There's not much to say about it, numbers speak for themeselves, if Blizzard doesn't balance classes this format is going to be the most boring thing ever.
It's not only about nerf this or that card, is about giving each of the 9 classes a fair amount of chance to compete with others in a format, Specialist, where you are supposed to pick one and stick with it from the start to the end.
Game balancing is not my job so I won't call out any nerf, but developers are clearly not very good at it at the moment.
Play wild, i left standard when the expansion hit, the best decision in my hs career. I was a bit afraid of big priests but in the higher ranks there are not many at all. I face new decks every game and hearthstone has become so much more fun
All they want is what i would define a "floating balance": a time for each class to shine, periodically.
If a designer is required to focus on x, y and z classes, they are basically given freedom to make very good cards for them, and forget the others entirely.
>They do so because it requires much less effort, and because they think the community likes OP stuff anyway. And they are probably right, overall.
It doesn't matter if the other half of the community is p1ssed off with OP stuff on the wrong side of their favourite classes: that side will be happy again, simply by seeing that stuff Rotate out. Just look at how many were happy with Dragon, just because DKs were Rotating. They didn't even care of new cards.
Eventually, everyone in Standard is happy somehow, at a given time (doesn't matter if unhappy in other times, they keep playing) and they don't have to bother too much with leveling each class equal.
Additionally, Wild gets more and more broken, instead of just OP. But who cares of Wild anyway?
TL;DR: it's not just about Tournaments. It's their design and "balance" policy.
Play wild, i left standard when the expansion hit, the best decision in my hs career. I was a bit afraid of big priests but in the higher ranks there are not many at all. I face new decks every game and hearthstone has become so much more fun
Dude, this is the "tournaments" section of the forums. This thread is even tagged "qualifiers"
And in the end in the HCT this weekend the Control Shaman was the deciding factor in most of the games for hunterace. What does it mean? That there is no difference between ladder and tournaments, most people tend to play highest winrate, in tournaments and ladder.
Then someone very intelligent thinking beyond the meta is coming with a nice deck and is ruling them all. And boy, his deck was criticised the whole tournament but it was so goddamn perfect.
You will NEVER have a balanced ratio, this is nothing blizz can change in any form. There will be always some stronger decks, even when it is just a difference of 0,2%, these decks will always present the majority.
And in the end in the HCT this weekend the Control Shaman was the deciding factor in most of the games for hunterace. What does it mean? That there is no difference between ladder and tournaments, most people tend to play highest winrate, in tournaments and ladder.
Then someone very intelligent thinking beyond the meta is coming with a nice deck and is ruling them all. And boy, his deck was criticised the whole tournament but it was so goddamn perfect.
You will NEVER have a balanced ratio, this is nothing blizz can change in any form. There will be always some stronger decks, even when it is just a difference of 0,2%, these decks will always present the majority.
HCT was based on Conquest format, bring 4 different decks with the option to ban one for your opponent, so it's a completely different scenario.
In Specialist the only variable is a small sidebar, switching up to 5 cards in order to adjust your strategy according to you opponent, and that's clearly not enough at the moment.
I agree that perfect balance is a chimera and we'll never see it, but the gap between top tier decks/classes and the weakest should be limited, right now you have like 0 chance of competing in Specialist with some of them.
And in the end in the HCT this weekend the Control Shaman was the deciding factor in most of the games for hunterace. What does it mean? That there is no difference between ladder and tournaments, most people tend to play highest winrate, in tournaments and ladder.
Then someone very intelligent thinking beyond the meta is coming with a nice deck and is ruling them all. And boy, his deck was criticised the whole tournament but it was so goddamn perfect.
You will NEVER have a balanced ratio, this is nothing blizz can change in any form. There will be always some stronger decks, even when it is just a difference of 0,2%, these decks will always present the majority.
HCT was based on Conquest format, bring 4 different decks with the option to ban one for your opponent, so it's a completely different scenario.
In Specialist the only variable is a small sidebar, switching up to 5 cards in order to adjust your strategy according to you opponent, and that's clearly not enough at the moment.
I agree that perfect balance is a chimera and we'll never see it, but the gap between top tier decks/classes and the weakest should be limited, right now you have like 0 chance of competing in Specialist with some of them.
IMO, specialist format is the problem here. Right now we have 2 classes that are clearly better than the rest. In conquest, this is perfectly fine. There are 2 other class slots you need to fill and people have no idea how to do it best
You can also make counter lineups in conquest because there's a good chance you'll see both the OP decks on the other side. This is easily the most common reason we see "bad" decks or archetypes in conquest tournaments (eg, Roger's lineup). The threat of these lineups also disincentivizes people from bringing the best decks, causing further diversity. With specialist, you can't counter rogue because the opponent could just as easily be 3x warrior decks
Specialist is fun, but it only works when the meta is perfectly balanced or very close. It's "solved" much easier than conquest. Without the requirement to bring more classes, everyone mobbing to the good ones is inevitable
Has there been any balance ever? Balance is a word simply used as windowdressing: "balance changes" when nerfs come in. But havent't this been clair upfront or deliberately done unbalanced to create the marketing hype?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
Play wild, i left standard when the expansion hit, the best decision in my hs career. I was a bit afraid of big priests but in the higher ranks there are not many at all. I face new decks every game and hearthstone has become so much more fun
Specialist mode is a big problem when they introduced such insane value cards as Elysiana and Togwaggles Scheme. Both Rogue and Warrior can easily tech for massive value or more aggressive variants of the same deck too easily with 5 card changes. Other classes aren't as versatile since their control and aggressive variants are wildly different.
specialist format is broken right now, but the real problem is that it always will be broken, no matter what they nerf. i think they might revert their decision after the first GM tournament, specially since they didnt test this crap before implementing it.
damn, conquest format was great (just look at worlds again)
specialist format is broken right now, but the real problem is that it always will be broken, no matter what they nerf. i think they might revert their decision after the first GM tournament, specially since they didnt test this crap before implementing it.
damn, conquest format was great (just look at worlds again)
That's honestly what i feared when they announced the specialist format. The only reason we saw a diversity of deck in conquest is that you could use weaker decks to cover weaknesses of your main decks or target a really common deck. or exemple HunterAce's control shaman, or viper/hopper's zoo.
But without this, you either pick the deck that has the highest winrate, or the deck that counters the deck with the highest winrate. anything else is just pointless.
Also you definitely can't change a deck's dynamic and match-ups with a side deck that limited. You can barely make bomb warrior with a control warrior list 5 cards difference is not enough. This feels inspired from yu-gi-ho, but yu-gi-ho's tech cards are insane. Cards like prohibition who straight up stops you from playing specific cards as long as it's on the board, or others that deny any special summoning. Hearthstone doesn't have that kind of flexibility, so you can't really turn over one bad match-up with the right techs. Freeze mage will lose to control warrior and no amount of techs (especialy not with just 5 cards) will change that.
I'm not saying side deck can't work in hearthstone, but for side decks to work, specific tech cards would have to be a lot more powerful than what they are now.
I don't think nerfing anything will change that. What would happen is just the next best deck will take its place, and the best counter to it will be the next runner up. And if the next best deck has 2 counters that are even with each other, maybe we'd see a third class at most. the format just doesn't have the tools to work yet.
Over 200 events to qualify for Las Vegas were played in the last 2 months, let's look at the stats of class distribution in the top 8:
Source.
There's not much to say about it, numbers speak for themeselves, if Blizzard doesn't balance classes this format is going to be the most boring thing ever.
It's not only about nerf this or that card, is about giving each of the 9 classes a fair amount of chance to compete with others in a format, Specialist, where you are supposed to pick one and stick with it from the start to the end.
Game balancing is not my job so I won't call out any nerf, but developers are clearly not very good at it at the moment.
Play wild, i left standard when the expansion hit, the best decision in my hs career. I was a bit afraid of big priests but in the higher ranks there are not many at all. I face new decks every game and hearthstone has become so much more fun
They don't even try i think.
All they want is what i would define a "floating balance": a time for each class to shine, periodically.
If a designer is required to focus on x, y and z classes, they are basically given freedom to make very good cards for them, and forget the others entirely.
>They do so because it requires much less effort, and because they think the community likes OP stuff anyway. And they are probably right, overall.
It doesn't matter if the other half of the community is p1ssed off with OP stuff on the wrong side of their favourite classes: that side will be happy again, simply by seeing that stuff Rotate out. Just look at how many were happy with Dragon, just because DKs were Rotating. They didn't even care of new cards.
Eventually, everyone in Standard is happy somehow, at a given time (doesn't matter if unhappy in other times, they keep playing) and they don't have to bother too much with leveling each class equal.
Additionally, Wild gets more and more broken, instead of just OP. But who cares of Wild anyway?
TL;DR: it's not just about Tournaments. It's their design and "balance" policy.
Dude, this is the "tournaments" section of the forums. This thread is even tagged "qualifiers"
Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest
And in the end in the HCT this weekend the Control Shaman was the deciding factor in most of the games for hunterace. What does it mean?
That there is no difference between ladder and tournaments, most people tend to play highest winrate, in tournaments and ladder.
Then someone very intelligent thinking beyond the meta is coming with a nice deck and is ruling them all. And boy, his deck was criticised the whole tournament but it was so goddamn perfect.
You will NEVER have a balanced ratio, this is nothing blizz can change in any form. There will be always some stronger decks, even when it is just a difference of 0,2%, these decks will always present the majority.
HCT was based on Conquest format, bring 4 different decks with the option to ban one for your opponent, so it's a completely different scenario.
In Specialist the only variable is a small sidebar, switching up to 5 cards in order to adjust your strategy according to you opponent, and that's clearly not enough at the moment.
I agree that perfect balance is a chimera and we'll never see it, but the gap between top tier decks/classes and the weakest should be limited, right now you have like 0 chance of competing in Specialist with some of them.
IMO, specialist format is the problem here. Right now we have 2 classes that are clearly better than the rest. In conquest, this is perfectly fine. There are 2 other class slots you need to fill and people have no idea how to do it best
You can also make counter lineups in conquest because there's a good chance you'll see both the OP decks on the other side. This is easily the most common reason we see "bad" decks or archetypes in conquest tournaments (eg, Roger's lineup). The threat of these lineups also disincentivizes people from bringing the best decks, causing further diversity. With specialist, you can't counter rogue because the opponent could just as easily be 3x warrior decks
Specialist is fun, but it only works when the meta is perfectly balanced or very close. It's "solved" much easier than conquest. Without the requirement to bring more classes, everyone mobbing to the good ones is inevitable
Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest
Specialist format is just a pathetic attempt to be more like MTG. conquest is much better for HS, but they don't know (or care) what they are doing..
Specialist is such a terrible format
one class will always be on top it's inevitable...
Specialist is for one-trick pony, sad.
I'm gonna go and say it - they will nerf 5+ cards this or next week.
They need to consider that Specialist format is failed attempt. Single class with sideboard tournament mode just will not work in HS.
Has there been any balance ever? Balance is a word simply used as windowdressing: "balance changes" when nerfs come in. But havent't this been clair upfront or deliberately done unbalanced to create the marketing hype?
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
New decks every game in Wild LULW
Specialist mode is a big problem when they introduced such insane value cards as Elysiana and Togwaggles Scheme. Both Rogue and Warrior can easily tech for massive value or more aggressive variants of the same deck too easily with 5 card changes. Other classes aren't as versatile since their control and aggressive variants are wildly different.
Yea, nerf them and then we will see Paladin/Warlock rise, and then the community complains all over again.
specialist format is broken right now, but the real problem is that it always will be broken, no matter what they nerf. i think they might revert their decision after the first GM tournament, specially since they didnt test this crap before implementing it.
damn, conquest format was great (just look at worlds again)
Yea, I enjoyned World's final stage too.
That's honestly what i feared when they announced the specialist format. The only reason we saw a diversity of deck in conquest is that you could use weaker decks to cover weaknesses of your main decks or target a really common deck. or exemple HunterAce's control shaman, or viper/hopper's zoo.
But without this, you either pick the deck that has the highest winrate, or the deck that counters the deck with the highest winrate. anything else is just pointless.
Also you definitely can't change a deck's dynamic and match-ups with a side deck that limited. You can barely make bomb warrior with a control warrior list 5 cards difference is not enough.
This feels inspired from yu-gi-ho, but yu-gi-ho's tech cards are insane. Cards like prohibition who straight up stops you from playing specific cards as long as it's on the board, or others that deny any special summoning. Hearthstone doesn't have that kind of flexibility, so you can't really turn over one bad match-up with the right techs. Freeze mage will lose to control warrior and no amount of techs (especialy not with just 5 cards) will change that.
I'm not saying side deck can't work in hearthstone, but for side decks to work, specific tech cards would have to be a lot more powerful than what they are now.
I don't think nerfing anything will change that. What would happen is just the next best deck will take its place, and the best counter to it will be the next runner up. And if the next best deck has 2 counters that are even with each other, maybe we'd see a third class at most. the format just doesn't have the tools to work yet.