Hello fellow players and Hearthstone development-team,
i have a problem with the Wild format but I don’t just want to complain here, I have a suggestion for you! But before I submit my proposal, i will explain my problem with the current Wild format.
Turn 1: The problem:
Blizzard promoted the Wild format as a opportunity to keep the game fresh and exciting even over many years and thats exactly what happened. The separation in Standard and Wild keep the game alive and fresh over the years…at least Standard, but what happened to Wild? At the beginning, many players played Wild as a “break” from Standard rank climbing or as a second rank climbing mode, but time went by and more and more cards were added to Wild and more and more players left this format behind. With the start of the “Year of the Phoenix” Wild includes 1501 cards from 4 Adventures and 10 Expansions (Basic, Classic and current Standard cards not included)…and here lies the dog buried! With hundreds of new cards every year added to Wild it turned into a mess. Balancing? Not at all! I played a few games in Wild with some good old decks like Secret Pala (Classic), Jade Druid (Year of the Kraken) and Quest Taunt Warrior (Year of the Mammoth) and i got destroyed. Decks that have controlled meta in recent years are nothing more than a good old memory. Blizzard said in the Wild format announcement “The more cards that are added to the game over time, the wilder and more unpredictable the wild format becomes!” (Article quote: A New Way to Play 02/02/2016) but instead of “unpredictable” they should have wrote “unplayable”. “The more cards that are added to the game over time, the wilder and more unplayble the wild format becomes!” sounds to me a lot more like the current situation.
Turn 2: Achievements:
Lately an article catched my attention because of the Achievements in the 3. Phase of the “Year of the Phoenix”. Someone said we shouldn’t dust our old cards because they may be part of the achievements and that scared me.Maybe it’s nothing dramatic but why do I imagine things like “Collect all cards from expansion XY” or “Play every single Legendary-Card ever introduced in Hearthstone”. Of course achievements are not a must, but there are still people out there who absolutely have to complete a game 100%. In my opinion, this is Blizzard’s attempt to sell their old adventures and expansions to newer and older players who have already dusted off these cards. I’m afraid that Blizzard will make us stop destroying our old cards and even buy old packs as these may be necessary for achievements, and only for achievements! And the moment I thought about investing money in cards that I will never use anyway, I got an idea. What if we can use these old cards for more than earning achievements? What if they become playable again, as if it were the first day of their release?
Turn 3: The solution:
Wild turn worse every year a little bit more and achievements will maybe force player to buy or rebuy old adventures and expansions only to get a point, a percentage or a few more pixel in a long castbar to reach 100%, and the old cards would be still no more than trash. Maybe Blizzard should rethink the whole Wild format. I loved to play Dr.Boom, the crazy Grim Patron Warrior deck, all Reno Jackson decks and many more. All of these decks are part of my Hearthstone and i wish i could get them back in action. And here comes my idea. Is pretty simple: Split it! Split the game even more than Wild did. Introduces new formats! Blizzard already proved that “Classic sells”, and millions of players came back to the over 15 years old Azeroth. Why shouldn’t this also function for Hearthstone? “Wild year 1&2”, the Year of the Kraken, the Year of the Mammoth, the Year of the Raven, the Year of the Dragon and now the Year of the Phoenix. Split Wild in his years and make all old cards, decks and adventures playable again like on the first day! But still keep the Wild as a “Royal Rumble” or “Clash of Years” format for all players that really like this format at its current state. With keeping the old Wild no one will be offended and with the introduction of all years at its own format every Hearthstone player, no matter if older or newer player, can come back and play like in the good old times. It’s like a solution for everyone, not only for the player but also for Blizzard.
->Pros for Player: The advantages for the players are nostalgia and more diversity.
- The game will be even more accessible to re-entrants regardless of when they left the game.
- The game will become more diverse.
- Old cards will become usefull again.
- Even more Achievements can added to the game.
- Every player get more options to play.
->Pros for Blizzard: We shouldn’t forget the advantages for Blizzard as a global corporation!
- Returning of old players: Finance (more potential card buyers)
- External impact (more attention on Twitch and other platforms through the return of streamers)
- Media impact (more attention on Streaming platforms can attract new players)
- Explore potential (Every content can be treated as new content)
- Easy to implement (only variations from the current Wild)
It is important to note that these changes have no effect on arena, battleground or the Standard format! The game will still be the same, just with some more formats. And of course no new cards would be published for the old years! That may sound a bit boring for one or the other, always play with the same cards and never get new content. But there is Standard and the new formats that appear every year! Every year?! Yes! Once a year ends in Standard, that year would be inserted in Wild as a new year format. In addition, new content for the classic Wild mode would be added.(I really like “Clash of Years” as a name for this format)
Turn 4: Implementation:
The biggest problem with this idea is that many cards have been revised over the years. Even if you split Wild into different years, many decks would not work as they did then because old cards were adapted to newer expansions. As an example the newest changes to Priest cards like: Power Word: Shield. The original effect was “[Cost 1] Give a minion +2 Health. Draw a card.” the new effect is “[Cost 0] Give a minion +2 Health.”. Changes like this would of course affect the classic gaming experience and so the cards have to come back into the game as they were. But such a change would throw everything overboard, including Standard, arena and battleground so we need a solution.My idea to solve this problem: If Blizzard wanted to make it easy for them, they would just have to insert the old versions of the revised cards into the Hall of Fame. As soon as you open a classic card package and receive the new version of the card, you automatically receive the old version that appears in the hall of fame. But if Blizzard wants to do it well, they would have to edit the expansion button in the collection. It would be best to separate into the years. As soon as you pressed one of the years, the adventures and expansions belonging to the year, including the old basic and classic cards, would be displayed in tabs. With this method, all variants of the cards can exist at the same time without influencing the Standard or other formats. But there were also nerfs with a good reason, such as Warsong Commander. The original effect of this card was “Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge.” but this was to powerfull with the introduction of Grim Patron and got nerfed. Nerfs who had the aim to balance the respective year should not be undone, otherwise year 1&2 would only consist of Grim Patron decks. Of course that would mean that a few decks are not to be played as they were, but these changes had good reasons at the time and even if it is sad, some decks should never exist because they were just too powerful. In order to implement the years exactly as I described it, blizzard would have to sort many cards. Revised versions of cards such as the new Power Word: Shield should only be playable from the Year of the Phoenix, to avoid that new variations find their way into the old formats. Such a change and sorting work is of course an effort, but I think that it can pay off for both the players and blizzard. And if we’re already making changes to the Wild format. The optics can make a difference. These rampant plants convey the charm of deserted places like Chernobyl. This design decision literally shouts “Go away and let me die in peace”. Instead of the small coat of arms that currently separates standard and wild, I would suggest larger buttons that contain both the name of the year and a nice image of the zodiac. But of course Standard should still stand out. So my suggestion would be to keep the buttons in gold but give Standard a shiny touch. This way, new players can better differentiate between current and old content.
Turn 5: Problem solver:
Finally a few words about the most common problem for players: the price of the game. And even if I don’t want to start this discussion now whether Blizzard’s prices are justified or not, my idea can at least bring about a slight improvement in the circumstances. In order to keep up in the Standard, you have to buy up to 3 expansions in a relatively short time but it is difficult to farm so much gold if you do not already have all the cards to create good decksor even a returner who has no current cards at all. The division of the Wild format can also be a solution to this problem. Regardless of whether you are an active or returning player, you can play in older years in which you have all the cards you need to quickly rank and earn gold for more recent expansions. Of course, such a change doesn’t really make the game cheaper, but at least there are other and more ways to earn gold for everyone.
Your turn:
Now that I have described my ideas, I want to know how you see it. What do you think? Is this a good new direction for Wild? Are you interestet in playing older content and decks? If you like this idea, would you buy more old adventures and expansions to live the past? Or would changes like these even make you play again if you stopped a long time ago?
I’m looking forward to your opinion and wish you a golden legendary…day.
PS: English is not my mother tongue so please excuse any mistakes
PSS: I know that my Photoshop skills are outstanding 