Dean Ayala Asks: What Would Get You Back Into Hearthstone?
Hearthstone's Dean "Iksar" Ayala had a question for those that used to main Hearthstone as a game but no longer do.
What do they need to do to get you back?
We're actually quite interested in knowing too. With many old Hearthstone players still frequenting our site to see what the game is up to or to chat with old friends, there has to be something the Hearthstone team could do to reel you back in?
Quote from Dean AyalaIf Hearthstone used to be your main game but isn't anymore, what would get you back?
Rearranging decks is a great place to start!
Also the end of season rewards are really garbage for a whole month of play imo, just not worth it (they are already reducing the number of stars, so they must realize something too).
I'd also like it if they had an "experiemental" mode that would be like the ladder but with a short ban/restricted list that would change every week. This would be similar to tournaments in a way, and it would be a nice way to freshen the meta. Instead of "looking at" certain cards, they could have a mode where they are just banned for a week (imagine a meta with Keleseth or DK's or whatever banned for a week).
Furthermore on that point of keeping the meta fresh, I think they should also try rotating the oldest set out as each new one comes in. It would totally revamp the way they design and balance cards. The way it is now, they have to kinda structure the sets around Set #1 being the baseline and sets #2 and #3 being support, more or less, for Set #1. Not sure how it would all play out, but I think it's viable. It would also mean you always have the same amount of cards in the Standard pool at any time. Synergies and archetypes would be more fleeting, which gives everyone a chance to play what they want, instead of grinding the same archetypes for 6+ months after a meta is established.
nerf/rework silence! that keyword singlehandedly makes buff based deck useless
more armor or something that makes the gameplay more interesting than trading minion. rush is a mistake
i had a game where whenever i play minion, i feel i'll be fined and thats not good
They already nerfed silence man, well not exactly (they nerfed ironbeak owl and spell breaker) and those cards still see play. It doesn’t matter how much you nerf silence they’ll eventually release a card with such a great effect (voidlords, spike ridged steed to name a couple) that they’ll see play again. And that’s ok, because silence is the counter to these cards and it allows the devs to print really amazing ideas with lots of value on cards knowing there’s a counter in game.
I want innovation in terms of new mechanics, like what the Quests and Hero Cards were at the time.
I don't want a new expansion to just have 1 or 2 boring new Keywords and other than that just more of the same.
New Archetypes would be nice as well! Warlock for example still feels the same as 3 years ago.
Bring back expansions that are related to WoWs lore. Best expansions were Whispers Of The Old Gods,Knights Of The Frozen Throne,Naxxramas...and they all represent a major event in history of WoW. I could care less about stuff like Boomsday Project or Kobolds and Catacombs because they are almost nonexistent in the WoW universe.
To be able to buy old adventures and packs.
Achivements
Put cards from the wild set into the classic. Like reversed hall of faming.
Bring back adventures. Maybe only 1 per year
Better rewards and new rewards like going up a rank gets you 10 gold or winning 5 games in a row gets you 20 gold or something like that
No more bad epic...
Built-in tournamens. 2 vs 2. Being able to challenge a Friends with specific rules, like 10 sec turns etc, "custom" games
More things to aspire to do. Once you got your Legendary card back and all Golden Heroes there isn`t much left in the game to look forward to. Which could be:
Reworked leveling system. Like Overwatch and when Heroes 2.0 launched. Leveling should be infinite and feel rewarding. Maybe with portrait frames, other cosmetics, packs, gold, and dust.
An Arena Champion card back for hitting the Leaderboard. Could add one for the other game modes, let people show that they are not just a Legendary player, but a top Legendary player.
A card back for having all 9 Heroes Golden. And one for having all Heroes at max level.
Add Cosmetics which can only be purchased with a ton of gold. Give us something to save up and grind towards. Like a hero, special bling bling emote or golden/treasure goblin card back.
I feel like I can`t recommend the game to friends because of how little I get for my money. Even as an avid Hearthstone player I rarely preorder expansions. 23 legendaries per expansion. Only getting 2-4 of them for 50euro just isn`t enough. Make it much easier to complete a collection, but instead, make getting a golden card way more special.
Switch focus back to neutral minions. Don`t always dictate which classes takes which cards. Take a card like Lakkari Sacrifice It`s obviously best in Warlock, but what if I wanted to try something gimmicky in another class by combining it with Deathwing?
Release new cards in Tavern Brawls. Remember when Marin the Fox got released early and people experimented with it a little? Have some new cards trickle out during the whole year. Getting a new card in tavern brawl is much more special and something worth logging in to get. And if you miss out on a card, it`s not a big deal as long you can just craft the ones from weeks that you missed.
The flaw with this question is that the sample size is heavily biased towards people who have NOT left HS. With that said, I have a couple friends who used to play but no longer do, their reasons are very similar:
As they got excited about they game, they spent some money on it, around $100 each. They left the game after realizing that rotations erode their playable card collection and unless they continue to spend, or craft hundreds of missing wild cards, they stand no chance in this game. I've dedicated a higher budget and spent it a lot more frugally, which is why I'm still enjoying the game. Basically, the concept of rotations is more likely to lose players who HAVE spent some money on the game (the very people Blizzard wants to keep) but do not have deep wallets to spend more than those who are completely F2P.
I also remember that when I was first starting out, I couldn't really play anything except Arena as I was missing a ton of cards. Adding more modes one could enjoy without having a large collection would help. The solo modes are fun, but lack multiplayer experience. Even if I decide to observe a friend, I can't see the card buckets or treasures they're offered, which detracts significantly from the experience.
Looks like I choose the right time to pay the once in blue moon visit to this site.
Make it more F2P friendly. Legendaries cost 800 dust, epic 200, rare 80, and commons about 30. During the boomsday expansion I gathered 8000 gold and 6k dust. I still failed to keep up. This system is obviously full of shit. Hence why I abandoned it in that expansion.
Make the adventures a thing again. Let's be real, the only reason you got rid of them for more expansions is greed, everything else is pretense.
The pricing of packs with gold is alright, and idk if the real life prices are still the same but if a single pack still costs 2 dollar then oh boy.
That is about it. Stop trying to force people to spend money and they will come to your game, you have about everything else (Save balancing) right, don't let your greed screw it up.
Definitely Achievements!
For Blizzard they are relatively easy to implement, but have a large outcome. Many people simply love grinding for achievements!
I don't even need rewards in the form of gold or dust (but would not complain if) - special titles for your hero/avatar and cosmetics/frames would be enough.
On top of that, achievements would encourage players to build new decks, to try creative things in order to achieve the goals. In casual mode or in a completely new game mode - I don't care. Even simple achievements such as "Play 100/1'000/10'000 Mechs (while winning the match)" would result in much larger deck variety, if at the end a player can decorate themself with a title like "Vanquisher of the Mechs" or whatever.
tournament mode. We were promised a beta version last year.
Rotate the evergreen set. It doesn't even need to be new cards. Take cards from older sets and rotate them in place of other cards.
OK so ... I still play hearthstone but ay less than I did when it first launched ... I mostly just play for the monthly card back and then stop. I have been screwing around in solo mode but get stuck and frustrated by poorly balanced matchups in the solo modes.
To get me back playing on the ladder or playing on any ladder whatsoever I would need some things to provide me an incentive me to play more. And if I could have even a few of these (especially #7) I believe that it would give me some incentive to come back.
=D13=
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1) An in game currency "hearthstones" that could be spent to gain any character skin (5 hearthstones) or any cardback you do not have (3 hearthstones) or traded for some amount of dust (maybe 800). This currency would be purchasable with gold or gained via quests or card packs (see below).
2) A better "quest" interface that would allow for more quests. Lets say 5 daily quests that fill at a rate of 2 per day and one weekly quest slot that would award a "hearthstone".
3) Better card packs. Increase to 6 cards and a chance at a "hearthstone" in place of rare card. Could be same as legendary chance with a pity timer. Also guarantee one (common - rare) card per pack of a card that you do not already have in your collection (unless you have whole collection in both regular and golden).
4) better dust economy. Simply double the disenchanting rewards. Add a chance to also get one "hearthstone" when you dust a Legendary.
5) Rewards when you reach a run on the ladder tier 20 and above. Card packs would probably be best but make it like an arena award with increased awards at each rung 20, 15, 10, 5, Legend.
6) An in game system where I can view the ladders. D3 had great ladder visibility. Show me Wild, Standard, and Arena. You could show the top 100 and highlight where you are specifically. The Arena ladder could show the average win rate for the best whatever runs that month.
7) A new limited play mode. Make it like arena with a constructed deck. Same buy in as arena and same level of rewards. Win 12 or lose 3 and it ends. This would effectively be a loose constructed tournament mode.
8) An expanded brawling system. First add a calendar that would show which brawls are available each week. Make three brawls available per week and let players select which ones they want to play. Reward players for each different brawl they win a game in that week. Add a ladder to each brawl that would show the top 10 players with the best win percentage for that brawl (and your percentage). And a way to view each brawl and where you have placed. Lastly add a way to challenge friends to a friendly game of any previous brawl for no reward(except those arena ones).
Monthly balancing changes of around 20 or so cards, bringing down over performers, and for a change bringing up under performers that could reinvent the meta every month with unique abilities and interactions that sadly don't see play currently due to the aforementioned underperformance.
A big issue with constructed game is that if you have maxed all the classes and you have done the dailies, losing the match means you wasted the entire match and the time spent for it to LOSE a star. This means you would have done better if you never started that match at all. For me this is a big reason I prefer arena over constructed these days and hope it would be addressed some way.
In addition, two quality of life features I wish are a possibility to rearrange the order of our decks and an option to randomize the card back you have in every game (this feature was mentioned over a year ago)
Better and smarter board clears.
Defile likes this coment, board clears like those are really good desingned card.
- adventures: adventures are fun to play and everybody can buy it for gold
- cheaper game: we really don't need crappy legendaries and epics 3 times a year.... I don't want to buy packs for real money and open Harbringer Celestia....
- not so stable meta: change of the rotation system (one expansion in, one out)
- new achievements and titles which can be seen by your opponent
- in-game statistics
- change of ladder reward system and general reward system (more gold or more dust, or free common/rare cards for every 4-5 win)
- healthy meta (and no OP cards, like Barnes, Kingsbane, Baku etc)
- Lower price for packs or easyer way to get cards like more gold for wins
- No cape on 100 gold for wins
- More chance for legendary cards
You do realize this would actually encourage people to bot instead of play the game?