Hearthstone: Ben Brode über das Standardformat, F2P, Sets und mögliche Nerfs

azurios 9. Januar 2017

User Rating: 4.7 (1 votes)

Der für Hearthstone verantwortliche Game Director Ben Brode veröffentlichte vor einigen Tagen einen sehr interessanten Bluepost in den Battle.Net Foren, der sich hauptsächlich damit beschäftigte, welche Ziele das Entwicklerteam eigentlich mit dem Standardformat verfolgt und was für Vorgehensweisen diesen Spielmodus in der Zukunft frisch und abwechslungsreich gestalten könnten. Dabei erwähnte der Mitarbeiter von Blizzard Entertainment unter anderem, dass die Entwickler bei Problemen mit dem Basis Set und einem Stillstand im Meta des Standardformats mittlerweile keine Probleme mehr damit hätten, entweder weitere Karten aus dem klassischen Set zu nerfen oder sie für einen bestimmten Zeitraum in das Wildeformat zu verschieben.

Aufgrund dieser interessanten Aussage von Game Director Ben Brode starteten einige besorgte Personen am vergangenen Wochenende dann sowohl in den Battle.Net Foren als auch auf Reddit umfangreiche Diskussionen darüber, was für Konsequenzen solch eine Änderung für FP2 Spieler hätte, welche Karten die Entwickler vermutlich nerfen werden und ob man das Standardformat in der aktuellen Version überhaupt beibehalten sollte. Um die Sorgen dieser Spieler ein wenig zu lindern und ihre Fragen zu diesem Thema zu beantworten, nahm Ben Brode nach der Veröffentlichung seines ursprünglichen Blueposts dann freundlicherweise auch noch aktiv an diesen Unterhaltungen teil und reagierte auf die Beiträge von verschiedenen Personen.

Folgend findet ihr nun eine Zusammenfassung der interessantesten Aussagen von Game Director Ben Brode:

Die Zusammenfassung:

Das Ziel der Entwickler ist es das Standardformat frisch und abwechslungsreich zu halten.
Wenn in jedem Jahr die gleichen Karten aus dem Basis Set in den Decks der Spieler auftauchen, dann wurde dieses Ziel nicht erreicht.
Die Entwickler müssen das Meta dauerhaft überwachen, um ihre Pläne für das nächste Jahr des Standardformats festzulegen.
Neue Karten zu veröffentlichten ist besser, als alte Karten zu buffen.
Das Basis Set ist das mächtigste Set von Hearthstone.
Die in der Vergangenheit durchgeführten Nerfs an dem Basis Set halten dieses Set noch immer in einer guten und stabilen Position.
Das Basis Set führt neue Spieler in Hearthstone ein und begleitet sie beim Bau ihrer ersten Decks.
Während das Standardformat für Spieler bestimmt ist, die Abwechslung mögen und gerne an ihren Decks arbeiten, so soll das Wildeformat eher die Personen anlocken, die über einen langen Zeitraum gerne mit dem gleichen Deck spielen.
Die Mechanik „Ansturm“ wurde in der Vergangenheit generfed, weil sie in Kombination mit den Karten aus „Die Straßen von Gadgetzan“ viel zu stark gewesen wäre.
FP2 Spieler sollten nach diesen möglicherweise kommenden Nerfs an Karten aus dem Basis Set auch weiterhin dazu in der Lage sein, eine legendäre Platzierung in der Rangliste zu erreichen. Schließlich hinderten die Nerfs aus dem letzten Jahr die Spieler auch nicht am Erreichen dieses Rangs.
Nicht jede Karte des Spiels ist für den kompetitiven Wettkampf zwischen Spielern bestimmt. Einige Diener oder Zauber sollen einfach nur Spaß machen.

The goal with Standard is to keep the meta fresh for each yearly rotation. There are some benefits to keeping Basic and Classic cards in Standard: Returning players have an entry-point to the new format, and new players experience classics like „Hogger“ and „Arcane Missiles“ that are iconic and great introductions to the game. People take breaks from Hearthstone, and being able to jump right back in with a few cards you already own and understand makes that experience a lot better.

That upside has a real downside in working directly against the big goal for Standard. It needs to feel different each year, and if Basic and Classic cards are still appearing in large densities year after year, we will not be achieving our goals for Standard.

We knew we weren’t going to get there when the Year of the Kraken began, so we nerfed 12 basic/classic cards, to put more of the weight of the meta into the rotating sets. We always knew we’d have to watch the meta to see if any future changes would be needed when we got ready for the next year of Standard. If things are looking like they are going to be too same-y for that next year, we could see more nerfs, or we might rotate some additional classic cards to Wild, like we did with Old Murk Eye. No matter what, we’re committed to making Standard fresh and exciting each new year.

Given the goal of Standard is to keep the game fresh each year, it’s important to keep a lot of the power of the cards in the expansions, and not in the basic and classic sets. It’s not clear what that balance of power should look like (is it ~10 cards from the basic and classic sets on average?), but we’re currently skewed so high towards basic and classic cards in decks, that we are at high risk for ’samey-ness‘ as the years change in Standard. Buffing Basic/Classic cards *increases* that risk. If the goal is to get more cool cards into the meta, just releasing awesome new cards in expansions should make an impact there, and still keep Standard fresh.

Our intention is to keep Basic and Classic evergreen. This does have severe disadvantages if cards from Classic end up making Standard fail at its goal of being fresh each year. It’s feedback we’ve been hearing since the introduction of Standard: ‚This isn’t enough – we will eventually end up in a stale Standard without additional changes.‘ And we’ve always said that we didn’t consider our work here ‚done‘. If Standard is at risk for becoming stale thanks to the evergreen sets, we’ll consider additional nerfs. This isn’t the first time we’ve said this, and we said it even before Standard launched. We’ve reiterated it over the past year: http://www.pcgamesn.com/hearthstone/hearthstone-standard-2017-nerfsAssuming both avenues resulted in full dust refunds of the affected cards, would people prefer:

Nerfs
Rotation to Wild (like Old Murk Eye)
Staler Meta in Standard

Please leave the Classic Legendaries Alone

I should add this is a general question about all Classic cards and not specifically about Legendaries. We’re not sure which cards would be the right ones to target, if any, just yet.

Just create a Core Set finally.

We have a core set – it’s called Classic. Is there something you’re pitching that Classic isn’t doing for us?

The entire point of classic was to have a stable base set on top of the basic set.

There are close to 400 cards in Basic and Classic. Nerfing a few of them, or moving them to Wild, still keeps a stable evergreen set. Also, that isn’t the entire point of Classic. It introduces players to the game at a slightly lower complexity level. It lays a baseline for generic Warcraft flavor (Hogger, Mukla, etc).

Now you are admitting that retaining classic was a mistake, and instead of rotating it out. We are just going change cards and bend it to where it is no longer a complete set by rotating out random cards and… what!? Just rotate Classic out!

We believe there are real benefits to an evergreen basic and classic set. What we are talking about is very similar to the 12 nerfs we made when Standard launched, to help it succeed in its goals. Standard needs to be fresh each year.

Blizzard doesn’t like that F2P players are using classic/basic cards all the time and when making their decks so they want to nerf those cards to oblivion in order to force them to spend money/gold on adventures/expansions pack.

That’s just not true. Some players like it when Hearthstone has a fresh meta, where you can explore new deck types. It’s one of two reasons we introduced the Standard Format (the other was making sure new players wouldn’t have to collect every card ever made to be competitive). Wild is going to change a lot less often. Some players like that too. But we have a commitment to keep Standard fresh and ever-changing. We’ve been hearing a lot of feedback that Classic and Basic as they currently stand are a real threat to that.

And then when F2P players finally found a way to reach Rank 1 with a cheap OTK Warrior deck, they decide to nerf Charge while saying „omg guiz u have no idea how gud dis iz!!!11“.

I see you took the time to look up my exact quote! 🙂 We nerfed Charge (the spell) because we knew the upcoming Grimy Goons mechanic in combination with Enraged Worgen and Charge was not really fair or fun. There have always been F2P players at Legend, and there have continued to be since that change.

Almost all cards that get nerfed (or „changed“ as Blizzard likes to put it) never gets played again.

Maybe you’re intentionally exaggerating, but you can count ‚em and it’s not „almost all“. And not every card is targeted at competitive play. We do intentionally make bad cards. Here’s a video, if you’re curious about some of the reasons why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ioY1KO79A

love how you’re trying to put out the fire created by greed 🙂 it’s not working to well though, why not just be honest & tell everyone you are rotating out good core cards because you want new players to pay up or be 100% irrelevant? 🙂 why lie about it? „fresh“? gimmi a break.

We did this in 2016 when we nerfed 12 classic cards and it made a huge difference in how much the meta was able to change with the release of Old Gods (instead of just continuing to be Druid Combo). New players were able to reach legend without spending money after that change, and I expect that will be continue to be true if we change a few more cards in 2017.

I don’t understand why can’t they just buff cards? What is so drastically different that they can nerf cards but they can never buff anything?

If you’re curious about some of the challenges and other thoughts about buffing bad cards, I made a video a while back about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ioY1KO79A