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A Radical Proposal to Solve the Class Balance Problem

Class balance is hard. Especially when you have to juggle arena concerns with those of constructed and, of course, constructed takes priority because it is the game mode that far more people play, generates the most revenue and the eSports scene is centered around. Recently we have seen a fair bit of effort from Blizzard to work towards class balance in other ways, with bans and 50% reductions and now then new 'micro adjustments' and you know what - it isn't great. I have just listened to ADWCTA and Merps rant for 45 minutes straight about how much they hate the new changes and how they are confusing and clunky for new and veteran players alike. And in two weeks the meta will reset and the whole process will have to start again.

 

So here is a radically different proposal - something way outside the box of anything that has been considered before I think. What if instead of micromanaging the card offering rates, you micromanage the prizes?

 

How it would work is like this. First off, get rid of all the current balance adjustments - all the banned cards, all the 50% offering, all the individual card micro adjustments etc. Then from Day 0, every class starts with a coefficient of 1. Every time someone chooses that class for an arena run, the coefficient drops by some very small amount and those of the other 8 classes all rise by 1/8 that amount (so the average of all coefficients always equals 1). Then at the end of each arena run the gold and dust rewards you receive are multiplied by the coefficient for that class. So if you would have received 100g but you are playing a 1.2 coefficient class, you would get 120g instead. The prize level would be completely transparent and up front, so when you picked your class it would show super-imposed over the character, something like:

 

Mage - 0.8x Prizes; Priest - 1.1x Prizes; Warrior - 1.7x Prizes

 

This sounds a bit wacky, but think about the benefits:

 

It requires little to no effort from Blizzard to maintain

Once the original code is written (which isn't really that complicated) no effort will be required from Blizzard to maintain the system - it is entirely self-regulating, even across expansions, rotations and other major meta shifts. This frees up time for other projects and gives them one less thing to worry about. While they will still need to think about arena balance when designing expansions, the penalty for getting things a bit wrong are significantly reduced.

 

It is fully transparent from the player's perspective

We won't have to remember which cards are banned, which cards have 50% offering rate and which are micro-adjusted to what level - everything you need to know is shown on the class select screen. This will help new/casual players and min-maxers alike make informed decisions.

 

It enforces class diversity

In the medium to long term, every class will be picked almost exactly evenly. Because if one class is ever picked more, its coefficient will drop to make it look more unattractive until parity is restored. Of course, when you get to higher win levels the better classes will still be seen more, but not to the extent they are now and at least the earlier games will be a good mix.

 

It encourages class specialisation and innovation

Everyone has their favourite class, or one they feel they are better with compared to other people and this will allow you to exploit your proficiency with a class into better rewards without feeling like you are gimping yourself. This in turn will encourage players to fully explore every class to try and find an edge. Right now there is little incentive to figure out how to squeak out an extra 0.5 wins on average with Warlock as it will still be worse than Paladin, Mage or Rogue so you will rarely pick it anyway. But if prizes for Warlock were double that of those other classes, it suddenly becomes very worthwhile.

 

It allows payers to choose different arena experiences

Do you really want a challenge? Or do you only have an hour or two to spare? Choose a worse class, and go for the big rewards! Really want to try for 12 wins, or going for the top 100? Choose a better class to give yourself the best chance. Want to do some kind of challenge that involves playing every class? Or maybe as a streamer, your audience want to see you play more different classes? Go ahead, you won't suffer for it.

 

Overall, while at first glance it sounds a bit crazy, but in the long term it is just like having 'easy mode' and 'hard mode'. And once players get out of the mindset that all classes are supposed to be equally good and into one that "classes are not balanced, but that's okay/part of the structure of the game" maybe it will lower the salt level a little bit.

 

Thoughts?

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