Ben Brode on Announcements of Announcements, Gadgetzan, Nerfs, & More
Philip Kollar of Polygon sat down with Ben Brode last week to talk about the state of the game, potential nerfs, and more.
We've recapped the interview below.
Quote from Ben BrodeHearthstone
- They knew over time the game would get more complex.
- Doing things just for the sake of creating complexity isn't something Ben thinks they should do.
- When asked about smaller drops of cards, and this year's release schedule, Ben stated they have some cool ideas but aren't ready to share specifics.
- Spectator mode has room for serious improvement. Specifically, they'd like to adjust the opponent's cards so they're right-side up.
- New systems are being developed that they're excited about.
- Updates and improvements are planned to current systems.
Standard
- The reason for its creation was so that players didn't need to collect every card in order to compete.
- They're still considering whether the next rotation will change enough. Will they need to nerf or rotate cards?
- They have "cool announcements" to make about the next themed year over the next couple of months.
Gadgetzan
- There are a wide variety of classes being played.
- Some decks have overlap in the amount of cards being played which for some can feel like there is less diversity in the meta.
- Ben wishes that there was some more variety of cards being played, even in the classes themselves.
Mechanics
- Tri-class currently feels like it is best for just Gadgetzan.
- They don't want to take every mechanic and make it something they always do.
- Only mechanics which are the best and fun to see again and again should return. Discover is a good example.
Pirates
- They are starting to believe they are a problem.
- Currently, the team is evaluating whether the problem is going to get worse, better, or stay the same.
- The outcome of the evaluations will determine if a nerf will occur.
- They don't want to announce any potential nerfs too early. If they do, then players feel like they're playing with a broken game because a patch isn't anywhere near ready yet.
- If a card was going to be changed, it wouldn't be Patches the Pirate. Small-Time Buccaneer is "probably the bigger issue".
Patches the Pirate
- Originally from the Blackrock Mountain adventure.
- It was a Whelp which when a Dragon was played, it would be summoned.
- Two Patches were able to be put into your deck.
- It wasn't added in BRM because they didn't want to make any more cheap dragons.
- They tried the type of minion with Murlocs and Pirates, settling of course on Pirates.
- Cut from The Grand Tournament due to interactions with [card]One-Eyed Cheat[card]. 4/1 on turn 2 with insta-stealth.
- They think the card is fine in Wild - not too powerful.
Warcraft
- The Hearthstone and World of Warcraft teams "constantly inspire each other".
- In Warlords of Draenor, one of the WoW devs gave Rexxar of the past "Puffer", Huffer's Dad.
- People on both teams design things hoping they'll make it into the other game.
i believe what Ben is talking about is when you spectate 2 people that are on your friends list. currently the opponents cards are upside down for the spectator. this would manly see being used for tournaments so they don't have to have multiple screen captures for the players hands.
ROFL
An option to globally enable/disable emotes? Oh noes, a checkbox and several if()'s in teh source code are way too complicated.
It's not about how difficult this would be. I'm sure they could create code for this in about an hour, or whatever.
You have to think about the bigger picture. People who want to troll are going to troll. Say they add this option, everybody knows most people are going to have it enabled by default (Maybe new players won't, but sooner or later most people will tick that box). Once people catch on to that, the community will create new trolling that bypasses emotes. Maybe it's mousing over your hero over and over before lethal, maybe it's using arrows from declaring attacks for 15 seconds on your hero's face. Maybe more roping. We'll all be back here complaining that they should remove enemy visible targeting arrows or card light ups on mouse over, or whatever the new salt inducing strat is.
At least with the current system it is limited to emotes, which judging by how often people throw them around, you could think that most players do not assume EVERYONE insta-squelches. So a lot of trolling stays in the emote system, without costing the player time.
They HAD to know that pirate decks will be huge problem when they designed the cards. Back when WotOG came out, Pirate Warrior was already a viable deck (the only deck I ever hit legend with), and adding more powerful early drops could only benefit this ALREADY good deck.
They should have forseen this, I have no idea how they could not.
I would understand the addition of those new pirates if there never was a good pirate deck in the past, to try and make it work (like they did with Discard Warlock in Karazhan for example)
What's so special about February 1st?
start of new season. everyone plays fast aggro decks to climb the ladder again.
Yeah, I know, but the other guy wasn't referring to that. He was implying that BRM/TGT/LOE are rotating out today.
From my data of 211 matches played this month from rank 16 to 1 (most of them playing Dragon Priest):
- 35% of Shamans
- 15% of Warriors
- 14% of Priests
- 13% of Rogues
- 7% of Druids/Mages/Warlocks
- N/A Paladins and Hunters
It happened in the past that in Magic the Gathering when a deck represented 20% of the meta in a tournament, there were bans after that tournament. Here we have 35% of shamans!! I'm getting really tired of them... A deck full of a bunch of powerful 1-drops is really difficult to stop if you don't play a "pirate deck" or you don't have a perfect starting hand. If at the beginning of February there'll be no nerfs, I'll start play Wild.
In other news … Team 5 hired Captain Obvious …
You mean that this is like, a big thing ?
You sure that when they say the players wouldn't understand changes they'd make, they aren't talking about their own developpers ?
Because I'm pretty sure turning cards upside down is a VERY basic thing to do, especially in Unity. More importantly, if having them this way isn't a willing choice from them...Why was it that way in the first place ? What made someone go "Sh*t, I wasn't told which way to put the cards...Meh, I'll just make them unreadable to the spectators, for the lulz."
I guess they are technically right. It's not because the 5 least played classes only make up the same % of the meta as the most "popular" one that they aren't played.
Hurray for technicality.
They are STARTING to BELIEVE they are a problem ?
But hey, they didn't say "MIGHT be a problem", I guess we should be thankful.
Okay, quick question : Who does it depend on but the developers ?
Like, does Team 5 not design the game ?
Better leave them playing a broken game all while thinking the developpers are just fine with how it is.
Because a 1 mana 3/2 ( Yeah let's not kid anyone here, it's a 3/2. ) looks so much tamer.
Which is more a testament to all the broken sh*t Wild is keeping out of Standard than the actual balance of that card.
Oh so that's why WoW went from having the most powerful items in the game be the result of months-long quests, rewards for dedication, to giving them like candy via pure RNG. That actually explains so freaking much.
For those who stopped following WoW, this is NOT an hyperbole ; Now, Legendaries can drop in dungeons or when doing your dailies, and you are pretty much currently expected to have 2 legendaries - yes, the expansion isn't 6 months old ; Oh, and, best part, half of them is useless, and you can even loot tank legendaries when you're a DPS, guaranteeing you are subpar for the foreseeable future if you don't loot the right ones.
Because sites like this, although useful and interesting, create the already extremely potent problem of net decking. It takes no time at all to find the best decks out there here, and people have proven they don't really care to try out decks that aren't just that. Blizzard HAS their own system in the game actually with the pre-built decks that you have the option of choosing when creating a deck. A good amount of them aren't actually bad either. But people still don't use them because they're not refined enough, or they don't have the cards.
Enabling net-decking even more than it already is discourages players from being creative and thinking up cool, new decks for themselves.
I prefer a changed meta over some extra dust honestly. I know I'd get a lot more dust If the meta wasn't so terrible I can't actually stand to play the game.
Should just make us able to get 1600 dust from patches if Small Time nerf is really bad for it and it doesn't see play anymore
They should just give us 1600 dust for disenchanting STB.
Kappa.