Dean Ayala Asks: What Would Get You Back Into Hearthstone?
Hearthstone's Dean "Iksar" Ayala had a question for those that used to main Hearthstone as a game but no longer do.
What do they need to do to get you back?
We're actually quite interested in knowing too. With many old Hearthstone players still frequenting our site to see what the game is up to or to chat with old friends, there has to be something the Hearthstone team could do to reel you back in?
Quote from Dean AyalaIf Hearthstone used to be your main game but isn't anymore, what would get you back?
Long term player here since naxxramas, I think for veteran players like myself, very likely we have hit Legend many times, 12 wins arena was awesome for first time, for now it's still a cool stack of gold and cards but we really don't have as much motivation to play more as before, so the motivation for us to play again and again would be either
1) make the game fun again (which can be achieved by changing the game system/deck/events as others suggested, I don't have a specific solution for this, but it's a direction the developer should be thinking, like I really enjoyed grim patron, freeze mage and oil rogue, i know they can be cancerous but at least I feel like each turn counts, I have to play it like a puzzle and think instead of decks now are super RNG based or just rush in your face boring deck, so I actually get enjoyment for playing. )
Or 2) by adding more achievements, golden heroes are cool, but as someone suggested in forum, why not make a platinum or diamond hero to show off your progess, I still remember my first crafted legendary was tirion cuz I think it was super OP and cool looking, therefore I loved paladin and hit golden hero with paladin first, if there's a platinum hero for 1000 win or diamond hero for 1500 win, chances are I will pick up the game more and play more. For arena, why not change the win cap to 15 or 20, instead of rewarding more monetary goods like dust or gold, why not give a cosmetic item for people to show off? if there's a special Board is rewarded for 20 wins, I can guarantee you some of the streamer will rush into arena to achieve that and show off.
so in summary either make the game more fun so player will voluntarily play more OR make more progressive achievements so people will force themselves to play more to feel accomplished.
Achievements, achievements and more achievements. Casual would be so much fun if most people were playing oddball decks designed to trigger an achievement than top tier meta decks.
The problem with Hearthstone was, is, and will continue to be the existence of decks that are, at best, indifferent to the presence of an opponent. Getting steamrolled in 4 turns by Pirate Warrior or Aggro Shaman sucked. Getting blown up in a turn by Raza Priest sucked. Taking 50 to the face from Cloning Gallery Priest sucks. And it sucks because there's really nothing you can do about it other than hope you draw better than your opponent. But it also sucks for the person piloting the deck because most games are sort of the same. But, Dean knows this sucks, but he also knows that Blizzard can't really change that part of Hearthstone without a massive (read expensive and risky) overhaul of the game. So, they're fishing around for triage ideas.
Personally, I think plowing forward with a greedy business model instead of listening to feedback from your most loyal and most expert customers (e.g. Kibler) about what's wrong with your product and how to fix it should be punished by the market. With that in mind, here's what would bring me back to Hearthstone: free MtGA packs from completing Hearthstone quests.
As someone who started playing Hearthstone in about season 3-4, and who now primarily plays MTGA due to having played Magic back in the 90s, these are the things I'd like to see Hearthstone do
1) Try to make more cards that reward skillful playing. I know this isn't easy to define, but it IS clear to see the opposite, when low skill cards and strategies are rewarded. One obvious way would be to include more ways to interact with the opponent's turn. Secrets are a good example of this. Other classes could also get similar secret-style effects, but for balance and flavour reasons, they would have to be called something else, to prevent cards like Kezan Mystic or Eater of Secrets from being autoincludes. For instance, maybe warrior could have 'battle stances' that were like face-up versions of secrets (and face up would let them cost different amounts, unlike mage/paladin/hunter/rogue secrets, that have to cost the same within a class to keep them hidden).
2) Make Wild packs available in the store for gold. There is literally zero reason for packs to be unavailable when it costs nothing to have one button in the UI per set to click on. This would get more people playing Wild that might have quit otherwise due to the staleness of Standard's limited card pool.
3) Rework arena rewards slightly so that there is less of a spike between 6 wins and 7 wins. I would love to see a more even progression there, rather than 80gold for 6 wins, 150 gold for 7 wins. At every other win number, there is a reasonable progression. I'm not even talking about a buff; I'd gladly see 6 wins get buffed slightly at the cost of 7 wins getting nerfed slightly.
4) Taking action against bots. I'm not actually sure if this is happening or not, so if it is, please ignore me. I've reported accounts for botting before, but I have absolutely no idea if anything was ever done about any of them. I'm sure that if they only get one report on one person, they don't bother, but if they get multiples, they should start looking into it. It also says something about the skill level of the game if an opponent at rank 5 or higher is either 1) a bot capable of getting that rank, or 2) has a deck so simple that it looks like a bot is playing, even if a human is playing it.
5) Alternate heroes. I'm not talking about deathknights (which I don't inherently have a problem with, though I realize many do; several were too strong, but the concept itself is fine) or new hero skins like Khadgar or Morgl (though those are always welcome); I'm talking about a new hero to start the game that actually does something different. There could be, for example, a new mage that has a 3 mana hero power that does 2 damage to any target, but starts with a 20 life maximum instead of 30, or a warrior that starts with 40hp and a hero power that gives a minion a +1 health maximum for 2 mana (I'm not saying these are balanced, only that they illustrate the concept) This would, if balanced correctly, greatly increase deckbuilding options as one builds around the hero power, but wouldn't require adding actual new classes to the game, which, while cool, would require far too much work to be feasible.
And, most importantly...
6) PLAYTEST YOUR CARDS. I don't know what the Blizzard playtest team looks like, but if it can produce cards like Undertaker, Flamewreathed Faceless, Ultimate Infestation, Mysterious Challenger, Patches the Pirate, and have no idea why these cards are overpowered, then their entire playtest team needs to be fired on the spot. If they don't have a playtest team, they need to hire one. I remember one time complaining about Face Hunter on the forums back when Undertaker decks were half the meta, and people on the forums were like, well, if it's so good, why don't you use it to get legend. So, six days later, I got legend with a face hunter variant, and if you built that deck today, you would find that almost half the deck has had to be nerfed over time because of power level. Undertaker, Knife Juggler, Abusive Sergeant, Leper Gnome come immediately to mind; I can't recall the exact deck, but that's a big chunk of it right there.
I don’t think I know enough about Hearthstone anymore to tell you what to change. I can tell you what made me quit. I mained a wallet warrior. I loved my control warrior. When the Old Gods were released and the first cards got cycled out my deck had to change, and I started enjoying playing less. I quit before yogg got nerfed. Since then more cards that were in my deck got cycled out and key cards like fiery war axe and execute took big nerfs. The nerfs and instability regarding card changes keep me from coming back.
I lost quality family time thanks to Hearthstone. I played this game since the beginning and it had its up and downs and when BlackRock came out I had my nephew play with me because I wanted to play a game with him that we can have in common with. So we played and played and we were so excited about sets especially when the Frozen Throne came out, I even spent twice the money to get the packs he needed to stay competitive with me , then I started seeing the decline in interest as he would tell me how stupid the meta has gotten and how dumb the cards were and I tried to inspire him that not every card is going to be good and that experimenting is half the battle but he wouldn't buy it , it got to the point where he just wouldnt play for the cardback at the end of the month after showing him the designs and the new set coming out at the time it was witchwood and Boomsday project still he didnt show interest and finally after many months of not playing I just wouldn't share the news anymore and I still play as much as I can in my adult life and even signed up on here to be more social with the Hearthstone community but the game feels like its dying and its less fun when you cant talk about plays with someone or combos. Anyway thanks for reading this and hope this game improves.
P.S : Were still family but we just have one less thing to talk about.
1-Adventures. Bring em back. Whatever we have now is horseshit. Go back to the old format: Two adventures, one expansion per year. While we're on that, make it possible to clear adventures without needing to pony up money. 200-500 gold per wing or something would be fine.
2-Allow CPU to use decks we design in practice mode. This will infinitely help out with deck building and test plays.
3-Getting new cards is a fucking grind. The entire system is designed around squeezing money out of players, and not players earning their shiny new cards.
4-Stick to classic WoW lore. Practically every wholly original concept you came up with has been fucking cringe. A goofy take on Naxxramas or Icecrown Citadel is fine, cool even! But a set revolving around some dipshit mafias and gangsters in Gadgetzan that we never heard of and can't squeeze the willpower necessary to give a shit about? Yeah, less of that please.
5-A dedicated multiplayer mode. Co-op tavern brawls are fine now and again, but they don't even come close to replicating the fun of multiplayer WoW TCG sessions.
Hi Dean, I wrote an article about this. Here's the link to Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Fblthp0707/comments/af1qpp/brawl_block_old_and_new_preview_of_a_new/
TLDR; A new format which uses random (or not) sets consisting of standard and wild sets, rotating monthly (or at some regular interval). Makes old cards valid without having to play wild.
Read the forums for the last 4 years, we've been telling you.
Hearthstone was great because was easy to learn, hard to master. Now is not as hard to master, since is meta decks are optimized to the highest level.
add deepnest to the in game mechanics, even if add a little complexity. Allow us to make decisions. What about a “reinforcement mechanic” where you make different card buckets (3 buckets of 5 cards for example) that you make on deck builder, and you can add it to your in game deck in turn 5 (just an example) via Discover mechanic. That will allow to use the (bad) tech cards where are Need. And adds a great deep level to the game and deck building.
that will allow to counter some of the Meta-net-decks with some tech cards without sacrifice all the other matches and allow us to play different games instead of the continuous repetitive matches on the same meta decks.
We want different decks archetypes, but overall we want different matches with more decisions.
sorry for the bad English.
Haha, what cretins! First of all they do everything possible to maximise the profit on the back of their playerbase and their devs, without giving a s**t about integrity or the quality aspect of their initial (very good) game and now, while the profit is sinking cause of their actions they ask how they can bring back players?! Sort of how to re-fatten the cow, cause the milk doesnt flow anymore?
I am happy to see, that the playerbase is sinking - thats the long term price for your actions - For putting the profit in first place and not the game and their players!
A much higher frame rate so I don't have seizures and autoinflammation. The current game mimics nystagmus, a common symptom of poisoning, causing the innate immune system to go nuts.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000611
Here is another thought: Create a new ranked game play that bans certain cards from each class. These banned cards would rotate weekly forcing people to constantly create new decks. ideally the banned cards would be cards that are generally considered to be "must haves" for standard meta decks.
It is actually really funny to me that the devs are so simple minded that they are reaching out to the community to come up with the ideas that they lack the creativity to come up with themselves. But i guess that's what happens when you lay off 800 employees and give your CEO a 15 million dollar paycheck.
I desperately want back in but I need a frame rate that is high enough that it doesn't cause seizures, and stop making the board shake for special effects. My medical conditions may be extreme, but I actually believe this is at least a low-grade medical problem for everyone. Low frame rate mimic nystagmus, a common symptom of poisoning, causing autoinflammation and related illnesses.
Motion sickness: an evolutionary hypothesis
M Treisman
Science 29 Jul 1977:
Vol. 197, Issue 4302, pp. 493-495
DOI: 10.1126/science.301659
Abstract
Since the occurrence of vomiting as a response to motion is both widespread and apparently disadvantageous, it presents a problem for evolutionary theory. An hypothesis is proposed suggesting that motion sickness is triggered by difficulties which arise in the programming of movements of the eyes or head when the relations between the spatial frameworks defined by the visual, vestibular, or proprioceptive inputs are repeatedly and unpredictably perturbed. Such perturbations may be produced by certain types of motion, or by disturbances in sensory input or motor control produced by ingested toxins. The last would be the important cause in nature, the main function of the emesis being to rid the individual of ingested neurotoxins. Its occurrence in response to motion would be an accidental by product of this system.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/197/4302/493
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/301659
See also:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000611
Gamemode without nerfs
I believe Dean Ayala's post is a cry that they are hemorrhaging players from HS and they are in desperate need to do anything to stop/slow down/turn around, the amount of players leaving. Even if that means implementing crazy ideas from players.
Nothing looks good coming from this post.
Been playing since closed beta (Nov. 2013) and this is the first time I'm actually worried about the future of HS.
to be fair they did make it easier to climb ladder now..
1. Stop focusing only on new players! I used to love HS and play it every day and now I am playing so little that I am occasionally not even finishing my daily quests. I have all golden heroes, 12 arena wins and have hit legend multiple times in both standard and wild. So I feel like I don't really have anything left to "earn" in the game aside from more legend ranks and some cards that I won't even play because I can already play almost any meta deck. I don't mind paying $60 per expansion. I don't even really mind that they just nerfed my control paly deck to the point that it is no longer playable, even though I just spent 3600 dust to craft it a month ago. All I really want is some more cosmetic items that I can earn by winning ranked games etc. These cosmetic items would cost the devs practically nothing to add to the game.
Here are a few specific ideas that would keep me playing: Glowing golden heroes at 1000 ranked wins. How about Diamond heroes for 2500 ranked wins. Maybe a new card back for hitting legend on standard and wild. Or a special card back if you hit legend 10+ times. Literally anything that I can play to earn something simple and cool would be amazing.
I understand that I am in in very small percentage of players that have essentially "beaten the game" and that Blizzard isn't really looking to accommodate the 1% of players that have also done this, but these changes would be SOOOOOO simple to make. Seriously, just give us some diamond heroes for 2500 ranked wins. How hard would that be to do???
2. Stop nerfing classic cards and fix the real issues: I'm talking about you Genn and Baku. (Maybe fire the devs that came up with these ideas as well). Baku and Genn tremendously limit the creativity of deck building moving forward. And for the devs to say "oh sorry, we didn't realize that Genn and Baku would be meta defining" is simply unacceptable. The community was making broken decks by hour 1 of the expansion release. But the truth is that the devs make these unbalanced cards intentionally to make more MONEY.
Let me explain how this works: Certain, strong or even overpowered cards get created and everybody has to craft them if they want to remain competitive on the ladder. Then a few month later they nerf these cards and create a new meta which then forces you to craft some other cards. So rather then releasing a balanced expansion where you can safely craft cards, they instead make it so that you think are crafting a "safe" card but then suddenly they nerf it to the point that its no longer even playable. A great example of this would be the recent druid nerfs. Da Undataka was supposed to be a "safe craft" as it was an important card in Taunt druid. Then a few weeks later they nerfed some druid classic cards and Da Undataka stopped seeing play and some new legendary cards became relevant, forcing players to spend more money and craft more stuff. I guarantee you this was an intentional move by the devs.
3. Where the hell is the tournament mode? You could "buy-in" a ticket to a HS tournament by spending gold similarly to the way you play arena. You could even have a low and high stakes variation of this. For example: Say I want to play a "high stakes" tournament, so I opt to play the 1000 gold buy in tournament. This puts me in a pool of 16 players who then choose 3 different decks (all different classes required) Then I randomly match with 1 of the 15 other competitors in a best of 3 series. If I lose I make nothing. if I win, I make it to the top 8 players, then the top 4, top 2, and then play for the title. With 16 players at 1000 gold per entry we would then have 16,000 gold to award out to the top 3 players. Say maybe a reward of 3,000, 5,000 and 7,000 gold being awarded to the top 3 finishers. This is just a rough idea of how a tournament mode could work but I am sure that something similar to this would be highly popular among competitive players.
However, with all that being said... We all know that blizzards #1 priority is to make SWEET PRECIOUS MONEY and nothing else really matters. Prove me wrong.
-MoreEasyToGet Legendaries
-More adventures
-Achievements with prizes