As a returning player to HS after 2 year break, I've just tried duels couple of times and it looks quite cool and fun. However I get the impression that its a dead game mode and mostly because of the first impressions it gave me when trying it out a bit. First of all its styled as arena and not a ranked game mode in which you can just enter and play it for free. The fact alone that you have to spend gold to participate and earn rewards makes the duels a no go for me.
The fact that the option to spend gold/money to participate even exists makes the "non-committing" version of it obsolete and a waste of time. I mean why would I spend time on that part of HS when I can push for ranks on ladder or even battlegrounds ratings. And then why would someone who is new to the game or duels in general want to give up precious resources to compete in a game mode they're inexperienced in when there's the good old Arena that everyone can easily understand.
All in all what I wanted to say is the way duels is designed (not the actual game mode but the approach to the game mode) isn't appealing to me personally and I feel like I'm not the minority either. I'm not even completely sure how it would be fixed either other than removing the whole spend resources to get rewards part and adding some elo/rating system in it but even that fix would probably anger more players than anything.
doesn't help that the game mode is even more RNG based than normal. most decks i've played against seem to all have some way to win turn 1 or 2 with no hope of swinging it back in your favor. In casual everyone plays the same decks you'd find in the ranked version of the game mode too.
Returning to HS this year after stopping for almost two years, and personally I like duels better than arena. The RNG levels are similar but at least I get to play with more broken stuff like upgraded hero powers treasures and cool passives. In arena, they balanced it too well so now 5-10 cards of my 30 card deck are completely trash and if I just start with half of those cards it's an automatic loss already >.> at least in duels I pick 16 broken cards so if I end with only 1-2 wins it's cuz I didn't build my deck correctly or I didn't know how to play it properly.
I have never thought about it, how it is for new players. I mean i have maybe 5000 gold and once i reach legend in a season i only play duels. I love duels. I dont know why, it has that mix of playing an archtype of deck you like and trying it spice it up with treasures. Also the "gambling" part is fun, when you can add new cards to the collection.I do mostly quiet well, so i can maintain my gold and just add new packs to my collection. Imo its way easier to be good then in arena. I already managed my first 12 wins after just a couple of tries.
I like it way more then arena, since in arena removes the parte of the game that i like. Synergies...in arena you just get random trash and thats also how the game feels after.
When it comes to battlegrounds...i never understood what is fun about. Its like an afk game, i pick something and then it plays for me while i just watch? Nah thanks...No rewards, rating for nothing.
But hey, there is something for everyone i guess :)
The buckets are flawed, the treasures are not balanced amongst themselves, your opponent can otk you from full hp on turn 6, and the balance is very questionable, as adding cards to your deck often makes it weaker. It becomes a fest of who draws their power cards first or who rolls the op passives. Expensive to play and the rewards are not worth it.
I agree even as not returning player. The issue is matchmaking from constructed + reward system is from arena. I can afford the decks, but there is no reason to get good and remember huge amount of information. In ranked, classic, wild you get rewards for ranking up, in arena you can get good and beat noobs, tavern brawl is a thing you play once a week and get free pack, BGs is just a game from different genre in HS setting with a very little monetization, and in duels you get basically nothing unless you are like top-0,1% in the world and can't be moved to average 3-3. I think the mode is poorly designed too, because 20-card constructed decks make first games even more constructed than constructed itself. I'm pretty sure even Classic with its ever stale meta would be way more successful.
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English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I believe that duels failed because of the constructed part. Not only it demands Wild cards that a lot of people don't have and don't want to spend dust on, but it also limits the diversity and replayability of the mode.
The fact that Duels have a metagame with net-decking prevalent defeats the purpose of playing something other than constructed.
I like it way more then arena, since in arena removes the parte of the game that i like. Synergies...in arena you just get random trash and thats also how the game feels after.
Arena is all about getting random trash against other players random trash, that's what makes arena fun and gives arena its niche. In fact, synergies most of the time made arena worse, "synergy picks" that were in arena at some point made it almost unplayable! You know what most of the players, who like synergies, play? Constructed. This mode should be compared to constructed, not arena and definitely not BGs, which is Blizzard's mistake in promoting it as an arena-like mode, when in reality even completely different game, BGs, have more in common with arena (at least both are limited formats, not constructed).
I love duels. I play it a lot. It is easily my favorite mode. I understand why many players dislike this high variance mode that requires a decent collection but I fail to understand that "dead mode" mentality. It is the least popular one but it is far from dead.
I don't see why BG rankings do anything either though in all fairness, the ranking literally does nothing in terms of rewards or anything meaningful. The ranked rewards in standard are so minor as well I don't play ranked to try and get rewards at the end of the month. I play duels here and there purely because it's fun. Crazy stuff happens there that could never happen in constructed and its a completely different style of game to BG.
if you don't enjoy it just for fun it may be that the mode just isn't for you.
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As a returning player to HS after 2 year break, I've just tried duels couple of times and it looks quite cool and fun.
However I get the impression that its a dead game mode and mostly because of the first impressions it gave me when trying it out a bit.
First of all its styled as arena and not a ranked game mode in which you can just enter and play it for free.
The fact alone that you have to spend gold to participate and earn rewards makes the duels a no go for me.
The fact that the option to spend gold/money to participate even exists makes the "non-committing" version of it obsolete and a waste of time.
I mean why would I spend time on that part of HS when I can push for ranks on ladder or even battlegrounds ratings.
And then why would someone who is new to the game or duels in general want to give up precious resources to compete in a game mode they're inexperienced in when there's the good old Arena that everyone can easily understand.
All in all what I wanted to say is the way duels is designed (not the actual game mode but the approach to the game mode) isn't appealing to me personally and I feel like I'm not the minority either.
I'm not even completely sure how it would be fixed either other than removing the whole spend resources to get rewards part and adding some elo/rating system in it but even that fix would probably anger more players than anything.
doesn't help that the game mode is even more RNG based than normal. most decks i've played against seem to all have some way to win turn 1 or 2 with no hope of swinging it back in your favor. In casual everyone plays the same decks you'd find in the ranked version of the game mode too.
Returning to HS this year after stopping for almost two years, and personally I like duels better than arena. The RNG levels are similar but at least I get to play with more broken stuff like upgraded hero powers treasures and cool passives. In arena, they balanced it too well so now 5-10 cards of my 30 card deck are completely trash and if I just start with half of those cards it's an automatic loss already >.> at least in duels I pick 16 broken cards so if I end with only 1-2 wins it's cuz I didn't build my deck correctly or I didn't know how to play it properly.
I have never thought about it, how it is for new players. I mean i have maybe 5000 gold and once i reach legend in a season i only play duels. I love duels. I dont know why, it has that mix of playing an archtype of deck you like and trying it spice it up with treasures. Also the "gambling" part is fun, when you can add new cards to the collection.I do mostly quiet well, so i can maintain my gold and just add new packs to my collection. Imo its way easier to be good then in arena. I already managed my first 12 wins after just a couple of tries.
I like it way more then arena, since in arena removes the parte of the game that i like. Synergies...in arena you just get random trash and thats also how the game feels after.
When it comes to battlegrounds...i never understood what is fun about. Its like an afk game, i pick something and then it plays for me while i just watch? Nah thanks...No rewards, rating for nothing.
But hey, there is something for everyone i guess :)
Lets see how the new gamy mode will work out.
The buckets are flawed, the treasures are not balanced amongst themselves, your opponent can otk you from full hp on turn 6, and the balance is very questionable, as adding cards to your deck often makes it weaker. It becomes a fest of who draws their power cards first or who rolls the op passives. Expensive to play and the rewards are not worth it.
I agree even as not returning player. The issue is matchmaking from constructed + reward system is from arena. I can afford the decks, but there is no reason to get good and remember huge amount of information. In ranked, classic, wild you get rewards for ranking up, in arena you can get good and beat noobs, tavern brawl is a thing you play once a week and get free pack, BGs is just a game from different genre in HS setting with a very little monetization, and in duels you get basically nothing unless you are like top-0,1% in the world and can't be moved to average 3-3. I think the mode is poorly designed too, because 20-card constructed decks make first games even more constructed than constructed itself. I'm pretty sure even Classic with its ever stale meta would be way more successful.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I believe that duels failed because of the constructed part. Not only it demands Wild cards that a lot of people don't have and don't want to spend dust on, but it also limits the diversity and replayability of the mode.
The fact that Duels have a metagame with net-decking prevalent defeats the purpose of playing something other than constructed.
Arena is all about getting random trash against other players random trash, that's what makes arena fun and gives arena its niche. In fact, synergies most of the time made arena worse, "synergy picks" that were in arena at some point made it almost unplayable! You know what most of the players, who like synergies, play? Constructed. This mode should be compared to constructed, not arena and definitely not BGs, which is Blizzard's mistake in promoting it as an arena-like mode, when in reality even completely different game, BGs, have more in common with arena (at least both are limited formats, not constructed).
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I love duels. I play it a lot. It is easily my favorite mode. I understand why many players dislike this high variance mode that requires a decent collection but I fail to understand that "dead mode" mentality. It is the least popular one but it is far from dead.
I don't see why BG rankings do anything either though in all fairness, the ranking literally does nothing in terms of rewards or anything meaningful. The ranked rewards in standard are so minor as well I don't play ranked to try and get rewards at the end of the month. I play duels here and there purely because it's fun. Crazy stuff happens there that could never happen in constructed and its a completely different style of game to BG.
if you don't enjoy it just for fun it may be that the mode just isn't for you.