One of the designers behind Blizzard's hit game Hearthstone, Peter Whalen, wrote about the removal of the tantrum Keyword posted. He also explains what philosophy Blizzard follows when it comes to keywords.
Hearthstone servants continue to be angry
In order not to confuse new players with too many keywords, tantrums are removed and the effect is directly on the cards again. For example, our popular war chief Grommash Hellscream then reads: "This servant has +6 attack if he is injured."
The ability remains in the game, only the card text changes.
Whalen goes on to address the problem that the design team cannot keep adding more keywords. Then with every expansion there would be 2-3 new ones and after a short time newcomers to Hearthstone would need a dictionary to understand their cards.
Who ever came back with it after a year off Magic: The Gathering has started, we will know what we are talking about here. First and foremost, google is the order of the day: “What are the 342 new things doing?”.
Since the purpose of keywords is to make it easier and faster to understand the cards, that would not make sense. What are keywords supposed to be used for?
- Keywords can make it easier to familiarize yourself with maps. Knowing a keyword can pinpoint complex ideas and help you understand a new card faster.
- Keywords give character. They tell a story. Discovered, Recruit, Ridicule ... all of these key words bring the game to life.
- Keywords shorten the card text. This makes the cards easier to read and fits better into the frame.
- Keywords provide us with a starting point for mechanisms. This allows us to give cards effects such as “Give your servants with Ridicule + 2 / + 2. "
So it makes little sense not to expand the list endlessly. In case of tantrum In fact, there are fewer and fewer cards, as the design team was less able to create meaningful new cards with them. Just 9 cards There is currently a tantrum and 6 of them are from the basic / classic set.
The even more detailed explanation of the Hearthstone developers can be found at Blizzard blog page.
