"Ben Brode on how long until Pirates walk the plank"
Tim Clark from PC Gamer had a chance to sit down with Ben Brode to talk about the recent Q&A, his philosophy about nerfing/buffing cards, the next Standard rotation, what they were thinking when Spirit Claws was printed and more!
Quote from Tim Clark and Ben Brode
- They don't want to announce a nerf too far out from it actually happening. If they would, people would feel bad losing against a card they know is going to get nerfed.
- Ben Brode agrees that Small-Time Buccaneer is the problematic card in the Pirate package, not Patches the Pirate. If they decide to change something, it would be Small-Time Buccaneer.
- They intentionally nerfed Molten Giant really hard because they didn't want people to play that card anymore as it was hurting the ability for Standard to change.
- Hypothetically, if they would ever decide to move Classic cards to Wild it would probably be cards like Ragnaros the Firelord because they limit the design space for their mana cost a lot and limit the ability for Standard feel more fresh.
- Ben is not sure if he agrees with Brian Kibler that cheap weapons are a problem in general or if it's only a problem with a few specific weapons.
- The team was a bit disappointed that Shaman got even more popular after Karazhan, as that was not their intention.
- For example, Spirit Claws was intended for a new type of Shaman deck, and not for the current Shaman decks at the time.
- Ben worries about a big expansion concept / theme failing to land.
- C'Thun was one of the most risky things they have ever done and it turned out perfect from a balance perspective.
- Ben thinks the Grimy Goons mechanic will be used more in the future, once the meta slows down a bit.
- They try to have a good balance in 'obvious' mechanics like Jade where you just put as much of them in your deck as you can, and cards that require a bit more deck building skill to utilize.
Getting rid of good cards to increase the play of bad ones is a slippery slope. Especially in the case of huge, slow endgame minions. The reason Rag sees play over Gruul is indeed because he does something on the turn he's played, but getting rid of Rag wouldn't make Gruul or The Boogeymonster or other such giant stat piles better. Those cards won't see play because they do nothing to close out a game or stop aggro from killing you. If you spend almost all of your mana on a giant creature, your opponent will (usually) remove it efficiently and then either spam the board or play a big thing of their own. It isn't Rag that limits the "gigantic 7+ drop stat pile" design space; It's removal.
I wonder what new kind of Shaman they wanted to make with Spirit Claws.
Oh well, I'm sure the next expansion is going to make it painfully obvious.
Grimy Goons mechanic will be used more in the future, once the meta slows down a bit.
Not in Jade Golem meta.
"Ben worries about a big expansion concept / theme failing to land." Next expansion probably Dalaran themed. Kappa
"once the meta slows down a bit."
LOL.
Nerf more of the broken 1 (and some 2) drops, and stop printing broken 1 and 2 drops, and I might believe it. Until then, the meta is probably going to speed up even more after the next expansion.
The unfortunate thing is that if they nerf the pirates then we will probably be welcoming in our jade infinity druid overlords. As a control player you can tech for pirates. You can't really tech against infinity.
the fact that c'thun is perfectly balanced is such a joke to me
with just in general perfect enabler cards without downsides of any kind, it would have been better if they took like 1 stat each lower than the normal "balanced" card. also the decks pretty much played themselves, same goes with the new pirate package. not much thinking involved whatsoever, and that's the 2 biggest problems here.
i just wished blizzard knew about subtle balance changes that still change the game a lot without having to kill cards. for example starving buzzard would be fine at 4 mana - or change molten giant to 22/23 mana, so that you would still think twice about including these, but at least they're somewhat playable.
C'thun was definitely well balanced. The decks were never any better than mid-tier, and they actually turned out to be pretty interesting to build at high levels. The key was that building a c'thun deck was less about getting a big c'thun and more about activating the 10+ attack synergy cards, which meant that c'thun control warrior ended up being the best c'thun deck.
Also, blizzard knows how to change cards such that they will continue to be playable (auctioneer and leeroy, for instance), they wanted to remove buzzard and molten giant from the game. Buzzard was a problem for any card capable of summoning multiple beasts; for instance, if buzzard was still being played, they might not have been able to print alley cat. Molten giant was a card that got a ton of complaints from less experienced players who hated that they could be punished for lowering their opponent's life. It was also a problem for deck diversity, there are archetypes that can pretty much never beat handlock. For instance, in the world where handlock is a popular deck, priest is probably incapable of reaching tier 1.
Quite disappointed.
How could they think spirit claws would not have been used in aggro/midrange shaman?!?
On the same line, it is obvious that releasing STB as neutral minion, with so many aggressive&weapon builds, it woould become overly popular.
Yet, even with STB nerfed to dust, current Aggro decks will stay popular and strong. Because STB helps, but it is not the source of their power (weapons, charge, taunts, spells).
Hindsight is 20/20 remember? Most people on these forums voted for very bad cards being meta defining, so you can't exactly act like we all know better than the devs. People will always manage to find a way to break things you never even thought of.
Definitely.
But really, STB and spirit claws could not be foreseen?
Not to current extent maybe, but their potential is pretty obvious.
Well it was likely foreseen that STB would be strong, pretty sure they said a little while ago that they wanted Pirates to be a bit stronger. The unforeseen part was just how powerful it would be.
The pnöy reason they want to nerf stb over patches is the 1600 dust refund. That card doesnt difer to much from cogmaster or blood imp.
But a 0 mana 1/1 charge that draws a card is way to good imo. Also it generates a terrible luck based game were its decicive if its in your starting hand or not.
I disslike pirates but i disslike patches realy way more than stb.
Also why nerf anything before outrotation?!? That doesnt make any sense. Just removing totem golem and tunel trogg + dragons and finley out will severely hurt most agro decks there is no need making a nerf yet.
if new set hits and after outrotating pirates are stil dominant they stil can nerf those.
Furthermore Kibbler is just right in saying cheap weapons are broken. Because they represent way to much face damage. 6 or even 9 damage for 1,2 mana is rediculous with possible ability to remove board.
the only good thing in this interview is that ben didnt say a thing about arena and i realy hope they leave arena as it is... standard arena wuld suck balls just because Some cards will have such an insane draft % and only 1 firelands like card can easyly destroy the whole gamebalance there when you could draft it like 5 times in 1 run.
Their completely retarded when they dont see that problem.
Leave arena as it is.
Expansion is released with some really broken cards that are toxic for the game
1st month of the expansion: ''The meta is still fresh,so we are just watching''
2cd month of the expansion(the data can't no longer be denied): ''We want to give the community the time to figure out counters itself''
3rd month of the expasion: ''We are thinking about how to nerf it''
4th month of expansion:''You know what?We don't need to do anything because we created the counters you need in the new expansion to be released''
XD
Hmm, we have I heard this all before? <Bring out your dead....goodie!>
i started to play after gvg lauch, and every expansion promised to slow dowm the game, well, was a little slower for a brief time after old gods launch but, they have failed to slow down the game in every attempt i could witness.
They can make 1 drops.. misstress of mixtures is a good 1 drop, they can make 0/2 one drops with some effects it's fine or 1/1's just not 2/1's or 3/2's(with conditions)
What a train wreck. They KNOW pirates is broken, and that nerfing STB would fix it - but they won't do it... at least not now... because that would require a new patch. Seriously how hard is it to make a patch???
Finnally the found out the whole Pirate thing is broken as fuck! Seriously what they are fucking think to create sUch a dumb aggro archetype that can win a game on turn 4, I SAID TURN 4 GODDAMIT!
The same way that STB and patches weren't "intended" to be used with jade claws. Unfortunately good intentions is not a replacement for good testing.