Support NeoGAF

[call_kotaku]

When you put it in the context of a Lightning Storm killing two Spirit Wolves... yeah, it's surprisingly common. I never realized how relatively good the odds were for Soulfire/Soulfire/Doomguard to not discard each other from their hand with only 5 cards.

It's still 25% success, though, and a lot of generally desperate plays aren't usually as bad. I guess for the resources expended and the possible rewards it's not a good gamble, especially when those cards are so important. Playing faceless on an enemy Rag (or playing your own Rag) to remove it is only 50% and that's desperate as all fuck because of the resources involved.

 

[MisterArrogant]

Nothing worse than having an awful 1-3 arena run, getting a pack and a common (no gold or dust), then opening the pack and seeing a rare and four commons you already have.

Depressing night.

 

[ZealousD]

Deathlord has to be the most exciting thing to Hunter's Mark / Stampeding Kodo.

Everytime I play my control pally and I can use my kodo to kill a deathlord, I get the insatiable desire to tweak my nipples.

 

[IceMarker]

"Mind if I roll weed?"

 

[call_kotaku]

Hunter is so boring to play, but the wins are so easy I can't resist. Everytime I lose with another deck I always come to the inevitable conclusion that I would've won if I picked Hunter instead, and it's tearing me up inside.

 

[johnsmith]

Is there anything sweeter than going for lethal past kelthuzad and a full board board of big minions with a huge unleash the hounds? No there is not.

 

[zoukka]

Hunter is pretty tricky to play. You really need to plan ahead when you draw to 10 cards on turn 4-5. If you don't, you might burn draws and that's not funny

Is there anything sweeter than going for lethal past kelthuzad and a full board board of big minions with a huge unleash the hounds? No there is not.

Slamming webspinner into something and then killing the opponent with King Rekt.

 

[lawlohwhat]

hunter is tricky?

lol

 

[ShinNL]

Giants still wreck hunters like no tomorrow though. Because it's such a slow burn deck, it pretty much always enables Molten Giants before they have lethal. Of course they wasted all their marks on things like Mountain Giants, Belcher and anything with Blessing of Kings. And I'm sorry, a frozen Molten is still free at 8 hp.

Molten Molten Sunfury Guardian of Kings has to be one of the most satisfying plays against Hunters. Yesterday I followed that up with Leeroy Faceless for lethal. The nice part? I put myself at 10hp by hitting something with my Ashbringer.

 

[call_kotaku]

From my experience Hunter is just a more rounded and consistent Miracle rogue, with the added bonus of a card draw engine that actually gets better when you're further behind. It might be more difficult to play versus decks that are specifically meant to counter it but in general you have a ton of cards to get ahead by turn 4 and you're pretty much guaranteed to stay ahead, and if you ever lose board control you get a bunch of free cards.

It never feels unfair like when you burst someone down from near full health with double shadowstep and coldblood leeroy, or alakir + double rockbiter, or putting down a turn 4 mountain giant, it's just strong in that you're always ahead with a ton of resources to spare.

 

[Zemm]

Hunter is so boring to play

yep, so is zoo. Two of the most popular decks are also the most boring to play in my opinion. I just can't do it outside of quickly rattling off any quests involving them.

 

[zoukka]

hunter is tricky?

lol

 

[johnsmith]

What's the most consistent hunter deck? I keep switching back and forth between secrets and no secrets. Right now I'm running midrange with no secrets, but sludge bulchers. I was doing midrange with secrets for a while, but I ran into a streak of bad luck that soured me on it.

 

[homeworkfilms]

In arena he drops deathwing into 2 harvest golems and others at 8 life. I end up with 2, 2-1 mini golems. I hit him to 4 hp. I drop deathlord to stop deathwing from killing my guys and or me. It summons an iron bark tree when dead... I have now lost way too many games with that darn card hehe.

 

[zoukka]

What's the most consistent hunter deck? I keep switching back and forth between secrets and no secrets. Right now I'm running midrange with no secrets, but sludge bulchers. I was doing midrange with secrets for a while, but I ran into a streak of bad luck that soured me on it.

Go secrets of bust. 2 Freezing, 1 Snake, 2 Scientists and 2 Undertakers. The value and tempo is off the charts. Basic minon heavy hunter feels so slow in comparison.

 

[Haunted]

Ok I now know what people meant when they said "you'll see a bot when you play it".

They're not very convincing at emulating normal behaviour on the ladder. Golden Hunter, Rank 15. Turn 3 Unleash the Hounds on their naked board for 2 hounds into Turn 4 Unleash the Hounds on their naked board for another 2 hounds.

 

[Zemm]

That one must have been programmed by Dennis.

 

[Haunted]

I guess it was programmed for optimum mana usage before card value.

The worst part is that I still almost lost because my aggressive Paladin depends on Divine Favour after dumping my hand - so him fucking up his own card draw combo also fucked me over. :lol Still won, but it was closer than I would've liked.


And they always have these weird pauses at the start of each turn, as if they're afk for 10 seconds and then start computing. (I guess to emulate a player thinking about the board state?).

edit: he says like an expert on bots after noticing exactly 2 in his Hearthstone career so far

 

[Zemm]

Yeah they are very mechanical, taking the same amount of time between plays etc, which can be annoying when they have a few minions on the board.

 

[Xanathus]

It could just be an experimental bot for Hunter, there aren't any good Hunter bots right now because they're more complicated to play as you have to account for secrets and they're more combo driven than zoo/shaman/druid.

 

[Haunted]

As someone who wants weapons for every class, I just realised that they need to be careful putting Druid weapons into the game because savagery would be really strong.

I guess the reason no one plays it right now but everyone uses Shield Slam in Warrior decks is because Druid's more awkward to activate compared to the Warrior synergies with Armorsmiths/Shield Block /Hero Power.

It could just be an experimental bot for Hunter, there aren't any good Hunter bots right now because they're more complicated to play as you have to account for secrets and they're more combo driven than zoo/shaman/druid.

Given that I won all my games against Hunter bots so far yet feel I have little chance against human Hunters, I say bring on the robots!

 

[slayn]

Secrets vs no secrets + belcher depends on how much hunter you're seeing. No secrets + belcher is good for the mirror match but worse against everything else.

And midrange hunter with secrets is harder to play than I think most people would give it credit for. Tracking for example is a quite difficult card to play correctly. Sure maybe what you pick was good at the moment but was it the most optimal card for the entire game? When playing against it I consistently see mistakes my opponents are making. If you buzzard unleash what are the exact odds of drawing hunter's mark? If you don't draw it, is that catastrophic or acceptable?

Finding the most optimal play is difficult but like zoo, it is also forgiving of mistakes. But this is just a general trait of powerful decks: even if you fuck up the deck has the potential to carry you.

 

[Diprosalic]

woohoo got my 2nd legendary after playing the game since beta and clearing all but a couple of daily quests.

why u hate me RNG?

 

[Tacitus_]

Had to do a warrior daily and... lawd, frothing berserkers get hilarious. I had one who got something like +10 damage in a single turn due to leeroy + whirlwind shenanigans. Poor handlock conceded before I got to unleash that on his ass.

 

[Acinixys]

Yeah they are very mechanical, taking the same amount of time between plays etc, which can be annoying when they have a few minions on the board.

IMO you can tell a bot from a player because a player mouses over their card/the board very erratically

 

[Letterbomb]

You know what I really don't understand about Blizzard? Why in the absolute hell aren't they hitting home on a virtual CCG's primary advantage: balance. Unlike printed cards, virtual cards can be patched up in a flash. We have so many lackluster, overpowered, and otherwise obsolete cards as it is. Why isn't Blizzard doing regular patches on these? They can even open a beta server if they have to, since untested tweaks are dangerous in a live game. And I know they've done patches here and there, such as the recent Eaglehorn Bow nerf, but their patches currently are too far and between for much of an impact on the game.

Kay, HearthGAF, there's my daily rant.
Spent my 115 gold on a disappointing pack instead of saving for arena/Naxx. Again. God I'm dumb.

 

[dimb]

You know what I really don't understand about Blizzard? Why in the absolute hell aren't they hitting home on a virtual CCG's primary advantage: balance. Unlike printed cards, virtual cards can be patched up in a flash. We have so many lackluster, overpowered, and otherwise obsolete cards as it is. Why isn't Blizzard doing regular patches on these? They can even open a beta server if they have to, since untested tweaks are dangerous in a live game. And I know they've done patches here and there, such as the recent Eaglehorn Bow nerf, but their patches currently are too far and between for much of an impact on the game.

Blizzard's lackadaisical approach to patching and balancing proved to be the downfall of Starcraft 2. Now that Hearthstone is officially released they seem reluctant to make changes again. As a company they show a distinct lack of confidence in their ability to tweak titles that have passed into the hands of players.

 

[lawlohwhat]

I don't mouse over my cards because it gives my opponent information

Bots make dumb plays, take a set amount of time to do every action, and have extremely mechanical motions when they play cards.

 

[Aylinato]

I don't mouse over my cards because it gives my opponent information

Bots make dumb plays, take a set amount of time to do every action, and have extremely mechanical motions when they play cards.

They also stop working if you play a strange card

 

[slayn]

You know what I really don't understand about Blizzard? Why in the absolute hell aren't they hitting home on a virtual CCG's primary advantage: balance. Unlike printed cards, virtual cards can be patched up in a flash. We have so many lackluster, overpowered, and otherwise obsolete cards as it is. Why isn't Blizzard doing regular patches on these? They can even open a beta server if they have to, since untested tweaks are dangerous in a live game. And I know they've done patches here and there, such as the recent Eaglehorn Bow nerf, but their patches currently are too far and between for much of an impact on the game.

Kay, HearthGAF, there's my daily rant.
Spent my 115 gold on a disappointing pack instead of saving for arena/Naxx. Again. God I'm dumb.

They've stated that they'd rather release new cards and let that change the landscape of the meta rather than nerfing cards.

Personally, I think they saw too much backlash to their previous changes. Back when I first started playing everyone was up in arms about how overpowered freeze mage was. Freeze mage was unstoppable. It wasn't *that* amazing and the player base would have countered it eventually but blizzard reacted and nerfed freeze mage. They nerfed it so hard that mage has struggled to be a prominent class ever since. It was an overaction on Blizzard's part to the complaints at the time and I suspect they regret that.

Then later came unleash the hounds. They wanted hunter to have 'better AoE' and made the current version of unleash the hounds costed at 2 mana. It was absurd. Everyone knew it was dumb, and blizzard was forced to change the card for the... 4th? time.

And so basically I think every time blizzard has buffed/nerfed cards there has been backlash that causes them to regret taking action.

You also have to understand that cards that *feel* overpowered might not actually be so. Or might not be so at all skill levels. Blizzard has the stats to actually see how often cards are played and could feasible deduce what the 'winningest' cards are. By that I mean, the % chance that a player wins given that they got to play x card that game.

A good example/anecdote on this was in an old interview I saw where at one point King Mukla was a 5/6 or something like that. And he still wasn't actually played that much and no one really thought he was over powered. In fact blizzard got complaints that he was underpowered. But then they looked at the actual stats King Mukla at 5/6 was the most broken overpowered card in all of hearthstone at the time.

Another good example is Al'Akir. I remember seeing endless complaints about how useless and underpowered he was. So much so that blizzard was considering buffing him to like a 3/7. Except the stats didn't reflect him being underpowered and only once everyone saw pro players winning with him in high level tournaments did the cries of underpowered die down.

It's also possible for a card to be overpowered when played by/against low rank players but underpowered when played by/against high rank players. I don't even know how you handle that from a balance perspective.

 

[Haunted]

They also stop working if you play a strange card

Example for this? That sounds hilarious.

I don't mouse over my cards because it gives my opponent information

bot detected.

 

[MisterArrogant]

They've stated that they'd rather release new cards and let that change the landscape of the meta rather than nerfing cards.

I know this is their policy but I'm personally not a fan of this type of game balancing. It feels like bandaids on top of bandaids on top of bandaids. So a card is overpowered so now I have to have the "solution card" to counter it. It feels like eventually we'll just end up with decks half-filled with bandaid cards so we don't get wrecked by certain decks that are unbalanced. Already I feel like there's certain decks (that shall remain nameless) that unless you get lucky and get the right combination of cards you'll get rolled by. My idea of balance is not that some decks are basically a default win unless your deck has specific counters to that and you get lucky and draw them.

I don't think this balancing strategy is going to be good for the long term health of the game and I think as time goes on it's going to make it harder and harder for newcomers to jump in. (Which is against their other design philosophy that the game is easy to get into for new players). Getting crushed constantly every time you play? Well you need this card against this deck and this card against this deck. People are just going to say "screw it" and leave. Nobody is going to want to grind through all those losses just to get a fair fight. Especially since losing makes you little to no progress unless you've got a 40g quest where you're just playing minions or plinking away health against the enemy hero. I have most of the cards so it's not really an issue for me, but I'd hesitate to recommend someone else starting out at this point unless they're a masochist.

I know a lot of people disagree and say everything is fine. (And it's hard for me to objectively judge since I'm on the end of the spectrum with access to more card solutions.) But I don't agree this is a viable long term solution to game balance.

 

[Slashlen]

I know this is their policy but I'm personally not a fan of this type of game balancing. It feels like bandaids on top of bandaids on top of bandaids. So a card is overpowered so now I have to have the "solution card" to counter it. It feels like eventually we'll just end up with decks half-filled with bandaid cards so we don't get wrecked by certain decks that are unbalanced. Already I feel like there's certain decks (that shall remain nameless) that unless you get lucky and get the right combination of cards you'll get rolled by. My idea of balance is not that some decks are basically a default win unless your deck has specific counters to that and you get lucky and draw them.

I don't think this balancing strategy is going to be good for the long term health of the game and I think as time goes on it's going to make it harder and harder for newcomers to jump in. (Which is against their other design philosophy that the game is easy to get into for new players). Getting crushed constantly every time you play? Well you need this card against this deck and this card against this deck. People are just going to say "screw it" and leave. Nobody is going to want to grind through all those losses just to get a fair fight. Especially since losing makes you little to no progress unless you've got a 40g quest where you're just playing minions or plinking away health against the enemy hero. I have most of the cards so it's not really an issue for me, but I'd hesitate to recommend someone else starting out at this point unless they're a masochist.

I know a lot of people disagree and say everything is fine. (And it's hard for me to objectively judge since I'm on the end of the spectrum with access to more card solutions.) But I don't agree this is a viable long term solution to game balance.

It also seems difficult to do right unless you have a regular supply of new cards to band-aid problems with, and they're not exactly good at that.

 

[Papercuts]

Wrong thread, lol.

 

[slayn]

I know this is their policy but I'm personally not a fan of this type of game balancing.

Nor am I, technically. But I would want such nerfs to be supported by statistical facts and as blizzard doesn't grant access to their data I don't feel comfortable saying this or that should be nerfed personally. And I think it's dangerous to say, "we all know ___ is overpowered" because I would bet money that we would end up being wrong (and that we wouldn't even be able to agree on an answer). And the actual problem was some other card rather than the one being complained about.

For example, even though druid is not the top class at the moment I still think innervate is the most broken, problematic card in all of hearthstone. But that probably isn't at the top of a lot of other people's lists.

Since we don't have the data, I can't call blizzard out for not nerfing what I might think are over powered cards. So the first step that I would like to see if for them to give us access to their data (after its been anonymized of course, is that a word? I'm making it a word)

Of course, blizzard might see that as dangerous because then we might be able to prove that a card is overpowered and then they would have to actually like... do stuff.

Edit: and the even more interesting/difficult part of this for me is that... take something like zoo. Zoo can be a huge problem in the low ranks. It's easy to build, easy to learn, and can just destroy new players over and over. But at high legend? Zoo just... isn't that great. (I posted in this very thread I thought naxx would make it disgustingly overpowered. I was incredibly wrong). Particularly now. Very few people play it and you generally don't see it perform that well. It also doesn't have amazing performance in tournaments vs pro players. So then is zoo overpowered? I'm... not sure. Even if its not overpowered at the highest levels of play if its destroying new players left and right than I'm inclined to think it is a problem. Particularly if its rampant enough to turn new players off of the game entirely. But is the answer to nerf it? Then at the highest levels it goes from not played that much to never played. Is that ok? I also feel uncertain about that. I think balancing cards across all skill levels is an incredibly difficult task.

 

[johnsmith]

So is it true that people are using bots in the arena? On reddit some people were claiming to get consistent 6-7 wins, which is fucking ludicrous if true. I've seen some suspicious players, but none as blatant as the ones on ladder.

 

[slayn]

Sounds plausible but I've not seen it personally. I've seen some very obvious bots in constructed and have never encountered an obvious bot in arena.

There's enough resources like arena value to pull data from for drafting, and a basic AI that just spends its mana and makes good trades could do ok. 6-7 feels a bit high to me though.

That could be boasting about a lucky streak or something. I would expect something more in the realm of averaging 5 from an AI.

or maybe the AI is more sophisticated than I imagine and knows to play around things like flamestrike and mind control tech?

 

[call_kotaku]

I can't think of a single semi-competitive game that has benefited from quick-fire patches for the competitive meta, especially games that are out of beta/playtesting. I can think of a few games where that sort of policy actively hurt the game, though.

 

[Gotchaye]

I have a very hard time believing bots are averaging 7 wins. Constructed bots don't seem to be that great, and they've got a much easier problem to solve.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I have a very hard time believing bots are averaging 7 wins. Constructed bots don't seem to be that great, and they've got a much easier problem to solve.

They're good enough to get high ranks and even legend, I am not surprised they play well in arena.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

I thoughtstole 4 nerubian eggs. How does this RNG work lol.

 

[Gotchaye]

They're good enough to get high ranks and even legend, I am not surprised they play well in arena.

7 wins is not just "playing well", relative to the player base. I mean, obviously the average player (on a per-entry basis) is winning almost exactly 3 games, and presumably the average arena entrant is better than the average user (players who play more frequently will tend to be better, Arena incentivizes better players to play it over other modes, etc.).

Plus the matchmaking in Arena, as I understand it, tries to match up people with similar track records in their current run. The model at http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Arena#Statistics looks like it's on the right track - 7 wins is a top 9% performance. And you're only ever getting 7 wins by beating a player performing in the top 15% (6 wins).

I think it's much less surprising that a bot is able to take a particular deck, which is in part chosen for its straightforwardness, and wait out a random walk long enough to get to a high rank.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

7 wins is not just "playing well", relative to the player base. I mean, obviously the average player (on a per-entry basis) is winning almost exactly 3 games, and presumably the average arena entrant is better than the average user (players who play more frequently will tend to be better, Arena incentivizes better players to play it over other modes, etc.).

Plus the matchmaking in Arena, as I understand it, tries to match up people with similar track records in their current run. The model at http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Arena#Statistics looks like it's on the right track - 7 wins is a top 9% performance. And you're only ever getting 7 wins by beating a player performing in the top 15% (6 wins).

I think it's much less surprising that a bot is able to take a particular deck, which is in part chosen for its straightforwardness, and wait out a random walk long enough to get to a high rank.

I don't know the statistics, but I think if you can hit rank 5 each season you can probably average 7 wins in arena as well. I mean, that has been my experience at least and talking to other people they shared the same opinion.

edit:
I also feel like arena can often be somewhat more straightforward than constructed can be. You're most often playing straight forward decks and mostly midrangey. They could also be exaggerating their average score.

 

[johnsmith]

Getting rank 5, is muuuuuuch easier than hitting infinite arena. Even getting legend is much easier too.


Those stats are just based off math. Since you get knocked out at 3 losses, someone else had to win those. Mathematically the average win rate across all players is 50%.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Wow, speaking of bots... this shaman bot basically committed shaman sin... I don't even know...

He basically played like he knew he was going to get a spellpower totem, didn't even use totem until right before he used lightning bolt.

Here was the situation. I had a 5/5 and an 8/4 on board. And he hexes the 5/5. I think, wow that is weird. Then he rolls totem gets spellpower and lightning bolts the 8/4. That was a good play, but seriously, any human player would totem first. Or if not totem they would have used a spell power minion and skipped totem. It was turn 6 so there wasn't any room for error. I would have straight up won with no chance of recovery had he not rolled a spellpower totem. But had he been a human player, he would have totem'd and seen what he got before hexxing.

I ended up winning anyway. The bot actually used lightning storm on turn 3 to kill my echoing ooze, but I had an argent squire up as well but still with divine shield. This allowed me to play mukla on an empty field with him only have 2 mana the next turn for totem.

edit^

Getting rank 5, is muuuuuuch easier than hitting infinite arena. Even getting legend is much easier too.


Those stats are just based off math. Since you get knocked out at 3 losses, someone else had to win those. Mathematically the average win rate across all players is 50%.

Well getting rank 5 before you understand the basics really well is in fact very difficult. And I think all you need to succeed in arena is the basics.

 

[johnsmith]

Was too busy trying to stay alive that i wasted holy fire on a minion instead of lethal.And of course he topdecks eviscerate the next turn. Fuck my life.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Was too busy trying to stay alive that i wasted holy fire on a minion instead of lethal. Fuck my life.

Since robots feel no fear, they would never make that mistake

 

[Kenai]

Hope this isn't a noob question but I didn't see it in the OP: how much ranked do you have to play to get the card backs for the season? I've been playing on an off for ~6 weeks with a ghetto rogue deck and whatever Naxx/pack cards i found. Won my first 3 ranked (90% sure one was a bot) but I've only won 1-2 in Arena so i assume it will get worse.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Seems like hunter brought a little miracle resurgence back, and a bit of warrior. Barely played any hunters... maybe 2. Played like 4 control warriors, or more, and a couple priests, 1-2 shamans, 1 paladin I think, and like 3 miracle rogues though. 1 really aggressive zoolock. I was tempted to switch from tempo rogue to control paladin, although if I did I would have probably lost all the miracle rogue match ups. Tempo rogue really dominated miracle rogue and the hunters I played. Even went 3-1 vs control warrior. It is a bit quicker tempo deck than I am used to. It is weird not playing with backstab, but so far I am starting to see that I really never need backstab+si7 agent except for zoolock. I need to change my midrange rogue deck I think. I've always hated but felt like backstabs are too good to pass up in midrange, but if zoolock is not present, why not.

Hope this isn't a noob question but I didn't see it in the OP: how much ranked do you have to play to get the card backs for the season? I've been playing on an off for ~6 weeks with a ghetto rogue deck and whatever Naxx/pack cards i found. Won my first 3 ranked (90% sure one was a bot) but I've only won 1-2 in Arena so i assume it will get worse.

All you have to do is play 1 match at rank 20 or hit rank 20.

Lemme know if you need help with your rogue deck composition.

 

[Kenai]

All you have to do is play 1 match at rank 20 or hit rank 20.

Lemme know if you need help with your rogue deck composition.

Another probably stupid question but I am Rank 24 if I hit the Leper Gnome Icon and it says 24 by it right? One final stupid question (I hope), will losing lower my rank back to Enraged Chicken or w/e it was?

Is posting decklists not really a good idea or spammy? i could post what i use and see what everyone interested thinks. I actually really like it but since i am pretty new I am sure it could be better. most of the cards are from Naxx or not rare so it was easy for me to make and I have some experience with TCGs so i kinda played it by ear.