Hearthpwn

Quote from xskarma >>

But not without in the back of my mind the thought that something like this might happen again and the thought that maybe I need to stop spending on this game if it is treating me like this. We'll see how that feeling evolves over the next few weeks as the next expansion starts looming.

 So basically all you've done is reinforce their behavior of making an insanely disrespectful change and then slowly walking it back until people stop complaining.

The only way out of a toxic relationship is to break all ties and walk away forever.

I guess this is the appropriate place for a "goodbye again" post. I came back because I was drawn in by the catch-up packs and other special offers at the time of the Badlands release. That expansion was fine, so I stuck around for the new Hearthstone year, interested to see what might happen when the Year of the Hydra cards rotated out.

Well, the Year of the Pegasus has been 100 percent raw sewage. Between their refusal to adjust their precious darling archetypes that were ruining the meta and their actual criminal fraud in changing the rules of the Reward Track after they had already collected everyone's money, Blizzard has destroyed the last ounce of good will I was willing to extend.

It's not just Hearthstone, either. Blizzard has systematically ruined every one of their IPs through a combination of inept designers, lack of respect for the player's time, lack of respect for players in general, and ... I won't say "greed," because it's a company's purpose to make money, but let's call it a willingness to put short-term profits ahead of the player's enjoyment, and a seeming indifference to the harm they've been doing to their reputation as a once-respected game design studio.

Anyway, this is the third time I've come back after a hiatus -- and believe me, it was against my better judgment. A part of me knew it was going to get bad again, but even so, the staggering toxicity of Blizzard's recent behavior has shocked me. This makes three stirkes, Blizzard. You're out. Or rather, I am. And I will not be back.

Quote from Seshua >>

I literally just came back from a 2 month break and i already feel like i need to take another break again.
Hearthstone is definitely on par with League of Legends with how frustrating and exhausting it is to play at this point.
I never played LoL but whenever people describe the negative patterns of that game it sounds exactly how i feel about Hearthstone.
Almost never actually fun to play (at least nowadays) but still addicting af.
Games like these should be banned across the globe imo because they can be just as detrimental to your mental health as hard drugs.

A good friend of mine back then actually quit drugs (pot and alcohol) just because it made him play worse.
You might think that's a good thing but shortly after he dropped out of school and isolated himself which completely ruined his life. Before then he was a womanizer, an extremely talented soccer placer and also a good student.
See, he didn't quit drugs, he simply switched to a more potent drug.
And that drug was a video game (World of Warcraft in his case).
Let that sink in.

 The answer is not to ban certain games, any more than we would ever ban alcohol to save alcoholics from their addiction. What should have happened is that your friend's counselor or support group should have warned him against taking up ANY potentially addictive hobbies, including certain video games. Your friend has an addictive personality, and that needs to be carefully managed by him and those who are supposed to be helping him stay on track.

Hearthstone has never been balanced well, and it never will be. Accept it.

Or don't accept it, add it to the pile of reasons you should quit the game, and finally move on to a game that doesn't treat its players with such outright contempt.

Your choice.

Hiroyuki Ito for all the great things he did in the Final Fantasy series, especially Tactics.

The only Warrior I played against was trying something different, and it didn't seem to be working out.

The dust value of the cards is worth more than 20 packs (2000 gold), so it's always worth it to buy every mini-set with gold.

Kinda feels like they are throwing stuff at the Game Modes wall to see what sticks.

It's a good card, but not overpowered by today's standards. I think you are assigning way too much value to "destroy a random enemy minion." There's a reason you hardly ever see Deadly Shot even though it's in Core. It's extremely easy to play around. Additionally, it gets awkward if you need the draw but there's nothing worth killing.

I really don't see how you can look at the Vreska + Yodeler combo and call this card overpowered.

I wasn't playing Legends of Runeterra when they launched their PvE mode, Path of Champions, so I had no idea how good it was. Since I'm planning to take another Hearthstone hiatus (due to the terrible meta and shady changes to quests, among other things), I decided to give Path of Champions a try.

It is roguelike deckbuilder using LoR cards and map and lore ... and I'm really enjoying it! You unlock new heroes as you play. Even as a free player, you can acquire them at a reasonable pace. Your Champions level up as you use them, and you can also gain stars as a separate form of advancement.

I guess the elevator pitch is that it's LoR's answer to Dungeon Runs, but it's more like the more recent solo content in HS. Each Champion has their own mini-adventure with an actual story. Both those mini-adventures and the full adventures on the main map are so much better fleshed out than any HS content ever was.

Best of all (for me, for now), there's no meta to worry about because it's a PvE game mode. They are ceasing development on the PvP part of Runeterra to focus on this, and I'm not sure how that will affect monetization in the future, but it's promising as far as content is concerned.

One downside (for some people, not me) is that, because it's a roguelike, the deckbuilding is minimal and takes place within each adventure, similar to a Dungeon Run. It's better than that, but that's the closest HS analogue. Your individual cards themselves also improve, both over the course of a run and as you level up the Champion, adding another layer to the meta-progression.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it, so I thought I'd share. I wouldn't mind hearing about other card games people might be thinking of trying as Hearthstone slowly implodes from the weight of Blizzard's mismanagement.

Well, using the Standard Token Hunter deck, it was one-and-done for me, so I can understand why people would do that.

Apparently, no one on Team 5 would have thought. They haven't thought for a good six months.

The meta is going to change a LOT with the nerfs they just announced to Brann and Saddle Up. I wouldn't have expected much change with just the mini-set and no nerfs, but the combination of the two means it's all unexplored territory.

I mention this because sites like vicious syndicate and hsreplay aren't going to be much help for a few days.

Hearthstone is not a charity. It's entirely appropriate to gate any and all content with a soft paywall.

It's not junk in the sense of "a bad card."

It's junk in the sense that an actual coin or knife is "random stuff you might find on the street."