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Obviously Snecko makes little sense in HS but I would love to see a class like this.
Snecko is about making the best out of random stuff. One main theme is to Hallucinate transforming cards into other cards of the same type and mana cost. But from any class! Alternatively many cards just add random stuff to your hand or occaisonally you get a more thoughtful Discover. To make up for the consistentcy the second main theme is to Muddle your cards randomly decresing or increasing the mana cost by (1) until end of turn. But only 1 and only for 1 turn! This is not supposed to be some kind of mana cheating class. You only have a chance at victory if you adapt to what the game gives you and play accordingly. But - just like the Innkeeper said once upon a time - "Of course you can forget all that and just have fun!" This class is all about just that. It's about having fun playing with random cards, finding hidden synergies, and ultimately just watching as the unique story of each game unfolds itself.
Does this makes sense? Maybe not. I know how many competitive people are around here. That type of class - however you want to classify it - would be a dream of mine. You surely can play like Rogue or Mage and such but at the end of the day that's only a minor subtheme of those classes. They have competitive elements and that I do not like. A class that is really just about having fun making random stuff work and fully leans into that would be incredible. Each game you would see and experience something unique. Would you not be excited what such a game might have in store? The possibilities would be almost endless. Well, I know I'm in the minority but... how would this not be the most fun thing there is? Why is winning more important to people than making and seeing fun stuff happen? I probably will never understand.
I hope at least some people will see how fun such a class could be. Or maybe it should be a different game mode altogether. What do you think? (I also made more cards but could only add so many. In case someone is actually interested I could post the others.)
Well...
You might not appreciate that I of all people give you a response but this hits me very personally, and I can't just move along. I'm really sorry, but I have to respond.
I am the exact opposite of you. I do not understand, for the live of me, why people love random stuff happening so much. And more importantly, I absolutely loathe playing against it. I hate "random" cards deciding games, I hate opponents roping every single turn because their hero portrait is permantenly covered by their three Discover options and I groan every single time that more and more and more of that is added to the game.
Which brings me to my actual answer to your idea:
I think the actual Snecko effect (randomizing the cost of your cards, as we had it in some Tavern Brawl) would be more interesting. A bit simplistic and potentially gamebreaking, much like the actual Snecko Eye, but it would make deckbuilding somewhat intriguing since you'd have to strike a balance between really strong payoff cards if they are randomly discounted, without being completely pooped if they aren't.
But even if you chose a more fitting reference like Dead Branch, I dislike the idea a lot because "random shit go!" is massively overdone and overrepresented in Hearthstone already as it is. Calling it a "minor subtheme" is a huge understatement to me. There have been long stretches where randomness was not just a quirk but the entire deck theme of competitive archetypes. Deck of Lunacy, Excavate Rogue, Casino Mage from 2016-17. And then there's also repulsive, disgusting monstrosities like The Countess...
And by now, every class has it's own flavor of random. Shaman having the Evolve theme that's done for the 4th or 5th time in the upcoming expansion already. 4 of the 10 Druid cards in Emerald Dream alone generate random or discovered Nature spells. There's plenty of "random beast" or "random taunt" effects, "random demon" in DH and Warlock, and that's on top of countless neutral cards that generate something as well. Even competitive decks will oftentimes feature several random or discover effects, because they come with increasingly smaller downsides or too massive upsides on the potential highroll.
It's never going out of fashion either, it keeps getting remade in some new or recycled flavor again and again and again. And that's besides Tavern Brawl being entirely dedicated to random things 4 our of 5 weeks throughout the year. There really is NEVER a shortage of randomness in Hearthstone.
And it's perfectly fine if you like it. You know, no one is stopping you from making such decks, or play Tavern Brawl, and stick to the classes and mechanics you like. But on the other end of the spectrum, I like the game to be slightly less of an overstyled diceroll-simulator, and still have to tolerate and deal with that being such a big element in the game.
All I can do is bang my head against a wall because that one "random" Mage spell, out of a pool of 200 or so, happens to be Ice Block, or that "random" dragon that Dragonqueen Alexstrasza generates being Nozari, or that "random" legendary being Gigafin for the 50th time in a month.
It really isn't about winning or losing. Card games will (and should) by design involve an element of chance due to draw order. The winner shouldn't be decided by turn 1. Combo-decks, aiming for maximum consistency, should always come with the risk that you are rather defenseless until you can execute your combo.
I don't mind the occasional coinflip (depending on how much weight they carry). But I find it rather frustrating to play a game where it feels like my opponent is (encouraged to) deliberately wasting my time to have a quick a laugh at my expense if things go well for them. And then there's the fact that a lot of random-heavy effects are spell-tied, so there's also nothing to interact with, making the whole spectacle rather dull and unengaging to witness.
Please, enjoy it to your heart's content. But my sympathy for your wish to have even more of that in the game is quite limited.
Bro...
How do you guys have SO MUCH time in hands to write a wall of texts like these?
Wow...
I LOVE beating competitive decks thanks to random chance it's so fucking funny. Rare, but very funny. It's why I will always go back to Renouncelock and Randuin, etc. when I get bored.
I know right? It is amazing how people put so much effort into projects that will never see the light of day. Imagine how much useful stuff could've come out of that imagination? Distractions at its finest.
The amount of time and effort it takes to write a couple of paragraphs likely varies person to person.
You never know what you might get, what might happen, you have to constantly adapt to the ever-changing circumstances, every game is different and unique. Unless you're competitive and winning is so important to you I would ask why would you not want more. But I will say that if every card would be like Yogg it would not actually be that much fun. But more Discover effects or random effects on Deathrattles or more Secrets and those kinds of things where one or both players have more interaction - I think that would make the game more fun.
Maybe the better question is to ask yourself why being competitive and winning is so important to you and then consider for a moment that maybe some people are not like that. I don't know. All I can say is that I really dislike everything competitive and winning is just giving me a broad direction how to actually play the game but not the end goal. I would always rather like experimenting. But of course generally games probably should end after an appropriate amount of time like 20 to 30 minutes or so. Although I was also thinking of like "continuous games". Imagine like Battlegrounds you just press the play button and you get into a game someone else left at this moment. Probably sounds super strange to you because that makes not a lot of sense from a competitive standpoint. But I think that could be really cool. Everyone just keeps playing random stuff in the best way they can and let's see where it goes. Does this makes sense to you? Well, maybe not. I can understand.
Okay maybe "minor" is rather "major" but there's indeed exactly this "competitive" aspect. Let's look at the examples.
Deck of Lunacy - From what I remember it was mostly problematic in Standard because of the limited card pool. Was it also problematic in Wild? Is it still? I did got changed a few times but I even think it's now back to the original form. So the problem was the limited card pool of Standard, right? Well, I of course almost always play Wild because the more different cards there are the more interesting the game can become. And I do think with the giant Wild card pool it's a good fun card. Although I will admit that it's almost a bit too much "mana cheating" for my personal taste. The discount should only be minimal to make up for the inconsistency and don't cause too explosive turns that the opponent only has a hard time to recover from. Why is that so important? Well, if anyone wins it's game over. And as the opposite of a competitive player I would rather like to keep playing random stuff for fun instead of this "lame boring winning". I hope this makes at least a little sense to you.
Excavate Rogue - I think the problem here is too much "mana cheating" via the Scorpion together with too easy ways to play him way too often again like with Shadowstep and Togwaggle's Scheme as soon as he's unearthed. I mean it's indeed not like I didn't do that and had fun with it but I can see how that can be very problematic. Depending how things go the potential for making the game too polarized is too high. Maybe you also misunderstand me. This in fact is exactly what I would rather not want to have. And these things could theoretically be avoided in a true "just for fun" class. However that would look like in detail.
Casino Mage - Honestly I'm not entirely sure about the "competitive" aspect but I do have an idea. And that's Big Spell Mage. RNG cards like Rune of the Archmage and Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron are really high-cost and if you cheat them out for cheap it can make for crazy swing turns or even win you the game outright. That is the "competitive" theme of classes I talked about and I hate so much. All you do is trying to cheat out this or that big thing and in Casino Mage you also have an RNG element to it I guess. This is also the reason I always say that I play Yogg Mage and not Casino Mage. The reason is simple. You go to a Casino to win. I play Yogg to have fun. But indeed those classes like Mage have this "competitive element" of like "Big Spell Mage" and that's just super annoying to me. I would rather have a class that is only about "having fun" with absolutely no competitive element whatsoever. After all when you generate all this random stuff you'll find something competitive from another class (or maybe even neutral) eventually anyways. That's what I wouldma like to see.
The Countess - And another "mana cheating" card. A really insane at that even. Well, maybe not anymore by today standards, right? lol But anyways the problem here and exactly what I hate about it and why I don't play that deck anymore is this stupid amount of mana cheating. Imagine if you would Discover them all immediately but they keep their original cost for example. There would be lots of ways to make it less problematic and polarizing. But what is this card? A competitive one. A card that is designed to win games. Imagining having to actually think about your picks other than just pick whatever has a lot of stats or maybe a general really good effect. Yeah, as you may have realized these kinds of RNG cards are not what I'm talking about when I say I would want to see more of it.
You may wonder what exactly I mean with the "fun" type of RNG and/or Discover cards. Well, if you want to know my second favorite card in the game (after Yogg of course) it's Infinitize the Maxitude. This is the type of stuff I mean. Or think Hipster, Sketchy Stranger. Oh, and who could forget Cho'gall, Twilight Chieftain! Maybe you know what I'm referring to? Just those... "fun" cards, y'know.
I do appreciate that more classes are getting some cool and interesting fun stuff. But why is it so scattered all over the place? Is this really necessary? My idea with the class is basically to have all of that and only that (no stupid competitive stuff) in one place. Because for example how about randomly getting some evolve stuff and then maybe some random nature spells. Another time it could be like - I don't know - random Starship Pieces. Do you know what I mean? That would be the beauty of the class. You never know, anything could happen. This time truly anything. Instead of like "Oh, do I want to play Evolve Shaman or Starship Rogue?" I could just have this one class where anything could be possible. One click and... well, I didn't get to show one of the class Legendaries but it has this effect: "Start of Game: You play with 30 random Snecko cards." Well, just like I said in my initial post maybe a whole different game mode would be better. But imagine: Instead of playing one of the fun decks you play like all of them. Think of it like Whizbang. I think it could be a lot of fun. I mean I guess maybe not for competitive people like you but... well, that was just to show you how far away the current HS actually is from let's call it "proper fun RNG".
I think it should be clear by now that these kinds of dicerolls/coinflips are even what I really dislike very much. When it comes to specific cards you may wonder if maybe the generated card is problematic. Is it really the RNG or would a rework of this or that card be in line? Well, I know a lot of card are totally fine with the normal deckbuilding restriction of 2 copies if non-Legendary and Legendary only 1 copy.
For what it's worth if you or anyone would think I'm "deliberately waste their time to have a quick laugh at their expense" then I can just say that if that's how you or anyone actually feels and I would know that I would just concede and move on. I play for fun and would also want for my opponent have fun as well. Ideally they would be like me and also just be like "Random Bullshit Go!!!!!" but otherwise there would probably be plenty of other more casual players. But how could I even know? Most people are competitive. How could I avoid them? Social Groups like Guilds to find like minded people within the HS client? Nope. Instead they just completely removed Fireside Gatherings in order to "re-align our focus towards features and programs that can serve more of our players throughout the world". Whatever that's supposed to mean. Well, I guess it means people like me make up only 1% of players or so. Yeah, I understand. I still wanted to share my hopes and dreams here. You can imagine why here and not... someplace else. yeah...
First of all, I appreciate that you took your time to write such a thorough response. A rare thing these days, and highly welcome on my end.
I don't really consider myself an overly competitive player, really. You might disagree with definitions, but what I can say is that winning isn't important enough to me that I try particularly hard, certainly not so much that I get worked up if I don't hit certain goals. I'm fine with wherever I end up at the end of the month, which is (far) outside legend.
That said, I won't deny that I generally try to win games. Call it an unhealthy habit, but I generally try to "do well" in anything I do. In a roguelike that means getting further and completing more runs, in RPGs it means to try and succeed with new builds or overcome self-made challenges, and in a competitive game that means beating other players. Hearthstone just happens to be a competitive game first and foremost, putting one player vs another.
Good for you to try and break loose of these conventions. As I said, enjoy the game however you like. But in my humble opinion, it's a bit like playing tennis and only trying to perform tricks. Respectable in its own way, but somewhat bewildering to the other player.
Well, you are not exactly subtle, so you made your point clear enough. Also, it's kinda funny how you seem almost allergic to the idea that you could accidentally win somehow. Perhaps you should stick to merely bad cards instead of random ones. ^^
But just to be sure that I make myself equally clear: I don't give a damn about "mana cheating", and find the complaint somewhat silly, to be perfectly honest. You can play a dozen cards for 0 mana for all I care. I also don't mind that you play cards that make you potentially win games. I don't mind that my opponent may have the same goal as I.
My frustration stems from the ridiculous range of possible outcomes that random cards have, all the way from "accomplishes absolutely nothing" to "cool, I guess you just lose". The discount is what makes the cards playable. But when they are Hail Marys that may very well deliver the impossible miracle, I am a little disgusted.
But it doesn't have to be the flashy big things either. Small effects can do the same. And in Arena in particular, it is mind-numbingly boring when every other card produces another card,
And as a sidenote, I want to add that no matter what you implement, anything can be done or used "competitively". Even your rollercoaster ride of a class concept will be used by some people with the intent to win games. Whatever element is present that could potentially minimize risks or maximize rewards, people WILL try to find a way to increase its effectiveness. To really bypass that, a card like Whizbang, as you suggested, might be a better idea so no one even gets the idea of trying to combine unpredictable effects with predictable ones from the neutral pool.
As you bring it up, one of my favorite cards of all time is Circle of Healing. Why? When you consider the context of the original Expert/Classic set which it was part of, I find it one of the best examples of what I like about the game.
At first glance, you might think that it's only good in a situation where you can destroy your opponent's minions and then heal your own back up. That seems strong, but overly situational. Actually, I thought it was completely useless the first time I opened one. But then, there's Injured Blademaster, a very strong minion if you can heal it back up, making Circle a proactive card. Then there's Auchenai Soulpriest, completely changing the effect of Circle, turning it into one of the most efficient board clears at the time. And then there's the well known combo of Northshire Cleric and Wild Pyromancer, turning the humble Circle into a massive draw effect.
A very plain card, a simple effect, easy to understand, unremarkable at first sight, but there are many ways to turn into something else entirely. I love cards that have this kind of mystery to them, making you wonder what's the best you can do with them, especially when the synergies are not spelled out in bold keywords, but hidden in other unassuming effects.
Maybe this helps you understand my idea of fun a little better.
Don't worry, I concede oftentimes myself when I get that impression. I rather end the game and move on than sit through another 10 minutes of "wait, I'm gonna discover another card, maybe that will turn things around!". And maybe you find it comforting to know that it's not super rare for me to find such opponents. I think there are many more people like you than you might think. Maybe not with the exact same ideas but the same approach.
Also, because I feel like I haven't stressed this enough before, I experience it as "time wasting" not just because it is random with no deeper strategy aligned to it, but because it simply is time consuming as well.
Most of all card generators are slow (play a card to get another card -> fall behind for a better follow-up). Since they are slow, decks with them typically end up in defense mode. As they are, they understandably look primarily for ways to stay alive. And the cards they try to fish for are always the same: another removal, another board clear, another big taunt, etc. I dislike (many) control decks for the same reason; it's just stalling for the sake of it. I generally prefer to play against opponents who try to win over those who try not to lose. And that's before considering that understandably, turns take longer when you have to constantly look at cards you didn't expect you would have.
I hope you don't see my disagreement as an attempt to stifle that. To be fair, I wanted to vent a little bit, but I really don't want to get in the way of you enjoying the game however you like. Still had to say "hell no!" about your suggestion, but I hope you don't take it personally.
Yeah, that's a pretty good way to put it.
The question is really why are people playing exactly? For me it's basically always trying to perform tricks and I think how could it be any different. But most people are trying to win and think how could it be any different.
At best you would have those two separate because people that try to win might also want more of a challenge than going up against someone who just tries to perform tricks. But how would you do that?
The devs of course made what seems to be the most logical choice: An MMR system trying to match people depending on their win-rate. Now this works super well for competitive players that are trying to win all the time. For me? Obviously not at all. For example I have often conceded against people that clearly stand no chance against me because all they played were bad basic cards. How does the system interprets that? I lost and need to be matched against someone with a lower win-rate to have a better chance at winning. This is not good. Not good at all.
Basically they force people to be competitive because otherwise this system wouldn't work. After all as you've said this game is first and foremost a competitive game. Most people play it at least somewhat competitively.
I think the best thing they could do is to make a different mode. But the thing is there already is and it doesn't work. Casual. That's already a thing. But what do you have there? People playing decks only for this quest or that achievement. Sometimes they're not even trying to win anymore. Some people might be just testing out decks for Ranked without the risk to lose stars so they're still playing competitively with the most broken deck possible. Occasionally I also face players that are just AFK, maybe farming XP or something. It's just a mess.
My best idea to solve this would be to introduce more and better social features. But yeah, I know, most people don't care and rather play solitaire type of decks anyways. And to be fair I often prefer to play it solitaire as well. But in the "fun" "trying to perform tricks" way. Of course it often isn't very fun as everyone is so hellbent on being competitive. Only in some very rare moments do I also get matched against other players that also play it in this "fun" way. And so far it was always worth going through all this other crap. But I certainly would wish I wouldn't need to do that. After all it also isn't very fun to a competitive person if the opponent just concedes out of nowhere just because they were too bored or annoyed with the game. But it seems there is no easy solution here.
That's basically what I mean by "mana cheating". Sometimes the discount is what makes them playable but especially something like "It costs (1)" or even (0) is where I say that's clearly too much.
[Unstable Portal is a good example of acceptable "mana cheating". You might as well get something that costs less and you wouldn't get any discount at all. But especially when you play it on 2 mana you might get a 6 drop that gets reduced to 3 that you can play next turn even. You basically payed 2 mana upfront and then you have 1 mana of actual discount. Up to this day it probably would be in my top 10 cards of all time. Perfect card design IMO.
But so many cards nowadays are exactly this sort of Hail Mary you mentioned. Another example is Wishing Well. At first I thought "Oh, random Legendaries. That sounds cool". But I played it a few times and immediatley dusted it. All this deck is doing is litterally fish for a game winning Legendary or sometimes the sheer amount of stuff to overwhelm the opponent and that's it. Turn 5 Wishing Well comes down? You might as well concede. At least I always do. Why? Easy. The game is over. One way or another. Does their Hail Mary succeed? Then they win. Otherwise they lose. Now sometimes there are other ways and there's the second Well and so on but usually the game ends on turn 5. I really hate this card. Especially because people may think that's the kind of fun random stuff that I like but no, that's exactly what I hate about Hearthstone and what I would even call "comepetitive".
Boring? Why would you consider it boring? Out of all things. Maybe you meant something a little different?
Because I consider every card that neither produces another card nor was produced by another card boring. Why? It's always the same. I mean sure the first time you play a deck is something different. But I for one obviously do not make a new deck every time I play. So going for Discover and random card generation is my go-to for making the game more fun and in fact less boring so to speak.
Yeah, that probably would be the better idea. Either that or make the entire class like that. You only need one "deck" of that class which is immediately finished when you start building it. The rules are simple: You will be playing with 30 random class cards. Where the class is all about creating and doing random stuff. Now that would be what I consider "fun".
One part of the game I was never too much of a fan of was the deck building. I like the deck building in Slay the Spire and how it's in those dungeon run adventures: A little bit step for step from a very limited card pool. But in normal Constructed Hearthstone? Obviously you're just gonna see so much even with decent balance. Some stuff will always be better, you can't perfectly balance everything. In Slay the Spire you also have some of your go-to cards but because of the very limited constant drafting to improve the overall deck quality much more things are viable.
So yes, what I'm looking for would rather be some different game mode. Still a "just for fun" class including a card that makes it full on random with 30 random cards from the class each game would also work. It would only mean that competitive people could still "hijack" the class. Which would be a bummer. But I can't deny that the majority really are that competitive so this compromise seems fine to me.
Oh yes! That is a really interesting card indeed. When it comes to card design regarding overall synergistic effects that has to be one of the best ones in the entirety of Hearthstone.
I also love stuff like that. Trying to make things work in unexpected ways.
My main gripe really is about the Constructed element. Because the first time you see this or make it work yourself is always cool and interesting. But then if something is actually good people just netdeck and it spreads like cancer. It just becomes boring as you will see the same thing over and over again. Couple that with the fact that people are competitive and want to win fast and easy, and you've got yourself a game that ends between turn 4 and 7 because of this "hyper efficiency". I once had a chat with someone where they said "People play this game like a calculator." That's so true. And so boring.
Well, at least I know some people are not like that. Better social features to find and play with people like that would be really nice...
Yeah, I noticed that as well. And it's very annoying. I also don't like stalling just for the sake of it but especially against "hyper efficient" netdecks that's the only way you even stand a chance.
But this is also something that I would like to see changed.
For example the Hallucinate mechanic that is even present on the passive Hero Power specifically transforms other cards instead of creating new ones. The idea behind the class is really that "anything could happen" and not just "stall for time to maybe pull off some cool trick". I actually even hate real combo decks that do just that.
I think I didn't mention it but the Hero Power should also trigger before card draw so you're incentivized to quickly keep playing the cards as they come. The class would really focus on just giving lots of random stuff to play as quickly as possible and not stall for time. As eventually your Hero Power would reshuffle it and with that there's even a chance it will even later draw into it and transform it. At first I thought about making it 0 Mana but no to prevent exactly this kind of stalling it's passive. You have a bit of time but no stalling until the end of time. Thinking about it now maybe the transformation should be 100% since you still draw your normal card which the Hero Power doesn't effect. I probably thought with too many low cost cards the Muddle discount would be too much even with the transformation inconsistency.
It's hard to say if it would be balanced and fun but I hope you understand what I wanted to do with the class. Think of it like Trick Totem. No one would say it's OP but it can be super powerful if you get the right higher cost and useful spells. But on average it's just... average, you know. That's what I'm aiming for with the idea of the class.