I imply most players appear to be old; you don’t play for more than a few ranks and you immediately get big Highlander decks that need someone to play for 4 years to have or be massively p2w which is unlikely to be the latter; I bet the game was not like that in its first 4-5 years of existence.
You might ask “what do?”; yeah it’s not an easy answer; maybe make a better game that attracts newer players because right now it feels like it’s the same 10-20 old people and 2-3 new.
The big thing here is that you’re wrong.
Highlander decks of nowadays are some of the dumbest stuff you can play.
They really have no depth other than put your payoffs asap.
They’re only behind stuff like dragon druid when we talk about being “braindead”.
It was even worse. You had less previous expansions to disenchant to get on their level. The difference between paying and non-paying was higher.
Although, not everything was so bad. At that time the quality of decks was lower so you could hit legend with a budget deck (no legendaries). I wouldn’t dare to attempt that nowadays, although I believe it’s still possible.
Oh and, did I mention we had aggro decks back then? And less removal so they could stick to the board? Yeah, that, too. Unfortunately, not anymore.
Very cheap decks do tend to show up still. Treant druid and excavate pal both strike me as decks that could hit legend without legendaries.
High legend? Not in this meta.
Well, I’ve given up the 1st day it got nerfed, it was already unplayable
But yeah, before the nerf that was a good example, since it doesn’t run leggos
Pally definitely could, although he would have to wait 15 days to make the games easier. Maybe even not, depends on the skill
But yeah, it’s definitely doable with not too much dust. People have always complained and always will just because it’s easier to blame someone else for their failures.
EDIT: I just beat a pally thinking he was a Hunter, that’s how much high I am
It’s still probably good enough. It won’t be nearly as smooth as it was though, especially with this control warrior count.
VS report yesterday had it as tier 2 in the D1-4 bracket. Drops to tier 3 in legend.
Paladin remains the diamond stomper it always is.
Trolling replies aside, op brings up some valid points:
-the gap between new and established players
-the overwhelming feel that the big decks establish when encountered (a meta problem)
-the p2w factor (how many cards you need to be effectively competitive)
All of these are topics that are being discussed (and have been) by current players for some time, and there’s at least a couple of these threads up by the “established” players laying these ideas out in more detail
The real issues here are that this is this is first, a really bad experience for a new player (customer), and second…the first response is to outright troll the person. Which is not uncommon is these situations. If this is what new players/early posters experience when coming to the official forums to discuss the problems they face with the game, then that’s even more barriers to new players coming to the game. Especially when the cms cut/paste is “just go to the forums and post there.”
It’s not a good way to run your business.
Look…
2 New decks that aren’t perfect, around 200 cards extra just in case…
What more exactly a new player needs regarding resources?
I’m not trolling when i’m say.
Resources really aren’t the issue here.
I would counter that Highlander Shaman was interesting to play and had meaningful decisions to make. Of course we all know that Doc was “SOOOOOO” powerful and needed to be nerfed(boggles the mind).
You should look up classic wallet warrior. Ran 7+ legendaries and about as many epics. Or Handlock with “only” 5+ legendaries. When the game first came out. When there weren’t special events for packs or cards. When quest rewards were as low as 40 gold. When class quests demanded WINS instead of PLAY. When you got 10 gold only for WINNING 3 matches, and you were capped at winning 30 times a day for 100 gold. And if you lost you got nothing to show for it.
The game has already made big improvements to the economy from the initial launch of the game. You can say that veterans shouldn’t benefit from their loyalty, or people who pay shouldn’t get much, or that you deserve more stuff. But thinking it was better in the beginning is just wrong.
You need to stop getting hung up on legendaries. The fact that you made Diamond while only playing for 2-ish months completely free-to play means that the system has clearly worked. The game has never been pay-to-win. It’s always been pay-to-have fun. Although the rate and scale of nerfs has made it arguably more challenging recently.
I’m not disagreeing with most of what you’re saying in reality, though to be fair there have been some clearly pay2win situations in my short experience,
1 ) It was the meme a couple of patches ago to have Highlander decks; those were filled with leggos; a new player had to p2w it to play them (pretty obviously (not even buying 1 or 2 regular services like the Tavern Pass would be enough).
2 ) The excavation rogue deck which was a meme ~1 patch ago was also high on leggos
3 ) Obviously and that’s a general concept: if you want multiple classes: it’s impossible on a new account without p2wing it (some people report they can’t even do it with years of playing (if they are special cases who want all classes and all archetypes available (not me hopefully)).
Uhhhhhhh…In the early days of the game the best decks had very few if any Legendary cards in them. Undertaker Hunter had ONE and Mid totem Shaman had Two with one being in the bloody core set.
I understand and agree strong early decks could have very few legendaries. My first “meta” decks in Vanilla were Aggro Hunter and Zoo Warlock. This was before Naxx. It doesn’t change the fact that Control Warrior and Handlock were also two of the best decks at the time though.
Just like now.
Sludge Warlock is arguably the best deck right now, it only has one legendary too. Pre-nerf Treant Druid had no legendaries, Excavate Paladin only had two too (and Amitus wasn’t even a key card). Dragon Druid only has one key legendary that isn’t in the Core set. But we also have Drilling Rogue, XL Odyn Warrior and pre-nerf Ramp Druid.
Being a budget player has never stopped a person from being a competitive player until you’re already at the highest echelons. Just because you CAN play 20k+ dust XL Highlander decks doesn’t mean you have to, need to, or should.