Sure, a game that you can literally get to first place in the world while paying zero dollars is a "cash grab." You REALLY nailed that take, so smart man.
Imagine having an utterly subjective opinion on the quality of an extremely popular game and thinking that you're objectively right.
It's their job to make a good game, and as far as I'm concerned they've done it successfully for years - that's how they got the resources to expand the team and develop entirely new game modes. If you don't like it, literally no one is making you play it. Move on and stop making new accounts just to complain. It's honestly pathetic.
I love that you think your cookie-cutter, copy-and-pasted "criticism" qualifies as non-conformist. Keep drinking that haterade, man, because anyone still sticking dollar signs in company names truly comes across as a joke.
Toxicity is always a problem in every online community and harassment isn't something tolerable. This time, however, i think the players have a lot of reasons to complain.
I think the developers made the right choice when it comes to the way they approach balance. Don't get me wrong, the game isn't in a very good state right now. But the situation isn't as bad as people say. This isn't a DH day 1 situation where an emergency patch was needed. The two week wait period is the right choice. Let the meta evolve and then let them deal with the power outliers.
The Mercenaries situation is a much more delicate matter. The showcase stream was bad but the preorder bundles were the worst possible thing they could have done. The prices are way too high for a game mode that isn't even available yet. People haven't been able to test the new mode and selling these preorders at such ludicrous price is pretty ridiculous. If there was an open beta period were people could play the mode and decide for themselves if it was worth it or not then it would be fine. But only showcasing small portions of gameplay isn't enough to justify this. Watching a game being played and playing the game yourself are completely different things. Battlegrounds was a success because it was in open beta the entire time. People didn't need to pay anything to test it. The monetization came later and it was mostly cosmetics (though i think that locking the extra hero choices behind the perks is bs). Mercenaries, however, started immediately living up to its name: it's clearly only focused on making money. So, criticizing this is more than fair, i'd say.
So two big things happened that killed decks that went all in on uninteractive sticks backed up by burst spells.
One we got a lot of value followers and spells from bandlewood, but more importantly they nerfed the largest offenders in a hotfix you can't even find notes for.
Shaped stone now only give 2/1 which puts it more on par with elixir of iron/wrath.
Merciless hunter is a 4/2 putting it more on par with the likes of sand spinner.
Most importantly ruin runner only has 3 health meaning your 5 drop will now trade with even an inkeeper.
All good stuff, and Ionia even gets to keep twin disciplines for those who like burst decks, and Sivir is still playable in high synergy lists.
So what are the "decks to beat" now...the answer is that there isn't any and that's amazing.
Poppy for example can absolutely run you over with her bannerman style value, but she was also released in a set with a million free pings.
Sion can be a turn 7 auto win, but freezes exist, hush exists, polymorph now exists, or you can just pop him when they don't have the attack token, sure eating 8-10 dmg is scary but they are no longer an effective aggro deck, so you should have lots of life.
Pirate aggro is still strong, but people seem to have forgotten it exists and that's just fine with me, and it probably has bad matchups.
Lots of elusive stuff running around...but again free pings, free mystic shots, more healing, new pressure tools and wincons.
Darkness has started to drop a little from 55% - 53% which isn't surprising you just remove veigar and senna and now their deck doesn't do anything. Or alternatively you have so many infinite value tools it doesn't matter or Sion or shrooms.
As such for the first time you can grab a tier 3 deck and be pretty happy with that, or be like me and only run your own lists. If I were to say what I thought worked and what I thought didn't for deck builders?
The biggest thing to keep in mind right now is that most decks have very scary 1, 2, 3 curve or 2, 3, 4,. You basically need answers for these things if you like controlling game flow like me.
For example Sion will play, urchin, into surgeon dude, into Draven. If you don't answer these plays with your own you will effectively loose when Sion lands if you arent teching in counters to him.
So let's say I'm playing ezreal Temo, I could play my stinky 1 drop trade into thr two drop ping the urchin with pokey stick, and thermo the Draven. Now we have a winnable game, but if I pass pass ezreal I've already lost, it's true I won't loose till turn 7 but thats a forgone conclusion.
So yeah as a deck builder have answers for midrange curves or play a deck that's just as threatening or you'll have a bad time.
That is a good point, actually. We've all faced the inexplicable challenge of figuring out new water fixture controls in hotels or friends' houses - does it bend out? up? down? do I push it in? which way is hot? It's amazing that something so simple can be made so complicated without words.
The same is true for the internet - as I learned while teaching my parents how to navigate the web, what constitutes a link or button - 'something you can click on' - is really inconsistent. Blue text? an image? underlined text? specific symbols? outlined buttons?
All that said, I think they could implement something more interesting and still give it text and a uniform button UI. Hopefully Flux is right, re: this being a stopgap before a bigger release.
I'm really hoping that they don't add MMR to Arena. It'll introduce the same problem that currently exists in Duels: a mode which you play to gain return on your investment, which requires more than a 50% winrate, is designed so that you are more likely to have a 50% winrate. I want to be rewarded for my skill, not punished for it.
That said, it's exciting to imagine what sort of changes they'll implement! Maybe some sort of card drafting will finally arrive. Mutators that you encounter while picking cards, as discussed in a previous AMA. Rewards or changes to your deck after a few wins, as in Duels. Lots of interesting ideas.
To me, Arena is about facing progressive challenges and gaining gold as you go. I hope the rewards they implement will follow that line - win x games, put two epics in your deck that you keep after the run, win x more, do the same with a legendary, et cetera. For instance. Something like the Hunter class flavor.
Same here, finally allowing us to select from all 10 heroes is a welcome change and long overdue. Especially for casual mode where there are no stakes in play for F sake. I never understood why they did not allow us to play this game mode as we would like to.
Also, banning cards when deckbuilding which still show up in loot buckets (or being discoverable) is inconsistent and illogical IMO.
I am currently in the midst of having to retire 10 times already and still my desired hero is not showing up for me to select. What a total waste of my time. I normally do not complain a lot, but this horrible hero selection streak is just pissing me off at this moment.
Stop whitewashing Blizzard and accusing the player-base, you should feel bad for doing so.
Reality is stubborn: Bli$$ard is killing Hearthstone just like they killed WoW
I just hope that after the last events people open their eyes and can finally understand that the only thing that Blizzard is interested in is making easy money, nothing more. Unfortunately, gone are the days when they intended to make good games.
Anyway, there will be no lack of bootlickers and fanboys who will continue to waste large sums of money in this company, after all, someone has to pay for all those lawyers...
Comments like these belong in the toxic pile. No game developer ever wants their game to fail. Team 5 isn't intentionally trying to sabotage their own game coz that wouldn't benefit anyone. If Blizzard didn't want HS to succeed, they would've moved most of the developers onto other projects, like they did with Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft 2. Instead, they've given us 3 new game modes in the space of 3 years (Battlegrounds, Duels and now Mercenaries). They are pushing out more content now than they have in the past because they want the game to succeed! Yes, they do have their faults like not reacting quickly enough to a polarizing meta or not giving Wild enough love, but they not sitting on their hands doing nothing at all either.
Let's see, nobody in his right mind is going to deliberately make a bad product to bring it to failure: it would be very stupid (and even more stupid would be that someone can come to think that this can happen).
Obviously they intend to make a "decent" game, the real problem is that they are so incompetent that they are damaging themselves, with their anodine decisions are killing the game they should save.
The very foolish are not aware that they are digging their own grave at every step they give. But what gives authentic cringe are those white knights coming to the rescue of the poor indie company, it's pathetic.
(For all the haters who shoot me full of negatives simply because I'm not whitewashing Bli$$ard as the rest: each negative of yours is an authentic honor, I am very proud of having a critical and nonconformist attitude and nothing makes me happier in the world than sulking a ridiculous fanboy. Thanks)
C'mon now. Lol What heart and soul?? I never said that. This isn't a mom an pops store down the street. If you want to discuss semantics, be my guest. It doesn't change the fact that even though HS is a great game, it's still a "cash grab" game.
Most questline Priest decks run very few spells, to tutor the completion reward. That makes it far from certain that Mutanus will pull a key minion, so it may not be enough of a disruption.
The traditional win condition of mid-range versus control is to pace your threats in a way that exhausts the control deck's removal while the mid-range deck still has threats left, finding the sweet spot between under and over-committing. Questline Priest doesn't have to walk that tightrope: if it can stay alive for about 10 turns, it just wins.
While I agree that in many matchups the questline completion doesn't even matter for Priest, it does matter versus control, so if the deck starts seeing play after other decks are slowed down, it can still push control decks out of the meta. It would be like Mean Streets, where you couldn't play control because there was no way to beat Jade Druid in a long game.
By the way, for some of the questlines, like Demon Hunter and perhaps even Shaman, the intermediate rewards are probably more important than the completion reward. I've been playing a modified version of Dane's Frog Questline Shaman deck in Wild and realized that I was missing lethal opportunities because I was too fixated on playing the quest reward, while just slinging a lot of spells face without double cast is more efficient against most opponents. I wouldn't want to drop the quest though, since the overload unlock after the first stage is really useful.
I made an account on this site just to tell you how cringe this post is.
Seriously lmao imagine defending the devs after getting screwed over by them for this long. It's their job to make a good game, and they aren't doing it.
when you queue up for Wild, you’ll be cozying up with the crazy fun of Hearthstone you’re already familiar with. Of course, as more and more cards are added over time, the wilder and more unpredictable Wild will be!
To me, these new quests are antithesis of that, and don't belong.
Regarding, Mercenaries, maybe they should have had a true beta period before announcing those bundles. That's how the original hearthstone started, where there was a beta before paid packs.
And cash grab is just the nature of these gatcha games. HS itself is a cash grab. It's a great game!
This is the definition when you google "cash grab":
"The definition of a Cash Grab is usually when a product has little or zero quality has hastily, lazily, thrown together for the sole reason of making money. The product may also have no “heart” or “soul”, and has no reason to exist other than to make a quick buck."
Therefore, the term "Cash Grab" doesn't apply to HS itself, coz like you say, it's a great game and has tons of heart and soul.
Some HS personalities were deriding Wild players for not remembering that "Wild will be wild" post. Such comments don't help the conversation any more than personal attacks against the devs, and they carry a whiff of elitism. I get that they're tired of seeing endless complaints about a game mode they're not personally invested in, however the correct response in this situation would have been to say nothing. Let the devs handle the issue, not add fuel to the fire.
I'm sorry, I don't have enough time for this right now. Here's an easy one about a card that I had forgotten but got useful again in a deck I'm enjoying.
Given players will be matched according to the power level of their teams, I don't think the Mercs' PvP is nearly as much of a pay to win mode as many people seem to think. By the sounds of it, you can chill and only collect and level your team slowly (i.e. F2P) without ever actually being at a disadvantage because you're not competing with anyone who has stronger teams. In that regard it looks a LOT more F2P friendly than normal HS is.
That doesn't mean there aren't some competitive advantages to a bigger collection of mercs since the characters are never going to be perfectly balanced, but the biggest gain seems to be more for the impatient players who want all the characters to be present and leveled quickly, even if that doesn't actually benefit their PvP win rates much.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Sure, a game that you can literally get to first place in the world while paying zero dollars is a "cash grab." You REALLY nailed that take, so smart man.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
So only one side is allowed to weigh in? That's a really weird stance.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Imagine having an utterly subjective opinion on the quality of an extremely popular game and thinking that you're objectively right.
It's their job to make a good game, and as far as I'm concerned they've done it successfully for years - that's how they got the resources to expand the team and develop entirely new game modes. If you don't like it, literally no one is making you play it. Move on and stop making new accounts just to complain. It's honestly pathetic.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
I love that you think your cookie-cutter, copy-and-pasted "criticism" qualifies as non-conformist. Keep drinking that haterade, man, because anyone still sticking dollar signs in company names truly comes across as a joke.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
As they say, if the situation around you always smells like crap... maybe check your own shoes first.
Going Forward, Characters in Hearthstone Won't be Named After Employees
RIP Nat Pagle ?
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Toxicity is always a problem in every online community and harassment isn't something tolerable. This time, however, i think the players have a lot of reasons to complain.
I think the developers made the right choice when it comes to the way they approach balance. Don't get me wrong, the game isn't in a very good state right now. But the situation isn't as bad as people say. This isn't a DH day 1 situation where an emergency patch was needed. The two week wait period is the right choice. Let the meta evolve and then let them deal with the power outliers.
The Mercenaries situation is a much more delicate matter. The showcase stream was bad but the preorder bundles were the worst possible thing they could have done. The prices are way too high for a game mode that isn't even available yet. People haven't been able to test the new mode and selling these preorders at such ludicrous price is pretty ridiculous. If there was an open beta period were people could play the mode and decide for themselves if it was worth it or not then it would be fine. But only showcasing small portions of gameplay isn't enough to justify this. Watching a game being played and playing the game yourself are completely different things. Battlegrounds was a success because it was in open beta the entire time. People didn't need to pay anything to test it. The monetization came later and it was mostly cosmetics (though i think that locking the extra hero choices behind the perks is bs). Mercenaries, however, started immediately living up to its name: it's clearly only focused on making money. So, criticizing this is more than fair, i'd say.
Thoughts On The End Of The Burst Meta
So two big things happened that killed decks that went all in on uninteractive sticks backed up by burst spells.
One we got a lot of value followers and spells from bandlewood, but more importantly they nerfed the largest offenders in a hotfix you can't even find notes for.
Shaped stone now only give 2/1 which puts it more on par with elixir of iron/wrath.
Merciless hunter is a 4/2 putting it more on par with the likes of sand spinner.
Most importantly ruin runner only has 3 health meaning your 5 drop will now trade with even an inkeeper.
All good stuff, and Ionia even gets to keep twin disciplines for those who like burst decks, and Sivir is still playable in high synergy lists.
So what are the "decks to beat" now...the answer is that there isn't any and that's amazing.
Poppy for example can absolutely run you over with her bannerman style value, but she was also released in a set with a million free pings.
Sion can be a turn 7 auto win, but freezes exist, hush exists, polymorph now exists, or you can just pop him when they don't have the attack token, sure eating 8-10 dmg is scary but they are no longer an effective aggro deck, so you should have lots of life.
Pirate aggro is still strong, but people seem to have forgotten it exists and that's just fine with me, and it probably has bad matchups.
Lots of elusive stuff running around...but again free pings, free mystic shots, more healing, new pressure tools and wincons.
Darkness has started to drop a little from 55% - 53% which isn't surprising you just remove veigar and senna and now their deck doesn't do anything. Or alternatively you have so many infinite value tools it doesn't matter or Sion or shrooms.
As such for the first time you can grab a tier 3 deck and be pretty happy with that, or be like me and only run your own lists. If I were to say what I thought worked and what I thought didn't for deck builders?
The biggest thing to keep in mind right now is that most decks have very scary 1, 2, 3 curve or 2, 3, 4,. You basically need answers for these things if you like controlling game flow like me.
For example Sion will play, urchin, into surgeon dude, into Draven. If you don't answer these plays with your own you will effectively loose when Sion lands if you arent teching in counters to him.
So let's say I'm playing ezreal Temo, I could play my stinky 1 drop trade into thr two drop ping the urchin with pokey stick, and thermo the Draven. Now we have a winnable game, but if I pass pass ezreal I've already lost, it's true I won't loose till turn 7 but thats a forgone conclusion.
So yeah as a deck builder have answers for midrange curves or play a deck that's just as threatening or you'll have a bad time.
Hearthstone's Main Menu Gets an Overhaul - Play is Now Hearthstone, Battlegrounds Out of Beta, Mercenaries Joins the Fun
That is a good point, actually. We've all faced the inexplicable challenge of figuring out new water fixture controls in hotels or friends' houses - does it bend out? up? down? do I push it in? which way is hot? It's amazing that something so simple can be made so complicated without words.
The same is true for the internet - as I learned while teaching my parents how to navigate the web, what constitutes a link or button - 'something you can click on' - is really inconsistent. Blue text? an image? underlined text? specific symbols? outlined buttons?
All that said, I think they could implement something more interesting and still give it text and a uniform button UI. Hopefully Flux is right, re: this being a stopgap before a bigger release.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Maybe people aren't downvoting you because they disagree with you but because you are being a jerk.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #28 - Warlock in Wild, Arena, Rewards Track Cosmetics Coming for Mercenaries & Battlegrounds, & More
I'm really hoping that they don't add MMR to Arena. It'll introduce the same problem that currently exists in Duels: a mode which you play to gain return on your investment, which requires more than a 50% winrate, is designed so that you are more likely to have a 50% winrate. I want to be rewarded for my skill, not punished for it.
That said, it's exciting to imagine what sort of changes they'll implement! Maybe some sort of card drafting will finally arrive. Mutators that you encounter while picking cards, as discussed in a previous AMA. Rewards or changes to your deck after a few wins, as in Duels. Lots of interesting ideas.
To me, Arena is about facing progressive challenges and gaining gold as you go. I hope the rewards they implement will follow that line - win x games, put two epics in your deck that you keep after the run, win x more, do the same with a legendary, et cetera. For instance. Something like the Hunter class flavor.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
That's right, back to you!
Datamining in Hearthstone Duels Showcases a New Season of Wizard Duels With 10 Heroes Drafted Instead of 4
Same here, finally allowing us to select from all 10 heroes is a welcome change and long overdue. Especially for casual mode where there are no stakes in play for F sake. I never understood why they did not allow us to play this game mode as we would like to.
Also, banning cards when deckbuilding which still show up in loot buckets (or being discoverable) is inconsistent and illogical IMO.
I am currently in the midst of having to retire 10 times already and still my desired hero is not showing up for me to select. What a total waste of my time. I normally do not complain a lot, but this horrible hero selection streak is just pissing me off at this moment.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Let's see, nobody in his right mind is going to deliberately make a bad product to bring it to failure: it would be very stupid (and even more stupid would be that someone can come to think that this can happen).
Obviously they intend to make a "decent" game, the real problem is that they are so incompetent that they are damaging themselves, with their anodine decisions are killing the game they should save.
The very foolish are not aware that they are digging their own grave at every step they give. But what gives authentic cringe are those white knights coming to the rescue of the poor indie company, it's pathetic.
(For all the haters who shoot me full of negatives simply because I'm not whitewashing Bli$$ard as the rest: each negative of yours is an authentic honor, I am very proud of having a critical and nonconformist attitude and nothing makes me happier in the world than sulking a ridiculous fanboy. Thanks)
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
C'mon now. Lol What heart and soul?? I never said that. This isn't a mom an pops store down the street. If you want to discuss semantics, be my guest. It doesn't change the fact that even though HS is a great game, it's still a "cash grab" game.
Hearthstone is Looking at Possible Nerfs and Buffs in the September Balance Patch, Wild Balance May be Coming
Most questline Priest decks run very few spells, to tutor the completion reward. That makes it far from certain that Mutanus will pull a key minion, so it may not be enough of a disruption.
The traditional win condition of mid-range versus control is to pace your threats in a way that exhausts the control deck's removal while the mid-range deck still has threats left, finding the sweet spot between under and over-committing. Questline Priest doesn't have to walk that tightrope: if it can stay alive for about 10 turns, it just wins.
While I agree that in many matchups the questline completion doesn't even matter for Priest, it does matter versus control, so if the deck starts seeing play after other decks are slowed down, it can still push control decks out of the meta. It would be like Mean Streets, where you couldn't play control because there was no way to beat Jade Druid in a long game.
By the way, for some of the questlines, like Demon Hunter and perhaps even Shaman, the intermediate rewards are probably more important than the completion reward. I've been playing a modified version of Dane's Frog Questline Shaman deck in Wild and realized that I was missing lethal opportunities because I was too fixated on playing the quest reward, while just slinging a lot of spells face without double cast is more efficient against most opponents. I wouldn't want to drop the quest though, since the overload unlock after the first stage is really useful.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
I made an account on this site just to tell you how cringe this post is.
Seriously lmao imagine defending the devs after getting screwed over by them for this long. It's their job to make a good game, and they aren't doing it.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
Corpsetaker?
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
To me, these new quests are antithesis of that, and don't belong.
Regarding, Mercenaries, maybe they should have had a true beta period before announcing those bundles. That's how the original hearthstone started, where there was a beta before paid packs.
Questline Warlock - Duels
Thanks for the honesty, it looks like it has some potential, good luck!
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
This is the definition when you google "cash grab":
"The definition of a Cash Grab is usually when a product has little or zero quality has hastily, lazily, thrown together for the sole reason of making money. The product may also have no “heart” or “soul”, and has no reason to exist other than to make a quick buck."
Therefore, the term "Cash Grab" doesn't apply to HS itself, coz like you say, it's a great game and has tons of heart and soul.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Some HS personalities were deriding Wild players for not remembering that "Wild will be wild" post. Such comments don't help the conversation any more than personal attacks against the devs, and they carry a whiff of elitism. I get that they're tired of seeing endless complaints about a game mode they're not personally invested in, however the correct response in this situation would have been to say nothing. Let the devs handle the issue, not add fuel to the fire.
Avalon's 12 Wins Questline Mage
Just finished a 12/2 run with arcane flux and Oooops all spells ! Great guide, got my 2 looses at the beginning against priests haha
Thanks a lot for the great content, helped me a lot in my quest of 12 wins with every classes ! Missing Paladin, shaman and druid
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
I'm sorry, I don't have enough time for this right now. Here's an easy one about a card that I had forgotten but got useful again in a deck I'm enjoying.
Bodygiver
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Given players will be matched according to the power level of their teams, I don't think the Mercs' PvP is nearly as much of a pay to win mode as many people seem to think. By the sounds of it, you can chill and only collect and level your team slowly (i.e. F2P) without ever actually being at a disadvantage because you're not competing with anyone who has stronger teams. In that regard it looks a LOT more F2P friendly than normal HS is.
That doesn't mean there aren't some competitive advantages to a bigger collection of mercs since the characters are never going to be perfectly balanced, but the biggest gain seems to be more for the impatient players who want all the characters to be present and leveled quickly, even if that doesn't actually benefit their PvP win rates much.