You are quoting someone on Reddit. My response was "that's not what I was getting at, at all." /u/skiffington_ - this is perhaps a weakness of this format. Thanks for the write up!
We do. When multiple changes could be right, we prefer less disruption. For example, which is going to be more confusing when you randomly see Abusive Sergeant in a Tavern Brawl, post-nerf?
1/1 Abusive Sergeant
Abusive Sergeant is now a (9) 9/9 with 'Your other minions have -2 Health.
Both changes reduce the power-level of Aggro, and reduce the chance of Standard being another year where you see the same cards. Why not make the one that's less disruptive?
Yes, I chose a ridiculous example to make my point.
My favorite nerf, was Tuskar Totemic. I think it was a needed change, and was super non-disruptive. If you missed the fact that we nerfed it, it doesn't really matter. The card looks and acts the same, for the most part. Your deck isn't suddenly broken, like your Patron Warrior deck or your Druid Combo deck.
We still do make changes (like the Charge spell, recently) that are very disruptive, but our philosophy is that we should try and make less-disruptive changes where possible. It isn't always possible, and that's fine.
The opposite design philosophy is to make the most disruptive changes where possible. I.e. welcome to your new Rockbiter Weapon. It's a 6-mana minion that says "Deathrattle: Give minions in your deck +1/-1."
This was in response to "why didn't you nerf Keeper of the Grove less?"
We lived in a world where Druid had 22-ish auto-include cards. If we wanted to be able to release exciting cards for Druid in upcoming sets, we had 2 options:
Make them better than Wild Growth, Keeper, Innervate, Ancient of Lore, Force of Nature, etc.
Reduce the power-level of some Basic and Classic Druid cards.
If we went with option 1 - we'd have to inflate the power level of the entire game. Just making better Druid cards, when Druid was already close to the best class, can cause other issues. cough spirit claws cough Our goal was to hit the classic set hard enough in Druid to make it so the meta would change with new sets. We could slightly reduce the powerlevel (i.e. 2/3 Keeper), but our goal was to make a big impact. We chose Keeper (because Silence isn't something we wanted to be an 'auto-include' effect, it should shift in and out with the meta), Ancient of Lore (because too much card draw can make games feel the same each time), and Force of Nature (because Charge).
We nerf cards for many reasons. Usually it's because things are not as balanced as we'd like (Leeroy, Auctioneer, Rockbiter Weapon, Tuskar Totemic, Execute, Knife Juggler). Sometimes it's because we have upcoming cards that are going to totally break an old card (Charge, Master of Disguise), and sometimes it's because it's a classic card, and while it may be 'balanced', it's making it hard for Standard to feel fresh and new when a rotation occurs.
We could remove Classic and Basic entirely, but then our sets have to contain many more cards that do 'same-ish' things. We'd need larger sets, and they'd include cards like "Fireyball" and "Frostybolt" to reinforce the class identity and give you the baseline powers that make classes unique. It would also give us a less smooth complexity curve for newer players, who get the (very) simple Basic set, then see more complexity (Secrets, many keywords) in Classic, and even more in our rotating sets. There is also some amount of value in returning players being able to play a game of Standard without having to buy a significant number of packs.
We've discussing another option recently - rotating a few cards out of Classic directly into Wild. (and allowing full dust refunds for them) It allows cards that are balanced - but a threat to Standard's ability to change each year - to exist for player who want to play them in Wild. We're still discussing if we feel there are cards that are in this category, and which changes to make, but it's something worth thinking about.
Ben Brode
You are quoting someone on Reddit. My response was "that's not what I was getting at, at all." /u/skiffington_ - this is perhaps a weakness of this format. Thanks for the write up!
Ben Brode
Games like that are able to change numbers by very small amounts. 1% more damage. 5% more HP.
How do you change Leper Gnome without doubling or halving a number?
Ben Brode
We do. When multiple changes could be right, we prefer less disruption. For example, which is going to be more confusing when you randomly see Abusive Sergeant in a Tavern Brawl, post-nerf?
1/1 Abusive Sergeant
Abusive Sergeant is now a (9) 9/9 with 'Your other minions have -2 Health.
Both changes reduce the power-level of Aggro, and reduce the chance of Standard being another year where you see the same cards. Why not make the one that's less disruptive?
Yes, I chose a ridiculous example to make my point.
Ben Brode
Maybe I didn't make our philosophy clear enough.
My favorite nerf, was Tuskar Totemic. I think it was a needed change, and was super non-disruptive. If you missed the fact that we nerfed it, it doesn't really matter. The card looks and acts the same, for the most part. Your deck isn't suddenly broken, like your Patron Warrior deck or your Druid Combo deck.
We still do make changes (like the Charge spell, recently) that are very disruptive, but our philosophy is that we should try and make less-disruptive changes where possible. It isn't always possible, and that's fine.
The opposite design philosophy is to make the most disruptive changes where possible. I.e. welcome to your new Rockbiter Weapon. It's a 6-mana minion that says "Deathrattle: Give minions in your deck +1/-1."
Ben Brode
This was in response to "why didn't you nerf Keeper of the Grove less?"
We lived in a world where Druid had 22-ish auto-include cards. If we wanted to be able to release exciting cards for Druid in upcoming sets, we had 2 options:
Make them better than Wild Growth, Keeper, Innervate, Ancient of Lore, Force of Nature, etc.
Reduce the power-level of some Basic and Classic Druid cards.
If we went with option 1 - we'd have to inflate the power level of the entire game. Just making better Druid cards, when Druid was already close to the best class, can cause other issues. cough spirit claws cough Our goal was to hit the classic set hard enough in Druid to make it so the meta would change with new sets. We could slightly reduce the powerlevel (i.e. 2/3 Keeper), but our goal was to make a big impact. We chose Keeper (because Silence isn't something we wanted to be an 'auto-include' effect, it should shift in and out with the meta), Ancient of Lore (because too much card draw can make games feel the same each time), and Force of Nature (because Charge).
We nerf cards for many reasons. Usually it's because things are not as balanced as we'd like (Leeroy, Auctioneer, Rockbiter Weapon, Tuskar Totemic, Execute, Knife Juggler). Sometimes it's because we have upcoming cards that are going to totally break an old card (Charge, Master of Disguise), and sometimes it's because it's a classic card, and while it may be 'balanced', it's making it hard for Standard to feel fresh and new when a rotation occurs.
We could remove Classic and Basic entirely, but then our sets have to contain many more cards that do 'same-ish' things. We'd need larger sets, and they'd include cards like "Fireyball" and "Frostybolt" to reinforce the class identity and give you the baseline powers that make classes unique. It would also give us a less smooth complexity curve for newer players, who get the (very) simple Basic set, then see more complexity (Secrets, many keywords) in Classic, and even more in our rotating sets. There is also some amount of value in returning players being able to play a game of Standard without having to buy a significant number of packs.
We've discussing another option recently - rotating a few cards out of Classic directly into Wild. (and allowing full dust refunds for them) It allows cards that are balanced - but a threat to Standard's ability to change each year - to exist for player who want to play them in Wild. We're still discussing if we feel there are cards that are in this category, and which changes to make, but it's something worth thinking about.