Ben Brode Asks: What Does the Community Desire to Hear From Developers
Today on Twitter, Hearthstone's Lead Designer, Ben Brode, asked the community what we wanted to hear from the developers with regard to game-stuff in the pipeline which has not been finalized.
So, do you want to see the team talking about stuff that might not make it live?
Bonus question: What other topics would you like to see the devs talk about that they aren't already pursuing?
Quote from Ben BrodeMr. Brode you have been a bit too quiet for a while. You gotta go on reddit and respond to some posts there ^^ (Source)
I did a bunch of posting last week, but it's been especially busy recently. Hoping to chat a lot next week!It's interesting. When I post "been thinking about doing A. Also, we are not considering B", people say 'you said nothing'. (Source)
I wonder if folks would rather we wait until we decide whether or not to do A, and just announce when we are doing it. (Source)
When we haven't decided a course of action yet, what type of communication do folks want to hear? (Source)
Community Feedback
Members of the Hearthstone community conversed on Twitter with Ben to discuss the issue.
Quote from Ben BrodeI think the problem isn't what you say, it's the timing. Feels like you're mainly responding when complaints are at critical mass (Source)
Things can sometimes reach critical mass quickly. Purify was revealed on Friday night and we responded on Monday, for example.
I think that's more of a symptom of the problem though. We are told "wait for the answer, it's gonna be sweet" then bam purify
But community will sometimes be wrong/unreasonable. Much of the purify outrage was how everyone joined in. a bonding experience :p
The fact that this video came out only 2 days after Purify was revealed was pretty awesome :).'thinking' and 'operating' are the operative words here. I think people want something more concrete and substantial. (Source)
I agree - does that mean we shouldn't be discussing our thoughts about things until we actually make a change?
Absolutely not. I personally enjoy the more speculative and suggestive interviews for what is to come. Keep up the good work :)I guess people would just be happy with a future insight of whats going to happen to hearthstone so they could hype about it (Source)
What if we don't know for sure what's coming until it's very close? For example, tavern brawls changed a ton during development
Dip your toe in, give it a shot with something you are considering as a team right now and see how it fairs.
We do that and it hasn't been going perfect. "it's on our radar" is basically a meme at this point.
Use words that affirm intentions and inspire faith in your community.
It's okay to admit to making a mistake, it's okay to balance cards... just tell us, and be decisive about it.Hey ben, just wondering if having a ptr was ever considered for HS? could get a lot of good feedback on cards before they go live (Source)
I think launching a "solved" environment on day 1 is a pretty big downside of that
By that do you mean that you can't fully test the effects of cards in the test environment?
I mean that if people are testing on the ptr, then the new set loses a lot of excitement of exploration on day 1
Shouldn't necessarily be new sets, I think those balance changes when Standard came out could use PTR testing
Testing the nerfs in isolation without the new set wouldn't have given valuable info, I'm afraid.Announcing a time line is highly appreciated. Nothing feels longer than waiting for update A, maybe to happen, within unknown time. (Source)
Yeah one of the problems with timelines is we often don't know until QA and our platform partners give a thumbs up to release
The only thing I want is actually everything
and that is always seek the community they know everything.
Remove RNG out of the game community hates it. And Brode is simply wrong with his attitude towards RNG.
Also Either give us answers to problem cards or nerv them. How is a 1 mana 1/3 with decisive ability ever balanced when the is no 1 mana 3 damage flat removal? Its simply not and Dev team had to see this before even releasing it because undertaker was a thing but there was no learning curve from dev team.
Actually there is. Issue is, its in shaman. Rockbiter weapon. Sire it costs a face smash, but early game like that a handful of points matters little when your removing a mana wurm or a trogg
Its really simple.
Balance cards every season, I don't really give a rats ass on getting my dust back - just balance the game. Its so stale that I want to cry.
Amateurs, plain and simple, a lot of fancy words and explanations without saying or actually doing anything about the state of the game. They "balance" every 9 months, when they do, they don't balance, they outright destroy cards, essentially removing them from the game, their choices of design and cards are often atrocious and make no sense, ex: blade flurry nerfed to give them "space" to give rogue weapons, what do they do ? they give the 2 most overpowered classes right now; that also have the best weapons in the game (warrior and shaman) great weapons and they give Rogue, probably the worst class in the game: A FORK, a goddamn fork, that outside of the fact that it doesn't make any sense for the class, is also awful. It has nothing to do with hating Blizzard or it being cool to hate on Blizzard, i love this company and game but team 5 needs to be criticized, and heavily. This team is lazy, incompetent and the game is suffering because of it.
We do not want to hear anything, Brode. We want to SEE things. We want to SEE THINGS ACTUALLY GETTING DONE. Not just hear your BS hollow corporate talks - "we will see; we are investigating; we are evaluating; we are analyzing...". This is only a game, FFS - it's not like people's lives depend on it.
Just act more and talk less - be more bold, swift, and radical in your actions. It is a DIGITAL card game - nothing can be done that cannot be fixed. We need cards and meta changing more often, not you pushing it towards a more and more stale environment with all your stupid changes and introduction of HIGHLY UNNEEDED format.
We don't need your BS talk, Brode - we need MORE CARDS, you need to make at least 50% of existing cards PLAYABLE (i.e. like buffing them), and you need to make some cards/classes balanced.
I NEVER EVER understood Team 5's stance on changes/patches - it is absolutely ridiculous. There are games (even Blizzard games) that roll out a patch with Balance tweaks/changes EVERY WEEK. How is HS so different and why this happens only when people stop playing the game?? Just think of a more regular cadence for the balance tweaks and do it regularly.
I am pretty sure everyone will be much happier with going through a couple of versions of a single card until the right balance is found vs. not touching anything and being stuck with 5 playable archetypes in your whole game. Tournaments and pros are also suffering, so it's not just newbie complaints.
You just need to act more and make more changes to the cards - that is all you need to do to keep HS in a healthy stance, but it seems that you still have not realized it.
AMEN
You have to understand each change to a card means a loss of money to Blizzard. Indirectly ofc, but by giving people the dust back = people buying less packs = people spending less money. As cards come and go out of favor people will just disenchant to full value and get the new "best" cards.
That's why I suspect they never nerfed Dr. boom and instead moved him to Wild. So many people crafted him (and his golden version),
Ofc you can debate that making the game healthier will make it more popular but as we evidently see, they aren't doing it.
And the only thing I 100% trust Blizzard to do well is knowing the best way to get money from people :)
Dust amount does not directly correlate to Blizzard's income from HS. There are MANY, MANY more ways in which real cash can be earned while the players are still satisfied and the game is balanced. I have mentioned numerous suggestions in other topics - you can check.
If it's not done one-way (i.e. only nerfing), then players might "lose" the full dust value of a card that was OP and now is just good/balanced, but they will gain immensely more from other cards that have been utter crap but have been balanced and are now playable.
i agree with the more aggressive nerf and buff aproche and want to add those points:
1. the game was never designed to have more cards so the original hp pool isnt in line with the new cards. they should start buffing it for wild (e.g. 35 hp, hp pool of 40, reno heals to 30, alex to 20). if it works good transfer it to standard.
2. rework the classic set. priest has good card, but not many in classic. switch cool cards like lightbomb with useless cards like devine spirit and add tech cards to the basic set (loatheb, bomb lobber, healbot...)
edit:
they procrastinated the balance patches and now they have two options: nerfing/reworking most of the cards and making hearthstone great again(sry had to) or look away and people will complain even more bc hearthstone isnt at a healthy state anymore.
to be fair: im sure team 5 would have nerfed many more cards but they are limited my blizzard :/
When I wrote "loss" I don't mean it in the literal sense. what I mean by "losing money" is that they are doing a sub-optimal system of earning money than they could have.
I think our argument revolves around if Blizzard can and will drastically change their system.
Don't get me wrong - I 100% support your ideas, I just don't believe Blizzard will revise Hearthstone, and my argument "assumed" the crafting system will stay the same. Although I must say, I overlooked your point about nerfing vs. buffing value.
I would love it if they took a step back and make some big changes, but as a realistic (and a software designer) I think the chances are very low.
And I will definitely check your suggestions!
It is clear that some cards are defining a game but do not forget that in each game is a winner and a loser and the skilllevel difference in a cardgame is not really that high. If you think by changing card X / Y you will finally hit legend or play better, you are wrong. Other rng factors will then matter. You guys are shouting to Team 5 including ben brode etc. but they actually are doing a really great job (just a few cards were too strong but yeah they are still learning. Like don't really expect another 4 mana 7/7 in the next expansions). Of course they could work a bit faster with in-game stuff (achievements, nerf/buff etc.) but other than that the theme is pretty fine. And those guys who tell to fire all these chiefs (Mike Donais, Brode etc) I guess are actually playing face shamans and are crying because they are so op lol
Actually. The 4 mana 7/7 is one ofnthe few balanced overload cards out there, overload doesnt play on curve like most decks, its an anti tempo mechanic that basic is like bringing a big hammer down, you cannot do it again right away, which is why you should see the 4 mana 7/7 as a six mana 7/7 because that is what it is, it costs the shaman 6 mana to play it, just not all on turn 4. So the turn 5 play maxes out at 3 mana. They can't play a second one right after unless they burn coin, or wait till later in the game.
We need a new team 5... This people have do a ok work but the RNG and the simplicity is going to kill heartstone, also the nerfs each 9 months. We need fast balance an new cool ideas or bye bye.
"I think launching a "solved" environment on day 1 is a pretty big downside of that"
VS, what, "solved" on day 10 ? Like seriously, it's always been 2 weeks at most before everything becomes stale ( And that's assuming the expansion/adventure really changed anything. Looking at you, Kharazan ) for 3 MONTHS, so honestly I'm willing to sell those 9 days of wacky decks to get rid of the "aggro shaman" ( By the " I mean both them and their counterparts depending on the expansion, like undertaker hunter ).
New modes for the would be great also. I know it's futuristic but 2vs2 or tournament modes will satifsfy the majority of the society for example.
The incompetence of this team is just mind blowing, honestly. Hearthstone is just oozing with potential. And they're trying really hard to ruin it. The competitive scene is already dying out really fast. In a world with tuskar and yogg deciding almost every game. Its understandable. The game was already border line competitive. Now its finally as twitch would say a complete clown fiesta.
And they're saying basically, nothing is wrong. Well... maybe we should change arena abit. Seriously? Is that all that your concerned about. Just ask any "pro" and they will say the same thing over and over again. This game needs change, fast. Or you will see numbers dropping on twitch and ingame fast. Only the part of the community that doesn't really care and plays tavern brawl all day thinks HS is fine. Probably the dev team is part of them.
I realize that these forums certainly don't speak for every HS player and I don't want to comment for everyone on the forums. However, between hearthpwn, reddit, the official Hearthstone forums, Twitter, etc., it seems like Ben and the rest of Team 5 should have a good understanding of the community's concerns.
For example, (from what I've read) most people don't mind RNG. At least RNG is "small doses" so to speak, but when MANY cards have RNG on them and then you throw Yogg into the mix, now people (IMHO) start thinking there is TOO MUCH RNG in the game. I know Blizzard wants to have RNG in the game...I get that, but there's a fine line where you get way too much of it and that can get people upset. Losing to, or winning by, RNG once in a while is fun; but losing or winning often BECAUSE of RNG (dare I mention Yogg again) is not.
The RNG is just one example. We also have Aggro. Shaman (and now midrange) making up a "relatively" large portion of the meta, Call of the Wild being OP (at least to some? many? people). As others have mentioned, maybe the best way for Team 5 to relieve our collective anxiety about the future of the game is to stay in communication with us. More "blue posts" on the forums could go a long way in that endeavor. As long as they don't use the words "it's on our radar" and/or "soon". As I read somewhere else in this thread, I feel that the devs need to be more decisive at times.