This is something the developers don’t seem to notice much, at least not at the beginning of a cycle. We are constantly having this massive development swings from kill-you-from-hand decks to play a board full of minions over and over.
When the meta is dictated by combo decks that cycle through their deck at incredible speeds and then fatality you, you don’t balance the game onto “here are some nagas or mechs, just vomit them over and over”. There is space for so much more.
Because they miss the most important.
Where the disruption should come from.
Make actual good disruption cards that can be interacted with. Is that simple in the end of the day.
Stuff like:
When this minion deals damage also remove the card from the top of your opponent deck.
This is very true and a good point.
But the thing is that hearthstone wants to be a casual game first. It wants to be a game for players that do not care about improving.
Sure every player would like a higher rank,but not every players wants to put in the effort needed to get that higher rank.
Hs wants to be an entertaining game for bad players.
At the same time they try to satisfy the good players to some extend.
In all fairness they have done a reasonably good job at both. But it prevents going to the extreme ends of the design spectrum on both sides.
They dont want to have to educate the playerbase and they dont want to design for an educated players base. And the majority of the playerbase does not want to get educated about the game either. The majority of hs players will always be “uneducated” players.
Casual players on phone during their lunchbreak or whatever.
I guess it would make sense that every first new expansion of the year has this reduced power level. It sort of is inevitable.
To build it up slowly over the year and then a bit of a reset the next season to keep powercreep somewhat under control. I dont think it is a problem,its a feature of how hs is designed with the 3 expansions and every expansion having to offer something good.
Hearthstone just seems too simple for the e-sports scene in general. People only really watch it for the drops, it’s like they’ve created this artificial environment. I also think they are printing simpler cards with simpler text that could only possibly trade one for one in an equal value world, the only thing is that the power level of each card is a bit different and that’s enough excitement for some people.
Professional moba has the best prospect imo, the only game genre I’d care to watch other people play professionally.
Sure…
But being casual first not means you can’t have Crazy BS rolling at the top.
If said theoretical person is really casual then it has no business playing on top legend.
The meta can will be different on each rank based on learning curve. This is enough to be sure new players not gonna have with to deal with things like…
Pre nerf garrote rogue.
Because even if someone at bronze tried it. Said person would not be able to play correctly.
The transition of mindset should be more clear and this is why hearthstone has to take itself slighty more serious.
One thing is to not take bronze games seriously. Other is to not take the pro scene seriously.
One is beneficial. The other hurts the game.
In the end there is far many things between both extremes where hearthstone can land without stop being primarily casual.