Ben Brode on Randomness in Hearthstone, Karazhan Set, Magma Rager Dethroning
Dylan Walker of Yahoo Esports got to chat with Ben Brode at Blizzard HQ about One Night in Karazhan and Randomness in Hearthstone. We've recapped their interview below.
Quote from Ben BrodeRandomness
- Randomness is important for Hearthstone.
- Ben believes the consistency at which players are able to stay at high levels of play shows there is a lot of skill in the game.
- There is not a scale that goes from skill to random which you need to tune, the two can coexist.
- Discover is a great example of a random effect that adds skill to the game.
- Randomness can still feel bad, especially when you've played a long game and the game is decided on a random outcome. [Sup Yogg?]
- They're still learning what feels great with randomness, what feels fun, and what feels good for top level play.
Karazhan
- They try to add cards to new sets that will inspire players to try new things. Cloaked Huntress and Barnes are great examples.
- They added in a bunch of new 1-drops into the game with Karazhan and that's nice because games can feel different starting on your first turn.
BlizzCon
- They aren't ready to share their BlizzCon plans yet.
The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
- Muster for Battle was one of the best cards for some time.
- Magma Rager was dethroned as the worst card by a card "that is the most fun" but Ben won't tell us what it is because he doesn't want to see it removed from play.
Yogg is the worst card ever released in the history of Hearthstone because his effect is basically "You know this game we've been playing for the last 10+ turns? Yeah, fuck that game, let's play bingo instead." It's the ultimate expression of luck triumphing over skill, Hearthstone's final shark-jumping.
I actually quit Hearthstone a few days ago, right after finally getting enough gold to complete the last wing of Karazhan (because the Adventures have always been the best part of the game), because fuck this game. I actively hate playing it, the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did was to grind the gold to go on one last adventure (because I'm fucked if I'm giving Blizzard any more money). I have literally over half a dozen better CCGs to spend my time on (Spellweaver, Infinity Wars, Duelyst, Chronicle: Runescape Legends, Faeria, Hex and even Star Crusade, which is literally sci-fi Hearthstone only better).
Sounds like you need a hug.
Am'gam Rager is the worst card.
Are you sure? Are you certain calling a card that's gotten a whole deck built after it, bad, is a good idea?
Surely no deck built around Am'gam Rager has ever reached high legend?
Here's the thing: The Devs have absolutely no idea what constitutes good random effects or bad random effects before they create cards that they put into the game. Discover was a great mechanic, I don't think anyone has ever had a valid issue with that mechanic because it was implemented so well. Yogg, however, has a very poor random effect for reasons pro players have already talked about and is generally anti-fun for whoever receives the bad end of it. The issue is not RNG, but how it is implemented. There is choice and skill involved in picking from Discover results, but with Yogg it's so wild and out there that it takes away player agency completely and ruins games even at the top. Yogg is the absolute worst RNG implemented in the game at the moment.
Another example of good RNG vs. bad RNG: Animal Companion, while one usually hopes for a specific result (always Huffer), never has a truly negative effect on the game for the person playing it and is generally fair. Compare that to Lightning Storm in which that RNG can be absolutely painful to watch at times and can make or break the early game against a more aggressive boardstate, as it always has been since long before Shaman became one of the best classes (due mostly to cards that will exit in Standard at the beginning of next year).
I mostly agree with you but I'd say Lightning Storm isn't the best example since it's still pretty clear of what the possible results are (and you can always manipulate those with spell damage). A better example, to me at least, would be Mad Bomber (or Madder) or Blingtron 3000
Example 1: 2 people are shooting 10 arrows to target, the winner takes 5 gold
Example 2: 2 people are shooting 10 arrows to target, winner takes 5 gold and after that 2 people are tossing a coin, winner takes 1 gold.
Example 3: 2 people are shooting 10 arrows to target, winner takes 5 gold and after that 2 people are tossing a coin, winner takes 10 gold.
In each example best archer will eventually prevail in long run and win more gold, and in each example skill matters no matter what.
BUT(!) Example 1 is the most fair type of competition if you are in search of skill, do not fool yourself dear BEN BRODE.
And what you guys did is turning hearthstone into RNGstone, which is there is no skill involved now at all.
There are no more archeries, shooting arrows, only coin flips,
thats why BEN BRODE, FUCK YOU! from deepest of my hearth, by all means, FUCK YOU AND ALL THE DEVELOPERS who are trying to fuck their customers. HS will lose its popularity and you will close servers in 3 years.
Example 4: 2 people are shooting 10 arrows to target, winner takes 5 gold and after that they toss a coin, winner takes 10 gold. Yogg-Saron, Hope's End with Ben Brode's face takes the entire pool of gold after the fact and tosses a bunch of 20-sided dice, throws the dice away, then awards the gold to a random person, laughs obnoxiously, and says it was a skilled result.
"Ben believes the consistency at which players are able to stay at high levels of play shows there is a lot of skill in the game."
IMO that's a good excuse.
I don't think it's so much an excuse. Skill can often overcome bad luck and if a person doesn't have skill they often won't be able to take advantage of their own good luck. I agree that Discover is a great mechanic because it directly invokes the players' knowledge of cards' value, the board situation, etc.
Where I think luck has been overdone is when entire games are determined by, essentially, a coin flip. Why play the game at all if the ending is completely independent of what you've done?
Im glad i clicked the link and actually watched the interview. That stained glass muriel thing is amazing.
What if the worst card is Confuse?
http://imgur.com/a/1TU4s
My last game opponent's Yogg-Saron played 3 call of the wild. So yes, randomness is so good much important...
I dont care much anymore, lotsa good card games on the rise.
Also, Wild is still there and defensive cards remain. I for one could care less about top level play. Thats the minority of players.
The card is Purify. Purify is a card so bad it forced Blizzard to introduce the arena ban format. Brode just doesn't want to say it because he would be admitting that they made the card purposefully bad and knew it was bad when they put it out. While he just about did so in his developer highlights, he has never once admitted that Blizzard knew Purify was going to be bad before putting it out.
Somebody clearly hasn't played Purify Priest yet. It's hilarious, tons of fun, and surprisingly viable.
If your only concern is ranking, then yeah, you should only be playing Tier 1 decks and never having any fun. Enjoy being Aggro Shaman scum. ;)