I am Talaria. I have been following HS since open beta with a break that bridged naxx and got me back in near the release of GvG. I have placed high legend last season so that I'm not a terribly bad player and I'd like you to listen to me for a bit (I don't main secret paladin Kappa).
With Standard we are losing Naxxramas and GvG. Both will be available in Wild mode which I will begin to discuss.
Wild mode is colored dust on the eyes of the HS community. — The way they have introduced it to you is as a legit way to play with your whole collection with a ranked ladder of its own. The first clue that this is not so is that you will not be able to purchase Naxx and GvG anymore — they want newcomers playing Standard — but then they say that official tournaments will be held in Standard, thus shifting the focus of the whole community to Standard (streamers will focus on Standard and major events will be held in Standard and these two factors define the focus of the community). Hence Wild ranked ladder will be "playing against the stream with benefits" — the benefits being having the same rewards as Standard ladder — but ultimately it will be a lower competitive scene in which players with a high rank cannot claim much because Standard ladder is the place where the real action is happening.
Standard ultimately impoverishes Hearthstone.— Assuming old cards are not coming back under new designs and considering the last expansion Hearthstone didn't make a turn for the best and beautiful cards from Naxx and GvG like Voidcaller, Loatheb and Mad Scientist and the great decks they made possible will be buried with Standard. Cards are beautiful in two ways: they make great plays possible or they make great decks possible. Now some decks are so powerful on their own that they can lock the metagame — like Secret Paladin — and some decks are so powerful in the right hands that they can lock competitive play — like old Patron Warrior. At these two points the HS team failed to keep up with the HS community. They nerfed Patron Warrior into the ground. Now they will nerf Secret Paladin by taking out core cards like Dr. Boom and Shielded Minibot. They know this to be a problem and they seem to be taking out two birds with one stone.—
Standard only makes sense as a business model.— At some point after TGT Ben Brode walked into Dragon's Den and made a deal with Kevin. It went something like this:
— "Hello dragons. We have a great board game going on." - Ben Brode
— "You need to set it on fire." - Kevin O'Leary
— "But its online and its making millions of dollars."
— "Keep talking."
— "Our current business model prevents us from acquiring new customers."
— "Well then change it."
— "We could change it to model B but we would impoverish the game and make our loyal customers very unhappy."
— "Who cares? You will be making more money! I will only invest in it you if you change it."
— "Alright Kevin we have a deal."
Or somewhere along these lines. But the truth is this is a poor solution to the problem of a locked metagame and a great solution to the sustainability and scalability of Hearthstone as a business. You will have to invest less to buy yourself into the game and the metagame will change more often so that people will remain interested but at the same time many beautiful decks will die and many more beautiful decks will never come to be.
Are you with me?
Update: I have come to understand that rotations are a healthy path for Hearthstone but I strongly believe Standard is not what we need. To put it bluntly, there is no reason why Nozdormu will be part of the foundational set and Loatheb or Emperor Thaurissan wont be. Following on the suggestion of ThisWasTheOnlyUsernameAvailable I recommend everyone to watch Brian Kibler's Thoughts On The New Standard Format.
And am I the only one to notice that Reno Jackson will not be any good in Standard because there are not enough "one of a kinds" that are worth stuffing into your deck?
And am I the only one to notice that Reno Jackson will not be any good in Standard because there are not enough "one of a kinds" that are worth stuffing into your deck?
We are playing in a standard-like environment right now. We have basic, classic and the expansions of the last two years. The Standard card pool will always be around the size of the current pool (gvg + naxx goes, but we'll get a new expansion). Reno is working right now, why should he be weaker in the new format?
Not to mention that even Reno Jackson will ultimately die as time goes by and new cards keep being regurgitated to keep paying customers... paying.
Meanwhile, f2p players will have far less time to make competitive decks because no matter what they do, rotation is gonna hit one year and a few months later and invalidate a chunk of their collection.
And again, and again, forever. Playing Standard will be like playing a losing battle where you're constantly making gold and dust to afford the new cards while seeing the older ones dying off into the distance.
When you dump something down the toilet it disappears while still existing in the sewers. Welcome to Wild mode, "it's not like they took our cards away".
But it's still bittersweet. I always had this picture of Hearthstone in my head, a game that naturally matures over the years with a few thousand cards offering diversity. Many different decks that would come and go as the meta changes - similar to Mech Mage going from cancer, to non-existent, to popular.
The new format won't allow that, for obvious reasons. The competitive game will be caged in standard.
And am I the only one to notice that Reno Jackson will not be any good in Standard because there are not enough "one of a kinds" that are worth stuffing into your deck?
We are playing in a standard-like environment right now. We have basic, classic and the expansions of the last two years. The Standard card pool will always be around the size of the current pool (gvg + naxx goes, but we'll get a new expansion). Reno is working right now, why should he be weaker in the new format?
I see your point, thanks for making it clear to me. So Reno decks might only be weakened for the first half of the year, but I believe they will not even be viable during this period because they already seem to walk a very thin line.
It is for a business model reason. But not for the reason u think of. If u kept every set forever it would become impossible for the game to get new players since they would nvr be able to catch up, which would kill the game since it would only lose players and eventually there would be too few to play it.
when sets don't rotate there is a strong chance the game will get stale. The only to fight this is a few ways.
1) nerf/ban old cards so new cards can c play and to shake up a stale format
2) create cards that are more powerful than what's out making old cards obsolete and making decks insane in power level.
3) try to print cards of the same power level as what's out, meaning only a few choice cards per set may get used to switch out of current decks. And the format will get stale b/c it will always be the same strongest decks
a couple of these options end up phasing out old cards anyways, so u might as well rotate sets. Blizzard will continue to make sets regardless b/c they need to make money. So you going to have to spend money/dust/gold anyways so blizzard is making sure u will continue to enjoy their game.
i think going the standard route is best for the health of the game, I have been a long time player of Mtg. Standard is a very healthy format in it, the older formates do see a lot of play, not as much as standard but they are still big in the game. Take modern in Mtg, the format gets very stale quickly as it's always the same handful of decks doing well in every tournament, and what wotc does is ban cards once a year to shake up the format.
Magic the Gathering solves this by rotating sets out of Standard. There's no reason that Hearthstone couldn't do the same, once enough sets have been released.
It would probably have to introduce an "Unlimited" game mode where you can play cards from any set, and a "Standard" game mode where you can only play cards from the last N sets (where N is to be decided)
My main concern is the lack of ability to not get many cards you don't already have in packs. Now instead of the whatever percent chance there was to get a legendary in a GvG pack, now I'll have to craft EVERY SINGLE CARD I don't own? All a pack will be now is 40 dust for players who have all the standards cards, and that's just awful for player like me, who have half the fun in opening packs and seeing what new things I get I didn't have before. It also destroys any chance for me to spend real money buying packs, like I have in the past. If they kept the ability to buy any packs from any expansion you wanted, without the stupid "must be a standard card" I'd be fine, but this is just bull, this new set-up.
Magic the Gathering solves this by rotating sets out of Standard. There's no reason that Hearthstone couldn't do the same, once enough sets have been released.
It would probably have to introduce an "Unlimited" game mode where you can play cards from any set, and a "Standard" game mode where you can only play cards from the last N sets (where N is to be decided)
I can see why that makes sense. And I agree that it is a solution. However, there are plenty of beautiful cards that I would hate to see moving out of the competitive field.
Also I have doubts whether HS has the luxury of doing this when thinking of its foundations, namely the fact that you only have 30 HP and you can't control the mana pool unless you're a druid. I mean, how creative can you be about a 1 mana card to counter aggro decks like Zombie Chow? Does this not compromise future expansions? I guess I'll have to wait and see.
I disagree. As a recent MTG player, formats really helped me get into magic a lot easier. I see the same happening in the long term for Hearthstone.
Well I'm also a MTG player (been playing since 2003). And I hate MTG Standard format. I used to play it for 6-7 until I switched to eternal formats (Legacy and EDH). With every new Standard season I bought new cards to have a competitive deck, and those cards had zero value next year. I still feel sick when I think how much money did I burn this way, I could have a playset of every dual-land by now.
Meanwhile, f2p players will have far less time to make competitive decks because no matter what they do, rotation is gonna hit one year and a few months later and invalidate a chunk of their collection.
And again, and again, forever. Playing Standard will be like playing a losing battle where you're constantly making gold and dust to afford the new cards while seeing the older ones dying off into the distance.
This is not just true for F2P players. It's also true for casuals like me who actually spend some money. I buy the adventures with cash and then do dailies and TB to get cards and dust.
As an example of what you are saying, I've spent months accumulating the cards I want for a fun deathrattle deck and I just now finally have almost enough dust to craft Sylvanas. Now I learn that this deck will be gutted for Standard play in a month or two.
Unless Wild turns out to be more fun and interesting than I'm expecting I'm probably done with Hearthstone. I'm not going to buy into the endless cycle of buying new cards while old ones rotate out that will be required for Standard.
In many ways this change had to happen. Thinking that this is only a business decision to get more money is short sighted. There were only two ways that this game could go, you either do set rotation which forces people to buy new cards and that shakes up the meta, or you power creep new sets to sell new cards and shake up the meta. Both ways force people to buy new cards, so from a profit stand point there won't be much of a difference.
This change had to happen not least because it's ultimately what's best for the game long term. Here are the main reasons I see:
Decrease the entry barrier for new players. You limit the maximum card pool size they need to collect to be competitive. If there was no standard, you could see that after a few more years of expansions and adventures there could be thousands of cards to collect and hundreds of dollars to spend to by old adventures.
Balance. By putting a time horizon on cards, you limit the damage of any balance missteps. How many people still call for Dr. Boom to be nerfed today? Now, he will be phased out soon without having to be nerfed and the community complaining.
Natural, cyclical shake up of the meta. New cards shake up the meta, but it usually only makes certain decks more powerful, while only occasionally giving rise to a new archetype. But, the removal of cards will shake things up even more and decrease the power of certain decks, which will let new decks rise in their ashes. And it's on a schedule, so everyone will be able to see it coming and plan accordingly.
Design Space. Let's say there was no standard. Can you imagine in 10 years, the game is still going on. The card set is 3000 cards. What a nightmare it would be to design and test cards, to try and predict every broken combo the millions of players might possibly exploit. The only way to combat that would be to play it safe and not design anything interesting. With Standard, the designers will be able to make more interesting cards and have confidence they don't break the game. Or, if the designers want some interesting card effect, but a potential combo is broken, they simply wait till that card is phased out before introducing the new one.
I don't think this has any financial motivations at all honestly. It doesn't spur people to buy new cards, Let's be honest, the people who play and love Hearthstone would acquire any new cards Blizz puts out. This fact will not be changed by Standard.
Which is all good and dandy for Blizzard and noobs, but what about us long-standing players who invested huge amounts of hours (and money) into the game? Where's the satisfaction in making a collection when all our hard earned cards get flushed down the toilet every year and a half?
Do they really expect me to pay real life money for this next expansion on spring knowing that 100% of the card I buy will be worthless one year and some time later? And start over again? And again?
When you dump something down the toilet it disappears while still existing in the sewers. Welcome to Wild mode, "it's not like they took our cards away".
Man you really don't understand card games do you? Do you understand how cancerous GvG and Naxx is? Do you?
When they first came out I loved these expansion, but now, I hate them with a passion, because they've absolutely mummified the meta with their dumb rng and deathrattle nonsense. I dare you to try and make a deck right now that can be competitive and not need Shredder and Boom. You can't because they're so broken it's sickening. If you wanna see a game die, then by all means let the tournaments stay the same old garbage decks year after year. How is anyone supposed to be interested in this game when the same old rng BS is still running around and stomping people into the ground?
If you don't wanna play the game, fine. Go and do some console game where everything stays the same until the end of time, because that's the only way you're gonna get what you want. Also don't you dare quote Yugioh to me as an alternate solution, because if you want cancer city play a fuckin round of Yugioh and marvel at how quickly you're obliterated because your opponent just got the latest overpowered trash to be printed so that the old overpowered trash won't be as relevant. Gosh darn it people like you, like Human_Guy, like that blue banana, upset me more than anything, because you don't know anything about how a card game really survives.
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Victory or Death!
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Greetings HS community,
I am Talaria. I have been following HS since open beta with a break that bridged naxx and got me back in near the release of GvG. I have placed high legend last season so that I'm not a terribly bad player and I'd like you to listen to me for a bit (I don't main secret paladin Kappa).
With Standard we are losing Naxxramas and GvG. Both will be available in Wild mode which I will begin to discuss.
Wild mode is colored dust on the eyes of the HS community. — The way they have introduced it to you is as a legit way to play with your whole collection with a ranked ladder of its own. The first clue that this is not so is that you will not be able to purchase Naxx and GvG anymore — they want newcomers playing Standard — but then they say that official tournaments will be held in Standard, thus shifting the focus of the whole community to Standard (streamers will focus on Standard and major events will be held in Standard and these two factors define the focus of the community). Hence Wild ranked ladder will be "playing against the stream with benefits" — the benefits being having the same rewards as Standard ladder — but ultimately it will be a lower competitive scene in which players with a high rank cannot claim much because Standard ladder is the place where the real action is happening.
Standard ultimately impoverishes Hearthstone. — Assuming old cards are not coming back under new designs and considering the last expansion Hearthstone didn't make a turn for the best and beautiful cards from Naxx and GvG like Voidcaller, Loatheb and Mad Scientist and the great decks they made possible will be buried with Standard. Cards are beautiful in two ways: they make great plays possible or they make great decks possible. Now some decks are so powerful on their own that they can lock the metagame — like Secret Paladin — and some decks are so powerful in the right hands that they can lock competitive play — like old Patron Warrior. At these two points the HS team failed to keep up with the HS community. They nerfed Patron Warrior into the ground. Now they will nerf Secret Paladin by taking out core cards like Dr. Boom and Shielded Minibot. They know this to be a problem and they seem to be taking out two birds with one stone.—
Standard only makes sense as a business model. — At some point after TGT Ben Brode walked into Dragon's Den and made a deal with Kevin. It went something like this:
— "Hello dragons. We have a great board game going on." - Ben Brode
— "You need to set it on fire." - Kevin O'Leary
— "But its online and its making millions of dollars."
— "Keep talking."
— "Our current business model prevents us from acquiring new customers."
— "Well then change it."
— "We could change it to model B but we would impoverish the game and make our loyal customers very unhappy."
— "Who cares? You will be making more money! I will only invest in it you if you change it."
— "Alright Kevin we have a deal."
Or somewhere along these lines. But the truth is this is a poor solution to the problem of a locked metagame and a great solution to the sustainability and scalability of Hearthstone as a business. You will have to invest less to buy yourself into the game and the metagame will change more often so that people will remain interested but at the same time many beautiful decks will die and many more beautiful decks will never come to be.
Are you with me?
Update: I have come to understand that rotations are a healthy path for Hearthstone but I strongly believe Standard is not what we need. To put it bluntly, there is no reason why Nozdormu will be part of the foundational set and Loatheb or Emperor Thaurissan wont be. Following on the suggestion of ThisWasTheOnlyUsernameAvailable I recommend everyone to watch Brian Kibler's Thoughts On The New Standard Format.
And am I the only one to notice that Reno Jackson will not be any good in Standard because there are not enough "one of a kinds" that are worth stuffing into your deck?
I disagree. As a recent MTG player, formats really helped me get into magic a lot easier. I see the same happening in the long term for Hearthstone.
Not to mention that even Reno Jackson will ultimately die as time goes by and new cards keep being regurgitated to keep paying customers... paying.
Meanwhile, f2p players will have far less time to make competitive decks because no matter what they do, rotation is gonna hit one year and a few months later and invalidate a chunk of their collection.
And again, and again, forever. Playing Standard will be like playing a losing battle where you're constantly making gold and dust to afford the new cards while seeing the older ones dying off into the distance.
When you dump something down the toilet it disappears while still existing in the sewers. Welcome to Wild mode, "it's not like they took our cards away".
It makes sense in every way possible, including financial, just like the same change that occured for most successful card game of all time: MTG.
Of course it makes sense.
But it's still bittersweet. I always had this picture of Hearthstone in my head, a game that naturally matures over the years with a few thousand cards offering diversity. Many different decks that would come and go as the meta changes - similar to Mech Mage going from cancer, to non-existent, to popular.
The new format won't allow that, for obvious reasons. The competitive game will be caged in standard.
It is for a business model reason. But not for the reason u think of. If u kept every set forever it would become impossible for the game to get new players since they would nvr be able to catch up, which would kill the game since it would only lose players and eventually there would be too few to play it.
when sets don't rotate there is a strong chance the game will get stale. The only to fight this is a few ways.
1) nerf/ban old cards so new cards can c play and to shake up a stale format
2) create cards that are more powerful than what's out making old cards obsolete and making decks insane in power level.
3) try to print cards of the same power level as what's out, meaning only a few choice cards per set may get used to switch out of current decks. And the format will get stale b/c it will always be the same strongest decks
a couple of these options end up phasing out old cards anyways, so u might as well rotate sets. Blizzard will continue to make sets regardless b/c they need to make money. So you going to have to spend money/dust/gold anyways so blizzard is making sure u will continue to enjoy their game.
i think going the standard route is best for the health of the game, I have been a long time player of Mtg. Standard is a very healthy format in it, the older formates do see a lot of play, not as much as standard but they are still big in the game. Take modern in Mtg, the format gets very stale quickly as it's always the same handful of decks doing well in every tournament, and what wotc does is ban cards once a year to shake up the format.
This was predicted in many threads over the past few years. It was certain to happen. In many ways, it *had* to happen.
As I said last August in a response to the question "How to help new players with new basic cards":
My main concern is the lack of ability to not get many cards you don't already have in packs. Now instead of the whatever percent chance there was to get a legendary in a GvG pack, now I'll have to craft EVERY SINGLE CARD I don't own? All a pack will be now is 40 dust for players who have all the standards cards, and that's just awful for player like me, who have half the fun in opening packs and seeing what new things I get I didn't have before. It also destroys any chance for me to spend real money buying packs, like I have in the past. If they kept the ability to buy any packs from any expansion you wanted, without the stupid "must be a standard card" I'd be fine, but this is just bull, this new set-up.
In many ways this change had to happen. Thinking that this is only a business decision to get more money is short sighted. There were only two ways that this game could go, you either do set rotation which forces people to buy new cards and that shakes up the meta, or you power creep new sets to sell new cards and shake up the meta. Both ways force people to buy new cards, so from a profit stand point there won't be much of a difference.
I can't wait to play your superior game when it comes out.
This change had to happen not least because it's ultimately what's best for the game long term. Here are the main reasons I see:
I don't think this has any financial motivations at all honestly. It doesn't spur people to buy new cards, Let's be honest, the people who play and love Hearthstone would acquire any new cards Blizz puts out. This fact will not be changed by Standard.
Which is all good and dandy for Blizzard and noobs, but what about us long-standing players who invested huge amounts of hours (and money) into the game? Where's the satisfaction in making a collection when all our hard earned cards get flushed down the toilet every year and a half?
Do they really expect me to pay real life money for this next expansion on spring knowing that 100% of the card I buy will be worthless one year and some time later? And start over again? And again?
When you dump something down the toilet it disappears while still existing in the sewers. Welcome to Wild mode, "it's not like they took our cards away".
Make the "old" cards much more difficult to get WHY!?
Man you really don't understand card games do you? Do you understand how cancerous GvG and Naxx is? Do you?
When they first came out I loved these expansion, but now, I hate them with a passion, because they've absolutely mummified the meta with their dumb rng and deathrattle nonsense. I dare you to try and make a deck right now that can be competitive and not need Shredder and Boom. You can't because they're so broken it's sickening. If you wanna see a game die, then by all means let the tournaments stay the same old garbage decks year after year. How is anyone supposed to be interested in this game when the same old rng BS is still running around and stomping people into the ground?
If you don't wanna play the game, fine. Go and do some console game where everything stays the same until the end of time, because that's the only way you're gonna get what you want. Also don't you dare quote Yugioh to me as an alternate solution, because if you want cancer city play a fuckin round of Yugioh and marvel at how quickly you're obliterated because your opponent just got the latest overpowered trash to be printed so that the old overpowered trash won't be as relevant. Gosh darn it people like you, like Human_Guy, like that blue banana, upset me more than anything, because you don't know anything about how a card game really survives.
Victory or Death!