Hearthstone upcoming changes
As Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft marches slowly towards its open beta stage and eventual release, further tuning is taking place. Community Manager Aratil has posted today on the Hearthstone forums about the full set of changes, and you can see that post after the break. Several outlying cards have been altered to ensure that they are not problematic, including the much beloved reviled Priest Mind Control.
What's more, there's been a cap of 100 added for gold earned via Play mode. The cap does not apply to gold earned via Arena, Questing or Achievements, but from simply winning in Play mode. Aratil asserts that this is to "combat certain methods of gold acquisition that violate our Terms of Service", implying that there could have been some exploitation taking place, potentially win-trading or similar. Hopefully they will work out a way to combat that without capping gold, as it seems like players should be able to grind out more than 100 via Play mode per day, if they wish to.
Hit the break for the full changes.
The amount of gold gained by winning games in Play mode per day will be capped at 100 in the upcoming patch. This cap does not affect gold gained through Quests, Arena, or Achievements. There will be an indication within the game when this gold cap is reached. This cap is intended to combat certain methods of gold acquisition that violate our Terms of Service. The spirit of fair play is extremely important to us, and we will continue to monitor gold acquisition activity closely to ensure a fun and enjoyable game environment for everyone.
In regards to card balance, there are a few cards we've noticed that have sprung up that warrant some tuning, and we'll be making these changes in the next patch. Our goal is to change as few cards as possible over the course of time, but we felt the need to address these six cards in particular. The cards are: Shattered Sun Cleric, Flame Imp and Argent Commander. These cards will be adjusted along with the other cards we mentioned at BlizzCon: Mind Control, Starving Buzzard and Unleash the Hounds.
Shattered Sun Cleric is now a 3/2 (was a 3/3)
Argent Commander is now a 4/2 (was a 4/3)
Flame Imp's Battlecry now deals 3 damage (up from 2)
Mind Control's mana cost is now 10 (up from 8)
Starving Buzzard is now a 2/1 (was a 2/2)
Unleash the Hounds has been reworked and now reads: "(4) For each enemy minion, summon a 1/1 Hound with Charge".
We hope these changes will increase your versatility and creativity in making card choices for your decks, and helps to make Hearthstone a more fun game for all to enjoy.
These cards are quite good for their cost, and they currently feel to be slightly above the curve in power compared to cards of a similar cost and type. Players end up choosing these cards for their deck much more often than other cards at the same mana cost. We want to increase the variety of cards being played at 3 and 6 mana.
Warlocks have a very strong early game, and this small change to Flame Imp should help a small amount. There are other cards that help the Warlock maintain early board advantage, and we're keeping a close eye on those as time goes on.
Mind Control has some pretty accurate flavor text ... perhaps a little too accurate. Raising the mana cost will allow players to have a couple more turns to play with their big minions.
At some ranks, Hunter was a bit strong versus Druids, Mages and Rogues. This change to Starving Buzzard will help even the playing field against those classes in particular.
The old version of Unleash the Hounds was allowing for Hunters to win in a single turn, starting with no minions on the board. The new version adds some fun, new card combos to Hunters and helps with their ability to AoE.
