Powercreep doesnt have to mean the games are quicker. If your aggressive 2 drop is powercreeping the old 2 drops, but so is my taunty-2 drop the relative speed stays the same. Your health does always stay at 30 though (mostly), so in one regard it's fair to say that as cards get more powercreeped the game can speed up.
We both need to buy the new cards though (which is why powercreep tends to exist in the first place - that and the fact it's difficult to come up with novel, fair cards within the confines of the mana system).
I would also like to mention that it is ALMOST impossible to ever have a "worst expansion meta ever" after the debauchery of AOO Demon Hunter at launch.
The Expansion is the biggest disaster in the history of HS and im playing since beta
Rogue OTKs me Turn 6 ( S I X ) in "Standard" Format
Insane Cardraw / Solitaire / OTK - That is what the Game is all about
I think the problem is people expect the standard meta to be much weaker and slower than the wild meta, because that has historically been the case. But you forgot that powercreep exists so the power level difference between standard and wild tends to disappear.
I just don't think they intended it to be this fast and to push out 'tentpost' legendaries from only 2 expansions back (Darkmoon Faire Old Gods). Why would you buff N'Zoth for him to just be a bad slow card 1 expansion later. There are even legendaries and strategies in this set that are instantly bad because the meta is so fast.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the games are faster, but it just shows they are struggling with cohesion between sets and a long term vision for the play experience and class identities. Either that or they just aren't testing and balancing enough and expansions are being sent out with fingers crossed.
Standard feels like wild right now...the combos kill you too fast, there is nothing you can do to prevent it. This doesn't feel good. Sitting there as a mage just ignites over and over feels like absolute gash.
I don't want to be forced to play either no minions or deck filled with anti-spell tech minions + mutanus. I like playing minions. Two thirds of this new set are new mininos that aren't even worth thinking about experimenting with... utterly pointless.
I think most of us that are still playing this game like playing minions. Why is Zoo so consistently shit these days? Because it was cheap? Yeah that is what I think. Zoo, was a nice cheap non-packaged, flexible way to play the game, so they refuse to fuel that fire anymore.
Spice Bread Baker "wow, they actually gve us neutral healing back"...we're so naive lol.
Maybe if they stopped power creeping the shit out of everything in every possible direction, pushing 'packages' that are clearly designed to be anti f2p and totally busted when combined they could have introduced a combo meta that didn't feel so stupidly OP - I mean, consider that hearthstone has become a game where we have non legendary (so x 2) 5 mana 8/8 divine shield netutral taunts (just an example, there are many) and shit for some time...cards that early on in the game's life cycle would be costing your entire turn in the late game. And often these cards aren't even good enough to make competitive decks.
It's all getting a bit a out of hand...even in standard.
but these "combos" are uninteractive, too easy to pull off consistently and unhealthy for the game in general, some classes have no way of dealing with these situations...
I have to agree with OP. This expansion killed the game that i knew, as far as interaction goes. There has always been combo decks that did their thing, but this is just another level of stupidity. I give it a few weeks, and everyone will be playing either mage, hunter, paladin or warlock for the simple reason that they dont need to interact with their opponent at all. Theres simply no point, trying to build anything else. Blizzard has already decided, which decks work and which doesnt via the quests. I really wanted this expansion to work, but it doesnt. I see that decks are powerful, but powerful does not equal fun. Not at all. Deck building is dead. Theres no reason to experiment, and trying anything else. If you try, you get steamrolled.
Quests are way too easy and too powerful. Just make sure people actually need to draw the quest card in order to play it and the game should be OK.
I think this would be a good change. When I first heard about the quests I was under the impression they would work like C-Thun where your final reward would be shuffled into your deck rather than deposited in hand.
I personally am not having any fun with this expansion but I don't think the game is beyond repair by any means. The devs just need to make some minor tweaks in order to slow down quest progression. I think something as simple as changing the warlock requirement to "do 'x' damage to your character with spells or minion effects" would be a positive change because I believe the simple act of eliminating the hero power as a means to advance the quest would be enough to slow things down for a turn or two.
I usually dont agree with these posts, but i play since Hearthstone launched and i cant recall a single time were one archetype was completly shut down (that archetype ofc being control). There were times were extremly polariing decks existed like for example caverns quest rogue, but it usually was just 1 deck that made life miserable for a certain archetype.
Now with multilpe decks going either infinite or dealing ~60 dmg in one turn (or sometimes both) it is just not valid plan to try play something like last expansion control priest (not saying that was particularly engaging, but some people like playing fatigue/control style decks)
So while i do understand that quite a few people like the current fast paced meta where games usually end around turn 6-9 i have to strongly agree with the current itterration of the game being in a extremely bad shape due to control only players jsut not finding a place in it.
For example imagine playing a rpg like World of Warcraft, imagine pretty much everything is tuned to utmost perfection and you really just pick your class/role based on the playstyle you enjoy the most. But somehow Druid and Hunter no matter what the do can only do 50% of the damage/healing any other spec is able to. Would you call that good balance?
Now the current state of the game does not bother me to much, i usually play control decks but i also enjoy tempo decks from time to time, but control only players just got shafted really hard and i jsut think thats horrible design.
Quests are way too easy and too powerful. Just make sure people actually need to draw the quest card in order to play it and the game should be OK.
I think this would be a good change. When I first heard about the quests I was under the impression they would work like C-Thun where your final reward would be shuffled into your deck rather than deposited in hand.
Which would basically turn every quest into the priest quest that is pretty much unplayable? I disagree, i think if you look at quests in a vacuum their design is on spot, the problem only becomes apparent when you add discounts to 0 mana and miracle turns.
I feel like most of the current problems would be fixed if auctioneer got removed from standard and discounts were unable to reduce mana costs below 1. Not saying there should not be 0 mana cards, but "global" cost reduction is just a very questionable design in my opinion.
Well, I've been playing since Beta and I can definitely say that this expansion has been my least favorite. And I play exclusively in Wild these days. It just seems wrong not to play with my whole library of cards. Of course, it's not just the expansion's fault. There's been power creep going on since the beginning. United in Stormwind is just a continuation of a long trend. When was the last time anyone saw anyone play a Chillwind Yeti? Heck, playing one of those on turn one earns you achievement points. I'm not entirely sure how many nerfs it'll take to steer the game back in the right directiion -- or whether nerfs are even the answer. Perhaps we should increase our starting life totals? The only control deck I'm playing with a reliable chance of winning is my Priest Reno deathrattle deck with the Awaken The Makers quest. And even after gaining over a hundred lives I have lost to the Hunter and Warlock questlines. Sadness.
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Dependable loan sharks since 1960. We sink our teeth into every deal we make.
i am sorry what do u mean mage with pyroblasts? there is no deck running pyroblasts for 0 mana?
He is talking about Ignite which when played a few times with Quest completed turns into 2 Mana ~10 Dmg Spell, Incanters Flow and Hot Streak enable you to cast it for free. (Though cost gets back up to 2 once shuffled back into the deck)
1) change mage's reward to spelldamage+2, or hell even +1. The fact that it's permanent is already a huge bonus, it doesn't need +3.
2) change warlock's reward to make you immune to fatigue damage, but it doesn't damage the opponent. If you want to hurt your opponent, it's through cards and not fatigue.
Hunter quest is fine imo, control warrior beats it with all its armour. Not sure what to do about garrote rogue.
Quests are way too easy and too powerful. Just make sure people actually need to draw the quest card in order to play it and the game should be OK.
Matches are just a race towards the goal and can't be countered.
I'd say the issue is much greater than this. The whole game now is "damage race", where everyone is trying to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. If you slow quests down to like Quest Priest level, they will become unplayable and aggro will simply take their place. Ultimately, game will remain pretty much the same in terms of speed, but will be even less diverse (with only aggro and tempo decks).
Honestly, I think standard is busted at this point and without re-work it's beyond saving. Simple buffs and nerfs won't do this time.
2) change warlock's reward to make you immune to fatigue damage, but it doesn't damage the opponent. If you want to hurt your opponent, it's through cards and not fatigue.
That would make his quest pointless and not worth any effort.
I think that Blizz created and supported every single possible archetype and every single one of them attracted complaints. Aggro - too fast. Control - to slow. Board play? To many minions to deal with at once. Burst? Not interactive and not counterable. Point of view depends on where you (like to) sit. Truth is, there is something viable now for everyone. Quick look at HSreplay and there's quite a few decks to choose from.
The way I see it, balancing is important and it will come because it has to. My Warlock deck does not have a card, which costs more than 4 mana - it is much faster and quicker than ever. It still requires me to think ahead and balance - should I remove? Heal? Self-damage? Drop a minion? For me, that is enjoyable and interactive enough even if I lose. Mage is a challenge but I enjoy it. I drop minions and remove them immediately myself to slow their Frost spells down. I think the main complaint is that the quests are too quick and rewards too powerful and too easy to abuse. Blizz will balance that, which means Aggro will dominate again as it always does as a result of these actions. Then everyone will be 'happy'.
I was wondering if others felt the same. This meta, is very, very volatile. 4 classes have an OTK combo, and require heavy dust costs to make them. The meta was defined so quickly, that I expect nerfs to all questlines that provide an insane mid/late game that isn't interactive at all. In a mage mirror, you're literally fighting with yourself to finish your quest. Like, that alone should be red flags. That questline is a total joke because there is absolutely 0 interactive PvP elements.
Same goes for Warlock. Your target in the mirror match is yourself. You don't even care what the opponent is doing, cause whoever gets the cards in there hands first, and finishes the quest first, wins.
OTK DH was already a thing, but now on steroids. This OTK combo was already non-interactive, but now its way, way faster. The mirror matchup, is a bit more interesting. But with the draw steroids, you're looking to mulligan for those intentionally, making the interaction non-existent, again.
It is absolutely bonkers that they're straight up making cards that absolutely removes all PvP elements. I can't wait till someone finds a consistent Priest OTK, and we're off to the races on who can OTK first, with no interaction xD
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Powercreep doesnt have to mean the games are quicker. If your aggressive 2 drop is powercreeping the old 2 drops, but so is my taunty-2 drop the relative speed stays the same. Your health does always stay at 30 though (mostly), so in one regard it's fair to say that as cards get more powercreeped the game can speed up.
We both need to buy the new cards though (which is why powercreep tends to exist in the first place - that and the fact it's difficult to come up with novel, fair cards within the confines of the mana system).
I would also like to mention that it is ALMOST impossible to ever have a "worst expansion meta ever" after the debauchery of AOO Demon Hunter at launch.
I just don't think they intended it to be this fast and to push out 'tentpost' legendaries from only 2 expansions back (Darkmoon Faire Old Gods). Why would you buff N'Zoth for him to just be a bad slow card 1 expansion later. There are even legendaries and strategies in this set that are instantly bad because the meta is so fast.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the games are faster, but it just shows they are struggling with cohesion between sets and a long term vision for the play experience and class identities. Either that or they just aren't testing and balancing enough and expansions are being sent out with fingers crossed.
Standard feels like wild right now...the combos kill you too fast, there is nothing you can do to prevent it. This doesn't feel good. Sitting there as a mage just ignites over and over feels like absolute gash.
I don't want to be forced to play either no minions or deck filled with anti-spell tech minions + mutanus. I like playing minions. Two thirds of this new set are new mininos that aren't even worth thinking about experimenting with... utterly pointless.
I think most of us that are still playing this game like playing minions. Why is Zoo so consistently shit these days? Because it was cheap? Yeah that is what I think. Zoo, was a nice cheap non-packaged, flexible way to play the game, so they refuse to fuel that fire anymore.
Spice Bread Baker "wow, they actually gve us neutral healing back"...we're so naive lol.
Maybe if they stopped power creeping the shit out of everything in every possible direction, pushing 'packages' that are clearly designed to be anti f2p and totally busted when combined they could have introduced a combo meta that didn't feel so stupidly OP - I mean, consider that hearthstone has become a game where we have non legendary (so x 2) 5 mana 8/8 divine shield netutral taunts (just an example, there are many) and shit for some time...cards that early on in the game's life cycle would be costing your entire turn in the late game. And often these cards aren't even good enough to make competitive decks.
It's all getting a bit a out of hand...even in standard.
No one is gonna talk about the most retarded deck of this exp?? You guys know face hunter is still in tier s after like 8 months?
but these "combos" are uninteractive, too easy to pull off consistently and unhealthy for the game in general, some classes have no way of dealing with these situations...
Quests are way too easy and too powerful. Just make sure people actually need to draw the quest card in order to play it and the game should be OK.
Matches are just a race towards the goal and can't be countered.
I have to agree with OP. This expansion killed the game that i knew, as far as interaction goes. There has always been combo decks that did their thing, but this is just another level of stupidity. I give it a few weeks, and everyone will be playing either mage, hunter, paladin or warlock for the simple reason that they dont need to interact with their opponent at all. Theres simply no point, trying to build anything else. Blizzard has already decided, which decks work and which doesnt via the quests. I really wanted this expansion to work, but it doesnt. I see that decks are powerful, but powerful does not equal fun. Not at all. Deck building is dead. Theres no reason to experiment, and trying anything else. If you try, you get steamrolled.
I think this would be a good change. When I first heard about the quests I was under the impression they would work like C-Thun where your final reward would be shuffled into your deck rather than deposited in hand.
I personally am not having any fun with this expansion but I don't think the game is beyond repair by any means. The devs just need to make some minor tweaks in order to slow down quest progression. I think something as simple as changing the warlock requirement to "do 'x' damage to your character with spells or minion effects" would be a positive change because I believe the simple act of eliminating the hero power as a means to advance the quest would be enough to slow things down for a turn or two.
I usually dont agree with these posts, but i play since Hearthstone launched and i cant recall a single time were one archetype was completly shut down (that archetype ofc being control). There were times were extremly polariing decks existed like for example caverns quest rogue, but it usually was just 1 deck that made life miserable for a certain archetype.
Now with multilpe decks going either infinite or dealing ~60 dmg in one turn (or sometimes both) it is just not valid plan to try play something like last expansion control priest (not saying that was particularly engaging, but some people like playing fatigue/control style decks)
So while i do understand that quite a few people like the current fast paced meta where games usually end around turn 6-9 i have to strongly agree with the current itterration of the game being in a extremely bad shape due to control only players jsut not finding a place in it.
For example imagine playing a rpg like World of Warcraft, imagine pretty much everything is tuned to utmost perfection and you really just pick your class/role based on the playstyle you enjoy the most. But somehow Druid and Hunter no matter what the do can only do 50% of the damage/healing any other spec is able to. Would you call that good balance?
Now the current state of the game does not bother me to much, i usually play control decks but i also enjoy tempo decks from time to time, but control only players just got shafted really hard and i jsut think thats horrible design.
Which would basically turn every quest into the priest quest that is pretty much unplayable? I disagree, i think if you look at quests in a vacuum their design is on spot, the problem only becomes apparent when you add discounts to 0 mana and miracle turns.
I feel like most of the current problems would be fixed if auctioneer got removed from standard and discounts were unable to reduce mana costs below 1. Not saying there should not be 0 mana cards, but "global" cost reduction is just a very questionable design in my opinion.
i am sorry what do u mean mage with pyroblasts? there is no deck running pyroblasts for 0 mana?
Well, I've been playing since Beta and I can definitely say that this expansion has been my least favorite. And I play exclusively in Wild these days. It just seems wrong not to play with my whole library of cards. Of course, it's not just the expansion's fault. There's been power creep going on since the beginning. United in Stormwind is just a continuation of a long trend. When was the last time anyone saw anyone play a Chillwind Yeti? Heck, playing one of those on turn one earns you achievement points. I'm not entirely sure how many nerfs it'll take to steer the game back in the right directiion -- or whether nerfs are even the answer. Perhaps we should increase our starting life totals? The only control deck I'm playing with a reliable chance of winning is my Priest Reno deathrattle deck with the Awaken The Makers quest. And even after gaining over a hundred lives I have lost to the Hunter and Warlock questlines. Sadness.
Dependable loan sharks since 1960. We sink our teeth into every deal we make.
He is talking about Ignite which when played a few times with Quest completed turns into 2 Mana ~10 Dmg Spell, Incanters Flow and Hot Streak enable you to cast it for free. (Though cost gets back up to 2 once shuffled back into the deck)
I have two easy fixes.
1) change mage's reward to spelldamage+2, or hell even +1. The fact that it's permanent is already a huge bonus, it doesn't need +3.
2) change warlock's reward to make you immune to fatigue damage, but it doesn't damage the opponent. If you want to hurt your opponent, it's through cards and not fatigue.
Hunter quest is fine imo, control warrior beats it with all its armour. Not sure what to do about garrote rogue.
I'd say the issue is much greater than this. The whole game now is "damage race", where everyone is trying to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. If you slow quests down to like Quest Priest level, they will become unplayable and aggro will simply take their place. Ultimately, game will remain pretty much the same in terms of speed, but will be even less diverse (with only aggro and tempo decks).
Honestly, I think standard is busted at this point and without re-work it's beyond saving. Simple buffs and nerfs won't do this time.
That would make his quest pointless and not worth any effort.
I think that Blizz created and supported every single possible archetype and every single one of them attracted complaints. Aggro - too fast. Control - to slow. Board play? To many minions to deal with at once. Burst? Not interactive and not counterable. Point of view depends on where you (like to) sit. Truth is, there is something viable now for everyone. Quick look at HSreplay and there's quite a few decks to choose from.
The way I see it, balancing is important and it will come because it has to. My Warlock deck does not have a card, which costs more than 4 mana - it is much faster and quicker than ever. It still requires me to think ahead and balance - should I remove? Heal? Self-damage? Drop a minion? For me, that is enjoyable and interactive enough even if I lose. Mage is a challenge but I enjoy it. I drop minions and remove them immediately myself to slow their Frost spells down. I think the main complaint is that the quests are too quick and rewards too powerful and too easy to abuse. Blizz will balance that, which means Aggro will dominate again as it always does as a result of these actions. Then everyone will be 'happy'.
Ye... except no. There aren't any control or mid-range decks that used to be roughly 1/3 of the meta in the past. They are not viable anymore.
Aye. And as a player that enjoys playing Control, this meta is a little hard on me. #smallest_violin
I was wondering if others felt the same. This meta, is very, very volatile. 4 classes have an OTK combo, and require heavy dust costs to make them. The meta was defined so quickly, that I expect nerfs to all questlines that provide an insane mid/late game that isn't interactive at all. In a mage mirror, you're literally fighting with yourself to finish your quest. Like, that alone should be red flags. That questline is a total joke because there is absolutely 0 interactive PvP elements.
Same goes for Warlock. Your target in the mirror match is yourself. You don't even care what the opponent is doing, cause whoever gets the cards in there hands first, and finishes the quest first, wins.
OTK DH was already a thing, but now on steroids. This OTK combo was already non-interactive, but now its way, way faster. The mirror matchup, is a bit more interesting. But with the draw steroids, you're looking to mulligan for those intentionally, making the interaction non-existent, again.
It is absolutely bonkers that they're straight up making cards that absolutely removes all PvP elements. I can't wait till someone finds a consistent Priest OTK, and we're off to the races on who can OTK first, with no interaction xD