I would only argue luck or an unfair card in one instance.
I recently navigated a very hard game against a hunter. I made no misplays, got both lucky and unlucky with card draw, but was able to play a very competitive game. I had the hunter to 1 hp, myself at 7hp. The hunter had blown their resources and had no cards in hand and only two left in their deck.
On their turn, they drew and played Zephrys. One Gorehowl later, and I've lost. Their win was not skillful.
Yes, but that’s why a lot of weaker players find interest in cardgames . Even tho they have less skill, experience and so on, eventually they win. Thats how a lot of mediocre poker players make money, they farm even weaker players . And those weaker players get hooked because they also have a shot at beating the best. This is the nature of cardgames.
Winning or losing a single game has nothing to do with skill. But over a large sample size the more skilled player is simply more successful.
You could say the outcome of a single game between a Rank 5 and a Top 100 Legend player is pure luck, and you are probably right. Since even percentage rates are working with 100 as nominal number. Like the Legend player should beat the Rank 5 guy 62% of the time. Since we don’t know exactly their skill it’s probably pretty save to say both have a decent shot at winning a single game. But over 1000 game for example the better player should always be dominant. And there is actually no luck or rng involved whatsoever.
Hearthstone IS a skill based game, believe it or not. Playing this game and ranking up takes skill and dedication. The effect of RNG is minimal over a long period of time, as stated by another user. In the game, the higher skill player will win most games and the lower skill one will have a lower winrate. I have played thousands of games in here (Although my account here may be new), and I have experienced both sides of the game. I know what it feels like to lose to RNG, but i also know what it feels like to win. Frankly, the RNG debacle is just an overstatement, from my experience and I believe that the game is skill-based, not luck-based. But as OP stated, the grit and determination is what is admirable about pro players, seeing as they rarely give up and keep deckbuilding as the season evolves. And so I bid you all adieu and a fine day.
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C'thun needs more attack for my full power to be unleashed.
it is always possible for noob to defeat the best player in one game if he has RNG on his side. It gives noobs illusion that they are awesome players. Such thing is impossible in chess.
That is a card design choice that a noob can win from a seasoned player and not the wat CGC's work. Skill is defined by its floor, not the ceiling.
To be honest I do not understand that remark on the floor and ceiling :)
But in every card game it is realistically possible for a complete noob to beat professional player in a single game (Poker, Bridge, HS, etc), that is just the way card games work. When I say "possible", I mean like at least 10% (one in a ten) chance. Maybe even more, depending on the card design choice you mentioned. Now that I think of it, if you make a card game with the rule "whoever draws bigger card instantly wins" the possibility is obviously 50%, with no skill involved. It seems that all boils down where to put probability threshold for the event "noob wins" to distinguish between "luck" and "skill" card games.
My subjective feeling is that HS is more skill than luck. I do not have mathematical proof for that, and to be honest I do not care enough to make one...
So in the end it appears that the answer to this question on the meaning of skill, RNG and everything else in HS, is 42.
I would only argue luck or an unfair card in one instance.
I recently navigated a very hard game against a hunter. I made no misplays, got both lucky and unlucky with card draw, but was able to play a very competitive game. I had the hunter to 1 hp, myself at 7hp. The hunter had blown their resources and had no cards in hand and only two left in their deck.
On their turn, they drew and played Zephrys. One Gorehowl later, and I've lost. Their win was not skillful.
Yes, but that’s why a lot of weaker players find interest in cardgames . Even tho they have less skill, experience and so on, eventually they win. Thats how a lot of mediocre poker players make money, they farm even weaker players . And those weaker players get hooked because they also have a shot at beating the best. This is the nature of cardgames.
Winning or losing a single game has nothing to do with skill. But over a large sample size the more skilled player is simply more successful.
You could say the outcome of a single game between a Rank 5 and a Top 100 Legend player is pure luck, and you are probably right. Since even percentage rates are working with 100 as nominal number. Like the Legend player should beat the Rank 5 guy 62% of the time. Since we don’t know exactly their skill it’s probably pretty save to say both have a decent shot at winning a single game. But over 1000 game for example the better player should always be dominant. And there is actually no luck or rng involved whatsoever.
I can see where you are coming from, but your logic is cray-cray.
If no single game were ever determined by skill, every player would have a win rate of about 50 percent, no matter how big the sample size. In fact, the Law of Averages ensures that the more games you played, the closer your win rate would get to 50 percent.
In order for a skilled player to pull ahead in the rankings, a significant number of games must be determined by skill. Period.
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"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I agree / disagree with many others here (depending on your opinion) and am on the side that Hearthstone does involve skill. After all, "skill" is defined as the ability to leverage knowledge to complete a particular goal (for those who wish to dispute that definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill), and since you can do that in this game (knowledge of the meta / decks, deck construction, hand tracking, knowing ones outs, etc, etc), it involves skill.
I do think that the OP's opinion that it takes "grit" to get towards the skill ceiling in Hearthstone is not only valid, but probably a good philosophy to have throughout various facets of life. While, yes, just like in life, there are moments in games of Hearthstone that are unlikely to have happened but did, and are to your detriment. But I think chalking it up to RNG and not giving it further thought can be to ones detriment. Yeah, it's both unlikely and no fun when you have a board-less Quest Shaman against the wall, dead to your board next turn regardless of most things they could randomly "do"... and they double mutate a 3 drop into a Witchwood Grizzly... (yeah, I've been there). But if I'm constantly facing Quest Shamans and want to still play aggro Warrior, I should probably think about how to tech my deck to still account for those rare situations. After all, I can't control what I queue into, but there are things I can control, like choosing a different deck or making a tech choice to be more proactive or protective against such circumstances. And while complaining may feel good (and be healthy at times for one's sanity), it ultimately won't improve anything (well, maybe your mood).
Though I will say, while I do find professional / tournament level Hearthstone entertaining at times, I'm curious if at that level (where the participants are at or near the HS skill ceiling), the difference in skill is so marginal that chance isn't the main determining factor in the outcome of tournaments.
it is always possible for noob to defeat the best player in one game if he has RNG on his side. It gives noobs illusion that they are awesome players. Such thing is impossible in chess.
That is a card design choice that a noob can win from a seasoned player and not the wat CGC's work. Skill is defined by its floor, not the ceiling.
To be honest I do not understand that remark on the floor and ceiling :)
But in every card game it is realistically possible for a complete noob to beat professional player in a single game (Poker, Bridge, HS, etc), that is just the way card games work. When I say "possible", I mean like at least 10% (one in a ten) chance. Maybe even more, depending on the card design choice you mentioned. Now that I think of it, if you make a card game with the rule "whoever draws bigger card instantly wins" the possibility is obviously 50%, with no skill involved. It seems that all boils down where to put probability threshold for the event "noob wins" to distinguish between "luck" and "skill" card games.
My subjective feeling is that HS is more skill than luck. I do not have mathematical proof for that, and to be honest I do not care enough to make one...
So in the end it appears that the answer to this question on the meaning of skill, RNG and everything else in HS, is 42.
Well Blizzard want us all to believe that skill is a ceiling thing. That is over a serie of games a noob will always lose to a more experienced player due to the fact that the latter has a higher skill ceiling. He is simply more capable of utilizing the intricacies e.g of even a mindless aggressive aggro deck.
Skill is not a ceiling thing, but a floor thing. That has to do with the difficulty of a deck. If the skill floor is higher overall it would be more difficult to handle a deck, mistakes are easily made etc. It would then be more skill intensive to reach legend. In sum less people would reach legend.
Because the skill floor is so low, skill is squashed between randomness and aggression. Take for example horse jumping competition. If the course is easy to jump for horses the only variable of importance is time needed to complete the course (speed - in HS aggression). But if there are more turns en twists, the bars are set really high, another factor comes into play: the skill of the horseman, more demanding. Bars will be knocked down - penalties etc: The situation towards winning becomes more complex: the skill floor is higher.
HS has a very low skillfloor. That is a fundamental problem. Worsened by RPS.
Skill is not an expression of the ability of a player, but lies in the difficulty of a deck. Skill comes into play as a derivative when a player is capable of handling a difficult deck better than others.
I dare anyone to challenge this discription of skill!
HS is crawling with virtually skill free archetypes. It envokes randomness and RPS to be a dominant factor in winning or losing. That's why legend says little about the skill factor. By making decks more difficult, real skill emerges.
So if you think HS is a game of skill…….we disagree.
real skill in hearthstone is bullshit rng i am near quiting playing hearthstone just because of puzzle box in arena it is so degenerate and unfun. when my opponent plays box i know 90% of the time i have 0% chance to win since the card created 50+ mana worth of play.
Sorry, for some reason I thought I had already posted on this thread.
People lash out because they will frequently perceive themselves to be playing "perfectly" and still lose. The obvious conclusion (so they think) is that skill isn't the defining factor in winning or losing the game.
First of all, it is instructive to note that I've finished in the top 200 of legend all but about 3 months of the entire game's lifetime. Frequently, I make top 50. Nevertheless, I can count on one hand the number of games that lasted more than 7 or 8 turns in which I am confident I played perfectly. I'd say 95% of all games played, I could go back and at least find some plays that could be doubted, if not outright proven to be misplays. Given all that, I am HIGHLY skeptical of most players' abilities to judge what "perfect" play actually is.
It is a good week to be talking about this, because the Omnislash episode this week addressed this particular issue head on. Firebat was talking about how no one in the tournament scene can use HSReplay data to create their lineups because the disparity in quality of play between your average rank 5 to legend player and the Grandmaster league is so great, there is nothing to be learned from ladder win rates. More specifically, if one were to look at current ladder stats, one would conclude that Divine Spirit Priest is a low t2 deck, when in fact, it is universally acknowledged among pros to be the best deck out there. All those "perfect" ladder players seem to be dragging the win rate of the deck quite a bit.
Now, having established that a lot of players will have gaps in their decision making and general in-game "skill", the second aspect of the "skill in Hearthstone" question is best examined by considering the game of poker. In poker, it is certainly the goal to win every hand one can, just as in Hearthstone, it is the goal to win every individual game. However, success in the game of poker is NEVER judged based on the results of one hand.
It is obviously true that one can lose a game of Hearthstone even when playing perfectly, but the unique skill tested by iterative card games is the ability to play perfectly at a consistent enough level to attain the highest possible win rate across a large number of games.
Put more simply, let's say you are laddering with Buff Priest, and you play 100 games. Imagine for a moment, we have a way of knowing how many games it was possible to win out of those 100. And let's further suppose that the number is 70, meaning that 30 of the 100 games were unwinnable based on the order of cards and the matchup.
It can be a frustrating thought to imagine that 3 in 10 games may be unwinnable, but that's not what the skillful players of this game worry about. Just because 70 games are winnable does not mean that everyone playing the same deck in the same circumstances would win all of those 70 games. So this becomes the test of skill. Can you play your deck with the decision-making judgment necessary to win every game in which you had any possibility of winning? Obviously, the answer is no. No one has a PERFECT track record. But, this is the most accurate way to really try to judge skill differences between players.
This is part of the reason I enjoy watching Brian Kibler's stream. Kibler is not a pro, in the sense that he does not play in tournaments or try to remain at the cutting edge of competitive play. However, you watch this guy take these God awful meme decks into mid-legend repeatedly. This month, he's rocking . . . what is it, Quest Mage? A deck that has a universal win rate of about 30%, and he's hovering around 70%.
If you fancy yourself a good player, I highly recommend you just play whatever Kibler is playing for a day and see if you get anywhere close to his win rate. No, it won't help you practice for the upcoming HCT event, but were you actually going to be playing in that anyway? Ultimately, I think it is more of an instructive comparison of skill between two players to have them both play the same deck over a large number of games in the same general meta.
In any case, there always seems to be a contingent who believe that RNG is more controlling than skill or judgment in Hearthstone, but we as rational individuals have to get to a point where we can dismiss these claims out of hand. If this were true, the same group of people would not enjoy consistent success across multiple tournaments, seasons, and years. The existence of Hunterace in and of itself is enough to definitively disprove these claims. We can quibble about the particulars of what constitutes skill, but its existence is not up for debate.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Skill is a talent. It can be trained. The difference between streamers and the average player is that the latter doesn't train, just play. This explains different win rates. People confuse between skill and training. Talent but don't train = remain average.
The problem of skill in Hearthstone is not only based on a players preparation, but primarily on the rules of the game itself, card design therefore intricacies of archetypes. Being good with poker says something about you being able to bluff better than others. But you can't compare HS to poker, because of the specific card design politics implied in printing certain cards towards a certain end.
It is simply unacceptable that there are unwinnable games. It counters skill as the sole reason to win. That makes card design repulsive. You win on the basis of skill, not because you concede on turn 2 against an unwinnable archetype.
Skill is not defined over 100 or 1000 games being better than my opponent. Skill is defined in outplaying, outmaneuvering my opponent even in a single game. Why do you think Savj quit the game?
Skill is not ruled by how effective you handle a deck over 100+ games, but is expressed by fair rules of the game itself giving players the ability to show their skill. Which is in HS certainly not the case.
In sum, even if one reach no. 1 legend every month, that doesn't imply that 'there is skill in the game.'
As to the comment, "it is unacceptable that there are unwinnable games" that flies in the face of the entire design space of card games. But again, the poker players are laughing from their mansions.
As to your definition of skill, I can't imagine any less relevant test of skill than "one single arbitrary set of circumstances which may or may not occur again in the entirety of a player's career". It just isn't germane to the topic at hand to look at one particular game state and say "this person is more skilled because he navigated this circumstance . . . end of discussion." And if that isn't the end of discussion, then by definition, skill can only be evaluated over multiple iterations of play.
BUT, even if one reaches a complete impasse on definitions, the issue here is whether RNG is the controlling factor in success of the game.
You said, "even if one reaches no. 1 legend every month, that doesn't imply that there is skill in the game". That is obviously untrue, and the argument can't really be carried forward if you insist on such an obviously flawed premise.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
As to the comment, "it is unacceptable that there are unwinnable games" that flies in the face of the entire design space of card games. But again, the poker players are laughing from their mansions.
As to your definition of skill, I can't imagine any less relevant test of skill than "one single arbitrary set of circumstances which may or may not occur again in the entirety of a player's career". It just isn't germane to the topic at hand to look at one particular game state and say "this person is more skilled because he navigated this circumstance . . . end of discussion." And if that isn't the end of discussion, then by definition, skill can only be evaluated over multiple iterations of play.
BUT, even if one reaches a complete impasse on definitions, the issue here is whether RNG is the controlling factor in success of the game.
You said, "even if one reaches no. 1 legend every month, that doesn't imply that there is skill in the game". That is obviously untrue, and the argument can't really be carried forward if you insist on such an obviously flawed premise.
I agree with all of the above. When Blizzard let some players early access to the new expansion Thijs almost made legend from rank 20 in 2 days. His deck building skills are so far above normal , he was able to achieve an 80% winrate with fresh cards. He was facing seasoned players, built 4-6 different decks and won with all of them. Once decks are optimized, the field gets a little bigger. But, I see the same names all the time in high legend for a reason. They make you think ahead to win, not just outdraw them. These percentages add up over time.
It is simply unacceptable that there are unwinnable games. It counters skill as the sole reason to win. That makes card design repulsive. You win on the basis of skill, not because you concede on turn 2 against an unwinnable archetype.
Skill is not defined over 100 or 1000 games being better than my opponent. Skill is defined in outplaying, outmaneuvering my opponent even in a single game. Why do you think Savj quit the game?
Skill is not ruled by how effective you handle a deck over 100+ games, but is expressed by fair rules of the game itself giving players the ability to show their skill. Which is in HS certainly not the case.
I am bridge player. It is a hundred years old card game where luck plays very minor role, and skilled players will always come on top in tournaments. Yet, in bridge there are unwinnable boards, where your bidding system of choice just cannot cope with the deviant hand distribution you had bad luck to stumble upon. It is also worth to note that "Unwinnable" does not mean your chance of winning is zero, but it is very close to zero.
The core thing bridge instructors teach you is that you need to maximize probability of success over the course of the whole tournament. Some games you just cannot win, and it is wrong to try to adjust your bidding system and gameplay to EVERY possible distribution. You seek to cover and counter majority of card distributions and current bidding systems used by your opponents in tournament.
Having that in mind, Hearthstone meta is actually the same thing - you need to adjust your deckbuliding and gameplan to current meta, and to try and maximize probability of success over the course of many games.
Again - that is inherent trait of all card games, and that is what makes card games popular. Inherent RNG gives everyone a chance to win sometimes, but only a skilled player will win most of the time.
As someone said before, saying that there is no skill in poker will make poker professionals laugh at you from their private islands...
Skill is a concept not an ability to best handle any red meat Blizzard throws in your face.
Comparing poker to Hearthstone is an insult to poker players. They don't have to face the card design corruption of Blizzard. The only thing they need is a pack of cards and their skill to read opponents. They don't have to cope with RPS - and AI - corruption like Zephrys, which is a skill-denouncer.
Anybody noticed the resemblance between team 5 and Donald Trump? Anything for the base. Even violating the 'Constitution' of skill....and calling that 'skill.'
BUT, even if one reaches a complete impasse on definitions, the issue here is whether RNG is the controlling factor in success of the game.
So you wanna make RNG an issue? And no, RNG is not the controlling factor in succes of the game. What you call RNG is just outcome of card design.
What has RNG to do with skill? RNG can be seen as the end result of a switchboard. RNG is not just a random generator. It is a means for developers to steer what kind of archetypes must rule the meta. I know this is difficult to understand because on fora like these to think first before commenting.
On that switchboard you have buttons, to push, turn, flip. You have e.g. the balance button, the Hall of Fame-button, the RPS-button etc. One of those major buttons is card design. It's center stage. Different design classes have different outcomes in relation to skill. I know this hard to follow. Only for thinkers. Not for Trump voters.
Take i.e. an expansion with lots of buff cards are designed. The outcome of card design (so called RNG) will then be different for archetypes using them than for decks that don't or less utilize them. When thinking of losing a game because 'I didn't get my card' to deal with the board, or to heal properly, so called RNG has different meaning for aggressive decks than for archetypes using beefy minions. RNG is less problematic in aggressive decks than others.
So what you see here is that 'RNG' is functionally simply a result of card design. The hight of the skill floor can also be controlled by the switchboard. If card design steers towards a higher skill floor, automatically RNG wil play a lesser role in winning or losing.
So keep the skill floor low means keeping the game predominantly aggressive, therefore less skillful. The aim of current developers. That is how the switchboard is currenty tuned. Of course for marketing reasons. If you want to call that 'succes of the game' be my guest. From a skill perspective however that is repulsive.
TL.DR. So called RNG is functionally just an end result of card design politics.
All of the posters that keep pointing out that card games have both skill and chance are correct. I go to Las Vegas often and I can tell you that this is 100% accurate. However I also bet online and I will tell you that I won't ever play poker or blackjack or any casino game online. Why? Because there is no way to tell if the cards are being manipulated. The difference with Hearthstone is that we know for a fact that the RNG is manipulated. Quest cards start in every opening hand, at least one rare or better in packs, so many rares or better in arena, pity timer, not to mention the fact that Blizzard flat out broadcasts it when the manipulate the occurrence of cards in arena.
The question is not whether or not the RNG in Hearthstone is manipulated - it is to what extent. Going by casual observance the extent is massive.
All of the posters that keep pointing out that card games have both skill and chance are correct. I go to Las Vegas often and I can tell you that this is 100% accurate. However I also bet online and I will tell you that I won't ever play poker or blackjack or any casino game online. Why? Because there is no way to tell if the cards are being manipulated. The difference with Hearthstone is that we know for a fact that the RNG is manipulated. Quest cards start in every opening hand, at least one rare or better in packs, so many rares or better in arena, pity timer, not to mention the fact that Blizzard flat out broadcasts it when the manipulate the occurrence of cards in arena.
The question is not whether or not the RNG in Hearthstone is manipulated - it is to what extent. Going by casual observance the extent is massive.
I think the word "manipulated" means something other than what you think it means.
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Yes, but that’s why a lot of weaker players find interest in cardgames . Even tho they have less skill, experience and so on, eventually they win. Thats how a lot of mediocre poker players make money, they farm even weaker players . And those weaker players get hooked because they also have a shot at beating the best. This is the nature of cardgames.
Winning or losing a single game has nothing to do with skill. But over a large sample size the more skilled player is simply more successful.
You could say the outcome of a single game between a Rank 5 and a Top 100 Legend player is pure luck, and you are probably right. Since even percentage rates are working with 100 as nominal number. Like the Legend player should beat the Rank 5 guy 62% of the time. Since we don’t know exactly their skill it’s probably pretty save to say both have a decent shot at winning a single game. But over 1000 game for example the better player should always be dominant. And there is actually no luck or rng involved whatsoever.
Hearthstone IS a skill based game, believe it or not. Playing this game and ranking up takes skill and dedication. The effect of RNG is minimal over a long period of time, as stated by another user. In the game, the higher skill player will win most games and the lower skill one will have a lower winrate. I have played thousands of games in here (Although my account here may be new), and I have experienced both sides of the game. I know what it feels like to lose to RNG, but i also know what it feels like to win. Frankly, the RNG debacle is just an overstatement, from my experience and I believe that the game is skill-based, not luck-based. But as OP stated, the grit and determination is what is admirable about pro players, seeing as they rarely give up and keep deckbuilding as the season evolves. And so I bid you all adieu and a fine day.
C'thun needs more attack for my full power to be unleashed.
To be honest I do not understand that remark on the floor and ceiling :)
But in every card game it is realistically possible for a complete noob to beat professional player in a single game (Poker, Bridge, HS, etc), that is just the way card games work. When I say "possible", I mean like at least 10% (one in a ten) chance. Maybe even more, depending on the card design choice you mentioned.
Now that I think of it, if you make a card game with the rule "whoever draws bigger card instantly wins" the possibility is obviously 50%, with no skill involved.
It seems that all boils down where to put probability threshold for the event "noob wins" to distinguish between "luck" and "skill" card games.
My subjective feeling is that HS is more skill than luck. I do not have mathematical proof for that, and to be honest I do not care enough to make one...
So in the end it appears that the answer to this question on the meaning of skill, RNG and everything else in HS, is 42.
I can see where you are coming from, but your logic is cray-cray.
If no single game were ever determined by skill, every player would have a win rate of about 50 percent, no matter how big the sample size. In fact, the Law of Averages ensures that the more games you played, the closer your win rate would get to 50 percent.
In order for a skilled player to pull ahead in the rankings, a significant number of games must be determined by skill. Period.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I think what he means is that the effect of skill is not as apparent over the course of a single game as it is over 100s of games.
I agree / disagree with many others here (depending on your opinion) and am on the side that Hearthstone does involve skill. After all, "skill" is defined as the ability to leverage knowledge to complete a particular goal (for those who wish to dispute that definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill), and since you can do that in this game (knowledge of the meta / decks, deck construction, hand tracking, knowing ones outs, etc, etc), it involves skill.
I do think that the OP's opinion that it takes "grit" to get towards the skill ceiling in Hearthstone is not only valid, but probably a good philosophy to have throughout various facets of life. While, yes, just like in life, there are moments in games of Hearthstone that are unlikely to have happened but did, and are to your detriment. But I think chalking it up to RNG and not giving it further thought can be to ones detriment. Yeah, it's both unlikely and no fun when you have a board-less Quest Shaman against the wall, dead to your board next turn regardless of most things they could randomly "do"... and they double mutate a 3 drop into a Witchwood Grizzly... (yeah, I've been there). But if I'm constantly facing Quest Shamans and want to still play aggro Warrior, I should probably think about how to tech my deck to still account for those rare situations. After all, I can't control what I queue into, but there are things I can control, like choosing a different deck or making a tech choice to be more proactive or protective against such circumstances. And while complaining may feel good (and be healthy at times for one's sanity), it ultimately won't improve anything (well, maybe your mood).
Though I will say, while I do find professional / tournament level Hearthstone entertaining at times, I'm curious if at that level (where the participants are at or near the HS skill ceiling), the difference in skill is so marginal that chance isn't the main determining factor in the outcome of tournaments.
Well Blizzard want us all to believe that skill is a ceiling thing. That is over a serie of games a noob will always lose to a more experienced player due to the fact that the latter has a higher skill ceiling. He is simply more capable of utilizing the intricacies e.g of even a mindless aggressive aggro deck.
Skill is not a ceiling thing, but a floor thing. That has to do with the difficulty of a deck. If the skill floor is higher overall it would be more difficult to handle a deck, mistakes are easily made etc. It would then be more skill intensive to reach legend. In sum less people would reach legend.
Because the skill floor is so low, skill is squashed between randomness and aggression. Take for example horse jumping competition. If the course is easy to jump for horses the only variable of importance is time needed to complete the course (speed - in HS aggression). But if there are more turns en twists, the bars are set really high, another factor comes into play: the skill of the horseman, more demanding. Bars will be knocked down - penalties etc: The situation towards winning becomes more complex: the skill floor is higher.
HS has a very low skillfloor. That is a fundamental problem. Worsened by RPS.
Skill is not an expression of the ability of a player, but lies in the difficulty of a deck. Skill comes into play as a derivative when a player is capable of handling a difficult deck better than others.
I dare anyone to challenge this discription of skill!
HS is crawling with virtually skill free archetypes. It envokes randomness and RPS to be a dominant factor in winning or losing. That's why legend says little about the skill factor. By making decks more difficult, real skill emerges.
So if you think HS is a game of skill…….we disagree.
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
25 skill 75 pure luck.
I just played against a paladin as zoolock and on turn 4 he coined and Holy Wrath my face for 25 damage. That's the skill you need in this game.
I hope people talking about how much skill you need don’t play secret mage. You would be a total douchebag liar.
real skill in hearthstone is bullshit rng i am near quiting playing hearthstone just because of puzzle box in arena it is so degenerate and unfun. when my opponent plays box i know 90% of the time i have 0% chance to win since the card created 50+ mana worth of play.
Sorry, for some reason I thought I had already posted on this thread.
People lash out because they will frequently perceive themselves to be playing "perfectly" and still lose. The obvious conclusion (so they think) is that skill isn't the defining factor in winning or losing the game.
First of all, it is instructive to note that I've finished in the top 200 of legend all but about 3 months of the entire game's lifetime. Frequently, I make top 50. Nevertheless, I can count on one hand the number of games that lasted more than 7 or 8 turns in which I am confident I played perfectly. I'd say 95% of all games played, I could go back and at least find some plays that could be doubted, if not outright proven to be misplays. Given all that, I am HIGHLY skeptical of most players' abilities to judge what "perfect" play actually is.
It is a good week to be talking about this, because the Omnislash episode this week addressed this particular issue head on. Firebat was talking about how no one in the tournament scene can use HSReplay data to create their lineups because the disparity in quality of play between your average rank 5 to legend player and the Grandmaster league is so great, there is nothing to be learned from ladder win rates. More specifically, if one were to look at current ladder stats, one would conclude that Divine Spirit Priest is a low t2 deck, when in fact, it is universally acknowledged among pros to be the best deck out there. All those "perfect" ladder players seem to be dragging the win rate of the deck quite a bit.
Now, having established that a lot of players will have gaps in their decision making and general in-game "skill", the second aspect of the "skill in Hearthstone" question is best examined by considering the game of poker. In poker, it is certainly the goal to win every hand one can, just as in Hearthstone, it is the goal to win every individual game. However, success in the game of poker is NEVER judged based on the results of one hand.
It is obviously true that one can lose a game of Hearthstone even when playing perfectly, but the unique skill tested by iterative card games is the ability to play perfectly at a consistent enough level to attain the highest possible win rate across a large number of games.
Put more simply, let's say you are laddering with Buff Priest, and you play 100 games. Imagine for a moment, we have a way of knowing how many games it was possible to win out of those 100. And let's further suppose that the number is 70, meaning that 30 of the 100 games were unwinnable based on the order of cards and the matchup.
It can be a frustrating thought to imagine that 3 in 10 games may be unwinnable, but that's not what the skillful players of this game worry about. Just because 70 games are winnable does not mean that everyone playing the same deck in the same circumstances would win all of those 70 games. So this becomes the test of skill. Can you play your deck with the decision-making judgment necessary to win every game in which you had any possibility of winning? Obviously, the answer is no. No one has a PERFECT track record. But, this is the most accurate way to really try to judge skill differences between players.
This is part of the reason I enjoy watching Brian Kibler's stream. Kibler is not a pro, in the sense that he does not play in tournaments or try to remain at the cutting edge of competitive play. However, you watch this guy take these God awful meme decks into mid-legend repeatedly. This month, he's rocking . . . what is it, Quest Mage? A deck that has a universal win rate of about 30%, and he's hovering around 70%.
If you fancy yourself a good player, I highly recommend you just play whatever Kibler is playing for a day and see if you get anywhere close to his win rate. No, it won't help you practice for the upcoming HCT event, but were you actually going to be playing in that anyway? Ultimately, I think it is more of an instructive comparison of skill between two players to have them both play the same deck over a large number of games in the same general meta.
In any case, there always seems to be a contingent who believe that RNG is more controlling than skill or judgment in Hearthstone, but we as rational individuals have to get to a point where we can dismiss these claims out of hand. If this were true, the same group of people would not enjoy consistent success across multiple tournaments, seasons, and years. The existence of Hunterace in and of itself is enough to definitively disprove these claims. We can quibble about the particulars of what constitutes skill, but its existence is not up for debate.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Skill is a talent. It can be trained. The difference between streamers and the average player is that the latter doesn't train, just play. This explains different win rates. People confuse between skill and training. Talent but don't train = remain average.
The problem of skill in Hearthstone is not only based on a players preparation, but primarily on the rules of the game itself, card design therefore intricacies of archetypes. Being good with poker says something about you being able to bluff better than others. But you can't compare HS to poker, because of the specific card design politics implied in printing certain cards towards a certain end.
It is simply unacceptable that there are unwinnable games. It counters skill as the sole reason to win. That makes card design repulsive. You win on the basis of skill, not because you concede on turn 2 against an unwinnable archetype.
Skill is not defined over 100 or 1000 games being better than my opponent. Skill is defined in outplaying, outmaneuvering my opponent even in a single game. Why do you think Savj quit the game?
Skill is not ruled by how effective you handle a deck over 100+ games, but is expressed by fair rules of the game itself giving players the ability to show their skill. Which is in HS certainly not the case.
In sum, even if one reach no. 1 legend every month, that doesn't imply that 'there is skill in the game.'
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
As to the comment, "it is unacceptable that there are unwinnable games" that flies in the face of the entire design space of card games. But again, the poker players are laughing from their mansions.
As to your definition of skill, I can't imagine any less relevant test of skill than "one single arbitrary set of circumstances which may or may not occur again in the entirety of a player's career". It just isn't germane to the topic at hand to look at one particular game state and say "this person is more skilled because he navigated this circumstance . . . end of discussion." And if that isn't the end of discussion, then by definition, skill can only be evaluated over multiple iterations of play.
BUT, even if one reaches a complete impasse on definitions, the issue here is whether RNG is the controlling factor in success of the game.
You said, "even if one reaches no. 1 legend every month, that doesn't imply that there is skill in the game". That is obviously untrue, and the argument can't really be carried forward if you insist on such an obviously flawed premise.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
I agree with all of the above. When Blizzard let some players early access to the new expansion Thijs almost made legend from rank 20 in 2 days. His deck building skills are so far above normal , he was able to achieve an 80% winrate with fresh cards. He was facing seasoned players, built 4-6 different decks and won with all of them. Once decks are optimized, the field gets a little bigger. But, I see the same names all the time in high legend for a reason. They make you think ahead to win, not just outdraw them. These percentages add up over time.
I am bridge player. It is a hundred years old card game where luck plays very minor role, and skilled players will always come on top in tournaments. Yet, in bridge there are unwinnable boards, where your bidding system of choice just cannot cope with the deviant hand distribution you had bad luck to stumble upon. It is also worth to note that "Unwinnable" does not mean your chance of winning is zero, but it is very close to zero.
The core thing bridge instructors teach you is that you need to maximize probability of success over the course of the whole tournament. Some games you just cannot win, and it is wrong to try to adjust your bidding system and gameplay to EVERY possible distribution. You seek to cover and counter majority of card distributions and current bidding systems used by your opponents in tournament.
Having that in mind, Hearthstone meta is actually the same thing - you need to adjust your deckbuliding and gameplan to current meta, and to try and maximize probability of success over the course of many games.
Again - that is inherent trait of all card games, and that is what makes card games popular. Inherent RNG gives everyone a chance to win sometimes, but only a skilled player will win most of the time.
As someone said before, saying that there is no skill in poker will make poker professionals laugh at you from their private islands...
Skill is a concept not an ability to best handle any red meat Blizzard throws in your face.
Comparing poker to Hearthstone is an insult to poker players. They don't have to face the card design corruption of Blizzard. The only thing they need is a pack of cards and their skill to read opponents. They don't have to cope with RPS - and AI - corruption like Zephrys, which is a skill-denouncer.
Anybody noticed the resemblance between team 5 and Donald Trump? Anything for the base. Even violating the 'Constitution' of skill....and calling that 'skill.'
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
So you wanna make RNG an issue? And no, RNG is not the controlling factor in succes of the game. What you call RNG is just outcome of card design.
What has RNG to do with skill? RNG can be seen as the end result of a switchboard. RNG is not just a random generator. It is a means for developers to steer what kind of archetypes must rule the meta. I know this is difficult to understand because on fora like these to think first before commenting.
On that switchboard you have buttons, to push, turn, flip. You have e.g. the balance button, the Hall of Fame-button, the RPS-button etc. One of those major buttons is card design. It's center stage. Different design classes have different outcomes in relation to skill. I know this hard to follow. Only for thinkers. Not for Trump voters.
Take i.e. an expansion with lots of buff cards are designed. The outcome of card design (so called RNG) will then be different for archetypes using them than for decks that don't or less utilize them. When thinking of losing a game because 'I didn't get my card' to deal with the board, or to heal properly, so called RNG has different meaning for aggressive decks than for archetypes using beefy minions. RNG is less problematic in aggressive decks than others.
So what you see here is that 'RNG' is functionally simply a result of card design. The hight of the skill floor can also be controlled by the switchboard. If card design steers towards a higher skill floor, automatically RNG wil play a lesser role in winning or losing.
So keep the skill floor low means keeping the game predominantly aggressive, therefore less skillful. The aim of current developers. That is how the switchboard is currenty tuned. Of course for marketing reasons. If you want to call that 'succes of the game' be my guest. From a skill perspective however that is repulsive.
TL.DR. So called RNG is functionally just an end result of card design politics.
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
All of the posters that keep pointing out that card games have both skill and chance are correct. I go to Las Vegas often and I can tell you that this is 100% accurate. However I also bet online and I will tell you that I won't ever play poker or blackjack or any casino game online. Why? Because there is no way to tell if the cards are being manipulated. The difference with Hearthstone is that we know for a fact that the RNG is manipulated. Quest cards start in every opening hand, at least one rare or better in packs, so many rares or better in arena, pity timer, not to mention the fact that Blizzard flat out broadcasts it when the manipulate the occurrence of cards in arena.
The question is not whether or not the RNG in Hearthstone is manipulated - it is to what extent. Going by casual observance the extent is massive.
I think the word "manipulated" means something other than what you think it means.