I think the daily quests are inspired by WoW, but miss some important reasons why they work better there:
1. Higher rewards (useful gear etc)
2. More choice (you can choose from a lot more daily quests to do there)
One of the problems with creating interesting quests is in the reward: gold as a reward is a bit meh compared to getting a higher average iLvL in WoW or this nice item for transmog. I think quests could be more interesting when the rewards could be cosmetical (say win this aweseome card back) or much more impactful (win a free legendary/epic card, your choice) something like that.
And maybe they should introduce trinket cards? Which kindof work as the perks in the adventures.(Say all minions of the opponent have one less attack or something :) lol). Sure this would be difficult to "balance" and people would cry out "unfair"!! But at least you would be more interesting in doing the quests...and if you could only use them for a limited time, say 5 times or something, a temporary buff, then it might work, and it would be "fair": people spending the time to do the quests get better "gear" and therefore have an advantage for a limited period. Just my 2 cents.
I wouldn't want to play a game where the PVP content includes power-ups or boosts outside of the normal gameplay itself (for HS, the cards in your deck), because then it becomes a requirement to get those powerups in order to fight on a level playing field. In the end ladder would devolve into trinket-wars where everyone is boosting themselves, at which point you've just introduced an artificial barrier for everyone who doesn't have trinkets (any more). If these were quest rewards then the number of games you can play at full power per day is effectively capped by how many trinkets you can earn per day.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work because [Hearthstone Card (jr. Tomb Raider's) Not Found] condition is playing secrets, not having spells cast them. For comparison, Secretkeeper doesn't get buffed by Bellringer Sentry, nor Desperate Measures AFAIK.
It's unfortunate because the Tomb Raider is pretty much a 4 mana 5/5 in this adventure. Secrets are rare and result in a terrible deck that doesn't let you survive long enough to complete the Raider's condition. In my experience the other starting treasures are a lot stronger.
stop complaining please...all the whiners and complainers make hearthstone look bad. it's a card game where there's a winner and a loser. you're obviously the loser congrats.
Buddy, this is a discussion forum. This would be an immensely dull place if people only ever agreed with each other on how awesome the game is.
And let's not pretend that the game is (or could be) flawless and perfect in every way. There's always room to improve and this is a place for people to point out where improvements could be made.
No one is forcing you to participate if you feel that having critical faculties and voicing your complaints somehow reflects poorly on the game.
I don't understand why some of you liked LoE so much.
The flavor was awesome. The cards were great (Tunnel Trogg aside). Discover is an excellent mechanic.
But the adventure itself? I'm sorry but it's bad as fuck.
Heroic Slitherspear? Unbeatable without exploiting the Kel'Thuzad +Taunt glitch which seems to have been fixed. Heroic Scarvash? Unbeatable without a 2-mana Fiery War Axe. Heroic Skelesaurus? This one is bullshit in its purest state. Tyrantus on turn 1? Sure that's balanced. The worst part is that this fucker gets stronger every expansion because the cards get stronger every expansion, and the proportion of good expensive cards increased.
If you didn't beat those guys when LoE was released, you're fucked.
Difficult =/= bad, but I think you're greatly exaggerating how difficult LOE is/was. I defeated Blackrock and LoE back during Whispers of the Old gods as a newbie player with next-to-no collection using budget decks essentially. Of the two I can confidently say that BRM was waaaaay more frustrating and took a lot more do-overs than LoE did.
Now granted, the Skelesaurus probably got quite a bit more powerful over time, and he's probably the least fun boss in terms of crazy highrolls, but the rest? Hardly. Not only that, with 4 years of expansions the player has a lot more tools available to cheese out these bosses, like say jades as a counter to ever-growing nagas or questmage OTKs.
Comparing BRM to LoE, I'd say the tough bosses in the latter adventure have much more specific and counterable traits, EG against Lady Vasj if you can clear her board her HP doesn't snowball, against the Steel Sentinel you want a good dose of weapon destruction and destroy effects/poisonous for his large minions. The oppressive BRM bosses like Maloriak or Drakkisath just murder you in 4 turns if you don't get the nut draw versus a dud draw on their part.
If we're gonna have an new game mode it'd have to be something a bit more different than the exact same game, same rules only double deck size. The whole point of introducing a new game mode would be to shake things up for people who have become a bit bored of normal hearthstone after all, so why would they get excited over normal hearthstone with twice as many cards? If anything that'd be an even greater turn-off.
If a new game mode is implemented, I expect it to be more like MtG's Commander format, with substantially different rules, than just a variation on standard's card pool or deck size or w/e.
This is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics Putontheglasses was talking about. Yes, we get how it works. We're saying it's wildly inconsistent with how the game interacts with other buffs/stat changes. If you, say, hand-buff a minion and then play it, the buff is remembered while the minion is in play. The game "forgets" about buffs, debuffs and other such alterations when the minion leaves play because it dies, gets bounced to hand, shuffled into the deck, w/e. However this bit is irrelevant to the argument, which revolves around discount minions while they're in play after being played for a reduced cost.
In a more consistent hearthstone, a giant would remember what manacost it was played for as long as it remains in play. Of course once it dies, you'd res it with it printed mana cost.
Fixing this silly and inconsistent handling of mana costs would instantly fix a bunch of oppressive interactions involving discountable minions and cards that care about mana cost. It'd make the conjuring nerf unnecessary. It'd make the game more intuitive and fair.
I don't think the mana changing back to its original after being played is inconsistent or silly. Cost changing from hand is its own mechanic, and it is supposed to work like this.
Handbuffing works differently because it is a different mechanic in the same way Lone Champion and Proud Defender are different mechanics.
Saying that it's the way it is because that's the way it is is a nice tautology, but entirely unhelpful.
Again, we get it, it works like this at present. I'm presenting reasons why it ought not work that way, because it's inconsistent with other mechanics and it results in highly exploitable card interactions.
Let me give an example of an interaction that makes no sense intuitively under the present schema: You play a 1 mana Sea Giant in Magic Carpet zoo: It gets +1/+0 and Rush because you played it for 1, but by the time the buff is applied it's a 10-drop. Even if you're quite familiar with the rules you wouldn't know if this would work just reading the cards because the Carpet says "After", so the giant costs ten when the rush buff is applied.
Now am I saying this should be changed because of one fairly rare scenario in last season's Zoo deck? No, what I'm trying to illustrate is that the suggested change wouldn't just be a balancing tool for evolve-type effects on discounted minions, it would make the game more intuitive for a large number of interactions between cards that care about mana costs and cards that discount themselves. I see it as hitting two birds with one stone and I'm struggling to see any downside.
This combo doesn’t specifically need a nerf but there is no good reason why minions shouldn’t have the card cost used to play them. This would fix the mutate or transform combo with other mana discounted minions as well. There is absolutely no good argument against this other than developer laziness to code this.
Anyone trying to do mental gymnastics to argue against this is just being contrary or white knighting.
You really don't have to do mental gymnastics to understand why it works like this. The base cost is 7, so when the cost is increased by 1 it goes to 8. It is the same as if a minion with Power Word: Shield dies and then is resurrected but it does not keep the +2 health buff. The Resurrection mechanic does not care about anything that has changed the minion, it will bring back the same base minion
Cards like fleshshaper or any other giant could read "you can play this card for (1) less for each X" but it would just be a lot simpler to say "this costs (1) less for each X". The change in cost is not a permanent buff, it is an aura that goes away when it is played.
This is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics Putontheglasses was talking about. Yes, we get how it works. We're saying it's wildly inconsistent with how the game interacts with other buffs/stat changes. If you, say, hand-buff a minion and then play it, the buff is remembered while the minion is in play. The game "forgets" about buffs, debuffs and other such alterations when the minion leaves play because it dies, gets bounced to hand, shuffled into the deck, w/e. However this bit is irrelevant to the argument, which revolves around discount minions while they're in play after being played for a reduced cost.
In a more consistent hearthstone, a giant would remember what manacost it was played for as long as it remains in play. Of course once it dies, you'd res it with its printed mana cost.
Fixing this silly and inconsistent handling of mana costs would instantly fix a bunch of oppressive interactions involving discountable minions and cards that care about mana cost. It'd make the conjuring nerf unnecessary. It'd make the game more intuitive and fair.
As far as I know the buckets are just random, although I feel there definitely should be a weighting because some of the archetypes are unplayable unless you get enough of those cards. This was a persistent problem in previous dungeon runs as well, so you would have thought something like this would've been implemented by now.
I recall how absolutely maddening it was to play Battlecry shaman in Rumble Run and to get turn after turn of non-battlecry garbage, only to see the AI's version of the deck stacked with Keleseth, Mistcaller, etc.
I also wouldn't mind if passive treasures influenced the buckets slightly, EG higher chance for expensive minions after you pick Scepter of Summoning, higher chance for spells if you pick the Robe of the Magi, etc. It feels miserable when you get a good treasure and then completely whiff on anything to support it, especially early on b/c the starting deck is usually just a bunch of weenies.
I would hate having a daily quest relying absolutely on your opponent (your 80g "defeat your opponent before they complete their quest") who have to play a special deck and also with only quests being played are druid (completed on turn 4 or 5) and shaman (completed on turn 3-6)
I agree. Completing a quest should always hinge on the player, not their opponent. Now obviously you don't have full control over winning, but any other condition (choice of class, playing X [class]/[tribe] cards, playing brawl, etc. is something the player has full control over.
You can't choose your opponent's deck, so a quest condition that requires them to play a certain class or type of deck would be endlessly frustrating, even if it's the most common deck in standard.
While I suppose you could reward players for playing off-meta decks or not-netdecks, but it'd be far too wordy of a condition to explain neatly in two lines of text. I don't find the idea terribly exciting either.
Overall, since quests are catering to the widest range of HS players, I think it'd be a mistake to make them too focused on standard or the reverse: you don't want to force players to play a mode they don't want to play. I'm sure everyone's had a few games where the warrior does nothing but play weapons turn after turn and then concede, and those tend not to be very gripping games for either player.
I have no idea why people like Dungeon Run so much when it was literally the worst iteration of the concept, with frustrating bosses that you couldn't even build against because they were completely randomized, so it all comes down to cheesing out wins with overpowered treasures instead of coherent strategies
I'd say that's exactly backwards. With a fixed final boss it's possible to create a deck specifically to exploit that boss's weaknesses, which is cheesy, whereas with 5 random bosses you just need to build a powerful deck that can handle a variety of obstacles. I greatly enjoyed the final bosses in K&C precisely because they presented a real challenge. It's why I don't like the whittling down mechanic with Plague lords either: that just cheapens the accomplishment.
Just beat the first wing on legendary. Got great drops for the fight with Captured flag + Titanic Ring giving all my minions +1/+2 and taunt(!), as well as LOCUUUUSTS! and Murky's Battle Horn for huge instant boards.
It's a long fight, so settle in, just don't bother trying to fatigue the plague lord because his final form will completely restock his deck. Just go face and pray.
Also, Map of Uldum is incredibly busted so pick it if you can. Didn't get it on this run but you pretty much can't lose if it's in your starting hand.
I think it's a bit of a drag that Warrior has been the only viable control class for ages now. It really makes the meta a lot more onesided when one of the three major archetypes of decks is represented by a single class.
for ages is a bit of an overstatement. Warrior only came back as a control class during Rumble when Odd Warrior finally became good enough (thanks to the Dragon package)
the only reason why Warrior even got to this point is because pretty much all other "control" classes got more proactive strategies (well that and Dr. Boom). Take Mage for example: the tools are all there but it's just more effective to be a bit more on the proactive side with Mountain Giants and whatnot.
In fact, Warrior just happens to be the only class who is still able to play the old school control game of "just remove everything your opponent have and win when they die from old age....which is mostly due to the complete overload of removal they have. Bommb Warrior was technically a step in the right direction (as are the new taunt cards) so I'm looking forward to the rotation when a lot of the overly efficient removal and Boom go away so Warrior can build their contorl decks more proactively
Warrior has late-game inevitability. Any control deck that wants to coexist alongside Warrior and have a chance to beat it (EG Quest druid ATM) needs a proactive win condition because in fatigue they lose to warriors. Hence Phaoris, Nomi, Floop, etc.: the hope is to run warrior out of mass removal and win on the spot, because eventually rushing mechs will overcome any amount of threats.
Warriors have a proactive win condition in bombs and they choose not to use it in the current meta because slow and steady wins the race more reliably ATM. Having inevitability is a feature, not a cost.
Cards/comboes that create big minions are not inherently a problem. King Phaoris, Astromancer, etc. are powerful, but fair. It's when you can hit that power spike on turn 3/4 that it becomes a big issue. And yes that goes for Cleef too, it's absurd he hasn't been HoF'ed or nerfed to four mana considering how many games, even at a high level, are decided by a turn two or three huge Cleef.
People talk about cleef and they say he is super good and he should be HoF or nerfed. But maybe I have seen like 10 edwins in my 2-3 years of playing hearthstone. I really don't see him much ever and he has never seemed like he has been good enough to need to get nerfed. Why do you think edwin should be HoFed? is he really that much of a problem?
No i think he's not - sure i had a game a few years back were i was up against a 12/12 Edwin on 3 or 4 , but that does not happen that often. Most of the time he's a 6/6 or max an 8/8 - but even that does not happen that often - so i do not see him as a problem.
Cards/comboes that create big minions are not inherently a problem. King Phaoris, Astromancer, etc. are powerful, but fair. It's when you can hit that power spike on turn 3/4 that it becomes a big issue. And yes that goes for Cleef too, it's absurd he hasn't been HoF'ed or nerfed to four mana considering how many games, even at a high level, are decided by a turn two or three huge Cleef.
People talk about cleef and they say he is super good and he should be HoF or nerfed. But maybe I have seen like 10 edwins in my 2-3 years of playing hearthstone. I really don't see him much ever and he has never seemed like he has been good enough to need to get nerfed. Why do you think edwin should be HoFed? is he really that much of a problem?
Oh come on. Just because Rogue is off-meta right now doesn't mean that the most powerful rogue card ever is suddenly fine. Off the top of my head I can't recall a rogue list in the previous season of GM that didn't include him, and before that I'm pretty sure every viable competitive rogue list that didn't include The Caverns Below ran him as well.
And no, he doesn't always come down as a 12/12, and he doesn't have to to be a problem. A turn 2 6/6 or a turn 3 8/8 is so far ahead of the curve that most decks have to take two turns dealing with the problem unless they have exactly the right answer in hand, which means taking massive damage while the rogue can freely develop. It's like how the better class of Priest players doesn't just play Inner Fire + Divine Spirit for a 32/32 lethal, oftentimes making a 6/6 cleric on turn two is the correct play.
So yes, Cleef has been a problem since the dawn of hearthstone.
I think it's a bit of a drag that Warrior has been the only viable control class for ages now. It really makes the meta a lot more onesided when one of the three major archetypes of decks is represented by a single class.
And like i said in another topic about Conjurers Calling and the Nerf Situations - evolving into something with higher mana cost could simply be "fixed" if a reduced minion would keep the reduced cost for the evolve - like if the Fleshshaper is reduced to 3 for example it should evolve into a 4 cost minion and not it´s basic stats
That's literally what the OP is asking for: "If they fixed this interaction by having cards "remember" their played cost when they hit the field, we wouldn't have had to nerf CC and MAge wouldn't be dead right now."
Well the combo is strong i give you that - but a cry for a Nerf is a little over the Top - at least in my oppinion! Sure the 8 Mana Slot is full of good minions but if Blizzard Nerfs every potential threat in the Game we could simply just stop playing because it would be boring - there will always be combos and cards that are better than others or strong but that is what the game needs - and there are classes like Warrior for Example who can deal with these kind of combos pretty easily!
Sure not every class but if every class would get an answer to everything the game would be boring or simply just stale ... and like someone stated above it is strong right now because most of the classes do not play tech cards for big minions - and also sure, not every class has but like i said above either play somekind of neutral tech or learn do live with the fact that not every class can counter everything.
And yes, most of the time the combo can high roll because of the many good 8 Mana Slot Minions but it can also happen that they mutate into Hir'eek, the Bat for example.
I personaly think that the combo is strong but does not need a nerf right now!
We're not talking about nerfing every potential threat, we're talking specifically about Mogu Fleshshaper and more generally about discountable minions and cards that care about mana costs, like mutate, unstable evolution and conjurer's calling. These types of interactions are repeat offenders when it comes to not just high-rolling into massive stats, but doing so well before most decks can reasonably respond.
Cards/comboes that create big minions are not inherently a problem. King Phaoris, Astromancer, etc. are powerful, but fair. It's when you can hit that power spike on turn 3/4 that it becomes a big issue. And yes that goes for Cleef too, it's absurd he hasn't been HoF'ed or nerfed to four mana considering how many games, even at a high level, are decided by a turn two or three huge Cleef.
Getting back to discountable minions, if they retained their played cost while in play it'd be a hit, sure, but most of them would still be playable. Mountain Giant and Sea Giant are still criminally powerful even if you can't further exploit them with reroll shenanigans. Evolve effects are still powerful even if you can only use them "honestly" to reroll understatted battlecry minions like Dopplegangster and Giggling inventor or damaged minions after trading.
Damn the 8 mana Standard pool is waaay better than I thought. I remember one times losing to double Mogu into Walking Fountain.
I don't have a particular opinion to express, but I just wanted to highlight all the possible outcomes for people that want to comment :)
The eight mana slot has been the sweet spot for evolves and such for ages, but this is probably one of the strongest pools ever. I say probably only because The Lich King is no longer in standard. It's a fair point to raise that Mogu probably would be considerably weaker as a 6 mana 3/3 or 8 mana 4/4 even if it kept the discount mechanic simply because it'd roll into considerably worse minion pools.
On a side note I'm convinced Hir'eek costs 8 just to have an absolute dud on 8-mana rolls.
I'm becoming more and more inclined to agree. A card like mutate is totally fine when you're evolving an understatted battlecry like giggling inventor or Former Champ, because at least there you played the full price for the minion before evolving it, but as soon as discounted minions enter the equation the amount of stats you can cheat out early becomes too oppressive. Conjurer's wouldn't have had to be nerfed without the Giant Brothers also existing in the same meta. Likewise, Mogu would be fair, a little underwhelming even, without the ability to morph it into an 8-drop well before turn 8.
The daily quests definitely need some changes. After the tweak to the rewards a while back, some of the easiest quests [Win 1 game with X or Y class] give the same amount of gold as [Win two with X class], which is plainly out of whack in terms of difficulty. Hell, even the 60 reward quests don't feel as rewarding considering you have to expend three times as much effort to get 10 gold more compared to these easy 50 gold quests.
Rewards aside, it feels like there's just too many quests related to winning with specific classes: a lot of these are redundant, and the large number of these means that other types of quest don't come up as frequently. Then there's the argument against more specific quests like playing pirates, secrets, elementals, etc. that you'd often have to build a deck just to complete the quest, and many players just want to play ladder and get their gold.
I don't think there's a perfect solution here that would please everyone (other than perhaps infinite rerolls on quests), but personally I'd like to see the number of [win with class] quests trimmed down and some of the lamer type-specific quests like [play 6 pirates] removed as well. I wouldn't mind the introduction of set-specific quests (for the duration of that set) either, EG you could have quests relating to mummies, reborn minions, quests, highlander decks, etc. for Uldum.
League of Explorers, Dungeon Run and Dalaran heist are my top three. Of the classic adventure format, LoE hits the right balance between difficulty, fun, variation, etc. whereas Naxx and Blackrock have a couple of bosses that are stupidly powerful & require ridiculous cheesy highrolls to win, like Maloriak and Drakkisath. The later adventures like Karazhan and KotFT were disappointingly easy IMO.
Of the dungeon run types, the original K&C dungeon run deserves credit for being the first, but also for being one of the better ones despite several attempts at improvement. The RR version is too limited due to the reliance on Loas which really hurts the replay value, and the witchwood hunt feels anticlimactic because you don't get to fight Hagatha with the deck you collected during the hunt.
Dalaran Heist feels like 3 wings worth of content spread over 5, but there are a lot of improvements to the dungeon run format that increase the replay value, like extra hero powers, decks, random decks, anomalies, etc, which is why it still makes the list.
I wouldn't want to play a game where the PVP content includes power-ups or boosts outside of the normal gameplay itself (for HS, the cards in your deck), because then it becomes a requirement to get those powerups in order to fight on a level playing field. In the end ladder would devolve into trinket-wars where everyone is boosting themselves, at which point you've just introduced an artificial barrier for everyone who doesn't have trinkets (any more). If these were quest rewards then the number of games you can play at full power per day is effectively capped by how many trinkets you can earn per day.
Sounds *terrible* to me.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work because [Hearthstone Card (jr. Tomb Raider's) Not Found] condition is playing secrets, not having spells cast them. For comparison, Secretkeeper doesn't get buffed by Bellringer Sentry, nor Desperate Measures AFAIK.
It's unfortunate because the Tomb Raider is pretty much a 4 mana 5/5 in this adventure. Secrets are rare and result in a terrible deck that doesn't let you survive long enough to complete the Raider's condition. In my experience the other starting treasures are a lot stronger.
Buddy, this is a discussion forum. This would be an immensely dull place if people only ever agreed with each other on how awesome the game is.
And let's not pretend that the game is (or could be) flawless and perfect in every way. There's always room to improve and this is a place for people to point out where improvements could be made.
No one is forcing you to participate if you feel that having critical faculties and voicing your complaints somehow reflects poorly on the game.
Difficult =/= bad, but I think you're greatly exaggerating how difficult LOE is/was. I defeated Blackrock and LoE back during Whispers of the Old gods as a newbie player with next-to-no collection using budget decks essentially. Of the two I can confidently say that BRM was waaaaay more frustrating and took a lot more do-overs than LoE did.
Now granted, the Skelesaurus probably got quite a bit more powerful over time, and he's probably the least fun boss in terms of crazy highrolls, but the rest? Hardly. Not only that, with 4 years of expansions the player has a lot more tools available to cheese out these bosses, like say jades as a counter to ever-growing nagas or questmage OTKs.
Comparing BRM to LoE, I'd say the tough bosses in the latter adventure have much more specific and counterable traits, EG against Lady Vasj if you can clear her board her HP doesn't snowball, against the Steel Sentinel you want a good dose of weapon destruction and destroy effects/poisonous for his large minions. The oppressive BRM bosses like Maloriak or Drakkisath just murder you in 4 turns if you don't get the nut draw versus a dud draw on their part.
If we're gonna have an new game mode it'd have to be something a bit more different than the exact same game, same rules only double deck size. The whole point of introducing a new game mode would be to shake things up for people who have become a bit bored of normal hearthstone after all, so why would they get excited over normal hearthstone with twice as many cards? If anything that'd be an even greater turn-off.
If a new game mode is implemented, I expect it to be more like MtG's Commander format, with substantially different rules, than just a variation on standard's card pool or deck size or w/e.
Saying that it's the way it is because that's the way it is is a nice tautology, but entirely unhelpful.
Again, we get it, it works like this at present. I'm presenting reasons why it ought not work that way, because it's inconsistent with other mechanics and it results in highly exploitable card interactions.
Let me give an example of an interaction that makes no sense intuitively under the present schema: You play a 1 mana Sea Giant in Magic Carpet zoo: It gets +1/+0 and Rush because you played it for 1, but by the time the buff is applied it's a 10-drop. Even if you're quite familiar with the rules you wouldn't know if this would work just reading the cards because the Carpet says "After", so the giant costs ten when the rush buff is applied.
Now am I saying this should be changed because of one fairly rare scenario in last season's Zoo deck? No, what I'm trying to illustrate is that the suggested change wouldn't just be a balancing tool for evolve-type effects on discounted minions, it would make the game more intuitive for a large number of interactions between cards that care about mana costs and cards that discount themselves. I see it as hitting two birds with one stone and I'm struggling to see any downside.
This is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics Putontheglasses was talking about. Yes, we get how it works. We're saying it's wildly inconsistent with how the game interacts with other buffs/stat changes. If you, say, hand-buff a minion and then play it, the buff is remembered while the minion is in play. The game "forgets" about buffs, debuffs and other such alterations when the minion leaves play because it dies, gets bounced to hand, shuffled into the deck, w/e. However this bit is irrelevant to the argument, which revolves around discount minions while they're in play after being played for a reduced cost.
In a more consistent hearthstone, a giant would remember what manacost it was played for as long as it remains in play. Of course once it dies, you'd res it with its printed mana cost.
Fixing this silly and inconsistent handling of mana costs would instantly fix a bunch of oppressive interactions involving discountable minions and cards that care about mana cost. It'd make the conjuring nerf unnecessary. It'd make the game more intuitive and fair.
As far as I know the buckets are just random, although I feel there definitely should be a weighting because some of the archetypes are unplayable unless you get enough of those cards. This was a persistent problem in previous dungeon runs as well, so you would have thought something like this would've been implemented by now.
I recall how absolutely maddening it was to play Battlecry shaman in Rumble Run and to get turn after turn of non-battlecry garbage, only to see the AI's version of the deck stacked with Keleseth, Mistcaller, etc.
I also wouldn't mind if passive treasures influenced the buckets slightly, EG higher chance for expensive minions after you pick Scepter of Summoning, higher chance for spells if you pick the Robe of the Magi, etc. It feels miserable when you get a good treasure and then completely whiff on anything to support it, especially early on b/c the starting deck is usually just a bunch of weenies.
I agree. Completing a quest should always hinge on the player, not their opponent. Now obviously you don't have full control over winning, but any other condition (choice of class, playing X [class]/[tribe] cards, playing brawl, etc. is something the player has full control over.
You can't choose your opponent's deck, so a quest condition that requires them to play a certain class or type of deck would be endlessly frustrating, even if it's the most common deck in standard.
While I suppose you could reward players for playing off-meta decks or not-netdecks, but it'd be far too wordy of a condition to explain neatly in two lines of text. I don't find the idea terribly exciting either.
Overall, since quests are catering to the widest range of HS players, I think it'd be a mistake to make them too focused on standard or the reverse: you don't want to force players to play a mode they don't want to play. I'm sure everyone's had a few games where the warrior does nothing but play weapons turn after turn and then concede, and those tend not to be very gripping games for either player.
I'd say that's exactly backwards. With a fixed final boss it's possible to create a deck specifically to exploit that boss's weaknesses, which is cheesy, whereas with 5 random bosses you just need to build a powerful deck that can handle a variety of obstacles. I greatly enjoyed the final bosses in K&C precisely because they presented a real challenge. It's why I don't like the whittling down mechanic with Plague lords either: that just cheapens the accomplishment.
Just beat the first wing on legendary. Got great drops for the fight with Captured flag + Titanic Ring giving all my minions +1/+2 and taunt(!), as well as LOCUUUUSTS! and Murky's Battle Horn for huge instant boards.
It's a long fight, so settle in, just don't bother trying to fatigue the plague lord because his final form will completely restock his deck. Just go face and pray.
Also, Map of Uldum is incredibly busted so pick it if you can. Didn't get it on this run but you pretty much can't lose if it's in your starting hand.
Warrior has late-game inevitability. Any control deck that wants to coexist alongside Warrior and have a chance to beat it (EG Quest druid ATM) needs a proactive win condition because in fatigue they lose to warriors. Hence Phaoris, Nomi, Floop, etc.: the hope is to run warrior out of mass removal and win on the spot, because eventually rushing mechs will overcome any amount of threats.
Warriors have a proactive win condition in bombs and they choose not to use it in the current meta because slow and steady wins the race more reliably ATM. Having inevitability is a feature, not a cost.
Oh come on. Just because Rogue is off-meta right now doesn't mean that the most powerful rogue card ever is suddenly fine. Off the top of my head I can't recall a rogue list in the previous season of GM that didn't include him, and before that I'm pretty sure every viable competitive rogue list that didn't include The Caverns Below ran him as well.
And no, he doesn't always come down as a 12/12, and he doesn't have to to be a problem. A turn 2 6/6 or a turn 3 8/8 is so far ahead of the curve that most decks have to take two turns dealing with the problem unless they have exactly the right answer in hand, which means taking massive damage while the rogue can freely develop. It's like how the better class of Priest players doesn't just play Inner Fire + Divine Spirit for a 32/32 lethal, oftentimes making a 6/6 cleric on turn two is the correct play.
So yes, Cleef has been a problem since the dawn of hearthstone.
I think it's a bit of a drag that Warrior has been the only viable control class for ages now. It really makes the meta a lot more onesided when one of the three major archetypes of decks is represented by a single class.
That's literally what the OP is asking for: "If they fixed this interaction by having cards "remember" their played cost when they hit the field, we wouldn't have had to nerf CC and MAge wouldn't be dead right now."
We're not talking about nerfing every potential threat, we're talking specifically about Mogu Fleshshaper and more generally about discountable minions and cards that care about mana costs, like mutate, unstable evolution and conjurer's calling. These types of interactions are repeat offenders when it comes to not just high-rolling into massive stats, but doing so well before most decks can reasonably respond.
Cards/comboes that create big minions are not inherently a problem. King Phaoris, Astromancer, etc. are powerful, but fair. It's when you can hit that power spike on turn 3/4 that it becomes a big issue. And yes that goes for Cleef too, it's absurd he hasn't been HoF'ed or nerfed to four mana considering how many games, even at a high level, are decided by a turn two or three huge Cleef.
Getting back to discountable minions, if they retained their played cost while in play it'd be a hit, sure, but most of them would still be playable. Mountain Giant and Sea Giant are still criminally powerful even if you can't further exploit them with reroll shenanigans. Evolve effects are still powerful even if you can only use them "honestly" to reroll understatted battlecry minions like Dopplegangster and Giggling inventor or damaged minions after trading.
The eight mana slot has been the sweet spot for evolves and such for ages, but this is probably one of the strongest pools ever. I say probably only because The Lich King is no longer in standard. It's a fair point to raise that Mogu probably would be considerably weaker as a 6 mana 3/3 or 8 mana 4/4 even if it kept the discount mechanic simply because it'd roll into considerably worse minion pools.
On a side note I'm convinced Hir'eek costs 8 just to have an absolute dud on 8-mana rolls.
I'm becoming more and more inclined to agree. A card like mutate is totally fine when you're evolving an understatted battlecry like giggling inventor or Former Champ, because at least there you played the full price for the minion before evolving it, but as soon as discounted minions enter the equation the amount of stats you can cheat out early becomes too oppressive. Conjurer's wouldn't have had to be nerfed without the Giant Brothers also existing in the same meta. Likewise, Mogu would be fair, a little underwhelming even, without the ability to morph it into an 8-drop well before turn 8.
The daily quests definitely need some changes. After the tweak to the rewards a while back, some of the easiest quests [Win 1 game with X or Y class] give the same amount of gold as [Win two with X class], which is plainly out of whack in terms of difficulty. Hell, even the 60 reward quests don't feel as rewarding considering you have to expend three times as much effort to get 10 gold more compared to these easy 50 gold quests.
Rewards aside, it feels like there's just too many quests related to winning with specific classes: a lot of these are redundant, and the large number of these means that other types of quest don't come up as frequently. Then there's the argument against more specific quests like playing pirates, secrets, elementals, etc. that you'd often have to build a deck just to complete the quest, and many players just want to play ladder and get their gold.
I don't think there's a perfect solution here that would please everyone (other than perhaps infinite rerolls on quests), but personally I'd like to see the number of [win with class] quests trimmed down and some of the lamer type-specific quests like [play 6 pirates] removed as well. I wouldn't mind the introduction of set-specific quests (for the duration of that set) either, EG you could have quests relating to mummies, reborn minions, quests, highlander decks, etc. for Uldum.
League of Explorers, Dungeon Run and Dalaran heist are my top three. Of the classic adventure format, LoE hits the right balance between difficulty, fun, variation, etc. whereas Naxx and Blackrock have a couple of bosses that are stupidly powerful & require ridiculous cheesy highrolls to win, like Maloriak and Drakkisath. The later adventures like Karazhan and KotFT were disappointingly easy IMO.
Of the dungeon run types, the original K&C dungeon run deserves credit for being the first, but also for being one of the better ones despite several attempts at improvement. The RR version is too limited due to the reliance on Loas which really hurts the replay value, and the witchwood hunt feels anticlimactic because you don't get to fight Hagatha with the deck you collected during the hunt.
Dalaran Heist feels like 3 wings worth of content spread over 5, but there are a lot of improvements to the dungeon run format that increase the replay value, like extra hero powers, decks, random decks, anomalies, etc, which is why it still makes the list.