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?
1- Basic + common card decks only.
Would allow ALOT more creativity for deck building and will allow people with small collections to "be good" at the game.
2- Practice mode that allows you to test cards you don't own. (Vs innkeeper using a decent deck)
Can't even tell you how many times I've crafted legendaries and epics only to regret it and disenchant them later.
3- 2 player coop which would probably be too hard to make and wouldn't fit in android mode.
4- Pick your brawl out of all the brawls that we've had.
5- Ranked mode being able to ban class. (Yes I hate cubelock)
How bout a free to play-no legendaries mode?
Imagine Dungeon Runs without bullshit final bosses.. yeah that would be fun.
Not really a new game mode I have in mind, but I'd love to see some old PvE Bosses added as random encounters to Casual mode with nice little prices if you can beat them. Or maybe have weaker versions of some Tavern Brawl bosses like Mechazod and Nefarian randomly appear at the start of the game, turning a VS into a Co-op match. Would encourage players to use different decks that are also good for irregular opponents. Just giving that mode something unique that underlines the fun aspect of it.
Other than that, I'd be curious to see how a 2v2 mode would look like.
Ranked speed mode. Turns are over in 5 seconds. Every card you play adds 3 seconds. Time stops when cards do their things.
you just gave my phone a heart attack
1) Constructed Arena (i.e. Constructed mode with a buy in and increasing rewards up to 12 wins, basically a Heroic Tavern Brawl with a reasonable buy-in or the Brawliseum event just announced)
2) House rules mode for friendly matches (i.e. increase/decrease starting health, ban certain card types/tribes/raries/costs, increase starting mana, permanent spell damage/attack/health auras, increase/decrease deck size, access to all cards)
I want a control mode where you start with 60 health, Alexstrasza is banned and you can have up to 100 cards in your deck, minimum 30.
And when you win a match with 100 cards you will prove that you do not value time at all
Kay, I'll just blow people up with over 60 damage with Aviana K'Thun deck to punish super greedy and slow control decks then :P
Doesn't matter how many cards somebody is allowed to have in their deck if they aren't going to try and kill you, but instead waste so much time eeking out value over incremental minion trades.
Yeah you might do that while most others will just queue up with Quest Mage and wreck face :P
I guess every deck would have to run 2x Dirty Rat and Loatheb as auto-includes and games would just end whenever you hit your tech card....sounds pretty boring actually :/
What we need is a 2vs2 and 3 vs 3 that would be great :D
I think a Classic Card Only mode would be fun.
Eh, zoolock would be the top tier deck in that mode since it was already extremely strong back before GvG was released. The meta thrived off of the warlock deck that could take advantage of so many powerful common and rare 1 & 2 drops that could swarm the board easy and then take further advantage of having the most powerful hero power in the game to not run out of steam/board presence.
This thread is pathetically subjective. I don't know who came up with these two modes that I haven't seen any HS player really asking for.
Why isn't 2v2 there as a poll option? Why isn't TOURNAMENT MODE there as a poll option?
It seems to me like these are the options that Blizzard told you to ask us, as if we're given any choice in the matter. It is obvious that if you cared about what the player base and your forum users actually want, you'd at least include these two options in the poll, as they were undoubtedly the most voiced request for game modes, at least on hearthpwn, ever.
We asked for comments, you didn't provide anything constructive so... why not?