The best and most fun time in hs for me always were first week or two after expansion release when everyone are experimenting. Now ever since they started those streams we already don't have that...
I think people forget that with fireside gatherings, not only can you open preorder packs early, you can actually play against other people with the cards you open. All you need is..
1: A preorder if the expansion.
2: Friends that play hearthstone.
It's still restrictive but literally everyone has had the opportunity to play with the new cards, not just streamers.
We can't play with the preopened cards though. Streamers can. At least let us use the cards in solo mode. And like others have said messes up early expansion experimentation if streamers are already refining decks and posting them early
Blizzard wants to reward players for purchasing pre orders, early access is something that players value and will inspire sales. The streams promote the pre-orders, just as this site promotes the pre openings to encourage pre-orders.
just as this site promotes the pre openings to encourage pre-orders.
Why on earth would we promote them to encourage preorders? we have nothing to gain from that. We don't get a cent from anything Blizzard does.
We cover Theorycrafting streams and Early Pack Opening because it interests people and they want to know. Our goal is in clicks, not sales, and we only get clicks with things that interest people.
I know it's going against the narrative in this particular thread, but people care about theorycrafting streams and pack openings a LOT. Especially the streams are popular because for a lot of people this is a glimpse into whether the set is worth getting or not.
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Agreed. Fuck streamers. Stupid how they get special perks and rest of us get the dick. They can still stream, why lock us out?
The instant response you’ll find from most is “it’s good publicity for the game.”
It isn’t. People are already hyped from the previews. If anything, I could easily entertain an argument that people would actually be (slightly) less hyped after seeing someone else already play the cards.
A huge part of the hype is playing the new cards, and I feel like watching someone else do it dilutes the hype a bit.
To add to this: From a purely in-game-economics standpoint, it's even negative value for Blizzard because there are fewer impulsive crafts early in the expansion and people mostly craft what they have already seen to work. And unless that fails spectacularly, which doesn't happen too often, this means that people waste fewer dust on bad cards, which reduces Blizzard's value.
However, it seems to create enough revenue for them to continue them doing it. It's also not the worst time for streamers tbh.
As much as I don't like these streams because they destroy the hype to me, I have to say that there wasn't much that surprised me, at least not this time. My hype has gone when I understood the Hunter questline.
Yeah I don’t understand how the hunter questline is going live. It’s going to be the first deck I try for the sole reason of I need to confirm that it’s actually as broken as it seems.
I can’t really imagine it not being the best card in the entire set, but I could of course be wrong. I imagine the deck is just going to be something like all the control/damage spells and secrets, with all the spell discovering/generating minions like scorp and wandmaker.
I don’t see a world where it’s not beyond busted, though maybe something like Paladin can keep it in check. We will see, but it seems like just about the safest craft of the set
altho i see both sides of the coin here, i lean towards everyone getting access to the cards at the same time. if you want to only craft certain cards that are gonna be good, just wait a few days and then watch some streamers or come to fine sights like this and netdeck away. :)
At least there is no theorycrafting stream for wild. I know that in general new sets have less impact on wild than on standard, but the new expansion will definitely shake up the wild meta, just as Barrens did. So as a wild player, my day 1 experimenting is not ruined but I feel sorry for standard players.
The game is simply NOT fun at the present moment. They keep printing new and more OP cards in order to boost sales and attract more whales.
Battlegrounds are a breath of fresh air, but it is not competitive and interesting enough to attract viewers - face hunter, miracle aggro druid and no minion mage are the selling sheet - make your opponent rage quit due to RNG, which was a core NO NO before...
Oh no the company wants to make money, how evil of them…you don’t have to pay to play this game. Free to play is very easy with the options they give you, you just have to invest some time. If you don’t invest the time then you don’t care enough about the game for it to matter. It’s as simple as that.
Some people are so naive… blizzard is a multi billion corp, they have shareholders and $$ in mind, nothing more. Streamers, early access, free packs when you watch for two hours and all the other sh*t is just marketing.
Streamers’ full time job is streaming and promoting games. People need to stop thinking that streamers are the average Joe who plays the game as the player at home and start seeing them as blizzard “employees” nothing more nothing less.
Some people are so naive… blizzard is a multi billion corp, they have shareholders and $$ in mind, nothing more. Streamers, early access, free packs when you watch for two hours and all the other sh*t is just marketing.
Streamers’ full time job is streaming and promoting games. People need to stop thinking that streamers are the average Joe who plays the game as the player at home and start seeing them as blizzard “employees” nothing more nothing less.
Lol show me one point of reference where anyone thinks a streamer, who averages thousands of viewers, are just an “average joe.”
I think 99% of people realize that they aren’t the average player.
I also hated theorycrafting streams some time ago, but since then I've realized the following:
They provide some guidance w.r.t. what decks to try or to expect to face on the first few days of the expansion. Many people would feel a bit lost otherwise
They don't even come close to 'figuring out' the post-expansion meta, especially as they built sub-optimal decks with which they face other sub-optimal decks. For me this is the most important. In two days the meta will be as new and as fresh as it would have been in the absence of any theorycrafting streams
I also hated theorycrafting streams some time ago, but since then I've realized the following:
They provide some guidance w.r.t. what decks to try or to expect to face on the first few days of the expansion. Many people would feel a bit lost otherwise
They don't even come close to 'figuring out' the post-expansion meta, especially as they built sub-optimal decks with which they face other sub-optimal decks. For me this is the most important. In two days the meta will be as new and as fresh as it would have been in the absence of any theorycrafting streams
Who is getting lost? As I stated, part of the fun is blind, wacky Deck building on opening day. Nobody knowing what’s going to work=fair play, and I think most people can theoryocraft well enough based on reveals alone.
Your second point reinforces my first. Let people play the stupid, terrible, fun home brews for a few days, things will take shape quickly enough anyways.
The main benefit is for people who do nothing BUT netdeck. They won't craft a single card, or a single deck if they don't have the ability to net, as they aren't planning to craft a deck themselves.
There is no fun in deck building any more. it's been a while since it was fun and interesting at expansion start .
The only fun I get is basically opening packs at the same time my friends are. No point trying your own versions of some decks because you will get destroyed in the first couple of games from players that already found a decent enough deck that they saw in the stream..
As someone above said the meta is polished in a few days and our only way to get wins is to play the decks that we have already seen on streams being good
Take the theory crafting streams with a grain of salt, there was deckbuilding restrictions, but I don’t get why people are butthurt. Early access catches bugs and gives the rest of us a bit of an idea of what we want to focus our time on.
1. I dislike the theorycrafting/early access a lot. The most fun to me in standard was the first week of a new expansion because you couldnt tell what to face on ladder usually, people trying out new stuff. Now with the theorycrafting streams, I think it was with the barrens expansion, people literally started netdecking streamers decks with were pretty good (secret pally, spellmage, for example), of course it took some time for the decks to refine but still. No fun at all to me.
2. People talking about bugs? BS. I understand why there are PTR in WoW etc because it makes sense. But in HS? What?
I have been very vocal about it being 100% acceptable to netdeck the best decks, especially when climbing the rated ladder. But what’s beyond unfun is when people already have deck codes/ideas at the ready the SECOND the expansion drops. Theoryocrafting based on information (card reveals) is acceptable, as it cannot be directly playtested. But Jesus, stop letting players, generally above average players, get a run at the cards before anyone else can.
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions floating around about how these theorycrafting streams work. This idea that they somehow lead to the meta being "solved" sooner is probably the most important one to debunk.
If you don't watch the streams or videos, or if you don't watch a streamer who explains the rules, you may not be aware of this, but it is actually impossible to create an optimized deck in the early-access environment. Players are asked to use at least 10 cards from the new expansion in each deck. That may not sound like much of a limitation, but if you've ever tried to build a competitive deck, you know that it really is. Anyone who copies a deck from these early access streams is doomed to a terrible first day in Stormwind. In my opinion, you are WAY better off building a homebrew.
As far as I know, early-access streamers are on the honor system -- I doubt anyone is bothering to police the 10-card rule. However, even if someone did break the rule and try to build a competitive deck, the playtesting would be worthless because the environment is nothing like a real meta. So there's no incentive to break the rule.
The real value in these streams is that you get to see how cards work and get previews of certain interactions you may not be sure about. It's amazing how many misplays these professional streamers make because they are simply not familiar with the cards. (To me, it's even worse when you learn that a streamer hasn't even bothered to look at the card list ahead of time and they have literally no idea what a certain Questline does, for example.)
I used to hate the early access, too -- before they made the 10-card rule. Now I don't mind it at all because it lets me skip the growing pains and lost games due to simple ignorance about the cards.
The best and most fun time in hs for me always were first week or two after expansion release when everyone are experimenting. Now ever since they started those streams we already don't have that...
We can't play with the preopened cards though. Streamers can. At least let us use the cards in solo mode. And like others have said messes up early expansion experimentation if streamers are already refining decks and posting them early
Blizzard wants to reward players for purchasing pre orders, early access is something that players value and will inspire sales. The streams promote the pre-orders, just as this site promotes the pre openings to encourage pre-orders.
Why on earth would we promote them to encourage preorders? we have nothing to gain from that. We don't get a cent from anything Blizzard does.
We cover Theorycrafting streams and Early Pack Opening because it interests people and they want to know. Our goal is in clicks, not sales, and we only get clicks with things that interest people.
I know it's going against the narrative in this particular thread, but people care about theorycrafting streams and pack openings a LOT. Especially the streams are popular because for a lot of people this is a glimpse into whether the set is worth getting or not.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
Yeah I don’t understand how the hunter questline is going live. It’s going to be the first deck I try for the sole reason of I need to confirm that it’s actually as broken as it seems.
I can’t really imagine it not being the best card in the entire set, but I could of course be wrong. I imagine the deck is just going to be something like all the control/damage spells and secrets, with all the spell discovering/generating minions like scorp and wandmaker.
I don’t see a world where it’s not beyond busted, though maybe something like Paladin can keep it in check. We will see, but it seems like just about the safest craft of the set
altho i see both sides of the coin here, i lean towards everyone getting access to the cards at the same time. if you want to only craft certain cards that are gonna be good, just wait a few days and then watch some streamers or come to fine sights like this and netdeck away. :)
MMMmmmmmm...Acceptable.
I agree with OP.
At least there is no theorycrafting stream for wild. I know that in general new sets have less impact on wild than on standard, but the new expansion will definitely shake up the wild meta, just as Barrens did. So as a wild player, my day 1 experimenting is not ruined but I feel sorry for standard players.
Oh no the company wants to make money, how evil of them…you don’t have to pay to play this game. Free to play is very easy with the options they give you, you just have to invest some time. If you don’t invest the time then you don’t care enough about the game for it to matter. It’s as simple as that.
Some people are so naive… blizzard is a multi billion corp, they have shareholders and $$ in mind, nothing more. Streamers, early access, free packs when you watch for two hours and all the other sh*t is just marketing.
Streamers’ full time job is streaming and promoting games. People need to stop thinking that streamers are the average Joe who plays the game as the player at home and start seeing them as blizzard “employees” nothing more nothing less.
Lol show me one point of reference where anyone thinks a streamer, who averages thousands of viewers, are just an “average joe.”
I think 99% of people realize that they aren’t the average player.
I also hated theorycrafting streams some time ago, but since then I've realized the following:
Who is getting lost? As I stated, part of the fun is blind, wacky Deck building on opening day. Nobody knowing what’s going to work=fair play, and I think most people can theoryocraft well enough based on reveals alone.
Your second point reinforces my first. Let people play the stupid, terrible, fun home brews for a few days, things will take shape quickly enough anyways.
The main benefit is for people who do nothing BUT netdeck. They won't craft a single card, or a single deck if they don't have the ability to net, as they aren't planning to craft a deck themselves.
Agree with the OP
There is no fun in deck building any more. it's been a while since it was fun and interesting at expansion start .
The only fun I get is basically opening packs at the same time my friends are. No point trying your own versions of some decks because you will get destroyed in the first couple of games from players that already found a decent enough deck that they saw in the stream..
As someone above said the meta is polished in a few days and our only way to get wins is to play the decks that we have already seen on streams being good
Agree 👆
1. I dislike the theorycrafting/early access a lot. The most fun to me in standard was the first week of a new expansion because you couldnt tell what to face on ladder usually, people trying out new stuff. Now with the theorycrafting streams, I think it was with the barrens expansion, people literally started netdecking streamers decks with were pretty good (secret pally, spellmage, for example), of course it took some time for the decks to refine but still. No fun at all to me.
2. People talking about bugs? BS. I understand why there are PTR in WoW etc because it makes sense. But in HS? What?
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions floating around about how these theorycrafting streams work. This idea that they somehow lead to the meta being "solved" sooner is probably the most important one to debunk.
If you don't watch the streams or videos, or if you don't watch a streamer who explains the rules, you may not be aware of this, but it is actually impossible to create an optimized deck in the early-access environment. Players are asked to use at least 10 cards from the new expansion in each deck. That may not sound like much of a limitation, but if you've ever tried to build a competitive deck, you know that it really is. Anyone who copies a deck from these early access streams is doomed to a terrible first day in Stormwind. In my opinion, you are WAY better off building a homebrew.
As far as I know, early-access streamers are on the honor system -- I doubt anyone is bothering to police the 10-card rule. However, even if someone did break the rule and try to build a competitive deck, the playtesting would be worthless because the environment is nothing like a real meta. So there's no incentive to break the rule.
The real value in these streams is that you get to see how cards work and get previews of certain interactions you may not be sure about. It's amazing how many misplays these professional streamers make because they are simply not familiar with the cards. (To me, it's even worse when you learn that a streamer hasn't even bothered to look at the card list ahead of time and they have literally no idea what a certain Questline does, for example.)
I used to hate the early access, too -- before they made the 10-card rule. Now I don't mind it at all because it lets me skip the growing pains and lost games due to simple ignorance about the cards.
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