Battlegrounds is the most popular game mode on Twitch, so… I finally decided to try it out. Verdict: it’s a RNG fiesta that takes 10 hours, though it does make “Traditional Hearthstone” feel empty and lonely in comparison (not helped by the fact that the original community behind it is gone).
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I think the main reason of BG’s success is each set of games feels different(in a way).
“Decks” are build dynamically as the game progress, and let the players feel more control over their action/decision in game.
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Because BG is less frustrating than the other modes.
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Because it is fun and creative and fast paced. The rng and making something from nothing is exactly the appeal of the mode.
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you’re joking, right? this mode makes no sense AT ALL, there’s nothing more frustrating :
some players are allowed to have better heroes, more triples, key minions without rolling 1352135241x times, your opponent’s minions are smarter than yours for no reason and snipe your good ones, p2w players have a huge advantage over f2p ones, fight phases make no sense (you can still lose despite having a stronger board than your opponent) etc…
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I just find it a nice break from the constructed meta game and enjoy trying for the achievements!
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Because you can play straight away from scratches without creating a deck.
You have the same chances to win as everybody else without worrying you lack that key legendary card that’s otherwise super expensive to craft.
Plus if your warband proves ineffective you lose nothing, if you instead craft a card and your deck is still ineffective you basically lose dust.
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Same reason Blackjack is popular.
It’s highly addictive getting random cards every time.
It’s not because of the idiotic gameplay.
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It’s likely popular because it’s F2P friendly.
Lots of people can download hearthstone and play it competitively with no investment. Can’t do that with any other mode.
And bg gives you the deck building feeling and excitement factor of watching combos go off.
It’s rng to an extent, but you can control some rng. Minion attack order is not random so placement of minions is a skill.
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Because it is addictive. It gives you the feeling of “if I highroll that triple next time and get a good hero I will win”.
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Auto-Battle games have lootbox mechanics built into the gameplay. Sometimes you buy a roll and BOOM! exactly what you were looking for. Add in the Heathstone Design Tactic of having truly ridiculous combinations to roll into and you have a recipe for a game mode that’s addictive to play and fun to watch. Plus, when you lose, you can blame your luck rather than a lack of skill. Just ignore that the top players are pretty consistently the top players so there has to be a skill element to it, it’s because you’re not the guy that got a T7 Nomi.
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Cause while the mode can feel busted at times it is actually less busted than standard.
You don’t get this feeling of well heck I queued into the counter to my deck, welp, I lost feeling. You still feel lime ya have a chance every turn
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I have no idea. I actually had to stop watching Kripp because he only plays battlegrounds.
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Same sadly, I’ve watched him from the early OJ chugging days.
I’ll watch when he plays PoE otherwise BGs are a snoozefest.
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It’s pretty easy to know why and if not i’ll explain.
All the other ways to play hearthstone are less fun than they used to be due to several factors one of them being developers’ incorrect restructuring choices 2 years ago. It’s ok to take your earplugs out now.
Originally, constructed was super fun, the game was new, streamers were new, youtube wasn’t so efficient and social. Ladder had risk and reward for each and every match, as in not having floors all over it, and, pairing us off similar risked rank-based opponents instead of mmr which in the new system you can have legend 4 facing bronze 10 if their mmr’s are the same. extreme example but that’s what not-pairing off rank is, wildly different ranks pair up bc now it’s off mmr.
Anyway, there isn’t a draw to play constructed when there’s so much safety net its not a risk, so different opponents stakes compared to yours when we used to all be the same. Youtube being so social now 1 video could yield 10 20 30 comments on it that influence our deckbuilding or how to play it. This is after it’s posted let alone prior to posting what streamers who now know one another so well due to the game’s age and social media chat about with their twitch chats and so forth.
So, that’s why constructed is just numb compared to exciting like it used to be. It’s skippable. Standard has so few cards compared to pre split days, not compared to original hearhstone but compared to pre split so like 2016ish or so, standard had a lot more cards in it then bc there was no wild. They chose too small a card count for standard, and (way) too little balance for wild bc “returning players want their old decks untouched and working!” when they can’t bc powercreep forces adjustments if you want to win anything.
The easier ones are below.
Arena? used to be unreal and fun.
Devs in 2020 or so chose to pool arena and shrink its card count way down bc ppl were complaining about “my opponent drafted 5 firelands portals” or “5 fireballs” or “6 swipes” and “4 frostbolts!” and all this. Well, yea, they got lucky, and, have to use brain cells to play that awful curve of a deck right. I had 9 swipes once not kidding, and i lost, the curve was so bad i couldnt get any tempo. Doubleing down on this is arena’s neutrals are way op compared to class cards example bunker sergant. this takes the already pooled “to be difficult” choice…not a choice…bunker’s there grab it its always going to be good. A triple down on arena is the software everyone now has access to and uses that tracks your cards and picks and tells you what’s good. Not every single person had one of those years ago, and it was fun when you didnt use one and no one else really did.
So arena is just the worst possible way to play hearthstone right now its the same cards and the play around benefit of that isn’t a benefit bc f/e on turn 2 are you going to hold back idk a 2/1 summon a 1/1 rush bc your opponent “could” have bunker AND in hand? We don’t have access to spy in arena so…you blank turn 2, lose the game bc you “played around” bunker sergant? or you play it out and lose bc your opponent had such a swingy card that early.
Duels? No explanation, the prizes are wayyyyyyyy out of balance.
Mercenaries? Its some strange format that i still can’t even understand how there’s any strategy in it.
PvE content? this never was something that was fun just something to complete for cardbacks and rewards.
Some other things:
The whole “no dupe” is great for legendaries and epics but taking it to blues makes it so you always are only missing purples yellows. its not fun, its the same feeling each expansion bc they give us the blues so quickly and whites. of course it has a benefit of having the cards it just makes unpacks less exciting…and that’s dangerous.
Skins?
There’s an overload of unattractive skins in the game and it’s never going to stop soon there will be 25k skins in the game probably in a few years and none of them look that great compared to the old days.
Nerfed art?
They PG’d down the game and that’s ok i guess, just not the new art its super bland compared to cool. many new cards artwork isnt’ stylish like it used to be.
Gold cards?
They handed out classic set in gold…so now everyone has tons of gold cards for free, so the CM is an eyesore bc they don’t stack, and you dont care about gold cards bc we see SO many gold cards bc they gave so many away for free. They devalued what it means to unpack a gold by giving way idk 135 or so gold cards to everyone during rotation.
The insane reliance on spells and removal this game has turned into.
When is the last time you cared about a 2/3 drops attack as it never is going to trade into a minion your opponents all play spell removal or aoe to clear and minions go face. every single metadeck does this…yes even pirate warrior now uses spell removal. The game is becoming “i got counterspell in some form” vs “you are trying to cast a spell”. Ie the game is in severe counterplay need of generating cheap spells to trigger things like Trogg or cs or the like. The game is sooo obvious with the powercreep its just about cheating as much mana as fast as possible. see aggro decks threaten mana cheating combo decks, but bc aggro decks now cheat so much mana, partially due to quests the new ones, aggro decks play just like combo, and nothing feels unique.
Like, what aggro deck is playable right now that’s not a new quest?
See my point?
It’s quest or combo its so boring.
fatigue decks for some reason got taken out so nothing is strategic the deckbuilding process is so simplified around mana cheat. even the mulligans within those decks…"does it cheat mana? keep it. Does it help me find missing mana cheat? keep it. " like the whole game each play from the CM to match end is about finding mana cheat bc there’s so much of it.
There’s a severe lack in deck variety if everyone’s just looking to cheat mana.
Then, there’s battlegrounds.
Wait for it…
a mode where you cannot cheat mana outside of the HP interactions (or maybe the new thing they added the wingman or whatever it’s called).
In BG’s its not fun but its the best of the worst, if that makes sense.
unless you have a newly rotated arena/constructed which were long past right now.
Bg’s is this whatever mode that isn’t about youtube or cheating mana.
BG’s is hardware dependent bc you have to make some very fast clicks later on and if you have slow speeds on your computer you’re at a disadvantage. just watch streamers and you can see how fluid and smooth their cards move and its like yea they have an expensive gaming pc and table and chair and room which the average person can’t afford or wants to afford in 2022.
Keep in mind, HS is a PVP game.
in the youtube age.
that is like the whole craze that hs partially started where all games ever have pvp online now bc it sells but the problem is in card games were 1/2 or more text based (decklist) so that info is easily shared on the internet. Something like idk mario party isn’t text based, it has hero selection and stuff but not a decklist that’s easily shared online which is most your power.
Ok there’s the long version.
that’s why battlegrounds is played…the other options are not fun.
youtube and twitch and the info sharing grew to skyscraper size since years ago so its very, well impossible for a pvp game to thrive in this environment. the pvp game has to be not text based and only in-match action based for it to be strategic otherwise youtube has the info you need. this is why so many ppl play shooters bc there isn’t some decklist to copy or have your opponent look up. but those games are so boring once you played one you played all them so its like who plays a shooter after like one winter with one?
This is incorrect.
The total number of cards in game from Classic through League of Explorers (just before Standard and Wild were split) was 743.
The total number of cards at the end of the Year of the Kraken (first year after the Standard/Wild split) was 901.
The year of the Mammoth started with 828 cards and reached 1098 cards with K&C.
To take a typical example of a pre-miniset Standard year after they switched to all expansions instead of alternating with adventures, the year of the Raven started with 922 cards during Witchwood and expanded to 1193 cards by the end of the year.
The introduction of the Core set did cut back the number a bit, with only 810 cards available during Barrens before the Wailing Caverns miniset. That’s still more than the total number of cards available from Classic through LoE. (Next Standard year should start at 880 cards, since there will be two additional minisets in the pool.)
With the introduction of the Onyxia miniset today, the number of cards currently in Standard is 1185.
The number of cards in Standard format has never been smaller than what was available before the split.
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Long story short: F2P friendly game mode, other modes got less fun and because of RNG, every game in BGs can feel like a completely new experience.
I personally feel like Duels has some potential in matching BGs only IF the dev team properly balances it. The last patch seemed like a step in the right direction, but there is still more work imo.
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This is what my response was going to be.
But the fact it’ll be an e-sport just blows my mind.
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I think it provides such an unlevel playing field that it gives bullies the opportunity to totally decimate new players.
There is a group of people that play this game that just love owning people. Nothing like owning someone with a board full of huge minions and destroying them.
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Downward trending intelligence quotients?
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