Hearthpwn

Quote from HyperSummoner >>

"Invoke cards will now no longer appear from cards that generate other cards."
Dammit, I thought that was intentional. I really liked that, do they have to change it back?

 There is a bug that causes invoke cards to be in the pool even if you don't have and have never had Galakrond in your deck. It was intended that they would enter the pool only if you had Galakrond at some point (including if you gained him through something like Thoughtsteal). Because of the bug they declared that they would undo the change until such a time as they could fix that bug. 

Quote from RaptorWithWings >>

Battlegrounds is still effectively free. It looks like to me that the Tavern Pass is just another way to get the perks of Battlegrounds like emotes and extra hero choices. If you don’t play regular Hearthstone much but you want the perks, then you can get the pass instead of buying a ton of packs. It also gives you arena tickets, so you get a few tries in that mode as well

 But on the other hand, if you DO play regular HS (but don't want to pay real money and/or preorder) then you're down 25 packs worth of gold. How much gold did the perks used to cost in card packs last time around? Did you have to buy 25? If so then this is a pretty strong negative for those people 

 I'm confused, do you mean the ones where you had to construct a deck from your collection? And didn't have the awesome passives etc etc etc? 

New Zealand is NZD$79.99/NZD$125.99 on Android 

Quote from Dunscot 

>

 Snip

Trying to coax people into spending as much as possible is generally deemed unethical.

Snip

Considering that Hearthstone already works by a lootbox system 

Snip

 Just some small corrections/comments here: trying to convince your customers to spend more money is what all salespeople in every field do for a living. And all marketers I suppose. It's the nature of retail. You are showing people that by spending more money you are getting more value, and therefore spending the money is good for both parties. This is normal, not unethical. Unethical behavior is trying to deceive people into thinking they'd be better off when they wouldn't, like payday lenders who prey on the needy, or people who market inaccurately. If Blizzard had marketed the big bundle as giving you a hero when you actually had a 1% chance to open one then you'd have a point. As it is, spending more gives you more packs, which you can, entirely at your discretion, turn into cards you want by dusting,, or open cards you want, etc. 

That leads me to point two. Calling the system a "lootbox" system ignores a number of important points. Firstly the dust system; the more packs you open, you are GUARANTEED to eventually get the cards you want because you can dust the cards you get and make the card you want. Sure, we can argue on the value, but the analysis here was done entirely on dust value (and yes there is variance but eventually you will get to the average value. That's how statistics work). Secondly, 'boosters' have been a part of collectible card games for a very long time (possibly forever, certainly since MTG in the early 90s and I'm not sure any came before). Sure, you can buy individual cards  but a single top card will go for FAR more than you will buy a full T1 HS deck for. And you can't get any of them for free like HS. Nor can you play nearly as much.

And finally, if we're defining a "whale" as anyone who would spend $130 on a computer game then every single AAA game sold caters 100% to 'whales', and if we expand this definition to people who will spend over $130 on something they enjoy then it also will include most people who go to sports matches, and who play sport or dance competitively, and people who go out every weekend drinking etc etc etc. Smokers? HUGE whales. I could go on. Ever spend $100 in a shop on something you like? Computer keyboard? How much did your monitor cost? Graphics card? Man, you're a mega-whale. So the word isn't really fit for purpose, and is really only serving as unnecessary hyperbole in a thread about facts and figures. 

Quote from dr_nova >>

"They like two legendaries per class in sets because it allows them to take classes in two different directions."

Yeah, right. When that's two different directions gameplay-wise (quests, Death Knights, weapons) I can understand that, but two different directions lore-wise? "A monster and a member of the town"? Come on. Just admit you were greedy and ran out of ideas.

 I assume you realise that the names of the cards don't come pre-designed with what they do? It's pretty easy for them to decide on two different ways to play a class (steal opponents cards vs Inner Fire for Priests, for example) and then to put whatever character on top of that. As you can see here, Face Collector originally did a bunch of different things... So clearly what the card does, and whether it's a monster or a town member are completely unrelated.

But hey, don't let me steal your tinfoil hat

Malygos + Bloodmage Thalnos + Swipe + Swipe + Moonfire + Moonfire 

= 36 damage

I'm not sure this is correct. Malygos gives +5, Bloodmage gives +1, (for a total +6). Multiply by 4 spells= 24 damage. Add 4 each for 2 swipes (8) and 1 each for two moonfires (2) gives 10, add the 24 spell damage gives 34.

Did I miss something? 

Quote from Zashiki >>

I picked Elementals every time I got the chance and needed two attempts with Toki, having +2 Health on your minions and the First Aid Kit passive that heals all your characters by 2 each turn is an insane combination. In general First Aid Kit is an extremely valuable passive that also carried me through my Tess run, pick it whenever available as it will help you survive and outlast tons of win conditions from your opponent.

There are a number of issues with the premise here. I'm posting from my cell so multiple quotes is time consuming...for that reason imm either copy-pasta or write out the gist of what I'm referring to by hand. 

First issue is in the OP. It is stated that aggro won't need an armor-tech card, nor will control or Midrange as all can control the board, or chip through armor or would become obnoxious with the tech. Then it is stated that therefore the card is needed for OTK decks, since players building up armor has no counterplay for those decks.

This misses a crucial point  which is that OTK decks by their definition are decks that rely on their opponents having no ability to counterplay. In return, there is the counterplay to the OTK which is building armor to a level that can't be burst through. Stating that counterplay to an OTK has no counterplay and thinking that this is bad and needs counterplay is extending circular logic to absurd levels. What would be the counterplay to the counterplay (armor destruction) to the counterplay (armor gain) to OTK (unstoppable without high armor)??

The other issue is this in a post some way down: "The main problem is the ambiguous nature of armor itself. While reducing armor is basically identical to dealing damage, ADDING armor is NOT identical to healing. (This can be impressively seen in a Priest / Warrior matchup. While the Priest Hero Power is pretty useless in the first rounds, Warrior can add up a fair amount of "additional Health"...)"

This is stated as a problem. 'Man, these two things aren't the same, one can give you more than 30 life, so we need to find a way to stop this' . This is the wrong way of looking at this difference. These two mechanics didn't come into being separately by accident, nor did Priest and Warriors hero powers just appear with the classes. They were DESIGNED this way. These were conscious decisions made by designers because they felt it would add to the game. You may disagree, but you know, it's their game. Saying that it needs a counterplay (other than the obvious, damage) is like saying they should have capped total effective health at 30, or had armor never be in the game. Maybe you're right, but it would be a narrower game, and it wasn't their design.

Tl:Dr; armor is in the game and was designed as it is. If your OTK can't get through it, design a quicker OTK or accept that you won't beat a deck that builds armor. Or don't play OTK  they're uninteractive and Blizzard don't like them anyway. 

This seems like quite strong hyperbole which really doesn't lend itself to getting actual help. Lifesteal is the entire turn 2, and playing Kingsbane is turn 1. Maybe coin Deadly Poison to get to 3. If I'm forgetting a way to do it feel free to let me know.

But basically the way to beat it is aggro. Go wide so he can't remove your creatures in time, and then go hard face (with the occasional value trade if necessary to protect higher value minions) and you'll overwhelm him before he can stabilise.

Quote from Wonderbuster >>

People that are bitching about Steam not being mobile friendly fail to realize that they have a mobile app available on tablets and phones, and you can authenticate your account on your phone. The amount of ignorance on display is staggering. 

And people who are claiming that Valve does not trust their community fail to realize they ENCOURAGE their community to contribute to their games (Steam Workshop) and, oh, by the way, DOTA is their FUCKING FLAGSHIP GAME with the International having 95% of their prize pool contributed by their community. So yeah, they want to make a good first impression.

I came to the thread expecting to find complaints about cards. Very pleasantly surprised! I like all three suggestions (although I'm not sure about changing boards retrospectively, nostalgia and all that. But definitely going forwards).

Quote from Nuldaan >>

 

Quote from MrPrep >>

If you attack a minion with Divine Shield with a minion with Lifesteal the damage is prevented and there's no place else it can be dealt. Therefore, since the minion dealt no damage, you get no heal.

When Explosive Runes triggers it hits a minion for X damage and the minion's owner for 6-X damage, where X is that minion's Health. X damage is prevented, it isn't dealt anywhere, while 6-X damage is dealt to the minion's owner. So let's say you got Hallazeal the Ascended on your board somehow, and Explosive Runes triggers, then you get healed for 6-X Health, because that's the damage the spell dealt. So, as you can see, there's no inconsistency with how Lifesteal works.

Should it work like this? Well, short answer is 'Yes, it works as intended'.

If you think about it, though, maybe that's not the most logical way to do it, and it probably wouldn't have been done like this in a real card game (by real I just mean with cardboard cards), where players' intuition of card mechanics matter more, because there's no automatic resolution of card effects.
But I think that in a game like MtG or Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, wording of that card would have been much clearer than 'any excess to their Hero'. 'Excess', in this context, means pretty much nothing, bringing us back to the first answer: 'Yes, it works as intended'.

The issue is that Explosive Runes is a poorly designed card. By all appearances, the interaction with Divine Shield is by design but it is not intuitive at all. At the very least, it appears to be inconsistent with the rest of the game.

As a general design principle, when you introduce a new idea/concept to an application and it appears to "break the rules", the concept is flawed in some way and needs refining. 

A second (related) principle is that you don't introduce complexity if that complexity doesn't enhance the user experience. Complexity isn't necessarily bad as well-designed complex interactions are the foundations of a rich experience. This is especially true when the complexity is intuitively understandable. However, complexity that introduces confusion is a cardinal sin. 

Explosive Runes breaks both principles and does so in a way that seems to contradict the in-game definition of Divine Shield. For reference, Divine Shield in game is defined as "The first time a Shield minion takes damage, ignore it". Explosive Runes states "After your opponent plays a minion, deal 6 damage to it <snip>..." Most people reading that definition and the card text of Explosive Runes would understand that to mean Divine Shield would ignore all damage from Explosive Runes so there is no excess. It's the most straight-forward interpretation and doesn't require introducing any additional assumptions or logical leaps. That interpretation evens passes the sniff test as it means that there is some potential for counterplay against the secret. 

Instead we have an interpretation of Divine Shield that limits strategic depth by removing counterplay and does so in a way that makes the game less intuitive. All in all, it SHOULD be considered a bug and fixed but I suspect the reality is that it's just a poorly thought out card that is "working as designed".

Well, 2 attack vs 2 Health is quite different, and Geddon hits Heroes. But I guess, try it and see how you get on, it's entirely up to you :) 

From my observations this is NOT due to the difference between spell and battlecry. This is testable.

My hypothesis: Voodoo Doll for some reason takes an extra "tick" to kill something. It may be that the delay is the Void Walker spawn, but I believe it is the Voodoo Doll Kill. 

The test: Have a player play a Voidlord then end turn. Player 2 casts Voodoo Doll targeting the Voidlord, then plays Defile. 

The expected result: Tick 1, Voodoo Doll dies, Voidlord dies, Void Walkers Spawn. Tick 2,Void Walkers go to 1/2. Defile Ends. This could be tested further by setting up a 2 health minion also to test if the Void walkers die or not.

The same test can be repeated but using Godfrey instead if Defile.

Now to be fair I haven't done the actual test, but I have observed it watching streams. If anyone would like to help me test feel free to PM me and we can try to set it up.