The Hearthstone Battlegrounds Team AMA. What did they say about Wild mode, Hero rotations, the return of Buddies and Diablo

Continuing with the open communication practices, the Hearthstone Battlegrounds team conducted an “Ask me Anything” (AMA) this week. Today we will go over the highlights of said AMA and speculate about what can happen with the future of Hearthstone Battlegrounds.

Following Ikars’ tradition, John McIntyre, BGs Lead Designer, opened a Hearthstone Battlegrounds AMA thread last week. It’s no secret that the Battlegrounds community is one of the biggest Hearthstone has, and the idea of addressing their questions was welcomed by everyone.

Let’s go over the most relevant answers and see what we can read between the lines.

There is a widely spread concern about the amount of Hearthstone Battlegrounds Heroes in the pool right now. With almost 80 options available, and players with no perks seeing only 2 of them per lobby, it’s undeniably hard to be able to pick your favorite one.

Many players have suggested removing the weaker ones and those whose play patterns are just boring. Bofur, a Hearthstone Battlegrounds content creator and pro-player, asked about this. John McIntyre answered about the complexity this idea brings.

The first problem John highlighted is one the community has speculated about for a long time. Blizzard doesn’t want to rotate heroes out of play because players have invested in cosmetics around them. Furthermore, John mentioned that having a large Hero pool also helps create diversity since you don’t face the same characters as often.

While rotating Heroes and creating a sort of Hearthstone Battlegrounds Wild mode is an idea that the team would like to think more about, the solution they present for the time being is to redesign low-power Heroes. A clear example of this is Pyramad’s redesign, which saved the character from being unplayable and added a new level of strategy to the game.

Another important issue addressed in the Hearthstone Battlegrounds AMA was the idea of Minion Rotation. While we have seen this happening lately, having insight into their train of thought is valuable.

When evaluating replacing a minion, the analysis goes way further than just that minion. It involves all the implications the minion has in the available comps and how much of a “key-part” it is to the greater scheme of things.

While it’s not impossible to remove or change the current “carries” or key units from compositions, it is important to analyze how they compensate for that. John added to the matter saying that “We just need new designs in place with enough strands connecting cards together and keeping the web solid”

Moreover, the team also mentioned the risks of introducing new minions and why they do it. Part of it is maintaining the game fresh while being a bit meme about it. But this doesn't mean they aren’t paying attention to the overpowered interactions or strategies that new minions can bring to the game. This happened with Chromawing and Kooky Chemist.

As Mitchell Loewen mentions, while they expect some disturbances in the force before launching patches, that doesn’t mean they have the testing capabilities to correctly assess their magnitude. Worth mentioning about this is that the Hearthstone Battlegrounds team reacted swiftly and removed Chromawing to correct this mistake in a hotfix this week.

One of the most controversial Hearthstone Battlegrounds topics last month was the sudden return of Diablo. This Hero is either loved or hated, to the point that many pro players and content creators took breaks while Diablo was in the game because they couldn’t stand to play against it.

I’m not sure if Zeddy just wanted to see the Hearthstone Battlegrounds world burn again, but he threw the question into the AMA. Surprisingly, the devs hinted that Diablo might make a comeback to Hearthstone Battlegrounds “when you least expect it”. I bet that simple answer might have caused night terrors to many.

Continuing with comebacks, the team also answered about the possibilities of Buddies returning to the game.

Following the same logic that the Hearthstone Battlegrounds team took with Darkmoon Prizes, Buddies might make a come-back but just to spice things up, not as something permanent. These temporary inclusions go a long way to keep the game fresh while it doesn’t require a lot of resources to do it.

Talking about resources and things that will come in future updates, Christopher Nuzzo teased that a Squelch feature is coming. I guess that constructed players are not the only ones that get annoyed by opponents emoting.

Before you squelch me, this is the end of this Hearthstone Battlegrounds AMA Recap. Of course, there were many other questions and answers. The team also talked about accessibility, the rebranding of Finishers and many other topics. If you are interested in reading the complete thread, you can visit it here.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Hearthstone Battlegrounds news and updates. See you next time in Bob’s tavern.