(EDIT: I’m not saying “please remove offline mode.” I’m saying hiding names of random current Hearthstone opponents accomplishes nothing except creating an information imparity with online mode opponents.)
In Hearthstone’s Play mode, sometimes instead of seeing your opponent’s name and rank you will instead see “Your Opponent” and no rank. It’s my understanding the Hearthstone client is programmed to behave this way when your opponent has set themselves to appear as offline in Battle.net.
I am not referring to instances where you see names of “Your Opponent” and “You,” which means you have streamer mode enabled and has nothing to do with your opponent’s configuration.
I am making this post to ask if someone from Blizzard can please explain why offline mode is implemented this way and ultimately for this functionality to be removed due to the problems it creates if it lacks good justification. The appearance of “Your Opponent” did seem to stop for quite some time but it is now back with a vengeance.
Why is “Your Opponent” a problem?
Being able to see your opponent’s name and rank provides you more information than you might realize at first glance.
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If your opponent’s name matches a name you have played against very recently (i.e. that same day), there is a very high chance it is the same player and depending how long your previous match(es) lasted you may already know the contents of most or all of their deck. “Your Opponent” strips you of this information while your opponent retains this advantage unless you, too, set yourself as appearing offline in Battle.net.
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Given your opponent’s rank, if you are matched against another player of a different rank (or significantly different legend rank), it provides information about the skill of your opponent, the strength of their deck, or both. This can inform how aggressively or conservatively you should play to maximize your chances of victory, which can literally come down to a single decision in competitive play.
The reason I’m taking the time to make this post is I find the advantage external to actual Hearthstone gameplay (cards in deck, which cards to play when, etc.) this feature can grant the player who is in offline mode particularly frustrating.
Obvious justifications for “Your Opponent” and why they’re invalid:
Explanation 1) “Your Opponent” protects your privacy in case there are one or more individuals you would like not to know you’re currently playing Hearthstone, a.k.a. “Boss Mode.”
…invalid because: After you complete any match, including one against “Your Opponent,” you can open your friends list and click the Add Friend button to see the identity of your last opponent even if it was hidden during gameplay. In fact, whenever I face “Your Opponent” I specifically perform these steps to see who I just played and trust me, your boss does this too.
Explanation 2) “Your Opponent” helps prevent stream sniping.
…invalid because: This is what streamer mode is for, which obscures both the streamer’s identity and their opponent’s identity from gameplay broadcast on stream. Further, as a streamer if you want to prevent your identity from showing to opponents who might subsequently look up your stream to snipe, simply select a tag that does not match your streaming name while utilizing streamer mode. For example, popular Hearthstone streamer and vegan Kripparrian streams as nl_kripp but plays Hearthstone as LettuceKing. (Note that Kripp does not keep this a secret when viewing leaderboards on stream, for example, or I wouldn’t post it here.)
Explanation 3) If you’re that concerned about unfairness, nobody is stopping you from hiding your name too.
…invalid because: First of all, this isn’t an explanation for implementing a feature in a way that inherently creates a competitive imbalance when two players don’t use the same non-default settings that many players probably don’t even realize exist. Second, if it’s Blizzard’s intention that you should have to be in offline mode to prevent one player from having a competitive advantage over the other, why don’t they just start labeling EVERYONE Player A and Player B and be done with it? I genuinely don’t think Blizzard wants to cultivate such a bland playing environment, but I also genuinely think Blizzard does not want to incidentally create imbalance between players outside of their own skill at playing the game, which is why I’m asking for whatever the reason is for the current implementation and for it to be changed if one does not or no longer exists.
TLDR; “Your Opponent” grants players who enable it an advantage while not apparently existing for any other valid reason. If this is true, Blizzard please consider changing this.
I welcome discussion from Blizzard and others but please review the reasons I’ve debunked above first. There very well could be a valid reason for the current implementation that I simply have failed to recognize.
'cos it was a regular occurence.