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.
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.
I kinda disagree here : Jandice is an alternate win condition for those case where your weapon is not enough. Greenskin instead of jandice makes the deck more one dimensional and therefore weaker in the long run.
Also having 1 mana stealth is imho way too important to remove the worgen.
I started a Heroic Duels run before the mid-expansion, to see if I would get a free ticket. I stopped at 2-2 and the run continued even after the patch. Whatever, I thought, and yesterday I took up the run just to finish it and get my pack. 5 wins later I'm at 7-2 and really happy the run wasn't interrupted!
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.
I'm glad to hear it works for you! Maybe it will be even better once Wretched Tiller gets nerfed. Sorcerer's Apprentice is definitely the card to cut for Fireball, thanks for your suggestion!
I wouldnt call it cheating, since the bad coding allows it, but i would soon look for if it hurts their viewership, i would not watch a streamer who constantly skips the combat, the tavern turn is not that exciting.
I wouldn't call it cheating either, but that's more for pragmatic reasons (I wouldn't want Blizzard to start banning people who often disconnect) than out of principle (the players are doing something outside of the game interface that gives them an advantage). On the other hand, players could just close and restart the client instead, which would save a bit less time, but still skips the battle without using any outside help.
One thing that Hearthstone got right is that the server makes all the decisions and the client only displays them. This makes actual cheating near impossible: someone would either have to crack the server or find some sequence of plays that makes the game unplayable on the opponent's client. The latter did happen a few times, but not often and the problems were fixed quickly.
However, Hearthstone also has a history of detailed and long animations. While detailed is good, the length can be a problem. In Constructed, clicking a played card on the left of the screen dismisses it, speeding up that part of the animation a bit, but animations on the board can still be agonizingly slow. In Battlegrounds, the entire battle is essentially a chain of animations, since determining the outcome is done in a fraction of a second.
With that said, it, and the achievements, kinda showed the "flaw" in the system, or rather the way it works: when the combat starts, before you can even see the board, the game already decided on all the moves and who wins or loses that fight. You can only watch the motions. It can still give you that rush of pulling off a lucky victory, but if you know everything has been already predetermined, that feeling gets quite sour.
Im not a developer, so cant speak for if and how it could be changed, but having the combat phase be literally irrelevant, that does not bring me much enjoyment from player perspective. With that said, i still like to play BG, but i would enjoy it more, if the combat phase mattered at all. I still get angry/happy about the result, so i guess the brain can be fooled even if you know what is going on, oh well.
I am a developer and the problem is more fundamental than you might think. Actually, there are two separate things going on here:
whether the battle outcome is predetermined
whether the client knows the battle outcome before the player does
Despite their name, Random Number Generators aren't actually random, they just create a sequence of unpredictable numbers. But given the same initial state, the seed, the RNG will produce the same sequence of numbers every time it runs. It's possible to re-seed an RNG from actually random sources, like timestamps from user inputs and network packets arriving, but since those sources of true randomness are limited, they're usually only tapped for generating secure random numbers, used in encryption keys for example.
But even if they re-seeded the RNG with a true random seed, that wouldn't change the game in any way from the player's perspective: if the server can run the battle in milliseconds, the outcome is still fixed long before the player knows the result. If you can't tell the difference between a predetermined outcome and a truly random one, does that difference even matter?
I think the solution would be in addressing the second problem: the mismatch between the time that the client knows the outcome and the time the player knows it. One way would be to have a fast forward and/or skip button in the client during the battle. That way, every player would have the option to have more turn time by not watching the animations, not only the tech savvy. I think this is also more fair, because different players are paired up in each round and one battle can take a lot longer to animate than another.
Alternatively, the server could drip-feed the RNG outcomes to the client, so reconnecting would not skip any part of the battle. But that's a lot harder to implement, since the server would have to be able to predict all the animation times, so it knows when to send which part of the battle report. Given the history of bugs caused by server and client state being out of sync (minions changing position on the board, spellburst icon missing), I think it's safer if they avoid this approach.
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:
At first, you couldn't buy Wild packs at all, then for a while you could only buy them on the web site and not in the client and only recently they can be bought from the client again.
Balance changes in Wild only happen when things are really broken and even then can take a very long time. This has improved over the years, but that's true for Standard as well, so Wild still receives less attention.
In the Play menu, if you select a Wild deck, the client will offer you to convert it to Standard, instead of offering to switch to Wild mode or just starting matchmaking in Wild mode.
I remember one big Wild tournament ever, while there are several a year plus Grand Masters for 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.
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.
Is that what Dog Dog is doing all the time? I thought he just had a shitty computer, lol.
If it is an exploit that Blizz knows about, then all's fair if they have not addressed it. It's not like the players created a program to circumvent the timer. It's a bugwith a benefit. And high level streamers will employ any means to secure a win.
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.
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.
That's just not how the system wants you to play. I know it can be frustrating if you are looking for just one hero in particular, as the pool is getting larger and the odds slimmer ... but hey, a hundreds games must have got you at least some fun along the way, right?
8 Educational Hearthstone Facts You May Not Know to Celebrate World Education Day
Loved The Office references. Would rate this article more than 5 stars!
Snowpocalypse
I'm pretty sure this has been asked before, but I cannot find the solution: "How do we equip the festive pins to our avatar?"
EDIT: Never mind, somehow I do see the avatar pin now.
EDIT2: And now the avatar pin has gone missing (left to its quantum state) again, lol.
Snowpocalypse
I just noticed that Wretched Tiller is in a snowstorm.
So...
Golly Bob Howdy!
8 Educational Hearthstone Facts You May Not Know to Celebrate World Education Day
Totally love it, I'd rate your article as 10 over 5.
New Harmony Creature - Sister Spitfire
A new Common Harmony Creature, Sister Spitfire, has been revealed!
Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page!
Learn more about The Winter War
Head on over to our dedicated guide for The Winter War!
New Parsa Creature - Khyber Outcast
A new Common Parsa Creature, Khyber Outcast, has been revealed!
Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page!
Learn more about The Winter War
Head on over to our dedicated guide for The Winter War!
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
New Dreni Creature - White Tower Warden
A new Mythic Dreni Creature, White Tower Warden, has been revealed!
Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page!
Learn more about The Winter War
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Top Hearthstone Decks to Climb in the Early Darkmoon Races Meta
I kinda disagree here : Jandice is an alternate win condition for those case where your weapon is not enough. Greenskin instead of jandice makes the deck more one dimensional and therefore weaker in the long run.
Also having 1 mana stealth is imho way too important to remove the worgen.
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
I started a Heroic Duels run before the mid-expansion, to see if I would get a free ticket. I stopped at 2-2 and the run continued even after the patch. Whatever, I thought, and yesterday I took up the run just to finish it and get my pack. 5 wins later I'm at 7-2 and really happy the run wasn't interrupted!
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
Imprisoned Phoenix OTK
I'm glad to hear it works for you! Maybe it will be even better once Wretched Tiller gets nerfed. Sorcerer's Apprentice is definitely the card to cut for Fireball, thanks for your suggestion!
isn't it cheating, when big streamers always disconnect on purpose in bgs?
I wouldn't call it cheating either, but that's more for pragmatic reasons (I wouldn't want Blizzard to start banning people who often disconnect) than out of principle (the players are doing something outside of the game interface that gives them an advantage). On the other hand, players could just close and restart the client instead, which would save a bit less time, but still skips the battle without using any outside help.
One thing that Hearthstone got right is that the server makes all the decisions and the client only displays them. This makes actual cheating near impossible: someone would either have to crack the server or find some sequence of plays that makes the game unplayable on the opponent's client. The latter did happen a few times, but not often and the problems were fixed quickly.
However, Hearthstone also has a history of detailed and long animations. While detailed is good, the length can be a problem. In Constructed, clicking a played card on the left of the screen dismisses it, speeding up that part of the animation a bit, but animations on the board can still be agonizingly slow. In Battlegrounds, the entire battle is essentially a chain of animations, since determining the outcome is done in a fraction of a second.
I am a developer and the problem is more fundamental than you might think. Actually, there are two separate things going on here:
Despite their name, Random Number Generators aren't actually random, they just create a sequence of unpredictable numbers. But given the same initial state, the seed, the RNG will produce the same sequence of numbers every time it runs. It's possible to re-seed an RNG from actually random sources, like timestamps from user inputs and network packets arriving, but since those sources of true randomness are limited, they're usually only tapped for generating secure random numbers, used in encryption keys for example.
But even if they re-seeded the RNG with a true random seed, that wouldn't change the game in any way from the player's perspective: if the server can run the battle in milliseconds, the outcome is still fixed long before the player knows the result. If you can't tell the difference between a predetermined outcome and a truly random one, does that difference even matter?
I think the solution would be in addressing the second problem: the mismatch between the time that the client knows the outcome and the time the player knows it. One way would be to have a fast forward and/or skip button in the client during the battle. That way, every player would have the option to have more turn time by not watching the animations, not only the tech savvy. I think this is also more fair, because different players are paired up in each round and one battle can take a lot longer to animate than another.
Alternatively, the server could drip-feed the RNG outcomes to the client, so reconnecting would not skip any part of the battle. But that's a lot harder to implement, since the server would have to be able to predict all the animation times, so it knows when to send which part of the battle report. Given the history of bugs caused by server and client state being out of sync (minions changing position on the board, spellburst icon missing), I think it's safer if they avoid this approach.
Snowpocalypse
Noooooooo, we're having so much fun covered in snow!
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
Snowpocalypse
Only a week left! Time to acquire those cosmetics, get those secret achievements, and exact snowy vengeance upon those who have wronged you!
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
isn't it cheating, when big streamers always disconnect on purpose in bgs?
Is that what Dog Dog is doing all the time? I thought he just had a shitty computer, lol.
If it is an exploit that Blizz knows about, then all's fair if they have not addressed it. It's not like the players created a program to circumvent the timer. It's a bugwith a benefit. And high level streamers will employ any means to secure a win.
I just want to play greybough.
... but why though? All the other heroes are way cooler.
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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.
Pure Judgment Paladin
I am really enjoying this deck at the lower levels (just passed silver 5). Onward and upward!
The History and Story So Far of Hearthstone Duels - Can It Get Better?
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 just want to play greybough.
That's just not how the system wants you to play. I know it can be frustrating if you are looking for just one hero in particular, as the pool is getting larger and the odds slimmer ... but hey, a hundreds games must have got you at least some fun along the way, right?
Best of luck