Hearthpwn

As this post did not get much traction on reddit and nobody real has made any criticue/insight to what i said i am posting it here so it might get some conversation going about how game feels to play/is being handled in the future so same mistakes do not occure going down the forward.

As i wrote in title, current Heartstone (with blizzard trying to force player retention for longer on weekly/daily by forcing stupid changes/and making people not even considering to log in afterwords)begs the question.

Would people play game more if decks they constantly encounter on ladder and therefore cards that make matches so uninteresting less relevant/weren't as flexible thus being in wide array of decks of given class/es making even different archetypes play out similarly having really no difference in feel to both player playing and person enduring terrible design that brought those cards to be as impactful.

In my honest opinion players would spend more time(how much more that varies from their obligations in real life and how well the opt in heartstone with their time) playing the Constructed mode and enjoying it more,having a feeling off a gameplan,and not complete hopelessness once they see opponents class.

Some underlying issues that i feel cant be addressed not matter how much you would change them would put a card to the state of first time nerfed Warsong Commander (complete and utter garbo),Those being: Forge of Wills and Flash of Lighting.

To state the obvious,these cards are atrociously conceptualized on design basis,with no real room for nerfing them on front of increasing the cost of the card without also not removing any fluidity in its play within the deck it is ment to be in.

A)While changing the text of the Flash of Lighting so it can't reduce the cost of nature spells below 1 would completely void the card of any use in the current deck it is being used in(Remnants of nature shaman).

While it would see some play in HighLander it would be easy to pass up as deck has few and far in between nature spells to really benefit from discount card provides and wouldn't even be considered as best in slot for card draw in a deck,while elemental shaman due to having little to nature spells would not even bother.

Solution:None-existent in cards current form,deserves a rework something similar to Faithful Companion change from patch 27.2.2

B)Forge of Wills on the other hand is a card that i think only meaningful way of nerfing is to reduce its cost from 3 to 2 and make so it spawns minion that has rush with half of the stats of the minion it targeted as a original(if it would be odd stat line due to it always being used on likes of 7/7~9/9 the stats would be set to the higher number~4/4 or 5/5 as it would be looked at it as a even stated minion).Cost increase or or durability decrease would totally kill the card and make it so it is never good to keep in muligan as person going first(in case of mana increase),while paying 3 mana for one time use would make card in a view of a deck builder just easily replaceable with much suitable cards for a given deck.

Solution:In all honesty this card is even worst in terms of flexibility for change/adaptation then even Flash of lighting and Faithful Companions are,just goes to show how uncreative some designs are.

Moving on to the cards that have much bigger meta relevance and should be addressed so game actually is enjoyable.These cards are abhorrent to the current system and legitimately makes anyone that cares/plays to win about the time they spend in game to be fun/enjoyable wanna Double-think their decision next time they have a craving(reconsidering the negative and the positive of doing so) to press on the Heartstone game icon on your PC/Phone.Changes being listed from alphabetical order off classes(not cards):

1. A) Helya and Down with the ship being 1 unholy rune plague cards.

Description of card problem:Both of these cards as it stands of now(Patch 29.0.3) are seeing play in decks that don't really utilize use of other 2 unholy requirement plague cards,being put in decks that wouldn't ever run either of the issue cards to begin with if not for their 1 unholy rune flexibility.Countering HighLander/Making matches where decks that are blatantly abusing these 2 cards get away to little no punishment running these cards having all the luxury of a plague deck that has a way off countering whole Archetype/killing the fun for others(And non-Highlander decks that might actually have an out vs that deck,making it way more miserable to play/try to win as they get hindered by draw RNG/being forced into not even wanting to draw cards with their card engines in a fear of not drawing a plague){Inducing spite and disgusting towards natural game mechanic due to having plagues in the deck,good emotion you are invoking as by-product on one player in a virtual card game,really 'smart' move developers} that have to endure the torture that are plagues in their horrid design.

Goal/Solution:It will probably bottleneck the plague Archetype as it is to it being ONLY 2 unholy and thus it making the whole flexing that abhorrent mechanic to other decks rather hard(impossible),making its own thing with potencial for 1 blood/frost rune to be opted in not completely killing it off.

Nerf:Make Helya and Down with the ship a 2 Unholy rune requirement in order to be placed in the deck and in doing so limiting the amount of decks that can use the plagues to their advantage.

Also would be nice if blizzard would look into discover limitations Death knight should have based on their pre-selected rune choice in deck building.If you are playing Rainbow DK, discovering from Runes of Darkness or any card that has discover should be limited to offering cards that are netural/go with the Rune limitation of the deck,and not offering you weapon/minion/spell you in your "deck building process" could not even hover to put due to the limitation.

B)Sif as card and as deck she spawns by being in a state she is leave much room for improvement in terms of inevitability that is getting OTK'ed by this horrid concept of a card.Only this card and one in recent history have similar degeneracy,other being Spitelash Siren.

The feeling of playing against both of this cards(decks that they was/are in) is painful to say the least,constant fear of getting killed from turn 6 (rarely) onwards from hand (and especially turn 9 with reverberated copy of Sif doubling the effect) and in case of Siren just being swarmed and left helpless even before the turns 5/6(with that card i won't be talking about it any further as it was only reference to how dumb design of both cards is).

Description of card problem: To often proven as a problem and stemming from similar design flaw that Flash of lighting provides and same feeling for a player facing it(mostly just disgust and repugnance towards the game he just played where he could little to nothing to impact the way the game went)

Goal/Solution:Make so the player playing against "Sif Mage" has more room to utilize the time he has to finish off the Mage player while still being mindful and of plays that Mage could perform to stabilize/comeback.

Nerf:A)Increase the cost of the card by appropriate amount,so it cant be easily copied on the board.(Lame and bland nerf i know)

B)Make so Sif herself gets Spell damage as she gets it as of right now,but make so it is considered as a board aura(similar to how Owlonius works)so amplification of hers spell damage has full benefit of 1 sif but if there would be another 'Sif' she would provide Mage player with only their base '+1' spell damage,thus removing ludicrous amount of burst from hand a early as turn 9(and yes with current rotation having burn spells of cost 1/2 be discoverable via Primordial rune/Snake oils being a big factor but not a real issue,i would say this nerf is something that would make Sif Mage much more managable if u are playing a slower deck(that not being warrior) and not being surprise killed before 2 digit turns even start happening).

C)Deepminer Brann as it was introduced to the game(with Astalor still being in rotation then) and now with hes best pals Boomboos Tho'grun/tentacle generaction/Azerite Oxyn really brought the uninteractive late game that rearly any other slower paced/control deck can stand up to.Really good survivability allowing the player to reach the stage where doubling shuffle and re-shuffle with Boombosses bombs with Gaslight-gatekeeper being in their deck presents ultimate unteractivity to opponent,this decks feels less bad then facing any deck running plague because it is later part of the game,and it does not make you wanna not play your card draw engines in fear of drawing frost plague and screwing your turn over).

Description of card problem:Brann as it stands gives a on going effect like Odyns armor~to damage aura/buff to the player.With permanent double battlecries per turn leaves no real turn plan for Warrior player(might as well drool during them and play cards at random as it stands right now).

Goal/Solution:Partial/ Completely killing off HighLander Tentacle Warrior in the process but leaving Excavate Version on,a state of a change where card/deck would be more punished for reckless use of valuable battlecries in a same turn not making real gameplan /win-condition over a span of turns(instead of a turn in current iteration).

Nerf:A)Branns effect would only affect the FIRST battlecry in a turn,thus removing chaining multiple battlecries into an unineractive boards/wincondition but making it so if Brann is first battlecry card that was played in a turn he would overwrite this rule thus allowing cards that fit curve(well anything that is within cost range of 1-4 as it stands now)to have double battlecry trigger in the same turn that Brann was played(leaving some comeback/breathing room for warrior player if they drew Brann late/waited a bit so they could combo it with a battlecry minion so their poor RNG/patience get partial minimized/rewarded)

B)Do the first nerf and up the cost of brann but a appropriate cost so it is even harder to have a clean turn with him(imo this is overkill but still i dont know how developers would approach adressing the card if at all)

1. D) Reno,Lone Ranger as card is extremely powerful,but as a Highlander payoff is a reasonable for it to have that big of an impact/swing.While on the other hand decks that are not a Highlander deck from the start of the game benefit greatly from putting the card in and abusing the fact it states that deck has to not have 'Duplicates'.

Goal/Solution:Make so Reno,Lone Ranger is a 'Highlander' pay off card,not a slot in for decks such as Wheel Warlock Coontrol Warrior(rearly seen but still).

Nerf/Change:Make it so it state on a card Reno,Lone Ranger that your deck HAS to have no duplicates at the start of the game for the effect to take place,thus killing 2 bird with one stone,eliminating Wheel Warlocks '4 TuRnS AcTuAlLy',and by doing so making them actually having a risk of dying from opponent if the board was unfavorable for Wheel Warlock player,instead of mindlessly casting Fracking and other draw/delete cards from their deck just so they can 'cheat' out Wheel/Fanattom+ next turn Reno.

While everything i stated above,about the cards and changes towards them,i would say engagement of the game increases only if you as a player feel like playing,and not being forced into doing so with something that is a core progression metric in the game(wich if you dont complete you wont really progress as fast as you could in a reward track).

With that said, Dear developers behind heartstone ,focus more on making matches inside of your game have more depth and interactivity,making them more enjoyable and feel more fulfilling and satisfying thus feeling more engaging and relaxing to be in.

A heartstone enthusiast.

 Lets keep the discussion polite and actually put out some good feedback for once.