kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Sept 18, 2014 1:48:46 GMT -5
It's whatever, I got two lightning storms and those 4/5 shielded taunt guys. Probably equivalent to getting a Cairne or a Sylvanas.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Sept 18, 2014 4:40:42 GMT -5
You shoulda Nozdone it at least once...
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Sept 18, 2014 7:39:43 GMT -5
I was pissed that I got Nozdormu. I would have been happy as a pig in mud with cho lol. Millhouse manastorm, put it on my zoo deck and play casuals with that deck. Onyxia, hey she's not a bad late game card to be honest. But Nozdormu is 16 stats for 9 mana and you get the rope too, nuh uh I was annoyed and insta dusted lol.
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Usagi
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Post by Usagi on Sept 19, 2014 0:02:49 GMT -5
You shoulda Nozdone it at least once... What the fuck is going on? Is that a glitch or something?
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Sept 19, 2014 0:33:58 GMT -5
I'm assuming Lorewalker Cho/ancestral spirit shenanigans here. Silence Noz to let you actually take your turn. Then ancestral spirit each noz 6 times. Faceless in the deck to copy your buddy's cho if he draws it first. Then blow up nozdormu with sayers and summon 6 each.
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Usagi
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Post by Usagi on Sept 19, 2014 19:41:23 GMT -5
I'm assuming Lorewalker Cho/ancestral spirit shenanigans here. Silence Noz to let you actually take your turn. Then ancestral spirit each noz 6 times. Faceless in the deck to copy your buddy's cho if he draws it first. Then blow up nozdormu with sayers and summon 6 each. I don't know what any of those words mean.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Sept 19, 2014 20:45:01 GMT -5
Shenanigans happened. Game bugged. GG Darude Sandstorm
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Post by Aphoristic on Sept 20, 2014 0:17:34 GMT -5
What the Foxtrot is going on? Is that a glitch or something? Okay, so the situation is both players have already gone through a bunch of turns (which is why they have no cards to draw, so they take damage after each turn). On the field both of them have Nozdormu that is silenced. Normally Nozdormu makes it so both players have only 15 seconds to take their turn, but the silence on the card prevents that. On top of that, they both have an effect placed on them that resummons Nozdormu as a new minion (no silence), and the players have done this 7 times to fill up the entire board. So the turn starts with them playing minions that kill the entire board if left alive to the next turn, triggering the deathrattle that resummons Nozdormu 7 times on each side. While the 15 second time limit doesn't stack, the animations for summoning them takes up a lot of time and causes them to skip turns instantly. Also the sandstorm effect when one is on the board stacks (why?), so we get the Sandstorm effect. Dudududududu ensues until one dies from not being able to draw anymore cards.
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Usagi
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Post by Usagi on Sept 20, 2014 0:19:23 GMT -5
What the Foxtrot is going on? Is that a glitch or something? Okay, so the situation is both players have already gone through a bunch of turns (which is why they have no cards to draw, so they take damage after each turn). On the field both of them have Nozdormu that is silenced. Normally Nozdormu makes it so both players have only 15 seconds to take their turn, but the silence on the card prevents that. On top of that, they both have an effect placed on them that resummons Nozdormu as a new minion (no silence), and the players have done this 7 times to fill up the entire board. So the turn starts with them playing minions that kill the entire board if left alive to the next turn, triggering the deathrattle that resummons Nozdormu 7 times on each side. While the 15 second time limit doesn't stack, the animations for summoning them takes up a lot of time and causes them to skip turns instantly. Also the sandstorm effect when one is on the board stacks (why?), so we get the Sandstorm effect. Dudududududu ensues until one dies from not being able to draw anymore cards. thats wack yo
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Sept 20, 2014 22:52:56 GMT -5
In saying what I said before, I can't wait until Hunters fuck off tomorrow.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Sept 22, 2014 23:56:20 GMT -5
It's weird, today I've been having some success on the ladder with Shaman... Really strange...
Pulled out the old Trump f2p Shaman, and I've seen all sorts of people who suddenly play some really strange cards on the ladder. They'll probably switch to zoo soon enough. Zoo! Zoo everywhere!
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Oct 5, 2014 4:59:50 GMT -5
So finally gave this game a try a couple of days ago for the first time. I skimmed this thread a bit, and most of it is still flying over my head. Never really played a collectible card game. Except for the minigame in Final Fantasy VIII I suppose. Which I admit was more fun than the rest of that game...
Don't know if I like the whole collectible angle for pretty much the same reason I don't like Destiny. I don't want to grind for stuff. And I certainly don't like being at a tactical disadvantage against people who have grinded out better stuff than me. At least it's sort of justified in Hearthstone by their business model. Free2Play = Pay2Win. Fair enough. Not my preference, but hey, at least the game won't ever cost me a dime.
Another annoying parallel between Destiny and Hearthstone. It's just... so lame. The lore. The characters. The art. Whatever. Just goes to show you how badly WoW ruined the Warcraft universe. It's all so cringe-worthy, just like Destiny with its Minotaurs and Wizards. Just... stop. Make something cool for god's sake.
Is there a 'fair' game mode anywhere? As far as I can tell you can use whatever cards you'd like in all the game modes? I haven't tried Arena yet as I'm not willing to part with any gold until I understand my options. My first thought is that I probably want to save it to unlock the single player expansion stuff.
Speaking of gold... the quests reset at 1am Pacific? Of course they do. I just finished all three of my quests in that 1:30-2:30am range. I was kind of hoping it would give me 3 more once per day no matter what time during the day I finished. I get it, they want to annoy you into playing every single day for a pittance until it's just frustrating enough to start spending real money. But still annoying.
Got my Hunter class up to level 10, finally tried making a custom deck after getting frustrated with just how easily I was getting beaten by people who had better cards. I mean, I realize the opening decks are supposed to not be amazing... but I think they could have at least been competent. It would be nice if the casual mode was just opening decks so I'd get a better feel for basic strategies. I think in my very first game against a person they played a card that did like 4 damage to all my minions. Definitely didn't have anything close to that. Maybe I should have grinded all my characters to level 10 in the single player first.
Anyway, after customizing my hunter deck a bit, which involved grabbing a bunch of cards classified 'beast' along with various beast friendly bonus cards... and the all too important "make an enemy 1 health" cards I won my last couple of games and felt pretty good about it. Both very close, one where I needed to draw one of my taunt cards on my second to last turn to survive long enough to win, and another where I had a big comeback against someone with a ton of 'golden' cards, which if I understand correctly means they leveled up quite a bit past level 10 and thus are nowhere near as new to the game as me. I have 12/20 cards unlocked with the other classes, aside from Paladin which is at 14/20, just to illustrate how much of a noob I still am.
I considered hopping onto this game when it went into beta a year or so ago, and I kind of regret not having done it. It's really fun even if I don't appreciate the 'collectibles' aspect of these things.
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 5, 2014 14:00:38 GMT -5
Well, when you just start the game is basically grinding to get all classes to level 10. After that point the full game is really opened.
Naxx is worth it to get, but I wouldn't waste gold on it. I would just buy the bundle in the shop tab. It's the best money to in game gold price in the game aside from the arena.
The arena is "fair" in that there is no advantage for either player based on card collections. It's also the best way to gain cards without spending money/spending the least money. Buying an arena play is always worth more than buying card packs unless you get like 0-1 wins. However, you still need to put in the time to play through the arena to get the rewards. I would recommend watching someone good at Arena first before playing. There is a separate strategy to it. You also need to know what cards each class you face is likely to have if you want to get a higher number of wins.
Quests reset daily at 1 AM Pacific. Always re-roll 40 gold quests in hopes of a 60 gold or 100 gold one.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 5, 2014 18:35:53 GMT -5
You don't need a lot of expensive cards to be competitive either, playing a zoo deck does not require a single naxx expansion pack or more than like 4-5 rares. You do not need to grind imo because there are really cheap decks that are legend viable ie, Shaman, zoo, a few others.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Oct 5, 2014 19:24:34 GMT -5
Zoo is as F2P as you can get and it still wins tournaments.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 6, 2014 16:06:19 GMT -5
I have to say, Shaman is f2p as Zoo and imo about as good as zoo for the average player now that Huntard is gone, at a high level you might need more expensive cards, but I don't think even low ranked legend needs naxx cards/whatever to get wherever they want to go.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Oct 6, 2014 19:23:11 GMT -5
alikir is pretty nasty in Shaman tho. It's hard to argue against including him in a competitive deck. I like my F2P decks to be the best possible versions of that deck.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 6, 2014 20:06:50 GMT -5
I'm thinking more bloodmage, cairne, sylvanas, ragnaros. Alakir is good, but he's as good as other ways of building the shaman deck. It's about what you want with alakir, you could go no doom hammer or Alakir, Doomhammer and alakir, or just alakir, if you want the burst damage it's there.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Oct 8, 2014 3:30:05 GMT -5
Well, when you just start the game is basically grinding to get all classes to level 10. After that point the full game is really opened. Naxx is worth it to get, but I wouldn't waste gold on it. I would just buy the bundle in the shop tab. It's the best money to in game gold price in the game aside from the arena. Well apparently the first episode used to be free, but now costs 700 gold or $4.99. Based on that added inefficiency I guess I will consider buying it. But it seems like maybe 10-15 dollars worth of game, with the rest being F2P collectibles taxation. Still not a fan of that. Tried Arena out, since they give you one freebie. Went 3-3. Got like 45 gold... a pack of cards and a single card or something? I guess that seems better than outright buying a pack. Also, it leveled up my Mage to 10 without having to grind out the basic deck so that was a nice bonus. I don't really want to watch good players, at least not yet. Part of the fun is figuring out my own strategies. Once I have a better understanding of the game, I'm sure I'll take a look at how other people play. So looks like you only get one new quest a day. Had I known that I probably would have gotten a little more gold at the start, oh well. I have re-rolled as much as it will let me, I still haven't gotten a quest larger than 40g though. You don't need a lot of expensive cards to be competitive either, playing a zoo deck does not require a single naxx expansion pack or more than like 4-5 rares. You do not need to grind imo because there are really cheap decks that are legend viable ie, Shaman, zoo, a few others. I don't know wtf 'legend viable' means. Just because some decks don't require much grinding doesn't make it not a problem. Maybe I don't want to play from a limited set of viable decks. I'm still walled-off from using other strategies, and gimped trying to come up with my own. That aspect of this game will never appeal to me.
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 8, 2014 4:59:54 GMT -5
Stop viewing the game as free to play. No game is made for free. The developers had to put a lot of money into it, and they decided to release it as at a pay what you want price point. If you don't feel it's worth it, fine. But they aren't locking away the core of the game behind closed doors only for people who spend hundreds of dollars like the bad free to play games. If this were a full retail game you would spend 60 dollars on it before being able to decide if you enjoy it.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 8, 2014 5:25:35 GMT -5
The grinding isn't a problem because you can use any class you want to get from rank 25 to rank 1 to legend. If you don't know what legend is, I don't think you can an informed and well reasoned opinion on all things hearthstone, especially because there are MANY decks and classes you can play and do well with. All the expensive cards are situational and well priced in terms of game mechanics. Control match ups with expensive cards can very easily get overrun by cheaper aggressive decks or out valued with shrewd midrange deck play.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Oct 8, 2014 7:17:17 GMT -5
Stop viewing the game as free to play. What? It's the business model for this game. It's literally the first thing the Wikipedia entry has to say about it. Plenty of really good games have been made and released by hobbyists with no expectation of payment. I don't have a problem with paying for a retail game. Hell, it's probably my preference. If you can't see why locking strategic options behind a pay/grind-wall in a competitive game is problematic, I don't know what to tell you. The grinding isn't a problem because you can use any class you want to get from rank 25 to rank 1 to legend. If you don't know what legend is, I don't think you can an informed and well reasoned opinion on all things hearthstone, especially because there are MANY decks and classes you can play and do well with. All the expensive cards are situational and well priced in terms of game mechanics. Control match ups with expensive cards can very easily get overrun by cheaper aggressive decks or out valued with shrewd midrange deck play. Ok, so high-level play doesn't require expensive cards. Look, that's great. But what's not-so-great is at newbie-low level play, where I'm at now, it's clear there are games that I lose simply because I don't have access to some of the same cards as my opponent. It's a bad first impression. At least in StarCraft 2 when I lose, I know I got out-played, and I had the same opportunities as my opponent.
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 8, 2014 13:59:55 GMT -5
In LoL the only things you can buy are champions (more options on how to play the game) and cosmetic items. Neither prevent you from playing the game. The thing people complain about are runes which you must grind and cannot buy. Everyone hates that, but it's basically a carry-over at this point from the initial release of the game. If they were to "reset" everything they would handle it differently, but now it's too late to change it. It's because you arguably cannot buy power, so nobody complains about things really. The most complaints you have are people saying that new champions cost too much and old ones don't get price reductions quick enough.
I meant to stop viewing the free to play model as completely free. While that is an option, it has to be behind a lot of grinding. Otherwise nobody would pay them for anything. The argument that hobbyists release games for free doesn't apply to a game released by Blizzard. They certainty aren't here to give everyone an entire game for nothing. It's not that they are being greedy, they are just trying to sell their game.
Now there is nothing wrong with the options you have at the start. Multiple people have proven you can even reach the highest ranks without paying a cent. There's also a game mode where everyone is on completely even grounds called the Arena, and playing it will even give you rewards to further your collection of cards.
You can call them scum for making you spend time or money to unlock new cards, but that's the only way to make money. They are not here to provide everyone with a complete game running on their servers for free. This isn't some shitty facebook game that requires you to constantly spend money to completely shit on anyone who doesn't spend a penny. You aren't forced into paying anything, but you are asked to pay what you feel it is worth.
If you want the most efficient way to unlock all the cards, buy into arenas. They give the most content per dollar spent. It's far more efficient than buying packs, but it also requires you to still put in time to unlock things.
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 8, 2014 15:19:08 GMT -5
There is no advantage to owning more champions. In the actual game, every champion has a roughly even power level at any given time (yes some fall in favor, our of favor, but overall this doesn't affect the majority of players drastically). You are meant to pick a few champions and master playing as them. Having every champion and playing as all of them would just make you suck at them all. Literally the only thing you could argue having more champions lets you do is trade champions with teammates during pick and bans before the match. There is nothing else.
You certainty can unlock everything in the game, but that's not how it's designed to be. You are only meant to buy champions whenever you find one you like during their free week. This is very doable without spending a single penny, and the vast majority of the player base has not spent any money.
And don't bring up the whole "too busy yelling at teammates" crap. The same is true in Dota.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Oct 8, 2014 15:38:17 GMT -5
Guys... Guys... Guys...
Hearthstone is an online CCG, which is based heavily on TCGs like magic.
"collectible" and "trading" both imply that it is possible for equally skilled players to have an unequal footing due to lack of collection. Part of the fun at the casual level is having this sweet legendary that some other dude might not have. This doesn't matter at the very top where everyone has everything...and it shouldn't. That is a function of the TCG/CCG... else you couldn't call it a TCG/CCG.
You want to play casually? You need to be able to take your lumps from someone with a superior collection. You need to get a sufficient high from beating them that lower percent of the time. Building a F2P deck and winning games you shouldn't have is pretty fun. If it isn't fun for you then you shouldn't even be looking to play a game like this.
You want to play competitively? You fork over the dough or join a team to pay for you. No ifs, ands, or buts.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 8, 2014 16:11:50 GMT -5
Actually you're right, MTG has always been about doing what you can with what you have, you don't want to spend $300 on a deck? I can't blame you. Hearthstone is pretty mild because you can craft whatever you want, you buy enough cards and you can craft that legendary or whatever. The model for Hearthstone is even pretty casual based, you play like 5 games a day, and if you want to win 30 games that's 100 gold guaranteed but you'll have grinded for it. The cards don't really take much time to get if you log on once a day. As long as when they add more cards they add more good rares and commons for all archetypes I'll be happy.
At the moment there is a lack of cheap control cards, and no good aggro epics/legendaries. The Epics are meant to be situationally good in the neutral cards though, ie giants, hungry crab, whatever, but control needs more cards like sun walker, noly 7 costed and 8 costed. leave 9 cost to legendaries because you'll only run the 1 or two 9 cost/10 cost anyway.
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kittymulcher
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Post by kittymulcher on Oct 8, 2014 16:53:31 GMT -5
Who the fuck puts kel thuzaad in a zoo deck and then top decks it at the exact right moment on the ranked ladder? That's right my opponent at rank 20. GG.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Oct 8, 2014 17:38:34 GMT -5
Guys... Guys... Guys... Hearthstone is an online CCG, which is based heavily on TCGs like magic. "collectible" and "trading" both imply that it is possible for equally skilled players to have an unequal footing due to lack of collection. Part of the fun at the casual level is having this sweet legendary that some other dude might not have. This doesn't matter at the very top where everyone has everything...and it shouldn't. That is a function of the TCG/CCG... else you couldn't call it a TCG/CCG. You want to play casually? You need to be able to take your lumps from someone with a superior collection. You need to get a sufficient high from beating them that lower percent of the time. Building a F2P deck and winning games you shouldn't have is pretty fun. If it isn't fun for you then you shouldn't even be looking to play a game like this. You want to play competitively? You fork over the dough or join a team to pay for you. No ifs, ands, or buts. You don't want to hear someone's opinion on a game? Well then, don't suggest to them that they play it, buddy. No ifs, ands, or buts I'm not sure why the fact that it's a collectible card game makes it immune to criticisms of CCGs in general. I made it a point to mention that I hadn't played one of these kinds of games before in the first place. So you can't be surprised that some of my criticisms can apply to its genre. More broadly it's a turn-based strategy game, and that's where its appeal lies with me. I do enjoy playing, but I'd probably enjoy it more if it took German-style board games as its inspiration. Sure, beating someone with 'better' cards is satisfying, but it doesn't balance out losing games at a higher rate than I otherwise would. And no, I don't get much satisfaction out of ROFLstomping a noob with the extra advantage of having better cards than him. I meant to stop viewing the free to play model as completely free. While that is an option, it has to be behind a lot of grinding. Otherwise nobody would pay them for anything. The argument that hobbyists release games for free doesn't apply to a game released by Blizzard. They certainty aren't here to give everyone an entire game for nothing. It's not that they are being greedy, they are just trying to sell their game. Well, the way you stated it came across as broad and condescending, as if a game couldn't possibly be worth playing unless made by people trying to profit. Arena is walled off behind the pay/grind though. I'd like this game better if there were an arena mode that you could play for free that didn't drop rewards for the normal game. Well yes, duh, I understand that they're a business trying to make money. And yes I understand that so-called F2P is a business model designed to make money. I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I'm that naive about these things. And nope, it's not "paying what you feel it is worth". That's an actual model that people have used. As in, "Hey, here's all the content, and if you like it I'd appreciate that you send me some money here". That's not what Blizzard is doing at all. And sorry, selling card packs filled with randomized shit is inherently exploitative and thus greedy. That's a trend I will frown on in any game whether it has its roots with CCGs or not. I'm looking at you, Battlefield 4.
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 8, 2014 17:51:55 GMT -5
There is no advantage to owning more champions. In the actual game, every champion has a roughly even power level at any given time (yes some fall in favor, our of favor, but overall this doesn't affect the majority of players drastically). You are meant to pick a few champions and master playing as them. Having every champion and playing as all of them would just make you suck at them all. Literally the only thing you could argue having more champions lets you do is trade champions with teammates during pick and bans before the match. There is nothing else. Yeah sorry. I don't believe in perfect balance in asymmetrical scenarios. Having access to something that another player does not is an advantage unless it is strictly worse than something else they have access to in every possible way. As I already said, the magnitude of this obviously varies, but unless Riot is a cosmic diety of videogame balance then the problems do exist. Like pegasus said, if you can't figure out why locking strategic options behind a playwall is detrimental to a game's competitive environment, then I really don't know what to tell you. That all being said I really don't give a shit about LoL's validity as whatever the f uck it wants to be. It's not necessary for a free-to-play game to paywall strategic options in order to succeed. Paywalling them does nothing to improve the competitive environment of a game in its best case scenario and hurts it in all others. If it's really necessary for me to explicitly say that not everyone (or hell, most people) cares about that sort of thing, then fine, whatever, no shit. I didn't say it was perfectly balanced. The goal with the balance of LoL is that every character has its own strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited by both sides. While there are absolutely some unfavorable matchups, there are not matchups that make you unable to do anything. No champion is designed specifically to make another one invalid. And yes, there is always fluctuations of balance with the game, which is why they patch it every 2 weeks with tweaks to balance, and more recently have been completely reworking older, outdated champions at no cost to users. In the actual gameplay you can only pick 1 champion. If you own all 120-some champions, good for you. It doesn't matter once the game starts. Sure, you can argue that there are less options before a game starts, but once the game begins you are at no disadvantage. Nobody is buying power. And you are right, it isn't necessary to put non-cosmetic content behind walls you need to invest time or money into. But there is no problem in doing so. The sheer popularity of LoL shows that it isn't a major issue. It's not hard to accumulate enough points to unlock a champion you want. There are people who have been playing for years and have more points than they can even spend. People are literally begging Riot to add more content for them to be able to spend it on. I have multiple friends who have resorted to changing their name weekly because that's the only thing they can spend their points doing now (which gets a bit annoying.)
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Post by Aphoristic on Oct 8, 2014 17:59:11 GMT -5
And nope, it's not "paying what you feel it is worth". That's an actual model that people have used. As in, "Hey, here's all the content, and if you like it I'd appreciate that you send me some money here". That's not what Blizzard is doing at all. And sorry, selling card packs filled with randomized shit is inherently exploitative and thus greedy. That's a trend I will frown on in any game whether it has its roots with CCGs or not. I'm looking at you, Battlefield 4. The packs are the "I feel this is worth a lot" options. The option for people who don't think it's worth as much is to just pay to play Arena. You will eventually get all the cards in the game through Arena, and at a much lower cost than if you bought packs. That's where the flexibility in their pricing is. It's also the same path that people who refuse to pay a cent go, paying for arena entries is just to get around the limited number of Arenas you can do at the start. If you think the mode is fun and can afford the 2 dollars, why not pay? If you think it isn't worth it, okay. Don't start calling them greedy for having options to accommodate everyone.
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