Sure but then the community kind of forced it to being a competitive game which Blizzard had no problem encouraging with their circuit points/Blizzcon World Championship stuff. That's why I mentioned Riot, both companies have no qualms using competitive gaming as a marketing tool to push through casual sales. It's just one seems to care a lot more about trying to get the game to be competitive.
Also if you look at their first expansion as well as some early game design choices it definitely felt like while they wanted the "wow" moments they also didn't want to push those too far. Naxx design has issues(undertaker lol) but overall it was a rather conservative attempt to address some of the early issues that we just don't see anymore. The fact that they added the spectator feature relatively quickly(even if it's just bare-bones) kind of speaks to some intention towards the competitive nature.
ps: There is clearly room for a digital card game in the competitive gaming scene. It's just sad that Blizzard isn't using their crazy fandom to push that sphere. Instead they just seem content to abuse peoples desire. Maybe card games in general just need a complete shift in ideology. The game aspect of it gets too shut down by the monetization aspect.
On September 12 2016 04:28 Duvon wrote: The high cost - either time or money - is what I kinda feel makes hearthstone miss the goal of a casual kind of game.
Why? Hearthstone's time/money cost is actually a lot lower than most similar F2P mobile games. The new player available content is actually very good relative to other games--the average card quality in the initial card pool is actually quite high (if you've seen the initial card pool in other F2P CCGs, the cards are completely awful), and Blizzard does a good job of not locking content for casual players behind high card rarities or gold investment (e.g. gold cost for adventures is fairly modest).
The only way the cost feels high is if your enjoyment is dependent on a certain level of competitive ability (i.e. you need to be able to build a competitive deck to rank up on ladder), but at that point, your experience isn't "casual" anymore because you're clearly a competitive player if your play experience is defined by your ability to win in a competitive game mode.
On September 12 2016 04:28 Duvon wrote: The high cost - either time or money - is what I kinda feel makes hearthstone miss the goal of a casual kind of game.
You do realise you just described pretty much 90% of facebook/mobile games... Which are pretty much the definition of "casual gaming."
On September 12 2016 04:12 Numy wrote: Sure but then the community kind of forced it to being a competitive game which Blizzard had no problem encouraging with their circuit points/Blizzcon World Championship stuff. That's why I mentioned Riot, both companies have no qualms using competitive gaming as a marketing tool to push through casual sales. It's just one seems to care a lot more about trying to get the game to be competitive.
Also if you look at their first expansion as well as some early game design choices it definitely felt like while they wanted the "wow" moments they also didn't want to push those too far. Naxx design has issues(undertaker lol) but overall it was a rather conservative attempt to address some of the early issues that we just don't see anymore. The fact that they added the spectator feature relatively quickly(even if it's just bare-bones) kind of speaks to some intention towards the competitive nature.
ps: There is clearly room for a digital card game in the competitive gaming scene. It's just sad that Blizzard isn't using their crazy fandom to push that sphere. Instead they just seem content to abuse peoples desire. Maybe card games in general just need a complete shift in ideology. The game aspect of it gets too shut down by the monetization aspect.
That's pretty twisted logic...
They originally didn't plan for any competitive-ness at all, and haven't let it influence their desire to design a fun card casual card game. A small competitive scene manifested itself so they decided why not throw a bit of $$$ at the people who want to make it competitive, and now you're hating them for doing that because they didn't also completely rework their design philosophy?
That's like nintendo if added online timer scores to mario, and all the speedrunners hating nintendo because they didn't redesign the entire game around speedrunning on top of that. Using the support blizzard has shown the competitive scene (which is more than 95% of publishers would have done) as a strike against them because "they're leading us on with lies and false promises" is pretty memeworthy
Watched 5 or 6 Dota games and a few League games. By the end of it I was actually having fun watching the Dota games. They started making a lot more sense when I started paying attention to the buyback tab on the screen, although I still think LoL is a lot more clear and easy to watch (colors are more distinct, minimap is easier to see, easier to tell teams apart, easier to tell champions and minions apart, its mechanics are just more common sense logical, etc)
But it was fun. There was a Mineski vs. MVP game towards the end that seemed fairly back and forth and was enjoyable.
Good first esports tournament for me.
On topic, Hearthstone sucks. I liked Hearthstone in classic, thought Naxx made it more pay to win than I cared for, then thought GvG made it RNG as fuck, and have never seen it fix those problems. Which is sad because I like card games and I liked the initial set and initial idea.
I honestly kind of like Yogg though. I think Yogg is a neat card. It's 10 mana and pretty obviously a random for randomness sake card, so it's not like it pretends to be a legit thing and then secretly fucks the game over, it's more like well this game is already fucked, I want to hail mary and see what happens.
I'm still playing Faeria though and I'm really enjoying it. It's less pay to win, and significantly less RNG, and in general slower and more about control and more about thinking what you're going to be doing 2 or 3 turns ahead. The RNG that it does have is much more "fair" RNG too I feel, RNG that you can partially control or RNG that has little possibility to just immediately decide the game. It just jives with me a lot more.
l2p doto ketarah, League is easier to watch because you're more familiar with it. It's the same with all mobas/arts/whatever, you need experience either playing or watching or else they all just look like a mess of color exploding on a screen, basically.
though you're stuck in SEA so actually nvm, garena servers suck iirc, just watch
On September 12 2016 04:28 Duvon wrote: The high cost - either time or money - is what I kinda feel makes hearthstone miss the goal of a casual kind of game.
You do realise you just described pretty much 90% of facebook/mobile games... Which are pretty much the definition of "casual gaming."
On September 12 2016 04:12 Numy wrote: Sure but then the community kind of forced it to being a competitive game which Blizzard had no problem encouraging with their circuit points/Blizzcon World Championship stuff. That's why I mentioned Riot, both companies have no qualms using competitive gaming as a marketing tool to push through casual sales. It's just one seems to care a lot more about trying to get the game to be competitive.
Also if you look at their first expansion as well as some early game design choices it definitely felt like while they wanted the "wow" moments they also didn't want to push those too far. Naxx design has issues(undertaker lol) but overall it was a rather conservative attempt to address some of the early issues that we just don't see anymore. The fact that they added the spectator feature relatively quickly(even if it's just bare-bones) kind of speaks to some intention towards the competitive nature.
ps: There is clearly room for a digital card game in the competitive gaming scene. It's just sad that Blizzard isn't using their crazy fandom to push that sphere. Instead they just seem content to abuse peoples desire. Maybe card games in general just need a complete shift in ideology. The game aspect of it gets too shut down by the monetization aspect.
That's pretty twisted logic...
They originally didn't plan for any competitive-ness at all, and haven't let it influence their desire to design a fun card casual card game. A small competitive scene manifested itself so they decided why not throw a bit of $$$ at the people who want to make it competitive, and now you're hating them for doing that because they didn't also completely rework their design philosophy?
That's like nintendo if added online timer scores to mario, and all the speedrunners hating nintendo because they didn't redesign the entire game around speedrunning on top of that. Using the support blizzard has shown the competitive scene (which is more than 95% of publishers would have done) as a strike against them because "they're leading us on with lies and false promises" is pretty memeworthy
Throwing some cash at it they either unintentionally or intentionally created a implied promised of future attempts at sustainability or focus on the competitive nature. They then further showed this willingness when they intentionally balanced cards that solely existed as "issues" within the competitive sphere(Patron warrior being extremely low playrate outside of competitive,miracle rogue being exactly the same, printing of Loatheb).
Now down the line where they undone a lot of that work it negatively impacts people that gave up certain futures to pursue this aspect that Blizzard for all intents and purposes showed they were willing to back. Your protrayal of Blizzard's relationship with the competitive scene is also highly suspect. This isn't blizzard being a "charitable" patron giving a little spare change to people trying to have fun with their game. They actively control the competitive scene. We've seen that with how they shut down of the CSL leagues. So what we see is them actively controlling and "creating" competitive scene while having design decisions that go completely against that. What on earth is going on?
Just as an aside, analogies are really pointless and add nothing to any discussion. Actively engaging in a scene, controlling aspects of the scene and then showing design decisions around the scene really don't have much in common with adding a score counter.
HS is absolutely the easiest of all the f2p games I can think of to be able to invest no money and minimal time and still be 'competitive.' there is no question about that.
On September 12 2016 02:37 Cixah wrote:Getting mad at RNG in HS is the exact same as getting 20 in blackjack, staying. And watching the dealer flip 21. Bad things happen to everyone in HS.
The difference is blackjack doesn't jerk you around for 5-10 minutes before doing that to you and the feedback is more immediate.
On September 12 2016 05:18 Ketara wrote: Easier than League?
Time sure, but money I really doubt it.
It isn't really the same though. In league you can make up for not having runes with just being better while you can't do anything about not having cards in HS.
Welp. Fought tooth and nail through the inconsistency of the OTK warrior deck (not the giant's one, the worgen one with patrons B plan) for a quest and the next one is "win 3 as warrior" post reroll. D:
I should prob change this deck, when it can has games where you don't have a single thing to plop on board before turn 6 through your cycles... But yeah, HS's dumb. Won a game against a Paladin that I was crushing, then a topdecked Thalnos let his consecrate kill my patron board and turn the game, into Rag the following turn, and I won because I managed to make enough patrons off my 2nd copy that he couldn't reliably kill the full health ones with Rag. Pretty much tossing the dice each turn for each of us. I can't be satisfied about this, it's not like I played around stuff since "make more patrons when he used both equalities/consecrate" is the standard plan anyway.
And now we're using hero power and passing with another warrior. He's not dragon so he's not playing curvestone either (which would prob be worse for me anyway), but if he's control/fatigue and I'm combo... we just wait. Or maybe he's combo too, if the giants' list uses Doomsayer. Doesn't change the wait tho.
i'm not really happy with the direction they took hearthstone. i played a tiny bit for old gods and some of the adventures before that but otherwise i haven't laddered or played any arena in like 2 years
On September 12 2016 05:14 WaveofShadow wrote: HS is absolutely the easiest of all the f2p games I can think of to be able to invest no money and minimal time and still be 'competitive.' there is no question about that.
Duelyst is way easier, you get "dust" at almost 6x the rate you do in hearthstone, the quests require you to play but don't require wins, and the playerbase is small so you have the "big fish in small pond" effect. While there's been some minor controversy about the level of randomness brought about by the latest expansion there is generally a lot more room to simply outplay people than there is in hearthstone due to the positioning on the board creating a lot of opportunities to screw up (and there's no randomness on the level of yogg or even rag and sylvanis). Combine this with effective and affordable budget decks and it all means that an experienced player can get high on the ladder really quickly starting from ground zero.
It's not a perfect game by any means but it's the most affordable F2P game I've ever played, although I haven't done the math on Eternal (which is nicely generous but still in closed beta).
I'm getting a little scared of how much I'm enjoying Legion. It's feeling really easy to slip back into playing 5 hours per day and staying up til 1 without noticing because I'm doing world quests or queueing for another dungeon.
Oh well, here's some Dream Theater for Music Monday.
On September 12 2016 22:39 Requizen wrote: I'm getting a little scared of how much I'm enjoying Legion. It's feeling really easy to slip back into playing 5 hours per day and staying up til 1 without noticing because I'm doing world quests or queueing for another dungeon.
Oh well, here's some Dream Theater for Music Monday.
On September 12 2016 22:39 Requizen wrote: I'm getting a little scared of how much I'm enjoying Legion. It's feeling really easy to slip back into playing 5 hours per day and staying up til 1 without noticing because I'm doing world quests or queueing for another dungeon.
Oh well, here's some Dream Theater for Music Monday.
Raids aren't out yet, but yes. I'm also in the same boat. Its scary.
I'm definitely enjoying it more than I thought I would. I think the story/quest structure and artifact system are all very well done.
Friend asked me this morning if I planned on raiding. He's apparently thinking about doing it semi-regularly. I love raids, but I can't see myself getting involved in them all too frequently.
Still have to learn what world quests and mythic dungeons are all about first.
On September 12 2016 22:39 Requizen wrote: I'm getting a little scared of how much I'm enjoying Legion. It's feeling really easy to slip back into playing 5 hours per day and staying up til 1 without noticing because I'm doing world quests or queueing for another dungeon.
Oh well, here's some Dream Theater for Music Monday.
Raids aren't out yet, but yes. I'm also in the same boat. Its scary.
I'm definitely enjoying it more than I thought I would. I think the story/quest structure and artifact system are all very well done.
Friend asked me this morning if I planned on raiding. He's apparently thinking about doing it semi-regularly. I love raids, but I can't see myself getting involved in them all too frequently.
Still have to learn what world quests and mythic dungeons are all about first.
You won't get World Quests until 110. They're basically this game's version of Dailies - instead of just having a hub you go to every day, random quests will appear on your map and you go kill things or do stuff in various parts of the Broken Isles. You can do as many as show up, but every day if you do 4 for the given faction you'll get a special chest with big rewards.
Mythic Dungeons are basically baby raids. Week lockouts, and (as far as I understand) they scale up to your gear level so you will never "outgear" them and have to actually pay attention, but they also give better gear as you scale up. It's pretty exciting because it's relatively low effort (compared to being a progression raider) but still requires more than just pugging LFR. Also, there's no random queue for it - treat it like a raid, you have to find a group in guild or chat, go to the dungeon and walk in.
EPT
