So we are getting 5 nerfs and 10 buffs. Everyone rejoice!
But I enjoyed the game much more before the post nerfs than afterwards. I wasnt even playing them a ton, it was that games were just more fun in general before they nerfed them.
I hope the changes are good, but I am skeptical. Giving shaman a bursty burn deck doesnt do anything to make the game better afaict.
Do I really want to face a new and improved murloc shaman??
Would rogue getting a stronger poison add to my enjoyment??
Ugg. Im afraid blizz will just make things worse.
If you ask me, restore the posts and buff the 4post. That would be a good start.
I say this because it seems like the time between expansions/mini sets feels like a long time, and anything that can be done to shake up the meta and make people try different things will bring a breath of fresh air to the whole game until a major change happens.
So honestly, no matter what they do, as long as it doesn't completely kill a class or archetype... or make something so strong that it suddenly dominates all other decks... should be good for the overall interest of the players.
Ok, and I'm fine with facing any aggro deck as long as it fights for the board initially and in general would like Rogue to be the worst class in the game forever as it doesn't looks fun or interactive for me. Should I promote my biased and unreasonable opinion as a thing that "make the game better" too? Watch posts were one of the worst card designs in the entire history of the game and you want them to be OP again, it doesn't make any sense even for an aggro hater, only for a player who actually wants to make the game as non-interactive as possible.
Ok, and I'm fine with facing any aggro deck as long as it fights for the board initially and in general would like Rogue to be the worst class in the game forever as it doesn't looks fun or interactive for me. Should I promote my biased and unreasonable opinion as a thing that "make the game better" too? Watch posts were one of the worst card designs in the entire history of the game and you want them to be OP again, it doesn't make any sense even for an aggro hater, only for a player who actually want to make game as non-interactive as possible.
I'd really love to hear what is an interactive deck. Because according to this community, literally no deck is interactive. Priest decks aren't interactive at all because they never give you anything to work off of, they just create random stuff forever until you can't deal with it. OTK dh and any kind of combo deck of course isn't interactive, control warlock isn't interactive because it has infinite removal (as I've read so many times) and tickatus is sooo not interactive. Mage isn't interactive because idk, people just start whining about incanter's flow and refreshing spring water and that somehow makes the deck uninteractive. Rogue isn't interactive because it just goes face and deals damage from hand. Druid decks aren't interactive because they either fill the board of 2/2s on turn 1 or they have 10 mana when you have 4. Hunter isn't interactive because it only goes face and can do so whatever you do about it. The only existing shaman archetype isn't interactive because it's basically rogue if rogue were complete shite. And also shaman is a dead class anyway so who cares.
What's left? Paladin, that everyone and their mothers are complaining about? Oh, I guess warrior is an interactive deck, there, we officially have one.
Change is good most of the time, though. And changes that are made with the intent to improve things should be considered. I think every class should have a good deck. So yeah, I do want Shaman to have some insane burn deck or whatever - because if that's what it takes for Shaman to have a good deck then at least we have something to work with in a previously terrible class.
Also, the game has like a bajillion million billion players or something like that. Valuing your own enjoyment over theirs, while understandable and I endorse that most of the time, isn't really helpful when talking about nerfs/buffs. Value your own enjoyment over others on a game-to-game basis. Play whatever you want that brings you joy, that's what video games are for. Nothing will ever make every person happy. Nothing ever makes Hearthstone players happy. But these improvements might make enough people happy to make them worth trying.
Very few decks AREN'T interactive. Interactivity is actually fairly objective and easy to measure, and the most encompassing definition I've ever seen is as follows: "Interactivity is the extent to which a deck's path to victory and/or avoidance of defeat is changed by the actions of the opponent".
In the recent past of Standard, only one deck jumps to mind as rating very LOW in interactivity, and that is Secret Mage of the Whispers/Un'goro block meta. Because the deck was frequently able to play secrets at the same time as attacking creatures, and because the particular arsenal of secrets (Counterspell and Explosive Runes) lent themselves to the aggro race quite nicely, many games played with that deck were played in exactly the same way regardless of the opponent's plays, racing to deal 30 damage to face as soon as humanly possible. Absent a taunt minion or an equally fast aggro deck that manages to get ahead of you in the damage race, very few games involve combat trading or targeting burn spells on anything other than the opponent's face.
One might read this and assume the same could be said for all aggro decks, but many aggro decks have matchups where the gameplan is to fight for tempo and board instead. A good counterexample was the Tempo Rogue deck after Kobolds and Catacombs which used Keleseth and the powerful combo cards Elven Minstrel and Vilespine Slayer to either fight for the board or go to the face.
Ironically, many of the decks most described as "uninteractive" are the MOST interactive decks. Combo and Control decks have to be very responsive to opponent's threats and match answers to threats as efficiently as possible. Some folks will call Tickatus Lock uninteractive because of an abundance of answers sometimes not requiring maximum efficiency to win, but that's a totally separate complaint.
As for the nerfs/buffs coming up, I don't recall every seeing 15 at one time. As a math-minded person, I wish they would split it into two patches with a week in between, because when you alter 15 variables at once, it is very difficult to isolate what affected what in the meta. Nevertheless, we shall see how it goes.
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I'm not complaining about Rogue here, it was symmetric statement in "I don't like it so it's bad for the game" rhetoric. Serious part was only about watch posts, which in some cases just not allowed your opponents to play cards at all and made some arena games decided on turn 2, so yeah, those are non-interactive enough to not be OP ever again.
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English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Very few decks AREN'T interactive. Interactivity is actually fairly objective and easy to measure, and the most encompassing definition I've ever seen is as follows: "Interactivity is the extent to which a deck's path to victory and/or avoidance of defeat is changed by the actions of the opponent".
Interactivity, by first definition from google (from "Oxford Languages"), is "the process of two people or things working together and influencing each other". So, in my opinion, both face decks and combo decks can be equally non-interactive, and the closer archetype to midrange, the more interactive it is.
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English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I find this conversation about "interactive" quite interesting, and not something I'd really thought of before. I wonder if, when people talk about a deck not being interactive, they mean that there are no swings in momentum. One player is always the beat-down and the other is always the control. "This aggro deck is not interactive because no matter what minion of theirs I kill, there's always another one going face." "This control deck is not interactive because no matter what minions I play, they always remove them."
I'm not saying that's the RIGHT definition of interactive or even a GOOD one. Just that I wonder if that's actually what people mean.
I find this conversation about "interactive" quite interesting, and not something I'd really thought of before. I wonder if, when people talk about a deck not being interactive, they mean that there are no swings in momentum. One player is always the beat-down and the other is always the control. "This aggro deck is not interactive because no matter what minion of theirs I kill, there's always another one going face." "This control deck is not interactive because no matter what minions I play, they always remove them."
I'm not saying that's the RIGHT definition of interactive or even a GOOD one. Just that I wonder if that's actually what people mean.
I think you are onto something. My impression is that 'not interactive' is used when a player does 'a lot' in one turn and the other one is just watching it all unfold. Rogue, Mage and Priest come to mind immediately with their shenanigans to fit this description. I do not think it's right, a player is just using their turn as best as they can with the tools they've got, but it leaves an impression.
Another 'not interactive' is when there exists a strategy with no counterplay (or it's so inconvenient that nobody plays it). Warlock comes to mind with Tick. I think for a Warlock player it doesn't get any more interactive than burning 5 cards for an opponent! The way to survive is of course kill the Warlock before then but I think people would like to survive Tick and because there is no good way of doing that it's not interactive.
I think yet another 'not interactive' is where one deck becomes strong and dominates the meta and an answer exists but hasn't been found yet (or nerfs need to be introduced to help out a bit). This one is tricky to judge but usually counters are found relatively quickly.
All in all, I think this game is very interactive, all about trading blows and influencing each other. You constantly have to think what to play next, anticipate what the opponent might do, decide to play a card or keep it, do you go face or do you kill a minion etc.
Nerfs are good 80% of the time (barnes, watch posts, power word shield, bloodbloom, some bad nerfs here and there)
And change in and of itself is good for a card game. I think it's great that 15 cards are being changed at the same time, regardless of the individual impact of each nerf/buff.
Anything that promotes deck building and changes in the meta is good for me. I just don't like when everything is figured out and you know exactly what you can and can't build in the meta.
I must say I'm surprised they make such a huge change right before the launch of the mini set, do they expect the mini set to have no impact on the meta ? Or do they expect it to make things even worse balance wise ?
I don't really care what they nerf but hopefully they buff shaman a little bit. Card draw plz.
Power word shield was a god awful nerf and it’s rightfully reverted. Same principal applies to watchposts which were competitive, yet manageable, and are now hotdog water filled with floating dentures.
Caravans probably getting buffed, then all the watchpost whiners can become caravan complainers and the snake that eats it’s own tail continues it’s slithery little snakes life cycle.
Power word shield was a god awful nerf and it’s rightfully reverted. Same principal applies to watchposts which were competitive, yet manageable, and are now hotdog water filled with floating dentures.
Yes exactly. I'd be extremely surprised if they don't revert the watch posts nerfs when they rotate to Wild.
Caravans probably getting buffed
I hope not, i want more interesting cards to get buffs. Especially the warlock caravan you can't buff that thing even at 0 mana 0/5 it's still trash.
I agree that post nerfs I usually feel the least motivated to play. Mainly because it feels that every ex-tier 1 deck wet noodles the other ex-tier 1 decks. But buffs are always exciting.
Nerfs are good 80% of the time (barnes, watch posts, power word shield, bloodbloom, some bad nerfs here and there)
And change in and of itself is good for a card game. I think it's great that 15 cards are being changed at the same time, regardless of the individual impact of each nerf/buff.
Anything that promotes deck building and changes in the meta is good for me. I just don't like when everything is figured out and you know exactly what you can and can't build in the meta.
I must say I'm surprised they make such a huge change right before the launch of the mini set, do they expect the mini set to have no impact on the meta ? Or do they expect it to make things even worse balance wise ?
I don't really care what they nerf but hopefully they buff shaman a little bit. Card draw plz.
There's at least about 3 weeks to the miniset. Nice to have a fresh meta for a bit.
Very few decks AREN'T interactive. Interactivity is actually fairly objective and easy to measure, and the most encompassing definition I've ever seen is as follows: "Interactivity is the extent to which a deck's path to victory and/or avoidance of defeat is changed by the actions of the opponent".
Interactivity, by first definition from google (from "Oxford Languages"), is "the process of two people or things working together and influencing each other". So, in my opinion, both face decks and combo decks can be equally non-interactive, and the closer archetype to midrange, the more interactive it is.
Except there is no combo deck that goes off fast enough to ignore enemy threats, at least in standard. So every combo deck is very interactive when it comes to an opponent's threats, or they die.
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Interactivity, by first definition from google (from "Oxford Languages"), is "the process of two people or things working together and influencing each other". So, in my opinion, both face decks and combo decks can be equally non-interactive, and the closer archetype to midrange, the more interactive it is.
Except there is no combo deck that goes off fast enough to ignore enemy threats, at least in standard. So every combo deck is very interactive when it comes to an opponent's threats, or they die.
Yes, there is no fully non-interactive combo deck in standard. I agree with that, I disagree with your definition of interactivity. Just extending the game and surviving enemy threats is not interactive for your enemy and both sides are important.
Atm i really hope they change something. Just now i played against 2 APM mages and Celestial Alignment druids...and it just ain fun if you come with your "regular" deck to the game. I just play for 5-6 turns, nothing much is happening.
Then i watch a 30 mins turn with 700 spells and im dead. OTK is a normal mechanic in HS, its ok, like Quest mage...or Raza priest...but hey, not at turn 5! What are my counter cards good for if i cant even play them before the OTK cause their cost is higher then the mana available at that time.
So we are getting 5 nerfs and 10 buffs. Everyone rejoice!
But I enjoyed the game much more before the post nerfs than afterwards. I wasnt even playing them a ton, it was that games were just more fun in general before they nerfed them.
I hope the changes are good, but I am skeptical. Giving shaman a bursty burn deck doesnt do anything to make the game better afaict.
Do I really want to face a new and improved murloc shaman??
Would rogue getting a stronger poison add to my enjoyment??
Ugg. Im afraid blizz will just make things worse.
If you ask me, restore the posts and buff the 4post. That would be a good start.
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I think in this game, change is always good.
I say this because it seems like the time between expansions/mini sets feels like a long time, and anything that can be done to shake up the meta and make people try different things will bring a breath of fresh air to the whole game until a major change happens.
So honestly, no matter what they do, as long as it doesn't completely kill a class or archetype... or make something so strong that it suddenly dominates all other decks... should be good for the overall interest of the players.
That's just one person's opinion, anyway.
Ok, and I'm fine with facing any aggro deck as long as it fights for the board initially and in general would like Rogue to be the worst class in the game forever as it doesn't looks fun or interactive for me. Should I promote my biased and unreasonable opinion as a thing that "make the game better" too?
Watch posts were one of the worst card designs in the entire history of the game and you want them to be OP again, it doesn't make any sense even for an aggro hater, only for a player who actually wants to make the game as non-interactive as possible.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I'd really love to hear what is an interactive deck. Because according to this community, literally no deck is interactive. Priest decks aren't interactive at all because they never give you anything to work off of, they just create random stuff forever until you can't deal with it. OTK dh and any kind of combo deck of course isn't interactive, control warlock isn't interactive because it has infinite removal (as I've read so many times) and tickatus is sooo not interactive. Mage isn't interactive because idk, people just start whining about incanter's flow and refreshing spring water and that somehow makes the deck uninteractive. Rogue isn't interactive because it just goes face and deals damage from hand. Druid decks aren't interactive because they either fill the board of 2/2s on turn 1 or they have 10 mana when you have 4. Hunter isn't interactive because it only goes face and can do so whatever you do about it. The only existing shaman archetype isn't interactive because it's basically rogue if rogue were complete shite. And also shaman is a dead class anyway so who cares.
What's left? Paladin, that everyone and their mothers are complaining about? Oh, I guess warrior is an interactive deck, there, we officially have one.
Change is good most of the time, though. And changes that are made with the intent to improve things should be considered.
I think every class should have a good deck. So yeah, I do want Shaman to have some insane burn deck or whatever - because if that's what it takes for Shaman to have a good deck then at least we have something to work with in a previously terrible class.
Also, the game has like a bajillion million billion players or something like that. Valuing your own enjoyment over theirs, while understandable and I endorse that most of the time, isn't really helpful when talking about nerfs/buffs. Value your own enjoyment over others on a game-to-game basis. Play whatever you want that brings you joy, that's what video games are for. Nothing will ever make every person happy. Nothing ever makes Hearthstone players happy. But these improvements might make enough people happy to make them worth trying.
please don't bully my son
Very few decks AREN'T interactive. Interactivity is actually fairly objective and easy to measure, and the most encompassing definition I've ever seen is as follows: "Interactivity is the extent to which a deck's path to victory and/or avoidance of defeat is changed by the actions of the opponent".
In the recent past of Standard, only one deck jumps to mind as rating very LOW in interactivity, and that is Secret Mage of the Whispers/Un'goro block meta. Because the deck was frequently able to play secrets at the same time as attacking creatures, and because the particular arsenal of secrets (Counterspell and Explosive Runes) lent themselves to the aggro race quite nicely, many games played with that deck were played in exactly the same way regardless of the opponent's plays, racing to deal 30 damage to face as soon as humanly possible. Absent a taunt minion or an equally fast aggro deck that manages to get ahead of you in the damage race, very few games involve combat trading or targeting burn spells on anything other than the opponent's face.
One might read this and assume the same could be said for all aggro decks, but many aggro decks have matchups where the gameplan is to fight for tempo and board instead. A good counterexample was the Tempo Rogue deck after Kobolds and Catacombs which used Keleseth and the powerful combo cards Elven Minstrel and Vilespine Slayer to either fight for the board or go to the face.
Ironically, many of the decks most described as "uninteractive" are the MOST interactive decks. Combo and Control decks have to be very responsive to opponent's threats and match answers to threats as efficiently as possible. Some folks will call Tickatus Lock uninteractive because of an abundance of answers sometimes not requiring maximum efficiency to win, but that's a totally separate complaint.
As for the nerfs/buffs coming up, I don't recall every seeing 15 at one time. As a math-minded person, I wish they would split it into two patches with a week in between, because when you alter 15 variables at once, it is very difficult to isolate what affected what in the meta. Nevertheless, we shall see how it goes.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
I'm not complaining about Rogue here, it was symmetric statement in "I don't like it so it's bad for the game" rhetoric. Serious part was only about watch posts, which in some cases just not allowed your opponents to play cards at all and made some arena games decided on turn 2, so yeah, those are non-interactive enough to not be OP ever again.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Interactivity, by first definition from google (from "Oxford Languages"), is "the process of two people or things working together and influencing each other". So, in my opinion, both face decks and combo decks can be equally non-interactive, and the closer archetype to midrange, the more interactive it is.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
I find this conversation about "interactive" quite interesting, and not something I'd really thought of before. I wonder if, when people talk about a deck not being interactive, they mean that there are no swings in momentum. One player is always the beat-down and the other is always the control. "This aggro deck is not interactive because no matter what minion of theirs I kill, there's always another one going face." "This control deck is not interactive because no matter what minions I play, they always remove them."
I'm not saying that's the RIGHT definition of interactive or even a GOOD one. Just that I wonder if that's actually what people mean.
I think you are onto something. My impression is that 'not interactive' is used when a player does 'a lot' in one turn and the other one is just watching it all unfold. Rogue, Mage and Priest come to mind immediately with their shenanigans to fit this description. I do not think it's right, a player is just using their turn as best as they can with the tools they've got, but it leaves an impression.
Another 'not interactive' is when there exists a strategy with no counterplay (or it's so inconvenient that nobody plays it). Warlock comes to mind with Tick. I think for a Warlock player it doesn't get any more interactive than burning 5 cards for an opponent! The way to survive is of course kill the Warlock before then but I think people would like to survive Tick and because there is no good way of doing that it's not interactive.
I think yet another 'not interactive' is where one deck becomes strong and dominates the meta and an answer exists but hasn't been found yet (or nerfs need to be introduced to help out a bit). This one is tricky to judge but usually counters are found relatively quickly.
All in all, I think this game is very interactive, all about trading blows and influencing each other. You constantly have to think what to play next, anticipate what the opponent might do, decide to play a card or keep it, do you go face or do you kill a minion etc.
Buffs are good 98% of the time (sorry Luna's Pocket Galaxy and The Caverns Below)
Nerfs are good 80% of the time (barnes, watch posts, power word shield, bloodbloom, some bad nerfs here and there)
And change in and of itself is good for a card game. I think it's great that 15 cards are being changed at the same time, regardless of the individual impact of each nerf/buff.
Anything that promotes deck building and changes in the meta is good for me. I just don't like when everything is figured out and you know exactly what you can and can't build in the meta.
I must say I'm surprised they make such a huge change right before the launch of the mini set, do they expect the mini set to have no impact on the meta ? Or do they expect it to make things even worse balance wise ?
I don't really care what they nerf but hopefully they buff shaman a little bit. Card draw plz.
Power word shield was a god awful nerf and it’s rightfully reverted. Same principal applies to watchposts which were competitive, yet manageable, and are now hotdog water filled with floating dentures.
Caravans probably getting buffed, then all the watchpost whiners can become caravan complainers and the snake that eats it’s own tail continues it’s slithery little snakes life cycle.
Yes exactly. I'd be extremely surprised if they don't revert the watch posts nerfs when they rotate to Wild.
I hope not, i want more interesting cards to get buffs. Especially the warlock caravan you can't buff that thing even at 0 mana 0/5 it's still trash.
Yes, it is true that change isn't always good but it is also true that no change is NEVER good. There is only one option.
I agree that post nerfs I usually feel the least motivated to play. Mainly because it feels that every ex-tier 1 deck wet noodles the other ex-tier 1 decks. But buffs are always exciting.
There's at least about 3 weeks to the miniset. Nice to have a fresh meta for a bit.
Except there is no combo deck that goes off fast enough to ignore enemy threats, at least in standard. So every combo deck is very interactive when it comes to an opponent's threats, or they die.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Yes, there is no fully non-interactive combo deck in standard. I agree with that, I disagree with your definition of interactivity. Just extending the game and surviving enemy threats is not interactive for your enemy and both sides are important.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Atm i really hope they change something. Just now i played against 2 APM mages and Celestial Alignment druids...and it just ain fun if you come with your "regular" deck to the game. I just play for 5-6 turns, nothing much is happening.
Then i watch a 30 mins turn with 700 spells and im dead. OTK is a normal mechanic in HS, its ok, like Quest mage...or Raza priest...but hey, not at turn 5! What are my counter cards good for if i cant even play them before the OTK cause their cost is higher then the mana available at that time.