Hearthstone Reveals Single-Player Adventure Mode

[Fanghawk]

Hearthstone Reveals Single-Player Adventure Mode

[http://pv.webbyawards.com/2014/web/general-website/games-related]

Permalink

 

[flarty]

Just got into this last week and i adore it, i can't stop playing it, I've even stopped playing titanfall to play this. Its truly digital crack!

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

I'm stoked for a new way to get cards that doesn't involve just buying boosters. With this I can save my gold to unlock new wings that are a completely different type of challenge than regular PvP. Looking at the few sample cards, it's pretty obvious that we'll have to go in to the raids, learn the fights, and then get to have the fun of crafting our decks to deal with very specific threats. The sample cards based around necromancy are going to be a pain to deal with, but my guess is that many of them will be raid rewards. The metagame is going to get completely changed by cards that enhance abilities. I'm glad that they look to be more than just new 3/3 bodies to play with. Let the gimmick decks emerge!

 

[Falterfire]

The one thing that bugs me about digital TCGs is that usually there's a lack of quality PvE content. If this is any good I'll definitely jump back into Hearthstone.

PvE really gives TCGs a chance to show off their strengths. Anonymous multiplayer basically requires you to always tune your deck to optimal strength and build to the meta, which means that there are a bunch of strategies which automatically have to be ignored just because the optimal build isn't that good. PvE gives players a place to use those strategies..

 

[dharmaBum0]

I love HS but once you've built a big collection, it begins to get stale. This is to be expected for a brand-new card game, so it's good to see them eager to expand the card pool. I'd like to see some more development of the class-only cards to give classes more flavor.

I like that they're trying to evolve the meta with the deathrattle focus. The more I think about it, it could really shake up the game, considering how control focused and trade-happy most decks are.

 

[antidonkey]

Interesting. I'm enjoying the game a fair amount as it but this looks to add to the fun. I can only wonder how much in game gold each wing will cost.

 

[Ferisar]

YES
YES YES YES YES YES YES

I mean, reasonable response by a reasonable person, no anticipation here, none at all.

Now, in all honesty, I don't play Hearthstone too much because the pre-release streaming-train has spoiled me a bit, that and I played so much on someone else's account that getting my own felt like a grind to get everything again (which is fine, it's my fault). This will definitely make me want to get back into it. I love PvE content for card games.

... I mostly just like PvE content, in actuality.

 

[Chareater]

Looks like these new cards are going to make harvest golem even better! And more annoying.

 

[Vrach]

Saw this today, looking forward to it

I just wish they'd increase the amount of gold you get in a day. I get that they want to make money, but right now, unless you're an amazing Arena player (and even if you are, you still need a good bit of luck), it's pretty much impossible to play more than a single Arena match per day. And it's hard to get better at it exactly because you can just play it once a day.

I'm starting to get bored as the normal Play area is pretty much pay-to-win and even if you're good, you're gonna lose a lot of games when people start throwing legendaries at you and Arena cost being so high (and me not being an amazing player with every single deck to be able to routinely get enough wins to win back the money for it), the whole game turns into a bit of a boring grind.

 

[Ferisar]

I'm starting to get bored as the normal Play area is pretty much pay-to-win and even if you're good, you're gonna lose a lot of games when people start throwing legendaries at you and Arena cost being so high (and me not being an amazing player with every single deck to be able to routinely get enough wins to win back the money for it), the whole game turns into a bit of a boring grind.

It isn't, though. There's been plenty of examples at this point where people use their "free" account to reach legendary without using any money. Skill is pretty much the biggest factor in matches, even if some people have superior cards on average, it doesn't win the game for them. Of course you'll need more cards as you get up higher, but it isn't a requirement.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This is a fantastic addition to the game.

Just think of all the adventures (aka instances in WoW) that they can implement from that game, it's going to be glorious!

 

[AldUK]

It isn't, though. There's been plenty of examples at this point where people use their "free" account to reach legendary without using any money. Skill is pretty much the biggest factor in matches, even if some people have superior cards on average, it doesn't win the game for them. Of course you'll need more cards as you get up higher, but it isn't a requirement.

This is both true and false. I agree with you that skill is more of a factor than many people believe, since so many players simply play every card in their hands as soon as it is available. However there are cards in the game that can dramatically shift the direction of play, or squeeze out a sudden victory thanks to top-decking. And having those available to your deck is an advantage.

I did what most of my friends who play HS have done; I bought 40 boosters as a one-time purchase, effectively 'buying' the game. That gave me enough of a base to build upon using only in-game currency. I've been playing almost every day to complete the quests, do a little arena etc. Pretty casually. My best rank was 6 last season and I'm still missing a lot of legendaries and epics. But I enjoy the game and slowly but surely I am unlocking more cards.

 

[Ferisar]

It isn't, though. There's been plenty of examples at this point where people use their "free" account to reach legendary without using any money. Skill is pretty much the biggest factor in matches, even if some people have superior cards on average, it doesn't win the game for them. Of course you'll need more cards as you get up higher, but it isn't a requirement.

This is both true and false. I agree with you that skill is more of a factor than many people believe, since so many players simply play every card in their hands as soon as it is available. However there are cards in the game that can dramatically shift the direction of play, or squeeze out a sudden victory thanks to top-decking. And having those available to your deck is an advantage.

I did what most of my friends who play HS have done; I bought 40 boosters as a one-time purchase, effectively 'buying' the game. That gave me enough of a base to build upon using only in-game currency. I've been playing almost every day to complete the quests, do a little arena etc. Pretty casually. My best rank was 6 last season and I'm still missing a lot of legendaries and epics. But I enjoy the game and slowly but surely I am unlocking more cards.

I won't refute that, for sure, but it's part of the game. Not much they can do for a card collecting game, especially when the amount of cards is so finite. Of course having a better variety gives one party the advantage, but that also assumes they'll actually use it properly. Just saying it's not automatically p2w just because you can buy cards x)

 

[Malbourne]

For a while, I butted heads with some of the lower ranking players ever, but that was so long ago. All of my enjoyment of the game is vicarious now, so I'm just gonna conjecture! Not sure exactly how an adventure mode will pan out in terms of storyline, but whatever they're doing with it, it seems like a really good opportunity to teach players the finer points of the game's strategy. This is a really hefty package for the customers who pay for it, so it's nice a lot of production value went into it!

 

[softclocks]

I just worry about the whole wing-run business.

Will we have to pay for a single attempt at clearing it? As in, we lose against an npc and have to pay for another run? If so, then it's about as cash-grab as an 80s arcade machine.

 

[Vrach]

I'm starting to get bored as the normal Play area is pretty much pay-to-win and even if you're good, you're gonna lose a lot of games when people start throwing legendaries at you and Arena cost being so high (and me not being an amazing player with every single deck to be able to routinely get enough wins to win back the money for it), the whole game turns into a bit of a boring grind.

It isn't, though. There's been plenty of examples at this point where people use their "free" account to reach legendary without using any money. Skill is pretty much the biggest factor in matches, even if some people have superior cards on average, it doesn't win the game for them. Of course you'll need more cards as you get up higher, but it isn't a requirement.

I know, but it's hard going into it blind. With the random choice of hero and the random choice of cards, you pretty much have to know every single class and still get pretty lucky with the draft. If I started over with a new account today, I might actually be luckier with the Arena... you can get a lot of gold (though it's a one time thing) through the achievements and using that money better this time would probably let me play Arena for far longer than I did, thus getting more actual practice. But I blew a lot of it just wanting to get in and have some fun and now with the 1 arena run/day thing, it's hard to get noticeably better.

As for Play mode, yes, I've beaten a lot of guys throwing legendaries at me, despite only recently have gotten my first useful epic card (which I did by disenchanting almost all other epics I had). Hell, when I was doing my Hunter quest once (hunter not being my 'main' class), I damn near beat a Druid throwing some 4-5 legendaries at me. Yes, you have a chance and can outplay that kind of stuff, but the legendary cards still give you an awful lot of advantage. If you have a good player and one who's happy to buy a ton of packs, get a bunch of awesome cards and make a murder deck out of them, then good luck going against that.

 

[Norix596]

I'm a fan of most of the spoilers - a "deathrattle deck" might be neat - not so sure about the swords one though - negative/drawback death rattles certainly make for varied and interesting design, but I'm not sure this particular one is a very good tradeoff 4/4 for 3 and giving your opponent a card isn't very appealing when Injured Blademaster and King Mukla are around

 

[Vrach]

As for Play mode, yes, I've beaten a lot of guys throwing legendaries at me, despite only recently have gotten my first useful epic card (which I did by disenchanting almost all other epics I had). Hell, when I was doing my Hunter quest once (hunter not being my 'main' class), I damn near beat a Druid throwing some 4-5 legendaries at me. Yes, you have a chance and can outplay that kind of stuff, but the legendary cards still give you an awful lot of advantage. If you have a good player and one who's happy to buy a ton of packs, get a bunch of awesome cards and make a murder deck out of them, then good luck going against that.

Usually the cards that are required is dependent on what class you play. Warlocks and Hunters for example are really cheap to build decks for, because their class epics and legendaries are so-so. You can get away with just using common and rare cards in Hunter decks, and just murlocs and/or 1-2 cost minions with a few spells in a Warlock deck.

However, Warriors and Paladins are extremely expensive to build, because their class epics and legendaries are pivotal in their decks. Warriors require Brawl, Gorehowl and Shield Slam for decent removal, whereas Paladins require Sword of Justice for their minions and maybe one lay on hands for healing.

Did you just say Jaraxxus is a so-so card?

And yeah, rush decks usually work just fine with basic cards, but anything other than that usually requires a number of rares and a few epics. The legendaries are mostly there for backup... unless you have several of them, in which case it's only a matter of surviving long enough to throw them out and fubar your opponent.

My rating seems to have risen somewhat and lately I've been running into more and more people who throw out several legendaries at me during the game. Ragnaros himself is at worst an 8 damage spell, Ysera gives you at least one ridiculously powerful card (seriously, those green dragons in late game when you're topdecking? don't tell me that's not an advantage), I've seen Alexstrasza bring a guy back from the dead and Deathwing literally turned the game from "he's dead next turn" to "I'm dead this turn".

I agree some classes are more reliant on rarer cards, but a legendary card is almost always an upper hand, assuming a choice of a legendary card, which you can easily have if you're buying cards.

 

[Vrach]

In terms of fun and spamming emotes, Jaraxxus is amazing. But in terms of usefulness and competitive value, Jaraxxus is complete shit. He'll only win you games that you could have won without using him.

Jaraxxus takes your health to 15, and if your health is in trouble, the heal probably isn't going to save you. He has a 3/8 weapon, which while it seems amazing, Jaraxxus' health is too low too late in the game to use it much. Jaraxxus also costs 9 mana, and the infernals he summons don't have charge, so it takes him a full 2 turns to actually be worthwhile, which is a long time so late in the game.

The problems are as follows:
1) He allows you to damage yourself all you want - Life Tap each turn, throw your Flame Imps, clear the board with Hellfire - it doesn't matter, you have a "set health to 15" from him and he negates all that stuff.
2) You can't counter it in any shape or form. No removals, no nothing. Best you can do is throw an ooze to destroy his weapon, but do you really save an ooze for that against a Warlock (it's not like you know he has him)? Even if you do, you've got a useless card in your hand for a portion of the game. That late in the game, few people are going to have strong taunts going on (unless you're playing a Druid with huge taunts, but that's one class)
3) His Hero power is absolutely insane, 6/6 minion for the price of two mana. Yes, it takes two turns for him to use the infernal, but that's not necessarily the only card in his hand. In fact, it's highly unlikely it is, seeing as he life tapped like mad.

Yes, you can finish him off in those two turns sometimes. Sometimes you can't - for me, today was one of those times, I'd had gotten the Warlock to 3 health with a Pyroblast in my hand and some small minions on the table. But he had a Taunt to block the minions and I didn't have Malygos to do 15 damage with the Pyro

Class legendaries are powerful, sure, but if anything, that's the only card you should actually strive for. Even then, cards like Al'Akir, Edwin Vancleef and King Krush can all be lived without. The only class legendary I actually use is Al'Akir, even then I rarely end up playing him.

Krush's screwed me over far too many times, the fact he has charge makes him an 8 damage spell at worst for the cost of 9 mana - and your opponent needs to waste his own mana and a removal card next turn. Velen is awful if you don't have a removal instantly, he could potentially be the death of you in the next turn. Antonidas can be insane when coupled with some cheap spells at 10 mana (God forbid you have The Coin). So yeah, we agree, most of the class legendaries are pretty awesome.

Large finisher legendaries are the cards that you save your hex/polymorph/executes for (every class has a similar removal card), so they're really not that influencial in game outcomes. But really, every class will have small, medium and large removal spells.

Except when it's mostly based on doing something instantly. Deathwing clears the table, Ysera gives you at least one good card (those fucking green drakes...), Ragnaros smacks you for 8 health (unless you have minions on board) and so on. And once again, you're not limited to one legendary per deck. Good luck having enough removals for some 4 legendaries.

Small legendaries either come with risk, or they're slightly better than rare or common cards. Bloodmage Thalnos is a Kobold Geomancer with a single card draw. Leeroy is an Arcane Golem with +2 damage. Gelbin Mekkatorque's inventions generally always help your opponent too.

See where I'm going with this? Legendaries are better than common cards, yes, but they're not that pivotal. You can easily get by without legendaries. If anything, I'd say the only time a legendary will influence your deck in a big way is if you invest in one big class legendary to use as a finisher. Archmage Antonidas or Tyrion Fordring will generally boost your deck quite a lot, but something like Nat Pagle really won't make a difference.

Yeah, I know where you're going with it and I agree for the most part. Still, it feels an uphill battle when you have no legendaries and your opponent's chucking several at you. Most finishers finish you because by that time, you don't have much to deal with them (because you know, there are other cards that need removing too). Some small legendaries can give you a large boost early on if played right (or if your opponent simply didn't get the cards at start to deal with them, hi Pagle) and class legendaries are mostly murder. To not have any of that advantage and be fighting against someone who does... it doesn't make for a balanced scenario most of the time :\

 

[Vrach]

1. Not true. If you're damaging yourself so much using Life Tap and Flame Imps, the game will end before turn 9. Even if you get to turn 9, that's when it's most likely that your opponent will play a large minion, meaning that if you play Jaraxxus, you're risking them killing you in one turn. They certainly won't give you enough time to setup your infernals. The only time it's safe to play Jaraxxus is if your opponent has a dead hand and is just top decking, or if you have board control, in which case, you'd win even without playing Jaraxxus.

My point is, he's not sitting there twiddling his thumbs before he gets Jaraxxus. He can keep the board clean, force your removals and damage you. If you play him right, by the time you use him, you at least have board control or have forced your opponent into topdecking. I don't mean that he's an instant, non-situational "I win" card, but if he's played right (like most other cards), he can make a huge difference.

2. You can counter it. Every good deck should have some form of finisher. Personally, in my Shaman deck, I use Al'Akir and Rockbiter Weapon as a finisher. As a backup, I also have Azure Drakes and Flamebursts so if need be, I can do a large amount of damage in a single turn. I also have quite a few taunts, so even if a Jaraxxus did play Infernals, he wouldn't be able to hit me with them for at least 3 turns. More than enough time to deal 15 damage to a hero.

It takes a lot to finish off 15 health in one turn and next turn, he has options. How about a strong minion and a taunt-giving card? Now he has 6/6, another minion and two taunts. Don't get me wrong, my spell damage build would annihilate him every time, it's not even funny. I have a mage deck that's based on "I don't give a shit about you or your minions, I can literally nuke you down from full health in 1-2 turns". However, he was a problem on my control mage (that I tend to play now as I'm running into more and more legendaries and the spell damage build can't usually ignore that)

3. His hero power replaces life tap, he won't be able to draw anymore cards after playing Jaraxxus. I also need to put emphasis on the fact that he literally cannot play ANYTHING on the turn that he plays Jaraxxus. If Jaraxxus is played, he can't remove any of your minions, he can't place any minions and he can't buff any minions already in play.

You don't life tap at 15 health most of the time. At that point, he loses a useless hero power and gains an overpowered one. And while he may not have anything to play that turn (although he might, soulfire could remove one threat to slow you down enough), next turn it's highly unlikely he doesn't.

Yeah, TODAY it was one of those times. Everyone loses games, it's a card game, there is an aspect of luck. Also, in my opinion, Malygos and Pyroblast are bad cards. 10 mana for 10 damage isn't really worth it, and Malygos is too risky and has no immediate effect on the game. You can get a lot more out of Archmage Antonidas and Fireballs.

I know, just saying, I've seen him work and thinking back on it, there was little I could've done to turn the game around and it was late in the game, so it's not like I can say "well, if better cards arrived...". Malygos and Pyro were a joke (as in, I couldn't have just finished him with the Pyro when he threw Jaraxxus down), though I'd disagree that Pyroblast is a bad card, it ends a lot of games for me, particularly in a mage control deck where I typically have board control by the end enough to finish people off (and it's not a "if you have board control you win anyway", trust me, it's made a difference plenty of times). And I agree, I'd take Antonidas in a heartbeat and go back to my spell power deck (I reckon it'd just annihilate people), but... I don't

Krush is a finisher, but frankly, I think I'd rather have Leeroy Jenkins. I mean he's a good card, but Leeroy's better and much cheaper. If I were to list class legendaries by rank, I'd probably put Krush down near the bottom with Jaraxxus and Cenarion. I'd have Tyrion Fordring and Antonidas at the top.

It's not just a finisher, as I said, he can throw it on turn 8, deal 8 damage (not something to scoff at), possibly even benefit from him being a beast and I need to waste mana and a removal to get rid of him next turn while the rest of the minions wait. And that's assuming I have a removal and I'm not already fucked

Deathwing is an ultimatum card. If you play Deathwing, he doesn't guarantee a win, but he's going to make you either win or lose. If your opponent has any instant removal, then you just discarded your entire hand for nothing. Even worse, he can get Faceless Manipulated or Mind Controlled. I own Deathwing, but I never put him in my decks, he's just simply never worth it.

True. However, Faceless still lets you either trade him or deal 12 damage, possibly finishing the opponent off. As for Mind Control... yeah, you're fucked if you play him against a Priest, I agree I wouldn't unless it was a last, desperate move.

Ysera is also a strong legendary, but a bit overrated. She has a 20% chance to give either Nightmare, Laughing Sister, Emerald Drake, Ysera Awakens or Dream, and frankly, if you remove Ysera quickly enough, none of those cards are particular overwhelmingly powerful by themselves. They might push the game in your favor, but I've won plenty of games against Ysera players.

Same. I've lost a good deal of them too though. My overall point is that no legendary card is a "I win" card by itself. But it's only a single card and the rest of your deck can easily be made to put your opponent in a position where it is. If your opponent is a Druid and he throws out Ironbarks at you, you're not going to be saving your removals in case he has a legendary coming out next turn, you need to deal with that stuff right away.

I'm not going to lie, at the end of the day, Hearthstone is pay to win, but it's a card game. All card games are pay to win. But legendaries in this game don't have as much of an impact as you might think. You just need to know which removal card to play and what cards are worth removing. After practice, your win rate goes up even against legendary decks.

That was my whole point really. Don't get me wrong, those pay to win types are usually easily outplayed (though good+pay to win is an awful combination). I damn near beat a guy throwing several legendaries at me with my Hunter deck that I both don't play and isn't very good (I was doing the daily quest with him, 's all ^^), I annihilated all his legendaries with control cards perfectly and got him to two health and an explosive trap, but you know... druid, a single armor saves him there. But legendaries were literally all that won him that game, there was zero skill involved on his part.

Almost all small legendaries are matched or close to matched by non legendary cards.
-Nat Pagle is trumped by Mana Tide Totem (especially after Pagle's huge nerf)
-Tinkmaster Overspark's effect can be mimicked by having Ancient Watcher and Ironbeak Owl (turn 3 4/5 + 2/1 which can both attack).
-Come the next patch, Mukla and Milhouse will be matched by the non legendary dancing Swords.
-Sylvanas shares a similar effect to Faceless Manipulator
-Cairne Bloodhoof can be matched by Sunwalker
-The Beast is a slightly stronger Corehound
-Harrison Jones is replaceable with Acidic Swamp Ooze
-Leeroy can be replaced by Arcane Golem or Argent Commander
-Bloodmage Thalnos can be replaced by Loot Hoarder or Kobold Geomancer depending on whether you want the card draw or Spellpower.

Except Mana Tide is reserved for a Shaman and Pagle can be in any deck. I played Arena last night with my mates and we used Overspark to ridiculous effect with a mage, turning our mirror images into Devilsaurs and their minions into squirrels (in a situation where both a squirrel and a devilsaur for the opponent or us would be fine, so not luck, just well played), that was over the course of 9 wins and Overspark came into effect in nearly every game. For the others I'd agree, but Thalnos is something I'd chuck in my deck simply because it does exactly what I need him to do - buff my spellpower combo and draw a card when he dies.

Beast is an awful card in my opinion as you just kill it and you got a free minion and he can't use it right away unless he has something to give him Charge. I had a hilarious situation with Leeroy where I took him from my opponent's hand as a priest with Mind Vision, then saved him for a Leeroy->Holy Nova combo which was just gorgeous (he died anyway, but the opponent had to waste a card and Holy Nova was perfect in the situation anyway, healing me, my minions and clearing his deck)

The only other useful legendaries which I can think of that haven't been mentioned in this discussion are Captain Greenskin, Hogger and Baron Geddon. The rest of the legendaries are too shit or so niche that they don't even need common substitutes. You'll never hit a point where you'll want to run them in your deck.

I haven't seen Greenskin once, though I can imagine he's pretty awesome for a Rogue with a poisoned Assassin's Blade (counterable by ooze, certainly, but excellent if the opponent doesn't have it right away). We used Hogger in last night's game and he did amazingly well too. We Faceless-ed him for laughs once and watched the opponent concede