Hearthpwn

Quote from xskarma >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

 

Finally, we cannot discuss politics here as per forum rules

 Indeed. Further political remarks will lead to warnings. This thread has had enough leeway.

 come again troll mod

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

If you read the post, it tells you what balance in Hearthstone means and why it means that. If you did read it and found the answer but didn't like it, I can't really do much to help, it is the objective principle to achieve perfect balance. It is the way to ensure no strategy is being favored compared to others by having unfair conditions on weak matchups.

In a very simple manner, if you apply the condition I wrote before, and you find that the Rock-Paper-Scissors is not working strictly, if you find one playstyle, for some reason, is capable of overcoming it's weakness under these conditions, that means there is an imbalance of power in it's favor.

You removed randomness, so that isn't the cause. You perfected technical play, so that isn't the cause either. You are left with an imbalance in the power level of whatever strategy you are testing. It is overcoming a matchup that it shouldn't overcome.

A matchup that is favored towards one strategy can only be overcome by a few factor. Random elements outside of player control that determine the outcome. Improper technical play which allows the weak strategy to take advantage and punish the mistakes. Power imbalance and allows it to overcome a natural weakness. If you remove the two first factors, you isolate the third factor, meaning if it happens, this is the cause of the problem.

It's not a rabbit hole. Blizzard themselves are capable of setting up these conditions for testing and balancing. We aren't, but they are.

 First a question: how do you cleanly get rid of previously quoted statements?      EDIT: I appear to have figured that out :)

As for the topic at hand, I did in fact read the original post (that I quoted), and I appreciate that you have chosen to clarify what you meant. To reiterate your definition of balance in my own words, you believe that the game is imbalanced when a weak strategy is capable of beating what should be the 'favored' strategy (e.g. paper beating scissors). 

This has logic, and is a reasonable enough definition. You then proceed to defend your claim. 

Your premise is that there are 3 factors that affect any given game of hearthstone: randomness, player skill, and matchup favorability. This is also reasonable. 

However, after this point the logic falls apart. Even in our theoretical world, there is no way to isolate 'matchup favorability' as you have attempted to do. Although it is acceptable that you can remove the factor of player skill, you cannot remove randomness. Even if there were no 'random' cards in the game, it is impossible to discount draw RNG.

Rigging the draw order for 'optimal draw' is absolutely not the solution, because some decks care more about draw order than others. In your first post you said that "you actively rig it for optimal draw order, what you get is a game in which, if both players play perfectly, the strategy that has an advantage in the matchup will win every single time." This is false. As the most stark example, in wild it is possible for a druid player to OTK their opponent on turn 1 going first. By your metric, that deck is the very definition of imbalanced because it will beat ALL other strategies. However, that deck is utter garbage, and I struggle to accept any metric that declares a deck with a poor winrate imbalanced. As such, we cannot use 'optimal draw' to remove the factor of randomness. 

I will now move on to 'average draw' as a metric. If you believe 'optimal draw' is still workable we can come back to that, but to me that feels like a waste of time. Anyway, 'average draw' is indeed a theoretical way to offset the affects of randomness. However, 'average draw' will yield statistics like average win rates and win percentages. Are those good things to work with? Well, they could be, but unfortunately that means abandoning (or at least heavily adapting) the theory that the RPS model is what we should be working with to determine balance. Why? Because Rock Paper Scissors has only clean, 100% winrates. 

Lets now begin to adapt the RPS model. Still with 'average draw', scissors will beat rock lets say 40% of the time. Is that a problem? Maybe, but not if rock also beats paper 40% of the time (and paper scissors 40% of the time). Paper beating scissors sometimes is not ALONE cause for concern, nor is it a sign of imbalance. Now that we have done our best to eliminate the affects or randomness by looking at averages, has scissors become "capable of overcoming it's weakness under these conditions" and as such become imbalanced? No, it hasn't. 

What is really the fatal flaw of using Rock Paper Scissors is that in hearthstone, strategy and decks are adaptable. Lets say you're a rock player, and you get really really tired of losing to paper. So you adapt, become a little thinner and a little sharper, and start to give paper a run for its money. Now you might think you just became imbalanced, but that isn't the case. Because as you adapted to be better against paper, you start to lose a little more to fellow rocks than you remembered, and even scissors who you used to bully starts to feel like they have a fighting chance against you. So even though rock is managing to beat paper, it sacrificed itself in other matchups. 

And even with everything I've said previously notwithstanding its incorrect to say 'look this aggro deck beats this control deck, the game is imbalanced.' Favorable matchups are favorable matchups, and if the aggro deck is winning that means that it has the optimal strategy. Maybe its because aggro is overtuned. But its also possible that the control deck got greedy, started to try and bully fellow rocks, and slipped up against scissors. At that point, rock has moved a little too close to paper (midrange/combo) to be good against the aggro decks. This isn't always the case, but it certainly is sometimes, and so it is in fact wrong to define imbalance in hearthstone as being when paper manages to beat scissors. Sometimes it is a cause of imbalance, sometimes a symptom, and sometimes unrelated. 

To be clear, I think that the RPS model has a lot of value. And although I've just spent a bunch of paragraphs bringing up its weaknesses, I could write at least as much if not more defending the value and importance of the Rock Paper Scissors model. But to declare it to be "the objective principle" is at best incorrect and at worst intellectually dishonest and incorrect. And for the record, I still feel like this was a deep dive into an ever widening rabbit hole. 

If I have in some way misinterpreted either of your posts I do apologize, feel free to clarify anything that you feel I misunderstood or misrepresented. If you feel like I missed a crucial point, feel free to bring that to my attention. 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

 Maybe I agree with you on Blizzards decision part but not therefore that balance is impossible. Balance is a choice as unbalance is. Since the latter has been 'standard' for years at hand, meaning the continuous proactive aggressive card design leading up to a low skill floor, one must conclude deliberate action. Blizzards doesn't desire balance as that would alienate its low skill demanding massive target audience. Those who will shout in your face: get gut as they mean: win game by being better mindless than others. Skill on the other hand begins and ends by knowing how to outwith, outpace, outclass and outmaneuvring your opponent. Having consistenly ample opportunity qua time to make that happen is deeply vulgar and morally corrupt. And to this day I simply cannot understand why people want to be part of that audience. By the same token I cannot grasp why the American voter ever voted for its current president. Apparently being mindless is a thing.

I say it's impossible because of their decisions, because of the path they have taken for the game.

The more randomness they add, the more tech cards they make, the further they take the game away from proper balance. The first priority if they wanted balance would be to remove as much of both as possible. But this is a bad business decision if you are looking for a wide audience.

The more you eliminate the factors that provide unjust victories for players, the less interest the game will have to the wider audience. It's not like everyone in the audience is looking for a game in which the only factors deciding the outcomes are the strategy and the proper implementation they have, and those of the opponent.

So adding randomness helps out, because it creates a new portion of outcomes, a portion decided by neither of the factors the players control.

However, I think you need to remember that if the game was properly balanced, the instances where people "outplay" (where they think they do) the opponent would diminish tremendously. No longer would you be able to win games by having a favorable random element, or by having a tech card that decides you game because you managed to draw it.

Any weak matchup becomes a match you can only win if you opponent makes mistakes bad enough that you can take advantage of, meaning you have to play considerably better than they do. This is rare, but this is what truly "outwith, outpace, outclass and outmaneuvring your opponent" consists of.

Finally, we cannot discuss politics here as per forum rules, but if are actually curious about the reasons regarding the president, rather than just dismissive, I can elucidate you in DMs.

 Card design is extremely political. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Therefore there's no merit in a Blizzard-defense, and if you try it as you always seem to do, you will fail being considered impartial. 

 Imo there will always be a tier list. There will always be decks that better than other "meme" deck. So I have no ideas what your definition of "balance" is.

I'm the one who netdecks and change a few cards depend on the meta at my rank (or, in rare cases, if there were some card I really want to play).

Reason is I don't want to play with handicap. I dont want to make excuses that "I lost because he is playing meta deck".

In cases where I play off-meta deck, it is because I believe that my deck has an edge over the meta deck. Or more fun (fit my playstyle better) than metadecks  while still have a strong fighting chance.

Useless and completely false thread. People that complain about game balance usually do so because of one reason and its got absolutely nothing to do with winning or losing, its because they aren't having fun.

If a person plays a card strategy game to feel challenged...and its full of op cards, mana cheating, crazy rng, excessive discover effects etc...they don't just feel cheated...they are being cheated. Cheated by a company who is actively manipulating and interfering with game outcomes in efforts to maintain a 50% win avg.

I chose "other"

I think the main problem is that people have a very different understanding of what "balance" is supposed to mean.

As some other posters already mentioned, it's more about the factors "fairness" and "fun". But what does that mean?? Even fairness is not a simple one-dimensional magnitude. In every game you also have the factor of randomness, and that's where people's personal taste tends to differ.

Take chess for example. It's a game that is considered to be fair and that has a randomness near zero (one player has to go first. There's still a lot of debate how that might impact the result). And that's exactly what passionate chess-players enjoy. Pure tactics and experience. Some might argue that this would be an example of "perfect balance".  The only problem is that depending on the difference in skill level of the players the result might be pretty predetermined. So this kind of game will usually only be fun, if both players are about the same level. (If you just enjoy smashing weaker players, you'll have a hard time finding partners to play with...)

On the opposite you might have something like tossing a coin. Under ideal circumstances that's also completely fair - but also completely random. There might be occasions when this is actually entertaining.  But usually you won't enjoy that kind of game for too long, because it'll start to get boring.

So what's the actual type of balance we're talking about? It's the balance between tactic and randomness! And there's no perfect solution for that! You'll have players who enjoy a lot of tactics with low randomness - and you have those that enjoy a good clown fiesta with low predictability! (Also depending on dalily mood I suppose.)

And you simply can't satisfy all!

My personal quota would be around 70% tactics and 30% randomness - but I bet Hearthstone is more of the opposite (If anybody has ideas on the math of that, I'd really be eager to hear!)

So what do I do? I try to bring my love for tactics on the board by knowing all the cards and the deck distribution in the daily meta. I then try to figure out, what kind of deck has the best chance of matching the most prevalent decks while still being fun to play - and I let randomness have its due.

It's not perfect - but it's my personal way of enjoying the type of balance HS happens to have.

I chose other. Really, while balance is nice, insane shenanigans are my thing, which is probably why I like solo adventures (particulary treasures) so much.

Quote from jainaishot >>

I want any game i play to be balanced because then i win 100% of time. There is no way for mongrels to defeat a supreme being like me in an even field.

Don't know if you are being completely sarcastic, my friend, but that's exactly how I feel sometimes! XD Except I wouldn't use the words "mongrels" or "supreme being" to express myself. :P

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Daulphas >>

How do you define balance in a game like hearthstone?

 A game state where if you provide average draw order (or even optimal) and you perfect technical play, you have a strictly enforced Rock-Paper-Scissors model.

If the game is correctly balanced, and you remove any element that the player cannot control, or in the case of draw order, you actively rig it for optimal draw order, what you get is a game in which, if both players play perfectly, the strategy that has an advantage in the matchup will win every single time.

This happens because using these conditions, you remove any variable that would deliver outcomes based on anything except the strategies being played, so what you get is a state where the strategy that has an advantage in the matchup always win.

Obviously, even if you remove all randomness from Hearthstone, you will still have variance because of draw order and improper technical play, this is where the matchups lose the strict RPS model.

Anyway, it is not subjective.

 

You are correct, that would balance the technical side of gameplay.

What of the cards themselves, due to human ingenuity there are a multitude of interactions that are found and utilized by players.

There are certain card interactions (that are player controlled and not random) which create broken or unbalanced gameplay.

Such as OTK decks or impregnable defenses due to healing or health mechanics.

Then there are cards which create huge power spikes that can not be stopped. (jade drd, original quest rogue)

These situation have been and are currently being done without RNG or uncontrolled variables (besides card draw).

However, when the cards are addressed it oftentimes kills the deck that had the specific card(s) in question. Which in itself unbalances the game.

I say balance is subjective in the respect that one persons view of balance is not necessarily the same as another's. Your view (and mine) of a rock/scissors/paper balance is something we agree upon, but a pure aggro player always wants rock and the others are unbalanced because they can stop them consistently.

By your own admission, the game is not balanced (blizzards manipulation) so you are contradicting yourself in stating that this is a completely false thread.

I've read a little bit through this topic, and I think seperating players into very rigid groups is a bit of a mistake. I do think you'll find people that identify one or the other, but I don't think the larger player base will not. 

"Balancing" a meta, does not mean you don't net deck, and balancing shouldn't mean every deck is viable. Not every deck should be competitive. Balance means there isn't a warped meta, think Ashes of Outland during the first 36 hours. To me, if we're defining balance as a good representation of equal power levels within any given meta, and not as not netdecking, I'd fall into this group. A balanced meta allows more classes/archatypes to be represented. Just because a meta is balanced, doesn't mean it is necessarily enjoyable. 

"Win at all costs", I'm taking to mean just be more comptetitve, which I think if you asked most players, regardless if they netdeck or not, they'll say they'd like to win. While I don't consider myself a competitive player, I do like supporting the game and getting better each month. I wouldn't say this is "unfun", I'll netdeck decks I find interesting or like playing. It's really about learning how to play the deck inside and out, ever with tier 1 decks that doesn't happen after 2-3 games, then adjusting the cards that you think work and don't work.

I suppose to conclude, I disagree with the rigidness of how these groups are set up, when I voted, I voted a both. I would like a meta where a lot of decks are represented at various tiers, there isn't 1 or 2 commanding/warped decks at the top, but ultimately, the game is about having a learning mindset, it doesn't owe me as a player anything, regardless of how warped a meta may get. 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from parzival2345 >>

 First a question: how do you cleanly get rid of previously quoted statements?      EDIT: I appear to have figured that out :)

As for the topic at hand, I did in fact read the original post (that I quoted), and I appreciate that you have chosen to clarify what you meant. To reiterate your definition of balance in my own words, you believe that the game is imbalanced when a weak strategy is capable of beating what should be the 'favored' strategy (e.g. paper beating scissors). 

This has logic, and is a reasonable enough definition. You then proceed to defend your claim. 

Your premise is that there are 3 factors that affect any given game of hearthstone: randomness, player skill, and matchup favorability. This is also reasonable. 

However, after this point the logic falls apart. Even in our theoretical world, there is no way to isolate 'matchup favorability' as you have attempted to do. Although it is acceptable that you can remove the factor of player skill, you cannot remove randomness. Even if there were no 'random' cards in the game, it is impossible to discount draw RNG.

Rigging the draw order for 'optimal draw' is absolutely not the solution, because some decks care more about draw order than others. In your first post you said that "you actively rig it for optimal draw order, what you get is a game in which, if both players play perfectly, the strategy that has an advantage in the matchup will win every single time." This is false. As the most stark example, in wild it is possible for a druid player to OTK their opponent on turn 1 going first. By your metric, that deck is the very definition of imbalanced because it will beat ALL other strategies. However, that deck is utter garbage, and I struggle to accept any metric that declares a deck with a poor winrate imbalanced. As such, we cannot use 'optimal draw' to remove the factor of randomness. 

I will now move on to 'average draw' as a metric. If you believe 'optimal draw' is still workable we can come back to that, but to me that feels like a waste of time. Anyway, 'average draw' is indeed a theoretical way to offset the affects of randomness. However, 'average draw' will yield statistics like average win rates and win percentages. Are those good things to work with? Well, they could be, but unfortunately that means abandoning (or at least heavily adapting) the theory that the RPS model is what we should be working with to determine balance. Why? Because Rock Paper Scissors has only clean, 100% winrates. 

Lets now begin to adapt the RPS model. Still with 'average draw', scissors will beat rock lets say 40% of the time. Is that a problem? Maybe, but not if rock also beats paper 40% of the time (and paper scissors 40% of the time). Paper beating scissors sometimes is not ALONE cause for concern, nor is it a sign of imbalance. Now that we have done our best to eliminate the affects or randomness by looking at averages, has scissors become "capable of overcoming it's weakness under these conditions" and as such become imbalanced? No, it hasn't. 

What is really the fatal flaw of using Rock Paper Scissors is that in hearthstone, strategy and decks are adaptable. Lets say you're a rock player, and you get really really tired of losing to paper. So you adapt, become a little thinner and a little sharper, and start to give paper a run for its money. Now you might think you just became imbalanced, but that isn't the case. Because as you adapted to be better against paper, you start to lose a little more to fellow rocks than you remembered, and even scissors who you used to bully starts to feel like they have a fighting chance against you. So even though rock is managing to beat paper, it sacrificed itself in other matchups. 

And even with everything I've said previously notwithstanding its incorrect to say 'look this aggro deck beats this control deck, the game is imbalanced.' Favorable matchups are favorable matchups, and if the aggro deck is winning that means that it has the optimal strategy. Maybe its because aggro is overtuned. But its also possible that the control deck got greedy, started to try and bully fellow rocks, and slipped up against scissors. At that point, rock has moved a little too close to paper (midrange/combo) to be good against the aggro decks. This isn't always the case, but it certainly is sometimes, and so it is in fact wrong to define imbalance in hearthstone as being when paper manages to beat scissors. Sometimes it is a cause of imbalance, sometimes a symptom, and sometimes unrelated. 

To be clear, I think that the RPS model has a lot of value. And although I've just spent a bunch of paragraphs bringing up its weaknesses, I could write at least as much if not more defending the value and importance of the Rock Paper Scissors model. But to declare it to be "the objective principle" is at best incorrect and at worst intellectually dishonest and incorrect. And for the record, I still feel like this was a deep dive into an ever widening rabbit hole. 

If I have in some way misinterpreted either of your posts I do apologize, feel free to clarify anything that you feel I misunderstood or misrepresented. If you feel like I missed a crucial point, feel free to bring that to my attention.

 The game is unbalanced if that happens in the conditions I wrote. It's not a matter of having a strict RPS model under normal game circumstances, it's a matter of having strict RPS model under the specific conditions I wrote, which Blizzard themselves can test.

To be more accurate, matchups have a natural outcome. Any two strategies have a specific way in which they interact, where there is a natural outcome given the way both strategies interact.

Then you have three factors that can change this natural outcome, the ones I stated.

It is indeed possible to remove all randomness. Blizzard can rig draw order, they even have done so in the past for Brawls and Adventures. But they need only do this for testing. We don't want them to rig normal games, they should rig it when testing balance themselves, not for users.

That Druid is an FTK deck with rigged draw order, and that is how it works for any FTK deck, you always win no matter what you face, because FTK decks win against any deck if they have a good enough draw order and are played correctly. This doesn't represent a power imbalance, because what balances this precise strategy is exactly what you cannot control, the draw order. When you rig it, you are supposed to get a deck that cannot be stopped. This will always happen in an FTK. Don't forget, an FTK strategy will not be interacted with by other strategies, they are by design uninteractive, the true meaning of the term.

The Druid FTK doesn't work in reality however, where animations exist and you cannot perform the FTK even if you draw with the draw order you want.

If you take average draw orders, you cannot get strict RPS, obviously. You will get very close to it, but not absolute. You need to use rigged draw order to achieve the result. This doesn't detract from what I wrote. I said average draw, I should have made it more explicit that they should actively do so with rigged draw order, to achieve the proper result. That was my fault for not making it explicit.

With average draws, if a 40% winrate for a weak strategy existed, that would actually be a good indicator of imbalance. If we are still considering perfect technical play from both sides. By average I mean not having either side have an extraordinarily good draw, which will lead to an extremely small percentage of wins for the weak strategy. You would see something closer to 15%, 20% at the most, and that is being generous.

We are talking without Random Element, at least I am, meaning no generation, no effect that target or output random outcomes.

I'm not going to address the part about adaptation, as I already said, we are talking about perfect technical play on both sides, that means they are playing the game perfectly adapted to the path needed to win the matchup. You're never going to have RPS in real world conditions, we are talking adjusted conditions to test balance.

Yes, I do think you didn't focus on the important aspect I tried to state. As I try to explain in the above paragraphs, the objective measurement of balance is indeed possible, but it is never to be done in real world conditions. You cannot observe this under such conditions.

You need to be able to control for the variables, the factors I identified as affecting the outcome of a matchup. 

Two strategies will clash in a specific manner. One is favored against the other. Then the other factors can vary and affect the outcome. If we remove these factors, by removing all randomness, rigging draw order, having the strategies be played perfectly, we remove the factors that aren't imbalance.

We cannot do this, we cannot remove the factors, only Blizzard can, and it is their job to do such testing. They will not do so, but they could. That is the only point. It is possible to do, objectively verify the balance, provided you follow these conditions.

Whenever the draw order isn't perfect, or the technical play from the player isn't perfect, it's not really possible to test balance because these two factors are going to interfere.

 Several times you state that you can achieve a "strict RPS model under the specific conditions I wrote, which Blizzard themselves can test". However, the point I was trying to make when talking about the issues of rigging draw order is that Blizzard cannot create these conditions. Sure, they can rig the draw order however they want. But that will not remove all randomness and preserve the original matchup favorability. When you muck with the draw order, you change the "natural outcome" of the matchup. 

I ask you to come up with some theoretical rigged draw order that would work. I am extremely confident that there is none. You cannot rig the draw in any way without affecting which strategy is favored. 

Blizzard testing is not magic. 

You later state that "With average draws, if a 40% winrate for a weak strategy existed, that would actually be a good indicator of imbalance. If we are still considering perfect technical play from both sides". This statement seems extremely misguided. For an example lets look at the matchup of stealth gala rogue VS tempo DH during AoO. This matchup was favorable for rogue, but by an extremely small margin. So although stealth gala rogue was the 'strong strategy' and tempo DH was the 'weak strategy', tempo DH still managed to win about 45% of the time. Is this a sign of imbalance? No, this just means the matchup was pretty even. 

To really sum of what I'm trying to say, there are NO conditions in which the RPS is strictly enforced. Its not only impossible under 'real world conditions', its also impossible under any sort of testing conditions you could come up with. 

With draw order, its kinda like the observer affect. If you look at or control draw order in an attempt to isolate matchup favorability, you change the matchup favorability in the process. 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

 Card design is extremely political. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Therefore there's no merit in a Blizzard-defense, and if you try it as you always seem to do, you will fail being considered impartial. 

 What on earth? Me trying to defend Blizzard's design? I can point out to you a bunch of the flaws Blizzard has made since the beginning of Hearthstone, and even more, since it is this consistent stream of bad decisions Blizzard has made in the last year that made me be so fed up I completely stopped spending money on the game, after spending tons over the years. I'm not sure you are talking to the correct person.

You fool nobody. Especially you don't fool me. Your legacy of comments over the years is undeniably defending Blizzard. The know it all attitude caters in to pseudo-intellectualism rather than commenting with reason and objectively. Try the journalistic approach. Not the Fox-style but the NY-Times approach I might add.

People who are are pro-Blizzard are by definition anti-balance or reconceptualize it in such a way that there is only lip service. We call this the politics of commenting.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

You fool nobody. Especially you don't fool me. Your legacy of comments over the years is undeniably defending Blizzard. The know it all attitude caters in to pseudo-intellectualism rather than commenting with reason and objectively. Try the journalistic approach. Not the Fox-style but the NY-Times approach I might add.

People who are are pro-Blizzard are by definition anti-balance or reconceptualize it in such a way that there is only lip service. We call this the politics of commenting.

 What you are doing is called projection. You are the one that isn't actually making any sense or being objective. You don't address what I say, you are trying to question my character or motives.

With this in mind, I can guess it is pointless to try and argue. Anyone that targets the person instead of the argument is someone admitting to having no argument in the discussion.

 Both of you are full of bullshit and fake eloquence and have no idea what you're talking about. Put the brandy down, take off your monocles, and get over yourselves already.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from AIM7Sparrow >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

 What you are doing is called projection. You are the one that isn't actually making any sense or being objective. You don't address what I say, you are trying to question my character or motives.

With this in mind, I can guess it is pointless to try and argue. Anyone that targets the person instead of the argument is someone admitting to having no argument in the discussion.

 Both of you are full of bullshit and fake eloquence and have no idea what you're talking about. Put the brandy down, take off your monocles, and get over yourselves already.

 I'm not sure why you quoted me, you could have at least read what you quoted. You're doing exactly what I stated in the quote. You are saying that without ever actually addressing what is the bullshit, what is it that I have no idea about. If you're not going to address it, then you are projecting.

I fully agree with DiamondDM13 on this one. If you people are going to try to debunk others' arguments, at least take your time to explain some of the reasons why you consider them being wrong.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from parzival2345 >>

 Several times you state that you can achieve a "strict RPS model under the specific conditions I wrote, which Blizzard themselves can test". However, the point I was trying to make when talking about the issues of rigging draw order is that Blizzard cannot create these conditions. Sure, they can rig the draw order however they want. But that will not remove all randomness and preserve the original matchup favorability. When you muck with the draw order, you change the "natural outcome" of the matchup. 

I ask you to come up with some theoretical rigged draw order that would work. I am extremely confident that there is none. You cannot rig the draw in any way without affecting which strategy is favored. 

Blizzard testing is not magic. 

You later state that "With average draws, if a 40% winrate for a weak strategy existed, that would actually be a good indicator of imbalance. If we are still considering perfect technical play from both sides". This statement seems extremely misguided. For an example lets look at the matchup of stealth gala rogue VS tempo DH during AoO. This matchup was favorable for rogue, but by an extremely small margin. So although stealth gala rogue was the 'strong strategy' and tempo DH was the 'weak strategy', tempo DH still managed to win about 45% of the time. Is this a sign of imbalance? No, this just means the matchup was pretty even. 

To really sum of what I'm trying to say, there are NO conditions in which the RPS is strictly enforced. Its not only impossible under 'real world conditions', its also impossible under any sort of testing conditions you could come up with. 

With draw order, its kinda like the observer affect. If you look at or control draw order in an attempt to isolate matchup favorability, you change the matchup favorability in the process. 

 

 Blizzard actually can create these conditions. They can remove all randomness, the same way they decided to add the randomness. Blizzard decides which cards and effects are present when testing. They can remove every single random element from the game and test that way, if they wanted to.

But I get what you are trying to say, which is that when considering the current game state where these cards exist and strategies are made with them, yes, it makes it impossible to do this. This is why I stated in the first few posts that Blizzard themselves created the balance problem, because they themselves decided to add random effects, more and more as time went on.

They could completely balance the game, but it would require them to actually remove all these cards and effects from the game permanently, not solely for testing. This is the randomness that isn't part of card games that they themselves added. Card games will have card draw order and variance because of this, but that isn't something you can avoid, yet you can still rig card order to test balance. When it comes to a game with so much random effects, you cannot.

You rig the draw to the ideal order for each of the strategies in the matchup. (This is not for the condition in which random effects are present, we agree, that cannot be fixed as is)

Regarding the Gala vs DH example you gave, I am not sure which lists you are talking about, but I'm sure looking at both strategies for the decks, unless they are the same exact strategy, then one of them is favored, even if slightly. If it were possible to remove all randomness and perfect technical play, then yes, the favored strategy would always win. A deviation from this would mean imbalance.

However, considering I doubt those decks don't have random effects, this even perfecting both draw order and technical play would not show you imbalance because there is still the random effects to account for.

When you remove all the factors we have discussed, no matter how small the advantage is for one of the strategies, you would always get the same result, because the card order would always be the same and the moves in the game would always be the same, leading to the exact same result every time.

It is possible for testing, just not something that would translate to real world conditions, because one of the conditions for proper testing, removal of all randomness, implies at least one condition that can never coincide with real world, which is the random effects. Blizzard would need to remove them from the game entirely.

 "Blizzard actually can create these conditions."

But they can't. There is no way to rig draw order in a way that does not affect the matchup. 

I've ignored random effects in hearthstone until now essentially to give your method a chance. Yes I understand that random effects screw up the model. Yes I understand blizzard can test without them. 

"You rig the draw to the ideal order for each of the strategies in the matchup."  

We already went over why you can't do this. Decks like FTK druid suddenly start winning every game. 

For another example, raza priest in wild should be extremely favored against token druid. However, if token druid draws the absolute nuts they can kill the priest before the priest has a chance to do anything, no matter their hand. 

"When you remove all the factors we have discussed, no matter how small the advantage is for one of the strategies, you would always get the same result, because the card order would always be the same and the moves in the game would always be the same, leading to the exact same result every time."  

I understand what you're saying and this almost works in theory. But again with gala rogue VS DH, gala rogue going first has Spymistress on 1 a little under half the time if they hard mulligan for it. How do you account for that? If you give them it on 1 every game you significantly change the matchup. If they never have it you significantly change the matchup. And if you give it to them a little less than half the time, the card order is NOT the same and the moves are NOT the same, so the result will NOT be the same every time. 

I want people to stop complaining everything. This forum is becoming a place of pissed off losers only crying about salty stuffs, crying and complaining everything for months. Stop play if you don't like it, don't complain for months. 

@DiamondDM13 -

OK I’m a little unclear, just for my sake of not misinterpreting.

When you say “rig the draw order for the ideal order for each of the strategies in the matchup” – who is supposed to choose the optimal order, the deck creator or blizzard?

Also is this rigged draw meant for testing only or something you think should be implemented in the game?

Quote from Hooghout >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

 Card design is extremely political. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Therefore there's no merit in a Blizzard-defense, and if you try it as you always seem to do, you will fail being considered impartial. 

 What on earth? Me trying to defend Blizzard's design? I can point out to you a bunch of the flaws Blizzard has made since the beginning of Hearthstone, and even more, since it is this consistent stream of bad decisions Blizzard has made in the last year that made me be so fed up I completely stopped spending money on the game, after spending tons over the years. I'm not sure you are talking to the correct person.

You fool nobody. Especially you don't fool me. Your legacy of comments over the years is undeniably defending Blizzard. The know it all attitude caters in to pseudo-intellectualism rather than commenting with reason and objectively. Try the journalistic approach. Not the Fox-style but the NY-Times approach I might add.

People who are are pro-Blizzard are by definition anti-balance or reconceptualize it in such a way that there is only lip service. We call this the politics of commenting.

 Hoogie, don't throw around terms like pseudo intellectualism, it's kind of embarrassing. Also, if you hate hearthstone so much, just stop playing it.

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

It is called Player Engagement. Getting the maximum amount of players to keep playing and drive them to purchase cards now and in the future. 

 Well that is a pro Blizzardian way of puttng it. You are a good student of Blizzards marketing.

I call it target audience card design. Low skill level and mindless autobot gameplay. It's been going on for years. All others don't vote in november for that guy. Hearthstone is not for everyone.

So a shifting meta with overpowered decks that rely heavily on RNG allow blizzard to maximize the amount of spending required to keep up. 

Right. Mindlessness sells. Or is it just the choice for that target audience that sells?

Highrolly decks are ideal for player engagement in that a good hand can almost guarentee a win for a bad player and thus keep them engaged. So if you have played a lot of the druid mess that is currently so popular, you can see the ideal blizzard formula. Nearly unbeatable when it sets up right, very beatable when it does not. Good consistent decks are a problem because too much player skill is involved and it is harder to manipulate outcomes.

Interesting theory. So if nerfs occur the target audience needs to get some help against the 'bad' player. So that is what  'balance changes' mean.  Serve the mindless. Skill or a higher skill floor is not what Blizzard wants. Reaching legend is simply playing better mindless than others. Right.