I know it’s RNG, but Blizzard really ought to tweak the pack card selection algorithm a bit for better player experience. They already put their thumb on the scale for rares/legendaries.
I’ve had trouble getting my legs under me with Mean Streets. Can’t find a good deck, rank languishing, interest flagging. Perhaps this is finally it for me…?
I am doing fine but I have similar feelings. On one hand playing the same game just about every day for years means it is a great game beyond question, on the other this meta just feels… “eh”
Mid range shamam is still a good / cheap deck that requires no legendaries to craft if you are interested, but yeah, I feel ya.
In many ways I wish the Arena mode was cheaper to play. I think it would become my goto if it was but when I hot 100G I just keep hitting the “new pack” button :)
The recommended demon deck is pretty decent, but I like demon decks and I haven’t played one I liked since the standard/wild split aged a bunch of my standby cards out of circulation. I haven’t really found another deck I particularly care for.
A couple upcoming changes to the game are due in a week or two. This is cut and pasted from a Reddit thread that Blizzard posted about 15 minutes ago.
Personally, I love idea of Ranked Play Floors, because I like to experiment without losing half a dozen levels in an hour, and without missing out on golden portrait progress. Plus, excessive level losses due to shitty losing streaks can put me off the game for a while.
And I think the nerfs are good start.
[Quote]Update 7.1 Ranked Play Changes – Floors
We’re continuously looking for ways to refine the Ranked Play experience. One thing we can do immediately to help the Ranked Play experience is to make the overall climb from rank to rank feel like more an accomplishment once you hit a certain milestone. In order to promote deck experimentation and reduce some of the feelings of ladder anxiety some players may face, we’re introducing additional Ranked Play floors.
Once a player hits Rank 15, 10, or 5, they will no longer be able to de-rank past that rank once it is achieved within a season, similar to the existing floors at Rank 20 and Legend. For example, when a player achieves Rank 15, regardless of how many losses a player accumulates within the season, that player will not de-rank back to 16. We hope this promotes additional deck experimentation between ranks, and that any losses that may occur feel less punishing.
Update 7.1 Balance Changes
With the upcoming update, we will be making balance changes to the following two cards: Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
Small-Time Buccaneer now has 1 Health (Down from 2)
The combination of Small Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate has been showing up too often in the meta. Weapon-utilizing classes have been heavily utilizing this combination of cards, especially Shaman, and we’d like to see more diversity in the meta overall. Small Time Buccaneer’s Health will be reduced to 1 to make it easier for additional classes to remove from the board.
Spirit Claws now costs 2 Mana (Up from 1)
Spirit Claws has been a notably powerful Shaman weapon. At one mana, Spirit Claws has been able to capitalize on cards such as Bloodmage Thalnos or the Shaman Hero power to provide extremely efficient minion removal on curve. Increasing its mana by one will slow down Spirit Claws’ ability to curve out as efficiently.
These changes will occur in an upcoming update near the end of February. We’ll see you in the Tavern![/quote]
Ranked Play floors will make streams more interesting to watch too. Today, you end up with a lot of streamers just using the 60%+ proven win-rate decks to get themselves up to Legendary. Once in Legendary, they start to try out actual new deck designs. With the floors, it will hopefully encourage them to experiment more.
The nerfs are a good start, for sure. Spirit Claws should have been 2 mana on day 1, given the cost of other weapons. Small-time buccaneer will still be played religiously in SMOrc decks, but at least it can be cleared off relatively easily now. Oddly enough, I think Mage gets the most out of both of these nerfs. Their hero power now clears Small-time easily. Hell, Arcane Explosion might even see a little more play now. Spirit Claws being slowed down gives Reno and Freeze mages a little extra time to ramp/cycle.
The nerfs are (as nerfs always are) just a negative way of game design & balance so I view them as bad.
LOVE the rank floors though. Great change, will encourage me for sure to have more fun on the ladder with different decks.
I definitely disagree that nerfs are always a negative design. That seems way too simplistic.
Not sure how you balance something like Small Time + Patches without a nerf. I guess you could up base health of heroes to 40 and then increase all other card power slightly. That seems like a terrible choice compared to just reducing Small Time’s health by 1.
I agree that sometimes they are bad and basically kill a card. Leper Gnome, for example, was a nerf that seemed to make sense at the time but now feels heavy-handed and made the card practically unplayable. In cases like Small Time, though, I feel the nerf is warranted and necessary.
It think it is an inelegant and in general lazy design practice. Particularly when it is used exclusively as the only balancing tool.
For example adding a neutral anti pirate card would have been a different approach to solving any current ST+Patches issues or different approaches. The tired nerf path is just lazy and by default a negative design choice.
all my opinion etc
I understand the argument against nerfs, but in my opinion it’s the lesser evil. Your other options are weak silver bullets (like an anti-pirate card) or raising the overall power level in the environment. In the former case, no one will use the silver bullets since they’re terrible against every non-Pirate deck. In the latter case, you’re pushing a whole bunch of other cards down the power curve, both pissing off players that like those cards and limiting your own future design options. The ideal scenario is to playtest properly to avoid overpowered cards in the first place, but if some slip through, nerfs are better than the alternative.
If you’re not willing to wield the nerf bat from time to time, isn’t power creep likely?
I’m in a waiting room, waiting my turn, so can’t get too detailed about this. But Blizzard just announced Year of the Mammoth.
They’re also kicking a bunch of classic cards over to wild when the expansion comes out. There will be a special dust refund system for these cards, but you will need to read the post for details. Briefly, cards like Sylvanas, Ragnaros, and Azure Drake are going away (to Wild, same thing).
Power Overwhelming, Ice Lance and Conceal all going to Wild? Wowsers… Those are iconic class cards. The PO and Ice Lance removal is going to put a damper on the OTK win conditions of Warlock and Mage, for sure.
I didn’t realize we’d be seeing 3 different card sets all being removed when the first expansion comes out in 2017. Blackrock, Explorers AND Grand Tournament? That’s a major shake-up for deck design. Looking forward to see what the first expansion contains, given all the shoes it has to fill now.
Plus a new hero (Maiev Shadowsong) for winning “10 games of Hearthstone in Standard Ranked or Casual mode after the next expansion officially launches!”
These changes seem fine, although I’m a little bummed for freeze mage. I know Blizzard does not like 30 hp damage to the face out of nowhere, but still, I thought the difficulty of playing the deck counterbalanced that concern. There should be a place in the game for crazy combo decks.
Mostly I am going to be sad that Reno Jackson and Emperor Thaurissan are going away. Those two are staples of a lot of fun decks. I don’t have much interest in the playstyle Blizzard seems to favor, which is midrange minion jockeying for board.
The fun difficulty of playing the deck is far outweighed by the complete bullshit fucking experience of playing against that rotten pile of horse shit. Utter fucking frustration, regardless if I’d win or lose.
This is the main problem with so many of these decks that end up nerfed–and subsequently rallied behind by career BMers–into oblivion, they’re only fun for the troll at the controls.
And I think it’s a stupid fucking mistake to leave auctioneer. Nothing spells fun like watching some shitheel playing solitaire while jerking off those last couple turns of the game. Dumping conceal was a half-measure and doesn’t even address problems like Druid’s bottomless jade decks. Sure, they can keep control warrior in check, but we’ve just swapped one problem for another.
There is no saying that Freeze Mage is dead though. Sure Torch and Lance are gone, but my assumption is that there will be some new direct damage mage spells in Mammoth #1 expansion
Preach it. I dislike Auctioneer as well.
Welcome changes, IMO.