I think it could be argued that of all patches the most recent 3 have been the most questionable, now I concede that this may just be decency bias but let’s take a look
Aviana: I heard only outcry for Juicy Psychmelon at the time and I believe this was a situation where they were so enamored with their own creation that they didn’t want to kill it. I thought Aviana Togwaggle or Star Aligner Decks were neat and fun. Psychmelon’s tutoring broke that, not Aviana.
Giggling Inventor: a card that was highly used, but techable with things like Bloodknight and Mossy Horror. I personally thought people were whining too much and once it was nerfed I would argue that the meta got worse
Nourish and Wild Growth: Maybe nerf one, but not both, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone supports this nerf outside of haters.
Mana Wyrm: I admit this card could be frustrating, but I don’t find myself saying “thank god mana wyrm was nerfed” just make it a 1/2, it’s too weak to be 2 cost
I think Saronite, Leeching Poison, Level Up! are all fine but with the latest release the only nerf that makes sense to me is Emerald Spellstone, the equality nerf seems absurd.
I encourage you to look back at the various patches if you’re not familiar with em, it appears to me that most (not all) were fairly successful, whereas lately it seems like a coin flip at best.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing other perceptions/insights, please share!
But cards used to be nerfed usually when it was actually necessary from a balance perspective, when decks were performing too well or had too little counterplay. The developers used to take the position that players should figure out how to beat good decks and only intervene if things did not work out.
By now, nerfs are mostly done for the sake of it, to "change things up" and more than anything because of "Standard". It does not help that some nerfs look suspiciously like they were done for monetary reasons, i.e. destroying expensive decks by nerfing basic/common/rare cards instead of the legendaries and epics that make them good.
The nature of nerfs has not really changed, but the motivation behind them certainly has.
It's just a cashgrab. Blizzard / Activision are doing bad business, somehow resulting in overall distorted perception and direction. We had those greedy weak preorder options, which backfired and soon they released a panic video reminding us to buy the expansion. January was the first month after many they didn't give us free stuff. Those upcoming are to compensate the mess (destroying basic cards and such to "open a design space") they have been ordered to do. Recent expansions are all weak, out of touch, repetitive and uninspired design and there is no incentive to preorder them at all. But... now it doesn't even more, because everything has become uncertain and accidental, a deck on which you spend so much dust and money can be suddenly and cunningly nerfed into oblivion already tomorrow, without any compensation. These nerfs are illogical and annoying, it's like they decided to nerf Angry Chicken, or t3 deck. How clueless these nerfs are can be seen in disappearances of, not decks and archetypes, but whole classes from the meta (even in wild)!
they should release a brawl where they revert all the card nerfs
There was that one brawl where you got to play random pro players' decks that had won tournament games. Cards like Auctioneer and Blade Flurry were in their unnerfed states.
It's just a cashgrab. Blizzard / Activision are doing bad business, somehow resulting in overall distorted perception and direction. We had those greedy weak preorder options, which backfired and soon they released a panic video reminding us to buy the expansion. January was the first month after many they didn't give us free stuff. Those upcoming are to compensate the mess (destroying basic cards and such to "open a design space") they have been ordered to do. Recent expansions are all weak, out of touch, repetitive and uninspired design and there is no incentive to preorder them at all. But... now it doesn't even more, because everything has become uncertain and accidental, a deck on which you spend so much dust and money can be suddenly and cunningly nerfed into oblivion already tomorrow, without any compensation. These nerfs are illogical and annoying, it's like they decided to nerf Angry Chicken, or t3 deck. How clueless these nerfs are can be seen in disappearances of, not decks and archetypes, but whole classes from the meta (even in wild)!
Agreed, as I mentioned in another post. This is just the beginning of the nerfs. They will get rid of other 'staples' to 'open up design space', which just means they are mad no one is buying their new stuff. This is the problem though. They release a 130+ card set and how many are actually viable and competitive? That percentage is very low. But they don't want to print all the cards as crazy powerful either, as it would negate the older sets, right?
And yeah, I also agree, they nerf cold blood to tone down Odd Rogue's power, but those players get no compensation in return. This is under handed and sneaky and this will back fire on them. When new players try this game out, realize its a huge pay wall, they will leave. You cannot compete or have fun with free to play decks when you are facing tier 1 and 2 decks at ranks 20.
Rotate the classic and basic cards to wild and bring in older cards from other sets instead. If you have a deathrattle themed set, bring back the 1 drop deathrattle spider for Hunter. If you printed alot of alternate win condition cards or 'I win' 10 drops, then include Dirty Rat. If your set is all about Dragons, then rotate out useless cards and rotate in some neutral dragons.
It's about money. That's it. But if Blizzard is not careful, it will backfire as people are going to other games now. I said this in other posts. If Blizzard does not want to lose players to MTG Arena, then they need to stop making it easy to do so. I already play more MTGA than Hearthstone now. I have $5 spent in MTGA only (welcome bundle) and I am having fun still.
If Hearthstone wants to make the free to play experience better, do what MTGA is doing with decks. They are 'remembering' how well a deck performs and gives it a rating. If you start winning with your deck and get 10 wins in a row, you will start to face people on the ladder who are also doing well. This would eliminate the fact that I am at rank 20 in Hearthstone and facing a full tier 1 (with all the cards crafted) Paladin deck while I am just messing around with quests and low tier decks.
I was gonna buy the new bundle, but after the nerfs, it kinda feels bad to support such a greedy business model. We need to punish them with our money or they'll keep doing these stuff forever. This is just straight up cash grab. Nerfing 10k+ dust decks with common/rare classic set cards...
It's about money. That's it. But if Blizzard is not careful, it will backfire as people are going to other games now. I said this in other posts. If Blizzard does not want to lose players to MTG Arena, then they need to stop making it easy to do so. I already play more MTGA than Hearthstone now. I have $5 spent in MTGA only (welcome bundle) and I am having fun still.
If Hearthstone wants to make the free to play experience better, do what MTGA is doing with decks. They are 'remembering' how well a deck performs and gives it a rating. If you start winning with your deck and get 10 wins in a row, you will start to face people on the ladder who are also doing well. This would eliminate the fact that I am at rank 20 in Hearthstone and facing a full tier 1 (with all the cards crafted) Paladin deck while I am just messing around with quests and low tier decks.
MTGA do not have a mobile client (and never will have) - this is a big difference against HS. Also, it is not as good to watch as HS.
Also, MTGA have basically no crafting system (only limited wildcards), releases expansions 4 times a year twice as big each as HS expansions and good decks require 4 copies of each card, including often rares (epics in HS) and Mythic rares (legendaries in HS)
And of course, what you want - facing worst decks - works in casual, but do not work and should not work in ladder. The ladder is a competitive format, so you should face anyone who is at your rank.
There’s a good article here that chronicles all of Hearthstone’s card nerfs since inception if you want to take a peek
here:https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Card_changes
I think it could be argued that of all patches the most recent 3 have been the most questionable, now I concede that this may just be decency bias but let’s take a look
Aviana: I heard only outcry for Juicy Psychmelon at the time and I believe this was a situation where they were so enamored with their own creation that they didn’t want to kill it. I thought Aviana Togwaggle or Star Aligner Decks were neat and fun. Psychmelon’s tutoring broke that, not Aviana.
Giggling Inventor: a card that was highly used, but techable with things like Bloodknight and Mossy Horror. I personally thought people were whining too much and once it was nerfed I would argue that the meta got worse
Nourish and Wild Growth: Maybe nerf one, but not both, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone supports this nerf outside of haters.
Mana Wyrm: I admit this card could be frustrating, but I don’t find myself saying “thank god mana wyrm was nerfed” just make it a 1/2, it’s too weak to be 2 cost
I think Saronite, Leeching Poison, Level Up! are all fine but with the latest release the only nerf that makes sense to me is Emerald Spellstone, the equality nerf seems absurd.
I encourage you to look back at the various patches if you’re not familiar with em, it appears to me that most (not all) were fairly successful, whereas lately it seems like a coin flip at best.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing other perceptions/insights, please share!
So convincing arguments! I wonder why you don't work at Blizzard in the Devs Team
they should release a brawl where they revert all the card nerfs
The nerfs are not getting "worse" or more polarizing. I mean, most still seem mild in comparison to Warsong Commander, Savagery and Starving Buzzard.
But cards used to be nerfed usually when it was actually necessary from a balance perspective, when decks were performing too well or had too little counterplay. The developers used to take the position that players should figure out how to beat good decks and only intervene if things did not work out.
By now, nerfs are mostly done for the sake of it, to "change things up" and more than anything because of "Standard". It does not help that some nerfs look suspiciously like they were done for monetary reasons, i.e. destroying expensive decks by nerfing basic/common/rare cards instead of the legendaries and epics that make them good.
The nature of nerfs has not really changed, but the motivation behind them certainly has.
I think the nerfs are good ,but they should have nerf op legendaries and epics too so no one would say it is a monetary move.
It's just a cashgrab. Blizzard / Activision are doing bad business, somehow resulting in overall distorted perception and direction. We had those greedy weak preorder options, which backfired and soon they released a panic video reminding us to buy the expansion. January was the first month after many they didn't give us free stuff. Those upcoming are to compensate the mess (destroying basic cards and such to "open a design space") they have been ordered to do. Recent expansions are all weak, out of touch, repetitive and uninspired design and there is no incentive to preorder them at all. But... now it doesn't even more, because everything has become uncertain and accidental, a deck on which you spend so much dust and money can be suddenly and cunningly nerfed into oblivion already tomorrow, without any compensation. These nerfs are illogical and annoying, it's like they decided to nerf Angry Chicken, or t3 deck. How clueless these nerfs are can be seen in disappearances of, not decks and archetypes, but whole classes from the meta (even in wild)!
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
There was that one brawl where you got to play random pro players' decks that had won tournament games. Cards like Auctioneer and Blade Flurry were in their unnerfed states.
ouch
ouch lol
Agreed, as I mentioned in another post. This is just the beginning of the nerfs. They will get rid of other 'staples' to 'open up design space', which just means they are mad no one is buying their new stuff. This is the problem though. They release a 130+ card set and how many are actually viable and competitive? That percentage is very low. But they don't want to print all the cards as crazy powerful either, as it would negate the older sets, right?
And yeah, I also agree, they nerf cold blood to tone down Odd Rogue's power, but those players get no compensation in return. This is under handed and sneaky and this will back fire on them. When new players try this game out, realize its a huge pay wall, they will leave. You cannot compete or have fun with free to play decks when you are facing tier 1 and 2 decks at ranks 20.
Rotate the classic and basic cards to wild and bring in older cards from other sets instead. If you have a deathrattle themed set, bring back the 1 drop deathrattle spider for Hunter. If you printed alot of alternate win condition cards or 'I win' 10 drops, then include Dirty Rat. If your set is all about Dragons, then rotate out useless cards and rotate in some neutral dragons.
It's about money. That's it. But if Blizzard is not careful, it will backfire as people are going to other games now. I said this in other posts. If Blizzard does not want to lose players to MTG Arena, then they need to stop making it easy to do so. I already play more MTGA than Hearthstone now. I have $5 spent in MTGA only (welcome bundle) and I am having fun still.
If Hearthstone wants to make the free to play experience better, do what MTGA is doing with decks. They are 'remembering' how well a deck performs and gives it a rating. If you start winning with your deck and get 10 wins in a row, you will start to face people on the ladder who are also doing well. This would eliminate the fact that I am at rank 20 in Hearthstone and facing a full tier 1 (with all the cards crafted) Paladin deck while I am just messing around with quests and low tier decks.
I was gonna buy the new bundle, but after the nerfs, it kinda feels bad to support such a greedy business model. We need to punish them with our money or they'll keep doing these stuff forever. This is just straight up cash grab. Nerfing 10k+ dust decks with common/rare classic set cards...
Ready for action
MTGA do not have a mobile client (and never will have) - this is a big difference against HS. Also, it is not as good to watch as HS.
Also, MTGA have basically no crafting system (only limited wildcards), releases expansions 4 times a year twice as big each as HS expansions and good decks require 4 copies of each card, including often rares (epics in HS) and Mythic rares (legendaries in HS)
And of course, what you want - facing worst decks - works in casual, but do not work and should not work in ladder. The ladder is a competitive format, so you should face anyone who is at your rank.
--Alfi--