Hearthpwn

Quote from Tyk3 >>

I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)

I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?

From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing  

 1. Is six expansions ago when this supposed quicker moderation policy came to be? I feel it is a more recent thing but not sure, as i've said I've just come back. And it seems that way to me, since now nerfs seem to come about every two weeks, maybe three.

2. I agree that too often cards that are obviously broken get printed. But perhaps that is by design, since such cards get the juices flowing and make people rush to buy packs. Perhaps exactly because they know those will get the nerf and want to have fun/the advantage.

3. Not sure what you mean by this. If you have one good deck and it gets nerfed you either craft another good one or you drop out for the time being. Either way the outcome is the same, only the most cookie cutter decks can succeed at higher ranks. It doesn't say anything about the nerf policy except maybe that it sucks at promoting many decks. Regardless you will always have the strongest decks dominate the meta since people want to climb, not lose.

IIRC the community has been asking for more and quicker nerfs and Blizz has seemingly answered. But have they gone overboard in the other direction?

Since I came back a little over two months ago Nitroboost Poison has been nerfed which pretty much sent rogues into T2. Then Barrens came and the Watchposts which seemed both interesting and viable have been nerfed into irrelevancy, I virtually don't see them any more. It was a great shame. Pen Flinger was nerfed which messed up a few decks. It and Deck of Lunacy were more nerfed because they were annoying I feel than good cards. Which highlights another issue with nerfing by popular demand, the mob always calls for nerfs (of the deck they don't play), it hits cards that don't deserve it but instead are just flashy and noticable, it is bad policy. And ofc the calls for nerfs will never end, making players feel they can affect card balancing by being vocal, well, we've seen the effects of that on this very forum. The only cards I feel deserved their nerf were Sword of the Fallen and Jandice Barov and even there I could be wrong. Because I base that on the fact that the cards are still payed post-nerf which to me is a sign of being quite overpowered before, but sheer power is not the only criteria for inclusion in a deck so... Anyway that is a lot of nerfs in just two months, too many arguably, and already new nerfs are announced.

Hopefully you can see where my concern is coming from now. And call me cynical but while many may think this is a pro-player move and Blizz should be thanked I can't help but consider how much dust goes down the drain when a deck is nerfed. I just recently crafted a meta deck, the cheapest one I could, and still it cost me something like 3200-4000 dust (1 leg and 4-6 epics not sure anymore). If it is hit with a nerf then I can at best expect to recoup 1600 dust, more realistically 800. Meanwhile that deck is probably T3 now or there abouts, most of the other cards I crafted are useless now, a lot of dust is sunk in failed investments. This hits F2P guys like me especially hard, you only have so much dust to play around with so you craft 1-2 good decks for ladder and those ofc are the most likely ones to be hit. And then you craft something that is good in the post nerf world and two weeks later, surprise surprise. In this sense frequent nerfs are very anti-player, at least anti-those who don't have all the cards and can adapt to nerfs on the fly. And to be extra cynical when you look at the list of cards that were nerfed there most go into cheap decks, the kinds F2P people tend to go for, very few "wallet" builds were hit like Rez Priest, Rush Warrior and so on.

That said not all is doom and gloom. I did like how they unnerfed some cards. Even though it was only after they were to be sent to the gravey... I mean Wild. If Blizz sees a card was wrongly nerfed or its nerf is no longer relevant then they should have the courage to reverse course, even while the card is in Standard. And indeed just straight up buff some cards that were always weak, just as some cards are deserving of a nerf some who saw little to no play deserve a buff, especially if they are fun and interesting cards. Always consider buffing over nerfing if possible imo. So yeah a quick and attentive balancing policy is not necessarily bad, it all ofc depends on how you execute it. I am not yet raising the alarm but I think us players should keep our eyes open.

Ultimately I think there is cause for early concerns about this overzealous nerfing policy every two weeks even though not all is bad.

What do you guys think?

Imo with the ability to re-roll the 5-win quest they should have allowed the ability to roll into it too. Not 100% as it was during bug times (though even that is not a shocking boon to players who take the effort to do so, a minority I am sure) but having a small chance to roll into it would have been nice.

TBH I think it is waaaay past time we just got an option to turn off or simplify animations. My laptop is shit and I won't get a new one for a while, the games and especially BGs I lost to animations is too many to count. And I just got back like two months ago after years long break, 'nuff said.

I can see where you are coming from but that is far too idealistic. People want to win, especially in Ranked where the, you know, rank matters.

There are also gradients, if someone is running top meta decks to pwn on noobs at rank 10-8S then they are an asshole undoubtedly. If they are running top meta decks in Platinum-Diamond... well that is what you signed up for if you want that rank. Top, competitive, play.

I will grant you things are kind of nuts now. I was facing mostly meta decks in 5-1 Silver last season, Gold was overwhelmingly meta decks, not sure if I saw any which were not. It is not easy to tell ofc but the weirdest deck I saw was full murloc paladin somewhere in Plat-Diamond and I am sure that is not such a weird deck and probably a T3 metadeck. (This is all speaking last season btw).

It is just how it's always going to be, people will be looking for ways to win most and those players will float to the top of the pile inevitably. You can't kill netdecking unless you kill deckbuilding, which is an idea I toyed with with my Preconstructed Mode, you can find it a few pages deep on this forum if you are curious.

Anyhow my advice to you if you want to enjoy fun homebrew decks without getting annihilated, rank tank. Try to keep your rank as low as possible, or just play Casual after intentionally sinking your MMR. You will eventually find a place where your fun decks can win, and that is probably the home for you. Wanting to change the nature of high tiers of Ranked is not happening.

 

 

Quote from Az0g

Hi all, I just reinstalled HS after a year and a half. I was bored and I thought that maybe I'd enjoy it more now. How's the situation at the moment? Is it fun? I saw many format changes that I have to read about, but just for info is it worth it to play in the classic mode or is it broken? Thanks! 

 As someone who was you a month ago I'd say the game is okayish. Cards are definitely more powerful now than in the past and there is a lot of issue still with infinite value, discover into discover and so on. But overall I enjoy the game. I heard Wild is largely a nigh unbeatable Secret Mage followed by Raza priest, seems that mode is in bit of trouble atm. Finally Classic is pretty solidly meta decks, but that is to be expected of an old meta and many players having most of the cards. If you have most of the cards it could be the place to dip your toes back into the game. You should also have a Blizz made deck as a gift, hope you chose a good one ;)

If you do choose to stay some advice I'd give is, stick to Classic at first and earn XP from quests until you hit lvl 35ish, ideally you want to get those rares being given out before you open their duplicates in Barrens packs. So level the reward track but don't open the Barrens packs until you have those rares. Be sure to finish your dailies and weeklies, they are the primary source of XP. You might have some free Arena Tickets, use them.  Check out BGs they are fun. To rapidly catch up you might want to AFK for XP when not playing, pick some game mode you don't care about, Book of Heroes thing (and now Mercenaries) you will find under solo content gives one Class Pack, depending on how eager you are to progress you might find this worthwhile. The fights are a bit fixed and frustrating, and there is like 8 of them for one pack so might not be worth it for you. Think the Demon Hunter missions there also give a DH pack now, look into that.

And ofc finish high in at least one ladder to get the monthly rewards, good luck ;)

Opened around 50 packs, went pretty bad unfortunately. I kept getting epics and rares for classes I don't intend to play, I got almost all hunter, shaman and priest epics. Guess which classes I did not mean to play ;) 

Eventually I got almost all the rares, but I still lack like 6-9, again for classes I actually need them :P

I got three legends, the Taunt Druid Leg which I am unsure on. Saurfang which seems bad atm but I have hope Frenzy warrior will rise by the end of the year and the DH leg.

All in all a fairly underwhelming opening, but reading some of your stories makes me feel it could have been even worse ;)

Well since it seems this debate has some life I will throw my hat into the ring and share Core pros and cons as I see them:

-Pros: new players can jump into the game quicker, provided Core is a powerful and impactful set which mostly seems to be the case. Indeed it being more powerful than Classic is a boon to all players, new and old, but there is a con related to that see bellow. Some players may enjoy the bling of having those golden cards given out fairly liberally. It is a loan but it is a zero interest loan so that is still mostly good. Core cards being unusable in Classic Mode is arguably compensation to old players so their investment in Classic still matters, I disagree with this idea but the thought exists so.

-Cons: even if we were given Core to make up for it Blizz still broke a pretty big promise by retiring a set they said they never will. In fact thanks to power creep, nerfs and moving cards to HoF/Wild the best part of the Classic set was already severely dented. I will not say Blizz did this on purpose to make the switch to Core more palatable in the way some players parrot "hey Classic had become shit, Core is much better!" But their tendency to power creep new sets and nerf the old ones is no accident and is definitely part of a greater strategy to incentivize us to buy new expansions and hence earn them money, it is a long trend. So yeah old players were a bit betrayed and they were not offered any dust in compensation, I am not saying it is some huge tragedy but it is not fair either. Core is clunky and confusing, to old player and especially then new players who are meant to benefit most. Core changing in a year will obsolete decks more than they already are during Year transitions which is a hassle and adds to the confusion.

Anyway that is my full opinion on the issue.

So Core cards can't be used in Classic after all, huh didn't expect to be wrong on that. I am a long time player (since closed beta) and I would not be mad if people were allowed to use their Core cards that apply for Classic in Classic. More blood in Classic is a good thing.

I would be happy if Blizz gave a sizeable dust refund in one way or another to us oldtimers for rotating the set they said they never will. But they don't want to do that so instead they punish new players interested in Classic >_>

Saw this notion questioned in another thread. I am a recently returned player and I was told that it is.

But doing some back of the envelope math I estimate that in the past you got 50g per quest (I last played just before Frozen Throne) if you used them properly, so for 120 days of play a typical expansion would allow you would make 6000g. But ofc you also had 10g per 3 wins, I am going to assume the player is moderately active and so has 9 wins a day, 30g a day, giving them 3600g more for a total of 9600g estimate for the old system.

Now IIRC Reward Track is 5650g or something like that. And you should get there (in my experience) after two months of the kind of play discussed for this hypothetical player. Leaving you another two months to get that bonus gold. Since the total XP of the reward track is 155k and it took two months it means you will earn about as much in the next two months. Since it is roughly 50g for 1,5k XP this player will earn above 5000 gold in that time, lets say 5350g to make the calculation cleaner later. Putting them at a 11000g total. You do get a few cards and cardpacks along the way however and some other material perks, I estimate these at 2200g for the more generous FitB track, the current one would be about half that, maybe a bit more. Giving a final estimate for the new system of 13200g of which 11000g is pure flexible gold which I imagine most players prefer.

So counting all things it seems the new system does win.

Final consideration is players who play less or more than this proposed "midrange" player. Those who play less would do better under the new system since the reward track moves quickly in the first half. A player who barely finishes all their quests would probably still do better under the new track system but it would be closer. Players who play a lot don't win as much but still win I think. This is because the rate of return on time played after lvl 50 is poor and flat out caps out at lvl 350. Meanwhile those same high investment players could be hitting their 100g from 3win cap every day. I feel I roughly get 100xp from a ranked win, but not all are wins nor are all games ranked so the average is probably closer to 70, counting a win-loss pair I will estimate 120XP for two games, again a win and a loss. Since to get 100g from 3wins is 30 wins, again we will say you lose one game for each win, 60 games, 30 pairs. So an equivalent amount of play in reward  track times is 3600XP lets say that's 120g a day equivalent. Now not all XP will be exchanged at the atrocious post lvl 50 exchange rate but most will so fair math I'd say. If you want you can add 10g to that estimate to account for this.

Final conclusion seems everybody wins under the new system.

What do you guys think? What have others calculated?

EDIT: I was under the erroneous belief that post 50 levels are also 5k XP but they are 1,3-1,5k XP. I did not hit 50 this track so I didn't know. This led to me severely lowball how much gold will be earned in the later half of the reward track. With this correction I estimate an average player to earn 11k pure gold and hit something like level 160 which seems to be the case for most posting in this thread. Given all this it seems there is no debate, reward track is superior for all.

Quote from xskarma >>

Quote from Liquid_Tonic >>

I tried to craft it as I had 125 coins, but it doesn't work. You can click the button, but the craft doesn't complete, so probably just a visual bug unfortunately..

 Or they hotfixed it and the visual remains but the broken function got fixed... Wouldn't put it past them to be quick with it.

 The speed at which something gets fixed is directly proportional to the amount of potential revenue being lost.

If it works like normal card packs they should be able to contain the new mercs. Standard packs start containing miniset cards once the set is released no matter when the pack was actually acquired.

They could have locked the concede until 2 mercs dies. I even feel a bit stressed by the thought of playing pvp now... They really know how to suck the joy out of a game. I guess this was a wake-up call to find another game

Honestly... This new 'fix' of not giving rewards in pvp when opponents quit before 3 of their mercs died is fcked up way of 'fixing'.

I'm playing a comp with anduin at start. Often when I win, I win because they can't kill my anduin and it's starting to grow really big. Often before I killed 2 or 3 mercs my opponents concede because they know they won't be able to catch up anymore. Leaving me without rewards because of this retarded 'fix'. I'm very pissed that blizzard punishes legit fair players this way only to catch a few cheaters. This is not the way to deal with cheaters/exploiters and is demotivating to say the least for those that play fairly.

EDIT - I'm mainly done with this, and happy with the results of:

1) Top, top left, and bottom left boxen are always bounty reward when there are five reward boxes. Top right comes from the party. Bottom right is random.

2) When there's a legendary coin option for rewards: HC bounty reward boxes are approximately 27% legendary, 29% Epic, and 44% Rare. The legendary rate is approximately halved, to around 13.5%, when on normal.

3) HC data is across Felwood and BRM; normal data is from Coren and Emperor. No anomaly was found in my data for normal Emperor.

I'm looking at doing a few hundred runs of something like Fallen guardians HC and a few others for looking at bounty coin droprate breakdowns and testing my hypothesis regarding rates between the chars (specifically, my hypothesis is that there's 10 equal buckets, 6 for the mercs in your party, 3 for bounty rewards, and 1 random, and each of the five rewards picks randomly. No weighting based on rarity etc., and no difference between HC/normal). First, though, I'd like to check if there's any data on this already that people have gathered? Initially I need data with no overlap between party and bounty (how that interacts, or smaller parties if the game allows, would be a followup) - if someone's already gathered this, would be nice to know ahead of time!

Should be fine to mix and match bounties as long as I avoid overlaps in rewards/team. Overlap between random and others should be easily accounted for, I hope, but no way to prevent that.

Edit:

Interesting preliminary report - it doesn't quite seem to work like that. Low sample size, but looking like 1/5 rewards - specifically the one bottom right - is *always* a random merc - only exception is once when it's Tamsin which seems likely to be the random hitting one of the bounty rewards. Top right appears to be always a party merc. Top, top left, and bottom left are always a bounty reward. Far too early to look at rates between the mercs, though.

It's worth bearing in mind here that the top right and bottom right may actually be due to the order I'm opening rewards in - so it'd go first is bounty reward, second is party, third is random, 4th/5th are bounty rewards (which would scale down to the lower bounties with three rewards). Interesting idea here is that the first bounty would give you more random coins, though it'll take a lot of data to determine coin rarities etc..

Edit 2 - Early data on rarities shows that the rare and epic coins from bounties are at roughly the same rate. Legendaries are notably rarer - might be a 2:2:1 ratio, but early. No pattern yet in the significantly smaller datasets for party/random mercs. Variance on rarity breakdowns is hilaiously high. Looked like 1:2:2 for a good while, but now at 17/22/31, so we'll see what more data does. With only one leg in the group and the rest being rares, no visible signal there, but small dataset. Random shows no skew so far, but again needs a LOT more data. Lots.

Since I know how party overlap will be treated now, I can go for any bounty/group composition to gather more data - pretty much done on Malf, so will switch.

Me: "Blah blah blah buy our newest hero pack blah blah repeated brawls blah blah brand new- *spits his coke across the monitor* NEW brawl!?"

So, I maxed out  a couple of heroes. While there is nothing to spend coin on, they still clutter the reward pool. Why on earth would anyone ever want to spend money to buy packs and risk buying nothingness? It is annoying to see another reward where 80% goes to the 1 hero, meaning more time wasted again and again and again. It sucks.

I read elsewhere that in future there might be something to spend those useless, superfluous coins on. "In future", "might be"... I was hoping maxed out heroes would leave the pool, or at least for the coins to be replaceable by something else. But nah,  a big downer once more. I do no longer feel compelled to continue playing, knowing more and more of my time spent to get coins will be useless (n terms of 0 progress). I play for the here and now, not for wasting time hoping in the distant future where there might be changed something. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: They also keep polluting the camp fire (visitors), meaning more useless coins, less usable things, less value of camp fire. Take my advise: postpone maxing heroes as long as possible if you value, well, value... Geez.

Apparently Tyrantus' Elusive ability was removed as part of the Mercenaries patch. Why? My guess is he's a token minion in the new mode but did they really have to make a bland legendary minion even worse? FOR NO REFUND. They couldn't just make a separate Mercenaries version that didn't have the ability?

I play Tyrantus in Jungle Giants Druid. He's REALLY good when you get him on the board because he has Elusive. This is a straight up nerf to an already rarely used card just to serve the shit new grind mode. The people getting screwed over are creative players using unique decks, apparently we are few enough that the team can just ignore us and not offer dust refunds.

I'm sick of internal ratings.  More transparency is needed.