Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Dear developers, this is my feedback as a invested player and whale that has been playing since TGT.

Disclaimer:

• I love hearthstone. I care about hearthstone. This is going to be a LONG post.
• I dont claim that everything in this post is truly original. However in the 'in the works' post we are asked for our personal opinion, which I want to give here. My opinion may overlap with other, already known opinions.
• I'm not a native english speaker.
• I dont think I'm in any way special, I'm only writing this as feedback that was requested by blizzard a few days ago. I'm only writing from MY PERSONAL perspective, I dont necessarily think they all have to apply to everyone else aswell.

About me:

I've been playing basically every card game in existence, be it digital or analog. To this day I like hearthstone the most. However with MTG arena released, Gwent (I've spent 200+€ there at least) homecoming and artifact on the horizon that might change in the near future. I've spent over 1500€ in hearthstone alone and I would spend more in the future if I think hearthstone is headed in a good direction from my point of few. I am not one of those doomsayers on reddit that seemingly hates everything about hearthstone, thinking its gonna fail, wishing its going to fail or whatever. However as someone who has played hundreds or maybe thousands of hours I want to give my personal feedback as it was requested in the 'in the works' letter.

I made a pledge to myself to not spend any real money in the december expansion, use my huge dust savings and wait for the new hearthstone year announcements to decide whether I will continue playing or not. Of course this depends on how good homecoming and/or artifact are going to be. I made this decision because I do feel like there are numerous things I cant tolerate anymore after so many years. In the following paragraphs I want to outline what they are and how I personally would want them fixed.

General feelings

Generally I dont feel like I have any 'goals' left in hearthstone. Reached legend, full collection, golden classes, all available cosmetics, however I dont have this strong competetive drive and I will never compete for HCT points. Thus, my hearthstone experience is connected to the expansion releases and can be seen in 3 phases:

1. Directly after a release I LOVE hearthstone, I spent multiple hours playing it, testing new decks. Being a whale feelsgoodman basically. This feeling lasts depending on the quality of the expansion between 1 week and 1 month.
2. After the chaotic test phase is over it doesnt feel fresh anymore but I truly like min/maxing and refining deck lists. I ENJOY hearthstone, I spent time aditionally to my quests, refining decks and grinding ladder to test them further.
3. After the Min/Max phase is over everything feels stale, I LOATHE hearthstone and I have to bring myself to do my daily quests, I dont spend additonal time as I'm not enjoying playing.

In general I feel like in the last expansion Phase 1 and 2 are shorter and 3 starts earlier and lasts longer. A somewhat TL/DR version of my complaints/feeling would be that I'd like confirmation that in 1/3/5 years we are not just playing with the same UI in the same modes with different cards that get released in 3 expansions a year. In my opinion Blizzard can help in 2 mayor ways.

1. You are really good at creating new cards. Double down on that! Why not release 4 expansions each year? That would truly help fight the 'phase-3-feeling'. Or look at other similar games like Shadowverse that releases a mini-mid expansion. You could release 1 epic and 1 legendary for each class that would push different archetypes. It would even help the balance: Classes that have a tier 1 deck get a more ‘fun’ epic/legendary and classes that are at the bottom in the current meta get a more competitive epic and legendary.
2. Work on the fundamental problems of hearthstone to help make it a better game overall besides simply adding more card content. In the following I want to outline what I currently see as improvable:

Communication

I really want to compliment Blizzard on the 'in the works' letter. Even if I didnt like the contents of it the fact that you communicated in this way I really appreciate. Please continue doing that, regardless of WHAT you want to communicate

New player experience

After the rank 50 changes I made a new account on asia to simulate the new player experience. I really, really liked it. Good job! Hearthstone needs new players to remain healthy longterm in my opinion. However I still think you could improve further. In Shadowverse you get 200 gold for beating each A.I. on expert mode (you can earn ~30 packs this way). In hearthstone you get 100 gold in total for beating every expert A.I. This is only one thing you could be more generous.

Fixing Wild

Since I have all cards I frequently play wild. The general problem I have with wild that it feels... neglected by Blizzard and not equal to standard in the slightest. I understand that an equilibrium may not be the true goal. However it feels like the focus is ~95% on standard and ~5% on wild. I'd like to change that ratio to maybe 60/40 or 70/30. I really dislike the low player count in wild that could be fixable if there were any incentives to play wild (why not have a sperat season chest for both modes, that would drive player numbers up by itself!) or if there were more wild only events, if wild packs were be buyable with gold,... The next point also directly translates to wild:

New game modes to play

Wild

You could help solve the wild problems probably by introducing a legacy format with certain banned cards (= a wild format with active balancing) and a true vintage format where everything goes. People that say there are not enough active players don’t get that that problem is fixable. If there are more players, then more formats would work, too.

Standard

I'd really like new formats in Standard that go beyond ladder. Maybe a 'modern' format with the last 2 years worth of expansions allowed? A format with higher deck size? Something completely new like commander or true co-op gameplay.

Arena

I dont like traditional arena. I have less than 200 wins. New formats might change that. I'd like a booster draft mode similar to artifact's gauntled or a sealed deck format. Or maybe a constructed arena mode, like the brawliseum if it was made permanent.

Tournament mode

I think longterm its necessary to have it ingame, if hearthstone wants a competitive format that can be takes seriously. I enjoy watching professional hearthstone a lot, even though I wont compete for HCT points myself. A tournament mode might be perfect for players like me to experience that 'pro-feeling' first hand.

Quality of life improvements and UI related matters

I would like to rearrange decks, have a random card back option, autosquelch and social features like guilds, global chat, a lobby-like system (?), Cards like Ysera that produce special cards to be visible in the collection manager itself. I do think its a bit crazy that you can only see that she produces dream cards when you open her in a pack and that you have to go on the internet to check these cards or play her ingame, however you would never be sure how many cards there truly are. In general I feel like the collection manager is just not cutting it anymore for me. Its like an old car - it still drives and it was fine when you bought it. But its simply time for a new model.

I want to expand on the social features a bit more since I feel like they are the most lacking in my opinion. When I play hearthstone I think its really difficult to build and maintain 'real' friendly relationships because I think the game does not help here or even activly works against that. If I play a game and something special happens, when I get lucky with packs, draft a good arena or just want to chitchat I think its super akward that I have to pick THIS ONE GUY on my friend list number 156 of 200 and tell especially him/her what just happens. I want hearthstone to improve here by introducing guilds or guild chats / global chats, maybe like in diablo 2 with /f m [txt] that would appear in green and send to all my friends. For me personally its really disturbing that hearthstone positions/portaits itself as a tavern-like game in a tavern full of other people however there are no ways to interact with others beyond what we have now.

The whole friend request system is rotten in my opininion and needs a complete overhaul. Its double-bad, because when I sent a genuine request people sometimes dont even accept them because they think its simply flaming. And if I accept an request I always have to bear the flaming of others. I'd say 1 in 5 requests are genuine at this point. Maybe let us rate players' character with 1-5 stars so you know when a 1 star person sends a request you shouldnt accept it.

New features beyond Quality of Life related matters

The one thing I personally want the most is achivements. They would give a seasoned invested player like me long term goals again if they are implemented in a good way and tied to more cosmetic rewards like titles, card backs, portraits, other hero cosmetics.

Also I'd enjoy a replay feature to help me improve as a player to help me learn from my mistakes, stats that are already tracked (see the monthly email) to be available ingame, a true spectator mode that allows also spectating someone in their collection and/or when they are opening packs / drafting arena. I love helping new players and that feature would help me a lot.

Also I dont understand there are no additional cosmetics buyable for real money. Hearthstone has so much potential in my eyes - custom emotes, hero portrait changes (see hollow's end modifications, they could be permanent and buyable in some way)

Restructuring ladder completly or fixing it even more

For me personally there is no incentive to play the ladder. I reached legend and got the cardback and I will never compete for HTC points. For what reason do I play ladder past rank 5? And please don’t say: “to have fun!” that is somewhat naïve in my opinion. What does ladder really do for the ‘average’ player like me? Just plotting me against random players so my expected winrate stays around 50%. That’s it. I easily reach rank 5 every month, as are countless others. Ladder is probably fine for either end of the spectrum (players competing for HCT points in high end ladder and people around rank 20 to 6 that feel like there is a true progression available). In general I dislike the option to fight the same player multiple times (~counter queing), its especially bad in wild where it even happens at rank 10).

The improvements that did happen felt like band aid fixes to me. They certainly did improve the ladder experience but I really fear blizzard crossed it of their to-do-list for now. It doesnt feel good to me and I'd like it changed further for people like me that dont compete for HCT, already reached legend and reach rank 5 easily.

General Gameplay design dicisions

I dont like playing in a meta with a lot of polarized match ups because it feels like non-games are happening. See odd warrior or quest rogue. In addition to that I would want to have more counterplay to certain combo-esque win conditions. I read all interviews and I know blizzard's stance on this. However I do think you should improve here. At least give me an option to have one good counter card against certain matchups (~dirty rat). At this moment I feel helpless sometimes playing against a lot of combo decks. Of course I could simply play aggro, thats not the question. These decks are counterable by playing a different archetype of course! But I'd like to give at least some options to other archetypes as well. Aditionally I dont like the design of hearthstones tech cards. Usually if they hit its soul crushing for the opponent, it they dont trigger it usually feels bad for the player who played them. Why not give tech cards a 'normal' stat line and if they activate you decrease their stats? For example eater of secrets as a 4 mana 4/5 (I know poor Yeti powercreep...) and for every secret destroyed it gains -1/-1 or -1/+-0.

Also even if I know it will never happen because hearthstone is not designed this way I still want to include it:

• graveyard and graveyard interaction
• a basic deck tracker ingame thats togg-able for mobile
• In regards of the last point in a more general way: don’t let the mobile version hold the desktop version back. For example having a deck tracker standard in desktop version and having it disabled or toggle-able on mobile should be possible.

The last point is something I deeply care about.

Evergreen basic and classic cards

Okay so basically I take Kiblers stance here and I wont repeat everything he has already explained in this regard. However I wanted to say that in my opinion you could have an evergreen set of classic and basic cards, but that would require a complete overhaul of the basic and classic set.

The fact that the classic and basic sets of the classes are so different in power level leads inevitable to class balance through expansion sets which leads to bad classes (priest Karazhan) or super good classes (Shaman in Karazhan or Druid from KFT to now).

Hall of faming to me is more of a band aid fix again. Instead of a necessary overhaul of the classic set (either getting rid of it or balance it). For example I LOVE the new classic cards because they feel perfect for introducing the game mechanics and power level wise they will never be problematic. If you really go for an evergreen set all classic and basic cards should be around that power level.

I truly believe Hearthstone designers care deeply for the game and that they want hearthstone to live as long as possible and to be as good as possible. With that in mind the current design behind evergreen cards is hard to understand for me. Every rogue spell gets the preperation tax. Every two years we need a really good boardclear for priest. I'm sure the designers see this as well. Why not change it? If hearthstone lives for another 3/5/10 years, how is this going to influence class balance AND wild balance?

A few days ago I read an interview where Mr. Donais said they will need to ‘iron out’ druid cards because they are so good at the moment. This statement horrifies me. Is it really written in stone that this cycle of bad class => good expansion cards => good class => bad expansion cards => bad class => good expansion cards =>... is unbreakable? From the interview it looks like druid is the next class to receive bad cards for 3 expansion in a row. I want hearthstone to be balanced as good as possible in a general way and not by deliberatly giving them good or bad cards depending on their current state. This problem imho gets worse because Blizzard works 3 sets in advance.

Conclusion TL/DR

Thanks for reading! I love hearthstone and I hope it will live up to its potential. However I'm only giving it time until the next rotation to announce something that will truly change some of the aspects I mentioned here.

A TL/DR version of my problems could be that it feels like most solutions work in a more band aid way (instead of getting a ladder overhaul we get the star changes, instead of true class balance and balancing of the classic and basic set we see hall of fame rotations and balance through expansion cards). I think the social features need massive improvements. I'd like Blizzard to either double down on their approach of fixing the game with new cards by releasing a 4th set each year or releasing mini-expansions between sets (1 epic 1 legendary (maybe one rare aswell?) for each class that enable new archetypes) or add new ways to play the game, like new formats for wild, standard and arena. Many quality of life aspects are missing that other games have from release (see MTGA or Artifact) that of course we could continue to live without. However for such a great game they feel overdue and necessary.

In general I feel like hearthstone is missing a long term VISION. Where do the developers see the game in 1/3/5 years? At this time next year, are we still trying to get wild growth on 2 and nourish on 5? Will rogue spells always be 1 mana more expensive then what feels right? If the answer is no, please fix it! And if we are talking about 3 or 5 years, will by then all good classic/basic cards have rotated into the hall of fame? If so, then why not overhaul the whole system now? =)

Maybe I'll edit this post to add more, who knows. Thanks for reading again, have a great day.

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