Hearthpwn

Hello all,

Been a reader of these forums since about a month ago when I started playing Hearthstone, but this is my first post. It involves inquiring on something I have noticed happening more and more to me these days, whether I am playing in Casual, Ranked, or Arena.

Overall I have seen an increase in the number of opponents "Conceding" to me in a match. Now I am sure some of it is just me getting more skilled at the game and I am getting more wins in general than I did a month ago. I am sure that's a small part of it. But my question specifically is for anyone who has used the "Concede" option in a game before, for any reason:

Why do you decide to use "Concede"?

I don't mean to offend anyone by any means, I really am just interested in understanding if there are different reasons people do it or if it's all one common reason. I personally have never "Conceded" to anyone so I do not really have an insight as to why a person would want to do it. So if you have used "Concede" before:

a.) Is it because you knew you were going to lose no matter what and just wanted to move onto the next match slightly faster (usually it saves less than a minute in most cases I've seen it done to me though).

b.) Is it because you view the "Concede" option as the ultimate sign of respect for the person who beat you; i.e. the best way to show them that you understand you have been defeated?

c.) Is it because you don't like losing and choosing "Concede" makes you feel like the opponent didn't beat you, but rather, you decided to end the match yourself, so it sort of softens the blow a bit?

d.) Is it because you made a mistake or two early on in a match (or not drawn the cards you wanted) and you do not expect to be able to compete mid-game or late-game?

e.) Other?

Like I said earlier, my personal philosophy is that I do not "Concede" to anyone, no matter how quickly or badly I am being beaten. I guess if I had to explain why I play that way, I think it's because I view every match as a learning experience and a chance to get better. If I do not give myself an opportunity to stage a late-game comeback, how can I be expected to know how to do it consistently, or at least recognize when it's possible and how to go about doing it? And in general, every turn, regardless of whether it improves my chances to win or not, gives me experience in handling my deck in different situations.

I also feel like it insults the opponent if I were to use "Concede." I feel that if I am beaten, whether it be because the opponent was more skilled in general than I was, they played better than I did in this particular match, they had a better deck than I did, or they had better RNG, it doesn't matter - they won the match fair and square, and they deserve the opportunity to strike the final blow. They earned that. Emotions don't really become a factor for me most of the time. I am not mad that this person won. I accept it, try to learn from my mistakes if I made any, and move onto the next one.

Thanks all in advance for your input, whichever side of the coin you may fall under.

The closest answer is (b), although it's not quite spot on.

As in chess and various other one-on-one games, the sportsmanlike thing to do when you know the game is lost is to concede. It's just rude to drag it out and make your opponent play the last one or two turns. Also, it gives the impression that you don't understand the game and don't understand that you can't win.

But if you search the official Hearthstone forums you'll find about a hundred pages spread across dozens of threads going over this again and again and again in excruciatingly tedious detail, with none of the "anti-concede" camp ever showing the slightest sign of comprehension.

Haha, I was afraid that maybe this was one of those topics which had been discussed before, so originally I tried searching these forums for any threads discussing it, but I couldn't find anything, so I wrote this up. Sorry if I ended up beating a dead horse or something.

e) Other - Someone is BMing me and I'm bored of it.

Only ever when I know the game is a lost cause. It'll mostly be late rounds, when I'm running out of cards, every move I tried was squashed and I know no matter what I do I'm losing this one. I see no point in purposely dragging it out just to annoy your opponent. It's not just wasting their time, it's wasting yours! Move on to the next, hard luck and all that. 

I really hate when opponents know they're done, yet insist on slowly throwing out their cards, to show you what they had/they were close or whatever ... I don't care! Move on! 

Balckovic: That's actually a really good point and I forgot to even touch on that. I also don't understand when people do that. I am not sure if it's because they haven't seen my health and don't know how easy it would be to kill me, or if, like you said, they are just being arrogant and toying with you at that point. I have yet to "Concede" to anyone but those situations definitely have tempted me. Personally the way I always do it is, I don't care if I have 10 mana and 7 cards in my hand, if you have 1 HP left and I have a 1/1 minion out, I am just going to use the minion to kill you. End of story. I don't need to (for example, just making something up) do FlameTongue Totem + Rockbiter Weapon + Bloodlust + Raid Leader or some crap, and then hit you with the minion.

i'll admit my reason is  selfish; i'm a f2p player since i study a money intensive major where i have to spend tons of cash in materials for my projects and finals, so i rely on the gold i get from quest and wins; i usually farm 100 gold a day (counting dailies and anything between 18 and 12 wins) and this can take quite some time specially if i just waste my time in a game that i see is going to last too long or not turn out in my favor unless something very specific happens, or i know the opponent is playing a deck that counters the one i queued with; to me a loss is wasted time and wasted gold so i rather save myself the time and reque again to get the gold faster. Plus every time you concede/lose you are matched with easier opponents making getting the gold faster.
in my eyes it's not about win or lose; it's about the gold.

and anyways i don't see any problem to it after all the guy i concede to also gets gold faster. 

i forgot to mention: i find Arena slow and unreliable.

I usually let the opponent get the killing blow, but if they have lethal then the instant they do anything other than go for lethal, I'll hit concede. I don't care if you want to show me that you have 3 more minions you could have brought out, thanks very much.

If I have my hand on the mouse, I concede the second I see lethal from my opponent or earlier if I know there is no given combination of cards that I could draw to get me out of a bad situation. There are multiple reasons for that:

• It saves both players time
• Some players feel the need to show their whole hand even if they have lethal, so I'd rather concede when I know they have instead of potentially wasting time.
• I never understood the stigma some Hearthstone players place on conceding. In chess and in other single player games when you see an unwinnable position you just concede. In some cases it's actually considered rude to not concede and force your opponent to go through the motions of beating you when the outcome of the game is 100% clear. It also shows respect for your opponent, since you do not consider him a complete idiot who will throw a won game.
• Even though in some cases you hear stories about players winning games because of stupid mistakes their opponents made I think this is rare enough that conceding and starting the next game is a faster way to climb on ladder.
• Sometimes, I do what I like to call the shame-concede. When I make a ridiculously dumb mistake I might just concede even though the game isn't lost yet, just because I'm too angry at myself and ashamed to continue facing the same opponent. That's very rare though, I think it has only happened once or twice in hearthstone.

Honestly I never understood c). Similarly, I never understood people who claim to get more "satisfaction" by landing the killing blow instead of the opponent conceding.

Quote from LegatoJoe »

c.) Is it because you don't like losing and choosing "Concede" makes you feel like the opponent didn't beat you, but rather, you decided to end the match yourself, so it sort of softens the blow a bit?

I don't mind losing, but I actually never lose:
Jetpack Time all the way. ;)

honj90: Thanks for the insights. All were very good points.

To clarify, I did not mean to say or suggest that I need to have the satisfaction of striking a winning blow in my wins. When I see opponents "Concede" to me, all that I have felt in the past is typically just curiosity on what their specific reason is (because it hasn't always happened only when I have lethal). I don't care if I didn't get to strike the winning blow, but for some reason or another, I like to offer my opponent the opportunity to do so if he or she wishes. In fact a lot of the time, rather than concede, what I'll do is, after I understand that I will lose the match, I use the "Well Played" emote, and then end my turn, allowing the opponent the opportunity to win. But like I said in my earlier reply, if I see an opponent just dancing around with me and they decide to play 6 cards when they had lethal at the beginning of their turn, that does disturb me quite a bit.

Hi Guys
I agree with you that playing additional cards even though you have lethal is annoying, although if it helps me progress my quest(s) i will do it aswell.

Froenie: Fair point, this probably does apply at least a small part of the time, so I guess it should be considered.

Quote from LegatoJoe »

honj90: Thanks for the insights. All were very good points.

To clarify, I did not mean to say or suggest that I need to have the satisfaction of striking a winning blow in my wins. When I see opponents "Concede" to me, all that I have felt in the past is typically just curiosity on what their specific reason is (because it hasn't always happened only when I have lethal). I don't care if I didn't get to strike the winning blow, but for some reason or another, I like to offer my opponent the opportunity to do so if he or she wishes. In fact a lot of the time, rather than concede, what I'll do is, after I understand that I will lose the match, I use the "Well Played" emote, and then end my turn, allowing the opponent the opportunity to win. But like I said in my earlier reply, if I see an opponent just dancing around with me and they decide to play 6 cards when they had lethal at the beginning of their turn, that does disturb me quite a bit.

I did not imply that, but every few months there is a huge threat in the battle.net hearthstone forums with  people claiming that they feel robbed of their satisfaction when the opponent concedes and that Blizzard should address that behavior.

I often concede when an opponent takes too long to take turns. I really should be more patient.

honj90: Okay no worries. By the way I think Blizzard is probably not going to address that at all haha, just my opinion.

My reason generally falls under a mix of a) and b). I used to play starcraft a lot, and I would make a point of always writing gg or gg wp if I lost (edit: to clarify - I would never write gg first if I was in a winning position), no matter how much the opponent was BMing (well, this wasn't true from the very beginning of my starcraft career, but I learned quickly). Not conceding in Hearthstone isn't quite the same though, since it doesn't take long to finish the game from a position where one part would typically concede. So when I concede (I don't always do it, sometimes I let my opponent beat me out), it is typically because he has lethal on the board, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I will avoid playing any cards that won't stop that lethal damage (or draw me solutions), so I don't waste his time - and to not give him information about my deck in case we meet again. Likewise, if I have lethal on the board (or in hand through spells), I'll go for the quickest way to finish him off instead of spending all my cards - though this has a slight negative impact on experience gain (I think).

On the flipside of things, I really don't give 2 cents whether the opponent concedes or not. But if he draws out the game when he's winning by playing his whole hand, that is a bit annoying. It can be somewhat justified by increased experience gain, I suppose.

arcanlol: I have seen this acronym a few times in here, apparently I might not understand what it means, what is BMing? Thanks.

When there is no possible out in my deck to continue the match toward a result that ends in the game as a win for me.

Play control warrior, it is agonizing to play out a game when you know you are beaten, it can literally go on for 5-10 more min before the game is thinking about ending.

RJCarrot: Thanks for the reply. I have a Warrior deck currently but it's aggro. I'll have to give the Control Warrior a try someday when I get more cards/dust!