is as alive as a game can be, but it’s about to get a heaping dose of death. The digital card game’s next expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, comes out in August for PC and mobile.
It’ll add 135 new cards, including some that will turn Hearthstone’s classes into Death Knights, which will give them new powers.Expansions are Blizzard‘s most important tool for keeping Hearthstone popular. Each time it releases a new set of cards, it gives fans a reason to spend more money in the game (mostly on packs so that they can acquire all of those new cards). But expansions also keep the game fresh. New cards means new strategies and new decks, changing the way everyone plays Hearthstone and starting a new era of deck discovery. For many, Hearthstone is at its most fun right after a new expansion launches.
We had a chance to talk with Hearthstone’s principal game designer Mike Donais about the challenges of continuing to keep Hearthstone fresh with these big expansions. We explored the process behind creating these new Death Knight heroes, fan reactions to the last couple of sets, and more.
Image Credit: GamesBeat
GamesBeat: It seems like reception to Un’Goro was very positive. Fans didn’t have a lot to complain about. What do you think made it work so well?
Mike Donais: I think it was a lot of different things.
It had a really cool vibe to it. People love the fantasy of dinosaurs. The Elementals were a good combination with that. People recognized it. It was bright and fun and happy. All that combined together to make a nice theme, and then mechanically, one thing we did very heavily in Un’Goro was put in a lot of different build-arounds. Not just a theme for every class, but two themes in every class.People could spend a lot of time exploring those different themes. Sometimes only one of the themes played out. Sometimes two played out. That’s why you’re seeing more than nine different decks getting played. There are two decks in some classes, or even three. You see Dragon Priest, Spell Priest, Silence Priest. Same is true for Rogue. We saw Miracle Rogue, Quest Rogue, and now in the last week or so we’ve seen Jade Rogue. All those different options are really good.
Another thing we did was make a lot of the power level numbers right around the level where you want to experiment with that card. We call it 7/10 power level. That means, in the right situation, depending on what else is out there, that card is interesting to think about or experiment with. It meant, for a lot of people, playing a lot of different decks.
GamesBeat: Were any cards more popular than you anticipated? Stonehill Defender, maybe?
Donais: Stonehill Defender’s a good one. We thought it would be good in Paladin because of the obvious Tirion. We weren’t sure how good it would be in other classes, but as time goes by it’s going to get played in more classes, because it has some really cool options.
GamesBeat: On the flip side, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan didn’t have quite as warm a reception from fans. What about that expansion do you think didn’t work as well?
Donais: Hmm. Well, I think the reception for Mean Streets was pretty positive initially. I think people maybe got tired of it quicker. They figured out what to do with it and weren’t happy with exactly what to do with it. But in general, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was more positive than negative. I think people just explored all the possibilities quicker and it got a bit stale. People figured it out and then just played the same decks. Having the rotation with Un’Goro and then having a lot more viable decks for each class really helped.
Image Credit: GamesBeat
GamesBeat: With Knights of the Lich King, you can play a card and then turn your hero into a Death Knight. Does this kill the possibility of whole new classes ever coming to the game?
Donais: We’ve always said that we like the nine classes we have. We work really hard to try to give some class identity to those nine classes, and it’s tough, because nine is a lot. Adding a tenth or eleventh class isn’t something we’re interested in. It’s too hard to make class identity exist when there are that many different classes. So yeah, we’re not excited about the idea of making new classes.
GamesBeat: How long has the team been thinking about a Lich King expansion?
Donais: A Lich King expansion is something we’ve kicked around since even before launch. Everybody loves the Lich King and Icecrown and that fantasy. Warcraft III had an awesome campaign there with a great story. Ever since then, it’s been a great idea to do it eventually. But I think doing some — showing what Hearthstone is about, showing that it’s more fun and relaxed and funny and warm and inviting was important. We’ve established that over the years. Now we can break away from that and do something where everyone dies instead. People realize that’s not Hearthstone’s identity, that it’s an exception to the rule. That really helps us.
GamesBeat: Everybody’s dying, which sounds dark, but it could also be kind of funny in a way. Should we really expect something that’s completely dark and serious in tone?
Donais: It’ll still be Hearthstone-ified. We’ll be true to the Death Knight fantasy, making these pretty dark heroes. I don’t know if you’ve seen Anduin’s art, but he’s scary. He’s this weird shadow guy. I love his art. I think that delivers on the sort of dark fantasy of the Lich King. But there’s also going to be some cool, fun stuff. The missions especially have a cool storyline with some fun lines as you go through. As always, our flavor text is sort of relaxed and funny. I like the mix that we do. I think it’s going to go over well.
Image Credit: Blizzard
GamesBeat: The cards that turn heroes into Death Knights are legendary rarity. Is it going to be like Quest cards, where each class gets two legendary cards this expansion?
Donais: Yeah, exactly. Each class will get two legendaries, a minion, and then a hero card.
GamesBeat: With this big undead theme, was there any thought of making undead a tribe, like Elementals in the last expansion?
Donais: Yeah, we talked about that a lot. Even for Naxx we talked about doing undead as a new minion type. We decided that it’s not quite worth it. Maybe one day we’ll do that, but we don’t have any plans for it right now. It’s certainly the minion type that has come up the most often. Elementals was the other one that came up a lot. We obviously did that. We did Mechs already. So I can totally see that at some point.
GamesBeat: What are the drawbacks to making it a tribe?
Donais: I don’t think there are too many disadvantages. One of the reasons we didn’t do it is because we had just done Elementals in Un’Goro. Doing two new minion types in a row didn’t really make sense to me.
GamesBeat: What was the goal in designing new hero powers? You talked about class identity. I’m sure designing nine hero powers the first time around was already a pain. Now you have to give each class a new higher-tier one.
Donais: Yeah, it was definitely difficult. That’s what we spent the most time on. We did a lot of iteration. Rexxar changed maybe 10 different times. He did totally different things throughout. Early on, we had him summoning 5/5 zombies for each beast that died this turn. Then we changed that to be summoning all the beasts that died this game, something like a N’Zoth effect for beasts. Then we changed him again to summon three beasts from your deck. We liked those two designs because they’re kind of build-around. You want to play big beasts, but not small beasts, which is different from a lot of hunter decks.
Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
GamesBeat: With the Hunter hero power, the new build-a-beast thing, it’s a kind of late game tool. In Un’Goro, Hunters got Swamp King Dred, which is another control tool, even though Hunter is typically a faster-paced deck. Why focus on giving Hunter these kinds of powers?
Donais: One thing we’ve had a lot of success with is giving people different deck types to explore. Even if people don’t end up succeeding at creating a tier one hunter control deck with this card, it’ll be fun to try it out, see how slow or controlling a hunter deck they can build. Should they put neutral life gain or neutral taunts in, or should they just use a more aggressive board control deck? The Battlecry on Rexxar is pretty good for that. It does two damage to all enemy minions and gives…
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