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Hearthstone | Posted by | 5 years, 6 months ago
Adventures

Sigh! Another garbage solo adventure...

You know what's not fun? Having no control. For me there is no point in playing the game if it is just being fed to me. This is getting tiresome. People qq'ed by the amount of dungeon runs they were churning out but guess what? Thanks to your qq'ing we get even worse solo adventures. Granted, the following DR's never captured the magic of the first one in Kobolds, but at least they tried to keep them fresh like with the shrines in Rastakan.

 

I'm sure some people like this and I don't mean to be a prick and alienate you, but after two goes with Jaina and seeing that I am going to have no control over the deck I'm using, I have no motivation to play it. I'd rather netdeck and have the ability to at least change a card or two to fit my play style.

 

If you want a return to Dungeon Runs, please voice your opinion, otherwise keep getting these.

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  • You know what's not fun? Having no control. For me there is no point in playing the game if it is just being fed to me. This is getting tiresome. People qq'ed by the amount of dungeon runs they were churning out but guess what? Thanks to your qq'ing we get even worse solo adventures. Granted, the following DR's never captured the magic of the first one in Kobolds, but at least they tried to keep them fresh like with the shrines in Rastakan.

     

    I'm sure some people like this and I don't mean to be a prick and alienate you, but after two goes with Jaina and seeing that I am going to have no control over the deck I'm using, I have no motivation to play it. I'd rather netdeck and have the ability to at least change a card or two to fit my play style.

     

    If you want a return to Dungeon Runs, please voice your opinion, otherwise keep getting these.

  • I think there is one BIG issue with DR's, and The Book of Heroes WILL face the same problem if they go the route I'm thinking.

    Dungeon Run got tiresome because it was being churned out for almost every expansion up until Descent of Dragons. Naturally people are going to get tired of the formula, I love DR's but god damn I was tired of them by the time Rastakhan's Rumble came out. I think everyone is in agreement that DR's are great and highly replayable, but having them back-to-back-to-back is not healthy and leads to burn out, hence everyone complaining about them.

    The Book of Heroes very well can suffer the same fate. If Team 5 releases a hero story every expansion cycle from this point on, it will be August of 2023 before we have all of the stories unlocked. Is this likely? Probably not, hopefully this is just their way of adding other single player content into the game while simultaneously releasing DR's and other forms of single player content (more puzzle labs please) without burning players out on one kind of experience.

     

    *puts on tinfoil hat*   With all that being said and with the Battle Pass right around the corner, I honestly wouldn't doubt it if they announced that some of the stories are paid for. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen anywhere that it is stated that all of the Hero Stories are F2P(BTW).

  • In fairness the Book of Heroes isn't meant as a dungeon run substitute. It's just there to give a bit of background to the main heroes and thus give players a bit more connection to the people they're playing as if they don't already know lots of Warcraft lore.

    At absolute worst, it is a small 45 (ish) minute thing that no one is forcing you to do, but will earn you a pack if you do get around to it. I don't see what there is to complain about there.

    Meanwhile, if you stop to look at the deck you are given you'll get some insight to what happened in the events being portrayed. You might even appreciate it a bit more (rest in peace Doomed Apprentice, a.k.a. Kinndy Sparkshine).

     

    Quote From griffior

    *puts on tinfoil hat*   With all that being said and with the Battle Pass right around the corner, I honestly wouldn't doubt it if they announced that some of the stories are paid for. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen anywhere that it is stated that all of the Hero Stories are F2P(BTW).

    It'll be monetised by the hero skin purchases. It is very unlikely the adventures themselves aren't free.

  • I admit that when the DR first came up in kobolds I was pretty hyped...until I started losing around 90% of all my runs in the last 2-3 bosses and nuking at least 1.5 hours down the drain. And why? Because those final 2 bosses are always where the shit hits the fan and they come at you hard with a 2 mana crystals advantage and unless you appropriately draw the nuts (i.e. specific treasures or builds) you're almost never going to win that match.

    The formula for DR in kobolds were atrocious (and this is coming from someone who proudly wears that famed cardback reward and haven't taken it down since). It got slightly better in witchwood since the end bosses were fixed and therefore predictable so there's some form of control in mind. It reached its zenith with Rastakhan's, where all the bosses were predictable and the all important shrines means there's always lots of fireworks. In RoS and Uldum it was an okay affair (not least because you only needed to beat Khadgar once to get all the prizes), but it was clear that some fatigue has set in by Uldum, not helped by the fact that the content in Uldum is a tremendous grind: multiple tier rewards for each hero, to be earned for each end boss win. Each boss having 300 health and 3 tiers. Yeah. I grinded up with Sir Finley (easily the best and most consistent hero) and never bothered with the others, beating Tekhan only with him.

    ---

    Its pretty easy to point out why DRs have stopped: Because they require a team to design, balance, and then price the damn thing to please their overlords in Activision's finance department. Clearly many players were not desperate enough to label this content feature a must have, and without their 20 bucks Activision-Blizz collectively decided to bin it.

    ---

    But to get back to the question on whether this pitifully small 'adventure' is bad, or at least worse than the others before it. The answer is yes, both for how ludicrously designed the bosses were, and also because its largely insignificant. What does finishing this small historical tale brings us? One pack. Can we feel proud to have finished it? No. A sense of accomplishment? Only if you're playing it on a massive self-imposed handicap. Does it perhaps educate us on the histories of Warcraft? About as much as relying on a 15 minute chat on trenches to educate us about WW1 (I really wondered if Jaina beating Thrall to a pulp and then later needing Kalec to persuade her to let him go is actually canon. Hmmmmm).

    Honestly, the most merciful thing about this adventure is that its short, easy, and you'd have to have a hole in your head to need to do this more than once to finish the whole damn thing to earn your pack, easily the sole motivation for finishing it in the first place.

    Again, the adventure pulls absolutely no punches and in my opinion, can be properly rated as a side product, to be shipped out along with an expansion simply because of tradition. But perhaps that's not so small, or indeed bad, a thing in the grand scheme of things. Its easy to say that DRs have been going on for too long a stretch and this represented a way to cool things down a bit, in the same way of witchwood-rastakhan's lower power levels against Ungoro-Kobolds' brilliance. And hey its free, so its one pack up for 45 minutes of your time. That's still more remarkable than paying 20 bucks for a useless card you can never dust -ehem cough cough- Zayle, Shadow Cloak

    Friendly

  • Not every HS player is guaranteed to have played WC or WoW, so BoH stories are just for providing lore of the initial heroes of each class.

  • honestly, for free content it's fine for what it is.

    It's good to kill an afternoon but it lacks replay value. 

     

  • I actually thought the Tombs of Terror (Saviors of Uldum's dungeon run version) was by far the best one. It allowed for the most deck building choices thanks to Bob's Bazaar and the different starting decks and treasures, it introduced some incredibly fun and versatile treasures (both as cards and as passives), the Plague lords not regenerating health in between runs was a great way to to get the maximum amount of potential out of your deck and it also made your runs not feel useless (unless the 6th or 7th boss did some unfair bullshit, which was the mode's biggest downside for me), the passive effects present in each different 'tomb/area' were versatile enough but also not gamebreaking and even allowed for some cool synergies, and finally anomaly mode allowed for some of the craziest interactions Hearthstone has to offer.

  • Firstly, it's free. You don't have to play it. The reward is minor, and afaik, it doesnt need to be completed to play the other classes further down the line. This isn't the Scholomance adventure.

    I can see why they started with Jaina, especially as its basically tutorial + for difficulty, but I think some of the other heroes will be more interesting stories. I'm looking forward to Thrall and Garrosh.

    For solo content, I'd like to see 1 "classic" adventure, 1 Dungeon run style, and one of something different per year. Don't really care what, but so far, the only time they deviated from the other two was Boomsday. Personally, I didn't enjoy it, but it was nice to see them trying something else. 

    As for Dungeon Run content, I personally think that the original was one of the worst, only beating Rumble Run. They made massive steps forward with Witchwood (new Avatars, dual classes) Dalaran Heist (Multiple Twists, Anomaly mode, Choice of Hero powers) and Uldum (improvements on Dalaran Heist, returning dual classes, more flavour). All of them have issues without question, and I think the Plague Lords were a mistake, especially for content that you want people to complete multiple times, but I can see them learning each time, which makes me want a new one. Not more than one per year though.

  • I want to point out the voice acting and writing on these has been pretty great on the last several adventures. The reno one for descent of dragons, Illidan, and now Jaina have been pretty high quality.

  • The only adventure I'd call outright bad was Trial by Felfire. That one was pretty rough.

    As a huge Warcraft nerd, this was honestly a lot of fun. I could see it as a jumping-off point for people who play Hearthstone and are interested in Warcraft lore, which is exactly the purpose it serves. Especially once we have them all, you'll get a pretty good outside picture of Warcraft's story.

    Quote From griffior

    The Book of Heroes very well can suffer the same fate. If Team 5 releases a hero story every expansion cycle from this point on, it will be August of 2023 before we have all of the stories unlocked.

    They're releasing them monthly AFAIK. We'll have all ten by July next year.

  • As someone who replays a lot of the dungeon run style modes, I'd have to say I really miss them. Each of them had their issues and they definitely  overdid it at some point but to this day SoU's tombs of terror has become a massive time sink. And I believe I have figured out the problems and the solutions to them for each mode:

    Dungeon Run (original):
    Simple but effective first version.
    Passive Treasures were basic but some of them way too weak (get the Weapons-cost-1 treasure, proceed to never get offered weapons)
    Active Treasures were interesting and some could define a game whether draw early or not
    Bosses however ended up being very unfair at times because some of them were designed to counter a specific achetype. Who didn't make a spell-heavy deck and ran into the trogg boss that steamrolls you if you dare to play a spell? Especially the final bosses could invalidate a strategy you built on for 7 encounters. Built a slow control deck? Well, one of the bosses just mills your entire deck by turn 10. None of the final encounters are fun, really.

    Monster Hunt:
    Interesting but limited in terms of heroes.
    Passive Treasures included some character specific ones which are sadly almost necessary to win a run and were worth restarting over.
    Active Treasures were unique as hell and specific encounters offered treasures based on the boss which made them feel like loot. Most other standart treasures were however hillariously weak.
    Bosses were tough and felt inconsistant. You could steamroll one boss and be completly blown out by the next. While having nemesis bosses for each character was a good idea, those bosses were designed to counter the character. Unique challenge in knowing what is coming and building a deck to be prepared, tho!

    Rumble Run:
    Shrines were a new concept and it was fun to basically know the direction your deck went from the start. However, that mode just kinda played itself due to you always havng to pick the card bucket that aligned with your shrine and you were just kind of f-ed if you had a deathrattle shrine and didn't get offered deathrattles worth trippling up on. That was probably this mode's biggest issue.
    Passive Treasures didn't matter since you didn't get them until the 7th encounter and they were not swingy enough to make a difference, especially some of the ones that woud have impacted your deckbuilding if you had known you would get specific ones.
    Active Treasures were good ones, all of them being champions of your chosen class.
    Bosses were just... the standart classes. Depending on their shrine managable or overpowered. Here is where the later bosses starting with more mana really makes an impact. Their decks are perfectly tailored to their shrine and will usually blow yours out of the water easilly by the mere fact they can get these broken champions down way earlier. Very unsatisfying to loose.

    Dalaran Heist:
    Really good one, this one. Heroes are standart classes but each of them receive two additional hero powers to unlock. Different starting decks to tailor your run int oa direction early on. Different chapters with special twists and unique bosses. Introduction of Bob's Tavern to modify your deck mid-run. Introduction of anomaly mode made this one the most replayable mode up to that point. To Top it off, the flavour of playing the bad guys was hillarious, especially with the 5 villains commenting on encounters and treasures.
    Passive Treasures were mostly recycled from prior DRs but some new unique ones that could really win you a run. Some really broken combos were possible.
    Active Treasures were slightly weaker than prior DR itterations. Most of the time sthey were just slightly stronger minions/weapons/spells that could slot in fine into your deck.
    Bosses were fine but the most annoying part was i nthe fact that most of the later bosss' difficulty came solely fro mthe fact that they start with 4 mana which was way too much, especially if they played heavy tempo. You better had a good early hand or you were done for. That shows especially in the final chapter where you are up against 5 bosses that start the game that way and can easilly steamroll you into oblivion before you even get to turn 4 yourself.

    Tombs of Terror:
    Easilly the best one of all the DRs. While it cut down back to the 4-hero-format of Monster Hunt, it had the versatility of Dalaran Heist with multiple hero powers, starting decks, chapter twists, bob's tarvern (bazar) and anomalies. Plus each hero represents two classes which allows for a plethora of new combos. The game also starts you off with a unique signature treasure that can be a really good board control tool or straight up win condition.
    Passive Treasures took the best of prior modes and cut some of the weaker ones. Sometimes you run into the issue were some treasures could easilly sabotage your deck. However, there are some rarer passives there that can absolutely win you the game if drafted with the right deck/hero power
    Active Treasures are Impactful, especially some that let you cheat mana or single-handedly negate fatigue by shuffling back into your deck. There was also one unique treasure that lets you take a boss' hero power and use it for the rest of the run which offered a whole new angle.
    Bosses were fun and balanced, none of that perfect-counter BS that happened in prior DRs. Final boss is always the plague lord which is intended to be taken down over multiple attempt but can be done in one if you have a really broken deck. Plague Lord of Death is the only one that feels unfair and overtuned even while not playing heroic. Other than that you always feel like you got a fair chance.

    Honestly, out of all of them Tombs of Terror got right the most and if they released a new DR based on that with new treasures and updated card pools, I would be all over it. Some general suggestions I would have, tho:
    >One should be able to skip adding cards to the deck, especially later down the line. Funnily enough a DR-style tavern brawl actually offered empty buckets once your deck reached a certain size so they have clearly played with the idea.
    >A Retire button or quick restart. Again, i nthe recent book of heroes adventure they offer exactly that.
    >Possibly a failsafe that offers you one second attempt in the scenario of an unfair encounter. Again, a DR-style tavern brawl had introduced Aviator Bob to toss you into a tavern the first time you died and let you continue
    >Make certain rarer treasures more common. I didn't mind them being rare but not getting the Lucky Shovel Treasure until 5 months into religiously playing the mode was kind of weird.

  • I'm glad it was free, and I did find the first run through enjoyable except the second fight where you have hardly any minions.

    Playing through the other 2 times (I play on 3 regions) was a bit tiresome primarily because there a lot of dialogue in between games you can't skip.  So sometimes the closing, between game and opening dialogue means you are simply waiting for over a minute to play next game.

    A heroic mode where you draft your own deck would have been nice too.

    Still it's a minor complaint for free stuff.

  • Generally I've been seriously underwhelmed/bored by the majority of adventures post Rastakhan (which, due to my completionist nature, I massively burned out on cause of how many shrines there were and how heavily some encounters were stacked against you). And while I generally agree that getting a new dungeon run every expansion would get extremely tiresome too, this half-assed "content" (one person could cobble this idea together in an afternoon, then it's just implementation time) ain't exactly scratching the adventure itch either and in some respects I'd rather they not even spend time and resources on this crap if that's the extent they intend to develop it to. I'd much prefer if the middle expansion of each year included a serious, good quality dungeon run adventure with the rest of the expansions getting nothing. Quality over quantity. But when has that ever been the AAA way of doing things? They'd rather half-ass it three times a year than do it properly once. As somone who doesn't give a crap about the packs, the content itself has nothing to offer if the gameplay experience is poor.

  • While I am usually a fanboy, enjoy solo-content, and am more than willing to accept some imperfections, I was also pretty disappointed with this. If you look at the gaming experience you play 8 pretty straightforward games in a row with a pretty similar deck, where the hero power quickly outpowers most cards and no option for any deck customization. Felt pretty bland.

    From the storytelling perspective, it felt like the management summary of Jaina's story with fast-forward pressed down. As a WC3 and WoW veteran, I am pretty familiar with the lore but I wonder if anyone who isn't already familiar actually got any more idea at all. Hard to judge for me, but it felt like a bunch of disjointed one-liners to me. 

    Though the voice acting and portraits were good...

  • The main issue with the Book of Heroes is that the story is too condensed to be intelligible by someone who desn't know Warcraft lore. You don't sum up 15 years of WoW like this.

    • Point is it shouldn't have been about the story in the first place. Who comes to HS for lore? It has none. It tried to have some last year with the whole league of evil thing. Didn't impact the experience at all, there was just a lot more unskippable dialogue in between the games. What was the takeaway from all that over the grand total of over 3 expansions? Lazul is dead, oh no, my feelings, I cared so much about her. Rafaam destroyed the Alliance and the Horde and then retired, what massive ramifications for the HS universe, can't wait to see how this changes the landscape...oh wait we're going to some random school now, k.

      If they can't tell their own original well, then telling the story of another game in the same environment isn't gonna go over any better. Besides, HS is a really poor delivery mechanism for story. Everything is done through "out-of-game" dialogue, as in, dialogue that actively disrupts the gameplay. And then the story you get is: Arthas vs Jaina with the plot motivation of "we'll settle this by sparring". Oh boy...and here I was thinking that Demon Hunter story was contrived.

      Blizz has been pretty adamantly focused on "gameplay first", often to an infuriating extent where they'd rather butcher the story, atmosphere and logic to force a gameplay mechanic into the thing, but in this case, I think I'd prefer good gameplay with no or minimal narrative over uninteresting gameplay with the added benefit of forced uninteresting narrative. Does anybody feel more emotionally connected to Jaina after this? Does anyone feel ANYTHING after this? Except maybe disappointed, bored, or happy they finally got through that to open the damn pack? And really, if your story can't incite emotion from your audience, why even bother?

    • Quote From Cheese

      The main issue with the Book of Heroes is that the story is too condensed to be intelligible by someone who desn't know Warcraft lore. You don't sum up 15 years of WoW like this.

      I think it is a slight misunderstanding of the BoH's purpose to think it is meant to tell anything close to the whole story. We have Wikis for that, and they take quite a while to get through and even longer to read enough pages to actually understand Jaina's.

      I know this first hand, because I only got into Warcraft lore through HS, and I don't think I learned much about Sylvanas Windrunner (my first legendary) when I first read her story other than that she died, was made a banshee and at some point reclaimed her old body. It took ages to piece together all the surrounding information required to understand her story, largely because I was unfamiliar with all the names and characteristics of people, places and races involved, and you can only take in so much information at a time. However, if I had a super condensed BoH-esque version of events beforehand, I could have read Sylvanas' Wiki and gone "Oh yeah, I know that guy from HS" and would have been better able to follow her story without getting lost in a sea of unfamiliar names.

      Hence I view the BoH as a convenient, in-game primer for anyone who wants to learn more, rather than a serious attempt to get everyone completely up to speed with Warcraft lore. I guess it is somewhat analogous to the introductory slides of a presentation: they don't tell you a huge amount on their own, but they help you follow the bulk of the presentation when you get there.

      Of course a card game is always going to be a pretty terrible way to tell a story, so the BoH is always going to have its limitations. But it is still a positive addition, especially at a time when WoW players are complaining too much of the Warcraft story is being told outside of the game.