A little backstory about the recent Blizzard Banning Affair (...)
A Hearthstone player recently made a Reddit post discussing the fact that he had been banned for playing SN1P-SN4P Warlock in Wild Mode.
Why would he be banned for playing a normal deck in ranked mode, you may ask?
The answer is simple: there is third party party software available that is removing the animations in Hearthstone from the game. This means that players can play cards like Sn1p-Sn4p many times faster in a turn (around 50-70 in some cases). This, of course, is entirely illegal in the eyes of Blizzard's Terms of Service and therefore can trigger an automatic ban.
His post was highly upvoted, with approximately 14k votes (at a recent count). He claims that he has never used these illegal third party party programs, but he still received a swift ban from Blizzard.
However...
Blizzard admits their banning system is imperfect and are now reversing many bans
Quote from blizzardHi all,
I have an update for everyone on the SN1P-SN4P conversation that started up over the weekend.
WHAT HAPPENED:
This week we spent time reading this thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/d4tnb4/time_to_say_goodbye/) and gathering all the details on the situation. For some added context, all of this hinges on a situation where, under some circumstances, a player can end up with a significant amount of extra time on their turn - even over a minute.SN1P-SN4P is a card that relates to this behavior that we've had a close eye on, as we've noted that it has also been used by cheaters, playing an impossible number of cards in a single turn. Under normal circumstances, a real human player can only play a small number of cards in a turn - it's just a limit of how fast a human can perform those actions. However, when you mix this with the extended time situation, a player could legitimately play far more cards than usual if they've been given additional time in a turn. We recently banned a number of accounts that had been marked as playing an impossible (or so we thought) number of cards in a single turn. We now know that some of these turns were possible under normal play because the turn had been given so much added time.
WHAT WE'RE DOING:
Given the interaction with the extended time issue described above, we are rolling back a large quantity of these bans. We're also updating the procedures that led to these bans to ensure they only catch cheaters.
Frequently Asked Questions on the topic of the Ban Repeals
Q: Can you explain how the appeals process seemingly just rubber-stamped the incorrect ban with no further avenue for appeal other than social media and what, if any, changes Blizzard is making to ensure that the appeals process works in the future for any erroneous bans that may arise from new issues that may be unrelated to the current SN1P-SN4P controversy?
A: Totally fair question. As a quick comment on the appeals process, it wasn't necessarily a rubber-stamp. At the time, based on the information we had, the bans looked correct. So upon appeal, it still looked correct. It was only after fully understanding the interaction with extra time that we were able to re-evaluate and make the call that our methodology wasn't 100% on the mark. All of this isn't to say this is OK, but rather to explain why it happened the way it did. Combatting cheating is tough, but we never want to affect legitimate players in this way.
The actual AMA part
[S] There’s a ton of unexplored things they can do as a Solo Adventure content and they will keep messing with it. (Editor thoughts: Possible something else than dungeon runs for the next Solo Adventure highly possible.)
[S] Iksar, the Lead Card Designer for Hearthstone responded to a balance proposal tweet from Bunnyhoppor (mentioning Northshire Cleric) with a response: "What would you do?" (Editor thoughts: We should probably expect some minor nerfs for Priest class in the "near" future.)
[S] Alchemist's Stone is probably one of the best passive effects. They tried nerfing it a few ways, but it ended up losing so much of it's fun factor so they just changed its offering rate.
[S] Each Chapter of Tombs of Terror will come with their own unique bosses and we will only fight those bosses until we beat that chapter. Replaying a chapter you completed, the pool of bosses will contain bosses from all the chapters you've beaten.
Editor notes: If you want to check out the source yourself, feel free to click on the "S" word for a specific part.
I'd say it's kinda stupid that they even designed a turn 5 OTK combo, with the only drawback being animation time.
Keep them banned. Why would we want anyone playing crater-brain SN1P-SN4P otk decks in hearthstone? Regardless of cheat software.
If the card gets changed they'll just move on to the next obnoxious wild exploit and farm that one.
Why ban them ? I had also lots of fun with Barnes and Yshari and it was counterable like murloc and other stuff. He Played like what hearthstone let him play- so its purly Hearthstone fault in my opinion
Don't know what I said that has anything to do with Y'Shaarj, and yeah "durr you can play it in hearthstone so there's nothing wrong with it". Nice take.
Maybe learn some English brah.
Yea my englishskills lack so greatly that i understand what you are talkin about, while you are too stupid to understand what i wrote and even told me to learn english lol xD how fucking stupid are you :D You said Ban the player for picking noob strategy i said no dont he played what hearthstone offered him is is that hard to understand :D?? And i write on a mobile Phone so dont feel spezial, i aint wasting my time to make you grammar nazi happy. If you again dont get what im saying, no problem but dont tell ME to learn englisch lol xD
Whatever English lessons you got since last year were not enough, sorry. Try again.
plz remove animation time at snipsnap
people only want one thing and it's flippin disgusting
option to disable animations and scree shake
I m playing only with rogue at wild. When I play some kind of combo deck/mill deck/some invented deathrattle decks/ OTK decks sometimes I cannot finish my movement just because of these nonsense and generaly ugly animations. The game force me to play without thinking much. Just prevent them to spend our turn time. Especially posion and lifesteal effects, they re acting like try to teach us their capability we already know.
About snip, snap locks, If they set their OTK stuff, they should win right? or if they want to fill the board with huge bodies, the animations shouldnt prevent them. You re bad again blizz, just like usual.
Removing the animations can be very useful in other top performing decks too. I hope they can detect this in the future and ban ALL cheaters, not only the snipisnap ones.
Well, asking pro players what is their opinion on how to nerf cards is certainly a step in the right direction, just like rolling back conquest after all the GMs vehemntly hated Specialist format. Blizzard has a history of over-nerfing cards and making them unplayable instead of just weakening them.
Calling it now, Inner Fire and/or Divine Spirit HoF'd. I was calling for that during the last rotation.
divine spirit is the real problem
guys sometimes priest should be tier 1. Just accept this matter and play without requesting nerfs. Just because of you guys, i m not playing standard.
i feel like those Priest talk ban cards only started if Kripp said it on the beginning of saviours of ulum- i dont play ranked higher then 15 and also dont like that priest mechanic but is it really that op?
Can Mechwarper get the Reckless Experimenter treatment please? Warlock, or any class for that matter, shouldn't have access to a turn 5 OTK
Standard priest doesn't need it's one chance at aggro taken away. Why is zoo priest always killed as soon as it shows up?
Combo priest is not there to battle aggro, never was. It's practically an aggro deck in itself with some of the possibilities of having a 10+/10+ creature on a very early turn when it's impossible to deal with. GM showed how you can combat a Priest when it gets a good draw - you can't really unles you play warrior, and even then it's problematic. Aside from getting Plague of Murlocs randomly, most control decks have a really hard time with the inclusion of Amet, Psychopomp and Bwonsamdi.
"We should expect minor nerfs to priest class in the future" - good, FINALLY.
So long as it's hits to the res'ing cards. That mechanic is too cheap/broken and REALLY unfun to play against in wild. Also rework res'ing so minions come back with the same stats they died with, please (1/1's should be resurrected as 1/1's for example).
it'll be chaotic if they keep the stats they died with. Because most of minions are buffed before they got killed. Imagine to handle all magnetized mechs when they got resurrected on non-paladins class (without Kangor's Endless Army) or all minions buffed by High Priest Amet.
(pardon my bad english)