Mike Donais: Ladder Will Not Change With the Next Expansion
Mike Donais sat down with Cam Shea of IGN to discuss . We've recapped the interview below.
Quote from Mike Donais
- There's a huge variety of classes and decks as similar win-rates right now.
- ".. which is probably the flattest meta we've seen for Hearthstone since launch."
- Shamans are less of an issue now than pre-Gadgetzan.
- "Right now, it is definitely closer to even, closer to the 10% mark than it has been in the past. I think it's been improved."
- Pirate and Reno decks are among the more popular decks.
- "The different Pirate decks. If you add them all together and stack them on top of each other, it's still a very tall stack. The same thing is true of Reno decks."
- No Ladder Changes in the Next Set
- "There's lots of discussion going on , but I don't see us being that close. I think there's still not an obvious solution, but maybe some small steps in that direction going forward, and then as we discover more good ideas, more small steps in that direction?"
- "Not that I'm aware of, but it's not something that I work on. I work mostly on designing the cards."
- Pirates changing up how other decks are being played is okay, at least for a while.
- Charge minions are problematic due to buff combos, but they wanted to make the pirate fantasy succeed.
- Small-Time Buccaneer has gone through some changes over its development cycle.
- He changed five or six times throughout design process.
- 1 mana 1/2 - Whenever you equip a weapon, he gained +2 attack for the rest of the game.
- 1 mana 1/1 - Battlecry: Gain +1/+1 for each Attack of your weapon.
- His current iteration, or the final nerf, was made days before they had to lock the set in.
- Small-Time Buccaneer is on Mike's watch list as the decks it is used in won't change much with the upcoming Standard set rotation.
- Just because you make a card worse than the original design doesn't always mean it's still good to ship out.
Bonus: Mike Asks
In response to a question about a way to get specific cards / tier-one decks up and running faster for ladder play, Mike asked if a button that would let you buy a deck would be something that should be added to the game, so we ask the same question.
Should Blizzard add a way for players to buy a deck?
They need to just give new players access to the entire set for like a few days or 1 week when they start out
I thought this meant in term of dust rather than money.
If you want hearthstone to keep existing, you need new players. If you want new players, you gotto give them a good game experience. If you don't want them to be able to buy decks because you feel it'd be unfair to you, think of how unfair it would be if the game you like dies and there's no one else to play with you.
It's important to give the new users a good experience, but buying decks is not the answer. That would just result in even more cancer, and less originality and deck creation than exists currently (if that's even possible). Hearthstone is already net-deck city. Do you want to make that 10x worse?
The main problem for new players isn't for those who spend money to speed up their progress. Its the F2P ones that struggle to stick to the game due to how hard it is to take off in HS. So, naturally, this would probably just go further on the whole "HS is p2w idea". Plus, Netdecking hell, which is already what we are in, does not need more encouragement.
Well done Blizzard, you are destroy this game ...
I mean, just look at this meta. It's not for "fun" anymore
It would be fine if they would just stop releasing overpowered 1 drops, or even stop releasing 1 drops altogether. Put out a few good 2 drops just for priest, and then the rest 3 mana and up for everything else.
They really need to slow the meta down even more. Hearthstone has been too aggro focused for way too long.
Now as a casual player, I can't even get into rank 18 with rogue if I don't include Reno in rogue decks.
I have to agree, I have more fun in Wild than Standard. The Standard format is stale, and honestly not fun because of the archetypes that infest it. Standard will have a max of 5 decks that can succeed consistently. Wild has so much more.
I really think, they should do this button. It's will make Blizzard still make some money from a player, but not gonna push a player to grind out hundreds of packs, because he wants to play something specific. And it will make a player feel the taste of victories and get curious about different decks. Some tier 2-3 decks should be available each expansion for straight up buy. Maybe you should it restrict it to new players tho (like your collection is less, that X dust worth).
It's much better, that to get to rank 20 with Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre, and get crapped on by any deck, that has no vanilla minions in it. Any greedy-retarded-meme deck, just cause cards are better.
But what stops them from limiting a deck to 1-2 legendaries/epics/whichever, which are crucially needed for those decks to be good? There's nothing stopping them from giving new players bad deals that look appealing.
Guess, you don't really trust people. And that's why you won't like my answer, but here it is: Nothing stops them, but I believe, they wanna really help new players and not only make money.
This is sad and true. It's sad because the decks Blizzard designs have no creativity, and I think that reflects the level of creativity of the team, currently.
STB nerf:
2 MANA 2/2 same text.
I would like that, because i dislike that i have to deal with 2 minions on turn 1, while one will turn into a 3/2 and the other one did hit me on turn 1, because of charge.
so i'm like "ok, i would need a "1 mana deal 2 damage to all minions and heal for 1" to deal with it and break even again. This value is way to high...
Sorry, I really understand, there you going and you are totally right on that front, but you are kinda off the theme... Yes, between rank 1 and 5 those stats are correct (no reason to doubt Vicious Syndicate), but they are never told those limits in the interview. You know, what is more between ranks 1 and 5? Competitive players. If you point on the rank logo in the game, it says something like "You are in the top 2% of players this season". Something like that. So between ranks 1 and 5 - it's about 5% of all players. Add more 5 - who already Legend. And it's still only 10% of all population. How about Casual players? How about players, who play meme-decks and fun experimental decks? How about newbies, who struggle with no collection?
I believe in those numbers. Pirate Warrior (and other variations too, I guess) and forms of Shaman are really competitive decks. But Blizzard cares about all players. And that's the right thing to do. Yes, competitive players make game more interesting, but the most of population aren't those guys. And Blizzard needs to satisfy their customers. Not each customer, but the whole community in general. And - sorry - but 10% isn't the most valuable segment.
First of all, I really don't think win-rate of those decks are higher in lower brackets. I thinks, it's lower. Because people usually play cheap trash or even decks aimed at those aggro-dominates. And the skill-level of players, who are able to net-deck a list, but don't really know, how to play it good against different classes, while they can meet a really good players, who aren't playing competitively, who will crush them.
Second of all, you shouldn't only judge the deck by it's effectiveness. It's the view of a competitive player. There are other measures for decks and card. Like Fun. Replayabilty. Amount of skill needed. For example, I do like to win, but I rarely play one deck more, than 20 games. I get bored. Hearthstone is complex game with ability to really check your thinking capacity (sometimes) and some players like to do that. Even if it means lowering their win-rate.
This is a tricky one, actually. Deck becomes popular, because it is strong or it becomes strong, because it's popular? I'll explain. Second variation sometimes appear, because people (different people) play some deck a lot and it becomes popular (like "I should give it a try"), but then the other thing appears - because everyone is playing it (streamers, half of ladder and even newbs) people learn more about a deck. They really get to know it's potential. Reach. Draw style. How it behaves in different situations... they became better players in this decks limits.
For example, Shaman is really powerful class right now. But in Championships it's still gets beaten by different decks. A lot. Because Pro Players play good with any deck (they master it, of course), but people on Ladder master only one deck and then they pick something else, they suck - specially, if they already ranked up enough out of their actual skill bracket. So they return to Shaman, because they wanna continue their victorious run (for Legend maybe or rank 5 treasure chest), go to forums and tell more people, how good the Shaman is.
Maybe people just need to master more decks... but it takes time, of course.