Hearthpwn

I'm a bit curious exactly what about this new game mode isn't living up to your expectations. I mean, it's all out there. There's no bait and switch here. What the streamers are showing on Twitch is literally exactly what you get when you pay for early access. So, I don't get the blame here. It doesn't make sense, (and if I'm being completely frank, this thread makes you come across as incredibly whiny, making you look bad).

I can understand you not liking the game mode, but that's not the streamer's fault. The opposite in fact. I mean, they are literally showing you exactly what to expect, and what you get if you pay to unlock it. Based on that, everybody should have a pretty good idea as to whether they would end up liking the mode or not and whether it's worth paying money to unlock early. I'm having a hard time thinking of a better way to ensure people make informed purchasing decisions. It's not like you were tricked into it or anything.

I mean, I get the buyer's remorse to some extent. It turns out that it doesn't suit your playstyle. You thought it would but it doesn't. I get that. But that's not the streamer's fault and blaming them is pretty silly.

The way C'Thun, the Shattered works:

At the start of the game, He breaks apart and the 4 body parts are shuffled into your deck. Once you've played all 4 pieces, the C'Thun, the Shattered is shuffled into your deck.

Essentially, putting C'Thun, the Shattered into your deck makes it a guaranteed 34 card deck and often a 35 card deck. So, he might find a place in super control decks that go ultra late game. IMO though, he's the worst of the revamped Old Gods. His 4 body parts range from mediocre to outright bad and since the completed minion itself is shuffled into the deck as opposed to added into your hand, you still have to draw into it....it's just really off-putting to me.

Edit: Actually, I just rewatched the video. There's nothing indicating that the 4 broken body parts are shuffled into the deck at the start of the game. However, it seems extremely likely that they are shuffled at the beginning because otherwise, you'd start every game with all 4 body parts already in your hand. However, I just wanted to clarify that with the info we currently have, we don't know for sure.

As for Solar Eclipse it does seem insanely powerful. I suspect we'll see some insane Kael'thas Sunstrider shenanigans since you can double up on a discounted 10 mana (or other expensive) spell. Whether it will break the game? Too early to speculate. I mean, we just haven't seen any of the expansion aside from the what? 12ish cards revealed so far? There's simply too many unknown variables to even consider having that discussion.

For the first time ever, we're getting an alternative to the Arena. For a price, players can put their skills to the test and be rewarded based on the results. I think this is a very good thing overall as some people may tend to be better suited for one playstyle over the other. But the interesting thing is, alongside this arena alternative, we're getting a casual version of it that will allow all players to just goof around with the game mode at no risk, just for fun! IMO, this is awesome. But then I realized, if Duels can have both a mode where you can test your skills and win prizes for a small cost as well as a casual variant, why shouldn't Arena do the same?

It seems like it'd be ridiculously easy to implement and would be extremely fun. I mean, if you like playing arena that is, then it'd be fun. All the work's been done, the system already exists! They just need to make a few tweaks to adapt it for a casual variant.

The way I envision this being implemented is that it would function virtually identically to paid arena runs. You pick your class, you draft your deck and off you go! (duh, right?) However, there's also room for Blizzard to profit from such a mode as well. Imagine that for everybody, you have restricted access to just 2 random classes every time you start a casual run, as opposed to the normal 3 options players currently enjoy with paid arena. Then just make it so players have the option to pay (with either actual money or gold) to unlock the 3rd option. Exactly how the current "Perks" system works in Battlegrounds.

It would also work on a ranking system similar to how duels and battlegrounds are ranked. This would incentivize players to do their best instead of simply abandoning a casual run repeatedly until they get one of their preferred classes or solid draft picks. I mean, they still could, just like a Battlegrounds player can repeatedly auto-concede until they got a favored hero, but it would tank their ranking.

There's even more opportunity here though. With casual arenas, you can now have daily quests associated with arena runs. Or the new weekly quests. Or achievements for that matter. IE: Reach 12 wins! With the upcoming Progression and Reward overhaul on the horizon, this seems like an obvious, logical step.

It's clear that Blizzard wants to implement new game modes to bring in new players, bring back old veterans, and keep people invested in the game. And arena is just sitting there, ripe and ready to be molded into the next, great, casual game mode. Like I said, all the work has already been done and ready to go. So I ask, why not?

Awesome! They are actually doing exactly what I suggested in effectively exactly the way I recommended. A mini expansion of about 35 cards in between each large one!

@RaiKaiga You're equating negative feedback with complaining. That is a mistake. Negative feedback is an extremely valuable resource for anybody that creates content. It's important for creators to know what their base likes and dislikes. It's okay to not like things and explain why you don't like said things. But viewing any negative feedback as inherently bad is an extremely narrow point of view. For example, look at the recently released Sonic the Hedgehog movie. If it wasn't for the negative feedback, the creators would never have gone back to the literal drawing board and we'd have been stuck with that original abomination they tried to pass off as Sonic. Feedback is important, both positive and negative.

As of me writing this, everything has now been revealed. Let me ask you, exactly what about this teaser trailer was even remotely relevant to anything that was revealed today? Of course, that question is rhetorical because the answer is literally nothing at all. IMO, that objectively makes this teaser a failure, and the people responsible for putting it out should be made aware that it's bad and is something their base neither appreciates nor wants. With any luck, they'll take that feedback to heart and the next time we get a teaser trailer, it will be something far better that actually succeeds at generating buzz about future content.

Quote from royard >>

Played 15-20 games.  Mode feels pretty bad/unbalanced because some passives and treasures are massively stronger than others.  In particular the broken weapon replacement and auto-evolve powers are really strong. 

This right here is exactly why I'll never do the Legendary Duels or whatever it's called. Depending on your treasure picks, it could be easy 12 wins or bust. So, I'd recommend staying away from it, at least until the treasures are remotely balanced and honestly, I doubt that'll happen.

It looks fun to me. And this is coming from a F2P player that has disenchanted his entire wild collection every rotation. Yeah, it sucks that I don't have those wild cards anymore but barring expensive legendary or epic crafts, I don't have a problem spending a few hundred dust replacing a handful of commons/rares that allow me to have fun with the game mode by re-crafting a few. I'm having a hard time imagining any epic or legendary card from wild that is a must-have card to be competitive in duels, but we'll see.

Just like any game mode, after a month or so, the meta will settle. We'll see just how many or how few wild cards will truly be necessary for dueling. My guess, not many will be needed. Personally, I'll just avoid any meta deck that wants me to use a dozen legendary/epic wild cards. Shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

I'm just sad that because of my lack of wild cards, I won't be able to play around with experimenting with various deckbuilding ideas that I think could work. IMO, that's some of the most fun you can have in Hearthstone and I feel like this mode would be even more fun to play with. But, because I'm F2P, I just can't afford to waste dust on wild cards that may not yield results.

But hey, for everyone here posting their disappointment, you gotta do what's fun for you. I for one will have a blast for at the bare minimum of several weeks at least, probably for a lot longer. I have to say, this looks far more entertaining to me than Battlegrounds.

Ehh, I think this is a bit premature. I was watching Brian Kibler and he commented on Duels and new players and he made a good point. Your initial 15 card deck is only moderately important over the course of the entire duel. His deck for example at the time he commented on it only contained 2 wild cards. Is it a disadvantage? Absolutely, yes. But I don't think it's quite as alienating as it would seem.

In my opinion, once a meta has settled for Duels, there's likely going to be only a handful of wild cards regularly played. While there may be a few legendary outliers, like Loatheb perhaps, I'd wager that many of the wild cards will be common or rare quality. While it sucks, especially for the players (like myself) that have disenchanted their old wild sets, it shouldn't cost too much in dust to craft the handful of cards you'd need to remain competitive in the duels.

The crappiest thing about it is the lack of experimentation for the unfortunate players without a full wild set. A lot of the fun is just being able to play around with new ideas to see if something works. Crafting cards for the sole purposes of experimenting is extraordinarily inefficient, especially for new or F2P players. But as for remaining competitive in duels? It shouldn't be too difficult, even for players without a large wild collection.

I despise teaser trailers like this. I get the idea behind them. Stir up speculation and hype. But what exactly is this particular teaser trying to tease anyway? It's so vague that it's stupid and for me, does the opposite of hyping up the inevitable announcement. This teaser could mean literally anything, or nothing at all.

Maybe it has something to do with the electricity effect. So, maybe something to do with Shaman. Maybe not and it's just a meaningless visual effect, like when you craft a card with dust. Maybe it has something to do with top-decks, since the card in question is the literal top of the deck. Maybe not. OMG, the card spins! What could that possibly mean!@!?.....it's just so stupid. I mean, if you're gonna do a teaser trailer, at least tease something.

Again, this is just my opinion on it but I feel teasers like this have the opposite effect. It does very little to generate hype/buzz for the upcoming content and ultimately fails as a whole. Maybe that's just me though.

Not when you've been playing since beta and don't bother crafting every competitive deck but rather just one or two per expansion. We're talking literally years of saving. Kinda hard not to have that much dust when you've been playing that long.

A system revamp has me extremely skeptical. 

For me personally, it boils down to how effectively I can continue playing as a F2P player. Right now, I feel I can function 100% effectively as F2P. However, if for example they made it easier to obtain cards/packs from older content, effectively giving players access to more cards overall, but at the cost of making it more difficult to obtain the most current/new cards/packs, then that would hurt my ability to continue as a Free to Play.

Generally speaking, within I'd say within 2 weeks of new content being released, I have obtained most of the cards I require to remain competitive. The few I lack I can generally craft with dust. Once I've made the transition to crafting cards with dust to build the specific decks I need to remain competitive, I begin saving my gold for the following expansion. I like being able to open between 50-60 packs from gold so I can get myself a good start on what I might need. This is a relatively easy and obtainable goal per expansion. Of course, once I've reached this point and have obtained most or all the cards I require, the value of those packs diminishes greatly. In simple terms, the older the pack, the less valuable it is (for me).

Also, because I'm completely a standard player, I dust my entire Wild collection every time it rotates out. This has given me an abundance of dust, nearing 100,000. This gives me plenty of wiggle room to craft the cards I need to be both competitive and to experiment with random ideas.

So, a major revamp has me extremely wary. If the route they go makes it more difficult to obtain the newest cards without spending cash, then my time playing the game is probably limited.

I've been questioning Blizzard's recent nerfing policy for a while now. It's clear they are nerfing cards far more frequently than they ever used to in the past. Now granted, I feel this is a smart move overall. The days of suffering through completely and obviously broken cards/decks/classes for over a year is long gone. That's a good thing. Their initial stance of, "This card/deck is OP so let's wait until the next expansion where we'll (try to) introduce new cards that help bring it in line" has been put aside to a more proactive "This card/deck is busted so let's nerf it so players don't have to suffer through it for 4 months of bullcrap" ideology. I think as a whole, that's a good thing.

But their decisions lately haven't made much sense to me. For example, there are some instances where I feel like they nerfed the wrong aspect of a card that doesn't address the core problem, making the nerf irrelevant. Or simply nerfed cards that didn't need nerfing. Such as Kayn Sunfury from a 3/5 to a 3/4. Who cares? The nerf was almost pointless. I personally don't think it needed to be nerfed at all and since it retained it's core functionality, why not just keep it as a 3/5?

Another example was nerfing Cabal Acolyte from 6 health to 4. While definitely a much more significant nerf compared to the Kayn example, it doesn't alter what makes this card frustrating for players playing against it. Which is to say Priests will still continue to steal your sh*t repeatedly throughout the game. The only real thing it accomplished was make it slightly less reliable for a priest player to drop an acolyte on turn 4 and have it stick around to the following turn to try and activate it (which in my experience, didn't happen much anyway). It just didn't make much sense to me. IMO, if the card needed nerfing (which is debatable) they should have kept it's stats the same, but nerfed it to 5 mana, making it slightly more difficult to utilize, addressing the card's core concept.

Then there's this example. I can't say I disagree with the nerfs as a whole, I think the changes are actually fairly okay and make some sense. What I question is their timing. We've had a settled meta for quite some time now, statistically the most balanced we've ever seen with more viable decks than we've ever had, and there's a new expansion reasonably close by. Even if they had these nerfs planned, why now? Why not let the players that enjoy these decks continue with the meta they've adapted to and simply wait introduce the nerfs to coincide along the introduction of the new cards? I mean, the meta is going to shift when that happens anyway, and it's going to happen quite soon....so why not wait? Why nerf them now? It just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't know, these are just my opinions anyway. I'd like to think Blizzard has their reasons but as of right now, their nerfing practices hasn't seemed very cogent to me. Maybe it's just me though.

My thoughts as well.

Yes, zeph is not perfect. We've known this for quite a while now. This isn't exactly breaking news. 

That being said, his functionality is quite well understood and most of the time, assuming you know what you're doing, you can manipulate him into giving you exactly what you want. Is it perfect? No. Does it work everytime? No. But given the extreme complexity of the card, and the fact that it's as reliable as it is (again, assuming you know what you're doing), I'd say he works pretty damn well. About as well as we can reasonably expect him to.

Wrenchcalibur is reasonably countered by weapon removal. Yes, they can bring it back but there's nothing stopping anyone from running multiple removals.

Lapidary is also not overpowered. It requires a soul fragment prior to be in the deck and it too can be mitigated.

I do agree however that blade dance is over-tuned and should be toned down. There really is no good counterplay. If you go wide, you're just going to lose 3 minions. If you play conservatively, you get outpaced and eventually overrun. Any multi-target ability that can take out several 8+ health minions should cost more than 2 IMO. But, who knows. The next expansion is fast approaching, maybe blizzard will add something that helps address this particular issue.