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)
Please, just once, buff some of the bad classic cards instead of only nerfing the goodies...
Many classic cards have awesome characters and themes and need just a little push in stats or effects to become viable.
Wow Brode is using clips from 2 years ago as an answer.
..to questions from 2 years ago. Or more.
"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."
They'll provably only need to nerf few more cards and that's it. It's not like they'll keep nerfing cards every year until nothing is left of classic set. They just don't want every deck to run cards that are 100% auto-include. Most of those auto-include cards these days are actually basic cards.
Here's my take on this as someone who primarily plays wild!
Yes, there are people who actually play and enjoy wild...I know that for some this is a shocker but try to understand us...ok :)
I'm all for moving cards from standard to wild instead of nerfing them. The reason is extremely simple.
If you nerf a card, let's say that it is Alexstrasza, to keep the freeze mage deck out of the standard format forever, you did succeed in doing so. Good, bravo for you! However, the problem occurs when you realize that you didn't just remove the deck from standard but from wild as well, effectively removing it from the entire altogether!
Nerfing cards in standard affects wild as well!
If you, instead, simply remove Alexstrasza from standard and move the card to wild, you have still achieved your goal of removing freeze mage from the format forever, but you did not utterly kill the deck. Us who play wild can still enjoy it and, if I'm not mistaken, the point of the wild is to have a place where you can enjoy old cards and old decks.
Moving cards is without a doubt better than nerfing them.
I also play primarily wild and I completely agree. The new decks are fun but I love being able to go back to the older decks from time to time. Freeze mage, miracle rogue, it is nice to have a non-competitive game mode where we can still enjoy playing these decks from time to time. I had a fantastic old school control warrior vs. 2015 demon lock match yesterday and I would really miss a card like Jarraxus if I never saw it in wild again.
Ok we got his attention,
Ben - Leave classic set alone. do not touch it.
- Nerf the aggro pirate problem which is ruining the meta
-Move Reno to classic
= Profit
Looking at the previous Nerf-pattern, they never nerf cards when they've been out for only a month or two. They usually wait for the next set to drop to see if that will change the meta enough to push those decks out. So we might see a nerf to pirates a month or two after the next set is released. So we might have pirate-infested meta for next 5-6 months.
However if they are going to nerf cards when new standard year begins, they might also nerf problematic cards from MSoG as well but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
I wouldn't mind if at least he'd poll the general community on what the changes are and if we're in agreement. As of now, it's just him and Team 5 tunneling down rotations from their own brains not considering what others think. If i'm not wrong, there're some "Pro Players" who voice out their concerns about certain cards but they're not the general community either. I understand Standard is directed towards the competitive style of play yet not even constant legend players can voice their opinion towards future changes.
I would say nerf but considering it is Blizzard definition of nerf (kill and burry and throw in a hole and throw the hole) i don't know