Hearthpwn

Quote from HAL9000 >>

the most players are on the low ranks, because theyre not really playing the game. the super-casuals. the only log into the game once in a while for a few games and probably never spend money on the game anyways. there is no reason to focus on them.

Quote from HAL9000 >>

the most players are on the low ranks, because theyre not really playing the game. the super-casuals. the only log into the game once in a while for a few games and probably never spend money on the game anyways. there is no reason to focus on them.

ive read a lot about F2P models. usually 90% of the players dont spend anything and from the 10% spending anything 1% are considered "whales" who spend thousands of dollars. its also more likely to get players to spend money the longer theyre playing the game and theyre more likely so spend more if they purchased anything before.

so far ive only seen full golden decks on the higher ranks, so i suppose the whales are somewhat competitive or waste their time in casual. it will really hurt economically of theyre starting to leave the game.

 I think more people than usual would be spending money on Hearthstone, because as it's a TCG, you're going to have to spend some amount of money to have a decent collection.

I've seen plenty of (at least mostly) golden decks at lower ranks, I'm not sure it's really limited to casual as much as 1/100 chances of running into a whale still makes it sparse. And like Grimlock01 said, with this being a CCG you're going to spend money to gain the collection you want without the time investment; for most people they won't need to approach whale status, if they're not f2p they'll drop $50-100 on an expansion and then play their janky decks casually on ladder.

Don't get me wrong, there are competitive whales that are buying thousands in packs... but there are non-competitive whales who literally just want all of the cards in gold because it makes them happy. Both are absurdly rare. For most other people, this is one of the cheapest card games they've gotten into so spending a bit on expansions doesn't bother them. For the people who don't pay anything this is a mobile game that they find pretty fun and they're content very slowly building a collection, or are dedicated to earning all of the cards via something like Arena. 

I have no doubt Blizzard likes keeping players in the competitive scene, but to be blunt about it if they had to choose the 1% competitive or the 99% semi-casual to fully-casual they would pretty much look at the numbers and pick the better one. And I'd wager that 99% is a lot more than you're thinking it is.

wellyeah. the logic behind the development seems, winning is more fun than losing, so give even the least skilled players wins via random effects to keep them around and happy. so theyre more likely to spend some money after a while.

Quote from HAL9000 >>

wellyeah. the logic behind the development seems, winning is more fun than losing, so give even the least skilled players wins via random effects to keep them around and happy. so theyre more likely to spend some money after a while.

Quote from nocontrol1111 >>

Quote from HAL9000 >>

wellyeah. the logic behind the development seems, winning is more fun than losing, so give even the least skilled players wins via random effects to keep them around and happy. so theyre more likely to spend some money after a while.

 "Easy to learn. Hard to master" It's all in their own words. Hard to be salty about that. 

game decreased in quality so much over last say 2 years its pathetic

Quote from Hooghout >>

 

Quote from Tze >>

 

As for now aggro shaman and pirate warrior have a overall archetype win-rate of 54% followed bij midrange shaman which is essentially a fast "aggro" midrange deck: 54 %.  Most played decklists in week 20-26 february: again aggro shaman, pirate warrior - source http://metastats.net/snapshot/week/all/08/ Not to mention that the most games are being played by.......again aggro shaman and pirate warrior.

Overwhelming examples of fast decks ruling the show. And that is suppose to be balanced. 9/9 is a designers choice to bring about. More versatility and more different match-ups at tournaments. If there is anything proven beyond reasonable doubt: slower meta will never come about.

 

Quote from HAL9000 >>

Quote from nocontrol1111 >>

Quote from HAL9000 >>

wellyeah. the logic behind the development seems, winning is more fun than losing, so give even the least skilled players wins via random effects to keep them around and happy. so theyre more likely to spend some money after a while.

 "Easy to learn. Hard to master" It's all in their own words. Hard to be salty about that. 

 Impossible to master, when Ragnaros randomly kills you or some other stupid rng happens. The reason why Lifecoach quit the game

Quote from Hooghout >>

Quote from Tze >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

 

Quote from Tze >>

 

There's really no point in keep defending developers while they so obviously err in the department of balance deck types in ranked. There is no defense for designing predominately into fast decks. There is no defense for failed card design as it's done only for the sake of revenues and not for a fair balanced game. In sum there is no defense for a underperforming design team that clearly needs a very long vacation never to return. The game is a complete garbage right now and I don't even voice Lifecoach.

There's nothing left to debate about when the diagnoses is pretty clear.

 

@Hooghout; and thinking a little more about this, you stated Hearthstone is garbage "right now"... at what point were you actually enjoying yourself? That might actually lend some context to things as well, because at some point the team you're calling to replace is the one that made a product you found enjoyable.

The problem I have with this topic in essence is what people are asking for is either too mercurial or not going to happen in a card game. 

You are not going to get a 100% win rate vs aggro if you are the best player in the world meta. 

Theres always going to be some level of rng, and there's always going to be competitive players liking different types of play styles. 

I don't know if people have really looked at other card games, but the numbers in HS aren't really much more disturbing and you can tell the people who have played card games competitively from the ones who got into HS professionally as their first card game (Zalae vs Firebat, both good but you can tell Firebat is bothered by high variance in things like tournaments). There's lots of stuff to help fix the variance, and I do think the devs should find ways to introduce more complexity to the game so that skill can shine more... but it's still just a card game that's happy to embrace the "anyone can win!" attitude Magic has for 20+ years.

I can fully respect people who think a game has either too much or too little variance for them, and I can respect people's feedback on what they feel is too much variance deciding championships, but they still need to be objective about it. There still needs to be a realization that this game was never intended to have the better player win 90% of the time (though they'll win against a worse play a lot even still), and I doubt it's ever going to be designed with that in mind. 

Quote from Mr_butts >>

The problem is that when Blizzard has a game that is available on multiple platforms they pick one platform to be the "main platform" and tend to balance the game around that player base. High skill players play almost exclusively on computers while Blizzard is pretty clearly trying to make Hearthstone a phone/tablet game. The same problem is happening in Overwatch where console players get no love, no access to the PTR, balance changes are done around computer players and even on the Blizzard forums Jeff Kaplan will respond to complaint threads with 10 pages but complaints from console players will go to like 50 pages and never get a response. 

We often forget that Blizzard doesn't owe us anything just because we are good. Legend players make up less than 1% of the 50+ million players so why listen to them when you have 30 million players who are willing to spend money at rank 20 and below? Blizzard is a business and having a game that competes with candy crush is a lot more profitable than a game that is good for the top 1,000 players.

Here's some reasons that I feel show Blizzard never intended Hearthstone to be some super hardcore competitive game and they've been viewing at as a phone game for quit some time now.

1. The game at it's core is silly and whimsical. The art, the voice lines, the characters, the boards are all fairly simple and childish. I think this is Blizzard realizing people are starting  to play video games earlier and earlier so they are moving away from the Diablo style and more toward Overwatch/Hearthstone style.
2. They continually nerf long combo decks and push curvestone decks. Long combo decks are the only decks that play different on mobile than they do on computers just due to the amount of time they take to pull off the combo. I usually wind up roping when trying to win with miracle rogue or patron warrior and if I was trying to do this on my phone I probably would never be able to pull it off.A powerful deck that can only really be done on a computer isn't what Blizzard wants.
3. Hearthstone is set up like a microtransaction mobile game. If 2 players start at the exact same time but one decides to drop $100 and the other is f2p the one who payed will win almost 100% of the time they play each other.
4. Arena in my opinion is harder to play on a phone than casual or ranked on a phone and Blizzard has shown they really don't care about arena balance at all in the last few expansions.
5. According to Blizzard themselves 75% of the player base is below rank 15. Anyone that even plays 2 or 3 ranked games a day can probably climb higher than that meaning probably around 50% of all players just play a game or two in casual probably at work or on the bus or something.
6. Blizzard announced more expansions per year which also means more money per year in case you had forgotten they're a business.
7. The Hearthstone FAQ section on their actual site has 20 questions, 12 of which are just about playing on a phone or tablet.  
8. Pro players, streamers, legend players and most high level players are not particularly fond of the last 2-3 metas and are souring on the game as a whole but profits are continuing to go up and Blizzard has been pumping out aggro curvestone every expansion for over a year now.

It isn't that Blizzard is trying to drive out good players or that they hate legend players but they are trying to make a phone game that maximizes player base and therefore profit. No one says candy crush is an e-sport but it made over $200,000,000 last year and any company that has the ability to make a successful phone game but doesn't tap into that market is just foolish. Unfortunately for us on this forum though top 10 in the app store and fun yet complex high level gameplay don't typically go hand in hand.

@Hooghout; that's literally never something Blizzard needs to officially acknowledge as a "game policy", because that's generally how card games are designed (and why they're successful across a wide range of players). If a game really IS intended to punish a lack of skill severely, and really IS going to promote the idea of the better player winning 90% of the time, then you'll be able to tell pretty fast. It's generally not something that changes drastically with game design after it launches, and especially won't change when that game is competing with established powerhouses like Magic. You can still design it to promote skillful play without designing the game so that pros won't ever lose to a Rank 25, and quite honestly if you've played at Rank 25 lately it's not like you're exactly going into it with 50/50 chances. The better player wins the majority of the time, people just get caught up on the 20-30% of the time that X player played poorly and wasn't properly punished. 

You absolutely will not have a hard time ranking up to Legend with a non-Aggressive deck, and it's been proven over and over this is the case. You will have to spend more time, which is the dealbreaker, but you absolutely won't have a hard time if you're actually comfortable with piloting something like one of the Reno variants, Miracle Rogue, or Control Shaman; and this is exactly my point, for all the tears about Aggro being the best we still have more NON-Aggro decks that are viable for climbing than not (based on the accepted definitions of what is actually Aggro and what is not). Short of arguing for them to completely avoid designing for Aggro in every set, I'm not sure I'm seeing the issue when the objective results are still diverse; "designing into aggro" is them doing their job, and of the three Standard metas I think this is the first actual Aggro meta. 

Honestly if you want a game that promotes purely skillful gameplay to define winners and losers, it really is a matter of finding a new game. Hearthstone won't do that, Eternal won't do that, ESL won't do that, Shadowverse won't do that, Magic won't do that... Even Gwent still won't do that. Eternal and MTG I think promote it slightly more by promoting complexity (it's marginal still), Gwent promotes it by apparently letting you see half your deck a turn, but short of emulating Chess none of them commit to that ideal fully.

Quote from Hooghout >>

The admittance by some here that the game is just a cash cow is a moral hazard as card design is then not for ingame requierments - in where balance and 9/9/ viability issues a divers game experience - but to let low skill dept aggressive decklists rule the meta.

It is the aggro lover or otherwise the loaded WCBC - player who will defend Brode and consort till the end. They can do no wrong. Everything they come up with is cool. And skill? well 20  + years cardgamess like HS it has always been the same. So what is the fuss?

Gentlemen, relying on "experience" 20+ years is not an argument.

blizzard just wan profits. They keep released RNG feast card. Brainless player also can steal win from world champion.

kazakus is example of RNG feast. Just decide the outcome of games . Discover good effect= free win. Ie:respawn 3 high cost minion. While opponent get crap effect.

Quote from SleepTurtle >>

blizzard just wan profits. They keep released RNG feast card. Brainless player also can steal win from world champion.

kazakus is example of RNG feast. Just decide the outcome of games . Discover good effect= free win. Ie:respawn 3 high cost minion. While opponent get crap effect.