I kinda wanted to talk about this for a time so i decided to do it now due to the entire kazakusan situation.
Be it kazakusan , be mage questline…
The fact is that those supposed “puzzle decks” are being solved literally before launch.
Not only that but the result decks are also uninspiring stuff that resume into force your “reward” to get in hand as fast as possible.
In other words:
They’re getting not only too easy to solve but also are creating decks that aren’t fun to play against.
There are 2 main causes to it in my opnion:
- The game isn’t the same it was when that trend started.
We nowadays have Far more draw than before , tutors ,etc.
- There is too much effort into making those cards “playable”.
The focus would be in actual hearthstone matches and not into making the next fun meme when cards are designed.
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There’s not really a puzzle element to Kaz, basically draw it play it win it, without dying. Druid has the perfect tools for it at the moment, but other classes can do it with the right draw.
It’s early days but clearly the rewards are ridiculous power level. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t evident in play testing.
I reckon you could make most quest rewards just plain legendaries now, and they wouldn’t hold up against Kaz.
It is people liking or not.
It’s just a ridiculous uninspired one(use only dragons) with a even less fun answer(only run the reward card).
All cards that require your deck to be built in a certain way or a very specific setup are actual puzzles.
If this was a jigsaw puzzle, it’s got 4 pieces all corners.
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Exactly the point.
The game isn’t the same as it used to be.
In the past a card like this would even be okay because you would not even be able to even guarantee you would draw it in First place.
Nowadays we have different tools that demmand more elaborated problems.
If blizzard not want to make to elaborated deckbuilding challenge cards they’re better not even doing anything in that line again.
Examples:
If your decklist cost exactly 10K dust to craft it’s normal version.
If your decklist consist of exactly 15 Minions and 15 spells.
This is the type of stuff we should be seeing.
The current lead believe in creating ‘simple’ decks where player can play straight away. Gone are the days where a powerful card are balanced with an equitable risk.
Current cards contains risk which are mitigated by a combination of other cards.
However to note, the general player population seems to accept/prefer the current designs.
Old school deckbuilder type of players would feel contrary as there isn’t a creative space for them to enjoy.
(I may need to be corrected) Wild was the safe space until recently where standard legal cards start to upset the ‘balance’ it once enjoyed.
I understand you.
The issue here i kinda advocating for a time is:
“What you want isn’t necessarily the best for you”.
Regarding the playerbase.
Actually players are getting so stupid that we had to nerf pirate warrior because people in Platinum were still having problems with the deck.
Have issue with that type of deck would be acceptable maybe in silver/ Gold.
But Platinum was a little too much of the playerbase being just bad.
I always had problem understanding this statement.
I always felt that players opinion is secondary to designs/balance. Current team always hold firm in “implementing a meta” where they envisioned. If supported by sales, then it further strengthen their believe that the design direction is correct.
Metagame rotation is not even a issue actually.
But how automated the gameplay get sometimes.
It is getting so automated that decks having the possibility of taking decisions are often “overpowered” because many can’t.
It’s pretty simplistic to conflate ranks in standard with players’ ability to play against decks. Saying players in platinum ranks have problems with pirate warrior also means that pirate warrior is having problems with platinum players, otherwise they’d be in diamond.
I think you’ll find that players are motivated differently across the ranks, especially at the lower ranks where there will be a much wider variety of reasons that players don’t climb that relate to play style. The higher you go in the ranks, the less diverse the player base. Skill is probably more of a factor at the very pointy end, than in the lower ranks.
It’s good to understand your customers and try and cater for them, I agree with what reaver said about creative space being more limited these days, I’m not sure it’s a good thing business wise but I don’t have that data so who knows. I’ve not personally seen evidence of blizzard wide-polling customers for qualitative feedback.
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The players are doing the testing right now.
As per…
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What right do you have to decided players are just stupid? No matter what bracket they play in. There are a myriad of reasons ppl are in the brackets they are and no one should be made to feel bad about themselves bc of it. The elitest attitude of players these days is freaking (harsher words intended) disgusting.
The right of who actually did take the time to learn to play and also the right of who has seen proof of how mediocre pirate warrior was.
if you consistently lose to mediocre you’re worse than medíocre.
In other words i not even need any “right” because facts are already saying that.
I really like them: they make the game interesting.
I prefer a card like Kazakusan than a card like Onixya, for example.
Restrictions are cool, because so the card can be made more powerful because less decks will use them. They just need to TEST new cards and find a GOOD restriction.
Example of a NOT GOOD restriction: play pirates
Example of a GOOD restriction: if your deck has no 4 mana cards; no neutral cards; no duplicates.
I am not sure if the “all your minions in your deck are dragons” restriction is balanced or not, but the card itself is interesting and I like it.
Without further investigation, I think it is fine (so even only spell decks can use it); what’s not fine is playing a late game wincondition in the early game, which can be avoided by proper playtesting before the release
There’s an assumption that everyone is trying to maximise their win rate.
Also ‘stupid’ is an insult, and rude. For example, I wouldn’t call you stupid because your English isn’t as good as other people’s, I’d just say that your English isn’t as good as other people’s.
If you play a ladder format it’s the only fair assumption to do despite of not being always the case.
The ones not trying to climb are a exception.
And stupid is one of the less ofensive ways to Tell that.
But i can tone down a little saying incompetent instead.
Ladder is good because you get less concedes. Plenty of low ranked players are low ranked because they like playing meme decks, decks with low win rates (increased challenge + pay off), or simply don’t play much.
About 97% of players are outside diamond.
About 40% of people (tested) have under 95 IQ, and 5% exceed 125 which is typically where people start to get quite clever.
If low ranks = stupid, it means that a very high proportion of hearthstone players have low IQ compared to the general populace! Hmm…
If you actually believe the population of players that actually can climb is big you’re really needing a reality check.
Also we are talking about averages here.
I don’t believe that playing hearthstone requires any kind of exceptional intelligence, unless you’re talking about the top20 or so, who are going to be smart in the same way top poker, chess, bridge players are.
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I don’t too.
If i did believe people need to be exceptional to be good at hearthstone that entire conversation would be pointless.
As for ladder :
You’re taking it into a player level.
I talking about it in a general level.
If pirate warrior is a bad deck with a excessive amount of weaknesses then what people who actually can’t win against it are?
Certainly whatever they’re doing isn’t even good because pirate warrior is already weak and they still lose.