Duelyst Forums

The Very Real Possibility of Quarterly Expansions

I feel like it’d be really awesome if they alternated sets like Shim’Zar and RotB; one set to introduce a huge number of new things, and one to nudge the game in a different direction/provide some neat tools.

Also @phyvo is right, they have stated there would be quarterly expansions, I think on their roadmap.

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Hard to say for Duelyst so far, but from my experience from Hearthstone I feel an expansion every 3 months is good. Pending on the size and nature of the expansion. Since usually first month people use the new cards because its new, second month the meta is defined or 90% of decks that are considered good are found and made by this point out of the expansion cards. While the third month the meta feels stale and a shakeup would be good. That is how I generally found the Hearthstone meta. Duelyst could be different, but by now I feel its falling into that pattern.

Think expansions that could come around only once or twice a year, could leave too big of a gap to change or shift the meta along. While every 3 months is a good amount since its predictable and allows players to prepare for each expansion. Also I agree with @maelrawn if they alternated between the sets, would be nice as well.

they stated they wanted an expansion for Q1 2017, but not necessarily quarterly, also, that is why the title is as it is. I’m very aware it’ll probably happen, i’m just interested as to what people think about it :slight_smile:

Wheres the option for 1 or 2 little expansions a year?

In fact, one of the things I loved during the last months was the addition of 4 new cards each month :slight_smile:

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Yeah duelyst really doesnt fall into that pattern .Duelyst release 4 monthly cards and off the top of my head Keeper of vale, Sunsteel, Jaxi, Nightwatcher, Bone Reaper are couple of examples.The game doesn’t really fall in pattern of getting stale like HS.Just as you are getting tired of playing then 4 new cards with a couple of them capable of changing the game for weeks can appear.

As for the topic I think 2 (or 3) expansions around rise of the bloodborn and 1 large expansion around the size of Shizmar is would be good for the year. What did we get this year

Seven Sisters(7)
Shimzar(94)
Rise of Bloodborn(39)
Monthlies(44)

That’s 184 unique cards (should be 188).Looking at that one more small event like the seven sister would have been perfect imo.This expansion proves you don’t need to be huge to have a big impact and honestly,Shimzar without the Battle pet cards was pretty much the same way.Frequently small expansions I think it is best route.

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I think RotB is the perfect size and pricing model for future expansions. It allows for the inter-expansion patches to focus on balancing the new expansions- and more importantly, improve the quality of life features of Duelyst to make the game simply function better.

This model encourages us (the community) to focus on community building. And alongside monthlies makes sure that things never change too fast, but are never stale.

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Actually monthlies should be (40) since they skipped the last two months of the year due to being overworked with the expansion.

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Thank you I couldn’t remember if they missed any other months

Wait until they start rotating cards out. That’s when everyone is going to freak. :slight_smile:

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Hopefully that never happens.

I do think quarterly is far to much, hardly gives time for a meta to settle. Twice a year plus monthly cards seems just about right.

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I have no inside information on this but I am very confident that it will happen.

If they rotate my Silithar Elder out I’m gonna riot :rage:

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It probably won’t be core cards, just expansions, following the MTG/HS model. Again, just a hunch, but you can’t keep feeding 30-100 cards into a game like this 4x per year without eventually ending up with a level of bloat that will completely scare away new players.

I have never understood that sentiment, I have never been scared away by a large card pool, it’s something I hear people say might happen, but I have never actually seen it or heard of it happening. There is a reason why Modern and EDH are quickly overtaking standard, both eternal formats in the game with the biggest pool of cards. You know what does scare people away? Rotating formats do.

For a more long winded post on the topic:

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Yes that’s why nobody plays Hearthstone any more. :slight_smile:

There’s no point debating this. It’s just a hunch of mine based on their aggressive expansion policy and it either will happen or it won’t. I just mention it so people won’t be completely surprised if it happens. I sure won’t.

Wasn’t including the 4 new cards per month as I was looking towards the expansions only, but its something that probably won’t last because of how it widens the pool of the higher rarities overall and shrinking the lower ones percentage wise. Making it percentage wise a bigger pool of legendary cards for example, per month, every time 4 new cards come out. While each new set of 4 cards doesn’t always have an effect on the game overall. But I do understand your point in that it helps, however if the expansions go the same way in terms of size and alternation, like Shim’zar and Bloodborn, then it would be following the same/similar pattern as HS with their expansions/adventures.

You are still thinking in terms of other games.Why wouldnt it last? The current expansion had 3 neutrals and added only 1 legendary to each faction.They seem aware of rarity stuff and made adjustment in the expansions.

The overall points remains the meta for HS is stuck for next couple month.Duelyst has ability with monthly releases to refresh the game with new keywords but it can also address problem cards.Yes duelyst can fall into some level of staleness but it is alot harder and they can release game changing polarizing metagame defining cards like Skorn,Original Keeper of the Vale,Original Sunsteel .

The current meta has just beginning to settle and in 8 days we should have new cards.People are complaining about Variax what if they release a good Lotheb style card? It would be hard to abuse Variax with card that makes Dark sacrifice 3 mana or your awesome bbs 6 mana.People are complaining about Magmar what if they release a Healbot? It would be hard to burst down people when undid most of damage you just did.I am saying can’t talk about meta getting stale after certain months because one card can turn game in another direction. Duelyst when they decides to release good monthly cards doesn’t follow pattern of HS pattern.

The main reason it may not last is possible it takes time and resources to continually develop and release 4 new cards each month. As far as we know the 4 cards that have been released each month could have been cards they wanted to have in from the start of the game but were unable to finish or felt that they needed changing for whatever reason so they moved them into a monthly reward system instead. As well as part of the problem of the monthly cards seems like most of them seem to get nerfed/changed (like Keeper of the vale and Jaxi which you mentioned in an earlier post) or see pretty much no play like Envybaer, Quartermaster Gauj, Ironclad, The Scientist. Which may also suggest that they are not play tested enough or trying to make too niche of a card text to be useful.

Plus there won’t be any new cards this month. One of the recent patch notes said that this month there won’t be releasing new cards but instead it be cards from the relevant rarity. So if you reach gold you get a random legendary plus the silver rank reward and so forth.

Anyway, I’m agreeing with you that releasing new cards per month helps somewhat against the game being stale, its a nice reward system, it sometimes changes the meta, it can add in useful cards and that CP are more willing to nerf cards.

However, the topic was talking about quarter expansions and I’m comparing it to Hearthstone because its arguable the most recognizable/biggest game within the same/similar genre which also has quarterly expansions that vary in size from 100+ cards to the adventures which is more like 30-40 cards. Which are similar to the 2 expansions we have got from Duelyst so far (minus the single player element of adventures). There are differences between the two games but the comparisons can be made and the likelihood that can come from that.

I think this year was really good, 1 Large expansion and a couple small ones to add some new mechanics and play styles.

The primary reason for quarterly expansions is revenue. The time being spent on adding cards could instead be spent on adding many missing and much-requested features and game modes. But you can’t charge money for those. Yes I’m sure “they are working on those” but at a slow pace because so much development is going into cards.

I am not meaning to be overly critical here, they need to earn a living. We should be realistic that unless they can get us to keep spending, this game is going away.

Actually, I think they could generate revenue by introducing more interesting game modes. Just make them have a cost like gauntlet.

Expansions shake up the meta but don’t really change the underlying fundamentals that all we have are ladder grinding and gauntlet.

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