PCGamesN had a chance to speak with Dave Kosak, the Lead Mission Designer on the Hearthstone team, about the Tombs of Terror adventure.
Here are the highlights from their interview.
- Adventure content being released after a set launch makes a big difference since players get time to enjoy the new meta.
- The team had become very confident with creating bosses in this type of game mode.
- Bosses are self-balancing. Those that are too difficult are prevented from being encountered early in a run / the adventure as a whole.
- The Plague Lords being defeated over multiple runs is to make the adventure accessible to all skill levels.
- Plagues Lords as a concept didn't change much, but they did a lot of tinkering with them.
Deckbuilding
- Dual-class choices were paired up thematically.
- They worked on Elise (Druid + Priest) first because they didn't know how much deckbuilding potential there was.
- Zephrys's Lamp exists because highlander-style decks aren't as much fun to play but still allowed for inclusion of [Hearthstone Card (Zephyrs the Great) Not Found].
- There is an Easter Egg associated with the lamp. "I'd suggest taking that treasure often"
- They were surprised at how much players loved Bob. "I suspect we'll see more of him"
Card Bundles
- Most loot chests have cards that are more likely to show (like [Hearthstone Card (Pogo Hopper) Not Found] whenever Reno finds a Mech-themed loot chest.
- A Card Draw-themed loot chest will always contain a Bloodmage Thalnos, Power Word: Shield, or Azure Drake whenever Elise finds one.
- Picking a particular type of loot makes that loot more likely to show up in future choices.
- You should see different types of loot from run to run to give more choices.
Quote From Dave Kosak Bartender Bob is back as Bazaar Bob, do you think he’s a staple for the foreseeable future?
We were completely surprised at how much that character resonated with players. Going into the tavern is a really fun gameplay moment and it allows you to do some crazy things to the deck you’re building, so I suspect we’ll see more of Bob. He’s got a couple tricks up his sleeve in the Tombs of Terror: players can get a VIP membership to his tavern, giving them even more minions and deck-altering options. Also, there’s a new ‘Hearthstone’ treasure that allows you to escape from a fight you’re losing, return to the tavern to adjust your deck, and then try the fight again. It’s great to use against the Plague Lords!
Comments
The apprentice for Reno (play 6 secrets) is neigh impossible to get active. Team 5 should revise it to be more playable without the battlecry.
Having 300 hp bosses was the lamest idea ever. It is so annoying to go through all other 7 bosses again just to reach the final boss and have another chance again. Such a waste of time and it feels like a chore.
Just One shot them 4Head
Nothing he said makes sense. Some of his sentences contradicts the sentences he said previously.
Also, seeing they won’t do anything about horrendous minion buckets, lack of synergy and broken 3rd plague lord is really sad.
This has been my favorite dungeon so far... I love the progression system (the treasures/hero powers bring an RPG element to the game as well as allowing you to try some silly/ridiculously overpowered combinations). I also like I can resume a very long battle at any time and, if I get screwed by RNG (as I did last night... never trust Yogg-Saron), I also know the next time I step to the Plague Lord it will be an easy win.
BTW, Jythiros of Questions is my favorite enemy ever... what a fun mechanic!
Yea that hearthstone card in the dungeon run is nice, until you have one of the bosses play an Unseen Saboteur right before the plague lord, and add the fact that the game was in the bag too, the boss was gonna die next turn. That was not fun for me...
I think it's good to shake it up, quite fine with the big health pool, next adventure it might be some other sort of twist, thats cool
Re: Bob, I strongly advise those who haven't to pick up the VIP card treasure when it's offered. I only picked it up out of curiosity in one of my runs, but subsequently was given the option to replace my deck with one of Bob's decks. The deck it gave me was absolutely obscene in terms of power. I won't spoil it for those who'd prefer to discover it in-game - but we're talking 'killing a plague lord from 300 health to 0 on turn 5' levels of power.
I have had the VIP ticket multiple times now and I'm still to see Bob's deck as an option. I know it exists but either I am being very unlucky or it's quite rare for it to show up.
hmm, so far I had the VIP membership once and managed to get the Bob's deck too
at first I thought the deck wasn't that great but I managed to easily win the run
wonder how many different decks there are that Bob can give, weird that we haven't seen anything datamined for this
The two that I keep hearing about seem to be pogohoppers and quest rewards/other powerful tokens. Haven’t seen any other ones mentioned though
I got a Mage one, similar to what Khadgar was playing (last Dalaran Heist boss) but much more broken :D
right, yeah I had the pogohopper one :)
would love to get the other one, maybe will get it in one of the heroic runs
I prefer the higher difficulty over giant health pool, because the wittling down of the final boss makes the 7 easier ones feel like a chore
I much prefer the 300 health bosses. If you get a great deck, you can defeat them in one go. But if your deck isn't so great, you can at least achieve something. In one case, I knew my deck wasn't good enough to have a chance at winning, but I could still stall long enough to deal over 100 damage, so the run didn't feel like a failure.
These bosses are also designed for long fights: while it is still possible to get overwhelmed by an opponent with a strong start, it's far less likely than it was in for example the Monster Hunt.
I would have liked an option to reset progress. Other than that, it is good as is.
The difficulty gap between heroic and normal is way too small now.
I think another thing we should have in mind is the persistent single player run! Without it, I would never be in favor of 300 HP bosses, but now you can just play 10 min of the fight, stop in the middle and log in back to finish it latter if you need it.
Except when you have done the same boss 2 times, only to lose when it's at 1 health, making you waste another 30+ minutes to get to it (and this is on normal). Definitely not going to bother doing heroic and go through that again for just a card back.
Keep in mind that if you died to the final boss when it had 1 health remaining in the previous dungeons, you would still have to redo everything, except you would have no progress against the final boss when you reached them again. While I haven't played every chapter yet, I really like the Plague Lord mechanic; I also think it (along with all of the treasures) encourages replay, which is what you want as a developer.