Hearthpwn

lol, that feels like just a continuation of last week; it's just slightly different cards/decks.

At this point they might as well make a game mode purely based on people trying to OTK each other ASAP because it does seem people do like doing exactly that.

Well, in the meantime I still hope for the one brawl comes back where you constantly add cards to your deck and redraw your hand each turn. That was really fun. But seeing these kinds of brawl being pretty much the opposite and people really like them... yeah, I guess realistically the brawls I would like to see again probably won't make a comeback.

Duels is such a weird mode.

On one hand you have all those crazy fun things that still can happen but they also still try to "balance" the mode and like "make it competitive". In fact you can't play a fun Duels game against friends. But to be fair how would you even do this? Still for a fun game mode like this wouldn't that make sense? For example you would select the "level" as in how far into the run it should be and then you choose Hero, Hero Power, and signature Treasure; then make the initial deck and immediately after also all the Treasure and card bucket choices up to the selected "level". That sounds like it could really fun.

For now Duels is, at least for me, basically the single player mode of cool old adventures with new stuff; I just need to ignore that I'm actually playing against real people. I mean that is for me what "competition" is: A game where you don't care about the opponent in order to have fun. And yeah, that 3 loss thing and the fact you can't play it with friends really makes it exactly that.

There is so much which could be done better with Duels to make it more "casual friendly" and actually a really fun game mode and not just - like so many other things - "kinda nice but not all that great". But I guess I won't bother writing all that. I know that people like me are in the minority. I don't understand what's so fun about all this "competitive" stuff, but yeah, it seems are lot of people are into it. Fair enough.

Quote from Tikku82 >>

There are lots of bots in lower ranks these days, but why you consider that a bad thing? They offer free, fast wins, and you can get your quests done more easily. 

 Some people would actually like to have some interesting and engaging gameplay instead of just "free, fast wins" to "get your quests done more easily".

That said though how the entire game developed in recent years I can see how a lot of players might be more on your side. I personally really don't get it. Just play to get "easy wins" and "complete your quests"? What's the point in that? Where's the fun? I don't get it. But sure, if that's fun for people.

It certainly isn't for me and there are at least some other players out there that also would rather like to play a "real game" instead of just "playing to collect free fast wins and get quests done". And yeah, for those people facing bots is rather annoying.

At best we would have better social features so it doesn't matter as much since as a F2P game it probably will always be a problem. Imagine Fireside Gatherings but everything online and like available to all. But of course they removed Fireside Gatherings alltogether instead of making an improvement like that. Well, at least for now; maybe there's still hope.

I'm pretty sure I also used the counterspell strat, but there are other ways like healing up and I think he has not much burst damage if any. So I believe just by playing defensively you could possibly make it. But of course it's probably super hard and/or luck/draw dependent.

I almost wanna try it again now. Even solo adventures like those deckbuilding ones that I don't like that much would still be very much welcome. But just like hero portraits that are available all the time I have the feeling they might never do that again.

I have to say the last time they did adventures like that (which was in the Year of the Dragon) was also the last time I'd say the game was in a great shape. Nowadays it feels like if you're not playing the most OP shit you don't even stand a chance. Therefore I really need to find friends and play with them or else it's just boring. Either they can't (or sometimes don't want to or care to) win against you or the other way around. Not to mention "combo decks" that either win or lose by turn 4 or so.

I really wish they would make good new solo adventures again like in the old days. I just recently tried Duels again. And even though I have a lot of fun with Reno and the Treasure Discover I also feel like it would be so much better against A.I. opponents since you also could keep certain stuff unbalanced and OP on purpose just like how you sometimes can get one of Bob's Bombastic Decks full of overpowered Treasure cards and that is just super fun. Imagine something "awesome" in Duels... yeah, not so cool for the opponent, especially if you're out after 3 losses; of course you can stack wins up to 12 though... That's why I don't like Duels; imagine how many people need to have only one or two wins for some people to get to 12. Anything over 3 wins is basically a super disgusting cancerous OP deck; something I wouldn't even want to play; but that's just what the mode calls for.

I guess I will stick to playing some fun Random/Discover Yogg-style deck with friends for the most part. But I'm now actually excited to try Mage vs. Lich King again, lol. There has to be a way, right? Right?!

Finally after 6 long years The Lich King gets what he wanted. Now you can't cheat out a Counterspell on turn 1 to prevent him setting you to 1 HP as a Mage.

Will they finally make Auctioneer charge for his services? I'm not sure what the mana cost and/or stats should be then, but by simply increasing the mana cost of the drawn card by one would solve probably all the "problems" with the card. That would also be a "flavorful" nerf. It just would make sense and really how it always should've been. But I guess people also really love this type of deck. It kind of makes you wonder how they even decide when to "kill" a card like that. Apparently it might be time for Auctioneer. For the better or the worse.

The Unimaginable Horrors (new Hero Power) and Twist Reality (shuffle cards played back into deck) Anomalies have been removed from the Anomaly pool.

NOOOOOOO! Those were like my favorite ones! Especially Twist Reality! I had only like one game with it and it basically didn't matter.

...I guess this is competitive Hearthstone rearing its ugly head again or something like that. Seriously, it's only for one week at 100% anyways. That's just... yeah, I know that especially on a site like this I'm in the minority, but... I guess I should've seen it coming with all those mostly competitive cards in the mini-set... I... can't believe it... well, at least it fits the theme of Yogg-Saron driving people crazy. Was this planned all along? Giving me hope that the game might just become a bit more fun just to take away some of that hope?

Yeah, I know, it's only those two anomalies and overall it's still quite fun. But still, what's the point of that? The competitive people will take a break anyways if it's not optional and for the casual people that just want to have some fun this is just taking away some of it. Why? This makes absolutely no sense. At least it would make more sense if they made anomalies optional. But of course in typical Blizzard/Hearthstone fashion they try to appeal to both audiences with the end result being that neither is really happy. Great...

Quote from __l1ght >>

what if they made them as regular cards that take up card slots and then corrupt your deck with various effects?

Yes! Exactly this. Although I personally think maybe some "Anomaly" side deck of a few optional cards would be even better. And for most of them or as a general rule they could always be in effect when the other deck has the same Anomaly. Yeah, that would be super fun. Especially in friendly games where that would basically be a super easy way to implement a "custom game mode". I would already know what I would pick: The card reshuffle one, a Renathal-like one where you have another side deck of cards that are shuffled in if active, and of course one that picks another different random one each game. Or something like that; depending on whatever they're gonna release. But overall all I can say for myself: Normal cards? i sleep "Anomaly" cards? REAL SHIT

Just like you would expect from a Yogg themed mini-set and event it's super polarizing. Some people love it and other hate it.

I personally absolutely love it and wish that there a mode where Anomalies are always active like right now. If enough people like it they might even do that. At least an option for friendly games would be nice. The Anomalies are making each game so much more interesting. And even if in the mirror match or another deck with the new Cho'gall it would stack to 50% that indeed would make it just happening every 2 games. I wonder if in the future I will be playing friendly games where we just restart the game until we get an Anomaly. Probably. The question is how often or if that just gets too annoying.

You know as a true "Yogg Enjoyer" I did at first actually thought about getting the golden mini-set for the Diamond Yogg. But then I remembered: New and returning players afterwards also won't be able to get it anymore. I also didn't get the Tavern Pass just for the golden Prison and it will soon be gone forever. That is what I dislike about their way to approach cosmetics. But at least it really feels good knowing that with their exclusivity craze they just lost like a potential 70 bucks from me. Unfortunately there are not many people like me and therefore it won't make a difference. I really don't get it how so many people are just okay with it and some even like it exactly this way, but... well, I don't need to understand it.

A new C'thun Hero Skin? Not only does Druid makes no real sense but wouldn't this have been the PERFECT opportunity for a Yogg-Saron Hero Skin? It's literally Yogg-Saron escaping his prison! For Mage of course; you know "Yogg Mage". But now that I think of it a bit more: The event is about Yogg-Saron escaping meaning he did not yet escape! Ha-ha! Yes! That means there will be a Yogg skin once the event has ended! Too optimistic? Maybe. But I'm already looking forward to it. Only to see it not happening. Just like when you play Yogg but he completely screws you over. lol

My favorite anomaly is Twist Reality. That's gonna be so fun. I finally won't need to worry about card draw, lol. On average active in 1 of 80 games. That doesn't even sound too bad honestly, lol. But I do hope that maybe they could actually somehow make those all those anomalies like optional features in a sort of Custom Game mode. At least we have this event period and Cho'gall for now. And I'm already really hyped to see how it shakes out. 25% doesn't sound like much and it's kind of a shame that even if both players would want a crazy anomaly that makes it then still only 50%. Or maybe it doesn't even stack that way. Well, I suppose it's the usual Hearthstone approach: Potentially super fun for the casual audience but also keep it low for the competitive audience. Maybe one day we will get it separated: Keep Hearthstone for the competitive people; also remove super crazy RNG like Yogg I suppose. And then Hearthstone 2 for the casual audience where they wouldn't need to hold back the craziness because it's not meant to be a competitive game to begin with. That would be my dream.

"most fun and unique decks"

Clearly you're the outlier here. Even most quest mage enjoyers admit that its a toxic deck that should have been nerfed ages ago. It turns hearthstone into a single player game, that should not be possible. 

Long overdue change for Open the Waygate quest.  Glad it can't be spammed over and over now.

OTK style decks were always a plague for Hearthstone and it feels optimistic that they wish to address that.

As for board clears? I am not entirely convinced. Sure there may be a couple over-efficient board clears, but they are restricted in certain classes and they serve as gatekeepers. For they keep a terrible and ancient evil at bay, which will rise again in a whim, should we leave it unchecked.

I speak of the plague of the Aggro decks.

Also nerf: Sif (over 30 damage out of an empty board!) and Brann (restrict it to the next 3 Battlecries, e.g.).

Thanks in advance

P.S.: And while we are at it, Sargeras and maybe Helya?

for a bunch of monkey-level capability of thinking, 10 years is considered fast

And it only took them a decade to figure this out

I have to say that the balance team has been doing a really good job recently. They're slow to react, but the direction of the balance changes has been excellent. OTKs are definitely out of hand, pretty much reducing the meta to OTK and aggro (and Plague).

I don't think Reno is a big problem really, most highlander decks are quite weak and Reno is the one card making them at least somewhat playable. A bigger problem with the card in my opinion is that it can be easily poached by non-highlander decks by simply drawing through the entire deck (or destroying it), effectively circumventing his downside.

Its like saying "we removed 6 gallons of water" from the ocean

I actually wouldn't be surprised if these numbers are real. I played against six bots in a row yesterday.

Just to add onto this a bit, a really good video from Hearthstone Mathematics on YouTube was put out this morning. They do a lot of breakdowns between expansions and with major changes. 10/10 video talking about the new changes and their thoughts on why they did it and how bad it is actually going to be.