Unintended Consequences of the Frequent Balance Changes
First of all, I want to acknowledge that frequent balance changes (both in nerfs and buffs) is something that the community has been asking for for a long time. In particular, the buffs announced today is a first time for Blizzard, and many people are excited about that. We all hate stale metas, and anything that shakes up the meta and causes new, interesting decks to come about is great for the game, right?
Unfortunately, I think that there are some negative effects from such frequent balance changes and unstable metas that I don't see discussed very often. Being able to play all sorts of different decks on ladder is great.... provided you have all of the cards, and this is the core of the problem.
What is the advice that this sub gives to people asking what to craft when a new expansion comes out? Unanimously, the advice is "wait a few weeks for the meta to settle". What happens to that advice if the meta never settles? It essentially becomes "stop playing the game". With how hard and fast Blizzard hit Rogue yesterday combined with their balance changes over the last year or so, it makes me feel like nothing is safe to craft. Yes, you get dust refunds on the cards that were directly nerfed, but you don't get a refund on the deck (the most egregious example was the Kingsbane indirect nerf last year). So, with nothing feeling safe to craft, what exactly am I supposed to play?
This brings me to the buffs. On paper, it seems like a good idea: buff under-performing cards. However, their recent tendencies to quickly nerf things makes me skeptical. Let's say Deathrattle Hunter becomes really good because of the buff to Necromechanic and I craft the entire deck (which would involve crafting expensive cards such as Nine Lives and Oblivitron). Is Blizzard going to come back in 2 weeks and say "oops, we made Necromechanic too strong, we're nerfing it back"? If they do, I'm out at least 2200 dust from crafting what I thought was a t1 deck. So, better to just play it safe and not craft anything.
The buffs also seem arbitrary: why are we buffing Dr. Morrigan but not Harbinger Celestia? This is also where I bring up that half of the cards that they buffed are expensive cards that not many people have just sitting in their collection (of the 18 cards that were buffed, 4 are common, 5 are rare, 5 are epic, 4 are legendary). It almost feels like we're being forced to craft these expensive cards after we already spent all our dust crafting decks for a meta that is no longer valid.
Frequent changes and unstable metas make playing ladder more interesting, but when getting the resources to craft a single deck takes a long time the instablity makes me (and I assume many other people) not want to play the game. Nothing sucks more than spending all of your dust on a deck that becomes invalid within mere weeks. If Blizzard wants to do frequent balance changes (which is good for the health of the game), then I think they need to also rethink their card acquisition model, otherwise many people are going to be priced out of the game.
tl;dr: Unstable metas make people not want to craft decks. No decks to play = stop playing.
Posted May 21, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC · edited
I would guess that the number of people who play the game to just craft a single meta deck to climb are heavily outweighed by:
| Frequent changes and unstable metas make playing ladder more interesting |
^ I think this statement says it all.. the general player base will enjoy the game more. More overall enjoyment should lead to more $$$ at the end of the day.
I posit the opposite. The general playerbase doesn't get to participate in the "fun" because they don't have random Luna's Pocket Galaxies sitting around in their collection.
I think you're underestimating the amount of people that play on a "budget" (spending less than $50/yr). We already know that frequent changes push away casual players (this was their excuse before), but these changes also push away budget players.
You are a budget player that said you like to play competitively, crafting a deck or two to give you the best shot at the ranked ladder while D/E whatever cards you need for dust. There are other approaches for budget players.
I spent less than $50 / year for a few years but my approach was different from yours. I knew I could have one or two decks that could climb but instead I did my dailies and had fun with what I had knowing rank 15 was about as good as I could get. For that player, they still have most of their collection so they are getting a few of their cards buffed that can be fit into their decks.
It obviously does hurt budget players of your type but for those that are playing the slow game, or for those that aren't keen on the meta, this gives them more options and more value for cards they may already have.
I'm fine with the buffs by themselves, what makes me raise an eyebrow is the buffs AND the nerfs combined. Luna's Pocket Galaxy is a pretty significant buff, so much so that it might become an actually good deck (hard to say at this point). Who's to say they won't just nerf it once it becomes good? Even worse, who's to say they won't indirectly nerf it like they did with Kingsbane (still salty about that) so we can't even recoup our dust value? The buffs are nice and all, but I don't really own enough of them for it to matter and crafting anything at this point seems like a bad idea.
I unpacked a golden Kingsbane back when K&C came out. I still am not up to rank 60 in rogue and have less than 200 total ranked wins. Instead of dusting for a legendary I could use right away, I played the long game and kept it. I was able to create the Wild Kingsbane cancer deck without crafting anything due to patience and finding other aspects of the game to enjoy other than climbing the ranked ladder. As a result, I had a 75+% WR to rank 7 before I stopped. I was rewarded for not dusting in the long run as I have been constantly throughout the game.
This is why I am stating that I feel that they are not making these changes for your player-type.