We all remember back in the days of Naxxramas how a little one drop called Undertaker put this game into one of the most cancerous places it has ever been. It looked almost as harmless as Secretkeeper at the time, but by the time GvG had arrived either you were playing Deathrattle Hunter, or you were playing a deck aimed to counter Deathrattle Hunter(and even then you could still lose more than half the time). An entire meta decided on who drew a specific one drop first. So when Blizzard finally decided to nerf it into the ground, it could not have happened soon enough.
Many of us were unhappy to see cards such as Azure Drake, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Ragnaros the Firelord rotate out, but with every non-aggro deck using them as must-haves, they really limited deck diversity and made it a lot harder to fit newer cards into our decks, so that nerf was understandable.
Even more recent-er nerfs such as Giggling Inventor seem very justified with it being included in every deck, whether as an aggro tool or an attempt to stop it. These are some key examples on why hearthstone's ability to make balance changes has been very helpful in fixing what would otherwise be a pretty broken game. But recently Blizzard appears to have taken a different approach to how they choose to nerf cards, and I don't think its a very healthy one.
Nerfs are always going to have different effects on different players. If you've been playing a lot of a deck that has said nerfed card, or you just crafted it or opened it out of a pack, the nerf is probably going to leave a bit of a stale taste in your mouth. If you weren't using the nerfed card, you are probably a bit more accepting of it(especially if you often found yourself on the losing side of it). Because discussing certain cards can be more polarizing, I want to instead make my case that Blizzard's new nerfing strategy is what is the problem, not one specific nerf in particular, especially against players that are F2P or close to that.
Point number one: Nerfs are becoming more and more frequent. Some people are probably happy about this. The argument that some might make as to why this is a good thing is that it shakes up the meta, allowing different decks to rise to the top as some others fall. Even big voices in the hearthstone community such as Kripp have praised Blizzard for choosing to release a second nerf patch in the first two months of this latest expansion. And it's true, if you've bought/crafted all of the cards and can just jump to the next meta-deck, or you mostly play arena, there are few downsides to this. But as mentioned earlier, if you just got a card only to have it nerfed, that's going to make it feel like a big waste. Sure you get a dust return, but for players that spent a lot of time grinding gold just to get that card, they will never get that time back.
Point number two: Blizzard has been targeting more and more classic cards. You all don't need me to explain this one, but I will anyways. The basic and classic sets have always been the backbone for deck-building, especially for new players. After all most of the free packs the game gives you are classic packs, whether from achievements or from your Tavern Brawl wins. When Blizzard chooses to balance their game by nerfing/banning classic cards instead of their new expansions, competitive decks become more reliant on fickle expansion cards and you are taking more tools away from the F2P player. I'm not saying new expansions shouldn't have an effect on the meta, but if you introduce new cards that create problematic decks, maybe those cards are the ones that should be balanced, rather than the classic cards that a lot of players have grown to rely on and love over the years, thinking that at least those cards will always be useable.
Point number three: These nerfs aren't making the game any healthier. Sure say what you like about the meta 'changing' but if the meta is changing from a handful of dominant decks to much fewer dominant decks, do we care that they are 'different'? Secret hunter may have been a good deck before, but it was not in the utter dominant position it is now until after other decks were nerfed. Blizzard balance team used to feel like a bunch of calm, collected scholars who tested and calculated carefully before they made their decisions; and while some may feel it took them too long to make some decisions, by the time they did, it was the right one. Now Blizzard balance team feels like a single stubborn 14-year old playtester who hasn't learned how to play around certain decks he's been losing to so he just decides to nerf them without a thought on how said nerfs will affect the rest of the meta(hope you all like odd paladin).
Point number four: If we accept more frequent nerfs, we hold Blizzard to a lower standard of card balancing. Back in the Brode days, the Hearthstone team said they weren't ever going to buff cards, and they were only going to nerf cards when it seemed they really needed it, because any dramatic change like that could affect the balance of the game in a way they might not be able to predict, and it also created a negative experience for many players for reasons I have stated above. Clearly Blizzard isn't as concerned about this now(I mean out of all the hunter cards, how many people were crying for a nerf to Hunter's Mark?), but if they're more open to frequent card nerfs, do they need to care about the balance of the cards they release? I mean, why spend a lot of time(and money) testing and balancing your game before release if you can just release a bunch of cards, wait a few weeks and then just nerf the problematic ones? A good set release imo is a set that stirs up the pot, adding to existing decks and creating new ones, and while not every card will go in a deck that can get me to legend, it still gives me a lot of fun tools to play with that will keep me trying new things until next expansion. To create an expansion like this probably takes a lot of balance testing, but if balance doesn't matter as much until after release, we are setting ourselves up for more and more disappointing expansions.
Point number five: This one is just me complaining. Blizzard, I can maaaybe understand you wanting to strike down the powerful decks out there, but why now? We are pretty close to, not just another new expansion that will hopefully shake things up a bit, but a new rotation that was going to hit pretty much every competitive deck relatively hard, because the year of the Mammoth was waaaaaaay more powerful than this year has been. Is the state of the game really so bad that you couldn't wait a month? If the answer is yes, then did you realize we're in this state of the game because of your last round of nerfs, and mAyBe just more nerfs isn't going to fix it? hMmMmM? Whew. Okay, I'm calm.
In conclusion, I think that Blizzard's new strategy is unhealthy for the player base, especially those who aren't spending $400/per expansion. Blizzard should be doing a better job testing to see what effects their new cards could have upon release, rather than just nerfing different cards in the powerful decks that come up after the fact. It makes it harder for cheaper players to enjoy, it potentially upsets more and more people as you are more likely to shut down a card that they love, and it opens up the potential for more gamebreaking cards to be released that can upset the balance of the whole game(I'm looking at you Baku the Mooneater). Maybe this seems like a good solution for the time being, but I am confident this is going to come back to bite them if this continues.
Idk man part of me just wants to blame Activision since they're ruining a lot of Blizzard's other games, but I of course have no solid reason to do that. Yet.
What really pisses me off is that ONE FUCKING ARCHETYPE causes Blizzard to ruin Classic class cards. I mean, sometimes nerfs are crucial, no arguments there. But I really don’t think Classic, and certainly not BASIC, cards shouldn’t be touched. Cards that provide a certain identity for classes should stay in tact as well. Flametongue Totem is a staple in Shaman. Totems are their HERO POWER, so it seems fair to say it’s an identity to the class. Same with Cold Blood, and our long-lost Conceal for Rogue, but are staples in a Rogue class.
Just because Blizzard has no sense and prints cards like Genn/Baku without thoroughly thinking it through doesn’t mean they should ruin perfectly good Classic and Basic cards.
Personally, I think they should rebalance weekly. That being said, Blizz could definitely stand to also buff some of the cards that see absolutely no play. Weekly rebalances would keep the game fresh. Honestly 1 nerf and 1 buff per week would be fantastic for maintaining a fresh meta.
Baku and Genn just need to be removed from the game. They're forcing balance changes to be more extreme and they're forcing cards that were otherwise perfectly fine to be hit just to reduce the power level of one deck, taking a whole class down with them.
On the other hand, I think it's rather strange people always complain blizzard takes too long with nerfs, and now that they've rolled out 2 nerf patches in a smaller timeframe people once again find a reason to complain about it.
Personally, I think they should rebalance weekly. That being said, Blizz could definitely stand to also buff some of the cards that see absolutely no play. Weekly rebalances would keep the game fresh. Honestly 1 nerf and 1 buff per week would be fantastic for maintaining a fresh meta.
If this is really something you want I guess I should ask you: why would anyone be compelled to want any card if every card's power could change on the weekly? Why would anyone build a deck if its just going to suck tommorow? The only way I see this working is if Blizzard gave you every card for free to just play around with and even then only maybe. This sounds like anarchy not fun nor fresh.
oh shut up, for years the community has been yapping about how BLizzard takes way too long to nerf obviously broken cards and never goes far enough and the meta is so stale and yadda yadda yadda.
The one time they actually do put out more frequent balance changes everyone complains again because they didn't cater to everyone's specific sensibilities.
I find the whole Baku/genn hate particularly hilarious, especially since so many people were trashing them on release and saying how they would never work
Blizzard: "We're nerfing these classic cards because they're really powerful and have seen play in all metas and all archetypes."
Also Blizzard: "Velen/Mind Blast is totally fine! Maly is totally fine! Divine Spirit/Inner Fire is totally fine!" etc etc
Also Blizzard: "We're nerfing this even costed card by increasing it's mana cost.......to another even cost. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BAKU. Baku/Genn are fine by the way!"
oh shut up, for years the community has been yapping about how BLizzard takes way too long to nerf obviously broken cards and never goes far enough and the meta is so stale and yadda yadda yadda.
The one time they actually do put out more frequent balance changes everyone complains again because they didn't cater to everyone's specific sensibilities.
I find the whole Baku/genn hate particularly hilarious, especially since so many people were trashing them on release and saying how they would never work
Well like I said in what I wrote(assuming you read it all), I think that Blizzard taking a little extra time to make the right call when it came to balance decisions was always a better alternative to making hasty game damaging decisions. I of course encourage debate on this topic but please take all of my points that I've made into consideration before just telling me to shut up. Thank you
Cards that provide a certain identity for classes should stay in tact as well. Flametongue Totem is a staple in Shaman. Totems are their HERO POWER, so it seems fair to say it’s an identity to the class. Same with Cold Blood, and our long-lost Conceal for Rogue, but are staples in a Rogue class.
Don't you think you've accidentally stumbled onto exactly why these changes were made? Cards becoming standard picks? As it stands, the only way to print a new card in a similar design space (say, board control for Shaman) that would even be considered for inclusion, they have to increase the power-level past the magnificently cheap and efficient Flametongue Totem. If this happened you would be screaming "power creep!!" They want to push stale basic and classic cards that are auto-include in archetypes out so they can print new cards that might actually be evaluated for existing archetypes.
Why should Blizzard be concerned with the F2P player? They generate zero revenue.
People who pay real money to get the new cards want to play with and against the new cards. It gets boring if every Warrior you met had Fiery War Axe, every Druid Wild Growth and Nourish, every non-aggro Paladin Equality, etc. The power level of some of these Classic cards needs to be curbed so that classes are forced to rely on the new cards every expansion. This makes economic sense for Blizzard, and at the same time, makes the game better for the paying customer.
I certainly don't give a chit about the F2P plebs. Who needs em anyway.
If they still have a "50% WR" policy, they need to balance the game more frequently (and in some cases emergencies), or improve in their R&D with new sets.
Shadowverse does it, and games is balanced, although way more expensive (dust-wise)
Call me crazy but i'm against nerfing legendaries, the point is that seeing that orange glow in a pack is already so rare and so special that it would be absolutely disheartening to open something in the level of garbage of harbringer celestia, you effectively spent a month or20-40USD just to get your legendary and then if you open something that not only isn't competitive viable, but that you can't even meme with it, it would feel like a ton of time and money wasted, yes, the legendaries people crafted for kingsbane rogue or for the newly nerfed decks might not be "as useful" now but to tell the truth you can still use Kangor in a ton of paladin strategies because the effect doesnt change at all, and king's bane decks still exist.
and then there are the players trying to use the nerfign legendaries as a method of getting your dust back so that you cna craft other useful cards, but that argument is moot as well, since it doesn't solve the problem that future players, or players who never owned that particular legendary would still have a chance of opening the nerfed version of the legendary making it a terrible experience and an easy exit point for them.
I don't think the nerfs are too frequent. Many of them have been long overdue and obviously necessary since the card's release, for example the broken and stupid lesser emerald spellstone. I do worry about nerfing cheap classic/basic cards that were never really a problem until certain expansions that release overpowered legendaries and epics. I think that's both wrong headed and an attempt to gouge players. That said I agree with the Equality, cold blood, and hunters mark nerfs, as they put them more in line with cards of other classes. Flametongue seems a little unnecessary, but it's a mostly win more card I've never been that fond so w/e.
Since the great nerf of Waraxe, they have to nerf other class signature classic card to keep things in balance. Mage got hit with Mana Wrym, Druid got hit with Wild Grow , Rogue with Cold blood , Shaman with Totem, Hunter with Hunter mark, Paladin with Equality now. The next one i guess will be Priest, the card, for sure is Shadow words : Shield will be nerf to 2 mana.
Blizzard is being more active in their stewardship of their card balancing. If they were actually trigger happy (which denotes a violent, reflexive response), the game would be changed more frequently and in more brutal ways. It has not been.
Their reasoning for these nerfs is consistent with how they've presented nerfs in the past: an inordinate number of decks containing the same cards, making them a requirement for playing that class. Any time a card is a requirement, it restricts the creative environment, both for the players and for the designers.
As much as Hearthstone is game to be played, it is a game to be designed. Should the designers see trends that would restrict their future design space, they should act. It is their role. Likewise, when the players see the creative space being changed to suit this design space, they should act and change their strategies and adopt new deck archetypes. That is their role as players who choose to participate in the designer's game.
Very few players complained of Wild Growth. Now everyone suddenly mad at nerfs?
I give you that frequent nerfs are not good, in general. But imo, these nerfs are completely fine. This time they hit evergreen cards that were top tier + one broken spellstone.
The nerfed evergreen cards could have been HoFed maybe, but indeed they were so powerful that no new cards could replace them anyway.
If anything, they should have grouped them together with previous nerf round, or previous round with this one. But that's it.
Really happy with the more frequent nerfs. Pirate Warrior, aggro shaman, jade shaman, jade druid, hunter undertaker and secret paladin were all around for way too long. More frequent changes keeps things fresh and allows for new decks to pop up, which is very important after a new set releases.
Note: You are going to get a bit of skewed feedback from any message board as the people posting are most likely a bit more invested (time and money) than your average Hearthstone player.
Why should Blizzard be concerned with the F2P player? They generate zero revenue.
People who pay real money to get the new cards want to play with and against the new cards. It gets boring if every Warrior you met had Fiery War Axe, every Druid Wild Growth and Nourish, every non-aggro Paladin Equality, etc. The power level of some of these Classic cards needs to be curbed so that classes are forced to rely on the new cards every expansion. This makes economic sense for Blizzard, and at the same time, makes the game better for the paying customer.
I certainly don't give a chit about the F2P plebs. Who needs em anyway.
Well Blizzard certainly used to care. And they should.
Sure if the game was designed that all you needed to get to legend were basic cards, this wouldn't incentivize pack purchasing at all and would make players like you who invest in the game feel unrewarded. But from a business perspective Hearthstone is a F2P game, and it's F2P players are an important part of its growth. A F2P player from a business perspective is a player that just hasn't spent money yet. My first year playing Hearthstone I was F2P, then eventually caved in. Not only that, but F2P players make up a large portion of the playerbase, making it harder to run into the same opponent over and over again. F2P players still watch tournaments/streams, maybe post about Hearthstone on social media or talk about it with their friends(that's called free advertising). Finally, you want your game to convince players they can play without spending, so that they become addicted to the game and feel the need to spend money on it. That's the business model almost every F2P game runs on. It may sound silly at first, but taking care of your F2P players is good business, and also leads to a healthier game. Of course, Activision has never understood this and that's why most of the games under them either stink or are on the downward spiral :(
Also Blizzard: "We're nerfing this even costed card by increasing it's mana cost.......to another even cost. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BAKU. Baku/Genn are fine by the way!"
Yep, barely even passes the laugh test. Talk about designing yourself into a corner (or picking a bad nerf).
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We all remember back in the days of Naxxramas how a little one drop called Undertaker put this game into one of the most cancerous places it has ever been. It looked almost as harmless as Secretkeeper at the time, but by the time GvG had arrived either you were playing Deathrattle Hunter, or you were playing a deck aimed to counter Deathrattle Hunter(and even then you could still lose more than half the time). An entire meta decided on who drew a specific one drop first. So when Blizzard finally decided to nerf it into the ground, it could not have happened soon enough.
Many of us were unhappy to see cards such as Azure Drake, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Ragnaros the Firelord rotate out, but with every non-aggro deck using them as must-haves, they really limited deck diversity and made it a lot harder to fit newer cards into our decks, so that nerf was understandable.
Even more recent-er nerfs such as Giggling Inventor seem very justified with it being included in every deck, whether as an aggro tool or an attempt to stop it. These are some key examples on why hearthstone's ability to make balance changes has been very helpful in fixing what would otherwise be a pretty broken game. But recently Blizzard appears to have taken a different approach to how they choose to nerf cards, and I don't think its a very healthy one.
Nerfs are always going to have different effects on different players. If you've been playing a lot of a deck that has said nerfed card, or you just crafted it or opened it out of a pack, the nerf is probably going to leave a bit of a stale taste in your mouth. If you weren't using the nerfed card, you are probably a bit more accepting of it(especially if you often found yourself on the losing side of it). Because discussing certain cards can be more polarizing, I want to instead make my case that Blizzard's new nerfing strategy is what is the problem, not one specific nerf in particular, especially against players that are F2P or close to that.
Point number one: Nerfs are becoming more and more frequent. Some people are probably happy about this. The argument that some might make as to why this is a good thing is that it shakes up the meta, allowing different decks to rise to the top as some others fall. Even big voices in the hearthstone community such as Kripp have praised Blizzard for choosing to release a second nerf patch in the first two months of this latest expansion. And it's true, if you've bought/crafted all of the cards and can just jump to the next meta-deck, or you mostly play arena, there are few downsides to this. But as mentioned earlier, if you just got a card only to have it nerfed, that's going to make it feel like a big waste. Sure you get a dust return, but for players that spent a lot of time grinding gold just to get that card, they will never get that time back.
Point number two: Blizzard has been targeting more and more classic cards. You all don't need me to explain this one, but I will anyways. The basic and classic sets have always been the backbone for deck-building, especially for new players. After all most of the free packs the game gives you are classic packs, whether from achievements or from your Tavern Brawl wins. When Blizzard chooses to balance their game by nerfing/banning classic cards instead of their new expansions, competitive decks become more reliant on fickle expansion cards and you are taking more tools away from the F2P player. I'm not saying new expansions shouldn't have an effect on the meta, but if you introduce new cards that create problematic decks, maybe those cards are the ones that should be balanced, rather than the classic cards that a lot of players have grown to rely on and love over the years, thinking that at least those cards will always be useable.
Point number three: These nerfs aren't making the game any healthier. Sure say what you like about the meta 'changing' but if the meta is changing from a handful of dominant decks to much fewer dominant decks, do we care that they are 'different'? Secret hunter may have been a good deck before, but it was not in the utter dominant position it is now until after other decks were nerfed. Blizzard balance team used to feel like a bunch of calm, collected scholars who tested and calculated carefully before they made their decisions; and while some may feel it took them too long to make some decisions, by the time they did, it was the right one. Now Blizzard balance team feels like a single stubborn 14-year old playtester who hasn't learned how to play around certain decks he's been losing to so he just decides to nerf them without a thought on how said nerfs will affect the rest of the meta(hope you all like odd paladin).
Point number four: If we accept more frequent nerfs, we hold Blizzard to a lower standard of card balancing. Back in the Brode days, the Hearthstone team said they weren't ever going to buff cards, and they were only going to nerf cards when it seemed they really needed it, because any dramatic change like that could affect the balance of the game in a way they might not be able to predict, and it also created a negative experience for many players for reasons I have stated above. Clearly Blizzard isn't as concerned about this now(I mean out of all the hunter cards, how many people were crying for a nerf to Hunter's Mark?), but if they're more open to frequent card nerfs, do they need to care about the balance of the cards they release? I mean, why spend a lot of time(and money) testing and balancing your game before release if you can just release a bunch of cards, wait a few weeks and then just nerf the problematic ones? A good set release imo is a set that stirs up the pot, adding to existing decks and creating new ones, and while not every card will go in a deck that can get me to legend, it still gives me a lot of fun tools to play with that will keep me trying new things until next expansion. To create an expansion like this probably takes a lot of balance testing, but if balance doesn't matter as much until after release, we are setting ourselves up for more and more disappointing expansions.
Point number five: This one is just me complaining. Blizzard, I can maaaybe understand you wanting to strike down the powerful decks out there, but why now? We are pretty close to, not just another new expansion that will hopefully shake things up a bit, but a new rotation that was going to hit pretty much every competitive deck relatively hard, because the year of the Mammoth was waaaaaaay more powerful than this year has been. Is the state of the game really so bad that you couldn't wait a month? If the answer is yes, then did you realize we're in this state of the game because of your last round of nerfs, and mAyBe just more nerfs isn't going to fix it? hMmMmM? Whew. Okay, I'm calm.
In conclusion, I think that Blizzard's new strategy is unhealthy for the player base, especially those who aren't spending $400/per expansion. Blizzard should be doing a better job testing to see what effects their new cards could have upon release, rather than just nerfing different cards in the powerful decks that come up after the fact. It makes it harder for cheaper players to enjoy, it potentially upsets more and more people as you are more likely to shut down a card that they love, and it opens up the potential for more gamebreaking cards to be released that can upset the balance of the whole game(I'm looking at you Baku the Mooneater). Maybe this seems like a good solution for the time being, but I am confident this is going to come back to bite them if this continues.
Idk man part of me just wants to blame Activision since they're ruining a lot of Blizzard's other games, but I of course have no solid reason to do that. Yet.
Howdy friendos
What really pisses me off is that ONE FUCKING ARCHETYPE causes Blizzard to ruin Classic class cards. I mean, sometimes nerfs are crucial, no arguments there. But I really don’t think Classic, and certainly not BASIC, cards shouldn’t be touched. Cards that provide a certain identity for classes should stay in tact as well. Flametongue Totem is a staple in Shaman. Totems are their HERO POWER, so it seems fair to say it’s an identity to the class. Same with Cold Blood, and our long-lost Conceal for Rogue, but are staples in a Rogue class.
Just because Blizzard has no sense and prints cards like Genn/Baku without thoroughly thinking it through doesn’t mean they should ruin perfectly good Classic and Basic cards.
Rant over.
Personally, I think they should rebalance weekly. That being said, Blizz could definitely stand to also buff some of the cards that see absolutely no play. Weekly rebalances would keep the game fresh. Honestly 1 nerf and 1 buff per week would be fantastic for maintaining a fresh meta.
Baku and Genn just need to be removed from the game. They're forcing balance changes to be more extreme and they're forcing cards that were otherwise perfectly fine to be hit just to reduce the power level of one deck, taking a whole class down with them.
On the other hand, I think it's rather strange people always complain blizzard takes too long with nerfs, and now that they've rolled out 2 nerf patches in a smaller timeframe people once again find a reason to complain about it.
That's Incredible!
I think the nerfs are great!
If this is really something you want I guess I should ask you: why would anyone be compelled to want any card if every card's power could change on the weekly? Why would anyone build a deck if its just going to suck tommorow? The only way I see this working is if Blizzard gave you every card for free to just play around with and even then only maybe. This sounds like anarchy not fun nor fresh.
Howdy friendos
oh shut up, for years the community has been yapping about how BLizzard takes way too long to nerf obviously broken cards and never goes far enough and the meta is so stale and yadda yadda yadda.
The one time they actually do put out more frequent balance changes everyone complains again because they didn't cater to everyone's specific sensibilities.
I find the whole Baku/genn hate particularly hilarious, especially since so many people were trashing them on release and saying how they would never work
I tried having fun once. It was awful.
Blizzard: "We're nerfing these classic cards because they're really powerful and have seen play in all metas and all archetypes."
Also Blizzard: "Velen/Mind Blast is totally fine! Maly is totally fine! Divine Spirit/Inner Fire is totally fine!" etc etc
Also Blizzard: "We're nerfing this even costed card by increasing it's mana cost.......to another even cost. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BAKU. Baku/Genn are fine by the way!"
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Well like I said in what I wrote(assuming you read it all), I think that Blizzard taking a little extra time to make the right call when it came to balance decisions was always a better alternative to making hasty game damaging decisions. I of course encourage debate on this topic but please take all of my points that I've made into consideration before just telling me to shut up. Thank you
Howdy friendos
Don't you think you've accidentally stumbled onto exactly why these changes were made? Cards becoming standard picks? As it stands, the only way to print a new card in a similar design space (say, board control for Shaman) that would even be considered for inclusion, they have to increase the power-level past the magnificently cheap and efficient Flametongue Totem. If this happened you would be screaming "power creep!!" They want to push stale basic and classic cards that are auto-include in archetypes out so they can print new cards that might actually be evaluated for existing archetypes.
Why should Blizzard be concerned with the F2P player? They generate zero revenue.
People who pay real money to get the new cards want to play with and against the new cards. It gets boring if every Warrior you met had Fiery War Axe, every Druid Wild Growth and Nourish, every non-aggro Paladin Equality, etc. The power level of some of these Classic cards needs to be curbed so that classes are forced to rely on the new cards every expansion. This makes economic sense for Blizzard, and at the same time, makes the game better for the paying customer.
I certainly don't give a chit about the F2P plebs. Who needs em anyway.
Balance should be done monthly.
If they still have a "50% WR" policy, they need to balance the game more frequently (and in some cases emergencies), or improve in their R&D with new sets.
Shadowverse does it, and games is balanced, although way more expensive (dust-wise)
Call me crazy but i'm against nerfing legendaries, the point is that seeing that orange glow in a pack is already so rare and so special that it would be absolutely disheartening to open something in the level of garbage of harbringer celestia, you effectively spent a month or20-40USD just to get your legendary and then if you open something that not only isn't competitive viable, but that you can't even meme with it, it would feel like a ton of time and money wasted, yes, the legendaries people crafted for kingsbane rogue or for the newly nerfed decks might not be "as useful" now but to tell the truth you can still use Kangor in a ton of paladin strategies because the effect doesnt change at all, and king's bane decks still exist.
and then there are the players trying to use the nerfign legendaries as a method of getting your dust back so that you cna craft other useful cards, but that argument is moot as well, since it doesn't solve the problem that future players, or players who never owned that particular legendary would still have a chance of opening the nerfed version of the legendary making it a terrible experience and an easy exit point for them.
I don't think the nerfs are too frequent. Many of them have been long overdue and obviously necessary since the card's release, for example the broken and stupid lesser emerald spellstone. I do worry about nerfing cheap classic/basic cards that were never really a problem until certain expansions that release overpowered legendaries and epics. I think that's both wrong headed and an attempt to gouge players. That said I agree with the Equality, cold blood, and hunters mark nerfs, as they put them more in line with cards of other classes. Flametongue seems a little unnecessary, but it's a mostly win more card I've never been that fond so w/e.
Since the great nerf of Waraxe, they have to nerf other class signature classic card to keep things in balance. Mage got hit with Mana Wrym, Druid got hit with Wild Grow , Rogue with Cold blood , Shaman with Totem, Hunter with Hunter mark, Paladin with Equality now. The next one i guess will be Priest, the card, for sure is Shadow words : Shield will be nerf to 2 mana.
Blizzard is being more active in their stewardship of their card balancing. If they were actually trigger happy (which denotes a violent, reflexive response), the game would be changed more frequently and in more brutal ways. It has not been.
Their reasoning for these nerfs is consistent with how they've presented nerfs in the past: an inordinate number of decks containing the same cards, making them a requirement for playing that class. Any time a card is a requirement, it restricts the creative environment, both for the players and for the designers.
As much as Hearthstone is game to be played, it is a game to be designed. Should the designers see trends that would restrict their future design space, they should act. It is their role. Likewise, when the players see the creative space being changed to suit this design space, they should act and change their strategies and adopt new deck archetypes. That is their role as players who choose to participate in the designer's game.
Very few players complained of Wild Growth. Now everyone suddenly mad at nerfs?
I give you that frequent nerfs are not good, in general. But imo, these nerfs are completely fine. This time they hit evergreen cards that were top tier + one broken spellstone.
The nerfed evergreen cards could have been HoFed maybe, but indeed they were so powerful that no new cards could replace them anyway.
If anything, they should have grouped them together with previous nerf round, or previous round with this one. But that's it.
Really happy with the more frequent nerfs. Pirate Warrior, aggro shaman, jade shaman, jade druid, hunter undertaker and secret paladin were all around for way too long. More frequent changes keeps things fresh and allows for new decks to pop up, which is very important after a new set releases.
Note: You are going to get a bit of skewed feedback from any message board as the people posting are most likely a bit more invested (time and money) than your average Hearthstone player.
Well Blizzard certainly used to care. And they should.
Sure if the game was designed that all you needed to get to legend were basic cards, this wouldn't incentivize pack purchasing at all and would make players like you who invest in the game feel unrewarded. But from a business perspective Hearthstone is a F2P game, and it's F2P players are an important part of its growth. A F2P player from a business perspective is a player that just hasn't spent money yet. My first year playing Hearthstone I was F2P, then eventually caved in. Not only that, but F2P players make up a large portion of the playerbase, making it harder to run into the same opponent over and over again. F2P players still watch tournaments/streams, maybe post about Hearthstone on social media or talk about it with their friends(that's called free advertising). Finally, you want your game to convince players they can play without spending, so that they become addicted to the game and feel the need to spend money on it. That's the business model almost every F2P game runs on. It may sound silly at first, but taking care of your F2P players is good business, and also leads to a healthier game. Of course, Activision has never understood this and that's why most of the games under them either stink or are on the downward spiral :(
Howdy friendos
Yep, barely even passes the laugh test. Talk about designing yourself into a corner (or picking a bad nerf).