Feedback
Netdecking Support
I'm a bit hestitant to admit it, but I'm a filthy netdecker (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). Even if I'm repeating myself, outof.cards is the most awesome Hearthstone page on the web for me. Still, there are two things that are closely related to each other which I have to look for on other pages. So here are my suggestions how you could at least partially avoid that if you wanted to:
1) Top decks
Not sure how the algorythms work, but right now the "hot" and the "top" decks are showing almost the same results. You have that cooperation with HSReplay running, so why not use it some more? I suggest keeping the "hot" section as it is (I guess it's based on views, comments and upvotes?) and displaying the lists with the highest win rates from HSReplay in "top", updated daily at midnight or some such. Sometimes people are just looking for the best decks to grind the ladder with and right now, it's quite difficult to find them if there doesn't happen to be a post like this on the frontpage. It goes without saying that keeping the filters as they are would be vital if that is possible.
2) Meta Reports
This might be a little insolent, but I'd really appreciate it if there was a section where you point us to meta reports. Everybody has their favorites but I think we can agree about the top 3 or something. You could either post a short news article whenever a new one comes out or silently update a site where they are all displayed with a link to their respective external site. I know this would be pretty much advertizing third party content but since OOC understandably can't provide such reports themselves, why not make things for users a bit easier? While we're at it, a collection of podcasts would be pretty awesome, too.
I hope you don't get these ideas the wrong way. It's just that OOC is my platform of choice for everything social about Hearthstone right now, but if I want to be competitive, I have to look elsewhere most of the time. Maybe you are fine with that, but if you want to cater to a bigger audience, the two points above might be places to start.
Leave a Comment
You must be signed in to leave a comment. Sign in here.
I'm a bit hestitant to admit it, but I'm a filthy netdecker (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). Even if I'm repeating myself, outof.cards is the most awesome Hearthstone page on the web for me. Still, there are two things that are closely related to each other which I have to look for on other pages. So here are my suggestions how you could at least partially avoid that if you wanted to:
1) Top decks
Not sure how the algorythms work, but right now the "hot" and the "top" decks are showing almost the same results. You have that cooperation with HSReplay running, so why not use it some more? I suggest keeping the "hot" section as it is (I guess it's based on views, comments and upvotes?) and displaying the lists with the highest win rates from HSReplay in "top", updated daily at midnight or some such. Sometimes people are just looking for the best decks to grind the ladder with and right now, it's quite difficult to find them if there doesn't happen to be a post like this on the frontpage. It goes without saying that keeping the filters as they are would be vital if that is possible.
2) Meta Reports
This might be a little insolent, but I'd really appreciate it if there was a section where you point us to meta reports. Everybody has their favorites but I think we can agree about the top 3 or something. You could either post a short news article whenever a new one comes out or silently update a site where they are all displayed with a link to their respective external site. I know this would be pretty much advertizing third party content but since OOC understandably can't provide such reports themselves, why not make things for users a bit easier? While we're at it, a collection of podcasts would be pretty awesome, too.
I hope you don't get these ideas the wrong way. It's just that OOC is my platform of choice for everything social about Hearthstone right now, but if I want to be competitive, I have to look elsewhere most of the time. Maybe you are fine with that, but if you want to cater to a bigger audience, the two points above might be places to start.
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Unfortunately, this is mostly a result of having low interactions with decks as a whole. If more people voted on decks, we'd have different results between them. Hot doesn't get interesting until we've got that though.
If we were allowed to do that, it would have been done originally. The only thing we can do with winrates is show them on individual deck pages.
I don't have an issue with promoting content, but I do think it would be silly if we were to promote several different reports that get put out in the community. Sometimes they don't all agree with each other and to spotlight that, it could get confusing for people.
I do want to do more meta-focused stuff on the site though and an in-dev feature will help us put a spotlight on certain decks more. It'll be more obvious once this gets pushed out.
This has been a bit of a pipe dream for me. Being able to help push some of the great shows we have in the Hearthstone community would be awesome but I also can't see us posting news articles for them all. It would be kinda nuts to push down breaking news articles with podcast/show promotions, especially when 3-4 solid people are putting out that kind of content on the same day.
A weekly recap of sorts would be easier to do, but then for shows that take place at the start of a 7-day period, you end up in a weird spot of them not being relevant as often. Also, there's a greater chance that their show for that week has already been seen by folks which makes the content less useful.
That's why what we'd need is a more dedicated system in place to put that kind of content on the site and then have it show up somewhere like the sidebar on the homepage and game portal pages, and maybe occasionally pushing a particular show into the news feed itself. Letting folks subscribe to different shows to get site notifications when new episodes go live would then be a thing.
I also think for more long-term success of that though we're looking at having show runners themselves pushing their content here. While we do have several team members that listen to these shows, it isn't always immediate so us writing a synopsis for each episode isn't an ideal position to be in. Plus, the way I see it, it let's shows work a tiny bit for that promotion while we're free to do other stuff. It would mean we could open up such a thing to more folks producing that kind of content because effectively, we don't have to do anything.
There's also a great trove of YouTube content people are creating that deserve a spotlight. Some amazing deck videos out there, we really just need someone that's willing to go through it and write a bit about them when good stuff is uncovered.
Yeah, a tiny bit of thought has indeed gone into the whole podcast thing, lol.
Founder, Out of Games
Follow me on Twitch and Twitter.
If you are planning on playing WoW on US realms, consider using my recruit link =)
Thanks a lot for that detailed answer! It's always nice to get some behind the scenes info and I'm already looking forward to what's still to come :)
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Seconded that "hot decks" arent really a thing. People spam upvotes on a deck with just whisbang in it. But if you spend weeks testing a deck and making a big description people will just ignore you mostly. At least that's is my experience with it. But most of my decks are gonk druid. So you'll have to take that with a grain of salt. I miss the side bar where you could see in the past when someone commented on a deck.
Used to be youd upload a deck make a description and post a comment under it yourself to get people that dont search new decks to see your deck. I dont know why they got rid of it tbh.
Living like that.
You can find this on the Hearthstone Portal sidebar!
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/
We don't show it on the homepage because then we'd run into the scenario of needing to do it for the other titles with decks as well - it could become quite the mess.
Founder, Out of Games
Follow me on Twitch and Twitter.
If you are planning on playing WoW on US realms, consider using my recruit link =)
Always love to share when people ask questions and it makes sense =D
Founder, Out of Games
Follow me on Twitch and Twitter.
If you are planning on playing WoW on US realms, consider using my recruit link =)