Yingdi, a Chinese web portal for card games, had a chance to interview Hearthstone's Dean Ayala this past month and they spoke about card balance, rng, and Demon Hunters. Czhihong translated the interview and posted it on reddit. We've recapped it down below.
Card Balance
- Looking back, Dean thinks they would have made more balance changes to Demon Hunters right away.
- We're getting another balance patch before the expansion arrives.
- Expect the expansion to shake up the Demon Hunter win rates the most.
- Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza decks have been called out. If they are top tier next expansion, changes may happen to those decks.
- Dragoncaster may be addressed in an upcoming patch.
- Galakrond, the Nightmare may receive a change to make the cards drawn cost (1) instead of the current (0).
RNG
- We should expect less randomly generated resources next year and even in the expansions later this year.
- The tools we have right now to generate resources is likely the highest it will ever be.
- Part of the issue is that the cards that generate resources right now are just really good so we see them all the time.
Here are some select quotes from the interview.
Quote From Iksar via Yingdi (Translated by Czhihong) When all classes start generating resources outside their deck it makes the classes that specialize in resource generation like Priest or Mage feel less special.
Puzzlebox is probably the appropriate power level on its own but with Dragoncaster it's coming out a little earlier than we'd like in highly competitive decks. We'll likely look to address that in an upcoming patch.
Usually, when we make a card cost (0) it's a reward for building your deck in a particular fashion. We like to make those cards powerful so players are actually motivated to build their decks differently. In the case of Dragoncaster you end up including high mana spells that you might not have otherwise.
For Rogue's Galakrond, you get (0) mana cards but only because you put a large number of the other Galakrond cards in your deck. One issue that comes from having (0) mana cards is that they can result in really big unexpected swing turns. Rogue is probably the biggest offender of that right now when it plays a fully invoked Galakrond.
If the cards you drew off Galakrond cost (1), the card would obviously be less powerful but it would also result in a pause between the turn you play Galakrond and the turn you play all the cheap cards from your hand. This is a change we've been talking about making lately so that players have a turn to prepare rather than having to deal with so many resources all at once.
For Skull, I think those cards being reduced to (0) is less of a problem because Skull itself isn't also a tempo card. After your opponent plays a skull, they either play the cards that turn or hold them in hand to have a big swing turn later. In the case where they hold the cards, their opponent has some time to prepare which we think is healthy gameplay.
Comments
All hail to Yogg!
Dragoncaster needs to die. Zephrys the Great and other highlander cards are supposed to be overpowered because they impact your deck to only have one copy of each card.
But honestly, Odd Demon Hunter is so overwhelmingly off balance it's not a joke. THAT is what should be addressed. While the deck does lose, it's mostly due to RNG as opposed to be being outplayed or having a bad match. The Hero Power should be changed to align with all other Hero Powers.
May I ask how you propose to change Odd DH's hero power? All of the other upgraded hero powers double the power of the original (except hunter for some reason).
The issues isn't necessarily the damage, but the efficiency of having it cost only 1 mana. The fact that Demon Hunter can always attack for 2+ each turn is ridiculous. With all other Odd decks, they are forced to choose to use their Hero Power or play something. Whereas with Demon Hunter, they can just charge it up to clear the way each turn.
Potentials could be anything such as Windfury, but only able to attack minions or Heroes, match the Hunter Hero Power, etc. However instead of looking to solve the problem, Blizzard R&D just makes bigger mistakes like making Twin Slice cost 1 to include it in Odd Demon Hunter. I got smacked in the face for 10 damage because of this. It's ridiculous.
Dragonqueen 1-cost dragons crossed fingers.
I agree with most of what they said.
Dragoncaster drops Puzzle Box a bit early for most decks to deal with and too consistantly.
Reducing anything to Zero cost is dangerous (Giants, Galakrond, ect). Actually having a cost at 1 is better for the game. It makes mana crystals matter' along with strategic use of the coin or Innervate. Not that zero should never be used however being more rare is a good thing.
Zephrys, the Great is very strong, though I would not say over powered. Highlander restriction is cool but too many powerful reward cards (especially wild) makes the restriction feel negated. Being Neutral as well makes multiple decks feel similar. Every Highlander deck now has Silence, Weapon Desctruction, board clears. Again I don't think the card is too strong just too prevelant in the meta.
Cards from another class overall is fun. But again like Zeph too widespread. Every class can do it now, easily. Rather see more restrictions. Things like Mind Vision are fun. Having to react to what you pull from your opponent is skill testing. But every (highlander) class having access to a garenteed Twisting Nether is less so.
Excited for more balance changes and the continued growth of the game in future expansions.
It would be if you knew what cards he got. But in hearthstone this is not the case.
You just can't play around everything, especially with priest since they normally outvalue your deck so its on you to be proactive. You just can't sit and play around a tiny chance of a very specific card they got from your deck.
In fact, I think I would be ok with a lot of card generation in the game as long as I knew what cards the opponent got. In my opinion, showing the Discover options (or even the chosen card) to both players would solve many if not all of the problems.
Exactly this! I think the same too.
It's a simple, small change, that would remove so much frustration
Just over 2 years ago we would be lucky to get 2 balance patches in one expansion, but this is would be the fifth balance patch for hearthstone within 3 months and possibly the most we would have ever got so far in hearthstone history.
So here's some of my views;
- Dragonqueen Alexstrasza and Zephrys the Great are powerful cards for building and playing your deck in a specific way and I honestly dont think they need to be changed or nerfed. Maybe Zephrys itself has too fair a statline so its still basically a tempo play at 2 without the effect. Maybe make him a 1/2 instead? Dragonqueen is perfect the way she is now. There aren't many dragons with taunt and outside of that only Alexstrasza, Nozari and Amber Watcher can give you a breather so you can never just jam dragonqueen and expect 100% to live the next turn out.
- Dragoncaster isn't the real problem here, nor is playing Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron on 6. The real problem is the RNG nature of casino mage that turns something mildly interesting into an offensive soup when your deck's win condition is basically that. In fact, I'd go so far to say that The Amazing Reno is the worst offender of this. You can be on top until he brings out a Twisting Nether out of nowhere and suddenly your opponent got a free board reset and 10 mana to rebuild it. If anything, at very least puzzlebox ends his turn and gives you the right to rebuild first.
So what to do? For god sakes just print better cards for mage and stop all that RNG nonsense that made the term casino mage an actual archetype. Solarian Prime is how you make RNG good, not The Amazing Reno. Im actually offended that amazing reno didn't even get a mention for a change here, because Im absolutely convinced his random spells should take place at the end of the turn than the start.
- Even before this identity crap, I never once felt it made any class special because they kept getting cards from the nether. But it does annoy me to no end whenever mage gets a free ride from a randomly generated spell, while I stare at defeat even when Im doing everything right up to that point. Priest has the same problem, and its even worse since most of their cards generate cards so from one card to another they can keep that train going, and since none of those generated cards are revealed its never possible to play around any of them. Libram paladin vs galakrond priest is possibly the most annoying in living memory since its actually very possible for them to just get your win condition well before you get them yourself. And in priest mirrors, well, I had the pleasure of witnessing this in an actual tournament, and found it to suck. Alot.
- So less RNG in the next expansion. Yes please. I dont have anything against RNG effects and see them as necessary to keep things interesting, but when it get to the point that wins and losses depend solely on whose offering to RNjesus is better then that's when alarm bells ought to be ringing loudest.
- Galakrond giving out 0 mana cards is actually fine to me. At least in rogue, when most cards are cheap anyway, the 0 costed cards can mean anything from getting Flik Skyshiv at 0 to things like Praise Galakrond!. To properly balance galakrond rogue, just balance the invoke cards. Seal fate for example should deal 2 damage, and the early tempo loss from that can mean a hell lot more than four 0 cost cards. Rogue also has less healing options and can be generally taken down simply by playing on curve. If anything, I'd say giving that 5/2 weapon to fully invoked galakrond is even worse than the 0 mana cards.
Also, lets not compare this to Skull of Gul'dan. Skull is a card being played on an aggro deck, requires no invoke cards prior to it being played, and its only downside is you'd have to maneuver and get it outcasted to get your effect. And the effect is game winning. 2 mana Glaivebound Adept, or even at very worse, 3 damage fodder for Altruis the Outcast. Which is the more offensive? my vote goes to skull.
It might be better that the random spell casting that Reno does costs you some mana, maybe not the full amount but spells are cast at half their cost or something so if Reno does pull a Twisting Nether out of his ass you are left with 6 mana to play with.
Yeah, but it's also on the heels of the first new class and some terrible design choices. Lots of the cards in the first few rounds of nerfs were blatantly OP'd. It felt more like a testing problem, or if you are the conspiracy theorist type it could have been an intentional flaw to hype the new class.
I'm of the opinion that DH's hero power was a large reason the class was so broken. Not because the effect is overpowered, but because they weren't designed around it. In an early interview, they literally said they settled on a 1 mana hero power three months before the announcement. The hero power they had for ages before then, probably during most of the card finalization, was 2 mana "Give your hero +1 Attack. Can be used twice each turn."
When Blizzard said they expected the original Skull of Gul'dan to be used in slower decks, they meant it. Same for every other insane card. They were testing the card in decks with a slower, methodical hero power. The class' power level wasn't properly adjusted for the sudden tempo shift halving their hero power's cost gave them.
Less randomly generated Cards sounds interesting. RNG has always played a big Role in HS, so I wonder how the Game will be like when there's less of it.
I also wonder how it will affect certain Archetypes, like Burgle Rogue.
I'm in the middle when it comes to RNG in HS. I don't like how some classes are arbitrarily pigeon-holed into an almost complete clown fiesta class. I'm fine with clown fiesta decks available to a class, but don't make the entire class that with way too much RNG.
On the other hand, in games where there is either no RNG or significantly less RNG when compared to HS (Thinking of Yu-Gi-Oh, which yes still has a lot of rng, but nothing like HS) match-ups become much more solved from the get-go. People like to think they'd like a HS without rng, but the history of the game has already proven that wrong once you realize that without rng the only thing saving you from a disadvantageous match-up is card draw rng and misplays. For example, remember pre-pre-nerfed Quest Rogue. For the most part the deck wasn't an rng generating machine, but hordes of slow control players complained about the match-up usually being an insta lose when they queued up against them. The state of HS would turn more into that. The control class that has more removals & value generators almost always win against the control class that has fewer of them. The class that has been more refined for hyper aggressive play in the recent expansions will generally always fair better than the aggro class that has been given fewer pressure and snow-bally cards/effects.
RNG can save you from automatically losing a generally lost match-up instead of knowing you've lost right away when facing a player of equal skill and knowledge as you.
Things like Burgle Rogue are imo the only excuse where randomly generated cards could still exist. The archetype is so memey that it doesn't feel too bad losing against.
I disagree, whenever Burgle rogue would win games it would feel horrible to lose to. You're losing to cards that rogues should never have. Losing to an infinite Tess that summons massive taunts didn't feel good.
The only thing I hate about Burgle Rogue is when they simply make themselves into a pseudo-Kingsbane Rogue deck if they run the weapon with weapon buffs. Without weapon removal you just very often lose to a 10+ infinite durability lifesteal weapon, unless you play aggro. Imo it takes no skill to mindlessly crush face with enormous damage, while only occasionally making a trade.
So I guess I'm sort of opposite of you when it comes to Burgle Rogue? It is the cards that they do have that I hate, because regardless of what rng gives them it makes their weapon akin to horribly designed Kingsbane.
Yeah, I'm one of Burgle Rogue's biggest fans and even I feel dirty playing Spectral Cutlass, so I normally stick with Bazaar Burglary instead. That way no one feels bad just because the opponent either does or noes not have weapon removal. At least it does have a simple counter available to everyone though.
I think that galakround change is fair, maybe also a nerf to Togwaggle's treasures? draw 3 they cost (1) as well? I don't see how having a lackey in play is a deck restriction of any kind.
I am glad to hear that resource generation is gonna be toned down this year.. and going forward.