I must say they are very successful in distracting crowds dissatisfaction with the meta by introducing changes that don't solve the real issues, but keep the masses occupied. I'm impressed.
+1, they dodge the real problems with just shifting the META. This however will cost them player base and revenue in the long term. They are greedy as it could be with no core changes to the game (new modes and things one can do in-game) since release, just massing cards like it's the end of the world and making 99% of them useless by introducing OP best sellers that form a 4 decks META and everyone and his mom copies them like it's a bottle caps factory until the next line of production is released with the new expansion. For how long?
So it's not like you'd be able to adapt to anything.
So, we created the perfect coin flip mode then - Ben will be happy kappa!
Seriously, I don't think it will be that hard to adapt as long as you are a good deck builder. What you wrote is true, but it alone doesn't make it impossible to adjust.
Some of the meta cards actually encourage underused cards to be used again because those meta cards strengthen weaker underused cards. I feel that is a better approach than getting rid of all strong cards so that we can have a psuedo-vanilla meta with a bunch of cards that never saw play.
It all depends where they draw the line between meta and off-meta - what the value (say X) of the sum of the card's usage percent declaring a deck meta/off-meta is.
For example, your mech mage deck will probably be near the X line, while a pure big spell mage will be meta (> X). If they decide to streghten the off-meta portion (lower X), your mech mage will be marked meta (> X).
It is up to them where they want to draw the line.
While N'Zoth is only a meta card in Control Warlock right now having N'Zoth marked as a meta card that wouldn't be allowed in this new 'meta-less' format would actually drastically change how my homebrew'd version of my OTK deck would work.
Removing every meta card wouldn't only get rid of tier decks, but it could also dismantle some home brew decks as well.
Exactly - that is the idea - adapt, build, experiment, adapt, change, adapt...
I know you find it strange - players don't do this type of game in HS anymore since they don't expect to break the meta. Such mode would revive deck building and bring back all underused cards in the game. Suddenly HS would feel fun again.
if its only handled on a card by card basis how do you stop the real meta decks (lets say Razakus) building the core then filling with weak cards to ensure they're off meta before easily getting the rewards at the expense of the weak off-meta decks?
That is the purpose of the mode - people will start playing less and less meta cards until these become off-meta again - a cycle to which you have to adapt with deck building.
About trolls: These creatures group and receive meaning when there is something to be gained. Making a bunch of cards considered meta by the system is not something of value when the mode purpose itself is to stimulate off-meta deck building.
I don't see why you think people will mass troll in such mode making decks of particular cards - what do they achieve with this? Some cards will never see play in off-meta match-ups? What's the big deal of this keeping trolls spaming games with useless decks?
About new players: The increased gold income from easier match-ups will simply give them more freedom. How they spend their mana and which cards they craft is their choice. Some will prefer to focus on meta decks, others not. Both options are viable since off-meta decks are usually 10-20 times more cheaper than meta decks. Their off-meta decks can't suddenly ALL become meta when they are built with different cheap cards.
Ok but how would that work for edge cases? For example what would happen if people just started putting Kazakus in normal decks just to force his meta rating. How would it take into account neutral cards that are always used in one class becoming meta for a class that almost never uses them. What would stop trolls forcing cards into meta just to limit the play of this small off-meta game community.
I don't think people will sacrifice win rate just to influence the meta with putting highly used cards that complete their deck as off-meta. What we talk is: Player A puts 29 cards in the deck and wants to throw some highly used card to increase its percent of usage while keeping the deck off-meta. He puts card K in the deck instead of his optimal card choice losing 1% win rate and raising the usage of card K with 0.001%. Sure, player A could do this, but I don't think this will be on mass scale since in order the percent of usage of exactly card K to be raised significantly the trolls as you said have to coordinate themselves and every one of them to put exactly card K. Also, no point to do this if you are regular player and you already are offered the choice to simply ban a class/card.
TLDR: I don't think the players could exploit such system somehow.
meta is a key way to steer Blizzards revenues with this game. What you want just kills that
I agree their best selling cards are there to construct a META. But, the whole tournament play will always be based on META decks and such mode won't do harm to this, just as Arena doesn't. You are right the game will become easier for F2P and new players with such mode and this looks that it is cutting revenue from them, but in the long run a friendly game for new players will make them more. In fact they already know this, mentioned it in the past saying they want to improve the game for new players. This is an option for that. And if the majority of players stop crafting the best sellers suddenly they will begin losing to them since they won't be declared "META" anymore in the mode due to their lower usage.
So, overall I agree with you they will do everything to protect their best sellers and they will lose revenue from a certain type of players that will switch to this play mode, but they will make the game a lot friendlier for new players and this will gain them revenue. In the end it is a nice trade-off allowing the regular players to have another rewarding and fun activity in-game.
a cards % rating would differ depending on which of these decks it's in thus exponentially increasing the number of calculations. It would be cheaper for them to let Hearthstone just die rather than spend on the infrastructure and people to manage this.
No hard calculations or something tedious to implement, you may be overthought it. Each card has a percent of usage for the last 24 hours - they already track this on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. When you make a deck the system declares it META or OFF-META depending on which cards you use (how popular they currently are). You hit play and you are matched with the respected type of M/OM player.
whilst it may be boring for you and what you want from the game it doesn't mean it is for others.
Make a poll then and see for yourself - are the people happy with the META? I suspect most are not and would enjoy such mode. From what I see in ladder in the last year - more and more META decks are played on lower ranks, which means the number of players copy/pasting META decks increases. Of course there will be people who won't find playing the same META boring, but I think these are minority since the most players in-game are in the first month after release of a new expansion/cards.
The logical conclusion is that META kills the game long term and a solution is needed. The proposed mode in the OP is a valid solution thus the thread.
In the way that you have to play 4-5 decks only for 3 months to have high win rate. This means boring game for the smart people on Standard. Wild is better, but still far from optimal. In casual you face more diverse decks, but you have no rewards there. HS has become boring, because everyone and his mom is copy/pasting meta decks and playing them only. I can predict how a game develops with 90% certainty on each turn. Since you are familiar with coding, tell your team to come up with a fun game based on that if you think it's possible. But better save them the time and effort, and just watch how HS loses player base in the next years.
There's nothing special about such ladder - an experienced programmer can code the matching for a few days. And it's understandable why most of you don't like it - copy/pasting decks is a lot easier to do. What if it suddenly stops working and we can't win anymore? We have to build decks ourselves? Is this what the OP is suggesting? NO, NO, NO!!!
Seriously, META will kill this game sooner or later. A new mode is needed ASAP. I hope the devs are not blind like the most of you and see it. HS could be fun!
The players with the highest win rates won't be the best players nor the best deckbuilders, they will be the best at exploiting the matchmaker to match them against easy opponents.
The best players will be exactly the best deck builders since:
- You have to learn building optimal decks with available non-meta cards
- You have to learn to adjust depending how aggro/control oriented are your opponents
And you can't exploit the matchmaking in any way since before starting play you know which of your decks are considered meta. Let's say you have 20 decks prepared with different cards in each. Every hour the meta changes and some of your decks become meta/non-meta and vice versa. However you still don't know how your prepared decks which crushed before, became meta and are non-meta again now will perform against the other non-meta decks currently played. It is highly likely that you'll have to adjust your decks on a daily basis.
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I don't see why you think people will mass troll in such mode making decks of particular cards - what do they achieve with this? Some cards will never see play in off-meta match-ups? What's the big deal of this keeping trolls spaming games with useless decks?
About new players: The increased gold income from easier match-ups will simply give them more freedom. How they spend their mana and which cards they craft is their choice. Some will prefer to focus on meta decks, others not. Both options are viable since off-meta decks are usually 10-20 times more cheaper than meta decks. Their off-meta decks can't suddenly ALL become meta when they are built with different cheap cards.
There's nothing special about such ladder - an experienced programmer can code the matching for a few days. And it's understandable why most of you don't like it - copy/pasting decks is a lot easier to do. What if it suddenly stops working and we can't win anymore? We have to build decks ourselves? Is this what the OP is suggesting? NO, NO, NO!!!
Seriously, META will kill this game sooner or later. A new mode is needed ASAP. I hope the devs are not blind like the most of you and see it. HS could be fun!