Hearthstone Needs More Game Modes - What New Modes Could They Create?
Game modes are always an interesting topic in the Hearthstone community. Originally, the game on release had regular play through Ranked and an Arena mode originally called The Forge. Over time we received Tavern Brawls and Adventures which made for some other great content to play through, though that doesn't run all the time.
Without a doubt, the Hearthstone team is still interested in adding more modes to the game though, proven with Dungeon Run being added in the Kobolds & Catacombs expansion, though PVE content isn't for everyone.
Clearly, Hearthstone needs more game modes!
We've been thinking about it recently and had a couple of ideas we thought were worth bringing up to encourage community discussion to see what ideas other people have. We're interested in different ways of drafting cards much like the Arena, so we're going to talk about that!
The modes described below both share a unique attribute Hearthstone doesn't currently have in that it would be something played upon entry and not something you can play over time like Arena. You'd also be paired up with an opponent (maybe even multiple people - tournaments?) and we think playing a few matches against them, best of 3, would be a better test of skill and make the processes more worthwhile.
Idea #1 - Pack Draft
Hearthstone's Arena is modelled after a traditional card game drafting tournament but downscaled for one player. What would normally happen is a pack of cards is opened and each player participating in the draft event take turns picking cards from the packs until they're all gone, which ends up being a very lengthy process.
Blizzard themselves has stated having a true draft would take too long, so why not draft packs of cards instead of single cards, taking turns between players?
- You end up in a lobby with your opponent(s) where pack selection can take place.
- In order, each player takes one pack from the pool of packs until all packs are exhausted. Pack contents are visible.
- You build a deck using the cards opened from your packs in a limited amount of time and then fight!
Idea #2 - Mirrored Sealed
Similar to the first idea, you're going to receive a brand new set of cards to build your tournament deck with, but there's no drafting phase at all!
- Each player receives the exact same collection of cards from randomly opened packs.
- You're given a set amount of time to build your deck using the cards opened from those packs.
One neat take away from this idea is that it can add some serious depth and mind games to the deckbuilding process. You have the exact same cards, who can build and play the stack they're dealt better?
What do You Think?
Polls are awesome and we'd like to know what you think. Which of our ideas do you think is better and even more importantly, what ideas do you have for new game modes?
Seems like this would get old pretty fast.
Would there be an admission price to this new game mode?
Two headed giant
Shared life total, take turns together.
I miss mode to play with my friends. In magic, we were buing packs to play in closed draft. (In costructed one with $$ and top tier decks were always winning)
I would extend fireside gathering to have tournaments like arena among friends. This could even cost 150 gold to participate.
I would also change way how to organize firesides. Create instant gathering from game itself.
A dedicated tournament mode.
That is all.
A customizeable tournament mode where you can either make your own tournament or enter blizzard sponsored tournaments. Tournaments held by players won't have any in game reward for winning, but the event tournaments can have gold, packs, or even hct points as a reward.
Tournament Mode or Tournament-Style Ladder (ie. Best of 3 Conquest Matches).
Competitive. For those who don't mind dropping money, play the same rules as the professional players do. 3 decks. Bans. Leaderboards. Top 20 go to worlds or whatever. Leave ladder be ladder, it's not that great anyways, you get a card back for god sakes and barely anything for hitting legendary.
I always envisioned that arena should have been modeled after actual pack drafts from other card games, instead of going the way that the format has gone by purposefully excluding worse cards from drafts so that you could never have to pick from weaker/more niche cards. A true blind draft would require you make the best out of anything you were possibly given from packs/card selections.
make a new card game
I don't think you can easily bolt drafting on to a game that wasn't designed for it from the start.
e.g. Hearthstone's nine classes is a hell of a lot for a draft .. you are going to have a LOT of cards that you can't use.
1 - Game Mechanics Test: where you can create any board and put any card in your hand to test specific situations... like card effect orders (to avoid missplays), for example...
2 - 2 friends vs 2 friends on coop 2v2... sharing 60 life and modified card effects.. like Alextraza sets life to 30...
Didn’t like any of those, I would like more hidden quests and 20 gold every 3 wins
I just had an idea for a new Tavern Brawl. Sure this isn't a new mode, but this is a really cool idea. The idea is the brawl plays like a game of Gwent. Every player has 1 mana and only gets one mana, however every card is also worth 1 mana. So you can only play one card at a time. To make up for this, hero powers will be 0 mana. It would be a really cool change of pace.
one of the bosses from the Blackrock adventure works similar to what you've described. except he gets 2 mana and has super opopie big minions like maxo-tank
I feel like in draft packs they should let you keep your deck, as in adds the cards to your collection
also a 60 card 3 normal cards and 2 legendaries could be cool
you can't disenchant stuff while making this sort of deckbut pre-owned cards go up to 3 copies and 2 copies
I really want to see a tournament mode where players can compete in bests of 3 matches. I would be fine if the entrance was higher than areana say 300 or 400 gold but if you can place in the top 2 of the tournament you get larger pay off prizes of gold. This would be a mode for competitive players to really feel rewarded for good play but not something everyone would need to take part in. I really like the sealed draft idea as well Im just wondering how expansions would work maybe they would have a separate pack with multiple adventures bundeled in one pack? There are less cards in expansions than regular sets so it would feel less varied opening a nax pack.
Battle Royale
A permenant co-op boss battle
3rd ladder that allows only basic, classic and cards from the latest expansion.
Such ladder would give various "interesting but not strong enough" that exist in every expansion time and place to shine