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.
Why are people downvoting this guy? It's just an idea
They should rework this ranked system totally, for example making it something similar with Heroes of the Storm division system. Then you lose or gain points according to your MMR compared to your opponent MMR. Also they could have some unlimited XP system for different classes and total XP for player, then there could be some rewards(packs, card packs, gold, dust) when you reach certain amount of levels, it would make losing a game feel less frustrating because now losing a game is just a waste of time from the game progress perspective. Pack containing at least one card for class which you used to reach certain amount of levels, how cool would be that?
Here is how I think you could fix this.
Make it so that you can never drop ranks, so that way there is no pressure to win, so that way to do not get as many tier 1 decks, and if there are any they will be a ton of ranks above the people who just want to relax and play a fun deck.
And to make it so that who you fight is more balanced, because if you can not drop ranks it would mess up the system is to make it so that after 10 wins with a deck it will ignore ranks and simply pair you with the person who has the same win rate with the deck he/she is using.
And there now hearthstone can just be a fun relaxing game were all deck types, or well most deck types will find a place on the ladder.
Although I would not get your hopes up, blizzard would not do this for one reason. Not because they are lazy as some people have accused them of being but because blizzard would lose money. People would be getting way better end of month rewards and then they would not buy as many packs, and they would also lose money an account of the good and expensive decks will not be as good and people would not need to buy them to climb.
what's the problem with actual fun mode, just prohibit the use of cards that have a winrate above 55% or so
and if your deck has those, you can't play with these
job done
As a long-time non-F2P player, it always shocks me to hear that the majority of active players are Rank 18-20. I don't even remember the last time I was Rank 18. I guess this is why I'm ignorant to the F2P struggle that so many people talk about.
Not sure about the casual and targeting people to be at 50%. My Wild Priest Control deck is at 80%+ win rate over 120 games.
Does anyone actually do these Fireside Gatherings, or is it just a bunch of Blizzard BS promoting it like it's the greatest thing ever and tons are doing it? Am hedging my bets that 1% or less of Hearthstone players have actually done it.
depends on how big the event is ,im from romania participated in 3 gatherings usually thers like 8-12 people 1 of 3 was the sep 29 FSG brawl ,which was international tournament and there were 20+ participants out of these top 3 represented the city here is a link http://fsgbrawl.barcraft-hl.de/
All in all its good way to meet other people that admire the game
Yeah, I feel it in my F2P account, the casual mode, is not casual at all.
That spinner thing is brilliant. Kind of reminds me of this crazy ass MTG FNM quasi-tourney thing I went to once where they opened dozens of starter decks and intro packs, put them into deck boxes and then again into this giant bowl thingy and shook them up and randomized them. Probably the most fun I ever had at FNM.
Also regarding a "fun mode", honestly Blizz? Tavern Brawl is that and should be that. Your lazy, uninspired asses simply need to come up with better, more fun brawls.
You can't think of "Just For Fun" Mode? Well how about this solution...
Give us a mode where we chose our own rules - in other words a Custom Rules Mode or a Custom Tavern Brawl if you'd like. You would define the rules, cards available, restrictions, and so on, so you could create just about anything crazy and fun. I'm no developer or programmer, but I think this should be doable. They already have some of those rules and programming defined by the various Tavern Brawls, so all they need to do is let us chose a mixture of which of these we want to play.
Then you could play with your friends (which will encourage users to befriend each other) or if you want to really make it as it should be - there would be something like a lobby/list, where you can check all the "rooms/tavern brawls" available and their rules (also sort and filter by the rules) and you could join/queue up in any of those.
If they want people playing weird, funny and bad decks in casual mode they should add achievements. In WoW TBC era nobody was questing in the old low level zones, collecting as many pets/mounts as possible etc. After adding achievement system, suddenly the world was full of people doing cool (or boring) stuff. Achievements could be like "Deal 50 damage to Demons with Ironforge Rifleman or Stormpike Commando", "Control Illidian and 6 Flames of Azzinoth" possibilities are endless. Achievements rewards could be Gold, Dust, random cards, packs, arena tickets...
Agree, so much this. Even the bait on some gold rewards with some achs or card backs too, or even Golden card for meta ach. I'd grind all the Achievements in the game. Before I quit WoW I was on 96% complete. Fully agree with you mate.
I actually agree with the achievements... even though I think thats what dailies were mean't to be, but I usually find myself just skipping over the more weirder achievements where it makes me play murlocks or something; maybe it's because the rewards don't feel like they're worth it or something, I don't know, I feel like clash royale has a really good balance with there free to play and pay to win
I agree. Achievements would be the best way to spice up casual, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
I posted a crazy, yet workable solution for this issue back a few months ago during the Un'Goro meta.
I may be risking the ire of the community and the Brode Brigade but there is one feature that HS ranked constructed lacks that would make the experience of climbing the ladder much better.
For example: A lot of players know the struggle of facing multiple Pirate Warriors or Secret Mages in a row, going on a losing streak and then they have to tech Golakka Crawlers or Eater of Secrets just to have a chance, BUT the next cluster of games you never see a Pirate or a Secret on the opposing side and then your tech cards are useless and you hit another losing streak.
To fix this I'd implement a pre-game side-boarding system. Before cards are even dealt, each player gets to see what class the other is playing and then each player gets to decide if they want to sideboard in up to 2 format-legal cards from their collection. So, imagine I'm playing as a Paladin and my opponent is playing Warrior. The game queues up and we see each other's class ONLY. Now, based on the current meta (Un'goro), I have a choice. Do I want to sideboard against a possible Pirate Warrior and exchange two late-game cards for two Golakka Crawlers before the game begins? Or could this be a Taunt Warrior? Which would make sideboarding in Spellbreaker or The Black Knight? Or not sideboard at all? Since my base deck has a good matchup against Taunt Warrior. The opponent gets to do the same for my Paladin class. Do they think I'm playing an aggro Paladin and feel like more AOE effects would help? Or a control Paladin and want to sub in one or two late-game value cards? Since both players do this at the same time, it doesn't hurt either player and you don't have to worry about those match-ups where a tech card is dead weight. If you sideboard in Golakka Crawlers and your opponent is playing Taunt Warrior, then that's the choice you made and have to live with it for that one game. Thoughts?