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.
Fun fact: the average win rate of all Hearthstone players is 50%
The game proofs otherwise with around 35%. But hey. Just f* yourself.
Still waiting for tournament mode btw
Ben, I really don't care.
Here's something I care about: The new warlock hero unavailability!
People keep saying they want to try fun decks at casual, but what are even those "fun decks" probably just under powered decks.. so what you want?
you can play against friends if you want for those casual "fun" games
game is a success!
What about mentioning the stupid way for obtaining new warlock hero? What about hero section in the shop? Why it even exists? It hasn't been updated for over 2 years. It would be nice if they put ability to buy past heroes like Khadgar, Tyrande and now Nemsy for 10$ or something. Also there's still 1 unused slot in the shop.
Create a goldless mode. Done! It's that simple. Casual should keep the gold rewards just because new players tend to use it as their only reliable way to get some money on HS.
Still, as scummy as the Spikes in Casual might be, I doubt any of them would set foot in a goldless mode unless their ego was in critical condition.
Triple daily gold quest rewards and remove the 10g for 3 wins. People will be more likely to play "just for fun" instead of just trying to grind out wins for gold
get rid of the dailies and see how joyful the game is
I've seen almost none at legend. Meanwhile worse/dumber players who are usually poorer are trying to climb with this relatively cheap and infamously effective deck.
The Tournament Mode!!!!
Noooooooooooooooooo FKN WAY. If you make a tournament mode with spin deck system I will fkn quit this game
it should be pretty easy to rank a deck based on the amount of cards that see play in competitive/higher ranks and match them against each other
Then all you need to do is make a working deck using mediocre cards, or at least cards that don't often see play.
that would be great and refreshing.
Would be abused. People would create decks with basic/classic cards to be matched against newbie's, and have a huge win rate facing against people who have no clue what they are doing.
Ben's right, there's no real solution to the issue as everyone would gravitate towards the best deck in the end. That's why they have tavern brawl and arena, to offer something different, but there's no real way to have a constructed format that won't end up with people netdecking in the end.