Well, here is the main problem with the current state of hearthstone: the lack of fresh mechanics and interactions.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see some the cards being printed in a different form, more polished or anything that has to do with older mechanics, but the problem is the number of cards that are being created on ideas from the past.
The warrior quest for example, I am not saying this one is bad or anything( even though dr.boom hero power is waaaay better), but didn't quest rewards used to be more exciting? For ex the ungoro war quest, we got Sulfuras!!! and once the sulfuras ran out of durability we got ragnaros as as our hero power! Or the amara the warden of hope, the priest one, it was so unique and my favorite quest. Each one of the previous quest did something amazing, mostly never seen before. But the problem is how uninteresting some quests are, the paladin quest reward is a decent/powerful one, much depends of the meta and the upcoming cards, but just the ability to summon a 2/2 copy of a minion is not even that amazing or flashy, is just value. The warrior quest reward, attack with your weapon 5 times....get a worse Jaraxxus hero power...but that does not mean the quest is a bad one, is just dull, it has no flavor. You just attack, press a button and a minion appears on the board... now compare that to wielding sulfuras and shooting huge fireballs to the enemy...
The highlander deck, if this ever becomes popular, bomb warrior will just kill it. If you draw the bombs your dead, if you don't draw em the card you build your deck around is useless, and than you most probably lose. True there are some decks that destroy bomb war but does that even matter when the meta is about no duplicates decks?
Reborn, yea cool keyword but again is not something that stands out of the crowd, we saw that a lot of times before, redemption.
The neutral legendary minion, 10 mana 10/10 reborn and divine shield, yea that is a cool big minion, but we had old gods for 10 mana, remember n'zoth summoning all deathrattles and being all flashy, our lord Yogg-Sarron? Or C'thun? We payed 10 mana for something insane, something that could win us games or make the enemy concede. But now we pay 10 mana for a minion that is just big, and does nothing the turn is played, isn't that a common rarity?
I love hearthstone, but I think that we deserve something fresh,something totally new that was never been seen before. If you like the new cards, that is amazing I like them too( some of them), but I don't fell excited about em. And I am very very sad about that.
The problem with Hearthstone right now is people like you that are never satisfied, and instead of going and finding joy elsewhere in your life, you shout at the sky for change.
I don't know... I like their current direction which is improving the powerlevel of the new expansion.
The thing is, I think they are just balancing the excitation of each expansion. Just imagine they made every awesome idea is in the expansion, but in the next expansion, they started to lose an idea for the next expansions.
For now, there are still some of the hidden neutral legendaries and let's hope they are not as bad as Griftah. I think reborn is a good start as a theme of expansion, but I believe they should add one more new mechanic. Such as my favorite one that they made the jade golem mechanic because it was entirely fresh and cool.
I'm sure they are making a great expansion after this one as it's a final part of the story.
EDIT: Not the hearthstone story, but the E.V.I.L and heroes story, I just heard this rumor.
Mercynary9, that is a very clever response, I thought about it and you are right. It's true, not every expansion can bring totally new and fresh cards. Thank you for answering!
While I understand that a lot of these mechanics can feel like a retread rather than moving the game forward, I also think that Hearthstone is old enough that there is an opportunity to reintroduce some of these old mechanics now that the design team has several years of experience under their belt while simultaneously celebrating the game's history.
Take quests as an example. I completely agree that the new quests are nowhere near as flashy as when they were first introduced in Un'Goro. However, one of the biggest criticisms of those quests was that they took too long to complete and the rewards offered payoffs so huge they often decided games on the spot. SoU quests by contrast, in theory, offer faster quest completion at the cost of a smaller immediate payoff. This should mean that the rewards are active for more of each game allowing for more interaction between each player. Again, all in theory. I have personal doubts about several of the specific quests, but am excited about what I see as the overall design goal.
As far as Highlander goes, I agree that Bomb Warrior's ability to potentially shut down the effect entirely is concerning. Additionally, the success of the archetype I think will very much depend on the neutral highlander legendary and Bomb Warrior's prevalence in the new meta. Either way, I'll be happy to tinker with it again in Wild.
Reborn I think is where I agree with you the most. It just feels like a variant of deathrattle that doesn't merit it's own keyword. Then again, rush is essentially a variant of charge, but the small difference between the two has a huge impact on design space, so I'm reserving judgement for now.
Overall, I want to see expansions like SoU used very sparingly because fresh ideas should be what keeps Hearthstone healthy for a long time to come. But to me, what SoU offers is a kind of Wild/Standard hybrid where many of the ideas of Hearthstone get to mingle in the same ecosystem without the craziness that is Wild.
Bomb Warrior shutting down highlander sucks, but then again, they plan sets way too far in advance. Bomb cards will rotate while highlander will stay, which might mean the true power of those decks will only be unlocked by the middle of next year's second expansion.
You expect too much from a game that, at its core, is like the card game War. You play a 3 , I play a 4. 4 beats 3, 3 beats 2 etc.....
There are only somany ways you can spice a simple game up tomake it interesting.
This is why we are seeing old ideas coming back to the game.
The fancy, random inteactions are what keep us coming back for more.
High rolling, or drawing the exact cards you need is exactly like getting a "fix" of dopamine from the brain.
Game companies know this really well, and sodo advertisers. Everything is created to keep our short attention spans hooked on "quick hits" of gratification that we get from a "like" on social media, or a free Ragnaros from our free pack we just opened.
Hearthstone has run its course as far as fresh interesting ideas for the most part. And thats ok IMO.
Quick rewards, instant gratification and luck are the primary drivers of this game. Its really not complicated or too challenging, yet so many of think so, and come back day after day for more!!
To conclude, HS has been around for 5 years now, and probablt be here for many more.
Fresh, new ideas for a simplecard game are running out, and I think that makes sense because theres only somany ways to spice up the fact a 4 beats a 3 and a 3 beats a 2.
You can dress them up in fancy clothes and effects, but you change the fact they are still just cards with numbers.
I understand what you're saying about how the quality of cards this "year" has toned down a lot compared to previous "years" But i don't really mind, in my opinion SoU seems like the expansion built for wild players, i made a shaman quest C'thun deck already, which i think fits the hero power from the quest perfectly. Some of the quests are pretty bad, paladin quest relies on cards that will only be printed in this expansion warlock has to draw almost their entire deck(yeah i know about plot twist but it's a bigger meme than 7 mana 1/1 deal 20 dmg to all enemies), the warrior quest i can't imagine seeing play at all, at least until boomsday rotates out. As for singleton decks being outright destroyed by bomb warrior B), i have never queued into a bomb warrior deck, never, i've faced control warriors that have a few bomb cards, but never a full fledged focused on bombs warrior, i understand this is just my own experience but i believe it's being blown out of proportion.
Honestly i think they're trying to tone down card effects because the past was so good, cards like deathstalker rexxar, frostlich jaina, bloodreaver gul'dan were absolutely disgusting and autoincludes for deckbuilding. i think reborn is a pretty bad mechanic that panders to arena and aggro because they're the deckbuilding style of "Maybe i'll just keep playing minions and they won't be able to deal with them all eventually and i'll just win"
I'm not super exited for this expansion as you can probably tell by the tone of this looooooooooooooong drawn out chunk of text, but i don't think it's bad i just think we're going back to normal and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Those who are given more in life, must not cling to it, but risk it all at every moment!
I think the main problem with heartstone is dev teem sticking to keywords 1 expansion only. They broke that rule with rush and it was a healthy decision for the game in my opinion. Key words bring the salt into the soup and make the game more complex but if you see them and next rotation theire gone just get replaced kinda feels dull.
Basically dev team doesnt want to make the game difficult or complicated but in the end most interesting things in life are complicated, that bias turns the game sometiomes dull.
I understand, but I am a bit afraid, look at this pattern.
Charge=>Rush
Echo=>Twinspell
Projects=>Plague(benefit/downside) generally speaking.
We have magnetize,overkill left,scheme so future keywords, mechanics will be around these ones. Also, with the return of highlander deck, we must not forget about the older mechanics, keywords. Recruit,Inspire,Adaptation, Buffing a specific card in your deck/hand(old gods),spare parts. We still have plenty of things that can come back, ofc in a polished version. But can they make these "same" mechanics look different just by changing them a little? (ex: Echo, Twinspell). Right now we are good, I am super hyped for the next expansion, but tbh I hope that we will have interesting keywords/mechanics for the upcoming expansions.
Apart from the uninspiring mechanics (Reborn is just glorified version of already existing Deathrattles that summoned minions), i think the main reasons for hearthstone being a complete dumpster-fire recently are in the general state of the game as a whole. It includes pricing, which is quite horrible... I mean the cost of getting new cards (or at least the majority of the playable cards) from each new set is somewhere in the range of 150$ per set. And paying 150$ three times a year, you expect to have full access to what the game has to offer, but no. For 150$ you can expect all the commons, all the rares, about 50% of epics and about 25-50% of legendaries, depending on your luck. Secondly, if you invested lot of money over the years, you would expect you would have additional option to experience the "wild" format. Except wild is complete unbalanced garbage, cancer and frustration. So the entire experience is completely stale. In four year period, devs didnt come up with anything new. I mean zero innovation. They keep focusing on these solitaire solo experiences that may keep you entertained for like 10 hours maybe but in the grand scheme of things, its nothing. In four years we havent got anything new. No new formats, nothing akin custom tournaments, leagues, or perhaps custom banlist playgroups. The most "innovative" thing that happened was the invention of hero cards and quests. and theyre milking those to death now. Just releasing new cards and doing nothing else is like trying to teach old dog new tricks.
But honestly: what do you expect? It's a collectable card game. And regarding your money-calculation: If having a complete collection of all cards is your aim, then that's your personal preference. I see any investment as money I put into a game I like to play the few decks I like to build. (and I only need a selected range of cards for that - fine by me)
Expecting completely fresh and overwhelming experiences with every expansion is just unrealistic.
Try to make the best of what is offered! (has been working for me so far...)
Yes, Quest Rewards used to be more exciting. Take the Rogue Quest for example. If Rogue finished and played the Quest and you couldn't kill them, they had lethal through any # of taunts with Prep-Vanish-chargers. Very exciting.
These quests are easier to complete, less powerful, and thus, probably more balanced.
It's not realistic to expect the team to come up with something brand new and exciting and yet balanced every single expansion.
The problem with heartstone is that its community is confused and sees it as type of game that is not. Hearthstone is not a card game, but a mobile game with cards. It exists mainly for two groups of people:
1) the fanboy whales who will devour everything blizzard offers them
2) casual mobile players who want to play while taking a sh*t, waiting for the bus or taking break during work/school etc and buy packs to stay relevant as they do not have the time to farm gold
No matter how much blizzard tries to sell it as a competive game with its tournaments, the game is a glorified coinflip where your skill can skew the results and this comes from someone who reached topp 300 5 times. It is candycrash of the industry but with wow fluff and cards. And it's a damm great game when you look it for what it is.Take or leave it but you will not change it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Well, here is the main problem with the current state of hearthstone: the lack of fresh mechanics and interactions.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see some the cards being printed in a different form, more polished or anything that has to do with older mechanics, but the problem is the number of cards that are being created on ideas from the past.
The warrior quest for example, I am not saying this one is bad or anything( even though dr.boom hero power is waaaay better), but didn't quest rewards used to be more exciting? For ex the ungoro war quest, we got Sulfuras!!! and once the sulfuras ran out of durability we got ragnaros as as our hero power! Or the amara the warden of hope, the priest one, it was so unique and my favorite quest. Each one of the previous quest did something amazing, mostly never seen before. But the problem is how uninteresting some quests are, the paladin quest reward is a decent/powerful one, much depends of the meta and the upcoming cards, but just the ability to summon a 2/2 copy of a minion is not even that amazing or flashy, is just value. The warrior quest reward, attack with your weapon 5 times....get a worse Jaraxxus hero power...but that does not mean the quest is a bad one, is just dull, it has no flavor. You just attack, press a button and a minion appears on the board... now compare that to wielding sulfuras and shooting huge fireballs to the enemy...
The highlander deck, if this ever becomes popular, bomb warrior will just kill it. If you draw the bombs your dead, if you don't draw em the card you build your deck around is useless, and than you most probably lose. True there are some decks that destroy bomb war but does that even matter when the meta is about no duplicates decks?
Reborn, yea cool keyword but again is not something that stands out of the crowd, we saw that a lot of times before, redemption.
The neutral legendary minion, 10 mana 10/10 reborn and divine shield, yea that is a cool big minion, but we had old gods for 10 mana, remember n'zoth summoning all deathrattles and being all flashy, our lord Yogg-Sarron? Or C'thun? We payed 10 mana for something insane, something that could win us games or make the enemy concede. But now we pay 10 mana for a minion that is just big, and does nothing the turn is played, isn't that a common rarity?
I love hearthstone, but I think that we deserve something fresh,something totally new that was never been seen before. If you like the new cards, that is amazing I like them too( some of them), but I don't fell excited about em. And I am very very sad about that.
P.S: Sry for grammar.
The problem with Hearthstone right now is people like you that are never satisfied, and instead of going and finding joy elsewhere in your life, you shout at the sky for change.
I said I love hearthstone, what is wrong with you?
I am loving the new exp and the flavor/mechanic of the cards so i think its kust a question of personal opinion
Favorite Cards: 1. Lord Jaraxxus | 2. Malygos| 3. Edwin VanCleef | 4. Zephrys the Great| 5. Deathwing
I don't know... I like their current direction which is improving the powerlevel of the new expansion.
The thing is, I think they are just balancing the excitation of each expansion. Just imagine they made every awesome idea is in the expansion, but in the next expansion, they started to lose an idea for the next expansions.
For now, there are still some of the hidden neutral legendaries and let's hope they are not as bad as Griftah. I think reborn is a good start as a theme of expansion, but I believe they should add one more new mechanic. Such as my favorite one that they made the jade golem mechanic because it was entirely fresh and cool.
I'm sure they are making a great expansion after this one as it's a final part of the story.
EDIT: Not the hearthstone story, but the E.V.I.L and heroes story, I just heard this rumor.
I like elementals and totems.
Mercynary9, that is a very clever response, I thought about it and you are right. It's true, not every expansion can bring totally new and fresh cards. Thank you for answering!
While I understand that a lot of these mechanics can feel like a retread rather than moving the game forward, I also think that Hearthstone is old enough that there is an opportunity to reintroduce some of these old mechanics now that the design team has several years of experience under their belt while simultaneously celebrating the game's history.
Take quests as an example. I completely agree that the new quests are nowhere near as flashy as when they were first introduced in Un'Goro. However, one of the biggest criticisms of those quests was that they took too long to complete and the rewards offered payoffs so huge they often decided games on the spot. SoU quests by contrast, in theory, offer faster quest completion at the cost of a smaller immediate payoff. This should mean that the rewards are active for more of each game allowing for more interaction between each player. Again, all in theory. I have personal doubts about several of the specific quests, but am excited about what I see as the overall design goal.
As far as Highlander goes, I agree that Bomb Warrior's ability to potentially shut down the effect entirely is concerning. Additionally, the success of the archetype I think will very much depend on the neutral highlander legendary and Bomb Warrior's prevalence in the new meta. Either way, I'll be happy to tinker with it again in Wild.
Reborn I think is where I agree with you the most. It just feels like a variant of deathrattle that doesn't merit it's own keyword. Then again, rush is essentially a variant of charge, but the small difference between the two has a huge impact on design space, so I'm reserving judgement for now.
Overall, I want to see expansions like SoU used very sparingly because fresh ideas should be what keeps Hearthstone healthy for a long time to come. But to me, what SoU offers is a kind of Wild/Standard hybrid where many of the ideas of Hearthstone get to mingle in the same ecosystem without the craziness that is Wild.
You said if Sulfuras runs out of durability you get Ragnaros HP? Whut?
Bomb Warrior shutting down highlander sucks, but then again, they plan sets way too far in advance. Bomb cards will rotate while highlander will stay, which might mean the true power of those decks will only be unlocked by the middle of next year's second expansion.
I think HS is a bit rinse repeat recycle, hof , rotate the same things time after time same expansion different name bit lazy TBH
You expect too much from a game that, at its core, is like the card game War. You play a 3 , I play a 4. 4 beats 3, 3 beats 2 etc.....
There are only somany ways you can spice a simple game up tomake it interesting.
This is why we are seeing old ideas coming back to the game.
The fancy, random inteactions are what keep us coming back for more.
High rolling, or drawing the exact cards you need is exactly like getting a "fix" of dopamine from the brain.
Game companies know this really well, and sodo advertisers. Everything is created to keep our short attention spans hooked on "quick hits" of gratification that we get from a "like" on social media, or a free Ragnaros from our free pack we just opened.
Hearthstone has run its course as far as fresh interesting ideas for the most part. And thats ok IMO.
Quick rewards, instant gratification and luck are the primary drivers of this game. Its really not complicated or too challenging, yet so many of think so, and come back day after day for more!!
To conclude, HS has been around for 5 years now, and probablt be here for many more.
Fresh, new ideas for a simplecard game are running out, and I think that makes sense because theres only somany ways to spice up the fact a 4 beats a 3 and a 3 beats a 2.
You can dress them up in fancy clothes and effects, but you change the fact they are still just cards with numbers.
I understand what you're saying about how the quality of cards this "year" has toned down a lot compared to previous "years" But i don't really mind, in my opinion SoU seems like the expansion built for wild players, i made a shaman quest C'thun deck already, which i think fits the hero power from the quest perfectly. Some of the quests are pretty bad, paladin quest relies on cards that will only be printed in this expansion warlock has to draw almost their entire deck(yeah i know about plot twist but it's a bigger meme than 7 mana 1/1 deal 20 dmg to all enemies), the warrior quest i can't imagine seeing play at all, at least until boomsday rotates out. As for singleton decks being outright destroyed by bomb warrior B), i have never queued into a bomb warrior deck, never, i've faced control warriors that have a few bomb cards, but never a full fledged focused on bombs warrior, i understand this is just my own experience but i believe it's being blown out of proportion.
Honestly i think they're trying to tone down card effects because the past was so good, cards like deathstalker rexxar, frostlich jaina, bloodreaver gul'dan were absolutely disgusting and autoincludes for deckbuilding. i think reborn is a pretty bad mechanic that panders to arena and aggro because they're the deckbuilding style of "Maybe i'll just keep playing minions and they won't be able to deal with them all eventually and i'll just win"
I'm not super exited for this expansion as you can probably tell by the tone of this looooooooooooooong drawn out chunk of text, but i don't think it's bad i just think we're going back to normal and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Those who are given more in life, must not cling to it, but risk it all at every moment!
I think the main problem with heartstone is dev teem sticking to keywords 1 expansion only. They broke that rule with rush and it was a healthy decision for the game in my opinion. Key words bring the salt into the soup and make the game more complex but if you see them and next rotation theire gone just get replaced kinda feels dull.
Basically dev team doesnt want to make the game difficult or complicated but in the end most interesting things in life are complicated, that bias turns the game sometiomes dull.
I understand, but I am a bit afraid, look at this pattern.
Charge=>Rush
Echo=>Twinspell
Projects=>Plague(benefit/downside) generally speaking.
We have magnetize,overkill left,scheme so future keywords, mechanics will be around these ones. Also, with the return of highlander deck, we must not forget about the older mechanics, keywords. Recruit,Inspire,Adaptation, Buffing a specific card in your deck/hand(old gods),spare parts. We still have plenty of things that can come back, ofc in a polished version. But can they make these "same" mechanics look different just by changing them a little? (ex: Echo, Twinspell). Right now we are good, I am super hyped for the next expansion, but tbh I hope that we will have interesting keywords/mechanics for the upcoming expansions.
Apart from the uninspiring mechanics (Reborn is just glorified version of already existing Deathrattles that summoned minions), i think the main reasons for hearthstone being a complete dumpster-fire recently are in the general state of the game as a whole. It includes pricing, which is quite horrible... I mean the cost of getting new cards (or at least the majority of the playable cards) from each new set is somewhere in the range of 150$ per set. And paying 150$ three times a year, you expect to have full access to what the game has to offer, but no. For 150$ you can expect all the commons, all the rares, about 50% of epics and about 25-50% of legendaries, depending on your luck. Secondly, if you invested lot of money over the years, you would expect you would have additional option to experience the "wild" format. Except wild is complete unbalanced garbage, cancer and frustration. So the entire experience is completely stale. In four year period, devs didnt come up with anything new. I mean zero innovation. They keep focusing on these solitaire solo experiences that may keep you entertained for like 10 hours maybe but in the grand scheme of things, its nothing. In four years we havent got anything new. No new formats, nothing akin custom tournaments, leagues, or perhaps custom banlist playgroups. The most "innovative" thing that happened was the invention of hero cards and quests. and theyre milking those to death now. Just releasing new cards and doing nothing else is like trying to teach old dog new tricks.
Hearthstone is dying lol
Wow, that sounds frustrated...
But honestly: what do you expect? It's a collectable card game. And regarding your money-calculation: If having a complete collection of all cards is your aim, then that's your personal preference. I see any investment as money I put into a game I like to play the few decks I like to build. (and I only need a selected range of cards for that - fine by me)
Expecting completely fresh and overwhelming experiences with every expansion is just unrealistic.
Try to make the best of what is offered! (has been working for me so far...)
You made A very thoughtful and polite statement. There's nothing wrong with that. Greetings
Yes, Quest Rewards used to be more exciting. Take the Rogue Quest for example. If Rogue finished and played the Quest and you couldn't kill them, they had lethal through any # of taunts with Prep-Vanish-chargers. Very exciting.
These quests are easier to complete, less powerful, and thus, probably more balanced.
It's not realistic to expect the team to come up with something brand new and exciting and yet balanced every single expansion.
The problem with heartstone is that its community is confused and sees it as type of game that is not. Hearthstone is not a card game, but a mobile game with cards. It exists mainly for two groups of people:
1) the fanboy whales who will devour everything blizzard offers them
2) casual mobile players who want to play while taking a sh*t, waiting for the bus or taking break during work/school etc and buy packs to stay relevant as they do not have the time to farm gold
No matter how much blizzard tries to sell it as a competive game with its tournaments, the game is a glorified coinflip where your skill can skew the results and this comes from someone who reached topp 300 5 times. It is candycrash of the industry but with wow fluff and cards. And it's a damm great game when you look it for what it is.Take or leave it but you will not change it.