Blizzard’s games all have a late game, or capped content, in its own unique way. Raiding and PvP in World of Warcraft, Rank 1 in Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone’s own card collecting concept.
Hearhtstone is a Card Collecting Game (CCG) run by lead designer Ben Brode. The game was launched after the Warcraft card game was discontinued, and has proven to be a competitor for the online card community.
Because Hearthstone is not a Trading Card Game(TCG), Blizzard has to be careful with some of the ways that they control and balance the game. The inability to trade around extra Legendry’s for something you don’t already have, or even something you want more, can be hindering to the deck building process.
With the constant stream of new cards being added to the game, Hearthstone has come to an issue known as Power Creeping. Hearthstone doesn’t have a rotation date on their cards, and because of this, they cannot properly adjust and control the meta in a way that Magic the Gathering does. Introducing a set of more powerful cost 5 card will make most of the other cost 5 cards inviable.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGc6hAr8r6c]
Hearthstone’s lead developer has come out in a video to re-assure the players of Hearthstone that as the game becomes more unapproachable by new players(having to have a more expansive library of cards before you can secure a decent deck), Blizzard is working even faster to fix the issue.
The full video is a great explanation for those of you more curious as to whats going on behinds the scenes, and how they are making it more accessible to your friends. This quote from Ben Brodes will sum up everything you need to know from the video, with all that being said. “In order to do that, we have to make exciting powerful cards. Part of the fun of a new expansion releasing is looking at your collection and trying to figure out what cool new decks you can make, and shaking up the meta.”