Hearthstone's Senior Game Designer, Dean Ayala is back on track after his wedding and answering questions this evening on Hearthstone's Wild game mode. Read on for our recap and the full context.
- There are no currently planned balance changes for Wild.
- They want to see how the first expansion of the year goes before considering changes to Wild.
- If they believed the playerbase as a whole wanted certain changes, they would act upon it.
- The goal is that Wild is the place you can go to enjoy decks you love the most for as long as you want.
- Outliers like Naga Sea Witch, SN1P-SN4P, and Barnes crossed the line.
- They don't have an issue changing cards that cross the line, though they don't have any hard rules set.
- Darkest Hour Lock, Quest Mage, Secret Mage, and Mech Paladin are the decks they've looked at.
Dean also makes a mention of "rotating formats" and asking if anyone likes any particular format for them. Would you like a new format for playing constructed Hearthstone? What would your ideal format look like?
Congrats to Dean and Molly!
Archetypes Being Watched in Wild
Quote From Dean Ayala Of all decks, I think Darkest Hour Lock, Quest Mage, Secret Mage, and Mech Paladin are the ones we look closest at. (Source)
Darkest Hour and Mech Paladin because they create the most early/mid game states that feel impossible to overcome. (Source)
Quest Mage because of vast population size and the feeling that it invalidates grindy control archetypes Wild players tend to enjoy playing. (Source)
And Quest Mage because of a strong population and power level that could drive it to be more populous over time. (Source)
In our current thoughts, none of these decks have crossed the line to the point where we feel the need to step in and adjust them, though we do certainly talk about and evaluate them as time goes by. (Source)
Dean's Tweets
Quote From Dean Ayala Dear Team 5 dev (@IksarHS @Celestalon @Chris_Attalus @Songbird_HS)please, I beg you: do something for Wild players! You are doing an amazing job with HS & BG, please don’t forget about us!
No plans for balance changes in Wild. Wild is always going to be a place where very slow control decks have a hard time with extreme power combos that utilize all cards in Hearthstone history. Quest Mage is one example of this but there are many others.
Wild balance changes are mostly reserved for extreme unfun power swings in early/mid game or an archetype that appears that is considerably more powerful than all others.
One thing that I don't understand is, why you're so strict about Blizzard's philosophy around Wild, when almost like 99% of the actual Wild players are begging you for some nerfs to make other cards more visible. Nothing against you, I love what you do, but #WildNeedsNerfs.
If we believed 99% of Wild players wanted something, we would act on it. The reality is there is nothing ever close to being that agreed upon. I think different forms of media can be echo chambers for a particular desire, but they aren't always representative of the playerbase. (Source)
Hmm, interesting, thanks for your thoughts. I just gave up a long time ago asking for changes regarding Wild, because I know I just can't do anything to prove that some interactions are really annoying and unfair - as one person on twitter. (As I know your desires for Wild bal.)
The spirit of Wild is that it's the place you can go to enjoy whatever deck you love most for as long as you want. Standard is a place where metas shift more rapidly and set rotation shakes up the cards available to force change. (Source)
I imagine there are probably Wild players out there that would enjoy meta shifts and shakeups more often as well as Standard players who wish they wouldn't have to swap decks as often to be competitive. (Source)
Our hope is that we can stay true to the spirit of each format while addressing the outliers in Wild like Sea Witch, SN1P, Barnes, etc. It's totally possible Quest Mage crosses the threshold of being one of those outliers, it's just not something we have plans for right now. (Source)
I wish I could give you some ruleset of guideline to follow of when that line will be crossed, but it's something we'll have to feel out over time. Population size, power level, and community feedback all play a role in that. (Source)
Imo I feel that others (and even my frustrations) at times come from wanting to be able to use old cards but not be as burdened by the god tier strategies that constantly destroy. I think a third format that utilizes a restricted card pool might help alleviate some frustrations.
If the goal is to be able to use old cards but not run into very powerful synergistic decks then I would agree Wild is probably not the ideal environment for that. Have you heard of any rotating format ideas you liked a lot?
hey dean, could you elaborate a bit more now that we're on this topic, esp. regarding quest mage? china has a much larger wild playerbase than the rest of the world combined, and quest mage is one of the most frequent topics on chinese hs forums
I mentioned this some other places, but I'm just referring to plans we have made for the near future. We'd like to see how the first expansion of the year shakes out before re-evaluating Wild. (Source)
I hate making black and white statements because opinions can always change. However, our stance on Wild is that it is not a place where consistent balance changes are likely to happen. (Source)
Part of the identity of Wild is that it's a place where you are generally more safe from a constantly fluctuating meta environment like Standarad can be at times. (Source)
Of all decks, I think Darkest Hour Lock, Quest Mage, Secret Mage, and Mech Paladin are the ones we look closest at. (Source)
Darkest Hour and Mech Paladin because they create the most early/mid game states that feel impossible to overcome. (Source)
Quest Mage because of vast population size and the feeling that it invalidates grindy control archetypes Wild players tend to enjoy playing. (Source)
And Quest Mage because of a strong population and power level that could drive it to be more populous over time. (Source)
In our current thoughts, none of these decks have crossed the line to the point where we feel the need to step in and adjust them, though we do certainly talk about and evaluate them as time goes by. (Source)
Comments
Lol Mechathun Warlock squeezing past the decks they are looking at like Cersei walking by the Clegane Bowl
You can easily counter it, just rat or something like that, but you can t counter quest mage or odd pala or mech pala. Even secret mage has very few counters, yes, we have anti secret cards, but you can t play them coz of you counter only 1 deck (ok, 2, quest mage too) and it s not 100% counter coz you need hard mulligan it coz later it's just useless.
true u can counter it. but im gonna be honest decks that run dirty rat are kinda slow, and ive had plenty of games when im a turn from winning with Mechathun and i look at my hand and i have literally 4 to 5 other minions besides the old god. they would have to be very lucky with the rat even with Brann combo
Old song once again, we must cry years for balance and only after this, they will change only 1-2 cards for wild, it's really stupid.
Secret mage is a cancer, baku pal is a cancer, mech pala is a cancer (less for me, coz has some counters), quest mage is a cancer and has zero counters except super aggro. And you must wait years, not just months before Blizz will do something. Ofc, they can add some cards for BG, but patch for real game where people buying cards and gives you money, no, we must wait...
We Wild players feast upon your tears. Bring them to me.
Kind of a let down tbh. They did show that they wanna give Wild a bit more Attention (returning Packs, Nerfs to Echo). And now they're saying they don't have any Changes to it in Mind? Really? I mean, you could just look at Forum Threads and clearly see that People have an Issue with Decks like Quest-Mage. Yeah, there are a lot of Players that are just salty and wanna vent, but you can't deny that it often feels like you can't do anything when you're facing these Decks. I seriously hope the Devs change their Minds on this Topic when the next Xpac is released.
Regarding new Format: Rotating Sets sounds interesting. But you really need to be careful with which Sets you'll combine. A lot of Cards are harmless, untill you put them in the right Enviroment.
cough *Terror in the Tombs* cough
One or two Hearthstone fan forums is not exactly indicative of an entire format's playerbase. Do we have some form of measurable method to see how many numbers or rough percentages hate or love any particular deck or playstyle? Not really. So naturally the topic isn't as simple as 'A dozen threads complained about something [which card just be chalked up to playstyle or class bias] so naturally everyone hates it and it should be addressed.'
I admit that there's no 100% exact Way of measuring how a Playerbase feels about something. That's especially true for Wild, since the Amount of Players is much smaller and therefore the Data/Information you can get.
And because of that, I do think that „a dozen Threads complaining about something" are a Way of indicating a Problem or at least help to understand the Situation. It gives the Devs something to look deeper into and maybe find out what causes this Frustration.
Now the idea has been put in my head, I think a new rotating format has to be the pragmatic solution to the wild 'problem'. Without it or something similar we're left with a fundamental question on what Wild should be, akin to the age old question of what Casual should be, which has no answer that everyone agrees on and is therefore certain to disappoint people no matter how they treat Wild.
Add in a new sub-Wild format and you get to say: Wild is ALL cards and the most extreme power levels, and the new format is a rotating sub-set of Wild cards that lets old cards and decks have a time to shine. I essence it is like Standard, but with sets chosen more like Arena: i.e. more frequent changes and a huge number of different set permutations. As always certain decks will rise to the top of the meta, but make it change often enough (e.g. every 2 months as is done in the Arena,) and no deck reigns for too long and cards don't have to wait too long to enter the cycle.
Ideally you would allow people to choose which sets to restrict from, but the player base isn't infinitely large to that's not practical.
I would like to play the year of the mammoth standalone constructed.
This is false in practice.
You cannot ENJOY decks that are brutally overrun by meta tyrants.
AND meta tyrants in Wild are often made possible thanks to NEW flawed cards that are harmless in Standard, but broken in Wild.
It's not about a shifting meta. Wild players never asked for that (and the meta does actually shift btw). It's about viability of cards and decks, made poor by a limited pool of flawed cards, ie cards that need synergy to be valuable, but that synergy is so easily provided in Wild, that their mana cost is unbearably low (eg. Crystology, Arcane Flakmage, Plague of Flames, etc).
If those cards weren't flawed to begin with, Wild would be a much better place, with no need of continuously "keeping an eye on it".
The problem is there will always be decks that some players enjoy, but will never be viable, just as there must always be a lich king, I mean tier 1 deck in wild.
You could take 100 powerful cards away in wild and simply delete them, but that doesn't mean that curving into 1, 2, then 3 mana or playing a combo against a control deck that doesn't try to kill you still won't outclass Timmy's Beast Priest or Spell Warrior (Obviously exaggerating a lot here but you get the gist of the idea).
Yeah sure, this is definitely true.
But there is a difference between barely viable, unviable, and brutally unviable.
Too many decks are made brutally unviable in current Wild.
And I mean decks that were historically good enough (which are bound to improve on paper), not just stuff that never emerged in any meta.
LUL ?
all we want is to stop printing that one card which wins the game and nothing else matters, and anyone who draw it first wins. that will help HS to be more enjoyable game.
oh wow, i thought this was gonna be a good year for hearthstone. Frodan should have said that it's only for standard players lol
I'm glad at least he addressed Wild players, even if no changes are forthcoming. Not sure how the release of the first expansion upon rotation is that relevant to wild any more than any other expansion given nothing is removed from wild.
And having played 15 games at rank 2 wild or so tonight did get a bit tired of seeing Jania 8 times (>50%). But hey ho understandably people want to play decks that crush.
A third set format does sound interesting though - deck building is always fun. Shame I suck at it.
Part of it I’d imagine is because the first set of the year is their chance to try to make a new archetype that can be expanded on later (since it’ll have the most time in standard, and they don’t print that many synergy cards for decks that have rotated out).
The other part I think is that Wild’s probably gonna get some new people in it with the rotation, a bunch of people that want to play decks that have rotated out and all, so the meta might shift because of that
Good points
My assumption regarding the next rotation and it impacts on wild is that, maybe, like it happened in the previous couple sets, a few cards in particular would be likely to give even more synergy to existing - read competitively viable - archetypes. For instance, when singleton decks were brought back to standard, it felt like a Wild was getting refreshed, to some extend. Now, is that assumption foolish wishful thinking?
... yes
I honestly think team5 should just straight up admit that balancing wild is easier said than done, since its a vast amount of cards and complexity. The point that wild is supposed to be that place you go to to enjoy cards you used to enjoy is only relevant at the very bottom of the ranks where you don't see quest mages and warlock creeping everywhere. I can only image that the top ranks are filled with combo and aggro decks with control and midrange being completely outclassed.
Ideally the wild cards should rotate back to standard so we get to enjoy some of the cards of old without pulling our hair out after seeing quest mage for the umpteen time.
If team5 needs a reference, wasn't there a tavern brawl that restricts use of cards to certain expansions, like a year ago? As I remembered that was the one time I actually cared about the tavern brawl experience. That's a useful testing ground, and will undoubtedly make tavern brawl more interesting than the usual 'get your pack and get out, see you next week' kind of mentality.
Looking forward to Carnivorous Cube being in standard again. Make it happen blizzard.