Hearthpwn

I'd rather see the existing tribes fleshed out before new ones.

Totem was promised a legendary by blizz, they said it's an oversight they don't have one. This was years ago, after Un'goro if I remember correctly.

Hunters should get Pirates. Obvious thematic fit. Guns, Parrots, Monkeys, Aggro....

In general, the majority of tribes only work with a specific class, while the other classes that have acces to it can only make non-competitive decks from it. They should adress that first. Majority of tribe decks lack a strong tribal win condition for example.

If they make a new tribe, undead makes the most sense. 

Actually I think it is better for the game if any class can do everything, just in their own unique way. All classes should have card draw, hard removal, soft removal, board clears, taunts, healing/armor, etc...

It is much easier to balance like this. For example, if there is an aggro-defined meta and one class has no cheap board clear, then that class is fucked. If all classes have their own cheap board clear, then all classes have a chance to compete.

Hey I wonder if the Lich King adventure will stay in the game with the upcoming rotation. Any news on that?

Honestly: Cheaper cards. The gameplay is fine but what diminishes my fun is the fact that even if you pay money, you will never get a full collection. And I did pay money.

They should sell preconstructed starter decks, also bundles should be purchasable more than once.

In YGO, few people buy single booster packs, everyone buys Tin boxes and Structure decks, and if there is a good staple in a structure deck, you may even buy it twice.

Also Wild packs should be 20% off because it is next to impossible for a new player to get started in the Wild format without paying money.

Quote from Dunscot >>

The "fresh and new" idea is not stupid itself. It keeps the game alive.

Just the way they want to make that happen is dumb.

They could add more modes, seasonal rotations/temporary bans for cards in Ranked, more events, different rotation and release cycles... we have 4 months of pretty much nothing between sets, and then it's a gamble whether the set even does anything for the meta. And the last two had a pretty low impact, resulting in decks like Odd Rogue or Odd Paladin or Even Shaman to be in the meta for almost an entire year now, with little or no changes at all.

And yes, I think that Classic remaining in Standard does not help. By which I mean that the set should rotate, not that it gets nerfed/HOFed bit by bit until nothing remains. The LEAST amount of cards we can have in Standard, right after a rotation, is over 700. What do you think how fresh a game feels when people first check what decks can still be played, instead of what new decks can be created?

Hearthstone, or any CCG, is actually in the comfortable position that it can continue for an unlimited time. They can always attract new players, if the game changes enough so that new players don't feel like they pick up a 5 year old game and be at a huge disadvantage. But in Hearthstone, nothing really ever changes, and nerfing a few Basic cards certainly won't attract more players.

Yes, Pendulum Summon was a dumb idea, and possibly, Genn and Baku were a dumb idea (I kinda disagree with that, honestly). But these changes or experiments are necessary to make the game interesting enough to keep you playing it for more than just a few months.

If anything deserves criticism, it's Team5s highly conservative attitude towards their very simplistic, intuitive game design. The interface guy freaks out when you suggest him to add a new button to the main menu, and the design team feels compelled to add another 10 vanilla minions each expansion because those are the easiest to understand for new players.

It has its advantages, sure, but to keep the game going and attracting new players, I think more radical changes are necessary, and if anything, nerfing basic cards is rather counterproductive, and certainly not contributing much to the goal of keeping the game, or at least Standard, "fresh and new".

But 4 months is hella fast and every set altered the meta so far. I am not F2P and even I can't afford an entire set within 4 Months. Did we really degenerate that much into consume that we get bored that quickly? I mean it's certainly different for players that have a full collection but how many are these? Honestly, the majority of my friends quit Hearthstone because they couldn't keep up with the release shedule. And they all played Standard, not Wild, like me.

If classic rotates, Blizzard has to find a new way for new players to get into the game. Starter Decks could help. 

Quote from KingSevault >>

Quote from 1xbenx1 >>

"I'd rather have a stable game than one that changes every month, especially since I am not F2P, I actually did spend a lot of money on cards."

Stale metagames are how card games die.

 Agreed. Asking for a stable meta is asking for a boring meta. I love having nerfs every expac - I'd even be happy if there were nerfs at the start of each month

But Hearthstone is a number based card game. There will always be cards that are better than others. Nerfs are a great tool to balance the game, and something traditional card games have no acess to.

However, it is one thing to nerf a card for balance reasons and another to just nerf it because it is an evergreen (which will always exist no matter what, because it is a number based game).

I play Hearthstone since release and I never ever saw anyone complaining about Nourish. But yeah, "evergreen", not "fresh and new". Best Standard Druid deck is Tier 3 now and in Wild, well the class was eliminated. The difference between Standard and Wild is now that Standard has 9 classes while Wild has only 8.

Think for yourselves and not what the advertisment tells you to think! Because that's the sole reason for the "fresh and new" terminology. Advertisment.

Quote from 1xbenx1 >>

"I'd rather have a stable game than one that changes every month, especially since I am not F2P, I actually did spend a lot of money on cards."

Nope. Stale metagames are how card games die.

 It isn't problematic to release new stuff within the existing parameters. New tribes or keywords won't break the game. "Start of the Game" effects did. I mainly play the Wild format, we are going to have these effects forever, and either Blizzard releases "Start of Game"  effects for every archetype, or we will only have Odd/Even decks in the near future, which is the definition stale.

Notice how I said stable and not stale.

And the main reason card games die is because their accesability decreases for new players. Back in the early 2000s everyone was playing YGO in Europe. I tried to get back into it some years ago, but it is impossible as all my old cards are garbage now, and the same happened for all my friends. On the other hand, I don't even understand what to do with the new mechanics like Synchro/Xyz/Pendulum. They alienate me.

There is a reason why traditional card games have been popular for over hundred years. You know those with the four suits and the Ace/King/Queen/Jack/Numbers cards. They have been the same since forever. Variants exist but they operate within the same parameters as the original game.

Apparently Blizzard starts nerfing cards now not for the sake of balancing the game, but only because certain "evergreen" cards are in too many decks. Doesn't matter if the card itself is fine just nerf it "fresh and new".

Because Blizzard wants a "fresh and new Meta" at all costs and as often as possible.

That design philosophy is dumb. It is like allowing people to play Basketball in Fifa, because hey, "fresh and new"...

I'd rather have a stable game than one that changes every month, especially since I am not F2P, I actually did spend a lot of money on cards.

Honestly, "evergreen cards" are bound to exist in a NUMBER-BASED card game. It is simple math to see wether a card is good or not, and if one keeps a non-rotating core set, the good cards of these set are bound to stay in many decks forever. 

Is this a problem? Heck no, everyone starts the game farming the classic pack, so everyone has these cards. 

But we all actually know: Blizzard is fully aware that their "fresh and new" philosophy fucked up the game. Wonder why we only had Mana-cost related nerfs in the recent past? Because of two little "fresh and new" cards that were released a year ago.

That's right Blizzard released a mechanic they can't handle because it felt "fresh and new".

Why can't Blizzard just support existing archetypes until everything is on a competitive level? The way we have it now we either get gamebreakers a la Baku/Genn or completely useless crap a la Freeze Shaman (remember that?) because all that matters to Blizz is to make something "fresh and new". It also seems Blizzard doesn't want to learn ANYTHING from existing TCGs. YGO released a new mechanic, "Pendulum Summon", it broke the game so the developers had to alter the rules completely.

Tl, dr: "Fresh and New", in the context of card games, actually means "Completely Broken or utter trash", and as such is not a philosophy worth striving for.

Quote from fordagame >>

 Wait, what? They will not make more cards like Voidcaller. What about Coffin Crasher?

Coffin Crasher costs two more Mana. The cost is the most important part.

Quote from Lyra_Silvertongue >>

Voidcaller was weak to silence

 Correct and back in the day we had unnerfed Ironbeak Owl.

Loatheb's stats are not great for 5 Mana. 5/5 is worth 4.5 Mana. 

The best statline for 5 Mana would be 6/6, which is worth 5.5 Mana, rounded down to 5. 

5/6 would be a good statline.

In the Wild environment, statlines that round up their mana cost are not good, one either wants the rounded down statline with a drawback one can easily play around (like overload or discard) or cards that have the full stat value.

However, most of the time we aren't even looking for stats, we are looking for powerful effects.

Loatheb is only good because of it's card text, which is Rebuke for 0.5 Mana. That's why the card is so strong, because of it's text which is essentially a Mana-cheat.

Quite frankly, I think unnerfed Undertaker would be much less problematic in the current Wild environment.

Best would be if they keep his text the way it is now, but change it's base statline to 1/3 or 2/2.

Because I think Deathrattle Aggro would be a cool addition to the game, as current aggro is all about Pirates.

More Diversity = better game.

Warrior should be the best right now. Abuse Dead Man's Hand to get infinite C'thuns.

Alternatively, Druid should be fun as well. Use Juicy Psychmelon to draw C'hun, Twin Emperors and the C'thun Revive guy. However with all recent Druid nerfs, I think the deck should feel very clunky.

The most difficult to make is certainly Warlock. It's C'thun support card suggests a token-based playstyle, however, C'thun decks lean more towards Control archetypes because C'thun is 10 Mana.

However, I don't think any of the C'thun decks is even remotely competitive right now. Fun, sure. But even the T4 decks that Tempostorm lists are a lot stronger.