How come so many people find Hearthstone fun? The gameplay to me seems incredibly shallow and repetitive. Not only does the rng really fuck you over a lot of the time, but the metas are always incredibly stale and there's not much to them. Usually the same classes become top-tier for most metas because of their innate spells available.
As someone who primarily plays MtG, I don't understand the appeal. I want Veeky Forums's take on it rather than /v/'s.
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Because, and I say this as a Magic player, they made it an excellent video game that masquerades as a card game. It plays well on mobile AND on PC, and cross platforming is seamless. Streaming is easy and fun to watch. You and your friends don't need to spend over 500 bucks to be locked into one deck. There aren't any Instants or mana screw.
In other words they fight Magic in the fields where Magic is worst at.
It's digital, which lets it do much more with its mechanics than physical games are capable of. If only they actually worked with that potential. It doesn't require reprinting of cards and is much more portable than physical card games, at least. It's an alright game, but it'd be better if someone other than Blizzard was behind its balancing, for obvious reasons.
I don't have to look at or be near a fat wheezing neckbeard when I play hearthstone.
And people can't cheat and call over wheezing neckbeard judges because of some slight.
For people who want a shallow card game, it's far and above the best one. If you've already been spoiled by YGO or MTG there's no point in trying to enjoy it.
This, they've done a good job of implementing mechanics that just can't work or would be tiring in a physical game, though I don't think they've done quite enough in that area. They also do a good job of making the adventures and their new dungeon crawl single player mode feel fun while still decently challenging at times.
As for pvp, I find arena more fun than standard. aggro decks are usually just RNG, and late game decks get most of their wins by the enemy surrendering before you get to the fun part of the deck. Midrange decks manage a bit of both and are actually fun but I rarely see them at the top.
To answer OP's question though, it's not all that fun, but new cards come out 3x a year, usually for free, and I can play it on my second monitor while I work from home. I don't know how you could possibly devote 100% of your attention to playing it or even watching a stream of it and not feel like you're wasting your time.
Hearthstone offers on-demand play, free cards, and doesn't involve rules arguments.
It pays for this by needing necessarily shallower mechanics and gameplay.
Is it worth it? KINDA. Design space hasn't completely been mined out yet, thanks to the incorporation of things like Adapt that are easier to do with a computer and RNG.
>Not only does the rng really fuck you over a lot of the time
as rng as some of the cards are, at least the RNG isn't attached to the basic ability of "being able to play hearthstone". Say what you will about excessive rng, but hearthstone's system is infinitely superior to the land system of magic.
This. this is the best part.
All the mechanics of cards without the sperg across the other side.
WELL PLAYED
It's shallow and accessible due to no instant-speed effects resulting in a confusing stack where you constantly have to confirm every stage of your turn to proceed with a game.
>mtg is shit
>this makes hearthstone fun!
Lands>Automatic mana of many play on curves.
HS is becoming a multiplayer Solitaire.
>That time when Hearthstone only had 1 playable deck.
I was a huge fan of automatic mana in Hearthstone until I realized it compounded a bunch of innate design choices to make a huge problem, where playing out aggressive tempo cards on curve is more or less the best strategy possible barring some SUPREME bullshit getting printed. The unpredictability and mutability of lands in magic can lead to flood/screw but it also means shit like Pirate Warrior or Aggro Shaman back in the day doesn't happen nearly as consistently.
I mean just look at the replies from the spergs in this thread.
Why would you want to associate with people like this.
HS decided to entierly eliminate the element of randomess where it's warranted to make the game have more depth, and decided to double down and eventually make the game more or less revolve entirely around randomness where it's REALLY not warranted. To sum it up, they got rid of one element of randomness cause it caused new players butthurt, and decided to introduce and focus on another simply because they COULD, even though it's cancer for the game
Doesn't windows come with solitaire for free?
They do work with that potential, but they chose to do it in the worst possible way, most notably the absurd amounts of RNG.
Ive played mtg and hearthstone and enjoy both. Yeah mtg has more depth but hearthstone is just something you can relax with. I think both have their merits.
Lands as done in MTG don't actually add depth, they just add cost. They're a fantastic mechanic to make sure you have 5 to 10 low effort staples predesigned every set. But a system where you can play any card as a land would preserve much of the depth and eliminate the risk of mana screw/flood.
>Making my point for me.
Thanks MTGspergfag!
And imagine if some of those lands could give you little bonuses when you meet a certain condition...
I can't think of a game that used that ever.
I hate it and I hate myself for playing it but I can't stop
I liked it at first because it was Magic without all the bullshit - I could find someone to play with immediately, there's no rules arguing because the game does it for you, the digital format opened up new options that traditional card games couldn't have, and most of all it was free. I quit after I figured out that they were more interested in making a dumb coin flip simulator than an actual game though. I came back for a little bit during the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion but I quit pretty much immediately after I found out that instead of making a Death Knight class, they just made every hero a DK as a legendary card because making a new class is too hard. Classic Blizzard problem - they put the utmost effort into everything polish-wise, but they put none into the gameplay.
As far as digital card games go, I'm a big fan of Shadowverse. The game was developed by a company with their own team of pro magic players, so there's a lot derived from it (versus hearthstone which from the little I played of it definitely was more its own thing), but it has some very interesting design choices, like an evolution point system that allows second player to swing back tempo or turn early game creatures into removal or threats, allowing more consistency in gameplay because things that are mostly good early game still have a use later. It's pretty similar to Hearthstone mechanical as well since it was probably made to cash in on it, but I think it's come into its own thing by now.
"Depth" is created by adding different gameplay experiences. Whether you like it or not, lands increase the levels of gameplay experiences you can have with Magic, most obviously by varying the amounts of land you draw each game you play. By definition, lands add "depth".
>A natural mistake
Elder Scrolls Legends is better gameplay and long-term acquisition and has cool looking art.
Some of us actually enjoy the nice music, humorous voice lines and the spell effects
I can't stand shadowverse anymore. It just seems like an almost completely different game from when I started, thanks to the powercreep. It's amazing to think that it used to be that people complained about cudgel and second players had a higher winrate.
Different guy here, I've only played Shadowverse sporadically so I can't really comment on the powercreep.
I mainly play Take Two and after playing recently, I still like it and think it's way above HS in terms of gameplay.
For me though, the biggest thing that's going to happen is they're adding a rotational format, in which old cards will be rotated out.
Which means D-Shift is going away.
You can call me bad for not being able to deal with that bullshit, but I tend towards midrange/control decks that try to trade well/answer threats until I come out on top.
Having that archetype invalidated by a 7-8 turn clock with no real answers (if it drew well) was frustrating as hell.
>"Depth" is created by adding different gameplay experiences.
That is a retarded definition of depth. The gameplay experience of "oh, I'm too poor to afford an optimal mana base and my deck just refused to give me anything I can play again" is not depth. Even if it was, that's not a fun gameplay experience, so isn't a net positive.
It is free and on the phone, those are the two main reasons
I do not play it anymore but did for 2 years
a clever player with a little luck and extra grinding can compete with those who buy the packs and expansions, RNG is actually good for the game because it made it harder for even those with the most well-tunef decks to win all the the time
People complain of power creep in every card game. Frankly, I can't take setiously any complaint hanging their hat solely on that. Besides that, many crafts' best and strongest cards are the earlier ones, to the point some people are thinking some crafts will be completely dead once rotation comes, though it probably wont be true to that extent due to potential reprints and replacements.
Yes, they make broken legendaries to push new sets but no card game isnt guilty of this, and they are pretty upfront about wanting to tone that down, though that remains to be entirely seen. It also remains to be seen if thats what people really want. There were complaints that Starforged was too weak which is why its meta was apparently dominated by mostly older archetypes.
How else exactly do you define "depth"? Lands add layers of decisions and add a controllable level of variance to the game. Both of those things create "depth". The level of decision making that goes into creating a mana base is quite high. Listen to something like Top Level Podcast talk about land bases between decks.
Besides that, environments where you need all the fetches and duals and shocks to have a chance are not the only way to play Magic. You can have fun games without them. Not having them is not preventing you from playing Magic, unless the only ways you can play magic are competitive eternal formats and modern and your playgroup participates at the highest level of play.
Everyone knows cube is the best format anyway
People overrate how much RNG affects Hearthstone. Without the random effects, the game would be one of the most consistent card games out there save maybe for Gwent. RNG makes the games less repetitive and gives you something tk blame if you lose.
Also, the only good thing about the land system is that it requires you to play without the guarantee that you will hit everything on curve. But I'd gladly give that up if it meant getting rid of the awful experience of being mana screwed.
Addiction is a powerful thing.
>espouses the benefits of having literally random effects for the sake of variance
>bashes the land system for its variance
>Hearthstone
RNG helps you: You get good effects
RNG screws you: You get bad effects
>Magic
RNG helps you: You can play the game
RNG screws you: You can't play the game
False equivalency and gross oversimplification. The factors influencing how, when, and what your land drops are so much more compex than whether or not equivalent to what influences, for example, what spell you get off primordial glyph or whatever, I'm not super familiar with hearthstone.
The problem with Magic's RNG is that if it goes against you and you don't draw lands, you don't even play the game. Even the most well built deck is susceptible to getting mana screwed, and that is an experience much worse than anything Hearthstone can offer. This isn't about influencing winrates, it is about the sheer unfun-ness of the thing.
How exactly do you quantify what's more "unfun", low rolling a random spell or not drawing enough/too many lands? Couldnt it be argued there is more fun to be had in deciding moves to make based on your land situation whether in gameplay or the deckbuilding phase, versus there being no counterplay to wiffing a random effect?
I forgot to say this earlier, but the marketing is a huge part too, Blizzard went really hardcore with its advertising
then there's the fact that it is engineered to be fun to WATCH, not just to play, it is actually kind of creepy, but Hearthstone has huge twitch following because of this, which is just another form of advertising in the end
a game made to be fun to watch
it really is pretty creepy when you think about it
Because no land in MtG has ever done anything other than tap for 1 mana...
One thing I didn't see brought up yet is that the game has production values. Art/sound/animation are all right up there.
This
Every time I see patches the god damn buttpirate come out I want to blow my brains out. And don't get me started on people who shadowstep keleseth.
THAT is how much I have reinforced the originally very minor stress that it caused me. It actually makes me feel bad. Anything other than control vs control is just irritating.
Yet I continue to play
I'll dust your cards if you dust mine and then we both make 0/1 cost creatures until we run out
We can do this man we can be free we can do this TOGETHER
>hs
wont pay to win, there are cheap ok decks
>mtg
wont pay to win, lel, gib money or lose
>How exactly do you quantify what's more "unfun", low rolling a random spell or not drawing enough/too many lands? Couldnt it be argued there is more fun to be had in deciding moves to make based on your land situation whether in gameplay or the deckbuilding phase, versus there being no counterplay to wiffing a random effect?
Oh that's easy: Low-rolling the spell damage is more fun. You can tell because he's playing a fun game right now. The guy who got mana screwed is not playing the game so he is not having fun with the game.
>Hes having more fun because hes playing a fun game
that some circular ass logic if Ive ever seen it. It alsp hinged on the hyperbole ofbbei bff mana screwed being literally not plyig the game, when in actuality every turn you arent dead you are draei mg a card to pptentially dig yourwelf out of a whole, the chances of whi c you can directly influence within deckbuilding, in the exact same way you can mitigate it by not playing a deck entirely of 5 and 6 drops in either game.
I'm sorry you couldn't play your Vizzerdrix timmy
People enjoy gambling.
The only lands that matter for anything but generating mana are manlands, tabernacle, karakas, canopy and dark depths. Everything else is generate mana or generate even more mana in some weirdly efficient way or those not really playable but that scrubs want to pretend has some use.
If you are good enough you can get the entire set for free (althought it might take some time)
>Ctrl+F "RNG"
>16 results
Is there really that much randomness in Hearthstone nowadays? Of the current meta decks, most rely on just getting good draws, which is common to all card games. The only ones who RELY on actual RNG cards are Evolve Shaman and Quest Mage (and even then, Quest Mage only uses the RNG effects to enable their quest, it's not their win condition).
That said, my favourite deck to play is pure Renounce Warlock with an emergency Yogg in Wild, so hey.
yes
people have ran the numbers. there was like 5% rng in the base/classic set. Now its in something like the 20s
If you consider Discover to be RNG then yeah, there's still plenty.
I haven't played Hearthstone in quite a while. Have things really changed that much from the every-deck-runs-Piloted-Shredder-and-Dr-Boom days?
yeah.
Define RNG. Do you mean highroll decks like Pirate Warrior or anything with Reno? Cards that just have the word "random" in them? Cards that generate or summon random cards out of nowhere? Because those are pretty big differences. Cobalt Scalebane has the word "random", but it's a hell of a lot less random than Piloted Shredder was.
>It alsp hinged on the hyperbole ofbbei bff mana screwed being literally not plyig the game, when in actuality every turn you arent dead you are draei mg a card to pptentially dig yourwelf out of a whole, the chances of whi c you can directly influence within deckbuilding
dude are you ok? That is an unusual amount of errors concentrated in one line.
Especially now that an almost strictly better version (Elder Scrolls Legends) exists.
DickShift is like 80% filter and draw so if you can't pressure it you will die almost all the time.
Marketing is incredibly creepy once you start studying it, it's like learning how to best brainwash people.
That's why duel masters is the best
I've been enjoying playing Eternal lately. The game never advertises itself and I only found it in an unrelated article about Gwent. It's effectively a combination of MtG's classic structure with some of the neat digital mechanics that Hearthstone introduced.
So far it's been fun. The meta has a lot of good deck types and the devs put a lot of work into balancing things. It's also very generous to players who don't want to pay cash moneys.
Eternal does a good job being an online version of Magic. Kinda the best of both worlds
>Is there really that much randomness in Hearthstone nowadays?
It's worse about rng than pokemon tcg. Not even meming.
Like, I legit play Pokemon even. I'm speaking from experience.
Like, unless the meta wildly changed since I last played HS.
Is that the one LSV helped design?
There's a variant ruleset for magic that does this.
Anything can be 1 . Things with a color in their mana cost can be any color in their cost. Hybrid costs come in tapped if they enter as a color. Mana dorks tap for 2 if made lands.
And even Garfield himself said basic lands were a design mistake.
Choosing what to
Like you type like a like retard like ye so like your opinion is like dog shit like ok pal?
>And even Garfield himself said basic lands were a design mistake
Why would anyone do that, just go on the internet and tell lies
>Lands add layers of decisions and add a controllable level of variance to the game.
You know what's a harder decision? "Do I play this or use it as mana."
That is correct, amongst a few other players.
...
>How come so many people find Hearthstone fun?
The cards fucking talk to you. The only way to get it even more popular is with jiggling tits.
>they made it an excellent video game that masquerades as a card game
Totally this. I'm looking forward to the dungeon crawl mode that releases with the next expansion. Lately arena has too many cards to keep track of, so although I love drafting, it really didn't draw me in anymore. The new mode looks like it will combine on the go deck building with funky enemies, which sounds great.
>But a system where you can play any card as a land
Are you talking about talking about the old WoW TCG? Because it had that, along with lands that had (lategame) payoffs
Yeah it was neat, had fighting heroes too, plus you could attack any card on the board with health pretty much.
I think the only downside to it was that it wasn't creative enough. Some mechanics in Hearthstone are fun and fun sells too.
>The only way to get it even more popular is with jiggling tits.
What are gold cards for 16000 dust
Notice how this point was never addressed by the retarded land defenders.
This is how cipher (the fire emblem TCG) works. it adds some interesting decisions and design.
The problem is that wizards LIKES the potential for mana screw, because it gives shitty players something to blame their loss on.
I can't speak for the others, but for me, it's just a fun, easy game to play casually. I don't need to find other people I can (and do) just play against the NPC's. I don't spend money on it, so it's free. The gameplay isn't as good as other games, I agree, but not all games are going to knock it out of the park. I don't play often, but for just a free, casual, single-player experience, it's perfectly fine.
But Garfield did say that in an interview about Jyhad and how he made that game's resource system not land because he didn't like how much of your deck those boring cards took. Netrunner is also his design and has no lands in it.
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That is by its definition RNG, you get a selection of three random cards from the available card pool, it may be bad, or it may be disgustingly good. It's not even something you can manipulate the numbers on because it pulls from cards you don't even have
It has weighted odds towards drawing a class card (and also the newest expansion cards as well I think)? Since class cards are most of the time good stats towards cost and synergistic with the deck, then discover is a reasonably reliable mechanic. Discover will draw you a good card, just maybe not the card you need at that moment.
It's super simple and way less complicated than Magic.
Still shitty in that it has shit cards and starts out players with shit cards.
Shadowverse does everything better than HS.
except it looks so shit it's practically unplayable
$200 in Hearthstone gives you enough cards to make every single relevant deck in the game
$200 in MtG isn't enough to buy a full set of shock-lands for a single deck
Hearthstone isn't designed for CCG players; it's designed for people who would play CCG's if CCG's weren't a scam feeding off whales for the last 15 years.
The shallowness is accidental.
>Hearthstone
>Not being a scam through and through
Blizzard employs psychologists to ensure maximum jewing
CCGs are all, almost by definition, scams. Blizzard is just getting you through micro-transactions, instead of scaring you into buying packs through secondary market prices.
I've never spent a dime on hearthstone and I've played since beta.
Have a ton of legos too.
So y'know unless you're a stupid it's a free game. I just farm noobs with murlocs for points.
Pretty easy.
Cool. Doesn1t make it not a scam.
If you get something for free, you are the product.
>It's a scam!
>"I play it for free and haven't spent any money on it."
>It's a scam!
>You're the product!
Was it autism?
Yeah, and those psychologists correctly surmised that they would make, and have made, more money by making the game cost a ludicrously small fraction in comparison to MtG.
At least buying cards in Hearthstone is, at worst, a $200 waste.
That's nothing compared to the mental illness required to spend the kind of money people do on MtG.
And I play MtG for free because I just print my cards. Or trade at +EV. Or... whatever.
Just because you don't feel scammed doesn't mean the business model is not a scam.
Just because you enjoy eating shit doesn't mean it's not shit.
>Implying your parents don't pay for those printer cartridges.
Yep.
That's autism.
>How come so many people find Hearthstone fun?
Because many of the things that make the game shallow and repetitive to competitive players are also appealing to casual players who don't play optimized decks, never develop advanced strategies, and who don't play for several hours weekly and also far outnumber the competitive players.
This is accurate. The number of players who sit at rank 20 is around 50-60%
And I'm fine with that. MTG autism isn't very palatable. Not to mention they smell bad.
Hearthstone can fix their own shit if they go really ham on one card
>Dr. Boom
>Caverns below
>Jade Druid
>Druid in general
Magic has no other choice but to ban cards, which really sucks when you spent a lot of money on that playset of smuggler's copter just to be ABLE to play standard
Hearthstone is fun almost always (unless we get in a shit meta, like pirate warrior meta, like jade druid pre nerf innervate meta, like Caverns below rogue meta, like secret paladin, like handlock OTK, etc
but they can fix those issues, Nerfing Leeroy, nerfing innervate, and the "hall of fame" for standard cards it's a good idea that aims to not destroy one card and instead rotate it to wild (which is really fucking fun because you can play literally anything and get legend with it, shit's fun yo)
Magic can be fun, but if there's a core problem, the ban hammer must happen, otherwise enjoy the complete cancer. (talking about standard and modern for the most part, Commander are cool dudes, don't go to your LGS tomorrow)
overall hearthstone is more casual oriented
Magic is more sperg oriented
both are fun, one is not better than the other, just different