It’s true that they could improve more things, but this would still go a long way for making the game better in many ways. Maybe you underestimate “custom rules”. We already saw with Bartender Bob how they could implement cost and stat manipulation to the game.
Because one thing should be pretty obvious here: You may not like the power creep, but others might not care or even like the current power level. I would also admit that power creep is a big problem, but I also think it’s kind of unavoidable with their current business model.
So I think something like a mode where you can make your own custom rules is perfect. People can play exactly how they want. Anything else is just enforcing something someone else might not like even if you don’t understand it.
For example I want the old Yogg back and hate it just as much that he got nerfed as you hate the current “power creep”, but some people wouldn’t like pre-nerf Yogg at all because they care more about winning than fun. So what now? Maybe custom rules?
If you like you can “dial it down” with custom rules. And others can do the opposite. There are many different peoples and opinions out there. Do we really need to force all together? If the player base splits too much people will naturally gravitate towards certain rule sets.
Do you now see how awesome it could be? It may not sound realistic, especially everything right away, but in time they could introduce it with more and more rules you can customize. Monetization might be a problem though. I would love to see a subscripton model for that.
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Yes, but it would only improve certain aspects of the game, which mainly seems to involve your alternate game mode.
Certain aspects, yes. Anything to keep players invested.
I am talking about generally and for the common good.
Common Good as in Hearthstone overall? Standard? Wild? That’s a broad statement.
The two worst games I have played doing my daily quests in the past week are dragon decks from the new expansion.
One Galakrond player character the other just OP dragons.
True I was playing my scrub random daily quest decks but they are obviously unbalanced.
Why should there be an option to play a 5/4 on round 3, a 5/5 on round 4 and then by round 9 have a board full of dragons including legendaries?
Or have a +3 attack hero character each turn being healed by it’s life steal minions? Death Knight player characters again for anyone?
Answer - it shouldn’t and simply is because of power creep in every expansion.
I agree with that answer, but again they have to sell packs. I’m not saying EVERY expansion should be demonstrably better than the previous, but in the real world they can’t have a “reset” year that brings down the overall power level without taking a hit financially.
Trust me, I’d be all for a “reset year” but it’s likely not to happen.
So yeah, stuff won’t happen.
Common good is standard casual and ranked, but only hypothetically if the objective is to make a fun, balanced, accessible game for everyone.
Which is obviously not the objective and therefore is moot.
Wild is lost being as it has all the terrible cards that have ever been released.
HS is a case study in how making a ‘competitive’ game doesn’t work on just about every level other than economic revenue.
But what exactly is “fun and balanced”? I personally love pre-nerf Yogg but to some that wouldn’t be “fun and balanced”. When it comes to “accessible” I guess a mode like “Tables” doesn’t help (except it would come in a subscription system with all cards unlocked which I would actually like), but again that can mean many things and basically seems only to translate to “this game is too expensive”. (And I would both agree and disagree depending on what exactly again we’re talking about.)
But - obviously - it’s not the objective. How can you say that? Of course they’re trying their best to do exactly that. There’s one important thing though: Not everyone is like you. When it comes to general balance patches and such they will always do what appeals to most people. On the other hand we could have a mode like “Tables” with our own rules. Just saying…
Making a “competitive” game doesn’t work? Based on what? Technically it will always be about economic revenue though. Nonetheless it does work as intended I’d say. The problem with “competition” is just that there you are encouraged to find the most broken thing and exploit it. Maybe you mean that?
Ideally we would also have some proper social features like “guilds” where you could have people meet with the same mindset when it comes to playing. Something like “Tables” could still help though because for example who would play with a rule like “At the start of the game shuffle 30 Scrolls of Wonder in each players deck.” truly in a competitive fashion?
This. Id really enjoy a Wizzbang game mode where it was just randomized wizzbang decks.
With Tables players can absolutely do this. We just need Team 5 to jump on board as well.
Im up for Two-Headed Murloc Giant! Would love 2vs2 co-op game 
Blizzard asked for new ideas on game modes, here’s our chance.
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where did you get this info?;p
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I’d be in favor of custom rules. I’d really like to have a best-of-blank format which could work like in Grandmasters. It would even be an improvement to play best-of-three with set classes. You could play a game, customize your deck if you’d like, play the next game, and maybe repeat for a third. In games right now, there’s no good way to adjust your deck based on who your opponent is.
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A “Best of” type system would have to come in the form of another mode but man I’d like to have something of the sort exist in Hearthstone. It would make Fireside Gatherings a bit more competitive.