I didn't put any words in your mouth, you don't have to spend a penny to be immediately competitive, you can look up any of Trump's free to play series where he reaches Legendary.
The fact that you even refer to it as RNGeesus means you're obsessing over parts of the game you can't control and simply stating that Magic takes more skill because you lost a few games to a random Knife Juggler, big deal.
You can keep saying it's fact that Hearthstone is far more luck based than MTG, but it doesn't make it true. I like how you bolded the "reducing skill significantly" part. *rolls eyes*
I did read your entire post, and I tried quoting only certain portions but I couldn't get it to work right, so you don't have to be a prick about it.
Well of course you ignored, you got all super defensive even though I was polite throughout all of my posts and defending other people you were attacking by saying they've never played Magic and that I've never had a complex attack phase. You know nothing about me and you're making assumptions. Your stance got challenged, you threw a hissy fit and ignored me, not much I can do about that.
First of all, attackers advantage is far more skill oriented and complex than defender advantage. In Magic, you say "I declare my attack phase" your opponent says "ok" or he does something with an instant. Then, you say "Ok, I attack with this, this and this." And from that moment on, you have zero control over what happens as he chooses blockers. How exactly is that skill intensive? Before damage was removed from the stack it was better, but still not as good as Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, if I choose to attack face when I should of cleared a minion and traded, or trade for a minion when I should of went face, these are decisions that can and will ultimately cost you games. In Magic you declare your attack, and your opponent decides everything that happens after that.
Hang on.. I'm no Magic veteran.. but aren't to two cases roughly equivalent, just flipped around. Allowing a minion you hit you in the face when you should have blocked and traded; or blocking when you should have let it through to keep your minion alive .. aren't these also decisions that can and ultimately will cost you games?
To all of that .... just to remeber than in Magic random effects are quite common, but because of unreliability most of this cards do not see much competitive play except some exceptions ( like the discard 2 cards at random of hymn). There is even a card that can make you win the game by wining coin flips come on!!! Or even some time seeing the bigest joke ever the infamous 1 mana tutor Gamble. or the tipical man clash when if extremely lucky for one mana you can kill your oponent.... And do nto forget that thousands of goblins with a coin flip xd
Yep rng exist in every card game , and in my opinion is the funniest part of casual play. but so far the card pool of HS is so thin that you need to include rng cards
Also some rng abilites are so overly underpriced because of rng that it becomes atractive. (charge and inmune for just random selection of the target attacked?? who could say no!!) and this is principally the problem with rng in HS it deduce too much of the cost of the card. Charging rag with immune while attacking? even at 12 it would not be fair! 2 3/2 (like a vnailla card of same cost) with 1 freee damage each time you play a creature... compared to the 3 mana 2/2 with one one damage.... and etc... so yep one problem is that rng effects are too good
First of all, attackers advantage is far more skill oriented and complex than defender advantage. In Magic, you say "I declare my attack phase" your opponent says "ok" or he does something with an instant. Then, you say "Ok, I attack with this, this and this." And from that moment on, you have zero control over what happens as he chooses blockers. How exactly is that skill intensive? Before damage was removed from the stack it was better, but still not as good as Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, if I choose to attack face when I should of cleared a minion and traded, or trade for a minion when I should of went face, these are decisions that can and will ultimately cost you games. In Magic you declare your attack, and your opponent decides everything that happens after that.
Hang on.. I'm no Magic veteran.. but aren't to two cases roughly equivalent, just flipped around. Allowing a minion you hit you in the face when you should have blocked and traded; or blocking when you should have let it through to keep your minion alive .. aren't these also decisions that can and ultimately will cost you games?
Yes and no. In Magic, you have the control if you're the defender, not the attacker. This means that in Hearthstone, I am in control of whether or not i make a mistake, not attacking and then hoping that my opponent defends incorrectly. It becomes more of a game about not making any mistakes yourself, rather than relying on your opponent to make mistakes that you can then take advantage of.
Plus in Magic, it's pretty obvious when your 1/1 should chump block an 8/8 without trample for a turn instead of taking 8 to the face. In Hearthstone, since damage sticks and isn't reset at the end of each turn, trading off that 1/1 into the 8/8 on a prior turn because your opponent is a Mage, Rogue or Druid might allow you to take it down on a later turn.
Yes and no. In Magic, you have the control if you're the defender, not the attacker. This means that in Hearthstone, I am in control of whether or not i make a mistake, not attacking and then hoping that my opponent defends incorrectly. It becomes more of a game about not making any mistakes yourself, rather than relying on your opponent to make mistakes that you can then take advantage of.
Right.. I think I get you. When you give the defender control, as Magic does, the defender can only make a mistake if the attacker does something which he can react to sensibly or foolishly.
But a halfway-decent attacker will never make a play which will only work if the defender screws up. So the defender seldom gets the opportunity to make a mistake.
You guys don't remember magic in 93, or you are lying. these were the days when game breaking combos were the best way to play. Time Vault+living artifact, then Lich+mirror universe, then mirror+greed. Non of these decks took skill. You got the combo and won, building decks that could do it successfully was the true skill. After ice age, 4th E, the game became more thought intensive.
oh and the old erny jinn decks. lol lots of skill there
You guys don't remember magic in 93, or you are lying. these were the days when game breaking combos were the best way to play. Time Vault+living artifact, then Lich+mirror universe, then mirror+greed. Non of these decks took skill. You got the combo and won, building decks that could do it successfully was the true skill. After ice age, 4th E, the game became more thought intensive.
oh and the old erny jinn decks. lol lots of skill there
You forgot about channel + fireball, one of my favorites back then. =)
Actually the time I remember most was during blue/green madness with wild mongrels and Psychatog with stuff like Circular Logic, haha.
You guys don't remember magic in 93, or you are lying. these were the days when game breaking combos were the best way to play. Time Vault+living artifact, then Lich+mirror universe, then mirror+greed. Non of these decks took skill. You got the combo and won, building decks that could do it successfully was the true skill. After ice age, 4th E, the game became more thought intensive.
oh and the old erny jinn decks. lol lots of skill there
You forgot about channel + fireball, one of my favorites back then. =)
Actually the time I remember most was during blue/green madness with wild mongrels and Psychatog with stuff like Circular Logic, haha.
I can't believe I forgot about RG, get in early damage with DD or creatures and combowombo win. And I forgot LD decks. So much skill... Sinkhole, stip, ice storm, stone rain. All the early decks were built to take the opposing player out of the equation. Control didn't get fow until 96, which fixed the problem with unstoppable combos. before that, everyone who was anyone did ice age limited. constructed tourneys were few and far between.
late 94 stasis kismet decks ownd then land tax armegeddon in 95... Lol 96 it was assassin icy and more land tax. Brainless combo until 97
Rg decks were sick in early magic channel fireball or bloodlust giant growth and beserk on something bam game over so fast. Though I think one of the worse to play against in the earlier days of magic was when hymn came out with fallen empires. Rack decks make anything that's horrible in HS seem only mildly annoying. Who else remembers seeing turn 1: dark ritual, hypnotic specter, turn 2: hymn, turn 3: rack and hymn congratulations you will never have a card in your hand unless you can play it as soon as it is drawn. I think some of the HS devs played back then because they have said no discard mechanic will be added and for that I am thankful.
Mind Twist... Oh dirty sick Mind Twist. My discard deck is banned in my casual playgroup.
Lilliana's Caress + Burning Inquiry ended so many games (even the 1 multiplayer game I wasn't ganged on, T1 DR>Caress>Thoughtseize T2 Caress, T3 Double Burning Inquiry, opponent's take 24 damage).
Yeah, this game will never have player imposed discard. Not in a million years.
Every post about MTG in '93 are irrelevant! The OP says that HS in its current state is more complex and requires more skill than MTG in it's current state. Not HS is more complex than MTG was when it first came out. That may be true but that's not what he is talking about at all. MTG came out 21 years ago and blizz employees have 21 years of MTG and other card games to influence them. MTG was original so arguing over who has a better "first print run" is just a stupid argument to be making. This whole thread is about whether MTG right now is more or less complex and requires more or less skill to play than HS.
This whole thread is about whether MTG right now is more or less complex and requires more or less skill to play than HS.
I agree with everything you said, but I think a better discussion would be about whether MtG right now is a better or worse game than HS. I think a lot of people confuse complexity with quality, but complexity and skill requirement don't necessarily make a game better. Obviously what makes a game better is highly subjective, but I think HS is simply more fun, which is the most important thing to me.
Also, there are different types of complexity. (Mark Rosewater has written extensively about the different types and their advantages and disadvantages. If anyone's interested, read this.) Magic has a much higher level of comprehension complexity. There are many more mechanics that players need to learn and memorise, the game rules are clunkier (200 page rulebook!), and cards just have tons more text than HS cards. That kind of complexity gives the game more design space, but it detracts from the play experience for all but the most enfranchised players. It makes the game worse, and the designers have been trying to bring the comprehension complexity down recently. Magic has a higher level of board complexity too. There's usually a lot more to keep track of whenever you look at what's happening on the board. Again this is a bad thing, and they've been trying to bring it down. The good type of complexity is strategic complexity, and I think MtG and HS are pretty comparable on this. Strategic complexity is used differently in both games, so it's hard to say which does it better, but I think they both offer a good amount of it. (Talking about Standard here. Obviously older formats are way more complex on every level.)
This whole thread is about whether MTG right now is more or less complex and requires more or less skill to play than HS.
...I agree with everything you said, but I think a better discussion would be about whether MtG right now is a better or worse game than HS...
...and cards just have tons more text than HS cards...
Actually, since the thread is about "Comparing Skill/Luck Between Hearthstone and Magic:The Gathering", I think that "What is the better and worse game" would be a huge derailment to the topic. It especially doesn't work well because this is a Hearthstone forum, so there will be huge amounts of bias on one side of that spectrum.
Oh, and having more text on cards isn't necessarily a bad thing. Before Naxx was released Blizzard omitted the word "Random" on many Death-rattle/Secret cards. It seems on the comment portion of the respective card's Facebook pages there were many "So can we choose the target?" "No noob, you death-rattles can trigger on your opponent's turn" "Well, then wouldn't it be easy to add 'Random' in like the text like Sylvanas Windrunner?" "Learn to play the game" I believe that the cards should have as little text as possible, but only as long as no questions could be asked on interpretation about how an effect works. Besides, there are other reason's why the text in Hearthstone is a lot lighter. Online reasons such as omitting "Shuffle deck" and similar effects, keyword text is displayed on hover (See how big Spectral Knight and Maexxna text are without keywords, compared to Al'Akir the Windlord), flavor text is displayed in collection. Then design decisions such as no inclusion of a graveyard, simplistic auto-accumulating resources, etc.
This whole thread is about whether MTG right now is more or less complex and requires more or less skill to play than HS.
...I agree with everything you said, but I think a better discussion would be about whether MtG right now is a better or worse game than HS...
...and cards just have tons more text than HS cards...
Actually, since the thread is about "Comparing Skill/Luck Between Hearthstone and Magic:The Gathering", I think that "What is the better and worse game" would be a huge derailment to the topic. It especially doesn't work well because this is a Hearthstone forum, so there will be huge amounts of bias on one side of that spectrum.
Oh, and having more text on cards isn't necessarily a bad thing. Before Naxx was released Blizzard omitted the word "Random" on many Death-rattle/Secret cards. It seems on the comment portion of the respective card's Facebook pages there were many "So can we choose the target?" "No noob, you death-rattles can trigger on your opponent's turn" "Well, then wouldn't it be easy to add 'Random' in like the text like Sylvanas Windrunner?" "Learn to play the game" I believe that the cards should have as little text as possible, but only as long as no questions could be asked on interpretation about how an effect works. Besides, there are other reason's why the text in Hearthstone is a lot lighter. Online reasons such as omitting "Shuffle deck" and similar effects, keyword text is displayed on hover (See how big Spectral Knight and Maexxna text are without keywords, compared to Al'Akir the Windlord), flavor text is displayed in collection. Then design decisions such as no inclusion of a graveyard, simplistic auto-accumulating resources, etc.
Agreed. More text on cards obviously isn't always a bad thing. I couldn't agree more about the need for more accuracy on HS cards. But the amount of text is just one part of MtG's massive comprehension complexity problem. Also note that the amount of text on MtG cards has been going down over the years, as the designers have become more aware of how daunting MtG's complexity is and how that negatively affects the game's success.
I don't mean to change the topic of this thread to quality instead of complexity/luck. (Most of my previous post was related to complexity, not perceived quality.) I was just trying to point out that a lot of players, including in this thread, seem to be confusing the concepts. Some people use the concepts interchangeably, which I think is a mistake. Without a more nuanced understanding of complexity (hence separating it into different types of complexity), discussions like this are a bit pointless, because MtG clearly has way more complexity in general. Mostly the bad kind. The OP was specifically addressing strategic complexity, which is good, because IMO that's the only type of complexity worth looking at. But some of the people replying aren't making that distinction.
I cannot agree that the complexity is bad as I thoroughly enjoy the complexity of the game (Former judge at my card shop). It isn't that daunting, the only issues are card specific interactions and some effect ordering. If MTG is too complicated, then there would be no way my wife could come out and play more than competently without any former gaming experience and an overview of the steps, rules and interactions. My wife has been playing for about 3 years now and she knows plenty about the game and that experience has made HS seem very "dumbed down" in comparison (She even scoffed when she heard some of the points made by the OP).
If the complexity is a factor in you not enjoying the game (particularly in eternal formats) then don't play them. Standard MTG is very similar to HS (has 3-4x the card pool and many cards are re-prints) and uses core mechanics at any given time (so that it isn't overwhelming for people, like Time Spiral block... One of my faves). All the different formats of MTG allow for so many different types of experiences (pauper anyone? I'd love to see a common only HS format)
I think that this game is very limited and wouldn't even be able to reach the size of a standard MTG environment without some serious re-tuning of the game (resources, lifetotals and even deck sizes). As it is now, the game is simple and cute. As a competitive style gamer for 15+ years I don't find this game to be very competitive. I also don't find it any more consistent than poker (not a bash to either game, I just find that luck is a far more prevalent and determining factor than many would like to admit or realize in this game).
I like the game and i have fun, but when you lose 6 games in a row on a topdeck or perfect starting hands with no recourse and no action you could take to win, that is sad. At least there are more opportunities in MTG to make plays and this leaves more opportunity for mistakes as well. With both involving factors I can comfortably assume a 70-80% winrate against most players in that game, where skill is a highly determining factor.
My wife can (and does) beat me in Hearthstone quite often. MTG, not so much, but it still happens enough so that we play.
MTG is certainly more complex and deep and will always have that on HS. HS doesn't want to be the next MTG (if anything MTG wants to be more like HS).
I cannot disagree that Wotc wants to simplify MTG (adding more keywords and simpler explanations for things), but it can only be done to a certain extent because the damage was done 20 years ago when they first made the game. Hearthstone is off to a great start, but they have 20+ years of CCG experience to work with and understand the mistakes of their predecessors.
The Strategic depth of MTG is incomparable to Hearthstone. That is a distinction that needs to be 100% clear. The games are so dissimilar and they don't want to be similar in so many ways that they just shouldn't be compared in an overall context. I like to use analogies to MTG to explain finer points of Hearthstone, but saying that they are even in terms of strategic depth is just flat out ignorant of 20 years of MTG history.
Bare with me...but controversially, I actually feel Hearthstone requires much more player skill and less luck factors in the actual play of the game and that MTG has much more depth in terms of meta analysis and deck construction. I'm aware this creates a kneejerk reaction to a lot of players who instantly think of Magic's long history and Hearthstone's many RNG cards...but allow me to explain.
No don't explain. Should have just stopped there. I am not offended, not a fanboy, and it isn't a kneejerk reaction but quite simply - you are wrong. Magic has more player skill. Done.
it is definitely an interesting discussion even tho i completely disagree with the group of people who think hearthstone has more depth than magic. but to each his own.
I find these arguments about "which game is better" which point out the complexity of magic and the amount of card text as a bad thing. I have never, ever, EVER met, or heard of online or through word of mouth, of ANY person who played MTG for the first time, and didn't instantly and immediately fall in love with it. I've never heard of a person start playing magic and say "so much text and rules! It was daunting that I just couldn't enjoy it!" Guys, you are making things up! You are just pointing out how MTG works and saying that those points are valid reasons why MTG is worse when in actuality I doubt any of you can recall instances of people starting up MTG and being like "well I just hated it, it was too hard and complex."
I mean really if we want to talk about the best game ever, we have to give it up to candy crush or some other phone app that has the most players in the world amiright? lol.
I find these arguments about "which game is better" which point out the complexity of magic and the amount of card text as a bad thing. I have never, ever, EVER met, or heard of online or through word of mouth, of ANY person who played MTG for the first time, and didn't instantly and immediately fall in love with it. I've never heard of a person start playing magic and say "so much text and rules! It was daunting that I just couldn't enjoy it!" Guys, you are making things up! You are just pointing out how MTG works and saying that those points are valid reasons why MTG is worse when in actuality I doubt any of you can recall instances of people starting up MTG and being like "well I just hated it, it was too hard and complex."
I mean really if we want to talk about the best game ever, we have to give it up to candy crush or some other phone app that has the most players in the world amiright? lol.
Lol. Once again I want to say I love mtg, but you are silly. I was one of the original ambassadors of magic and I must say, you are wrong. I have introduced a lot of peeps to this game and there has been a lot of peeps who say f'this. I don't want to sound sexist but a lot of my failures came from women. it's anecdotal but I still have not introduced MTG to a women and had them actually enjoy it. but anyways, sexist anecdotes aside, you are wrong.
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Lol a bit defensive aren't we?
I didn't put any words in your mouth, you don't have to spend a penny to be immediately competitive, you can look up any of Trump's free to play series where he reaches Legendary.
The fact that you even refer to it as RNGeesus means you're obsessing over parts of the game you can't control and simply stating that Magic takes more skill because you lost a few games to a random Knife Juggler, big deal.
You can keep saying it's fact that Hearthstone is far more luck based than MTG, but it doesn't make it true. I like how you bolded the "reducing skill significantly" part. *rolls eyes*
I did read your entire post, and I tried quoting only certain portions but I couldn't get it to work right, so you don't have to be a prick about it.
Well of course you ignored, you got all super defensive even though I was polite throughout all of my posts and defending other people you were attacking by saying they've never played Magic and that I've never had a complex attack phase. You know nothing about me and you're making assumptions. Your stance got challenged, you threw a hissy fit and ignored me, not much I can do about that.
Hang on.. I'm no Magic veteran.. but aren't to two cases roughly equivalent, just flipped around. Allowing a minion you hit you in the face when you should have blocked and traded; or blocking when you should have let it through to keep your minion alive .. aren't these also decisions that can and ultimately will cost you games?
To all of that .... just to remeber than in Magic random effects are quite common, but because of unreliability most of this cards do not see much competitive play except some exceptions ( like the discard 2 cards at random of hymn). There is even a card that can make you win the game by wining coin flips come on!!! Or even some time seeing the bigest joke ever the infamous 1 mana tutor Gamble. or the tipical man clash when if extremely lucky for one mana you can kill your oponent.... And do nto forget that thousands of goblins with a coin flip xd
Yep rng exist in every card game , and in my opinion is the funniest part of casual play. but so far the card pool of HS is so thin that you need to include rng cards
Also some rng abilites are so overly underpriced because of rng that it becomes atractive. (charge and inmune for just random selection of the target attacked?? who could say no!!) and this is principally the problem with rng in HS it deduce too much of the cost of the card. Charging rag with immune while attacking? even at 12 it would not be fair! 2 3/2 (like a vnailla card of same cost) with 1 freee damage each time you play a creature... compared to the 3 mana 2/2 with one one damage.... and etc... so yep one problem is that rng effects are too good
Yes and no. In Magic, you have the control if you're the defender, not the attacker. This means that in Hearthstone, I am in control of whether or not i make a mistake, not attacking and then hoping that my opponent defends incorrectly. It becomes more of a game about not making any mistakes yourself, rather than relying on your opponent to make mistakes that you can then take advantage of.
Plus in Magic, it's pretty obvious when your 1/1 should chump block an 8/8 without trample for a turn instead of taking 8 to the face. In Hearthstone, since damage sticks and isn't reset at the end of each turn, trading off that 1/1 into the 8/8 on a prior turn because your opponent is a Mage, Rogue or Druid might allow you to take it down on a later turn.
Right.. I think I get you. When you give the defender control, as Magic does, the defender can only make a mistake if the attacker does something which he can react to sensibly or foolishly.
But a halfway-decent attacker will never make a play which will only work if the defender screws up. So the defender seldom gets the opportunity to make a mistake.
Makes sense!
You guys don't remember magic in 93, or you are lying. these were the days when game breaking combos were the best way to play. Time Vault+living artifact, then Lich+mirror universe, then mirror+greed. Non of these decks took skill. You got the combo and won, building decks that could do it successfully was the true skill. After ice age, 4th E, the game became more thought intensive.
oh and the old erny jinn decks. lol lots of skill there
You forgot about channel + fireball, one of my favorites back then. =)
Actually the time I remember most was during blue/green madness with wild mongrels and Psychatog with stuff like Circular Logic, haha.
I can't believe I forgot about RG, get in early damage with DD or creatures and combowombo win. And I forgot LD decks. So much skill... Sinkhole, stip, ice storm, stone rain. All the early decks were built to take the opposing player out of the equation. Control didn't get fow until 96, which fixed the problem with unstoppable combos. before that, everyone who was anyone did ice age limited. constructed tourneys were few and far between.
late 94 stasis kismet decks ownd then land tax armegeddon in 95... Lol 96 it was assassin icy and more land tax. Brainless combo until 97
Rg decks were sick in early magic channel fireball or bloodlust giant growth and beserk on something bam game over so fast. Though I think one of the worse to play against in the earlier days of magic was when hymn came out with fallen empires. Rack decks make anything that's horrible in HS seem only mildly annoying. Who else remembers seeing turn 1: dark ritual, hypnotic specter, turn 2: hymn, turn 3: rack and hymn congratulations you will never have a card in your hand unless you can play it as soon as it is drawn. I think some of the HS devs played back then because they have said no discard mechanic will be added and for that I am thankful.
Yeah rack was painful. Another deck that made the game into solitaire.
Mind Twist... Oh dirty sick Mind Twist.
My discard deck is banned in my casual playgroup.
Lilliana's Caress + Burning Inquiry ended so many games (even the 1 multiplayer game I wasn't ganged on, T1 DR>Caress>Thoughtseize T2 Caress, T3 Double Burning Inquiry, opponent's take 24 damage).
Yeah, this game will never have player imposed discard. Not in a million years.
Every post about MTG in '93 are irrelevant! The OP says that HS in its current state is more complex and requires more skill than MTG in it's current state. Not HS is more complex than MTG was when it first came out. That may be true but that's not what he is talking about at all. MTG came out 21 years ago and blizz employees have 21 years of MTG and other card games to influence them. MTG was original so arguing over who has a better "first print run" is just a stupid argument to be making. This whole thread is about whether MTG right now is more or less complex and requires more or less skill to play than HS.
I agree with everything you said, but I think a better discussion would be about whether MtG right now is a better or worse game than HS. I think a lot of people confuse complexity with quality, but complexity and skill requirement don't necessarily make a game better. Obviously what makes a game better is highly subjective, but I think HS is simply more fun, which is the most important thing to me.
Also, there are different types of complexity. (Mark Rosewater has written extensively about the different types and their advantages and disadvantages. If anyone's interested, read this.) Magic has a much higher level of comprehension complexity. There are many more mechanics that players need to learn and memorise, the game rules are clunkier (200 page rulebook!), and cards just have tons more text than HS cards. That kind of complexity gives the game more design space, but it detracts from the play experience for all but the most enfranchised players. It makes the game worse, and the designers have been trying to bring the comprehension complexity down recently. Magic has a higher level of board complexity too. There's usually a lot more to keep track of whenever you look at what's happening on the board. Again this is a bad thing, and they've been trying to bring it down. The good type of complexity is strategic complexity, and I think MtG and HS are pretty comparable on this. Strategic complexity is used differently in both games, so it's hard to say which does it better, but I think they both offer a good amount of it. (Talking about Standard here. Obviously older formats are way more complex on every level.)
Actually, since the thread is about "Comparing Skill/Luck Between Hearthstone and Magic:The Gathering", I think that "What is the better and worse game" would be a huge derailment to the topic. It especially doesn't work well because this is a Hearthstone forum, so there will be huge amounts of bias on one side of that spectrum.
Oh, and having more text on cards isn't necessarily a bad thing. Before Naxx was released Blizzard omitted the word "Random" on many Death-rattle/Secret cards. It seems on the comment portion of the respective card's Facebook pages there were many "So can we choose the target?" "No noob, you death-rattles can trigger on your opponent's turn" "Well, then wouldn't it be easy to add 'Random' in like the text like Sylvanas Windrunner?" "Learn to play the game" I believe that the cards should have as little text as possible, but only as long as no questions could be asked on interpretation about how an effect works.
Besides, there are other reason's why the text in Hearthstone is a lot lighter. Online reasons such as omitting "Shuffle deck" and similar effects, keyword text is displayed on hover (See how big Spectral Knight and Maexxna text are without keywords, compared to Al'Akir the Windlord), flavor text is displayed in collection. Then design decisions such as no inclusion of a graveyard, simplistic auto-accumulating resources, etc.
Agreed. More text on cards obviously isn't always a bad thing. I couldn't agree more about the need for more accuracy on HS cards. But the amount of text is just one part of MtG's massive comprehension complexity problem. Also note that the amount of text on MtG cards has been going down over the years, as the designers have become more aware of how daunting MtG's complexity is and how that negatively affects the game's success.
I don't mean to change the topic of this thread to quality instead of complexity/luck. (Most of my previous post was related to complexity, not perceived quality.) I was just trying to point out that a lot of players, including in this thread, seem to be confusing the concepts. Some people use the concepts interchangeably, which I think is a mistake. Without a more nuanced understanding of complexity (hence separating it into different types of complexity), discussions like this are a bit pointless, because MtG clearly has way more complexity in general. Mostly the bad kind. The OP was specifically addressing strategic complexity, which is good, because IMO that's the only type of complexity worth looking at. But some of the people replying aren't making that distinction.
I cannot agree that the complexity is bad as I thoroughly enjoy the complexity of the game (Former judge at my card shop). It isn't that daunting, the only issues are card specific interactions and some effect ordering. If MTG is too complicated, then there would be no way my wife could come out and play more than competently without any former gaming experience and an overview of the steps, rules and interactions. My wife has been playing for about 3 years now and she knows plenty about the game and that experience has made HS seem very "dumbed down" in comparison (She even scoffed when she heard some of the points made by the OP).
If the complexity is a factor in you not enjoying the game (particularly in eternal formats) then don't play them. Standard MTG is very similar to HS (has 3-4x the card pool and many cards are re-prints) and uses core mechanics at any given time (so that it isn't overwhelming for people, like Time Spiral block... One of my faves). All the different formats of MTG allow for so many different types of experiences (pauper anyone? I'd love to see a common only HS format)
I think that this game is very limited and wouldn't even be able to reach the size of a standard MTG environment without some serious re-tuning of the game (resources, lifetotals and even deck sizes). As it is now, the game is simple and cute. As a competitive style gamer for 15+ years I don't find this game to be very competitive. I also don't find it any more consistent than poker (not a bash to either game, I just find that luck is a far more prevalent and determining factor than many would like to admit or realize in this game).
I like the game and i have fun, but when you lose 6 games in a row on a topdeck or perfect starting hands with no recourse and no action you could take to win, that is sad. At least there are more opportunities in MTG to make plays and this leaves more opportunity for mistakes as well. With both involving factors I can comfortably assume a 70-80% winrate against most players in that game, where skill is a highly determining factor.
My wife can (and does) beat me in Hearthstone quite often. MTG, not so much, but it still happens enough so that we play.
MTG is certainly more complex and deep and will always have that on HS. HS doesn't want to be the next MTG (if anything MTG wants to be more like HS).
I cannot disagree that Wotc wants to simplify MTG (adding more keywords and simpler explanations for things), but it can only be done to a certain extent because the damage was done 20 years ago when they first made the game. Hearthstone is off to a great start, but they have 20+ years of CCG experience to work with and understand the mistakes of their predecessors.
The Strategic depth of MTG is incomparable to Hearthstone. That is a distinction that needs to be 100% clear. The games are so dissimilar and they don't want to be similar in so many ways that they just shouldn't be compared in an overall context. I like to use analogies to MTG to explain finer points of Hearthstone, but saying that they are even in terms of strategic depth is just flat out ignorant of 20 years of MTG history.
No don't explain. Should have just stopped there. I am not offended, not a fanboy, and it isn't a kneejerk reaction but quite simply - you are wrong. Magic has more player skill. Done.
it is definitely an interesting discussion even tho i completely disagree with the group of people who think hearthstone has more depth than magic. but to each his own.
I find these arguments about "which game is better" which point out the complexity of magic and the amount of card text as a bad thing. I have never, ever, EVER met, or heard of online or through word of mouth, of ANY person who played MTG for the first time, and didn't instantly and immediately fall in love with it. I've never heard of a person start playing magic and say "so much text and rules! It was daunting that I just couldn't enjoy it!" Guys, you are making things up! You are just pointing out how MTG works and saying that those points are valid reasons why MTG is worse when in actuality I doubt any of you can recall instances of people starting up MTG and being like "well I just hated it, it was too hard and complex."
I mean really if we want to talk about the best game ever, we have to give it up to candy crush or some other phone app that has the most players in the world amiright? lol.
Lol. Once again I want to say I love mtg, but you are silly. I was one of the original ambassadors of magic and I must say, you are wrong. I have introduced a lot of peeps to this game and there has been a lot of peeps who say f'this. I don't want to sound sexist but a lot of my failures came from women. it's anecdotal but I still have not introduced MTG to a women and had them actually enjoy it. but anyways, sexist anecdotes aside, you are wrong.