• 2

    posted a message on I'm a little worried...

    Not really.  I like the changes actually.  Basically, the cards that they shifted out are just too good for their cost.  When Aggro Shaman and Miracle Rogue and Tempo Mage and Dragon Priest are all playing 2 copies of the same 5-drop, there's probably a problem with that 5-drop, and that's why Azure Drake got hit.  Ragnaros and Sylvanas are basically the same argument, but for 6 and 8 respectively.  In addition, the issue is a lot more pronounced with higher drops because in general you play so few of them.  While an average deck might have 6 or 7 2-drops, usually they only play 2-3 5s and 1 8, and when those 2-3 5s are always Azure Drake and the 8 is always Ragnaros, that basically means that every card they print at those costs forever is just stone unplayable.  "In theory" (and whenever I use "in theory" I mean that this is what they said, not what they will necessarily do) they will print cards at those costs that are the same power level as Rag or Drake in context, but are limited in how they can be used, so that a wider variety of cards at those costs can see play without lowering the power level too much as a result.

    As for the commons, basically they were uninteractive.  When you're at 25 and your opponent has a 2/2 and a 3/3 on the table and then you just die, that's not interesting gameplay.  That's why they nerfed Force of Nature, it's why they nerfed Leeroy, it's why they nerfed Gadgetzan Auctioneer, it's why they nerfed Pyroblast, and on and on.  This is just the latest feature in that line of events.  The difference is that this time, rather than nerfing again, they just moved those cards out of Standard, because the cards are not inherently too powerful but they provide a play experience that is uninteresting, and "we've seen enough of this already ok time to move on thanks"; Freeze Mage, Miracle Rogue, and Zoolock have existed, using those 3 cards, and playing that sort of "oops you're dead" uninteractive and uninteresting game play since the game was literally in Beta, and they decided it's enough already.  Although, since Wild is meant to be the place to showcase all the old strategies that some players may have had enough of but others still enjoy, you can do that in Wild now if you want.

    Overall I'm pretty pumped about these changes, myself.

    Posted in: General Discussion
  • 2

    posted a message on Max McCall Talks About Combo Decks and Why They Can Be Problematic
    Quote from CrisalidX >>
     
    Quote from WhatAChamp >>

    There's tons of things you can do to counter Freeze Mage. Run heal for post-Alex, Eater of Secrets to get rid of Ice Block, removal/silence for Doomsayer. However, the Aviana-C'Thun combo deck damage is completely unavoidable and can burst for 40+ in one go. I love how Blizz uses that deck as an example of a good combo deck when it's must more frustrating to lose to than Freeze Mage which you can actually prevent.

     Wait I didnt know about that deck!,hmm x1 innervate, x1 Aviana x1 Brann and x1 Cthun potentially could be like 40 damage to the board. :OOO
    Ill try to build it now. 
     You also play 1 or 2 Dark Arakkoa to boost Cthun in case you don't have Brann for whatever reason, and also it's a giant Taunt in case you need a turn to attack and not die.
    Posted in: News
  • 2

    posted a message on Small-Time Buccaneer & Spirit Claws Are Being Nerfed, Ranked Changes Incoming

    Definitely love the Ranked Play Floors idea!  I've been wanting to jam some not-so-overused classes to try to get golden portraits (also because I enjoy playing control and don't mind losing a bit with it just so I don't have to play SMOrc Warrior and SMOrc Shaman all the time) but then I can never rank up.

    As for the nerfs, Small Time Bucaneer at 1 health means it trades with a Patches in the mirror which is kind of sweet.  As for Spirit Claws, I would have preferred a nerf somewhere else, either making it a 1/3 -> 2/3 or a 1/2 -> 3/2.  Having it cost 1 is pretty important and works well alongside the nerf to STB, so not too thrilled with that.  Good to see Blizz trying though.

    Posted in: News
  • 0

    posted a message on Small-Time Buccaneer & Spirit Claws Are Being Nerfed, Ranked Changes Incoming

    The reason why is because they're releasing a scheduled patch on that date and they don't want to have to release patches every 2 weeks because getting releases on the Google Play store and Apple App Store is a pain in the ass.  They've said previously that they're looking into ways to fix this, but for now they can only do these updates by releasing a whole new client patch and this is the system we have.

    Posted in: News
  • 1

    posted a message on Thoughts on the long-term future of Hearthstone
    Quote from TheRealMalfurion >>

    On larger adventures: Adventures are smaller than full expansions, but if you consider the number of playable cards in them, it's actually not that small.  For example, 5 of the 40 cards in One Night in Karazhan have not seen major widespread play.  Compare to the number of unplayables in MSG, there's a lot more unplayables in MSG.  I haven't run the numbers exactly, but I would expect that the number of "playable" (i.e. sees play in a top tier Standard deck) cards in an Adventure is not a lot less than in a set.

    I wasn't saying that adventures need to be larger, just that the team should make more class cards and less neutral cards (maybe to do this they would have to release a few more cards than usual, but not necessarily that many). This also ties in to the other point you highlighted from my post. By having more cards per class you can push/support more archetypes per class (from which some may fail, but some will work) that actually feel different. Even though a lot of adventure cards do see play, getting just 40 cards over a 6 month period just isn't good enough to maintain interest.

    On More Archetypes: Actually, set releases seem to do pretty well at starting new archetypes, to the point that I think the game might be power creeping too much.  For example, MSG started a whole bunch of Reno decks; previously Reno Mage and Reno Priest didn't exist, and also Jade Druid and Jade Shaman, and let's of course not forget the elephant in the room, the various Pirate decks, most importantly Pirate Warrior.  These decks just didn't exist before MSG.  Before ONK there was no Resurrect Priest, and Dragon Priest was a lot worse without Netherspite Historian and Book Wyrm.  Before that, WOTOG gave us Cthun Drui and NZoth Rogue.  New sets really do have an impact, and I wonder what's going to happen after rotation.

    You have a point on Reno Mage and Reno Priest, but the other examples highlight problems in the way these archetypes were designed to play. Sure Jade Druid is something new, but it plays very similarly to the old Malygos Druid. If with every new set we just change the flavor of the deck, but keep things the same (at least in how the deck plays) you will naturally get people bored quicker. A good solution would be to push Beast Druid a lot in one expansion (in this way cards like Lunar Visions would see play), which plays very differently when compared to the spell-heavy archetypes that are more popular today. I will just skip Shaman, because that class is just a mess right now (it has so many powerful cards that just fit everywhere that there isn't much point in talking without knowing where it will be after the rotation).

    The Pirate decks are exactly what I am trying to talk against in my 'More Archetypes' and 'Class Focused Expansions'. Just three cards are run in 3 classes and fuel a similar strategy from all three (in my eyes they are essentially the same archetype). If instead Small-Time Buccaneer was a Rogue card then we wouldn't have so many 'archetypes' that only differ in flavor (you would just play Pirate Rogue in this hypothetical scenario). Less neutral cards would make it more likely that fewer things are broken in the neutral card pool and it would also make it easier to spot classes that have broken cards (since those will naturally be played more, which could also provide incentive to the devs to intervene more swiftly when such things are spotted).

     It sounds to me like what you want is for every class to be good at everything, and for the classes to just rotate around the archetypes every set.  Like, for example, in one set we have aggro warrior, and the next set "oh, aggro warrior is bad now, here's control warrior", and then the next set "control warrior is bad now, here's OTK warrior", and so on.  But I'm pretty sure that would a) reduce the overall feeling of the classes, where each class is supposed to have a different feeling from the others, and b) is not what Team 5 wants (and I'm pretty sure Ben Brode has said as much).  Specifically, each class should have a specific feel.  The fact that Druid used to be a big spell class before MSG and is still a big spell class, is intentional.  The fact that Rogue was combo heavy and still is combo heavy ("c"ombo, not "C"ombo) is intentional.  The fact that Shaman has always slanted aggressive is intentional.
    In fact, the problem you see right now with Shaman is a direct result of them slanting Shaman more in the direction you want them to go.  Shaman has cards which fit equally well whether you're Control Shaman or Aggro Shaman or Midrange Shaman or whatever, so you can play literally any Shaman deck you want.  And because they did that, what you have now is a class which can do literally everything and is broken at the top tier of play.
    As for more or less Neutrals or whatever, I couldn't really care less.  My main problem with fewer neutrals would be that I'm a F2Per (yes, we still exist) and because a lot of the good Legendaries are Neutral, I only have to pick up 3-4 Legendaries per set to build whatever I want, and I've been playing long enough that I have enough gold/dust to get them.  If I suddenly had to pick up 11-12 Legendaries per set because I needed 2 Legendaries per class because all the ones which used to be Neutral aren't anymore, the game would become prohibitively expensive for me.
    Posted in: General Discussion
  • 1

    posted a message on Thoughts on the long-term future of Hearthstone

    A lot of what you said seems to be interesting:

    On larger adventures: Adventures are smaller than full expansions, but if you consider the number of playable cards in them, it's actually not that small.  For example, 5 of the 40 cards in One Night in Karazhan have not seen major widespread play.  Compare to the number of unplayables in MSG, there's a lot more unplayables in MSG.  I haven't run the numbers exactly, but I would expect that the number of "playable" (i.e. sees play in a top tier Standard deck) cards in an Adventure is not a lot less than in a set.

    On More Archetypes: Actually, set releases seem to do pretty well at starting new archetypes, to the point that I think the game might be power creeping too much.  For example, MSG started a whole bunch of Reno decks; previously Reno Mage and Reno Priest didn't exist, and also Jade Druid and Jade Shaman, and let's of course not forget the elephant in the room, the various Pirate decks, most importantly Pirate Warrior.  These decks just didn't exist before MSG.  Before ONK there was no Resurrect Priest, and Dragon Priest was a lot worse without Netherspite Historian and Book Wyrm.  Before that, WOTOG gave us Cthun Drui and NZoth Rogue.  New sets really do have an impact, and I wonder what's going to happen after rotation.

    Posted in: General Discussion
  • -5

    posted a message on Ben Brode on Announcements of Announcements, Gadgetzan, Nerfs, & More

    That would make sens, but it doesn't say so in the article above.

    Posted in: News
  • -11

    posted a message on Ben Brode on Announcements of Announcements, Gadgetzan, Nerfs, & More

    So...I can enter Spectator mode on my friend's game and see the opponent's cards and PM my friend my opponent's hand and every card they draw at all times?  This doesn't seem abuseable at all.

    SeemsGood

    Posted in: News
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