[BLOG] Hearthstone Q&A: 13/01/17

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PredictedCyborg
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[BLOG] Hearthstone Q&A: 13/01/17

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Today saw the first of a new experiment Blizzard are trying with their game Hearthstone, a livestreamed Q and A to keep players up to date on what the developers are thinking about and how certain processes work as far as changes being made.



The stream lasted only an hour at most, but during it we got to hear a number of different thought processes that show how Blizzard watch their game and seek to keep the balance both in the meta as well as making the game interesting for both new and experienced players.



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As far as keeping it accessible to new players they talked about how they've tweaked the Casual mode in the past to make it more welcoming for those just beginning to learn how to play. They said that in the past Casual had a few bugs, but now that it takes many things into consideration including card collection size, previous win rates and tries to match newer players against other new players so players play people of their own skill level more often.



With experienced players, they talked about how they've noticed that ranked ladder is beginning to feel very grindy to most players and measures they were thinking about with how to address that better. These included upping the total of bonus stars awarded upon the start of a new season, the addition of more brake points besides just the one around Level 20, and also possibly extending the win streak beyond Level 5. All these were just thoughts and ideas though, it was never said that all or even any of these would be coming to Hearthstone in the future.



As far as the meta balance, there was talk about how they think that Standard and Wild will become much more distinct once the next rotation of card sets happens. Right now, only two sets are outside of Standard, Naxx and Goblins vs Gnomes; but the next rotation will take many more sets out and limit them to just Wild decks. This means that a certain deck type could be very different in Wild to how it appears in Standard and it was hoped that such a thing would encourage the growth of more Wild-focused tournaments from fans and other groups.



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There was also discussion about the rumours of possibly retiring some Classic cards to Wild too, versus what has generally happened before which is a nerf or effect change. Right now, neither option has been decided upon and Blizzard are still weighing up their pros and cons to both before decisions get made either way. Retiring to Wild might be more extreme, but there is also the question of people who come back to the game after months away and get confused with cards changed by nerfing - so it wasn't stated either way that one or the other would be happening.



With the recent addition of the Streets of Gadgetzan set, the meta has changed already quite recently although it's now had a few months to settle down into a regular routine. Speaking of what they saw, we were told that a lot of experimentation happened during the first few weeks as you would expect, before patterns began to emerge.



One of the biggest surprises to the team was that Pirate decks have been on the rise in Ranked ladder with the new Gadgetzan cards, with Warrior, Rogue and Shaman all making use of that Minion type heavily for weapon buffs. In fact, so much so that they expressed a little concern saying that the percentage of those decks in use right now was just a little bit higher than they generally like to see, and that if it didn't change enough they might need to step in to tweak something to redress that balance. We were told it was not so much how many decks of that type exist, as much as which cards were seeing overuse in many decks - for example before its nerf Undertaker was seeing use in as many as 40% of decks at the time. Arena-wise, they have seen more Priest and Mage players beginning to claw back higher win rates.



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So right now, that is the state of how Blizzard see the meta of the card game playing out. While nothing said in this Q and A can be seen as confirmation of things coming, we were told that 2017 is planned to be another big year for Hearthstone. Whether or not they'll continue to do these Q and As is also to be seen as of yet.



If nothing else, we learned that those people with pirate decks should prepare themselves for choppy waters if Blizzard do decide to interfere there.
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