Dean Ayala Talks About the Nerfs, Jade Concerns, and the Different Hearthstone Design Teams
Dean Ayala was out on reddit this evening talking about the nerf announcement. You can check out our summary, or the quoted text, below.
- They can't know exactly how the meta will play out once the nerfs go live, but they can get a reasonable idea through play testing.
- Aggro shouldn't go away as a result of the Small-Time Buccaneer change, which keeps Jade at bay.
- If Jade was going to make up half the meta post nerfs, they would have gone a different route.
- The design team is made up of 15 people, through multiple teams. 4 work on Balancing. They all tend to help eachother out though.
- Live Content - Brawls, Firesides, Other Events
- Initial Design - Card Designs, Mechanic Designs, Set Flavor and Theme
- System Design - Ranked Systems, Tons of Other Systems
- Final Design - Set Tuning, Card Design, Mechanic Design
- Mission Design - Mission Design, Card Design
Quote from /u/IksarHSIn your testing of the nerfs, how has Jade Druid/Rogue improved with the nerf of STB/Claws? I think it's good if it improves a little but if it gets too strong it could be just as infuriating to play against.
This is something that is mostly a prediction rather than a result of testing. Whether or not Jade Druid and Rogue will be 'good' is meta dependent. I don't think these changes will magically make Jade decks strong against aggressive decks, but I think it's safe to say the meta slowing down at any % is a good thing for Jade. (Source)
Wait you guys didn't test these changes in a ladder environment?
Of course we do, what I mean by prediction is not predicting how good or bad particular matchups are, but predicting what people will actually choose to play. Jade decks still aren't great vs highly aggressive pirate decks, even after changing small-time buccaneer. If pirates are still played at the same volume they are now, I don't imagine Jade will be very strong. We can playtest every matchup in the game between the 3-4 of us but that won't tell us the exact rate at which each deck will be played on ladder, though it does put us in a good position to make a reasonable prediction. (Source)
There are only 4 guys on the balance team?!
Yes. Design team is around 15 people now. Live Content (Brawls, Firesides, Other Events), Initial Design (Card Designs, Mechanic Designs, Set Flavor and Theme), System Design (Ranked Systems, Tons of Other Systems), Final Design (Set Tuning, Card Design, Mechanic Design), and Mission Design (Mission Design, Card Design). We also have Ben that directs the ship and another sort of jack of all trades designer than works a lot on new player experience, matchmaking, and flavor things. That said, well all help each other out quite a bit and the real list of things each individual person does is more like 20 bullet points rather than 2. That's the general jist though. (Source)
Thanks for the answer! Part of me really hope that with such a small team every single one of you are millionaires. The other part kinda thinks this number is really low! But I am just a Internet dude. One more question! I think is safe to say that the vocal community is tired of losing to aggro, do you guys think is fair criticism to say that the team could be doing a better job at balancing aggro?
To clarify, this is also just the design team I'm speaking to. There are many other people of various disciplines like art, engineering, production, community, QA, customer support, marketing, business, etc that make an equally large impact on the game. (Source)
Why waiting until the end of February? Why not nerf the cards today?
I'm not an expert in this area, but it has a lot to do with being a game on multiple platforms. In order to patch simultaneously on PC/Mobile there are a number of things that have to be submit and approved being we can release a new patch to the public. (Source)
If the wolf population is keeping the rabbit population in check and you weaken wolves, that will probably increase the frequency of rabbits?
This isn't too far off. The hard part is determining how many rabbit-eating-animal decks will appear as a result of the increase of rabbit frequency, and if the introduction of said-animal-rabbit-eater introduces a new animal we've never heard of. (Source)
So why not do something regarding jade now then just wait for us to have to deal with 2 months of jade being infuriating to play against in any control matchup?
Jade is fairly weak to aggressive strategies, and I don't think those are going to go away as a result of STB change. There is still some room between hyper-aggressive pirate things and heavy control things that will keep us pretty far from all-jade-all-the-time meta. At least that's the idea. If we thought as a result of these changes Jade would be all (or half of all decks) that were relevant, we would have gone a different route. (Source)
These interviews always annoy me. The info is vague and useless, the questions are written poorly and do not touch upon the main points (''I am tired of losing to aggro'' is not useful to anyone) and the answers are basically community control babble that nobody finds useful, ever. Ayala dodges the aggro question, lightly hints that Jade might be a problem in the future that they'll handle much later, is fine with you still losing to turn 3-4 aggression ''because it keeps Jade away'' (it also keeps the satisfaction of playing a card game away and Hearthstone having a bad reputation, mr Ayala) and they're apparently going to avoid doing Reno-like cards, possibly leaving the archetype to die depending on the meta.
I'm really starting to hate these guys.
I think hs developers are too scared to do changes cause they think community backlash will kill the game.
And actually, they are killing the game themselves by doing nothing and telling "we work hard to find problems"
Everyone knows its just avoiding the problem.
They should have chosen Shaman as the weak Jade class (eg. remove Jade Claws), since Shaman already has plenty of Control and survival tools.
And give Rogue full Jade setup (eg. give them Jade Claws), given that Rogue can hardly afford lategame anyway, with her limited survival.
Remove taunt from Jade Behemoth (Druid has already plenty of taunt), and there maybe you can afford a slightly weaker Aggro, without Jade becoming a cancer.
Now, with current situation, it's understandably complicated to balance the meta just by tweaking stats on few cards.
He fucking answered the most simple question and targeted the most huge problem of the game, agrro cancer players..and Ayala it's all about bullshiting...
Relying on these four guys, whoever they are, to balance the game is clearly a problem.
WTF is the guy doing who is working on new player experience? :D
"Thanks for the answer! Part of me really hope that with such a small team every single one of you are millionaires. The other part kinda thinks this number is really low! But I am just a Internet dude. One more question! I think is safe to say that the vocal community is tired of losing to aggro, do you guys think is fair criticism to say that the team could be doing a better job at balancing aggro?"
"To clarify, this is also just the design team I'm speaking to. There are many other people of various disciplines like art, engineering, production, community, QA, customer support, marketing, business, etc that make an equally large impact on the game..."
I absolutely love how he completely ignored the part of the question referring to aggro Decks... Guy should prolly be in Politics rather than in Game Design...
Journalism 101: ask one question only or this happens. Trust me, I'm a marketing expert (:
people want diversity. And you blind if not see there is a lot of complain about oppressive Reno+kazakus and Jades at the same time with aggrodecks.
I want more than 4 deck types seeing any real representation (pirate aggro, jade, kaz/reno, dragon), 5 if you include Miracle Rogue. And within that you have Paladin, Hunter, and Druid to a lesser extent seeing little play. In addition, the current archetypes are so strong that most classes only have one viable deck. You face a Rogue? It's Miracle. Face a priest? It's Dragon. Face Warlock? It's Reno.
I find it ridiculous that I'm awaiting the new expansion not because I'm excited for new cards but because I want most of these decks to be rotated out.
There should be ATLEAST 9 "strong" decks. We have 9 classes in the game, yet in the latest tournament, only 5 were used and each class moslty had 1 deck. For me, Id love something like 20 "competitive" decks, that could be seen in the ladder, I dont mind playing against Pirate decks, 5, 10, 15 or 20% of the time, but 30, 40, 50%?
We have Pirate Warrior, Aggro Shaman, Miracle Rogue, Dragon Priest and Renolock forming 95% of the ladder. How about we get to see some some Beast Druid, Goon Hunter, Goon Paladin, Demonlock, Mill Rogue, Taunt Warrior, Malygos Shaman or Freeze Mage?
I'm going back to Wild.
wow
I am grateful for the way Blizzard is acting like the federal reserve and slowly dropping hints at the direction they are going. Because of it I have 600 dust coming my way. Nerfs feel good.
"In order to patch simultaneously on PC/Mobile there are a number of things that have to be submit and approved being we can release a new patch to the public."
.............
Let me be just as blunt as I possibly can.
*takes a deep breath*
BBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!
" between the 3-4 of us"
Dude dropped that bombshell like it was nothing.
3 or 4 people dedicated to trying out the various archetype decks for eight hours a day or so could get a good bit of testing done. Maybe not do every single permutation of an archetype, but they can certainly use whatever decklists that get posted here and elsewhere as a baseline and gather good info that way.
Not enough testing to predict Secret Paladin. Or Pirate Warrior. Or Aggro Shaman*. And I'm gonna leave Patron Warrior out because it's a less "direct" approach to the game ; See how generous I can be.
Isn't there a point when the "They can't be THAT bad" excuse just crumbles before the track record of Team 5 ?
* : And the most aggravating thing is, these decks ( Except for Secret Paladin, though you'd be a fool to think a 6 mana 6/6 "Draw and play 5 mana worth of cards" wouldn't spawn a new archetype... ) existed before. It didn't take a genius to see them coming, all it took was to take an existing deck and put the new cards in it.
I really think they need more, or could bring in a bunch of the pro players for some time to see if things beyond the scope of the balance teams' imagination pop up. While it is excessive to think it a good idea that the balance team has a chance to play enough to experiment with every possible deck type possible in the current standard pool, it seems clear that four people isn't quite enough.
This might be a reason as to why things take so long and the meta stagnates. With only four people focused on balance testing you have very few bodies present to test an absolutely massive number of possibilities, both before and after changing card text. More people balance testing means potential meta breakers could be caught sooner and fixed faster.