Hearthstone is just a game of probabilities just like magic and poker. Pavel played babbling book because of the probability of it giving him something that could swing the board, yes he high rolled, that was always factored into the equasion....that he could possibly highroll....this happens in any card game, sometimes the top card flips and its the ace to finish off your hand of aces....boom you win....i used to play a ton of magic, poker and many other card games....in magic your rng revolves mainly around you drawing the mana sources you need for your deck to even work....hearthstone its just drawing or randomly generating the right answers at the right times...but in the end its all games of probability by proper deck building, mulling and playing your deck appropriate to what your opponent is doing....the foundation to all card games....just because hearthstone has more interaction beyond the actual draw doesn't mean it involves any less math / strategy, its just what makes it fun or not fun depending on what end of it you're on.
Comparisons between magic and HS are always terrible. And the worst is, he knows, you can't even compare both games when it comes to RNG, magic hasn't printed a card with "random" written on it, excluding cards that put revealed cards back to the bottom of your deck in random order and non-standard valid cards for probably more than a decade.
Random effects are not part of magic at all, very rare exceptions, and all of them in formats that would equate to wild in HS.
I don't like Kibler, he's always saying shit I disagree with. If I'm not mistaken back when the boogeymonster was released and everyone was up in arms, he was like "yeah bruh, bad cards have a space, I like the card a lot", like, f$*& off dude, Gruul already exists, no need for a worst version :P
Randomness doesn't exclude skill.
If you rolled a die on every chess conquer, with the winner taking the piece... it would still be a skill-game. It would have higher variance, and being good would be a long-term measurement and not a short-term one, but that's irrelevant.
Who even said that randomness excludes skill?
All I said there was "you can't compare RNG in HS and Magic", and that's absolutely true. I'm not saying there is no skill factor in HS, but I am saying it has a bigger role in magic. Anyone who disagrees with that has no idea what they're talking about, especially because magic actually has a stack and people can immediately respond to what your opponent is doing, not just watch and pray you played around what he actually had. On top of not really having RNG effects on high end competitive scenarios, just card draw order variance. On top of being a primarily face-to-face game that allows for in-depth observations of what your opponent is doing, which in turn allows for more efficient bluffs.
HS needs some forced RNG because unlike magic the depth it can dive into is far too shallow in terms of strategy. You need to maximize your ability to make RNG be more likely to work in your favor, for example figuring if it is better to make a trade before you play a minion when you have juggler in play. In magic you don't need that. Understanding how the game works allows for the skilled player use the openings to his advantage, giving his opponents less openings. A prime example would be Vendilion Clique and when to use it: there are tons of strategy involved simply in deciding when you'll pull the trigger on it, wether it will be during the opponent's draw step, in response to a fetch land being cracked or at the end of the declare attacker step. All of those represent detriments to the options your opponent will have due to your timing. During the draw step he can't play non-instants, when he's cracking a fetch land he has less mana available to respond and in the attackers step he is being surprised by a new potential blocker... and you're not even in the realm of the actual effect of the card. Hearthstone is like a little baby when it comes to strategy compared to magic.
I'm not sure how anyone can make the argument that there -isn't- a problem of negativity in HS. It's pretty obvious that there is one. There are so many complaints, so few of which actually make sense, and none of which justify the resulting level of negativity in the player base. In regards to some of them:
A. The game is entirely decided by the opening hand and is over by turn 4:
Why does everyone think this? There are plenty of options in the game which allow you to come back from a losing position on board. Maybe it's true if you're using a cheesy all-in aggro deck that's designed to fail except in the event that it gets a lucky draw, but if that's the case, you forfeit your right to complain about it.
B. The game is entirely decided by RNG:
There is plenty of skill involved in the game and everyone knows it. As Kibler points out, people listen to and value the perspectives of pro-players more than others explicitly because they are very good at the game, a quality which would be impossible to have if the game did not involve skill. It's true that sometimes you find yourself in a position where you can't win because all of your cards do nothing to help, but RNG, especially in the form of card generation, does not diminish the significance of skill. If anything, it increases it.
C. Arena is in a problem state because there is too much random card generation:
What? Literally every card you encounter in arena is a random card. Discounting the fact that spells tend to hold higher quality over minions, there's basically no difference in arena between cards like Shimmering Tempest and Cabalist Tome and cards like Loot Hoarder and Nourish.
D. Decks like Quest Rogue and Jade Druid are broken and kill control:
While I get that beating these guys with control decks is very difficult, I don't get why the reaction to their existence is outrage. I play pretty much nothing but Control Paladin, and not only do I frequently beat these decks, I also find them to be by far my most exciting match-ups. They're the only match-ups where I feel like my abilities are being put to the test, and when I beat them it's so satisfying. I don't understand players who say they want the game to be more skill-driven, yet demand regular changes that make winning easier.
Like I said before though, whatever people's reasons are for not liking the game, none of it justifies the level of pessimism I've seen from some of these streamers and forum users. Auto-squelching, conceding on turn 1, demonizing aggro\budget deck users. The other day I watched a grown man punch his keyboard and scream Russian profanity because his opponent coined Wild Growth on turn 1. There is no rationalizing that. It's not only hurtful to your opponent to accuse them of being unskilled and only winning because they got lucky; it's hurtful to you too. It denies you the learning experience and makes you feel like you're wasting your time playing the game. You're not wasting your time. You've stuck with HS this long for a reason, and if everyone were to turn their focus away from all the negatives, they might remember what that reason is.
I agree that if someone is saying "I high rolled my way through the tournament" he's probably downplaying his/her own effort, but... it's not necessarily an outright lie, nor is this an issue for the community at large, in my estimations. Like, yeah, whatever, 99,9% of the players have never played a tournament. IMO Kibler is just trying to help the competitive scene not to lose credibility because he makes a living out of it. He wants to make some bucks out of it, so it's better if people take HS seriously as a competitive game, which honestly... I don't think it is, at least not a prime example of a competitive game.
I think this is what the video boils down too, i mean he even teamed up with Frodan "Sellout" Cho , such ass kissing skills are hard to find, everything our dear blizzard does is accompanied by the applauds of Mr.Sellout.
Until blizzard fixes their stupid rng machine there will be no place for true performance in this game, thus no respect for the pros. Once in the quarterfinals they might as well roll a dice.
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The 1st step towards a better game is firing Mike Donais! We had enough of his "skillful" balances!
I really believe that when it comes to competitive hearthstone at the highest level, any one of those players could win it on the day. Kibler (who I normally agree with 95% off the time) gives the example of HotMeowth denigrating his achievement which I think he is mistaking for Meowth just being open about the fact that at the end of the day, everyone who made it to that point had put in a lot of hard work and in most cases played well enough to be in with a chance of winning. For every tournament a pro player wins, there are 10 or more others in which he plays the same decks, faces the same opponents, plays just as well and yet loses in the first round. It would be foolish for the guy/girl winning to not be aware of this.
Well, if you use, again, the poker scene as a way to look at the hearthstone competitive scene, you can observe that most top players from all time have just some bracelets (for winning a tournament). . Daniel Negreanu, for example, a well-known player recognized for being one of the top players have 6 bracelets (and the first one he won in 1998, while the last one in 2013), so I guess you could say that winning 6 tournaments since 1998 is pretty weak.. until you realize that in the history of poker there are only 8 people that have more bracelets than him, so.. my point is, winning a tournament requires skill, maybe more than other esports.. but as in poker, you dont measure the results by just tournaments won.. you have a player ranking for that, and you can see the consistency of the player over time.. because at any given point there is rng that is going to favor A or B, but on the long run, rng is not gonna be with A or with B, and better player should have more consistent results in the long run.. even if he is lucky or unlucky at some tournament..
people shit pavel for the babbling book but he has 71% winrate over more than 200 games, which is INSANE!!! so he was indeed lucky in the book ocasion, but overall there is no player with such a strong record as his..
I'm not sure how anyone can make the argument that there -isn't- a problem of negativity in HS. It's pretty obvious that there is one. There are so many complaints, so few of which actually make sense, and none of which justify the resulting level of negativity in the player base. In regards to some of them:
A. The game is entirely decided by the opening hand and is over by turn 4:
Why does everyone think this? There are plenty of options in the game which allow you to come back from a losing position on board. Maybe it's true if you're using a cheesy all-in aggro deck that's designed to fail except in the event that it gets a lucky draw, but if that's the case, you forfeit your right to complain about it.
B. The game is entirely decided by RNG:
There is plenty of skill involved in the game and everyone knows it. As Kibler points out, people listen to and value the perspectives of pro-players more than others explicitly because they are very good at the game, a quality which would be impossible to have if the game did not involve skill. It's true that sometimes you find yourself in a position where you can't win because all of your cards do nothing to help, but RNG, especially in the form of card generation, does not diminish the significance of skill. If anything, it increases it.
C. Arena is in a problem state because there is too much random card generation:
What? Literally every card you encounter in arena is a random card. Discounting the fact that spells tend to hold higher quality over minions, there's basically no difference in arena between cards like Shimmering Tempest and Cabalist Tome and cards like Loot Hoarder and Nourish.
D. Decks like Quest Rogue and Jade Druid are broken and kill control:
While I get that beating these guys with control decks is very difficult, I don't get why the reaction to their existence is outrage. I play pretty much nothing but Control Paladin, and not only do I frequently beat these decks, I also find them to be by far my most exciting match-ups. They're the only match-ups where I feel like my abilities are being put to the test, and when I beat them it's so satisfying. I don't understand players who say they want the game to be more skill-driven, yet demand regular changes that make winning easier.
Like I said before though, whatever people's reasons are for not liking the game, none of it justifies the level of pessimism I've seen from some of these streamers and forum users. Auto-squelching, conceding on turn 1, demonizing aggro\budget deck users. The other day I watched a grown man punch his keyboard and scream Russian profanity because his opponent coined Wild Growth on turn 1. There is no rationalizing that. It's not only hurtful to your opponent to accuse them of being unskilled and only winning because they got lucky; it's hurtful to you too. It denies you the learning experience and makes you feel like you're wasting your time playing the game. You're not wasting your time. You've stuck with HS this long for a reason, and if everyone were to turn their focus away from all the negatives, they might remember what that reason is.
Well said and I 100% agree with you. We're not discussing luck as much as we are discussing the title of the actual video: negativity. Sure, the game could be a bit less luck-based. That's fair criticism. But the way we react to this is absolutely unacceptable. It slightly saddens me that people are trying to justify this. It's as if some random number generator has more control over your emotions than your own mind.
You can't control life. You cannot control RNG. But you can control your own feelings. And if all it takes is a simple game for you to go to such a high degree of pessimism, then none of that is justified. In fact, I think that it shows a bit more the person rather than the game itself.
...Hearthstone is starting to turn into a social experiment isn't it?
[snip]magic hasn't printed a card with "random" written on it, excluding cards that put revealed cards back to the bottom of your deck in random order and non-standard valid cards for probably more than a decade.
Random effects are not part of magic at all, very rare exceptions, and all of them in formats that would equate to wild in HS. [snip]
Hmmmm. Some selected examples (I'd note the word 'random' actually printed on a number of these)
In standard:
In Modern (some printed within last few years, not decades):
@SnowWhiteOo; I'd disagree on the idea there isn't value to the video, I think it does hit on one of the most bizarre topics in competitive Hearthstone in that (unlike similar games of luck, Magic included) it has developed a culture that's more than happy to disregard competitive merits. Part of that is that it definitely is a game that's a lot less serious than Magic or Poker, but a larger part of that falls on the community continuing to perpetuate the idea that if you toss out 30 cards in a Tier 1 deck and get lucky enough then you're doing as well as you can; and the bigger problem is that many of the loudest voices with that opinion are influential streamers who aren't even remotely competitive.
Kibler isn't failing to acknowledge that RNG does some insane stuff, or that every winner of every tournament didn't get there by being lucky; it's that the people you're seeing in the tournaments themselves worked hard to get there, and they need to start owning it. People who want the game to be competitive need to start owning the portions of the game that do require work to get good at. Content creators who want to be respected for how good they are at the game need to stop trying to pass success off as "getting lucky". We have consistent performers in the competitive scene, we have people like Stancifka who have spent hundreds of hours improving and competing, instead of taking a dump on the competitive aspects we should be celebrating them.
I think Hearthstone's biggest strength is also its biggest weakness in this regard; people who wouldn't normally play card games are playing Hearthstone, which means that all of a sudden they're having to re-learn what people in competitive card games have basically accepted for years. Sometimes luck isn't on your side, sometimes it is, but where you have control (deckbuilding and piloting) is what's going to truly define how successful you are in the competitive scene overall.
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Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
Well i understand what you are saying and i also explained that i agree with you on the point that many dont see the full picture of what it takes to prepare and be in the tournement scene and thats why many without the full knowledge of it cannot make assumptions soly based on their own ladder experience and transport that to other ground. I respected that and that is certainly true.
But what i cannot get behind with is that example Kibler gave us that all the outrage and negativity comes from this RNG and missinformation aspect. As i said RNG has a huge factor in this game and cannot be underrestimated, expecially in tournament games where your success lies in a couple of fortunate games, in comparison to mathematical percentages on the ladder, where simply winrates are enough to break trough.
The negativity in Hearthstone has as many aspects as there are players and they all have different views on this and that. Its simply not the job for anyone to try to cure that, because thats impossible. There is nothing to cure. We talk about emotions and feelings people have towards the game and that has to be accepted.
I agree with this statement entirely, the negativity is not something that we should address, it's a reaction to a cause.
The truth is that the game is hurting because of the RNG machine that blizzard has created. This truth that we live with is a rather nasty one but it's the truth nonetheless, it doesn't care about your feelings and needs or wants, it doesn't cater to some while forgetting others, it's simply the truth, thus we have "negativity", criticism to be more exact, criticism that the sellouts want to antagonize.
What we should address is the state of the game, make the RNG less violent, make it milder in a more controllable way, find new mechanics and change the game state and when this happens we will see the pros getting acknowledged and the negativity criticism reduced.
Look at brainstorm and ponder, excellent cards, great design, then look at Primordial Glyph, a diceroll, out of 2 players one always feels good while the other feels like crap.
I have stopped playing hs for almost a month and my gf asked my account because of that.She had played some games before and found hs enjoyable so i said why not?She can at least do some dailies.She asked some basic advice and to make her the most noobfriendly deck possible.I made her pirate warrior and midhunter(in case she was bored with one deck).I logged in yesterday just see what rank she is so i could tease her.She was rank 5...A complete newbie managed to hit rank 5 in 11 days...So that's where the negativity comes from.The difference between an experienced and a newbie is at the very best a 10% win ratio.That makes the pro scence and any competitive aspect of the game a joke.
@SnowWhiteOo; Oh, I certainly think for the most part we're on the same page (I was just chiming in on where I saw some value to the video); luck is a big deal, as are things like preparation. I'd also agree that just saying "negativity" is pretty vague, and I'm sure the video could have been titled more accurately to indicate that this was regarding the competitive scene specifically.
And I also don't think he was trying to argue for a cure or anything like that, as much as saying that the general dismissal of the fact there is skill in the game is a relatively toxic behavior to continue to nurture. Part of that is curable in the sense that the primary difference between Magic and Hearthstone's competitive culture has very little to do with the mechanics, but with the mindset of the people who are playing at high levels and have a ton of exposure. If Magic Pros were writing paragraphs of text about how lucky their opponents got, they'd be in the same boat; but because their content is focusing on strategy and theory, we have a general perception that there's actually something substantial to the competitive scene. There's a power to that kind of narrative (look at Gwent, its a game that basically got a reasonable boost from the Lifecoach "this game is so skillful" narrative), and right now Hearthstone's narrative that people are sticking to is that it's all about luck and memes.
At the very least, having Pros who acknowledge the work they put into performing well is a pretty big deal.
Hearthstone's RNG based cards often make people think that the game is more random than it actually is. In Hearthstone, players have much more control over what they actually draw when compared specifically to games like Yugioh and Magic.
For starters, the mulligan phase: Hearthstone has one of the best mulligan rules of any games. It gives the players a strong measure of control over their starting hand cutting down on a lot of draw dependency in the early turns. Magic has good mulligan rules as well, but you lose card advantage in the process and can easily lose a resource game because of a bad opening hand assuming the mulligan was even helpful. Yugioh to my knowledge doesn't have mulligans.
Next the resources system: Because you are limited by mana, but don't need specific cards to build mana, you don't have to rely as much on top decking a certain type of card. Because of this, planning is much easier. You don't have to draw mana in order to play your bomb next turn. You will get that mana so you can plan to play that bomb. This allows players to think ahead in order to get an advantage over their opponent.
Also, let's not forget Poker. Poker is a fairly well respected competitive game. Poker is the epitome of a luck based game, however, where it shines is in how players deal with the randomness. Players win by maximizing their chances to have the best hand in the end. Players know what their odds are in a given situation and use that information to make decisions. The same is true in Hearthstone. We remember the time Sylv stole our rag to give the opponent lethal, while poker players remember the 10 on the river that gave their opponent the pot despite being a one in thirteen(ish) chance. In the long run though, if you know the odds and you play to give yourself the best chance possible, you end up winning more often than not.
Well i understand what you are saying and i also explained that i agree with you on the point that many dont see the full picture of what it takes to prepare and be in the tournement scene and thats why many without the full knowledge of it cannot make assumptions soly based on their own ladder experience and transport that to other ground. I respected that and that is certainly true.
But what i cannot get behind with is that example Kibler gave us that all the outrage and negativity comes from this RNG and missinformation aspect. As i said RNG has a huge factor in this game and cannot be underrestimated, expecially in tournament games where your success lies in a couple of fortunate games, in comparison to mathematical percentages on the ladder, where simply winrates are enough to break trough.
The negativity in Hearthstone has as many aspects as there are players and they all have different views on this and that. Its simply not the job for anyone to try to cure that, because thats impossible. There is nothing to cure. We talk about emotions and feelings people have towards the game and that has to be accepted.
I agree with this statement entirely, the negativity is not something that we should address, it's a reaction to a cause, we need to remove the cause.
The truth is that the game is hurting because of the RNG machine that blizzard has created. This truth that we live with is a rather nasty one but it's the truth nonetheless, it doesn't care about your feelings and needs or wants, it doesn't cater to some while forgetting others, it's simply the truth, thus we have "negativity", criticism to be more exact, criticism that the sellouts want to antagonize.
What we should address is the state of the game, make the RNG less violent, make it milder in a more controllable way, find new mechanics and change the game state and when this happens we will see the pros getting acknowledged and the negativity criticism reduced.
TLDR: Fix your game blizzard.
actually we, as a community, cannot remove the cause. the cause itself isn't good or bad, it simply is. what WE can do, actually, is change the way we look at the cause.. in other games that envolve RNG, such as poker, you don't see players talking bad about the lucky river that revealed the only card his opponent needed to win the hand.. they talk about luck, and they can be pissed, but one thing that all pro players have in mind is: unless you have the nuts (the best possible hand), you can be outplayed.. therefore, what you can do, since you can't control the outcome, is to play with odds on your favor.. you can do the right call and still lose, but you know you did the right thing (just not the right thing to that particular hand).. and that's fine, you get to accept that's the way things are, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.. that's part of the game.. I think this mentality doesn't popularly translates to hearthstone because people don't see cards they play as a bet.. if you play babbling book, you have X% chance of getting a removal, Y% chance of getting a board clear, W% chance of getting direct damage etc. but that's what the card is, a complex bet.. you can get multiple results, and this happens to a lot of cards.. but if you don't see it as a bet, you don't see what is on stake for the one betting: a 1 mana 1/1 card slot.. that could give you something useless, or something you don't need to, or even don't want to.. but you are betting this card, and wanting to receive X, Y, or W, or whatever you want..
what Kibler is actually saying is that WE can change our mentality.. if WE start seeing these cards as bets, then you start to react as "shit, it gave me this useless spell", and start seeing it as "ok, so I have 30% of X, let's invest this 1 mana this turn to see if this pays up.. nope, that was unfortunate for me.. ok, now let me what I can do.."
so yeah, what you can indeed change is not the cause, is your reaction to the cause.. Kibler is not talking about RNG, but that 1- RNG is not responsible for everything, 2- even it is, getting frustrated or crying because your bet didn't pay off does not lead to a healthier game.. in the long run, since randomness should be equal to everybody, what makes the difference is the player, never the game..
The real mistake was making Hearthstone competitive to begin with, not adding the RNG that us forum-dwellers so often complain about. It's fairly obvious that this game's starting goal wasn't to become some skill-intensive multiplayer realm where your wits and nerves are tested until the end. The early flavor texts are as serious as our current ones, the art got a bit goofier over the years, and their first aventure turned Kel'Thuzad into a silly (very likeable) villain. If anyone still had doubts, I'm fairly certain GvG erased them.
Now, why oh why would this game become competitive? Its top tier decks have never "demanded" much from their piloters (eh, Patron Warrior is an exception, I guess), the top cards have had RNG up the ass since GvG came around, the balancing is atrociously slow (when there is balancing), and the meta speed makes each game as dependent on mulligans as we are on air.
It's perfectly fine to be mad at RNG. I get mad at RNG more often than not. But it is really time to wake up for those that want HS to be "RNG-free" (as much as a card game allows, of course). It is clearly not what it was meant to be, and I am fairly certain Blizzard's plans for it outweigh what smaller players might want the game to become.
TL:DR: Hearthstone's negativity comes from the illusion that this game was meant to be competitive. It is a problem of the players wanting it to become what it isn't, much like some people are crying for RNG to just disappear now, using the minor competitive scene as an excuse.
Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health. - Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
The randomness of HS is not comparable to Poker or Magic.
The goal of poker isn't about winning or losing a hand, but maximizing your winnings and minimizing your losses. The player who understands the probablilities best, will eventually win most money.
Magic has randomness but it also has a lot of cards to counter randomness such as cards that search the library/deck, that change the order of cards in the library, that filter the library, and even the concept of the sideboard in Magic is used to counter the randomness of poor matchups. Magic also has many many more possibilities during gameplay, and this changes the ratio between the number of interactive plays and the number of random events happening. As a result, the influence of a player is much higher and the strongest players will come out on top in far fewer games than in HS.
Random effects are not part of magic at all, very rare exceptions, and all of them in formats that would equate to wild in HS.
I would like to disagree with that. Ever heard of the keyword Miracle? (For those who you who don't know, Miracle is a keyword that allows a card to be much cheaper on the turn when it is drawn i.e. when it is topdecked.) For example, there is a card that allows you to take an extra turn for 7 mana. Taking another turn is OP as heck in Magic. However, this card allows you play it for TWO mana when you have drawn it.
There is also Cascade and Choas Warp if you are not convinced. (Cascade is a keyword that allows you to keep discarding cards from the top of your deck until you draw a non land card. Then, you can play it...FOR FREE.)
the only time cascade is really competitively played is living end, and in living end you know exactly what you're gonna cascade into lol - living end.
other than that, bloodbraid elf, but that was a value thing more than a get lucky thing.
also i kinda disagree with the miracles thing. if you've ever seen a miracles match, about 98% of the time the miracles player knows exactly what they're gonna draw before they draw it, that's why the deck was Tier 1 (before top got banned). the miracles are never played in any other deck because they're soooooooo unreliable when you can't consistently manipulate the top of your deck.
all in all, miracles was a VERY skill intensive deck - one of the hardest to play - and luck didn't really play a role in it at all, except in some very very rare cases.
I think there is one argument here that no one is addressing: Isn't it a problem that a card game and its random elements have more control over the players' emotions then their own minds?
Pivotal to the video is 11.10 - 12.10 In that one minute he says it all, revealing the reason why he made this video. More importantly is the interpretation of his words and what he is trying to say:
There's is more respect for competitive players and for the game in MTG compared to Hearthstone.
People complaining about randomness: part of card games.
'..Randomness in Hearthstone, because of the low level of game variance in the game engine is pretty crucial for the game to remain fun and make different thing happen from game to game.' (11.48- 12.01).
What He is saying resonates/defends the opinion, outlook and card design philosophy of Brode and consort. For the game to be fun variance must be low. How low variance emanates into more fun is quite unclear. What he is simply saying is that the dominance (low variance) of aggressive aggro makes the game fun, which is the hallmark of advertisement: "a fast paced game."
How 'different things' could happen from game to game in this understanding of fun is also pretty unclear. But if there's more respect for streamers and broader community in MTG, less with Hearthstone Kibler just gave the explanation: the skill level of MTG is higher than Hearthstone and that creates more respect.
You can't expect people in HS having more respect for streamers/ being less negative; you only can battle negativity by raising the skill floor of card design. Negativity has everything to do with the continuance of repulsive, aggressive, aggro oriented card design mr. Kibler.
You better call on Brode and consort to slow down the game and generate more variance and diversity. Don't blame the community to be negative. Just give Brode a call. People want to be vindicated, respected by a skillful game approach which is intellectually more demanding (like MTG). That is not provided by current card design. If it is already clear by turn 4 who will win, you can't maintain there's is significant skill involved in HS, even in the competitive scene. It is pretty understandable that people shy away from saying they'd put al lot of effort in it as everybody acknowledge the meta is an ongoing low skill aggro frenzy.
So mr. Kibler, your video was meant for 12-years olds. But really your fanboyism defending current card design by asking for more respect/ less negativity, is in stark contrast with conditions to earn that respect: better card design and an intellectually satisfying game. Since that is not the case, your quest is in vain.
TL;DR. There is more respect/ less negativity in MTG than in Hearthstone because the skill level of MTG is higher than HS.
Just out of curiosity, could you make some cards for us that have better card design? I'm not challenging you or anything. I'm just curious as to what the ideal card for you might be.
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Hearthstone is just a game of probabilities just like magic and poker. Pavel played babbling book because of the probability of it giving him something that could swing the board, yes he high rolled, that was always factored into the equasion....that he could possibly highroll....this happens in any card game, sometimes the top card flips and its the ace to finish off your hand of aces....boom you win....i used to play a ton of magic, poker and many other card games....in magic your rng revolves mainly around you drawing the mana sources you need for your deck to even work....hearthstone its just drawing or randomly generating the right answers at the right times...but in the end its all games of probability by proper deck building, mulling and playing your deck appropriate to what your opponent is doing....the foundation to all card games....just because hearthstone has more interaction beyond the actual draw doesn't mean it involves any less math / strategy, its just what makes it fun or not fun depending on what end of it you're on.
speed, momentum, violence
All I said there was "you can't compare RNG in HS and Magic", and that's absolutely true. I'm not saying there is no skill factor in HS, but I am saying it has a bigger role in magic. Anyone who disagrees with that has no idea what they're talking about, especially because magic actually has a stack and people can immediately respond to what your opponent is doing, not just watch and pray you played around what he actually had. On top of not really having RNG effects on high end competitive scenarios, just card draw order variance. On top of being a primarily face-to-face game that allows for in-depth observations of what your opponent is doing, which in turn allows for more efficient bluffs.
The 1st step towards a better game is firing Mike Donais! We had enough of his "skillful" balances!
#FireMikeDonais
Yeah, a toast!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
@SnowWhiteOo; I'd disagree on the idea there isn't value to the video, I think it does hit on one of the most bizarre topics in competitive Hearthstone in that (unlike similar games of luck, Magic included) it has developed a culture that's more than happy to disregard competitive merits. Part of that is that it definitely is a game that's a lot less serious than Magic or Poker, but a larger part of that falls on the community continuing to perpetuate the idea that if you toss out 30 cards in a Tier 1 deck and get lucky enough then you're doing as well as you can; and the bigger problem is that many of the loudest voices with that opinion are influential streamers who aren't even remotely competitive.
Kibler isn't failing to acknowledge that RNG does some insane stuff, or that every winner of every tournament didn't get there by being lucky; it's that the people you're seeing in the tournaments themselves worked hard to get there, and they need to start owning it. People who want the game to be competitive need to start owning the portions of the game that do require work to get good at. Content creators who want to be respected for how good they are at the game need to stop trying to pass success off as "getting lucky". We have consistent performers in the competitive scene, we have people like Stancifka who have spent hundreds of hours improving and competing, instead of taking a dump on the competitive aspects we should be celebrating them.
I think Hearthstone's biggest strength is also its biggest weakness in this regard; people who wouldn't normally play card games are playing Hearthstone, which means that all of a sudden they're having to re-learn what people in competitive card games have basically accepted for years. Sometimes luck isn't on your side, sometimes it is, but where you have control (deckbuilding and piloting) is what's going to truly define how successful you are in the competitive scene overall.
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
MTG/Hearthstone biases to avoid
Reframing negative Hearthstone experiences to improve at the game
Who's the Beatdown?
negativitycriticism reduced.The 1st step towards a better game is firing Mike Donais! We had enough of his "skillful" balances!
#FireMikeDonais
I have stopped playing hs for almost a month and my gf asked my account because of that.She had played some games before and found hs enjoyable so i said why not?She can at least do some dailies.She asked some basic advice and to make her the most noobfriendly deck possible.I made her pirate warrior and midhunter(in case she was bored with one deck).I logged in yesterday just see what rank she is so i could tease her.She was rank 5...A complete newbie managed to hit rank 5 in 11 days...So that's where the negativity comes from.The difference between an experienced and a newbie is at the very best a 10% win ratio.That makes the pro scence and any competitive aspect of the game a joke.
@SnowWhiteOo; Oh, I certainly think for the most part we're on the same page (I was just chiming in on where I saw some value to the video); luck is a big deal, as are things like preparation. I'd also agree that just saying "negativity" is pretty vague, and I'm sure the video could have been titled more accurately to indicate that this was regarding the competitive scene specifically.
And I also don't think he was trying to argue for a cure or anything like that, as much as saying that the general dismissal of the fact there is skill in the game is a relatively toxic behavior to continue to nurture. Part of that is curable in the sense that the primary difference between Magic and Hearthstone's competitive culture has very little to do with the mechanics, but with the mindset of the people who are playing at high levels and have a ton of exposure. If Magic Pros were writing paragraphs of text about how lucky their opponents got, they'd be in the same boat; but because their content is focusing on strategy and theory, we have a general perception that there's actually something substantial to the competitive scene. There's a power to that kind of narrative (look at Gwent, its a game that basically got a reasonable boost from the Lifecoach "this game is so skillful" narrative), and right now Hearthstone's narrative that people are sticking to is that it's all about luck and memes.
At the very least, having Pros who acknowledge the work they put into performing well is a pretty big deal.
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
MTG/Hearthstone biases to avoid
Reframing negative Hearthstone experiences to improve at the game
Who's the Beatdown?
Hearthstone's RNG based cards often make people think that the game is more random than it actually is. In Hearthstone, players have much more control over what they actually draw when compared specifically to games like Yugioh and Magic.
For starters, the mulligan phase: Hearthstone has one of the best mulligan rules of any games. It gives the players a strong measure of control over their starting hand cutting down on a lot of draw dependency in the early turns. Magic has good mulligan rules as well, but you lose card advantage in the process and can easily lose a resource game because of a bad opening hand assuming the mulligan was even helpful. Yugioh to my knowledge doesn't have mulligans.
Next the resources system: Because you are limited by mana, but don't need specific cards to build mana, you don't have to rely as much on top decking a certain type of card. Because of this, planning is much easier. You don't have to draw mana in order to play your bomb next turn. You will get that mana so you can plan to play that bomb. This allows players to think ahead in order to get an advantage over their opponent.
Also, let's not forget Poker. Poker is a fairly well respected competitive game. Poker is the epitome of a luck based game, however, where it shines is in how players deal with the randomness. Players win by maximizing their chances to have the best hand in the end. Players know what their odds are in a given situation and use that information to make decisions. The same is true in Hearthstone. We remember the time Sylv stole our rag to give the opponent lethal, while poker players remember the 10 on the river that gave their opponent the pot despite being a one in thirteen(ish) chance. In the long run though, if you know the odds and you play to give yourself the best chance possible, you end up winning more often than not.
Yeah, a toast!
Oh my gosh, we're actually having a civilized conversation from both sides. Keep it up you guys! Love ya! <3
The real mistake was making Hearthstone competitive to begin with, not adding the RNG that us forum-dwellers so often complain about. It's fairly obvious that this game's starting goal wasn't to become some skill-intensive multiplayer realm where your wits and nerves are tested until the end. The early flavor texts are as serious as our current ones, the art got a bit goofier over the years, and their first aventure turned Kel'Thuzad into a silly (very likeable) villain. If anyone still had doubts, I'm fairly certain GvG erased them.
Now, why oh why would this game become competitive? Its top tier decks have never "demanded" much from their piloters (eh, Patron Warrior is an exception, I guess), the top cards have had RNG up the ass since GvG came around, the balancing is atrociously slow (when there is balancing), and the meta speed makes each game as dependent on mulligans as we are on air.
It's perfectly fine to be mad at RNG. I get mad at RNG more often than not. But it is really time to wake up for those that want HS to be "RNG-free" (as much as a card game allows, of course). It is clearly not what it was meant to be, and I am fairly certain Blizzard's plans for it outweigh what smaller players might want the game to become.
TL:DR: Hearthstone's negativity comes from the illusion that this game was meant to be competitive. It is a problem of the players wanting it to become what it isn't, much like some people are crying for RNG to just disappear now, using the minor competitive scene as an excuse.
Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health.
- Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
mm well don't say never
ignite memories, for one. bad luck with ignite memories decided a final in a tournament about a decade and a half ago.
but yes, generally speaking luck plays a significantly lower role in mtg than in hearthstone.
Rogue Deckbuilder. Midrange/Combo player.
The randomness of HS is not comparable to Poker or Magic.
The goal of poker isn't about winning or losing a hand, but maximizing your winnings and minimizing your losses. The player who understands the probablilities best, will eventually win most money.
Magic has randomness but it also has a lot of cards to counter randomness such as cards that search the library/deck, that change the order of cards in the library, that filter the library, and even the concept of the sideboard in Magic is used to counter the randomness of poor matchups. Magic also has many many more possibilities during gameplay, and this changes the ratio between the number of interactive plays and the number of random events happening. As a result, the influence of a player is much higher and the strongest players will come out on top in far fewer games than in HS.
Rogue Deckbuilder. Midrange/Combo player.
I think there is one argument here that no one is addressing: Isn't it a problem that a card game and its random elements have more control over the players' emotions then their own minds?