i just had the haunting nightmare bug in back to back ranked games. it’s been a thing since the card was released in DECEMBER, and blizzard says they can’t fix it because they have trouble reproducing the bug.
why is there no sandbox mode or PTR to help blizzard fix their broken game, or even just for the simple and practical purpose of testing specific and niche card interactions? just add an option to the innkeeper practice mode where you can play both heroes, or if they’re too lazy to do this, at least let us choose the innkeeper’s deck and pray it stumbles into the interaction we’re looking for.
Such a mode might suggest that they are incapable of testing their own game and need us to do it for them, so I can see why they would not make such a mode.
that might apply if it wasn’t the case that most other multiplayer games (including every blizzard IP except hearthstone) have their own PTRs. it’s a standard thing, and as mentioned, the use case isn’t limited to bug catching. it’s just strange and ill
read the initial post again. it’s an irrelevant distinction here anyway as they’re interchangeable in the context of testing card interactions and pinning down horrible bugs that’ve been in the game since last expansion. we’re looking exclusively at these two use cases, as in the ‘request’.
anyway, if you say your initial post was referring to the sandbox idea alone and not towards a PTR, your two responses are nonsense together, as you first conject that a sandbox mode could potentially make blizzard look incompetent, but then go on to say “you didn’t say PTR”, where, unlike a sandbox, the SOLE use of a PTR is testing and bug catching.
these forums and reddit sorts of places are very weird. you can make a “the sky is blue” common sense point and people will reach for the most asinine ways to say something in contrast
A “sandbox mode” for the express purpose of testing odd card interactions would look quite different from normal gameplay.
Presumably you would want the capability to control both players.
Presumably you would want the capability to select exactly what cards are drawn each turn.
Possibly you would want the capability to arbitrarily set the current game state (what minions are on the battlefield, buffs/damage on each minion, heath/armor/weapon for each hero, secrets/quests for each hero, dead minion resurrection pool for each hero, cards in hand, etc etc…)
Possibly you would want the capability to choose the outcomes of random effects, although I think that would be way too hard to actually program.
This is what comes to mind when I think of “sandbox mode”, and it goes far beyond any mere PTR. Did you have something else in mind?
you still seem confused, so i’ll reply to this tangent first and then move back to the actual point.
correct, testing the game in a controlled environment is the presumed goal here, and it can be achieved in a sandbox environment OR a PTR with any free mode customization. mmo PTRs being a prime example where you’re able to freely set your stats and choose your gear, or league’s practice tool as a true sandbox mode, either of which would be satisfactory here. you’re correct in that the freedom of a sandbox is most often greater than that of a PTR, but what you’ve described does NOT go ‘far beyond any mere PTR’.
choose or build a deck for the innkeeper and get into game with options like the following on a side panel.
“discover a card from your opponent’s deck or hand for them to play next turn.” “discover a card for your opponent to draw.”
as mentioned, this is an inconsequential tangent to the main point of asking why we have no such mode to test things, so i’ll reiterate for you what happened.
i say the game is broken and needs a sandbox mode or PTR to sniff out bugs, which would also double as a nice QOL for players to test specific card interactions in a controlled environment.
for a reason why blizzard wouldn’t implement this, you suggest that a sandbox mode could potentially make blizzard look incompetent in their testing,
i say i don’t think that’s the case, as most multiplayer games, and EVERY other blizzard IP has a PTR (which, again, are ONLY used for testing and bug catching), and that it’s common practice. to emphasize as i think this is what went over your head the first time. this point here on PTRs is to disprove your intial idea. the thought “Such a mode might suggest that they are incapable of testing their own game…” does NOT apply, as clearly, the presence of PTR’s in ALL their other titles and virtually every multiplayer game strongly says otherwise, due to the fact that they are more centered around bug catching than sandboxes are.
then, you say we weren’t talking about PTRs, and proceed on the tangent we’re on now.
if you’re going to spend your time looking for posts to aimlessly refute, you should read more thoroughly first
As I understand it, a PTR is an alpha/beta version of the game. If the game is loot-based, there also might be easy ways to acquire loot and other resources (e.g. vendors that sell those things for free).
What I described was essentially a god mode for playing hearthstone.
If you don’t think those two things are far apart, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.
you ignored the entire post and again only replied to this tangent created by your misunderstanding. i’ll put the reply to that on the end this time so you hopefully respond to the actual point of the discussion and thread, about why we don’t have a sandbox OR PTR.
you reply to the post saying that it’s possible they don’t make a sandbox mode because it could make them look bad.
i refute this by mentioning that essentially all multiplayer games have a PTR, (including every other blizzard IP) which, unlike a sandbox mode, is designed for this testing and bug catching that you say blizzard sees as showing incompetence.
you reply and say “the request wasn’t for a PTR…” (again wrong, reread) this is a nonsense reply that has no bearing to anything i said. you interpreted incorrectly, not that it would’ve made sense anyway.
on this semantics game of PTR vs sandbox, yes a PTR is just a testing ground of upcoming content, which is in many cases accompanied by things like the vendor you mentioned. if you want to agree to disagree and say that you need .noclip tier capabilities to achieve a controlled testing environment in hearthstone, then sure, agree to disagree. now that that’s done, please reply to the actual post or don’t reply at all