Interactivity in HS is a bit subjective[...] HS is designed from the ground up for each player to input a complete set of commands during their turn, without any opportunity for the opponent to interrupt that set of commands.[...]
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HS has a kind of pseudo-interaction - one player does something on their turn, and the other player potentially reacts to it[....]
Most accurate point on the thread. Barring time limits, the sun and moon could each take their turn while in the sky, and the game would go on without issue or anything of value lost. It a fundamental point about the game we can't really do anything about without completely overhauling the game
Baku ate the Moon. But don't blame her - she thought it was a cookie.
If "interactivity" is equal to "performing any action against your opponent", then the concept is useless for discussion purposes.
Sheer relativity into nihilism.
We want a meaningful definition of "interactivity", or another analogous keyword that contributes to the understanding of the 'uneasiness' we feel when facing some decks.
I might be able to help here.
Let's say I had a Bloodlust deck: A shaman deck centered around minions with a win condition of blasting the opponent's face with the buffed up board to win. However, to do this I first need said board and to have a clear target towards my opponent.
My opponent then has the ability to slow that down. They can kill my minions. They can establish a strong taunt wall. They can keep themselves healthy enough to be unreachable. They can pressure me so that I can't focus on establishing my board. Thus there's many ways you can directly keep me from my victory.
This, I think, is what people referred to by 'interactivity': the range of options that I have to stopping you. The dream then is to have both sides feel that way: both trying to balance pushing their win condition with disrupting their opponent. "Do me face, Do me Trade" basically, without the answer you oldies already spat out.
Then there's decks like old freeze mage. With that deck, you had limited options as your minions are typically rendered useless. You can push for aggression, but only if your deck is tuned for that. If not..what do you do? Such ideas mean that your best way of interacting with a freeze mage deck is at the deck selection screen; press the right button there before you hit "play" and you win.
(yes that's slightly exaggerating but it's to mark the overall point)
Now we can nitpick over what decks offer interactivity or not, but in the least, I think the above is the common ground we are reaching for.
Most ladder decks lean towards being uninteractive in hearthstone because most of them take advantage of some really unfair hearthstone mechanic manipulation. This is why they are powerful, this is why they are all over ladder, as people like to win.
The easiest way to win in hearthstone is by taking your opponent out the equation. If you kill him on turn 4 before he realistically could answer your board rush that is uninteractive. If you never play anything on the board but just have a deck with answer after answer that is uninteractive. Taking advantage of freeze effects, or cards like timeout - uniteractive. OTKs - obviously uninteractive, especially when you spend 9 or the 10mins of game time just stalling.....it goes on and on.
Hearthstone has always been designed that way. It is what provides bad players with wins and keeps a lot of you here playing. even the worst player at hearthsone will win 35% of his games with his deck becasue some of the time his opponents will not be able to resond to whatevr his deck does and are shutdown. You are the one choosing to play a game designed to let the idiot win atleast some of the time, stop complaining.
Lastly - if you really want true interactivity in hearthstone there is only one mode in the game that provides it consistantly, ARENA. The better player wins far more often in arena. Mid-range decks taking it in turns to trade minions, slow gameplay, calculated, superior in every way and always will be, till you get bored of mid-range battles. Constructed will aways be full of unineractive decks, fair cards and combos do not see play there, at all.
But smashing Boulderfist Ogre's into Chillwind Yeti's is boring as hell. Scan hand for most powerful minion that is green, and play it. Pure Curvestone.
Baku ate the Moon. But don't blame her - she thought it was a cookie.
Doomhammer also worked well.
But smashing Boulderfist Ogre's into Chillwind Yeti's is boring as hell. Scan hand for most powerful minion that is green, and play it. Pure Curvestone.
Same argument can be made about Control decks. Odd Warrior doesn’t play threats. Just kills all your stuff.