Now I like Battlegrounds a lot and hopefully I will like Mercenary Mode but they don't really feel like HS do they?
So how about a Mode that is more HS than HS instead.
The decks I always enjoyed the most were janky meme/theme decks. And I'd argue this is what most people imagine when they first think about the potential of card games. Except they don't really work forcing some very suboptimal ways of playing. Or arguably ever worse optimizing the deck until only the faint glimmer of the original fun idea remains. The number of decks that are fun and unique while also being top tier is a very, very precious few throughout the entirety of the history of HS. Blizzard often adds interesting and flavourful mechanics and families of cards each expansion that see little or minimal play because they just aren't cookie cutter enough. But what if there was a mode that changed that?
So as some may have already guessed the idea is partially inspired by the upcoming Tavern Brawl, the kind we often get at launch of new expansions where we get to play around with Blizz built decks as well as those Blizzard made recipes you see when you go to make a new deck. It is a mode where we use Blizz made, prebuilt decks only. That way these fun decks can compete, cards that see tragically little use can shine, it is a good preview of the expansion and so on. The decks would be balanced so as to all be roughly equally good (bad :P). To prevent a situation where it is decided that say the Mage deck is 0.5% above average and the meta becomes heavily saturated by Mage and whatever is the best counter to Mage each class would have something like 2-5 prebuilt decks ( 3 is probably the magic number) and you don't know which one you will get when you queue up as that class. The decks of the same class can also be balanced to keep each other in check.
All in all I imagine this format would be a lot of fun at the very least and potentially quite popular since new and F2P players can just jump right into it, the size of your collection does not matter (though the idea can be modified that it expressly does but that would weaken it imo) just your piloting skills. And the decks are optimized to be fun and balanced not for soulless value or tempo which I know tires many players out after a while.
There are some issues ofc. The most obvious is does Blizzard want us to be able to use all these varied cards just like that? Like these decks are expressly designed to be flavourfull and varied so a lot if not all cards of the current expansion and to a lesser extent Year will appear in one deck or another. I think they would and here is why. You don't own those cards, you only get to use them in a specific preset deck if you happen to roll that deck. So very limited use, similar to how we get random cards in some Brawls and so on. Plus these decks and cards serve a promo use, this is what is possible in HS, the fun or the value if you want to optimize them. Seeing and using the cards as they are meant to should stoke the desire to own them and use them in your own ways. Furthermore with the increasing cosmetics monetization and suboptimal dust economy (increased number of legendary cards, not sure about epics) this would be a nice player friendly gesture.
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
No,bad idea. The 90% of fun for me personally is deckbuilding. To create your deck or modify an existing is what HS is about, not playing premade decks
No,bad idea. The 90% of fun for me personally is deckbuilding. To create your deck or modify an existing is what HS is about, not playing premade decks
This man said everything.
The number of decks that are fun and unique while also being top tier is a very, very precious few throughout the entirety of the history of HS.
Every deck is unique. Fun is subjective and mostly based on how much a deck is beeing played, not how cool are the interactions within the deck. Wild Secret mage would be a super fun deck if it hadn't been preying on homebrew and control decks in low ranks for years.
It is a mode where we use Blizz made, prebuilt decks only.
They are some of the most uninspired and unrefined decks but ok, I guess that's your definition of fun.
When I see a card/deck that I think is strong/cool but nobody plays it, well, I play it, or try at least. Currently I'm playing a midrange corrupt DH deck with a ton of unused card, and guess what, it works fine i'm having better results than the cookie cutter meta aggro deck, no need for a specific game mode.
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
There is a button that does exactly that in the deck builder, I'm not really sure what's the added benefit of making it an actual game mode, just auto complete your decks if you want to
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
There is a button that does exactly that in the deck builder, I'm not really sure what's the added benefit of making it an actual game mode, just auto complete your decks if you want to
Because autocomplete decks usually suck. If both players have to use them, it becomes much more interesting.
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
There is a button that does exactly that in the deck builder, I'm not really sure what's the added benefit of making it an actual game mode, just auto complete your decks if you want to
Because autocomplete decks usually suck. If both players have to use them, it becomes much more interesting.
I guess you're right it sucks less if both players suck but can't you play with friends ?
I had a lot of ideas like that as well, for example only one expansion allowed to build your deck, autocomplete, rarity based, etc, but it's really not innovative enough to justify a new game mode.
Or basically they should make a permanent tavern brawl game mode where players can chose individually what type of brawls they wanna play or make custom ones.
Still a crazy amount of work for the devs, for something you can basically do manually against friends.
It's like the new Nozdormu card. People have the option if they want and hope to match against other Nozdormu players (which is supsect the matchmaking system is fully able to do), but they can't expect blizzard or the community to just build a game mode with 15 seconds rope.
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
There is a button that does exactly that in the deck builder, I'm not really sure what's the added benefit of making it an actual game mode, just auto complete your decks if you want to
Because autocomplete decks usually suck. If both players have to use them, it becomes much more interesting.
I guess you're right it sucks less if both players suck but can't you play with friends ?
I had a lot of ideas like that as well, for example only one expansion allowed to build your deck, autocomplete, rarity based, etc, but it's really not innovative enough to justify a new game mode.
Or basically they should make a permanent tavern brawl game mode where players can chose individually what type of brawls they wanna play or make custom ones.
Still a crazy amount of work for the devs, for something you can basically do manually against friends.
It's like the new Nozdormu card. People have the option if they want and hope to match against other Nozdormu players (which is supsect the matchmaking system is fully able to do), but they can't expect blizzard or the community to just build a game mode with 15 seconds rope.
I wouldn't mind having a permanent tavern brawl mode where it's randomized every game. You could pre-build decks for every tavern brawl available in the mode (could be limited to 20 or something at a time) and then when you match with someone, it picks one of the brawls randomly. Wouldn't really need to do much extra work, just create a deck collection interface specifically for brawl. Would be a much more replayable version of tavern brawl since you wouldn't just be playing the same thing over and over again.
So as some may have already guessed the idea is partially inspired by the upcoming Tavern Brawl, the kind we often get at launch of new expansions where we get to play around with Blizz built decks as well as those Blizzard made recipes you see when you go to make a new deck. It is a mode where we use Blizz made, prebuilt decks only. That way these fun decks can compete, cards that see tragically little use can shine, it is a good preview of the expansion and so on.
There's a lot of mode suggestions I've read like this that, while they're not terrible, they don't really seem worth justifying an entire mode.
Counterpoint: add a second Tavern Brawl. One will be the standard Weekly one. The other will have a longer length (4 weeks? 6? 8?) and maybe even a ladder. Yeah, having a Tavern Brawl and a separate "Ladder Brawl" might be cool.
It could be pre-constructed. It could be constructed with a very strange set of deckbuilding rules. Maybe it's just one of the constant buffs, like spells summoning random minions. Having a medium-length season (shorter than a release cycle!) gives enough time for folks who are Ladder Brawl streamers to get involved, a meta to develop, maybe a counter-meta.
But it also expires. Pre-constructed is going to lose interest for a lot of folks before too long. Likewise some of the odd construction rules, where maybe it's only cards from two or three expansions and no Basic/Classic/Core. Heck, I worry "Legacy" will be too niche and won't really succeed, and might be better as a recurring staple in a hypothetical Ladder Brawl.
I like all the thought you put into this. However, for me, having a deck that's top-tier and fun is good enough. I don't need it to be "unique". I say this as someone who basically only uses homebrew decks. Besides, I don't think Blizzard-created decks would be more "unique" anyways because, by definition, we would literally be forced to play the same decks as everyone else. In addition, "fun" might not be as objective and clearly cut as you make it out to be. For a lot of people, the joy of playing is built on deck building. Lastly, one of the chief joys of meme decks, in my opinion, is crushing a meta deck with the meme, even if it only occurs 1 in 10 games, or whatever.
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
Obviously I don't like this idea as much but it could work, though probably just TB material. You see I like to play AI finished decks with my friends and one thing you notice after a while is that it always finishes the deck the same away. So some exploitability there.
As for your complaint, when you roll ladder you get maybe 10 decks representing the vast majority of all you will see... so how is that different or better? :P Here we would have between 20-50 decks all balanced as well as can be. Furthermore the decks are optimized to be interesting and cool not for raw power which should help with replayability. Plus taking away the deckbuilding aspect makes it more like chess where you know exactly what they have and so the plays become a lot more strategic. There is appeal in that certainty too. Not to mention the equality this mode brings.
@PetiteMouche Show some imagination man, not 100% like Blizz recipes now but it is a rough outline to get people thinking in the proper direction. One thing I've noticed about Blizz recipes is they tend to be quite well themed. That is the kind of decks I'd put in this mode, theme decks (like say those Watch Towers from Barrens), fun decks (Deck of Madness for example) and meme decks (weird combos and synergies). So similar to Blizz ones but better and well balanced which is easier for decks not built for max power but to be interesting. You can always make decks like these better or worse by adding better or worse stand alone cards.
Anyway guessing you will never like this idea, and that's fine. Not everyone has to like it, arguably not even most people. As Blizz said just because a mode does not have the popularity of BGs or Ranked Standard doesn't make it a dead mode. There are still thousands of players who enjoy those other modes. And this one could be one of them, I know I'd love it. People tired of uber optimized decks and value would like it. People who want a more consistent game. New players and players with small collections. People who dislike deckbuilding and so on. Don't think an idea is bad just because you dislike it.
I have been thinking about this some more, rather than getting one of the few prebuilt decks for your class randomly when you queue you could instead see how the deck looks beforehand but unable to change it, kind of how it is in Book of Heroes. That way you can better prepare for your match by knowing exactly what deck you got and what is in it. But you still have 2-5 decks per class and they rotate either regularly or randomly, so you can't always aim for one particular deck just because it is slightly overtuned. You still randomly get one of the 2-5 decks you just know going into the game which one you got. It avoids confusion and serves the "deterministic" nature of this mode.
Also we did not get the "play with new expansion decks" Brawl : / Seems it was only a special Brawl for the pre-order opening event in (virtual) fireside gatherings. Major suckage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Now I like Battlegrounds a lot and hopefully I will like Mercenary Mode but they don't really feel like HS do they?
So how about a Mode that is more HS than HS instead.
The decks I always enjoyed the most were janky meme/theme decks. And I'd argue this is what most people imagine when they first think about the potential of card games. Except they don't really work forcing some very suboptimal ways of playing. Or arguably ever worse optimizing the deck until only the faint glimmer of the original fun idea remains. The number of decks that are fun and unique while also being top tier is a very, very precious few throughout the entirety of the history of HS. Blizzard often adds interesting and flavourful mechanics and families of cards each expansion that see little or minimal play because they just aren't cookie cutter enough. But what if there was a mode that changed that?
So as some may have already guessed the idea is partially inspired by the upcoming Tavern Brawl, the kind we often get at launch of new expansions where we get to play around with Blizz built decks as well as those Blizzard made recipes you see when you go to make a new deck. It is a mode where we use Blizz made, prebuilt decks only. That way these fun decks can compete, cards that see tragically little use can shine, it is a good preview of the expansion and so on. The decks would be balanced so as to all be roughly equally good (bad :P). To prevent a situation where it is decided that say the Mage deck is 0.5% above average and the meta becomes heavily saturated by Mage and whatever is the best counter to Mage each class would have something like 2-5 prebuilt decks ( 3 is probably the magic number) and you don't know which one you will get when you queue up as that class. The decks of the same class can also be balanced to keep each other in check.
All in all I imagine this format would be a lot of fun at the very least and potentially quite popular since new and F2P players can just jump right into it, the size of your collection does not matter (though the idea can be modified that it expressly does but that would weaken it imo) just your piloting skills. And the decks are optimized to be fun and balanced not for soulless value or tempo which I know tires many players out after a while.
There are some issues ofc. The most obvious is does Blizzard want us to be able to use all these varied cards just like that? Like these decks are expressly designed to be flavourfull and varied so a lot if not all cards of the current expansion and to a lesser extent Year will appear in one deck or another. I think they would and here is why. You don't own those cards, you only get to use them in a specific preset deck if you happen to roll that deck. So very limited use, similar to how we get random cards in some Brawls and so on. Plus these decks and cards serve a promo use, this is what is possible in HS, the fun or the value if you want to optimize them. Seeing and using the cards as they are meant to should stoke the desire to own them and use them in your own ways. Furthermore with the increasing cosmetics monetization and suboptimal dust economy (increased number of legendary cards, not sure about epics) this would be a nice player friendly gesture.
So, what do you guys think?
Idk, I feel like that mode would get old pretty fast, considering it’s basically a slightly more complex tavern brawl. I think it would be fun to have an “autocomplete” mode, where we get to choose 1 card. Literally any card we want, and then let the autocomplete bot finish the deck and we have to use that. Could even have it use cards not in the collection, to get a similar “preview” feeling to cards we don’t have. Would create some hilariously memey matchups
No,bad idea. The 90% of fun for me personally is deckbuilding. To create your deck or modify an existing is what HS is about, not playing premade decks
This man said everything.
Every deck is unique. Fun is subjective and mostly based on how much a deck is beeing played, not how cool are the interactions within the deck. Wild Secret mage would be a super fun deck if it hadn't been preying on homebrew and control decks in low ranks for years.
They are some of the most uninspired and unrefined decks but ok, I guess that's your definition of fun.
When I see a card/deck that I think is strong/cool but nobody plays it, well, I play it, or try at least. Currently I'm playing a midrange corrupt DH deck with a ton of unused card, and guess what, it works fine i'm having better results than the cookie cutter meta aggro deck, no need for a specific game mode.
There is a button that does exactly that in the deck builder, I'm not really sure what's the added benefit of making it an actual game mode, just auto complete your decks if you want to
Because autocomplete decks usually suck. If both players have to use them, it becomes much more interesting.
I guess you're right it sucks less if both players suck but can't you play with friends ?
I had a lot of ideas like that as well, for example only one expansion allowed to build your deck, autocomplete, rarity based, etc, but it's really not innovative enough to justify a new game mode.
Or basically they should make a permanent tavern brawl game mode where players can chose individually what type of brawls they wanna play or make custom ones.
Still a crazy amount of work for the devs, for something you can basically do manually against friends.
It's like the new Nozdormu card. People have the option if they want and hope to match against other Nozdormu players (which is supsect the matchmaking system is fully able to do), but they can't expect blizzard or the community to just build a game mode with 15 seconds rope.
double post
I wouldn't mind having a permanent tavern brawl mode where it's randomized every game. You could pre-build decks for every tavern brawl available in the mode (could be limited to 20 or something at a time) and then when you match with someone, it picks one of the brawls randomly. Wouldn't really need to do much extra work, just create a deck collection interface specifically for brawl. Would be a much more replayable version of tavern brawl since you wouldn't just be playing the same thing over and over again.
There's a lot of mode suggestions I've read like this that, while they're not terrible, they don't really seem worth justifying an entire mode.
Counterpoint: add a second Tavern Brawl. One will be the standard Weekly one. The other will have a longer length (4 weeks? 6? 8?) and maybe even a ladder. Yeah, having a Tavern Brawl and a separate "Ladder Brawl" might be cool.
It could be pre-constructed. It could be constructed with a very strange set of deckbuilding rules. Maybe it's just one of the constant buffs, like spells summoning random minions. Having a medium-length season (shorter than a release cycle!) gives enough time for folks who are Ladder Brawl streamers to get involved, a meta to develop, maybe a counter-meta.
But it also expires. Pre-constructed is going to lose interest for a lot of folks before too long. Likewise some of the odd construction rules, where maybe it's only cards from two or three expansions and no Basic/Classic/Core. Heck, I worry "Legacy" will be too niche and won't really succeed, and might be better as a recurring staple in a hypothetical Ladder Brawl.
I like all the thought you put into this. However, for me, having a deck that's top-tier and fun is good enough. I don't need it to be "unique". I say this as someone who basically only uses homebrew decks. Besides, I don't think Blizzard-created decks would be more "unique" anyways because, by definition, we would literally be forced to play the same decks as everyone else. In addition, "fun" might not be as objective and clearly cut as you make it out to be. For a lot of people, the joy of playing is built on deck building. Lastly, one of the chief joys of meme decks, in my opinion, is crushing a meta deck with the meme, even if it only occurs 1 in 10 games, or whatever.
Obviously I don't like this idea as much but it could work, though probably just TB material. You see I like to play AI finished decks with my friends and one thing you notice after a while is that it always finishes the deck the same away. So some exploitability there.
As for your complaint, when you roll ladder you get maybe 10 decks representing the vast majority of all you will see... so how is that different or better? :P Here we would have between 20-50 decks all balanced as well as can be. Furthermore the decks are optimized to be interesting and cool not for raw power which should help with replayability. Plus taking away the deckbuilding aspect makes it more like chess where you know exactly what they have and so the plays become a lot more strategic. There is appeal in that certainty too. Not to mention the equality this mode brings.
@PetiteMouche Show some imagination man, not 100% like Blizz recipes now but it is a rough outline to get people thinking in the proper direction. One thing I've noticed about Blizz recipes is they tend to be quite well themed. That is the kind of decks I'd put in this mode, theme decks (like say those Watch Towers from Barrens), fun decks (Deck of Madness for example) and meme decks (weird combos and synergies). So similar to Blizz ones but better and well balanced which is easier for decks not built for max power but to be interesting. You can always make decks like these better or worse by adding better or worse stand alone cards.
Anyway guessing you will never like this idea, and that's fine. Not everyone has to like it, arguably not even most people. As Blizz said just because a mode does not have the popularity of BGs or Ranked Standard doesn't make it a dead mode. There are still thousands of players who enjoy those other modes. And this one could be one of them, I know I'd love it. People tired of uber optimized decks and value would like it. People who want a more consistent game. New players and players with small collections. People who dislike deckbuilding and so on. Don't think an idea is bad just because you dislike it.
I have been thinking about this some more, rather than getting one of the few prebuilt decks for your class randomly when you queue you could instead see how the deck looks beforehand but unable to change it, kind of how it is in Book of Heroes. That way you can better prepare for your match by knowing exactly what deck you got and what is in it. But you still have 2-5 decks per class and they rotate either regularly or randomly, so you can't always aim for one particular deck just because it is slightly overtuned. You still randomly get one of the 2-5 decks you just know going into the game which one you got. It avoids confusion and serves the "deterministic" nature of this mode.
Also we did not get the "play with new expansion decks" Brawl : / Seems it was only a special Brawl for the pre-order opening event in (virtual) fireside gatherings. Major suckage.