A second Big Ol' Whelp would also be nice, since you need card draw to get to your embiggened cards. Even though it is a battlecry minion, it has decent enough stats that you shouldn't be too disappointed if it gets pulled by Strength in Numbers. Maybe replace Dragon Breeder with this: both give you one more card in hand and one more dragon, but the Whelp doesn't rely on having a dragon in play and is better when pulled by the sidequest.
To get through the early turns, Swipe is pretty good. There are a lot of one-health minions at the moment. And if you're up against a slower deck, you can use it for extra face damage. You could replace Innervate or Wild Growth with Swipe: instead of speeding up your game plan, you slow down your opponent.
A 1:1 ratio wouldn't work, as others have pointed out. But 1:2 shouldn't break the economy while still making crafting a lot more affordable, which could increase deck variety on ladder.
A different change they could make is add a no-triplicate rule for epics, like we have a no-duplicate rule for legendaries. It always feels terrible to get a third copy of an epic, plus it discourages crafting epics until you've stopped buying packs of a particular set.
I think you mean 1:2 ratio for epics and legendaries. Lets be honest, If I get 20 dust per common dusted, I'll never be buying packs ever again.
No, I mean for all rarities. Even at 1:2, the worst pack would be upgraded from 40 dust to 130 dust, so you'd still need a dozen all-dust packs to craft one legendary.
For me, the amount of packs I buy is limited by how much money I want to spend, which in practice means I never buy packs at full price but do sometimes get bundles. If crafting was cheaper, I'd craft more cards instead of spending less money.
A 1:1 ratio wouldn't work, as others have pointed out. But 1:2 shouldn't break the economy while still making crafting a lot more affordable, which could increase deck variety on ladder.
A different change they could make is add a no-triplicate rule for epics, like we have a no-duplicate rule for legendaries. It always feels terrible to get a third copy of an epic, plus it discourages crafting epics until you've stopped buying packs of a particular set.
One difference with most other card games is that mana carries over from turn to turn, so you can play expensive cards earlier if you don't spend all your mana.
A more obvious difference is the hex-based game board: positioning is very important, not only for combat but also for getting more mana (from the wells on the side) or summoning creatures (only on your own land of the right color).
As in Magic, you can use as many colors per deck as you like, although typically one or two are used. There are also neutral (colorless) cards.
A super quick intro for Hearthstone players:
there is ranked and unranked ladder, while Pandora is like Arena
taunt is taunt
protection is divine shield
death touch is poisonous
gift is battlecry
last words is deathrattle
haste is charge
charge is faster movement: 2 or 3 hexes in a straight line instead of 1
dash is extra movement in a straight line immediately after summoning
The business model is friendly to people on a small but non-zero budget: if you buy a DLC, you can then unlock all the cards within it through chests (packs) which you get by just playing the game for a little while. The chests will never give you duplicates, so when you have all the commons and rares of an expansion, you'll open chests full of epics and legendaries. There are some modes you can play without paying anything, but I don't think you can get everything without paying.
There are also some nice lethal puzzles, similar to what Hearthstone had with Boomsday.
Is there a significant difference in health risk in LA vs Indonesia though? I would guess the largest risk of players getting infected is on the airport or plane travelling to the event, which applies to any location. Well, for the players anyway; having the event in LA does mean that staff has to travel less, so maybe that was their concern.
I like rush as a mechanic, but they went a bit overboard with it. It's good to have catch-up mechanisms, so a game isn't over if your opponent has a quicker start. But if every turn is a swing turn, it feels like you're not building towards anything.
I wouldn't call the game ruined though: the meta is usually worst just before rotation and compared to previous years I think the current state is actually pretty good.
There are a lot of battlecry minions in the meta at the moment. A deck that generates lackeys for example can often play multiple per turn. So building/selecting a deck with a lot of battlecries is not that hard. But still, 50 minions is a lot for 50 gold; I agree that 30 would have been more in line with the other quest goals.
2*mana+1 is the base number of stat points, where attack, health, taunt and divine shield all cost one stats point.
But minions that follow these base numbers almost never see play. Chillwind Yeti used to be a staple when only the Classic set was available, but not anymore. Spider Tank is the last base-statted minion I can think of that saw significant play, but that was because of its Mech tag.
Northshire Cleric is too strong for its cost, but I guess that Priest being a weak class overall made it escape the nerf that Mana Wyrm did receive.
As for Zilliax, I don't think he's overpowered when looking at the stat points for your mana. But the combination of stats and effects just works very well. It's like Azure Drake in that way.
As AngryShuckie said, Rafaam didn't plan to defeat Galakrond. But pretty soon after the resurrection, he realized that if he let Galakrond continue to rampage, there would be no audience left to witness Rafaam's glory.
I kinda like the way the two stories are tied up: in both cases Galakrond is defeated and Rafaam gets away, but in one story Rafaam defeated Galakrond and in another story Reno did. So what we have is a chaotic event and two huge egos claiming that they defeated the Big Bad, leaving anyone who wasn't there (and some that were) unsure what is fact and what is boasting.
I'd be fine seeing him HOF'd. He's not broken, but he just isn't fun to play against in my opinion.
That's because he's a finisher.
It's never fun to lose.
Isn't that a valid argument to HoF Leeroy? Losing to the same card for over 5 years is just not a fun experience, even if the card isn't broken.
Assuming some other card has to be printed to fill the void, then no, that's not a particularly strong reason to HoF Leeroy. You'll still have that not-fun experience losing to a topdecked Killroy Watkins even if it's a brand-spanking new card, and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of people don't have strong negative feelings toward leeroy to begin with. Sure, it's not *fun* to lose to topdeck leeroy, but the same is true for any number of other ways to lose.
Replacing Leeroy with a carbon copy wouldn't help, but they could print other good aggro cards. I do think it feels worse to lose to the same card for a very long time than to lose to different cards in each meta.
I think there are several aspects of Leeroy that make him more annoying than the average card:
charge is a not very interactive mechanic; they switched to rush for a reason
being a strong neutral card in the Classic set, he's always present, in every meta, in every class, forever
as a one-of card, drawing Leeroy at the right time has a big impact on the outcome of the game: drawing him too soon is almost as bad as drawing him too late, since it's rare that he's playable when it's not lethal and aggro decks typically cannot afford to hold a lot of cards for later
By the same logic rotating Malygos and Alexstrasza also makes sense, since those are also non-interactive strong neutral legendaries.
I'd be fine seeing him HOF'd. He's not broken, but he just isn't fun to play against in my opinion.
That's because he's a finisher.
It's never fun to lose.
Isn't that a valid argument to HoF Leeroy? Losing to the same card for over 5 years is just not a fun experience, even if the card isn't broken.
Regarding Zilliax, if that was a card in Standard, I'd be very much in favor of moving him to the HoF. But he's already going to rotate with the next expansion.
Hearthstone also had a significant amount of bugs, inconsistencies and balance issues back when they patched slowly, so I think overall quick patching improves the player experience.
True, but I hope that as more animations are sped up, the ones that are still slow are going to stand out and will be addressed as well. Also for new cards, they might make them quick from the start, just in case they will be included in Battlegrounds at some point.
Yes! While I like all the little animations in Hearthstone, many of them are way too slow. Sometimes it's just a waste of time, like when Snake Trap triggers in Quest Hunter, but I've also had many times when I couldn't finish inputting all my moves before the turn ended because of animations.
The average pack is worth a bit over 100 dust, so it's always useful. And if you have all the cards, you can actually disenchant whatever is in the pack and hit that average, unlike people who are still missing parts of the Classic set (10 legendaries to go for me).
I got a Shu'ma as well, but I like to play Quest Hunter, so I'm quite happy with it. It might be playable in Token Druid as well, if you have a deck that's not exclusively doesn't lean too heavily on Treants.
There is no evidence this is currently implemented for Hearthstone. But "differentiated gaming experiences" has me worried in what way they want game experiences to be different, especially when it comes right after "curated recommendations for in-game offers".
They have a patent, but that doesn't mean it's implemented. But if they'd never consider implementing a mechanism like that, they wouldn't have bothered to spend money to patent it.
To increase the chance that Strength in Numbers pulls something good, consider replacing Acornbearer with a spell, for example Treenforcements, Rising Winds, BEEEES!!!, Dreamway Guardians or even good old Wrath.
If you want to keep Acornbearer, then include Faceless Corruptor, like dapperdog said. A possible alternative deathrattle token generator is Infested Goblin.
A second Big Ol' Whelp would also be nice, since you need card draw to get to your embiggened cards. Even though it is a battlecry minion, it has decent enough stats that you shouldn't be too disappointed if it gets pulled by Strength in Numbers. Maybe replace Dragon Breeder with this: both give you one more card in hand and one more dragon, but the Whelp doesn't rely on having a dragon in play and is better when pulled by the sidequest.
To get through the early turns, Swipe is pretty good. There are a lot of one-health minions at the moment. And if you're up against a slower deck, you can use it for extra face damage. You could replace Innervate or Wild Growth with Swipe: instead of speeding up your game plan, you slow down your opponent.
No, I mean for all rarities. Even at 1:2, the worst pack would be upgraded from 40 dust to 130 dust, so you'd still need a dozen all-dust packs to craft one legendary.
For me, the amount of packs I buy is limited by how much money I want to spend, which in practice means I never buy packs at full price but do sometimes get bundles. If crafting was cheaper, I'd craft more cards instead of spending less money.
A 1:1 ratio wouldn't work, as others have pointed out. But 1:2 shouldn't break the economy while still making crafting a lot more affordable, which could increase deck variety on ladder.
A different change they could make is add a no-triplicate rule for epics, like we have a no-duplicate rule for legendaries. It always feels terrible to get a third copy of an epic, plus it discourages crafting epics until you've stopped buying packs of a particular set.
It's certainly worth trying out, in my opinion.
One difference with most other card games is that mana carries over from turn to turn, so you can play expensive cards earlier if you don't spend all your mana.
A more obvious difference is the hex-based game board: positioning is very important, not only for combat but also for getting more mana (from the wells on the side) or summoning creatures (only on your own land of the right color).
As in Magic, you can use as many colors per deck as you like, although typically one or two are used. There are also neutral (colorless) cards.
A super quick intro for Hearthstone players:
The business model is friendly to people on a small but non-zero budget: if you buy a DLC, you can then unlock all the cards within it through chests (packs) which you get by just playing the game for a little while. The chests will never give you duplicates, so when you have all the commons and rares of an expansion, you'll open chests full of epics and legendaries. There are some modes you can play without paying anything, but I don't think you can get everything without paying.
There are also some nice lethal puzzles, similar to what Hearthstone had with Boomsday.
Is there a significant difference in health risk in LA vs Indonesia though? I would guess the largest risk of players getting infected is on the airport or plane travelling to the event, which applies to any location. Well, for the players anyway; having the event in LA does mean that staff has to travel less, so maybe that was their concern.
I like rush as a mechanic, but they went a bit overboard with it. It's good to have catch-up mechanisms, so a game isn't over if your opponent has a quicker start. But if every turn is a swing turn, it feels like you're not building towards anything.
I wouldn't call the game ruined though: the meta is usually worst just before rotation and compared to previous years I think the current state is actually pretty good.
There are a lot of battlecry minions in the meta at the moment. A deck that generates lackeys for example can often play multiple per turn. So building/selecting a deck with a lot of battlecries is not that hard. But still, 50 minions is a lot for 50 gold; I agree that 30 would have been more in line with the other quest goals.
2*mana+1 is the base number of stat points, where attack, health, taunt and divine shield all cost one stats point.
But minions that follow these base numbers almost never see play. Chillwind Yeti used to be a staple when only the Classic set was available, but not anymore. Spider Tank is the last base-statted minion I can think of that saw significant play, but that was because of its Mech tag.
Abilities like windfury and lifesteal are costed differently depending on the stats, compare for example Young Dragonhawk, Thrallmar Farseer and Windfury Harpy.
Northshire Cleric is too strong for its cost, but I guess that Priest being a weak class overall made it escape the nerf that Mana Wyrm did receive.
As for Zilliax, I don't think he's overpowered when looking at the stat points for your mana. But the combination of stats and effects just works very well. It's like Azure Drake in that way.
Rafaam's ego is the main theme: "the Supreme Archeologist", Arch-Thief Rafaam, Arch-Villain Rafaam. He really wants to feel important.
As AngryShuckie said, Rafaam didn't plan to defeat Galakrond. But pretty soon after the resurrection, he realized that if he let Galakrond continue to rampage, there would be no audience left to witness Rafaam's glory.
I kinda like the way the two stories are tied up: in both cases Galakrond is defeated and Rafaam gets away, but in one story Rafaam defeated Galakrond and in another story Reno did. So what we have is a chaotic event and two huge egos claiming that they defeated the Big Bad, leaving anyone who wasn't there (and some that were) unsure what is fact and what is boasting.
Replacing Leeroy with a carbon copy wouldn't help, but they could print other good aggro cards. I do think it feels worse to lose to the same card for a very long time than to lose to different cards in each meta.
I think there are several aspects of Leeroy that make him more annoying than the average card:
By the same logic rotating Malygos and Alexstrasza also makes sense, since those are also non-interactive strong neutral legendaries.
Isn't that a valid argument to HoF Leeroy? Losing to the same card for over 5 years is just not a fun experience, even if the card isn't broken.
Regarding Zilliax, if that was a card in Standard, I'd be very much in favor of moving him to the HoF. But he's already going to rotate with the next expansion.
Hearthstone also had a significant amount of bugs, inconsistencies and balance issues back when they patched slowly, so I think overall quick patching improves the player experience.
True, but I hope that as more animations are sped up, the ones that are still slow are going to stand out and will be addressed as well. Also for new cards, they might make them quick from the start, just in case they will be included in Battlegrounds at some point.
Yes! While I like all the little animations in Hearthstone, many of them are way too slow. Sometimes it's just a waste of time, like when Snake Trap triggers in Quest Hunter, but I've also had many times when I couldn't finish inputting all my moves before the turn ended because of animations.
The average pack is worth a bit over 100 dust, so it's always useful. And if you have all the cards, you can actually disenchant whatever is in the pack and hit that average, unlike people who are still missing parts of the Classic set (10 legendaries to go for me).
I got a Shu'ma as well, but I like to play Quest Hunter, so I'm quite happy with it. It might be playable in Token Druid as well, if you have a deck that's not exclusively doesn't lean too heavily on Treants.
Eh, it gives you cards from the Year of the Dragon, while it is the Year of the Raven (Witchwood, Boomsday, Rastakhan) that will be rotating out next.
There is no evidence this is currently implemented for Hearthstone. But "differentiated gaming experiences" has me worried in what way they want game experiences to be different, especially when it comes right after "curated recommendations for in-game offers".
They have a patent, but that doesn't mean it's implemented. But if they'd never consider implementing a mechanism like that, they wouldn't have bothered to spend money to patent it.