Hearthstone's Modes Design Lead, Matt London, has confirmed that Blizzard has begun to look at the wild format.
If you've been seeing the wild conversation over the past few years, players have overall been quite unsatisfied with the format - even some of our own staff have stopped caring about wild too. With that knowledge, yesterday, the Hearthstone team kicked off an internal "wild summit" to talk about their plans for the mode so they can bring players the best experience possible.
Nothing has been confirmed yet, with Matt stating it is unlikely we would see adjustments this week, but that they will share more information when they have it.
Quote From Matt London Hi All! Recently we've seen a lot of passionate conversation regarding the Hearthstone Wild format. Thank you for that. Today, we kicked off a "Wild Summit," a big internal discussion about the state of the format and how we can bring you the best possible experience.
Wild has a lot of moving parts. It's unlikely adjustments will happen this week, but we're committed to building a great plan for Wild and sharing more info once we do. Thanks!
Two Cents
Leave wild the way it is. Wild was always meant to be a "wild" format where anything was possible with all the old cards. Hearthstone needs a fresh ladder with a rotating pool of cards. Either use them by sets or just have a card list that is allowed there that is periodically changed. It leaves the wild part of wild for people that enjoy that and it gives everyone else something new to try and if Blizzard rotates the cards enough, it will always have a varied meta.
Bonus points if Bobby Kotick can buy a few more yachts because everyone is buying wild/new format packs.
Also, Wild has "been on the radar" for years. What is going to change this time around to actually bring forth any meaningful changes?
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Comments
I don't think people get that if you nerf some Wild cards to remove some deck which kills you turn 3 from the meta, you'll get a deck which will kill you turn 4 as soon as the nerf hits the ladder. It's impossible to keep Wild balanced because when they make new cards they can't physically keep track of every new interaction in the Wild format, it would leave them with no room for designing the newest expansions.
I think that the idea of making a format with rotating sets is a very good idea. It incentivises players to craft the oldest cards, building a collection that can also be used in Wild eventually, but it's also a nice bonus for those who already have the cards for old expansions and want to play their favourite decks in a meta which lets them play competitively and that doesn't make the games last 3 or 4 turns.
I think a lot of problems stem from lack of caps on card types that you see outlined in older TCG's
Too many decks can plug and play without limits on synergy besides 2-of and 1-of-legos
Even HS' spell schools seem lax in terms of limited use
Hmm i just realized. Their change of perspective on Wild isn't accidental in terms of timing.
They aren't going to bring new content for Mercenaries anymore. So there are more people available to learn to work on *something* else. And this is Wild.
Basically translating monetary gains from mercs to HS wild. Probably there are a lot (more?) of people playing Wild that it became worth it.
I've been playing HS since NAXX, i would love to utilize my vast collection of cards that i've acumulated and spent money on. I just hate wild i get people like this "everything goes format" and maybe that should stay. Adding yet another game mode is not a solution.
I'm not alone people been asking for rotating sets that utilize older cards like arena does, I think something like that worth looking into.
Some very interesting points have been raised.
There’s a common misconception that wild is just a graveyard for old cards, decks and metas to be immortalised in history in their current state. As a result, people have an impression that these cards cannot be adjusted or balanced as it might ‘spoil’ the preservation of what they were in standard. Classic format has proved that this limits the amount of enjoyment that can be had.
Wild needs to be viewed not as a fixed hall of fame but instead a live meta, like standard is. Just as every new expansion printed joins the standard card pool, it also enters the wild card pool and thus, the cards in wild need to be adjusted to reflect the changes. It is inevitable that new cards with create toxic relationships with some of the existing cards.
Based upon what the wild community has been asking for, and as a strictly wild player myself, there are no issues with making card adjustments for the sake of the health of the format. People do not want to lose the playability and nostalgia of their greater collection due to a select few unruly decks that abuse combinations or mechanics that were never contemplated due to cards being printed years apart or not designed together.
Yes wild is wild, yada yada yada, but wild doesn’t mean unplayable, unenjoyable, or unbalanced, it means that it has a vast arrangement of combinations, collections and play styles outside of the limited standard mode
Thanks... well put.
So why did Flux add in some poisonous comment about BOBBY buying more big boats? Is Bobby some big-wig?
I am really tired of how devicive people are when using the internet.
Nerfing problem cards in Wild seems like a good idea.
Your two cents suck, no one enjoys Wild.
Contrary to what you think, there are many people (including me) who play (and enjoy) wild.
So for us people who play wild I think we deserve some love, even though wild is an "anything goes" mode, that doesn't mean there aren't some strategies that are destroying the mode, since they don't let that all kinds of decks thrive, that should be the attraction of playing wild, being able to use all your cards and play with what you like best.
Many people, myself included, really enjoy Wild. But it is reaching a state where there are so many really powerful, synergistic cards that only a few decks are dominating the scene. And the options for climbing are either hyper aggro or busted mana cheating combos. The idea of a third format being “like Wild but with bans” or a rotating format that includes old sets is not a new concept either. I think a lot of Wild players have been asking for it over the years, and as Wild has evolved to its current state that sentiment has gained steam
To be fair, the two two cents was shieat... not even worth a penny.
Your comment sucks, no one enjoys you
1. Add Explorer, it’s a dynamic format that changes monthly and gives your cards more value.
2. Add another format period, Hearthstone is at its worst when both constructed formats are busted.
3. BG’s should not be looked at as an alternative for HS when it’s in a rut regarding the state of the meta(s).
If BG’s gets its own program/app outside of traditional HS, it’s gonna show.
For me wild should be the place to test out all the cards you have in your collection, and those that you do not. And there are 2 ways to go about it.
1. Pick 2-4 "eras" + core, make decks from them, battle other players with other choices of "eras". This requires balancing all the broken shit (and firing the "designers" that allowed it to thrive).
2. Rotating sets, but give us ALL the cards even if we do not own them. The current set is never included in this rotation until next "cycle" (be it expansion or miniset) - basically any release of new cards will give you access to the previous ones.
I'd also love a second mode - give us all cards from all previous card cycles from Standard, but adjust the rewards. I.e. when the miniset drops, give access to the initial release of cards, and so on. Basically, i want to play with all the cards from standard, even if i do not own them, in a sort of Casual mode, with no ladder, fewer or no rewards, maybe a separate reward track focused on other things than gold, etc. It'd be like owning the cards, but because you actually don't, the rewards are very low or zero.
They are selling old packs so give out all cards for free is not a way Blizz would go
I know. A change in this would attract more people into the game. One of the issues the game has is keeping up with all the releases. Not gonna bother spending since you lose the cards after a bit and since all the good legendaries require a lot of packs to find.
I thought for sure they were gonna tease out some Naxxramas in Classic Mode for a bit
I think if Classic performed better they might. I’m not positive, but I think the initial engagement was high, then took a very sharp drop very quickly. They likely won’t invest much time in Classic just to see it have players abandon it after a month or so again.
Last time I tried playing Classic it took me over 2 min to find a match.
I don't have high hopes. Wild is the only constructed format I play but it's far from a healthy one. It's burdened by issues and cards that do too much for too little that have been stacking up and up since around Scholomance without being addressed. If you were to nerf all of the best decks in the format quite brutally today, there'd be a new batch of similarly broken or uniteractive decks tomorrow because there's a lot of broken shit in the format that's just being held down by what's currently strong. The devs would have to take a holistic approach and address a lot of stuff from as far as 3 years back to bring the format back in check. Cause as it stands, the format is, and has been for quite a while, extremely polarized. You got busted uninteractive OTKs and combos, and you've got aggro decks trying to kill those OTKs before they go off. Nothing else is left. Control is dead (Shudder Shaman being the exception cause they infinitely lock aggro out of the game and have an utterly busted Murloc package holding them afloat). Midrange is dead. They have been for years.
Obviously etarnal formats will end up stacking up in power over time to create some pretty nutty play patterns, but in a game like Hearthstone where reactivity isn't nearly what it is in something like MtG, the format can't simply correct itself through proper teching (forget sideboarding, too). All the initiative is in the hands of the player who's turn it is, so when your Druid opponent starts slinging 45 mana worth of stuff because of Floop's Gloop + Flipper Friends + Celestial Alignment by turn 6, there isn't shit you can do to stop them Mecha'thuning you the same turn (they can do insane shit like this and that isn't good enough for them to be tier 1). Similar stuff with Priest's turn 3 Neptulons, Discardlock's lethals from full to dead all from hand. We're in an environment where an uninteractive deck like Quest Mage doesn't seem all that bad anymore cause at least the game isn't over turn 3 or 4.
They have A LOT to address and I don't think they have the guts to take the hammer to the format in the manner it needs.