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Hearthstone |OT4| The warsong has ended, please patron other decks
- Thread starter ZealousD
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Sir Abacus
Member
FieryBalrog
Member
This is a CCG, not a fighting game or MOBA. Old cards aren't going to get reworks except in exceptional situations. Not every card is a role player. It doesn't matter that the game is digital, the whole concept doesn't make much sense because the point of a CCG is to have a whole pile of cards and some of them are better than others. Some of them are a LOT better than others. Why? Because it's about having a giant pile of options which balance themselves instead of the devs going in and trying to micromanage the balance. The dev team simply shouldn't bother with that kind of micromanaging unless the game is broken because a card is too strong, which right now it's really not. People are ridiculously quick to call for the nerf hammer because they can but this really isn't anything new to Blizzard games.
Why is Magma Rager special? Lots of other cards suck. Wisp sucks. Are they never going to print another 0 mana creature if it's better than Wisp because fuck, we should just buff Wisp instead? That's actually not the same thing at all because having more than one 0 mana creature opens up options in and of itself (as an actual example, the Flash Hulk combo deck from Magic could kill using a critical mass of 0 mana artifact creatures to trigger Disciple of the Vault).
New players aren't even remotely fucking affected by the existence of Ice Rager vs. Magma Rager. Actually it turns out no one is, it doesn't affect the value of your packs since neither card matters for Constructed. The existence of Ice Rager literally impacts nobody except people raging on the internet, it's like the completely wrong thing to be concerned about. Because what matters is this:
Most of the strong cards from GvG were commons and rares and the same looks to be true for TGT since most of the legendaries and epics seem situational or niche. That's what people should be really paying attention to, because that's good and healthy for the game. When the power concentrates too much in legendaries, that's the real barrier to entry ($$/time) for everyone.
Why is Magma Rager special? Lots of other cards suck. Wisp sucks. Are they never going to print another 0 mana creature if it's better than Wisp because fuck, we should just buff Wisp instead? That's actually not the same thing at all because having more than one 0 mana creature opens up options in and of itself (as an actual example, the Flash Hulk combo deck from Magic could kill using a critical mass of 0 mana artifact creatures to trigger Disciple of the Vault).
New players aren't even remotely fucking affected by the existence of Ice Rager vs. Magma Rager. Actually it turns out no one is, it doesn't affect the value of your packs since neither card matters for Constructed. The existence of Ice Rager literally impacts nobody except people raging on the internet, it's like the completely wrong thing to be concerned about. Because what matters is this:
Most of the strong cards from GvG were commons and rares and the same looks to be true for TGT since most of the legendaries and epics seem situational or niche. That's what people should be really paying attention to, because that's good and healthy for the game. When the power concentrates too much in legendaries, that's the real barrier to entry ($$/time) for everyone.
Sir Abacus
Member
If we're using TGT as an example I'd expect something like "Argent Trainee", 0 mana 0/1 with "Inspire: Increase attack by 1". I wouldn't expect it to be a 2/1 just because LOL NEW CARDS. They need to use their heads and work the new mechanic into the cards not just go "oh the same card one less mana" like Evil Heckler. Could you imagine if the card was 4 mana, 5/4, "Inspire: The evil heckler will now taunt" instead of just being a 1 mana less booty bay bodyguard?
I made a Beast Druid! It kind of started feeling like Mech Mage after awhile, so I actually kinda ended up cutting innervate and wild growth because my curve actually seemed pretty low.
There's quite a few stealth creatures that Wildwalker can buff plus that gives you some protection to hit the enemy's face. Feels kinda aggressive yet board tradey.
There's quite a few stealth creatures that Wildwalker can buff plus that gives you some protection to hit the enemy's face. Feels kinda aggressive yet board tradey.
Wisp doesn't have a strictly better counterpart or else people would be complaining about it too (as in if they released a 1/2 Super Wisp for 0 mana, there would be big complaints about that as well).
It's like people miss the point of the argument again and again. No one gives a damn about Magma Rider in particular... it could've happened to any card.
And Wisp even in its current state is WAY WAY better than Magma Rager. For one, Wisp is appropriately costed for its price. Magma Rager on the other hand is in no way appropriately costed for its price. It was designed to fail from the start.
The main issue is that why waste releasing a new card that is exactly like an older card but better instead of either A) making a brand new, more interesting card with that art or B) buffing the old card instead. It's not like Blizzard hasn't nerfed/buffed cards before. It would've been WAY WAY better if Ice Rager was a 1/5 for 3 mana or if Evil Heckler was a 4/5 with Taunt at 5 mana. No one would've complained as they would actually be different cards yet still awful cards. They wouldn't have completely obsoleted the previous two cards.
All of this comes across as lazy and sloppy at best and alarming for the future at worst.
Like stated before... what's next when Ice Rager sees absolutely no play? You release a new 5/3 3 mana minion? When that doesn't see play do you now release a new 5/4 minion at 3 mana? Evil Heckler already is in fact well above normal stats for a 4 drop (9 stats on top of having a Taunt).. Where do you draw the line? If the line is "played" vs "not played" then that is an awful metric to have.
It's like people miss the point of the argument again and again. No one gives a damn about Magma Rider in particular... it could've happened to any card.
And Wisp even in its current state is WAY WAY better than Magma Rager. For one, Wisp is appropriately costed for its price. Magma Rager on the other hand is in no way appropriately costed for its price. It was designed to fail from the start.
The main issue is that why waste releasing a new card that is exactly like an older card but better instead of either A) making a brand new, more interesting card with that art or B) buffing the old card instead. It's not like Blizzard hasn't nerfed/buffed cards before. It would've been WAY WAY better if Ice Rager was a 1/5 for 3 mana or if Evil Heckler was a 4/5 with Taunt at 5 mana. No one would've complained as they would actually be different cards yet still awful cards. They wouldn't have completely obsoleted the previous two cards.
All of this comes across as lazy and sloppy at best and alarming for the future at worst.
Like stated before... what's next when Ice Rager sees absolutely no play? You release a new 5/3 3 mana minion? When that doesn't see play do you now release a new 5/4 minion at 3 mana? Evil Heckler already is in fact well above normal stats for a 4 drop (9 stats on top of having a Taunt).. Where do you draw the line? If the line is "played" vs "not played" then that is an awful metric to have.
toddhunter
Member
I think blood knight needs a rework and we need a corresponding stealth knight.
Not sure what to do with it though. I'm thinking tone down the gain from absorbing shields, but also give a battlecry of giving a shield to a minion, perhaps including itself.
That would make it a lot more playable.
Not sure what to do with it though. I'm thinking tone down the gain from absorbing shields, but also give a battlecry of giving a shield to a minion, perhaps including itself.
That would make it a lot more playable.
Aggro meta.
A. No one is raging, people (including streamers and such) are making a point. Both for and against. But trying to paint a group as some frothing, raging unintelligent mob to kill discussion is nothing new I guess.
B. Magma Rager is not special. It's not about the single card, but the situation behind the design of the card. It has been explained time and time again.
C. It does matter that the game is digital, because digital gives you a different kind of flexibility. You don't get to decide what "matters" and what doesn't or what kind of game it is supposed to be. The community make their voices heard and if Blizzard do nothing about it it's their call.
D. You be concerned about what you think is worth being concerned. I don't really see the point on trying to shut the issue closed right away by trying to paint it as a straightforward, no wiggle room situation. If it doesn't impact anyone like you say, why care so much about the people who are wrong? If they are wrong time will tell.
B. Magma Rager is not special. It's not about the single card, but the situation behind the design of the card. It has been explained time and time again.
C. It does matter that the game is digital, because digital gives you a different kind of flexibility. You don't get to decide what "matters" and what doesn't or what kind of game it is supposed to be. The community make their voices heard and if Blizzard do nothing about it it's their call.
D. You be concerned about what you think is worth being concerned. I don't really see the point on trying to shut the issue closed right away by trying to paint it as a straightforward, no wiggle room situation. If it doesn't impact anyone like you say, why care so much about the people who are wrong? If they are wrong time will tell.
FieryBalrog
Member
Not every card needs to have the new mechanic. The design of a set has a feel to it. You need a good number of cards that are just simple and easy to read and sometimes those cards are going to step on other cards by simple virtue of the fact that (1) it's a CCG so there are tons of cards and (2) Hearthstone doesn't have that many knobs to turn.
Magic has way more knobs to turn on a card because of the more dynamic mana system, on top of which you have activated abilities and a host of other things. But actually despite that, Magic prints way more cards that are strictly better versions of other cards, like all the time and not because "the dev team really wants to buff old cards but just can't find a way because it's a physical game".
They do it for a host of design reasons that their head designer has repeatedly written about, as well as the obvious business model reasons, but people seem to think that the design is at odds with the business model when in fact the entire reasons CCGs have ever been successful is that the design works with this business model.
And guess what, everyone who buys into a CCG is going to have to buy into the basic premise that they print new shit for you to collect and play with and some of it will be better and some of it will be worse and some of it will just be different. This is the lowest cost CCG I have ever encountered so I'm fine with it for now.
People can complain about it all they want, and I'm going to point out the silliness of the complaints. It becomes clear from his salt-based reaction to this that a random streamer like Kripp doesn't understand CCG design for shit compared to someone like Mark Rosewater, Brian Kibler or even Ben Brode. Kibler personally helped design Ascencion, WoW TCG and now SolForge. SolForge is a competitor to Hearthstone, and yet check his reaction to it.
FieryBalrog
Member
Having BOTH super Wisp and regular Wisp in the game is actually 100% not the same as just having a buffed Wisp. Deck creation options are not the same. I gave an actual example.
Fixed, his stream was at top of twitch for the last two days and people suddenly realized illuminator exists!
There are quite a few cards in the set that see almost no play in Constructed but if they either got a stat changed here and there or a change in mana cost then they would be all over Constructed to the point of being over powered.
Good example is Novice Engineer. It used to be "over powered" as a 1/2 back in the day. Blizzard nerfed that. Now it sees almost no play in Constructed and people would much rather just use Loot Hoarder as an early game minion cycle.
My point is that where do you draw this line of when to release new, better versions of older card. If there's no metric or standard then you are just going to go into silly YGO territory in the future.
Of course it's not the same but at least the Arena pool wouldn't get diluted by two cards but instead we would just have a better single card.
You keep bringing up shitty examples in Magic when people who play Hearthstone don't care about that. I could bring up hundreds of examples of down right AWFUL design choices in a card game like YGO, it wouldn't make this situation any less shitty.
Good example is Novice Engineer. It used to be "over powered" as a 1/2 back in the day. Blizzard nerfed that. Now it sees almost no play in Constructed and people would much rather just use Loot Hoarder as an early game minion cycle.
My point is that where do you draw this line of when to release new, better versions of older card. If there's no metric or standard then you are just going to go into silly YGO territory in the future.
.
Of course it's not the same but at least the Arena pool wouldn't get diluted by two cards but instead we would just have a better single card.
Pretty sure Kibler complained about it as well (along with a few other streamers) and putting other players on blast by saying "they don't understand CCG design" is pretty insulting. Who are you to claim that so and so knows more about CCG design than others?
You keep bringing up shitty examples in Magic when people who play Hearthstone don't care about that. I could bring up hundreds of examples of down right AWFUL design choices in a card game like YGO, it wouldn't make this situation any less shitty.
FieryBalrog
Member
No, I mean Constructed deck creation would literally be impacted by it. Maybe not in a meaningful way but it's more relevant than adding a card that is not really going to cost anyone anything (since it's a common) and which doesn't even matter (since right now it sucks).
If Hearthstone were to add an Elemental tribe, having both Magma AND Ice rager in the game is not the same as having only a buffed Magma Rager. Hardly out of the question, yes? Given that they retrofitted the Mech tag where appropriate?
If they have a kill condition which needs multiple 0 mana creatures to operate then it's not the same.
(like this one:
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/di/90.jpg
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/mi/62.jpg
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ai/172.jpg
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/aq/25.jpg
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/vi/152.jpg
http://magiccards.info/sc/en/59.html
)
By changing an old card you are essentially deleting a card from the game. And that only ever seems worth it when that card was breaking the game in a degenerate way, or if that card didn't do what it said properly (like Bane of Doom).
People need to take the long view and realize how utterly limiting to design space it is if a card's entire purpose is summed up by "what does this card do for me NOW". Maybe it does nothing. Maybe it never does anything. The fun of it for a lot of players (and one of the goals of the designers) is to see how it evolves.
Sir Abacus
Member
I'd always envision a basic set as cards that were simple but powerful. Limited mechanics, not so much planning required. Advanced expansions introduce new mechanics, but yes they can have a feel to it. Inspire and hero power cost manipulation should be the core of the expansion but should have things like bringing previously class exclusive options back into the neutral fold in a reduced power format. Give us a 4 mana 3/3 that can choose between charge and taunt for instance as a neutral.
FieryBalrog
Member
Appeal to authorities is a fallacy when the person being appealed to is not actually an authority on the subject. (but some other form of authority. Like if President Obama or Miley Cyrus weighed in).
Like, seriously.
But that would mean actually changing (ie "buffing") those cards which is exactly what you are against doing in the game....
So that example actually goes against your point. Which I do understand but I don't agree with especially in a digital card game like this (not like they haven't done nerfs/buffs before).
All I want from Blizzard is consistency in how they make/design cards or how they change them. I feel that generally they don't make such mistakes but in the situation of these two cards they definitely messed up (and I am not the only one who thinks that).
Looks like legend rank actually gives you a 3rd golden common instead of dust
http://imgur.com/a/d002Y
http://imgur.com/a/d002Y
Not every time. As evidenced by the different term: appeal to non authorities. It also includes appealing to knowledge or judgement from real authorities just because they are authorities, which is what you are doing. They can absolutely be wrong or make wrong judgements themselves.
But I forgot, you know everything, the rest know nothing. Why do I bother again...
Damn the greedy player in me now wants to grind to Legend...
Personally, I prefer new better cards than buffing old cards because as a player I now have the option to play one, the other, or both. It increases my choices in ways that buffing old cards simply doesn't.
Maybe I want to play a deck with both magma rager and ice rager and laugh at you as you rage about losing to me.
Maybe I want to play a deck with both magma rager and ice rager and laugh at you as you rage about losing to me.
FieryBalrog
Member
I don't think it's a buff, rather it's a bad design pattern from Blizzard to not have the tribe tags pre-loaded and just add them afterwards when they decide this tribe should matter. prefer it the other way around. Blizzard made a mistake by not including relevant tribes ahead of time.
That makes more sense from a design standpoint (otherwise you end up with design inconsistency, which is "this card doesn't make sense, it's obviously a Mech but has no Mech tag").
I prefer it when the game pre-loads those possibilities. Netrunner does this. Netrunner has had many subtypes that don't get referenced for years, or are still not referenced. (like ICE that was "AP", meaning it did some form of damage; but the AP subtype wasn't relevant for years!). Some of them slowly start getting referenced in expansions but they like to plan ahead with it and just have a cool system for it in place so that they can easily slot in new angles of gameplay like this.
Magic had this problem too btw. Magic has a policy of never doing power level errata anymore (they just ban the card, or don't ban it). However, 7 years ago they did a huge update where they errata'd a ton of old cards to have relevant creature types that fit the new "creature type model" they created. E.g. there were a crapload of cards without the Human tag, that were obviously Humans- it just didn't matter for a long time. There were Merfolk who only had the creature type "Lord" instead of Merfolk. It was all over the place. So they bit the bullet and did it.
However, these days they have the good sense to plan it out ahead of time and say:
"creature type is one of the angles we care about it. every creature we print we are going to figure out the creature types for it and add it to the card."
Blizzard should adopt that approach going forwards.
Wanting to humiliate others is definitely a more compelling argument, lol.
OK, fine, the cards stay. Now you have to do it with a deck that includes all of them.
FieryBalrog
Member
Sure. In this case that would amount to a fallacy if the only thing I said is "these people are CCG design experts, they said you are wrong, so you are wrong." Rather, I'm just arguing that you are wrong based on reasons I actually give, and pointing to certain authorities as lending additional support, which is a perfectly valid method of making a point.
If you try to argue with me about why I should use hints in my Oracle SQL queries to manage query plans instead of having a strong policy against ever using them, it's perfectly valid for me to point to a huge expert like Tom Kyte in addition to explaining why using hints to manage query plans is a terrible idea.
Trump was playing patron, actually adding damage on paper over two! turns in advance. Not a surprise he was yawning last week thinking sjow doesn't have lethal. That pro player.
People send pictures to sjow o his stream, he tells with a look they have lethal or not, that starcraft apm skill sure counts here!
People send pictures to sjow o his stream, he tells with a look they have lethal or not, that starcraft apm skill sure counts here!
Not really what you are doing. You just dropped the names to say someone like Kripp doesn't know what he is talking about. Nevermind that Kripp isn't the only person who said anything about the card. If you've actually used what people like Kibler said, you'd realize your points don't have that much in common after all. His argument was more around the incorrect use of the term "power creep", but he wasn't necessarily in agreement with Heckler's existence or design philosophy either. Which is a better, more nuanced and certainly more respectful way of approaching the subject than what you are doing.
So you just dropped his name without attention or knowledge of what he actually said to support your point. I'd certainly take his opinion over yours, I understood his points, yours are just confrontational for the sake of it.
FieryBalrog
Member
I actually watched Kibler's whole review, and he said that Magma Rager's continued existence served a valuable purpose for new players as a teaching tool. (which people here love to shit on, and here's a perfect example of where appealing to authorities makes sense. The people doing the shitting on this idea, including Kripp btw, have no actual experience with designing a game and all the different considerations that go into it and how important they are. Kibler does, so does Rosewater, so does Brode, and all of them agree on this point about cards that are bad can serve a valuable purpose as teaching tools, which is not irrelevant no matter how much you handwave about "appeal to authorities".) He's also the one who pointed out that Hearthstone has a limited number of knobs to differentiate similar cards.
Kripp is a perfect example of salt-based reaction since I DID watch his comments about these cards and they consisted mostly of sarcastic snarkiness over any real substance. I haven't watched Noxious's comments.
They apparently censored Evil Heckler's art because it contained a prominent animal skull on his head and some smaller human skulls on his robe and skeletons are too spooky for China.
Less Evil Heckler
Super lame. I wonder if they did the same for Warcraft since they're basically necromancers...
PAULINK
I microwave steaks.
Someone tried to friend me after I won, but not today salty skipper. my one turn frothing berserker win will stay victorious.
Since they already released patch 3.0 and no card nerfs came with it, it doesn't look like dr. boom will get nerfed... maybe I should just dust the two extras that I have.
Since they already released patch 3.0 and no card nerfs came with it, it doesn't look like dr. boom will get nerfed... maybe I should just dust the two extras that I have.
A couple of months ago Trump spent like 2 hours on stream calculating whether he missed lethal after chat told him he did. He was drawing diagrams and all kinds of stuff on a screenshot, calculating different orders of play. He was convinced he hadn't until chat started spamming the correct solution.
I just switched to this Druid deck and reached rank 5 for the first time! thank you!
toddhunter
Member
The problem with complaining about power creep is that people are ignoring that arena exists.
You might get a magma rager. You might also be lucky and get a better ice version.
It mixes things up.
Neither are going to get play in constructed. Even if they were good enough, people will only play it when a cool streamer puts it in a deck and wins a game. Which also means constructed will always be shit.
So it just isn't an issue.
You might get a magma rager. You might also be lucky and get a better ice version.
It mixes things up.
Neither are going to get play in constructed. Even if they were good enough, people will only play it when a cool streamer puts it in a deck and wins a game. Which also means constructed will always be shit.
So it just isn't an issue.
I could totally use it if nobody else wants it. Don't have many cards
He's had some amazing comebacks thanks to Illuminator. Pretty hilarious when he gets 4 of them on the board at the same time.
I love Rend. I've played with him since release. He usually dies next turn, but no one expects him to hit the table.
I noticed that Brian Kibler has been running them in his Dragon Mage deck for a while now. Seems like they (along with Explosive Sheep) started getting popular around then.
BlackBuzzard
Banned
Wait you mean Brian Kibler from Brian M Kibler gaming summoner of dragons master of duels?
DreamMachine
Member
If it's not taken i'll take it!
Sorry it's already taken.
BlackBuzzard
Banned
You can have mine, but its 8$ off 15 packs. Expires 8/31/2015.
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