Recently was looking for some distraction from work and started to play Hearthstone for a 2 weeks now after approximately 4 years. Played few arenas and standard play for fun (just basic mage deck to gold tier), but found out I did enjoy the game much less than before. The reason might be, that I just dont like the game that much anymore, but also might be due 2 reasons I noticed.
1. Hearthstone shifted towards randomness heavily, when i compare the game to times up until league of explorers (after that I basically stopped playing). I would be interested, if this is a longterm shift, where Hearthstone is shifting from skill based more to luck based game (not that skill would not matter, of course better player will still have better results, but the volatility of results seems to be much greater). Also would be interested, if those of you, who played the game back in times of Naxxramas, GnG, etc. like this shift.
2. Cards have much bigger impact with less skill needed. Back in times I mentioned, blizzard was nerfing decks like miracle rogue and patron warrior, because they were too strong and possibly OTK decks, but those deck were strong only in hands of skilled players and noobs had usually very poor reasults with decks like that. Today there so many extremely easy to play decks with so powerful cards, that one turn can totally change the course of game no matter what, with no skill needed. Back then pilotted shreder was used in most deck with deathrattle summoning 2-cost minion. Now i am not sure, it would make any current deck, because there are so many extremely impactful cards, that would be back then instantly nerfed, that it completely changed the game i used to enjoy.
My question is. Is this gradual shift over the years, or is it just this season? Do you guys enjoy this change? Is it just lack of creativity from game designers over the years with so many random techniques, or it is desired state of the game?
To be honest, I briefly checked, wheter there are any similar articles or videos on this topic, but of course feel free to share anything. Thanks.
Been playing since it went live. I agree it is less enjoyable than it used to be.
Im not even excited for new expansions anymore and my creative deck building has gone away - I remember Goblins and gnomes and how excited I was and all the decks I was planning to build, also the Grand tournament was quite enjoyable for me even though most people hated that expansion.
I also remember how arena was more easy as to where you could get 7+ often, whereas now you are lucky if you get 3+ wins.
Still playing it but im not as dedicated as I used to be.
Degradation — is obvious path of any CCG that is based on new expansions. I played Urban Rivals, KlanZ, read lot about yu-gi-oh, the imbalance and powercreep fiesta has gone the same way in all of them.
Just compare the time needed to balance the game on it development, when basic and classic packs were releasing, and time as new expansions come out. Indeedly buzzard can't have time to balance new cards well so we have this shitty carnival of imbalance every time.
I have played since GvG. There is definitely more RNG in the game now. It has been a gradual shift over the years and in fact, I think Blizz recently said that they wanted to reduce this a bit. But that will take some time because there are still many RNG cards in Standard for the next year, and probably still the one after that.
But I wouldn't say that the amount of skill required is less now. I would say that it is actually higher as matchups seem to be much closer balanced now. In the past, the rock-paper- scissors effect was much more pronounced, where freeze-mage vs control warrior was an insta-concede. But in general, it was agro beats midrange and combo, which beat control which beats agro. While there are still better and worse matchups, knowledge of how to play the matchup will now do a lot more for you than a few years ago.
The extra RNG also gives additional options, which requires additional on the spot decision making to get the most out of them in the specific board state and matchup, makes it less curvestone than in the past. Patron warrior has been a very rare exception in the entire HS history, though last year inner-fire combo priest was a bit comparable and good players did a lot better with it than bad ones. But in the old days, there were also a lot of decks that required little skill, I'd say less skill than many do now: face/Midrange hunter, Mech shaman/mage, and 'combo' druid weren't exactly tocket science.
Playing since release. I feel like hearthstone have been evolving to very rubbish game. Some common and rare cards are way too powerful, legendary a like. And some leggies are just plain shit. I feel like this is because blizzard wants new players, so you can have extremely powerful deck with very little cost.
Legendaries should be 2x stronger and common + rare cards should be shit cards nobody wants to use, but they have to until they get better cards.
I think hearthstone is heading to the dumpster. Too much RNG, too much highroll bullshit you can't do anything about and too many decks you can't interact with at all. It's basically becoming a single player game.
Legendaries should be 2x stronger and common + rare cards should be shit cards nobody wants to use, but they have to until they get better cards.
I could not disagree more with this take. It would take forever for new players to get a playable deck if rares and commons were bad. Plus, if legendaries were the strongest cards, every deck would be playing the same legendaries which would make the meta feel so stale. This is literally why Ragnaros and Sylvanas were hall of famed: they were solid cards that could be slotted into any deck, which made decks and classes feel less unique. Commons and rares should be the backbone of every deck. Legendaries should be interesting and unique, either a strong one-off effect, or a card you build your deck around.
To return to the subject, I started playing Hearthstone after the Old Gods expansion, so four years. In that time, Hearthstone has only gotten better IMO. Generally, metas have gotten more balanced, allowing for a greater variety of decks, and match-ups have become more equal and play out in different ways every time. To me, Hearthstone has never been more enjoyable than it is now.
Here's my "unpopular" take...at least I have Horace's support ; )
I started playing in December of 2014 and I enjoy the game as much now as I did when I started. It has certainly evolved for better or worse (seems most people in this thread agree on the latter). I can't argue that there have been some (very?) unfun metas along the way but overall I still really like playing the game.
I tend to focus on single player and playing with friends, which has probably helped to keep my sanity over the years; especially when the meta was not in a great place. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
I really do not mind some light RNG, but hey, when games are dictated by a single heavy RNG swing that is NO fun; I started playing since the beginning, nowadays I only do dailies. Losing against only luck/RNG and not by an inch of skill is unfun and frustrating.
I've played almost since the beginning, before Naxx and GvG, and while certain things are maybe as good or better, I definitely do not enjoy the game like I used to. Part of it is just being jaded, I suppose, but a lot of it is because I don't enjoy copy/pasting top decks and winning or losing based almost entirely due to matchups. There have always been elements of this, of course, but right now it feels to me that the favored netdecks in every class are just too airtight, and will unfailingly win or lose almost every match simply based on matchup. The fact that those decks are mostly what you see in casual doesn't really help either, whether it's druids ramping up to 7-10 mana and ALSO having the payoff cards, or paladin spamming those librams, or those horrible Priest decks that make you want to slit your wrists - there's not a lot of room for you to experiment and win with off-meta cards or clever gameplay. What fun I end up having depends mostly on what kind of matchups I end up queueing into - if i'm fortunate, I have a decent time, if not, I'm mostly annoyed, and if I'm playing my favorite class (Warlock), then I'm just a sad panda.
I'm not sure I agree with there being that much more rng than back in the days. Just remember all the Mage opponents coining out Dr. Boom they got from Unstable Portal on turn 3.
But the second point is absolutely true and I don't like it either. Due to power creep some cards just have become extremely powerful for little effort, which makes the game kinda unfun. Also there have been way more stupid OTK decks the past expansions than there used to be back in the days.
I think the game is in a temporary bad state. It was like this back when odd pally was the craze too. But they came back from that crap show and i think they will come back from this one.
Basically im just sitting this cycle out, planning on a course correction coming next release.
Been playing almost every day for the past 18 months and I'm finding diminishing returns in my enjoyment of standard. The climb in ranking has lost all fun appeal and has become nothing more than a grind against the same handful of decks over and over.
Recently, I've found out that I had 8 Arena tickets I've accumulated from expansion purchases and events. I've never been into arena but I'm finding it to be a breath of fresh air. The challenge of seeing how far I can make it on a run with a particular deck has become infinitely more fun than 'face hunter, face hunter, pure paladin, mage, mage, face hunter, paladin, mage, face hunter, etc.'
I think I'm at a point right now where I will just be content getting my 5 ranked wins in the bronze level and then forget about standard for the rest of the month....don't really care about what my bonus star level is at this point.
i think too that in the past hearthstone was better, required more skill and was less rng in the game... i have been playing since Naxx but nowadays i just log in and complete the daily quests and hoping for a better expansion every time. :)
I'm playing since LoE. My enjoyment of the game had ups and downs. There are things I like and things that I don't like.
RNG certainly is something I'm not too happy about. I'm not against any kind of randomness, but the prevalence and impact of random effects has become far too much for me. Variety is nice and all, but it just feels dumb when every other game is decided by cards that were randomly created. There were always cards that stretched the concept of 30 cards per deck a little bit, but for the most part, you knew what to expect. Random and Discover are so ubiquitous now, that most decks utilize some sort of card generation, and some even rely on it entirely. The flexibility of discover has become so cheap that there's virtually no downside to it anymore. Just compare Ethereal Conjurer with Wand Thief.
Considering that (normally) most Tavern Brawls are nothing but random, and Tavern Brawl is available all week nowadays, I don't really understand why Constructed needs to have SO much random effects as well, with another dozen being added every single expansion. I mean, people who enjoy random elements get more than enough of that, but I'd like to see a bigger emphasis on strategy again, at least in Constructed.
Something else that increasingly bothers me is the importance of legendaries. It's nice that there are generally less terrible legendaries nowadays, but in return, there are so many good/interesting ones that I sometimes feel like there's no point in playing anything unrefined. And especially when an expansion launches, it's like "this sounds cool, but I would need to invest 6k dust just for this". For example, Big Warrior sounded kinda fun, but I'm not gonna craft The Boomship, Rattlegore, Colossus of the Moon, Deathwing, Mad Aspect and maybe something else, just to try it out one deck.
That being said, I don't think the developers lack creativity, on the contrary. I think there were quite a few pretty cool ideas in the last few expansions, some of them just undercooked. And I like it that the card quality has generally gone up, and it's not 75% pack filler anymore. Better cards will generally contribute to a more dynamic game, I think. It's more fun if you don't have to fill your deck with cards that are "just ok".
Not to mention that they've shown some serious effort lately to FINALLY make the game more interesting. Battlegrounds was a great idea, the ladder overhaul was a nice, though it could get refined a bit, Demon Hunter was finally added (and maybe Death Knight and Monk following someday), the pack rule changes were great, and we are gonna get yet another mode coming this year, and new a reward system (let's hope it won't ruin everything) and even a reworked Classic and Basic set next year. I'm not expecting too much, but maybe they'll finally sort out some completely useless cards like Warsong Commander. Also, balance patches are not a maybe-someday and class-destroying anymore. And buffs actually are a thing these days!
Not every change is pure gold, but I really appreciate that they try to improve. Just over the last year, they've put more (visible) effort into the game, than the previous 2 years combined.
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Hey guys,
Recently was looking for some distraction from work and started to play Hearthstone for a 2 weeks now after approximately 4 years. Played few arenas and standard play for fun (just basic mage deck to gold tier), but found out I did enjoy the game much less than before. The reason might be, that I just dont like the game that much anymore, but also might be due 2 reasons I noticed.
1. Hearthstone shifted towards randomness heavily, when i compare the game to times up until league of explorers (after that I basically stopped playing). I would be interested, if this is a longterm shift, where Hearthstone is shifting from skill based more to luck based game (not that skill would not matter, of course better player will still have better results, but the volatility of results seems to be much greater). Also would be interested, if those of you, who played the game back in times of Naxxramas, GnG, etc. like this shift.
2. Cards have much bigger impact with less skill needed. Back in times I mentioned, blizzard was nerfing decks like miracle rogue and patron warrior, because they were too strong and possibly OTK decks, but those deck were strong only in hands of skilled players and noobs had usually very poor reasults with decks like that. Today there so many extremely easy to play decks with so powerful cards, that one turn can totally change the course of game no matter what, with no skill needed. Back then pilotted shreder was used in most deck with deathrattle summoning 2-cost minion. Now i am not sure, it would make any current deck, because there are so many extremely impactful cards, that would be back then instantly nerfed, that it completely changed the game i used to enjoy.
My question is. Is this gradual shift over the years, or is it just this season? Do you guys enjoy this change? Is it just lack of creativity from game designers over the years with so many random techniques, or it is desired state of the game?
To be honest, I briefly checked, wheter there are any similar articles or videos on this topic, but of course feel free to share anything. Thanks.
Been playing since it went live. I agree it is less enjoyable than it used to be.
Im not even excited for new expansions anymore and my creative deck building has gone away - I remember Goblins and gnomes and how excited I was and all the decks I was planning to build, also the Grand tournament was quite enjoyable for me even though most people hated that expansion.
I also remember how arena was more easy as to where you could get 7+ often, whereas now you are lucky if you get 3+ wins.
Still playing it but im not as dedicated as I used to be.
Degradation — is obvious path of any CCG that is based on new expansions. I played Urban Rivals, KlanZ, read lot about yu-gi-oh, the imbalance and powercreep fiesta has gone the same way in all of them.
Just compare the time needed to balance the game on it development, when basic and classic packs were releasing, and time as new expansions come out. Indeedly buzzard can't have time to balance new cards well so we have this shitty carnival of imbalance every time.
I have played since GvG. There is definitely more RNG in the game now. It has been a gradual shift over the years and in fact, I think Blizz recently said that they wanted to reduce this a bit. But that will take some time because there are still many RNG cards in Standard for the next year, and probably still the one after that.
But I wouldn't say that the amount of skill required is less now. I would say that it is actually higher as matchups seem to be much closer balanced now. In the past, the rock-paper- scissors effect was much more pronounced, where freeze-mage vs control warrior was an insta-concede. But in general, it was agro beats midrange and combo, which beat control which beats agro. While there are still better and worse matchups, knowledge of how to play the matchup will now do a lot more for you than a few years ago.
The extra RNG also gives additional options, which requires additional on the spot decision making to get the most out of them in the specific board state and matchup, makes it less curvestone than in the past. Patron warrior has been a very rare exception in the entire HS history, though last year inner-fire combo priest was a bit comparable and good players did a lot better with it than bad ones. But in the old days, there were also a lot of decks that required little skill, I'd say less skill than many do now: face/Midrange hunter, Mech shaman/mage, and 'combo' druid weren't exactly tocket science.
Playing since release. I feel like hearthstone have been evolving to very rubbish game. Some common and rare cards are way too powerful, legendary a like. And some leggies are just plain shit. I feel like this is because blizzard wants new players, so you can have extremely powerful deck with very little cost.
Legendaries should be 2x stronger and common + rare cards should be shit cards nobody wants to use, but they have to until they get better cards.
Beta player - every expansion allows this game to become more of an RNG or hyper agro fiesta.
Player ladder or competitive feels bad winning or losing. Volatile is a great word for the game. There is little to no reward anymore.
It just caters too much to new/casual/low skilled players. RNG is good at the right level balanced with skill.
And yes I'm consistently legend, sometimes high legend) even before the ladder change. And the RNG bs is at all levels.
I think hearthstone is heading to the dumpster. Too much RNG, too much highroll bullshit you can't do anything about and too many decks you can't interact with at all. It's basically becoming a single player game.
I could not disagree more with this take. It would take forever for new players to get a playable deck if rares and commons were bad. Plus, if legendaries were the strongest cards, every deck would be playing the same legendaries which would make the meta feel so stale. This is literally why Ragnaros and Sylvanas were hall of famed: they were solid cards that could be slotted into any deck, which made decks and classes feel less unique. Commons and rares should be the backbone of every deck. Legendaries should be interesting and unique, either a strong one-off effect, or a card you build your deck around.
To return to the subject, I started playing Hearthstone after the Old Gods expansion, so four years. In that time, Hearthstone has only gotten better IMO. Generally, metas have gotten more balanced, allowing for a greater variety of decks, and match-ups have become more equal and play out in different ways every time. To me, Hearthstone has never been more enjoyable than it is now.
Hs is better than ever
Here's my "unpopular" take...at least I have Horace's support ; )
I started playing in December of 2014 and I enjoy the game as much now as I did when I started. It has certainly evolved for better or worse (seems most people in this thread agree on the latter). I can't argue that there have been some (very?) unfun metas along the way but overall I still really like playing the game.
I tend to focus on single player and playing with friends, which has probably helped to keep my sanity over the years; especially when the meta was not in a great place. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
"There is no spoon"
I really do not mind some light RNG, but hey, when games are dictated by a single heavy RNG swing that is NO fun; I started playing since the beginning, nowadays I only do dailies. Losing against only luck/RNG and not by an inch of skill is unfun and frustrating.
I've played almost since the beginning, before Naxx and GvG, and while certain things are maybe as good or better, I definitely do not enjoy the game like I used to. Part of it is just being jaded, I suppose, but a lot of it is because I don't enjoy copy/pasting top decks and winning or losing based almost entirely due to matchups. There have always been elements of this, of course, but right now it feels to me that the favored netdecks in every class are just too airtight, and will unfailingly win or lose almost every match simply based on matchup. The fact that those decks are mostly what you see in casual doesn't really help either, whether it's druids ramping up to 7-10 mana and ALSO having the payoff cards, or paladin spamming those librams, or those horrible Priest decks that make you want to slit your wrists - there's not a lot of room for you to experiment and win with off-meta cards or clever gameplay. What fun I end up having depends mostly on what kind of matchups I end up queueing into - if i'm fortunate, I have a decent time, if not, I'm mostly annoyed, and if I'm playing my favorite class (Warlock), then I'm just a sad panda.
I'm not sure I agree with there being that much more rng than back in the days. Just remember all the Mage opponents coining out Dr. Boom they got from Unstable Portal on turn 3.
But the second point is absolutely true and I don't like it either. Due to power creep some cards just have become extremely powerful for little effort, which makes the game kinda unfun. Also there have been way more stupid OTK decks the past expansions than there used to be back in the days.
Annoy-o-Tron: deathriddle: 'Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye'
My battle tag is Fely#.... Can you find all the digits after the #. They're hidden amongst my profile, it's like an easter egg hunt.
<3.14159265359 you!
Now Stop checking my spoilers!
Spoiler
43Fely#2...
Empty
Bonus Spoiler
HS jumped the shark years ago.
I think the game is in a temporary bad state. It was like this back when odd pally was the craze too. But they came back from that crap show and i think they will come back from this one.
Basically im just sitting this cycle out, planning on a course correction coming next release.
Galavant Animation
Been playing almost every day for the past 18 months and I'm finding diminishing returns in my enjoyment of standard. The climb in ranking has lost all fun appeal and has become nothing more than a grind against the same handful of decks over and over.
Recently, I've found out that I had 8 Arena tickets I've accumulated from expansion purchases and events. I've never been into arena but I'm finding it to be a breath of fresh air. The challenge of seeing how far I can make it on a run with a particular deck has become infinitely more fun than 'face hunter, face hunter, pure paladin, mage, mage, face hunter, paladin, mage, face hunter, etc.'
I think I'm at a point right now where I will just be content getting my 5 ranked wins in the bronze level and then forget about standard for the rest of the month....don't really care about what my bonus star level is at this point.
hearthstone is doomed
It is too late now.The only thing can save Hearthstone now is Hearthstone 2.0, where the devs can start flesh with all mistakes learnt.
i think too that in the past hearthstone was better, required more skill and was less rng in the game... i have been playing since Naxx but nowadays i just log in and complete the daily quests and hoping for a better expansion every time. :)
I'm playing since LoE. My enjoyment of the game had ups and downs. There are things I like and things that I don't like.
RNG certainly is something I'm not too happy about. I'm not against any kind of randomness, but the prevalence and impact of random effects has become far too much for me. Variety is nice and all, but it just feels dumb when every other game is decided by cards that were randomly created. There were always cards that stretched the concept of 30 cards per deck a little bit, but for the most part, you knew what to expect. Random and Discover are so ubiquitous now, that most decks utilize some sort of card generation, and some even rely on it entirely. The flexibility of discover has become so cheap that there's virtually no downside to it anymore. Just compare Ethereal Conjurer with Wand Thief.
Considering that (normally) most Tavern Brawls are nothing but random, and Tavern Brawl is available all week nowadays, I don't really understand why Constructed needs to have SO much random effects as well, with another dozen being added every single expansion. I mean, people who enjoy random elements get more than enough of that, but I'd like to see a bigger emphasis on strategy again, at least in Constructed.
Something else that increasingly bothers me is the importance of legendaries. It's nice that there are generally less terrible legendaries nowadays, but in return, there are so many good/interesting ones that I sometimes feel like there's no point in playing anything unrefined. And especially when an expansion launches, it's like "this sounds cool, but I would need to invest 6k dust just for this". For example, Big Warrior sounded kinda fun, but I'm not gonna craft The Boomship, Rattlegore, Colossus of the Moon, Deathwing, Mad Aspect and maybe something else, just to try it out one deck.
That being said, I don't think the developers lack creativity, on the contrary. I think there were quite a few pretty cool ideas in the last few expansions, some of them just undercooked. And I like it that the card quality has generally gone up, and it's not 75% pack filler anymore. Better cards will generally contribute to a more dynamic game, I think. It's more fun if you don't have to fill your deck with cards that are "just ok".
Not to mention that they've shown some serious effort lately to FINALLY make the game more interesting. Battlegrounds was a great idea, the ladder overhaul was a nice, though it could get refined a bit, Demon Hunter was finally added (and maybe Death Knight and Monk following someday), the pack rule changes were great, and we are gonna get yet another mode coming this year, and new a reward system (let's hope it won't ruin everything) and even a reworked Classic and Basic set next year. I'm not expecting too much, but maybe they'll finally sort out some completely useless cards like Warsong Commander. Also, balance patches are not a maybe-someday and class-destroying anymore. And buffs actually are a thing these days!
Not every change is pure gold, but I really appreciate that they try to improve. Just over the last year, they've put more (visible) effort into the game, than the previous 2 years combined.