#213 - The Angry Chicken: “Tournament Brode Mode”
6-6-17
• Garrett • Jocelyn • Dills
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Brode mentions tournament mode
*insert chicken seizure
It started with Ben answering a couple questions from @vascro on Twitter who asked: Two questions me (and people) are really curious: 1)Will there be a change about seasonal grinding 2)What about tournament mode.
To which Ben replied:
1) yes
2) I think it would be great for Hearthstone but a folks want different things from it. Tough to make everyone happy, but worth it
When this exchange made it to reddit Ben expanded on these answers:
I think there are 4 major weaknesses to our current ranked system:
I think we can do all that (hopefully - this stuff is difficult to predict without live testing). The hardest to hit is number 4, since progression is fun, but the more you have, the more 'grindy' it feels. I actually think that things like a potential Tournament mode could help with that even more than any specific change to ranked.
So, Tournament: I think there are a couple specific 'fantasies' related to playing in a Hearthstone tournament. Put another way: What is fun about tournaments? I think different players have different things that draw them. For me, for example, one of the things I enjoy is going to a venue, meeting my IRL opponent, and sharing a tense battle with him or her. Then I like to go over and check on my buds, to see how we're doing as a group against the crowd. We have a lot of people attending Fireside Gatherings each month (and running tournaments), it'd be nice if we could make that process better in the client.
There's also a strong desire to have the ability to compete for glory against other players from the comfort of your home. Hearthstone is by its nature a competitive 1v1 experience, so Tournaments would need to offer something above and beyond what we're already doing. If you want a "packaged" experience, where at the end you are crowned a winner, Heroic Brawl and Arena actually get part of the way there, although they don't feel like they fit the whole fantasy that people are missing.
There's, I think, two 'obvious' tournament mode implementations that we had considered recently.
Now, I think 1 is only really ok for in-person events, and we already have 2 and for some reason it doesn't feel like it's scratching that "tournament" itch. So we've been exploring some crazier ideas. :)
We've been reading threads about 'tournament mode' here and other places (and in different languages) that range back years, scouring comments and trying to get a full picture of what we think the community (which isn't a single entity, but lots of individuals with different perspectives) will enjoy. I always enjoy reading and discussing what people want from tournaments in Hearthstone, so please keep it up!
An aside: When I make comments like this, detailing our philosophy and confirming what is or is not in our plans, I often read responses like "pr talk" or "says nothing". We do have the option of only doing communication in the form of announcements, but we'd be communicating a lot less, and not here on reddit. I love talking with the community. I think it's healthy to vet our ideas and get feedback on them before we commit to any specific implementation. But I think the expectation needs to be that it's a conversation, and we're explaining where we're at and our thoughts, not announcing specific changes. Looking forward to reading your thoughts!
Ben Brode shares original Naxx card designs
Brode tweeted out a spreadsheet with the original designs for the Naxxramas adventure set. Few of these cards actually made it to release, and most that did changed quite a bit to what we have now.
Loatheb prevented any Health from being restored. Mage’s had an early version of Shatter that destroyed all Frozen minions.
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Brenton J
Heroes of the Storm 2.0 seems to be a huge success. I enjoyed the game before, but now I'm really loving it. The loot boxes seem quite generous, the UI has improved, and things seem so much more fun and intuitive. On the other hand, Hearthstone seems quite stingy to me, as if it's from a completely different company.
I understand the CCG mentality that collecting the cards is part of the fun. I remember people complained when the Heart of the Swarm expansion for Starcraft 2 was going to be $40. However, if someone told me a few years ago that I would pay $50 for a card game expansion and not even get a good chunk of the expansion, I don't know if I would have even have given Hearthstone a glance. As a player since Beta, I'm finding it harder to find reasons to continue playing as this game just asks too much of my wallet.
Do you think Hearthstone could benefit from something similar to Heroes of the Storm 2.0? If so, what would you like to see in a Hearthstone 2.0?
Drew
Dear Disgruntled Dinosaur Descendants,
In the most recent episode you talked about arena rewards and some ways they could be improved. Thinking about this, it occurs to me that Blizzard might not have much incentive to improve arena rewards, because they don’t make nearly as much money from arena as they do from pack sales. But what if they adjusted the price of arena to offset the "cost" of a better reward structure?
That is, do you think the community would tolerate improved rewards at the cost of a higher entrance fee? For example, what if we were guaranteed that any cards we got at the end of an arena run were golden, but now each run cost 200 or 250 gold? I for one wouldn’t mind paying a bit extra for some more exciting rewards, but I’m interested to hear what y’all think.
Thanks for reading and for everything you do!
Ganre
Hey Cluckers,
I have some thoughts on what to expect now that the annual rotation of cards into wild is set and is a consideration for all expansions moving forward.
The first expansion each year will have the most impactful cards as they will be around for a full two years in standard, thusly the cards will be the main focus and will trend towards standard usage. Not a lot of extra content or focus on wild by Blizzard.
The cards from the second expansion will be around for a shorter time in standard and Blizzard will pepper in more story/solo content to compensate for the cards shorter standard life. I would expect more cards to possibly be geared to wild and even arena. Maybe we look for the return of old packs or something along those lines as an extra as well.
The last set each year having the shortest life cycle in standard will have the most extra story/solo content and even more of an eye towards wild and arena. This is when I would expect big changes like added game modes.
I would love to hear what you all think, keep up the great work on the podcast it makes me smile.
Outro
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