Hearthstone

Did they say anything about any other game modes at all?

The game they have right now is awesome, tho.

This is my first card game like this. I was always more into Poker, Hearts, Spades, etc
After 5 days of playing, my wins are like 185 to 52 losses. I'm in bottom tiered Platinum, and probly will be in diamond in another week.

I started off much like Kripparian. Played Hearthstone without buying any packs to learn the core game.
At the beginning, I was making mistakes, but still doing very well. I was only losing to credit card decks.

Then as a I got around the level 40 range on my Paladin. I started to see all the things that make this game so great.
I realized at that point those 300 dollar decks could be beaten, with smart CC, weapon breaks,bating out card/board wipes etc. Most of those players that invest that much money were pretty bad from what I saw because they never really botherd to learn the game. They just let there cards play for them, or used a gimmick deck they saw on the internet.

So after I beat that first wall of getting past the credit card decks. It was time to start playing for real.

I had done pretty well in Arena, so picked up some halfway decent cards. I then decided this game was worth investing in. Normal game costs 50 bucks, so made my budget to that amount.
With that 50 dollars, I was able to get a shit ton of good cards, and double those cards playing arena.

At this point the game starts ranking you with players with really good decks so I got to see more of the game.

Now I needed to understand how to beat top deckers, unlucky hands from the start, burst decks etc.

Point of this wall of text, is Hearthstone is a very good game. They just need to re-balance some stuff that is unbeatable.
They really captured what make card games great with also making it very much like world of warcraft pvp.
That ,and it's just damn fun..

Highest level I've gotten is 22 on my mage, but I've started to see things like the baits and it's not just play as much as you can every turn. Sometimes it's better to wait a turn and bait them into a flamestrike.

yeah, that's what makes this game so great. There are so many meta games going on.

Probly why I wish you could talk to your opponent to get inside there head like in poker.

Just a tip for people who are collecting dust, get Ysera before anything.
It is the best legendary by far.

it is really easy to protect, and will constantly give you better cards then you can pick from.

For instance some of the cards it feeds you are pretty much board wipes.

Ive gotten 3 of those just in 3 rounds before, back to back.
Just play Yesara late when all the CC is gone, and it's GG.

One thing they definitely need to get rid of is the coin.

It serves no purpose , and it is unbalances there game completely.

What they should do is make you play that extra mana crystal in the first round. That's still pretty crazy, but not even close to what the coin can do in early combos.

Mist_sl said:

Waiting for your opponent to overextend so you can boardwipe has been in MTG since... literally the first ever release.

What people seem to think is advanced strategy in this game is actually basic fundamental shit if you've ever played a CCG.

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Right but let's be honest here, WoTC aren't *ever* going to give us full on MtG for the PC (again).

I mean, damned would I love it but they are far, far too tied into their revenue model as it is (with good cause) to let the IP out there without selling the cards at their current rates. A number of other companies have noticed this though and want in on the action as online primaries using the basic premise. They'll take the sales and player base rather than a pay-per-card model and then microtransaction the hell out of the few whales that want to pay. Hey, in a few years these games might even rival MtGs complexity too.

Ultracore_sl said:

One thing they definitely need to get rid of is the coin.

It serves no purpose , and it is unbalances there game completely.

What they should do is make you play that extra mana crystal in the first round. That's still pretty crazy, but not even close to what the coin can do in early combos.

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I agree. The intent is for you to be able to counter a low mana card early game but can be a bit overpowered when saved until late game.

Just make it not count as a card/spell (for combo etc) and it'll be fine.

Ultracore_sl said:

This is my first card game like this. I was always more into Poker, Hearts, Spades, etc
After 5 days of playing, my wins are like 185 to 52 losses. I'm in bottom tiered Platinum, and probly will be in diamond in another week.

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Are you counting combined arena and ranked wins? I'm 136 constructed/42 Arena and I'm 3 star platinum. Either way, your statement pretty much explains one of the things I dislike the most about the game. The idea if you just play more you are going to be a higher rank. And the fact you have such a high win loss ratio but still have a lot of rank to go through, play diamond master. I suspect your wins may actually be lower? Either way, the medal even says 'win more games to advance to the next medal'. Rank is more of a grind than something you earn. You can't lose rank. It's really not a measure of skill compared to a ELO system. So you are stuck grinding away vs newbs even if that's not your skill level. Instead you grind away and get a high rank, which people don't even see unless you are streaming. There is no way to start a game and see, ohh dang I'm up against a 3 star master!. Rank should be something that better represents skill level and should be something you have to maintain. Not something you grind towards, if its going to be used to match you up with people to play against.

Its more like a kids county fair and every tummy gets a gold medal! But that's expected with blizzards cater to everyone model, that works well financially.

The mechanics aren't super bland where everything is just + stats. I wonder if they are going to be able to release expansions fast enough to keep it interesting though. My guess is they won't and the game will get stale before they release new content.

Its a CCG and not a TCG. Since you can't trade and the best cards are limited to 1 and everything else 2, it makes opening packs less interesting in the long run. If you open a pack with the best card in the game and already own it, its not exciting at all. You just melt it for dust. If it were a trading card game you'd be excited to trade it away for other cool cards/more packs etc. If you own all the cards, opening packs is boring and near meaningless. The excitement of opening packs goes away quickly in this game.

Arena is a net moneysink where other games like MTGO/HEX are a net gain to the system. MTGO 4-3-2-2 or 8-4 has an input of 24 packs and 16 tickets and an output of 24 opened packs to players and 11 or 12 new packs into the system. So overall the players come out ahead. In Arena even if you go 6 wins 3 losses you barely break even. You don't keep your cards so you end up with a pack you have to open. You really need to go 9-3 to recoup the entry fee. That means overall more gold is leaving than coming in. Not surprising but at the same time other TCG let the players come out ahead in the long run.

The game is pretty fun, I don't think it will have a long term sustainability for dedicated players. It lacks the social aspect of the game which is one of the big reasons to play a TCG/CCG in my opinion. You may as well be playing vs really good AI. And maybe you are?

Arena is what will make or break the game for me on release. The game isn't deep enough for preconstructed PVP matches to really mean anything for me (coming from years of mtg). The arena is fun, as drafting always is, but I'm not willing to keep shelling out 2$ over and over on it when I could just play mtgo instead. Gold entry fee or rewards need adjusting to allow for longer arena chains if you can win consistently (as said above, 9-3 right now is barely break even, which is a joke).

Wait, you are saying you won 28 matches ,and got Diamond? how is that possible

I'm currently play around 20 games a night, and might lose 1-3 in 2 star platinum. Which would be the same ratio as you describe, 5 wins for every loss.
I'm not in diamond yet tho. I wish there was an indicator to show you how fast you are going.

Does Arena games rank you faster into diamond? I only get to play in arena once every 3 days because it takes that much gold to enter every time. Daily quests only give around 40 gold, and every 5 wins gives you 5 gold. The entry fee is 150 gold =/

I believe there matchmaking system is based on a bunch of different factors, and is probly broken at the moment.

Let me explain.

I started playing Hearthstone last Friday despite having the beta for over a month ( Damn you FF14 for sucking, and wasting all my time)

For the first 40 levels I was matched with low tiered players, and low level characters with credit card decks.
It didn't take me long to dominate that whole tier, but I could never get matched with better player despite my wins.

Then I got a couple win streaks in Arena, and was able to get two powerful legendarys from decks. One was Ysera , and the other was Tirean.
As soon as I put those two legendarys into my deck I was immediately brought up to the next tier of players who I thought were good at the time, but on reflection now were just medicore.

Once in that second tier, I was able to see some of the real strategies from gimmick/burst decks. So I adjusted my deck with silences, pandas,Board clears, weapon breaks and taunts.
All those gimmick, and top deckers are easly defeated now.

Unfortunately, despite winning allot. The game will not let me move into the next tier of players.

I want to see that top level because it helps me be a better player. When I lose, I download what they did, and come back stronger.

But if I'm winning constantly against the mid tier, it doesn't help me at all.
I have no clue how to get the game to match make me into the top tier yet.

I have 3 levels to go to 50, and I'm hoping at that point the game will allow me to play all diamond, and master ranks.