RNG okay lets break it up for dummies, RANDOM GENERATED thats what RNG means, if you RANDOM GENERATE a card for using hero power, guess what, you just added RNG
Actually RNG stands from random number generator and means that if you do the same thing you can get a different result (did you really think people took the N out of the middle of random? )
What is being suggested happens exactly the same every single time, so has 0 RNG as the reward is the same every time, there is literally 0 randomness.
You do not use your hero power te same amount of times each game, Even though you know what you will get it still got randomly generated by using your hero power, if the essence has no impact on the game play but only gives you a red nose or a high hat for your portrait yes sure there is no rng involved but if it can impact the game in any way indeed RNG has been added
I don’t think it is a fair trade though. If you take a normal deck that is not hero-power-oriented, let’s say shaman, hero power really almost doesn’t do anything. And decks nowadays have such good card draws (even shaman has e.g. multicaster) that saving resources is not that big of a deal, but spending 2 mana on almost nothing is a big deal and feels terrible, at least for me.
Indeed, hero powers were intended as a “fair-trade” in some sense, but my argument is that now when cards got in general much more powerful, the trade is no longer fair.
Not buffing those hero-power-oriented decks is a good point, but maybe it could be implemented later, when these are not in standard anymore… Also, it could be done in a way that wouldn’t really buff them. Say hunter would get cards that interact with essences that are mostly minions (no face damage) and the card for (say) 4 essences (if there was such a card, it could be something else, it is not at the core of my idea) would be some big beast. Then face hunter wouldn’t really care about essences.
What I don’t like about quest decks is that the reward is extremely powerful and the whole deck is based around that (and other decks don’t play the quest at all). I would aim with this at the opposite: just something that every deck could use, some would use it more often, some less, but it wouldn’t be so powerful that the whole deck could be built around that. It would be something for every deck to add new interesting mechanics and add some interesting decision making regarding using hero powers (instead of them being used just if there is nothing else to do). What do you think, could it be made like this, much different than the quest decks that you mentioned?
This would have to be a completely cosmetic thing, otherwise it would be way more complicated than it should be.
That being said, hero powers themselves are not supposed to be super powerful anyway. The advantage they give you is that you have an infinite amount of uses for it, giving you opportunity to make more choices. Aggro decks might not make much use of it till they start running out of cards (And in Warlock that’s just a way to refill your hand). Control might make heavier use of it to not float mana and still gain some benefits, like with Warrior. Combo decks can use em to enable their schtick, like clearing a taunt minion or summoning a thing.
So, long story short, I wouldn’t call hero powers weak, even in the wake of power creep. Especially when cards that are made to synergize with/improve your hero power (Wildfire, Kurtrus Hero Card, Gonk The Raptor, Eysor…)
When you say something like that, I get certain cards in my mind like Zilliax. And Zilliax was (And still is) very powerful and saw a ton of play in most decks as a result. That’d be difficult to do in a way that doesn’t feel cheap where you lose because the guy pressed a button for X number of turns in a row.
Furthermore, those kinds of cards that don’t need the extra effect from these essences would feel obligated to make use of them anyway, resulting in this strange dilemma where you feel bad for playing such a card when you know if you could wait an extra turn for that extra essence for it to kick in or being unable to get that essence without leaving yourself open to an enemy lethal.
I’m curious about the concept, but it would need to be prototyped before I could give a solid opinion on it. Right now my thoughts are mixed on it.
Personally I already find them interesting in when to use them as weaving them in where appropriate can be game deciding. It can be annoying if your playing an aggressive deck on the very few occasions you miss but that part of playing an aggro deck.
I’ve died enough to Totem Shaman over the years to know that they can definitely make use of their HP, I mean it’s the only HP that’s ever been nerfed (removing the spell damage one)
I think it fundamentally closes design space as it prevents you printing any cards that interact with a classes hero power or it’s effect. So no/extremely weak Priest effects from healing, warrior from armour etc.