Hearthstone

[Kuro]

Going through the exercise to make combos is indeed fun! Actually playing them on a ladder for an extended period of time is what I (and others) are saying wouldn't be very fun, at least not for very long. It's like those ridiculous OTK for every class videos - neat little puzzles that would be terrible for the game if they were actually viable.

Why not? Too scary?

Turning the game into a small, easily solvable puzzle reduces how much fun you can have for it immensely. You don't go around re-resolving the same puzzle, do you? There's a lot less pieces in a non-random format.

That and the only reason OTK for every class videos are fun is the fact you have to go to such lengths for them or that they are rare, for the most part, or something funny happens. It's pretty rare for a mechanical "Play card, win game" OTK to be fun to watch for me, which most non-random card draws are.

I also have tried playing various card games non-randomly and not found it fun pretty much ever so.

[Sir Bruce]

I should also say these puzzles are exactly why I'm hopeful for Tavern Brawl - novel challenges or tweaks that make you rethink how your decks work together. Who knows how it will be implemented though. Maybe they'll even do a stacked deck variant for a week.

[Kuro]

I should also say these puzzles are exactly why I'm hopeful for Tavern Brawl - novel challenges or tweaks that make you rethink how your decks work together. Who knows how it will be implemented though. Maybe they'll even do a stacked deck variant for a week.

Tavern Brawl could definitely be pretty hype: It might get me to pay more attention to HS again.

[flugauto]

If there was a deck that could easily win against all comers the game would be boring. Removing degenerate cards/combos is good game design.

Blizzard puts more of this with every expansion. Patron Warrior is the thing of the day.

Fun to build, maybe, not fun to play. Though I probably wouldn't like making these without us being in a discussion over it to be honest.

Sorry for the distraction. It was fun. I guess it is time to put the discussion to an end then. But I will keep dreaming of non-random.

[Kuro]

If there was a deck that could easily win against all comers the game would be boring. Removing degenerate cards/combos is good game design.

Blizzard puts more of this with every expansion. Patron Warrior is the thing of the day.

Fun to build, maybe, not fun to play. Though I probably wouldn't like making these without us being in a discussion over it to be honest.

Sorry for the distraction. It was fun. I guess it is time to put the discussion to an end then. But I will keep dreaming of non-random.

Ahaha, well, discussing it isn't bad or anything. Though I probably will have to go soon, but discussing it is fun. It's just one of those things where I don't think my mind would be changed for anything long term (A week of it in Tavern Brawl could be fun simply because there's not enough time to figure anything out so people just so zany stuff).

[Cheater Hater]

If you want to see why OTKs are bad in general, look at Yu-Gi-Oh pre-Forbidden List. Even though deck fluidity was virtually non-existent (40 cards without resources, 3-of limit, many other cards restricted, card draw non-existent/restricted), OTKs were so frequent they needed to finally start banning a lot.

Of course, Yu-Gi-Oh has a lot of other problems, mostly the lack of a resource system (except for Tributes, which were so unpowered in the early part of the game it was a joke--they've tried to graft on a lot of other resource systems, and I guess it kinda worked?) and the lack of rotation. The second one could hit Hearthstone in particular--since nothing rotates out, the Yu-Gi-Oh banned/restricted (/semi-restricted, which is a mess in itself) is a mile long. Granted, Hearthstone has a lot of ways it can try to mitigate these problems, mostly the glacially slow rate of set releases, as well as card errata (which apparently Yu-Gi-Oh is trying, at least in Japan--I have no idea how that is practical at all, and even MTG has removed most power-level errata at this point), but it still will be an eventual problem.

[uberfish]

It's easier to fix broken cards when all the cards are online anyway.

[Cheater Hater]

It's easier to fix broken cards when all the cards are online anyway.

The question is how far will they go back? For example, when they have to nerf Big Game Hunter three years from now (and they will, if they ever want to be able to print playable big creatures), will they? Or will they just make a new revision to the basic set? What about if they finally decide that Silence makes it impossible to print good static effects on creatures and change it a bit--the game is already balanced around that, so they'd rather rotate cards than tweak 50+, right?

[Dantski]

I was thinking about whats the latest card changes Blizzard has made.

March 2015 - Bane of Doom can summon more than just the basic demons that existed on release

January 2015 - Undertaker changed to only give +1 attack

December 2014 - Flare costs 2 mana
Auctioneer costs 6 mana
Soulfire costs 1 mana
GvG release meant some old cards were now classed as Mech
Druid of the Claw is now classed as a Beast

September 2014 - Leeroy costs 5 mana
Starving Buzzard costs 5 mana and is a 3/2 minion

and so on...

Blizzard doesn't seem that interested in tweaking bad cards as only one card has been buffed (some might say fixed) in the past year while 7 have been weakened (Eaglehorn bow is the one not on the above list from last July). Also there hasn't been a single card change since March which is somewhat worrying IMO since Hearthstone can be very repetitive and changing card's relative strength on a more regular basis would spice things up.

[flugauto]

Cards change their cost every day. By Emperor Thaurissan.