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nicholasburkegd · 5 years

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Hearthstone: Slightly Problematic Design

One of Hearthstone’s greatest draws is also one of its biggest detractors. Since the game is completely virtual, it can afford to introduce an element to its gameplay that cannot be present in physical CCGs or TCGs: randomness. Since computers can account for and do things that are physically impossible to do in real world card games, Hearthstone is able to use and rely on cards and mechanics that require a semblance of randomness.

What this leads to is situations in which one player gets a favourable result from a card, with no way to react to it. As a result, skill based play often becomes less favoured, instead letting strong random cards exist and become problematic, both in casual and in proplay. Skill based decks do definitely exist, but the RNG present in many cards makes it hard to create decks that have none in them. Card Keywords such as Discover and Recruit are also completely dependant on RNG, and they are very present in lots of modern cards.

(Above) An example of how discover works: providing a choice of three random cards to the player, of which the other player cannot see

Cards like Sylvanas Windrunner, Ragnaros the Firelord and Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End, all saw lots of play because their effects were incredibly strong. But, each of them was based on a random effect that the opposing player often didn’t have a chance to react to. Yogg-Saron in particular was such a prevalent card in the meta due to its ability to completely swing games in either player’s favour that people called for it to be banned, with it eventually being nerfed as to not continue wreaking havoc if it dies or transforms.

(Above) The bane of any Hearthstone Player’s game

While RNG allows for games to be different when the same deck is constantly played, the often unpredictable nature of said RNG and the heavy reliance on it takes away from the possible skill that’s already present in Hearthstone.

As with any card game, new cards are released yearly in different expansions, adding new cards for players to use and experiment with. However, Hearthstone being a digital card game allowed for players to gain cards in a different way; Solo Expansions. Instead of buying packs and getting 5 cards at random, players could instead buy Solo Expansions, which were made up of 4 wings, and battle against AI opponents with special hero powers and decks to earn cards. Beating bosses would earn them cards for the different classes, and beating all of the bosses in a Wing would give players a special legendary card. Many players found the first few Solo Adventures, ‘Curse of Naxxramas’ and ‘Blackrock Mountain’ to be fun and enjoyable, since the boss fights were interesting and unique, with new cards being available, with players always knowing what they would get.

(Above) An example of the old shop that contained the first two solo adventures

This then pivoted into different free content that kept the a similar solo adventure model. The expansion “Knights of the Frozen Throne” had a completely free solo adventure released with the expansion, but with less rewards. Players could only earn one Legendary card, which was one of the nine “Death Knight” hero cards at random, as well as 3 packs from the set. The expansion “Kobolds and Catacombs” introduced a gamemode called “Dungeon Run”, a mode where players would face a series of bosses one at a time, building a deck from random sets of cards as they went. The bosses they faced were randomly pulled from a list, but like previous solo adventures, they each had their own decks and gimmicks that were unique to them. Playing the gamemode wouldn’t net any rewards unless the player received a daily quest to do so, but it acted as a good distraction and solo task that players could undertake. This formula was repeated similarly in the “Monster Hunt,” “Puzzle Lab” and “Rumble Run” free solo adventures that were released with each of the expansions in the next year. Rewards for completing the expansions were limited to singular cardbacks, and the packs became non existent except for quest rewards.

(Above) Some of the earliest free adventures that were a part of Kobolds and Catacombs and The Frozen Throne. Under them are the Karazhan and League of Explorers expansions, which were paid content using the traditional Solo Adventure formula

2019 also saw the release of Dungeon Run-esque solo adventures with its first two expansions, “Rise of Shadows” and “Saviours of Uldum,” except this time they are paid expansions. Costing about $20 AUD, the adventures are now broken up into a series of different “Wings” like the original solo adventures, but they are structured closer to the Dungeon Run style of gameplay. They also offer more rewards than the free expansions beforehand, but now give packs instead of any guaranteed cards.

The solo adventure and repeated boss fight model that was popularised with the “Dungeon Run” and “Curse of the Witchwood” game modes was used again in content for the expansions but as paid expansions instead. The cost of buying the amount of packs you would get as rewards for completing the adventure is cheaper than buying the packs outright, but there is no guarantee for what cards the player is going to be receiving from their packs, unlike the previous paid solo expansions. At the current rate that Hearthstone is progressing, it seems that this is going to become the norm, and the free content and guaranteed rewards that used to be a big part of increasing your collection are going to be less prevalent, if present at all.

(Above) The Tombs of Terror solo expansion within the Hearthstone shop

Speaking of rewards, the way that Hearthstone gives cards and resources to its players is also quite flawed.

Hearthstone utilises two in game currencies: Gold and Arcane Dust (Often just called Dust). Gold can be used to purchase packs (100 gold a pack) or wings of solo adventures (About 700 gold per wing). Gold is earned either by completing daily quests, where the player needs to complete certain tasks to earn between 50 and 100, and for every three wins a player gets in a day (To a maximum of 100). Arcane dust is earned by “Disenchanting” extra cards that the player doesn’t want.

Players cannot spend money to directly buy either currency, with money replacing the need for gold in many cases, and dust being acquired as a result of disenchanting the cards bought with gold.

Unlike physical card games, cards in Hearthstone cannot be traded, sold, or given away. When a player opens a card from a pack, they can either disenchant it or keep it, with no way for that card to go to another player.

The problem with that is that with physical cards, spending money on lots of packs can become financially worth it if you open an “expensive” card, since that card can be sold to make back the money that was spent on the packs, or the person who unpacked it no longer has to buy it, so the money that would have gone to acquiring it isn’t spent. In Hearthstone, this isn’t the case. Spending the same amount of money on Hearthstone won’t end in the same result though. Money spent cannot be given back in any form that is not the ingame currency, meaning that investing money or putting money into the game gives no physical, real world reward.

This is made even worse by the fact that some newer cards are similar in effect to older cards from the basic set, but are so much more powerful that there’s no reason to run the original. This has always been a problem in Hearthstone, but within the past year it has reached a point of borderline ridiculousness. The newest expansion, “Descent of Dragons” in particular has revealed a slew of cards that completely outclass cards from the original set.

(Above) An example of the powercreep in the new set. Amber Watcher is a strictly better Guardian of Kings for less mana, and with the ability to work with Dragons

While increased power in cards over time is good, powercreep of this level isn’t. Players who do not have easy access to these new cards become left behind while players who do get access to better resources, which lets them win more games and get further ahead on the ranked ladder. Resources, as discussed before, that are hard to get without spending money.

(Above) Another example of the Powercreep found in Hearthstone cards. This time, a Neutral Rare card is strictly better than a Priest Common

Hearthstone being digital also means that it has the ability to either increase or decrease the strength of certain cards in order to keep the game balanced. As part of their ability to do this, the Hearthstone team will allow players to Disenchant any cards that received a nerf for the full dust price instead of the normal price.

As a result, it’s rare that more expensive cards will get nerfed, since Hearthstone’s dust economy revolves around players always needing to have more. And if players can turn worse cards into better cards, then the economy that Hearthstone is trying to maintain suffers. So, as a result, card nerfs are often quite rare. This means that until new cards are released, cards rotate, or nerfs happen, the meta tends to stagnate like other card games.

And while it’s good that the Hearthstone team will make nerfs, some come too little too late. As an example, the nerfs to the cards “Patches the Pirate” and “Raza the Unchained” were both significant nerfs to decks based around pirates, and what was known as “Machine Gun Priest” respectively. The problem was that the cards were nerfed just two months before they rotated out of Standard and became playable only in wild. That meant that the cards were still at the peak of their strength for nearly two years before the Hearthstone team did anything about them.

(Above and below) The Patches the Pirate and Raza the Unchained nerfs

To conclude, I don’t think that Hearthstone is terrible as a game. I just think that some elements of its design and its business model are problematic and could use some fixing. This post served to highlight what I believe to be the most problematic areas in that design.

Links:

https://dotesports.com/hearthstone/news/yogg-saron-competitive-hearthstone-ban-3781

https://de.egamersworld.com/hearthstone/news/firebat-announces-quot-batstone-quot-the-first-community-ban-hs-tournament-EJHCz46sb

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Expansion

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/expansions-adventures/rise-of-shadows/

https://powerup-gaming.com/2019/09/06/saviors-of-uldum-tombs-of-terror-is-hearthstones-next-solo-adventure/#:~:targetText=Finally%2C%20a%20special%20Tombs%20of,Terror%20begins%20on%20September%2018.

https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-tombs-of-terror-adventure

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Card_changes

https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/4349-patches-the-pirate-loses-charge-four-card-nerfs

https://www.pcgamer.com/au/hearthstone-is-finally-nerfing-dr-boom-and-several-other-problem-cards/

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barbosaasouza · 7 years

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Hearthstone: Predicting the 2018 Hall of Fame Class

Hearthstone is about to change in a big way. In addition to Update 10.2, which will nerf several of the game's big staples from the recent Kobolds & Catacombs expansion, there's expected to be a new set cards inducted to the Hearthstone Hall of Fame. These are cards from the Classic set deemed a little too valuable to a variety of decks. Let's define this using Blizzard's own words from the 2017 Battle.net post:

When cards show up too frequently in decks and are considered auto-includes, deck-building becomes more limited. Deck variety stagnates, potentially interesting build-around cards fall by the wayside, and the gameplay experience begins to feel less dynamic. Most cards should feel like situational additions to a deck, depending on the deck archetype the player is trying to build.

With that goal in mind, the Standard meta said goodbye to Azure Drake, Sylvanas Windrunner, Ragnaros the Firelord, Power Overwhelming, Ice Lance, and Conceal.

With another set rotation set to hit in the next couple of months, Blizzard will likely seek to send another batch of Classic cards away to Wild. And barring a change in philosophy, it'll likely follow the same ideas as last time. Those parameters include:

Three Neutral cards and three class-based cards

Cards that are used excessively

Cards that hinder future design, because its players would rather use it than try newer decks, cards or strategies

Seeking to follow those parameters, Shacknews is going to take a stab in the dark at what the next batch of Hall of Fame cards will be. These guesses also take into the account the next batch of nerfs set to kick in later this week.

(3) Ice Block Type: Spell Class: Mage Rarity: Epic Secret: When your hero takes fatal damage, prevent it and become Immune this turn.

This is an easy one, mostly because Blizzard has already hinted at this themselves in a previous blog post explaining Update 9.1. Ice Block has become something of a crutch for a lot of Mage players. Originally, Ice Block was meant to give players one last chance. Either win on this turn or face defeat.

But with newer cards released in the past year, Ice Block has gone from a spell that grants players one last chance to a spell that opens the door for ridiculous comebacks. Frost Lich Jaina is the main culprit, allowing for Elementals to siphon health from enemy Heroes and minions. Ice Block allows for players to get themselves out of lethal range, which likely wasn't what the spell was originally designed to do. Arcane Artificer exacerbated this problem, allowing Mage players to pick up high Armor totals on the following turn after their Ice Block was activated.

Ice Block is safe to head off into the Hall of Fame, just because Frost Lich Jaina and Arcane Artificer can help keep the Mage in a close game. It'll also discourage the strategy of sitting on an Artificer until the Ice Block gets popped, pushing those Mage players into more strategic uses of its ability.

(5) Doomguard (5/7) Type: Minion - Demon Class: Warlock Rarity: Rare Charge. Battlecry: Discard two random cards.

The writing is on the wall for Warlock players, simply because they escaped the Update 10.2 nerfs completely unscathed. That should hint at Blizzard having grander plans to nerf the Cubelock deck and that will likely mean sending this long-time Warlock staple off into Wild.

The Cubelock deck type is a proven winner, packing the current meta at an alarming rate. It's the combination of the Carnivorous Cube with the aforementioned Doomguard that makes it entirely possible to wipe out opponents in a single turn. It's all too easy, thanks to Skull of the Man'ari/Possessed Lackey and the low-cost Dark Pact. It's a parade of 5/7 Demons with charge, without the drawback of discarding two cards.

Sending Doomguard into Wild forces Cubelock players to rethink they way they work. The deck type wouldn't be entirely dead, but the one-turn kill strategy would be. These Warlock players would have to veer towards a more control-oriented style, which is entirely do-able with tools like Hellfire, Amethyst Spellstone, Defile, and Twisting Nether still available. That's without even mentioning the big, burly Voidlord that has become a regular part of the Warlock's arsenal. Warlock would stay a potent class, but it wouldn't be the dominant force that it is on the current Ranked ladder.

(5) Nourish Type: Spell Class: Druid Rarity: Rare Choose One - Gain 2 Mana Crystals; or Draw 3 cards.

The Ramp Druid has become incredibly powerful and even with the Jade Druid's reign of terror set to end with the next Standard rotation, there's still something to say about ramping up to 10 Mana Crystals quickly and bopping the opponent with Ultimate Infestation. Rumors of a curbed Ramp Druid have been making the rounds, with at least one of the Druid's tools rumored to go away. Wild Growth has been a lot of people's guesses, but I'm going to veer in a slightly different direction.

Nourish is another card that shows up in nearly every single Druid deck and is arguably more valuable than Wild Growth, especially in later turns. More and more, Druid players have been using it to bump themselves up by two Mana Crystals and if it shows up in a late draw, it draws them three cards and refreshes their hand, getting them right back in the game.

The Druid player still has plenty of tools to ramp up in the early game with Wild Growth and the newer Greedy Sprite. And for late card draw, Ultimate Infestation offers more than enough. Nourish seems too much like overkill and feels like a prime candidate to get sent off to Wild.

(4) Spellbreaker (4/3) Type: Minion Class: Neutral Rarity: Common Battlecry: Silence a minion.

Hearthstone designers have frowned on Silence effects in the past, dating as far back as two years ago when they bopped a handful of Classic cards. The original explanation for the Ironbeak Owl and Keeper of the Grove nerfs was that the team didn't want to combine a Silence effect with efficient stats. Spellbreaker has flown in the face of this philosophy for years and it may be on the verge of getting whacked.

With Ironbeak Owl no longer viable because of its 2/1 stats, Spellbreaker has become a key minion in a number of decks. Hunters, Warlocks, Priests, and pretty much any aggro deck will run this 4-cost Silence machine to remove a Taunt obstacle and clear their path to victory. They can also use it to Silence minions with powerful effects, like a Bonemare target or Rin, the First Disciple.

With so many end-of-turn and Deathrattle effects, Spellbreaker is practically an automatic inclusion, which is just the kind of thing that Blizzard was looking to prevent. I'd expect Spellbreaker to head off into Wild and for players to be presented a choice: Do they want the Silence effect so bad that they're willing to take a chance on the nerfed Ironbeak Owl or will they find a different way to counter some of these effects?

(6) Gadgetzan Auctioneer (4/4) Type: Minion Class: Neutral Rarity: Rare Whenever you cast a spell, draw a card.

There is no deck type that has come back from the dead more often than Miracle Rogue. Even after Gadgetzan Auctioneer was nerfed the first time, the Miracle Rogue just kept on trucking. Even with the removal of Conceal, the Miracle Rogue somehow still survived. It's reached a point where it looked like Miracle Rogue would outlive every deck type out there. However, Blizzard still has one magic bullet in its chamber to end Miracle Rogue forever in the Standard meta and that's by formally retiring the Gadgetzan Auctioneer.

It hasn't just been Rogue making good use of this minion, either. Druid and Priest players have started packing in Gadgetzan Auctioneer to help with their card draws. For Priests, it's been invaluable for the Highlander Priest. For Druids, it's been a quick way to draw into larger and larger Jade Golems. There's no other card quite like it, allowing players to quickly and efficiently dig deep into their decks and pull out their win conditions.

Really, if any card is deserving of the "Hall of Fame" designation, it's Gadgetzan Auctioneer. This minion has done it all, dominating the Ranked ladder and helping decide championship tournaments. It has been a part of Hearthstone since its inception, but the time has come for new and exciting decks and it may finally be time to close up shop on this guy for good.

(9) Alexstrasza (8/8) Type: Minion - Dragon Class: Neutral Rarity: Legendary Battlecry: Set a hero's remaining Health to 15.

It was much easier to guess Legendary minions in last year's Hall of Fame class, just because Sylvanas and Ragnaros felt so omnipresent. There's a part of me that believes Blizzard would like to retire at least one Legendary and the one that comes to mind is Alexstrasza.

Alex has been another staple in Hearthstone, nearly since the beginning. She was a frequent staple of Freeze Mage decks, even before Ice Lance got inducted into last year's Hall of Fame class. But Alex's problem now, as it was back then, is that she feels like a mindless card. There's no reason to play pressure on opponents in the early to late game, because players can just drop Alex and set their opponents to 15 anyway. And while this is an expensive 9-mana play, most players can use it as a way to set up lethal for next turn.

The Alex two-turn kill combos are something I'm sure Blizzard would love to avoid dealing with when designing future expansions, encouraging players to try and either play control or aggro without having the Turn 9, 15 health crutch around to make the game feel more one-sided.

Those are some of our ideas for Hearthstone's next Hall of Fame class. I could also be crazy for some of these choices, so feel free to join the conversation and comment on what you think will get sent off to Wild with the next set rotation.

Hearthstone: Predicting the 2018 Hall of Fame Class published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/