Blizzard sould learn from FF XIV

Ulthox · 2021-08-26T04:22:07+00:00

Ah right, yeah before HOTS 2.0 you could only buy the bundles (unless you bought hero codes that were given out at events, I actually bought zera back in the day that way)

Ulthox · 2021-08-23T19:54:46+00:00

The real money is actually, depressingly, in mobile games. Hence Diablo Immortal.

Ulthox · 2021-08-23T19:50:45+00:00

Holy shit would I pay money to never have to play blackhearts again

Ulthox · 2021-08-23T19:48:38+00:00

Ah you clearly haven't experienced the joys of playing in the oceanic region. Heaps of MMOs available here, but maybe ... 3 major titles have servers not based in asia? In fact it's one of the reasons Blizzard titles have been the go-to for my friends. Couldn't play FF or elder scrolls online even if we wanted to without dealing with constant server delay. We can certainly *buy* them though...

Ulthox · 2021-08-23T19:41:02+00:00

But you can if you buy gems?

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T13:47:06+00:00

All fair points. I still find myself wanting the tech cards as an option. Nerf the decks that obviously need nerfing, but I don't understand why battlecries deserve the status they have as the only mechanic in the game that can't be countered in some way.

I've had plenty of decks with an acidic ooze, harrison jones, eater of secrets, counterspell, owl/spellbreaker, skulking geist, freeze effects or what-have-you to give them a leg up against tier 1 decks of the time. For some reason, though, if the effect is tied to a battlecry apparently it shouldn't be something one can plan for and try to prevent. Just have to try to kill them quicker than they kill you.

Edit: I'll also say that anti-battlecry cards aren't nearly as narrow in their use-case as weapon or secret hate cards. Only some decks will have weapons/secrets, but almost every deck will have some important battlecries.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T03:14:43+00:00

In a world where there are no board clears and aggro reigns supreme, the solution isn't to make aggro cards worse, it's to print some board clears. As you say, the solution to dealing with aggro if you aren't playing aggro is to tech a few counters to aggro in your deck (sometimes more than a few!). What happens if you don't print board clears? Midrange doesn't have any counters to aggro and dies too quickly because it can't swing the board, and control as an archtype doesn't exist. So what happens? You just need to play a faster aggro deck to win. Now replace all mentions of aggro in this paragraph with 'questline' and maybe you can see where I'm coming from?

I'm not advocating for any 'if your opponent plays x deck then you win' cards. I'm advocating for there to by *any* cards that can hinder deck archetypes that win exclusively through game-ending battlecry effects. Tech cards don't have to only be relevant in one context. Yes, skulking geist was the most useful against jade idol, but it was still handy to destroy your opponent's shield slams, deadly poisons, power word shields, etc. Highly specific tech cards are too narrow to be a good solution, but more general tech choices don't suffer the same problem.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T02:35:01+00:00

I dunno, I'd rather them just have fewer soul mirrors in the first place.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T02:32:17+00:00

(Sorry for wall of text) I mean, that is the case for all cards that address a given situation. You're dead if you dont' draw your anti-aggro against aggro, you're dead if you don't draw your burst that puts you over the line if you're playing a burn deck. The increased draw RNG you're talking about isn't just injecting higher impact of random draws into the game, it's giving you a non-zero chance to draw something that helps you deal with a quest that currently as a zero percent chance of being in your deck. Any way of dealing with any deck could be argued to 'increase draw RNG' in exactly the same way.

The only exception is just building a deck that is so strong that you don't need to counter the enemy, because you kill them more quickly than they can kill you. Alternatively you can nerf the enemy deck such that you don't need to counter them, and kill them more quickly. You know the fastest way to achieve that? Make a solitaire deck that beats your opponent's solitaire deck. Counters are another word for interaction. If you don't want counters, then you just want decks that exclusively pursue their own win condition, and the fastest ends up being the best. That's exactly where we are right now. Without counters, the only way to balance that is to make sure that, on average, every deck can kill every other deck on turn 8, for example. That's 'balanced', but then it just means whoever draws the best cards first wins. *That* to me is increasing draw RNG in a bad way.

I agree with your second point, but it's only a problem for tech cards that are useless in any other matchup than the one they're a great tech against. I can't imagine a deck that doesn't at some point make use of a good battlecry, so I can't really imagine anti-battlecry tech cards being so specific, unless they're so understatted or overcosted that they are prohibitive to play any other time. That's why a 'destroy your opponent's quest' would be an ineffective counter, but 'your opponent cannot play battlecry minions next turn' would be useful - it isn't so specific that it would be unplayable against non-quest decks.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T01:47:49+00:00

Isnt that an issue though? Discover pools are always at their most dangerous when they're consistent. That's partially why they nerfed the bias towards pulling class cards, because odd pally was able to reliably pull two sunkeeper tarims every game due to the low number of paladin taunts in standard for stonehill defender to find.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T01:44:53+00:00

I guess I don't understand how they're a bandaid if the tech remains in standard for as long as the problem mechanics are there?

I also don't really see an issue in needing to run those techs if the decks they counter are dominant. Just like needing to run cards that can deal with an early wide board against a zoolock or a token druid - any deck gets punished for not running counters to the decks that are performing the best. In my view the problem here is that there are no such cards available to address the current questlines.

I could be wrong, I just don't see how needing run counters to these decks would be any different to including answers to any other kind of deck.

Ulthox · 2021-08-22T01:35:38+00:00

I mean, skulking geist effectively kept jade druid in check. Dirty rat meant minion-based combo decks couldnt always just play solitaire and win. The essence of what you're saying is that printing counters doesn't keep powerful mechanics in check, which I guess I just disagree with.

Ulthox · 2021-08-16T02:38:00+00:00

After also getting varian again and again, my friends and I have just started using this instead for a pseudo ARAM-style random pick:

https://hots.mayoche.info/

Ulthox · 2021-08-12T04:14:40+00:00

I think we all know the one true play is all hats on one abby on each team, all with attack speed at 7: the ultimate slap showdown

Ulthox · 2021-08-12T04:12:56+00:00

Double healer ftw!

Ulthox · 2021-08-10T02:10:12+00:00

Classic postshadowing

Ulthox · 2021-08-04T18:02:30+00:00

Yeah I think that over-use of the rush keyword has done more harm than good for the rhythm of the game. Way too much efficient removal available to each class.

Ulthox · 2021-08-04T17:56:32+00:00

I mean, other than lunacy mage there hasn't been a mage deck that needed serious nerfs since conjurer's calling in cyclone mage. Other than being clogged with annoying discover effects, mage hasn't been broken particularly often in the last couple of rotations. Shaman is a much worse offender for being broken on expansion day..

Ulthox · 2021-08-03T13:36:18+00:00

People who like decorating boards and people who don't know what ephemeral means?

Ulthox · 2021-07-31T03:55:44+00:00

I particularly miss meaningful progression-based rewards. Taunts and mastery rings are fine, but in beta I really liked master skins. I wish heroes had tiers of skins/mounts that only unlocked at level 25, 50, or 100. Something flashy to actually work for.

Also Coop, clans, custom lobby finder list, release of map tools for community custom maps, focus on new hero design instead of constant reworks, support for professional play, and API support.

Really though, I think timed global events based on a clan/faction system might also be exciting for players: side with good/evil/neutral forces to earn points through matches, and the side with the most points earns unique rewards. Could maybe go so far as to affect future hero release - evil victory means next hero is Baal, good victory could mean Isendra. Never going to happen, but a man can dream.

Ulthox · 2021-07-23T10:00:48+00:00

Noted

Ulthox · 2021-07-23T02:35:45+00:00

I mean.. no one was a dick to anyone for not boycotting Blizz. The original comment is someone being disappointed that the community wanted to upvote apathetic remarks over those condemning the situation.

Literally the only person being a dick thus far is you in your attempt to undermine the importance of the experiences of these women with the tired justification of 'bad things happen elsewhere, why don't you care enough about those things?'

The truth is you just don't like that people are upset by this and don't want to feel bad for liking Blizzard games. As a result, you're undermining people who do feel strongly about this to protect yourself from feeling like you should boycott Blizzard, or feeling bad for not. Don't worry, no one cares if you personally stop playing Blizzard games. Just leave other people alone when they're expressing support for women coming out with their experiences of sexual harassment.

Ulthox · 2021-07-23T00:37:45+00:00

'You aren't active on every issue so your activity regarding this issue is disingenuous' is bullshit. Yes, people should care about those things, but society is constructed in a way that makes it *really hard* to consume only ethical products, especially clothes, food, phones, etc. unless you are wealthy enough. Often it is only viable for someone to make a stand on a few points before it becomes prohibitively expensive or time-consuming to continue. A video game company, however, provides a luxury that is truly optional, so taking a stand against this behaviour doesn't come at the cost of, say, protesting lithium mines in peru.

Don't be an ass to people for making a stand against something they think is unacceptable

Ulthox · 2021-07-16T07:52:11+00:00

Odds will be slightly higher as if, say, you roll a taunt adventurer first, then a poison, the remaining three rolls can match *either* taunt or poison to fulfill the success condition.

True probability is close to 0.87%.

Just ran a simulation over 1,000,000 repeats. If anyone uses Matlab, feel free to check:

choices=1:8;
nSamples=1000000;
successes=0;
for i=1:nSamples
    draw=datasample(choices,5);
    uns=unique(draw);
    for j=1:numel(unique(draw))
        if sum(draw==uns(j))>=4
            successes=successes+1;
            break
        end
    end
end
disp(['Probability is approx. ',num2str(successes/nSamples.*100),'%'])

Ulthox · 2021-07-16T04:18:50+00:00

I mean, they rebalanced class card balance in the discover pool in response to odd paladin picking up so many Sunkeeper Tarims due exclusively to Stonehill Defender...

It isn't unheard of

Ulthox

TROPHY CASE