|
Shockeh posted:As a 10 mana spell, I find Puzzlebox distasteful as an effect - ‘Hey, I’m losing, so let’s flip the loving table and play Pachinko instead’. As something that can come out of various discounts or random effects, it can get into the loving sea. How long have you played Hearthstone for? They've been doing their best to minimize the effects of skill on winrate since for ever, mostly by adding more and more randomness. It's probably one of the reasons why the game is so popular.
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 11:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 22:28 |
|
|
Promoted Pawn posted:Perhaps, but I don’t play BG that much now anyway since I’m terrible at it and can’t meaningfully push past 6K. The “feelbad” that would come with such a development would just be the thing that pushes me off the ledge I’m already teetering over. Kina makes me sad that even "professional" players like Kripp use 3rd party add ons in Battlegrounds and Arena. Deck trackers in the main game mode I also think are dubious.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 12:08
|
|
|
Mage is specifically built around randomness and flipping the table in unforeseeable ways, with Yogg, Reno and Solarian it's clearly meant to be like this and they want mage to be a class that you can play pachinko with. I agree that building an entire class around this concept is weird and has barely anything to do with skill, but it's not like either random effect is bare of any logic or any tendency where it will go. There are many spells in standard, but not endless. Either way, for mage this is still true and even though it fits the class and the idea of controlling uncontrollable magic and whatnot is somewhat funny for the class identity, for the board game purpose it serves it can be seen as weird or poorly designed. For other classes however, this is not really the case. Yeah there is the occasional kill a random enemy minion and stuff in every class, but that's really not this much of a deal to say that they are actively trying to abolish the effect skill has on a game. The new rank system and a massively overpowered class during introduction opened up legend for more players, but that wasn't due to random effects happening on the board and flipping everything over. It also is not like the only professional players we see are those that throw Yogg out the second they technically can. It's true that randomness opens the game up and offers options for players who are not really that good to shine by sheer luck and yeah that's probably a reason for the game to be more popular than comparable games. However, with 10 classes in the game, having one that truly can rely on random effect and see where the hell RNG takes you, I do not think it's the case that they are trying to add even more randomness to the game than already is for the specific purpose of minimizing the effect of skill. It's not like we all get a free Yogg-Saron in Standard in every deck ever just to have the option to flipping the coin and see where it lands.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 12:10
|
|
|
I watched as SilverName sealed BunnyHoppor in a concrete coffin with a coin + Dragoncaster into Box, and it was funny. Honestly though, HS is still very much a skill based game. Your brain will always hyperfocus on the times you got messed up by RNG, and mostly ignore when you didn't. Over a reasonable sample size of games, it's just variance. It's no better or worse than drawing your deck backwards, discarding the one necessary card and so on.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 12:36
|
|
|
The most common way I've gotten RNG screwed lately playing spell mage. Sometimes Netherwind Portal will give me Conjured Mirage, which will immediately sink to the very bottom of my deck. It neuters Apexis Blast and Font of Power.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 12:49
|
|
|
My favorite 'Hearthstone Killer' of the past six years remains Gwent, the game that was word of mouth advertised as having no RNG at all. It turns out that literally nobody wanted that and, after the initial paid promotional push was over, the whole thing completely evaporated to the point that it isn't even viable to keep the console servers turned on.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 14:29
|
|
|
Most people don't want to play games of skill. They want to win with those sick lucky rolls, which is also why most popular YT content for example are all compilation of entertaining RNG, and then to have something to blame when they lose (RNG or Teammates). That's why nobody plays 1v1 games and the few that are still played all do their best to smooth out those skill differences with RNG.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 14:34
|
|
|
I feel like that's very generalized. Yeah it's true most people just want to win, but somehow it feels very different if you say that you are top player on some I dunno shooter game than, say, a professional roulette player that wins every round out of sheer luck. Random based fun drives communities and brings in people, it opens stuff up and hearthstone never was a game that is per se hard to play or where RNG doesn't matter, nor it ever will be. The entire concept is built around being welcoming, friendly, accessible and, as Blizzard always puts it, deceptively simple. Card games in particular always have a good portion of randomness weaved in, the draw alone already, but that's still very different to trying to reduce the game to as much randomness as possible to reduce any kind of learning effect or skill involved to play well, else we would see random people going professional all the time. There still is a clear difference between a good player playing a certain deck and a bad one doing the same. I don't think it's fair to assume the existence of Yogg-Saron equals Blizzard's systematic attempt to remove any difficulty or learning curve from the game, because if they wanted to do that, why not doing it from the very start and construct an entirely random game? Why even bother balancing? I'm not saying hearthstone is a highly difficult game full of skill, it's not and never was supposed to be, you can come comparably far with sheer luck and no brain plays, but it's also not purely reduced to that or on the way of becoming that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 14:43
|
|
|
The point of RNG was never to let "bad players win". Outside of arena matchmaking is enforced with an iron fist in HS, even more so after the ranked rework. Cards have random effects a.) so that matchups are less polarized, b.) so that late game between decks isn't completely solved, c.) so that you often have some obscure out to play for when you're behind, and d.) highrolling feels good. I play Runeterra over HS these days but I tend to go straight to the RNG cards in that game (I do the same for other CCGs).
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 14:58
|
|
|
NorgLyle posted:My favorite 'Hearthstone Killer' of the past six years remains Gwent, the game that was word of mouth advertised as having no RNG at all. It turns out that literally nobody wanted that and, after the initial paid promotional push was over, the whole thing completely evaporated to the point that it isn't even viable to keep the console servers turned on. I really liked Gwent in the beta but with every update they kept changing gameplay mechanics(for the worse IMO) and then there was like a 3-4 month period with no updates which killed any interest I had left. The singleplayer campaign(Thronebreaker) is apparently really good though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 15:24
|
|
Jack Trades posted:Most people don't want to play games of skill. They want to win with those sick lucky rolls, which is also why most popular YT content for example are all compilation of entertaining RNG, and then to have something to blame when they lose (RNG or Teammates). Ironically, chess both refutes and supports your argument. The big chess streaming boom happening right now, with the livestreamfail subreddit dominated by chess clips and viewership of the current streamer chess tourney rivaling CSGO tourneys, shows that yes there still is interest in games of skill without hidden information, especially when matched up with fun and entertaining personalities. Hell people were even watching people play Sudoku as quarantines spread. Also chess has added "RNG" into the game with faster modern time controls, to keep the game alive at all skill levels. This occurs even at the computer chess level, for example the TCEC choosing fair time controls and hardware to use to make sure every engine has a shot to show their merit.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 15:26
|
|
|
Yes, one of the things that sets good players apart from bad players is that the pros can count and know which card could win them a game, and which of their random card/effect generating cards has the highest chance to give them that card/effect. So you have Trolden vids where Firebat says he could get x from y, so he has a 1/200 change to win or something, and then he does get it and wins, while a worse player might have played something else or just conceded, because he wouldn't have know what could save him. Not pictured are of course the other 199 times that Firebat tells his twitch chat which card could win him the game, but he gets garbage and loses.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 15:27
|
|
|
No Wave posted:The point of RNG was never to let "bad players win". Outside of arena matchmaking is enforced with an iron fist in HS, even more so after the ranked rework. Cards have random effects a.) so that matchups are less polarized, b.) so that late game between decks isn't completely solved, c.) so that you often have some obscure out to play for when you're behind, and d.) highrolling feels good. I play Runeterra over HS these days but I tend to go straight to the RNG cards in that game (I do the same for other CCGs). Very much this. Also, the reason for the decline of 'pure' 1v1 games (proportionally at least) I would go as far to say has almost nothing to do with seeking games where skill matters less. That sounds more like a personal gripe.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 15:32
|
|
|
Agreed. I don't find "competition" fun, I like doing cool things. When a broken weapon is added to the pool of a battle royale it's so that players get to take turns doing the cool thing, not to "diffuse responsibility". In 1v1 games countering your opponent's strategy is exactly as productive as furthering your own strategy, which turns a lot of people off. One of the things that made autochess so popular is that its 8 player system and random matchmaking forces each player to develop their own board instead of disrupting their opponent's strategy (outside of the final 1v1). The "diffusion of responsibility" meme is huge on SA for some reason.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 15:56
|
|
|
No Wave posted:Agreed. I don't find "competition" fun, I like doing cool things. When a broken weapon is added to the pool of a battle royale it's so that players get to take turns doing the cool thing, not to "diffuse responsibility". I did like the part where you said that you didn't like competitive games and then proceed explaining how everyone except you is wrong about competitive games.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 16:34
|
|
|
Everyone except me buys into "diffusion of responsibility" and "having something else to blame" motivating the move away from 1v1?
No Wave fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jun 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 16:37
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:I did like the part where you said that you didn't like competitive games and then proceed explaining how everyone except you is wrong about competitive games. Competitive posting. 10% chance to make a bad post. I must have really bad luck given my post history! Disargeria fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jun 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 16:39
|
|
|
I dunno, it feels bad to lose through no fault of your own which happens a lot with RNG games like HS (bad top decks, terrible mulligans, random generating cards, etc) but in a competitive 1v1 skill based game when I lose I can take the time to figure out why and be better next time, because everyone is on the same playing field with the same tools. It's why I much prefer Starcraft 2 over say a MOBA for most of my "tryhard" playtime.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 17:46
|
|
|
Fenarisk posted:I dunno, it feels bad to lose through no fault of your own which happens a lot with RNG games like HS (bad top decks, terrible mulligans, random generating cards, etc) but in a competitive 1v1 skill based game when I lose I can take the time to figure out why and be better next time, because everyone is on the same playing field with the same tools. But Hearthstone is a skilled based game in the sense that clearly there are better players and not as good players. The thing is about both HS and MtG is that they force you to analyze probabilities of any given action. Which is in fact a good life skill as well, being able to understand why one choice is good and one is not as good is not easy. So Puzzle. I had 6 cards in my hand and Puzzle gave me 7 more, which resulted in me losing Alextraza, Reno, Dragonqueen Alextraza and Zephrys among other cards. It was terrible but I was going to lose anyway. Next game, puzzle, I had 3 cards in my hand and got nada. Lost that game too. You have to remember the times that the opponent playing puzzle lost them the game, because it certainly happens. Of course you should also be careful if you are going to play puzzle, I thought I was safe with six cards and I was not.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 19:06
|
|
|
I think it’s important to note that while there is some tension between them, skill and luck are not opposites. Games can be high or low in both characteristics independently of each other. High skill does not strictly mean low luck and vice versa.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 19:09
|
|
|
Promoted Pawn posted:I think it’s important to note that while there is some tension between them, skill and luck are not opposites. Games can be high or low in both characteristics independently of each other. High skill does not strictly mean low luck and vice versa. Absolutely this. There is no black and white here and having or not having luck in a game like hearthstone does not say anything about the skill needed behind playing it on a certain level. You cannot exchange the role skill has in a game with sheer luck as easily either, unless you overhaul the entire game and design it towards being luck based. I do not think blizzard is doing or even trying to do that just because there are luck based cards available.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 19:12
|
|
|
PSA: If you play Malygos on this patch, the hero power's broken on minions on your side of the board but still works on tavern ones. Usually you don't have a hero power if you miss a token start, now you don't have a hero power then either!
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 19:32
|
|
|
How does Eudora choose the minion to dig? Is it just random?
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 20:24
|
|
|
Chernabog posted:How does Eudora choose the minion to dig? Is it just random? according to Trump's video on the update it's a random minion from your tier or below e: so Pirates are pretty good pulled off a massive power turn with 2x Captain Hoggarr and the minion that gives a Pirate +1/+1 for each Pirate bought this turn and got an easy win even despite my generally terrible decision-making skills and Kripp-level APM Julio Cruz fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 20:31
|
|
|
Wow, patches with double (or gold) Captain Grokarr (however it is spelled) gets ridiculous in the late game. I had so many pirates that I didn't even know which to play.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 21:16
|
|
|
Pirates are definitely fun. They feel a bit like Murlocs once you get higher tier in that there's lots of cycling and fast thinking, especially if you're buying the economy ones (like the pirate that gives you a coin when you buy a pirate). Got second place with a pretty random comp, had two of the golden scaling guys with 3 goldens and they get big pretty fast (accidentally sold another gold as well, so could have been even harder scaling). Getting goldens doesn't feel too hard with the number of pirates you're buying. Cannon feels good in the early game but drops off hard, even more so than Soul Juggler. Having two surrounding the auto-attack taunt guy is amazing until someone gets cleave. enki42 fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jun 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 21:55
|
|
|
Iain Banks, The Player of Games posted:All reality is a game. Physics at its most fundamental, the very fabric of our universe, results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance; the same description may be applied to the best, most elegant and both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying games. By being unknowable, by resulting from events which, at the sub-atomic level, cannot be fully predicted, the future remains malleable, and retains the possibility of change, the hope of coming to prevail; victory, to use an unfashionable word. In this, the future is a game; time is one of the rules. Generally, all the best mechanistic games - those which can be played in any sense "perfectly", such as a grid, Prallian scope, 'nkraytle, chess, Farnic dimensions - can be traced to civilisations lacking a realistic view of the universe (let alone the reality). They are also, I might add, invariably pre-machine-sentience societies. An interesting take from a sci-fi book I read recently. I do enjoy the randomness of Hearthstone, though I can't play it too much or too hard or its enjoyment will wane for awhile. It is a mix of skill and luck, like Poker. Am I better than world-class poker players? Not even close. Could I beat or tie one in a single, fixed betting round? With over 50% probability yes, without even looking at my hand. With a pot and defined betting structure, they'll murder me over many hands, but anyone can win a single round. Same with HS, lesser skilled players can beat higher-skill players, but that doesn't happen as often over many games. It's possible that HS may have some cards that push RNG too much. Nobody would want a card printed that was, say, a 10-cost spell that's effect was "You have a 40% chance of destroying the hero, otherwise destroy your hero". It wouldn't be fun or interactive to lose to, even if your opponent playing it gave you a win exactly 60% of the time. This was sort of the issue with the original Rogue Quest from Un'Goro, it wasn't OP, just a potential for a quick win with almost no counterplay. There are some games where the opponent gets a nut draw or you get a poor draw where it might seem that way. If your opponent is playing Murloc Paladin and you don't have any taunts or AoE clears in your hand, then the game kind of resolves itself to a "probability you draw a taunt or AoE in the next few turns" equals winning, one minus this probability of losing, so it almost feels like it can be random. Ultimately, it was due to strategic play of small fish monsters at a high risk of knowing an AoE could kill them that caused the loss, not just a roulette roll at the beginning. A risky strategy rewarded with a win under your drawing conditions, not a roulette wheel.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 22:21
|
|
|
There's a huge difference between trying your hardest at something that's winnable 100% of the time by the best player in the world and something that's winnable 65% of the time by the best player in the world. You have to be made of ice to give it your all when 35% of the time it turns out you never had a chance.
No Wave fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jun 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 22:29
|
|
|
Thoughts on whether new Ysera is worth crafting? I have a golden Velen that I can dust, but I was planning on saving that for the next expansion. Re: randomness, a lifetime ago when I worked in finance the wisdom was that to get good at trading you should play backgammon.* It's a game that forces you to make a plan and adapt to random outcomes. You have your trading strategy but you also need to adapt and react to changing conditions if you want to beat the market. I think of Hearthstone in the same way. You have a plan to win that is set out in how you build your deck, this plan changes based on your opponent's deck, and you draw randomly while adapting to opportunities borne by your cards and those of the opposing deck. *the best trader I knew, a guy who started with nothing and last I knew had eclipsed $100MM in net worth got his startup money hustling backgammon rooms. The backgammon-trading thing was wisdom before him though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 22:53
|
|
|
She's played in the currently quite popular (and strong) spell/dragon druid and was used occasionally in the previously popular embiggen druid and quest druid. We're about two months from the next set but as long as there's a viable druid deck that isn't just treants and cheap stuff she'll probably see play
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 22:57
|
|
|
peer posted:She's played in the currently quite popular (and strong) spell/dragon druid and was used occasionally in the previously popular embiggen druid and quest druid. We're about two months from the next set but as long as there's a viable druid deck that isn't just treants and cheap stuff she'll probably see play That's close to what I was thinking. I also played a little hybrid dragon-spell today and discovered her off of an Emerald Explorer and it won me the game against an egg warrior. Felt good, and I think that deck might end up being one that hovers between 50 and 55% against everything once people adapt to DH and it slows down in turn to play more of a value game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 23:09
|
|
oh my God, the Hogger Pirate APM build in Battlegrounds is such a nutty highroll 
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 23:46
|
|
|
peer posted:She's played in the currently quite popular (and strong) spell/dragon druid and was used occasionally in the previously popular embiggen druid and quest druid. We're about two months from the next set but as long as there's a viable druid deck that isn't just treants and cheap stuff she'll probably see play I don’t know if she’s good in embiggen Druid as she could get costed to 11 by mistake?
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 00:21
|
|
|
teacup posted:I don’t know if she’s good in embiggen Druid as she could get costed to 11 by mistake? Embiggen maxes out at 10.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 00:28
|
|
|
No Wave posted:There's a huge difference between trying your hardest at something that's winnable 100% of the time by the best player in the world and something that's winnable 65% of the time by the best player in the world. You have to be made of ice to give it your all when 35% of the time it turns out you never had a chance. Conversely, it means that I can still have fun with a suboptimal pile of cards - I can scrape a 50-55% winrate out of what should be 40%. If only skill mattered at all, that "default" winrate would be so low that it wouldn't make any difference how well I pilot, the deck would still be forever dumpstered.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 00:31
|
|
|
Embiggen isn't even played anymore, everyone runs spell package with mountsellers and full ramp whether they are playing tokens or dragons or anything in between
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 01:10
|
|
|
orangelex44 posted:Conversely, it means that I can still have fun with a suboptimal pile of cards - I can scrape a 50-55% winrate out of what should be 40%. If only skill mattered at all, that "default" winrate would be so low that it wouldn't make any difference how well I pilot, the deck would still be forever dumpstered. True, but at their core all card games are 90% RNG and 10% skill. Poker is no different.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 01:43
|
|
|
Free SR at battlegrounds dumpster ranks with the new patch, just saw a flurgl running pirates at 6k
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 01:49
|
|
|
Mr Beens posted:Kina makes me sad that even "professional" players like Kripp use 3rd party add ons in Battlegrounds and Arena. Deck trackers in the main game mode I also think are dubious.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 01:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 22:28 |
|
|
Gobbeldygook posted:Blizzard even allows people to use deck trackers in grandmasters. Everyone can use a deck tracker other than mobile iOS users. A shame cause I play HS on ipad exclusively
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2020 02:09
|
|
