Iksar on Basic and Classic - Set Goals and Nerf Philosophy
Hearthstone's Lead Balance Designer, Dean "Iksar" Ayala, was out on reddit early this morning talking about the goals behind the basic and classic sets. Here's our quick recap and his post.
- Basic and Classic sets are meant to be the introductions to the game's mechanics.
- Basic showcases the game before a player invests time and money into it.
- Classic teaches players core mechanics.
He then went on to talk more about why and when some cards in these sets get changed.
- A big problem with cards in these sets is when they become auto-include in all archetypes for that class.
- They make changes to these cards over time but only when it would be positive for the current game.
- Wild Growth and Nourish were nerf targets for a while. They finally pulled the trigger because of how powerful druid was for so long.
- Basic and Classic cards get nerfed instead of rotated when they support class fantasy but are too powerful.
Quote from IksarIdeally the basic and classic set show off the kinds of mechanics each class is about without having too many cards that show up in all possible class archetypes. Basic is important to us because it serves as a set of cards players can use to learn about the game before they choose whether or not to make an investment of their time or money. Classic is important to us because it serves as the secondary jump-off point where you learn the baseline for what each of the individual classes is about along with some of our core mechanics like Battlecry or Deathrattle. From a gameplay perspective, having these sets around forever usually only leads to negativity when the cards are so powerful they show up in every deck in every expansion, making the strategies players use feel more stale than they would otherwise. We've been trying to change some of these power outliers over time, but only when making that change might also be positive for the live game environment. Wild Growth and Nourish were good examples of cards we had thought about changing for some time, so when we arrived in a meta where Druid had been very powerful and popular for a long time, it felt like a good time for those changes. We'd like to continue making these types of changes, as we believe the game will be in a better position to meet the player expectation that the game is new and fresh from expansion to expansion.
We nerf basic/classic cards that are too powerful instead of rotating them when they hit on class fantasy but at too high of a power level. Ramping mana is a strong identifier for what Druid should be about, so it made more sense to us to have some of the simplest forms of mana ramp exist in the base set to teach players what Druids can be about. It also makes more sense to have those cards be medium power level because if we identify mana ramp as an identity for Druids, it would be nice to be able to make some mana ramp cards from time to time without having to create cards even more powerful than two of the (arguably) most powerful cards in the game. Of course, this doesn't mean all basic and classic cards have to be weak. Generally the cards we target for change are ones that exist in every archetype. Cards like Al'Akir, Frothing, Fireball, or Tirion are probably safe. They are powerful and do an awesome job at selling the class fantasy for the class they represent. They also have some weaknesses and you can imagine an archetype within their class that might not play them. This is a pretty good place to be in.
I probably should have included this in the first post. It's true that reducing the amount of auto-include cards in the base set makes cards from expansions more important if the goal is to be able to create every powerful deck. This is something that's more healthy to solve with things like gold injection events like fire festival, increasing the gold on the average quest, or having a new player experience that awards 20+ packs. We keep a close eye on the the kind of investment it takes (time or currency) to obtain a deck archetype that is fun and powerful. The end goal is to make that a painless experience and there is more than one way to go about that. Having a wide variety of forever cards that are so high power level they are included in most decks is one way to go about it, I just don't think it's the right one.
The main point I think is important to get across here is that we don't ever change basic and classic cards just to solve short-term problems. Warrior was fairly powerful at the time we changed FWA which I think makes the change more palatable. If we truly thought that Warrior was better served in the long-term by have FWA as a (2) mana card, then we certainly would have tried to change expansion level cards rather than something in the classic set. Cards like Sul'thraze, Supercollider, Woodcutter's Axe, and Bloodrazer have all had a little more room to breathe and make Warrior feel different expansion to expansion as a result of the FWA change, which was part of the goal.
I think Team 5 should step up their game and implement frequent balance patches in each expansion.
Currently, Blizzard only puts out a single BP every expansion, and sits back and practically does nothing to change the gaming experience after that particular patch, at least not until the next expansion is released. By then, the meta has become so stale that many players stop playing the game until the next expansion, and the cycle continues.
Since it's very easy to dish out balance patches in an online card game compared to its offline counterpart, it shouldn't be very difficult for Blizz to announce minor balance patches every month or so. If Blizzard doesn't release any subsequent patches after the Druid nerf patch, they're being lazy as f.
There are e-sport considerations. In reality, BP's can only happen at very specific times. For example, it would be impossible to do a BP in January because of the playoffs.
The kids who "stop playing because the game is stale" have ADD. They need to see a doctor. BP's aren't going to help.
Yes, while I do agree that tournaments do make it difficult to implement frequent patches, I don't think Blizzard cares about such shortcomings, considering they announced the Druid nerf patch a day before a tournament.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/a7o5b3/while_im_happy_with_the_recent_upcoming_nerfs_the/
In any cases, frequent patches shouldn't be that much of a problem, as long as they give players heads-up weeks before the actual patch.
It was an in invitational tournament. Didn’t count for HCT. My point stands.
Why is it so hard for Blizzard to stay consistent with their statements and actions?
They want a set that stays around forever so players will always have something to fall back on but at the same time they don't want any players to use the cards from that set forever.
They nerfed and delete cards with Charge again and again because they worried about OTK combos. Leeroy, Warsong Commander, the Charge spell, Force of Nature, Arcane Golem. But spell damage OTK is untouched.
On that same topic they nerf decks like Shudderwock and Quest Rogue because they didn't like the Control bullying but then keep making OTK and OTK support cards. And then you have infinite value cards like DK Rexxar, Jaina and Warrior Quest.
They talk about class philosophy to nerf Kingsbane Rogue but have had no problems butchering Warrior class identity through nerfing Charge and Control cards.
I also don't understand why Fireball would be safe? It's a better card than Nourish was. Nourish isn't that great as a standalone card. It's the massive number of new cards that synergized with it that made it good. Don't give Druid so much stall, armour and card draw. So what if Druids have 8 mana when you only have 5 when they have no board and no cards in hand versus your full board. Instead of neutering basic and class cards for all time admit that mistakes were made and nerf the overpowered expansion cards.
Bunch of lowlife morons. Wild growth and nourish were only issues because UI and the main criminal Spreading Plague exist. Either plague should be nerfed again or UI . Hindering druid for life instead of nerfing cards that will get rotated in 3 months is a sure sign this guys are drunk. Druid was already nerfed in wild nerfing plague or ui wasnt gonna hinder them for wild cause there only jade idol is used and the ocassional otk.
Plague and ui was keeping the druid class op and instead of nerfing them they nerfed the cards that give them early access to it. Being able to play big cards before turn 10 is druids identity and removing that for the future kills the class. Maybe aggro druid will return next exp but the class big stuff uniqueness is forever gonne.
Forever
Druid has been broken since Beta. Now they haven't had a Tier 1 deck for 4 weeks, and the tears haven't stopped.
Grow up,
I dont understand they just wont admit the fact that UI is busted. Is their reason for not nerfing UI that you can have a 11 mana cost card?
I politely but firmly disagree with this... I'm pretty happy with being able to fill at least half a deck with classic cards after each standard rotation. Hearthstone is expensive enough as it is.
id be happy to use some of the weaker expansion cards instead of using classic cards for 5 years+ though. i mean how many cards of boomsday do you use regularly for example? its mainly only ziliax for me lol.
Then you should complain about the dust system or pack prices. Having decks consisting of 15+ classic and basic cards speaks for very bad card/set design in the long term.
Your economic woes are not a concern of mine.
This isn't entirely true. If you take the cynical view on card nerfs there's one "person" who benefits from this approach - Blizzard. Hear me out. Players always flock towards the current OP decks - it's sort of inevitable. You can see this right now with Hunter and it was the same for druid back in the day. Theses decks generally have a bunch of epics and legendaries which are necessary for the deck to function along with a few key cards with lower rarity. Leaving the deck as OP for a substantial period (say 3 -5 months) increases the number of people who "spend" dust crafting the required cards so that they too can be competitive. Then you nerf cards that give no dust/very little dust back but are crucial to the function of the deck and voila the process repeats on the next OP deck. Assuming you don't drive customers away this approach ensures people continued to "spend" on the next best deck.
Your time is limited lesser emerald spellstone....
The worst part of this whole thing for me is that:
the nerf was carried out in a rather unorthodox way, one which would warrant a post-haste, emergency-like fix; in case of Druid, this would have been the case 1 year ago and definitely NOT when Druid was actually being "useful" as a deterrent to another strong/problematic class; rather than being an insanely fast nerf, it was, once again, an insanely late nerf which was also carried out in a poor way:
instead of addressing the actual things making Druid a problem since KotFT, (Spreading Plague which was already nerfed once but as it turns out, Druid doesn't give too many f***s about how much something costs, at least until now, and Ultimate Infestation which ... what can anyone even do about it other than waiting for it to gtfo from Standard once and for all) they opted to annihilate its basic/classic set in the form of ramping, thus making so many NON PROBLEMATIC Druid Archetypes disappear;
such a post haste to simply multiply problems rather than fixing them, as now, thanks to the Nerfs, they overcentralized the game with Hunter (which also happens to be my least favourite class) whose Basic set by the way, still to this day, has more auto includes than any other class, probably because it has almost never been nerfed, except Starving Buzzard;
But no, probably that was not the worst part for me; the nerf was emergency released on my birthday.
When Druid plays UI on turn 10, it’s a good card. When it’s consistently done on turn 7 or earlier, it’s BROKEN. UI is fine. WG has been broken since Beta. Accept it, and move on.
Your comments on the Hunter class show complete ignorance. Obviously you don’t play the class. You should refrain from discussing topics you know nothing about.
Are you saying Hunter is not the most popular class right now, with 4 available builds sporting a 55% or higher winrate, something that might have been somewhat avoided if they'd just left Druid as it was for at least 4 extra months as it acted as a decent enough detergent to it (even Odd Paladin, but that's another story) and that some of Hunter stuff in 3 out 4 of these builds is from the Basic set and so has been for at least the last 2 years, so talk about things from the Basic set that are not predominant for a class (go on hsreplay and check the Cards section), that something other than Starving Buzzard from the Hunter's basic set has been nerfed or what are you even referring to?
Not to mention, you missed the whole point of my post, which was about the terrible timing this "emergency-like-patch" was released.
Also, I've played the class (not my most entertaining days) and I've played against the class. As all things coming out of my mouth or through a typing process, it's just my opinion, backed by gathered data (namely hsreplay.com, the official forum and the game itself). You're free to agree/disagree but I'll post whatever I want, whenever I want.
Ui on turn 10 is still broken. If u dont recognize this u must be living in a different world. Plus cheating out stuff exists without nerfs like Barnes or shadow essence. Skull of manari to sone extent and Voidcaller in wild.
Druids should be playing 10 mana stuff early on but the problem is the cards. Most are fine but being able to use plague vs aggro and ui vs control all in the same deck is stupid bad design those should be nerfed not the ramp cards that make big druid a fun archetype.
Ramping too hard used to be a risk. It left you with no cards and no board. Any deck that can create a board would just overrun you.
But with Plague and UI it doesn't matter. Got no board? Play Plague and survive for another 3 turns. Got no cards? Play UI and have a hand again with a good minion and some armour thrown in for free.
Hunter is the most popular class. NONE of its builds are 55% (see VS Report). Druid wasn't the counter to Hunter anyway. Cube Hunter plays big minions, and Druids tend to die when their opponents play big minions. Paladin and Priest are Hunter's hardest matchups.
And there is nothing wrong with Hunter being the most popular class. Some class is always going to be the most popular. Why not Hunter? Druid has never been without at least a Tier 2 deck. There is NO REASON to leave it BROKEN to suppress Hunter, or any other class for that matter.
Your statements about Hunter are simply wrong. Animal Companion is rarely used in Cube Hunter. Obviously none of the minions are used in Spell Hunter. Without Spellstone, the Secrets are garbage. Eaglehorn Bow, Savanah Highmane, and Houndmaster have been flexed out of most builds. And Eaglehorn Bow was nerfed (https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Patch_1.1.0.6024#Card_Changes).
TL/DR - your random typing is generating mistakes left and right.
UI is not broken, it's just a good card. But 10 mana cards are supposed to be good.
The flaw in your argument is that WG and Nourish weren't just used in Big Druid. They were used in virtually every Druid archetype. There is nothing FUN about sitting there, realizing that you are dead, and not even having a clue as to what archetype you are up against.
In the future, Druid will get other cards for ramp. Just not cards as good as WG. Cause paying TWO mana crystals to gain one over the next SEVEN turns is just flat out BROKEN. And if you don't recognize this, you have really flawed arithmetic skills.