Magic: The Combattening - Hearthstone

[schild]

Don't ask what happened to the other thread.

Anyway, I got a key. It's not the worst thing ever. I'm on the fence about it because the ENTIRE game is combat math. However, it's a nice diversion that may have more depth in the longterm than I suspected.

I'm also trying to get some keys to giveaway.

ANYWAY: I guess I'm schild#1679

[Druzil]

I watched quite a bit of this on twitch and it does look fun.  My only concern is that if I keep watching streams and public access is months away I'll be bored of it before I even get to play    I guess I could quit watching, it but man stream are addicting!

Also I think the arena format makes it more interesting than just constructed decks, so hopefully that will be playable without too much investment.

[sickrubik]

I wouldn't mind giving it a shot, really.

The only big problem I have is that the UI seems... a bit much.

[Nebu]

Were I not in two other betas, I'd be very interested in this.  I hope that we can get some updates in this thread.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I would love a key.  Income ha been way too risky lately for any substantial games so a fun beta is what I need.

[schild]

I will probably stream this later this week.

[schild]

The worst part about Hearthstone is that they made lifegain a little relevant.

I'm sorry but winning competitive games is about killing the opponent, not delaying death. It teaches players bad habits for other games.

[Falconeer]

Would love a key if it ever happened.

[Hutch]

Don't ask what happened to the other thread.

Anyway, I got a key.

These two sentences are related, aren't they.

I signed up for the beta on battle.net months ago, like an obedient little zug-zug, and nothing. edit: keep your keys.

edit: grammars

[schild]

I said don't ask, chuckles. THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT MIGHT DO TO ANY KEY CHANCE YOU MIGHT GET, OBEDIENT LITTLE ZUG-ZUG.

[K9]

Don't ask what happened to the other thread.

I almost did this morning 

The worst part about Hearthstone is that they made lifegain a little relevant.

I'm sorry but winning competitive games is about killing the opponent, not delaying death. It teaches players bad habits for other games.

But they need to recreate the authentic solo-Priest PvP experience from WoW, which mainly involved running around healing yourself like mad praying for something else to come along and kill your opponent.

Anyhow, grats on the key, I look forward to hearing your take on it!

[schild]

Frostwolf Warlord shows a flaw in their static management of power/toughness. it says "Gets +1/+1 for each other friendly minion on the battlefield. Killed the other minions, it didn't lose any power or toughness. Meh.

[Ingmar]

Can you put the Warcraft thing back in the title, because I got confused and excited at first and thought you got into some kind of beta for Stonehearth.

[schild]

Done-ish.

[MrHat]

I will probably stream this later this week.

Let me know when you do.  I've been watching streams in the background a bit while working and it seems entertaining enough.

[Simond]

European closed beta apparently started today, btw.

[Tannhauser]

I'm jealous, signed up for beta weeks ago.  Interested in your analysis.

[Teleku]

Interested in a key.  Need a fix until Hex comes along. 

[schild]

No one actually needs to say the want  a key. Like, if I get some ill post. If I dont, I wont.

[schild]

I've played a good deal of this.

The best description I can come up with is it's like, an 8 year olds interpretation of Magic with cards still designed by professionals.

There's a good deal of balance in the set, but the arena is basically drafting for morons. Also, you're paying $2.00 and don't get to keep the cards you pick, so that blows.

There's 5 cards in a pack, so it's basically worse than YuGiOh in that regard. Also, there's no secondary market.

Finally, the whole thing is a little goofy in that while Blizzard will make money, they're leaving a shitload of money on the table. I can't bring myself to think this was probably intended to be INSIDE of World of Warcraft and then they decided to spin it outside of that as the popularity of WoW was beginning to wane. Also, due to the assbackwards logic of MBAs in gaming, I assume the Diablo 3 RMAH scared them away from doing that again, which would be a super unfortunate mistake.

It's basically half a game. It would be a full game if the concept of CCGs didn't exist the way it does.

[sickrubik]

Is there currently any sort of trading system at least?

[Merusk]

No point in it if you don't keep the cards you're drafting.

Unless I misunderstood what Schild was saying there.  So can you purchase get packs separately from Drafts for like one on one play?

[sickrubik]

I don't know much about Hearthstone's stuff, but I assumed that there would be both Draft and Constructed formats.

[schild]

The only constructed format right now is ranked play. It's... pretty anemic because the game is pretty anemic. I mean, it's like "fun" but not the same sort of brain-curdling adhesive fun that Magic is - but they can fix that maybe, over time, through depth of the card pool.

No, you don't get to keep the cards from the arena. You have to buy packs or craft cards to get cards. Or win packs.

There's no trading system nor does it look like there will be one. IN FACT, there's no in-game chat.

[K9]

No point in it if you don't keep the cards you're drafting.

Unless I misunderstood what Schild was saying there.  So can you purchase get packs separately from Drafts for like one on one play?

In the Arena mode you play until you've either lost three times, or won nine (might be nine games total, I'm not in beta so I can't say for sure). At the end you get five prizes that scale with the number of wins you achieved. The prizes are a mix of card packs, dust (used for creating cards), and gold. The cost to play arena is $2 or 150 gold, and I think the break-even point (given that a card pack costs 100gold I think), is only three wins, but I haven't seen enough Arena VODs that go to completion to be sure.

I guess they use this format because it allows them to keep the price of entry to arena low, which is more appealing. Since you need 12 packs to play, the fact that you're only paying ~1 packs cost as an entry fee means that it's less of a commitment to play I'm guessing. I'm not a TCG person, but I would consider playing arena for $2 for more appealing than $24, even if the overall gains per run were smaller.

You can also disenchant surplus cards and use the resultant dust to create other cards. I think you generally get 1/8th the dust value back by disenchanting; with costs of 40, 100, 400, and 1000 for crafting cards (I think?) depending on rarity.

My hunch is that they're aiming to make this more casual. Arena isn't supposed to be the same as what I understand draft to be. It's not supposed to be something where you commit and evening and a wedge of cash to play x players in a tournament, I think it's supposed to be much more drop-in drop-out.

I can't say how well it will continue with more cards, and I'll readily defer to schild's experience with card games here, but I suspect that despite the lack of trading, the crafting system is designed to make it possible for everyone to get every card, or at least every card they want. Certain evidence to the contrary, when it comes to multiplayer and e-sports Blizz has shown a tendency to favour some playfield levelling. Consider Starcraft where everyone has access to all the same units, or those WoW arena servers where you had access to every item in the game off the bat. These may be anecdotal, but I suspect the inherent lack of balance is one reason Blizzard has been a bit down on Diablo 3 PvP (complete guesswork and speculation all).

[schild]

Crafting is actually 1/4.

At least at the top end. 400 for crafting a rare. 100 for disenchanting one. I think the 4:1 ratio goes through all rarities.

The crafting system (and the rate at which you gain gold) is abhorrently slow for a game with no actual economy. Like, Farmville slow.

[sickrubik]

The only constructed format right now is ranked play. It's... pretty anemic because the game is pretty anemic. I mean, it's like "fun" but not the same sort of brain-curdling adhesive fun that Magic is - but they can fix that maybe, over time, through depth of the card pool.

No, you don't get to keep the cards from the arena. You have to buy packs or craft cards to get cards. Or win packs.

There's no trading system nor does it look like there will be one. IN FACT, there's no in-game chat.

I am positive I saw in-game chat in someone else's stream.

Okay, so at least we have constructed and packs, but not having a trading system is weird. Even if it's a simple "send this card to someone". Hurrrm.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Some stuff can be fixed, like adding a more expensive draft mode in addition to arena but I'm with Schild in that my main concerns are card trading and the fact that you may as well be playing against a computer for the amount of actual human interaction.

Seriously, what's up with blizzard and wanting online games to have as little interaction with other people as possible?

[schild]

You can chat with friends, you can not seem to chat with the opponent.

[schild]

Also, for those of you that are magic players. I basically built UR Counterburn and I'm something like 15-3. But have no counters. But it's not just burn.

Ok, it's just Delver.

[schild]

Make that 16-4. Turns out there are Overrun effects style effects. Did not know that.

WHICH BRINGS US TO ANOTHER PROBLEM. There's 9 different champions. Each with their own subset of cards. Like, unique to that champion. So, 1, you have way more information in this game than you would in Magic before the game even starts. And 2, it weakens the entire card pool by imposing obnoxious unnecessary limitations. Certainly made balance easier though, since they could literally match hero up against each hero instead of accounting for any sort of deck possible across a completely open card pool of 350.

[Lakov_Sanite]

How do you feel about the smaller deck sizes and 2card limits?

[schild]

30 cards decks + 30ish life is kind of stupid. Armor is a mechanic I do not like. The 2 card limits were also likely a development choice as it weakens decks.

[schild]

Just nuked like 80% of my cards to craft Archmage Leonidas, who is just plain bonkers. I gave Blizzard $50 of my American dollars (so full disclosure there). Anyway, uh

I didn't get it.

Not the best of situations in a beta where they take money.

[schild]

So, there's no uncommons in this game.

I just realized it. Packs have 1 Rare, which is actually uncommon. Epics are Rare. Legendaries are mythic, except their distribution is 1 in 100 instead of 1 in 8.

Without an internal economy, it's just going to be crap deck on top of crap deck.