You don't have to buy a preorder if you don't want to: everything can be acquired by simply playing the game, and from what we've learned the game's "story" missions and the campfire Tasks can shower you with rewards. That and packs are only 100 gold apiece, like regular Hearthstone.
The preorders are more for getting a jump-start on your collection, or at least to guarantee that you'll have access to Diablo, The Lich King, and/or Sylvanas from the beginning. I definitely wouldn't call them mandatory, despite owning two of them myself.
They are completely unreliable, because they only take a very limited amount of data. Especially looking at specific lists for very specific, low rank brackets will heavily skew your perception simply due to lack of data.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but for balancing the game data between bronze and gold is mostly completely useless. People who stick in those ranks beyond the first few days of the month in general play a lot more homebrew jank and unoptimised lists due to lack of dust or knowledge. Of course a refined deck like Quest Mage will shred right through those, so will every other refined list. In fact, in those ranks Quest Mage isn't even a problem at all, since you have decks like Elemental Shaman and Aggro Druid with 65%+ winrates. But sure, I'm the biased one.
First off, ya didn't hurt my feelings. So you can take that passive-aggressive comment and put it where the sun don't shine. I'm a D5-legend player every month. Secondly, people who "stick in those ranks" are probably PLAYING A GAME and having fun. You know fun right? That thing that is the purpose of games at their core? Nah, you don't. Thirdly, I never said "looking at specific lists for specific low rank brackets". I just said taking the whole ladder into consideration. Maybe try reading more thoroughly next time?
Lastly, not sure where mentioning "elemental shaman and aggro druid" has to do with anything because I certainly didn't mention it, so yes...you are still the "biased one". Not because of any statistics but again because you think that data that is gathered from anyone but the "diamond to legend" subsect of players is irrelevant.
Oh, and this will probably rub your pickle the wrong way...
I make legend every month with off-meta or heavily modified meta decks every month. Last month and this month I'm using a modified version of ping mage. U mad bro?
I think its more because the older players there have been doing this for a long time and wanted to move on to other stuff, because let's face it, pro players tend to grind this game for 8 hours or more per day and after years of doing so its kinda impossible for the game not to feel stale. I dont think losing your passion has anything to do with the grinding mindset, or the fact that GMs only lasts 14 weeks.
Newer players approach a hearthstone that feels fresh and exciting. Some players like Viper has been doing this for 6 years. If the older players feel they need to get away from the game, its entirely fair and expected.
There's no overhauling that can solve this puzzle. The Hearthstone esport scene/formatting has actually been overhauled for several times in the last few years, and if that didn't change anything, I doubt another overhaul will make any difference in sparking passion in those who gave up on the game.
One thing I notice about the pre-order mercs is they all get massive speed upgrades from leveling up their basic abilities. I suppose this is a way to kinda gate them from being too strong right off the bat, while also making them extremely powerful and desirable once you have.
Once he is upgraded the Lich King seems really, really powerful. Able to be both extremely punishing, lots of survivability and super disruptive.
They are completely unreliable, because they only take a very limited amount of data. Especially looking at specific lists for very specific, low rank brackets will heavily skew your perception simply due to lack of data.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but for balancing the game data between bronze and gold is mostly completely useless. People who stick in those ranks beyond the first few days of the month in general play a lot more homebrew jank and unoptimised lists due to lack of dust or knowledge. Of course a refined deck like Quest Mage will shred right through those, so will every other refined list. In fact, in those ranks Quest Mage isn't even a problem at all, since you have decks like Elemental Shaman and Aggro Druid with 65%+ winrates. But sure, I'm the biased one.
I think the loss of passion for a large part actually is fixable, albeit not completely like you say. It used to be that if you wanted to be the best, you would always have to try to get better because you know many others were vying for those same HCT points. In GM however, you only have to try for fourteen weeks per year, against other people who only have to try for fourteen weeks per year. That's why you often see new GMs perform so well, like Gaby and Frenetic, because they still have the grinding mindset which creates passion for competitive people. If you're already at the top, and only have to focus for a short amount of time each year to stay there, that fire goes out and your passion goes away.
Too little too late, perhaps? Those with genuine interest probably found other YouTube videos to watch up to this point, like Trump's, while those who didn't care about Mercenaries won't suddenly care now.
For me , not really, I still have no clue what Mercenaries is about and I'm going to find out now with this video.
edit: ok that clarified a lot, seems cool. Still don't know if I have to buy those pretty expensive packs from the shop though.
I've only been playing hs for about 3 years now. I've looked at some of the quests from before I started playing from the ungoro expansion, and the quests from ungoro seem more powerful than the current ones...? Is that to be expected or do you guys think that the current quests are more powerful than previous ones?
Definitely not. The Un'goro quests' power levels pale in comparison to the Stormwind ones overall, since the latter has a lot more quests that are game-winning and meta-defining. You could only say that for The Caverns Below and maybe Open the Waygate in Un'goro, but even those two quests necessitated very strict deckbuilding restrictions unlike the Stormwind quests. There are 4 Stormwind quests that approach and even surpass The Caverns Below in terms of power level and polarity:
The Demon Seed - Using your fatigue against your opponent as a win condition is straight-up broken. As long as some competitive deck using this questline exists, control and value decks won't stand a chance in that meta. It freaking broke Wild, for crying out loud.
Command the Elements - Having an aura effect that double-casts your spells is an instant win condition most of the time. I played this deck a lot pre-nerf and the broken plays it allowed me to pull off was ridiculous, and even post-nerf it's still competitive.
Defend the Dwarven District - Giving the Raza machine gun to a class that already loves to go face was a terrible idea from the start. This quest has been wreaking havoc in Wild from day one, and it's semi-competitive in Standard too.
Sorcerer's Gambit - Simply a plain, boring design that is completely unfun to play against. As long as Mage has enough burn spells, why should Blizz ever print minions for this class again? In Kibler's latest video, he got burned down for lethal in a single turn when he was at 37 health. That'll piss anyone off.
The other Stormwind quests aren't as problematic...yet. Seek Guidance, whose win condition is literally to destroy the opponent, is a few buffs and support away from becoming the most frustrating quest. Raid the Docks is probably the most fun quest to play and play against, but it poses its own problems too especially in Wild, as it gives Pirate Warrior infinite fuel in the late game which is unfair to give an aggro deck. Final Showdown was frustrating to play against too for a time. Find the Imposter is the only balanced quest in the set.
Simply put, the Stormwind questlines are probably some of the worst-designed cards in HS history, or at the very least they're some of the most polarizing. They've sapped away a lot of joy I had for this game to the point that I only play once a week now, mostly because I fear that they'll continue to influence future expansions and create even more frustrating metas.
They tried that years ago with the trinity series (now sadly discontinued), global games, and hearthstone collegiate (which is on hold for obvious reasons).
Its not that they were unsuccessful, but clearly the number of views did not reflect what they were trying to achieve, and let's be honest here, hearthstone is a largely single player game. There is no team effort, and since the commentary is provided by casters (though not in trinity, which was what made it special), in what way do we have to show that the teams are actually functioning?
The sad reality is that hearthstone is not as big as csgo or LoL, and the tournaments tends to drag for hours on end. So its only ever to going to be interesting to a tiny minority of esport viewers.
Best thing they can do to boost esport relevance is to bring back smaller less formal cups like seatstory, where players do commentary and have fun. That was the reason why pavel is perhaps the most memorable of all the world champions.
How about some weaponized drunken-master shenanigans? Monk ain't a class, so I had to make do:
Could allow you to double-up on your attacks to the enemy's face, clear the board with some drunken in-fighting, or it could all backfire spectacularly!
Clearly a mid-late game finisher merc. She has obvious synergy with any merc that summons a lot. Looking at Jaina, Voone, Rexxar -- all of which summon tokens of different tribes. So she fits into a lot of different tribal/spell school comps potentially.
I wonder if you can build a pure token-summoning comp that just exists to power up Sylvanas, and then use some strong support characters like Tirion or Xyrella or something in the late game to keep her alive.
Scroll below to see my sig and, well, finally there is an example of it. Half & Half is a game where you and opponents select 15 cards and play the same deck of the 30 combined. It's unlimited fun because you never know what's coming.
Especially if you get crazy with it.
I suggest before it ends everyone tries out my crazy Rogue deck:
Bazaar Burglary, 2 Hallucinations, 2 Dragon Hoards, 2 Wand Thief's, 2 Togwaggle Schemes, 2 Hench Clan Burglars, 1 Academic Espionage/Polkelt (AE makes games longer, Polkelt quicker) Tess Greymane... And both Yoggs.
It's ridiculously fun because you literally are playing a deck of possibly every card in Hearthstone history and you don't have to worry about clunky cards in your hand because the opponent has to deal with them too.
Treat yourself to the biggest clown fiesta you have ever seen as you and your opponent laugh yourselves to death ; D
Also so far in 8 games or so I have a 100% Winrate bc opponents don't know what to do and rogue cards that they receive tend to suck.
Scroll below to see my sig and, well, finally there is an example of it. Half & Half is a game where you and opponents select 15 cards and play the same deck of the 30 combined. It's unlimited fun because you never know what's coming.
Especially if you get crazy with it.
I suggest before it ends everyone tries out my crazy Rogue deck:
It's ridiculously fun because you literally playing a deck of possibly every card in Hearthstone history and you don't have to worry about clunky cards in your hand because the opponent has to deal with them too.
Treat yourself to the biggest clown fiesta you have ever seen as you and your opponent laugh yourselves to death ; D
Water Elementals just seem stupid powerful on their own. A great anti-tech against attacking mercs. She benefits from Ice Floes on her own, but the Varden synergy is actually great (makes it more likely for them to get procs off of their Cold Snaps). But even then I think the Varden synergy is mostly just gravy for what is otherwise an extremely disruptive merc, Jaina seems super powerful on her own.
Her abilities also just do a fair bit of damage with no cooldown and she can snowball off of her own casts.
The Pokemon Daycare doesn't even offer XP anymore.
But I think in *theory* this serves the same purpose. You stick a merc you don't care about, but really need (like a healer or something) to level it up, so that it can be used in your PvE runs.
There's a bunch that would go into a major change like that. Without talking too much about a couple of upcoming plans though, Mercenaries, at least to start, is going to be getting a bit more of a "in your face" aspect on the site. The goal is to also do the same with Battlegrounds, though only once we commit to producing more regular content for it.
Welcome to Hearthstone Mercenaries - Blizzard Publishes a Long Overdue Starting Guide
You don't have to buy a preorder if you don't want to: everything can be acquired by simply playing the game, and from what we've learned the game's "story" missions and the campfire Tasks can shower you with rewards. That and packs are only 100 gold apiece, like regular Hearthstone.
The preorders are more for getting a jump-start on your collection, or at least to guarantee that you'll have access to Diablo, The Lich King, and/or Sylvanas from the beginning. I definitely wouldn't call them mandatory, despite owning two of them myself.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #31 - Bigger Expansion to End 2022, Warcraft Diversity, Battlegrounds Streamer Heroes, and More
First off, ya didn't hurt my feelings. So you can take that passive-aggressive comment and put it where the sun don't shine. I'm a D5-legend player every month. Secondly, people who "stick in those ranks" are probably PLAYING A GAME and having fun. You know fun right? That thing that is the purpose of games at their core? Nah, you don't. Thirdly, I never said "looking at specific lists for specific low rank brackets". I just said taking the whole ladder into consideration. Maybe try reading more thoroughly next time?
Lastly, not sure where mentioning "elemental shaman and aggro druid" has to do with anything because I certainly didn't mention it, so yes...you are still the "biased one". Not because of any statistics but again because you think that data that is gathered from anyone but the "diamond to legend" subsect of players is irrelevant.
Oh, and this will probably rub your pickle the wrong way...
I make legend every month with off-meta or heavily modified meta decks every month. Last month and this month I'm using a modified version of ping mage. U mad bro?
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 - Week 7 Results, Relegations, and More! (Spoiler Free)
I think its more because the older players there have been doing this for a long time and wanted to move on to other stuff, because let's face it, pro players tend to grind this game for 8 hours or more per day and after years of doing so its kinda impossible for the game not to feel stale. I dont think losing your passion has anything to do with the grinding mindset, or the fact that GMs only lasts 14 weeks.
Newer players approach a hearthstone that feels fresh and exciting. Some players like Viper has been doing this for 6 years. If the older players feel they need to get away from the game, its entirely fair and expected.
There's no overhauling that can solve this puzzle. The Hearthstone esport scene/formatting has actually been overhauled for several times in the last few years, and if that didn't change anything, I doubt another overhaul will make any difference in sparking passion in those who gave up on the game.
Welcome Back Party - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Yay, Season 4 :)))
I've tried to do something traditional:
Edit: This card is obviously a bad idea because only Ogres get the 50% wrong enemy effect. I'll try to come up with another ability.
Lich King
One thing I notice about the pre-order mercs is they all get massive speed upgrades from leveling up their basic abilities. I suppose this is a way to kinda gate them from being too strong right off the bat, while also making them extremely powerful and desirable once you have.
Once he is upgraded the Lich King seems really, really powerful. Able to be both extremely punishing, lots of survivability and super disruptive.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #31 - Bigger Expansion to End 2022, Warcraft Diversity, Battlegrounds Streamer Heroes, and More
They are completely unreliable, because they only take a very limited amount of data. Especially looking at specific lists for very specific, low rank brackets will heavily skew your perception simply due to lack of data.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but for balancing the game data between bronze and gold is mostly completely useless. People who stick in those ranks beyond the first few days of the month in general play a lot more homebrew jank and unoptimised lists due to lack of dust or knowledge. Of course a refined deck like Quest Mage will shred right through those, so will every other refined list. In fact, in those ranks Quest Mage isn't even a problem at all, since you have decks like Elemental Shaman and Aggro Druid with 65%+ winrates. But sure, I'm the biased one.
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 - Week 7 Results, Relegations, and More! (Spoiler Free)
I think the loss of passion for a large part actually is fixable, albeit not completely like you say. It used to be that if you wanted to be the best, you would always have to try to get better because you know many others were vying for those same HCT points. In GM however, you only have to try for fourteen weeks per year, against other people who only have to try for fourteen weeks per year. That's why you often see new GMs perform so well, like Gaby and Frenetic, because they still have the grinding mindset which creates passion for competitive people. If you're already at the top, and only have to focus for a short amount of time each year to stay there, that fire goes out and your passion goes away.
Welcome to Hearthstone Mercenaries - Blizzard Publishes a Long Overdue Starting Guide
For me , not really, I still have no clue what Mercenaries is about and I'm going to find out now with this video.
edit: ok that clarified a lot, seems cool. Still don't know if I have to buy those pretty expensive packs from the shop though.
Welcome to Hearthstone Mercenaries - Blizzard Publishes a Long Overdue Starting Guide
Its amazing how this 4 minute video engaged and informed me more than the entirety of that 30 min stream they did about a month ago.
Are you enjoying HS now?
Definitely not. The Un'goro quests' power levels pale in comparison to the Stormwind ones overall, since the latter has a lot more quests that are game-winning and meta-defining. You could only say that for The Caverns Below and maybe Open the Waygate in Un'goro, but even those two quests necessitated very strict deckbuilding restrictions unlike the Stormwind quests. There are 4 Stormwind quests that approach and even surpass The Caverns Below in terms of power level and polarity:
The Demon Seed - Using your fatigue against your opponent as a win condition is straight-up broken. As long as some competitive deck using this questline exists, control and value decks won't stand a chance in that meta. It freaking broke Wild, for crying out loud.
Command the Elements - Having an aura effect that double-casts your spells is an instant win condition most of the time. I played this deck a lot pre-nerf and the broken plays it allowed me to pull off was ridiculous, and even post-nerf it's still competitive.
Defend the Dwarven District - Giving the Raza machine gun to a class that already loves to go face was a terrible idea from the start. This quest has been wreaking havoc in Wild from day one, and it's semi-competitive in Standard too.
Sorcerer's Gambit - Simply a plain, boring design that is completely unfun to play against. As long as Mage has enough burn spells, why should Blizz ever print minions for this class again? In Kibler's latest video, he got burned down for lethal in a single turn when he was at 37 health. That'll piss anyone off.
The other Stormwind quests aren't as problematic...yet. Seek Guidance, whose win condition is literally to destroy the opponent, is a few buffs and support away from becoming the most frustrating quest. Raid the Docks is probably the most fun quest to play and play against, but it poses its own problems too especially in Wild, as it gives Pirate Warrior infinite fuel in the late game which is unfair to give an aggro deck. Final Showdown was frustrating to play against too for a time. Find the Imposter is the only balanced quest in the set.
Simply put, the Stormwind questlines are probably some of the worst-designed cards in HS history, or at the very least they're some of the most polarizing. They've sapped away a lot of joy I had for this game to the point that I only play once a week now, mostly because I fear that they'll continue to influence future expansions and create even more frustrating metas.
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 - Week 7 Results, Relegations, and More! (Spoiler Free)
They tried that years ago with the trinity series (now sadly discontinued), global games, and hearthstone collegiate (which is on hold for obvious reasons).
Its not that they were unsuccessful, but clearly the number of views did not reflect what they were trying to achieve, and let's be honest here, hearthstone is a largely single player game. There is no team effort, and since the commentary is provided by casters (though not in trinity, which was what made it special), in what way do we have to show that the teams are actually functioning?
The sad reality is that hearthstone is not as big as csgo or LoL, and the tournaments tends to drag for hours on end. So its only ever to going to be interesting to a tiny minority of esport viewers.
Best thing they can do to boost esport relevance is to bring back smaller less formal cups like seatstory, where players do commentary and have fun. That was the reason why pavel is perhaps the most memorable of all the world champions.
Welcome Back Party - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
New season!!!
Nothing like a little alcohol to let your guard down and pick the best of fights!
Welcome Back Party - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
It's been a while, I'm a little rusty.
Welcome to Hearthstone Mercenaries - Blizzard Publishes a Long Overdue Starting Guide
You are right. I guess I'm lettin' the negative-nellies get to me, makin' me cynical :/
Welcome Back Party - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
How about some weaponized drunken-master shenanigans? Monk ain't a class, so I had to make do:
Could allow you to double-up on your attacks to the enemy's face, clear the board with some drunken in-fighting, or it could all backfire spectacularly!
Welcome to Hearthstone Mercenaries - Blizzard Publishes a Long Overdue Starting Guide
agree
Welcome Back Party - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Competition Theme: Welcome Back Party
We're starting the Season off with a party, so bring your best drinks!
To start us off, Arkasaur is looking to get festive. Eat, drink and be merry - and make sure your entry does too!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
Sylvanas Windrunner
Clearly a mid-late game finisher merc. She has obvious synergy with any merc that summons a lot. Looking at Jaina, Voone, Rexxar -- all of which summon tokens of different tribes. So she fits into a lot of different tribal/spell school comps potentially.
I wonder if you can build a pure token-summoning comp that just exists to power up Sylvanas, and then use some strong support characters like Tirion or Xyrella or something in the late game to keep her alive.
This Week's Tavern Brawl Answered My Prayers!
Scroll below to see my sig and, well, finally there is an example of it. Half & Half is a game where you and opponents select 15 cards and play the same deck of the 30 combined. It's unlimited fun because you never know what's coming.
Especially if you get crazy with it.
I suggest before it ends everyone tries out my crazy Rogue deck:
Bazaar Burglary, 2 Hallucinations, 2 Dragon Hoards, 2 Wand Thief's, 2 Togwaggle Schemes, 2 Hench Clan Burglars, 1 Academic Espionage/Polkelt (AE makes games longer, Polkelt quicker) Tess Greymane... And both Yoggs.
It's ridiculously fun because you literally are playing a deck of possibly every card in Hearthstone history and you don't have to worry about clunky cards in your hand because the opponent has to deal with them too.
Treat yourself to the biggest clown fiesta you have ever seen as you and your opponent laugh yourselves to death ; D
Also so far in 8 games or so I have a 100% Winrate bc opponents don't know what to do and rogue cards that they receive tend to suck.
This Week's Tavern Brawl Answered My Prayers!
Scroll below to see my sig and, well, finally there is an example of it. Half & Half is a game where you and opponents select 15 cards and play the same deck of the 30 combined. It's unlimited fun because you never know what's coming.
Especially if you get crazy with it.
I suggest before it ends everyone tries out my crazy Rogue deck:
Bazaar Burglary, 2 Hallucinations, 2 Dragon Hoards, 2 Wand Thief's, 2 Togwaggle Schemes, 2 Hench Clan Burglars, Tess Greymane...
And both Yoggs.
It's ridiculously fun because you literally playing a deck of possibly every card in Hearthstone history and you don't have to worry about clunky cards in your hand because the opponent has to deal with them too.
Treat yourself to the biggest clown fiesta you have ever seen as you and your opponent laugh yourselves to death ; D
Jaina Proudmoore
Water Elementals just seem stupid powerful on their own. A great anti-tech against attacking mercs. She benefits from Ice Floes on her own, but the Varden synergy is actually great (makes it more likely for them to get procs off of their Cold Snaps). But even then I think the Varden synergy is mostly just gravy for what is otherwise an extremely disruptive merc, Jaina seems super powerful on her own.
Her abilities also just do a fair bit of damage with no cooldown and she can snowball off of her own casts.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Goes Full Pokemon - The Training Hall Brings Daycare to Level Up Your Mercenaries Automatically
The Pokemon Daycare doesn't even offer XP anymore.
But I think in *theory* this serves the same purpose. You stick a merc you don't care about, but really need (like a healer or something) to level it up, so that it can be used in your PvE runs.
Add subcategories for Hearthstone modes
Sounds promising, I cannot wait for what is in store for us soon™ 👍🏻
Add subcategories for Hearthstone modes
Haha!
There's a bunch that would go into a major change like that. Without talking too much about a couple of upcoming plans though, Mercenaries, at least to start, is going to be getting a bit more of a "in your face" aspect on the site. The goal is to also do the same with Battlegrounds, though only once we commit to producing more regular content for it.
Add subcategories for Hearthstone modes
Ok, thanks for considering!
In this case, maybe is at least better than a straight up no 😉