Ben Brode Interview - Insight into Casual Hearthstone, Meta, Just for Fun, Card Bans
GamesBeat's Jack Wilson had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Brode and talk about Hearthstone. The two discussed casual mode and how there are different views of how it should work. See our recap of the interview below or go on and read the full interview transcript.
Casual Mode
- Ideally, casual mode is low stakes Hearthstone. It isn't hardcore competition where you need to be 100% focused and available.
- Casual, like ranked, still has an MMR system but it's internal - you don't see it.
- The goal is to keep you at a 50% winrate in Casual, just like in ranked.
- The better you're doing in casual, the more likely you'll see better decks [usually meta decks].
Ranked Play
- Pirate Warrior and Secret Mage are currently 14% of the meta at Legend rank.
- Those archetypes at Rank 20 are only 5% of the meta.
- Most active Hearthstone players are between ranks 20 and 18.
Just for Fun Mode
- Ben knows there isn't a great opportunity right now to just play fun decks and not having to worry about meta.
- Adding in a mode for players to have "Fun Only" isn't really possible - you can't force players to play "bad" decks.
- The mode would evolve into players playing meta decks anyway since they win.
- Ben doesn't think it's crazy to pursue the idea, but it's not immediately obvious what the best direction would be.
Game Customization
- Being able to support a feature in which players could ban certain cards for tournament play is "very compelling", especially for Fireside Gatherings.
Supporting Different Types of Players
Quote from Ben BrodeI saw a tournament in Kansas City where they had a spinner. You spun the spinner, took out your camera, shot a QR code, and that was the deck you played in the tournament. That’s fun. It focuses on the pure fun and joy of playing Hearthstone, not on competition. Some people are competitive and that’s great. We want to support that too.
But also, it’s good to try and find ways for different people who have different goals and different things they get fun out of from Hearthstone—we should be looking at ways to support that as well.
This Brode guy is such a troll.
Wow. Whose goal it is?
Think about it - that's how any match making system should work, once you get to the correct rank for your deck and skill... if your win rate is higher, you are against too easy opponents, if it's lower, you are against too hard opponents.
Decks could be ranked on competition? Certain cards have a extra cost in the deck IE Jade idol cost 2pts ea, Ultimate infestation costs 2pts ea e ect out of 5/10/X/Y pts for a deck. So you could build Jade druid, but you would have to give up on spreading plague or the priest otk decks can take the bits to make the deck, but are struggling to fill it with stronger cards that round it out. This would allow a more restrictive format but allow everything to be played.
Or don't have deck building restrictions, but instead match players based on their deck's total points. This way you could make point values hidden, so people wouldn't game the system.
And how about possibility to ban one class in ranked? It would also be a great instrument of monitoring - not only what meta is now, but also how players react to it. I mean, Blizzard can consider meta to be healthy if they want to, but if 60% of players would ban one certain class at the same time - definetly there is a problem.
Perhaps I didn't made my suggestion clear enough. I don't propose to forbid everyone to play certain class, that's ridiculous. What I meant is: if player don't want to play against priest, he ban priest, and from that moment on he will no longer play against priest. Another player will chose to ban druid, third player will ban rogue and so on. That system doesn't exclude any player from ranked, because sutation when all existing players will ban one class is impossible.
Alas, while it seems like a good solution at first glance, I don't think adding bans solves the problem. It just hides the problem behind one more level of complexity. Banning the most powerful class means the next most powerful class that was being held back becomes the de facto most powerful class. Only now, you can game the system by intentionally playing the 2nd most powerful class and banning it's strongest counter. Instead of trying to guess the trending decks in the meta, now you have to guess at which class is getting banned the most, and pick the most powerful deck that was being held back by the deck being banned. I think this would make things even more 50/50 coin flippy b/c I think bans would fluctuate mainly between the two most powerful decks, creating a perverse incentive that would lead to more and more mirror matches and a flattening of the meta.
I could be wrong, tho. Who knows. But try to game it out yourself. If you could ban a class back before the Druid nerf, how do you think it would have played out? I think most people would have banned Druid, leading to a huge increase in druid mirror matches and hard counters, (b/c if most everyone bans Druid, those who choose not to ban it will see it a LOT more, so they can target it) which would make druid players switch to the next most powerful deck, probably Highlander Priest who could then ban Druid themselves. So now the ladder becomes infested with long Priest games. Eventually people get tired of that and ban Priest, and those players then go back to the overpowered Druid. Back and forth, back and forth until a deck comes along that has a great winrate against one of the two "top dogs" and a decent winrate against the other, at which point it supplants the less powerful of the two top dogs and the meta changes to fluctuate between an old top dog and the new one.
So the meta is still effectively 1 deck that is a coin flip between the "#1 deck" and the deck that would be #1 if not for the "#1 deck." Because of the 50/50, you can't even reliably counter because you never know when that coin will flip. So consistency will suffer even more unless you are playing one of the two top decks, which will lead to a flatter and flatter meta. But now Blizzard is even slower to make adjustments to cards because hey, "You think a deck is too powerful? Just ban it and you don't have to deal with it."
Perverse incentives all around, if you ask me.
Nerfing cards makes more sense to me than banning a class. It can be more precisely targeted to avoid a 1-2 deck meta. Whether Blizzard is successful at that or not is another question entirely. I think they are getting better at it. Un'Goro meta was great, and the Druid nerf had more of an effect than I thought it would in the KFT meta. Still not sure how permanent the diversity is, tho.
Just for Fun Mode could work like this: theres a list of banned cards(the NOW meta OP ones) and each week it gets curated with 2-3 cards that rotate out of the list (with those being replaced with 2-3 other Just for Fun Mode OP cards) to keep it fresh...
Actually this Just for Fun Mode could replace Casual mode, since casual mode isnt working as intended
PS. Add random buffs/debuffs in each game to offset the "OP deck of the week" (fun in this case has to be more random)
Now i understand why blizzard think "meta is fine"
what are you talking about? "Meta" is a relative term. Blizzard has even said that throughout the years hunter has been one of the most popular decks, even though at around rank 10 or better they were non existent until recently. And I can guarantee that none of the card nerfs ever were made for that bracket.
I think there should be a special rank mode where 10 legendary and 10 epic are randomly banned each week. These will push players to try out new decks and may be we can find a new meta deck too!
ye and spend randomly XXXX of dust good idea :)
One idea, i would like to see is a parallel tavern brawl that bans large chunks of cards across the mana curve per week.
There are so many layers of good cards that never see play because there are slightly better cards.
The meta would stay fresh with less permanent molten giant changes.
A new standard would cycle wild and standard cards together allowing for great game play.
Might as well share my immediate thoughts for a new system along with everyone else.
1. I would drop the number of ranks significantly, down to maybe 5, without winstreaks, and let each deck have its own rank. You would be allowed to make small adjustments to the initial list you started ranking up with, in the order of 3-5 cards, but any more and it would be considered a new deck. The number of decks you have at legend would be displayed on your account. Additionally there would be special acknowledgement for being among the first at reaching legend (or getting the highest rank at the end of the month) under certain conditions, meant to cater to both new and old players: with a unique (unpopular) deck, with X class, with no legendaries, with mostly classic/expert cards, with a deck recipe, etc (think Diablo 3 Conquests). I think it would be a more fun main game mode for most players than one based purely on playing whatever deck earns the most stars per hour. In particular it would give newer players a purpose since even though they have shitty decks, they can still go for some "achievements" like trying to reach legend without legendaries, instead of just feeling down because they simply can't climb above rank 20 and STILL have to face mostly tier 1 netdecks.
2. Honor your opponent. After a game you can honor your opponent, on whatever criteria you wish, if you want. This encourages positive interaction even after a game has ended. We have emotes in game at the moment, but they do a poor job of really thanking your opponent for a match well played, while an honor system is directed specifically at making this possible. It's a small feature, but Hearthstone at the moment has extremely poor social features, so something like this would be a step in the right direction.
3. An in-game deck browser/leaderboard. See what your friends are playing, what the most popular/successful Warlock deck is, which all-classic/expert decks players have climbed the highest with, which deck earns players the most honor (hint: it's probably a fun one to play against!), etc. What's important here is that not just top winrate decks are shown off, but decks that are "the best" at other things too. Being able to easily find a new deck to play is something I believe is necessary for games like this, especially for players who don't play a ton and don't have a clue which deck they might want to play.
4. To cater to the high-legend crowd there would be a new competitive mode, similar to tournament play where you face an opponent 1 on 1 with multiple decks, complete with bans and maybe a sideboard. The difference from tournaments would be that you play for MMR, not to survive elimination, similar to the current ladder. Your MMR would also be displayed prominently on your account.
5. No additional gold for winning and no end-of-month gold/cards/packs based on rank. Instead gold should be fully based on the time you spend playing the game. Winning 10 games in 1 hour with Pirate Warrior would be the same as losing 2 games in 1 hour with Fatigue Warrior. This is to ensure that progression, particularly for newer players, is completely fair regardless of what deck you want to play. Winning would still be desirable because it would earn you acknowledgements that you can display proudly on your account, but you won't be punished in your progression for having fun.
I like your idee ,except for 1 thing , there already are bot systhems that play hearthstone instead of you, so youll just leave the bot playing in your stead till you can actually sit down and play,so your online 24/24 hours and tons of gold
I mean the 100gold /day as stupid it may look to some is there so that the people that actually win more then 30 a day do something else beside hearthstone...if there was no limit you'd have quite a few that would take it to far,even news expose some players that died literaly from palying games without breaks hours and hours ,
why just dont make another ranked mode where epics and legendary cards are banned? like similar to the brawl of the other day :D (so in this way basically ANYONE can reach legend rank)
That statement is so utterly meaningless it almost blows my mind. Yeah, most Legendary cards are crap... but that has nothing to do with anything, at all, ever. It in no way ever mattered how many bad legendaries existed but never saw play, what matters is HOW GOOD the ones that do see play are.... and they are meta defining as all hell. Just because there are 100 bad legendaries doesn't mean you can play Exodia mage without Antonidas. It doesn't mean playing a Jade Druid deck without Aya, Malfurion DK, or Ultimate Infestation (epic) will ever be remotely competative with a deck that does run them. Pretty much all the core pirate cards have been around since old gods, but it wasn't until a 1/1 legendary showed up that they become so omnipresent that not only did Galaka crawler have to be 'printed', but it was worth running in virtually every deck in the meta. If you want to be competative, you need epics and legendaries, they need to be the right epics and legendaries true cuz like you said, most of them are shit, but that just makes collecting the good ones that make or break deck viability all the harder when you finally crack open a legendary and get Benedictus or Millhouse Manastorm.