I used to love this game a lot but now it just feels like you play to climb the ranks and not play a fun deck. Pretty much everything in casual and ranked is aggro, and it’s just fast, winning gameplay. I miss playing fun decks for the same of pulling off a combo or figuring out card synergy that isn’t obvious, but now its just meta, meta, meta.
6 Likes
Of course. Blizz meant to it to be like that. Else they will also give some rewards for time spent playing. Here the rewards are given based on number of wins, so people want to:
- Play fast decks to accumulate as much wins as possible in the shortest time
- Win
As a result, the focus is not on having fun. However, I’m sure some players still have fun.
its entirely up to you if you want to play a fun deck or not. as with every card game you are always allowed to play a casual fun deck, however as in every other card game you should also not expect to consistently beat every meta deck with it.
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Hilarious how players slave it out until legend.
Only to play casually afterwards.
It’s like they don’t know casual is really where the action is at.
Every competitive game will have proven winning principles that must be adhered to by any strategy. Tactics essentially objectify winning principles. Tactics try to achieve discrete tasks derived from the winning principles. Tactics are a task list employed as parts of an overall strategy.
In Heartstone,
- Winning principles concern deck types, game mechanics, and balance;
- Strategy is effectively deck building; and
- Tactics are cards and synergy employed for purpose.
Meta will always exist. Although, superior tactics evolve along with power shifts. What is “fun” one day might turn into super serious rung grind stuff the next day. It does not have to be separated by days or expansions. A pocket meta could be a single rung in the ranked ladder.
For example, I experienced three distinct pocket metas between P5 and P1, being: P5-P3, P3-2, P1. I had to change less performant cards in the same deck five times. I was comfortable changing cards as the opponents demanded, because I have always been a homebrewer. It was not easy, nor immediately obvious. It took losing until it felt impossible, and the weaker cards became evident.
Netdecks are merely a reference, a snapshot of some pocket meta at some time in the recent past. The most important thing garnered from netdecks is their assortment of tactics. Always try to envision the cards as task purposed, so that it is conceivable how those tactics can be swapped. If a deck would feel grindy, then you have the fun job of discovering alternative combinations that complete objectives equally well in a fun way.
Returning to my personalized example; the deck I began climbing from P10 with included fun cards that defied netdeck suggestions. They were more fun to play because they were my concoction and likely unexpected, and they helped build a larger theme representation in the deck. However, one card that I have been wanting to include since returning to Hearthstone in May, my favorite two cost card, still did not feel like it could be included. It felt as though the residual power creep from past expansions made it impossible. Guess what happened. Yep. The constant testing and revisions that I did finally happened upon a deck composition that allowed it to fulfill one task. That little success felt more rewarding than all the wins it took to get there. The result? For the first time in my five years of playing Hearthstone I made it to rank 5 (currently D5, which is equivalent to rank 3 on the old ladder). Discovering the secret combination that unlocked the option to include my favorite two drop became my secret sauce to achieve new highs. Like icing on cake baby. Isn’t that nice?
So, the message of this post is to encourage you to retake control of your experience in ranked. You have the biggest effect regarding whether it is fun. More so now than in previous expansions (in standard). We can thank team 5 for that. I am having the most fun ever in Hearthstone.
Find your fun deck. It is waiting to be discovered.
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But for a lot of players winning is the fun part. So it’s only reasonable that they will use the strongest/most viable stuff to achieve these wins easily. It happens in every video game. You just have to deal with it.
But then there are also players like you who are getting their fun from homebrewing their own decks, finding synergies, combos etc. And I don’t see what is stopping you from doing so and having fun.
I’ve seen streamers who are not meta slaves, but are having fun playing different meme decks even if they lose a lot of their games.
Don’t expect people to play as you want. It just won’t happen. In any game. Never. When you’ll accept it, you might have fun again because you won’t expect others to provide the fun for you and you will instead find your own way of having fun in the game.
3 Likes
We could have custom game modes. Probably best organized in groups/guilds because of course you need others that want to play how you want. So maybe you can’t have it 100% your way but certainly more than right now. They would just need to implement something like this:
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I play an unorthodox original deck warrior and have fun because it’s MY deck. I’ve made it up to diamond 5 with my deck and feel pretty good about making it that far. The battles I’ve come up against in D5 are much tougher, but I refuse to go with A-typical decks because they are so boring - there’s no fun behind it.
I’m probably more suited for the D10 class since everyone at D5 is pushing to make legend, hence they play the most common popular decks. You just have to have thick skin and enjoy the rewards of beating popular decks with your fun ones.
Despite all the hate on these forums, I actually really like the game now compared to how it was in the older days.
You can play other game modes that can be fun. Or play with friends and try out new decks. Playing ranked I feel like it should be about winning? Maybe I misunderstood you tho.
While I agree with your sentiment I don’t think that was quite what the OP was going towards.
I believe and forgive me if I’m wrong… that it is the actual game play itself that feels less “fun” as a game. Yes, winning is the goal but if winning becomes everything then why bother playing when you can’t compete with better players? Eventually it leaves the better players… playing with themselves.
I think it is fair to say that it is less possible than ever before to play an off meta deck and expect to win much. The meta has always dictated the most winning decks, but in the past you could still get decent performance from quirky decks. With every expansion that has become less true.
At least for me.
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It’s true, but when you reach legend you can still play fun or meme decks. And reaching legend got a lot easier in my opinion with the new system.
I like to call hearthstone pay 2 play (freemium also acceptable) rather than pay to win because if you want to play certain decks you gotta pay to craft all those decks, but you can just reach super high legend with a single meta deck.