I think "feeling uncomfortable" might be a bit of an over-reaction to a pretty minor change. Perhaps it's worth considering that the modification to dailies isn't likely meant to cater to everyday players at all - it's the folks that only log in once or twice each week that seem to be the primary targets. If rewarding "easier to complete" quests more often makes part-timers play the game a little more than otherwise, then Blizz will likely be happy. After all, this is hardly the first change to dailies, or how they are rewarded, and it seems reasonable to assume that plenty of new dailies will soon follow - and how those are handed out will be an on-going process of constant tweaking. Given how much free shit we've already been promised this year, it seems a bit odd for so many folks to complain that this recent change is a result of Blizz counting (virtual) gold, and concluding that the small portion of the player base which logs in every day is simply getting too much . . .
It's worthwhile recognising that the majority of complaints regarding balance in Wild (and Standard, for that matter) are simply folks expressing their distaste for a particular deck, rather than honest criticisms of the state-of-the-game. Three sites currently track the older format (maybe others I'm not aware of), and the three sites all rank the Wild meta-game differently, which is frankly more suggestive than the complaints which accumulate on casual gaming fan-sites like this, or the subreddit.
Folks complaining about OP decks in Wild are better off simply avoiding the format - to no one's surprise, the meta-game in eternal format CCGs is always far more degenerate than in limited formats. That's their allure. Bitching about it makes about as much sense as bitching about the lazy devs in MtG, who have never gotten around to nerfing Black Lotus and the Moxen, or Force of Will and Dual Lands. Folks that enjoy playing eternal formats enjoy playing degenerate shit. Many of the complaints that have dogged the format since it debuted honestly seem to amount to nothing other than players discovering that they don't enjoy playing degenerate shit - or, more likely, that they actually enjoy playing degenerate shit, but get upset when degenerate shit is played against them . . .
I'm not sure if "quite sad" is a reasonable response to Iksar's post - he emphasised that the top five was volatile, changing each day (this site didn't show all the stats he posted). In any event, we'll seldom have one Aggro deck, one Control deck, one Midrange deck, one Combo deck, and something else among the top five - as long as Control is viable (you point out that it is), there really isn't much of a "problem."
Would you also have complained if there wasn't a Midrange deck on the list? A Combo deck? Aggro? Would you still be sad if Iksar had simply posted a top ten list, with a couple Control decks?
A month or so ago, someone on the BG team mentioned on the subreddit that "double-tribe" minions might be something they would consider adding to the Tavern. Rather than re-introducing Amalgam, they might simply add a bunch of Tier 2 1/1 minions with two tribes.
As it stands, the Tavern isn't really more aggressive without Amalgams - it's less defensive, and games seldom last long enough for "end-game" builds to materialise. Tier 6 is often merely cosmetic, while plenty of builds don't need to level up to Tier 4 until fairly late. I've found it a less interesting game as a result - if you don't roll a buildable build by the mid-game, you can't really stall behind a premium Taunt that would absorb a lot of the damage you end up taking.
My favourite moment was Hunterace vs Viper in the championship final this past spring - their final game displayed everything that is great about Hearthstone.
I've been main-decking Reno Hunter ever since LoE - with all the cool new Reno toys we received in 2019, I'm mostly looking forward to playing nothing but Reno decks in every class for the rest of 2020.
I would really prefer that we get to just craft them rather than buy the whole set. Even if its extra dust per card, its still an alternative to $20. 700 gold is just way too much to ask per wing.
It takes about ten days of dailies to grind each wing - that's about forty days for the set. Since it releases over a period of twenty-two days, you needed to start saving gold about three weeks ago to get the entire adventure for free.
HSReplays is currently tracking 25 decks with win-rates at or above 50% - each of the nerfed decks (Galakrond Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Deathrattle Rogue and Galakrond Zoo) remain in this group. A lot of folks complaining about the nerfs are acting as if Blizzard deleted those decks from the game. They didn't. If the purported "laziness" of the design team consistently produces meta-games with over two dozen viable decks, including all the nerfed decks, perhaps Blizzard should consider hiring a bunch of even lazier bastards to design their game . . .
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "losing by turn-6 without having any opportunity for counter-play" - you really ought to consider what the reasons for lack of counter-play actually were. Since Wild games are typically decided earlier than in Standard, there is an expectation that you will always have fewer opportunities to actually draw answers to the questions your opponent has posed - but that isn't a problem that can be "solved," it's simply a feature of eternal formats. By their nature, they are less interactive than slower formats.
Vintage MtG has the largest card-pool in any competitive CCG format. It also has the smallest pool of viable decks - literally thousands of otherwise groovy decks are pushed out of the Vintage meta-game by the power-level of a handful of established decks. Eventually, once the Wild format matures, it will be defined by its "pillars" - the decks which are sufficiently powerful to perpetually survive the introduction of new content. Again - that isn't a problem that plagues eternal formats, requiring constant curation from a balance team in order to avoid. Rather, it's an unavoidable consequence that can't be designed around - some folks find it alluring, but most don't, and stick to other formats.
Eternal formats in CCGs typically have very low turn-counters - games are decided, one-way-or-another, by turn four or five. That isn't to say that all games of Vintage MtG, or Modern, end on turn four or five - but fast-aggro might end it, while slower decks will have stabilised, or combo decks will have drawn into their win-condition. You need to achieve inevitability by the end of the early-game, or beginning of the mid-game. If your deck doesn't do its "big thing" consistently by turn four or five, it isn't going to flourish in any game-play environment in which the majority of decks do. There isn't anything wrong with having games decided quickly - provided there are lots of different types of decks, winning games in lots of different types of ways.
Importantly, there isn't any sort of fix to having a low fundamental turn - if MtG or Blizzard nerfed a hundred cards in their eternal formats, new decks would be found that achieve early inevitability in a few days or weeks. High fundamental turns are really only to be found in curated formats with low card-counts. In other words - if you don't like games regularly being decided before turn six, eternal formats will never appeal to you.
Guys, c`mon Blizzard is a publicly traded company...its a business and as any business the main purpose of it is earnings.
I`m surprised to see all those child like comments and actions, from casters and players alike, considering that the average age of HS players is above 27.
I saw a post from a player that spent 10K on HS and after this he decided to walk away from it "without any problems or second thoughts" - in my opinion its ridiculous.
???
This sentiment seems poorly expressed - or at any rate, it seems to get matters backwards. Publicly traded companies don't have to fire their employees, or ban competitive players from their games, simply for a brief statement of support for democracy and human rights - as Brack has conceded. There is clearly an enormous range of corporate behaviour which is perfectly consistent with making money that falls far short of the line that Blizzard drew this past week.
All things considered, you'll have to concede that "business is business - all these kids should just grow up" doesn't exactly sum up the issue very well.
FWIW - the internet won't break if you stop pretending to be upset every time you use it . .
I think "feeling uncomfortable" might be a bit of an over-reaction to a pretty minor change. Perhaps it's worth considering that the modification to dailies isn't likely meant to cater to everyday players at all - it's the folks that only log in once or twice each week that seem to be the primary targets. If rewarding "easier to complete" quests more often makes part-timers play the game a little more than otherwise, then Blizz will likely be happy. After all, this is hardly the first change to dailies, or how they are rewarded, and it seems reasonable to assume that plenty of new dailies will soon follow - and how those are handed out will be an on-going process of constant tweaking. Given how much free shit we've already been promised this year, it seems a bit odd for so many folks to complain that this recent change is a result of Blizz counting (virtual) gold, and concluding that the small portion of the player base which logs in every day is simply getting too much . . .
It's worthwhile recognising that the majority of complaints regarding balance in Wild (and Standard, for that matter) are simply folks expressing their distaste for a particular deck, rather than honest criticisms of the state-of-the-game. Three sites currently track the older format (maybe others I'm not aware of), and the three sites all rank the Wild meta-game differently, which is frankly more suggestive than the complaints which accumulate on casual gaming fan-sites like this, or the subreddit.
Folks complaining about OP decks in Wild are better off simply avoiding the format - to no one's surprise, the meta-game in eternal format CCGs is always far more degenerate than in limited formats. That's their allure. Bitching about it makes about as much sense as bitching about the lazy devs in MtG, who have never gotten around to nerfing Black Lotus and the Moxen, or Force of Will and Dual Lands. Folks that enjoy playing eternal formats enjoy playing degenerate shit. Many of the complaints that have dogged the format since it debuted honestly seem to amount to nothing other than players discovering that they don't enjoy playing degenerate shit - or, more likely, that they actually enjoy playing degenerate shit, but get upset when degenerate shit is played against them . . .
Hmmm . . .
I'm not sure if "quite sad" is a reasonable response to Iksar's post - he emphasised that the top five was volatile, changing each day (this site didn't show all the stats he posted). In any event, we'll seldom have one Aggro deck, one Control deck, one Midrange deck, one Combo deck, and something else among the top five - as long as Control is viable (you point out that it is), there really isn't much of a "problem."
Would you also have complained if there wasn't a Midrange deck on the list? A Combo deck? Aggro? Would you still be sad if Iksar had simply posted a top ten list, with a couple Control decks?
A month or so ago, someone on the BG team mentioned on the subreddit that "double-tribe" minions might be something they would consider adding to the Tavern. Rather than re-introducing Amalgam, they might simply add a bunch of Tier 2 1/1 minions with two tribes.
As it stands, the Tavern isn't really more aggressive without Amalgams - it's less defensive, and games seldom last long enough for "end-game" builds to materialise. Tier 6 is often merely cosmetic, while plenty of builds don't need to level up to Tier 4 until fairly late. I've found it a less interesting game as a result - if you don't roll a buildable build by the mid-game, you can't really stall behind a premium Taunt that would absorb a lot of the damage you end up taking.
Here's a link to the announcement page -
https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/blog/23227142
There are only four chapters, each with two "halves."
My favourite moment was Hunterace vs Viper in the championship final this past spring - their final game displayed everything that is great about Hearthstone.
I've been main-decking Reno Hunter ever since LoE - with all the cool new Reno toys we received in 2019, I'm mostly looking forward to playing nothing but Reno decks in every class for the rest of 2020.
It takes about ten days of dailies to grind each wing - that's about forty days for the set. Since it releases over a period of twenty-two days, you needed to start saving gold about three weeks ago to get the entire adventure for free.
HSReplays is currently tracking 25 decks with win-rates at or above 50% - each of the nerfed decks (Galakrond Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Deathrattle Rogue and Galakrond Zoo) remain in this group. A lot of folks complaining about the nerfs are acting as if Blizzard deleted those decks from the game. They didn't. If the purported "laziness" of the design team consistently produces meta-games with over two dozen viable decks, including all the nerfed decks, perhaps Blizzard should consider hiring a bunch of even lazier bastards to design their game . . .
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "losing by turn-6 without having any opportunity for counter-play" - you really ought to consider what the reasons for lack of counter-play actually were. Since Wild games are typically decided earlier than in Standard, there is an expectation that you will always have fewer opportunities to actually draw answers to the questions your opponent has posed - but that isn't a problem that can be "solved," it's simply a feature of eternal formats. By their nature, they are less interactive than slower formats.
Vintage MtG has the largest card-pool in any competitive CCG format. It also has the smallest pool of viable decks - literally thousands of otherwise groovy decks are pushed out of the Vintage meta-game by the power-level of a handful of established decks. Eventually, once the Wild format matures, it will be defined by its "pillars" - the decks which are sufficiently powerful to perpetually survive the introduction of new content. Again - that isn't a problem that plagues eternal formats, requiring constant curation from a balance team in order to avoid. Rather, it's an unavoidable consequence that can't be designed around - some folks find it alluring, but most don't, and stick to other formats.
Eternal formats in CCGs typically have very low turn-counters - games are decided, one-way-or-another, by turn four or five. That isn't to say that all games of Vintage MtG, or Modern, end on turn four or five - but fast-aggro might end it, while slower decks will have stabilised, or combo decks will have drawn into their win-condition. You need to achieve inevitability by the end of the early-game, or beginning of the mid-game. If your deck doesn't do its "big thing" consistently by turn four or five, it isn't going to flourish in any game-play environment in which the majority of decks do. There isn't anything wrong with having games decided quickly - provided there are lots of different types of decks, winning games in lots of different types of ways.
Importantly, there isn't any sort of fix to having a low fundamental turn - if MtG or Blizzard nerfed a hundred cards in their eternal formats, new decks would be found that achieve early inevitability in a few days or weeks. High fundamental turns are really only to be found in curated formats with low card-counts. In other words - if you don't like games regularly being decided before turn six, eternal formats will never appeal to you.
???
This sentiment seems poorly expressed - or at any rate, it seems to get matters backwards. Publicly traded companies don't have to fire their employees, or ban competitive players from their games, simply for a brief statement of support for democracy and human rights - as Brack has conceded. There is clearly an enormous range of corporate behaviour which is perfectly consistent with making money that falls far short of the line that Blizzard drew this past week.
All things considered, you'll have to concede that "business is business - all these kids should just grow up" doesn't exactly sum up the issue very well.