The new signature cards that launched with March of the Lich King haven't quite hit the mark for players and Blizzard says they haven't lived up to their hopes. Celestalon posted a topic on the official forums to talk about signature cards, their future goals
Here's a quick recap of their goals:
- They want signature cards to celebrate the art.
- These cards should feel like a bonus, a pure upside to owning.
Celestalon went on to talk about changes coming for the next round of signature cards, due to arrive with the next card set in April next year:
- Each expansion will have a different tone to their card art. Next expansion's will be bright, vibrant, and colorful.
- They are exploring ways to move the name banner away from the middle of the art.
- They will be thinning the border of next expansion's cards both on board and in-hand.
- Future cards will be animated like golden cards.
Finally, compensation is coming if you effectively missed out on a legendary card due to signature cards. These are the scenarios that will grant you one random March of the Lich King legendary card:
- If you own Signature Lor'themar Theron.
- If you own Signature Grand Magister Rommath and the Lich King Tavern Pass.
Compensation will be provided to players on the week of December 20, with the same date being the date that determines eligibility of the free random legendary cards. You can read Celestalon's full post down below.
Quote From Celestalon On the Hearthstone team, we’re always looking for ways that we can surprise and delight our players. That means taking risks, trying new things, and iterating if things don’t go as planned.
It’s safe to say that the reception to Signature cards hasn’t lived up to our hopes. We wanted to take a moment to respond to all the great feedback you’ve been giving us about them and tell you a bit about our plans for them.
First, our goals for Signature cards. We want to celebrate the art, putting it front and center, focusing on appealing, exciting, high-quality, and unique full art. We want them to be special items that you want to collect. And we want them to feel great to get; it should feel like a bonus, pure upside.
Your feedback has been clear: we haven’t hit those goals. We’re taking that feedback to heart and are already planning significant changes for our next round of Signature cards.
Many people have shared how Hearthstone’s colorful art is one of their favorite aspects of the game and the “icy sepia” tone we chose worked against that. Each expansion will feature a different approach to Signature card art, and we’re already planning for the next expansion’s Signature cards to be bright, vibrant, and colorful.
You’ve also told us that you love the idea of full art cards, but that the name banner across the middle fights against that. We hear you and are exploring potential options to get the name banner out of the way for the next expansion’s Signatures.
We’re also thinning out the card frame itself for next expansion’s Signature cards, both in hand and on the board, to make more room for the art, and reduce confusion about whether the on-board frame has some gameplay impact.
Finally, you’ve told us that they haven’t felt like a pure bonus in all cases. While a bit confusing (and we’re looking into ways to make things clearer), the new reroll system has worked well to make Signatures a pure bonus in most cases. But there have been a few edge cases where that system hasn’t protected you from missing out on something, and we’re going to provide compensation for those affected, while we iterate on the systems involved for the future.
If you own Signature Lor’themar, you effectively missed out on a Legendary card, so we’ll be giving you 1 random Legendary card from March of the Lich King.
If you own both Signature Grand Magister Rommath and the March of the Lich King Tavern Pass, you effectively missed out on a Legendary card, so we’ll be giving you 1 random Legendary card from March of the Lich King.
Eligibility will be based on the above criteria as of December 20th at 10am PDT. Eligible players will be granted this compensation at login, later that week.
Thanks for all the great feedback on Signature Cards, and all the passion and excitement you’ve shown for Hearthstone and March of the Lich King!
Quote From Celestalon Are the cards going to have animations? They can have the same ones as golden cards (if that's even possible, I wouldn't even care).
Yes, they will have golden-style animations.
Comments
Huh. I'm not sure I'm glad to hear that they'll be animated and colorful. The still, black-and-white Signatures are delightfully campy. They're specific to an expansion's flavor like no other card type is.
I hope that the next expansion's Signatures will be similarly unique, at least. How many ways are there to modify card art? How would you set apart Signatures for Goblins and Gnomes, for instance? Naxxramas cards would obviously be poisonous, green, oozing, but GvG... A mechanical border? A different perspective on the assumedly-smaller characters? Oodles of animated sparks?
Nice to know I will get a free legendary. I got Signature Grand Magister Rommath when opening packs and I have the paid rewards track.
Did this compensation actually happen? I did not receive any random legendary yet despite being eligible.
I received mine about 4 weeks ago, but I am unsure exactly when.
Ok, thanks!
Weird that I seem to have missed this boat. Sucks to be me I guess.
You can always contact Blizzard about it. Not sure if you will get results, but it wont cost anything to try.
Yeah, I just created a new support ticket for this. I had contacted them in the past and got mixed feelings/results. It strongly depends on which Game Master picks up your ticket.
Future signature cards will apparently also be animated.
Yes, they will have golden-style animations.
Thanks for that, updating our post!