Hearthpwn

Yeah and I probably should play instead of coming here and express my opinion on something. Because whenever I do it seems people are just weirded out. I know, I also shouldn't have written this. Whatever, take my downvote, I don't even care anymore.

But how does that make sense? Outside of it being some sort of joke. To be fair they also tagged mechanical constructs shaped like beasts as literal Beasts which makes about the same amount of sense. So I guess it somehow makes some sense and therefore they just slapped it on because why not. Something like that. I mean it's kinda cool for something like that one card that creates random Fire spells and maybe there will be more stuff like that in the future. If possible it's always better if you can assign a spell school I think. But that one. Yeah, that's really a stretch. (Of course we don't talk about how much sense it makes to begin with that you can literally manifest about anything via a "mixtape". lol)

lol, that feels like just a continuation of last week; it's just slightly different cards/decks.

At this point they might as well make a game mode purely based on people trying to OTK each other ASAP because it does seem people do like doing exactly that.

Well, in the meantime I still hope for the one brawl comes back where you constantly add cards to your deck and redraw your hand each turn. That was really fun. But seeing these kinds of brawl being pretty much the opposite and people really like them... yeah, I guess realistically the brawls I would like to see again probably won't make a comeback.

Why not play Slay the Spire instead?

Interesting you specifically mentioned Slay the Spire. Over the years I also asked myself that question a few times where I indeed was then mostly playing Slay the Spire for quite some time. Especially since there's a mod now that allows you to make your own custom cards without needing to know how to mod the game yourself. I made hundred of custom HS-themed cards. What I like most about Slay the Spire is how you can quickly adjust your deck and how much variety it can offer. In particular it's also how it uses a draw and discard pile and that you redraw your entire hand each turn. This makes everything so much more interesting. Even some otherwise maybe rather dull strategies become much more interesting this way. I remember a Tavern Brawl like this once. They even repeated it a few times. But not in like over 5 years or so. What is it this week? Blood magic where everyone just tries to OTK the other? Yeah, that sounds more like modern Hearthstone! lol

I mean yeah, it's basically about this:

they're now going to find it -much- harder to play competitively.  So why bother?

Well, for me personally it's not about playing "competitively" and that's the biggest difference to the average player I suppose. Why bother? Because it's still fun to just play (like without needing to win)? Like literally Discovering new ways and strategies to play the game? And on top it looks and feels awesome (great audio and visuals).

I mean just think of a traditional game like MTG. You don't get anything for free* in that game. Maybe I'm thinking too much about it this way, but I mean it's true. If Hearthstone had more and better options to socialize and find friends to have fun with in friendly games then... but yeah, it is not like that and also they seem to be going pretty much the opposite direction. And this is the reason I don't seeing this at all. I would rather like more social options than free* stuff I don't really care about whatsoever. 

But yes, I recognize that indeed the vast majority of players are just that "competitive" and with that the outrage is justified and it's great for them it had an effect. It's just that... yeah, I wish there would be more people that just play for fun like me. That's basically what I wanted to say I think.

"What if they don't want game modes to be successful?" Something like this I heard in a video once and it was quite surprising but it makes a lot of sense. The idea of such game modes might be mostly to have something else to do if someone tired of the main game mode. In fact Battlegrounds might have been a big mistake and now they're just trying to salvage what they can. No idea about Mercenaries though; that one seems to stand out, but I guess this somehow still makes a lot of money because of packs purchases or something. Duels though? I mean it's kinda like normal Constructed but you don't need as much cards. So from that perspective it just takes a lot more resources and they make less money from it. Pretty much the same reason why they don't make single player content anymore: More resources but not only can't they realistically charge more but in fact even less. Like what was it? 20 or so for the entire adventure I think? Compare that to normal pack sales from an expansion for Constructed play... I suspect that many might have played primarily Duels and a lot of other people don't even really use it as "something else to play when you're tired of the main game". That would be my guess as to why this happened. At least that would make a lot of sense for the above reasons.

I personally just hope they add good social features like guilds eventually. I think that would be great for everyone. Obviously for us players but also for them because people find more fun in the game that way and with that are more likely to stick around and buy stuff. It seems strange they haven't done it yet but maybe I'm also overestimating how much impact that would have for them. It would just be awesome for us but if that doesn't translate into more money for them...

At least they continue to make fun cards like Cho'gall (Twilight Chieftain of course, lol). Maybe they will make more cards like that so that like in Duels it doesn't feel like all the same all the time. But I'm not sure how much they could really do. Since you always need that one Start of Game effect minion which is mostly rather lame or at least you don't want your deck full with those cards. Cho'gall is at least pretty nice and not as boring as Renathal.

What I think would be really cool and awesome would be if you could take those Anomalies from Cho'gall directly into your deck but they don't take up a deck slot and they say like "If your opponent also has an anomaly card..." or so. That would be amazing. Or maybe not as much because I don't really come across many people that play the new Whizbang, Cho'gall, and the like. Better social features would really be what I wish for the most.

Battletag: Rubinlibelle#2843

Region: EU (but I can play on US/NA or ASIA as well if you let me play with one of your decks)
Usual Play Times: 4 PM - 6 PM MEZ (Late Afternoon in Europe) and on weekends additionally 8 AM - 10 AM MEZ (Morning in Europe)
Level of Experience: Playing just for fun since Beta (but it doesn't really matter too much for the stuff I like to play with anyways) 
Preferred Heroes: (Yogg) Mage and (Thief) Rogue
I’m Looking For: People to play with just for the fun of playing around with random stuff from decks with no consistent win-condition until someone wins somehow. Preferably in a spectacular way for the most fun. I get really annoyed at times from all those boring streamlined decks where nothing interesting is happening from them and then they just consistently win with their win-condition in the most unexciting way possible. Either that or I get into non-games like against people that just play a deck for a quest/achievement or people that don't even seem to play to begin with. Because of stuff like that I would like to find new friends to play with because I know that Hearthstone can be a lot of fun. I'm not sure how or even if this will work out since I tried it in the past a few times but I guess I'll give it another shot because - once again and as usual - the game has become a little less fun overall for the reasons above.

And here above me (comment #8 from Thonson) you can see one of the big reasons they keeps things exclusive. It's basically a long tradition and they probably concluded from other companies doing it differently that for them it's not worth it to change it. I mean if they would experiment too much you would turn such people down and some more extreme already are turned down by some smaller things like certain card backs you can get from the collection with gold.

I personally really don't even understand the reasoning to be honest. Rewarding loyal player by giving them access to something exclusive... I guess it could make sense if... yeah, I'm totally on the opposite spectrum. Why care if some potential new friend can't also get it? Might as well not have it then I'd say. But of course that's just how I think of it. And yeah, people like us are in the minority. I'm pretty sure of that. And they don't get much from catering to a minority obviously. They always go for what the overall majority wants/likes. Thankfully part of that at least still are funny shenanigans like Yogg, lol.

As a Yogg enjoyer but also someone who cares if other people could have access to cool stuff and have fun the moment I saw the Diamond Yogg-Saron Unleashed I indeed did not falter and rushed to buy the golden mini-set but instead even dusted my golden Puzzleboxes and Master of Fate since when would I ever want that if I... actually it was the golden Prison of Yogg-Saron from the Tavern Pass of Titans now that I think about it.

But anyways; yes, that approach is certainly also discouraging me to spend money on the game. Unfortunately I think people like us are still just some small minority. Most people will happily buy this exclusive stuff for exactly that reason. Either that or a lot also probably don't really care much about it. We may as well think that "They surely would make more money if they just..." but realistically they did consider all of it and concluded that in fact most likely it would not be better for them in the long run.

I also don't understand it but it seems most people don't care about this; don't care that the other person also would like to have this cool thing and to have fun... I mean just look at some of the decks that people play; now more than ever it feels most people don't give a damn about their opponent and just want to do their own thing...

Well, I for one would very much wish they would do more good single player content (like Dalaran Heist and Tombs of Terror) again, but unfortunately that takes more effort and they can't charge much for it; to be honest in retrospect I'm surprised they could keep those dungeon run style adventures up for that long.

They could also add stuff to customize friendly games similar to Cho'gall (Twilight Chieftain) and I would happily pay for that. Instead we indeed got him with his Start of Game effect forcing it upon a potential tryhard that might be annoyed by it and therefore it only actives 50% of the time so it's less annoying? I'm not really sure; maybe they'll make it 100% once it rotates out of Standard.

It's a good example of how they generally approach things. It's something that can be really fun but to some other people also quite frustrating maybe. And instead of giving to option to play cool custom crazy friendly games to have fun they instead make it a generally bad or at least not too powerful card/effect but that indeed can be played in a "normal" game and be "forced" on the other person. Why? Because getting quickly into a game is probably quite important.

They are really trying to appease to everyone and as a trade-off it's basically "Jack of all Trades, Master of None". It's not a good competitive game, it's not a good casual game. Instead it's a mix of both and somehow that actually works out and brings in a ton of money for them.

And while the above was more about like the actual game play the exact same thing is true when it comes to the collective aspect of having access to this or that. A lot of people like exclusive stuff, a lot of people hate that. What they do is a little bit here and a little bit there.

Maybe, just maybe, one day they will reintroduce this or that in the shop. For one week, lol. Well, I don't know how long they generally have things around but I think Reno is no longer available and it felt like only one week. Now I feel bad for using him since I think he's already gone again; but Blizzard won again: I bought him because even for just one week it was really cool; I really wish more things would be readily available, but alas... it shall not be.

Quote from Zizka >>

I find it surprising that anyone would spend that much. The 600 bucks a year

 Maybe I forgot to mention but I was also going for the complete (normal) collection. Ever since Goblins vs. Gnomes where they leaned in more on the - as was said in the original trailer - "But of course you can forget all that and just have fun" aspect of the game; I decided that I wanted to try out all the fun stuff. And for a long time it really was. But nowadays... a lot of stuff feels super OP and unfun. Especially to play against (which to me is also very important) but even to play with. I have no real interest in even trying it out. It certainly saves me quite a lot of money, lol.

Generally speaking 50 per month (600 a year) on games doesn't seem that much. I think that's like almost or maybe not even enough for one of those so-called triple A games. What I didn't say was that indeed there is pretty much nothing else I spend money on other than Hearthstone. And at that time it really felt like it was money well spent. I had a lot of fun. I mean I still do have fun but... yeah, not as much; it doesn't feel like it's worth spending money anymore. After all... I mean I wrote it above; yeah. What I really hope for are some good social options/groups etc. But not even now with the 10 year anniversary and they even removed and are about to remove stuff: Fireside Gathering and Duels. I don't know how to feel about that.

I guess Hearthstone is still a fun game, but it's also sad to see all this "missed potential" of how much better the game could be. And considering that I should probably cut my spending even more. But of course I know I'm of a small minority so... yeah; whatever I guess.

Yeah, I feel like I play less and less with each expansion.

Pretty much since the introduction of the rewards track I would say the game has gone in a direction that I don't like. I used to go for 100% (normal) collection but I don't feel much excitement anymore. I guess part is also that I have already spent so much so I can dust old garbage for new stuff etc. But indeed I dropped from spending like 600 per year to maybe 60 at most.

One thing for example is those exclusive cosmetics which I hate. Is this supposed to be a single player game? At least for me I don't really want to use something that the other person can't get themselves anymore. I can't even begin to comprehend that some people even like this sort of exclusiveness for exactly this reason.

The main reason though is really the crazy powercreep or just how new cards are made maybe. It almost feels the game is becoming more like Legends of Runeterra which I played a bit. The annoying thing was that about everything was either rush them down quickly or crazy unbeatable end game win condition. Maybe for competitive people that's good but I really don't enjoy that. For example in HS we now have cards like Sargeras or Odyn. Those are such "terminal win conditions". What are you supposed to do against that? Should've gone face harder? Pull out an even crazier thing of your own?

I mean, to be fair, I only enjoy playing decks filled with RNG and Discover, with no real win condition. But I feel like such decks had a better chance in the past but now it's either go face or become god pretty much. A nice game of just playing your best and a lot of back and forth where eventually one player (on average the better player) wins are basically non-existent outside of friendly games.

This is where I still hope they will do something soon: The social aspect and playing with friends or meeting up with like-minded people in guilds etc. I personally think the game can be very fun with the right people. But just playing against random people is (at least for me) becoming less and less fun with each expansion. So I really hope they will improve on the social stuff. I tried it myself a few times in the past but it often felt weird and also there's only so much you can do. Some better social functions would do a lot for casual people like me. But maybe it's not bad enough for them to care yet or they will hone in on the competitive audience instead. It just feels like without them having to invest that much they could make it much more enjoyable for casual people like me. I would happily spend more on the game if it would feel like it actually is worth that much. Currently it really is not.

Wow, this deck is incredible!

(The only thing that sucks is the starting hero power but you can't really do much about it. Really wish there would be a start of game card that changed that to a random one or maybe even Discover.)

I probably will change Ethereal Peddler to E.T.C. Band Manager though because that way I can kinda have two more cards in the deck for a total of 41 different cards. I personally always really struggle with deck building since the deck size is so tiny even with Renathal but there are so many cool and awesome cards.

How do you come up with lists like this? For example there's also Assembly Line, Fool's Gold, Pilfer, Stick Up, Swashburglar, Potion Belt, Shell Game, Tooth of Nefarian, Plagiarizarrr, Velarok Windblade, Academic Espionage, ... Probably experience because I know that some of them are not so good. I also think that the higher cost ones (3+) are probably too slow or at least you shouldn't have too many in the deck. Also there's Shadowstep; what about Breakdance? And Cheat Death probably would be good as well. And with that what about Hanar? (I personally also like running him without any Secrets to begin with because that's even more fun trying to find a Secret for him to go on a Secret chain.) I swear if I could I would just like to put all fun cards in and then duplicate all that are 2 cost or lower and then I would end up with over 60, lol.

Well, however you do it, it's amazing. Keep up the great work. I remember your name; your decks are always super fun to play. (Maybe I should've commented earlier.) I can't wait for your next one so that as someone that struggles with deck building I have it easier. So often I just wouldn't know what to put in the deck and what to play. I even started a new account. So yes, thank you so much for this. It's really a hidden gem (speaking of which what about that card and that reminds me of Watcher of the sun and that reminds me of other cool neutral cards like Sketchy Stranger and Hipster... lol, anyways) among all those other rather "tryhard decks" on this site. I wish there would be more fun decks like this one around here. Thank you so much!

Oh wow, that really feels like a punch in the gut. While to me most of the expansion looks rather meh I was really excited for the new Whizbang. But not only to play with him but most importantly to play against him. It's an amazing card that I think most people would love to at least try it out a few times for the fun of it. I was really looking forward to the first few weeks with tons of games with and against the new Whizbang but now... I don't know...

The most annoying thing here is that I can't really do anything about it. I can't buy it for other people to then play against it. This thing is something that I started to notice recently. I don't care that much what I can play as long as it's somewhat fun and having started a few months ago a new account I can say that part is super easy. (New Player experience has improved a lot IMO.) The part that always gets in the way is what the opponent plays and of course it's most often just some optimized decks that just tries to win. Either that or a bot with a super boring basic deck. Well, maybe that's just my experience but you get the idea.

I really have to say that for me I realized that it makes basically no sense to spend money anymore. And that despite me liking many aspects especially the great work with the little details like visuals and sounds. But what do I actually get when I spend money? I can only adjust my deck. What if I am fine with what I've got but would still like to have fun? If they would sell access to a single player mode where you can play against your own decks played by the innkeeper that would make sense for me to buy maybe. But all this other stuff especially all those fancy but limited cosmetics? No, why should I buy that? But it seems this is the way they have chosen for Hearthstone.

I guess in the end this expansion as the 10 year anniversary has made me realize that indeed a lot has changed. My personal favorite period was the Year of the Dragon with a really awesome theme throughout the year but most importantly Dungeon-Run type Solo Adventures were still a thing and at an all-time high. After that... yeah, a lot of things have changed and to me it feels like it's often not as exciting anymore and a lot revolves around things I don't care about. Cosmetics, achievements, optimized decks. I just want to have fun with cards like the new Whizbang. But now people need to spend resources instead of getting it for free.

I suppose that is their plan. People are so excited about the new Whizbang that they would directly or more likely indirectly spend money to get to play with it. The problem is that I think it might not actually be so fun if not a lot of people play with him. Now the problem with giving him out for free is of course that they wouldn't be able to directly monetize that. It's one of those things I really don't like about Hearthstone. The actual cool cards that are fun for both players are extremely hard to monetize because they require the opponent to also "play for fun" but the default is "play to win".

What I was really hoping for the 10 year anniversary was some kind of overhaul of the social functionalities. Currently Hearthstone is certainly not a game where it's like you like walk into a friendly tavern, sit down at a table and just start a fun game of Hearthstone. It could be though. But not with the current setup. What did they do instead? Recently they shut down fireside gatherings completely. IMO that was not a bad start if they wouldn't tie it down to some specific actual IRL location. But no, instead of improving it they rather remove it completely. I'm not sure how much they could do because of the overall battle-net client but I mean in a game like World of Warcraft you also don't need to first accept friend request to talk to people so in some form or another it could be done. But yeah, it seems like they don't want Hearthstone to be a social game; something I really would like since I love the silly shenanigans like Yogg and whatnot.

I recently made a new account and when I face those Blizzard bots I often switch because it's just a little boring and whatnot. (Those bots are only in Standard.) And honestly? Yeah, it feels like almost no difference whatsoever. Sometimes you might face something even crazier than what is currently in Standard but often it's pretty much the same. You might die early because they are playing a "face" deck where even if you don't die they just run out of cards and lose so it's also really boring often or they get around and play their OP "win condition" and you just know you probably don't really have a chance anymore or of course you lose eventually in one turn to some disgusting combo you can't do anything about anymore. To be fair I only enjoy and play silly RNG/Discover decks that don't abuse some OP shit because I just want to have some fun making random stuff work. Seriously, I have the Mage Titan in my deck but one time where I got it to do some good work it felt way too OP. Or even Ignis sometimes, like Windfury and summon a random 8-cost minion after attacking on the weapon? But yeah, sometimes it really feels like you "need" those to even stand a chance... I don't even know anymore. Hearthstone is not the same game anymore. I wish there would be better social options to better find and play with people. That way I could find other people that also don't play such crazy high power level decks and have more fun. Currently I'm very surprised myself but I often just go to Battlegrounds and except for the insane end game where "everything feels like Jade Druid" it's often quite a lot of fun. 

Strange that Ranked/Casual wasn't mentioned yet. In Ranked it seems wrong. I'm no "tryhard" but isn't it part of Ranked also that you face such boring decks and beat them? But for Casual I would be all for it. Although I'm not sure how helpful it really would be.

For example with Shudderwock you can play it with various cards to make the game uninteractive for the opponent or with fun stuff like Yogg and such. What would I even ban for that? Certainly not Shudderwock because with the right Battlecries it can be really fun; I also have a deck like that.

On the other hand though there are cards that are just plain boring and annoying that would be an easy ban for me like Dew Process, Steam Cleaner, all the Jade cards, ... but also so much more ... Astalor, Sire Denathrius, Alexstrasza, ... so, I'm not sure how many cards I would even end up banning; maybe it would reach like 100 even, lol.

But what would it really accomplish? Would it be worth it? For me personally? Probably not honestly. I could still face annoying decks where all the individual cards are fine but in combination are super annoying. So the idea is kinda good and I still do like it but at the same time it probably isn't worth it.

What I would do instead is some "Good Game" rating system. Basically every month just like Ranked rewards you get some stuff based on your "rating". After each game you can say "Good Game" to your opponent. Was it a good game; a game you enjoyed playing; or... you know, a super annoying tedious game you didn't like at all? Just give people the option to say if it was fun to them or not and then reward people that make the game enjoyable for their opponents. Seems super simple and obvious to me. It would certainly make the game more enjoyable. At least for "casuals" like me. The only question is if it should be active in competitive modes like... anything except Casual, right? lol Yeah... that's also a far fetched idea I feel like, but... at least for Casual it really should be a thing. Yeah, how about a Casual reward chest? This time it's not about winning as many games as possible but actually playing fun games that the opponent enjoys as well! Now that would be awesome, wouldn't it?