Magic: The Combattening - Hearthstone

[KallDrexx]

I know this is going to cause rage but it's a genuine question I have.

How is RNG *not* a big factor in MTG?  I mean, I admit my only experience with it is playing Magic 2014 with its premade decks, but while I can definitely point to times when I won or lost due to the strategy I employed  I can also point to a bunch of times I had terrible draws which caused me to lose, or perfectly time draws that allowed me to push through to a win.  

Is it just because MTG has more meta opportunities for deck building?

[Ingmar]

It's a factor but it isn't the primary factor. It's important for games like that to HAVE random elements, because otherwise you get chess where the better player wins 99% of the time and people will just quit. The issue with Hearthstone is not that it has randomness, it's that the randomness is a bigger chunk of the outcome than it probably should be. There are a lot fewer places in Hearthstone for skill to make a difference in the outcome than in Magic.

EDIT: Randomness in Magic is more akin to randomness in poker. In Hearthstone it feels closer to Blood Bowl, and as much as I enjoy league play in BB it isn't really in the zone for a game that should be played competitively at an eSport level.

[Job601]

The game can have a lot of variance for top players  even though there is also a lot of skill involved.  At professional magic tournaments where every player is very good the best decks and players win about 60% of the time; a well-set up deck will still lose to manascrew or bad draws a substantial percentage of the time.  Maybe there's a little more variance in Hearthstone, but I'm not convinced of that, and even if it's true there's plenty of room for there to be a skill ceiling the vast majority of players won't reach.

[Paelos]

 

[lamaros]

Yeah I'm not convinced on the magic claims either.

Of course any game with random elements gets pushed towards them when skill is balanced, but I'm not convinced that magic has as many points for skill differentiation to make randomness not a significant factor across a few skill bands. (Based mostly off consistency in results for top players.)

[Ingmar]

Every single place that Magic has player interaction is a place it distances itself from Hearthstone, IMO. And that's a lot of places.

[Xilren's Twin]

I know this is going to cause rage but it's a genuine question I have.
How is RNG *not* a big factor in MTG?  I mean, I admit my only experience with it is playing Magic 2014 with its premade decks, but while I can definitely point to times when I won or lost due to the strategy I employed  I can also point to a bunch of times I had terrible draws which caused me to lose, or perfectly time draws that allowed me to push through to a win.  
Is it just because MTG has more meta opportunities for deck building?

Just a  couple of comments.  Mtg and hearthstone share the structure in that to win you really need 3 things: a good deck, playskill, and luck.  Being a card game, of course luck plays a large role, but there is also no question that the best players leverage their deck choice/construction skills and playskill to try and minimize the impact luck has on their results.

While HS does eliminate one whole section of luck with their mana mechanic, it added a giant luck factor in the lack of a true best of 3 matches.  Yes, in HS or Magic almost anyone can win 1 game if their opponent has bad luck (mana flood/screw or just not drawing well), but it's much reduced when you have to repeat 2 more games vs the same player and deck.  The odds of having such bad luck 2-3 games in a row is much less and allows the deck construction and play skills to come to the fore.  Even in drafts/sealed, MtG has matches as opposed to single games (and of course sideboarding plays a big role as well).  So for that reason, i think the setup of MtG is actually less luck based than HS, but at the end of the day they arent trying to do the same thing from a game complexity standpoint.  Tomato tomatoe.

 

[KallDrexx]

While HS does eliminate one whole section of luck with their mana mechanic, it added a giant luck factor in the lack of a true best of 3 matches.  Yes, in HS or Magic almost anyone can win 1 game if their opponent has bad luck (mana flood/screw or just not drawing well), but it's much reduced when you have to repeat 2 more games vs the same player and deck.  The odds of having such bad luck 2-3 games in a row is much less and allows the deck construction and play skills to come to the fore.  Even in drafts/sealed, MtG has matches as opposed to single games (and of course sideboarding plays a big role as well).  So for that reason, i think the setup of MtG is actually less luck based than HS, but at the end of the day they arent trying to do the same thing from a game complexity standpoint.  Tomato tomatoe.

That actually makes a lot of sense thanks.

[luckton]

For those that still haven't played and were too busy/lazy to sign up via Battle.net for inclusion into the closed beta that everyone eventually got into, the Open Beta just launched.  Enjoy?

[koro]

I am so godawful at this I get curbstomped by the brain-dead AI.

But it's shockingly amusing.

[Simond]

I am so godawful at this I get curbstomped by the brain-dead AI.

But it's shockingly amusing.

Handy tip I think I mentioned earlier in the thread: Once you're out of the tutorial, you can swap to a custom (i.e. not completely terrible) mage deck to unlock the rest of the classes.

[Rasix]

How does one get an invitation to this?

[luckton]

How does one get an invitation to this?

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/

[koro]

I am so godawful at this I get curbstomped by the brain-dead AI.

But it's shockingly amusing.

Handy tip I think I mentioned earlier in the thread: Once you're out of the tutorial, you can swap to a custom (i.e. not completely terrible) mage deck to unlock the rest of the classes.

I've got all the classes unlocked and Mage and Rogue up to 12-ish. I mostly just don't know how to build a proper custom deck with the cards I have available to me, and either I'm absolutely atrocious at this game, or Blizzard's card suggestions in the deck builder are shit.

[Rasix]

How does one get an invitation to this?

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/

Ohh, derp.  Not sure how I missed the big "PLAY NOW" on the page.  Last page I looked at 2 days ago made it seem like this was invite only, closed beta still.  Heh.

edit: Double derp.  I guess it just went open beta. 

[Paelos]

It's fun. I managed to not fuck up the tutorials or my play matches so far.

[Mithas]

I managed to get my mage deck to be decent. I was winning more than 50% of my matches, but after reading it seems like mages may be OP at this point. Now I don't feel so good about myself.

[Paelos]

I find myself liking the game a lot more than anticipated. The speed and simplicity of it will do well.

[Hoax]

I know one person out of 20-30 who still felt like that past a week or three of playing. Game gets really boring really fast. It will do well but it will be interesting to see how well with all the good will Blizz has lost over Diablo3 and WoW getting old.

[Ironwood]

Motherfucking North American Fucking Bullshit.

[Merusk]

It would have taken you until next Satuday to patch anyway.

[K9]

I would have installed this, but battle.net is so secure I can't even log into my own account, authenticator and all... 

[Falconeer]

I know one person out of 20-30 who still felt like that past a week or three of playing. Game gets really boring really fast.

I don't represent anybody but myself, but I would agree. Big crush for 10 days, haven't touched it in 3 weeks.

[Severian]

What's supposed to keep casual players engaged after the initial crush wanes is the lust for random interesting cards obtained via Daily Quests; a new pack of five cards every two days from a few wins a day.
For those who lose interest... it is what it is.

[Quinton]

The daily quests just feel way to grindy to me.  I really dislike the pressure "log in and do something every day" to get the resources you need to play or whatnot.  And yeah, count me as another who found it pretty shiny and polished but not deep enough to keep me engaged past a week.

I appreciate the polish and the quick play, but having played some MTGO over the past week (and it certainly has a whole mess of problems), stuff like being able to cast Act of Treason on the other guy's Serra Angel, attack him with it, and then use the Blood Bairn that he made can't-attack/can't-block with Pacifism sacrifice it while it was in my control is just massively more interesting.  I find I have more fun *losing* MTGO games than winning Hearthstone games.

[Ironwood]

It would have taken you until next Satuday to patch anyway.

That's the annoying thing ;  I got BT Infinity installed this week.  This game took 5 minutes to install and Rift another 10.

And one I couldn't play and the other was pants.

 

[Rokal]

The daily quests just feel way to grindy to me.  I really dislike the pressure "log in and do something every day" to get the resources you need to play or whatnot.  And yeah, count me as another who found it pretty shiny and polished but not deep enough to keep me engaged past a week.

You can let them stack up and often you'll be able to knock out 2-3 quests at once. You can also complete quests while playing arena, which is the only mode in the game with lasting appeal IMO. I like that they've taken a big part of what makes drafting fun (improvising a deck) and condensed it into a much shorter time span.

[Simond]

Motherfucking North American Fucking Bullshit.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/blue-tracker/topic/4705-hearthstone-open-beta-is-here

The wait is over: The Hearthstone Open Beta Test is now live in Europe! If you haven’t joined in on all of the crazy card-slinging action yet, now is your chance! Pull up a chair and prepare to start casting powerful spells, summoning mighty minions, and dueling your friends in a fast-paced strategy card game for everyone.

It’s been a crazy past few months for all of us on the Hearthstone team. We announced Hearthstone at PAX East back in March, began the Closed Beta Test in August, had a blast at BlizzCon with the Innkeeper’s Invitational, and we were excited to announce Android and iPhone support. Now we’re ready to unleash the awesomeness of Hearthstone to you with Open Beta.

So what does this mean for you? If you didn’t get the chance to participate in the Hearthstone Closed Beta Test, you can now download the game. Just click here to download Hearthstone, or you can use the Play Free Now button at the top of playhearthstone.com. We have no plans to perform any more card wipes, so feel free to amass your collection and play against your friends.

Open Beta is still not a final release, and we will be closely monitoring many aspects of the game to ensure a positive play experience for everyone. Please be aware that if smoke starts curling out of our servers due to unexpectedly high demand for Hearthstone, we may have to temporarily disable Open Beta account activations until we’re ready to take on more players.

Download, play and enjoy Hearthstone now - we’ll see you in-game!

[Ironwood]

YAY.

Thanks man.  The wife gave me shit for getting her hopes up.

[Paelos]

I opened all the classes last night. Now to get the basic cards.

I don't really know how to build a deck so i'm not bothering with it yet.

[Tmon]

I downloaded this a couple days ago and the first night "one more matched" my way into a fight with my wife.  But it didn't stick, by the second day I played about 8 matches and this morning I realized that  I was never going to buy anything and that grinding out quests so I could play more arena wasn't something I was going to do so I uninstalled.  The game was ok but it felt like I was playing some kind of Magic Tutorial that hadn't quite got to teaching you about instants and timing.

[Druzil]

I opened all the classes last night. Now to get the basic cards.

I don't really know how to build a deck so i'm not bothering with it yet.

Once you get all the basic cards you can google "Trumps basic rogue deck" (or whatever class) and he has some really solid decks you can use to get started.  You can win quite a few games with them until you have enough cards to start making real decks.  They don't hold up forever but they are miles ahead of the decks you start with.

[Rokal]

I opened all the classes last night. Now to get the basic cards.

I don't really know how to build a deck so i'm not bothering with it yet.

There is a "suggest a card" button for the deck creation page. YMMV. Since you don't need to worry about mana, decks are only 30 cards, and the mechanics are way less complex than Magic, it's pretty simple to throw together something that doesn't completely suck.

A simple way to start would be to make sure your deck has a good mana/cost-curve (not all 7-energy cards, in other words), make sure you have at least a couple control cards (hex, polymorph, etc.), and then just pick cards that aren't awful. You can make something more specific down the road once you're comfortable and have more unlocked.

[Rasix]

It's so awesome when you decide to play arena and they give you absolutely no control cards at all.   I feel like I'm getting RNG'd in the rear.

This is an interesting diversion.  I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I want to be spend money, because a) it's really, really grindy and b) I'm pretty awful at card games (having never really played any).

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's so awesome when you decide to play arena and they give you absolutely no control cards at all.   I feel like I'm getting RNG'd in the rear.

This is an interesting diversion.  I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I want to be spend money, because a) it's really, really grindy and b) I'm pretty awful at card games (having never really played any).

I fucking hate arena so much.  Oh, give my mage maybe one blue teir card, give my opposing mage two pyroblasts?  Brilliant!