Ben Brode on Classic, Formats, F2P Legend, and Asks a Community Question

Ben Brode on Classic, Formats, F2P Legend, and Asks a Community Question

Earlier today, we posted an article which brought to attention Ben Brode's comments on possibly rotating cards from the Classic set into the Wild format. He has since come out to address concerns some players have with it and to open up the conversation. We feel it's important to highlight, from Ben:

  • Classic is the most powerful set in the game.
  • Nerfs to a few Classic cards still keeps the "evergreen" set stable.
  • The Classic set introduces players to the game and lays down generic Warcraft flavor.
  • Standard is designed more for players who like to see a fresh meta whereas Wild will change less often.
  • Charge was nerfed due to the Grimy Goons mechanic being added in Gadgetzan.
  • New players should continue to be able to reach legend after the changes as F2P players are still able to reach Legend after all the 2016 nerfs.
  • Not every card in the game is targeted for competitive play.

 Ben Asks: Do you prefer some evergreen cards to be nerfed, rotated to wild, or kept in Standard even if it results in a staler meta?

Quote from Ben Brode
Our intention is to keep Basic and Classic evergreen. This does have severe disadvantages if cards from Classic end up making Standard fail at its goal of being fresh each year. It's feedback we've been hearing since the introduction of Standard: 'This isn't enough - we will eventually end up in a stale Standard without additional changes.' And we've always said that we didn't consider our work here 'done'. If Standard is at risk for becoming stale thanks to the evergreen sets, we'll consider additional nerfs. This isn't the first time we've said this, and we said it even before Standard launched. We've reiterated it over the past year: http://www.pcgamesn.com/hearthstone/hearthstone-standard-2017-nerfs

Assuming both avenues resulted in full dust refunds of the affected cards, would people prefer:

  • Nerfs
  • Rotation to Wild (like Old Murk Eye)
  • Staler Meta in Standard

Please leave the Classic Legendaries Alone
I should add this is a general question about all Classic cards and not specifically about Legendaries. We're not sure which cards would be the right ones to target, if any, just yet. (Source)

Quote from Ben Brode
Just create a Core Set finally.
We have a core set - it's called Classic. Is there something you're pitching that Classic isn't doing for us? (Source)

The entire point of classic was to have a stable base set on top of the basic set.
There are close to 400 cards in Basic and Classic. Nerfing a few of them, or moving them to Wild, still keeps a stable evergreen set. Also, that isn't the entire point of Classic. It introduces players to the game at a slightly lower complexity level. It lays a baseline for generic Warcraft flavor (Hogger, Mukla, etc). (Source)

Now you are admitting that retaining classic was a mistake, and instead of rotating it out. We are just going change cards and bend it to where it is no longer a complete set by rotating out random cards and... what!? Just rotate Classic out!
We believe there are real benefits to an evergreen basic and classic set. What we are talking about is very similar to the 12 nerfs we made when Standard launched, to help it succeed in its goals. Standard needs to be fresh each year. (Source)

Blizzard doesn't like that F2P players are using classic/basic cards all the time and when making their decks so they want to nerf those cards to oblivion in order to force them to spend money/gold on adventures/expansions pack.
That's just not true. Some players like it when Hearthstone has a fresh meta, where you can explore new deck types. It's one of two reasons we introduced the Standard Format (the other was making sure new players wouldn't have to collect every card ever made to be competitive). Wild is going to change a lot less often. Some players like that too. But we have a commitment to keep Standard fresh and ever-changing. We've been hearing a lot of feedback that Classic and Basic as they currently stand are a real threat to that. (Source)

And then when F2P players finally found a way to reach Rank 1 with a cheap OTK Warrior deck, they decide to nerf Charge while saying "omg guiz u have no idea how gud dis iz!!!11".
I see you took the time to look up my exact quote! :) We nerfed Charge (the spell) because we knew the upcoming Grimy Goons mechanic in combination with Enraged Worgen and Charge was not really fair or fun. There have always been F2P players at Legend, and there have continued to be since that change. (Source)

Almost all cards that get nerfed (or "changed" as Blizzard likes to put it) never gets played again.
Maybe you're intentionally exaggerating, but you can count 'em and it's not "almost all". And not every card is targeted at competitive play. We do intentionally make bad cards. Here's a video, if you're curious about some of the reasons why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ioY1KO79A (Source)

love how you're trying to put out the fire created by greed :) it's not working to well though, why not just be honest & tell everyone you are rotating out good core cards because you want new players to pay up or be 100% irrelevant? :) why lie about it? "fresh"? gimmi a break.
We did this in 2016 when we nerfed 12 classic cards and it made a huge difference in how much the meta was able to change with the release of Old Gods (instead of just continuing to be Druid Combo). New players were able to reach legend without spending money after that change, and I expect that will be continue to be true if we change a few more cards in 2017. (Source)

I don't understand why can't they just buff cards? What is so drastically different that they can nerf cards but they can never buff anything?
If you're curious about some of the challenges and other thoughts about buffing bad cards, I made a video a while back about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ioY1KO79A

RIP any good cards in classic.
Classic is by far the most powerful set. Nerfing 12 cards in 2016 didn't change that. A few more in 2017 probably won't either. (Source)

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