What ruined the game for me

Multiplayer Discussion
1

I’ve been playing Hearthstone for years now, on and off, with several hiatuses, some nearly 2 years in length. So you could say, if I don’t like an aspect of the game enough I just take a break and come back to see if things have improved. This approach has worked for me in the past I’ve come back after a break to find the game fun again.

I’m at a point where I think this may no longer be a viable strategy to find fun in this game. Im not saying this out of spite, malice or hatred for the devs nor the community around this game. If anything I’m very thankful for such a fun game that I’ve enjoyed for this long. I’m just saying I’m seeing an inflection point or a point of no return in this game, where I think redemption is impossible, and I’m okay with that, if only a little saddened.

To summarize, I think it’s the RNG that’s choking out the fun out of this game. And it’s not just the highrolls that you have to endure, or the repeated seemingly endless runes of the archmage being flung at you by mages or thief rogues. No that is not it, though that is what you will probably hear the most complaining about on these forums.

For me it’s the fact that at no point in this games history have I felt that draw is so critical to winning the game, so much so almost no other factor matters. This much more subtle form of rng is killing the game for me.

I can illustrate with any number of examples.

  1. Thief rogue: do you draw Queen before turn 5? 20 percent bump in win rate.

  2. Miracle rogue, do you draw your pay off cards soon enough? If so massive win rate bump.

  3. Quest druid: how early can you draw the combo? Nothing else matters.

  4. Fel dh, which cards get discounted? Can you combine Brann with Jax, then you win.

  5. Aggro mage: did you draw the plus 2 spell damage deathrattle? If so huge bump in win rate.

List goes on and on like this.

Now I understand every deck is built around these strong synergies, but it’s gotten to a point where these synergies are all there is in the game and drawing into them is literally all that makes or breaks a game.

I don’t see this improving with any additions to the game, it’s clear something has to be removed from the game to fix this, I’m not sure what. But I also know that short of the core rotation nothing ever gets removed from this game (HOF seems to be a vestigial organ, otherwise Brann should of been in it years ago.)

In any case, there’s my thoughts, you certainly don’t have to agree with me, but I’m definitely finding this game less fun. The inflection point for me was right around the time the current form of miracle rogue reared its ugly head and has refused to die to this day. That deck is an exemplary demonstration of everything that is wrong with synergies and drawing into them in today’s Hearthstone.

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Don’t forget the most infamous synergy of the year.

Gnoll and Blazing Invocation. Single-handedly put Evolve Shaman on top of the meta, and immediately deleted it after the nerf.

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It’s not ruined for me yet, but I think there is too much easy and inherent card management going on.

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Draw is good in every card game

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Its just a mess really, still its okay if you dont take it serious. Its more blackjack really, draw 21 and you win.

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It’s a festering pile of overtuned effects and mana cheat.
I am merely waiting to see if they kill wild before I decide to make my exit.

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It’s all a bunch of stuff that’s too effective at winning games without a reasonable answer, made worse by the fact that the effects are shifting earlier and earlier in the game.

It’s causing the game to increasingly feel like the proportion of games where your decisions mattered are smaller and smaller.

40% of the time you win because you drew your deck in the right order better than the opponent.

40% of the time you lose because your opponent did that better than you did.

And 20% are the games where neither deck blows out the other and you have an enjoyable game.

Blowout games definitely happened in past metas, but it was never the majority of games in the way it is now. Unfortunately, continued power creep and pre-built inevitabilities in set synergies have just made the game feel worse to play since United in Stormwind pushed the game off a ledge.

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Rogue ruins the game for me. I am so done with them casting the best cards from every class over and over and over and over in their games at a huge discount.

THere is zero interesting game play about rogues dropping over powered bullchips.

Absolutely stupid. Give them their own cards instead of making them play other class’ cards. Making the game a discover casino isn’t good game play.

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Card draw has kind of gotten out of hand. This is why combo decks can do so well now. Card draw used to be a precious commodity. Now it’s more abundant than ever and even comes with tutor effects.

The real problem, in my opinion, is that we’ve power crept cards nearly a full mana now and health has remained the same throughout. If the game was balanced around 30 health, why are we not acknowledging the imbalance? This allows decks to win faster and easier with the rng plays. The counter to more damage is either more healing or more health. We’ve seen neither, but we’ve definitely seen more damage… lots more damage.

The game is very out of whack. It feels more like a game of Gin where you instant win the game if you draw your specific cards.

We used to play a game of trench wars, now we’re playing a game of nukes.

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I just played a DH that drew their entire deck before we had ten mana. Like, wth is that?

And first strike weapons are winning the day, for sure.

It’s so binary right now, it seems. You get your cards or they get theirs. There is no back and forth or comeback or, honestly, strategy.

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“What ruined the game for me.”
Team 5 and their thoroughly incompetent decision making.

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lol did you see the new Druid cards? You’re gonna lose your mind on the hero power buff…

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Yup. And it’s made homebrew decks pretty much doa (instead of just like, tier 4). If you’re not abusing a specific game ending synergy, you basically can’t win. So drawing/discovering those synergy pieces becomes all important ( and they printed a ton of draw).

So it’s become essentially a very complicated slot machine or coin flip simulator.

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I have played since Beta and the game has slowly over time got to a point where you don’t really need to know much about every other deck, class, or cards besides the ones in your deck. Literally, everyone is one youtube video away from finding a deck learning how to play it and grinding their way to legend. I stopped playing for 2-3 years and came back last month and did this. I can’t be mad at the game since it cost me absolutely zero to do so with the dust and gold I had left over plus the multitude of free packs I got for each year inactive. The other game modes besides standard, namely arena deck building, and battlegrounds, seem to be where decision-making actually matters. Therefore, I agree that this game in its original format is bonkers and most people can play it and win most of their games. Nonetheless, the addition of game modes like battlegrounds and the fact that arena still exists makes those modes more challenging and also, therefore, rewarding for good players.

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I can.
20 characters.

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So you’re saying DRAW matters in card games?! SHOCKING…

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So you’ve reduced the argument I’m making

Draw matters too much in this game

to

Draw matters in this game

and thought you are clever by quipping I’m stating the obvious?

SHOCKING!

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I agree with pretty much every comment in this thread lol…

Basically this. Is Hearthstone a multiplayer strategy game?

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Agreed on all points and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel either. Maybe if Microsoft swoops in here and cleans house things will change for the better

In the meantime, I’ll just keep playing for free as long as I have the gold and dust to do so while lamenting how great this game could have been with competent direction

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Hehe if anything Microsoft will do is that you have to pay more to play the game.

I have been F2P since the very start, and I am not willing to start paying now, at this moment in time when the game doesn’t have that much to offer.
Less than it ever had actually.