Why Hearthstone Needs A Dedicated Tournament Server

Update: This article was written BEFORE Blizzard has released their statement about HCT Seoul, so while the current situation is somewhat resolved (it’s more of a band-aid than a real fix, read more about it below), the underlying problem is still there.

Hearthstone. One of the most popular online games in the world. Currently the sixth most watched game on Twitch. Its tournaments attract tens of thousands of viewers. It’s hard to deny how far the game has come since its release just a few years ago. We, as the players, get new functions, interesting expansions, not to mention that last few balance patches were point on. But there is one part of the game that, to put it bluntly, just sucks.

Hearthstone has some of the most terrible competitive (“e-sport”) support. Notably, Hearthstone is significantly worse in that department than other titles from Blizzard, such as Overwatch or even Heroes of the Storm (which of course have their own issues). The game is in this incredibly weird spot. On the one hand, it’s not marketed as the competitive game (on the contrary, it mostly targets casual audiences) and it doesn’t even seem like it was planned to be a common tournament title. It looks like the game’s competitive popularity has caught Team 5 by surprise, and even though they’ve embraced it, they did it half-assedly (Is that even a word? Because it feels like a word that describes the whole situation perfectly).

I won’t talk in-depth about all of the tournament support this time around (I will just touch some more important topics), and I will focus on just one thing. A thing that should have been fixed a long time ago. A thing that hurts both the competitive scene and the general player base – lack of a dedicated tournament server.

What Is This Tournament Server Anyway?

Oh, it’s actually quite simple. Right now, Hearthstone tournaments are played on regular servers – the ones you or me play on. For that reason, tournaments are always played on the latest patch. Also for that reason, in case of technical difficulties with the global servers, players MIGHT get disconnected and such (which actually happened in the past).

Until some time ago, tournaments were even played on the players’ accounts, which had even more limitations. For example – the infamous RDU’s “hi mom” drama, or playing a tournament on a different server, where you have no collection whatsoever (in which case players borrowed accounts from other pros). Those no longer apply, at least to the official tournaments, but it’s just a reminder that things were even worse in the past.

So what should be done about it? The answer is simple – Blizzard should create a new, separate server just for the tournament play. A server that regular players simply can’t access. Tournament PCs would be equipped with special game clients that would be able to log in on that server. And that’s basically it. Yes, of course, it would require some initial preparation, but trust me, it would be worth in the long run.

Just to show you how Hearthstone lags behind – the most popular e-sport games such as League of Legends, Overwatch or CS: GO all have separate tournament servers, some of them for years already, and they’re actually making a good use of them.

Why Is It Even Important?

Of course, at first it might seem like a non-issue. Everything works right now, so why change it? But if you think about it, there are many reasons why the current situation needs a desperate change.

First and most importantly, patch versions. A separate tournament server means that tournament organizers are not forced to host it on the same patch as the regular game servers. Right now, when a new patch launches, any tournament has to be played on that patch, no way to get around it. And it leads to a few issues. One of them is obviously having to plan patches around tournaments, or vice versa. You can’t just throw a balance patch right before a major tournament. Not only the players have already submitted their deck lists, but a few days is not enough for the meta to stabilize – pros would just pick some random decks, because they would have no clue which ones are the best.

Just to give you an example – the latest balance changes were pushed back because of the HCT Playoffs. But it’s not the first time – it has happened many times before. Major balance changes were timed either way before, or right after the bigger events. And that’s understandable in the current situation, but it would be irrelevant with a tournament server. Blizzard could push the changes even a day before tournament and players would just play with the previous version of the cards. Just like that, everyone would be happy. Everything would be easier to time (since you wouldn’t have to worry about tournaments colliding with balance changes) and players wouldn’t have to wait that long. 

Another issue, one that is even more relevant today, is a buggy patch release right before the tournament. Let’s say a patch that wasn’t supposed to throw any major changes at the tournament participants, but it turned out that some of the cards were working incorrectly. Now, there are three options. Fix everything very quickly, roll back the patch, or let pro players experience potentially major bugs first-hand. It gets even worse if some of the changes are not bugs. Intentional changes to in-game mechanics can also affect the decks played in a tournament. It already sounds bad as a theoretical scenario. But the worst thing is that it actually happened.

HCT Seoul, one of the stops on the Blizzard’s official Hearthstone Championship Tour, will be played over the weekend, and a new patch just went up. Not only is it full of bugs, but some of the basic mechanics/interactions were changed. The famous ner… *cough* bugfix of Tess Greymane might have been the most discussed one (rightfully so), but if we specifically look at the tournament meta, another change is more relevant. The way Jungle Giants interacts with some cards. To make the long story short, playing Faceless Manipulator on a minion with 5 or more Attack no longer triggers the Quest. And that’s a MASSIVE difference, as copying a Cursed Disciple is a relatively common way to finish the Quest quickly in some matchups (because assuming no Silence, all you need is a single more 5+ Attack minion). But no matter how common or uncommon that strategy was, making it not work is a clear nerf. It would be really bad if someone brought that deck to the tournament. And what do you know.

Yes, Fr0zen has brought Jungle Giants (Quest) Druid to the tournament. You know what would fix the issue? Exactly – a dedicated tournament server. HCT Seoul could just be played on a previous patch. Without bugs or sudden mechanic changes.

Of course, Fr0zen’s example is already enough to support this argument, but there is more. Other bugs might affect not one or two, but dozens of matches. For example, right now Shudderwock doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. If a Battlecry minion gets Silenced, its Shudderwock will no longer repeat that Battlecry. Silly, but that’s how it works right now. Maybe they will be able to fix it before the tournament, since they’ve already hotfixed some of the gamebreaking bugs (e.g. minions not being able to Adapt after getting “Can’t be targeted” Adapt). But maybe they won’t be able to do it in time, and all of the players who brought the affected decks will have a lower chance to win. Edit: Shudderwock bug was already fixed, read below. It’s still a great example of a massive bug that might happen in the future, so I’m leaving it.

And finally, I just have to address another thing. Yesterday, Xixo has shared an e-mail he got from the HCT Seoul organizers, which basically says that it’s impossible for the affected players to change their decks.

I was absolutely baffled after I read it. Just imagine – how would you feel after submitting your line-up, practicing your decks extensively, flying all the way to South Korea… just for Blizzard to suddenly release a patch that heavily decreases your chance to perform well. Not only that, but they would not allow you to change your deck (which wouldn’t even compensate for the time you’ve lost practicing)? That’s simply outrageous and should never happen. The best course of action would be allowing players to change their line-ups. Every player, not only those affected by the changes, because god knows how different bugs might have affected different decks. I’ve expected some quick reaction from the organizers or Blizzard.  But it seems like they just haven’t recognized the issue until players started pointing it out, and even then they’ve chosen to ignore it. Now it’s probably too late to do anything, as the first matches are starting soon.

And you know what’s the absolutely worst thing about it? Similar things have happened before, dozens if not hundreds of times. And a lot of those things could be prevented by.. you get it at this point.

Update:

Like I’ve mentioned at the beginning, it appears that 15 players who brought Quest Druid were be able to resubmit the deck. Which is a good thing, but the situation is still FAR from perfect. The announcement was made just a few hours before the first matches, which means that participants didn’t have a lot of time to plan their line-ups. Then, allowing them to change that one deck only is also bad – Conquest line-ups aren’t built like that, when you pick a deck (especially a niche deck), it’s meant to cover the other decks’ weaknesses, so when changing one deck, you’d normally rethink other deck choices too. Moreover, while this might not exactly be the case with Quest Druid, players’ line-ups are also built around deck choices from others – so even if someone didn’t bring Quest/Malygos Druid, he might have adjusted his line-up to fight against that deck, and now that it’s gone, his line-up will also be slightly affected. Which, again, means that the best course of action would be acting quickly and letting everyone who wants to change their decks do it.

Oh, and have I mentioned that some players have publicized their line-ups on Twitter and such? Now Malygos Druid players COULD go through all of them and try to get a nice counter-pick. “So why did they post the line-ups in the first place?” you might ask. Because deck submissions were closed, no one was supposed to be able to change anything. It all makes it unfair on so many levels, for both sides. That’s why ultimately it would be best to give every single player ability to change their decks, and do it A BIT earlier than just a few hours before the tournament (for Ben Brode’s sake, at least give them 24 hours).

I’m also not completely sure about the bugs. I know for a fact that lots of them were already fixed (source), but did they manage to fix all before the tournament? What if they didn’t? And even if they did, it was a very close call. If one of them slipped, like the Shudderwock bug, it could affect the entire tournament. And fixing it mid-tournament would be just as bad as not fixing it at all.

I’ve seen a lot of praise for a fast reaction and listening to the community, but sorry, I just can’t see it. They screwed it up on so many levels and came up with a band-aid instead of an actual fix. This thing should not have happened in the first place. And it would probably get ignored if not a massive backlash from the players, especially the Tess change. Don’t praise people who wanted to not give you a full Dust refund for a clear nerf and then backed up only after thousands of people shouted at him. Don’t praise people who had a clear way out of this weird tournament situation – the new mechanic changes could be communicated a while ago (possibly alongside the balance changes) so people don’t bring that deck or patch could be delayed until Monday. Or just finally get that tournament server, and all of that wouldn’t have happened.

A Step Further

Okay, so this is the part I’m not completely sure about that part, but I make an educated guess that making a separate server for tournaments would also make other things related to official tournaments much easier.

For example, another feature that is desperately needed during Hearthstone tournament is restarting the game from a certain point, a specific board state. Yes, the “pause” feature was already added (which is a good step), but that’s not exactly the same. Some issues might still lead to the game’s restart, and that’s, well, not exactly fair. We all know that Hearthstone is, to a certain extent, a game of chance, so if one player is clearly winning, he might potentially feel robbed of a victory after restart.

Possibly, with a dedicated tournament server, it might also be easier to implement some special rules. For example – card banning. Banned cards could be just removed from the tournament client. People wouldn’t be able to add them to the deck, discover or anything. We haven’t had any card bans in the official tournaments yet, but that could be something to explore and control the tournament meta without changing the cards that are not problematic on regular ladder.

Another example of a special rule that could be clearly implemented is the “90 turn limit” rule. After Dead Man's Hand decks became a thing, and those games would last forever just to end up in a draw (so they had to be repeated), Blizzard ended up adding a new rule. According to it, the player with a higher health total after the game reaches the turn limit wins the match. It would be more elegant if the winning player just got a victory screen and the losing player exploded. It’s a small thing, but just an example of extra things that could be done without having to affect the regular ladder.

Or maybe they could play with the turn timer in general. For example – it would be possible to organize a blitz tournament with 30s turn timers instead of the regular 75s, that would be interesting to watch.

While I obviously have no clue how the Hearthstone is coded, a separate client & server would most likely make those things much easier. After all, they could be adjusted without affecting the normal servers. And if something goes poorly, it’s much easier to work on fixing the small tournament server.

Closing

It’s not the first and probably not the last time that the competitive scene in Hearthstone could be called a “joke”. You just read about these situations and you can’t believe it. I wouldn’t come up with some of that stuff even if I tried. And yet it’s happening.

Most importantly, Blizzard should take a clear stance about the tournament scene. If they don’t want Hearthstone to be an “e-sport” – they should just say so and stop organizing tournaments. And if they want to keep the competitive scene alive (which is probably beneficial to everyone), they should put some heart into it. Right now it looks like they want to have their cake and eat it too. They seem to be playing the game of “how few resources can we put into the tournament scene so it won’t completely collapse”, and that’s simply the worst approach.

Making a dedicated tournament server would be the first, massive step to improve the situation. It wouldn’t be enough to fix all of the problems, but it’s most likely the first thing that needs to happen before the Hearthstone competitive scene can be truly taken seriously.