Hearthstone designer: Only by making the game you want to make can you succeed

The success of Hearthstone once again proves that small teams are more likely to succeed, but for PC and iPad platforms, there don’t seem to be many successful free digital card games. However, due to the attractiveness of the gameplay and game quality, Hearthstone has also brought a very big impact on the gaming industry. At the beginning of this month, Blizzard Entertainment also released the second expansion pack for this mobile game, Goblins vs. Dwarves, adding 143 new cards and making major changes to the game card images.

[[124908]]

Recently, game designers Ben Brode and Mike Donais from Blizzard were interviewed about the new expansion and the success of Hearthstone. They revealed that Hearthstone was the game they wanted to make the most, which is why it was so successful. The following is the interview transcript:

The origin of the idea of ​​the new expansion

How did the idea for the Goblins vs. Gnomes expansion come about?

Ben Brode: We really like the image of goblins and gnomes. Eric Dodds, the game director of Hearthstone, was actually the first game planner of the World of Warcraft project. He made a great contribution to the trading skills, designed trading skills, and created excellent items such as goblins and gnomes.

We were all sitting in the conference room, writing down our ideas on whiteboards, and we were constantly working on different ideas. There were a lot of good ideas, and then someone came up with the idea of ​​Goblins vs. Dwarves. I wrote it down and asked Dodds for his opinion, and he was very happy with it, and then our discussion ended, and we decided to do this expansion pack.

Our team is very happy and excited to explore the Goblin Shredder cards and other interesting features, and to expand our IP. We have done a lot of features, such as Snowchugger and Annoy-o-Tron, and we can explore them in more depth with this expansion.

Considering the fact that this expansion is coming so close to World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, was there any pressure to do this expansion for Hearthstone?

Brode: Overall, we feel really motivated, Blizzard is a really great place to work, and I think it's really nice that we have the creative freedom to try out really cool things on the Hearthstone team. The whole company has high expectations for our team, and I really don't feel any pressure or anything like that. We really like the Warlords theme, so it's fun to work on that kind of stuff, but I don't feel pressure, and most of the time I feel really excited about the company.

Mike Donais: We just want to make some interesting content, and the company is very supportive of us doing so. They trust us completely.

Is it scary to release so many new cards at once, since you can't predict exactly what effect they'll have on the game?

Donais: I can only say that we are more excited than scared. It is very exciting to bring so much new content to the game, so we have launched a lot of new cards. There may be such concerns at the beginning, but as we progress in development, we know exactly what direction the game will go in. There are many unknowns about how players will use these cards, but we hope they will like them.

Tips for creating new cards

How do you create cards? Do you create characters first and then add gameplay, or do you think of the gameplay first and then design the characters to suit it?

Brode: We actually do both. With the premise of Goblin vs. Gnomes, we usually make a list of things we want to do. We want Goblin Shredder, we want Goblin Engineer and Gnome Engineer, we want Madder Bomber, and we think about how to implement these ideas through cards.

However, we also consider making very good gameplay for "Goblins vs. Gnomes". Sometimes we will make the gameplay first and consider the interaction between the cards and the gameplay. Spare Parts is a very good idea, so we made some cards that can interact in this way, so we used both methods.

We also think about what tools we need to give players counter-actions to make the gameplay more controllable. If Death Rattle is too powerful, we want to have cards that can counter it to prevent players from getting bored.

It seems like this is intended to address the death fear issue that was introduced in the Curse of Naxxramas expansion, right?

Brode: Yes, we want players to have more strategies to implement. If you are tired of Kezan Mystic or Hemet Nesingwary, you can change your strategy by adding some tools.

The advantage of releasing a lot of cards seems to be that it brings more balance to the game, is that your goal?

Brode: Yes, it is very important to choose the right cards in your pack for the battle.

Impact of random features on gameplay

It seems that in this expansion pack, you introduced material cards that will play different functions based on specific things, which seems unlikely to be achieved in a regular card game.

Donais: We really like to do things that you can't do in traditional card games. This keeps our game fresh and keeps players interested because they can see things they haven't seen before. We started by trying it with Webspinner, and players seemed to like it very much, so we added more of this feature in the second expansion. This is beneficial to us, and it's also very interesting to watch the players' videos. It has achieved better results than we expected.

It seems that many cards have random factors, and the probability of these cards performing a certain action is 55-50. Is this method still popular among players?

Brode: We saw some concerns at the beginning, because it's easy to think that randomness will affect the players' skills. Every time you use a random attribute card, you think the probability is lower, so the probability of winning will be higher. So this requires players to consider the random factor while using their skills. But in fact, this is not the case in the game. Some games do not require players to have high skills even if there is no randomness, but some games can still allow players to use their skills even if a lot of random factors are added, just like poker or Hearthstone. These are not contradictory. You can have both. After adding the probability factor to the game, players need to consider more.

I think in theory, some players would worry about the randomness of certain cards, but now after experiencing them they find that the impact on them is very small. Sometimes increasing the probability can greatly improve the playability of the game. Now we find that players like this feature very much.

Since release (and the release of the game as a whole), what cards have been the most controversial among players? Are there any cards that are particularly unpopular with players?

Brode: In general, every time we release a completely new gameplay, players have nothing to compare it to. Cards like Bolvar Fordragon are very unique in design, and they get stronger as the game progresses, but they can still use them. No other card can do that, but players often worry that the card is not powerful enough. After the game comes out, players start to find out why this card is so good. New cards open up new areas, and it's fun to see players discuss the quality of a card, and then they can try their own play style after they get their hands on it.

Have you paid attention to any competitors? Have you paid attention to other digital card games?

Brode: We love card games very much. We play them almost all the time. That's why we wanted to make Hearthstone. We are always paying attention to card games, mobile games, PC and other types of games.

The inspiration that Hearthstone's success gives to Blizzard

What do you think Blizzard can learn from Hearthstone's success?

Donais: We learned how to expand to other platforms, which Blizzard had never done before. We also found that it didn't necessarily take hundreds of people to develop a game, and it didn't have to be like World of Warcraft. The initial team of Hearthstone was only 15 people or less, and by the time of the beta test, our team had only 15 people, which was amazing, and the game was also very successful, with rich and interesting gameplay.

Can we say that you have brought new vitality to Blizzard? For example, your Hearthstone has been successful, you have also announced new IPs such as Overwatch, and launched the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Blizzard should be very busy now?

Brode: Personally, I've always felt really good working at Blizzard. I've been at the company for a long time and I'm really excited about making great games. I've loved some of the games that were released and played them myself, and for me, Hearthstone is especially exciting and my favorite project I've worked on at Blizzard so far.

Can you name a favorite card and explain why?

Donais: It's hard to say which one I like, I like a lot of cards, but if I had to pick one, I'd say Recombobulator, it turns a minion into another minion of the same quality, when it's damaged you can transform it and it feels like you have a new card, it's always a surprise, you can do a lot of nice combos, a lot of surprises, it makes the game experience more interesting.

Brode: My favorite card is the Quartermaster. Paladins can command legions, Luther is the Sliver Hand commander, and you can bring all of these in and hopefully they can all become Paladins. With Muster for Battle and Quartermaster, it's a much better experience.

Only by making the games you want to make can you succeed

Here's a hypothetical question. If you had the opportunity to make a card game that is not based on a Blizzard IP, what kind of card collection game would you most like to make?

Brode: Hearthstone was the game we wanted to make. We probably tried hundreds of ideas in the early stages of the game. We did heroes and hero battles, and we didn't have legions, and we tried a lot of other things, but I think Hearthstone was the one we tried the most. One of the funniest parts about announcing and launching Hearthstone was that I actually went home and played it because I loved it so much. I didn't think there was a better idea for us to do than Hearthstone, so we made Hearthstone so successful.

What's the next content update? Are you planning to release new cards for the expansion or make a new expansion? Or both?

Brode: What we're trying to do right now is to stay nimble as a team. New cards and expansions are very different ways to update content, and we're listening to a lot of community feedback. We still have a lot to learn about the frequency of content updates, and we need to know what frequency is best for Hearthstone. I'm not sure what the specific approach will be in the future. It may be one, a combination of the two, or a new approach. But at this point, the feedback on our first expansion has been very good, and we're now waiting for player feedback on the second expansion. I don't have a 100% answer to the future updates of the game, but we're very excited about the opportunities in the future.