Article: Balance Changes for 3.62

[RavenoftheScythe]

For some reason, I keep coming back to this issue in my head. Honestly, I know that packbeast is a really strong card, I wouldn't say too strong or overpowered, but I am willing to admit that as just one player, I cant see the entirety of the game as it is being played by hundreds of people all over the web.

But, I think why this sits so poorly is not that an adjustment is happening, but it is what that adjustment is. It seems like after this update, the packbeast is going to have an entirely different role in the game. It isnt even going to be the same card anymore...more like "Jake Packbeast" rather than "Armored Packbeast".

Just off the top of my head, if asked to nerf this card. I would have just maybe increased its cost. Or, if I wanted to get creative with it, I would have changed it so that it only healed when it was at full health, that way you dont even need a special card to counter it, you just need to hurt it. Once its injured its conditional damage kicks in and it becomes an overpriced tank. That way the card still gets to fill its role without resorting to any sort of adjacency rule. But you cant count on being able to hide behind them the whole game.

Just my thoughts though.

[Gondorian]

For some reason, I keep coming back to this issue in my head. Honestly, I know that packbeast is a really strong card, I wouldn't say too strong or overpowered, but I am willing to admit that as just one player, I cant see the entirety of the game as it is being played by hundreds of people all over the web.

But, I think why this sits so poorly is not that an adjustment is happening, but it is what that adjustment is. It seems like after this update, the packbeast is going to have an entirely different role in the game. It isnt even going to be the same card anymore...more like "Jake Packbeast" rather than "Armored Packbeast".

Just off the top of my head, if asked to nerf this card. I would have just maybe increased its cost. Or, if I wanted to get creative with it, I would have changed it so that it only healed when it was at full health, that way you dont even need a special card to counter it, you just need to hurt it. Once its injured its conditional damage kicks in and it becomes an overpriced tank. That way the card still gets to fill its role without resorting to any sort of adjacency rule. But you cant count on being able to hide behind them the whole game.

Just my thoughts though.

Making the heal conditional on being full health itself is an idea we did not consider and maybe it would work! But it would take a long time to analyse whether it would limit things enough in the way we want without harming the things we would like to achieve.

For example, consider this:

Your suggested change will mean AP will either heal all or none, right? The adjacent rule will ALWAYS heal at least one hero/ally if all are damaged. So dropping an Armored Packbeast down by your hero will probably give you heal for a long time to hero unless it is removed. The 1 attack means a warrior may choose to put a CB on or Priest put Zail's Hymn or Mage put Subdue on and actually all those cases would work out pretty well for the Packbeast user!

I can't type more now but these are the kinds of things we need to theorycraft in as much detail as we can before we make a decision but also be wary that taking too long will leave us with no adjustment for longer time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Gondorian]

How does the change to meetle of the warrior "encourage less stall play"?...maybe I'm reading it incorrectly, but it says its nerfed in one way and buffed in another while all see is a buff to heal on more options.

It won't trigger off attachment or immediate ability like Shield Bash. But it is now expanded to do armor and weapons.

[Shadow Mann]

It won't trigger off attachment or immediate ability like Shield Bash. But it is now expanded to do armor and weapons.

Ah, I didn't read it closely enough...thanks!

[RavenoftheScythe]

Making the heal conditional on being full health itself is an idea we did not consider and maybe it would work! But it would take a long time to analyse whether it would limit things enough in the way we want without harming the things we would like to achieve.

For example, consider this:

Your suggested change will mean AP will either heal all or none, right? The adjacent rule will ALWAYS heal at least one hero/ally if all are damaged. So dropping an Armored Packbeast down by your hero will probably give you heal for a long time to hero unless it is removed. The 1 attack means a warrior may choose to put a CB on or Priest put Zail's Hymn or Mage put Subdue on and actually all those cases would work out pretty well for the Packbeast user!

I can't type more now but these are the kinds of things we need to theorycraft in as much detail as we can before we make a decision but also be wary that taking too long will leave us with no adjustment for longer time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Oh no, I get all of that. Game balance is hard. I have been working on creating / publishing a pen and paper role playing game for 5 years now and I an still finding little things to tweak here and there.

I think it is also possible that you guys thought/wanted the card to fill one niche and were surprised when players saw it as a fit for another niche. It would be like if people playing D&D for example found a way to make a Paladin work as an awesome thief! Obviously the dev's are going to need to address this or just go with it.

So, your guy's idea of adjacency heal seems to reinforce what the original idea of what the card was meant to be used for (healing mages), but goes against what the majority of players were using it for (long game life support).

Honestly. Why not just have the PB's ability just heal the hero. If you want healing allies still be an option, just give it an activate ability that costs resources. SE, or even kills the PB.

I think, and this is just my opinion mind you. The pushback is coming from an identity thing. People have been using PB to do a specific thing for years now, but soon that wont be an option.

Rereading some of these comments on here, this does feel like it normally does in the RPG community when a new edition comes out. Honestly, this level of emotional investment in a game is a pretty good sign I think. I haven't played this game in years, and remembered it fondly enough to come back and check out the new cards. When I left Hearthstone, I never once felt invested enough to even comment about it, I just stopped playing one day.

Another idea...since you do seem to have a pretty invested player base here and you dont want to take that for granted, just ban the PB. Then when the next batch of cards comes out, you can put out a card that does what you want and doesn't have the expectations and history that PB does.

There were lots of cards on that list, none of the others are getting anywhere close to this level of support. Just goes to show that people actually care about this card. If you guys don't make a pack beast card sleeve or something out of this, I'd consider that a lost opportunity.

I may not have the best decks, but at least I remember when packbeast was cool.

[Veles]

To add some more insight to Packbeast change.

The original intent of Packbeast was to give heroes with access to few or no healing options, like mages, an option to heal. And equally important was for allies to heal as well, as sort of counter to AoE damage effects like Evil Ascendant.

But it's been long time since its release, and since then mages got some new tools to prevent damage being done to them in the first place like Subdue and Suspended Animation. Very few control mages actually use Packbeast. At the same time where Packbeast was most effective was in a class which already had plenty of healing options, priests. Specifically a control priest build whose win condition was to grind out opponents until they are out of allies and win by denying opponents win, so to say. Those decks are very slow and require a lot more turns to win than other control and midrange decks. At the same time priest can play more standard control that wins a lot faster. Deliberate choice to pick slower version of same archetype just to win in a slower way is harming to the game whose playerbase is majorly phone users who log in for a game or two, and not to play singe 30+min game. So, in this update and in the previous ones several changes were made to address this specific deck: Packbeast, Robes of Mending, Yahari. The other versions of control priest: so called fatty-roll priest, haste priest, even more exotic ones like twilight priest, vergon priest all have more or less control elements, so control as playstyle is still very much viable in the class.

Here is a deck example for reference:

Hero: Zhanna Mist

4x Devoted Knight
4x Armored Packbeast
4x Lily Rosecult
4x Tainted Oracle

2x Rain Delay
4x Bad Santa
2x Forgiveness
4x Healing Touch
4x Focused Prayer
1x Resurrection
4x Holy Shield
4x Zail's Hymn
4x Banish
4x Tidal Wave
1x Mass Purification

4x Bazaar
3x Glass Chalice of Knowing
4x Loom of Fate
4x Book of Curses
4x Voice of Winter
4x Robes of Mending
2x The King's Pride


4x Yahari: Valley of Doom

Deck is designed in a way to slow the game down. Grind out opponents removal and allies to the point they can drop Packbeast safely to start healing them up. Many opponents can not deal with Packbeasts since their own allies are usually frozen via VoW and priest doesn't care for Packbeasts being frozen.

The can't heal hero if damaged suggestion wouldn't work for this deck since two Packbeast could heal each other.

As for the ally builds that want to use Packbeast, the 1 attack being unconditional is definitely a buff. We used adjecent wording for elegance and having shorter text and it covers most cases alternative wordings we considered but which were longer.

[Cerddorion]

"Deliberate choice to pick slower version of same archetype just to win in a slower way is harming to the game whose playerbase is majorly phone users who log in for a game or two, and not to play singe 30+min game."

This shows that you don't understand why someone would choose to play a heavy control deck, like the build you listed. It's not just about "winning in a slower way". It's the challenge of setting up your board while denying your opponent as much of his own plan as possible. There's been plenty of times when i was hanging on for dear life at less than 5 HP while i was sweating to draw that last piece I needed in order to put the final nail in my opponent's coffin. It's similar to the old school mono blue control decks in MTG. More harm comes to the game from killing off these types of decks than there would be just because someone didn't feel like playing out a whole game against that type of deck.

[Gondorian]

I ask you please to consider this, Cerddorion:

If this were a real life card game where you sat down to play for whatever reason, I honestly think 99/100 people would just choose NOT TO PLAY you! Due to your preferences for how you wish to approach the game, you'd have the reputation as the local person to avoid!

(Similarly, they would also hope to avoid an ultra-competitive player who gets visibly and audibly frustrated to the point of others present being very uncomfortable. But we aren't talking about them today, so let's move on.)

So when propositioned for a game by you, 99/100 players would simply say "no thanks" (or worse), assuming they had not already made a swift exit from the gaming store upon your arrival. Maybe then some unsuspecting new player who did not know of your reputation would become your next torture victim instead.

Why do I believe this? Well, most people play games for a combination of: enjoyment; challenge; or excitement. They are not going to get this against you. It's nothing personal, but your decks just aren't designed to offer that to them. In fact, you seem to wish to limit all of those, and instead try to cause a perfect blend of misery, boredom, frustration and anger instead.

The only time I could see someone actually choosing to play you would be if you were paired up for some event that they wish to progress in that you had become a hurdle to cross. They would reluctantly play as a means to an end and have to put aside all those original reasons for playing (enjoyment, challenge and excitement).

~~~~

Unfortunately, with the online game, we have to force people to play together more often than would happen in person. They can't choose to avoid players who do not play in the spirit of the game we have designed.

It's for this reason that sadly we have to attempt to limit the effectiveness of decks that appeal to people like you, who everyone else would simply choose not to face in real life! Whether that be casual players, veterans or new players. Too many encounters with you and your preferred approach that you call "slow heavy control" will harm this game, since the return of enjoyment/challenge/excitement for time spent will have dropped too low to risk making that trade.

[RavenoftheScythe]

"Deliberate choice to pick slower version of same archetype just to win in a slower way is harming to the game whose playerbase is majorly phone users who log in for a game or two, and not to play singe 30+min game."

This shows that you don't understand why someone would choose to play a heavy control deck, like the build you listed. It's not just about "winning in a slower way". It's the challenge of setting up your board while denying your opponent as much of his own plan as possible. There's been plenty of times when i was hanging on for dear life at less than 5 HP while i was sweating to draw that last piece I needed in order to put the final nail in my opponent's coffin. It's similar to the old school mono blue control decks in MTG. More harm comes to the game from killing off these types of decks than there would be just because someone didn't feel like playing out a whole game against that type of deck.

Agreed. If someone cant beat a deck I built fast enough for their liking, that is entirely on them. They can always give up at any point if it isnt fun for them. If the dev's see this as a problem, they can always implement some sort of game timer. Am pretty sure both hearthstone and magic online have something like this.

[Veles]

"Deliberate choice to pick slower version of same archetype just to win in a slower way is harming to the game whose playerbase is majorly phone users who log in for a game or two, and not to play singe 30+min game."

This shows that you don't understand why someone would choose to play a heavy control deck, like the build you listed. It's not just about "winning in a slower way". It's the challenge of setting up your board while denying your opponent as much of his own plan as possible. There's been plenty of times when i was hanging on for dear life at less than 5 HP while i was sweating to draw that last piece I needed in order to put the final nail in my opponent's coffin. It's similar to the old school mono blue control decks in MTG. More harm comes to the game from killing off these types of decks than there would be just because someone didn't feel like playing out a whole game against that type of deck.

Quite the opposite. What you describe is definition of deliberate choice. And you completely ignore the part about time investment. To elaborate more on that and also connecting to MTG portion of your post I have following to add.

There is big difference between phycial MTG and digital online TCG. To play MTG you need to play a friend (and you both choose whatever the other one is ok to play against) or you go to tournament to full day gaming or local game shop for evening of gaming. Either way you plan out to use couple hours for MTG in a day as a hobby after finishing all your obligations for usual day. For online digital TCG a lot of people don't do that. They play it on the buss on the way to work/school, on short work/study break, in short alone period while kids/partners/friends are busy with other stuff. So less planned and far less time to invest. They jump in to play couple of diverse games and not single 30+ min game against decks designed to ignore and/or stop every part of their strategy. I hope you understand how that key difference in player profile leads to very negative experience for most players.

Also there is no killing diversity here. I stress this again: slow control is still control and there are other control options for priests.