Player agency balance changes incoming!

Multiplayer Discussion
102

This is the key.

Player agency and power level aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Sometimes they are, like with pain lock. It builds a board faster than almost any deck can respond to it due to cards being overtuned.

Other times, the card itself isn’t super powerful, but removes agency, like the Jailer having virtually no counterplay.

Others are even removals that leave you with no way to defend yourself against, like Sargeras’/Reno’s poof effect. You just have to hope they don’t have it at some point. Sargeras also comes with a persistent win effect that only 1 card in the history of the game can stop.

There’s a lot of stuff in hearthstone that can rob a player of agency. It’s kind of inherent to the fact we can’t do things on the opponent’s turn.

That’s why OTKs have historically been a problem, as well as infinite loops, and massive bursts from hand (edit: and overly efficient removals). All of it doesn’t give the opponent a reasonable opportunity to respond beyond winning first, which is limiting their options on how they can play the game.

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103

That reasoning can be applied to any deck.

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104

I’m believe the Key here is How much Focus on player agency they plan.

I’m would personally only Go for the Very worst offenders and helya is more on the second squadron regarding this in my personal opnion.

Part to see people reaction and in part to test How deep we should Go with this.

105

Yeah, with only 30 card changes, and buffs mixed in, I doubt they are going to hit everything, but will probably hit the worst offenders.

I think it’s going to take a few gos at this to really make it work and be balanced afterward. They are kind of trying to undo years of design direction.

I’m half expecting them to leave things like shudderblock tendrils alone, just because they havent yet been relevant.

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106

Other thing to take into account is How It Will Interact with the meta.

Not only regarding game balancing but as far as expansion value.

If they really Go on player agency as an Absolute value i’m would go as far as calling almost ALL badlands archtypes to the trash bin just to start with just 3/4 exceptions.

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107

100% agree to disagree. We just define agency differently.

Oh noes, the rocks have smashed my scissors whatever can I do?

I disagree here too. I was in the nerf Tickatus camp, actually, but I get why they didn’t.

In the last vs report it’s only favored vs reno decks. That’s it.

And you think that should be nerfed.

Hilarious.

That reno warrior also will be getting nerfed because wheel lock and plague dk are the only truly bad match ups it has.

I love it. Nerf the counter, not the oppressive deck.

Yet the deck has abysmal winrates against almost everything that isn’t Reno… amazing. Seems like there is clear counterplay to it if you’re trying to win the game.

Less than half the games you win because of plagues. If you think that’s how the deck plays it says more about you and your deck.

You’re trying to keep the board and chip face damage, like any other tempo deck, and it’s not very good at it. It’s a tier 4 deck at D4-1. It’s not good.

Dropping Helya does not win games.

And you are crying because the rocks are breaking your scissors.

I hate the game play you like, but I am not asking for you to get nerfs. I am playing your kryptonite.

If you don’t like plague dk, stop playing decks that they farm. Without you, there is no them.

No, it can’t.

When the shaman takes you from full health to zero on turn four, you can’t “just kill it faster” because that’s not how the game works.

Plague dk doesn’t do 30 damage turns.

It’s a too slow tempo deck that loses to literally everything that isn’t Reno. Pretty much everyone kills it.

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108

tickatus alone never problem in time …is make problem when second or 3rd apper and when this happen your board deck empity and you need fight whit 8/8 and some 6/6 body on your turn whit fatigue…

about plagues …before steamcleaner work in warrior deck at 11mana but in druid how you use 8mana dragon and 5mana minion in same turn? atm w/o steamcl… warrior can have luck by not get dupped plague to turn 5-6 but there no way use 8 mana dragon vs DK

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109

Plague DK is a noob-stomper. That’s what we call decks which have clear counterplays if you know how that deck operates so it’s easily beaten (unless it just has overwhelming luck that game).

Its’ appeal to bad players is that it’s relatively straightforward to play and because it’s versatile enough to have answers for pretty much every situation so they don’t have to think ahead.

However, that’s also its’ biggest weakness in higher levels. When your deck can do all - aggro, tempo and control - you lose the precision, the edge against more specialized decks, because you don’t have enough aggressiveness to finish fast (you rely on lucky plague draws for that, because your early game drops are 1/1-s and 3/2-s), you don’t have enough tempo to create a huge tempo swing (until late game when you have Primus, dead Reska and 4 excavation reward) and you don’t have enough control to survive Priests and Shamans.

So basically, the very same thing which makes the deck popular is what makes it weak.

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110

I’m not very good, but I’ve played 100 games with it recently trying to farm dk points and I agree with you exactly.

It’s not a good deck and I am not even effectively climbing with it because it can’t string together good match ups in this meta.

The fact that people are complaining about plagues is very much “stop these rocks from breaking my scissors” more than actual balance issues.

People playing legit overpowered warrior are crying that one of their two counters might actually work.

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111

Judging by your analysis, you look like you might be selling yourself short :slight_smile: Too humble

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112

THanks, but I know I’m bad.

Ngl, just this morning I found myself lamenting the lack of bots and the ensuing free wins while playing lots of cards (which rewards more points to rank up the class).

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113

I was missing control priest when tickatus launched.

I had a positive win rate against it when the common refrain was that it hard countered priest. It didn’t.

It was just a mediocre card that made people mad. It didn’t do anything that a deck couldn’t handle.

Historic data on a deck is absolutely worthless when it comes to the kind of massive shifts they implied are coming to the game balance.

I’d be shocked if either Reno, Brann, or Odyn survived this patch based on their post.

You almost certainly won’t need splashable infinite plagues to handle them post patch.

And again, this isn’t about the win rates. It’s about bad game design, which Helya is.

You are right, plagues are not, and have not yet been a good deck. We just can’t bank on that being true post patch if they are gutting everything that IS good.

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114

Follow me here…

(1) nerfs to warrior will result in less play of warrior decks. Without Reno decks to farm, plagues beat basically nothing.

(2) They are buffing things that already beat plagues, making the meta more hostile to plague dk.

As such, I don’t know where you think they are going to get enough new * wins to be better than they are right now.

*They can’t really increase their win rate against reno decks much more than they already win

115

Players finally realized Helya belongs to straight up control deck, which explains why they put it in Rainbow control DK.

When you don’t rely on drawing early plagues, but can prolong the game til the opponent’s deck is thin, 3 never-ending plagues you get from Helya are all you need. To me the design is sound, and interesting.

I also hate when I get a random frost plague which hinders my plans for that turn, but I accept it as a part of the game and it just means I’m forced to make backup plans in case I do draw it.

But some other things in this game, I can’t accept. I can’t accept OTK shaman although I’m abusing it on 3 servers as we speak. I can’t accept Warrior having answer to everything I can put down although I rarely see it on the ladder anymore. I can’t accept Zarimi priest losing the board after emptying his hand twice and then OTK-ing me anyway from empty board from 30 to 0.

There are things I can’t accept and those are the things which destroy player agency. Plagues do not, they increase your agency, in fact. You suddenly have more plans in your game than you would have without them, and they come at a tempo loss for your opponent, as well, as cards that generate them are bad drops.

When did you last time see a 3/2 survive to attack face? It literally dies as a collateral damage of you drawing cards nowadays xD You kill it just to empty your hand to make space for better cards and removals because you draw too fast and have too many removals anyway xDDDD

116

No one likes polarized matchups. Polarization is bad for the game. One matchup being a bad matchup is fine, but you should still have ways to turn the corner (like steamcleaner). That’s literally what player agency is. You could double the amount of damage the plagues do and remove helya entirely and the deck would actually become much better at winning games, but would receive much less hate. Helya is actually akin to Wheel of Death. A lazy, low agency and polarizing effect that has a negative impact on the game as a whole. And you keep ignoring the fact that if they reduce power-level enough, nothing stops plague dk from actually becoming a strong deck. We all agree plague DK is bad (Rainbow DK isn’t and also runs Helya btw), this is not the point of the discussion about this card.

Anyways, whatever, we’ll see what changes they implement tomorrow. We’re going in circles.

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117

Not necessarily true. We don’t know the full extent of the nerfs. Decks will recalibrate. The post implies they are shaking things up pretty wildly.

You also don’t know this to be true.

Helya isn’t currently high on my hate list, but she is definitely in the list of cards that can limit the meta in ways that aren’t particularly fun, or offer much / any counterplay.

118

Not good enough.dude it literally clears almost every boardjust woth your jero power ot needs to be gutted.

119

Basically everything that isn’t reno beats plagues, so, yes, by default it’s true.

120

Nerf and buff packages are fine, but if they want longer lasting equilibrium they need to tone down synergy packages and put almost all the tech cards into standard core permanently.

If burn decks are being annoying I should be able to play spellward jeweler and speaker stomper and have deck options that aren’t so synergy laden that I irredeemably disadvantage the deck by swapping around a few cards. Or they can print tech cards that also have synergy with perennial deck themes (tribes, spell types, etc).

But what seems absolutely clear is they should give the player base the tools to balance the meta, since the designers aren’t able to.

121

don’t engage about these balance changes at all until they fully revert weekly quests, thanks