/hey Veeky Forums, how would you guys fix this sorry excuse for a card game?

The combat system is the root of most issues with the game. Heavily favours the attacker, which leads to the game being overtly tempo-driven. Which leads to needing cards powerful enough to swing the boardstate in order to catch up. Which leads to relying on RNG/variance in order to balance those swingy cards.

And then there's Arena with so much wrong I don't know where to start.

>someone who doesn't just suck arena's dick

Thank you

There are. There's even worse though:
There are people who defend MtG. If HS made you sick, you probably just hung yourself due to this new information.

Burn it down, send a kill team to the home address of anyone who has spent more than $50 on it.

Close the servers forever.

Use what makes digital card games unique from regular card games. Like adding cards from no where to the deck. A degree of balancing beyond completely gutting a card. Interesting mechanics and interactions something like evolution in shadowverse. I could imagine increasing life total or deck size could help somehow allow some more versatility and not drawing the game into fatigue wars which is seemingly the best strategy for many control decks. Make cardsure that can actually offer incentive for not playing on curve. Have arena rarity and standard rarity change so classes with excellent classic cards don't just fuck other classes forever regardless of what comes up in future expansions. Consider balancing cards with arena in mind.

Normal summon is almost irrelevant now with every monster able too special summon themselves from hand deck or cemetery adds xyz synchro and pendulum on top of that.

Same thing happen with draw power upstart goblin ,pot of desires , allure etc

Also for what it's worth i think standard is a good idea but it's stupid it had to happen so early in the games lifetime.

making the basic and classic sets evergreen without a proper re-balancing was a mistake.

Dismissing entire sets without keeping any of the cards that contributed to a healthy game state, or simply never got a chance to shine was also a mistake.

My only thing that bugs me about Hearthstone is the lack of extremely powerful themeing.

The themes of each class are almost purely aesthetic and there is very little to enforce strong gameplay themes in the classes.

No need to fix that is not broken. Hearthstone is one of the leading E-cardgames at this date.

In b4 300+ posts trying to force MtG mechanics in a game that is working its ass off to stay away from MtG mechanics. Because MtG the only game people think is good when it is not.

I wouldn't, Hearthstone does exactly what it sets out to do in that it creates a coffee-break tier game with solid design, with just enough depth to seem complex, but not enough depth that there is any real element of mastery.

...

Nerf aggro shaman, buff priest. DONE!

>a coffee-break tier game with solid design
>with solid design

Slapping the word "Random" on an effect and calling it balanced because of it is the furthest thing from "Solid game design" you can possible get.

Nah, people have been babies about "random" for forever when even "not-random" sports have random weather effects.

You are right card games with randomness are poorly designed games.... oh wait...

>/hey Veeky Forums, how would you guys fix this sorry excuse for a card game?
Monthly patches and balance changes.

>Flipping a coin to win a match is OK.

While a degree of randomness keeps a game from feeling repetitive because it adds an unknown factor you must play around and deal with it as it comes, it doesn't mean increasing the randomness further will also improve the game further.

A game that is too random leaves a player with the feeling that his actions has no bearing on the game's result at all.

Introduce best of three matches and sideboards to ranked games.

Copy the mechanics from the WoW TCG instead of this horrid phone-game system. There, problem solved, you have a game that is both fun and engaging.

Yogg-Saron is oddly enough less random than the humble Piloted Shredder. It's due to statistics becoming a lot more predictable as you perform more and more tests.

It's like how a coin flip over 2 flips is more common to stray from the 50% chance than one over 100 flips.

You can be pretty damn sure that Yogg will 'Kill himself and wipe the board' due to the number of non-targeting spells.

It doesn't particularly need fixing. The only thing I'd remove is the pointless randomness. A spell does 2-4 damage? Just make it three damage for fucks sake.

>You can be pretty damn sure that Yogg will 'Kill himself and wipe the board'

if only

More like: Flip a coin
Heads: Lose game
Tail: Merely reset the whole board.

Since I've been keeping track
Out of 26 times someone's play Yogg against me, they've LOST 18 times instantly. Won 3, and "Meh" to board resets the rest of the 5.

I like having hard caps on how long a game can go.

Also have fun calculating the probability that it will win you the match.

don't even bother, a lot of it will depend on how the board looks

You gonna make this an argument about Hearthstone or are you just saying stuff to seem smart?

if anything on that post seems like "smart talk" you have bigger problems user.

wut?

The issue there is that it also reduces the versatility of the card as now you can't have it wipe out 4 health minions.

The game works like
1. Field a card, if it can't have an effect while being fielded its useless
2. Enemy gets an turn to remove anything you put on the board
3. NOW, its your turn. Now you can finally attack with non charge cards.

This alone means there is no resources, only tempo control. And tempo control is extremely tedious when it its the main mechanic, and entire decks are build around optimizing for said tempo.
Everything on the top of that, such as the default cards being awful compared to the improved Deck Packs: That makes it worse.

Arena is a good idea.
Arena is awful because the deck building system is predictable and exploitive, and the optimal mana curve is extremely optimal.

>implying this isn't exactly what Blizzard wanted to create

It's boring as fuck but also really easy to balance.

Randomness is supposed to be a spice, to be used in controlled and carefully measured amounts.

Salt can help improve the taste of many dishes, but adding a pound of it to your plate will probably kill you.

Same difference.

Pseudo-controllable randomness is fine. Which rune spawns in DotA is random, but where it spawns isn't, so you can control the space and take it no matter what it is.

Yeah, and it is used in controlled and carefully measured amounts.

and those amounts are currently wrong for optimal player experience.

Nah, this is exactly what I'm saying. There's no actual tactical/strategic depth to the game (And a lot of that is indeed due to the ubiquitous RNG) but it does a good job of pretending that there is.

Though I did actually mean as in, UI and general aesthetic, which, while still divisive, fits with what has become the standard style of Warcraft based products.

Tell that to the huge player base who love the game.

>A 1 in 7 chance to completely curb-stomp the early game, and most likely that match is fine guys, honest.

Nah, there is plenty of tactical and strategic depth to the game. Maybe not as much as you would like but it's definitely there.

>Tell that to the huge player base who is leaving in droves.

Streaming numbers keep falling, all major pro-teams are falling like flies and a marked increase in promos in an attempt to get the players to stick

blizzard has a true knack to create and then kill golden egg geese

What, you got the board presence to defend that totem?

Also last I checked counterspells don't exist.

Eh, things rise and fall. Give it a few years then we'll see how it all pans out.

...

There are hearthstone professional teams? What does a team even do?

If you're relying on it to wipe out 4 health minions you're pretty fucked anyway.

Yeah but a 1/3 shot is still a non-negligible chance.

You're kidding yourself.

secret play order, certain card interactions, bluffing.

its not a lot, but its there.

Sounds like you had a pretty sweet opening hand.

Also wouldn't that turn the walrus into a turn 4 drop?

>it's not a lot
Yes, and rock paper scissors has more strategic interaction.

>turn 2

>coin out tuskarr, and tuskar summons golem for FREE
understand now?

>using coin on a random chance instead of a sure thing

I mean if you want to take that chance feel free but I don't usually feel so lucky.

Eh, as a Magic player, I've made my peace with it. It's easy to pick up, has an efficient money making scheme that Wizards WISHES it could do, combat is interactive and dare I say it, fun, but I can't turn my planeswalker into an artifact and have her clone herself infinitely to remove all the cards from my opponent's library in Hearthstone.

The lack of crazy combos and win conditions is Hearthstone's greatest strength and greatest weakness

uninstall it and instal duelyst instead

Duelyst is like better Hearthstone it's amazing.

REMOVE NIMBUS

>it's a "vetruvian is top tier again but only if your deck is worth over 10000 spirit" patch

Oh I'm sorry. I can't hear you over the sound of me putting Blasts through your minions and turning them into totems.

Ugh.
It does look good but why does it have to be pixel art?

^ This

I imagine it's cheaper

it's good enough for me, though of course it would be nice if each unit was in 4k HD and had 2 minutes of hand-animation by leading disney animators each

Looks neat, thanks yo.

Attackers deciding trades and lack of efficient removal mean the game is inherently biased towards getting ahead on board with the highest stat per Mana efficiency minion.

The power level of minions is ever increasing while 4/5/6 Mana aoe is unable to kill a 1 drop.

An extremely imbalanced core set that puts two classes above the rest, while the rest are completely reliant on the cards from expansions.

A complete unwillingness to make balance changes in a timely manner, often waiting upwards of eight months before a problem card is even acknowledged as an issue.

As balance changes are so infrequent, they are heavy handed and effectively ban a card outright instead of adjusting it, as they cannot risk under correcting.

Design team often tries to force archetypes unsuccessfully, and after several expansions of this simply prints overstatted minions for the class (paladin, shaman)

Overuse of RNG based swing cards means that everything that happened in the game prior is invalidated by a singular coin flip.

Ladder star system heavily encourages faster decks, and legend rankings mattering only on the last day and being extremely volatile leads to people camping ranks last minute instead of playing.

Arena plays out like a simpler constructed, draft tempo decks with strong curves.

Arena balance is fucked and decided by rarities that the design team clearly does not account for.
But it looks pretty tho.

If you can stand the Weeb in it Shadowverse is a very fun alternative to Hearthstone. With built in tempo swing mechanic called 'evolution' it allows you to buff your minions and ignore summoning sickness (but can only attack minions). It has cool mechanics in every class and every class has multiple deck archtypes.

Could be worse, we could be back to keeper meta.

You think your happy ass is too good for pixel art, you disgusting plebeian?

I think he meant shitty indie pixel art.

it's pretty well animated though

>You think your happy ass is too good for pixel art, you disgusting plebeian?

Add the ability to do something, *anything* on your opponent's turn.

>forcedelf.jpg

Go away.

>Ok?
>Ok?
>Ok?
Yeah, nah, fuck that.

End pay to win

....is there *any* card game that Veeky Forums isn't shit at?

No, no, I agree.

That's -exactly- the big problem though
In 4/7 cases, you get (probably) a 3/4 split across 2 bodies with a minor effect, which is not very playable, but decent and at least counts towards Thging from Below.
In 3/7 you get a completely out of curve monster that might just decide the game on the spot (its hard to deal with 6/6 worth of stats on turn 3 after all)
It is an example of -extreme- RNG swing very early into the game

Keeping the classic and basic sets as you nerf one class and 2 control cards into the floor.

And if they want to take that risk they are free to do so. Most of those powerful options also have strong counters through silence or removal (and that's not considering the creatures to be played)

One of the benefits of a digital game: you can balance cards post release. I assume they don't to sell new sets, or to avoid upsetting players. They really should have touched up classic when they decided it was going to stick around forever.

Not to mention they keep printing RNG cards that sometimes have amazing outcomes, and other times do jack shit.

>you can balance cards post release.

Well, there's no fixing having a shit balance team.

What? How do I get good at Flame Juggler RNG or Tuskar RNG deciding the game turn 2?

Do you mean giving every class secrets?
I'd be happy with this. It is kind of bullshit that only 3 classes can interact with your opponent on their turn. And 4 classes have strong enough board clears they can wipe out your board, and 2 of those are the same, mage and Paladin

The big issue with Yogg is that he ISN'T random over time, and provides a generally very effective board clear. Yea, sometimes he goes crazy, but most of the time he resets the board, no matter how hard you're losing.

There's a lot of major issues in the game.

It's hilarious how bad Priest is right now, and it seems to be because people think Priest is unfun to play against. I love the shit out of playing Priest, and I love stealing my opponents win conditions, but the fact that warrior does everything I do, but better, and does aggro just blows my mind.

He's great for an audience though, I always get excited to see just what bullshit he pulls out his hat before inevitably killing himself. I would never play him personally, but can't say that he isn't entertaining.