Hearth, Stone, Pals

[DevinSmoth]

This is seriously going to be huge for this game. I’ve been waiting for something along these lines to come out… and now that it has, it sounds awesome. I’m really glad that they’re doing this and I look forward to seeing what’s going to happen in meta from here on out. I wonder if they’re going to step up card releases now?

Also, not mentioned in the article, but this addresses the issues with new players coming to the game… you can just catch up from last year and this one and you’re solid! Good times!

[Squiz]

They needed a reason for people to buy packs from old expansions (i.e., GvG) anyway. Now with sets rotating out of Standard format (and the shop), purchases will go up or, alternatively, dust totals will go down. Either way, revenue will increase. This will make things much more difficult for new players in some ways, too. While they don’t need to buy old packs to compete in Standard anymore, they won’t even be able to come close to completing those sets if they wanted to / for completion’s sake. Not sure what will happen in regards to reprints. Blizzard will run out of fresh ideas eventually, so I’d assume that re-cycling cards will be a given.

[Aerothorn]

Squiz, you seem to have missed that you can no longer buy old packs (or adventures). As soon as this goes live, they’re gone from the store. Which is bad on many levels:

1. It means that the single-player adventures are gone for no good reason;
2. Because the only way to acquire the cards is dust, and dust is extraordinarily expensive/slow-to-acquire, it means wild goes from being “very hard to new players to compete in” to “impossible for new players to compete it.”

Overall, the changes are good, but I was genuinely shocked at that one, and it seems very destructive for the game.

[Lethe]

mmm, destroying the sense of investment in the game … might be a good opportunity to get out.

[Squiz]

Aerothorn: I didn’t miss that at all, rather, I was clumsy in expressing my thoughts on that aspect of the changes. What I meant is that people are going to buy those packs right now, as they’ll soon be gone from the shop. That’s also why I mentioned the decrease in “dust bank totals”, people will be starved for that stuff since there are so many staple cards from the adventures and earlier expansions.

As soon as new exp/adv hit their release date, people will go nuts over acquiring them. I’m not a fan of that at all.

My personal approach to HS as a F2P game was that I’d acquire Classic packs over time via Tavern Brawl and daily quest fun until I’d hit my personal sweet spot of card volume. I’d then go and craft the few Legendaries and remaining epics that I’d need to get 1-2 fun decks going. GvG had not so many essential cards of higher rarity, so I got away with shopping a couple of packs here and there in between to pick up some commons and rares. Same with TGT. The expansions were the real powerhouses though, so I picked them all up, seither over time (Naxx, LoE) or as a reward for myself after a personal RL achievement with money (BRM).

Not sure how to proceed from here. I don’t play nearly enough to complete all the new expansion releases and adventures will only reduce my pace even further.

Edit: Also, since they’ve announced that they’re going to change up some Classic and basic cards before adapting the new changes, I’m wondering if there’ll finally be The Great Disenchanting happening. After that, I’d assume we never see any cards getting nerfed/buffed anymore, as they’ll simply rotate them out if they’re too powerful. That, or change some basic cards again which can’t be disenchanted for dust, like they did with poor old Warsong Commander.

[unruly]

So I’m actually really happy about the changes that are coming. Every lasting card game has some form of rotation to maintain at least a semblance of balance as the card list gets more and more bloated by incoming cards. Magic: The Gathering, for better or for worse, is the shining example of this. They have Standard and Legacy(Or Type 2 and Type 1 for old fogies) formats, which are pretty much the exact same as the Standard and Wild formats for Hearthstone. Legacy format games in MtG are dominated by people who have either been playing for years or can dump massive amounts of money on cards, and they allow for some really crazy overpowered combos, but in return it’s not the tournament format. Standard has a restricted card list, and the much lower barrier to entry and better balance that comes with it, and so it is the tournament format. Both exist, both can be played independently of each other, and it benefits everyone who plays the game by catering to every type of player from casual to professional.

What I don’t like is that they’re killing the old solo adventures entirely. I just don’t see the point in it. The adventures are a fun way to pass the time, and there’s really no reason to pull them from sale. Cycle their cards out of Standard, sure, but don’t kill the actual adventure. Heck, I also don’t really see a strong reason for pulling the old card sets from sale, because unlike physical cards there’s no production/distribution logistics involved. It’s certainly a way to avoid confusion over which sets are Standard and which are Wild, but I think they could find some other way to make that apparent. Like a separate area under the shop for Wild sets. Continuing to sell the cards that have fallen out of Standard is basically a way of using them to milk the folks who want to play Wild. I guess they’re trying to use card crafting as a way to milk them even more, since crafting is tedious and slow unless you’re dumping tons of cash into cards, but I think that’s going to backfire in a way that they don’t expect. Maybe make packs from Wild sets only available for cash, rather than continuing to allow them to be bought for gold. That way they’re still available, but if you want them you’ve got to drop real money.

All told, I’m a supporter of this move. The barrier to entry for me, having just started playing a few months ago, was incredibly high. And even after I dropped way more money than I should have(over $200, because card games manage to bend me to their will) I can still barely manage to build a deck that gets a decent win rate. Running into deck after deck that runs multiple legendaries across all sets to incredible effect, and not having some of the “must have” legendaries(Dr. 7 is in EVERYTHING, and is pretty OP imo) that go into just about every deck under the sun, makes playing a frustrating experience to say the least.

Edit: I do wish they would increase the deck limit more though. Only 18 decks? Gimme 30. Minimum.

[Squiz]

So after I’ve been listening to Kripparrian’s thoughts on the changes, I’m a little bit more curious how this will play out. GvG and Naxx were a massive tempo block and many of the current top decks will simply vanish from existence (Mech Mage, for example. Secret Pally might stick around and now you can’t even counter the secret stack with BGH any more since Avenge is going away). I’ve also changed my opinion about buying those packs now that they’re still available. As in, I’ll stay way clear of doing so. Wild mode will most likely be a dead format. None of the bigger streamers will be playing it since it’s not the tournament format. Accordingly, it will be far less popular than Standard.

At the same time, I’m not sure if I want to get into that treadmill of everlasting change that is Standard either. I just don’t play the game enough to have a decent card acquisition rate. So while real money purchasers or infinte Arena dudes (intetestingly, Arena will be Wild) will be able to stay “on the clock”, I won’t. So I just might as well play something else and watch the odd Arena stream now and then.

Edit: Further changes will come by means of card nerfs (buffs less likely given Blizzard’s track record). From the basic set there aren’t too many potential targets, Savage Roar most likely. Classic has some additional offenders and Kripp has mentioned that stupidly powerful Legendaries like Alex might get a huge hit. Also BGH, as that one card basically prevents any intetersting big creatures from becoming relevant. And that’s after Dr. Boom has left the building. It might have been a reason for BGH to become as popular as it is, but has become much more than a counter to that card ever since.

[unruly]

Standard should, technically, make it easier for people who play less to remain competitive. By making the core of Standard the Classic and Core cards, they’re giving people a strong base that won’t change, meaning that those cards will stay in circulation forever. This takes a lot of pressure off of people to get tons of cards. If they do a good job of balancing new sets, you should be able to build a fairly competitive deck with just the Core and Classic cards. That’s not to say that the new sets won’t complement or improve on the basic deck strategies, but you should find fewer “must haves” in play at a time, and building your collection of basic cards will serve you better over time than trying to chase the current flavor of the month in meta.

[Aerothorn]

Every lasting card game has some form of rotation to maintain at least a semblance of balance as the card list gets more and more bloated by incoming cards. Magic: The Gathering, for better or for worse, is the shining example of this.

I’m of two minds about this. I agree that, absolutely, accessible formats can’t draw from decades of releases. However, their cutoff point - two years- being identical to Magic strikes me as a business decision first and foremost. It’s EASIER to manage that card pool (less development cost) and it drives players to buy new product more often.

In theory, I get it: but as someone who as least lightly observes FFG’s Living Card Games, the 8-year-cycle those are on seems far more generous, and so far doesn’t seem to have significant impacted the viability/approachability of the game (at least in part because the cards have no rarity - which, again, is good design, but perhaps not good business for Blizzard).

[Squiz]

Unruly: That’s not how things have gone so far. Apart from cheap archetypes like Face Hunter (which has become much less reliable in the recent meta), the top cards that made decks really work came from exp/adv. So you’ll have to get those asap if you want to go anywhere in constructed. Some Classic cards might see a second wind but don’t get your hopes up that you’ll be competitive above, say, R10. Also, several powerful Classic cards will get the nerf stick soon, so new cards, which won’t suffer that fate, have an even higher potential as compared to those.

[unruly]

I’m of two minds about this. I agree that, absolutely, accessible formats can’t draw from decades of releases. However, their cutoff point - two years- being identical to Magic strikes me as a business decision first and foremost. It’s EASIER to manage that card pool (less development cost) and it drives players to buy new product more often.

I’m not familiar with FFG’s card games, so I can’t say anything in that regard other than that I think comparing a game where card availability is fixed to one where it is random is a little unfair. And while I agree with you that a 2 year cutoff is most likely to be primarily a business decision, I don’t think that it is necessarily to the player’s detriment. By keeping the card pool smaller and having a large portion be unchanging, it allows people to invest less money into the game while still remaining viable. This is especially important considering that Hearthstone uses randomized packs. Following a longer cycle would result in the unchanging portion of the card pool slowly getting dwarfed by the expansions. As it is, both current expansions average 125 cards*, with the adventures averaging 35. The Basic+Classic cards total out to 378. So by having 2 expansions and 2 adventures in play at a time, assuming they keep the same general card counts with new releases, you’ve got half of the card pool staying unchanged at all times. That’s a very strong base to build from, and it encourages players to find lasting play value in those cards.

That’s not to say that they couldn’t use a longer cycle, but it would create diminishing value in the core set and place much more emphasis on buying the expansions. With the way they’re going to do it it makes more sense to try and complete the Classic set, or at least get all the cards you want from it, first and then only try for select cards from the new expansions as they’re needed/wanted. And unless Blizzard really starts screwing with the balance in upcoming expansions, there will hopefully be fewer must-haves that are outside the core set.

*Collectible cards only. If a card is created by a trigger, it isn’t counted because by owning the triggering card(s), you own the triggered one(s).

That’s not how things have gone so far. Apart from cheap archetypes like Face Hunter (which has become much less reliable in the recent meta), the top cards that made decks really work came from exp/adv. So you’ll have to get those asap if you want to go anywhere in constructed. Some Classic cards might see a second wind but don’t get your hopes up that you’ll be competitive above, say, R10. Also, several powerful Classic cards will get the nerf stick soon, so new cards, which won’t suffer that fate, have an even higher potential as compared to those.

I’m hoping that with the rebalancing of existing cards they take a look at future balance as well.

[Squiz]

I hope you’re right. What just occurred to me is that Arena pack rewards are currently still random, right? So getting GvG packs will feel doubly awkward.

[unruly]

I’d guess that they’ll remove the expansions that fall into Wild from the Arena rewards. If they’re removing the cards from being summoned by random effects, it would make sense that they remove them from random rewards too.

[postinternetsyndrome]

They state explicitly in the FAQ that arena rewards will be standard only. But there will still be a sort of silly period when rotation is getting close where standard focused players probably won’t play arena.

In completely overshadowed news: The new tavern brawl is pretty cool! It’s totally not balanced (warrior and rogue are the only legitimate choices it seems to me), but it sure changes the dynamics of the game completely. Also, it’s nice to see other classes than mage be favoured in the brawls.

[DevinSmoth]

I will be honest… I’m not happy about the move to take away single player adventures from the store, I don’t feel like that part is a good move. I’m mainly supporting the new standard block idea, whic his awesome!

[postinternetsyndrome]

That particular change seems uncallled for yes. They could easily disconnect the cards from the adventures and either lower the price of the adventure to reflect that it’s now just the battles, no cards, or make them completely free.

[Aerothorn]

Honestly, I think making them completely free is the right choice - generates good will and serves as marketing for the game.

But yes, Unruly, I know what you mean about comparing fixed vs. random, it is different, though not in terms of high-level competition (in both cases you need “full access” to the card pool). I definitely think fixed is way better, which is why I don’t spend money on Hearthstone despite liking it decently, but obviously that was a core business decision for Blizzard.

[unruly]

After the announcement of the new format I’ve been getting even more annoyed Dr. Boom than I normally do. Knowing that he’s on his way out makes me so happy, but the waiting is killing me.

[Squiz]

I’ve decided that I want to grab Naxx on my Asia/Americas accounts before the changes go live. So I’ll need to farm up 700g each for the first wing. Which is actually not that bad with the starting bonuses/achievements. 300g for unlocking all classes, getting all basic cards and then something else (playing/conceding 3 games in play mode?). The rest should be easily doable with dailies and a bit of Tavern Brawl if we get lucky and get preconstructed decks this week.

Speaking of lucky: Is it possible that you get some kind of improved chance to get cards of higher rarity from your first few packs? Both my first pack in Asia/Americas netted me a Legendary and some Epics. Either that or I’ve just “used up” all my luck for the coming months…

[unruly]

I think you get 100 gold from beating all the expert training decks.

As for upping your chances, I dunno. I had my cousin mad at me because when I bought 15 packs of classic I nabbed 4 or 5 legendaries out of them, including Leroy who he had been trying to get. In all, I’ve had decent luck with my packs. Though once I did get a pack that was a legendary and 2 rares.