The growing vicious cycle in which players debate the state of Hearthstone to no end, seem to ignore for the most part on why such debates take place to begin with. It is ironically the reason they began playing: Hearthstone is the potential Magic the Gathering for mobile. The most featured hot topic is RNG with an increasingly aggressive playstyle as a close second. I'm confident the majority of players wish for less of both. If a more in-depth game where longer matches and more direct consequences for your actions were present, Hearthstone would most likely be praised by most.
As a long-standing player, I can clearly understand the frustration. Blizzard has developed the one step forward, two steps back habit. For every nice card that gives us glimmers of MTG control hope, there are many more that make that card unplayable. Blizzard cannot make up its mind. It is as if clings to the thought of a big minion / control card game, while constantly flooding the metas with aggro. If you are a Druid, do you see any incentive to craft the quest? You are outweighed by the number of aggressive decks. So I then ask: What's the point of "printing" control style cards?
Now, please keep in mind this is not some random "salt" post and I am not a Druid player facing these troubles. I only use the above as an example. It is clear, however, that Blizzard has chipped away at the idea of a control style game with each passing meta. Perhaps it is time to accept that Hearthstone will never be what most seem to want: A game that doesn't insult the player's intelligence. For now, seeing it for what it is may alleviate the irritation of what the game has become but the thirst will always be there. It is a wish that will keep permeating the discussions without being discussed. You want Hearthstone to be a clone of MTG and it never will be.
Here's the thing; HotS was made to be a casual, for fun Moba game only to bellyflop horribly and have Blizzard scrambling to turn it into a competitively viable moba similar to LoL or DotA, but different, same as Hearthstone.
You know why they haven't changed that path with Hearthstone? Because it makes them money, because people like it.
OP is crazy. Hearthstone is awesome. RNG, while frustrating at times, is mostly fun and shakes up every matchup. Standard right now is incredibly diverse and some of the pros estimate they could reach legend with a whopping 18 different decks (and not just one-card variations on builds, but rather drastically different builds within each class).
This game is not Magic. This game is Hearthstone. It doesn't want to be like Magic. How do you not get that yet?
I don't know if you play Magic the Gathering but it certainly is not without meta problems of it's own. Even at this stage in it's lifespan.
The meta before last in MTG was dominated by a super overpowered vehicle called "Smuggler's Copter" it was a 2-drop. The decks that used it were pretty aggressive.
Then they banned "Copter"...just to replace it with another overpowered 2-drop vehicle "Heart of Kiran" (Wizard Please...)
Possibly even worse. An OTK 2-card combo "Cobycat". When I say OTK I don't mean like Maylgos Druid, we are talking Exodia Mage. It would be like if you could spawn infinite Patches. Infinite Patches, my friend. When addressing this sickness Wizard's response was "Whoops didn't see that coming."
Yah, maybe not the example of perfect meta balance a lot HS players imagine it is.
As for Hearthstone. Look, the game is fun, but let's face reality. The game is geared to younger players. If you are ever unsure about this go watch one of Abed from communitie's Un'Goro hype videos. It's a smart business plan, right? Part of this means doing things younger players like. They play on their phones so they like short games, they don't like to think too hard (mostly), and they HATE losing, but again they can't play complicated decks.
I don't necessarily think Blizzard gears towards aggro more then anything. They gear to Curvestone. They want the match your number on the card, to your mana crystal number and play that card decks to be strong. They also want enough random effects that you can win games every now then without having to outplay your opponents.
They are not afraid of strong aggro, until the community begs them to tone it down. From their perspective they see Pirate Warrior as a successful deck that got a lot of kids to beg their parents to open their wallets for Patches. It was a very popular deck and it let kids beat much better players and thus play more games.
They are afraid of Combo and Control. They still give cards to these decks, they do want to cater to the largest player base possible but they never want too many of them in the meta. Long games means less kids playing. Less kids playing means less money. Combo decks at the top of the meta have the same problem. Patron Warrior may have got nerfed in part because at the highest skill level it had too high a win rate, but also because at the lowest it had a 40% win rate. Kids play Patron, do poorly, decide this game is too hard for them. Less kids playing, less money.
The sheer arrogance of this post is absolutely staggering. Nobody with any sense wants Hearthstone to BE another CG, because if it was, then you would just go play that CG. I love Yu-Gi-Oh (casually) and I like doing stupid wombo combos. I like doing stupid wombo combos in Hearthstone, so I like playing combo decks, but I don't want it to be Yu-Gi-Oh.
As for RNG, I actually do not care in the least about it. In fact, my favorite card in the game is our lord and savior, Yogg-Saron, Hope's End. I like that there is actually a chance for the game to swing wildly from one turn to the next, because it means that the conclusion is not forgone. The conceit of skill is somehow the person who is "better" should win all the time. "Oh I can't play around RNG, so it is bad." Is there not just as much skill from recovering? Is it skilled then to get the perfect hand every game? Is it skilled to make bad RNG work? Honestly, that much certainty is fine for chess, but it becomes boring. For a causal player who gets 3-9 games in a day (almost never on ladder), I can have a laugh or two. Sometimes it is at my own expense, sometimes my opponent. I like the dumb fun.
Don't get me wrong, the game has some serious structural flaws. I will never say it is perfect but, I don't want Hearthstone to be anything else. If I was allowed one change and one change only, I would make secrets for every class and allow them to have manual triggers. That is it. Only thing I want is a kind of trap actual counterplay on your opponent's turn, because that would severely cut down on the number of horrible nerfs they have done and solves the issue of true intractability.
OP, you can try Elder Scrolls Legends. It has less RNG and comeback mechanics like the rune/prophecy system.
Also, it's kinda more f2p-friendly, if you don't want to pay.
Was also coming to recommend ESL. The game is more skill-based than RNG-based. It might not have all the flashiness that Hearthstone has, but it's a fun game that I think you would like, OP.
The growing vicious cycle in which players debate the state of Hearthstone to no end, seem to ignore for the most part on why such debates take place to begin with. It is ironically the reason they began playing: Hearthstone is the potential Magic the Gathering for mobile. The most featured hot topic is RNG with an increasingly aggressive playstyle as a close second. I'm confident the majority of players wish for less of both. If a more in-depth game where longer matches and more direct consequences for your actions were present, Hearthstone would most likely be praised by most.
As a long-standing player, I can clearly understand the frustration. Blizzard has developed the one step forward, two steps back habit. For every nice card that gives us glimmers of MTG control hope, there are many more that make that card unplayable. Blizzard cannot make up its mind. It is as if clings to the thought of a big minion / control card game, while constantly flooding the metas with aggro. If you are a Druid, do you see any incentive to craft the quest? You are outweighed by the number of aggressive decks. So I then ask: What's the point of "printing" control style cards?
Now, please keep in mind this is not some random "salt" post and I am not a Druid player facing these troubles. I only use the above as an example. It is clear, however, that Blizzard has chipped away at the idea of a control style game with each passing meta. Perhaps it is time to accept that Hearthstone will never be what most seem to want: A game that doesn't insult the player's intelligence. For now, seeing it for what it is may alleviate the irritation of what the game has become but the thirst will always be there. It is a wish that will keep permeating the discussions without being discussed. You want Hearthstone to be a clone of MTG and it never will be.
Accept it. It cannot be argued because...
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* Always play aggro crew * Accept all friend request crew * Don't mind/care if they rant crew * Find it funny that they rant crew * Google translate non english rant crew * Most friends on my friends list are people I've beaten crew Join my crew guys
RNG will be the death of this game, Blizzard loves the improbable comeback, so they weight their RNG to constantly even up the match. The Yogg Meta was the absolute worst, I pretty much stopped grinding past level 10 until it was nerfed.
Now you have blizzard picking your matchup, weighting the opening hand, influencing the discover picks, the lyra cards, the book cards, the top deck. When the devs are asked about it they celebrate the RNG and say that it is more exciting when the game swings wildly. But what you end up with is a game where the championship becomes a bullshit meme (pavel and the book).
I really would love to play an alternate version of hearthstone where there was no weight to the RNG. Where it truly was random, where a players skill at calculating real odds was more of a factor than playing RNG decks and relying on blizzard to provide what the deck needs.
This is why reliable aggro decks like pirate warrior are so popular, they take most of the RNG out of the equation and allow you to get some type of consistency. The game would be much better without that weighted RNG.
I don't see how this game is all that different than when it came out. It has always had random cards and agro decks. I've seen people complain about both since I started. Same old same old.
Agro is easy so it is popular. If they make it go away then it takes away about 1/3 of the dynamic of the game. Might as well start everyone at 10 mana and change the whole nature of the game if you don't want an agro vs control vs midrange style meta. If you have a mana curve in the mechanics, you will have speed vs value gameplay and design.
They do have online magic so if that is what you seek, you can play it. Lots of other games out there too, but you any game with a resource curve will have agro players and it if it is at all viable, it will be popular.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out my gaming blog: Downy Owlbear Designs and download free P&P games. Or argue with me about games on Qallout, the video debate site.
The growing vicious cycle in which players debate the state of Hearthstone to no end, seem to ignore for the most part on why such debates take place to begin with. It is ironically the reason they began playing: Hearthstone is the potential Magic the Gathering for mobile. The most featured hot topic is RNG with an increasingly aggressive playstyle as a close second. I'm confident the majority of players wish for less of both. If a more in-depth game where longer matches and more direct consequences for your actions were present, Hearthstone would most likely be praised by most.
As a long-standing player, I can clearly understand the frustration. Blizzard has developed the one step forward, two steps back habit. For every nice card that gives us glimmers of MTG control hope, there are many more that make that card unplayable. Blizzard cannot make up its mind. It is as if clings to the thought of a big minion / control card game, while constantly flooding the metas with aggro. If you are a Druid, do you see any incentive to craft the quest? You are outweighed by the number of aggressive decks. So I then ask: What's the point of "printing" control style cards?
Now, please keep in mind this is not some random "salt" post and I am not a Druid player facing these troubles. I only use the above as an example. It is clear, however, that Blizzard has chipped away at the idea of a control style game with each passing meta. Perhaps it is time to accept that Hearthstone will never be what most seem to want: A game that doesn't insult the player's intelligence. For now, seeing it for what it is may alleviate the irritation of what the game has become but the thirst will always be there. It is a wish that will keep permeating the discussions without being discussed. You want Hearthstone to be a clone of MTG and it never will be.
Accept it. It cannot be argued because...
...you are self-righteous?
Member of Fever Clan | Battle tag: sparkis#1748 | Discord: sparkis#5613
Here's the thing; HotS was made to be a casual, for fun Moba game only to bellyflop horribly and have Blizzard scrambling to turn it into a competitively viable moba similar to LoL or DotA, but different, same as Hearthstone.
You know why they haven't changed that path with Hearthstone? Because it makes them money, because people like it.
The elephant in the room
Salt thread purporting not to be salt threads are the best.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/28947-group-therapy-need-to-blow-off-steam-mega-salty
That'll do, Huffer. That'll do.
OP is crazy. Hearthstone is awesome. RNG, while frustrating at times, is mostly fun and shakes up every matchup. Standard right now is incredibly diverse and some of the pros estimate they could reach legend with a whopping 18 different decks (and not just one-card variations on builds, but rather drastically different builds within each class).
This game is not Magic. This game is Hearthstone. It doesn't want to be like Magic. How do you not get that yet?
I think the elephant in the room is that YOU want the game to be like MTG.
Also your timing is 3 months late. This meta is far more mid-range than aggro, aggro was the last expansion.
Deal with the RNG and casual play style... or just go and play other games that has the features thay YOU prefer.... like Magik, or even Gwent.
HS right mow is just trying to appeal to the masses... a hard, slow, complex game wont sell that much.
I don't know if you play Magic the Gathering but it certainly is not without meta problems of it's own. Even at this stage in it's lifespan.
The meta before last in MTG was dominated by a super overpowered vehicle called "Smuggler's Copter" it was a 2-drop. The decks that used it were pretty aggressive.
Then they banned "Copter"...just to replace it with another overpowered 2-drop vehicle "Heart of Kiran" (Wizard Please...)
Possibly even worse. An OTK 2-card combo "Cobycat". When I say OTK I don't mean like Maylgos Druid, we are talking Exodia Mage. It would be like if you could spawn infinite Patches. Infinite Patches, my friend. When addressing this sickness Wizard's response was "Whoops didn't see that coming."
Yah, maybe not the example of perfect meta balance a lot HS players imagine it is.
As for Hearthstone. Look, the game is fun, but let's face reality. The game is geared to younger players. If you are ever unsure about this go watch one of Abed from communitie's Un'Goro hype videos. It's a smart business plan, right? Part of this means doing things younger players like. They play on their phones so they like short games, they don't like to think too hard (mostly), and they HATE losing, but again they can't play complicated decks.
I don't necessarily think Blizzard gears towards aggro more then anything. They gear to Curvestone. They want the match your number on the card, to your mana crystal number and play that card decks to be strong. They also want enough random effects that you can win games every now then without having to outplay your opponents.
They are not afraid of strong aggro, until the community begs them to tone it down. From their perspective they see Pirate Warrior as a successful deck that got a lot of kids to beg their parents to open their wallets for Patches. It was a very popular deck and it let kids beat much better players and thus play more games.
They are afraid of Combo and Control. They still give cards to these decks, they do want to cater to the largest player base possible but they never want too many of them in the meta. Long games means less kids playing. Less kids playing means less money. Combo decks at the top of the meta have the same problem. Patron Warrior may have got nerfed in part because at the highest skill level it had too high a win rate, but also because at the lowest it had a 40% win rate. Kids play Patron, do poorly, decide this game is too hard for them. Less kids playing, less money.
The sheer arrogance of this post is absolutely staggering. Nobody with any sense wants Hearthstone to BE another CG, because if it was, then you would just go play that CG. I love Yu-Gi-Oh (casually) and I like doing stupid wombo combos. I like doing stupid wombo combos in Hearthstone, so I like playing combo decks, but I don't want it to be Yu-Gi-Oh.
As for RNG, I actually do not care in the least about it. In fact, my favorite card in the game is our lord and savior, Yogg-Saron, Hope's End. I like that there is actually a chance for the game to swing wildly from one turn to the next, because it means that the conclusion is not forgone. The conceit of skill is somehow the person who is "better" should win all the time. "Oh I can't play around RNG, so it is bad." Is there not just as much skill from recovering? Is it skilled then to get the perfect hand every game? Is it skilled to make bad RNG work? Honestly, that much certainty is fine for chess, but it becomes boring. For a causal player who gets 3-9 games in a day (almost never on ladder), I can have a laugh or two. Sometimes it is at my own expense, sometimes my opponent. I like the dumb fun.
Don't get me wrong, the game has some serious structural flaws. I will never say it is perfect but, I don't want Hearthstone to be anything else. If I was allowed one change and one change only, I would make secrets for every class and allow them to have manual triggers. That is it. Only thing I want is a kind of trap actual counterplay on your opponent's turn, because that would severely cut down on the number of horrible nerfs they have done and solves the issue of true intractability.
If you want less RNG play MTG.
If you want no RNG play chess.
If you want more RNG get into competitive coin flipping.
Tournaments for Hearthstone are unwatchable as RNG decides the games more often than outplaying your opponent.
OP, you can try Elder Scrolls Legends. It has less RNG and comeback mechanics like the rune/prophecy system.
Also, it's kinda more f2p-friendly, if you don't want to pay.
* Always play aggro crew
* Accept all friend request crew
* Don't mind/care if they rant crew
* Find it funny that they rant crew
* Google translate non english rant crew
* Most friends on my friends list are people I've beaten crew
Join my crew guys
RNG will be the death of this game, Blizzard loves the improbable comeback, so they weight their RNG to constantly even up the match. The Yogg Meta was the absolute worst, I pretty much stopped grinding past level 10 until it was nerfed.
Now you have blizzard picking your matchup, weighting the opening hand, influencing the discover picks, the lyra cards, the book cards, the top deck. When the devs are asked about it they celebrate the RNG and say that it is more exciting when the game swings wildly. But what you end up with is a game where the championship becomes a bullshit meme (pavel and the book).
I really would love to play an alternate version of hearthstone where there was no weight to the RNG. Where it truly was random, where a players skill at calculating real odds was more of a factor than playing RNG decks and relying on blizzard to provide what the deck needs.
This is why reliable aggro decks like pirate warrior are so popular, they take most of the RNG out of the equation and allow you to get some type of consistency. The game would be much better without that weighted RNG.
I don't see how this game is all that different than when it came out. It has always had random cards and agro decks. I've seen people complain about both since I started. Same old same old.
Agro is easy so it is popular. If they make it go away then it takes away about 1/3 of the dynamic of the game. Might as well start everyone at 10 mana and change the whole nature of the game if you don't want an agro vs control vs midrange style meta. If you have a mana curve in the mechanics, you will have speed vs value gameplay and design.
They do have online magic so if that is what you seek, you can play it. Lots of other games out there too, but you any game with a resource curve will have agro players and it if it is at all viable, it will be popular.
Check out my gaming blog: Downy Owlbear Designs and download free P&P games.
Or argue with me about games on Qallout, the video debate site.