Mortal Shroud D1 Remake, Zero Empathy vs GR 74
Hearthstone Patch 9166 - Tavern Brawls, New Heroes - Animated, New Card Backs
Heroes of the Storm at Dreamhack, Heroes Academy Episode 5
Patch 6.2 Developer Q&A - Ion Hazzikostas
Ben Brode on Buffing Bad Cards
Last week, Kripparrian put out a video discussing bad cards in Hearthstone and came to the conclusion that they don't need to exist. Ben Brode, Hearthstone's Senior Game Designer, countered Kripparrian with a video of his own about discussing why he thinks bad cards are good.
You can find a summary of what Ben has to say on the matter, along with the video, below.
Quote from Ben BrodeBad Cards are Good
- It's impossible to not have bad cards. Cards are judged on their power level in relation to other cards.
- Making one better will make another one worse, now that card has become bad.
- Changing cards requires a significant amount of time to tune them properly - the same amount of time new cards take to balance.
- This then ends up setting back the release of new content.
- New card designs fit better into expansions.
- Changing old cards too much can lead to a negative response from players that have come back to the game after a break. They are no longer in a familiar environment with what they have.
- Buffing old cards between expansions could lead to drastic meta changes, like those seen at the start of sets.
- They don't want to get rid of the phase where the meta has settled between set releases - that removes the tinkering phase.
- Cards that may not be powerful are still good for Hearthstone.
- They can appeal to different types of players.
- You can be encouraged to think in different ways.
Specific Cards
- Nozdormu is a good card because it can blow your mind.
- "Anything can happen in this game. What kinds of cards will we see next?"
- River Crocolisk is a good example of a card was bad and then was (temporarily) good with the old Unleash the Hounds.
- Al'Akir the Windlord - Players called it the worst legendary in the game and that it needed buffs.
- The designers had agreed thanks to internal testing. It was going to become a 3/7.
- Internal data found that if it was drawn, people were more likely to win that game than any other card in the game (Alpha).
- Wisp is arguably one of the worst cards in the game but when Hobgoblin came out, people wanted to experiment with it.
- Eye for an Eye is an example of a card which may appear to be good but is bad.
- It's a card which can teach players who are new to card games about more complicated concepts (card advantage, value, board control).
- Magma Rager - Ben likes having "trash-tier" cards in the game because they can be a touchstone for the community.
- It leads to people talking about it, trying to win with it, and creating content around it.
Tavern Brawl
- Tavern Brawl is going to help keep things chaotic for players who really like the way the meta gets shaken up at the start of a new card set.
Popular Decks of the Week
Here are the popular decks for last week. Not as many Mage decks as the week before, and Priests are up at the top.
What decks were you playing last week? Share them below!
Deck | Author | Cost |
---|---|---|
Control Priest | tylerootd | 3840 |
Acolyte Priest | MatGagne | 6880 |
Dragon Mage | Uroshmeister | 5960 |
Tempo Mage | MPZaki | 5680 |
Malygos Lock | FreiKuk | 3520 |
MURLOCS!? | BoomX9 | 3540 |
Chromaggus Druid | fateos | 6200 |
Mech Shaman | iamdannywu | 3780 |
Grim Patron Warrior | Senfglas | 700 |
Patron | thornstaff | 3940 |
Tavern Brawl Patch - Datamined Info
If you missed our datamined information on the upcoming Tavern Brawl patch, head on over to our Patch 9166 datamining post!
Tavern Brawl releases mid-June! No official release date has been announced.
I'd like to see him explain that Pit Lord is ever going to be a 'good' card for the cost.
i've gotten him many times in bane of doom, it can combo with the card who summons demons from hand.
I run a heavy demonlock deck, so i know what you can do with him, but hes still not a perferred choice compared to infernals. Infernals you can choose to drop and use the 1 damage to everything strategically, pit lord does not get charge and you would practically never want to purposely play him to take a 5 damage hit. My point isnt that the idea is just terrible, its that its massively overcosted. 4 mana for a 5/6 and you take 5 points of damage? Compare that to every other 4 drop minion in the game.
Yes. He's a terrible card, just i wouldn't like him to be removed (like many other "bad cards") because when rng comes (bane of doom, unbalanced portal) a bad card can be really good, although it's not very playable in constructed
You said it yourself... "in certain situations." Consider an Arena Run or someone who is just starting playing. Will a new player always have access to a War Golem? Yes. Will a War Golem come up in arena draft far, far more often than Dr. Boom? Yes. Here's the situation: a player is picking cards in Arena draft and a War Golem shows up. Should he say "You know what, I'm going to skip the War Golem, because Dr. Boom is better"? Absolutely not. Should a new player say, "I'm going to skip playing with a large creature, because I think I'll get Dr. Boom from a pack in a couple of weeks"?
let me introduce you to a basic part of a card game, rarity. You can only have 1 dr boom in your deck, you don't get 100 dr booms along your carreer just by opening packs.
Of course there has to be a balance. The epic parrot is extremely bad even compared to common cards, and boom is strong even compared to other legendaries
I'm against weekly / bi-weekly card changes. I like the tuning phase most, when the meta has settled. I already face enough diversity on ladder right now and I enjoy mastering existing matchups. If I want something more chaotic I play Arena or Tavern Brawl.
However, I feel like there are quite a few cards, that could use a small buff. Naturally, the meta is most stale right before a new expansion. I wouldn't mind, if they buff / nerf a few cards about a month before they release an expansion. They already nerfed Eaglehorn Bow before Naxx or Gadgetzan Auctioneer before GvG to make room for new concepts; they could easily adjust some of the (really) bad cards at that time as well.
maybe they should do a balance each month, coming along with the new season
Wait! Brode really play HS?
Man...
Yeah, I think he exclusively plays Hunter though, so that might clarify some things...
Well, would you prefer that old cards are changed rather than getting new cards released? I really doubt it.
here comes the meme: Why not both?
It is literally impossible to have all cards at perfect balance. The card pool is so huge that you will start considering other cards bad because you will not be able to fit in your deck. Simple as that.
You think HS card pool is "huge"?
I knew that there will be someone that will pick on that word, but I can't say that it is tiny or small or even normal you know. So don't pick on words and pay attention on the meaning of the sentence.
I hope blizzard sticks to their guns. They are doing a great job with how they are progressing the game and their opinion makes much more sense to me than Kripps. In all honesty most reply (including kripps) just seems like they are a little salty that Ben Brode didn't agree at all. No one is taking Brode's wealth of experience into account. I haven't read anyone so far that has stated that Ben Brode is probably right even though they might see it differently.
I don't mind the idea of giving a card like Nozdormu a little love, just to make it playable. But buffing old cards in general just sounds like a terrible idea. I just made a F2P account and was really enjoying having cards like River Crocolisk and Boulderfist Ogre in my deck. It was great fun making the best out of what I had.
Although I generally agree with Kripp, I do have to agree that Ben made a really valid point about "learning about the value of cards" but fleshed it out really badly and using the wrong example. Eye for an Eye is plain bad. But there are many other cards which seem really good considering face value. See, we're thinking like the experienced HS players that we are, but try to acknowledge the mindset of someone who is completely new to Hearthstone. Experimenting with good and bad cards is, in fact, a way of figuring out the value of "value".
I had recently made friends with a guy who was completely new to Hearthstone and led him - by the hand - through an arena run (including arena draft). Initially he would make all the wrong trades and all the wrong choices, basing on wishful thinking more than logic and value. Him having utterly crappy card choices allowed me to explan to him why in the hell he would NOT want to pick high stat minions in the likes of Dancing Swords over something smaller but with more value (Annoyotron). You see, new players often make the mistake of justyfying their wrong picks whith fallacies like "that one in five hundred games" where Voodoo Doctor allowed him to outlast his opponent, completely overlooking the fact that he lost the previous 499 games because of topdecking VooDoo at all the wrong moments. Better even, I was able to spot and mark new players for my friend instantly, by watching THEIR choices and plays (picking Light's justice AT ALL or playing turn 1 - coin - Fiery War Axe to the face) and thus I could explain why those were BAD choices. Otherwise it would all come down to "yeah, guy just played a decent minion and made a decent trade with your decent minion and... oh look, he drafted Doctor Boom and now you're dead".
So, sometimes, being forced to initially stick with bad cards forces the players to rethink their gaming strategy and coerces them into searching for more valuable cards. Come to think of it, there are objectively good cards which seldom or almost never see play (RIP in Peace Chillwind Yeti). If we buff the bad cards because they aren't played the what do you propose to do with those?
I for one believe that we need both good and bad cards, although bad cards should at least be given the potential to synergise with some fun-to-play decks.
Besides, bad cards are necessary in arena! And they might prove fun in Brawl. The arena draft is approx. two-thirds of the fun in arena. Without shitty cards there would be no tension of the occasional "I'm forced to pick the least bad of these cards".
His point was that Eye For An Eye was bad though - that initially it might seem viable for new players as they tend to priorities face damage over all else, but they'd learn as they become better players that it is truly a bad card, and that the face damage is uncontrollable and rarely does anything. Crap cards like that are a learning experience.
1. There is no such thing as a 'bad' card. Only cards that are more or less useful depending on the situation. A truly bad card would be a card that has no effect on the game when played. Like, you play the card and nothing happens. Cards like this don't exist, so bad cards don't exist.
2. Changing cards shouldn't happen because the developers should be doing a lot more to ensure cards are as good as they can be prior to release. If you have to change a card post release, you've failed in that regard.
3. Too much of the game is focused on minion combat. Not enough of the game is focused on classes and what they bring to the table. Look at any of the top decks posted here and the vast majority of the deck is comprised of minions, many of them neutral.
4. There aren't enough cards in circulation yet to justify making 'bad' cards. Right now we're seeing a game in its infancy struggle to be a good game. Lot's of people are at least trying HS (it is free and can run on a toaster, after all), but I doubt many players are buying into the game with real money.
but there are cards with no disadvantage but better stats. look at wargolem and dr. boom. There is NO reason to play wargolem(if you have dr. balance[except maybe lil ex, but boom will just kill it and you would need 2 cards to counter dr. boom]). so they have to change some unnecessary bad versions of a card. just make him a mech would maybe solve this problem because is would be still bad but fit at least a niche like rivercrok.
also boom is a fault by itself. as i said you need nearly always 2 cards to counter him, the only good one card counter is lightbomb, a class card with a huge drawback and you still get hurt by the bots for around 5 dmg. i like the idea behind boom, but the body is just to strong. 7:5 would be fine. or 1-3 random bot dmg. or both
EDIT: you 4. point is right , some cards are just bad in the meta or just not consistent enough(like lil ex) but there are WAY to many bad cards at all. look at the one and two drops: maybe 20 non class cards are played, other really interesting cards are just not played because they have to bad stats, like bloodsail corsair, secretkeeper, kobold geo or even novice engineer