Some of my favorite decks have been around nerfed cards. I loved playing OG Quest Rogue. I loved playing Shudderwock (pre Sauronite nerf), I loved playing almost all of the DKs. I even had a lot of fun playing Jade Druid.
IMHO some of the best cards ever released by Hearthstone are the ones that are 'too powerful'. But, I will miss those cards greatly. And if the future of Hearthstone is some power level where Freeze Shaman is looking like a top deck I'm going to be quite bummed.
I say keep the power level high. I like it there. Powerful cards are fun. Going infinite is fun.
It might be fun to play Shudderwock Shaman or Quest Rogue or Jade Druid, but (at least for me) they are not fun to play against. It's not necessarily that the winrate of those decks is super high, but they have enough polarizing matchups and are popular enough to make playing against them feel repetitive and un-interactive. There is also the concern that if you allow powerful cards to stay around, then in order for future cards to be playable there has to be serious power creep.
Most of your points are around you having fun playing an extremely annoying deck to play against. This is a multiplayer game and is much more enjoyable when both sides feel like they have a more even chance to win in my opinion. I'm all for the lowering of power. Bring more thought back to this game please.
-Shrug- I don't see how any of those decks are less fun than playing vs any other deck.
I don't know why playing against pre-nerf Shudderwock should be considered less fun than playing vs. just bout anything else. Is it really any less fun than playing vs control lock or taunt druid or DK mage for example? Any less fun than losing to Maly Druid?
I might need some convincing.
Actually the two decks I've faced that I enjoyed the least were probably face hunter and pirate warrior. Are those considered unfun to play against?
very shortsighted of you. the decks you are listing weren't necessarily OP, they were suffocating entire archetypes from existing, making the game completely unenjoyable for guys who enjoy slower decks - like me, and that's why they were basically banned. you also seem to have listed 3 decks that were controlkillers and basically not much else at the time. they were making the game rock/paper/scissors. but again, these decks you list weren't really op, they were just a rock to someone else's scissors. the real op's were old midrange shaman. old pirate warrior. combo druid. patron warrior. deathrattle hunter, machinegun priest and so on. if you enjoy overrunning people with bloated stats in early game like those decks did (hello turn 1 patches with charge + 3/2 + 1/1 with a weapon) or basically "if you didn't aggro me I win" I can't say your view for the health of the game is anywhere near reality.
there's also a problem with creating new cards and decks. if old midrange shaman and warriorstone was somehow around through whole hearthstone history, you basically couldn't have even tried playing Quest Rogue, Jade anything, etc. because they would not win a single game and you would consider Quest Rogue a bigger meme than freeze shammy.
you're also missing the entire business and buildup aspect of lowering the power level so you can increase it again. the reasons for this sort of flow and ebb should be obvious.
Oh no. Now you need to use skill rather than just flooding the board... whatever will you do when the rotation happens. Stay strong my friend... stay strong!
Most of your points are around you having fun playing an extremely annoying deck to play against. This is a multiplayer game and is much more enjoyable when both sides feel like they have a more even chance to win in my opinion. I'm all for the lowering of power. Bring more thought back to this game please.
Fun and annoying are subjective in a game with millions of people with differing tastes. I absolutely loathed playing against control priest back when LoE came out solely due to Entomb (In fact as a control deck my actual win strat was to not play my good cards so that they wouldn't be used against me). I also found wild control/reno locks & control/quest priest a soul crushing match-up against a control deck that was not lock/priest/mage/warrior. In my narrow perspective that was annoying to play against. Many disagree with me. In the end the whole fun vs annoying/frustrating is generally not a very good argument plenty of people have the opposite views of you as to what is or isn't fun.
Anyway, OP I empathize to a certain degree. My philosophy for card games is preservation > the competitive scene (so long as 1-2 decks aren't dominating the game). More options to play something different trumps varying the competitive scene just to shake things up and by nerfing everything constantly you don't permanently keep the deck pool large but merely let it grow and then immediately shrink it by nerfing & potentially even killing decks.
However, power creep is very real. If you never create weak cards (note I'm not saying nerf them) then theoretically you could eventually end up with DK level value cards being the norm for control, Shudderwok combos that don't need to hold onto the cards in their hand to win, & mega snowbally aggressive minions that kill you by turns 4-5. All of this would potentially be the result of trying to 'one-up' the previous powerhouse cards and not releasing weaker cards. You need to draw a line somewhere.
Some of my favorite decks have been around nerfed cards. I loved playing OG Quest Rogue. I loved playing Shudderwock (pre Sauronite nerf), I loved playing almost all of the DKs. I even had a lot of fun playing Jade Druid.
IMHO some of the best cards ever released by Hearthstone are the ones that are 'too powerful'. But, I will miss those cards greatly. And if the future of Hearthstone is some power level where Freeze Shaman is looking like a top deck I'm going to be quite bummed.
I say keep the power level high. I like it there. Powerful cards are fun. Going infinite is fun.
Why you hate fun Blizz?
Im not a perfect guy to listen when talking about ladder etc. But think about this. Quest rogue was nerfed 3 times and people still find it unfair to play against. Jade druid I have from personal experience that any slow control deck just got shat on completely. And I agree shudderwock is fun to play yourself but playing against it just like playing AI. When they have full combo you just pray for the lord for the opponent to not have shudderwock in hand
-Shrug- I don't see how any of those decks are less fun than playing vs any other deck.
I don't know why playing against pre-nerf Shudderwock should be considered less fun than playing vs. just bout anything else. Is it really any less fun than playing vs control lock or taunt druid or DK mage for example? Any less fun than losing to Maly Druid?
I might need some convincing.
Actually the two decks I've faced that I enjoyed the least were probably face hunter and pirate warrior. Are those considered unfun to play against?
There was a day when face hunter and pirate warrior was similarly nerfed, and I saw people say the same post you did, except in the realm of "why play is playing a deck like freeze mage or jade druid better than playing a good aggro deck?"
There's two basic criteria that is used to determine if a deck needs to be nerfed in standard:
1. If it's overwhelming the meta. This we see far less of actually, but patron warrior was a good example. When played well, the deck had an advantage, or STRONG advantage against all but two decks: control warrior (which it 50/50ed) and handlock (which had the advantage) everything else died to a strong patron warrior player.
The deck was tactical, interesting, and required a lot of skill to wield. But we can't allow a deck that beats nearly EVERYTHING since it means you are basically asking to lose if you play anything else. And card games are supposed to be about facing multiple different decks.
2. Polarizing situations. When people are talking about 'unfun' it's...not a good phrase since fun is subjective. A better term is "the internal game matters." When an even paladin fights against a zoolock, the outcome isn't fully assured. Now what determines who wins may be RNG or it may be due to your choices, or both, but the GAME itself matters in who wins.
When it's, say, original Quest Rogue vs a control deck, that's NOT the case, IIRC, the quest rogue won about 90% of the time (I know I'm not THAT off on that one). Thus baring absolute insanity or horribad play, the quest rogue wins. Meanwhile, if you play an aggro deck against it, you are near guaranteed a win. What happens in game doesn't matter. You can just name the decks then someone goes "ok I win".
THAT is 'polarizing'. And that's why decks with a 50% or below win rate were 'unacceptable'. It's also why annoying decks like jade druid survived while quest rogue did not.
The nerfed decks were highly vulnerable to aggro, but destroyed anything control. It resulted in a lot of decks being in the meta, but it also meant a lot of games were determined by what deck you played rather than what happened in the game.
so yeah, that's the difference between one deck and another. It's less about what you or I find fun and more about the stability and health of the meta as a whole.
Some may find fun in trolling other players, but it isn't the basis for a good game. I applaud the changes made in RR and hope they continue. Removal of degenerate interactions like Ice Block and Kingsbane are a great start. Hopefully with the removal of death knights, legendary weapons, and spellstones, a sense of engaging play can be restored.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Blizzard should make a special stream lessons or youtube videos in which they explain the the only way hs should be played is with supa dupa 1000 IQ control/combo homebrewed decks and 30 minutes long match is a minimum time period that proves you're not braindead blah blah something etc.
Balance changes happen when decks/cards are over represented on the High Legend ladder and/or tournament play. It has NOTHING to do with whether the decks are “fun” to play or play against.
I don't often care too much what the meta decks are; I am an almost pious 'home-brewer' and how I approach deck building changes little before and after nerfs. However, what I do care about is that I can maintain a win-rate acceptably close to 50% with all of my decks. That is made a whole lot easier when the power level is kept low, and in turn the game is made mode enjoyable for the many players like me.
It is fine for people to enjoy playing the top decks, but if they are left unchecked it can make it very difficult to enjoy playing anything else, and that is surely not what anyone wants.
I'm looking forward to the rotation mainly because everything currently popular is pretty much going away and wiping the slate clean. The sad thing is every single good card Mage has is going away and the class is in the trash tiers for another expansion. Druid is also losing all of the cards that pulled it out of the trash tiers AND it just got nerfed back down there AGAIN. This next expansion is gonna have to be good for those 2 classes though specifically given the nerfs and rotations they've suffered of late.
I'm looking forward to the rotation mainly because everything currently popular is pretty much going away and wiping the slate clean. The sad thing is every single good card Mage has is going away and the class is in the trash tiers for another expansion. Druid is also losing all of the cards that pulled it out of the trash tiers AND it just got nerfed back down there AGAIN. This next expansion is gonna have to be good for those 2 classes though specifically given the nerfs and rotations they've suffered of late.
I actually think that Odd Mage is going to be bananas after rotation. Druid is going to be interesting for sure, probably trash tier unless it's helped out a lot by the next expansion.
On topic I probably would have quit by now if the power creep had kept going. I hate having most of my old decks made unplayable. Further since the power level caps so high with consistent decks in the old model there was no room for fun decks. Playing Meme style decks loses something when you can never pull it off. I'm not looking for a solid 60% win rate but I shouldn't be doomed to a sub 30% win rate for not following the meta.
With the latest round of nerfs I really feel like if they hit hunter a bit too then the meta would be incredibly fun. Unfortunately everything except control style decks or something with a solid turn 5 board wipe feels not great right now. I'm seeing a hunter every other game so in order to win anything I have to build a deck around the idea I'll run into them a lot.
Yea... So much fun to win a game with a finger up my ass (quest rogue, shudderwock vs control). So much fun to win a game with pirate warrior vs combo deck. So much fun to spend 10 minutes seeing your opponent draw tons of cards while you sit with removals in your hand that basically do nothing in this game.
Polarized games are what ruin this game playing experience. If I would have wanted to play solitaire, I know it's in windows start menu.
There is no lowering cards power level. There is just making things right.
Balance changes happen when decks/cards are over represented on the High Legend ladder and/or tournament play. It has NOTHING to do with whether the decks are “fun” to play or play against.
Actually 'fun' has been a factor since Mean Streets. In fact, the matter of 'overrepresentation' over 'fun' was part of the issue during that time.
People HATED the Mean Streets meta due to how pirate decks were deemed 'oppressive'. However, when Blizzard actually looked at the numbers to look for overrepresented or overpowered decks and cards they couldn't find any. Pirate Warrior actually had a below 50% win rate: it actually wasn't that strong of a deck on ladder. It also wasn't overrepresented as people were also playing jade decks, Reno mage, Reno Warlock, Pirate rogue, tempo shaman, so on so on. It was actually very diverse and controlled stats wise. Thus they waited a few months in the hopes things would work out. They didn't.
The issue, as they eventually realized, was in how horrible the deck was to play as and against. The pirate deck played 1-2 minions at turn one, then another 1-2 turn two. If, by then, the opponent had a way to remove the pirates, they would usually stabilize and win. If they didn't, they would die 2 turns later by extreme damage.
This was NOT fun according to the community, even if they won more times than they didn't overall. Thus Blizzard eventually realized that stats weren't the only judge of whether a change was needed. Eventually, which is why it took till February to make the change.
This mentality is also why they changed Quest Rogue and I wouldn't be surprised if it pushed this current change as well.
I'm looking forward to the rotation mainly because everything currently popular is pretty much going away and wiping the slate clean. The sad thing is every single good card Mage has is going away and the class is in the trash tiers for another expansion. Druid is also losing all of the cards that pulled it out of the trash tiers AND it just got nerfed back down there AGAIN. This next expansion is gonna have to be good for those 2 classes though specifically given the nerfs and rotations they've suffered of late.
I actually think that Odd Mage is going to be bananas after rotation. Druid is going to be interesting for sure, probably trash tier unless it's helped out a lot by the next expansion.
On topic I probably would have quit by now if the power creep had kept going. I hate having most of my old decks made unplayable. Further since the power level caps so high with consistent decks in the old model there was no room for fun decks. Playing Meme style decks loses something when you can never pull it off. I'm not looking for a solid 60% win rate but I shouldn't be doomed to a sub 30% win rate for not following the meta.
With the latest round of nerfs I really feel like if they hit hunter a bit too then the meta would be incredibly fun. Unfortunately everything except control style decks or something with a solid turn 5 board wipe feels not great right now. I'm seeing a hunter every other game so in order to win anything I have to build a deck around the idea I'll run into them a lot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Some of my favorite decks have been around nerfed cards. I loved playing OG Quest Rogue. I loved playing Shudderwock (pre Sauronite nerf), I loved playing almost all of the DKs. I even had a lot of fun playing Jade Druid.
IMHO some of the best cards ever released by Hearthstone are the ones that are 'too powerful'. But, I will miss those cards greatly. And if the future of Hearthstone is some power level where Freeze Shaman is looking like a top deck I'm going to be quite bummed.
I say keep the power level high. I like it there. Powerful cards are fun. Going infinite is fun.
Why you hate fun Blizz?
Galavant Animation
It might be fun to play Shudderwock Shaman or Quest Rogue or Jade Druid, but (at least for me) they are not fun to play against. It's not necessarily that the winrate of those decks is super high, but they have enough polarizing matchups and are popular enough to make playing against them feel repetitive and un-interactive. There is also the concern that if you allow powerful cards to stay around, then in order for future cards to be playable there has to be serious power creep.
4
Most of your points are around you having fun playing an extremely annoying deck to play against. This is a multiplayer game and is much more enjoyable when both sides feel like they have a more even chance to win in my opinion. I'm all for the lowering of power. Bring more thought back to this game please.
-Shrug- I don't see how any of those decks are less fun than playing vs any other deck.
I don't know why playing against pre-nerf Shudderwock should be considered less fun than playing vs. just bout anything else. Is it really any less fun than playing vs control lock or taunt druid or DK mage for example? Any less fun than losing to Maly Druid?
I might need some convincing.
Actually the two decks I've faced that I enjoyed the least were probably face hunter and pirate warrior. Are those considered unfun to play against?
Galavant Animation
very shortsighted of you. the decks you are listing weren't necessarily OP, they were suffocating entire archetypes from existing, making the game completely unenjoyable for guys who enjoy slower decks - like me, and that's why they were basically banned. you also seem to have listed 3 decks that were controlkillers and basically not much else at the time. they were making the game rock/paper/scissors. but again, these decks you list weren't really op, they were just a rock to someone else's scissors. the real op's were old midrange shaman. old pirate warrior. combo druid. patron warrior. deathrattle hunter, machinegun priest and so on. if you enjoy overrunning people with bloated stats in early game like those decks did (hello turn 1 patches with charge + 3/2 + 1/1 with a weapon) or basically "if you didn't aggro me I win" I can't say your view for the health of the game is anywhere near reality.
there's also a problem with creating new cards and decks. if old midrange shaman and warriorstone was somehow around through whole hearthstone history, you basically couldn't have even tried playing Quest Rogue, Jade anything, etc. because they would not win a single game and you would consider Quest Rogue a bigger meme than freeze shammy.
you're also missing the entire business and buildup aspect of lowering the power level so you can increase it again. the reasons for this sort of flow and ebb should be obvious.
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
Oh no. Now you need to use skill rather than just flooding the board... whatever will you do when the rotation happens. Stay strong my friend... stay strong!
I get that fun is subjective, but I guarantee you that nobody enjoyed losing as soon as they hear "my jaws that bite, my claws that catch."
Which is why they were destroyed, because not able to have fun sucks.
I like it. Makes the game feel more reasonable.
Fun and annoying are subjective in a game with millions of people with differing tastes. I absolutely loathed playing against control priest back when LoE came out solely due to Entomb (In fact as a control deck my actual win strat was to not play my good cards so that they wouldn't be used against me). I also found wild control/reno locks & control/quest priest a soul crushing match-up against a control deck that was not lock/priest/mage/warrior. In my narrow perspective that was annoying to play against. Many disagree with me. In the end the whole fun vs annoying/frustrating is generally not a very good argument plenty of people have the opposite views of you as to what is or isn't fun.
Anyway, OP I empathize to a certain degree. My philosophy for card games is preservation > the competitive scene (so long as 1-2 decks aren't dominating the game). More options to play something different trumps varying the competitive scene just to shake things up and by nerfing everything constantly you don't permanently keep the deck pool large but merely let it grow and then immediately shrink it by nerfing & potentially even killing decks.
However, power creep is very real. If you never create weak cards (note I'm not saying nerf them) then theoretically you could eventually end up with DK level value cards being the norm for control, Shudderwok combos that don't need to hold onto the cards in their hand to win, & mega snowbally aggressive minions that kill you by turns 4-5. All of this would potentially be the result of trying to 'one-up' the previous powerhouse cards and not releasing weaker cards. You need to draw a line somewhere.
Yeah, but because of the high power level we're in the most polarizing meta of all time.
Unpopular opinion: Rogue is OP
Im not a perfect guy to listen when talking about ladder etc. But think about this. Quest rogue was nerfed 3 times and people still find it unfair to play against. Jade druid I have from personal experience that any slow control deck just got shat on completely. And I agree shudderwock is fun to play yourself but playing against it just like playing AI. When they have full combo you just pray for the lord for the opponent to not have shudderwock in hand
Me? Gongaga.
There was a day when face hunter and pirate warrior was similarly nerfed, and I saw people say the same post you did, except in the realm of "why play is playing a deck like freeze mage or jade druid better than playing a good aggro deck?"
There's two basic criteria that is used to determine if a deck needs to be nerfed in standard:
1. If it's overwhelming the meta. This we see far less of actually, but patron warrior was a good example. When played well, the deck had an advantage, or STRONG advantage against all but two decks: control warrior (which it 50/50ed) and handlock (which had the advantage) everything else died to a strong patron warrior player.
The deck was tactical, interesting, and required a lot of skill to wield. But we can't allow a deck that beats nearly EVERYTHING since it means you are basically asking to lose if you play anything else. And card games are supposed to be about facing multiple different decks.
2. Polarizing situations. When people are talking about 'unfun' it's...not a good phrase since fun is subjective. A better term is "the internal game matters." When an even paladin fights against a zoolock, the outcome isn't fully assured. Now what determines who wins may be RNG or it may be due to your choices, or both, but the GAME itself matters in who wins.
When it's, say, original Quest Rogue vs a control deck, that's NOT the case, IIRC, the quest rogue won about 90% of the time (I know I'm not THAT off on that one). Thus baring absolute insanity or horribad play, the quest rogue wins. Meanwhile, if you play an aggro deck against it, you are near guaranteed a win. What happens in game doesn't matter. You can just name the decks then someone goes "ok I win".
THAT is 'polarizing'. And that's why decks with a 50% or below win rate were 'unacceptable'. It's also why annoying decks like jade druid survived while quest rogue did not.
The nerfed decks were highly vulnerable to aggro, but destroyed anything control. It resulted in a lot of decks being in the meta, but it also meant a lot of games were determined by what deck you played rather than what happened in the game.
so yeah, that's the difference between one deck and another. It's less about what you or I find fun and more about the stability and health of the meta as a whole.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Some may find fun in trolling other players, but it isn't the basis for a good game. I applaud the changes made in RR and hope they continue. Removal of degenerate interactions like Ice Block and Kingsbane are a great start. Hopefully with the removal of death knights, legendary weapons, and spellstones, a sense of engaging play can be restored.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
If you like a high power level, why you no play Wild?
Standard is by nature the boring game mode, because of the small amout of cards avaible.
Balance changes happen when decks/cards are over represented on the High Legend ladder and/or tournament play. It has NOTHING to do with whether the decks are “fun” to play or play against.
I don't often care too much what the meta decks are; I am an almost pious 'home-brewer' and how I approach deck building changes little before and after nerfs. However, what I do care about is that I can maintain a win-rate acceptably close to 50% with all of my decks. That is made a whole lot easier when the power level is kept low, and in turn the game is made mode enjoyable for the many players like me.
It is fine for people to enjoy playing the top decks, but if they are left unchecked it can make it very difficult to enjoy playing anything else, and that is surely not what anyone wants.
I'm looking forward to the rotation mainly because everything currently popular is pretty much going away and wiping the slate clean. The sad thing is every single good card Mage has is going away and the class is in the trash tiers for another expansion. Druid is also losing all of the cards that pulled it out of the trash tiers AND it just got nerfed back down there AGAIN. This next expansion is gonna have to be good for those 2 classes though specifically given the nerfs and rotations they've suffered of late.
I actually think that Odd Mage is going to be bananas after rotation. Druid is going to be interesting for sure, probably trash tier unless it's helped out a lot by the next expansion.
On topic I probably would have quit by now if the power creep had kept going. I hate having most of my old decks made unplayable. Further since the power level caps so high with consistent decks in the old model there was no room for fun decks. Playing Meme style decks loses something when you can never pull it off. I'm not looking for a solid 60% win rate but I shouldn't be doomed to a sub 30% win rate for not following the meta.
With the latest round of nerfs I really feel like if they hit hunter a bit too then the meta would be incredibly fun. Unfortunately everything except control style decks or something with a solid turn 5 board wipe feels not great right now. I'm seeing a hunter every other game so in order to win anything I have to build a deck around the idea I'll run into them a lot.
Yea... So much fun to win a game with a finger up my ass (quest rogue, shudderwock vs control). So much fun to win a game with pirate warrior vs combo deck. So much fun to spend 10 minutes seeing your opponent draw tons of cards while you sit with removals in your hand that basically do nothing in this game.
Polarized games are what ruin this game playing experience. If I would have wanted to play solitaire, I know it's in windows start menu.
There is no lowering cards power level. There is just making things right.
Actually 'fun' has been a factor since Mean Streets. In fact, the matter of 'overrepresentation' over 'fun' was part of the issue during that time.
People HATED the Mean Streets meta due to how pirate decks were deemed 'oppressive'. However, when Blizzard actually looked at the numbers to look for overrepresented or overpowered decks and cards they couldn't find any. Pirate Warrior actually had a below 50% win rate: it actually wasn't that strong of a deck on ladder. It also wasn't overrepresented as people were also playing jade decks, Reno mage, Reno Warlock, Pirate rogue, tempo shaman, so on so on. It was actually very diverse and controlled stats wise. Thus they waited a few months in the hopes things would work out. They didn't.
The issue, as they eventually realized, was in how horrible the deck was to play as and against. The pirate deck played 1-2 minions at turn one, then another 1-2 turn two. If, by then, the opponent had a way to remove the pirates, they would usually stabilize and win. If they didn't, they would die 2 turns later by extreme damage.
This was NOT fun according to the community, even if they won more times than they didn't overall. Thus Blizzard eventually realized that stats weren't the only judge of whether a change was needed. Eventually, which is why it took till February to make the change.
This mentality is also why they changed Quest Rogue and I wouldn't be surprised if it pushed this current change as well.
So yeah, 'fun' is a factor nowadays
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.