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Checksthesky

Throughout each cycle of design and development, cards always come up that need to be redesigned. I’m not talking about adding a keyword or changing some numbers, but blowing up the card and trying again. How do you know when a card needs a redesign? I like to say that we have to listen to what the card is telling us. Here are ten examples, by no means an exhaustive list.

“I’m too long!”

We do not make cards shorter just to make them shorter. But if what we are trying to achieve with a card has to be lengthy, we have to ask ourselves if the effect is worth it. Sometimes it is, like with Seal Fate. We also have to allow for certain classes (Rogue especially – poisons, finishing moves, etc) to be a little longer. Rogue’s cards are about 3 words longer on average in Worldbreaker than Druids, for example.

“I’m confusing!”

When the geniuses here have a hard time figuring out how a card works or how a designer wants it to work, that’s a clue. If we can’t clean it up, we blow it up.

“I’m powerful in a stupid way!”

We don’t just nerf every powerful card we find. Good development is both nerfing and juicing the right cards. But if a card is powerful in some way we don’t like, and we can’t address it easily, we RD it.

“I stink!”

The natural counterpoint to the last exclamation, we also don’t juice cards that stink every time. But if the card truly stinks  and is a pillar of the set, or of a higher rarity, we aren’t happy about that. If a card is very narrow, but in a specific build it’s pretty fun, we are OK with that. It’s when a card has really no application, in limited or constructed, that we pull the trigger.

“I have heavy hands!”

We want players to discover synergies in the game – it’s what the game is about. We also want players’ cards to work for them. What we don’t want is cards that read something like, ‘When this ally is destroyed, draw a card. Discard a card >>> Destroy this ally.’ That’s what we call heavy-handed. Or sometimes “Heavy Hands the Hamfisted.”

“I’m not thematic!”

We are lucky to have an amazing and popular property to represent with WoW TCG. While we certainly try not to handcuff ourselves by simulating the video game, we try to make sure that our MMO cards, especially our allies, make sense thematically.

“I don’t belong here!”

There are times when a card doesn’t make sense in a set, and we will either cut it entirely or move it to a new set. Deuce and Holy Guardian are great examples. We had Deuce’s textbox on a Pet in Wrathgate, and then decided it would make a sweet talent, so we moved it to Icecrown. Holy Guardian was in Icecrown, and then we swapped it to make more sense in Wrath Gate.

“No one plays with me!”

We have a lot of different types of players in R&D. If no one is interested in a card, it’s another clue. That isn’t to say that if no one in R&D likes it, we don‘t make it. But, it gets me thinking.

A similar issue is, “Everyone plays with me!” As the Head Designer, I look very carefully at a card that appeals to everyone to make sure it’s attractive for the right reasons.

“I’m just like what’s-his-face!”

We have made over four thousand cards. And for the most part, they all need to fill their own unique space. We don’t mind as much if a set 15 ally looks like a set 1 ally, or if two allies are similar but different factions. We also don’t mind if new versions of cards look like their predecessors – indeed, we encourage it (Thrall, Magni, etc). But we don’t want cards that are not thematically linked to be mechanical doppelgängers.

“The fun part of me is overshadowed by something else!”

A designer’s saddest moment can be when the appeal of a card is not in the ‘spirit’ of the design.  Hesriana is a great example of this. Setting aside the developmental issues on this mistake of a card, we settled in the last month on wanting her to steal powers, which in theory, is really fun. She has 30 entries in her card history, which means she changed something 30 times. Some of that is templating and naming (her name was briefly Nazrida). She was at one point able to RFG an ally and steal its powers by paying 2 at the end of her turn, or multiple times for 2 each time. Then for a while, you could pay 1 when she entered play to RFG an ally and steal its power (she was a 3 / 4 for 3). We played her like that for a couple of weeks; then she got juiced. We just weren’t happy with how cleanly she was reading at first glance and pulled the trigger. Now she is just a spell with some stats. Part of that is development, and part of that is design. Do I wish I had that moment back? Damn right. Have we learned from that process? Better believe it.

Well, there you go. There are tons of other things cards might tell us – “I’m not the right rarity!”, “I don’t stack very well!”, “I’m not intuitive in any way!”, “The play pattern I encourage is obnoxious!” or “I make the game miserable for everyone!” Our goal with every card is to listen to what it tells us and develop it until it says, like Goldilocks, “I’m just right!” That’s right. That’s how I ended my blog.