Ben Brode: "Keeping Hearthstone Spicy is Important"
Earlier today, Blizzard announced that we'd be having a Free Card Day event this weekend on May 20th. There's been a lot of people wondering what's up with it and Ben Brode decided to tell us a bit more about the reasoning behind it.
- They like doing special events and they've got more planned, both bigger and smaller, down the line.
- Giving out a free card was something easy they could do as a fun one-off.
Quote from Ben BrodeLots of folks in this thread wondering: "Why? Are they testing something?"
Honestly we just think it's fun to do surprising things. We like the feel of our Winter's Veil event, our "Hearthstone New Years" event, and the (now-redundant) Friendly Feud, and we've been ramping up our events team to do even more. We have some stuff planned that I think will be pretty hot. Keeping Hearthstone spicy is important... and giving out a free card seemed like something easy we could do as a fun one-off. We have some bigger (and smaller) events planned... we're just getting warmed up!
Enjoy the free card! (or the dust!)
Yea, this is totally not testing the waters with an epic quality card to see what kind of traffic it brings in on a random day in May.
It's to keep Hearthstone spicy.
What kind of test is that? The numbers of log ins go up. Maybe some of the players who log in start playing again? That's true of every cool event we could create. It's like, do we need to test if people like free stuff? My guess is no. I'm fairly certain they do.
Have you all looked into doing daily login rewards like other digital CCGs do?
Yes, we did it leading up to Un'Goro launch and it was pretty fun.
In general, putting aside the question of "how much is the right amount of free stuff", the question is "what's the right way to deliver the free stuff". For example, we added ranked rewards, better quests, tavern brawl packs, etc. I'm not against finding other ways to reward stuff, but is daily log-in the best way? I tend to find it tedious to have to remember to log in every day. It makes me sad when I miss a day.
Our daily quest system for example, could have a single slot for your quests, instead of 3. 'Log in every day and complete your quest'. It's the same total amount of stuff given out (1 quest a day), but you'd have to make sure to log in daily to get that value, as opposed to getting some slack and letting you miss a couple days without losing any of that value.
I do think it's cool to have a fun present to open every day, though. There are pros and cons to a system like that.
What Kinds of Events Would YOU Like to See?
Here's a question for the comments below. What kind of events do you want to see the Hearthstone team do? Personally, I'd love to see them play more with the Warcraft-themed holidays through either Tavern Brawls or flavorful takeovers of normal assets. Some Quests for those events would be A+.
A new card every week might be too much, but a new card as part of every monthly reward could help a lot. They could specifically design cards that either buffed weak classes or helped slow down the most powerful meta decks. One well-built card could make a meaningful difference in the meta.
I believe better rewards for playing with friends could be introduced. They added the possibility to complete quests playing against friends and that's great, so it seems they want to encourage the social aspects of the game. So how about they weekly give some gold or maybe a pack if you play X number of matches against friends?
Although I would love to have daily rewards (as I love anything free), I agree with that feeling of *having to* login daily to get the rewards. I prefer weekly rewards, like the tavern brawl pack (which are great) so imo weekly friendly quests would be a nice addition too.
tavern brawl pseudo replayability: give a pack like now, but also for ever increasing wins, like at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 12th, 24th, ....
So... tournament mode? Sandbox mode?
IMO, I think Blizzard is smart enough to see how GWENT is shaping up to be a serious competitor in the CCG arena and they need to do more events and try to be more "generous" with rewards in order to minimize the eventual shift in users going over to GWENT because pirate warrior fucking still exists for some reason.
LOL. Been playing gwent since closed beta, and while it still is in a transitionary period it has been far more of a satisfying card game to play than hearthstone has been for the last year or so. the developers actually care about community feedback and make changes rather quickly to reflect that, HS does not do changes to that extent at all. GWENT reward system is FAR better than HS in getting new players a decent card collection in a reasonable amount of time. Probably YOU should play GWENT more or if you couldn't get in then try when open beta goes live on the 24th. By the way, Pirate warrior is a tier 2 deck and is always around high legend ranks so your "75% beatable" statement is ridiculous and false. Gwent challenger tournament had known streamers and great production and with Lifecoach behind the game 100% you are fool to think it's not a serious competitor. Go look into CD Projekt Red and their team to get a more informed opinion rather than just spew a lazy response with a laughable statistic.
I think there are more popular alternatives, like shadowverse, that are more likely to pull players away rather than the mostly unknown gwent.
blizzard is really stupid for such a rich big company
If they want Hearthstone be spicy why do they keep making it salty?
That's the players' fault.
Nice attempt on trying to be funny but salt IS a spice you fucking retard
I was just joking its not actually a spice
Hype! :D
Spicy? Give me a Bloody Mary.....
Suggestion for using the annual theme (year of Kraken / Mammoth) for some thematic consistency and keeping meta fresh and exciting.
I had hoped the idea of theming each year (Kraken, Mammoth) would lead to some more exciting storytelling between the expansions of the year and maybe even use it to keep the meta fresh/exciting throughout and in-between expansion releases.
To that end, i would like to suggest that Team 5 would consider something like — A set of 6 to 12 cards released over a bi-monthly / monthly schedule with the rank pack (subject to similar basic requirements being fulfilled, like playing/winning at least x games that month etc) with the Annual theme (Mammoth for 2017). Strong Legendaries/Epics (Like N'Zoth, Kazakus) , perhaps which bring out the "Mammoth" theme, tie all expansions together thematically, keep meta dynamic every month?
This may also provide an additional advantage of letting Team 5 course-correct the meta by introducing the right card at the right time if/when needed.
These cards would form their own annual standard collection (Year of the Mammoth Set) and cards from these can be crafted in months following their release (for those who missed winning them in monthly packs).
Cheers!
Thank you, Ben! I feel exactly the same, and I would absolutely hate it if Hearthstone did this.
It blows my mind how many people fail to understand that quests ARE a daily reward, only better, because you can skip a day or two and still get the reward.
I also hate the idea of not having to do anything to get the reward, just log in. How lazy can you be?