel Taskmaster is, in most cases, a better Ironforge Rifleman.
  
• Dark Iron Skulker is, in most cases, a better Stormpike Commando.
  

If Dalaran Mage was a 2/4 minion (and it was, at one point, but Blizzard decided it was overused by Druids, Rogues, and Priests) then Soot Spewer would have to have Spider Tank-like stats - but Spider Tank is supposed to be the top-tier neutral 3-drop. As it is, Soot Spewer is marginally viable in mech and tempo Mage decks, but the real reason it isn't popular is because spell power isn't particularly valuable in Mage, which already has high damage spells. There's still room to innovate in this space (Flamewaker is Soot Spewer 2.0) but there might not be if Dalaran Mage has a higher baseline.

Of course, some cards can be buffed with very little downside. There's no reason Ironforge Rifleman can't be a 2/3, or Stormpike Commando a 5/2. They still wouldn't be run. With 30 cards in a deck, and ~600 cards in total, many cards will be completely unplayable. So that's the issue. You can buff weak cards so that they're slightly-less-weak but still unplayable. Or you can buff them to be competitive: and either limit future design space, or invite rampant power creep.

[flugauto]

If they fix the weak cards, they still can make new cards with new text. Like anti-spell-damage text (your opponent's spells deal 1 less damage), or anti-minion-damage text (your opponent's minions deal 1 less damage). They can invent new text until the end of time.

[Cheater Hater]

If they fix the weak cards, they still can make new cards with new text. Like anti-spell-damage text (your opponent's spells deal 1 less damage), or anti-minion-damage text (your opponent's minions deal 1 less damage). They can invent new text until the end of time.

Yes, but then the game gets too complex (especially if they refuse to rotate cards) and you lose the casual appeal.

In addition, it may seem like there's a lot of design space remaining (and there is, even if you're just copying stuff from other games), but it is finite.

[Azoth]

In theory, design space is limited only by your imagination. In practice, you don't want to introduce more than a handful of new mechanics per expansion. GvG brought Mechs, Spare Parts, random deathrattle summons, anti-spell troggs, and dumb ogres. Blackrock fleshed out Dragons, and introduced cost reduction on minion deaths. They can keep adding new tribes and mechanics - even new hero classes - but not too many at once.

[Cheater Hater]

In theory, design space is limited only by your imagination. In practice, you don't want to introduce more than a handful of new mechanics per expansion. GvG brought Mechs, Spare Parts, random deathrattle summons, anti-spell troggs, and dumb ogres. Blackrock fleshed out Dragons, and introduced cost reduction on minion deaths. They can keep adding new tribes and mechanics - even new hero classes - but not too many at once.

Yes, in theory--but they won't even introduce new deck slots because it would be too complicated for new players

[uberfish]

the new tavern brawl is epic, although very random - I'd rather see development effort spent here than on tweaking old cards

on the topic of old cards, Spellpower is actually a particularly interesting example as the gold standard had already been set in the original set by the dual-effect Thalnos and Azure Drake which are still played competitively to this day. I don't think Dalaran Mage would be played at 2/4 in the current environment.

[Sian]

on Ragnaros vs Nafarian.

Its all down to a question if the Ragnaros Player can drag out the game or if Nafarian can rush down Ragnaros quick enough (getting lucky enough on the spells gained to make worth).

If first Ragnaros get to 10mana he starts getting a serious upper hand due to a superior hero power (due to consistency of ability instead of randomizing spells which could be pyroblast, could be conceal)

[Kuro]

Gotta say, having played Nef vs. Rag Tavern Brawl some, I am very fond of it! The fundamentals of fast vs. slow are well defined, playing many of the hilariously OP cards is a blast and just plain playing as the two is fun. 5-0 so far!

EDIT: And my streak ends at 8-1.