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Please make separate design and balance teams

Magic: the Gathering has a separate design and a balance/playtest team. I wish Blizzard would adopt this model as it has several advantages:

To start, creating and testing/balancing are different skill sets. For instance, people who are really creative often aren't the kind of guys who deeply care about making sure that card text is consistent. See Onyx Bishop from the latest expansion and Resurrect. It's also surprisingly hard to proofread text that you're read dozens of times already, because your brain basically goes "bored now, I know that text already."

Ever wonder why so many great cards on /r/customhearthstone are so badly balanced? It's because after working on a card for a long time, you lose the ability to look at the card objectively because you get attached to your own cards. That's where the balance/playtest team comes in with their fresh and unbiased eyes.

We all get attached to pet cards and fall in love with stupid ideas from time to time and it can be hard to tell your coworker "we need to kill that card that you really love." This is especially hard if that coworker happens to be the lead designer. Introducing a playtest/balance team and giving them the final responsibility for the set provides a mechanism to kill pets cards and counterbalances the lead designer.

Another good reason for making separate design and balance teams is that for most people, designing new cards is just more fun that grinding a ton of playtest games to check whether you need to nerf your own card. Hiring people who specifically have the job to playtest cards in both arena and constructed makes sure that sufficient playtesting gets done. You can even hire current expert Hearthstone players to become playtesters.

Finally, knowing that they'll have to justify their card designs to a coworker who is responsible for balance will motivate designers to think more closely about what choices they're making and what priorities they have.

So tl;dr: please make separate design and balance teams.

edit: see this for a reply by a Blizzard employee.

Iksar

Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

Thats great if you have that, do you also have something similar to WotCs "Multiverse"? Multiverse is essentially a commenting system used by the developers during design to generate discussion and improve the card quality. It also create a audit of what changes were proposed for a card.

From time to time wotc publish articles where they talk about cards that were pushed too much, too little or that had were radically changes during design.

Example what it can look like:

Bloodbraid Elf

D1 8/21: Could this be a constructed push?

D2 9/11: From 2/2 to 3/3!

D1 9/17: This card is totally sick. I think that at this level it is one of the top five constructed cards in the set. I love the third point of power, but I don't like the third toughness. He already draws a spell and usually makes two mana, which is completely sick.

D2 9/18: From 3/3 to 3/2. Still testing.

D1 9/24 We moved it to 2/2 in the playtester meeting, yes?

Would be interesting to see something similar for purify/firelands portal...

We've had similar articles in the past about design stories for particular cards, I think the most recent one I remember discussed all the design iterations that Yogg went through. Card designs have a number of different goals, sometimes those goals are immediate competitive play and sometimes they shoot for something else. Things like flavor, arena viability, or sprinkling in tools for a new or existing archetype. In smaller sets, it can be a little risky to take a gamble on a new toolkit because there are fewer cards to work with. In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of. In my mind there is some positive to the outcry over Purify because I think people will definitely try it out and report any successes/failures/stories they had building and playing a 'silence your own stuff' priest. None of this is to say anyone is wrong in their feedback, but just to communicate some of the ideas surrounding a card design. Hearthstone is important to all of us, and we're trying to do better in terms of communication and understanding what different communities (like this one) are most interested in. I've been happy to be here and have a conversation about what you all want from the game, thanks for being so passionate about it. :D
Iksar

Posted 9 years, 4 months ago (Source)

We work together on most everything, but what you are suggesting already exists. We refer to the teams internally as initial design and final design.

<blockquote class="quoted">
    <div class="md"><p>Thats great if you have that,  do you also have something similar to WotCs "Multiverse"? Multiverse is essentially a commenting system used by the developers during design to generate  discussion and improve the card quality. It also create a audit of what changes were proposed for a card.</p>

<p>From time to time wotc publish articles where they talk about cards that were pushed too much, too little or that had were radically changes during design.</p>

<p>Example what it can look like:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Bloodbraid Elf</p>

<p>D1 8/21: Could this be a constructed push?</p>

<p>D1 9/17: This card is totally sick. I think that at this level it is one of the top five constructed cards in the set. I love the third point of power, but I don't like the third toughness. He already draws a spell and usually makes two mana, which is completely sick.</p>

<p>D2 9/18: From 3/3 to 3/2. Still testing.</p>

<p>D1 9/24 We moved it to 2/2 in the playtester meeting, yes?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Would be interesting to see something similar for purify/firelands portal...</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="md"><p>We've had similar articles in the past about design stories for particular cards, I think the most recent one I remember discussed all the design iterations that Yogg went through. Card designs have a number of different goals, sometimes those goals are immediate competitive play and sometimes they shoot for something else. Things like flavor, arena viability, or sprinkling in tools for a new or existing archetype. In smaller sets, it can be a little risky to take a gamble on a new toolkit because there are fewer cards to work with. In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of. In my mind there is some positive to the outcry over Purify because I think people will definitely try it out and report any successes/failures/stories they had building and playing a 'silence your own stuff' priest. None of this is to say anyone is wrong in their feedback, but just to communicate some of the ideas surrounding a card design. Hearthstone is important to all of us, and we're trying to do better in terms of communication and understanding what different communities (like this one) are most interested in. I've been happy to be here and have a conversation about what you all want from the game, thanks for being so passionate about it. :D</p>
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4wjqq1/please_make_separate_design_and_balance_teams/d685jgw">Iksar</a>)
<hr/>

<blockquote class="quoted">
    
</blockquote>
<div class="md"><p>We work together on most everything, but what you are suggesting already exists. We refer to the teams internally as initial design and final design.</p>
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4wjqq1/please_make_separate_design_and_balance_teams/d67mszw">Iksar</a>)
<hr/>

<p><div class="md"><p>We've had similar articles in the past about design stories for particular cards, I think the most recent one I remember discussed all the design iterations that Yogg went through. Card designs have a number of different goals, sometimes those goals are immediate competitive play and sometimes they shoot for something else. Things like flavor, arena viability, or sprinkling in tools for a new or existing archetype. In smaller sets, it can be a little risky to take a gamble on a new toolkit because there are fewer cards to work with. In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of. In my mind there is some positive to the outcry over Purify because I think people will definitely try it out and report any successes/failures/stories they had building and playing a 'silence your own stuff' priest. None of this is to say anyone is wrong in their feedback, but just to communicate some of the ideas surrounding a card design. Hearthstone is important to all of us, and we're trying to do better in terms of communication and understanding what different communities (like this one) are most interested in. I've been happy to be here and have a conversation about what you all want from the game, thanks for being so passionate about it. :D</p>
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4wjqq1/please_make_separate_design_and_balance_teams/d685jgw">Source</a>)</p>

<p><div class="md"><p>We work together on most everything, but what you are suggesting already exists. We refer to the teams internally as initial design and final design.</p>
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4wjqq1/please_make_separate_design_and_balance_teams/d67mszw">Source</a>)</p>
    
    <hr/>

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Please make separate design and balance teams

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