Honestly, this may be personal bias, but I personally believe Quests to be the worst of the "unique" expansion mechanics we've gotten so far. They're way too restrictive and feel like they need to be borderline broken to even be worth running in most cases, resulting in games that get stale both from a deck variety perspective and a general lack of uninteractivity between the two players.
Like, I know this view may be extreme, but I genuinely believe quest decks generally need to be kept at an "underwhelming" power level for other decks to exist, else the game just turns into a solitaire with the only two types of decks able to play being either quest decks or decks that directly counter said strategies, either through hyper aggression or quick value ( like the current handbuff pally and other decks using Battlegrounds Battlemaster...
That's how it works for every single archetype Blizzard tries to push into the game with a 1 card move. Same with stuff like odd-even decks and highlander decks. They just print one (or a couple) super powerful cards that push a deck that didn't exist and was not close to existing into solid status.
Warrior/Priest/Druid/Rogue/Paladin/Shaman (in Standard strictly) are the Questlines that can actually facilitate building other types of decks, besides their quest-based built decks. The problem is that the quest-based built decks are already way more powerful as the meta tyrants that made no room for creativity.
DH/Mage/Warlock/Hunter are the ones that make the deck building very one dimensional due to their powerful (mini and final) rewards, extremely high values, and uninteractive counters.
Completely agreed that the Queslines (especially Hunter, Mage, Warlock, and Warrior) have ruined it. You see the exact same cards played game after game and I am truly beyond sick of them.
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Developers' inability to balance is one thing; players choosing to abuse it is another.
thats was always the point of Quests, you automatically knew what to expect. And it was always troublesome because they make them very easy "play x cards" and they gave them a huge reward because otherwise nobody would play them. Remember Priest Quest-or Rogue? Or taunt Warrior, so much fun right.
But as a matter of fact, they are forced to produce new stuff and just ran out of good ideas.
I don't know... I find the questline hunter shell to be useful for all kinds of memey shenanigans. See my latest decks for some examples. The (discounted, targetable) hero power and cheap spells give you a lot of board control, while you assemble something spectacular. At least, that's the theory.
If they were meant to make the Hunter's Questline designed for Midrange/Control Hunter, they should have required the spells to deal damage to minions only, not the hero face......
During an AMA on Twitter back in February, Iksar said that he believes deckbuilding shouldn't be a core part of the Hearthstone experience. Guess they are achieving that goal.
All decks in the history of HS are always built with a win condition in mind, whether a player is aware of it or not (even not having one usually means wanting to win by attrition). Questlines are just a very obvious win condition as it's practically spelled out to the player as opposed to trying to piece one together by examining card synergies.
I think the reason why people are falling out of love with the game right now is because completing a questline results in such a huge power spike in some cases that it almost invalidates what's happened before that. And it's not a pleasant feeling, realising that you were playing a losing game from the start.
Well you mentioned 8 decks that can be modified a lot. Druid and warlock quests can be played in some very different decks and most of the quest decks are outcompeted by various other aggro/midrange/combo decks. If "deckbuilding" means "make a full on control decks packed with meme cards" then you're are in a very bad place these days, but if you want to make your own take on a deck concept or experiment with counters (there are many) for all the spell based decks you can even easier do that today. I've made it to legend with homebrew decks in stormwind too. I actually think that making a deck is a lot easier these days because the quests give a good direction with multiple packages to go for. Maybe my tone is a bit snarky? For that I'm sorry. You not liking the deck building here is understandable and personally I also felt that a lot of ideas are out of question because of the high powerlevel. I hope that all you guys can still find some fun stuff to try. I like getting inspiration from funki monki for example.
Well you mentioned 8 decks that can be modified a lot. Druid and warlock quests can be played in some very different decks and most of the quest decks are outcompeted by various other aggro/midrange/combo decks. If "deckbuilding" means "make a full on control decks packed with meme cards" then you're are in a very bad place these days, but if you want to make your own take on a deck concept or experiment with counters (there are many) for all the spell based decks you can even easier do that today. I've made it to legend with homebrew decks in stormwind too. I actually think that making a deck is a lot easier these days because the quests give a good direction with multiple packages to go for. Maybe my tone is a bit snarky? For that I'm sorry. You not liking the deck building here is understandable and personally I also felt that a lot of ideas are out of question because of the high powerlevel. I hope that all you guys can still find some fun stuff to try. I like getting inspiration from funki monki for example.
And how many hunter, mage, warrior, shaman, paladin and rogue questlines' decklists do you see around nowadays? I mean, besides switching those 1/2 cards, of course.
Well you mentioned 8 decks that can be modified a lot. Druid and warlock quests can be played in some very different decks and most of the quest decks are outcompeted by various other aggro/midrange/combo decks. If "deckbuilding" means "make a full on control decks packed with meme cards" then you're are in a very bad place these days, but if you want to make your own take on a deck concept or experiment with counters (there are many) for all the spell based decks you can even easier do that today. I've made it to legend with homebrew decks in stormwind too. I actually think that making a deck is a lot easier these days because the quests give a good direction with multiple packages to go for. Maybe my tone is a bit snarky? For that I'm sorry. You not liking the deck building here is understandable and personally I also felt that a lot of ideas are out of question because of the high powerlevel. I hope that all you guys can still find some fun stuff to try. I like getting inspiration from funki monki for example.
And how many hunter, mage, warrior, shaman, paladin and rogue questlines' decklists do you see around nowadays? I mean, besides switching those 1/2 cards, of course.
VS has a long talk about which quest rogue package to run. Shaman still has doomhammer as an alternative quest package. Warrior has a pure pirate and a "control" version. Paladins quest doesn't really exist and mage is certainly pretty locked with some freeze spell variation or +/- minions. Hunter seems to be unpopular enough to be a lot of "same but different" decks. So I'd say 2 for most of the quests. making 10 legendary cards where most of them provides 2 playable decks is pretty good isn't it? I can mention a lot of cards with 0 deck options. I agree that you probably won't invent a completely new meta breaking way of playing these cards, but that's pretty rare for most cards I believe. Demon seed has become more of a support/backup card over time, so there is some creativity at least. I did get you wrong at first thou. I was mostly referring to the variation in the meta and not the possibilities with quests only. I think there are many cool decks to make thanks to those cards, but they certainly dictate the build more than usual and are not super flexible. I don't see any Xilliax in this expansion, which somewhat is the other extreme case.
Yep, playing against these broken ass Questlines is by far the worst experience(since Baku/Genn) in HS for me. I don't mind losing, but seeing the exact same shit every game is just boring as fuck.
Yep, playing against these broken ass Questlines is by far the worst experience(since Baku/Genn) in HS for me. I don't mind losing, but seeing the exact same shit every game is just boring as fuck.
Baku/Genn was rotated to Wild early after just 1 year in Standard, hopefully they will do the same to these Questlines as they are pretty much restricting deck-building creativity for Standard until 2023......
How did the player base react to Baku/Genn decks that push Blizz send them out of Standard early?
Yep, playing against these broken ass Questlines is by far the worst experience(since Baku/Genn) in HS for me. I don't mind losing, but seeing the exact same shit every game is just boring as fuck.
Baku/Genn was rotated to Wild early after just 1 year in Standard, hopefully they will do the same to these Questlines as they are pretty much restricting deck-building creativity for Standard until 2023......
How did the player base react to Baku/Genn decks that push Blizz send them out of Standard early?
Good question and I kind of wish that i was around this forum at the time. I think one of the problems was that odd pala and warrior kept on being viable decks throughout the year :)
Questlines are good as an idea but in reality make the game extremely stale. That and the cheap craws and cost reduction madness makes HS feel like shite in the moment. Unless they stop reducing the cost of cards and kill quests the game will stay bad.
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"... but not less than (1)" is needed now more than ever!
Yep, playing against these broken ass Questlines is by far the worst experience(since Baku/Genn) in HS for me. I don't mind losing, but seeing the exact same shit every game is just boring as fuck.
Baku/Genn was rotated to Wild early after just 1 year in Standard, hopefully they will do the same to these Questlines as they are pretty much restricting deck-building creativity for Standard until 2023......
How did the player base react to Baku/Genn decks that push Blizz send them out of Standard early?
This is a dumb take, no offence. Baku and genn weren't rotated to wild because "they restrict deck building creativity" (lol), they were rotated to wild because they were powerful, omnipresent and, most importantly, couldn't be nerfed. The questlines can be nerfed and I 100% guarantee most people by the time next rotation comes around will be whining about something completely different from questlines, because that's always how this works. Recency bias is a bitch.
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Am I the only one extremely unhappy about how questlines have majorly eradicated the deck building process from the game?
Quest mage, quest hunter, quest shaman, quest paladin, quest hunter, quest druid, quest rogue, quest dh, quest warlock. All basically preset decks.
The only one leaving some (minor) room for creativity is quest priest.
The fun for me is down to Genn and Baku levels. Autoconceding more than half my casual games out of pure boredom... Damn chickens**ts!!!
Same its Quest hunter mage rogue that can take you from 30 hp to zero in 1 turn
Honestly, this may be personal bias, but I personally believe Quests to be the worst of the "unique" expansion mechanics we've gotten so far. They're way too restrictive and feel like they need to be borderline broken to even be worth running in most cases, resulting in games that get stale both from a deck variety perspective and a general lack of uninteractivity between the two players.
Like, I know this view may be extreme, but I genuinely believe quest decks generally need to be kept at an "underwhelming" power level for other decks to exist, else the game just turns into a solitaire with the only two types of decks able to play being either quest decks or decks that directly counter said strategies, either through hyper aggression or quick value ( like the current handbuff pally and other decks using Battlegrounds Battlemaster...
There is plenty of working off meta decks without quest. Just make one yourself, or find out.
That's how it works for every single archetype Blizzard tries to push into the game with a 1 card move. Same with stuff like odd-even decks and highlander decks. They just print one (or a couple) super powerful cards that push a deck that didn't exist and was not close to existing into solid status.
Warrior/Priest/Druid/Rogue/Paladin/Shaman (in Standard strictly) are the Questlines that can actually facilitate building other types of decks, besides their quest-based built decks. The problem is that the quest-based built decks are already way more powerful as the meta tyrants that made no room for creativity.
DH/Mage/Warlock/Hunter are the ones that make the deck building very one dimensional due to their powerful (mini and final) rewards, extremely high values, and uninteractive counters.
Completely agreed that the Queslines (especially Hunter, Mage, Warlock, and Warrior) have ruined it. You see the exact same cards played game after game and I am truly beyond sick of them.
Developers' inability to balance is one thing; players choosing to abuse it is another.
thats was always the point of Quests, you automatically knew what to expect. And it was always troublesome because they make them very easy "play x cards" and they gave them a huge reward because otherwise nobody would play them. Remember Priest Quest-or Rogue? Or taunt Warrior, so much fun right.
But as a matter of fact, they are forced to produce new stuff and just ran out of good ideas.
I don't know... I find the questline hunter shell to be useful for all kinds of memey shenanigans. See my latest decks for some examples. The (discounted, targetable) hero power and cheap spells give you a lot of board control, while you assemble something spectacular. At least, that's the theory.
If they were meant to make the Hunter's Questline designed for Midrange/Control Hunter, they should have required the spells to deal damage to minions only, not the hero face......
During an AMA on Twitter back in February, Iksar said that he believes deckbuilding shouldn't be a core part of the Hearthstone experience. Guess they are achieving that goal.
All decks in the history of HS are always built with a win condition in mind, whether a player is aware of it or not (even not having one usually means wanting to win by attrition). Questlines are just a very obvious win condition as it's practically spelled out to the player as opposed to trying to piece one together by examining card synergies.
I think the reason why people are falling out of love with the game right now is because completing a questline results in such a huge power spike in some cases that it almost invalidates what's happened before that. And it's not a pleasant feeling, realising that you were playing a losing game from the start.
Well you mentioned 8 decks that can be modified a lot. Druid and warlock quests can be played in some very different decks and most of the quest decks are outcompeted by various other aggro/midrange/combo decks. If "deckbuilding" means "make a full on control decks packed with meme cards" then you're are in a very bad place these days, but if you want to make your own take on a deck concept or experiment with counters (there are many) for all the spell based decks you can even easier do that today. I've made it to legend with homebrew decks in stormwind too. I actually think that making a deck is a lot easier these days because the quests give a good direction with multiple packages to go for. Maybe my tone is a bit snarky? For that I'm sorry. You not liking the deck building here is understandable and personally I also felt that a lot of ideas are out of question because of the high powerlevel. I hope that all you guys can still find some fun stuff to try. I like getting inspiration from funki monki for example.
And how many hunter, mage, warrior, shaman, paladin and rogue questlines' decklists do you see around nowadays? I mean, besides switching those 1/2 cards, of course.
VS has a long talk about which quest rogue package to run. Shaman still has doomhammer as an alternative quest package. Warrior has a pure pirate and a "control" version. Paladins quest doesn't really exist and mage is certainly pretty locked with some freeze spell variation or +/- minions. Hunter seems to be unpopular enough to be a lot of "same but different" decks. So I'd say 2 for most of the quests. making 10 legendary cards where most of them provides 2 playable decks is pretty good isn't it? I can mention a lot of cards with 0 deck options. I agree that you probably won't invent a completely new meta breaking way of playing these cards, but that's pretty rare for most cards I believe. Demon seed has become more of a support/backup card over time, so there is some creativity at least. I did get you wrong at first thou. I was mostly referring to the variation in the meta and not the possibilities with quests only. I think there are many cool decks to make thanks to those cards, but they certainly dictate the build more than usual and are not super flexible. I don't see any Xilliax in this expansion, which somewhat is the other extreme case.
Yep, playing against these broken ass Questlines is by far the worst experience(since Baku/Genn) in HS for me. I don't mind losing, but seeing the exact same shit every game is just boring as fuck.
Developers' inability to balance is one thing; players choosing to abuse it is another.
Baku/Genn was rotated to Wild early after just 1 year in Standard, hopefully they will do the same to these Questlines as they are pretty much restricting deck-building creativity for Standard until 2023......
How did the player base react to Baku/Genn decks that push Blizz send them out of Standard early?
Good question and I kind of wish that i was around this forum at the time. I think one of the problems was that odd pala and warrior kept on being viable decks throughout the year :)
Questlines are good as an idea but in reality make the game extremely stale. That and the cheap craws and cost reduction madness makes HS feel like shite in the moment. Unless they stop reducing the cost of cards and kill quests the game will stay bad.
"... but not less than (1)" is needed now more than ever!
This is a dumb take, no offence. Baku and genn weren't rotated to wild because "they restrict deck building creativity" (lol), they were rotated to wild because they were powerful, omnipresent and, most importantly, couldn't be nerfed. The questlines can be nerfed and I 100% guarantee most people by the time next rotation comes around will be whining about something completely different from questlines, because that's always how this works. Recency bias is a bitch.