Buffing old cards makes more sense (nerfing is less likely, since the power level of each expansion is increased everytime).
That's not really true. There's no denying power creep exists, but fluctuations in power between expansions are way larger than the underlying power creep is.
In fact, most of the top decks in Wild are based on powerhouses from the Year of the Mammoth (2017). There have been some powerful sets since then, but for the most part the power level has been lower. It has helped that they are much more willing to nerf things nowadays, which has kept newer sets power levels in check and slowed power creep.
What I didn´t really understand why the deck contained Mass Resurrection. All it resurrected was a bunch of 2/2s and that even without taunts.. Did I miss something?
Watch this, and you'll know why Mass Res is in there: BfA cinematic. The Sylvanas fight is the HS version of the battle that the cinematic shows the start of.
He's not the best choice when considering the whole of Warcraft lore, but he was the most prominent at the time HS was being developed and released (Mists of Pandaria). So he was good at helping grab the attention of WoW players, and thus start the game off with a big following.
I am also with you regarding how his character affected my opinion of the class as a whole, although I appreciate they wanted a mix of personalities so a couple of classes were always going to have that problem.
The hardest achievement will always be Paladin's Oh My Yogg, the rest is impossible because I don't have the card for it. Like Priest's Steal Enchanment with The Nameless One, Rogue's Drawing 5 card with Shekzara, Druid's Greybough, and Warrior's ETC.
I don't know why they made it like that. To me, achievements in general shouldn't be limited to some cards.
It is understandable for cards like Shek'zara who has a unique effect that suits a one-off achievement awarded for doing something exceptional. There are a few similar achievements that can be made more general to be completed in multiple ways (e.g. the one for controlling a 20/20 minion), but often these are fundamentally tied to an individual card.
It's a similar story for the achievements where you just do something a large number of times. These are only interesting when they are encouraging you to do something that wouldn't happen over time by accident. It's really a misuse of the word to call summoning 200 taunt minions an 'achievement', but 200 Greyboughs indicates you have (probably) got up to some serious shenanigans with it's deathrattle.
In the end, everyone's opinions on what achievements are meant for differ. To me, good achievements encourage players to explore the game to its fullest. Unfortunately for card games, 'to its fullest' necessitates ownership of the full collection, which is unrealistic for most players. So there's a definite conflict between the underlying ideologies of card games and achievement systems.
Any tips for getting "Oh my Yogg!", lethal damage with the paladin secret? That is the only one I have left and it seems futile to try and "grind" it out.
Note it relied on finding a friend on ladder. It happened quite quickly for us, but I think the person I did it with gave up after ~30 tries when he tried to help someone else with it. So it might not be worth the bother.
I have finished all the XP-giving achievements, and will happily give tips on any you are still missing.
The Bola Shot one went reasonably quickly with a slower hunter deck using Professor Slate. I also had Vereesa Windrunner, but mostly because I've been trying to find a home for her for nearly 2 years.
Same here. I like Valeera (I wouldn't have spent the time drawing and pixel-art-ing a merger of her and a shuckle otherwise :P), but rogue is such a diverse class thematically that it's a crime that after all these years we've only been represented by a silky smooth sneaky elf (Valeera) and a gruff sneaky elf (Maiev).
I know not everyone likes the Cap'n Valeera art, but at least she gives us a pirate skin, which is about all the diversity the class has at the moment.
I'm more interested in the background, I see mountains and tall clouds, and a barrier that looks Horde made. Could this next expansion be set in Mulgore and we have a Tauren themed expansion like we had a Troll one for Rastakhan's Rumble?
A tauren themed expansion being next, and in particular its associated mega-bundle hero portrait, would be guaranteed to annoy druid and/or rogue mains. It's not Hamuul Runetotem? Then druids cry at the missed opportunity. It's not a fabled tauren rogue? Then rogue's cry because, well, where on Azeroth are my hero skins dammit!
(Don't answer that with the fact we already have many tauren rogue skins. I know we do. But if we can't find them we can't use them can we?)
Goodness, please leave the League of Explorers alone for a while longer. It's only been 1 year, and overusing something always sours people's opinions on it. Not to mention that every time they appear they get in the way of using other characters from Warcraft lore.
That said, I'm all for a LoE-themed game mode since that would be a nice way to acknowledge their importance to HS lore, without the issues I said above.
Ah ha! I knew my Boogeymonster was good for something. Turns out he dies the same as Crowley does. I guess we can't be too surprised Blizz didn't bother to align his mechanics with everyone else's when they standardised this a while back...
There is a difference between attacking and dying. Sonya does not bounce itself, because she is already dead when the ability should trigger, so there is no minion with said ability to trigger anymore. Whereas ETC trades, attack ends, his ability triggers, he dies.
Similar to how something that is supposed to die can survive, if it was buffed "while dying". The order of actions that need to resolve matter.
That sounds like good reasoning, and a little bit of testing with Darius Crowley and Festeroot Hulk confirmed the distinction between attack and death phases (Crowley doesn't buff himself if he dies in the attack, but the Hulk does).
The bit I dislike is that similar logic would lead me to expect Wild Pyromancer to trigger if the spell kills him because the spell has been played before he dies, but he doesn't. It is not obvious that casting a spell should include the death phase.
'After' does normally require them to survive, yes, so expect the same as you. (That fact is super important in a few cases, such as Sonya Shadowdancer who'd bounce herself otherwise.)
Hopefully someone with more experience with ETC than me can confirm how he normally works in this regard, and then identify whether it is inconsistency or a bug.
It wouldn't have to share the bouncing mechanic with rogue, though I agree it makes too much sense for the class to not do it.
I'm not sure how comparable the two classes are in WoW, but certainly in D&D they are a good case of 'convergent evolution', where their abilities are often fundamentally different but in practice they achieve a very similar thing (allowing for variation in role-playing of course).
Yeah, now I think about it, maybe Hearthstone would benefit more from adding a completely new class that doesn't have so much in common with existing classes. The Bard is the obvious choice, because they can do what they like to turn music and charisma into in-game effects.
2) Second bigger issue: With the new system I am actually playing less. Before, completing a quest you got an instant reward. 50, 60, 80, 100 gold, and so on. You actually felt that if you are going to fill your quest log and not play, you will miss on gold and you will not be able to get as many packs. Now, I am free to play, so this is a big thing for someone who wants to use the next expansion. With the new system, I don't have that. I complete a quest, gives me a 1000 XP, and I still have 2000 XP more to go to get the next 100 gold, which I will get some time in the next three days. That removes the urgency of logging in.
It is great for other things I have to get done, like studies and work projects, and teach my kid some school stuff, but not good for a company that wants to get its login ratings up and not down.
Login ratings are one thing, but building a game in such a way that supports a healthy work-life-gaming balance is also a plus point. Hearthstone has always let you hold onto quests for 3 days for precisely that reason. Ultimately, the people designing the game are normal people who also want a healthy balance, and they aren't going to be annoyed that their players do too.
So I guess you're not alone. I'm also sitting with 45 extra gold since 2 years ago (I mean 5 extra gold, since before reward track), and still have 2 free tickets from the reward track. I could've just play arena or duel, but I don't think I can do it in one run. I need more time to play arena, but I don't have that time.
You could do it over multiple gaming sessions. Nothing forces you to finish a run in 1 sitting.
I only mentioned warlock because in a previous AMA Iksar discussed attempts to change it back when HS was still being designed. I don't think it needs a rework at all.
Shaman's certainly has a lot of subtleties to it that could be tweaked without altering the core idea, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a small but meaningful change there.
Warrior's is an interesting one, because it is very deck dependent, in regards to both yours and your opponent's deck. That's true of all hero powers to some degree, but gaining armour is so 1-dimensional that it doesn't give you much scope to leverage it when one of the two players doesn't care about your life total. I'm not immediately against setting it to 1 mana and leaving it at 2 armour, but it would need a lot of playtesting (without the restriction of even decks) and I suspect it would push it too far. You could try 1 mana 1 armour but I think control warrior would prefer the original at that point.
... my issue with more classes is that eventually I believe they will not feel distinct anymore. For example, (I) feel like demon hunter does everything rogue does in standard but better.
If you look at all of DH's tools (and not just what it uses in the meta) you find there are 3 distinct sides to it. The issue is there isn't much overlap between them, and individually they are just tweaks on what other classes could do:
weapon / aggro is like rogue just with more reach;
big demons are essentially the same as what warlock does;
token decks are actually more unique because DH doesn't buff minions, but we already had several classes' takes on token decks so it doesn't add a whole lot.
What DH needs to do to become interesting is to be encouraged to mix these more. Token-aggro wouldn't be very novel, but mixing big demons in with the other two would be. Thinking back, that is how DH started with Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury.
The Shaman hero power is uniquely RNG-based (summons in random order) and rather unintuitive (always a different totem; stops working after all 4) compared to the other hero powers. Ever seriously discussed changing parts of it?
The fact that it's different because of those things isn't necessarily a negative to us, but we have discussed changing aspects of it. When we looked at the classic set and ways to change it, we also looked at the base hero powers and what classes were supposed to be good/weak at (Source)
We'll have some more details on that in a big future update but nothing to divulge just yet (Source)
Now that is very interesting, and it sounds like at least one base hero power will be changed. I'd be looking at druid mostly, because the class has never really been good at attacking with its hero (sorry Gonk, the Raptor) and it has always been a poor-man's rogue or mage hero power.
Maybe they also found an alternative to warlock's, as discussed in a previous AMA, though I expect changing that one would cause more complaints.
That's not really true. There's no denying power creep exists, but fluctuations in power between expansions are way larger than the underlying power creep is.
In fact, most of the top decks in Wild are based on powerhouses from the Year of the Mammoth (2017). There have been some powerful sets since then, but for the most part the power level has been lower. It has helped that they are much more willing to nerf things nowadays, which has kept newer sets power levels in check and slowed power creep.
Looks like a successful infiltration mission to me.
Watch this, and you'll know why Mass Res is in there: BfA cinematic. The Sylvanas fight is the HS version of the battle that the cinematic shows the start of.
He's not the best choice when considering the whole of Warcraft lore, but he was the most prominent at the time HS was being developed and released (Mists of Pandaria). So he was good at helping grab the attention of WoW players, and thus start the game off with a big following.
I am also with you regarding how his character affected my opinion of the class as a whole, although I appreciate they wanted a mix of personalities so a couple of classes were always going to have that problem.
It is understandable for cards like Shek'zara who has a unique effect that suits a one-off achievement awarded for doing something exceptional. There are a few similar achievements that can be made more general to be completed in multiple ways (e.g. the one for controlling a 20/20 minion), but often these are fundamentally tied to an individual card.
It's a similar story for the achievements where you just do something a large number of times. These are only interesting when they are encouraging you to do something that wouldn't happen over time by accident. It's really a misuse of the word to call summoning 200 taunt minions an 'achievement', but 200 Greyboughs indicates you have (probably) got up to some serious shenanigans with it's deathrattle.
In the end, everyone's opinions on what achievements are meant for differ. To me, good achievements encourage players to explore the game to its fullest. Unfortunately for card games, 'to its fullest' necessitates ownership of the full collection, which is unrealistic for most players. So there's a definite conflict between the underlying ideologies of card games and achievement systems.
Yes, but it was long and convoluted: https://outof.cards/forums/hearthstone/hearthstone-general/6756-achievement-tipsstrategies-sharing?page=3#comment-130927
Note it relied on finding a friend on ladder. It happened quite quickly for us, but I think the person I did it with gave up after ~30 tries when he tried to help someone else with it. So it might not be worth the bother.
I have finished all the XP-giving achievements, and will happily give tips on any you are still missing.
The Bola Shot one went reasonably quickly with a slower hunter deck using Professor Slate. I also had Vereesa Windrunner, but mostly because I've been trying to find a home for her for nearly 2 years.
As for the Forbidden Jutsu achievement, see this thread for a way to force it to happen: https://outof.cards/forums/hearthstone/hearthstone-general/6702-forbidden-jutsu-psa.
Same here. I like Valeera (I wouldn't have spent the time drawing and pixel-art-ing a merger of her and a shuckle otherwise :P), but rogue is such a diverse class thematically that it's a crime that after all these years we've only been represented by a silky smooth sneaky elf (Valeera) and a gruff sneaky elf (Maiev).
I know not everyone likes the Cap'n Valeera art, but at least she gives us a pirate skin, which is about all the diversity the class has at the moment.
A tauren themed expansion being next, and in particular its associated mega-bundle hero portrait, would be guaranteed to annoy druid and/or rogue mains. It's not Hamuul Runetotem? Then druids cry at the missed opportunity. It's not a fabled tauren rogue? Then rogue's cry because, well, where on Azeroth are my hero skins dammit!
(Don't answer that with the fact we already have many tauren rogue skins. I know we do. But if we can't find them we can't use them can we?)
Goodness, please leave the League of Explorers alone for a while longer. It's only been 1 year, and overusing something always sours people's opinions on it. Not to mention that every time they appear they get in the way of using other characters from Warcraft lore.
That said, I'm all for a LoE-themed game mode since that would be a nice way to acknowledge their importance to HS lore, without the issues I said above.
Ah ha! I knew my Boogeymonster was good for something. Turns out he dies the same as Crowley does. I guess we can't be too surprised Blizz didn't bother to align his mechanics with everyone else's when they standardised this a while back...
That sounds like good reasoning, and a little bit of testing with Darius Crowley and Festeroot Hulk confirmed the distinction between attack and death phases (Crowley doesn't buff himself if he dies in the attack, but the Hulk does).
The bit I dislike is that similar logic would lead me to expect Wild Pyromancer to trigger if the spell kills him because the spell has been played before he dies, but he doesn't. It is not obvious that casting a spell should include the death phase.
'After' does normally require them to survive, yes, so expect the same as you. (That fact is super important in a few cases, such as Sonya Shadowdancer who'd bounce herself otherwise.)
Hopefully someone with more experience with ETC than me can confirm how he normally works in this regard, and then identify whether it is inconsistency or a bug.
It's probably just because it's the weekend, so unofficial communication is probably the most we'll get until Monday.
It wouldn't have to share the bouncing mechanic with rogue, though I agree it makes too much sense for the class to not do it.
I'm not sure how comparable the two classes are in WoW, but certainly in D&D they are a good case of 'convergent evolution', where their abilities are often fundamentally different but in practice they achieve a very similar thing (allowing for variation in role-playing of course).
Yeah, now I think about it, maybe Hearthstone would benefit more from adding a completely new class that doesn't have so much in common with existing classes. The Bard is the obvious choice, because they can do what they like to turn music and charisma into in-game effects.
Login ratings are one thing, but building a game in such a way that supports a healthy work-life-gaming balance is also a plus point. Hearthstone has always let you hold onto quests for 3 days for precisely that reason. Ultimately, the people designing the game are normal people who also want a healthy balance, and they aren't going to be annoyed that their players do too.
You could do it over multiple gaming sessions. Nothing forces you to finish a run in 1 sitting.
I only mentioned warlock because in a previous AMA Iksar discussed attempts to change it back when HS was still being designed. I don't think it needs a rework at all.
Shaman's certainly has a lot of subtleties to it that could be tweaked without altering the core idea, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a small but meaningful change there.
Warrior's is an interesting one, because it is very deck dependent, in regards to both yours and your opponent's deck. That's true of all hero powers to some degree, but gaining armour is so 1-dimensional that it doesn't give you much scope to leverage it when one of the two players doesn't care about your life total. I'm not immediately against setting it to 1 mana and leaving it at 2 armour, but it would need a lot of playtesting (without the restriction of even decks) and I suspect it would push it too far. You could try 1 mana 1 armour but I think control warrior would prefer the original at that point.
If you look at all of DH's tools (and not just what it uses in the meta) you find there are 3 distinct sides to it. The issue is there isn't much overlap between them, and individually they are just tweaks on what other classes could do:
What DH needs to do to become interesting is to be encouraged to mix these more. Token-aggro wouldn't be very novel, but mixing big demons in with the other two would be. Thinking back, that is how DH started with Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury.
Now that is very interesting, and it sounds like at least one base hero power will be changed. I'd be looking at druid mostly, because the class has never really been good at attacking with its hero (sorry Gonk, the Raptor) and it has always been a poor-man's rogue or mage hero power.
Maybe they also found an alternative to warlock's, as discussed in a previous AMA, though I expect changing that one would cause more complaints.
I just tested it against the Innkeeper, and I was right: you cannot target an immune enemy.