I'm not saying Hearthstone is the best card game on the market, but it is the most popular, by far. It has something near twice the player base of mtg and it's gained that in just a few short years.
Why? What qualities does it have that makes it so attractive?
Internet fast-matching
That is literally it
>What qualities does it have that makes it so attractive?
It's a video game.
It's free to start, was well-advertised and made by a company that has a massive fanbase already, unlike physical games can be played without having to find other people to talk to, isn't terrible, and probably most importantly it jumped into the market when it was one of the only examples of its time.
Also this:
easy to play,hard to master,lots of streams & videos about it,also WOW
Low barrier to entry, built for digital from the ground up, games are quick and mechanics simple - but still has some complex interactions at a skilled level of play.
>hard to master
no
Please prove your multiple tournament wins and rank 1 legend achievements
...
My opinion is that it streamlined a lot of the really shitty elements of other card games. It's got a mana system, but not one that screws you. For one example.
Add to that a much lower barrier to entry, great digital features, and you've got a winner.
So basically it was built from the ground up to capitalize on the most glaring weaknesses of mtg.
It takes advantage of the modern person's short attention span and monetizes it by making it look like the game is doing a lot of stuff as numbers keep climbing higher, even though the board is mostly stalled and neither player can safely attack for fear of a lethal counter.
I haven't noticed anything like that.
Boards don't really stall because there isn't any real blocking. Just the occasional taunt creature.
It's free, easy, and you can play it on your phone.
Yeah, it have less board stalls than mtg for example, because you can attack directly into creatures
I've won MTG and Android Netrunner tournaments. I've gotten to legend in Hearthstone, but never bothered with it in tourneys. Its just a timesink where 99% of the time your hand plays itself and lolrandom effects occur constantly to make it "interesting". (And yes, I understand that you need to play around the randomness, but that doesn't make it deep)
Maybe 1% of the time (more like 0.01%) there is some obscure combo or deep knowledge needed. But that's it. You quickly learn how to play around all the netdecks and their derivatives, so I wouldn't consider that deep.
If you want a game that actually gives the player depth of choice, and requires actual skill, ANR was the best (but I haven't played it in over a year, so I don't know how much it changed.)
>I've won MTG and Android Netrunner tournaments
And my uncle works at Nintendo and says you're a lying faggot.
>I don't want to believe it, therefore it's not true
Kid, there are funding thousands of tournaments for both games weekly, and that's just in the US. It's frankly more improbable than any random person on Veeky Forums HASN'T won some fucking tournament for some fucking card game at least once in their lives. Shit, even I could have won a couple MtG tournaments in my area if I got out of the house and went to them, and not only does MtG have a way higher skill ceiling than Hearthstone I'm also not that good at it.
I even met and beat Mike Flores. (I don't know if that's much of an achievement-I had a deck that countered his).
Believe whatever you want. I've been playing card games since I was a little kid. Usually I'm pretty casual about it, but I can craft winning, original decks and strategies when I get motivated.
Hearthstone is literally the worst big-name card game I've ever played. I only got into it because I wanted something I could jump into and play whenever I wantes with a minimal boring wait time. But desu, the game is itself a bore.
Not to mention the skill ceiling is mostly about learning meta and which are good cards. Hell, people say most of the metagames are already solved puzzles that are only broken by new sets to keep them fresh, compared to games like igo that hasn't been solved in 3000 years.
Reminder they nerfed the shit out of one of the few interesting decks on ladder even though it only had like a 40% winrate because they're so afraid of making any sort of interaction
It's free, and really fucking easy.
>isn't terrible
>hard to master
Considering you're illiterate, I can see why you'd assume this is the case, but Hearthstone is braindead as fuck
Since clearly it's so hard to master, you must have mastered something else, literally anything else to be able to compare, yes? So is there anything in life where you're not garbage? No?
Oh wow what a surprise, you're a complete failure in everything you've ever tried, so you think a game literally dumber than fucking Yugioh is complex
kill yourself you waste of space
Netrunner master race desu.
I find that hearthstone is hampered by the design of a few cards and the design team's total reluctance to ever change any card ever for any reason, when that is literally one of the better advantages of an exclusively online card game.
They would rather release an entire mode that just doesn't use old unbalanced cards rather than just fix them.
Let's stop the dick slinging and get back to the topic at hand: what is it that makes hs so popular compared to mtg?
Hs is cheaper than mtg. Hs gives you free stuff. Mtg mages you invest hundreds of dollars to even have a mana base.
That's gotta be a major factor.
Until wizards comes up with a sane reprinting policy, they won't ever succeed the way blizzard has.
I think one aspect is that it's fun to watch. Due to amount of RNG cards in HS, a match can swing wildly which makes it unpredictable and good entertainment for those watching. And when they see it, they get interested and they try it and some stay and play for a long time.
No physical card game will ever succeed the way blizzard has. Being easier and cheaper aside, there are more people playing vidya than traditional games, so the popularity of a really popular digital card game is just unreachable by any traditional card game, on principle
Mtg and hearth stone have about the same level of variance IMO.
It's just variance in mtg is attached to your ability to play the game, and in hearth stone is attached to the effectiveness of your cards.
Mtgo will never reach the levels of hs until it gets a sane reprint policy. (And not shitty client)
Mtgo will never reach the popularity because of plenty of reasons, many of which have already been mentioned in this thread:
- hs is easier
- hs is flashier
- hs is quicker to play
- hs is free
- hs is more enjoyable to watch, while watching mtg requires way more knowledge
- hs is made by blizzard
While I don't value it as a card game, it is hard to deny, that hs is a masterpiece of a casual game, and even perfectly working, perfectly emulating the physical game Mtgo would stand no chance against it's popularity
People tend to forget that maybe the biggest reason HS ever succeeded was because it was a fucking Blizzard that made it. Same reason why casual generic shooter like Overwatch will succeed and everyone else doing exact same shit fails. I mean look at those games, they are specifically made to be generic as fuck.
As and point out, Blizzard has managed to do with Hearthstone what they did with World of Warcraft and captured lightning in a bottle AGAIN. They broke into the online CCG scene when it was practically nonexistant and did so with the Blizzard name behind it, Warcraft in particular. It's not enough that HS streamlined CCGs as we know it, because casuals don't care about the nitty-gritty game theory behind it and the genre as a whole. All they care is that it's free, it's pretty, it plays well, and it's by Blizzard.
We've reached the point where just like post-WoW MMOs attempted to copy and improve on WoW's formula, so too are other companies now trying to spin-off the HS formula and make it their own to compete with it. The two most prominent competitors that I'm aware of are Elder Scrolls: Legends and Shadowverse (pictured). Full disclosure: I'm playing Shadowverse myself, and it's honestly not that bad; as I understand it, there's much more player agency than there is in HS.
>it's just Blizzard
it's really not when SC2 failed to captivate the world and it was the sequel to fucking Stracraft
Overwatch succeeded where others had failed (Battleborn, other Arena shooters) because Blizzard is excellent at producing things with high production value and know how to hit the archetypes that people like. The fact that memes were coming out the first month of beta like McCree saying High Noon to everything or Soldier 76 being this old dad is a testament to this. It's very much Blizzard completely understanding their demographic while other developers don't.
Blizzard believes in shameless fanservice, and that shit works. They only compound on it with their absurdly high production values.
>free to play
>easy to pick up
>quick matchmaking
>ranked
>beloved characters from warcraft universe
>relatively cheap compared to other CCGs
>available on multiple mobile platforms
>user friendly interface
so about everything that modo isn't
also to add onto this
>mostly creature-based
which is why mtg has been pushing grindy low power, creature-oriented standard and limited environments
Sounds like we found the net decking faggot in the board
The game plays itself. You rarely have to think about what to play and success means targeting the lowest common denominator. Plus it has the appeal of allowing you to play a card game without having to pay anything.
>design team's total reluctance to ever change any card ever for any reason
How is that statement not false?
Probably the most important thing Hearthstone did was remove the necessity for out-of-turn reactions.
MTG is a stumbling fuckpuppet in on-line play because it has to stop after every single action and ask the other player "do you want to do anything about that?"
HS has the better combat system.
Becasue you can attack minions you get to think and interact with your opponenets board, it becomes puzzle solving, what combo of cards and attacks can i use to control the board, o save myself, I am not just digging for an answer to break a board stall or a railroading.
because health doesn't replenish and you can attack creatures it means you can nickle and dime to get rid of creatures which means design space is far wider for damage based effects.
So instead of the linear deiscsion fo wether to attack or not (and the classic clogged board states you get) you get a dynamic back and forth over many turns that is stimulating and doesn't make the brunt of decision making in complex "will we do x if I do y when causes z which cause q" decision trees. It makes playing the game playing the game instead of processing endless hypothetical.
>they changed a few cards over the course of years
>therefore they aren't reluctant
eat shit
Literally just learn to use F6, it's not that difficult.
You wouldn't spout uninformed bullshit if you had used MTGO / XMage for more than half an hour, the system feels fluent enought that it shouldn't bother anyone.
>it becomes puzzle solving
95% of the boardstates are easy as fuck, it's like trying to solve a connect the dots. The most valueable trades you can make are very often super obvious, only rarely will you have to actually think (mostly if you're playing a difficult deck, which HS doesn't really feature many of).
The combat in HS is dogshit, and you can ask literally anyone who has reached Legend ever.
Aggro is predominant in the game, because the attacker always gets to pick the most valueable trades to make + can react with his hand, while all you do is watch him shitstomp your minions like the cuckboi you are.
Also, the sheer amount of complete RNG adds too much variance to the game.
Just watch an afternoon of Reynad streaming, you'll learn enough to avoid shitty posts like that.
People forget the clear part; you can play it anywhere, just like a videogame.
No need to deal with the hassal fo finding toher people to play or going to a game store or any other bullshit.
Wherever whenever you can play the game with no need to store anything.
Super convenient.
It's free and completely online
It's candy crush. It'll fade soon enough.
ALternatively it will turn into WoW and the the genre gold standard despite it's many flaws and cartoony appearance.
You don't have to smell your opponents BO.
See . I'm not surprised if Hearthstone is already considered the current gold standard for online CCGs.
>it'll fade soon enough
it's been 2 years
I can tell this upsets you.
I reached legend. The combat is good.
What now?
>the system feels fluent
even LSV and PVDDR say that the modo client is fucking garbage and clunky, PV said that specifically while streaming Hearthstone
I don't know why mtg players always talk about hearthstone like it threatens them. It's the same way dota players talk about league of legends.
Modo is like a treatise on bad ui design and how to insert bugs randomly into everything.
>Go to containment subreddit for bitching about league
>Pretend this is representative of the dota community
You need to go back.
Because the mechanically "simpler" thus "more popular" games feel threatening to people who value the "complex" side because popular trends have habit of being showed into your things because devs want more traffic into their thing.
Tho I am only guessing and have bias against LoL and HS.
I hate LoL for what Riot did to a really really promising game and then proceeded to sell their arses to chinese overlord (played from closed beta to I guess 1-3 champions after the bomb lobbing midget was added)
I dislike HS since the devs have blizzard syndrome of balance and people around me keep wanking about it on how great and innovative it is.
Because time is money, and MtG costs too much fucking time.
Enjoyment I get from Hearthstone comes absolutely free. Starting and maintaining a MtG deck would cost literally days out of my life in sheer time worked/money gained.
League was doomed from the start. You don't make a good game by hitting the worst developer dota ever had and then making him subordinate to the marketing department.
Chinese or American, riot sucks.
But that's rather far afield.
HS can be played alone. HS can be autopiloted much less devastatingly. MtG is ridiculously expensive. MtG games can take way longer. RNG/things perceived to be RNG (mana screw is often just poor deck-building and poorer mulligan decisions) will drag on, while in HS even if they're game-changing they don't linger, they happen and then you move on while in Magic you're waiting until the RNG stops fucking you over.
Additionally, there is market demographic inertia. HS players are mostly casuals who first migrated from WoW, who then attracted their normie friends, who then attracted each other.
MtG is mostly popular with college students and the nerdier of those. They have smaller social circles. Also, playing with them is painful because your starter deck is gonna be hopelessly garbage, and obviously so if they're using a really powerful format, while Hearthstone has less emphasis on playing with those close by, so you can get matched up with similar scrubs.
No one actually wants friends in [Current Year], so having no social element in the game doesn't matter
And which is why Magic nowadays is boring as fuck imotbqhwyf
I think people defend needless complexity so they can exploit loopholes and unintended synergies all while screaming for judges when things don't go their way.
Free, advertising, building off a previous popular concept (Warcraft), online play/matching
this
Yeah that. They don't even speak russian ffs.
It can be played online or mobile, it's free to play and is much cheaper even when p2ping, matchmaking is painless, game interface feels great (out-of-game not so much), and the basics are super easy and can be learned just by watching streams or playing the in-game tutorial.
MtGO is frankly not competitive. Waaaay more expensive, no easy matchmaking, looks like an XP program, and has clunky gameplay interface that trips up even experienced paper players. Offline play is better of course, but that's still way less convinent than just hoping online or on mobile.
I'd hardly call full instant-speed interaction and a stronger combat system "needless complexity".
>What qualities does it have that makes it so attractive?
It's shiny, simple and lots of players coming for the brand
>I'm not surprised if Hearthstone is already considered the current gold standard for online CCGs.
That's fucking horrible
>You can pick it up for free (although being competitive without spending money is a pain in the ass, especially if you're just now getting into it)
>Simple, colorful UI
>Familiar IP
>Almost all of the game mechanics are easy to master
>Involves enough strategy that you can actually see progress as a player
>Intentionally and pretty consistently lighthearted
>Quick matching
>le ebin mg
>Pavlovian rewards system
Magic had always been about the gathering of money. Why people stills plays it confuses me. Even Pokemon TGG doesn't treat their fans as bad as Wizards Of The Coast do with Magic.
Step 1: Be Blizzard
Step 2: Make a game
Step 3: ??????
Step 4: Profit
Blizzard has made shitty dead games though. Sc2 and Diablo 3 come to mind.
Diablo 3 got good though
They are stil played more than shitty games from other companies. RTS genre was in long decline anyways.
It was two steps forward, three steps back.
/bread
nice dubs
Sure, but hearth stone has 2.5x the player base of mtg. So I don't think you can simply attribute is success to simply blizzdrones.
>So I don't think you can simply attribute is success to simply blizzdrones.
I can. Games from Blizzard succeed because of marketing, not their top notch quality (Overwatch is the only good Blizzard game in the last several years). Reaching critical level of awareness is important, fans will push advertisement campaign further themselves. Blizzard has a great army of drones doing it for them. Many of these drones are slaves to the sense of shame and wasted time.
Even wow only got ten million at its height. It's irrational to assume that blizzards fifty million is only due to their name being in the advertisements.
which one?
Patron, cut I heard it had like 60% win rate?
>I believe Reynad
kek
I play paper Magic (Modern), and I won't touch MTGO until there's a subscription option to just pay a flat monthly fee to have access to all the cards and some amount of tournament access per month. I refuse to pay real money for digital objects.
>I refuse to pay real money for digital objects.
But you are happy to rent them?
I think you missed his point that they are reluctant to change most trouble cards unless they absolutely have to (usually before a tournament guaranteed to get huge numbers of viewers).
Though he did leave out that they happily change cards that enable powerful combo decks because Blizzard fears combo decks.
>There are people here who never played Scrolls due to Mojang having the shittiest marketing ever
...scrolls was a card game? Huh.
I legit didn't even know that much. I just knew that there was the whole Elder Scrolls copyright malarkey and the dude from Penny Arcade wrote for some of it.
Terrible marketing indeed, had no idea what genre it was.