https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGFol0N6Uao
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The game is dying.
We’ve heard it a thousand times, but right now it really feels like it.
I’m not playing Hearthstone anymore.
I’m still reading about what’s happening in the forum and on X, but my hope that the game will be fixed is slowly fading.
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It took me 3 days to log in and get my rewards for hitting legend. Just had no interest in playing.
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I’ve never been to Legend… or even Diamond. I don’t even care to. I like playing decks that aren’t competitive and doing achievements but even I’m fading as well.
It’s just a hamster wheel at the end of the day. Looking for a new casual game in the meantime.
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Ever since Tyler Bielman became director, the game is rapidly declining. He treats the game like a mobile game and doesn’t care that his PC-gamer community doesn’t want that. There will be no investment in content anymore. Only in predatory monetization. Darkmoon Faire and the Arena update are foreshadowing what’s to come.
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We should be talking about this more and spelling out the name, because the change in course and rapid decline since this change in leadership has been apparent.
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I love it! So many respected players and members of the forum united in a doomposting thread → but for a change, count me in
I’m not alone. I’m not delusional. The game IS dying.
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Keep in mind MSFT paid $69 billion for Blizzard. I haven’t studied Blizzard’s financials, but that has to be quite a hefty premium. What we’ve seen with regard to Hearthstone development and business decisions (game modes canceled, marketing/e-sports slashed, employees rif’ed, etc.) is entirely consistent with what happens when a larger company buys a smaller company. Before (smaller company does things to be more attractive), and after (larger company tries to recoup investment), the purchase.
If you’ve never experienced it from the inside, it’s quite the ride. Team 5 has my sympathies, and I expect even Tyler Bielman is under great pressure from upper management, and has limited options.
None of which is to suggest that I’m happy with the current state of the game, or the direction it’s taking.
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it’s not all doom and gloom to me. The game is old, it is expected that people get tired of it from time to time.
It’s clear that the dev team is trying to slow down power creep, and that’s an important move to keep the game healthy, and also the reason new cards are feeling bad.
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And I can understand that. But I am sure upper management won’t be happy if he ultimately drives the ship straight into an iceberg. I was the first to warn that the merger spelled doom for consumers, but anti-trust regulators failed us all and now we’re here. Least we can do is to call them out while the game is still somewhat alive.
This thread from back then is now a hilarious read btw
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It’s sad to see it go 
but it does indeed seem to be heading that direction.
Even those of us who play for fun more than competitively, are suffering from the rapid decline and lack of direction.
Sad too, as they are killing the game trying to monetize it and make it a mobile game, but yet things like “pets” and “flashy” animations tear into the mobile app and makes it even harder / more resource hoggish & proceeds to make the mobile game even more unplayable unless you have the latest greatest mobile device.
I know in my experience, the difference between playing on the PC and playing on the Chromebook are astronomical. And I have a (almost) brand new Chromebook - less than 1 yr old.
I too agree, unfortunately, and it makes me sad cuz I have enjoyed playing for many years and hope to continue for many more.
And OFC They don’t even come to these forums - their own “official forums” to see what any of us are saying, how any of us are feeling, and interact with us; which just makes it worse. They’re killing it, they don’t even “see” it, and they don’t even care
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Hearthstone is basically a mini cosmos of what is happening in the real world.
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Said once and gonna say it again.
The cosmectic monetization is BS as it is and i don’t think hearthstone can push said monetization without a 180 flip on art direction that i also not want to happen.
Despite of how much it should be “looking good on paper” did anyone take 5 minutes to think what is happening in practice?
Cometics that literally no one can or want to buy. I know former whales who did just give up lately. Those price hikes are because they don’t have any increase on people buying it and i tired to pretend otherwise.
Ladder is just being spammed with whatever the last deck is to a horrendous level because devs are just almost giving entire collections away at this point and if you don’t have you are just new or incompetent at managing your collection even as F2P. Since the income is mostly cosmetics.
There are literal gacha games on a better economic state than hearthstone. Cards need to have economic value again and that is only the start.
Be literally any metagame. If this isn’t solved people gonna continue to complain at low ranks at with reason.
The average player don’t understand the cause but they get bite by it in the form of everyone playing the same deck anyway.
And the metagame then?
Decks are boring and they are boring because everyone and my mom are tutoring everything and playing games to an almost scripted level.
Where is the random BS hearthstone is know for?
I don’t care if some toddler or pro player is speaking horrors about randoness and how they feel bad about it.
I signed up for it and i not getting it because some people think it is okay to design tutors for every damm card in the game. Card draw variance is part of the experience and we are not getting it.
Randoness is not only from puzzlebox of yogg saron and there is a minimal level of randoness everyone should be exposed to when they play a card game and we aren’t.
Fix those 2 and the rest gonna either fix themselves alone or get far easier to fix.
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I thought the article was interesting in terms of how several of the streamer community members feel, as Clark admitted he built his audience from streaming HS, and now he is putting that audience on the line in changing his content.
I think that willingness to sacrifice viewers shows an actual sea change.
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I don’t agree with your second argument but I wholeheartedly agree with this one. Cosmetics are a nice addition and I am ok with them profiting off them but if they are the sole interest and revenue stream, attention and effort will continue to drift more and more away from the actual core of the game: cards.
Packs need to be worth something again. They have decided that they should be giving away all cards as easily as possible to reduce barriers to entry to the game and focus on cosmetics monetization and this hasn’t proven to be the panacea people thought it would be. Instead we have low effort sets, little playtesting, poor quality control, less polish features and more dev time spent in garbage gacha and spammy flashy ads for pay. Their money should be directly tied to the content they release. As it is they’re trying to beat the dead horse so it goes an extra mile while whales keep buying garbage they don’t need and everyone else can stay playing a worse and worse game for free.
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This is what people call saving Hearthstone. Saving it by destroying Hearthstone 1 so they can start from scratch and make Hearthstone 2.
I’m enjoying it as much as always and the game has been “dead” or “dying” 25 million times over the many years I’ve played. I’ll believe it when it actually happens. Gamers are a whiny bunch. As affordable as the game has become and as often as patches come in I really don’t understand the negativity.
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The only thing I feel negative about is this expansion.
I really don’t know what the point is.
I suppose if your goal is to cater to phone users who play on their bathroom breaks, then it’s probably the way to go, but as a sit down game it is pretty boring to me, and I only just came back after skipping SC and the Emerald mini
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He did take away our game boards……
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I think people are misjudging this expansion due to the awful previous expansions… sure the quests were duds and therefore some classes had worthless sets… but a lot of the cards this expansion are really fun. Its definitely better than the last expansion which was probably the worst one in many years and thats from someone who ended up despising the starcraft miniset.
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