With Season 2 of Duels upon us, it feels like the perfect time to take a look at the brief history of this newest of all Hearthstone modes.
We will also be setting up for a more detailed coverage going forward: with general and class guides, more deck suggestions, as well as any other concepts that might be of use to the community (so if there is something you'd specifically like to see, do let us know!). Even if you didn't think much of the whole mode before, the new opening could be just the right opportunity to jump in with a fresh perspective.
How It All Began
As with most everything in this special Hearthstone universe - with an announcement. But not of the announcement itself, we got to the meaty part right off the bat. Or... at least some folks out there did. Early Access (granted for pre-purchasing Darkmoon Bundles; or later with Twitch Drops) created a lot of hype and excitement - as shiny new exclusive things tend to.
Many streamers hopped on the Duels bandwagon, with some taking it to very competitive heights. In fact, for a while, it became a common sight to stumble onto Bundle giveaways on Twitch every time somebody hit a desirable amount of wins. Perhaps not always the full 12, as that might've proved to be a little too ambitious and not as easy as expected even for the most skilled (or the luckiest, depending on whom you might ask) out there.
Why we even got some promotional tournaments here and there.
So much early promise.
With the new take on the beloved Dungeon Run concept - spicy treasures and powers to be used in Player vs Player combat - the new mode was poised for a strong opening. The early free Casual option did not offer any rewards beyond the satisfaction of climbing up the rankings, but we knew that Heroic would emulate Arena both in its loot offerings and the entry cost (Tavern Ticket = 150 gold). Season 1 arriving with the Darkmoon Faire set held an added promise of even more cards, hero powers, and signature treasures to play with.
And if it feels like the entire mode has not taken over Hearthstone by storm in the end, one of the main reasons for that situation seems to have been its...
General Accessibility
It's worth noting that Duels enjoyed its fair share of controversy upon premiering - in part due to expected imbalance between some wacky combinations, yet largely because of inconsiderate entry requirements.
Many veteran players who never cared much for maintaining their Wild collection over the years (dusting their old cards just to try to keep up with the Standard meta in this rather "heartless" economy we have) were in for a very unpleasant surprise: suddenly there was something novel that utilizes all these cards of yore again. Not the most appealing concept to new players either, when they have so much caught up to do as is. Unfortunately, as it stands Hearthstone does not offer any particular discounts or ways for obtaining cards from previous eras. Which exacerbated this problem.
Alas, that wasn't the only issue. Duels has also greatly suffered from what we could only call unwieldy "gating" (or "paywalling", should you heed various comments): hero powers and treasures being locked in their own ways. Requiring a player to own 20 unique epic Scholomance cards, for example, was a particularly bad call. Even if the system was kind enough to count duplicate cards, it's still quite an obstacle to overcome.
Well, that is no fun to see.
While these particular requirements have been somewhat lessened with the arrival of 19.2 patch a month later - it all felt (and still does) as too little, too late and I'm sorry to say, they are still following the same concept with unlockables for the foreseeable future.
The same patch also touched upon balance issues, as there was probably no shortage of players who got devoured by evil Warlocks or (Demon) Hunters. It can be quite discouraging to run into powerful combinations and feel like you can only bear witness to your inevitable doom, something we know all too well from various metas of Constructed or Arena. Undoubtedly there is more work to be done in this particular aspect as well. So...
Can It Still Get Better?
I definitely believe so.
It's always a shame to see something with greater potential become severely handicapped from the get-go through questionable design decisions. As an ardent fan of the mode regardless, it pains me to admit that's exactly what took place here. Couple of months down the line, all these concerns still remain. Whenever you stumble onto some discussion about Duels, somebody inevitably comments how much of it remains inaccessible. That's the community sentiment.
Team 5 could still turn this around and do away with the aspects of the game mode that make little sense - if only they get the message. Perhaps some of the vague announced improvements that are in store for 2021 might help with the ease of access here as well?
Team 5, please.
This concept probably looked fine on paper, yet foresight was simply lacking. After all, it is indeed fun to have unlockable goals in games as something to strive for. At least against AI, being rewarded for playing as you go. It was an arguably appealing aspect of Dungeon Runs. But this gradual sense of progression does not work so well in a competitive environment with other players. It alienates too many. Even more so if you are already paying an entrance fee for Heroic mode.
Everyone should be able to partake in all that Hearthstone has to offer (Battlegrounds can still be reasonably played without Perks, even if it's not the most elegant solution). And with Duels, we still have a lot of...
Unique Themes
Somewhat lost among valid concerns, perhaps one aspect that isn't fully recognized or appreciated is how well the entire concept holds up. And just how much work went into designing it. And by that, I don't just mean constantly coming up with creative hero powers or treasures.
The entire Season 1 had its special theme with Wizard Duels (now continued in Season 2), following a small narrative with the varied cast of Scholomance Academy. Each of them equipped with their own emotes and voice lines, not to mention special interactions with one another as your match begins. Some are actually quite brilliant, and most players probably have their personal favourites (ahem... Rattlegore). For the BM connoisseurs out there, other basic Hearthstone heroes do not even come close.
They display enough flavor to warrant a full-fledged hero skin option for their respective class. And all of that in the same period of time that saw the Hearthstone team get a lot of flak for initially releasing a rather lacklustre version of Jaina through the Book of Heroes bundle.
Efficient communication at its best.
Between the ability to choose 15 starting cards (no duplicates), clever loot buckets, all these imaginative hero powers/treasures, and the option to continue evolving our deck as we climb further, it is of no surprise that Duels has spawned its own rich meta. While the encounters here tend to be a little more unique or unpredictable in their nature than what you might see on the ladder (providing a welcome respite if repetitive matches cause great boredom), with enough knowledge you can still develop an appropriate skillset and come up with sound strategies to help you get ahead. In the end...
It Is Very Much Worth It
As those of us who have been playing for a while know very well. Even in this imperfect form. For now, it does help your enjoyment if you already have a larger collection and a taste for limited formats governed by their own rules. If you are not sure or the very early experiences discouraged you, the mode can hold appeal for every type of player (be they more familiar with Constructed and Arena, or tired of Battlegrounds).
Some solutions do exist: crafting Common or Rare cards from previous adventures or expansions is luckily not very expensive dust-wise. And if you've never opened any packs from these older sets (such as Whispers of the Old Gods), mind that you are guaranteed a Legendary within the first 10 (on average it comes sooner).
You also have greater control over your run than it might initially seem. Conveniently, there is no cost to trying out ideas in Casual mode. When you are a little more accomplished, the entrance fee for Heroic mode often pays off. Even if you go 0-3, you are guaranteed a card pack from the current expansion and a small amount of gold or dust, just like in Arena. And with a couple more wins you break even and start gaining.
If you're in need of some inspiration.
In the long run, it can become a much more efficient way of collecting your packs than through direct gold purchases in the in-game shop. While earning experience and completing quests all the same. And achievements, if you care about those. Duels' achievements remain much more precious than most because you get to earn a nice chunk of extra experience for your wins (several weekly quests worth), not just fluffy points.
And you know, there is simply a lot of fun to be had if you embrace the concept. The scope for possible improvement remains high, many players out there have sound suggestions on where it could all go. Hopefully, we can count on someone in charge taking heed before long.
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Comments
The mode should let us choose a starter deck instead having to build one.
It takes too much time each run and is incredibly unfriendly to newer players.
I have been spending the majority of my time in Duels and agree with the points in the article and comments. The mode can certainly get better but it'll take work on several fronts, starting with Blizzard being less greedy and reducing the collection requirements. That seems unlikely to happen. However, the mode can still get better if the buckets are tweaked to reduce the high/low roll effect between something like Double Time / Cannibalism or Staking A Claim / Sticky Fingers. There's definitely some balance work needed, as well. Outlander remains overpowered and Warlock has incredible synergy.
I will say that the new HPs and Treasures have helped quite a bit with balance. [Hearthstone Card (Harvest Time) Not Found] looks strong (and has wrecked me a few times) for token druid builds. Frost Shards gives Mage a strong stall tactic that can work as a counter to DH's 1 mana hoards. Stormcatcher is totally busted and [Hearthstone Card (Magnetic Tiles) Not Found] has performed well in the games I've faced it. I think we will definitely see a more diverse meta based on those additions, which is great. Then again, Traktamer Aelessa makes Stelina even more scary...
As with so much of Hearthstone, the root of the problem is Blizzard's initial decision to pretend the game is free to play. Yes, the word "free" will get you all kinds of attention, but all of that turns sour the moment people realize all of the good stuff is firmly locked behind a paywall.
And then there's the whole dust scam. Letting people dust non-duplicate cards -- literally cannibalizing their own collections for a mere pittance when new cards are already very expensive to buy -- has been the greatest evil genius plan in video game history. Step one: convince people to pay $3 for 10 random cards. Step two: Allow players to literally destroy what they just bought if it wasn't exactly what they were looking for. Yes, "destroy," because the dust you get back does not even come close to making up for what you already spent.
I've been saying from the beginning that it's foolish to dust anything but duplicates, but free players are so desperate to create even one good deck that no one ever listened. I get that they are just doing what they have to do to be competitive in the game, but it all goes back to my original point: Hearthstone was never intended to be kind to free players. Like all free-to-play games, the goal is to make people want what they don't have and then convert from free player to paying customers. If you never pay, you get punished over and over.
This will never end until Hearthstone drops the f2p pretense and starts charging a fair price -- to everyone.
I've tried duels a few times. Usually I just get 2 wins, 3 if I'm lucky. I try to look online for starter decks because any deck I would make from scratch would invariably be terrible, but there's never any deck I have all the cards for, and I usually have no clue what would be viable replacements. If there are any.
It seems that the devs don't intend Duels to be an F2P-friendly mode (I think Iksar stated this himself, paraphrased.) That's fine. It feels bad, but there are plenty of other modes for F2P players to enjoy.
It'll be less fine if the other new mode we get this year is also collection-intensive, though. Duels being anti-F2P is a novelty. The next mode being anti-F2P is a trend.
I can believe they had this pretty business theory of how it's going to drive more pack sales, even if detached from reality. And maybe it even did in the first month or two. But every limited game mode needs F2P more than the F2P need the modes themselves, so to speak. This is very much visible in Duels with higher queue times and a good chance to face the same person twice in a row, especially at higher amount of wins. Also F2P = word of mouth, comments, larger community that keeps the game alive (and potential for someone engaged to eventually buy something, for the sake of support or otherwise). Something Blizzard doesn't seem to appreciate properly. So Duels definitely could use more engagement in that regard, and clearly their initial vision did not work out too well.
I think they realized they made a mistake with the initial release of Battlegrounds: they had a popular new game mode, but very little reason for people to spend money on it.
I don't mind that a player's collection matters: it's a collectible card game after all. But what doesn't feel right is that they have two separate access restrictions: you need Wild cards for building the initial deck and you need a lot of cards from the latest sets to unlock treasures. In particular the latter feels very artificial: having to own a card to put it in a deck is something people are familiar with from physical card games, but having to own a certain number of cards to unlock an entirely unrelated card feels contrived.
Long-time F2P-ers that kept their Wild collection can probably play Duels just fine. I'm not F2P, but I do have a very limited budget for Hearthstone and I had to craft two epics to meet the original treasure requirements, which were lowered since. The problem is that a lot of people on a budget disenchanted their cards on rotation and with the terrible 4:1 dust ratio re-crafting them is too expensive. That ratio was a reason for me not to disenchant my Wild cards and instead play both Standard and Wild, but a lot of people chose to play only Standard instead.
Blizzard actively made Wild feel like a lesser game mode than Standard:
So all the messaging from Blizzard suggested that Wild cards were not worth keeping if you're interested in the latest developments in Hearthstone.
Looking at the current Wild debate, it still sounds like they don't quite know what to make of the mode. The historical support has been poor, as you say. Duels seem to suffer from this as well - lack of clear long term game plan, not foreseeing these early issues, no considerations for artificial blocks they put up.
I'm still amazed just how bad they are at monetizing Battlegrounds. It could so easily work with cosmetics - skins, emotes, boards, hero power fluff. And it's something many games out there do well. But Blizzard barely does it, aside from the early way too overpriced attempts or as bundle bonuses.
There seem to be two main opinions: one group wants Wild to be a place where you can play your old favorite decks, while another group wants Wild to be a balanced meta with its own unique decks. I get the impression though that the first group mainly plays Standard and the second group mainly plays Wild.
This is a problem with Hearthstone in general: even if you are willing to spend money, a lot of what they sell is so expensive for what you get that it doesn't feel like a good deal to actually buy it. For example, if I knew that every pack I bought would add a new card to my collection, I would be buying more packs. But a lot of packs will be 40 dust instead.
It's a typical mobile business model: make lots of money from a small group of players (whales), instead of trying to make less money per player from a larger group of players. It might not last though if anti-lootbox regulations are adopted in the coming years, so it would be wise for Blizzard to improve ways of monetizing Hearthstone besides packs.
Its funny how the higher you go the more linear the experience tends to be. I mean, Ive been seeing nothing but Stelinas all day anything past 3-0.
In any case, my take on duels is that it needs something like a ranked system, not the same rewards and leveling up system like arena. Let's say that you can lose as many times as you want but you'll only progress (i.e. offered buckets/treasures, etc.) when you win, up to 12 wins. So while its theoretically possible to end the run at a 12-100 ratio, its still going to vary the experience as you climb upwards since no one has wager their 150 gold for anything.
At the moment, duels isn't really all that fun for me. Its true that both sides are theoretically doing broken things, but it seems like if you've been offered bs passives/treasures that does not gel with your deck you might as well just concede. And the top seems to be composed of the same hellish combinations so you're pretty much screwed on the whims of rng buckets alone. I remember a warlock run I had that was offered useless treasures/passive. Ended up choosing that passive that granted 1/1 on whenever I play a discover card. Try and guess how many times I actually managed to proct that before I got my arse handed to me.
I've been playing Duels pretty much exclusively since the expansion launch, so let me tell you: Yes, it can get better - a lot!
There's still a ton of balancing that needs to be done. Like, some HPs are very overpowered, while others are just embarrasingly weak, there's treasures that are pretty much auto-pick, no matter what your deck does, while others are just completely useless, and then there's also a lot of trash buckets, that leave you wondering "what the hell?" (example: I played a lot of Rogue, and for some reason I get a Taunt buckets fairly often. I'm playing Weapon/Combo! What am I supposed to do with 5 Mana+ Taunts??).
Something else that should be looked at more is bans. Imo, there's more cards that deserve to be banned from that format than just Self-Sharpening Sword. C'Thun, the Shattered and Tour Guide are on my personal list.
I hope the Devs can gather enough data from these first seasons to improve Duels, because it has some really great potential! It combines the deckbuilding challenges that comes with rotating sets, and the crazy unpredictability of a dungeon run, which could be such a fun game mode.
All it needs is just more tuning!
I agree that balance is the main problem with Duels at the moment. The access requirements are also a problem, but even many people who can get in don't stick around.
Because the treasures (especially passives) are so crazy, getting a good one or one that fits your deck well makes a huge difference. And getting bad buckets makes your deck worse. Even okay buckets can make your deck worse, since they're diluting your best cards (treasures and key cards from the initial deck); often the best pick is "No more, please!" when that's offered. Loot is more fun when it's actually usable.
This problem with treasures and buckets having a big impact on your success existed in Dungeon Run as well, but it didn't feel as bad because the opponents were bosses, not equals. In Duels, the further you progress, the more you'll face opponents that high-rolled, which feels unfair since they're players just like you.
You should be able to sort out some cards, once you have >30 cards. Why should I make my deck more and more inconsistent?
You need all the latest cards to unlock the hero powers and treasures. You need all wild cards to build a competitive deck. You still have to pay 150 gold to enter heroic mode. Your run has failed before your first match if you don't get one of the broken hero/power/treasure combinations.
And what do you get from it? Monthly leaderboard? Fancy stats screen? Invites to great competitions?
It really needs to change.
(and as I got blasted for at the start for saying; it is not f2p friendly, is it, hmm....)
1. No HP/Treasure requires you to have every single card from an Expansion, and while the last one is indeed really hard to get, it's by far not the best one.
2. I'm sorry but what? The current rotation only includes 3 wild expansions and it's definetely not necessary to have a single legendary or even epic from those sets to get to the 12 wins. Plus the deck only contains 15 different cards from which 2-4 are usually wild. Source:me
3. I mean, what else did you expect? No other mode gives you directly packs/gold for free just for winning a few games. Besides that there is still the free option for players who don't want to invest gold or money(seriously, did aynone ever spend money on arena tries?). I really don't think the heroic version is a problem at all.
The unlock recuirements are of course still a problem, but not because they drastically disturb the balance, but rather because People get scared of it. They may be thinking "Why should I play this mode if I don't have every HP/Treasure? I'm just going to be stomped by people who have unlocked them" without even thinking if these unlocks are even good. The same goes for the wild sets in the collection. I'm not saying that the mode is great for F2P players, but it's definetely not impossible for an F2P player to have fun/succes in the mode.
Another problem I have is the variaty. And as stupid as it sounds from a F2P econamy perspective, I still think the mode needs more Sets in its rotation. It just feels like the HP/Treasures are not enough to enable multiple strong strategies for a class. I've recently wanted to try out an buff priest with the new HP, only to find out that there are not enough buff spells in the rotation for example.
The only way I see to really boost the Duels scene, would be if there would be a lower/no fee for entry, and the reward would be lower, and capped to X a day/week.
IE: You can only claim your duels rewards once a week and the maximum reward is cut by half, and so on for lower rewards. There should be a reward for the maximum wins achieved in the week and if you didn't win anything/insta conceded or played one run and win just one match and left the run, no reward. Just to incentivice people to at least give it a solid try each week and try different decks and stuff.
I say this about rewards/monetization of the system, because it is already monetized from your card collection, no only about having a wild collection (which I don't care because I'm a wild player) but they really killed the mode when they required X amount of cards of the current set to be owned to be able to play different treasures.
Those are my two cents that nobody asked for.
Oh, any amount of cents is very much welcome. We all got different perspectives and experiences to offer.
I wouldn't mind some different approaches to rewards and the entry fee, seeing as the current model has been pretty much just copy-pasted from Arena.
I think Duels can be fun, but now that all the top strategies have been posted online, it feels same-y all the time, same builds, same heroes used. No real way to adequately combat those if you stray, or if your matchup is bad, just a total stomping. It gets dull quickly, unfortunately.
I got bored of it quite quickly even after the expansion of treasures and hero powers. Even with the variables the game felt stale. I haven't played the format in weeks.
For me the problem was that enemies were usually the same exact combination, or if it was a random one? From the Swamp and Canival Treasures literally all the time.