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?
The problem with Hearthstone is that, despite the fact that each expansion has a bunch of interesting new cards, only the same few cards are used over and over again with just a few quirky ones added here and there. I understand that this is the natural result of players only wanting to use the best cards, so it's always going to be an issue in ranked. It's also a problem caused by OP Mammoth cards and we're all waiting to see what happens at rotation. I hope that devs will look into proactive solutions though that could help to enrich the game with much more card diversity.
I think what Hearthstone needs is a fresh, entirely new game mode and I personally would adore one that is designed to get players to use all these extra cards that never see play. How about an alternative wonky Arena full of weird cards like Stolen Steel and Totem Cruncher? Or how about a constructed Arena that tailors your rewards to what cards you have in your deck? The more rarely used Totem Cruncher type of cards you have in your deck, the higher the rewards, so you have to balance the competitiveness of the deck with the value you get from making it as meme as possible. (So the rewards for putting Toki and Griftah in your deck have to be good enough.)
Give us a free to play draft format, even if it only offers the standard win rewards, so I can draft arena decks without needing to grind a game mode I have negative interest in experiencing any further in its current state, and even then, I would need to see some serious changes to the worst RNG slot machine cards before I would consider going back to the game even just for arena. A card like Academic Espionage is indicative of the state of the game, and really shows why I have no intent to return at this point in time.
WoW-like acheivement sistem. That would surely make me return to the game!
At least I think that there are few different ways how to approach this...
First: I've been playing HS since the open beta and i loved it .. Even when tgere was no such diversity as it is right now it was still funny because everybody was more or less equal... Maybe if you gave to each player in the first week of the expansion option to create deck which they want (And afterwards they wouldn't be able to change it but they would have this option they can play one deck without the need to have these cards in their card collection
Second: One thing that I really really hate is the fact there are too many aggro decks (Zoolock, odd/even paladin, even shaman, hunters and stuff like this) and if youwant to play slow decks you can either put a hell of a lot board clears into your deck... In that case you don't even have time to play these cards which you wanted to play this particular deck.... Aggro decks either kill you or run out of steam (which don't happen very often these days)... So I would love if they get somehow nerfed because control decks don't have any kind of advantage against them
Third: God please add achievements into the game. The game is with us for 5 years or so and we still don't have any kind of achievments. You can give gold or packs for them it's just up to you just add something that reward us for playing ... Now we have just some kind of hidden achievments that will make you happy when you get 100 or 300 gold but there is so much bigger potential for achiemnets in game like HS... Or golden hero is also some kind of achievment but... I just ask you give the achievment system
Passionate thread here. 340+ posts already with half of them walls of text. Way to go!!
As someone who has played off and on since the GvG time:
1) Achievements that take a long time to complete! After your first time reaching Legend, it feels like there isn't much to work towards. And I really like the PvE content, I just want there to be a reason to play it over again.
2) Hall of Fame Genn and Baku. I don't hate those cards, but I dont know if I can tolerate another year of them. I like when there are multiple semi-viable ways to play classes. (Hunter and Priest right now come to mind as good examples of diverse classes). But every aggro Paladin list is just strictly worse than Odd Paladin. Just as every control warrior deck is strictly worse than Odd Warrior. Also, Odd and Even decks just feel like they do the same exact thing every game; I like a little variance based on when I draw certain cards.
3) More disruption against OTK decks. Mojomaster Zihi is absolutely my favorite card right now. I enjoy games when my opponent and I interact with each other's strategy.
4) More instances of new cards introduced to the game per year. The Elder Scrolls Legends does a really good job of introducing drops of like 10 meta-relevant cards midway between expansions. Imagine if Mojomaster had come out midway through the Druid dominance between Boomsday and Rastakhan. Nerfs will always be a bit controversial...new cards will not! Also, new cards feel like more proactive changes to the meta than reactive nerfs
Played since beta - the $$$$ you need to spend to have most of the good legendaries, epics and rares is RIDICULOUS especially considering you need to do it 3 times a year if you want to play all the expansions. With less money I can buy a few new games with ALL of their content.
I don't care that most if not all CCGs are like this, when I pay 50$ - I pay 50$. And after I pay don't have even half good legendaries, its 50$ I wasted and I don't like to waste my money.
I'm 30 years old with stable and well above average income for my country so I can afford it, but its a bad investment for entertainment.
1. If OTK is going to be a thing, then there should be more cards that interact with your opponent's hand, deck, and graveyard. Currently OTK decks are not interactive because their win condition does not require any board presence. There are lots of creative ways this could be done without completely making the archetype unplayable, such as cards that stuff your opponent's hand or deck with useless cards, force draws, discards, steal or transform cards in these zones, secrets, etc
2. Improve pace of play. Roping one turn to make a particularly tough decision is okay... roping every turn is not. Maybe a have a chess clock like mechanic, or a shorter base time for each turn with any extra seconds that are unused carried over from one turn to the next.
3. I would like to see a larger base set. As sets are rotated out of standard, select some cards from those sets to add to the classic set. Key tech cards like Kezan Mystic would be good candidates and would make it such that there wouldn't need to be a slightly different replacement version reprinted every other year. Other "toolbox" cards that add a new dimension to the game and are well balanced (like the rogue secrets) too.
4. How about an occasional buff for some unplayed cards that add a neat mechanic to the game but are unplayable, cards like kidnapper? Especially where it would shake up the meta and enable new deck archetypes.
Ultimately the game is limited due to its simplicity. The interface and "one lane" design which ports well to PC and mobile can only be taken so far no matter what new Keywords or other gimmicks are developed. The game just becomes stale as I am starting to realize. The same way I finally realized when I left WoW after eight years from launch........
I agree with what’s being said with less nerf’s with the older cards. But there isn’t even much content for us people in New Zealand can’t access e.g fireside brawl..
You do realize that by axing OTKs and combos (Togwaggle isn't an OTK, but simply a combo deck) that you're reducing the number of different mechanics and strategies in the game right? How does reducing the strategies players can use make the game more interesting exactly?
Do we honestly want to go back to the days of vanilla HS where only certain classes dominated a single plastyle (such as hunter & lock for aggro, warlock for control, or hunter/shaman/paladin for old midrange?)
And sorry but you are dead wrong. MANY of these mechanics were in fact thinking outside of the box. Before Togwaggle we never had any form of strategy that involved a combo to out control your opponent by trying to take control of the fatigue game through card swapping. Before Mecha'Thun? Point me in the direction of any card that provided you with a substantial (or any) benefit of trying to use all of your cards without dying?
Just because you have an obvious bias for & against certain playstyles that doesn't mean that they didn't create very unique strategies that never had existed in the game before.
Just for a digressing side note, I could say that warped/power creeped control classes *coughwarlockcoughwarriorcoughpriestcoughmage* create their own issues with seemingly unescapable or depressing attrition games when playing under dog control classes (namely paladin, shaman, rogue, & druid). I remember back in the day when warlock controled the control scene with Handlock and later variants of non-handlock control lists that had answers for every kind of greedy board you had. Let's not even talk about the nightmare that came from the old control priest stealing/copying all of your best cards multiple times (because let's face it highrolls existed before Big Priest). You think combos & otks cause the problems but I'd argue that it is a major class limiting design issue to always inflate warlock, warrior, priest, & mage with all of the good control classes while shoving rogue, shaman, & paladin into tempo/midrange/aggro that always gets nerfed anyway.
I'm a pretty veteran player, not like the people who played since the beta, but I joined during GvG, so yeah.
There are several reasons why I ended up quitting the game, but firt and foremost:
-Classes began to lose their identity. They nerfed almost all the good cards each class had in the basic set, and nowadays (or when I stopped playing) every class felt the same. It was really boring.
-Griding the ladder was not rewarding at all. Getting legend for the first time was exciting. Getting legend for the 20th time not so much. There was just no point since the game wouldn't reward you at all, and there was no longer anything to prove to myself or anyone else.
-It's extremely expensive to have fun in this game. Sure, you can actually compete as a f2p crafting a couple of cheap meta decks, but in order to have fun you need a lot of cards to experiment with different decks and combinations. As a veteran player who spent pretty much $50 every expansion, I COULDN'T DO THAT. I couldn't have fun with the game I spent the most money with in my life. Hence I dropped it. Fair enough?
Is 30 health for Hero enough given power creep?
Do you think being able to cast 3 (or more) 20 damage Mind Blasts is fair?
Is being able to draw your entire deck by turn 10 fair? (auctioneer, acolyte, etc)
Stop nerfing the classic and basic sets. They are not the problem and we (some of us) know it
Let's hypothetically suppose that 90% of the legendary cards are necessary to win games and rank up. I contend that most (70% or more) of the free-to-play players would leave.
Why? Because if you have to have a multiple legendary cards to win and rank up and then every player will need very likely at least 4 to 7 legendary cards to build a decent deck. And if one doesn't want to pay for cards...then what do you do?
Answer? You make 90% of the legendary cards "useless and gimmicky" so that ftp players don't leave the game.
Blizzard doesn't really have a choice in the matter if they want to keep ftp players coming back for more.
You got a better idea than removing all the gimmicky legendary cards without destroying the player base?
Mate I am all for FTP, I wouldn’t say anything against FTP players. What I meant they print way too many useless cards which can not be played. They should bring back the adventures, adventures are the best thing ever happened to Heartstone. If they really want to help FTP players, they should stop printing fillers.
Closed beta player. Lost interest in Hearthstone around MSOG with the release of Jade Idol which killed all control decks.
1- Interactivity; (FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!)
2- End all non interactive OTK combos since they limit deck building creativity OR more neutral disruptor cards like Dirty Rat;
3- Less cassino RNG / more manageable RNG; (discover effects and Dyn-o-matic)
4- Every snowball card printed NEEDS a proper counter that hurts their tempo;
5- Powerplays NEED to have real risks or just be completely removed from the game;
sorry if my english is not good:
- First: The game is not as balanced as other games. Currently Hunter is too strong. While the Shaman is too weak -> the diversity is severely reduced, making matches boring (I have met 8 Hunter in 10 rank mode games). I really recommend that Blizz should pay attention to the reaction of the HS community and have more revisions.
- Second: Arena Mode is a great mode for players to try cards. So why not put all cards ( WILD ) inside. It increases diversity and is no longer a boring phenomenon when it comes to choosing strong cards even at different Arena moves.
- 3rd: Why doesn't the game upgrade and create new things more than usual? Like Dota, they added new Autochess mode and were extremely successful. So what are the disadvantages of card games? That is the lack of team element. Everyone has to admit that it is more fun to play with friends than having to fight with your friends. I think Blizz should create a rank 2vs2 mode to increase teamwork. I know that adding it will have a lot of difficulties in adjusting, balancing and the way it works, but if you're afraid, it's hard not to post a comment and find a way to "Comeback".
- P / S: If you really want to make gamers come back to students, be more creative. I also have ideas for developing 2vs2 mode but it is not convenient to talk here. If necessary, contact email address: haivldx123@gmail.com
sorry if my english is not good:
- First: The game is not as balanced as other games. Currently Hunter is too strong. While the Shaman is too weak -> the diversity is severely reduced, making matches boring (I have met 8 Hunter in 10 rank mode games). I really recommend that Blizz should pay attention to the reaction of the HS community and have more revisions.
- Second: Arena Mode is a great mode for players to try cards. So why not put all cards ( WILD ) inside. It increases diversity and is no longer a boring phenomenon when it comes to choosing strong cards even at different Arena moves.
- 3rd: Why doesn't the game upgrade and create new things more than usual? Like Dota, they added new Autochess mode and were extremely successful. So what are the disadvantages of card games? That is the lack of team element. Everyone has to admit that it is more fun to play with friends than having to fight with your friends. I think Blizz should create a rank 2vs2 mode to increase teamwork. I know that adding it will have a lot of difficulties in adjusting, balancing and the way it works, but if you're afraid, it's hard not to post a comment and find a way to "Comeback".
- P / S: If you really want to make gamers come back to students, be more creative. I also have ideas for developing 2vs2 mode but it is not convenient to talk here. If necessary, contact email address: haivldx123@gmail.com
Tournament system