Comparing Hearthstone to chess doesn't work because they aren't the same type of game. What you really should be comparing Hearthstone too is relatively simple cards games like Hearts or Spades where any kid can learn to play and luck sometimes rules, but where experience and thoughtful play will usually beat out luck.
These sort of threads always come back to the patron warrior. That was a time when we had a high skill deck, with high potential reward. Bad players couldn't get much out of the deck, good players roflstomped the ladder. But as good players were in the minority the community on the whole, hated the decks existence. People hate being shown they are inferior. What they like is decks like pirate warrior and aggro shaman, because this is a win or lose, head-to-head game - victory = validation. These decks are not only powerful but it's super easy to understand why you lost when you do lose. There is a very low skill ceiling and once you hit that it's just down to draw luck for or your opponent.
I'm sure there has to be some middle ground between the two somewhere and blizzard needs to find it quickly, as we now know the players base isn't content with either extreme.
Aggro decks don't need "luck" to win, they need their opponent to be unlucky.
Mind = blown.
You don't need any luck to win on a slot machine, you just need the machine to be unlucky!
Reading comprehension much huh? Aggro decks don't need "lucky" draws to win because their decks are extremely consistent, while it's their opponents who need to be lucky and draw the right answers right away. That's what the phrase means.
Aggro decks don't need "luck" to win, they need their opponent to be unlucky.
Mind = blown.
You don't need any luck to win on a slot machine, you just need the machine to be unlucky!
Reading comprehension much huh? Aggro decks don't need "lucky" draws to win because their decks are extremely consistent, while it's their opponents who need to be lucky and draw the right answers right away. That's what the phrase means.
Thanks for partecipating! Try again next time
Translated : "He only beat me because his deck was better constructed and more consistent than mine was. He must be a bad player to make a deck that outperforms mine like that. Or he's just net-decked a deck that was made by a better player than me. Or I didn't bother to tech against it... either way I didn't win, so Blizzard must have messed up the game design somewhere... He wasn't lucky to win! I was unlucky... or something... whatever...
Always happy to "partecipate." I know you were trying to say, I was just pointing out how meaningless the comment was. Luck is luck, doesn't matter who draws.
Another braindead admirer of Brode with card design skills as an constant insult to my intellect. The likes of you keeps card design repulsively low skill.
You used to try to back up your posts with some sorts of arguments, even if I thought they were off-base, but now you've just degenerated to name calling. "Insult to my intellect"? Please.
No, HS is extremely mechanically simple: it's a matter of having mana or not,a trade kills or or not. Nothing more than simple arithmetic operations. Still room for skill? Of course.
Complexity aside, chess simply has no randomness after who goes first. Hearthstone is obviously riddled with random elements. In my estimation this is the greater factor in why new players can beat veteran ones. It's the eternal trade off in games - skill or randomness. But pure skill games, no matter how much they are valued by the high-end community, can be very hit-or-miss by people at large.
I feel you also overlook the concept of having a game plan, knowing what is left in your deck, and focusing on the possibilities for victory. I see this a lot when watching streamers play Renomage against other slow decks. Sometimes you have to out-value, sometimes you just have to shift gears and make it a tempo game. Sometimes you have to go all in on risky plays, because you can't play to "not lose." You have to play to win.
That all said, I do actually essentially agree with you that Hearthstone is on the simpler end of the spectrum. I just feel it needs to be given due credit for what subtlety it has.
What they like is decks like pirate warrior and aggro shaman, because this is a win or lose, head-to-head game - victory = validation. These decks are not only powerful but it's super easy to understand why you lost when you do lose. There is a very low skill ceiling and once you hit that it's just down to draw luck for or your opponent.
In the last Vicious Syndicate write up they actually commented that aggro Shaman had a much higher skill cap than many appreciated, and that is an assessment I'm willing to agree with. It's obvious when my opponent only knows how to play on curve, with the mentality of, "blow up everything they have immediately." These are the players who I see Lava Bursting my inessential minions, or playing out their Southsea Deckhands with no weapon and no value except to get AoE'd. Even if I don't play the deck, I can definitely tell when somebody is just solving the problems in front of them vs. trying to win the game by piloting their whole deck.
What they like is decks like pirate warrior and aggro shaman, because this is a win or lose, head-to-head game - victory = validation. These decks are not only powerful but it's super easy to understand why you lost when you do lose. There is a very low skill ceiling and once you hit that it's just down to draw luck for or your opponent.
In the last Vicious Syndicate write up they actually commented that aggro Shaman had a much higher skill cap than many appreciated, and that is an assessment I'm willing to agree with. It's obvious when my opponent only knows how to play on curve, with the mentality of, "blow up everything they have immediately." These are the players who I see Lava Bursting my inessential minions, or playing out their Southsea Deckhands with no weapon and no value except to get AoE'd. Even if I don't play the deck, I can definitely tell when somebody is just solving the problems in front of them vs. trying to win the game by piloting their whole deck.
Holding back on lightning bolt or lava burst to make a more efficient play later, or playing around a likely AoE is hardly on the the level of math warrior though is it? It's a level above pirate warrior I'll grant you, but don't tell me aggro shaman is a difficult deck to play. It's really rather easy, and the fact you get that ultra fast win condition generally puts all the pressure on your opponent to play perfectly, not the other way around.
Holding back on lightning bolt or lava burst to make a more efficient play later, or playing around a likely AoE is hardly on the the level of math warrior though is it? It's a level above pirate warrior I'll grant you, but don't tell me aggro shaman is a difficult deck to play. It's really rather easy, and the fact you get that ultra fast win condition generally puts all the pressure on your opponent to play perfectly, not the other way around.
Oh, I have no idea of "skill rankings" and I suspect you're correct that aggro Shaman is lower than patron Warrior in the grand scheme of things. I don't play the deck at all, but my experience has been that usually people underestimate the amount of skill involved in playing any deck. With some experience you can usually find different angles to your plays that you didn't notice when you first started with the deck. I may hate going against the deck (and the class as a whole), but I don't want that to cloud my judgment.
No, HS is extremely mechanically simple: it's a matter of having mana or not,a trade kills or or not. Nothing more than simple arithmetic operations. Still room for skill? Of course.
Complexity aside, chess simply has no randomness after who goes first. Hearthstone is obviously riddled with random elements. In my estimation this is the greater factor in why new players can beat veteran ones. It's the eternal trade off in games - skill or randomness.
The mistake here is in assuming that having random elements in any game removes the necessity (or ability) for skill. In fact, it is quite the opposite. You could argue that the addition of randomised elements (regardless of how annoying they are/nt) provide a huge necessity for adaptive reasoning, logical thought process and flexibility. These are really important skills (which some can find quite difficult).
Context this against the example of chess, where move "sets" are VERY well known and common across all games of chess - they are basically your examples of Deck Archetypes such os Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Jade Druid, etc. They are commonly known strategies that players use to try and win the game. So other players learn these and how to counter them.
In fact, one could state that there is indeed a huge element of randomness in chess - not from the game mechanics, but from the playersw themselves. You might be expecting your opponent to make a specific movbe, but they might not know what to do in the situation and thus choose to make any move that comes to mind, introducing that random outcome you weren't expecting.
The mistake here is in assuming that having random elements in any game removes the necessity (or ability) for skill...
Well, let us be clear. In chess the direct actions of the players are what determine the outcome of the game. Calling it "luck" when the opponent messes up, or "randomness" when a player makes an unexpected move is arguing semantics. Everything that happened (after the coin toss to determine who goes first) was a result of player actions and not any secondary factors. Therefore everything that happened was within their control, and we can reasonably classify it as "skill" (and whatever that entails).
Randomness does not remove skill from a game, but it limits is maximum impact. In chess skill has some ~95% skill. Other games can have more randomness, which as you mention leads to employing different strategies and planning. That's fine and makes them different, but the bottom line is that sometimes if the randomness goes against you....you lose, no matter how good you are.
People who are very competent in their respective games hate randomness in any form since it's what keeps them from always being the best. The average player doesn't mind it as much since this situation favors them sometimes (when against superior players) and not others (when against inferior ones). Forums such as these tend to inordinately attract mid-to-high skill players (or at least those who wish to masquerade as high-skill players) and so are inordinately in favor of removing random elements.
I think that point that I was making here is that in games which include any kind of randomised element, the skillset required is not "lessened", but instead it is of a different subset.
Chess obviously requires a specific strategic set of skills (that perhaps HS does not), but HS does require some skills that chess doesn't as well.
Perhaps it becomes more of an apples vs oranges argument.
Aggro decks don't need "luck" to win, they need their opponent to be unlucky.
Mind = blown.
You don't need any luck to win on a slot machine, you just need the machine to be unlucky!
Reading comprehension much huh? Aggro decks don't need "lucky" draws to win because their decks are extremely consistent, while it's their opponents who need to be lucky and draw the right answers right away. That's what the phrase means.
Thanks for partecipating! Try again next time
Translated : "He only beat me because his deck was better constructed and more consistent than mine was. He must be a bad player to make a deck that outperforms mine like that. Or he's just net-decked a deck that was made by a better player than me. Or I didn't bother to tech against it... either way I didn't win, so Blizzard must have messed up the game design somewhere... He wasn't lucky to win! I was unlucky... or something... whatever...
Clearly you don't know what we're talking about here if you speak of "better constructed decks" in this context. Aggro decks revolve around having a plethora of low-cost minions thus optimizing 100% of mana spent. It's literally their own strenght and what defines aggro as a deck archetype. Meanwhile most control tools and answers are way less efficient in term of mana usage and consistency of draws. You just can't possibly beat aggro in terms of consistency unless playing aggro yourself, so what you said here is pretty ignorant and kinda embarassing for someone who understands what the archetypes mean and how they work.
Always happy to "partecipate." I know you were trying to say, I was just pointing out how meaningless the comment was. Luck is luck, doesn't matter who draws.
Which is a pretty shortsighted way to see it. If deck A relies on 0 luck to consistently play its gamestyle while Deck B does need a modicum of lucky draws to do the same, then luck only really affects the second and not the first.
I think you're missing the point. Decks like pirate warrior gain consistency in exchange for a high vulnerability to taunts/heals/aoe. You can't just ignore how the other players' draws affect your own game. This is a two-player game. Their luck is your luck, and vice versa.
I think you're missing the point. Decks like pirate warrior gain consistency in exchange for a high vulnerability to taunts/heals/aoe. You can't just ignore how the other players' draws affect your own game. This is a two-player game. Their luck is your luck, and vice versa.
Which is why I said it's shortsighted. "all is all all is none" kind of thinking doesn't really mean anything in the end. Besides nowaday's aggro decks are even just barely vulnerable to taunts/heals/aoe.
Aggro decks don't need "luck" to win, they need their opponent to be unlucky.
Mind = blown.
You don't need any luck to win on a slot machine, you just need the machine to be unlucky!
Reading comprehension much huh? Aggro decks don't need "lucky" draws to win because their decks are extremely consistent, while it's their opponents who need to be lucky and draw the right answers right away. That's what the phrase means.
Thanks for partecipating! Try again next time
Translated : "He only beat me because his deck was better constructed and more consistent than mine was. He must be a bad player to make a deck that outperforms mine like that. Or he's just net-decked a deck that was made by a better player than me. Or I didn't bother to tech against it... either way I didn't win, so Blizzard must have messed up the game design somewhere... He wasn't lucky to win! I was unlucky... or something... whatever...
Clearly you don't know what we're talking about here if you speak of "better constructed decks" in this context. Aggro decks revolve around having a plethora of low-cost minions thus optimizing 100% of mana spent. It's literally their own strenght and what defines aggro as a deck archetype. Meanwhile most control tools and answers are way less efficient in term of mana usage and consistency of draws. You just can't possibly beat aggro in terms of consistency unless playing aggro yourself, so what you said here is pretty ignorant and kinda embarassing for someone who understands what the archetypes mean and how they work.
Clearly you don't understand how being a better or worse player works if you don't even understand the skill required to construct a highly optimised deck that is both consistent and well synergised like aggro decks need to be not to fizzle out before they are effective. It's also fairly obvious that you dont understand how best to defeat aggro decks. If you think that the only way to beat aggro is to also play aggro, you are going to be even more disappointed (and hangry). Why do you think Reno and Taunt-based decks are having a great resurgence right now?
If you optimise against it, then beating it is easy. Sure, you will probably lose more against the long-game decks, but welcome to Rock-Papaer -Scissors mechanics. I'm surprised that any HS player who has played more than a month on this game wouldn't know this stuff. It's preeeeetty basic knowledge.
So what you said here is pretty ignorant and embarrassing - I suggest tucking that little tail neatly between your legs and scuttling away quick, before anyone sees what you did. :-)
I am not really sure what do you mean, but if from this one sentence you draw conclusion that I:
- have ANY opinion about Ben Brode,
- I have any influence on card design
your intellect doesn't require further insulting.
I find it hilarious, that some people are convinced any serious game developer is unable to build completely fair, skill-based game. Especially in a company that made Starcraft!
Hearthstone is and always will be a casual, randomized clown fiesta, perfect for hilarious YT videos. It's not the matter of developers' skill, but the bussiness model, which is working perfectly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Hearthstone in German solely for Garrosh sounds. Sieg oder Tod!
The last six or seven posts in this thread have contained no content - posters have decided that there is more value in aimlessly hurling insults at perfect strangers, anonymously.
Comparing Hearthstone to chess doesn't work because they aren't the same type of game. What you really should be comparing Hearthstone too is relatively simple cards games like Hearts or Spades where any kid can learn to play and luck sometimes rules, but where experience and thoughtful play will usually beat out luck.
These sort of threads always come back to the patron warrior. That was a time when we had a high skill deck, with high potential reward. Bad players couldn't get much out of the deck, good players roflstomped the ladder. But as good players were in the minority the community on the whole, hated the decks existence. People hate being shown they are inferior. What they like is decks like pirate warrior and aggro shaman, because this is a win or lose, head-to-head game - victory = validation. These decks are not only powerful but it's super easy to understand why you lost when you do lose. There is a very low skill ceiling and once you hit that it's just down to draw luck for or your opponent.
I'm sure there has to be some middle ground between the two somewhere and blizzard needs to find it quickly, as we now know the players base isn't content with either extreme.
Aggro decks don't need "lucky" draws to win because their decks are extremely consistent, while it's their opponents who need to be lucky and draw the right answers right away. That's what the phrase means.
He wasn't lucky to win! I was unlucky... or something... whatever...
Always happy to "partecipate." I know you were trying to say, I was just pointing out how meaningless the comment was. Luck is luck, doesn't matter who draws.
blizzard does not give a shit about players
In fact, it is quite the opposite. You could argue that the addition of randomised elements (regardless of how annoying they are/nt) provide a huge necessity for adaptive reasoning, logical thought process and flexibility.
These are really important skills (which some can find quite difficult).
I think that point that I was making here is that in games which include any kind of randomised element, the skillset required is not "lessened", but instead it is of a different subset.
Chess obviously requires a specific strategic set of skills (that perhaps HS does not), but HS does require some skills that chess doesn't as well.
Perhaps it becomes more of an apples vs oranges argument.
Meanwhile most control tools and answers are way less efficient in term of mana usage and consistency of draws.
You just can't possibly beat aggro in terms of consistency unless playing aggro yourself, so what you said here is pretty ignorant and kinda embarassing for someone who understands what the archetypes mean and how they work.
I think you're missing the point. Decks like pirate warrior gain consistency in exchange for a high vulnerability to taunts/heals/aoe. You can't just ignore how the other players' draws affect your own game. This is a two-player game. Their luck is your luck, and vice versa.
Besides nowaday's aggro decks are even just barely vulnerable to taunts/heals/aoe.
Clearly you don't understand how being a better or worse player works if you don't even understand the skill required to construct a highly optimised deck that is both consistent and well synergised like aggro decks need to be not to fizzle out before they are effective.
It's also fairly obvious that you dont understand how best to defeat aggro decks. If you think that the only way to beat aggro is to also play aggro, you are going to be even more disappointed (and hangry). Why do you think Reno and Taunt-based decks are having a great resurgence right now?
If you optimise against it, then beating it is easy. Sure, you will probably lose more against the long-game decks, but welcome to Rock-Papaer -Scissors mechanics. I'm surprised that any HS player who has played more than a month on this game wouldn't know this stuff. It's preeeeetty basic knowledge.
So what you said here is pretty ignorant and embarrassing - I suggest tucking that little tail neatly between your legs and scuttling away quick, before anyone sees what you did. :-)
I am not really sure what do you mean, but if from this one sentence you draw conclusion that I:
- have ANY opinion about Ben Brode,
- I have any influence on card design
your intellect doesn't require further insulting.
I find it hilarious, that some people are convinced any serious game developer is unable to build completely fair, skill-based game. Especially in a company that made Starcraft!
Hearthstone is and always will be a casual, randomized clown fiesta, perfect for hilarious YT videos. It's not the matter of developers' skill, but the bussiness model, which is working perfectly.
Playing Hearthstone in German solely for Garrosh sounds. Sieg oder Tod!
The last six or seven posts in this thread have contained no content - posters have decided that there is more value in aimlessly hurling insults at perfect strangers, anonymously.
Close the thread.