Hearthstone
How to "cement HS for the next decade" speculations thread
So most of us are excited to hear about those great changes coming to Hearthstone which were hinted at by attendees of the Hearthstone 2020 Community Summit. Since the original post on the main page got flushed out and we may or may not get some news this week or even today, I wanted to give our speculations, expectations and wishes a new home.
Apart from very obvious things I expect to be delivered very soon like new purchasable hero portraits, my own contribution is to speculate about Blizzard splitting off Battlegrounds from "classic" Hearthstone. Maybe even Arena comes along, too. My arguments supporting that theory are as follows:
- If I remember correctly, there already are seperate teams working on BG and the rest of HS at Blizzard's
- BG (and Arena) are based upon drafting. You don't need a collection, you don't need card backs (not true for Arena, though no big issue imho), you don't need anything you obtained during your time before BG was introduced. It wouldn't hurt veterans to split BG off.
- Auto chess is something completely different than "classic" HS. It's easy to imagine people loving BG who have no interest in "classic" HS and vice versa (I'm an example for the latter, no surprise). This argument strongly speaks against seperating Arena, though.
- BG is getting a lot of love from the devs. The frequency of the introduction of new heros, buffs and nerfs is amazing. Maybe they are pushing this hard because they want to get the biggest player base possible before kicking off BG as a seperate game.
I must admit that I'm really not convinced it would make sense to split off BG from the business side of the issue. But with a little stretch one could argue that BG isn't even a card game anymore since you can't collect the cards. That might be enough to distinguish between the two branches and shape seperate identities. If all of this amounts to "cementing HS for the next decade" depends upon the questions if 1) seperate BG would still qualify as part of HS and 2) what will "classic" HS receive this year.
I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts about the upcoming changes and getting roasted for my somewhat crazy idea. Thanks for reading!
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So most of us are excited to hear about those great changes coming to Hearthstone which were hinted at by attendees of the Hearthstone 2020 Community Summit. Since the original post on the main page got flushed out and we may or may not get some news this week or even today, I wanted to give our speculations, expectations and wishes a new home.
Apart from very obvious things I expect to be delivered very soon like new purchasable hero portraits, my own contribution is to speculate about Blizzard splitting off Battlegrounds from "classic" Hearthstone. Maybe even Arena comes along, too. My arguments supporting that theory are as follows:
- If I remember correctly, there already are seperate teams working on BG and the rest of HS at Blizzard's
- BG (and Arena) are based upon drafting. You don't need a collection, you don't need card backs (not true for Arena, though no big issue imho), you don't need anything you obtained during your time before BG was introduced. It wouldn't hurt veterans to split BG off.
- Auto chess is something completely different than "classic" HS. It's easy to imagine people loving BG who have no interest in "classic" HS and vice versa (I'm an example for the latter, no surprise). This argument strongly speaks against seperating Arena, though.
- BG is getting a lot of love from the devs. The frequency of the introduction of new heros, buffs and nerfs is amazing. Maybe they are pushing this hard because they want to get the biggest player base possible before kicking off BG as a seperate game.
I must admit that I'm really not convinced it would make sense to split off BG from the business side of the issue. But with a little stretch one could argue that BG isn't even a card game anymore since you can't collect the cards. That might be enough to distinguish between the two branches and shape seperate identities. If all of this amounts to "cementing HS for the next decade" depends upon the questions if 1) seperate BG would still qualify as part of HS and 2) what will "classic" HS receive this year.
I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts about the upcoming changes and getting roasted for my somewhat crazy idea. Thanks for reading!
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
Just to be sure, you are talking about Frodan's tweet with this Hearthstone Summit right?
If so, don't be too quickly to believe anything like that. Influencers tends to act like that. He said that just to encourage people, but it's so unrealistic to me. (honestly)
We can never tell if one game still gonna be popular for 10 years, with just 5 or 6 big changes. C'mon, let's be realistic. 10 years is a long time. Even 2 years is gonna be tough.
So, if we're talking about how Hearthstone wanna stay popular within 10 years, constant changes is the absolute way.
Knowledge is Power
Yea, like the person above said, don't give into the hype.
I'm not saying that Frodan is acting like that because he gets paid to do it, but what seems exciting to him (fueling his belief that the changes will cement HS for the next years) might not hold up at all (making it nothing more than his personal opinion).
Consider that HS doesn't have some real competition at the moment, so the devs aren't really incentivised to bring new features into the game. They will probably take some ideas from legends of runeterra and/or change the laddering system a bit. I don't expect anything more.
HS will never have cool features that should've been in the game for years unless their market share is dropping a lot, or another games brings some new ideas to the table that Blizzard can adapt and monetize.
Long gone are the days when they created stuff simply to add quality to a product. The past 5 or so years are the proof.
Lastly, do realize that if the amount of money they get from the "new" features is not enough, they will simply abandon working on them or remove them altogether. I'd rather play indie games than give money to Activision in its current state.
PS: i'm having a lot of fun with Gwent arenas at the moment. The reward system is nice enough that I don't feel compelled to spend hours of grinding in order to have fun in the game. My time is very precious and I don't want to spend it on Activision's crap design choices.
Don't put your hopes up it's Activison Blizzard we are talking about it will look good on paper but in the long run they will take more money from us if we want to continue playing.
Kripp seems to be impressed, and that's usually a good enough reason for some amount of optimism.
Apart from making it cheaper to have fun in hearthstone, the only other thing is to mix up the evergreen set, maybe taking some cards from expansions. Making evergreen a rotational thing is both a good thing from a business perspective and for the playerbase. It might make it harder for balancing, but if the team can do a balance patch every 2 weeks, I think its feasible.
Then again, it might just be hearthstone 2.0, with the added feature of allowing us to import our cards from hearthstone 1.
Guess we'll just have to wait until the end of the week.
Hey dude.
Believe me or not but ATVI-Blizzard is changing. They've been kinda scared from past community issues about HK and MTX.
I expect some big news this week, something that will change the way we see Activision forever:
-Probably today, they will announce a F2P Battle Royale Game called "WARZONE"
-Thursday, New Year Announcement will introduce some substantial change to HS economy, aiming to improve the F2P Experience.
That's enough to think that they are shifting their business-set. And probably it's just the beginning...
'We're announcing our unconditional surrender to Riot Games and hoping they'll be gentle with us.'
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
Riot might be, but the Shareholders sure wouldn't be. It's always important to remember that ActBlizz is publicly traded, so literally 99.9% of their decisions are based on what is going to generate the most shareholder value in order to keep the stock price as high as possible.
I say this as someone who worked on Wall St. for nearly a decade - equities are all about the quarterly cycle and putting as positive a PR spin on everything you can. This is why the HK stuff went down as it did - not because ACTBLIZZ itself was reliant on Chinese money (per their Q3 earnings model, APAC is only 14% of global revenue), but because the shareholders and equities analysts would have reacted very negatively to a perceived "intangible loss" like siding with Blizzchung. For a demonstrative comparison, the ActBlizz stock fell 20% after Do yOu EVen HaVe PHonEs!? Blizzcon18 disaster - after the Blizzchung mess the stock price did not move an inch. Because the former was specifically about the perceived flop of a promised revenue stream (Diablo Immortal) and the second was just some momentary flotsam that wasn't REALLY going to cost much money (and they were right - the most recent earnings report has Blizz-specific revenues up nearly 50%). Investors don't care about the company or its product - they care about HOW that product is going to generate revenue and shareholder value. Everything else is noise. Period.
Yeah, but Kripp could also get extremely excited about something that most players would consider niche (e.g., improvements to Arena, tie-ins to Diablo, etc).
@ArngrimUndying - that's an awful lot of text to point at me for such a throwaway joke :P
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
No single release will ensure HS stays on top for the next 10 years.
But if that hyperbole was used, I expect new perks that reward everyday grinding - as ranks, gold and dust are not enough.
One "easy" solution would be a full-blown system of Achievements, with an ever-growing system of varied rewards.
That's the easiest way to help keeping players old and new bound to the game with consistency.
The overhaul of the Basic and Classic sets is much expected because it's needed, but it's not something that can deeply renew the game on its own.
Tbh i don't know what else could support the hype of the preview.
LOL totally fair. Just pointing out how we the players often think about a game in a way that is directly opposite to how the company that makes it thinks about it.
How do you know that?
W3:refunded and HK case are really stuff that showed the true face of Blizzard
also VARIOUS bugs that went live like adventure card rewards in arena and adventure cards in random effects...
As well as Runettera showing that.. yes you can make the economy F2P, and be enjoyable..
in HS it's just.. you can't experiment at all... that really turned me down.. I am only doing quest to keep up with the game RN..
Even the news of W3R Pro Event is plagued by disconnects. That'll show you how bad Blizzard is right now. They're no longer the same developer who cares about the game or it's fan-based players (20 years of the best game history died just like that).
EDIT. I'll just let this out. In the next Blizzcon event, Blizzard will once again apologize for it. Mark my words.
Knowledge is Power
Its the same developer, but obviously the finance has been restricted against blizzard to do 'Blizzardy things'. Note that Activision have been laying off workers in the wake of a less than expected, but nevertheless profitable, quarter.
Its still the same developer, just no longer putting customers ahead of profits like it used it be. After all, its all corporate at the end.
It has happened to many successful companies once they decide to sign in with a conglomerate. Suddenly you no longer call the shots on what is a successful quarter.
Most players seem sceptical about this announcement - i'm still hopeful that they will do something good for the players.
True that some of the streamers are easily satisfied or shout out that they are impressed about some changes but not every one - sure we have to wait and see but to say don't believe what they are saying is also just a plain and ignorant comment - i do not know why many players have that negative attitude towards the game or the dev's ?! - they simply cannot please everyone!
Like i said - i myself am still hopeful about this announcement and therefor hyped about upcoming changes etc.
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
Thing is, shareholders are bound to acknowledge that putting customers (and product originality) ahead of immediate revenue is actually what made Blizzard such a valuable brand!
Granted, i am no professional in finance, but if i were a shareholder i'd be appalled by Activision-Blizzard in recent years!
Afterall, finance is about perceived future value. Immediate profit is just a variable of the function.
Becoming shareholder of such a company, with immediate profit in mind, sounds contradictory to me.
I do hope that the several mistakes of the recent years (amongst the good things they released) are indeed just mistakes, not really led by blind profit-driven mindset (which is bound to lead to collapse sooner or later).
Unfortunately that's not how real-world finance tends to work. Most investment on this sort of scale expects to see significant returns in a max 3-5 year window. If you're investing for long-term growth you typically diversify heavily to give a better stability.
I doubt entertainment companies are typical investment targets for long-term growth in any case because the medium is inherently fickle. You don't invest for the long term in an industry that can see massive consumer movement in the space of a few weeks.
@FieselFitz - the phrase 'once bitten twice shy' comes to mind... :P
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
The myth of shareholders being long termers is just that, a myth. Most shareholders don't buy in so some manager can tell them 'I have a great idea that will sink profits for a few quarters but in the long run it'll be great'. Money is what you can see on the table, not in your dreams.
The 'mistakes' can be seen a mile away to anyone with even the slightest amount of passion in gaming. The problem with Reforged was, I suspect, a slashed budget based on estimated sales so it can meet expectations of profit. The blitzchung issue is pure greed, simple. No corporate figure wants to lose access to the 2nd biggest market in the world just because of 'issues'.
Shareholders care about money. They occasionally care about other stuff, but there's a good reason why the tops at the top and the bottom feeds on crumbs left behind
I hope they will add more deckslots.
I agree Auto-battlers and TCG are separate game genres that may appeal to separate audiences, but I don't think Blizzard will separate battlegrounds from base Hearthstone. More likely Blizzard will try and incentivize battlegrounds players to play base Hearthstone. Even if they only got a small portion of the auto-battler gaming community to buy base Hearthstone cards, they would be increasing their profits. And if people who buy enough cards get all the battlegrounds perks, you may increase base Hearthstone player retention, by giving them another play mode when they want a change of pace.
I don't think I'd be able to understand having more than 18 deck slots. That feels too complex and I'm not sure I, or any other players for that matter, can adapt to such a mighty change.
As for the main topic, I fail to see how having BG split from HS would make HS a better game in any way. The whole "make sure there's a large enough fanbase before kicking off a standalone game" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either simply because despite having a bunch of questionable actions the last couple of years (Diablo Immortal, Blitzchung incident, Warcraft 3 reformed), they can still release a new game and have a ton of people adopt it quickly.
I believe Blizzard is just going to add new ways to play the game. Not in the "Oh hey it's a new format like wild but it only goes back to Un'goro instead of all of the old sets" sense but more in the same way that MTG has branched out to make other formats possible. Formats like Pauper and Commander both see a ton of play and they wouldn't be hard to implement into Hearthstone and would provide a ton of new ways to play the game, as well as a ton of new ways to monetize the game to make the investors happy. Considering that Hearthstone has been a game for almost 6 years now and there are still only 5 game modes is surprising to me. Once again comparing this to MTG, there's a ton of formats that have formed just because WotC essentially lets the community make whatever abomination they want and if it sticks, they support it. If Blizzard makes a tool to create a 'custom game mode' similar to what they did with Overwatch, I could see it being the thing that "cements HS for the next decade". Maybe not for that long, but definitely for a year or 3.
Cardboard wizard and dog haver.
While I agree that separating HSBG from HS wouldn't make sense (HSBG really doesn't have what it takes to stand alone in the auto-battler genre, in my opinion, while it can operate in a floating niche as a lightweight alternative via the HS client) - in a hypothetical world where it was done, I think it'd be done more to support HSBG than HS.
I don't think it'd be beneficial to HS in the slightest, but I can see significant benefit in getting some distance for HSBG - being inextricably tied to HS closes a lot of design doors. It's very difficult for them to release interesting new minions for HSBG when they're inevitably required to 'work' in the context of HS itself (even if they don't actually exist in HS). There are all kinds of mechanics they could use for minions - such as, for example, having an effect which triggers if you lost the previous round - which they can't really use so long as HSBG is required to be a reflection of HS.
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
Well I guess we'll have to wait till next week for the big news. I'm happy for the BG players, though :-)
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
Why next week? Has an announcement been announced? ;)
To be great is to be misunderstood
I'mma just quote myself here because apparently I was all kinds of wrong. Oops.
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
No, but the announcement of the new year is due and it's Hearthstone's birthday next week (march 4)... I think they'll tie the two together.
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
True. Seems like a pretty convenient occasion.
To be great is to be misunderstood
Less RNG would really make this game so much better imo.
I was looking up neutral cards from the basic and the classic sets for the card treasure hunt yesterday and boy are they bad. Maybe it's really time for a major overhaul and replacing most of them. It doens't even have to be new stuff. I'd be perfectly fine with cards from expansions, as long as they're balanced.
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
Like whizbang
#WhizbangIsWonderful
TOTAL CORRUPTION
TOTAL POWAAAAAAA
If they really do that, he will be my first golden legendary craft ever.
#WhizbangIsWonderfu
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
I crafted whizbang on day 1 in gold. I am F2P so dust is pretty valuable. I played a handful of games and had fun, then later I dusted him to craft an actually useful legendary. Then later I missed him and crafted him again . . . and then dusted him later . . . and then I crafted him again.
Me and whizbang have a strong love/hate relationship. Though I will say that the hate is probably stronger than the love, and the regret is more real than anything.
The moral of the story is: don't craft golden cards I am an idiot.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
Cut ties with China and don't bow to any foreign pressure to limit the free speech of it's players or staff. It's why I gave up on Blizzard and I'm not the only one.
How to "cement HS for the next decade": Does breaking mobile clients with the latest patch counts or not?
I do what I must, when I must. Know this well.
I mean... if you're being optimistic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi
I see you when you're sleeping; I'm gone before you wake
I'm not as good as turn 4 Barnes; But I'm at least a Twilight Drake
This should be where the real point of the conversation is ;)
My concern with less rng is that matches become much more solved and pre-determined in many scenarios. Saw this in Yu-Gi-Oh all of the time, which does have rng but still not as much as HS and you would still get these matches where you generally knew who was going to win (if it wasn't a mirror match) solely due to who was playing what. Generally the only things that swung the match was the draw and shuffle rng and if somehow someway a skilled player had a brain fart and stopped forgetting how to make correct plays for a couple of turns.
Just look at some very powerful decks that had little to no rng but were often solved from the get-go as to who was going to win the match-up (pre nerf Kingsbane vs control, pre nerf Pirate Warrior vs reno decks that didn't draw Reno, pre nerf Big Priest vs many control decks or vs aggro when 100% guaranteeing multiple statue rezes, pre nerf Caverns Quest Rogue vs control).
OMG the "Year of the Phoenix" is real!!
https://hearthstone-decks.net/leak-will-the-next-year-be-the-year-of-the-phoenix/
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
I want an additional feature, where the innkeeper can use decks you made. This makes it easier to practice match-ups while preparing for tournaments and such.
Much of the RNG involved in HS depends on a technical issue.
Actually, if a spell (or a battlecry, deathrattle effect) can target more than one target, then its targets are chosen randomly because the GUI doesn't let the user choose two or more things.
This problem is also limiting the design space of the game:
For example, a card with "Deathrattle: destroy target opposing minion" actually cannot even exist, because a deathrattle effect simply 'happen' and no user decision can be made in the middle.
In my opinion, if they find a way to improve the GUI, then this is really an impressive upgrade of the game in general.
Double targeted spells and battlecries and targeted deathrattles can open a wide design space.
The design space and strategy could be also improved with the introduction of activated abilities on minions, another thing that actually cannot be made due to GUI issues.
However, I think Blizzard won't do any of those things :(
I don't think the piss-poor Hearthstone AI would be able to handle constructed decks anywhere close to how they were intended. I'm not just talking about combo decks, I'm talking about generally average decks. Innkeeper would never be able to properly identify the win condition of a deck he hasn't been programmed for. There's a reason why adventure bosses are programmed for certain scenarios (and why they had to implement a special rule for Doomsayer....a rule that they haven't applied to [Hearthstone Card (Depth Charg) Not Found]e, which makes for some hilarious moments in the adventure)
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Well, he didn't exaggerate after all. This stream really blew my mind.
Economy: It probably sounds better than it will eventually turn out to be, but it's a huge improvement nevertheless. Crafting epics was a huge money sink which now got the plug. Nice!
Demon Hunter: I'm not ashamed to admit that I prefer aggro and tempo over other archetypes. This class looks insane, there is just so much it can do! We haven't seen single target removal so far and only one true AOE, but it looks super strong to me. Getting all those cards for free just blew my mind.
Priest overhaul: Great changes! Priest is getting an identity after all and I'm looking forward to see those win conditions they mentioned coming with the expansions.
HoF: Good choices. I'm sad about losing Leeroy, but I'm glad I've saved enough dust to craft him golden.
Ranked System: Not sure about the consequences yet, but it looks very thought through. Combined with the announcement of achievements this will work wonders for long time motivation.
Edit, unnerfed cards: All hail Yogg, our lord and savior! They did this whole thing so incredibly well.
All in all, I can't find words for how deeply impressed I am. These are huge improvements and I will gladly keep throwing my money at Blizzard for quite some time.
What do you guys think about the news?
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
Took the words right out of my mouth (except for the throwing money at blizzard part). I am just flabbergasted at all of this new stuff, and I am SUPER excited that the new class and expansion will all be playable within the next 3 weeks!!!
Carrion, my wayward grub.