Ben Brode Interview - Insight into Casual Hearthstone, Meta, Just for Fun, Card Bans
GamesBeat's Jack Wilson had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Brode and talk about Hearthstone. The two discussed casual mode and how there are different views of how it should work. See our recap of the interview below or go on and read the full interview transcript.
Casual Mode
- Ideally, casual mode is low stakes Hearthstone. It isn't hardcore competition where you need to be 100% focused and available.
- Casual, like ranked, still has an MMR system but it's internal - you don't see it.
- The goal is to keep you at a 50% winrate in Casual, just like in ranked.
- The better you're doing in casual, the more likely you'll see better decks [usually meta decks].
Ranked Play
- Pirate Warrior and Secret Mage are currently 14% of the meta at Legend rank.
- Those archetypes at Rank 20 are only 5% of the meta.
- Most active Hearthstone players are between ranks 20 and 18.
Just for Fun Mode
- Ben knows there isn't a great opportunity right now to just play fun decks and not having to worry about meta.
- Adding in a mode for players to have "Fun Only" isn't really possible - you can't force players to play "bad" decks.
- The mode would evolve into players playing meta decks anyway since they win.
- Ben doesn't think it's crazy to pursue the idea, but it's not immediately obvious what the best direction would be.
Game Customization
- Being able to support a feature in which players could ban certain cards for tournament play is "very compelling", especially for Fireside Gatherings.
Supporting Different Types of Players
Quote from Ben BrodeI saw a tournament in Kansas City where they had a spinner. You spun the spinner, took out your camera, shot a QR code, and that was the deck you played in the tournament. That’s fun. It focuses on the pure fun and joy of playing Hearthstone, not on competition. Some people are competitive and that’s great. We want to support that too.
But also, it’s good to try and find ways for different people who have different goals and different things they get fun out of from Hearthstone—we should be looking at ways to support that as well.
You can have fun mode.
where win a game reward you nothing.
but if your Opponent can give you FUN STAR.
you'll gain reward every bunch of FUN STAR.
It's like you play casual and find some very weird deck that work or not somehow then you add your recent opponent to admire his creativity.
Such a strange but great idea
I would love to see a way to include a ranked mode where it included a ban option.
Say you have three decks and your opponent chooses one to ban and vice versa.
Casual mode should have a 'Dust system' : you only play with anyone with the same 'Dust' 😄😃
For example, my deck worths 1850 dusts, I have only 'one' legendary, so I should face only players who is in the 1650-1950 dust 'range', that's more fair 😁
Maybe we can mix the 'Old system' and the 'Dust system', make it 50/50 chance 😃 😃
So the new comers will not face expensive decks so often and have more fun playing with other new comers 😄
my friend is a free to play player he don't play much but he enjoy HS every much.
But at the start of every month, he can't enjoy HS at all every player in rank seems like a legend player ( see kripp ;s new video and you will found out how horrible the low rank really is for new player.) they can't get pass rank 18.
I feel like it is really important is let the low ranked player all with play with other noob player. if a skilled played won agist a free to play player, do you will think they felt good about it? I mean I feel horrible after wining VSING a new player,
when you take a look at other game EG: Splatoon good player will play good player. maybe HS can make the rank up harder and at the end of every season you reset to rank 15/10/5/1 depends on your rank from last season. here is another reason why almost every F2P game has. the dev needs to give player a reason to play. they knew f2p player aren't having the most fun, they don't want them to have the most fun. ( not unless they pay them) nothing wrong with that, but the meta player don't need a reason to play. we play HS to play HS, we don't care if there is any reward this is not a job but we have the same system with f2p player. ranking every season isn't fun, fix the rank system, I feel like master three in the beta is a ten time better system compare to reset every season
Edit: here is another reason why low rank = legend they reset people at rank 16... I looked at my deck choice past few month, reset to rank 16 -> play fun deck ( mostly quest warlock and quest pally ) -> lost a ton of game because everyone trying to rank up. -> look at my friends list and found out everyone is rank 12,14 or something higher -> take out meta deck like DK mage or priest -> rank up to rank five -> them proceed to have fun and found out everyone is playing off meta deck in rank five -> enjoy rank five gameplay until end of the month and then push for legend. -> rank reset again and repeat
the fact is I can't enjoy HS at the start of every month,
Ok, what could I propose is to sort players according to their heroes levels - players with Mage 10th can't play with golden Mage 60's, right?
Plus there should be some implementation of 'dust system' to support newcomers for some time till they find some dust for better decks
Don't spend money on video games!
Question: Why does "Just for fun" mode have to reward winning? How about a pack for every 10 games played in Just for Fun mode, using the same rules as games played against friends for quests (so you can't grind packs by conceding turn 1)? Or expanding Tavern Brawl to reward more than just a single pack per week (most Tavern Brawls don't require a full collection)? There are lots of ways to do "just for fun" mode without making it another Casual Mode failure.
just by adding the pack incentive you have already given competitive people to farm that mode...
Sure, but you don't have to win to farm. I mean, casual players and competitive players alike like free stuff, but if there is no incentive to win, then there is no incentive to play the best decks.
people farm casual just for 100 gold per day
a fun mode where every ten game you get a pack is impossible you will just see every one playing face deck to end game quick ( if concede don't give you progress )
This is a huge problem in every free to play game. people farm
every litter free stuff blizzard gives away will be farm.
..and that's how you would kill the game.
Forcing people onto ladder to earn gold would only result in a large chunk of the playerbase quitting.
A better solution is to de-emphasize wins in questing. More "play X murlocs", etc., fewer "win X games".
I would like to fall asleep to his voice.
You wanna get the meta out of casual? Get rid of (or severely de-emphasize) quests that have a win condition, boost quests that can still be completed with a loss.
then what is the point of quest?
Having fun. Trying something different. Be creative.
Does everything in HS have to come back down to proving you're better than other players by beating them?
yeah some of us want to have fun but most player just want to beat you ( like 95%+) every season I get to rank 5 and play stupid deck but every deck I face agist is t1 meta deck