They said nothing at Blizzcon about the future of Hearthstone. I hate when i see this stuff asked and nothing ever happens. It would be really nice to here what they are working on other than cards. Its been 3 years and there has been no new content(other than cards). Its insane. They should be revamping the ladder and arena. Creating new formats and ways to compete. Tournament modes, weekly events. I dont even care if they cost money. I just want content. FFS even working on making the spectator client not a pile of shit.
We did something like 30 interviews (probably more) where this question was asked many times. We're looking at Arena and Ranked as modes we'd like to improve upon as opposed to a bunch of brand new modes. We announced Mean Streets and Blizzcon which is super exciting for us and something that is coming out in the short-term, so a lot of the discussion was centered there this time around.
I think people are overlooking the variance present in hearthstone. While the bronze/silver/..../grandmaster system is the most popular I don't think it's good for hearthstone. Games with those systems are usually low on variance. As a result the better player almost always wins. We all know how much win percentages can vary in hearthstone.
I hit legend almost every month (depending on real life commitments), and I personally really like hearthstone's ladder. However, improvements should be made.
Legend players return to rank 5 at reset.
Fix the legend ladder rankings. It's way too volatile. Also, playing on the last day of the season is too important. It's ridiculous that play before the last day means almost nothing.
Skill-based matchmaking with ranks presents some issues for us but I do think it's possible. I don't think the reason we have the system we do is a result of low-variance wins/losses.
One season is ten games. You get three points for a win and one for a tie. There are 10 tiers, 10 being lowest.
The higher tier you are, the more points it takes for you to remain or advance tiers. If you are in tier 10, you might only need five points to advance to tier 9 (two wins in ten matches). It then gets progressively harder until in tier 1 you need to get 22 points (7-8 wins in 10 matches) to win the season trophy. If you fail, you need to get at least 16 points (5-6 wins) just to remain in tier 1.
There is no time element. One season is always ten games.
What that means is that I can play at my own pace and still be a champion. I don't know how well that would work in Hearthstone, but it might be good to look into for a different approach.
Iksar
We did something like 30 interviews (probably more) where this question was asked many times. We're looking at Arena and Ranked as modes we'd like to improve upon as opposed to a bunch of brand new modes. We announced Mean Streets and Blizzcon which is super exciting for us and something that is coming out in the short-term, so a lot of the discussion was centered there this time around.
Iksar
I also liked Halo 3. I use it as an example of a system I really liked when talking about a bunch of different games.
Iksar
Skill-based matchmaking with ranks presents some issues for us but I do think it's possible. I don't think the reason we have the system we do is a result of low-variance wins/losses.
Iksar
Hmm, I'll check it out. Sounds interesting.
Iksar
Thanks for all the feedback!