Ben Brode on Ranked System Weakness, Tournament Mode, Community Conversations
Mr. Brode was out on reddit this morning to expand upon a recent tweet of his which stated there would be changes to seasonal grinding and that tournament mode would be a great addition to the game. We've got a recap of his grand wall o' text below, but we encourage you to read everything; It's good!
Keep in mind that text below is not an announcement of things to come, but instead, Ben explaining what they're thinking and trying to start a conversation.
Ranked System Weaknesses
Ben thinks there are four major weaknesses to the Ranked Play System. These weaknesses are believed to all be addressable, with the fourth weakness potentially being fixed by a "tournament mode" and not by a change to ranked itself.
The issue boils down to how progression works at every level of the ladder.
Quote from Ben Brode
- Top end players have to grind too much to get fun matches each month.
- Low end players have very little progression: just a few wins and then they get "stuck" at rank 20-17. This is the vast majority of active players.
- New players who enter ranked get crushed hard (after a pretty good experience in Casual).
- Doing the same thing over and over again each month feels like a 'grind'.
I think we can do all that (hopefully - this stuff is difficult to predict without live testing). The hardest to hit is number 4, since progression is fun, but the more you have, the more 'grindy' it feels. I actually think that things like a potential Tournament mode could help with that even more than any specific change to ranked.
Tournament Mode
Although we don't learn too much from this, it's a way to get the conversation flowing. We encourage you to leave your comments below.
- Ben likes meeting opponents IRL and would like to make the Fireside Gatherings process better in the client to help those events.
- They know people want to be able to compete from their own homes, so any type of tournament needs to offer something more than what they already have available in-game.
- There are two implementations they've recently considered for how tournament mode could look.
- Put players into a bracket, wait for them to finish, go on to the next round. Rinse and repeat.
- Do something more like Arena or Heroic Brawl where it can run as an asynchronous event so people don't have to sit around.
- They're exploring some other ideas, but are very interested in what the community wants. They continue to look everywhere for these discussions.
Questions for the Community:
- What is fun about tournaments?
- What would a tournament mode look like for you in Hearthstone?
Quote from Ben BrodeSo, Tournament: I think there are a couple specific 'fantasies' related to playing in a Hearthstone tournament. Put another way: What is fun about tournaments? I think different players have different things that draw them. For me, for example, one of the things I enjoy is going to a venue, meeting my IRL opponent, and sharing a tense battle with him or her. Then I like to go over and check on my buds, to see how we're doing as a group against the crowd. We have a lot of people attending Fireside Gatherings each month (and running tournaments), it'd be nice if we could make that process better in the client.
There's also a strong desire to have the ability to compete for glory against other players from the comfort of your home. Hearthstone is by its nature a competitive 1v1 experience, so Tournaments would need to offer something above and beyond what we're already doing. If you want a "packaged" experience, where at the end you are crowned a winner, Heroic Brawl and Arena actually get part of the way there, although they don't feel like they fit the whole fantasy that people are missing.
There's, I think, two 'obvious' tournament mode implementations that we had considered recently.
(1) Pump a bunch of players into a bracket. Wait for all players to finish, then start the next round. Repeat until there is a winner. Upside: Clear tournament fantasy. Downside: Long waits between rounds. Need to clear a day to play, but you might be out in the first round (really variable time commitment)
(2) If you're familiar with the development of Arena (and if you're not, here's a very old video going through it ), it's basically a story of us trying to solve the problem from the first approach in an 8-player bracket. The result is a competitive, asynchronous event. Heroic Brawl is essentially the version of tournaments that can be done asynchronously online.
Now, I think 1 is only really ok for in-person events, and we already have 2 and for some reason it doesn't feel like it's scratching that "tournament" itch. So we've been exploring some crazier ideas. :)
We've been reading threads about 'tournament mode' here and other places (and in different languages) that range back years, scouring comments and trying to get a full picture of what we think the community (which isn't a single entity, but lots of individuals with different perspectives) will enjoy. I always enjoy reading and discussing what people want from tournaments in Hearthstone, so please keep it up!
Conversations and Announcements
Keep in mind that the goal behind posts like these are to start up conversations and to not make an announcement.
Quote from Ben BrodeAn aside: When I make comments like this, detailing our philosophy and confirming what is or is not in our plans, I often read responses like "pr talk" or "says nothing". We do have the option of only doing communication in the form of announcements, but we'd be communicating a lot less, and not here on reddit. I love talking with the community. I think it's healthy to vet our ideas and get feedback on them before we commit to any specific implementation. But I think the expectation needs to be that it's a conversation, and we're explaining where we're at and our thoughts, not announcing specific changes. Looking forward to reading your thoughts!
Keep ignoring REPLAY MODE questions.
Tournament mode? Like the one in starcraft II? That's cool.
But well, am i the only one that think ranked mode should be bo3? And maybe allow players to switch deck between rounds...
Thumbs up ! Came up with the same idea about 3 years ago. Would love to see it happen, however, all should get rewards based on ranking and entry price should be slightly higher. For example, 0-3 would be 1 pack , 15 dust. Otherwise it'd be a useless throw of gold.
I think tournament mode is overhyped... as ben said, heroic brawl is exactly that... whats really missing in hearthstone is a custom game mode where everything doesnt revolve around being COMPETITIVE just as every other game mode, sure tavern brawl is fun ( most of the time ) but its an incomplete experience.
we need completely customizable game mode where you can set the games rules, ban cards, decide on the number of cards in the deck, your starting hp and all kinds of custom rulesets, it's not a small task but it can be done...
me and my wife we buy 500$ of cards each when a new expac hits, of course we have higher expectations playing a near 2000$/year game then we would have playing call of duty or other brainless games where they spend millions developing new features and modes all the time.
the small indie dev excuse is no longer valid, as much as I like the new patch with deck import/export and everything... this is small and took a long time versus what we expect of a game dev who makes billions upon billions
step your game up please, hearthstone isnt only about competitve gameplay.. or else 1/2 of all the cards wouldnt even exist.
The problem with heroic brawl was his cost. It is basicly a gold sink. To get back pure 1000 gold back, you had to win all games. Tournament mode should have much lower entry (like 100g) and a regular tournament bracket + rewards. So for 8 player tournament, it could go 4-2-2 as rewards. If you won all matches, you could get 4x more gold that you spend. If you lost last round, you were getting 2x gold that you spend. With low gold entry, you could play min. one tournament per day what seems to be more interesting that spending 1000 gold on heroic brawl to win some packs.
Ladder anxiety wasn't mentioned? Surprised. For casual players it can be quite a scary thought that if they lose, it takes three games to be where they would be after only one game if they win. If you win one game and lose one, you have played two games for nothing (except that 3 gold), which is a bit of a problem, even if a small one.
Less grinding is the easiest and most obvious option for less grindy ladder, but that inflates the player base higher. Alternatively the game play could be made more interesting, for example by adding rare random AI encounters, like 1 in 20 games. But the grindy feeling is only a symptom, and the main reason for it is the reason why people have to grind the ladder: qualifying for tournaments. Imo the qualifiers should be open for anyone willing to participate.
The tournament mode's biggest issue is indeed that people want different things. I, for example, would like it with the following rule set: 4 decks, 1 ban, Bo5, the winner has to change deck, asynchronous matching, only one loss and you're out, no cap for maximum amount of wins. But if it was this easy, it'd've been implemeted already a long time ago. With this example, many people would disagree because making four decks is too expensive, Bo5 takes too much time, asynchronous matching without premade brackets doesn't feel like a tournament, losing with the first loss is too unforgiving or whatever.
Tournament Mode hype ? :D
tbh i wouldnt mind 100-200 gold entry fee that goes to prize pool for top 3 of tournament
Yup, simple 4-2-2 for 8p tournament would be perfect.
Huh, first deck importing and now tournament mode. Looks like they're really kickin' it up a notch!
I really like the tournament mode idea. Hope it gets worked out and implemented.
I'd also suggest a Unranked Mode cause Casual doesn't really feel causal that often. I see a ton of really good ladder decks. It would be nice if there was a space for people who don't want to stress over losing stars (I include myself in that group). That would be Unranked, and then Casual would be for people who either a) wanted to try out weird/fun decks or b) didn't have the cards to complete with really competitive decks.
Unranked would be for more competitive decks. Casual would be for less competitive ones. Yes, I know there is not way to police this, but I think the community could behave itself... kappa?
I'm EU and everyone I know play NA. So nah, can't really join
I really want to see tournaments in the game. I watch play hearthstone tournaments on twitch all the time. It's the most exciting thing about hearthstone and it's disappointing you can't do that in the game. You can join tournaments you find online but it's complicated and the process is long. I think the best way to implement tournaments into the game would be to have a 1 verse 1 tournament ladder. The rules would be just like on twitch, but more streamlined
Lock in 4 decks
Join a queue
See the 4 decks of your opponent and ban 1
Pick your first deck. Opponent won't know.
Win 1 game with each deck.
Winner gets a star just like ranked. Would have to modify the ranking system some. Maybe have just 15 ranks? Can have casual tournaments too just for fun/practice.
Would have 3 fun game modes to reach legend. Tournament ranked and wild.
Great idea!
Lol @ 3. Seriously, it's amazing how there are still conspiracy theorists that believe Blizzard is tracking your deck and purposely matching you with bad matchups.
And you mention the ELO rating being wrong for this game? This is exactly what it should be used for. The ELO system is optimal in a 1v1 environment so this would be perfect (minus randomness having an effect on a person's ELO because of Hearthstone's mechanics). I would much rather have an ELO system than anything resembling what we've got now.
allthough youve got mutch downvoted i can account for most the things you wrote. This set of cards is too frustrating to enjoy this game and they make skill not matter like at all.