Developer Insights Live - Potential Arena & Ranked Changes, Community Q&A
The live edition of Developer insights featuring Ben Brode and Dean Ayala has concluded. You can find our recap of the stream below, or watch the vod further below that.
Please note that some stuff below is simply the team sharing ideas of changes that could come and doesn't mean we'll see everything implemented. The team loves to hear feedback and are really interested in the points on Arena changes and ranked ladder.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Arena may change into a Standard format.
- Ranked is currently too grindy so new breakpoints, bonus stars, and and win-streaks past rank 5 could help with that.
- If Pirates don't lose some steam, the team will likely intervene.
Recap
Quote from Ben and DeanIntroduction
- They've never done a live Q&A before so this will be a bit different than past experiences.
- Ben thinks video format is helpful for communication and they should do more of it.
New Player Experience
- Most new players play against AI, some hit up casual, and few hit up ranked right away.
- They've adjusted the matchmaking experience over time to ensure new players get introduced to the game better.
Ranked Ladder
- The current system is very clear how it works, there's no behind the scenes calculations outside of Legend.
- It's too grindy right, especially with it always resetting.
- Monthly seasons are a good duration.
- A short-term fix is to increase the amount of bonus stars you gain so you can get back up to where you were faster.
- Trying to move more players away from Rank 20 can help with the new player experience.
- They don't want everyone to be a Legend player, that would devalue the ranking. Ladder changes shouldn't inflate this count much.
- Win-streaks stopping at Rank 5 was due to the team wanting people to get to Legend "Legit". This could change.
- They have a meeting on Wednesday to see how they can attack the Ranked Ladder issue.
The Arena
- Making Arena Standard is a consideration. New sets become more important to the card pool instead of further diluting it.
- They'd like to reduce the amount of Commons and "useless" cards you get.
- Arena shouldn't feel like constructed, but it also shouldn't just be about picking things to play on curve. More strategy / synergy would be good.
- In February, they're going to release a Top 100 ranking for Arena. It will be calculated based on highest avg wins per run with a minimum 30 run requirement.
- Some changes for Arena are already ready to be added to the game, they're evaluating the best time to patch them in.
Wild Format
- Moving specific cards from Classic and Basic sets keeps them available to that format without nerfing them to keep Standard different.
- They expect Wild to increase in popularity once the next rotation happens. Wild will have 5 format sets instead of just 2.
- Standard is about twice as popular as wild right now.
- Ben would love to see more Wild events, Blizzard has to promote them more.
Pirates
- Pirate Warrior was 30% of the meta game near Gadgetzan launch but has fallen off.
- They're a little higher than they're comfortable with, but if it doesn't change, they're likely to do something about it.
- Patches the Pirate being in all the weapon classes is great from a design perspective even if Pirates may be a bit too strong.
Meta
- There's a lot of different stuff going on in their personal meta report. Lots of decks really close to 50%.
- The top deck and 11th deck were within 3% win-rate of each other with a high end of 52%.
- Hunters and Paladins should see more play once the meta slows down.
- A healthy meta is determined largely by feel. How the community feels and a personal level of the team is important but statistics also come into play.
- Win-rates over 55% for a deck can be a sign that something is wrong, or when 25-30% (or more) of players are playing a specific deck.
- Undertaker was being played in ~40% of games which is why it ended up being nerfed.
- It's really healthy when something is really powerful initially (Pirate Warrior) but then players find tools to combat those decks. They like it when players figure things out themselves without the team intervening.
Misc
- Before Naxx, Hunter was at the top in low-end play but not as good in the high end. They tried to solve it back then by creating cards for Hunters that were harder to play so bad players would do worse and the truly good could excel.
- It's important to have a variety of skill-testing decks in the top end of play.
- It's also okay to have cards that can just be fun and not super competitive.
- They like to do cards like Kun the Forgotten King but they have to be careful with testing to make sure they can't be abused. Malygos and Aviana were cited as being tested a ton with Kun.
- Reprinting nerfed cards could happen, but it hasn't been long enough since those original Standard nerfs. You could also have up to 4 of the same card in Wild then which is an issue.
- Silver Hand Recruits, Buffs, and Healing is the identity for Paladin. More buff synergy is planned. Heals should shine more once Reno Jackson drops out.
Team 5
- Team 5 has almost doubled in size each year since launch. They'll likely get larger.
- Ben spends much of his time in meetings nowadays.
- Dean, as a game designer, spends a lot of time play testing.
Video
The stream has concluded but you can watch the vod to experience the magic.
That doesn't make any sense, higher power level in the early game, and stickier boards as a result are the reason going first versus going second is so important. Moving towards synergies as well as board clears should be the solution.
Hopefully we'll get full dust for Patches if they nerf the pirate package and it won't be just a nerf to STB...
Why is this Blue Post brown ?
So true, and only no-lifer kids like this game. Its like cocaine for them
Make Small-Time Buccaneer a rogue class card > release Luckydo Buccaneer to neutral.
nerf Fiery War Axe to either (3) mana OR 2/2 OR 3/1 (just look at King's Defender, which is not even in the Evergreen set).
And there you go with Aggro/Pirate Warrior and Shaman being still powerful, yet not too widespread.
While not ruining Rogue, whose use of Pirate (either Aggro or Miracle) doesn't make it OP, just competitive.
STB is a neutral card that has different importance for at least three classes.
Any direct nerf to Small-Time Buccaneer would needlessly hurt Rogue, in the name of balance for OTHER classes.
I hope they'll be careful about this.
'a bit too strong'. Fuck off, seriously. For about a month, I haven't played HS more than necessary to complete my daily quests because of those 'a bit too strong' fucking pirates.
There are currently 2 overpowered decks, midrange Shaman and any Pirate deck. So ofcourse Blizzard's statistics don't show them as overpowered if 70% of all games are those playing against each other.
I lost about 10 out of my last 15 games vs Pirate decks. I had Living Roots and/or Wrath in my opening hand in nearly all those 10 games, but lost every single one of them before turn 7. Call me salty, whatever, but there's no fun in losing games over and over again when your decisions don't matter since your only option is praying to draw your removal.
Lol you sound mega salty, don't we have a thread for that? Pirate warrior WAS good but I win pretty regularly against it. If your Druid deck not working maybe you should tech against it with something else
I feel the same man. Since a month I am just completing my quests. Before that I played like three hours a day and have had more fun than with any other game. Now I am just waiting for the meta shift in spring. For me it is a mystery why the developers are pushing decks which can be handled by a 8 year old kid (actually played by players with the legend cardback). These decks are dominating the meta which feels just unfair. Playing decks which require thinking (not just curving) are in a disadvantage in the meta right now... Well, this is just how it feels.
In the end it's not just about losing or wining vs Pirate Warrior. It's about the fact that it's just not fun. You either die on turn 5, or you draw your removal on time. No choices to be made either way. Aggro vs aggro is fun. Control vs control is fun. Control vs aggro definitely isn't.
The mega salty thread is for people who got unlucky in a few games and want to rage about it. Being unlucky once in a while is fine. Not having fun in 70% of my games is a bigger problem and people should be able to talk about the reason behind that without being told 'you're being salty, go to the mega salty thread'.
And I'm not alone in this since i've seen A LOT of people here talk about it, as well as many youtubers / pro players.
You are saying that you can't deal with a 1/1 minion? :D
I think Small-Time Buccaneer is a much greater issue.
That 1/1 is the break point in killing a T2 Doomsayer.
But pirate warrior IS fun. I like winning and i like crushing my opponent, i hate waiting and i hate stalling... tons of FUN for me and my ilk.
I'm sorry I'm NOT BEING ABLE TO VALUE A GAME BY HOW ADORABLE THE DEVS ARE!
And Team 5 engage TOO LITTLE with the community. They might be getting better at ti atm, but nothing close to the Overwatch or HoTS team.
If you follow the other games, you know what I'm talking about.
I really dislike the fact they are considering removing Classic/Basic cards from standard. I really undermines the trust I've placed in the company when they've previously said they would not be taking such actions. Further it seems lazy when instead you can just adjust the balance of the cards as we've seen in the past rather than just removing it. What's more it impacts me personally as a budget player seeing any part of my collection diminish and fade into wild hurts my current decks and my pocketbook. Part of the reason why classic packs seemed more valuable to purchase mid-way through an expansion was because I was guaranteed that would not rotate. Now this looks to change, and I will never know beforehand which random cards they are looking to push out of standard. With nerfs and balance changes at least you can predict with some level of certainty based on community feedback and statistical analysis on what seems imbalanced and therefore needs fixes. Or with adventures where you would know exactly which cards will last for how long. But instead of getting an announcement that they want to add more cards to classic, instead we get that they are going to shrink it? I am upsetty.
Yes, Standard is twice as popular as wild. So why punish standard for its success if people enjoy it twice as much? You can add 5 more game modes and thats just great, but i don't see why you can't have both Standard as it is currently as well as these new game modes.
This is just a first reaction however and time may prove me wrong, but my gut is telling me Blizzard is gunna make a mess of the game after these changes.
It will in the long run.
Having a lot of good cards in the classic set means there's not too much pressure to collect all the good cards from new expansions if you still want to be competitive.
If all good cards are in the expansion and adventure sets, that means you lose 80% of your good cards during every new classic cycle.
I really like that they are communicating more, but oh boy are they telling us a lot of bs...
There are like 1000 cards, and you can put 30 in a deck. Then how is it great if 1 of those 1000 is in every single weapon class deck?
Then stop making fucking broken 1-drops. Never even once in the history of Hearthstone has the meta 'slowed down'.
There's no way to counter a deck that kills you by turn 5. Only solution would be to put only cheap removal and taunts in your deck, but doing so would mean that you have absolutely no chance against any other deck.
Have they never heard that too many cooks spoil the broth? No wonder this game is becoming such a mess.
Arena is really good in wild. But this is blizzard - they dont make games for fun, they are here for profit. And if arena is wild, new players will not pay for it. "consideration"