Problem Machine

Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

Recommended Posts

Feel like the tavern brawl was just what the game needs. A place where they can just throw stuff at the wall and new and old players can both mess around in it. I would really like integrated tournament support, but I realize that's only something the more competitive minded players care about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm not surprised they're making so much money. I for one swore blind I'd never spend money on an F2P game, but they got me. They got me good. I've been PC-less this year and had to play games on my mobile/laptop and as such got pretty addicted to HS. Is anyone still playing it on here? If so what do you guys think about TGT? I was lucky enough to have my brother offer to buy me the 50 packs as a present so I got a fair few cards from it. I also saved up a lot of gold beforehand. 

 

I'm not that impressed with it in all honesty. Barely any of the inspiration cards are being played, if any, and I find it kind of a shame that the highest ranked deck in the game incorporates none of the new cards after their release. Also the fact that they've not done anything about facehunters this season (read entire year) is just incredible. It was nice to see a bit of a shake up in the meta with secret paladins as I was playing tempo mage and I could  counter them pretty well. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

They're really not taking advantage of the fact that unlike normal TCGs, their digital CCG lets them nerf and buff cards. Why not just try to change some of the inspire minions to cost less or have better stats? They're not played at all. Ok, maybe not now but in a month or two? Since Naxx they've shown they don't plan on changing a single card after they release it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm not surprised they're making so much money. I for one swore blind I'd never spend money on an F2P game, but they got me. They got me good. I've been PC-less this year and had to play games on my mobile/laptop and as such got pretty addicted to HS. Is anyone still playing it on here? If so what do you guys think about TGT? I was lucky enough to have my brother offer to buy me the 50 packs as a present so I got a fair few cards from it. I also saved up a lot of gold beforehand. 

 

I'm not that impressed with it in all honesty. Barely any of the inspiration cards are being played, if any, and I find it kind of a shame that the highest ranked deck in the game incorporates none of the new cards after their release. Also the fact that they've not done anything about facehunters this season (read entire year) is just incredible. It was nice to see a bit of a shake up in the meta with secret paladins as I was playing tempo mage and I could  counter them pretty well. 

 

Still playing every few days, Rogue as always, sometimes Priest. I love the ideas that were introduced in the expansion. Inspire is something very interesting for classes that can afford to slow down their overall game to mid-range or to capitalize on tempo plays that much more. It's just a little sad that some cards only hint at what could be instead of actually being enablers.

 

As for the top meta decks, we did get Dragon Priest come up and the laddering monster that seem to be the Secret Paladin (Mysterious Challenger is such a good card, I wonder how it got printed). But yeah, I already always wanted to concede when Warriors were only Control type before BRM. Playing against them or Patron seems akin to running into a brick wall, wondering if it might be fun this time.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been back on the wagon for the past couple of months. I've managed to limit my spending to only buying Blackrock Spire (I ground out Naxx; never again).

I mainly play arena because my collection isn't robust enough to build all the decks I'd like to try. Including quest rewards I can just do that indefinitely which is nice. I prefer limited anyway.

I have been fudging my way up to at least rank 10 since they introduced rank rewards, seems a shame to let those gold cards lie. Midrange hunter is my favourite deck anyway, and it's strong and fast enough to get there easily.

I'm quite happy that face hunter is a deck; you need good aggro to keep the meta honest (and I tend to beat them as midrange). Patron is the thing I'd like to see toned down a little.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Have most of you been playing since the early days?

 

A couple of friends and I tried to get into this about a month ago, but we all ended up getting pretty turned off and abandoned it after a couple weeks.

 

Mainly it just seemed really hard to make progress as a new player. The F2P aspects seemed slightly more generous than a lot of F2P games, but it still looked like it would take forever to build a solid stable of cards without paying. It also became increasingly hard to tell if I was losing due to lack of skill, a poor deck, lack of powerful cards, lack of understanding the meta, or RNG.

 

The between-friends play options are also quite limited, it seemed like the game was funneling me into ranked play which was my least favorite mode.

 

It sucks because I felt like the core game was a lot of fun and I could see myself getting into it, if it wasn't for some of the frustrating trappings.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have been playing since beta, but don't play much and don't have a large card collection.  Basically what I do is I play tavern brawl, and use that to finish my dailies, and earn enough gold to do an arena run.

I'm not very good at Hearthstone, nor do I want to dedicate the time it takes to reading stuff to get good, so I really just like to play a couple tavern brawls, yell at my opponent for being SO SLOW and log off.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been playing this off and on for a few months now, and I think with the most recent expansion it has really come into it's own. Like others have said, the inspire mechanic isn't used too much, but some of the other cards have made a few decks viable that otherwise weren't. Whereas a couple months ago I would see the same 3-4 decks and nothing else, nowadays I'm seeing maybe 10 or 12 different decks. I haven't made it back to rank 10 yet, which is where you tend to start seeing mostly netdecks, but I like this game a lot more when it's less predictable.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I've been playing since early on, on and off. If you're starting out now you're pretty fucked without paying :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's not terribly surprising, I guess, that the divide between how many options you have with basic cards and how many options you have with an expansive collection would only widen as this game grows bigger and bigger. It's still pretty frustrating. Not only are there new legendaries that become standard picks in the meta, like how 90% of HearthPwn builds seem to rely on Dr. Boom as a generic late game card, but even a lot of basic cards are now tied up in expensive single player content.

 

Like I recently looked at what kind of deck I could maybe piece together with my collection, but was actually missing Mad Scientists as a core component for one of them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the only stuff you absolutely need to make at least somewhat competitive constructed decks at the moment is Naxxramas. You'll need at least a bit of a collection to really get going but that's teh nature of collectible games in the first place. This game has so far cost me 30 euros which is not even a drop in the bucket of what my Magic habit used to cost me. 

 

I can understand being put off if you're just starting out and want to be competitive right away, but I have a hard time thinking of ways to do that and still preserve the collectible aspect (which is why it's making so much money, besides the good design).

 

The main question is what you want to get out of it really, I guess. For me it's infinite limited play, which is well within reach as it turns out, for free no less.

 

e: the Brawl is a lovely gesture towards casual/starting players with their pregenerated decks, especially since they reward you with cards,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think if I made the effort of dusting cards I could have at least 3 competitive decks, but, Arena is more fun, and yeah, I'm on a cycle of always having enough gold for it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can understand being put off if you're just starting out and want to be competitive right away, but I have a hard time thinking of ways to do that and still preserve the collectible aspect (which is why it's making so much money, besides the good design).

It's not so much that I want to be competitive, more that it was hard to learn and improve when it often seemed like the solution is to grind out more cards and/or buy the expansions. Even the noob end of the ladder where I played was full of decks stacked with legendaries. Arena was a lot of fun, but it's gated so it's hard to play there exclusively.

 

Polygon had a piece a while back that had some good suggestions for improving the new player experience:

http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/29/9067065/hearthstone-expansion-expensive-legendary

 

I'm not sure that the "restricted" format they mention is necessary yet, but I think the others are solid ideas. Although they all mostly boil down to "give players more cheap/free stuff" which is a bit antithetical to Blizzard's business model.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That Polygon article is really good.

I think Blizzard is definitely interested in staying on the "friendly to new players" end of the curve, at least from their recent efforts to accelerate new players' collections (brawl, pack quest) and improve their experience (pre-generated deck brawls).

Hearthstone is infinitely more generous than their other current free-to-play offering, Heroes of the Storm, and even in that game they've added more income recently. I think they are just being really, really careful about being more generous because that sort of thing is really hard to take back - once a player has all cards, they're 'done.'

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For me it's more that Hearthstone is just getting to the point where I couldn't really tell you what I want out of games like this, generally. It's not like I actually want to compete at a high, high level of play because I don't want to put in that much time and effort (or possibly money in this case), but I don't want to feel like I'm treading water either. I appreciate some Tavern Brawl for being completely out of control bizzarre or creating a level playing field for completing class-related quests, but once it gets down to the ones where you get assigned one of two possible premade decks I'm kind of like "What's the point?"

 

Early in the game's lifecycle I mostly felt like I was actually playing against people who roughly shared my level of skill and commitment when I played ranked, and a slightly more wide selection of player types in casual. At this point though it feels like there's just so many people who have been playing continuously since release that no matter where I go I'll run into more decked out pros or boringly efficient meta decks than I will casual players.

 

Anyway, anybody here remember the Etherlords games?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I absolutely adored those games. Ticks 4 lyfe, yo.

I think an interesting matchmaking system would be one that takes collection into account. But yeah, if you don't know what you want, it's going to be tough.

I mean, there's videos of people taking a free account and playing it to Legendary rank. There's videos of people buying and opening hundreds of packs. There's space for many different people, but the question is always going to be which space you want to use.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Snakes OP.

 

I know what kind of space I want vaguely, but there's no such space in the game really now that you run into any kind of player anywhere. Arena maybe, but I get frustrated with that too whenever somebody rolls out a legendary. Maybe I should just try to quit this game again, but ughhhh it's so convenient to play on the go on my Ipad.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Snakes OP.

 

I know what kind of space I want vaguely, but there's no such space in the game really now that you run into any kind of player anywhere. Arena maybe, but I get frustrated with that too whenever somebody rolls out a legendary. Maybe I should just try to quit this game again, but ughhhh it's so convenient to play on the go on my Ipad.

 

I've played quite a bit at this point, and I think what the game really needs is a kind of beginner bracket where no legendaries are allowed, formats that don't use particular sets, and then maybe a puzzle mode (Kill minion X, Y and Z, with only cards A, B C).  Getting some crazy legendary dropped on you that causes you to lose the game is really frustrating, but with a bit of experience you start to realize there are very efficient/inexpensive ways to get rid of most of them that aren't immediately apparent.  If the game could create a space like that, which is more about learning the mechanics than getting the best cards, I think it would be a much better experience for newer or less experienced players.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Outside of Dr. Boom, are there really that many legendaries that really make or break?  I guess if you want a control deck big legendaries are important.

 

You could do druid without legendaries but it has 4-6 required class epics minimum. Patron has very low requirements besides the adventures. But both of these are more combo decks. 

 

Zoo/face hunter need no legendaries but they're both aggro. Secret paladin might not need any? Rogue decks have 2 preparations (class epic) but otherwise cheap to craft cards since only oil rogue is played.

 

Any control deck seems to need 3-4 legendaries.

 

Oh nevermind, I forgot about Sylvanas. You can stick her in most decks besides zoo warlock, face hunter, patron and oil rogues.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You can remove legendaries, sure, but that doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of value. In Magic, big cards feel much more situational to me: drawing mana relies on chance a little bit so if you want to play huge cards reliably you might have to add more land cards or cards that help you draw more land. In Hearthstone, the economic progression is automated (plus the decks are much smaller), meaning things will go to that mid to late game. So unless you run an all out rush deck that tries to end things before that point, it probably benefits from having some late game kickers in there, and in that department you just get much more out of legendaries than you do standard beefy cards.

 

Very few of them are going to turn the game around if you already built momentum against the person playing them (while still keeping removals on your hand for security). But if you're kind of going equal, or maybe have fallen behind a little bit (and maybe had to use some removals already), they just spell doom for you in a way that no basic card really could.

 

Plus a lot of them actually do what they're supposed to do as soon as they enter the field, at which point getting to keep them out is just icing on the cake. Ysera will give the enemy 1, Nefarian 2, and Neptulon 4 extra cards even if I remove them on my next turn. Ragnaros gets at least one hit out before I can do anything. Dr. Boom has those explosive bots. A mechmage rolling out Antonidas can use spare parts to get 3 Fireball spells before I can do anything about it. They'll still have that upgraded hero power after Justicar Trueheart goes away. And Jaraxxus, well, you know.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah the big finisher legendaries and similar cards all share 1 thing: they do something the moment they're put down. Sylvanas is kinda an exception. Even Tharussian gives you the discount on the turn he's played. All legendaries that do nothing on the turn they're played like Troggzor, Foe Reaper 4000, Gruul, Sneeds are much worse and rarely played.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the worst thing about legendaries in low ranked games is inexperienced players feel worse when they lose to them, maybe not even recognizing that they just played really poorly against a goofy ass stalagg fuegen deck, while good f2p players can't really do control decks so they have to be more aggressive, and in turn that makes it where you can't really go too far with control on the ladder unless you have a pretty rock solid deck with all the booms and stuff.

 

A format removing legendaries would remove the late game and create an artificially aggressive arms race that would be even less fun IMHO. I'd like to see some low dust cards that enable budget players to run controlly decks so the meta wouldn't be so warped by the lack of cheap endgame, and of course casual matchmaking could be a lot better.

 

Anyway, I still have a blast with both my f2p account and my large collection account, I used to shoot for ranks but now have the most fun trying to find the ceiling for whatever dump crap I'm playing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've played quite a bit at this point, and I think what the game really needs is a kind of beginner bracket where no legendaries are allowed, formats that don't use particular sets, and then maybe a puzzle mode (Kill minion X, Y and Z, with only cards A, B C).  Getting some crazy legendary dropped on you that causes you to lose the game is really frustrating, but with a bit of experience you start to realize there are very efficient/inexpensive ways to get rid of most of them that aren't immediately apparent.  If the game could create a space like that, which is more about learning the mechanics than getting the best cards, I think it would be a much better experience for newer or less experienced players.

 

Yeah, I think that kind of stuff would help out a lot. I'd also like to see expanded options for playing against friends -- like some sort of free arena/draft mode between friends that could expose players to the full card set in a more limited fashion without having to buy in. I enjoy playing against friends, but we all had pretty small collections so there wasn't a lot of variety.

 

Tavern Brawl kind of touches on that, but the ones I've played have been so chaotic that I can never tell how applicable it is to the "real" game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now