For those of you who don't know, Blizzard has a specific mindset when it comes to class balance which has been infamously dubbed as "taking turns being OP". In every period of hearthstone history, there are some classes that are disgustingly overpowered and some that underpowered to the point of being unplayable. For a while warlocks suffered from subpar cards and discard synergy, only to become the tier 1 meta with cubelock since KnC. The question is, does this "philosophy" work?
While many, many people would be quick to respond "of course not", looking below the surface it's not so simple. Hearthstone is arguably a "winner's game"- just look at how many netdeckers that copy the best version of the best archetype from some known pro player just so they can climb ladder and win more games. Say what you will about hearthstone being pay-to-win, but hearthstone is objectively cheaper than most popular TCGs when it comes to staying meta; yu-gi-oh meta decks can cost hundreds and when the deck gets hit by the banlist, you aren't getting any refunds at all. As such, if you want a card game where you can win a lot but don't want to spend ridiculous sums of money every few months, hearthstone is fairly attractive.
Playing off of the previous point, it becomes untrue that everyone in this game wants balance. Realistically many people benefit from having a few decks that are stronger than everything else, and many others like it when the few decks/classes they enjoy playing is finally "getting their turn" and just get to stomp everything else. What seems like poor balance really skews the game in a way that those who enjoy winning, or the currently OP decks/classes, have a very good time. In comparison if every class was indeed fairly balanced and equal, there would be no more "ups and downs"- just a flat, consistent game that arguably loses its excitement.
On the other hand, you could also argue that a properly balanced hearthstone makes Blizzard a lot more money. Think about it- at the start of the expansion, what are two things that happen a lot? Those two things are "buying packs" and "experimentation". It's a new expansion! Everyone wants to shake off the meta from the last few months and try something new, or maybe add some new cards to their old builds. However experimentation isn't cheap. Making one or two meta decks is manageable, even as free-to-play, but experimenting requires you to craft cards that you don't know are good yet, and you could easily have ended up with duds. Furthermore, because the game is balanced so that only a few decks/classes are actually good, the odds of you making a fresh, viable deck are very low, and you are pushed away from experimentation. If however, you knew that the power level of the game was roughly the same and that you wouldn't often be "punished" for crafting new cards and experimenting, you would thus be incentivized to do just that! But cards and dust don't just come out of nowhere- you might have to spend some more money on packs to do so, and you would gladly because you'll know you'll be getting your money's worth.
If they balanced every class to some extent then it would be a more enioyable experience for everyone. Every player would get to play their fav class and try multiple decks.
You make some good points. Developers would actually prefer to have a game that's "balanced and equal" as you stated. That's actually the dream that there are multiple styles of winning, each is viable but distinctly different. I believe most players want that, even the best players. It's actually just that hard to achieve.
The devs aren't rotating the classes intentionally. They've told us in an interview that they design sets 2-3 sets worth of time in advance (eg K&C would have been conceived around Un'goro). If a class happened to be weak around the time the set was designed, they would give said class better cards than the others to help them catch up. The problem is that they don't know if the "catch up" cards are enough to make the class competitive again, because those cards won't be released until after they design another set or two
In Un'Goro, warlock was virtually unplayable because there's not enough healing available to support their self damaging identity. KFT was released without enough good warlock cards to revive the class because the devs didn't know the class was in trouble when this set was designed (Renolocks were doing just fine back then). This lead to warlock getting insane cards and being pushed into tier 1 for K&C. They got great cards again for WW because the devs didn't know if the voidlord shenanigans were good enough
Before warlock the weak class was paladin, then priest, then shaman. I expect shaman and/or warrior to be the new class after warlock. Any class that ever becomes memeingly unplayable with 0 tournament appearances becomes the new thing to complain about 2-3 expansions later. In the case of shaman and priest, their first attempts (Totem golem, thunder bluff valiant, drakonid operative, dragonfire potion, potion of madness) at reviving the classes failed so they had to keep pumping out good cards for an extra two sets, making their eventual reign even longer and more powerful
Some classes are less vulnerable than others to getting stuck in this cycle because of stronger hero powers or classic cards. Most notably, druid and rogue have never been completely pushed out of a meta. Warrior was one of these classes before the war axe nerf. The rest of the classes more or less need to rely on good cards in rotation to survive. Sometimes they get neglected because they were doing well 2 expansions ago and the cycle begins anew
You can only balance to some extent because when you nerf something another deck rises to the top and you can be stuck in this nerf mentality forever. You can clearly see that on this forum, no matter the meta people always complain. So their philosophy is perfectly fine with me. However, when there are clear issues with game balancing I wish they would take steps sooner. When they nerf a card but it takes them a year when it could have been done after a month then I see why people are getting upset. With so many cards being released it's easy to miss whole deck's potential and properly tune it in interior testing, that's even more reason to apply balance patches.
True balance is pretty impossible, but they could be doing it a lot better than they do now. They only seem to know how to do two things: print OP cards which makes a class dominant, and nerfing cards/classes into the ground. There is no middle ground for them.
In an ideal world, some classes should be better than others, but the lowest performing class should still be playable - it should just be harder to win with them consistently, not impossible. Basically the difference between the best class and worst class in the game should be much smaller.
I don't really understand why they don't do this because from a money perspective it makes sense - the more competitively viable classes you have, the more packs people will buy to craft more decks.
I think blizzard intentionally making certain classes OP has its ups and downs. yes it gives every class a chance in the spotlight, yes it helps blizzard sell cards and I like that the meta noticeably changes every 4 months. this puts the creative players at a disadvantage however since players who choose the class they want to play will not be as successful as players that choose the class they want to win with. The power level needs to be brought down from the higher tier decks to make this difference less noticeable IMO. there are just too many oppressive archetypes that require a lot of thought when deckbuilding. One cannot simply choose good synergies and hope for the best.
The devs aren't rotating the classes intentionally. They've told us in an interview that they design sets 2-3 sets worth of time in advance (eg K&C would have been conceived around Un'goro). If a class happened to be weak around the time the set was designed, they would give said class better cards than the others to help them catch up. The problem is that they don't know if the "catch up" cards are enough to make the class competitive again, because those cards won't be released until after they design another set or two
In Un'Goro, warlock was virtually unplayable because there's not enough healing available to support their self damaging identity. KFT was released without enough good warlock cards to revive the class because the devs didn't know the class was in trouble when this set was designed (Renolocks were doing just fine back then). This lead to warlock getting insane cards and being pushed into tier 1 for K&C. They got great cards again for WW because the devs didn't know if the voidlord shenanigans were good enough
Before warlock the weak class was paladin, then priest, then shaman. I expect shaman and/or warrior to be the new class after warlock. Any class that ever becomes memeingly unplayable with 0 tournament appearances becomes the new thing to complain about 2-3 expansions later. In the case of shaman and priest, their first attempts (Totem golem, thunder bluff valiant, drakonid operative, dragonfire potion, potion of madness) at reviving the classes failed so they had to keep pumping out good cards for an extra two sets, making their eventual reign even longer and more powerful
Some classes are less vulnerable than others to getting stuck in this cycle because of stronger hero powers or classic cards. Most notably, druid and rogue have never been completely pushed out of a meta. Warrior was one of these classes before the war axe nerf. The rest of the classes more or less need to rely on good cards in rotation to survive. Sometimes they get neglected because they were doing well 2 expansions ago and the cycle begins anew
Don't believe that. They'd created highlander class legendaries in MSoG for three Kabal classes, rotated Reno Jackson and offered no support for highlander archetype. That was very thoughtful, smart and required a lot of planning.
Most people will say they want regular balance changes.
Those same people will cry and whine whenever balance changes come around.
The reality of what balance protocol should be, is utter disregard for said people. Overpowered and uninteractive decks aren't secrets. Every Blizzard employee can identify the problem cards easily. They're the ones which are most defended on Hearthpwn, Reddit, and the official forums.
Just ignore naysayers and bring regular balance changes, like almost every other game does.
Balance philosophy should pursue constantly evolving meta some decks might be stronger in given time it is okay but shouldn't take more than one month.
Right now people plays top decks for entire expansion some people tries to counter them but they cannot figure it out so meta becomes so stale and boring until next expansion.
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For those of you who don't know, Blizzard has a specific mindset when it comes to class balance which has been infamously dubbed as "taking turns being OP". In every period of hearthstone history, there are some classes that are disgustingly overpowered and some that underpowered to the point of being unplayable. For a while warlocks suffered from subpar cards and discard synergy, only to become the tier 1 meta with cubelock since KnC. The question is, does this "philosophy" work?
While many, many people would be quick to respond "of course not", looking below the surface it's not so simple. Hearthstone is arguably a "winner's game"- just look at how many netdeckers that copy the best version of the best archetype from some known pro player just so they can climb ladder and win more games. Say what you will about hearthstone being pay-to-win, but hearthstone is objectively cheaper than most popular TCGs when it comes to staying meta; yu-gi-oh meta decks can cost hundreds and when the deck gets hit by the banlist, you aren't getting any refunds at all. As such, if you want a card game where you can win a lot but don't want to spend ridiculous sums of money every few months, hearthstone is fairly attractive.
Playing off of the previous point, it becomes untrue that everyone in this game wants balance. Realistically many people benefit from having a few decks that are stronger than everything else, and many others like it when the few decks/classes they enjoy playing is finally "getting their turn" and just get to stomp everything else. What seems like poor balance really skews the game in a way that those who enjoy winning, or the currently OP decks/classes, have a very good time. In comparison if every class was indeed fairly balanced and equal, there would be no more "ups and downs"- just a flat, consistent game that arguably loses its excitement.
On the other hand, you could also argue that a properly balanced hearthstone makes Blizzard a lot more money. Think about it- at the start of the expansion, what are two things that happen a lot? Those two things are "buying packs" and "experimentation". It's a new expansion! Everyone wants to shake off the meta from the last few months and try something new, or maybe add some new cards to their old builds. However experimentation isn't cheap. Making one or two meta decks is manageable, even as free-to-play, but experimenting requires you to craft cards that you don't know are good yet, and you could easily have ended up with duds. Furthermore, because the game is balanced so that only a few decks/classes are actually good, the odds of you making a fresh, viable deck are very low, and you are pushed away from experimentation. If however, you knew that the power level of the game was roughly the same and that you wouldn't often be "punished" for crafting new cards and experimenting, you would thus be incentivized to do just that! But cards and dust don't just come out of nowhere- you might have to spend some more money on packs to do so, and you would gladly because you'll know you'll be getting your money's worth.
So what do you guys think of this all?
If they balanced every class to some extent then it would be a more enioyable experience for everyone. Every player would get to play their fav class and try multiple decks.
You make some good points. Developers would actually prefer to have a game that's "balanced and equal" as you stated. That's actually the dream that there are multiple styles of winning, each is viable but distinctly different. I believe most players want that, even the best players. It's actually just that hard to achieve.
The devs aren't rotating the classes intentionally. They've told us in an interview that they design sets 2-3 sets worth of time in advance (eg K&C would have been conceived around Un'goro). If a class happened to be weak around the time the set was designed, they would give said class better cards than the others to help them catch up. The problem is that they don't know if the "catch up" cards are enough to make the class competitive again, because those cards won't be released until after they design another set or two
In Un'Goro, warlock was virtually unplayable because there's not enough healing available to support their self damaging identity. KFT was released without enough good warlock cards to revive the class because the devs didn't know the class was in trouble when this set was designed (Renolocks were doing just fine back then). This lead to warlock getting insane cards and being pushed into tier 1 for K&C. They got great cards again for WW because the devs didn't know if the voidlord shenanigans were good enough
Before warlock the weak class was paladin, then priest, then shaman. I expect shaman and/or warrior to be the new class after warlock. Any class that ever becomes memeingly unplayable with 0 tournament appearances becomes the new thing to complain about 2-3 expansions later. In the case of shaman and priest, their first attempts (Totem golem, thunder bluff valiant, drakonid operative, dragonfire potion, potion of madness) at reviving the classes failed so they had to keep pumping out good cards for an extra two sets, making their eventual reign even longer and more powerful
Some classes are less vulnerable than others to getting stuck in this cycle because of stronger hero powers or classic cards. Most notably, druid and rogue have never been completely pushed out of a meta. Warrior was one of these classes before the war axe nerf. The rest of the classes more or less need to rely on good cards in rotation to survive. Sometimes they get neglected because they were doing well 2 expansions ago and the cycle begins anew
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
You can only balance to some extent because when you nerf something another deck rises to the top and you can be stuck in this nerf mentality forever. You can clearly see that on this forum, no matter the meta people always complain. So their philosophy is perfectly fine with me. However, when there are clear issues with game balancing I wish they would take steps sooner. When they nerf a card but it takes them a year when it could have been done after a month then I see why people are getting upset. With so many cards being released it's easy to miss whole deck's potential and properly tune it in interior testing, that's even more reason to apply balance patches.
True balance is pretty impossible, but they could be doing it a lot better than they do now. They only seem to know how to do two things: print OP cards which makes a class dominant, and nerfing cards/classes into the ground. There is no middle ground for them.
In an ideal world, some classes should be better than others, but the lowest performing class should still be playable - it should just be harder to win with them consistently, not impossible. Basically the difference between the best class and worst class in the game should be much smaller.
I don't really understand why they don't do this because from a money perspective it makes sense - the more competitively viable classes you have, the more packs people will buy to craft more decks.
I think blizzard intentionally making certain classes OP has its ups and downs. yes it gives every class a chance in the spotlight, yes it helps blizzard sell cards and I like that the meta noticeably changes every 4 months. this puts the creative players at a disadvantage however since players who choose the class they want to play will not be as successful as players that choose the class they want to win with. The power level needs to be brought down from the higher tier decks to make this difference less noticeable IMO. there are just too many oppressive archetypes that require a lot of thought when deckbuilding. One cannot simply choose good synergies and hope for the best.
I've no clue what I'm doing...
Most people will say they want regular balance changes.
Those same people will cry and whine whenever balance changes come around.
The reality of what balance protocol should be, is utter disregard for said people. Overpowered and uninteractive decks aren't secrets. Every Blizzard employee can identify the problem cards easily. They're the ones which are most defended on Hearthpwn, Reddit, and the official forums.
Just ignore naysayers and bring regular balance changes, like almost every other game does.
Balance philosophy should pursue constantly evolving meta some decks might be stronger in given time it is okay but shouldn't take more than one month.
Right now people plays top decks for entire expansion some people tries to counter them but they cannot figure it out so meta becomes so stale and boring until next expansion.