The new Heroes of Skyrim expansion pack adds more than 150 new cards to the already vast Elder Scrolls: Legends deck.

Already making waves in the collectable card game community, a recent expansion to The Elder Scrolls: Legends introduced the Heroes of Skyrim to the mix.



As well as a brand-new deck of over 150 cards, new mechanics familiar to Skyrim players such as shouts are sure to shake things up a bit. There will also be plenty of recognisable characters from the northern realm, and, of course, lots and lots of dragons.

Stuff caught up with Pete Hines, Bethesda's vice president of PR and Marketing to get an insider's view of The Elder Scrolls: Legends prior to the release of the Skyrim expansion.

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Give us a brief outline of your role on the project and, in particular what you've been working on in relation to The Elder Scrolls: Legends (TESL).

Bethesda's Pete Hines has been involved in the development of The Elder Scrolls: Legends from the very beginning.

PH: Well, I've been involved since the very beginning due to my involvement with The Elder Scrolls series since I arrived at Bethesda in 1999, plus my love of strategy card games.

The first thing most new players notice about the game is that, "it's a bit like Hearthstone". There's obviously an influence there and there are plenty of similarities and parallels, but quite a few points of difference too. How much inspiration did you take from Hearthstone when developing TESL?

PH: I think it's an easy comparison because they are both direct-attack games, but we find that folks that play our game fairly quickly begin to appreciate the differences. Our battlefield is divided into two lanes that add a lot more strategy to how your cards are deployed. In our game you draw the top card of your deck every time you take five points of damage and, depending on the card, you can play it during your opponent's turn, which greatly adds to the strategy of when and how you choose to attack. Our deck sizes are also larger, which means you don't always see the same cards every time you play with, or against, a deck.

It wouldn't be Skyrim without dragons, so expect a whole heap of fire-breathing fun.

How closely is the Dire Wolf team working with Bethesda in the ongoing development of the game? There are thousands of pages of lore, and hundreds of characters built up over a long period - how do you decide which parts to use and which to ignore? Are you going back and playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim etc. to look for interesting elements to bring to TESL?

PH: What areas we chose to explore is largely up to the design team at Dire Wolf Digital. They're the ones that look at all the options for theming our Sets (like Heroes of Skyrim) and Stories (like Fall of the Dark Brotherhood) and deciding what characters, creatures, locations, and lore to include into what they're doing. So far I think they've done an amazing job of creating both a really fun strategy card game, and a really great Elder Scrolls card game that pulls from all of the lore the series has to offer.

One of the most difficult parts of developing any CCG is balance. How do you work on introducing new cards that won't completely break the game and how do you decide which cards get nerfed and which get buffed?

Each game of The Elder Scrolls: Legends plays out as a battle of wits, and card collections, between two opponents.

PH: The Legends design team has a lot of very experienced strategy card game designers and players on the team. So it's largely about creating something that feels good and then playtesting the hell out of it and trying to find ways to exploit cards to avoid problems once the game goes live. The other side of that is, of course, being willing to address those issues if something comes out we didn't see in playtesting. We'd prefer not to have to change or nerf cards, but we absolutely will if we see something that is negatively affecting players or the overall meta.

The Dark Brotherhood expansion brought focus back to single player PvE and introduce a lot of new cards and strategies. How frequently do you plan on introducing these updates, and is PvE always going to be a core part of TESL?

PH: We've been very pleased at the response to the single-player part of Legends. From the initial campaign to offering a single-player version of our Arena mode, as well as Battle mode, and then releasing new single-player Stories… There's lots of content and gameplay for folks that are concerned about playing other players. I think Fall of the Dark Brotherhood is the best story/single-player content I've ever seen in a card game.

Players are able to earn packs by competing in the arena, or purchasing them for cold, hard cash.

One common gripe among the TESL community seems to be the prevalence of "netdecking" or thousands of players using deckbuilding guides to essentially end up playing the same collections of cards and strategies. Is Dire Wolf looking at ways to limit the effectiveness of so-called overpowered decks, and do you think these cookie cutter guides spoil the experience?

PH: Well, we aren't going to address netdecking. It happens in Legends, Magic, Hearthstone… You name it. Not everyone wants to try and build decks on their own and they're going to look for resources to help shortcut their way to finding good decks to play. As far as overpowered decks, right now I think we have a very healthy and diverse metagame. We're constantly looking at data for our ranked mode as well as our in-game tournaments and we see a large number of decks being played and doing well. Obviously, when Heroes of Skyrim comes out, that's going to add a lot of new cards for players to pick from. We think it'll improve some underplayed decks, change current decks, etc. So it's a constant process of evaluation and monitoring.

How do you collect and respond to feedback from the community? Are you monitoring Reddit, Twitter and social media for what people are saying about the game, or do you prefer to look at the raw data to see what's working and what isn't?

Things can get pretty explosive when you unleash some of the game's more powerful cards.

PH: All of the above. It's important to interact and hear what fans are thinking and feeling, and then evaluate that alongside of the data we are looking at. Ultimately the data tells us what is really going on in the game, how different decks fare against other decks, and so on, but you still need to know what the players are thinking, and make sure you're telling them what you're seeing and thinking. We do that with our Card of the Month releases, patch notes, and regular updates. Whenever we change a card, we make sure to explain what we're seeing, what change we're making, and what we expect the impact to be.

These kind of games have proven to be incredibly lucrative money-spinners. It's a free to play game but do you think it's something that players will need to make an investment in if they want to get the most out of it?

I think we see enough feedback from the community to prove that it's not a game that requires money to play. We have very good players that have spent little or no money and enjoy the game a lot.

Choosing your class and constructing a perfectly balanced deck is all part of the fun for many players - although there's always the option of using a preset "netdeck" if you'd rather skip straight to the action.

Streamers have been incredibly important to getting the word out and attracting new players to the game. Are you going out and actively recruiting some of the bigger names or are you letting them come to it naturally?

PH: Honestly, it's a mix of both. We support our current streamers and community members with giveaways, early access to new cards, or sharing their content through social media. We also integrated Twitch support so that both streamers and people watching streams can win prizes just for streaming or watching Legends live.

What sort of future do you see for the game in terms of esports? Will you be organising tournaments and offering big prizes etc.?

PH: It's definitely in our plans to support and grow tournament activity. Both as part of larger events as well as what we're already doing through our in-game tournament mode, Gauntlet.

Finally, give us some idea of how you like to play TESL - what sort of decks are you using and, if you had to pick a favourite card, what would it be?

PH: I play a little of everything. My preferred way to play is Arena, where you pick a colour pair and draft a deck based on random cards the game offers. Then, once you've drafted a 30-card deck, you play against other players who have who have done the same. There's even a Solo version where you can play against AI opponents that I've probably played hundreds of times. It's a constant challenge and fun way to play the game.