Hearthpwn

Simply posting because of the awesome new shop layout/format.

Yay for clean UI in HS!

Greetings travelers,

Just wanted to share some thoughts on the HearthStone experience and where I think Blizz won & lost fans. I've been playing since the days of the first expansions and since before they had the "Standard/Wild" formats and I've played as a strict f2p player as well as spent plenty of dough on Blizzard.

I've seen Blizzard make incredible strides of positive growth to the truly great game that is HS but there is still plenty that leaves me scratching my head.

The Good:

• awesome cards/effects/strategies that create new meta-games **almost** every new expansion
• well thought out transition to a "rotation cycle" when introducing the new formats with the Old Gods expansion
• random generosity for the players (free content/packs for players) which is always appreciated
• unique hero system that allows for variety of play styles

The Neutral:

• RNG- this is obviously a huge part of HS and although RNG makes for some incredibly entertaining scenarios & highlights I feel that those moments are outnumbered by the amount of times an inferior player prevails simply due to RNG. Yes, I understand you can't escape RNG in a card game, but I think there's very good RNG design that involves high skill decision making (trading with Dr. 7 boom-bots) and poor RNG design (Yogg pre-patch) that allows a player to play sub-optimally and still have a *feasible* chance at victory.
• although having a variety of heroes allows for good play variety- there's not much room for variety within each class. For example, maybe we get a great control card for a Hunter that seems like a great card but doesn't fit well because the class is primarily used for 1 or 2 play styles. This makes those cool cards a bit obsolete.

The Bad:

• despite some random acts of generosity in the form of free stuff- Blizzard is greedy af about their content. As a business they have every right to do things how they want, I just think it's a sad truth that Blizzard doesn't care too much about the content & gaming community so long as they are bringing in good return on their product$.
• lack of mid-range meta- how many TOP tier mid range decks have existed in HS competitive play? Comparatively low to aggro and control decks in my opinion. I think mid-range/tempo decks are key to keeping control/aggro in check but since you often see "threat removals" cost less than threats themselves, this makes it hard (not impossible) to play tempo decks and have success doing so.

TL : DR Hearthstone is a really solid game and have given me some really fun times, climbing the ranks, playing whacky decks in casual or wild formats and single player content is also pretty entertaining. However, there's a lot of things that HS could do to improve and it's interesting to think of what the game would look like if they did things differently.

Thanks for reading! Fee free to share why you agree or disagree, would love to hear some thoughts.

immediate threat- good for aggro decks. common- so everyone will play this.

Actually the ONLY thing worse than using a mindless top tier net deck...

...is roping.

There's no 'WoWpwn" site for this thread? lol

Battletag: FiatLux#11112

Region: NA

Trade Only?: Yes, you go first.

Quote from FireOwneD >>

Battletag: FirePlaY#2159

Region: NA

Trade Only?: Yes. You go first.

Quote from TwistedCardmaster >>

Quote from Moop547 >>

People have to understand that blizzard is a company though. They employ a lot of people and they need to make money. They probably started doing that and making epics and legendaries more powerful as the expacs went on solely to make money. If anyone remembers back in the day, it was actually a meme how bad most legendaries and epics were. In the classic set, only a couple still see play, and it's loaded with worthless cards like Cho, Millhouse, and The Beast. It's no coincedence that they upped the power level of legendaries over the years. People are way too harsh on blizz for wanting to make money though. Remember the days when it cost 50$ (in 1990s money) to buy an N64 game? Games have way higher quality now, and are a lot cheaper. Look at games like Subnautica. That game cost 19.99$ and it would've been the greatest and most played game ever if it came out in 1999. The video game industry is struggling now because of things like piracy, and companies need to make money.

Sorry, but that is huge BS. To get full expansion you need to spend $450-500 on packs (135 virtual cards!). That is the equivalent of a new PS4 Pro! To get 4 full expansions per year, you have to spend $1800-2000. A normal game, with a budget usually exceeding $300 million, costs $60. Poor Blizzard indeed...

 Completely agree with this response- Blizzard has every right to charge absurd prices for content but can't expect to make fans happy. You either charge hard and implement a great reward system OR not charge as much upfront and have a weak reward system...Blizzard mixed both bad apples and thus you have a thread like this with valid complaints. Blizzard (HS specifically) has certainly made some life-improving changes over the years but let's not act they aren't greedy money whores **insert Brode's laugh**

Long control fatigue games are great at times but I don't think it's a "healthy meta" if there's nothing but control decks and no viable aggro decks. And vice versa. A healthy meta in my opinion (plz don't get triggered) is when there are several different types of decks that have close to a 50-50 match up. *NOT different decks* bc you can have 6 different aggro decks- not a healthy meta. But different types of decks (aggro, midrange, zoo, secrets, control, etc.)

Don't think CW is the savior of ranked by any means though.

Thank god they didn't nerf  Elven Archer

Quote from yclly >>

Battletag: Mizi#1251

Region: NA

Trade only? : Will show you quest, you go first

 Added you :) FiatLux#11112

Where can I play "wild"? I don't currently see that mode- does it have to be unlocked somehow? All I can do is -Play- and then it's -Ranked-

usually not a good idea to craft specific decks- better to craft essential cards that can play in a variety of decks.

Thanks, this is all good stuff :)

Seems easy enough, might give this one a go. Thanks!