What should i say? I love watching some HS on youtube and also find his view interessting, but could someone please explain Kripparian that there have to be bad cards in this game?
Would it be the Portal that sometimes gives you DrBoom and sometimes a Chicken Or would it be the webspinner that can give you something nice or a lost talltrider.
How can someone that gets payed to cast this game not understand the basics?
Yes, there are legendarys that suck. Why? Because Sneeds would be god dam OP if he wouldnt sometimes spawn a Manastorm or a Cho.
I laught my ass of when i killed a sneeds and the spawned the minion that turns you into Rag. BGH'ed him and killed the 8HP.What happens after that? That person adds me and flames me for the RNG, because HE TOOK a RNG card.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the second one". Albert Einstein
But Cho and Manastorm isn't "bad" cards, they just do something completley diffrent from what is normally useable. There is a huge diffrence in bad cards and cards that aren't played. Sen'jin and Yeti aren't played but they aren't bad cards. Magma Rager aren't played but that is a bad card. If there weren't bad cards, mabye just cards that would't be played the game would be more diverse and have more archetypes avalivble.
If there weren't bad cards, mabye just cards that would't be played the game would be more diverse and have more archetypes avalivble.
The meta would be "play something that spawns as much other shit as possible"
Shredder is a good example here, because it can suck, but most of the time its good. Same for TGT.. most 2 drops are good, but SOME suck.
Those bad cards are there to make sure that Shredder isn't a must play, because playing Shredder is a 4/3 +X
What do you want? 4/3 spawn a 2/3 with "spawn a random 1 drop" that spawns a spider that gives you "Savannah Highmane"?
Your argument is actually against how shredder and similar cards work. There wouldn't be a problem to add 2 drops into his pool which aren't exist as real cards and are worse than real 2 drops.
Yeah, I dont think he gets what he is asking for. If cards were buffed (and we had a 5/2 Magma rager now) then he still would want them to be buffed down the road since they are still awful. It's an unending cycle.
If we are going to periodically buff cards that is going to wreak havoc with casual players who wont remember what their cards do. And that's problematic.
Its set padding, pure and simple in the form of card redos as a method to not confuse people by changing old cards. And its not a big deal to me. I think I prefer learning new cards than remembering changed ones.
Cards which spawn minions can always be nerfed later if necessary. That's not the best argument on why they shouldn't just buff old cards. They can make Piloted Shredder 3/2, or make it cost 5 mana, or whatever. Same with Sneed's or Unstable Portal.
Better arguments would be:
Cards feel less "real" when they change a lot.
Whenever cards are buffed, a ton of testing has to be involved to see if they are going to create a terrible meta (like a deck which goes 70+% vs. everything), which mean they'd roll them into new sets rather than buff them a few at a time. Since they are doing a new set anyway, they may as well just make them new cards.
It's monetarily better for them to release new buffed versions of old cards instead instead of buffing cards you already own.
Having bad cards makes more of a collection progression for new players as well as learning opportunities.
^ The learning opportunities was the one that Brode went back on that Kripp agreed with last time. In general, I'm okay with the release of some power creep for the sake of comparison. However, if they release a lot of strictly better cards, I don't think new players will have all that much incentive to play :/
Kripp know's what's up. It's all about avoiding card obsoletion - a problem that has always plagued other CCGs - but HS, being a digital CCG, could avoid.
Blizzard should be smart enough to realise that that they make more cash out of getting new players hooked on the game, as this also keeps your game healthy, not tapping that current playerbase.
If you can't see the problem with the direct power creep of ice rager and heckler you are...and I am not kidding....a total boon. We should be all more upset about this than having to put up with months and months of miracle rogue, face hunter or patron warrior.
If we all complained enough - they would turn booty bay bodyguard into a pirate and give magma rager a useless death rattle and the game would have a future again.
Whenever cards are buffed, a ton of testing has to be involved to see if they are going to create a terrible meta (like a deck which goes 70+% vs. everything), which mean they'd roll them into new sets rather than buff them a few at a time. Since they are doing a new set anyway, they may as well just make them new cards.
It's monetarily better for them to release new buffed versions of old cards instead instead of buffing cards you already own.
Having bad cards makes more of a collection progression for new players as well as learning opportunities.
Cards feeling less real is a matter of opinion. I could say that Soulfire feels less real because I was so used to it being 0 mana, even though I have accepted that it has been nerfed to the ground.
The Ben Brode mantra of "tons of testing" is a weak excuse to keep old cards the same. Magma Rager, buffed to Ice Rager stats could have been tested in a few games to quickly find out that most 1 drops trade into it, and nearly every 2 drop trades into it, and yes, some games it might hit the enemy face for 5 if the opponent has a very bad start and no small minion removal. Tons of testing is reserved to the game changers, cards like Dr. Boom, Mad Scientist, etc.
Money is absolutely the reason why they do it. They don't make a dime for buffing an existing card, and then they'd have to think up more unique ideas instead of just copying and powercreeping an existing card.
Although having those bad cards makes the collection larger, the collection could easily be as large if Blizzard used some creativity and made some decent cards in the place of the power crept cards. It's not much of a learning opportunity to realize that a 5/1 is worse than a 5/2, once they learn what health and attack are, they will never play the fiery rager again.
They don't make money on commons. they make them on the chase cards. These are fillers, only, no one literally will go out of their way to get these.
The money argument could have merit if they were rare or better.
The reason they are making money off of these cards is exactly because they are fillers. Instead of using creativity and having to test cards that could actually shake up the metagame, the Blizzard design team spent 5 minutes or less making these fillers. This saves them valuable time and probably didn't affect Pre-Order Purchases since they were the last cards to be revealed.
Blizzard makes the most money if they can spend the smallest amount of time making/testing cards and sell a large number of packs because of it.
If this expansion took them 500 man hours (just an example) to make and they end up selling 100,000 pre-orders, versus them spending 2000 man hours to make and selling 110,000 pre-orders, it would make much more sense to release filler cards such as Ice Rager to cut down on time.
Cards feeling less real is a matter of opinion. I could say that Soulfire feels less real because I was so used to it being 0 mana, even though I have accepted that it has been nerfed to the ground.
The Ben Brode mantra of "tons of testing" is a weak excuse to keep old cards the same. Magma Rager, buffed to Ice Rager stats could have been tested in a few games to quickly find out that most 1 drops trade into it, and nearly every 2 drop trades into it, and yes, some games it might hit the enemy face for 5 if the opponent has a very bad start and no small minion removal. Tons of testing is reserved to the game changers, cards like Dr. Boom, Mad Scientist, etc.
Money is absolutely the reason why they do it. They don't make a dime for buffing an existing card, and then they'd have to think up more unique ideas instead of just copying and powercreeping an existing card.
Although having those bad cards makes the collection larger, the collection could easily be as large if Blizzard used some creativity and made some decent cards in the place of the power crept cards. It's not much of a learning opportunity to realize that a 5/1 is worse than a 5/2, once they learn what health and attack are, they will never play the fiery rager again.
To be clear, I said they were better reasons, and they are. They certainly aren't unassailable. That said:
You could say that, and you'd be right according to most MMO designers I've heard discuss the issue in interviews. Now imagine if they buffed it again and then nerfed it two weeks later, and then buffed it next month. Sure, that's unlikely to happen, but it illustrates the point. Digital goods feel less real when they change, so nearly all games go out of their way to only do that when absolutely necessary. You can certainly disagree, but your argument is more with standard thought in the industry than with me.
Say they made River Crocolisk a 3/3. Who cares? Probably no one, unless it happens to make Beast Hunter or Beast Druid too strong and they start to dominate everything. Then next month they have to start nerfing, etc. Unlikely? Sure, unless they buff a lot of cards without testing the meta. Then it's practically guaranteed to happen with at least one, probably more, possibly in combination. Blizzard has no incentive to take that risk.
Of course. I think there'd have to be much more compelling reasons than anyone has put forward for it to make the least bit of sense monetarily for Blizzard to buff existing cards, regardless of whether the rest of the reasons I gave are valid or not. It would have to be pretty much undebatable.
It's not about the collection being larger. It's about starting with mostly bad cards and then the power level of your collection increasing over time until you are eventually building top-level decks. If you were able to make all cards viable somehow (virtually impossible), that would be the least ideal situation from this perspective because it would mean much less of a feeling of progression. It would be like if every new character started at the level cap in an MMO with raid-ready gear instead of at level 1 with a few copper pieces. Whether or not this matters is personal opinion, but I think it matters to Ben Brode based on his statements.
None of the above should be taken to imply that I don't recognize new players are at an increasingly severe disadvantage. I've been grinding F2P on Europe for a while and it's pretty tough. New expansions will only make it tougher. I think the answer Blizzard eventually comes up with will be some sort of catch-up mechanic though, like reducing gold / money / dust costs for older sets, bundle deals for old adventures, etc. rather than buffing old cards and trying to even out power levels.
The reason they are making money off of these cards is exactly because they are fillers. Instead of using creativity and having to test cards that could actually shake up the metagame, the Blizzard design team spent 5 minutes or less making these fillers. This saves them valuable time and probably didn't affect Pre-Order Purchases since they were the last cards to be revealed.
Blizzard makes the most money if they can spend the smallest amount of time making/testing cards and sell a large number of packs because of it.
Yeah, based on my understanding of the industry (and this is based on the physical TCG world) that's not what generally happens. You have a set design window, and you get what you get out of it. It's not an option to extend the man hours you use to create cards since you are onto the next set or next project. At some point they pick key cards for the set, and then create filler to pad it out. That's my understanding of how it generally works. The most of the time is spent on the key cards (80/20 rule was quoted to me) and then once a set size was decided on filler was created to get to there.
@tanis0: Good points, thanks for the clarification!
I completely agree about new players being at a disadvantage. I really hope Blizzard does something soon about that or new players will find Hearthstone too overwhelming to get into. :(
@Shewski: Interesting, I'm fairly new at TCG/CCG myself and didn't realize the process, it makes sense hearing it, thanks.
Also - when youre drafting an arena and need at least some taunts badly, its better to have increased chances because both Booty Bay and Evil Heckler are in the pool of possible cards to draft... plain and simple. One would imagine that someone who plays only arena like Kripp would understand that.
Or, here is a thought - why not buff Booty Bay to 4 mana cost, and instead release a brand new antiaggro minion? The problem still exists, the bad card still exists. Instead of releasing bad cards for the rng gods to prey upon, they should release more situational cards, with more questionable use, like Wee Spellstopper and such.
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What should i say? I love watching some HS on youtube and also find his view interessting, but could someone please explain Kripparian that there have to be bad cards in this game?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov4P8rSIPjw
Would it be the Portal that sometimes gives you DrBoom and sometimes a Chicken
Or would it be the webspinner that can give you something nice or a lost talltrider.
How can someone that gets payed to cast this game not understand the basics?
Yes, there are legendarys that suck. Why? Because Sneeds would be god dam OP if he wouldnt sometimes spawn a Manastorm or a Cho.
I laught my ass of when i killed a sneeds and the spawned the minion that turns you into Rag. BGH'ed him and killed the 8HP.What happens after that? That person adds me and flames me for the RNG, because HE TOOK a RNG card.
Sen'jin Shieldmasta is still a thing in Wall Druid.
in order to know whats good, you need to have the bad, otherwise, everything is good and you dont learn anything and everyone plays the same thing
The meta would be "play something that spawns as much other shit as possible"
Shredder is a good example here, because it can suck, but most of the time its good.
Same for TGT.. most 2 drops are good, but SOME suck.
Those bad cards are there to make sure that Shredder isn't a must play, because playing Shredder is a 4/3 +X
What do you want? 4/3 spawn a 2/3 with "spawn a random 1 drop" that spawns a spider that gives you "Savannah Highmane"?
Your argument is actually against how shredder and similar cards work. There wouldn't be a problem to add 2 drops into his pool which aren't exist as real cards and are worse than real 2 drops.
Yeah, I dont think he gets what he is asking for. If cards were buffed (and we had a 5/2 Magma rager now) then he still would want them to be buffed down the road since they are still awful. It's an unending cycle.
If we are going to periodically buff cards that is going to wreak havoc with casual players who wont remember what their cards do. And that's problematic.
Its set padding, pure and simple in the form of card redos as a method to not confuse people by changing old cards. And its not a big deal to me. I think I prefer learning new cards than remembering changed ones.
Play Star Wars: The Customizable Card Game - www.starwarsccg.org
Cards which spawn minions can always be nerfed later if necessary. That's not the best argument on why they shouldn't just buff old cards. They can make Piloted Shredder 3/2, or make it cost 5 mana, or whatever. Same with Sneed's or Unstable Portal.
Better arguments would be:
^ The learning opportunities was the one that Brode went back on that Kripp agreed with last time. In general, I'm okay with the release of some power creep for the sake of comparison. However, if they release a lot of strictly better cards, I don't think new players will have all that much incentive to play :/
Maybe update the basic set every once and awhile?
Kripp know's what's up. It's all about avoiding card obsoletion - a problem that has always plagued other CCGs - but HS, being a digital CCG, could avoid.
Blizzard should be smart enough to realise that that they make more cash out of getting new players hooked on the game, as this also keeps your game healthy, not tapping that current playerbase.
If you can't see the problem with the direct power creep of ice rager and heckler you are...and I am not kidding....a total boon. We should be all more upset about this than having to put up with months and months of miracle rogue, face hunter or patron warrior.
If we all complained enough - they would turn booty bay bodyguard into a pirate and give magma rager a useless death rattle and the game would have a future again.
Came here hoping for a card with Kripp as a bee. Was disappointed.
"Why do they print bad cards" is a perennial question asked of MtG. The answers in the links below are also largely applicable to Hearthstone:
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/218
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/164
They don't make money on commons. they make them on the chase cards. These are fillers, only, no one literally will go out of their way to get these.
The money argument could have merit if they were rare or better.
Play Star Wars: The Customizable Card Game - www.starwarsccg.org
Tried to see if OP had a point ...
... couldn't get past "beeing," "interessting," and "payed."
The reason they are making money off of these cards is exactly because they are fillers. Instead of using creativity and having to test cards that could actually shake up the metagame, the Blizzard design team spent 5 minutes or less making these fillers. This saves them valuable time and probably didn't affect Pre-Order Purchases since they were the last cards to be revealed.
Blizzard makes the most money if they can spend the smallest amount of time making/testing cards and sell a large number of packs because of it.
If this expansion took them 500 man hours (just an example) to make and they end up selling 100,000 pre-orders, versus them spending 2000 man hours to make and selling 110,000 pre-orders, it would make much more sense to release filler cards such as Ice Rager to cut down on time.
To be clear, I said they were better reasons, and they are. They certainly aren't unassailable. That said:
None of the above should be taken to imply that I don't recognize new players are at an increasingly severe disadvantage. I've been grinding F2P on Europe for a while and it's pretty tough. New expansions will only make it tougher. I think the answer Blizzard eventually comes up with will be some sort of catch-up mechanic though, like reducing gold / money / dust costs for older sets, bundle deals for old adventures, etc. rather than buffing old cards and trying to even out power levels.
Yeah, based on my understanding of the industry (and this is based on the physical TCG world) that's not what generally happens. You have a set design window, and you get what you get out of it. It's not an option to extend the man hours you use to create cards since you are onto the next set or next project. At some point they pick key cards for the set, and then create filler to pad it out. That's my understanding of how it generally works. The most of the time is spent on the key cards (80/20 rule was quoted to me) and then once a set size was decided on filler was created to get to there.
Play Star Wars: The Customizable Card Game - www.starwarsccg.org
@tanis0: Good points, thanks for the clarification!
I completely agree about new players being at a disadvantage. I really hope Blizzard does something soon about that or new players will find Hearthstone too overwhelming to get into. :(
@Shewski: Interesting, I'm fairly new at TCG/CCG myself and didn't realize the process, it makes sense hearing it, thanks.
OP completely destroyed the whole meaning of Albert Einstein's very well known quote, thanks Gakuso.
Hello.
Or, here is a thought - why not buff Booty Bay to 4 mana cost, and instead release a brand new antiaggro minion? The problem still exists, the bad card still exists. Instead of releasing bad cards for the rng gods to prey upon, they should release more situational cards, with more questionable use, like Wee Spellstopper and such.