I am curious if anyone had been thinking about the new Hearthstone year coming up. Blizzard revealed the Year of the Mammoth on February 16 of last year, which is coming up in a few days. Obviously, unless I missed something, the new reveal is coming up soon. So what innovations, besides the ranked changes that were already announced, do you think are coming this year, if any at all?
I'll say making casual mode even more casual. Not sure how exactly, but they need to do something to differentiate it from Ranked other than one having stars and not the other.
I don't think there are going to be any new "innovations" unless somehow they were holding back showing off a new game mode or something. That would actually mean something. The new ranked changes are... late. To call it an innovation is just insulting to the community.
So pretty much all I'm expecting is what we'll see in the Hall of Fame and a teaser for the next expansion.
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Add logic to exclude 'meta' decks - fails because someone will find a way to game the filter and play as close to meta deck as possible without being detected.
Limit deck by rarity/cost - fails because there is always a 'top' deck in any constructed format, heck, standard itself is a limited format
No quest completion - fails because game doesn't reward enough gold that this is a significant demographic of casual players
MMR to prevent lopsided matchups - fails because they already do this, once again the game can't 'detect' when you switch to a meme deck effectively. If the persistence ratio is increased too much, some people will 'grief' new players by throwing a few in a row to get matched with F2P and noobs; as it stands you have to throw hundreds of games to lower MMR enough to face 'Mr. Arcane Missiles to Face T1' guy.
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Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
I'll say making casual mode even more casual. Not sure how exactly, but they need to do something to differentiate it from Ranked other than one having stars and not the other.
The way I see it you can allow casual mode to be home for various home brewed decks (even those that use epics and legendaries) or you can make what I call a 'bad mode' where you are purposefully pressured into not using good cards in decks, but instead have to resort to a pseudo-arena mode 'clown decks' that have no real synergy. It isn't feasible to say "You can use homebrew decks so long as you don't include any cards that every niche part of the community find annoying."
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Add logic to exclude 'meta' decks - fails because someone will find a way to game the filter and play as close to meta deck as possible without being detected.
Limit deck by rarity/cost - fails because there is always a 'top' deck in any constructed format, heck, standard itself is a limited format
No quest completion - fails because game doesn't reward enough gold that this is a significant demographic of casual players
MMR to prevent lopsided matchups - fails because they already do this, once again the game can't 'detect' when you switch to a meme deck effectively. If the persistence ratio is increased too much, some people will 'grief' new players by throwing a few in a row to get matched with F2P and noobs; as it stands you have to throw hundreds of games to lower MMR enough to face 'Mr. Arcane Missiles to Face T1' guy.
I had an idea.. it may be a total disaster, but hear me out..
What if there were a "community policed" casual mode. There can be one simple rule, like no meta decks, or multiple "rooms" with different rules. After a game, a player can vote to "boot" a person who didn't follow the rules. If a player gets voted to boot 3 times (or another number), they are banned from the mode for the rest of the month. If they get banned several months in a row, they are banned from the mode for the rest of year.
I get that people can/will abuse the system and vote down someone who beat them in close match, or whose deck they don't like for whatever reason, but I think in the end the result will be a mode full of people who just want play to have fun and to enjoy something other than the meta.
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Add logic to exclude 'meta' decks - fails because someone will find a way to game the filter and play as close to meta deck as possible without being detected.
Limit deck by rarity/cost - fails because there is always a 'top' deck in any constructed format, heck, standard itself is a limited format
No quest completion - fails because game doesn't reward enough gold that this is a significant demographic of casual players
MMR to prevent lopsided matchups - fails because they already do this, once again the game can't 'detect' when you switch to a meme deck effectively. If the persistence ratio is increased too much, some people will 'grief' new players by throwing a few in a row to get matched with F2P and noobs; as it stands you have to throw hundreds of games to lower MMR enough to face 'Mr. Arcane Missiles to Face T1' guy.
I had an idea.. it may be a total disaster, but hear me out..
What if there were a "community policed" casual mode. There can be one simple rule, like no meta decks, or multiple "rooms" with different rules. After a game, a player can vote to "boot" a person who didn't follow the rules. If a player gets voted to boot 3 times (or another number), they are banned from the mode for the rest of the month. If they get banned several months in a row, they are banned from the mode for the rest of year.
I get that people can/will abuse the system and vote down someone who beat them in close match, or whose deck they don't like for whatever reason, but I think in the end the result will be a mode full of people who just want play to have fun and to enjoy something other than the meta.
The LFR of Hearthstone with trolls and everything...
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Add logic to exclude 'meta' decks - fails because someone will find a way to game the filter and play as close to meta deck as possible without being detected.
Limit deck by rarity/cost - fails because there is always a 'top' deck in any constructed format, heck, standard itself is a limited format
No quest completion - fails because game doesn't reward enough gold that this is a significant demographic of casual players
MMR to prevent lopsided matchups - fails because they already do this, once again the game can't 'detect' when you switch to a meme deck effectively. If the persistence ratio is increased too much, some people will 'grief' new players by throwing a few in a row to get matched with F2P and noobs; as it stands you have to throw hundreds of games to lower MMR enough to face 'Mr. Arcane Missiles to Face T1' guy.
I had an idea.. it may be a total disaster, but hear me out..
What if there were a "community policed" casual mode. There can be one simple rule, like no meta decks, or multiple "rooms" with different rules. After a game, a player can vote to "boot" a person who didn't follow the rules. If a player gets voted to boot 3 times (or another number), they are banned from the mode for the rest of the month. If they get banned several months in a row, they are banned from the mode for the rest of year.
I get that people can/will abuse the system and vote down someone who beat them in close match, or whose deck they don't like for whatever reason, but I think in the end the result will be a mode full of people who just want play to have fun and to enjoy something other than the meta.
Yeah that sounds absolutely terrible, with the throngs of salty teens playing this game, No thank you.
Make achievements which award hero trinkets - these would be entirely asphetical but would let your opponent know that you've played a million murlocks or whatever..
Make a Tauren hero!! Even if it is Hammul Runetotem
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Please don't tell my girlfriend about my card collection...
Make achievements which award hero trinkets - these would be entirely asphetical but would let your opponent know that you've played a million murlocks or whatever..
Make a Tauren hero!! Even if it is Hammul Runetotem
That would be awesome! Some insane achievements that would be near impossible to reach.
Also auto-squelsh, a cosmetics currency, a Monthly rotating core set instead of an Eternal Classic, more hero skins, more Rogue secrets, more playable heroes, more quests, more dungeon runs.
I was thinking this morning that the Hearthstone world is very quiet and I feel that a reveal will be coming our way in the next week or by this Fri!
I'm hoping for a new Druid hero, hopefully attainable the same way as Maiev was.
I'd personally like a new dungeon run and some new daily quests, perhaps giving away different packs of cards rather than classic (I understand why it's classic but the latest exp.packs would be great for new/f2p players)
I'll say making casual mode even more casual. Not sure how exactly, but they need to do something to differentiate it from Ranked other than one having stars and not the other.
I would like to see that too. Maybe some kind of mode similar to how the format is in tournaments. Picking 3 decks and than randomly play against an opponent:
Blizz could make a mode where you can only play basic and Blizz recipe decks for players to practice and experience new cards. Blizz could add community submitted recipes too, and could monitor which decks were in the 'pool'. This could be casual mode.
There could then be a 'Fun' and a 'Test' mode that is effectively casual now, but rewards no gold or quest completion. Fun mode for people playing homebrew. Test mode for people practicing meta decks before taking them to ranked.
The majority of players will always play to win. So the dev team are faced with trying to solve the behavioural and social challenges of players in a game that is both about creativity and efficiency.
I would love to see a similar mechanic that they use in Gwent. After the game you can cheer your opponent for a small amount of dust! That little detail encourages to not BM etc during the game, when you could end up gaining 5 dust every game just being a decent guy! (To be clear the 5 dust is not taken from your account.)
This thing could be taken to even greater hights but even as is, it would be a huuuge improvement for the game imo.
Just my .02 on the casual mode. There just isn't anything that could be done to achieve what many people want from it. The nature of the game simply prevents it. Even if:
1. They block "meta" decks. Change 1 card, and you no longer have a banned deck. Coding the game to do anything other than block specific lists would be a nightmare. Making it so "similar" decks were banned would be way too much work for little reward.
2. Blocking cards. What if I want to run a Voidlord in my "Dragon OTK Magma Rager" Warlock meme deck? Blocking cards doesn't exactly promote creativity, it stifles it.
3. Community policing. Answer was already given ... everyone would be blocked.
4. MMR. It's already there. If it gets overtuned, it makes the mode worse. A player can have 10k wins, but if they are wanting to play a goofy meme deck, their stats don't matter that much.
And the list just goes on and on.
I think the one thing that would "maybe" work, would be better AI, to allow deck testing against NPC's. But as it stands now, the AI is extremely predictable (as evidenced by dungeon runs). Players would quickly stop testing against AI as soon as they learned what card was going to be played, and would just go back to playing casual.
As for the actual OP question .. while I don't see it happening soon, I am still holding out hope for Tournament mode. If any one single thing could happen, I would vote for this, as I think it would have the most positive effect on the game as whole, and I think it would instantly become the most popular mode in the game if done right.
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I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Add logic to exclude 'meta' decks - fails because someone will find a way to game the filter and play as close to meta deck as possible without being detected.
Limit deck by rarity/cost - fails because there is always a 'top' deck in any constructed format, heck, standard itself is a limited format
No quest completion - fails because game doesn't reward enough gold that this is a significant demographic of casual players
MMR to prevent lopsided matchups - fails because they already do this, once again the game can't 'detect' when you switch to a meme deck effectively. If the persistence ratio is increased too much, some people will 'grief' new players by throwing a few in a row to get matched with F2P and noobs; as it stands you have to throw hundreds of games to lower MMR enough to face 'Mr. Arcane Missiles to Face T1' guy.
I had an idea.. it may be a total disaster, but hear me out..
What if there were a "community policed" casual mode. There can be one simple rule, like no meta decks, or multiple "rooms" with different rules. After a game, a player can vote to "boot" a person who didn't follow the rules. If a player gets voted to boot 3 times (or another number), they are banned from the mode for the rest of the month. If they get banned several months in a row, they are banned from the mode for the rest of year.
I get that people can/will abuse the system and vote down someone who beat them in close match, or whose deck they don't like for whatever reason, but I think in the end the result will be a mode full of people who just want play to have fun and to enjoy something other than the meta.
Yeah that sounds absolutely terrible, with the throngs of salty teens playing this game, No thank you.
A much more simple solution would be to remove the reason some are playing meta decks in casual, gold farming. Simply remove the reward of 10 gold for three wins.
I would love to see a similar mechanic that they use in Gwent. After the game you can cheer your opponent for a small amount of dust! That little detail encourages to not BM etc during the game, when you could end up gaining 5 dust every game just being a decent guy! (To be clear the 5 dust is not taken from your account.)
This thing could be taken to even greater hights but even as is, it would be a huuuge improvement for the game imo.
Yeah, Duelyst also has tipping, it's a really cool concept.
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I am curious if anyone had been thinking about the new Hearthstone year coming up. Blizzard revealed the Year of the Mammoth on February 16 of last year, which is coming up in a few days. Obviously, unless I missed something, the new reveal is coming up soon. So what innovations, besides the ranked changes that were already announced, do you think are coming this year, if any at all?
I'll say making casual mode even more casual. Not sure how exactly, but they need to do something to differentiate it from Ranked other than one having stars and not the other.
Galavant Animation
Im really eager for their new year's plan, because off course they will say which cards will go to hall of fame
I bet they are gonna spill the beans in mid/late febuary
Then should the new exp and year start in early april
I don't think there are going to be any new "innovations" unless somehow they were holding back showing off a new game mode or something. That would actually mean something. The new ranked changes are... late. To call it an innovation is just insulting to the community.
So pretty much all I'm expecting is what we'll see in the Hall of Fame and a teaser for the next expansion.
Ready for action!
Year of the Tortoise is my prediction. Casual would be better named 'Unranked' because it will never be a place you can win with a non-competitive deck, it is just not possible. Here is why some popular proposals will fail:
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Introduce fricken deck / player stats.
Make achievements which award hero trinkets - these would be entirely asphetical but would let your opponent know that you've played a million murlocks or whatever..
Make a Tauren hero!! Even if it is Hammul Runetotem
Please don't tell my girlfriend about my card collection...
I was thinking this morning that the Hearthstone world is very quiet and I feel that a reveal will be coming our way in the next week or by this Fri!
I'm hoping for a new Druid hero, hopefully attainable the same way as Maiev was.
I'd personally like a new dungeon run and some new daily quests, perhaps giving away different packs of cards rather than classic (I understand why it's classic but the latest exp.packs would be great for new/f2p players)
Blizz could make a mode where you can only play basic and Blizz recipe decks for players to practice and experience new cards. Blizz could add community submitted recipes too, and could monitor which decks were in the 'pool'. This could be casual mode.
There could then be a 'Fun' and a 'Test' mode that is effectively casual now, but rewards no gold or quest completion. Fun mode for people playing homebrew. Test mode for people practicing meta decks before taking them to ranked.
The majority of players will always play to win. So the dev team are faced with trying to solve the behavioural and social challenges of players in a game that is both about creativity and efficiency.
I would love to see a similar mechanic that they use in Gwent. After the game you can cheer your opponent for a small amount of dust! That little detail encourages to not BM etc during the game, when you could end up gaining 5 dust every game just being a decent guy! (To be clear the 5 dust is not taken from your account.)
This thing could be taken to even greater hights but even as is, it would be a huuuge improvement for the game imo.
Hope they will reveal roadmap for 2018 soon.
EU 11/2015+ , f2p 03/2021+: DK 63 / DH 205 /Dr 277 / Hu 733 / Ma 6666 / Pa 1072 / Pr 1165 / Ro 1791 / Sh 1303 / Wl 707 / Wr 664
Just my .02 on the casual mode. There just isn't anything that could be done to achieve what many people want from it. The nature of the game simply prevents it. Even if:
1. They block "meta" decks. Change 1 card, and you no longer have a banned deck. Coding the game to do anything other than block specific lists would be a nightmare. Making it so "similar" decks were banned would be way too much work for little reward.
2. Blocking cards. What if I want to run a Voidlord in my "Dragon OTK Magma Rager" Warlock meme deck? Blocking cards doesn't exactly promote creativity, it stifles it.
3. Community policing. Answer was already given ... everyone would be blocked.
4. MMR. It's already there. If it gets overtuned, it makes the mode worse. A player can have 10k wins, but if they are wanting to play a goofy meme deck, their stats don't matter that much.
And the list just goes on and on.
I think the one thing that would "maybe" work, would be better AI, to allow deck testing against NPC's. But as it stands now, the AI is extremely predictable (as evidenced by dungeon runs). Players would quickly stop testing against AI as soon as they learned what card was going to be played, and would just go back to playing casual.
As for the actual OP question .. while I don't see it happening soon, I am still holding out hope for Tournament mode. If any one single thing could happen, I would vote for this, as I think it would have the most positive effect on the game as whole, and I think it would instantly become the most popular mode in the game if done right.
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
If you are in your first year of playing please read this post.
Dust does not burn a hole in the jar. Be careful what you craft, especially before and right after a rotation.