Hearthpwn

i believe the problems and complaints about OP decks/cards would be mitigated somewhat with a better set of game modes, where everyone is not try-harding all the time 

Ranked = ladder

Quick match = current casual

Casual = no gold no quests no xp, just testing and fun

brawl = same

arena = same

anymore ideas for new game modes i would like to hear

anymore ideas for new game modes i would like to hear

I think you are 100% on target.  Current Casual is where I go to quest, which means I'm playing fairly polished decks, but that aren't quite good enough to win in ladder.  A new casual that is filled with more experimentation is perfect.  Add that to Arena, Brawl, and Questing and I'd be pretty darned happy.

More in general I read all these complaints about netdecking, OP cards, and nerfing.  I do understand all those issues and I'm only left to wonder why in the world anyone plays ladder.  To me the true cancer is how the game gets people to throw their hours and money at something so frustrating, so flawed, and apparently so not fun.  Just to call yourself "legend" and earn fancier pixels that do the same thing?

Your idea of fixing Mysterious Challenger is flawed because you could theoretically have 6 secrets in play, but HS rules limit it to 5. So it's already capped.

Also, don't see how you can cap damage buffs or # of proc's on Grim Patron. Those just defy the actual physics of the game.

Warsong nerf seems the way to go, only creatures with 3 or less static attach with charge, anything that grows above 3 attack  loses charge. Or some such.

Loosing to every single deck in meta almost every time doesn't mean everything is "OP BS BS BS" - it usually means you suck at this game.

About the modes - i think challenging friends is good enough to make fun shit on your own - for example "random decks - same class, no looking what you picked" is fun. What would be cool is to have tools for this implemented.

For example you pick you want to play random mode, you check that it should pull only from cards both of you have in collection if you want, set rarity, ban cards etc. Because you can do all this but it takes time to manually do it instead of really simple addition to hearthstone.

Edit: Or simply make all old brawls usable for friendly matches. No rewards just fun, brawl tournaments and shit.

Quote from PingIsOver9k jump

I agree with OP. I have mostly all the cards in the game, and can net deck many of the top tier decks. But that just isn't fun or innovative, and its too difficult to compete with these decks unless you play another net deck to directly counter it.

Welcome to every card game ever. OFC the best decks are going to be the BEST DECKS. If you want to innovate, try to make something to stand up to these decks. Don't whine about if your homemade deck can't compete, that means your homemade deck is a bad deck. Innovation is nice I agree, and one of my favorite parts of the game is making and playing new decks. But I rarely hold high expectations for them unless I made them to counter the meta.

This is extremely sad - that your hard built home made decks are just not competitive. Unfortunately everyone here just assumes I'm building shit decks, but this is not the case. I've built very competitive decks - they just aren't able to compete with top tier.

I think the extra game modes is a good suggestion. One mode that wil come out - only a matter of time - is one where they would ban or restrict cards. Things like call the hounds could become a problem with future combo cards (imagine a spell buffing all beasts +3/+3).

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Quote from Hearthswag jump

Hmm guess my opinion was too strong. Not including comments from 14 year olds about sucking at sucking and so on.

I could see a higher health total being a good idea as it would directly influence the unbalanced amount of aggro out there.

Also isn't it a little sad that making a unique deck means that it will be weaker than the rest?

Im sorry but thats life. If you build something yourself (be it a car, a table or whatever) it will most likely be worse than what the pros build. You can either accept it and play with your unique sub par deck or just netdeck, there is nothing wrong with that.

Also I dont believe the game to be unbalanced. Sure there are some decks that might currently be a bit stronger (patron, secretpala maybe) but its basically impossible to balance a game to the point were all decks on average have a 50% win chance. Every meta have some decks that are slightly stronger than the rest.

Increasing the life total may sound like a good strategy to weaken aggro and combo decks but at the same time it would make control decks much much stronger and only playing control match ups would get really boring quite fast (and I say that as someone basically only playing control). Blizzard also wants to keep the average game time relatively low so that it is something you can do in your free time, in the train/bus etc. Making games last half an hour would strongly go against this.

Game is fine.

Accepting imbalance in a game or even a life situation because it naturally happens is called a naturalistic fallacy, just because something is the way it is, doesn't mean it ought to be. It's fine to have a get back up off the horse attitude, but accepting gross problems or telling people to get good when mechanical game problems have been plague the game for a long time now really isn't helping the problem.

Although the statistics are based on incomplete data, the imbalance in the current game is huge. While personal accounts throughout several threads on hearthpwn have high lighted the problems of the mass paladin problems, paladin is current sitting on top of a 57.93% constructed win rate according to hearthstats, with the closest class being hunter at 55.79%. These percentages line up with the shear power, availability and ease of use of their top decks. Looking at other classes, rogue is at 46.82% win rate across constructed, with shaman barely touching the 50% margin at 50.76%. Most classes hover around the 52% win rate margin (showing a slight bias to uploading winning game information). However even with that bias shaman isn't doing so well and rogue is still heavily negative, that's over a 10% win rate margin according to a large data pool. While only Blizzard has the entirety of best usable data, they do not publicly share their information and this is the best we can offer to our resources. While being skeptical of the data in how representative it is, how random it is and how bias it is is a healthy criticism of the data, all out dismissing such a large pool of collected data as incomplete and just ignoring statics (the hard factor in determining balance) is dismissing objective balance in favor of subjective personal bias. Also note that these 2 bottom classes were mentioned by the OP as the "trash" classes, while he didn't explain why the data supports his answer as well as secret paladin being so powerful. The outlier in this situation is patron warriors incredible power boasting an average win rate of 52.88%, while one can assume the deck is balanced based on win rate here, a combination of data sources is needed to examine this. As stated before the other top decks are easily obtained and easy to play. Patron warrior requires multiple adventure cards such as grim patron and thaurisan with refined versions often running Grom as well (not even considering control warrior decks diluting the win rate). With the barrier to entry higher for warriors than paladins and hunters, there other factor attributed here would be the skill factor and overall decision making. While Patron warrior is widely considered over the top too powerful, it is a hard deck to play involving long games with large amounts of decision making in short periods of time, as well as multiple physical clicks, it's probably not the hardest deck ever but it has a high skill floor (barrier of entry to newer players of the deck). Also worth noting is look at the rank %s, Paladins make up ~27% of ranks 1-5 while warriors make up ~21% of rank 1-2... Shaman and rogues make up 2.4% of rank 1 and even less in ranks 2-3 near about 1%. The class diversity disparity directly correlated to class popularity is shown in the higher ranks, also worth noting is as you get lower in rank, there is a linear decrease in the number of paladins plated and a positive trend in terms with an increase of rogue play showing a huge boon at rank 20 (6.51%) and rank 21(8.52%) . Could it be people who play rogues just all happen to be rank 20 players in terms of quality (and the fact the classes is so unpopular in general)? Kind of hear to but that, warriors are an odd exception supporting the difficulty of entry though cards / skill floor as rank 20 houses ~20% warriors.

Supporting the analysis of the quantitative data, we can use Tempo Storms analysis of the current meta and statistics. While you may dislike or disprove of reynad, he has his current psotion for a reason, he is good at the game objectively and provides a website and team that offer an authority elite perspective at the game, he's probably one of the several sources that offer top end analysis of the game. Currently the top decks are Patron warrior, Secret Paladin, Mech Mage and Dragon Priest, common decks i'm sure everyone has faced on ladder. The description on their tier 1 tags says they are top level decks closest to full optimization   and give the feeling of being "unfair" or "overpowered". It's pretty obvious rogue harbors some pretty horrific decks with 1 at the bottom of tier 3 (a pre-TGT deck) and the other barely even worth mentioning. Mid-Range hunter is tier 2 so there is some merrit to saying losing to hunters could be a factor of player skill as the overall win rate doesn't seam to reflect how strong the deck is, but ignoring the shear power of Secret Paladin at the least (with grim patron also being a contender but less obvious) is really being too optimistic of the current lack luster game balance.

Also while plenty of others have stated, your deck needs to be unfair in constructed and that is true to an extent, unfair advantages still need balancing. Getting a 50% win ratio across all decks is a fantasy but the ideal goal should be to get them as close as possible. As experienced game designers relying on health of the game state improving game balance and features should be one of their top priorities, with no card changes since the under taker nerf post GVG plenty of strategies have gotten out of hand. Star Craft itself was praised for it's good balance while offering asymmetric game play, it wasn't the first game to offer asymmetric game play but when others create such large balance problems people wouldn't catch on as the game becomes boring and repetitive (if one faction wins 80% of the time in some of those failed RTS games, saying oh well life isn't fair you can't balance 50 50 perfectly could be worse isn't a mantra a large corporation selling you a high quality product should do, that's the attitude of an apprentice or young student). Since perfect balance can never truly be achieved and only becomes asymptotically closer to that line, perhaps increasing the degree of proximity to perfect balance is a goal that Blizzard can always improve on.

While not all decks posted by the OP would be considered OP (his freeze mage comment related to the unfun aspects of the deck and non interactivity, not the strength of the deck which is true) there are plenty of truths involved. Not all of the decks need changes but saying the game is currently balanced and "get good" is the solution s a subjective comment that doesn't answer the current problems. The mentality itself is noble but isn't logical sometimes or used in absurd situations. A metaphor would to this would be if in a competition say 2 people competing for strength or speed in a race, one person has a 5 KG weight attached to them while the other has a 30 KG weight to them. While objectively one has a clear advantage and will win more often if they are evenly matched, instead of losing the imbalance in the competition of the weights you simply say no it's fine just train more get stronger when a quantifiable measurement is provided contradicting that statement that there is an advantage at hand, that argument doesn't hold up.

I'm sorry if you disagree and would be very welcome to a counter point but please try to take not just this OP, but the myriad of similar posts on the general hearthpwn forums as a signal that perhaps this could possible be a signal of something wrong. And to others in the thread, your opinion is just as important to this website as the OP, however committing ad hominem and bashing him for his skill is an irrelevant factor here when discussing the balance of the game. It is worth noting however that the OP could be a little less emotional and construct his argument better for future reference, but his point is still reasonably valid in terms of balance problems (although not everything he mentioned really needs to be nerfed). Thank you for taking the time to read this post and please keep this conversation civil.

*Edit* This isn't even addressing the gross arena problems. While weaker constructed classes like shaman and rogue shine more in arena (shaman is still worse than paladin and rogue is a counter pick) warrior has an abysmal performance, paladin again tops the charts in arena with a 62.71% win rate, that's absurd. Arena balance is also important, highly experienced arena players such as Ratsmah and Kripparian have advocated numerous times that paladins are now the strongest class by quite a margin, even topping rogue (Kripp used to think mages were top but swapped opinions) as well as support warrior being by far the weakest. ADWCTA another highly rated arena player and co-runner of the site "HearthArena" has a campaign #arenawarriosmatter due to their very poor performance. In addition to poor expansion card rarity releases and poor hero power not altering the board there are plenty of reasons warrior are so poor in arena atm, Kripaprian alone has several videos in this exact topic (a recent prominent one provided in the source links).

Sources Used:

Hearthstats:  https://hearthstats.net/

Tempo Storm:  https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/meta-snapshot/meta-snapshot-29-hey-its-me-again

Kripparian's input on Blizzard's arena negligence / imbalance (pertaining mostly to warrior, all chat no game play):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPz6Pwe2Kc

Indeed a very long text. Though I'll try to touch up on some of your points.

First off some clarification to my points: I never stated for people complaining to "just get better" thats not the point im trying to put across. 

I think you misunderstood also what I meant as a rule of life. I dont mean that life in itself is unfair or anything like it (on the contrary I agree that we should try to keep improving it), my argument was rather towards deck building or "skill" in general and why amateur created decks are inherently worse than ones created by pros (in general). Someone that doesnt play this game 8 hours a day (so lets say 99% of the playerbase) is inherently going to have less experience and less insight towards the power level and synergies between cards and also have less time to refine a deck to perfection and get a proper picture of the meta. Therefore he will most likely create a worse deck that wont be able to compete at top level. That is just something one has to accept, and its ok to do so. Sure you can work on improving your skill but to expect to be as good as a pro is not realistic. If I build a table in my free time I will most likely do a worse job than a carpenter, simply because I invest less time into it. That is what I meant with what needs to be accepted.

On the Statistics part I would truly be careful not to trust them too much. Especially the win% of classes, since just about every class has multiple decktypes (many of which are sub par sure), also im pretty certain the data is skewed towards more skilled players (since they are more likely to be active in sites like this one or tempostorm). That being said I find a win% between 45-55% to be completely acceptable and I find it too optimistic to believe to gain better results.

The statistic that could be considered a problem is the representation of different classes in the meta, with rogue and shaman being underrepresented (here we should indeed try to reach a balanced representation of all classes). Although Blizzard is clearly trying to adress the problem (atleast in Shaman) by trying to make totemshaman viable. The method Blizz is using to balance the game is in my opinion good. Nerfing or buffing cards takes away control from us, making us doubt the "stability" of a card. Its much better to try to adress these problems through expansions.

7/9 are OP so nerf the game? lol be sad moar

Increase decks to 40 cards and start hand to 6-7 hands and all the cancer will disappear. 

Quote from Hearthswag jump

This is extremely sad - that your hard built home made decks are just not competitive. Unfortunately everyone here just assumes I'm building shit decks, but this is not the case. I've built very competitive decks - they just aren't able to compete with top tier.

Then they aren't very competitive decks are they now? You have to be a troll, no one can be that big of a window licker. Also, FYI, all these meta decks started off as homemade decks. Ben Brode doesn't walk out of Blizzard HQ dressed as Jesus and decrees "These are the decks that shall be good;these are the decks you shall play."

Quote from ponk87 jump

The only real problem with hearthstone right now is its community, because 80% of the time it's complaining because of salt overdose and the remaining 20% of the time it's giving idiotic or impractical solutions to problems that don't even exist.

RNG is a b*!

I agree, though they could have made some things way better. Unfortunately they won´t change some aspects of the game now.

Impov they rushed with the game, as with some expansions...

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Quote from Hearthswag jump

Eh. Thank you to the one or two that left comments relevant to the nature of this post. But it seems I should either 'learn to play' or quit HS. Having achieved top 5 ranked with both net decks and my own with generally not a lot of time to play I'm not sure how much more there is to learn... but sure, my apologies, the game is wonderful as it is. I'll go legend this month with my secret pally, or handlock and I'll tell myself well done. And believe it. Not

Just a tip hearthswag, the nature of your OP seemed... Very whiny. I even came here to have a little fun, but then, you turned out to be serious about this. So, the best thing that can be done for people like you, is to have an actual game mode where such powerful cards aren't allowed, and don't polarize an entire meta in one way or another. But, I don't know when you can expect to see this, as Blizzard hasn't given to much indication lately about what there team is working on. (Not surprising, but maybe I've missed something).

You missed something.  Blizzard has already said that they know there's an issue with people who aren't hyper competitive as Casual is just the Ranked players' testing ground.  Thus they are working on options.  It's just that the community is demanding Tournament/Brawl far more and they follow what's most demanded.

In the face of Mana-screwed / Mana-flood in M:tG, RNGesus in Hearthstone is but a laughable excuse. 

Why no actual poll?

Dude there will always be decks, that are "the top", u nerf current ones? OK, new decks will be the top and u will cry about them, u nerf that? Ok, new decks arise ... also your assesment of decks per class is rly biased, u just wanted to make a point, that there r only BS agro decks and that is simply not true. I get ur salty, but u will just have to find a way to deal with it ... well i guess u did, by making this qq topic lol :p

Nerf Leper Gnome

This secret paladin crap is out of control. 

Quote from RobertDeMeijer jump

The OP decks are played in a different fashion, where not attacking is sometimes a better idea (think: Patron Warrior drawing extra cards), or being extremely wary of how many creatures you put on the table (Starving Buzzard/Hounds combo), or extreme comebacks come out of nowhere due to a massive combo.
Playing and facing such strange decks might be a fun challenge for some, but it requires playing the game in a new way that is uncomfortable since it is so unlike other matches.

One of the games strengths is that you have to figure out ways to play around a plethora of things. If you played every game the way you say the game is at its best, the game would become very stale very quickly. "God forbid I have to change my play style in a card game". But seriously, if everyone played the same style of deck then it would be one of the worst card games ever. Also, besides miracle rogue, you did not bring up a single op deck. Sorry bud, started off strong, but your point waned VERY quickly.

Quote from RobertDeMeijer jump

It doesn't take much to demand players to change their playstyle in Hearthstone. The game's mechanics quickly establish different roles (offensive/defensive, tempo/value). There's no fear of everybody having the same style of deck.
The opposite is true: this game seems to be in danger due to radical styles of play that upset people.

As for not bringing up the 'OP decks', the name is indeed a misnomer. People yell 'OP!' not only because a deck is too strong, but because it does amazing things that players feel threatened by. Which decks were both very strong and intimidating? The original Pyroblast Freeze Mage, Brewmaster Giants, Buzzard/Hounds, Miracle Rogue (these have been nerfed by Blizzard), and currently Patron Warrior.

I'm not so sure about Secret Paladin. Mysterious Challenger demands the right answers at the right time, or is otherwise an otherworldly value. This feels unfair to some, but also requires a whole deck built around it, not unlike Undertaker.

I think that the real problem is that the meta is too narrow and that the Op decks are so Op that trying anything new is severely punished. Its a boring atmosphere to build a game around. They have made an effort with arena and brawl but then that isnt enough to satisfy a lot of players craving for originality. Its not a big issue but its the biggest flaw of HS is how narrow the game is. 

1: Collecting cards without spending money is downright impossible for a brand new player, as such this game is becoming more P2W with each expansion which further alienates potential new players. Simple solution: Give people a way to grind gold (The 10 per 3 wins to a max of 100 doesnt count).

2:  Blizzard enjoys releasing extremely over powered cards. This results in situations where, Dr. Boom is a nearly must have in every deck, and every deck you put him in, becomes better by default. Simple solution: Release more xpacs like TGT minus cards like mysterious challenger.

3: Extremely high variance cards. Just 2 days ago I won a game that I was losing because I pinged my opponents shredder praying for a doomsayer. Card games are meant to have an element of RNG, but a controllable element of it, IE draw, building your deck to accommodate for this mechanic, or cards like knife juggler whom can snow ball a game pretty handily if not dealt with but due to his low HP he is easy to deal with. To contrast, cards that use joust, or the shredders or even unstable portal. These cards can all roll the dice and give you the astronomical odds of winning you a game our right.

4: Snowball cards. Snowball cards are bad. They always will be. Harrison, destroy a weapon, gimp your opponent, draw a card, develop a body. That's a snowball card. Grim patron, again a snowball card that can often get so far out of control you just lose the game on turn 5 to a solid patron turn. Archmage antonidis, remember when auctioneer got nerffed because of spare parts? But archmage didnt? I remember that.

5: Class balance. TGT rogue. Nuff said.

As is, blizzard needs to stop being foolish. Saying they don't want to nerf or buff a card because they want returning players to be able to play their old decks is downright stupidity, if the deck is too strong and they release counters to it, it's no different then actually nerffing the deck. For example a freeze mage player picks up the game now that Kezan mystic exists, and has his ice block stolen .. It's no different then if they just flat out nerffed the effectiveness of the deck. 

Because of this, and because of the state of the cards in the game I have felt that blizzard needs to step in, and rebalance... Every thing. Things like shredder should spawn "pilots" like animal companion essentially, you would get a 1/3 a 2/2 or a 3/1, the red, green, and blue pilots. After making huge balance changes and improving the overall health of the game, they just need to make it a point to avoid releasing extremely broken cards. If they manage that, the game will have millions of decks being tried and played, the entire card pool being used, rather then the extremely small pool that's currently being used. 

Edit: Although this is a more personal issue I feel secrets need to undergo a major change, as it stands playing around A secret instead of B secret often can result in you losing the game when you guess wrong. IE assuming it's avenge and then it turns out to be competitive spirit, or assuming the face hunter is using explosive trap, and it turns out to be snakes. I'm all fine for the guessing game, but I just don't agree that guessing wrong should be as detrimental as it usually is.