Hearthpwn

I’ve realized that discussing some topics about Hearthstone with people is often pointless because nobody seems to judge the game objectively.

For instance, debating the balance, gameplay, or power level of certain cards or decks feels futile.

The majority of players stick to a few classes and have favorite decks. Everyone always downplays the power of their own classes or decks while hyping up the power level of the decks they lose to. 

Sometimes, I feel like I’m talking to a wall. I’ll never forget when The Ceaseless Expanse got banned in Wild. Some people defended Holy Wrath Paladin, saying, “It’s not even a good deck; it’s just popular, and they shouldn’t nerf it,” and others argued, “It’s not a good deck; people just play it because it’s fun,” or "The deck shouldn't get nerfed because you can use Kobold Monk to counter it"

The funny thing is that some people play certain decks that hard counter those insanely problematic decks or cards, so they think those problematic decks or cards are fine just because they can beat them with a hard counter. I saw someone say "I lost a lot to Holy Wrath Paladin, so I switched to Mage with Ice Block and started beating all the Paladins. Holy Wrath Paladin is fine and shouldn’t get nerfed."

Another topic is the freebies.

Sometimes, they announce an event or Twitch drops with 10 free packs, and nobody says anything. But when they announce another event or Twitch drops for 2 free packs, everyone complains, saying, “What??? Only 2 packs??? Blizzard is so stingy,” or “Classic Blizzard.”

The devs give out free skins during almost every in-game event, and nobody bats an eye. Yet, the moment they release an expensive skin, tons of people complain, saying, “Blizzard only cares about money,” or “Blizzard is so greedy.”

It’s truly weird.

Aren't you judging it objectively by making this post?

Yeah the random hate comes from a small part of the fan base and other negative people in the community. These people could get 10 free legendaries and wouldn’t raise a finger to say thank you but you can bet next time if they got 5 they’d go all Dudley Dursley and say ‘well last year last year I got 10’. 

it’s been part of the game since the start and will probably continue to be. 

You cannot have objective discussions about balance, because there is no set guidelines of what is "fair" and the card design philosophy also changes frequently. Defending a busted interaction that was overlooked by devs and pointing towards a counter that makes your deck worse is pretty stupid though. As for freebies, i am of course happy to get them, but let's not forget the number of legendaries, the number of expansions and minisets, the number of classes have all increased, and pack prices have also increased. The freebies don't make up for these practices.

Blizzard only cares about money. That is a fact. Because it's a business after all and it needs to be sustainable.

The balance changes they do is to keep the players. If they keep the players they keep the money in. 

When the players get bored we bring an expansion to keep them playing. Keep the players, keep the money, and try to earn more by selling skins, bundles, and battle passes.

I'm actually pleased with the number of packs, skins, and drops we get for free and I used to pay and buy bundles and skins until it just got too much and too expensive. I used to buy 3 mega bundles a year and season passes and stuff like that. a hero skin now and there. When I put everything on paper I spent about 300-400€ a year. And after that, I just realized that I'd rather spend money on other AAA games than invest in the same grinding random thing called Hearthstone

As for the game itself. What do you consider balance?  It will never be balanced. There will always be classes that have a higher win rate than others. A full balance is never achievable. At the end of the day, it's an RNG-based game where skill is second to being lucky and just grinding with " top tier" decks to achieve a higher rank. If you want a completely balanced game play chess where skill is the main factor.

There will always be classes that have a higher win rate than others.

Yeah, obviously. I’m talking about when there are extremely powerful decks or cards that make many other decks terrible—for example, Holy Wrath Paladin.

I feel like I am gonna argue with another wall unfortunately. 

Quote from MintMurderMedia >>

Aren't you judging it objectively by making this post?

 I'm sure he intended to, but since he said "Nobody", he is including himself.

I can be an ultra-pessimist and say that's just human nature in general, not just related to the HS community.

At the end of the day, it's a game we play to enjoy and with so much RNG and random things happening outside of the player's control, that enjoyment can feel like entrapment. Entrapment in a prison where you can only lose and where . . .

okay I can go on, but basically do your best to be positive I guess. As long as you're not spreading negativity, at least you're not contributing to the mess pile.

My advice is try to be considerate of the other side of any argument. Maybe the other commenters and players are just repeating what they've heard elsewhere, maybe they don't have the right words to describe what they're seeing/feeling. Give them a genuine chance, and then move on if they don't get the hint. No use wasting energy on these 'walls' as you call them.

I agree with you OP. Arguing with a random hs player about balance is pointless and I dont blame the hearthstone player base for being immature but the game itself. The gameplay is just a toxic experience that make players toxic/hate specific cards. I dont think that any balance patch will change that. The power level of cards keeps increasing which means more players will get frustrated from broken cards.  

There is also to much luck involved in the game starting from a matchup ending with random cards draws. Sure skill exists and it does matter in some spots but most of the times it doesnt. I feel like most of the things are decided for you already when you start the game and you have almost no control on the outcome and this is really frustrating. 

Anyway, personally hs has failed in the most important aspect of a game which is "being fun". Everyone experience is different but I really doubt that there are players who really enjoy every single match they play. The only positive of hs is the amazing art. Remove the art, music and animations and the game will de dead the same day. 

Discussion about balance is often masking a real question - "why my deck sucks". Your deck sucks because you refuse to acknowledge the meta. Sometimes Pirate DH will be better, sometimes Odyn Warrior will be better, sometimes Rainbow DK will be better.

Meta is balanced when we have no clear meta tyrant deck, there are multiple winning options and whatever class you play you can climb. So let's look at hsguru. In top 20 we have:

4 Shamans (Rainbow, Nostalgia, Spell Damage, Asteroid), 3 Priests (Zarimi, Pain, Overheal), 3 DKs (Frost, Buttons, Highlander), 3 Hunters (Egg, Secret, Handbuff), 2 Mages (Orb BS, Elemental), 2 Rogues (Mech, Weapon), 1 Paladin (Pipsi), 1 DH (Pirate), 1 Druid (Dungar). No Warlocks, no Warriors (best Warlock (Painlock) is 23rd, still above 50% winrate, 2 best Warriors (Odyn, Mech) are both above 49%)

So 9/11 classes are playable, that's not bad, Warlock and Warrior are almost playable. Different playstyles are available. What do you really want?

Quote from kawhi1weefc >>

There will always be classes that have a higher win rate than others.

Yeah, obviously. I’m talking about when there are extremely powerful decks or cards that make many other decks terrible—for example, Holy Wrath Paladin.

I feel like I am gonna argue with another wall unfortunately. 

 Holy Wrath Paladin is just an oversight of the development team that effected the whole Wild meta Either there was not enough play testing or it was pure laziness, aka, let's just go live, see what is broken, and fix it later. The same story repeats every time a new expansion or mini-set goes live.

I'm not saying it's not broken because it is but with a huge card pool in the wild section that is bound to happen every now and then. It happened before and probably will happen again.

In my opinion, it was just a badly designed card that didn't take Wild into consideration as they, most likely, don't do any play testing in Wild

Free skins are 9/10 times a piece of shit artwork, while those who are actually fcking dope looking are behind a pay-wall:-)

Quote from kawhi1weefc >>

I’ve realized that discussing some topics about Hearthstone with people is often pointless because nobody seems to judge the game objectively.

For instance, debating the balance, gameplay, or power level of certain cards or decks feels futile.

The majority of players stick to a few classes and have favorite decks. Everyone always downplays the power of their own classes or decks while hyping up the power level of the decks they lose to. 

Sometimes, I feel like I’m talking to a wall. I’ll never forget when The Ceaseless Expanse got banned in Wild. Some people defended Holy Wrath Paladin, saying, “It’s not even a good deck; it’s just popular, and they shouldn’t nerf it,” and others argued, “It’s not a good deck; people just play it because it’s fun,” or "The deck shouldn't get nerfed because you can use Kobold Monk to counter it"

The funny thing is that some people play certain decks that hard counter those insanely problematic decks or cards, so they think those problematic decks or cards are fine just because they can beat them with a hard counter. I saw someone say "I lost a lot to Holy Wrath Paladin, so I switched to Mage with Ice Block and started beating all the Paladins. Holy Wrath Paladin is fine and shouldn’t get nerfed."

Another topic is the freebies.

Sometimes, they announce an event or Twitch drops with 10 free packs, and nobody says anything. But when they announce another event or Twitch drops for 2 free packs, everyone complains, saying, “What??? Only 2 packs??? Blizzard is so stingy,” or “Classic Blizzard.”

The devs give out free skins during almost every in-game event, and nobody bats an eye. Yet, the moment they release an expensive skin, tons of people complain, saying, “Blizzard only cares about money,” or “Blizzard is so greedy.”

It’s truly weird.

 You are not necessarily wrong with anything you say, but I don't really see much objectivity in your posting either. Before I answer you in full, a brief note:

I am about to criticise something you wrote, under the assumption that people who post on message boards to discuss opinions are interested in the exchange of ideas and see open discourse, including criticism and the analysis and discussion of arguments on a strucutral level, as a necessary element, and an occasionally stressfull but overall rewarding experience. I kindly request that any engagement from my side with another user is taken as serious interest in their opinion, and not as made with any ill intentions. If you disagree with any of these points, please refrain from interacting with me and ignore this post.

Moving on:

I would like to pick up your two examples since I think they serve well to demonstrate why objective discussion can be quite difficul to have. The point I ultimately want to make is that for an "objective" discussion, there needs to be common ground on what the "object" is. Specifically, if we have different ideas about the object we are discussing, we likely won't really see any progress in the issue.

1. "Highly problematic cards" is not an objective assessment.

You could say that Ceaseless Expanse (in Wild) is a highly problematic card since it forces others to play certain tech choices or counters just to keep it in check; and an ideal state of the game allows you to play whatever you want and have sort of a chance to win still.

On the other hand, I could say that it isn't highly problematic, since a competitive metagame should always be in a flowing state, with strong decks coming up, other decks beating it, and yet other decks beating those, leaving it to popularity and fine-tuning, which eventually comes out on top and consitutes the meta. An ideal state of the game, by this argument, is one where you always have the means to beat whatever you deem "unfair", by exploiting the dominant deck's weaknesses, and Ceaseless Expanse is just another thing that forces people to adapt.

To discuss the game objectively, we ideally have the same idea about which would be the ideal state of the game and can then discuss how much a certain card or mechanic contributes to or compromises that goal. But in the end, there is no "perfect" solution, since different ideas might not be compatible.

2. Freebies are more than generosity

It certainly is true that giveaways receive little applause in comparison to the criticism against things being for purchase only. Objectively, we should be able to agree that any freebies are better than none and any price tag is justified as long as someone is willing to pay it. "Don't like it, don't buy it" as the saying goes.

However, we can also look at it from a different perspective, where I think that it is legitimate to criticise things being too expensive or freebies being too small beyond my own preferences.

Both freebies and costly offerings constitute the overall appeal and attractiveness of a game. A game asking for high spending on a regular basis can feel predetaroy; a game handing out too much can feel "cheap" with nothing to work towards or aspire to. A game where you can only progress on purchase is pay-2-win. A game where you can't purchase progress benefits long time players too much and excludes newcomers.

 I think, to discuss this point more constructively, it would make sense to move away from how much skins should cost or how many free packs one should get, but whether the efforts on both ends truely improve the playing experience and keep newcomers interested. And in that regard, 50$ skins or "too few" freebies can be ciritcised as being unhelpful.

Again, ideally we have the same idea what is defining for the game as a whole and see the same elements as relevant. But if we don't, we might see various points being made as mistaken. I might worry about the game coming across as too demanding, you might worry about playerbase sentiments and expectations being out of touch with economic realities.