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Author Topic: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?  (Read 611737 times)

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Obi Wan Bonogi

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Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« on: August 21, 2013, 12:08:06 am »
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A friend of mine told me that the closed beta is going very well.  Browsing around Twitch.tv I see it has big viewership, Kripparian grabbing 10k+ viewers while playing the game. 

Has anyone explored the rules and mechanics of this game yet?  I will probably take the time to learn the basics some time later this week out of curiosity, even though I've heard the beta is difficult to get in.
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Kirian

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2013, 09:02:42 am »
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I've not really been interested in joining the beta... partly because I was in the Kickstarter for one of its direct competitors (Hex).  Everything I've heard about the two suggests that HS is more casual, but therefore doesn't have the complexity of mechanics.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2013, 08:08:24 pm »
+1

I'm playing the beta. I was never a serious TCG player, so I can't tell you if it's too much for noobs or not. Seems interesting enough to me. It's not dumbed down to the point of Yugi-oh or something.

The problem is only the rate at which you get new cards I think. Booster packs, which contain only 5 cards, cost 100 in game gold, and you get gold at a rate of 5 per 5 per games + 40 per daily "quest", which is something like "win 3 games" or "kill 40 minions" or "do 100 damage to heroes" or something like that. 5-card packs seems small, but I guess it's okay since there's no mana cards. Mana is just accumulated at a rate of 1 per turn for the first 10 turns, then stays at 10 forever (unless you use some card abilities to change that), so the cards are all actual cards that do stuff.

Oh, you can also spend 150 gold entering the "arena" where you build and play a deck from random cards, and win "prizes" including possibly packs, gold, and "dust" which is supposedly used for crafting, but I haven't figured that out yet. I don't know the payout scale for the arena, but it's probably better than 1 pack per 100 gold if you're reasonably aware of what you're doing. So far I've only tried once, went 4-3, gold 1 pack  and maybe 40 gold and 100 dust.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2013, 08:14:55 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2013, 05:39:49 pm »
+2

It's a business, not a charity.  You're supposed to want to shell out for more cards.

I got a beta key today, installing right now actually.  Let's say, I know a guy.  Toying with the idea of setting up a stream this weekend, so maybe you could watch a Dominion-er playing it. 

While I am fortunate to have gotten a key, I definitely don't like the way keys get distributed.  They don't really give them out at random to people who register for the HS beta on battle.net, or even give them to their most loyal customers.  And I don't know how they get it, but streamers apparently have these extra keys they can offer for lottery giveaways, like, it's almost as if just to *#@$ with people hoping to get one.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2013, 05:43:38 pm by popsofctown »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2013, 02:26:35 pm »
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After playing it a lot (at the expensive of Dominion), I'm actually pretty happy with how Hearthstone is, including the flow of gold. They have set up an interesting dynamic between gold, dust, packs, play mode, and arena. You play play mode to complete quests and get gold. You spend the gold to play arena, which gets you packs, dust, and more gold. You use the packs and dust to improve the decks you use to play in play mode so you can still have fun while trying to earn more gold for arenas. It's just the initial ramp that's a little tough, since you have no cards to make enough fun decks for play mode and no gold to play arena. But if you either seed yourself $10-$20 or grind a few quests with decks made of mostly basic cards, you can easily get to the point where you're having fun all the time.
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2013, 05:46:20 pm »
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Played my first two hours today.  What's not to like about the starting kit?  I built a mage deck out of the starting cards, got that 2/8 dude that gains 3 attack whenever he takes damage, so I could shoot my own 1 damage fireballs at him for hilariousness.  How is that NOT fun?!
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2013, 07:38:06 pm »
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Well the problem is that you have to play a lot of games with the same cards, so you don't have that much deck variety. It's like base set Dominion is fun for a while, then you kind of want the expansions.
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2013, 08:25:12 pm »
+1

Well the problem is that you have to play a lot of games with the same cards, so you don't have that much deck variety. It's like base set Dominion is fun for a while, then you kind of want the expansions.

There's 9 classes though, that's 9 decks at least.  If you don't want to play some of those 9 because they are weak, that's a beta balance issue, not a structural issue.  It's like, when League of Legends first came out, it was super imbalanced, so the free ten champs for the weak might be Jax, Malphite, Viegar, Alistar, Soraka, Janna, Annie, Fiddlesticks, Anivia, Ashe.  So if you didn't own some other champs from grinding it would be kind of stale once you rather quickly figured out which of those were decent.
Nowadays, newbies have 10 random champs to choose from, and sometimes one of them is urgot so there's only really 9, but usually none of them is urgot so they are good to go (Urgot is the name of one of few Scouts in league, not lingo.).  So league is balanced enough now that it is offering ~100% more variety with the same initial configuration.  For both Hearthstone and League it is the smart way to go here, if League just upped it to 20 champs to band-aid their issue, they would have had to throttle back to 10 champs later once the game was balanced in order to provide any incentive at all for casual players to drop cash on the game, and throttling back produces outcry and players quitting during the adjustment shock. 

I spent way too much text pre-empting an argument you might not even make, but oh well.  Procrastinating homework can cause that.  I have played like 10 f2p iTCGs at this point, so I feel like I am more and more able to see the patterns in success and failure. 
« Last Edit: September 25, 2013, 08:27:11 pm by popsofctown »
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2013, 12:50:51 pm »
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After playing it a lot (at the expensive of Dominion), I'm actually pretty happy with how Hearthstone is, including the flow of gold. They have set up an interesting dynamic between gold, dust, packs, play mode, and arena. You play play mode to complete quests and get gold. You spend the gold to play arena, which gets you packs, dust, and more gold. You use the packs and dust to improve the decks you use to play in play mode so you can still have fun while trying to earn more gold for arenas. It's just the initial ramp that's a little tough, since you have no cards to make enough fun decks for play mode and no gold to play arena. But if you either seed yourself $10-$20 or grind a few quests with decks made of mostly basic cards, you can easily get to the point where you're having fun all the time.

So far I've seemed to have discovered the comical third option, that is, so far I've been going roughly infinite in arenas.  (I think I might be losing a slight amount of gold on average, but it is more than offset by Quest Rewards that just trigger during the arena)

Maybe it's beginner's luck
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2013, 03:39:37 pm »
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HME what's your Hearthstone username?
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2013, 02:32:28 pm »
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Has no one gotten in from the new beta waves?  They're sending out waves of invites every day to people who opted in on their battle.net accounts. 
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Kirian

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2013, 03:57:15 pm »
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Has no one gotten in from the new beta waves?  They're sending out waves of invites every day to people who opted in on their battle.net accounts. 

Not me.  I'll assume it's because I cancelled my WOW account a while ago.
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Jerk of All trades

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2013, 05:39:21 pm »
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Been in the Beta for quite a while now, it's fun, but there are a few problems:

1) The game is totally pay-to-win. There are 3/2 (cost 2) cards with no special text and cards with identical base stats but potentially VERY powerful abilities. (Knife juggler I'm looking at you).  The game claims to have match-making based on player level, but numerous times I've used my mostly-base cards deck and been slaughtered by custom decks with units that are strictly superior to my own.

2) If you decide to "earn" cards/gold by playing and questing, almost all of the quests require winning against other players. And you only get gold for wins. So before the last wipe I was totally frustrated.  I had crappy cards, and couldn't complete any quests or get any gold/wins because I lost probably 4/5 games I played.  After the wipe, things have been better, fewer decks with all rare cards.

3) The game is EXTREMELY luck based.  There are some cards that can be useless or totally game breaking depending on a random roll of the die. Instantly gain control of a random minion, or play a random minion from your opponents deck.  And, largely the game is all about getting the right counter-card at the right time. And quite a few games come down to luck, with just a little skill. There are 3 card combos that can do 20 damage before your opponent can even react.
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Titandrake

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #13 on: October 22, 2013, 07:47:37 pm »
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Just got a beta key. I'm DLing the game, I'm looking for something to replace Dominion because that's starting to get a bit boring and this seems like it might be worth it.
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #14 on: October 22, 2013, 09:18:09 pm »
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I enjoy it
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #15 on: October 23, 2013, 01:33:43 am »
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I have to admit the payment model doesn't feel as fun as LoL
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #16 on: October 29, 2013, 10:51:56 am »
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After playing a lot and talking to other people, I think the problem with the progression is that it's really rough on you when you're just starting if you're not generally good at card games like this. If you're losing, it's hard to get gold at all to get more cards, and even if you have a low MMR, there are people who are really bad but paid a lot of money and can still beat you with better cards, so that can be frustrating.

There should probably be a way to gain gold without having to beat other people, or a way to stratify matchmaking based on total dust value of your deck, because losing against someone better than you with similar cards doesn't feel as bad as losing to someone bad with amazing cards.

However, once you get past the beginning stages, it's a lot of fun. I basically just play arena, where you can get a chance to play with all kinds of different cards without having to actually acquire them.
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2013, 11:14:07 pm »
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After playing a lot and talking to other people, I think the problem with the progression is that it's really rough on you when you're just starting if you're not generally good at card games like this. If you're losing, it's hard to get gold at all to get more cards, and even if you have a low MMR, there are people who are really bad but paid a lot of money and can still beat you with better cards, so that can be frustrating.

There should probably be a way to gain gold without having to beat other people, or a way to stratify matchmaking based on total dust value of your deck, because losing against someone better than you with similar cards doesn't feel as bad as losing to someone bad with amazing cards.

However, once you get past the beginning stages, it's a lot of fun. I basically just play arena, where you can get a chance to play with all kinds of different cards without having to actually acquire them.

You can grind for a week and have a top tier UTH deck if you want, though.  So like, why not just do that if you're losing to legendaries? 26 commons and 4 rares. 

Having more cards allows you more choices of which kind of deck to play, but it only provides you more power until you reach the scant amount of collecting required for UTH. 

I mostly play UTH now when I'm not goofing off because I don't have to feel like I lost a game because I'm missing a rare I need.
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Kirian

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2013, 10:17:25 am »
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So I got a beta key, apparently in a large wave of beta keys.  And the game is unplayable for a lot of people.

Which is amusing, because right now Blizzard's beta testing looks about as good as Goko's launch.
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popsofctown

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2013, 03:11:09 pm »
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So I got a beta key, apparently in a large wave of beta keys.  And the game is unplayable for a lot of people.

Which is amusing, because right now Blizzard's beta testing looks about as good as Goko's launch.

There's a big difference between the standard of quality between a launch and a beta.  The product is not declared launched yet.
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Kirian

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #20 on: October 30, 2013, 03:41:38 pm »
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So I got a beta key, apparently in a large wave of beta keys.  And the game is unplayable for a lot of people.

Which is amusing, because right now Blizzard's beta testing looks about as good as Goko's launch.

There's a big difference between the standard of quality between a launch and a beta.  The product is not declared launched yet.

Yes, I know.  What I said was less than flattering to Goko.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #21 on: October 30, 2013, 05:29:38 pm »
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So I got a beta key, apparently in a large wave of beta keys.  And the game is unplayable for a lot of people.

Which is amusing, because right now Blizzard's beta testing looks about as good as Goko's launch.

If by "about as good", you mean so much better it's not even close, then I agree. The interface can be confusing, and there's some crashing, but it's at least not painful to play.
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Watno

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #22 on: October 30, 2013, 05:32:05 pm »
+1

I have to admit the payment model doesn't feel as fun as LoL
It sure doesn't sound as fun as the one of Dota 2
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Kirian

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #23 on: October 30, 2013, 09:23:39 pm »
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So I got a beta key, apparently in a large wave of beta keys.  And the game is unplayable for a lot of people.

Which is amusing, because right now Blizzard's beta testing looks about as good as Goko's launch.

If by "about as good", you mean so much better it's not even close, then I agree. The interface can be confusing, and there's some crashing, but it's at least not painful to play.


...

My play experience has so far involved having to go on Blizzard's forums to find out how to get the download to run (which required deleting files on my HD), then getting it installed and being unable to do anything--the "Click to Start" screen does nothing.

So, no, I'd say that so far my experience has actually been worse than Goko's launch.  But it's somewhat forgivable because it's beta.

Again, this wasn't a knock on Blizzard... I mean, I spent eight years playing WOW and it was a fine experience.
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Jdaki

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Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?
« Reply #24 on: October 31, 2013, 08:02:35 am »
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I am completely addicted to this now. I had the Click to do nothing problem to begin with but not last couple of days. It is still clearly not Blizzard polished yet but the basics and the game mechanics seem in place.
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