Ben Brode on Randomness in Hearthstone, Karazhan Set, Magma Rager Dethroning
Dylan Walker of Yahoo Esports got to chat with Ben Brode at Blizzard HQ about One Night in Karazhan and Randomness in Hearthstone. We've recapped their interview below.
Quote from Ben BrodeRandomness
- Randomness is important for Hearthstone.
- Ben believes the consistency at which players are able to stay at high levels of play shows there is a lot of skill in the game.
- There is not a scale that goes from skill to random which you need to tune, the two can coexist.
- Discover is a great example of a random effect that adds skill to the game.
- Randomness can still feel bad, especially when you've played a long game and the game is decided on a random outcome. [Sup Yogg?]
- They're still learning what feels great with randomness, what feels fun, and what feels good for top level play.
Karazhan
- They try to add cards to new sets that will inspire players to try new things. Cloaked Huntress and Barnes are great examples.
- They added in a bunch of new 1-drops into the game with Karazhan and that's nice because games can feel different starting on your first turn.
BlizzCon
- They aren't ready to share their BlizzCon plans yet.
The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
- Muster for Battle was one of the best cards for some time.
- Magma Rager was dethroned as the worst card by a card "that is the most fun" but Ben won't tell us what it is because he doesn't want to see it removed from play.
''There is not a scale that goes from skill to random which you need to tune, the two can coexist''
- Why are 60% of our games decided by RNG-sus then?? O.o
So he must be talking about Prince Malchezaar, a card he loves but is obviously bad, therefore he won`t tell.
Not much information today but it's always entertaining to hear/read Ben Brode.
TLDR ''RNG Is fun'' Ben Brode 2016.
Nothing new.
Always nice to hear how completely out of touch team5 is with what the community wants. How about instead of giving us cards that inspire us to build new decks, you give us answers to problems within the current meta.... nah makes too much sense
Just like always these short Q&A's are very informative.
Waste of a question asking for Blizzcon plans when it's 6 weeks away, we ain't getting nothing until then it will be complete radio silence. Would have been nice to get some real news on Tyrande.
You already know what's the card that dethroned Magma Rager
Where is tyrande???
We haven't even seen the announcement of the announcement about Tyrande yet so all we can say is that she's probably coming Soon™.
Yahoo esports? Fucking really? That's a thing?
I would like to know his opinion about current balance between classes (from now till New expansion, 2 months)
Dont he think, slight corrections to few rotating Out cards Can make this 2 months more attractive?
Pretty sure there is a scale. Increase in randomness means a decrease in decision making, which is then a decrease in skill as players now have less decisions to be accountable for.
I would far rather see this game get closer to pokers skill level than Dice.
Funny that I just played a game that I won only because I played my Deathlord into a Mirror Entity from Cabalist Tome that I then promptly Shadow Word: Pain-ed and got Ysera.
But hey, I heard this was about skill.
Oh alright now I feel better that I know that all these metas were not intended to be those metas. Gonna put 2 Magma Ragers into my next deck. Just don't like these powerful new 1 drops tough as these are the reason why you can't go ahead before turn 4-10
Poor Magma Rager. You will be king forever in our *warm* hearts.