Hearthpwn

This is going to be a long critique, not a rant, on where Hearthstone fails to deliver to the casual gamer. This occurred to me this morning after i watched the "2017 Year in Review" posted on the Hearthstone Youtube account. ( https://youtu.be/JOhSEqYrwS4 ). Watching how excited Ben Brode was, I logged in to Hearthpwn, Tempostorm, DisguiseToast, and began to create decks to play with. I even bought a few packs, and jumped right into a casual game. And 4 turns in the creative deck i built was swamped by a Tempo Rogue. Next game, Pirate Warrior. Next, Evolve Shaman. Next Highlander Priest. Finally, i reworked the deck and won the next game against a unique tempo Mage. But I was so frustrated, and decided to play another game. But midway through the game my game glitched and a minion became stuck, and I couldn't do anything and lost. With this in mind, i began to look through patch notes and updates and did not find much. And thus i have created 8 legitimate issues with the game. I encourage anyone who seriously enjoys the game to read through these and create a critical assessment and comment below, but i believe many will feel the same.

1. Casual vs. Ranked: We all know the fear of clicking to a ranked game and losing our stars. With the addition of a "level point floor" where players hit rank 20, 15, 10, 5, Legend, they will not fall down, ranked seemed to be moving in a good direction. However, it just isnt enough. As a player who does not have a vast wild collection, I am confined to Ranked and Casual. But the term Casual, is a myth. Casual is flooded by players who take tier one decks, that are refined by pro players, and bully their way through. This is fine to test, but there are too many players who solely play Casual and break balance of the mode. I cannot tell how many times a Casual player cussed me out for trying a fun deck in casual, while they play Pirates. I get it, we all use Casual to complete quests and test a deck before we jump into Ranked, but why does the entire mode have to be a scapegoat? Why cant I create a deck for the AI to use, to test against it? Why is there no set casual game mode for players who play decks such as "a deck with limited dust" or lobby of players who can interact and on the spot play a game? (I will address social later) Instead, lousy players play Jade Druid when I am just trying to have a fun time playing a deck that I created. There is not much incentive to play Ranked, also. Once a month, we are given a card back, and enough dust to make a few cards, and then that is it. I hit rank 15 or rank 10 and ignore it and try to have fun, a week into the month. I have never hit legend, and I don't care to. I play as an invested but casual player who likes the concept and wants to have fun. But, the experience for a lot of people is similar to mine. It becomes dry, frustrating, and absolutely repetitive. Not all deck will have a 70%WR but the fact that it is near impossible to win, in Casual, with a creative deck, is absurd. 

2. Mode Variety: Following up, Tavern Brawl is my favorite time of the week to play. But it is around for a few days, and you can only get one pack. If it was my choice, I would release a Tavern Brawl every two weeks, but leave them all in rotation for the expansion period; reset once a new expansion comes out. Instead, many players only log into the game to play in Brawl. But not all Brawls are perfect - the SpellBook brawl exploit with Gnomeferatu was extremely annoying and i did not play until it was fixed. However, they are fun and most importantly, unpredictable. Then there is Arena, which is flawed in many aspects, and Kripparian has done many videos explaining the issues with it. I generally don't play Arena unless I can play free. And thats it. Lich King Expansion solo was fun, but finished them far too easily. And training against the Innkeeper? How fun is that. That is it! There is no game mode where you can a friend can create constraints, no game modes to jump into and be creative, no game modes that make players want to keep playing, no game mode that gets people excited to play. Ranked is fun, right? What is fun about grinding at rank 20 with a 12,000 dust deck created by a pro player, that every other player is playing, and losing to the same decks over and over again, just to get a card back? Thats why legend is such an achievement, but how many players don't hit legend? It is not exciting. It is only fun after expansions are released, for around a month, and then we get to another point such as this until Blizzard nerfs a deck that is BS.

3. Creativity: Which Hearthstone does not promote. Remember when Stancifka won 20+ games with a Handlock deck at the launch of KFT? Do you remember playing ranked for the next two weeks and getting matched with that deck 50% of the time? And that is how the meta shifts. 3-5 decks dominate and theres not much room to climb outside of that. It is possible, don't get me wrong, but the majority of the players cannot find that gap in the Meta. In the "year in review video" Ben Brode talked about how great MSG was. All i heard was, "Jade Druid and Pirate Warrior." As i was saying with Casual, there is no place for originality in the current state. I love Quest Mage, and that deck list is posted over and over again online with maybe one change each time. Decks stay stagnant, or someone finds a way to make it more oppressive - like when people started throwing Vicious Fledgling into every deck, or Bonemare, or Patches. I cannot log in, make a deck that has a fun interaction, or even enjoy the garbage Legendary cards i pull, because the oppressive and stale copy-paste decks crush me. There is no reason that the game should be decided by turns 3-4. Personally, I hate games that don't give players a chance to be unique. I rarely post my decks onto this site, because I don't even want other players to take my Rank climbing decks, and my fun decks are never seen. There are thousands of decks on this site of fun interactions that people create, but they are never seen. Many decks that have a cool idea, are ghosts.

4. Expansions: I love new cards, I love new content, I love new art, I love new games. But Blizzard knows how to make money. And rightfully so, they should make as much money as they can, and we enjoy the content. But the reality is that the Meta is super specific and as a player who started as a F2P, it is damn near impossible to keep up with content. The grind you have to commit to even get packs is hard, let alone save up dust to make the new cards. And once you get that new group of cards, the meta has shifted again and you wasted your dust. I spent over $150 on KFT and roughly $200 on the entirety of Un'Goro, and honestly I wish i didn't. I earn my money and spend it on the game, but it is not worth it anymore. First it takes away the excitement of even building a deck and finishing that final piece, and having all of the cards makes opening the packs in the future pointless. I don't want every card golden, nor do i want every legendary card. I want to build competitive decks and make fun of the other existing cards. And i hate dead cards like Fallen Sun Cleric or Exploding Bloatbat. I would rather Blizzard make funny/interesting cards the filler cards instead of stupid cards that will never be used. Like Wretched Tiller? I have beaten people solely with that card dealing 30 damage to face. It sucks otherwise, but is fun. With this in mind, I will only be spending $10 on the next expansion, and i plan on working to get cards in-game. If it is going to be hard to earn gold and dust, I would rather do it in the dead phases of each expansion. And for FTP 

5. Lack of Achievement: Did I say it was hard to earn gold and dust? Because it is hard as hell. One quest a day, 10 gold for every 3 wins.. come on Blizzard. There is no achievement system, other than "beat every expert solo practice," and that is terrible. Even bad games like Viva Pinada had achievements. Hearthstone does not reward players for hard work other than a few cents and a golden basic card and a golden ranked hero after 500 wins. Then what? That is not rewarding, especially for those who put real money into this game. And sure its cool, but your golden hero will be a rank 20 every month, does that really carry prestige? Why not have fun things, or emotes, or even extra stats? I don't know, ultimately this is a UI issue, and it is very minor. But earning one pack every 30 wins is pathetic.

6. Poor Social Experience: This is something Blizzard is currently working on, and it is long overdue. I just hope they do it properly. I want to be able to branch out and make friends online and have enjoyable carefree matches with them. I wish there was groups and chats and lobbies and leaderboards and chat callouts, but theres not much. Again, this is a work in process so my criticism must wait. 

7. Community Feedback: Blizzard seems to miss the point, but on purpose. Yes they can make tons of money, and I do appreciate Ben Brode. But sometimes things just seem blatantly poor and nothing is done. Like Jade Druid? That deck was #1 in Standard AND in Wild! For months the meta was cancer, and Brode says "Everyone really enjoyed MSG!" Even with Arena, Kripparian really explains the issues and i encourage you watch some of his videos about them. Sometimes i think Blizzard acts far too slow, even in the ESports realm - look at the issues with rule changes before the Asia HTC Qualifiers. I feel as if they hear us, but don't act. And they want to make as much money as possible, but we give them the money, the least we could get is an open response more often. Not 4 months after the issue was at a peak. 

8. F2P: Lastly, the bane of all players, being a Free to play account. I was there, and i wish i could go back honestly. I loved being in a select pocket of players like me. And then i ended up in regular matchmaking and was killed by Pirate Warrior after Pirate Warrior after Pirate Warrior. And I hated this game. Until i came back with my wallet and "magically" got better! Like I said, i am changing my play habits with the new expansion. But i know the struggle. I opened nearly 100 classic packs since August and got 3 legends. Gruul, dusted. Then, Gruul. Dusted. Again, last week, Gruul. Did not dust him. But what the fuck that is annoying. And playing past rank 20 these days you need a Tier One deck. Good luck F2P Players, its impossible to keep up. But thats where you need to enjoy the concept of the game to continue without money. Of the last 7 people i tried to convince to play the game, 6 uninstalled after a few days. The other is my girlfriend who plays with me when i ask. But people won't buy in to the game, even though they get a free DK card! But what good is a random DK card when you need 2-6 other Legendary cards to even have a shot to win a game? To save up gold, buy packs, get little dust, make a few good cards, grind, get little gold, buy packs one at a time, and finally get a legendary card or an epic, just to find out that card serves no purpose, and you get 1/4 of the dust you put in and 1/100000 of the time you invested. Generally, people quit halfway through that sentence. The FT2 experience is hard, unrewarding, and brutal. I hope there is some changes ahead, because I want to have more friends play. 

So, this is where i am at. I have exhausted my claims, and I hope a player reads this and sees the disappointing aspects of the game. There are tons of great aspects! Absolutely, but that does not take away the fact that there IS an elephant in the room when it comes to the game. Thats why other games like Gwent are taking advantage of the disappointment of retired Hearthstone players. I love this game, and will continue to play it. But it is good to be critical and always expect the best of the game we enjoy. Until that point, I don't see the game moving in a positive direction. 

Update: I have read this article (Link: https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/09/hearthstone-boss-ben-brode-gives-me-new-insight-on-what-casual-means/) where Ben Brode talks about "fun" and the Casual aspect of the game. It is a very interesting read, and he acknowledges many of the points I wrote on. I encourage any to both watch the "Year in Review" and the article linked here.  

GG

Wow this text wall is so big that Donald Trump got horny and the mexicans are starting to pay for it!

On serious note,you have to realise that hs is a mobile game mostly with the flavour of a card game.It will never be a good card game again(meta,modes and rewards) because it will lose its appeal to the casuals and smartphone users.Play gwent,eternal and so many other great games if you want a true card game.I know it sucks for old players like us but it's the only choice we've got.

I read it .. OK, I admit, I started skimming about halfway down, but got enough to at least comment on a few things. Rather than address each point, I'll combine a few. 

Yes, The game needs one or two more game modes. I think a tournament mode would be HUGE. Blizz could even implement 2 different modes within tournament mode ... free to enter, with limited rewards (nothing more than a pack, or maybe a small amount of gold, maybe just enough gold to enter .... "paid" tournament mode. Make it like Arena ... gold or cash to enter, and reasonable rewards, similar to Arena rewards. 

I do think they need a "newbie casual" .... this doesn't necessarily address your issue with people netdecking casual, but it would offer a better training ground for new players. However, it would have to based on rank or win rate, or some other measure of skill. 

And speaking of netdecking vs. creative deck making .... I just don't see a way Blizz could code the game to somehow prevent your creative deck from being matched against a net deck. Even if they went as far as to monitor the top decks on forums, what stops players that do what I usually do ... I take a netdeck, and will usually change 2 or 3 cards to personalize it a little .., but in the end, its still the same deck. The truth is, the game does still have some element of skill involved. Look for the "Plebstone Challenge" post here ... a good player took a F2P deck to rank 5, and only finally added a few epics to finally break Legend. So that kinda throws out every argument that the game cannot be played for free, and that you "have" to have decks full of legendary cards to play. If one person can do it, anyone should be able to do it. Now that guy may be some freak of nature math savant .... but I am guessing he is just a typical smart, good player that put in the time and effort. 

Speaking of time and effort ... you mention lack of rewards. The thing is, the people that NEED better rewards, probably can't rank up high enough to get them, and the people that hit Legend every month probably don't need them. The game is, sadly, Pay to Win format, it just happens to have probably one of the best F2P options of any game I have seen. I had over 4k gold saved until the pity timer reset this last update. I would easily have 8k saved by next expansion if I hadn't spent 3k getting some guaranteed Legendary. Point is ... the game rewards playing good, and playing a lot ... if you wan't the cards, you pay with cash, or you pay with time. 

And lastly, you talk about "fun". To me, the way to have fun is to enjoy your wins, and move on from your losses. If that means you stay locked in the 15-11 bracket all season, so be it. Its the same game there as it is at rank 10, 5, or Legend. Stop looking at your rank, stop looking at your win rate ... just play and have fun. Play whatever deck you like, even if it is a creative deck. Assuming the deck isn't just a bunch of cards you threw together because you like the artwork, you WILL win games, probably somewhere close to 40-45% of them, just on RNG alone.   

Hearthstone is what you make of it. If you want a competitive deck to climb ladder not that hard to put together an aggro deck. If you want to play a lot of different decks that will cost you some real money. If you want to play some unique creative decks be prepared to lose to plenty of ladder decks. I usually play competitive decks to rank 15, and then switch to playing what ever I feel like.  So, I usually rank between 15-10 and I am totally cool with that. If my janky gimmick deck gets creamed by pirate warrior I just laugh and queue up a new match at that point.

Totally agree man 

First of all, i agree about rewards being crap and game needs more achievements. But every other thing you say is absolutely pointless. 

You are using the term creative loosely. Sure everyone can throw 30 cards in a pile and claim a magical special interraction inbetween them. It does NOT make a deck creative. The defining factor is, creative deck also wins. In that sense, tempo rogue is a creative deck. One of the best. I consider myself a good deck brewer and i have played my own decks to the rank 5 a lot and once i have been in legend rank with my own control priest. I realized that rogue is the best class for utilizing new princes because of the class ability, combo, you are encouraged to play more than one card a turn, thus negating the drawback of not having a certain mana cards in your deck. But i did not think its possible to not play evis ans sap, two class defining spells. I was pondering with prince 4. I take my hat off to the dude who thought of it. 

You basically said you want to force people to play bad decks. It cant be done. Say, you forced a dust limit, people will just play face hunter or whatever. Because guess what, winning is FUN. 

Speaking about fun, you also use term fun loosely. Not everyone enjoy the same thing. I personally enjoy cheap and powerful interractions, like Barnes and eternal servitude. I absolutely loathe big shiny things even if they are powerful. Like twisting nether with athiesh equipped. For instance, You might think its fun and special but its not. At least not for everyone. 

TLDR: You are not creative enough if you are whining about your snowflake is getting destroyed by pirates

Edit: Read the player type article. Its written by MTG staff but it pretty much applies to the Hearthstone. Just google timmy johny and spike

I'm sorry I didn't really read all the detail but here is what I can tell you:

1. Casual mode isn't casual: You are not alone, but Ben Brode already talk about it at length here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/09/hearthstone-boss-ben-brode-gives-me-new-insight-on-what-casual-means/. In short, it is impossible to force people to play "Fun" deck only.

3. People netdecks too much: Please don't tell others that they are playing their game wrong. Winning is fun. Personally I don't have a lot of time to test and make decks so I'd rather copy a cheap aggro deck and grab few victory and finish my daily quest.

5. and 7. and 8. Its not fun being an F2P player: You know, you really can't have everything for free. I know a lot of newer CCGs have been throwing gifts left and right, but that too was no more than an effort to take audience from a game as big as Hearthstone. Also, recent events also been really helpful for F2P players thanks to free arena and double quest gold.

All in all, I respect your opinion and how you deliver them politely. Hope you can find fun soon!

Quote from zzAMBIENzz >>

Yes, The game needs one or two more game modes. I think a tournament mode would be HUGE. Blizz could even implement 2 different modes within tournament mode ... free to enter, with limited rewards (nothing more than a pack, or maybe a small amount of gold, maybe just enough gold to enter .... "paid" tournament mode. Make it like Arena ... gold or cash to enter, and reasonable rewards, similar to Arena rewards. 

Quote from zzAMBIENzz >>

And speaking of netdecking vs. creative deck making .... I just don't see a way Blizz could code the game to somehow prevent your creative deck from being matched against a net deck. Even if they went as far as to monitor the top decks on forums, what stops players that do what I usually do ... I take a netdeck, and will usually change 2 or 3 cards to personalize it a little .., but in the end, its still the same deck. The truth is, the game does still have some element of skill involved. Look for the "Plebstone Challenge" post here ... a good player took a F2P deck to rank 5, and only finally added a few epics to finally break Legend. So that kinda throws out every argument that the game cannot be played for free, and that you "have" to have decks full of legendary cards to play. If one person can do it, anyone should be able to do it. Now that guy may be some freak of nature math savant .... but I am guessing he is just a typical smart, good player that put in the time and effort. 



And lastly, you talk about "fun". To me, the way to have fun is to enjoy your wins, and move on from your losses. If that means you stay locked in the 15-11 bracket all season, so be it. Its the same game there as it is at rank 10, 5, or Legend. Stop looking at your rank, stop looking at your win rate ... just play and have fun. Play whatever deck you like, even if it is a creative deck. Assuming the deck isn't just a bunch of cards you threw together because you like the artwork, you WILL win games, probably somewhere close to 40-45% of them, just on RNG alone.   

Quote from zzAMBIENzz >>

(...)

I do think they need a "newbie casual" .... this doesn't necessarily address your issue with people netdecking casual, but it would offer a better training ground for new players. However, it would have to based on rank or win rate, or some other measure of skill.

(...)

As an update, i apologize for the length. Honestly, i lost track and it happened to be 4 pages on Microsoft Word lmao. I am NOT a F2P player, I have invested money and have 60+ Legendaries and every other card in standard. I said I want to revert back and stop spending money on the game. And no, GGGodGiven, I do not want "free stuff" and your response toned down the points I made. I am not looking to take sides, as i said I truly enjoy the game of Hearthstone, but we are entitled to criticize and explore the lacking qualities of the entity. Saying, "You suck at the game" is nonsense, in no means do i think I am a bad player. Rather, I am a player who wants a platform that can do things other than win every game. And yes i watched the video by Ben Brode, and I understand that netdecking will always exist, but that does not mean there cannot be another method of creating a fun free experience? As i mentioned, I usually play with friends, and we create constraints on our decks and the game (Say, one legend, 2 epics, rest common or must not play a minion until turn 5). I have dozens of friends on the game, and i stated that I hope Blizzard gives a stronger way to interact. This post was something I felt like sitting down and typing after work, and I understand people are tired of hearing it, but you also did not have to read the post. I just like to have fun, sit down and dive into games. I don't even care if I lose. And yes "Blizzard shouldnt care about F2P players because they dont pay" and if that is your mentality, than I feel sorry for your bank account. And Toast hit Legend with a F2P Hunter, and he has a degree in Mathematics and is a Legend player already. 

I will continue to play the game, definitely. My frustrations with the game occasionally get the better, but in the end I still can enjoy myself. I appreciate taking a look at this post, and have a good day. 

Quote from OldKeith >>

You realise pirate warrior has been nerfed hard, don't you?

Pirate Warrior is still in the Meta, yet I forgot to mention I hated playing against them - months ago in Un'goro and MSG. That detail was left out, mistakenly.

Literally the single most important problem in this game is that is getting more and more expensive every few months .

There is no worse feeling than constantly getting high rolled by decks you could never afford to try out for yourself . If people would have the chance to try all decks they would quickly see that what seemed like an insane deck was actually just a lucky draw that doesn't happen very often and so they might be less upset about losing to it .

The second most important problem in this game is that games are decided too much by pure RNG . When the vast majority of games are decided by the first 4-5 cards that you draw , the players might feel like whatever they do it does not matter and it's the same as if they would have played a slot machine or series of coin flips . This is not fun . People want to feel that their decision have at least some influence over the result of the game .

These are my thoughts . Unfortunately it's very unlikely Blizzard will ever even consider listening to those complain as the game is built on RNG for a reason -> Slot machines produce a lot of money , so as far as they are concerned the more RNG and expensive content, the better .

You sum it up nicely. Hearthstone need to promote deck creativity. Whatever "fun"  and creative deck you try now, you'll most likely lose against T1 decks in ranked (or even casual). So much strength variety in casual decks. Not fun. Or at least more fun is possible by more deck modes which promotes creativity.

HS is not fun for me anymore. Except some Tavern Brawls, but mostly even brawls are non-creative trash in last times.

• Too many grind required for too little rewards. I don't see how F2P is viable after changing to expansion-only model.
• RNG over skill. If you want insane overthrows HS is way to go. The problem is I want to play competitive game.
• Fillers are everywhere. 80-90% of every card set are completely unplayable trash. Just compare this to Gwent.
• Blizzard-driven deck design. It's inevitable to some extent because it's Blizzard designers who make the cards, but decks they offer are not fun, not creative, boring and stupid. Best decks in the game were not a product of design team (like Handlock or Patron Warrior, for example). Or completely dead nowadays Malygos decks.
• Lore violations and way too cartoonish some cards art.
• Blizzard are completely ignoring these problems and pretending their game is still good and fresh like 3 years ago, but in reality it smells already.

Well-penned and there certainly are some points that actually apply. Taken with a grain of salt though, as you tend to present your opinion and personal experience as facts.

I think Blizzard is most constrained by one thing: splintering people across too many game modes.  If you have too many, then each one will be much harder to queue into without waiting.  Their challenge is to overhaul, not add.  I hope they are up to the challenge (and soon).

We absolutely need a mode that doesn't reward gold or count for quests.  I've been playing since GvG and casual has become more flooded with top tier competitive decks over time.  It used to be that maybe half (or even less) of my games in casual were against ladder decks.  Now it's closer to 90%.  It's really frustrating when you just want to take a break from ladder, but eventually give up and are forced into playing a netdeck in casual because the 'casual meta' exists.  My favorite aspect of Hearthstone is making my own decks, and often the playtesting phase is simply to see if your synergy works or if you need to adjust your curve or the 3-drop your deck is based on is just too weak, but you can't do that because everyone netdecks aggro in casual and you're dead by turn 5. 

I think there are some genuinely good suggestions here, most notably matching players more by packs opened and introducing a non quest completion casual mode. i don't know what it's like cause i don't use it but if the deck suggestions tool were better maybe inexperienced deck builders wouldn't have to netdeck so much