Iksar on Naga Sea Witch: "We’ve Been Discussing a Variety of Changes"
This one, this one is a long one! It turns out when you think the developers are being too quiet on an issue, all it takes is to spend $21.17 of your hard-earned cash on reddit ads to get them to come out and talk about things, which is exactly what /u/JamieFTW did.
Now, please don't take that too literally, we're mainly speaking here in jest, but there definitely is a lot of quiet-time from the Hearthstone developers and whether or not that's appropriate, we've got some news to share on Hearthstone game balance today. Nothing is concrete right now, but here's what Iksar has been talking about this Sunday.
General Info
- It takes time to evaluate problematic cards. If something is simply "flavor of the week", it probably doesn't need a change.
- The team is constantly evaluating cards and playtesting every day, not just the days they public talk about doing it.
- They don't make announcements about exact changes on their social accounts because they want to make sure the information gets out to all localizations of Hearthstone. There can be info lost in translation which would be bad.
Card Balance
- Naga Sea Witch (NSW) style decks are definitely not "flavor of the week".
- For NSW, they are currently looking at the cost of the card or the overall design of the card for potential change targets.
- Barnes was on the list of cards to look at but no longer is. Most Wild decks have a tool to deal with him.
- If they make a change to the Odd Paladin Hero Power granted by Baku the Mooneater, it'll probably also be made to Justicar Trueheart.
- The obvious change they could make to Odd Paladin Hero Power is to make the Silver Hand Recruit a 2/2. Less swarm.
- If Odd Paladin needed more of a nerf, they'd change the Silver Hand Recruit to be a different minion, either for the new 2/2 or for the 2 1/1s.
Classes
- Current Paladin decks are weak to Cubelock which warped the meta in such a way where it was still beneficial to play Cubelock even though there are counters out there.
- Hunter is in a good position right now, no changes being tested or planned.
Potentially Un-fun Cards
The following cards have been discussed as being "potentially un-fun".
Dean notes that not all of them would be changed if changes are made.
Dean Ayala Speaks
Quote from Dean "Iksar" AyalaFor NSW it's one of those strategies that is pretty cool to see once in awhile but when it's a core part of the meta it gets really un-fun to play against. Just like anything else, it takes some time to evaluate whether or not it's going to be a flavor of the week....
Or more long-term. At this point it feels like it's going to be a higher than we would like population unless a change happens, so we've been discussing how best to go forward with that if it becomes necessary.
As far as standard goes, every day we are playing on the ladder and evaluating player data. Every expansion we prep balance changes for high population or unfun community decks/cards, but I think it's still too early to make an informed enough decision on a balance patch. (Source)
This was a tweet reply to someone asking, but I'll try to give more context here.
When we say we’re evaluating and playtesting every day, it’s actually happening. Not every time we speak on reddit or twitter (almost never, actually) is going to be an announcement of some grand change we’ve made. What we can do is be open about what our current thoughts are and the kinds of things we’ve been thinking about changing. When a decision does get made, community and dev will work together on drafting an official message, localization will translate that message into many different languages, then we’ll simultaneously release that message to every region.
So, what have we been thinking about? For NSW, I think the original tweet was taken out of context, but that’s probably my fault for splitting the message up. What I intended to say is that it takes time to understand whether a strategy is a flavor of the week, but in the case of NSW decks, that time has passed. We’ve been discussing a variety of changes for either just the cost or design. We haven’t 100% landed on one yet, but will continue this discussion when we do.
For Standard, what we generally do is look at all the high population, high win-rate, or potentially unfun cards and discuss changes to them so we’re ready when the time comes. We would not change all of these cards, but these are the cards we’ve discussed. Sunkeeper, Call to Arms, Baku Paladin Hero Power, Spiteful, Lackey, Gul’dan, Dark Pact, Librarian, Quest Rogue, and Doomguard. Again, we wouldn’t change every single one of those, but in the spirit of being open about what card changes we’ve been discussing/playtesting, those are it. I know a lot of you want to know the exact timeline for when a decision will be made, but reddit/twitter isn’t going to be the place where that is discussed, at least from individual developers. We'll continue having these discussions at work this week and the next time you hear more about a potential balance/design patch will likely be from an official channel. (Source)
This is the kind of thing I'm still feeling out. Whether people would rather hear what we're thinking about doing, or would rather hear nothing until there is a solid decision with a timeline in place. Both are pretty reasonable, but if any discussion without a decision/timetable is a 'nothing' response then all posts are going to be 'nothing' responses. I tend to think just having the discussion is better, knowing there will be people that are upset the decision they want isn't being made right then and there. (Source)
Don't forget Barnes as well. Can compete with Naga for the most hated card of wild.
We talked about Barnes for awhile but ultimately removed it from the list of cards we were considering changing, at least for the time being. Most Wild decks have some way to deal with Barnes, and he creates some interesting archetypes that are fun for people to play. I would agree it can be frustrating to lose to a T4 Barnes, but in the end we have to weigh all the positives and negatives of a card and make a judgment call. For now, we think there are enough answers out there for Barnes strategies that it doesn't warrant making a change. (Source)
My great frustration is that paladin and warlock (as the two greatest offenders) are largely the same decks they were before the rotation. How did these cards make it through the K&K nerf pass and Hall of Fame move?
We knew they were risks going in. Rather than do a balance patch on launch when so much was changing we opted to wait and see how the first few weeks went. I think the biggest unexpected deck for me personally was even-paladin. It performed so well that it drove the population of paladin up and warped the meta in such a way that cubelock was a really strong deck to play even if there were enough metagame counters for it. I actually think the dynamic of even/odd paladin is different enough that it's cool to see even if a lot of the cards in the decks are the same as pre-rotation, it's just that the cube population gets a lot higher because of it and the meta starts to feel similar to pre-witchwood. These are all the things you have to learn over the first few weeks in order to make a good decision on how to move forward. (Source)
If you did end up changing baku paladin's hero power would said change also apply to justicar trueheart since they both use the same upgraded hero powers?
Probably both. We haven't discussed that with all the people that would need to have an opinion, but currently I think both is the direction we'd lean if we felt odd paladin was becoming oppressive to other decks. Lately popularity seems to have shifted to Murloc and Even Paladin decks, though. (Source)
that's such a lazy approach. nobody has ever complained about justicar's paladin hero power
Yeah, we're aware of that. It's mostly a question of how important is it to keep Baku and Justicar's hero powers consistent vs how important it is to keep Justicar's hero power exactly the same. Neither strike me as a 'we MUST do this' but we still have to make a decision. Also, I should repeat that we were discussing hypothetical changes to the hero power if we end up needing to address odd-paladin, not ones we're actually doing. If you have an opinion on what we should do, that is the whole intention of discussing it publicly. (Source)
Obviously balance should be the major concern if the hero power is changed but please keep in mind that the upgraded Paladin hero power is one of the most flavourful around so if you do change it, try to find a way to preserve that unique class feel to it.
The most obvious one (at least to me) is to make the minion a 2/2. I think some people would argue that's even better, but I think the minion swarm nature of the deck and how you can buff multiple targets is where most of the power lies. If odd paladin truly was a problem and that wasn't enough, we would probably make either the 2/2 minion not a silver hand recruit to get buffed by recruit cards, or change the 1/1 minions to new minions for the same reason. Those are the three changes we'd been considering if we needed to change it in some way. (Source)
When you say "Quest Rogue" you mean the Rogue quest card itself right? Just asking for clarity.
Probably the card itself, yes. Quest Rogue matchups are so polarizing that they can leave you feeling like the outcome of the match is decided before the game begins rather than what happened during the game. It's fine if Quest Rogue is a niche metagame counter for fatigue decks, but it become an issue if it becomes a metagame counter for a huge variety of control decks. I would say this is the most debated one internally, because it's unclear if we're actually facing a current of future 'meta of the quest rogue' problem. Part of the reason to list all the things we're discussing is to gauge what you are the most important issues to address, or if there is anything unlisted that you think is worth talking about. (Source)
I know that sometimes "stuff happens" with these kinds of things, but perhaps I could just put forth this question: If you guys didn't really want to see a control-stomper in the meta, why did you print Sonya after gutting quest rogue the first time around?
Well, like I said we think it's okay if it's a niche deck to play against extremely greedy archetypes. I also don't think the entire identity of Sonya is quest rogue. We knew the card would help quest rogue going in, but not to the degree that it would make the deck dominant. I think this has been true so far. (Source)
What changes should we expect for Hunter cards? I think we all remember undertaker and agree it's far past time Hunter gets nerfed into the ground. I think Deathstalker Rexxar should cost 9 Mana, for instance, and it's hero power should cost 4.
We don't currently have any changes in testing or planned for current Hunter cards. People are playing Spell-hunter, Mid-Range Hunter, and Odd-Hunter on ladder right now and they all feel like they are in a good place to us. (Source)
They must have access to hundreds of thousands of match results. How can 5hey not have a precisely clear picture of the meta game breakdown?
We do have access to all the data, but the meta-game shifts pretty drastically every couple of days. The missing piece from data is whether something is fun to play with and against, how much different it feels from previous metas, and where the meta will eventually stabilize. (Source)
"I think Deathstalker Rexxar should cost 9 Mana, for instance, and it's hero power should cost 4"
XD
Yeah lol that's totally unreasonable
No idea why people want the Gul'Dan battlecry nerfed, more so than the hero power. When compared to N'Zoth's battlecry Gul'Dan was only stronger versus aggro decks due to taunts, but against other control decks N'Zoth was actually the more powerful of the two battlecries (especially since it was a neutral minion that produced more value than the lock DK could).
The hero power is the actual problem of the card at 3 damage since it produces infinite value in terms of removal, for a class that doesn't need the removal.
That's because the power usually only took effect on turn 6, not at the start of the game.
- Hearthstone probably
Tarim is one of the cards that don't deserve a nerf. It's a win condition, soft removal, stalling tool, etc, etc. It does so many things and plays a impactful role in all paladin archetypes. Don't let control suffer for aggro's (and midrange's) sins!
The rest of the cards I don't give a crap about. Most of them cheat too many hard to deal with minions onto the board for absurdly small investment. Hey, I got 16/16 worth of stats on the board on turn 6, you got a way to deal with that? No? Omegalul gg close game.
As for Caverns below, I see it being changed to 4/4 minions. Which sounds acceptable to me. But this quest's actual problem is that it wins or loses completely based on what it ends up queued against. I don't think there is a "light touch" that would fix the frustration of winning/losing solely on match-up.
Figured I'd hop on the train here and make some nerf predictions as well.
Sunkeeper Tarim is a problematic card because it seems to have been designed to kill control decks. The most devastating part of the card is that it turns any hope the control deck had of coming back into nothing. I believe an effective and fair nerf would be to change the text so he only affects your minions. It still gives aggro decks that critical turn 6 reach for lethal but doesn't just completely negate what the opponent played last turn. If this turns out to be not enough, a tune down to a 3/6 should be plenty but may result in him being too easily removed.
Call to Arms is probably one of the strongest cards in the game right now. In even paladin, where it's played most, it's minimum mana value is 11 mana for 4 mana (5 mana is standard value to draw 3 cards, then you get 6 mana of value from playing three 2-drops), which is insanity and just not realistic for most other decks to keep up with aside from a warlock with either Defile or Hellfire. I believe this card could be fixed by just changing it from Recruit to simply draw. It is still a higher value card as you are drawing 3 cards for 4 mana even despite the limitation on exactly what is drawn. The more specific draw could even enable some combos potentially. This may be an overnerf though, so I would also submit that it would be significantly more fair if it only Recruited 2 minions rather than 3. This turns the minimum value from 11 mana to 7 in even paladin. Still significant but not earth-shattering.
Spiteful Summoner is mostly a problem because of Tyrantus admittedly. A 12/12 untargetable is extraordinarily difficult to deal with turn 6. Even it's low roll 8/8s (assuming the usual 10 mana only spiteful decks) are some pretty extreme value. I think Spiteful Summoner does have a place in the game but it shouldn't be "roll the dice turn 6, if you roll high, you win." First of all, this is a double RNG card unless you only have one mana cost for spells in your deck. So let's take out one of it's RNG forms, the minion. Instead of a random minion of the spell's cost, I propose it creates a token with attack, health, and cost equal to the spell's cost. This still means if you want to have only 10 mana spells you will still get a 10/10 which is pretty good. However, this still is pretty horrific to deal with turn 6. I'd also then add that Spiteful Summoner should be an 8 mana minion, increasing it's stats slightly to a 5/5 as compensation.
Possessed Lackey. I somewhat see why this is a problem, like Spiteful Summoner it's too easy to high roll turn 6 with Dark Pact or even to just play it turn 5 kill it turn 6 by running it into something. Possessed Lackey rarely will pull anything but Doomguard and Voidlord just like Spiteful Summoner will rarely pull anything less than an 8 mana spell. Especially a Voidlord turn 6 is devastating. I think Possessed Lackey is pretty close to an okay card though, I would just up it's mana cost to 6. The one extra turn probably will change a lot more than people think.
Bloodreaver Gul'dan is a bit hard to figure out. It is a 10 mana card, those cards realistically should be game-enders. But I also admit his high rolling is a fair bit destructive to the game. I believe his hero power is fine actually, but him getting a practically guaranteed powerful board state with the hero power is a bit much. I think an interesting idea is to change his battlecry to "Summon the last three friendly demons that died this game." Some may immediately see the anti-synergy with Voidlord as now it's rather likely his battlecry would summon 3 Voidwalker. There is still obviously potential for turn 9 Voidlord into turn 10 Bloodreaver Gul'dan but now it has the potential to be messed up. This also would protect against Cubelock suddenly getting 5 or 6 Doomguard on a high roll. Three demons, especially three specific demons, is quite likely to be enough to protect yourself against a tempo or aggro deck about to kill you at least for the turn you play him. After that, you'd need to rely on the hero power which is extremely good in that sort of scenario.
Dark Pact. Oh boy. Well my first thought was to just make it 2 mana, just to hold back the cube combos for 1 more turn but that didn't feel like it was enough. It's rather rare that a Warlock actually has the dream of turn 5 Skull of the Man'ari, pull Doomguard, Cube, Coin, Pact for turn 6 15 damage. Much more often it's already happening turn 9, 10, or later. So increasing the mana cost doesn't do much I think. My other thought is almost certainly an overnerf, but it is to have Dark Pact silence the minion before it is destroyed. This would solidify the card as purely lifegain, which I'm not a big fan of, but it would also then open up design space for deathrattle minions. Overall I think this is the hardest one to find an appropriate balance for. People have suggested just lowering the life gained from the card, but I think even if it was 1 mana "Destroy a friendly minion" it would still have a place in cubelock because it is largely used as the combo enabler. Destroying a friendly minion is the major upside to the card oddly enough, the lifegain is just secondary as it is.
Doomguard I think is fine on it's own. The problem with Doomguard is not itself, but rather how many ways there are to reliably cheat them out to then eat them with a Carnivorous Cube for massive damage. I think the only thing this card needs is an additional clause to the effect of "This minion may not be summoned, it must be played." I'm not certain on the exact wording to make it more clear but something to say it cannot be cheated out. Doomguard has historically been relatively fair when it had to be played from hand. It is no worse than Fireball I think in that regard. If the methods to cheat out Doomguard are already getting nerfed, this change would likely not be necessary.
The Caverns Below is on the chopping block again hmm? After it's last nerf I've admittedly not encountered it much, and I don't think I've even seen the quest complete since then. This could just be luck of the draw though so I still was thinking on what could fix this. Quest Rogue has always been a heavy aggro deck, and the danger with The Caverns Below I think is much less the attack buff as it is the health buff. With all minions being 5/5s you can't even Flamestrike them. So I think the best nerf for this would be to change it from "your minions are 5/5s" to "the attack of all your minions is 5." Keeping the increase to 5 attack allows them to keep the pressure up, especially with how many chargers they tend to play, but keeping the health the same at least keeps board clears useful rather than just being dead draws.
And last but not least Kobold Librarian. Every basic hero power has a 1-drop minion equivalent. This was the Warlock attempt. While this is just a utility creature, it is clearly too much. However, having so many effects on it does open up balancing possibilities. I think it would be balanced as a 1/1 that deals 3 damage rather than a 2/1 that deals 2. As a 2/1 that draws a card and deals 2 damage to you, to get good value, it only has to attack once. After you have attacked once, you then have a 2/1 for 1 that drew a card and dealt 2 damage to both heroes. The damage value cancels out and the value for drawing 1 card is 1 mana so now you have a 2/1 that's basically just free value. And that's just an attack to the face, the lowest value attack you can make. On top of that, being a 2/1 means it will kill most 2-drops so your opponent is unlikely to play anything but their hero power turn 2. It is an aggressively oppressive card with high value. Now, turning it to a 1/1 that deals 3 to you, now it would either need to kill a minion on it's own (rather unlikely) or it would have to attack 3 times to get good value. Like any 1-drop, it will always have it's uses but like this you would be forced to play it almost purely for the card draw.
Let me know what you think, I am well aware there are flaws with my ideas and that's why I think it's important to discuss them.
Yeaaahhh I'm not so sure about your '11 mana value' logic on Call to Arms...
By that reasoning, Grizzled Guardian is worth up to 15-ish mana and Silver Vanguard around 11-12.
Edit: And Bloodreaver Guldan like 500 or so
It's worth noting that Grizzled Guardian comes at 8 mana, whileCall to Arms comes at 4.
Nobody complains about Master Oakheart pulling immense amount of stats because it's a 9 mana card.
Grizzled Guardian and Silver Vanguard are both 8-drops and pay heavily in both stats and the fact that their abilities are deathrattles. Silence is quite common right now thanks to cubelock so they both have vulnerabilities and are realistically not going to be played turn 3 or 4. By turn 9 most decks have access to some way to deal with their effects. Also you partially proved my point, Call to Arms has the same value as Silver Vanguard. A 4 mana spell should not have the same value as an 8-drop minion. Most recruit cards pay quite a price because it is better than drawing a card 99% of the time, but Call to Arms pays no price.
My whole point was that your math thing makes zero sense. By that logic N'zoth and Bloodreaver Gul'dan are worth like 30 mana or so.
Indeed they are. They also require set up. You cannot just play N'Zoth or Bloodreaver with no deathrattles or demons having died. That massive value is also why they are so incredibly powerful. How often have you just instantly died to Bloodreaver summoning Doomguards? How often have you just not had an answer to N'Zoth? They are 10 mana cards and they are both legendary. They are supposed to be that powerful. 10 mana cards should be game enders. 4 mana cards should not be.
Barnes is balanced you say, Blizzard? Okay, I will keep using it to summon 10-10s on turn 4 then. I can just taste the balance. You say players have tools to deal with it. I say, 9/10 you are not going to have those tools by turn 4 (or turn 3 with the coin). I guess you guys think that is fun. Early game giant minion cheat tools should not exist.
Barnes should summon a 1/1 of a minion that costs 6 or less maybe. It could still be oppressive but not "Resurrect 4 Ragnaros' before turn 6"-style oppressive. Really sad they don't plan to change it
Keep designer space for Lord Jaraxxus when nerfing Bloodreaver Gul’dan.
One of last things Ben Brode did before leaving Hearthstone is to destroy and replace his favorite card! I believe that Lord Jaraxxus is a very fun card and should be saved. Bloodreaver Gul'dan completely erases his predecessor from existence.
I won't be feasting on your soul this winterveil... :(
Keep Sunkeeper Tarim
Keep Kolbod Librarian
Nerf dark pact and possessed lackey
Blizzard, i really dont fucking care about what are you planning to do with druid, warlock or paladin but for fuck sake The Caverns Below just needs to go! Seriously team 5 just admit it you've fucked up printing this huge fail of a card, it really hurts the control meta and by any means it just can't be countered by slower decks out there. The cards are supposed to be balanced, not either extremely oppresive or utter useless. I really don't understand why this card passed internal playtesting. When do we, the community, get a Public Test Server, so we could help give feedback towards the new cards which are planned to be released? Can't this game be somewhat professional from a design standpoint? Even in Diablo 3 or Battlefield 1, before a new season/game update, there is always a PTS so that people could see and experience the changes before they go live.
To be honest, hearthstone is one of the best card games out there, but the maintainence, updates, and other balance changes were always its biggest downfall, and that is why so many people left the game because of this - not doing anything.
I agree.
A problem I have with Caverns Below is that minions are not able being silenced... Why?
my cubedruid rekts both cubelock and smorc decks, against other decks tho, i have trouble some times