Mike Donais has been busy answering questions about the recent Battlegrounds update over on reddit. Let us see what he has been talking about!
- Lich Baz'hial is being playtested internally with Graveyard Shift that only deals 2 damage to self. She may return.
- The first game you play post-update will still use the old MMR calculations. After that, the new system works.
- Expect a blog later this week talking about how MMR works in Battlegrounds.
- More adjustments will come to MMR. Mike believes the multiplier for playing people outside your skill area is off.
Also worth mentioning again from the update notes:
- More heroes are rotating come December.
- Two new minions are coming in December - Floating Watcher and a new card, King Bagurgle.
- They do want to continue balancing heroes and minion tiers.
How do you feel about the recent updates to Battlegrounds? Are you looking forward to Battlegrounds updates more than the Descent of Dragons expansion itself? Let us know in the comments below!
Quote From Mike Donais I wonder if Floating Watcher will still scale even if you have a Mal'Ganis on your board. If not, it definitely has a ceiling, since you can't really just keep hurting yourself.
I could see it snowballing quickly with Lich Bal'zial when she's eventually rotated back in, but they may just change her hero power outright anyway.
We are testing her at 2 damage internally and she is a bit better with Floating watcher, and of course stronger in general.
That struck me too. I thought all this time that variations in MMR gain/loss at each place finish (in addition to, early on, how many games you've played) depended on the MMRs of the people you played against — as Donais himself seemed to confirm in this comment:
If the average MMR of the game is lower than yours (you got relatively easy opponents) then 4th place can cause an MMR loss. In these games you need top 3 to gain MMR.
/u/mdonais, could you please clarify?
Yes your opponent's MMR matters too, I just wanted the example in the patch notes to be simple. We are going to post a much more in depth blog written by Tian (data scientist) later this week with some more details.
Elise seems very busted. Very comparable to AFKay. The rest seem okay. Floating Watcher should scale very, very well for demons but that wasn't a huge problem for them to begin with. Really would've liked to see amalgam move to T3 or T4 =/.
Demons were a bit low on actual demons in the shop, so adding a mid range demon seemed like a good idea.
We’ve made adjustments to the number of points given for first place. In the original system, you got 240 points for a first place on your first game, and 24 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Now, you will get 190 pts for a first place on your first game and 95 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game.
Wait wait wait wait.. Doesn't that imply that the points gained/lost are completely independent of your opponent's MMR? You just flat out get X amount of points per win and that's it? The one and only thing that matters is how many games you've played so far?
Am I missing something here?
Your opponent's MMR affects the point gain also, my examples are assuming all opponents are the same rank as you.
I do think that the multiplier for playing people far below you or far above you is a bit off right now, so we are gathering some data and adjusting it in the future.
Aww, I loved Lich. Hope she’s back at some point! Though clearly she was hard for a lot of players to figure out
We are considering bringing Lich back at some point with 2 damage instead of 3.
We’ve made adjustments to the number of points given for first place. In the original system, you got 240 points for a first place on your first game, and 24 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Now, you will get 190 pts for a first place on your first game and 95 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game.
I've played about 40 games, just got 1st place (in a game with 3 of the new heroes), and only got 67 points. /u/mdonais are the MMR changes rolled out yet?
The way it is set up is the first game uses the old system then sets you to the new numbers.
The MMR change takes 1 full game to take effect so the first game it will use the old numbers.
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Comments
I know Battlegrounds just dropped (and i'm definitely enjoying it) but I really hope they keep up on the FREQUENT tweaking/adding/removing minions and heroes. It took less than 1 week for BG to get "solved" i.e. full mech/beast with poisonous Amalgam or 2 so if Blizz let's the game sit it's going to get super dull and repetitive pretty quickly.
I'm optimistic though based on how much they're doing now; just aware that they can't be as hands off as they are with Standard (or even worse, Wild) and expect the mode to survive.
FWIW, he replied to me a few times on reddit. Mukla was not the second best hero, but he was in the T4. My guess is that they want to tweak his hero power, seeing as they already did it once already.
How about giving demons a card that silences 1 opposing minion? It would be no more OP than mama bear or gentle megasaur since it would only affect 1 minion.
Hero: Lich Baz'hial
Hero Power: Only deal 2 damage to yourself.
Seems OP! Can't wait! :kappa:
0 mana deal 2 damage? Too OP! They should change the cost to 1.
Kappa
EDIT: Greetings, my Huffer bro!
I like how the avoided the question about nerfing amalgam which is totally in the right tavern tier atm.
I suggested in another thread taking amalgams out of the minion pool and instead offering them as rewards for triples, tavern level-ups, or something else. Being offered an early amalgam is by far the biggest determining factor in where I finish each game, which seems silly.
They already answered. They playtested it as a 2/2 which might come in a future patch. And yes, now I sound like them too but that's what they said.
Wow, make it a 2/2 and not address the obvious problem. Now instead of a 38/40 with divine shield and poisonous, it is a 36/38 with divine shield and poisonous!
You're trying to be sarcastic but you have to realize you're not that smarter than Blizzard. Amalgam strength really kicks in at tier 4 and 5 when you have the crazy buff options. So changing tier may just have a lesser impact than changing its stats (do you really want to buy a 2/2 at tier 2 in the first place???)
Moreover, like it or not, amalgam is the only unit that allows strats that are not just full mech or full beast. Remove it from the game and it will become all boring an repetitive.
You ALWAYS pick amalgm no matter what, the card is really broken.. there is 0 decision making around this card
Well then, here’s my argument/rant:
Changing it to a 3/4 star is not better? Seriously? Just think about it. Now it is competing against other stuff you would want: Hydras? Cobalts? Alarm Bots? Annoy-o-bots? Is a 3/4 with potential to be op really worth it at that point?
Not to mention that by that stage, it can probably only receive maybe 6-7 rounds of buffs at max compared to the stupid amount of time a 3/4 in the 2-star range will give (better than most 2 stars and available as early as turn 3! You can easily get at least 10+ turns of buffs on that.) It can still be strong, just not meta-warpingly powerful.
Yes, perhaps I should stop being so pretentious. Maybe Blizzard already experimented with making it have a higher tavern cost and it turned out to be garbage, maybe they are trying to find unique ways in which I would never have dreamt of in my life that would remedy the problem, but making it a fucking 2/2 is not one of them. The problem is the insane buff potential of this minion. (When combined with Lightfang Enforcer for a few turns, literally GG. Unless you happen to be going Murlocs, get Maexxna or have an Amalgam of your own to check the problem, it is unkillable.)
Amalgam is a problem, and there’s no going around it. I love Battlegrounds, and would like to see it become better. Changing its tavern tier is a waaaaaay better fix than making it a 2/2z A 2/2 literally only makes you lose, like, 12 health max so you can win the game later. Its the same dilemma with Nefarian and George, unstoppable in certain cases. The gamemode would require massive restructuring in order to address these problems.
For an alternative solution, remove Amalgam and stat-buffing dudes. Perhaps adding more unique minions that can empower different archetypes would be more fitting. Like how we have different decks in Standard Hearthstone, maybe we can have different crazy sub-archetypes of the tribes like Deathrattle Demons that summon stuff you bought from your hand or something even more stupid like neutral tribe enablers? Now there is a load of variety with the possibility of minions we can buy, strategies can be mixed and matched together, instead of watching the biggest stat sticks wack each other to death (Junkbot and Amalgam meta).
Even if main synergies are are tier 4, being able to get amalgam as early as tier 2 makes it for easier planning, also there are enough buffs at 1-2 for it to matter too...
While i agree with you, couple potential early losses due to lower stats could matter in the long run. Sometimes xou just need one more Recruit phase to get where you need to be but you have no time (=health). I guess we will see if it makes any impact. I suppose it might (only) impact heroes who already struggle in the early game tho.
The Curator being one of the top heroes shows that getting an amalgam early, regardless of stats, is very good. So my guess is that it will remain an auto-pick in tier 2 even at 2/2.
Stats would matter more for minions that you eventually get rid of, since those need to be immediately useful. For example Vulgar Homunculus is a good early pick even though most players don't stay on demons. But Amalgams you typically keep until the end, so their starting stats are less important.
Exactly what Shadows said, you compare two situations, that are diametrically different. Curator has an extra 1/1 from the start of the game and it helps him not to lose health in first few rounds just by "existing" basically. But "wasting" a turn by buying a weak-stated minion in the early to mid game where all you can afford is one minion a turn is a very different scenario. There, it very well can cost you some health in the process.
You could compare it to buying a Wrath Weaver on T1 instead of literally any other minion. You are 100% guaranteed to lose some health from this action, because you will gonna lose your next match or two at least. You can eventually turn it around and the investment can lead to your victory, but depending on the situation, you just might be too slow. Same thing could potentially happen with buying a 2/2 amalgam.
I know this is a kinda silly example and that amalgam could be a 1/1 and ppl would still buy it because it would be worth it overall, but the nerf is going to do something. Will it be enough? Probably not, but you will notice it happened.
The Curator's real strength lies in getting an extra body on the board early, meaning you're unlikely to lose health in the early rounds. The Amalgam does then scale well, but I'm pretty sure that The Curator isn't actually one of the best heroes - strong, yes, but not in any broken way.