Feedback: Buddy removal

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Would really like to see more discussion on this topic. All opinions welcome! Let’s talk about Buddies.

For those that have not heard yet, the upcoming Naga update for Battlegrounds will coincide with the Buddy system being rotated out.

I think it’s obvious that Buddies caused some serious new balance problems. Scaling with them tended to be nuts, if the endless debate surrounding poisonous being, well, poisonous or not seemed to indicate.

Most people hated the poison meta where Murlocs were overwhelmingly lobby-controlling. You had to have a plan to stop poisonous Murlocs, or build better quality poisonous Murlocs than everyone else.

But without Murlocs, people widely believed that every game woudl just be who gets their scaling fastest, which Budddies really slam their thumb down on the scale there.

All that being said, I don’t like that they’re being removed, especially so quickly. I think they serve a very important purpose: making heroes’ designs more distinctive and unique. There have been a lot of trashy heroes before this patch and buddies finally gave them a game plan to build around. Just look at the only Mech heroes there are: One gives all mechs +1/+1, the other gives you an extra Mech every what, 12 deaths now? And that’s all they do. It’s especially comedic because they just nerfed Ini, and are right about to take her buddy away too.

The problem is that where some heroes got crucial fleshing out, others got insanely over the top statting that eclipsed the rest of the roster. That they created new balance problems is plain as day. There isn’t really much to say here–some heroes simply have scaling that is way too good. Perhaps if would be better if no buddy provided scaling at all.

My hope is that they’ve taken Buddies offline to alter their design philosophy. I feel like they’re very important for hero flavor and identity, but that they’ve caused outrageous balance problems is undeniable. I hope they’re made to accentuate a hero’s design plan without making heroes with already strong hero powers way stronger, and that they can return to the game later on when they are more wieldy balance wise, ideally permanently.

5 Likes
2

I liked some of the buddies and thought others needed to be redesigned. Heroes like onyxia don’t really work with too many tribes.

I really liked Elise’s buddy because it created insane value. You could tier immediately to six and pick up minions fast. With demons or Mechs she’s rolling out endgame builds on turn 8 or 9.

Overall, I am fine with a rotation where we have buddies some of the year and don’t at other times. BG is always evolving, which keeps it interesting.

1 Like
3

I think this shows that Blizzard really, really doesn’t care about hero balance. First, introduce Buddies, shake up the entire hero balance. Then, remove Buddies, shake it all up again. It feels like the polar opposite of a plan to get things equalized with each other.

If they’re not going to keep Buddies in the game all the time, it should at least still be a sometimes thing. Kinda like how for a while 1 in 4 games had Darkmoon prizes.

6 Likes
4

or they want to change it as much as possible so people wont get bored

2 Likes
5

That’s not really an “or” situation. More like “and.” “Screw balance, maximum change” isn’t a contradictory view, just… sad if you like balance.

6

The same thread was there when they announced the removal of tickets.

Looking back: was it really a bad thing that they removed them? If they keep making new content and events for BG, I think it’s great

2 Likes
7

I say begone with them

8

I thought they were permanent, so I was very surprised to hear they are going. Im guessing there will be a new hero so you can still kind of experience buddies, kind of like tickatus.

9

I think people are overthinking about buddies.

BG needs to continue rotating.

In a ideal world there would be something like a “Twist Wheel” were a random Twist happens each match.

2 Likes
10

Really… I like the buddies :cry:

1 Like
11

I really liked them too.

1 Like
12

The buddys i did like a lot. They did what they where meant to do,warp the meta and create new things.
Balance was not optimal but thats not the end of the world i think. Its not that bad to have a few meme heroes as you can always pick from 4 and its nice to play something silly now and then.

That they are gone i find kinda sad but its probably a good thing as it will make room for new and interesting ways to play. As long as BG keeps changing regulary and the worst balance offenders get dealt with i am very happy with it. Very much looking forward to a brand new meta and learning what works and what doesnt again.

The only miss for me was diablo. Outside that one i did like every BG update including some of the more overpowered cards that are at times in the game.

13

I liked the Buddies. My guess is that having Buddies and spells in the game at the same time would break the game, or make it more broken than it usually is.

14

Adding buddies changed balance, and removing them will change it again. Same for adding new tribes. Same for changing up what units are available, or buffing/nerfing certain ones. Amalgadon rotating out alone is a huge change in how endgames might play out.

Buddies were a cool inclusion, and a way to add an extra angle to each hero. I have no doubt they are interested in trying out other ways to alter the game; maybe each hero receives some bonus each round based on whether they won or lost their fight (and you could even have some heroes favor losses and some favor wins).

There’s no need to feel like they’re fleeing from the buddies mechanic because they think it was a bad idea, or removing Amalgadon because they agree it was problematic. This is just like a rotation of sets in the base hearthstone game. There will be new stuff to keep things interesting, and some day we may see past stuff return. It’s just how Hearthstone is.

1 Like
15

I don’t like the idea of a BG without buddies, also they didn’t stick around for very long. It make me real sad.

16

Are they already removing them? That doesn’t seem like a good idea, because several heroes released recently were clearly balanced with their Buddy in mind (Onxyia, Rokarra, Scabbs arguably)

17

They tacked on too much power in to the buddy system at once which made it doomed to fail from the start. Some heroes had balanced buddies while others were given absurd game changing high rolls. Other’s had worthless buddies.

That on top of the fact that buddies were essentially a free triple, free 3 extra gold in most cases, even more for heroes like faelin and finley with brann. And free board presence.

Some buddies also were too reliant on their hero’s hero power which made the optimal way to play them the same in 95 percent of siutaitons.

Honestly they should give heroes ultimates. Once per game effects based on some of the buddies.

18

I feel like removing Buddies just admits that Battlegrounds is going to fail sooner rather than later. Most people seem attracted to it for its simplicity and speed but then you have people clamoring for lobbies to not always be the same thing and for there to be a competitive scene. You can’t have this mode be both simple and casual friendly and complicated and competitive.

The game can’t be “lul so random” and quick like it was when it first released and some kind of competitive sport. If you want to keep interest in the mode then you have to keep introducing new content to make it interesting but that will also make it more complicated and there’s not a lot of levers in this mode compared to a card game.

Buddies being removed without introducing something to replace them feels like a mistake. They need to at least find something that breaks the problem of poison making it so either someone scaled super hard and is unbeatable or someone got poison and so the person that scaled hard is trash. It should be embarrassing for the devs to watch Kripp ending his games with the same thing so often.

This mode cannot keep going like this. Something needs to fundamentally change about it that introduces more ways of tweaking the balance that doesn’t also completely upend the table and that isn’t going to be removed in six months.

19

I guess this is the best counterargument to what I said earlier:

Still, at best it makes balance a long term goal, and it is repudiation of Buddies as a step towards that goal. It’s saying that Buddies were a mistake. And I don’t think they were.

20

But the point of my post is that it’s not a repudiation of buddies or saying they’re a mistake. Buddies are just in the same kind of space as a standard expansion; eventually it rotates to make room for other mechanics and cards.

I do think it’s rotating surprisingly quickly, but I highly doubt it’s because they feel it was a step in the wrong direction. I think instead it’s just they don’t want the mode to get more complicated so design space is tighter than we expect for the mode.