Ben Thompson and Ben Brode Twitter Q&A
During Gamescom, Ben Brode and Ben Thompson both answered community questions on Twitter via video. We've transcribed all their responses and summarized their answers down below for you.
- The mouse seen in some official art is named Sarge. He is the best friend of the Innkeeper, Harth Stonebrew.
- No plans right now to do the same treatment Death Knights received for Monk and Demon Hunter.
- RNG cards can actually add skill to the game and aren't just there to make things fun.
- Reducing the top-end grind for ladder and giving players stuck at low levels at progression are the immediate goals the new ladder system needs to achieve.
- Mechanics they like will be brought back. Giving others their own time to shine is important though.
- Concerned about Druid? Brode wants you to check out Dean Ayala's post.
We've got some fluffy responses too!
- Brode's favourite card from Frozen Throne is Deathstalker Rexxar.
- Thompson's favourite is Valeera the Hollow
- Brode has been using Meat Wagon alongside Validated Doomsayer and Devilsaur Egg.
- Both Bens love the Archmage Antonidas card art (and artist - Wayne Reynolds).
Quote from @PlayHearthstoneWhich card is your favourite card in #FrozenThrone?
Ben Thompson: Mine personally would be Valeera the Hollow, mostly from the conceptual side of what does a Death Knight Rogue look like. A rogue that is permanently a part of Shadow sounds like an awesome visual to me and the artist did an amazing job.
Ben Brode: Speaking of an awesome visual, Deathstalker Rexxar, owning the board, stitching together a horrifying beast, that's my favourite card in the set.
BT: And most animated. (Source)
That cute mouse in the [Frozen Throne] trailer, I've also seen it on [Mean Streets of Gadgetzan] artwork. Is there a story behind it? Does it have a name?
BT: That mouse in the trailer is actually Sarge. The best friend of Hearth Stonebrew, the Innkeeper of the tavern. He has in fact shown up in key art from previous expansions as you mentioned from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, and even in some of the early art for the game. Keep an eye out as I'm sure he'll show up again.
BB: Especially if you leave cheese out. (Source)
Are there any plans to incorporate Monk and Demon Hunter classes in a similar fashion to Death Knights in the future?
BT: We were actually really happy to be able to find a home for Death Knights in the form of the new hero cards with Knights of the Frozen Throne. That said, at this point in time there is no plans to do this again for a different class in the future. Who knows what the future holds however. (Source)
Hi Ben, what do you think of the design of RNG cards? Do you agree that RNG cards make HS more fun to watch but less competitive?
BB/BT: Hi Garrosh.
BT: Actually, on the Hearthstone team we do believe RNG cards make Hearthstone more fun to play.
BB: Yeah and it has an interesting relationship with skill. A lot of the random cards generate new cards that you didn't put into your deck. That can often create novel scenarios - brand new that you haven't had to deal with before and the best players at Hearthstone are the best at adapting to those brand new situations quickly and finding the right answer. So, in that way, it can actually add skill to the game. (Source)
Frozen Throne is cool guys! Get it? Ok but how about a quick update on ladder changes please? Thanks!
BB: We are hard at work on changes to the ladder. I'm very excited about them. I think there's a couple of big opportunities to make things better. One is to reduce the amount of grind for top level players. Two, adding a bit of progression for players that are stuck at the very bottom of the ladder. And three is increasing the winrate for brand new players and making the new player experience better - that I think will have to come later since we're focused on the first two things right now, but we're excited. (Source)
What is one card you wish saw more play on ladder or what is the card that players haven't figured out how to use properly?
BB: I feel like maybe players haven't figured out Meat Wagon yet. It is super fun and can be very powerful. I've been playing it with Validated Doomsayer and Devilsaur Egg which because they have 0-attack they come out via the Meat Wagon and it might be powerful.
BT: Seems good. Seems good. (Source)
You always introduce new cool mechanics, but never bring them back - Will we see more hero and lifesteal cards in upcoming expansions?
BT: That's not exactly true, we have actually brought back mechanics from the past. If you look at something like Deathrattle that featured in the Classic set and also Curse of Naxxramas, now its showing up again for Knights of the Frozen Throne.
BB: As far as Death Knights and lifesteal, we don't want to talk too much about the future just yet, but generally we do bring stuff back if we like it - we'll explore it again. We do want to give other mechanics time to shine. We're very excited about other new ideas we have. (Source)
So I think that we all agree that Druid is too strong. Do you have any plans for any nerfs so that we don't get smashed each game?
BB: I think Druid is very strong but Knights of the Frozen Throne is only two weeks old. We're going to monitor the situation, and that doesn't mean just do nothing, we're actually looking at winrates and seeing what comes up. Ideally, decks take advantage of Druids and raise in winrate and lower the play and winrate of Druid over time. If that doesn't happen, we're considering a couple of nerfs and changes. We did a big writeup of this recently and I encourage you to check out Dean Ayala's post on the current state of Druid and what we're planning. (Source)
Favourite card art/artist?
BT: I would say from the Classic set would be Archmage Antonidas.
BB: I knew you were going say that.
BT: I knew you were going to say that too.
Brode laughs.
BT: It's a great card by a great artist - Wayne Reynolds did an amazing job on it and I believe that it's just carried through from set to set and remains one of my favourites. (Source)
Any thoughts on hero cards in arena and balancing issues? (Banning them or adding others to the "synergy" category)
BB: Well I think generally the idea is to keep trying things with the Arena. The synergies thing we're trying out and getting feedback on it, but yeah it is to change it up and try new things over time. (Source)
Yeah the problem isn't jade druid or ramp druid or aggro druid, the problem is that druid has virtually no weakness. Druid was already strong, but it wasn't overpowered, you were weak against aggro and some control. Now it is beyond broken due all the tools it has received this expansion, tools like Spreading Plague just shut down aggro entirely and often wins the game on the spot. Malfurion the Pestilent destroys aggro and control alike. Ultimate Infestation it's just ridiculously strong against everything
These cards are strong enough on their own and ludicrous with the insane amounts of ramp that druid has at their disposal in addition to cards such as Innervate.
Blizzard fucked up with druid and it to be fixed fast.
"We need to see more data, in 4 or 6 months we may have changed something."
And they will say the same in 4 months when launching the next exp.
I think it's more the fact that they added a ton of powerful control cards in this expansion - and Druid being the ramp class gets to those cards the fastest. If other classes could ramp you'd be seeing a trail of tears about the Mage DK, or the Priest DK.
Ramp used to be mortgaging the present for the future, but the future arrives very quickly now that there's like 8 ramp options available, and the future is a huge catch up cards that fill the board with taunts to buy time, or deals damage, puts a creature on board, and fills your hand.
After three weeks of using the Death Knight class cards made from The Lich King and Arfus, I now agree with the devs. We should not get new classes. Think about it. If those eight DK cards were part of the Basic set, they would be broken as hell. Obliterate and Death Coil would be the best removal of the game. But yeah, having the class cards as tokens is a much better way to give us the DK class like we wanted. Maybe next year we'll get a Pandaria expansion with some Monk class cards generated by a couple legendaries.
"We understand that even though there are millions of people using these cards, and hundreds of websites devoted to tracking meta data, and entire youtube communities who's sole purpose is to discover broken combos... We just feel it needs more time to settle first before we make any changes."
- Ben Brode, showing why he would make a horrible doctor.
What a terrible comparison here. Doctors generally have to deal with issues as soon as they know what the issue is. If they misdiagnose the issue, it may make matters worse. Ben Brode also isn't a doctor, he's a game director, and he is right in waiting it out a bit more.
I personally don't believe there's any waiting to be had, as I'm pretty sure Jade Druid as it is now is pretty broken, but I also think it's fair to for the HS team to wait a bit longer than 3 weeks to decide to roll in some changes.
Yeah, fair point, bad analogy, but my initial point does remain. It's pretty galling to be told to just sit and wait when there are millions of people already doing their job for them and trying to find the so called "meta settler". 3 weeks is an eternity in internet time, and it's not like Jade has only been a problem since The Frozen Throne either.
Sure!!!! lets just w8 to be sure in a sure thing.
I think the problem people have with this RNG = skill discussion is people have different definitions of what RNG actually is. Yogg for example is pure random, and can win people games they should have lost. I feel this is what people view RNG as and to me that's bad RNG. Ivory Knight on the other hand to me is good RNG. It shows you how much the card costs, so you have an idea of what to play around. In that sense, RNG creates skill, for both the player picking the card, perhaps reading ahead for what he/she may need, and for the player seeing the heal and thinking oh, he/she healed for 6, so that means I need to play around 6 cost Paladin cards.
The problem is people have such blanket terms for it that Ben Brode may be talking about Ivory Knight and people think he's talking about Yogg.
Well, there's also the third case of cards like Primordial Glyph, wherein the pool of cards is consistently good enough and the packaged upside so great that it's never not a good idea to play it. Same for stuff like Hydrologist and Stonehill Defender. The consistency and unlikelihood of getting totally boned means that even though they are RNG, they might as well be at a preset power level.
Hydrologist - good RNG. Small pool of same costing cards with similar impacts, that the opponent can play around with skill, but can also be surprised with depending on what you choose. Power level of the RNG has very little fluctuations.
Primordial Glyph - terrible RNG. Not only generates possibly a third copy of something that your deck should never have had, has possibility to pull the exact answer to almost any situation. Can also create terribly unfair situations with pre-emptive discounts like turn 5 Flamestrikes that your opponent could never play around. Power level wildly swings depending on choices and situation. Ruins arena. The hell were they thinking?
Stonehill Defender - borderline RNG. Gives you something from a pool the opponent can reasonably predict with a function the opponent knows what it will be. Unfortunately, depending on what class you use this card with the power level of the resulting cards can be wildly different, giving cards you never should have had, like multiple legendaries. Since the powerlevel is wildly swingy this is a bad RNG card...for certain classes (*coughpaladincough*)
It baffles me that Blizzard seems to understand good and bad RNG in the design of certain cards and then just spits out pure garbage dangerous toxic RNG cards in defiance of that.
Not talking about balance issues, not interested.
Refering to Deans post about druid is like if would kill someone than refer t oa chicken. Talk to that about it not my concer, it's the chikens responsibility.
It depends. If you play for example burgle rogue it can take some skill to make your cards work with the random stuff you get. Things like Primordial Glyph or Stonehill Defender take IMHO zero skill. You just pick what you fits the situation best.
From a design point of view, the statement isn't wrong. Reacting to a random situation in a favorable way requires "skill" / game knowledge. That's just not the way HS uses random effects at the moment. You can't really talk about skill if the effects have no or little downside. Blizz is just artificially widening the design space.
Dealing with randomness is a skill, and you can't deny it. The issue is that it doesn't translate directly to a victory. When you look at hearthstone competitively (or any card game at that) you should never look at isolated games but at overall winrates: there you will see that skill make a difference.
That said, yes hearthstone is an RNGfest and it probably overdoes that a bit, but it's what hearthstone always was and always will be, if it doesn't suit you you might consider chess or something.
So the way they said "brings skill into the game" isn't exactly right since the way they say it brings skill into the game is by throwing players into unexpected situations that they have to adapt to. I'd say RNG can bring some skill into the game as when you play a card whose effect has a bit of fluctuation you need to plan for the worst case scenario, preferable cases, and best case scenario in order to figure out what order and what you are going to play. Course there are cards like Yogg-Saron where you can't really predict anything other than best case scenario may be 3 pyroblasts to the enemy's face and the worst case may be 3 pyroblasts to your face, but considering in the end of the day the great luck momments and the bad luck momments inevitably balance each other out in the long run those that win more are better at planning for the best and worst case scenarios and knowing when it's an appropriate time to gamble.