Hearthstone Journey to the Sunken City Interview – let's dive into the new expansion!
– Reviews News
"Road to the Sunken City" is coming! In recent days, Activision Blizzard Team 5 announced what will be the first expansion of 2022 for Foyer and we at Eurogamer were invited to chat with Ben Lee and Nathan Lyons-Smith, respectively Game Director and Executive Producer of the popular collectible card video game.
Obviously, the sunken city that can be seen in the trailer is Zin-Azshari, the birthplace of the Naga, ancient night elves who were corrupted by the ancient god N'Zoth and made them his servants. . Certainly a unique and intriguing place, which evokes in many ways the crater of UnaGoro, one of the most successful extensions of Hearthstone.
This block will also contain 135 new cards that will enrich our collection and yesterday the main novelties were presented, namely the Colossi, legendary creatures so gigantic that they cannot be contained in a single card. But there will also be a new mechanic, Dredge, and a new type of tribal minions, which of course will be the Naga.
Let's start with the Colossi. When summoned, played, or placed on the board, minions with the Colossus keyword will summon one or more appendages that give them special stats, even if the Colossus is not summoned from the hand.
Take the legendary druid, Tartaqua, for example: the massive sea turtle will summon its shell as an appendage, an additional minion that will render the beast immune to spells and attacks while present on the field. Instead, Xhilag of the Abyss, the Demon Hunter Legendary Demon, will summon four appendages which, at the end of the turn, will deal damage to a random enemy. But that's not all! At the start of the next turn, Xhilag will increase the damage dealt by his tentacles by one! These are cards with a high cost but with a certain impact and not too easy to completely remove from the game.
Let's move on to dredge instead, minions and spells with this new ability will allow us to look at the last three cards of our deck and choose one to put on it, ideal for searching for that card that was hiding in the maze of the deck. our deck and it goes perfectly with a series of cards from this expansion that will add cards to the bottom of our deck.
As for the new minions, the Naga, they will give us bonuses when we play spells while we still have this type of minion in hand. From classic "revive", one of the game's evergreen mechanics, to dealing damage across the board, each class will have its representative of this new race and in addition we will also have several neutral ones. It will be interesting to find out what other types of bonuses we can receive and what synergies will emerge.
During the long interview with Lee and Lyons-Smith, we covered many topics and Road to the Submerged City that was just the starting point. Indeed, we had some information on the new base set which arrives with the New Year of Hearthstone, on certain cards which will make their return, on the meta and on the choices made by the developers to continue both the rise towards Ranked and into Battle Mode. So let's see the highlights.
Ben Lee and Nathan Lyons-Smith, Hearthstone Game Director and Executive Producer.
During the presentation trailer of the new extension we could notice the presence of Ser Pinnus, one of the members of the League of Explorers and we also know that he will be present as a legendary servant. The developers have hinted that other members of the League of Explorers (Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Reno Jackson) may return in some form later this year.
All Naga minions already present in the game will be tagged with the new race (like Zola the Gorgon) and their presence will not only be limited to this expansion, but we may see more in the future.
Talking about the new mechanic of Dredging, the developers explained that they are always very careful with cards that have the effect of manipulating the deck, from drawing to destroying cards, because these are very powerful effects that must be dosed with precision. . Cards that are not picked with the dredge mechanic will remain at the bottom of the deck and will not be randomly shuffled.
The developers would like to update the Hearthstone tutorial and make it faster to allow new players to start playing more immediately, as is the case with Battle. They'll also always have an eye out for new players: last year both free and paid full games were introduced, allowing many to start competing without having a lot of cards in their collection anyway. Similar initiatives are also planned for this year, starting with the new base set cards which will be completely free.
Three legendary neutrals with unique and very interesting effects.
Currently, the game's core player base is made up of plenty of experienced players, who aren't intimidated by slightly more complex mechanics than in the past. The developers believe that while the game is a little more complex, it is also deeper and therefore interesting at the same time.
Currently there are no plans to make solo games playable offline, while in terms of the meta with the arrival of the new expansion the meta will change radically, both for the release of the standard format of some very strong cards , only for the new cards that will be presented. However, the developers intend to slightly slow down the pace of the game, which is why they introduced the Colossi.
They also added that the way you play Hearthstone has changed a lot in recent years: if before it was mainly a PC game, nowadays Hearthstone is played largely on mobile devices, which is also why decks aggro are a favorite, making games faster and more usable for this group of gamers who likely play flash games during study or work breaks, or just in their spare time.
They are very happy with the composition of the new core set: there will be cards that will return while some will remain. They didn't want to overdo it with the revolutions so as not to create a feeling of alienation among the players, but they are happy with the diversity that these cards will bring.
The new dredging mechanic, which is particularly versatile.
The developers have said they are very happy with the crossover with Diablo and although they have not made any statement about it at this time, they will continue to keep in mind the possibility of using characters from other Blizzard games for special events. In general, however, they will continue to be inspired by World of Warcraft: for example, the second and third expansion of 2022 will be very linked to Blizzard's MMO.
Talking about the Battle armor system, they explained that Hearthstone and Battle players are really many, but only 1% of them are really experienced. For this reason, they implemented armor points in battle, to incentivize less experienced heroes to use those more complex or less strong heroes, who otherwise wouldn't see the game.
Still on the subject of Battle, there are no plans to implement the customization of games and the lobby, because it would only be used by too small a part of the players. There are also no plans to change the "currency" of Hearthstone, which will therefore remain a magic.
It was also planned that the three expansions of 2022 would not be linked to each other from a plot point of view: if on the one hand telling a story spread over three expansions creates a lot of interest, on the other hand it creates many limitations in what to follow a consistent ideal line thus limiting creative choices. Having three disconnected extensions allows for more space, which makes everything more fun; both choices are still valid, so the possibility of seeing large plots in the future is not ruled out.
Granchiatoa, the Colossus of the Rogue class, in all its… 'chelosness'!
The hardest part of designing a new set is finding the new mechanics, because they don't always work as they should or don't fit perfectly into the game context. Some are dropped and then taken over and improved afterwards. For example, Colossal Creatures were supposed to be included in the Rise of Dragons expansion, but were later discarded because they couldn't make them work the way they wanted.
For Ben Lee, the most interesting card in Route to the Sunken City is the Swordmaster Okani because of the unique effect it has, that of negating a spell or, for the first time in the game, a creature: it is a legend already available to all players and has been included in many decks. Nathan Lyons-Smith, meanwhile, is very happy to see his old favorite archetype, the Mech Mage, back with the introduction of several themed maps (even the Magician's Colossus is a Robot).
For this first expansion of the year, they didn't want to push too hard on the complexity of the cards, but during 2022 we will see exponential growth: the developers want to try to explore new ideas and break the mold of the game , broaden one's horizons.
The development team wants each class to have its own distinctive traits, strengths, and weaknesses, but at the same time, each class is fun. for this, for example, many ways of drawing cards or generating them have been introduced. At the same time, I'm of the opinion that while the card return mechanics lead to interesting situations, they know not to be abused so as not to frustrate players. Finally, during 2022, the Totem cards for the Shaman class will also return.
Naga warriors, strongly linked to magic, are the new race that will be introduced in the game.
In short, almost ten years have passed since its launch, but Hearthstone is always able to renew itself and surprise. With what results, in this case, we will tell you when we review Rotta verso la Città Submerged.
SOURCE: Reviews News
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