Duels is in a rough spot. It has barely any players who stream it, You have to wait up to 2 mins just to face into the same person, The power level is even more off than the other modes and gets few updates and balance changes. HOWEVER, I think there is still Potential in the game mode if blizzard changed some key things, here are my suggestions on how I would fix duels:
1: Rethink the Passives and Treasures
I think this is a huge area where the problems lie. The Passives and treasures are all over the show. The passives are really crazy when some classes get offered the best and some classes get offered treasures which don't even apply to their classes e.g. a Priest getting offered Spreading Saplings which is all about casting nature spells. It needs more balance and have passives and treasures toned back a bit and focused more on the classes they are being offered to. Remove the game breaking passives and treasures and re think them so the power level is adjusted.
2: Rethink some of the hero powers
I think the hero powers are another example of how some classes have some broken ones where other classes only have 1 playable one. Warrior is one of the most powerful classes in duels as their hero powers are really high power. 0 mana to force a minion to attack a enemy minion, shuffling non stop bombs into the enemys deck etc. Compare it to Rogue who only has 1 playable strong hero power being the weapon equip one and you start to see the problem. I think dialing back on passive and 0 cost hero powers across the board and making ones which are powerful, but cost mana would be a good idea.
3: Have some boss fights
I see no reason why Duels can't have some boss fights in it. Every 3 games or so, Heading against a boss with a cool deck could give players a chance to test out new cards and also give them a break if they are already on 2 losses with a weak deck. Nothing sucks more than having to face the same person 2 or 3 times with an op deck as no one is playing the mode. Have boss fights scattered in would make the game mode more fun and interesting. Also could have more loot to collect for your deck or even achievements like "Face this boss 3 times in duels for 50 exp"
4: Celebrate the gamemode!
I think having a good celebration for the duels mode is needed! It is almost a years old and we have not seen a single event or big shake up of it in around 5 months! Why can't we have a duels event? Maybe some new temporary treasures of passives?
5: The racers from the darkmoon races were overall terrible and should probs be removed for a new treasures
Almost every class got a duel class racers from the darkmoon faire miniset and almost none are playable. Joras Thuldoom for example makes no sense as Grimmer Patron does the same effect, but cheaper and at the end of your turn. New treasures to replace these would make more sense.
I think alot of people think duels is a missed opportunity and I know my changes probs will not be enough to change the gamemode and alot of people would not like them. Anyone have any ideas to improve duels? Do you think or not like my changes?
All I've been playing is Duels. I enjoy it much more than standard myself. I'm not sure why folks don't enjoy it more. I'm guessing it is lack of rewards.
I didn't even get 5 wins in last season. Felt bad. I decided to go get my 5 wins late in the month, took my control warlock out at Bronze rank and got absolutely smashed 2x. Decided I didn't need that card back after all and went back to playing Duels.
I actually think it is a terrific game mode! It could use a bit more support though. I would do something to give chest rewards out to Battlegrounds/Arena/Duels players. I think that alone would make a huge difference in play rates. A lot of folks are just forcing themselves to grind Standard because they can get an epic card at the end of the month. Couldn't we do that for the other modes to even things up a bit?
Maybe if you get 1 12 win run you get a golden rare. Get 5 12 win runs you get a golden Epic. (end of season rewards) Not too hard to get that rare, but getting that Golden Epic will fill like quite the accomplishment.
I would try to balance the treasures.
I would try to do so by changing the buckets depending on which treasures you got. If you pick good treasures (as determined by selection rate) you'd get less good buckets (also determined by selection rate). If you pick a poor treasure you'd get offered better buckets. Try to balance them out a bit that way. Because it would be nice to not see the exact same combinations of passives every time after 6 wins. Heck, if you get a top tier combination of passives even give you worse buckets, take away the no more please option. You could even put a little note under each passive as to what effect choosing it would have on your buckets, so that you can make an informed decision.
After that I'd tone down a few cards.
Swarm of Locusts (or whatever it is called) I'd take away the ability to go face. It would still be a nice removal card that leaves you a board. (and twinspell!) No need for it to be a game winner as well.
Hunter has a cheap beast that triggers deathrattles and gets better during your run. I'd up the cost maybe by 2 give it better stats to compensate, keep it on curve statwise. It is just too hard to answer if it triggers early, and it feels bad to me to have games decided on turn 2.
Just one comment on the last item: Joras Thuldoom is way more powerful than Grimmer Patron as you can combo on the same turn with something like Joras into Raise Dead (gives you 2 copies) into Renew (now you get 4 copies as both copy themselves) into Flash Heal for a full board of 4/4s
Honestly as someone who play heroic duel (Hit 9k rating for both season and got all my cards free from it) all day, I am against some of the suggestions such as boss battles. I prefer predictable battle and no crazy RNG . Boss battle would essentially changes up the flow of the battle by making you choose between optimal deck against meta-decks (essentially if you want to counter the top players) but at the same time you have to roll a dice to hope that you have the right cards against the boss you are going up against. And if the boss battles aren't strong there isn't even a point to it.
Most class have decent hero powers at the moment, there are no crazy ones but the underpowered ones could use a buff. There is not a rush to get those buffed though but content update is always fun since it lead to more theorycrafting.
There is ton of new patches almost even faster than standard, which lead to major deck changes for people who understand the mode. Events isn't really needed but giving people free entry would help.
A few darkmoon racer I've actually seen at high run like Joras which you mentioned.
My current issue with duel is that deck power level became largely adjusted by how easy it is for them to get their desired treasure/cardpool. Like if I play Murloc Shaman the buckets are on point 100% of the time and I get both battlecry hero-power. Same with Rush Warrior and Arcane Mage. But decks which have shitty bucket immediately get pushed out and it became less strategic and more RNG once blizzard implemented these changes, which had the first few weeks being just warrior who use HP = Damage Treasure + double legendary. These changes while welcome in helping players play deck they enjoy more, when I get 3 shitty bucket of minions playing spell priest or getting non-zoo stuff as druid ruins it for me. I sometimes end run early just to avoid tanking rating to reroll a viable class or try to get decent bucket/treasure to start off so it doesn't gives me more garbage bucket/treasure.
I think with duels balance needs to come first and then a big event celebrating the mode and getting people to try it again. Many people are like me and have tried duels a couple times but the balance in the past was so unbelievably awful it just felt like an alpha version of a game mode. Why would I want to play something that's clearly so raw and unfinished when I could have a way better experience on ladder
I think captain already abandoned ship here. With Mercenaries coming up soon and two more important modes to care about, Blizz just forgot about Duels rly. The mode is so far down the shithole rn you already know whether its a flop or 12 win run when you get the treasure and hero power, unbalanced cant even describe this mode anymore.
Used to love Duels and still pop my head in from time to time but all I face are Priests with the treasure where you destroy a minion and summon 'x' amount of those life sucking void hound things...so now I'm not really a fan anymore.
I think with duels balance needs to come first and then a big event celebrating the mode and getting people to try it again. Many people are like me and have tried duels a couple times but the balance in the past was so unbelievably awful it just felt like an alpha version of a game mode. Why would I want to play something that's clearly so raw and unfinished when I could have a way better experience on ladder
I think there need to be balance changes, but at the same time Duel is more diverse than Standard in term of decks. Still, I'd rather they move away from Standard style balancing for duel and the craziness with highroll is part of the fun. People who get tilted because 1-2 bad run need to understand the concept of high risk high reward. Even as someone who average 7-8 win runs on duel, there are times where I just go 0-3 or 1-3. If you lose, move on and keep playing - come up with strategy that works not just in a vacuum but actually against other decks. Like newbie who go into duel and play on curve or play a 4+ hp minion and then get treasured by Priest, those guys lose immediately and complain. But people build their decks around the stronger treasure like the 3 mana priest one, so instead of Elemental Shaman people went to Murloc for battlecry because having minions with too high HP became problematic. Then people played rush Warrior/Token DH to counter Shaman because strong board control, which lead to priest playing again. Sure there are only 6-7 viable archetype but you can constantly adjust cards to beat your competitor and it is better than paladin filled ladder.
All I've been playing is Duels. I enjoy it much more than standard myself. I'm not sure why folks don't enjoy it more. I'm guessing it is lack of rewards.
It sounds like you are playing in Casual (no rewards). The meta in Heroic is very, VERY different because everyone is trying so hard to get the rewards. I suspect this is compounded by the fact that a lot of these are free players with limited collections, so they craft only the "best" Duels decks and don't have as much opportunity for experimentation.
As you noted, Casual actually is fun. There's less of a solved meta there, and I've seen a lot of experimentation. (Some of this is probably due to the fact that I experiment a lot and may not have the best rating.)
But yeah, all hero powers, signature treasures, and loot could use another balance pass. Some of the hero powers are obvious traps -- and when you get only three options per hero, there's not really room to include bad ones as a skill test. That's just not fun. Same for signature treasures.
The developers have mentioned that the recent change causing more synergistic treasure drops probably went a little overboard. It destroys the whole idea of wacky discovery when you can literally force exactly the passives you want for your build. It sounds like they want to step that back a bit in a future patch.
I personally hope they rotate in all new heroes and hero powers at some point, maybe lower the general power level a touch as they tone down or delete some of the more obviously overpowered passives and other treasures.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
All I've been playing is Duels. I enjoy it much more than standard myself. I'm not sure why folks don't enjoy it more. I'm guessing it is lack of rewards.
It sounds like you are playing in Casual (no rewards). The meta in Heroic is very, VERY different because everyone is trying so hard to get the rewards. I suspect this is compounded by the fact that a lot of these are free players with limited collections, so they craft only the "best" Duels decks and don't have as much opportunity for experimentation.
As you noted, Casual actually is fun. There's less of a solved meta there, and I've seen a lot of experimentation. (Some of this is probably due to the fact that I experiment a lot and may not have the best rating.)
But yeah, all hero powers, signature treasures, and loot could use another balance pass. Some of the hero powers are obvious traps -- and when you get only three options per hero, there's not really room to include bad ones as a skill test. That's just not fun. Same for signature treasures.
The developers have mentioned that the recent change causing more synergistic treasure drops probably went a little overboard. It destroys the whole idea of wacky discovery when you can literally force exactly the passives you want for your build. It sounds like they want to step that back a bit in a future patch.
I personally hope they rotate in all new heroes and hero powers at some point, maybe lower the general power level a touch as they tone down or delete some of the more obviously overpowered passives and other treasures.
I loved the idea of Duels when it was announced - as I really enjoyed Dungeon Runs. But the reality of it set in once I'd played a few runs.
Getting a cool powerful deck going against AI was great, but for it to work in a competitive player v player mode it would need to be toned down..toned down a lot. Arena is still great fun precisely because it allows for planned strategy based on how the game unfolds... not just a gameplan based on your own deck. Duels take the worst of constructed (this idea of executing your deck's gameplan into an unstoppable win condition) and distils it. I have no interest in playing a game with myself based on my draw RNG against a guy doing the same thing. Neither of us are playing with or against each other, and yet we supposedly are.
It just feels.... crap, honestly. I'd far rather just play arena. Or Battlegrounds or Standard for that matter.
So you've never had the pleasure of dominating a Priest, who has no board and no health, only for them to play Joras Thuldoom and gnomish Army Knife, healing them to full and giving them 7 4/4s with Windfury, Charge, Poison, Divine Shield, and Lifesteal? That's 56 damage+heal from no board with two cards if you don't have taunts, and they have taken at least 24 damage. That alone is reason enough to nerf it to Rush
Thanks HMcCool - Well thought-out post, and good follow-up discussion.
I would add one more item :
6: Remove constructed deckbuilding - While I understand the appeal of a mode that combines constructed deckbuilding with semi-random card selection, this mode adds significant barriers for casual players. 1) To be competitive, players have to have a wide (and expensive) assortment of wild cards across several classes. 2) Players have to spend the mental energy outside of play time constructing multiple different constructed decks for multiple classes that can change as new cards are added. I LOVED the single player dungeon runs and would play Duels more than any other mode if the constructed piece was removed. I believe that the main reason the constructed portion exists is to monetize the mode by having players need to acquire cards, but the game mode would really take off if they removed the constructed portion and made it more accessible to casual play.
Any fix for Duels has to begin with removing the dumb stipulation of working with cards you own for your starting deck - at least for casual mode.
From there I think you can tailor the experience to be more fun and interactive by balancing treasures and cards because as it stands, the game mode simply is not fun if your goal is to play somewhat competitively. There are too many games which are decided by 'magic bullet' cards which take a steaming dump on any strategy and style of play.
You are right guys, this (building your deck) was the most disappointing thing for me from the very beginning. Fix this and I'll give it chance one more time. No way I'd play constructed 2.0 with some random Tavern Brawl twists.
Ok, another fix. I think the passive treasures come way to early. There is too much incentive to just reroll if you dont get offered a treasure or even combo of treasures you like.
2ndly, I think being able to just choose your starting hero would be w3lcome. I often am faced with 4 options I dont want to play, so I take 80 seconds and build a dummy deck just to insta-concede so I can get offered 4 new ones.
Im not sure there is any value, at least in casual, of this annoyance. I can see why it might work if you actually invest gold in the match though.
But would it really be that bad to just let folks choose their hero even in Heroic?
I tried a class I dont usually take, shaman, rhe other day. I was 5-0 when I retired. I just wasnt enjoying the playstyle despite the deck performing well. Why force folks into a style they dont enjoy?
As long as the classes are reasonably balanced and interesting I imagine you would continue to see a wide variety.
For the record I love playing mage. That is really all I want to play. But, warrior and pally will do when mage wont roll. And if im really desparate I will play warlock.
But for me to really be having the fun I want, it has to be Mage. It isnt even the strongest for me, never even managed 12 wins in Mage. I have with a couple other classes. It is all about playstyle.
Just super enjoyable to try and solve every puzzle with Mage.
Thanks HMcCool - Well thought-out post, and good follow-up discussion.
I would add one more item :
6: Remove constructed deckbuilding - While I understand the appeal of a mode that combines constructed deckbuilding with semi-random card selection, this mode adds significant barriers for casual players. 1) To be competitive, players have to have a wide (and expensive) assortment of wild cards across several classes. 2) Players have to spend the mental energy outside of play time constructing multiple different constructed decks for multiple classes that can change as new cards are added. I LOVED the single player dungeon runs and would play Duels more than any other mode if the constructed piece was removed. I believe that the main reason the constructed portion exists is to monetize the mode by having players need to acquire cards, but the game mode would really take off if they removed the constructed portion and made it more accessible to casual play.
What's in it for Blizzard if they remove the ONLY monetization the mode ever had? I'm not saying you're wrong -- Duels would surely become more popular, but what is the point in running a popular game if it's not generating revenue?
Please don't answer, "It would attract more players to Hearthstone." It may attract more free players to Hearthstone, but only a tiny number of those would ever convert to paying (Standard) customers. Most of them would play Duels exclusively forever, not an ideal situation for Blizzard.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Duels is in a rough spot. It has barely any players who stream it, You have to wait up to 2 mins just to face into the same person, The power level is even more off than the other modes and gets few updates and balance changes. HOWEVER, I think there is still Potential in the game mode if blizzard changed some key things, here are my suggestions on how I would fix duels:
1: Rethink the Passives and Treasures
I think this is a huge area where the problems lie. The Passives and treasures are all over the show. The passives are really crazy when some classes get offered the best and some classes get offered treasures which don't even apply to their classes e.g. a Priest getting offered Spreading Saplings which is all about casting nature spells. It needs more balance and have passives and treasures toned back a bit and focused more on the classes they are being offered to. Remove the game breaking passives and treasures and re think them so the power level is adjusted.
2: Rethink some of the hero powers
I think the hero powers are another example of how some classes have some broken ones where other classes only have 1 playable one. Warrior is one of the most powerful classes in duels as their hero powers are really high power. 0 mana to force a minion to attack a enemy minion, shuffling non stop bombs into the enemys deck etc. Compare it to Rogue who only has 1 playable strong hero power being the weapon equip one and you start to see the problem. I think dialing back on passive and 0 cost hero powers across the board and making ones which are powerful, but cost mana would be a good idea.
3: Have some boss fights
I see no reason why Duels can't have some boss fights in it. Every 3 games or so, Heading against a boss with a cool deck could give players a chance to test out new cards and also give them a break if they are already on 2 losses with a weak deck. Nothing sucks more than having to face the same person 2 or 3 times with an op deck as no one is playing the mode. Have boss fights scattered in would make the game mode more fun and interesting. Also could have more loot to collect for your deck or even achievements like "Face this boss 3 times in duels for 50 exp"
4: Celebrate the gamemode!
I think having a good celebration for the duels mode is needed! It is almost a years old and we have not seen a single event or big shake up of it in around 5 months! Why can't we have a duels event? Maybe some new temporary treasures of passives?
5: The racers from the darkmoon races were overall terrible and should probs be removed for a new treasures
Almost every class got a duel class racers from the darkmoon faire miniset and almost none are playable. Joras Thuldoom for example makes no sense as Grimmer Patron does the same effect, but cheaper and at the end of your turn. New treasures to replace these would make more sense.
I think alot of people think duels is a missed opportunity and I know my changes probs will not be enough to change the gamemode and alot of people would not like them. Anyone have any ideas to improve duels? Do you think or not like my changes?
All I've been playing is Duels. I enjoy it much more than standard myself. I'm not sure why folks don't enjoy it more. I'm guessing it is lack of rewards.
I didn't even get 5 wins in last season. Felt bad. I decided to go get my 5 wins late in the month, took my control warlock out at Bronze rank and got absolutely smashed 2x. Decided I didn't need that card back after all and went back to playing Duels.
I actually think it is a terrific game mode! It could use a bit more support though. I would do something to give chest rewards out to Battlegrounds/Arena/Duels players. I think that alone would make a huge difference in play rates. A lot of folks are just forcing themselves to grind Standard because they can get an epic card at the end of the month. Couldn't we do that for the other modes to even things up a bit?
Maybe if you get 1 12 win run you get a golden rare. Get 5 12 win runs you get a golden Epic. (end of season rewards) Not too hard to get that rare, but getting that Golden Epic will fill like quite the accomplishment.
I would try to balance the treasures.
I would try to do so by changing the buckets depending on which treasures you got. If you pick good treasures (as determined by selection rate) you'd get less good buckets (also determined by selection rate). If you pick a poor treasure you'd get offered better buckets. Try to balance them out a bit that way. Because it would be nice to not see the exact same combinations of passives every time after 6 wins. Heck, if you get a top tier combination of passives even give you worse buckets, take away the no more please option. You could even put a little note under each passive as to what effect choosing it would have on your buckets, so that you can make an informed decision.
After that I'd tone down a few cards.
Swarm of Locusts (or whatever it is called) I'd take away the ability to go face. It would still be a nice removal card that leaves you a board. (and twinspell!) No need for it to be a game winner as well.
Hunter has a cheap beast that triggers deathrattles and gets better during your run. I'd up the cost maybe by 2 give it better stats to compensate, keep it on curve statwise. It is just too hard to answer if it triggers early, and it feels bad to me to have games decided on turn 2.
Galavant Animation
Just one comment on the last item: Joras Thuldoom is way more powerful than Grimmer Patron as you can combo on the same turn with something like Joras into Raise Dead (gives you 2 copies) into Renew (now you get 4 copies as both copy themselves) into Flash Heal for a full board of 4/4s
Honestly as someone who play heroic duel (Hit 9k rating for both season and got all my cards free from it) all day, I am against some of the suggestions such as boss battles. I prefer predictable battle and no crazy RNG . Boss battle would essentially changes up the flow of the battle by making you choose between optimal deck against meta-decks (essentially if you want to counter the top players) but at the same time you have to roll a dice to hope that you have the right cards against the boss you are going up against. And if the boss battles aren't strong there isn't even a point to it.
Most class have decent hero powers at the moment, there are no crazy ones but the underpowered ones could use a buff. There is not a rush to get those buffed though but content update is always fun since it lead to more theorycrafting.
There is ton of new patches almost even faster than standard, which lead to major deck changes for people who understand the mode. Events isn't really needed but giving people free entry would help.
A few darkmoon racer I've actually seen at high run like Joras which you mentioned.
My current issue with duel is that deck power level became largely adjusted by how easy it is for them to get their desired treasure/cardpool. Like if I play Murloc Shaman the buckets are on point 100% of the time and I get both battlecry hero-power. Same with Rush Warrior and Arcane Mage. But decks which have shitty bucket immediately get pushed out and it became less strategic and more RNG once blizzard implemented these changes, which had the first few weeks being just warrior who use HP = Damage Treasure + double legendary. These changes while welcome in helping players play deck they enjoy more, when I get 3 shitty bucket of minions playing spell priest or getting non-zoo stuff as druid ruins it for me. I sometimes end run early just to avoid tanking rating to reroll a viable class or try to get decent bucket/treasure to start off so it doesn't gives me more garbage bucket/treasure.
I think with duels balance needs to come first and then a big event celebrating the mode and getting people to try it again. Many people are like me and have tried duels a couple times but the balance in the past was so unbelievably awful it just felt like an alpha version of a game mode. Why would I want to play something that's clearly so raw and unfinished when I could have a way better experience on ladder
I think captain already abandoned ship here. With Mercenaries coming up soon and two more important modes to care about, Blizz just forgot about Duels rly. The mode is so far down the shithole rn you already know whether its a flop or 12 win run when you get the treasure and hero power, unbalanced cant even describe this mode anymore.
Used to love Duels and still pop my head in from time to time but all I face are Priests with the treasure where you destroy a minion and summon 'x' amount of those life sucking void hound things...so now I'm not really a fan anymore.
Just get rid of bomb warrior and I be happy
I think there need to be balance changes, but at the same time Duel is more diverse than Standard in term of decks. Still, I'd rather they move away from Standard style balancing for duel and the craziness with highroll is part of the fun. People who get tilted because 1-2 bad run need to understand the concept of high risk high reward. Even as someone who average 7-8 win runs on duel, there are times where I just go 0-3 or 1-3. If you lose, move on and keep playing - come up with strategy that works not just in a vacuum but actually against other decks. Like newbie who go into duel and play on curve or play a 4+ hp minion and then get treasured by Priest, those guys lose immediately and complain. But people build their decks around the stronger treasure like the 3 mana priest one, so instead of Elemental Shaman people went to Murloc for battlecry because having minions with too high HP became problematic. Then people played rush Warrior/Token DH to counter Shaman because strong board control, which lead to priest playing again. Sure there are only 6-7 viable archetype but you can constantly adjust cards to beat your competitor and it is better than paladin filled ladder.
It sounds like you are playing in Casual (no rewards). The meta in Heroic is very, VERY different because everyone is trying so hard to get the rewards. I suspect this is compounded by the fact that a lot of these are free players with limited collections, so they craft only the "best" Duels decks and don't have as much opportunity for experimentation.
As you noted, Casual actually is fun. There's less of a solved meta there, and I've seen a lot of experimentation. (Some of this is probably due to the fact that I experiment a lot and may not have the best rating.)
But yeah, all hero powers, signature treasures, and loot could use another balance pass. Some of the hero powers are obvious traps -- and when you get only three options per hero, there's not really room to include bad ones as a skill test. That's just not fun. Same for signature treasures.
The developers have mentioned that the recent change causing more synergistic treasure drops probably went a little overboard. It destroys the whole idea of wacky discovery when you can literally force exactly the passives you want for your build. It sounds like they want to step that back a bit in a future patch.
I personally hope they rotate in all new heroes and hero powers at some point, maybe lower the general power level a touch as they tone down or delete some of the more obviously overpowered passives and other treasures.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Yes, only playing casual. It is fun to me!
Galavant Animation
I loved the idea of Duels when it was announced - as I really enjoyed Dungeon Runs. But the reality of it set in once I'd played a few runs.
Getting a cool powerful deck going against AI was great, but for it to work in a competitive player v player mode it would need to be toned down..toned down a lot. Arena is still great fun precisely because it allows for planned strategy based on how the game unfolds... not just a gameplan based on your own deck. Duels take the worst of constructed (this idea of executing your deck's gameplan into an unstoppable win condition) and distils it. I have no interest in playing a game with myself based on my draw RNG against a guy doing the same thing. Neither of us are playing with or against each other, and yet we supposedly are.
It just feels.... crap, honestly. I'd far rather just play arena. Or Battlegrounds or Standard for that matter.
So you've never had the pleasure of dominating a Priest, who has no board and no health, only for them to play Joras Thuldoom and gnomish Army Knife, healing them to full and giving them 7 4/4s with Windfury, Charge, Poison, Divine Shield, and Lifesteal? That's 56 damage+heal from no board with two cards if you don't have taunts, and they have taken at least 24 damage. That alone is reason enough to nerf it to Rush
Thanks HMcCool - Well thought-out post, and good follow-up discussion.
I would add one more item :
6: Remove constructed deckbuilding - While I understand the appeal of a mode that combines constructed deckbuilding with semi-random card selection, this mode adds significant barriers for casual players. 1) To be competitive, players have to have a wide (and expensive) assortment of wild cards across several classes. 2) Players have to spend the mental energy outside of play time constructing multiple different constructed decks for multiple classes that can change as new cards are added. I LOVED the single player dungeon runs and would play Duels more than any other mode if the constructed piece was removed. I believe that the main reason the constructed portion exists is to monetize the mode by having players need to acquire cards, but the game mode would really take off if they removed the constructed portion and made it more accessible to casual play.
Any fix for Duels has to begin with removing the dumb stipulation of working with cards you own for your starting deck - at least for casual mode.
From there I think you can tailor the experience to be more fun and interactive by balancing treasures and cards because as it stands, the game mode simply is not fun if your goal is to play somewhat competitively. There are too many games which are decided by 'magic bullet' cards which take a steaming dump on any strategy and style of play.
You are right guys, this (building your deck) was the most disappointing thing for me from the very beginning. Fix this and I'll give it chance one more time. No way I'd play constructed 2.0 with some random Tavern Brawl twists.
Mimsy Were The Borogoves
Ok, another fix. I think the passive treasures come way to early. There is too much incentive to just reroll if you dont get offered a treasure or even combo of treasures you like.
2ndly, I think being able to just choose your starting hero would be w3lcome. I often am faced with 4 options I dont want to play, so I take 80 seconds and build a dummy deck just to insta-concede so I can get offered 4 new ones.
Im not sure there is any value, at least in casual, of this annoyance. I can see why it might work if you actually invest gold in the match though.
But would it really be that bad to just let folks choose their hero even in Heroic?
I tried a class I dont usually take, shaman, rhe other day. I was 5-0 when I retired. I just wasnt enjoying the playstyle despite the deck performing well. Why force folks into a style they dont enjoy?
As long as the classes are reasonably balanced and interesting I imagine you would continue to see a wide variety.
For the record I love playing mage. That is really all I want to play. But, warrior and pally will do when mage wont roll. And if im really desparate I will play warlock.
But for me to really be having the fun I want, it has to be Mage. It isnt even the strongest for me, never even managed 12 wins in Mage. I have with a couple other classes. It is all about playstyle.
Just super enjoyable to try and solve every puzzle with Mage.
Galavant Animation
What's in it for Blizzard if they remove the ONLY monetization the mode ever had? I'm not saying you're wrong -- Duels would surely become more popular, but what is the point in running a popular game if it's not generating revenue?
Please don't answer, "It would attract more players to Hearthstone." It may attract more free players to Hearthstone, but only a tiny number of those would ever convert to paying (Standard) customers. Most of them would play Duels exclusively forever, not an ideal situation for Blizzard.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Just delete this clown fiesta