Ben Brode on Card Nerfs & The Future, Hearthstone Bot Ban Wave

Gem of Ease Workaround, Ancient Items Clarification, Quinsane 2.1.2 Monk
Beta Patch 33684, Town Hall Heroes #40 - The New Patch!
Blizzard Sending Gift to Veteran Players

Update 3:33 PM EST: Added message from Ben Brode on Undertaker.

Update from Ben Brode on Undertaker

No changes to Undertaker... yet. The card is still being given lots of attention. Also, it appears the interview posted below is old.

Quote from Ben Brode

Hey everyone!

Thanks for your thoughts on Undertaker. I wanted to mention that this interview actually took place close to the launch of GvG last year. Things have changed a lot in the meta, and we’ve been paying a lot of attention to Undertaker since I gave that interview. I just wanted to make sure you guys know that a lot of careful research goes into this stuff. We’re always keeping an eye on things, and we’ll make changes when they’re necessary.

Thanks!


Ben Brode on Card Nerfs & The Future

Ben Brode sat down with GameSpot's Rob Crossley to discuss the Hearthstone world after Goblins vs Gnomes. We've recapped the important parts of the brief interview below. To read it in full, head on over to the full article on the GameSpot website.

Quote from Ben Brode

Leeroy Jenkins

Leeroy did actually appear in the world championships, in a Miracle deck by Tarei, and I have seen it still around. It's certainly not as endemic as it used to be, but that was the goal in the first place.

Flare

We felt people were a little bit getting randomly screwed by Hunter if you had a secrets deck because it was no cost to the Hunter to remove them. Now at least you know that Hunter players need to make a sacrifice with Flare, in that they need to make their deck worse against non-secret decks if they want to keep that advantage over secret decks.

Gadgetzan Auctioneer

Auctioneer, mixed with the new Spare Parts cards from Goblins vs Gnomes, we thought that was pretty dangerous, and a change we had to make.

Undertaker

We did add some cards to Goblins vs Gnomes that are specifically good against Deathrattle decks. But The Undertaker is one of those cards that feels really powerful when he's hurting you, but if you draw him late in the game he's pretty terrible. We were paying attention to how people were using him, and looked at how we were playing against him, but we didn't feel he's nerf-worthy. He is very powerful, but it wasn't past the line for us.

Soulfire

We felt [it] was a little bit too efficient.

Starving Buzzard

Buzzard is a little bit more unseen now though, but its mechanic, where you could draw your entire deck fairly consistently early on, we felt we had to change that.

The "Having too many cards" problem

There are a lot of games in this genre that solve this problem already. Also we have some ideas that are unique to Hearthstone that we think could potentially resolve these types of problems. One thing we're aware of is new players could find the game harder to get into, and harder to learn, the more cards we add.

We have ideas to solve those problems, but I think we're a little bit far off from those problems today.


Hearthstone Bot Ban Wave

Another wave of bans have gone out today for Hearthstone bots, and this time, they're permanent.

Quote from Zeriyah

In our continued efforts to promote a fair play environment within Hearthstone, we have permanently banned Hearthstone accounts found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay, which is a violation of our Terms of Use.

We will continue to closely monitor Hearthstone and take action as needed to protect the game environment. Hearthstone accounts found to be cheating in any form will be permanently closed without warning.

If you believe that you’ve encountered a possible bot or other form of exploitation, please let us know by emailing our hacks team at hacks@blizzard.com.

This is a new wave of bans that has not affected those players suspended by the first wave. As we mentioned in both our Recent Actions Against Botting in Hearthstone and Continued Actions Against Botting in Hearthstone posts, those found to be botting after the first wave will receive a permanent ban from the game. 

Accounts banned in this wave have been discovered to be botting after our warnings and not permanent bans against those already actioned upon in the first wave.

59

Comments

  • To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes