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 BrodeOur 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-nerfsAssuming 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 BrodeJust 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=f1ioY1KO79ARIP 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)
I remember when I started playing Hearthstone how some very unique decks such as freeze mage, miracle rogue and handlock seemed super cool and I thought that in the future we would see more cool cards that create new mechanics and archtypes that challenge these special archtypes. Instead the longer Hearthstone has been going on, the more the very unique cards such as Molten Giant or Warsong Commander have gotten nerfed and at the same time, devs have started to fear adding in unique kinds of diverse and archtype defining cards. If you compare the legendary and epic cards of the past few expansions to the classic set ones, you note how the classic set cards were far more archtype defining and unique than the newer one (how many legendaries from WotG even see any play outside the old gods themselves).
I have some thoughts how the Hearthstone could be improved and I would love to hear your feedback to my ideas (let's try to have some constructive discussion):
I really like the suggested idea of banning some cards from standard instead of just moving the entire sets into the wild. These banned cards could return when they were no longer feared to be problematic for the meta. This way it wouldn't feel like your whole expansion and adventure card collections gets flushed down to the wild at some point.
Also I don't get why at the start of the new "Hearthstone Year" so many expansions and adventures need to rotate out at once while we get just one expansion in at the same time. This means the meta will always be at its peak diversity from December to April and outside that, meta will suffer from the lack of diversity because of the lack of the cards. I would propose that when a new expansion hits, a single, old expansion rotates out (same with the adventures). This would keep the meta far more diverse the whole time
In addition I would like to see more multi-class cards in the game. Currently the issue is the cards are either class specific or available to all classes, which means the cards need to be below average, so that they dont create broken mechanics for one class, while remaining just average to another classes. (We have past examples about this like pre-nerfed Undertaker, Dreadsteed or Animated Armor). I think this "class or neutral card" limitation prevents the meta from becoming more diverse than it could be. (compare this to MTG where you could create very diverse decks by combining specific lands).
Lastly I would like if Hearthstone had more balance patches that would contain reasonable nerfs to the cards without crushing them into the oblivion. At the same time the patches could also buff some absolutely useless cards so that the new, power creep cards wouldn't take space from the possible, game affecting cards (for example Pompous Trespian, Ice Rager, Evil Heckler did nothing to the game except limit the space for the new cards that could have made the meta more diverse). In addition these patches could add new cards in to the game that would adjust the current meta if some specific archtype became too dominant. Currently we need to wait for months to see if a new expansion fixes the meta, which is ridiculous, since Hearthstone is a digital game, where immediate balancing can and should be done.
I agree. Nowadays when blizzard wants to push an archetype, they tries to do it just by giving it more STATS. For few examples in this set,
Shadow Sensei: STATS
Storm Guardian from White Eyes: STATS,
Drakonid Operative: crazy STATS for its effect,
Kabal Talonpriest: give STATS,
Small-Time Buccaneer STATS,
Patches the Pirate free STATS,
Luckydo Buccaneer: STATS
along with rest of new paladin hand buff cards.
I feel like there could be more interesting and more dynamic game effect rather than only board-centric stat curvestone.
Wow. So the master plan is to nerf classic cards every time Blizzard feels the meta is getting stale? Over time this will gradually transform the classic set into trash that only new players use.
I'd probably be OK with nerfing overused classic cards if they buffed an equal number of unused cards in exchange. But of course theyve said they won't ever buff cards for some goofy reason.
In the end it feels like a scheme to gradually phase out evergreen and put more competitive emphasis on cards that you have to rebuy every year. Kinda feels like a money making scheme.
Try harder Blizzard, this is pretty weak.
"Classic is by far the most powerful set."
*laughs into a coughing fit*
The fact that he believes the base set is entirely balanced is a huge red flag. Some classes are good but there are others that have completely unplayable base set cards. That is NOT how you create game balance at all.
Everybody will be happy when they don't see the cards they hate. Everybody will be upset when they cannot play their beloved cards and decks. Hmm, let me think! What to do, what to do...
Always the same questions, always the same comments, I don't even know what I expected :/
So do we have any idea about what cards will be rotating out?
If I had to guess it'd be cards that end up seeing near ubiquitous play like Azure Drake.
RIP Hearthstone. At least for me. I've spent like 3 years into this game, but i don't care. What's the point of collecting cards, if all the cards get rotated out into trash mode "every year (plus a few months)". >95% of the players are casuals, yet, Blizzard acts like this is a pure esports game (which is not even the case, look at the old and outdatet ranked system which they still use since the release of the game).
When Blizzard announced standard mode, people were already raging about the loss of the cards. Blizzard knows, taking away all the cards at once, will make people mad again, so they will take away the cards in a longer period of time. Like the mafia, that borrows you some money and rips you off with high rates afterwards.
Blizzard doesn't care at all about the game. Before standard, they promised to be more active in the forums and to have ongoing balancing. What happened? They just hopped in once, nerfed 12 cards and they expect to have a perfect meta? Lol.. these kind of games need ongoing balance changes.
Look at Elder Scrolls Legends, when i played it some months ago, those guys worked hard to keep the game fresh by releasing some additonal cards every couple of weeks into the game, constant balance changes etc. ...
sry for bad englando
they didnt remove the cards? they are in wild? however, if you played since day1.. that means you should be a WILD player not a standard player because you are not new?
If you enjoy Dr.boom.. click wild and play? there are people there and gets legend in wild every month.. if that's what you want. THEY DIDNT REMOVE THE CARDS... they moved them into wild.
No, there were no broken cards like boom, scientist, shredder, mysterious challenger during the beta. The game was acutally fun back than. Wild is just a graveyard for cards, which blizzard refuses to balance, because balancing cards means that they have to spend time on cards they already sold. Blizzard rather wants to sell some randomly computer generated cards every 3-4 months and cash in the money.
I would be totally fine with wild and the rotation system, if blizzard would mind to balance cards.. but they don't. This is, why wild is and will be just another fun mode like tavern brawl is.
Personally I would prefer rotating cards out of standard( like gadgetzan auctioneer for example), instead of nerfing them to death( like molten giant).
Of course, I think they should rework the core set ( for example, warrior has great cards and priest... well, he just sucks, dragon priest is ok( though it's never was top tier), but on the whole it's just a lost of dragon cards plus heal ability, not so much left from the priest itself). Also it would be really nice if they would buff cards( come on, what's the point of cards that are NEVER used even in arena? To show that there are also bad cards? Are you serious? I may agree if we talk about something like majordomo, but just 2/2 for 2 mana? I guess, it's also supposed to be "fun" card.
Unfortunately, I realize that they wouldn't do something like that. So, I think Blizzard have to rotate some classic cards, but not to nerf them. Also they have to nerf some expansion/adventure cards( patches/buccaneer are great example), instead of just waiting them to rotate( like dr.7/shredder)
Men, ¿there is no one here that think about the wild players? ¿they doesn't mater? If a card is over power NERF IT, if you kill the card ir the card whas bad un the begining BUFF IT, and make the game balance, don't just mover cards into wild and pretend that the problem doesn't exist.
For me the issue is that classic set has some cards with too much synergy with each other. And it makes sense as you launched the game without expansions.
Nowadays not really, especially since they already butchered many classic cards synergy. Charge and Warsong is just the tip of the Iceberg, Hunter basically got reworked to garbage as a class in the classic set.
What they need to do is not Nerf, but a rework on the Classic set so that it is there just to SUPPORT cards from the expansions. Instead of making most rogue cards cheap combo spell that can make Miracle a thing forever change some cards so they have more synergy with stealth, pirates and weapons but not enough to make a whole deck out of it. Then you can always have decks with anything from 5 to 12 cards from the classic but the CORE CARDS for the deck all from the expansions.
When you make it like they did with mage that has AoE, draw, minions, value, tempo, combo and sustain all in the core set, it gets really hard to not play Freeze Mage. (ok, tempo might actually be the one thing that it's lacking from the core set, still...)
Oh, and another thing.
They want to help new players. I'm sorry but Standard helping new players is a fallacy, especially if the game follows this trend of nerfing Classic cards.
Right now new players enter the game and already need to start playing catch up. By the time they get a good collection for any set they are already behind in a couple of them OR they tried to get cards for everything and when they do it's already rotating out.
There was a way to work around this getting classic cards first as they won't rotate out and only when you have the gold and skill to invest heavily on acquiring an expansion set you set out to it efficiently.
Now if classic cards will be kept below the powercurve or at the very least decks based around them will be weak or not work at all then we got a problem. The game will be more pay to win than ever as the best cards are ALWAYS from the expansions and only those paying money, or that have been around for a loooong time, can get them by day one.
Right now Heartstone's environment looks very unsustainable, I must say...
The question of changing/rotating out cards really depends on what is ment by that. I don't want to see cards like azure drake or twilight drake gone. The same for some staple legendaries. I don't mind having a base set that is always good and cards that once crafted will always be useful. At the same time there are some cards that are annoying and I wouldnt like to see them forever.
I for one don't feel like auto including Azure drake in every spell power deck from here until eternity. Its true, i do get tired of using the same classic set cards in standard. If the easiest solution is to nerf a few cards, go ahead and do it.