Developer Insights: Boomsday Arena Update with Kris Zierhut
The Arena is receiving updates with the next Hearthstone patch. Read on for more information!
Quote from BlizzardWelcome back for another inside look at updates coming to the Arena! Your feedback helps shape our approach to this game mode, so we’ve been following the Arena-related conversations closely in the community.
Card Variety
Just like how we want to keep win rates per class within a percentage range, we also want to maintain variety in Arena card selection. Each class had a group of cards that appeared almost twice on average per Arena run, and we focused on reducing this appearance rate in the coming 12.0 update.
We also looked at the appearance rate of class cards, spells, and weapons. We think it’s valuable for these cards to show up often for several reasons: they make playing each Class feel unique, they change the pace of a match, they help create more skill-testing situations, and finally, many of these cards offer opportunities for a player to catch up from behind, which results in more interesting games.
That, the appearance bonus for these cards is currently too high, causing them to appear so frequently that they can make Arena matches feel repetitive. To solve that, we’re reducing the appearance rates of these cards as follows in the upcoming update:
- Class Cards: +100% -> +50%
- Spells and Weapons: +75% -> +50%
Note that these bonuses multiply, which means that spells and weapons will have a net 125% increase in appearance rate, instead of their old 250% net increase.
Rarity
In our last blog, we also took a close look at card appearance by rarity. Each class had a group of Rare-quality cards that showed up more often than desired. Reducing the appearance bonuses for class, spell, and weapon cards helped that problem somewhat, but it didn’t fully resolve it.
Additionally, when Rare cards are offered side by side with Basic and Common cards, they get picked more often, which can result in them being selected and played more frequently than their appearance rate would suggest.
For those reasons, we’re lowering the appearance rate of Rare and Epic cards. Picks 1, 10, 20, and 30 always offer Rare or better cards and will continue to do so. For all the other picks, Rare cards will appear about 11% of the time, and Epic cards about 5% of the time.
Appearance Rates
As part of our effort to better explain how Arena works, we’d also like to share with you the current appearance rate for all cards. For each class, we ran a simulation of 100,000 Arena drafts. The spreadsheet linked below reveals how often each card showed up for each class. We hope this gives some insight into the chance of seeing various cards. These rates will change over time, but this one-time look should give you a clue as to how the system works.
What’s in the Bucket?
Since our last blog, players have also been requesting a glimpse into the contents of each bucket in the Arena draft system. Today, we’ll give you a one-time look at that as well. Remember that card promotion or demotion is almost entirely due to a very high or very low pick rate (how many times picked divided by how many times offered). One notable exception is Mind Control Tech. That card is being picked a reasonable rate for the typical card, but still often felt oppressive, so in the 12.0 update, it will be promoted anyway.
Thanks for tuning in, and we hope this look behind the curtain was illuminating. The Arena system will continue to evolve, so keep your feedback coming. We’ll see you in the Tavern!
It's a .csv file, you're supposed to load it to Excel or something similar.
By using http://www.convertcsv.com/csv-viewer-editor.htm
With the following URL https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/LN4X4GN4W59R1532566073433.csv
You can get a super clear reading of all that sweeeeettt data!
It's good to see consistency in some degree regarding picks, Lorewalker Cho and Millhouse Manastorm are always the 2 Less-picked cards across all 9 classes!
I just love how someone somewhere managed to draft a deck with 3 Lorewalker Cho's what a legend
Edit: Wait, these are simulations and not real player statistics my bad
We will finally able to play with the "filler" cards again!? Or it will still a semi-constructed format?
Anyone else notice that the Boomsday cards were in both those? =D
Yea because they were internal simulations of arena drafts and the internal test server client has the Boomsday cards already probably for some time now. Kinda nice to have the approximate appearance rates and bucket levels going into Boomsday instead of players having to collect it over a couple weeks to come up with the numbers.
The Boomsday cards need to be tested in the Draft arena environment to be ranked and sorted like everything else so yeah of course they're included. If they're being transparent people would call them out for not testing the boomsday cards or not giving out the data so might as well just include it.
I would love it if some Arena exclusive cards from were made permanent, like the original 9 and the Taverns of Time ones. They made Arena fun, and I hate Arena, so that's saying something.
... Curvestone arena incoming. Seriously... they want to dumb down the gameplay so much that its going to be people mashing their trash commons and basics against each other and the guy with perfect curve always wins.
On another note, it was nice to see the actual bucket data for once, so good on you Blizzard.
you like to face 5 Blizzard Mage, 3 Spikeridged Steed Paladin or 4 Starfall Druid or 5 Stonehill Defender in each deck? Some cards are being offered too much and it is so good that people will pick it instantly which makes its appearance rate much much higher than it should be especially class cards. People has been complained about exactly that and they are going to fix it. It is a good change and nothing is about curvestone.
Working on an excel sheet format to clean this up with tabs for each class.
Finally.
But "one time-look" really bothers me, does it mean that this is ONLY one time?
I'm really hoping that this info will be posted every time when any update significantly changes arena rules (e.g. weights and buckets for more then 20 cards)
Curiously there are also data about the cards from Boomsday
ALELUJA Can't believe I've lived to this day! Finally some real stats about arena, thank you Blizzard. I hope they will keep up with this kind of transparency. Really welcome infos.
Great news! Can't wait for the guys on reddit, hearthpwn and hsreplay to analyze that data and give us some more information. I'm very happy with the transparency.
ADWCTA would be so proud..
No No No Blizzard it's too much information. Now I can't complain about how u don't communicate. Kapa. Really appreciate the info this is amazing
Clean up that csv please, that's just lazy presentation.
Am I dreaming? Are they really finally sharing the data for Arena? Oo You can't spoil us that much Blizzard (n˘v˘•)¬
Outstanding information. Thank you Blizzard.