Delicious Hearthstone

raithza · 8:07pm 7 Jan 2015

Here, look at this video about the impact effects in hearthstone:

How does a CARD game have better juice and screenshake than many indie action games? Shame on you. Shame on all of you.

Also: I absolutely adore the hearthstone soundtrack. Are there any other hearthstone players on the forum? I wonder if anyone else would be interested in a hearthstone design discussion thread.

Elyaradine · 10:42pm 7 Jan 2015

I absolutely love what Blizzard does with juice. I think they're masters at communicating game design information (e.g. screenshake isn't just for the feel, but also communicates the amount of damage dealt), as well as designing their screen hierarchy (I've pretty much never felt lost or confused; heck, I've often lost my cursor in Dota2 and the old LoL map, but it's never happened in DotA).

That said, the game itself felt quite grindy, and when I joined a lot of my friends already had some really amazing cards, so I sort of got put off because of how I felt as if I'd never catch up without spending an amount of time on the game that I'm unwilling to spend.

Fengol · 3:42am 8 Jan 2015

While it might seem at times grindy I've never felt like I've hit a paywall and can't proceed; and it's the first F2P I felt I had to give money to because I more than got my hours worth out of the game.

I'm in the Europe region and keen to play any local players. @raithza I'll PM you my details

Tuism · 7:03am 8 Jan 2015

What @Elyaradine said. Blizzard is mad good at juice, and it's a really bugger ton of work that went into everything in Hearthstone. It's not just random juice either, it's deliberate and communicative.

I felt the same about the game itself though. It doesn't make me feel like I'm playing the game for strategy, but rather to get cool cards which takes grind or money to get to. Which I don't like. Stop me if you've heard this one before. Netrunner.

Fengol · 7:40am 8 Jan 2015

I would love to see Netrunner done with the change of cards into objects that Hearthstone has

*goes away to prototype*

Tuism · 7:59am 8 Jan 2015

Yugioh would be an amazing game if it played like the manga :)

Have you played Eye of Judgement? Was wonderfully gimmicky :)

raithza · 12:06pm 8 Jan 2015

I never felt the game was that grindy - probably because at least initially I almost exclusively played Arena and focused on one class for constructed play. If amassing all the cards is your goal then it would feel pretty grindy but I don't approach the game in that way - I like just trying to build weird/interesting decks. There are also very competitive decks that are super cheap to make (Warlock Zoo, probably the most consistent deck, contains almost exclusively basic cards). But losing to a powerful legendary makes the game feel pay2win (even though it really isn't imo).

I still want to try ladder my way to legend one month but damn that does take a lot of time!

Boysano · 12:32pm 8 Jan 2015

Hearthstone is absolutely my favorite game the past year and still in 2015.
I absolutely am a fan of all blizzard games, and how they just add value and change the perceived implementation of many different genres...just have a look at their new FPS with themed heros each playing with different abilities. It is like they took a moba and made it FPS.

Would love to play any other locals also, I'm Boysano on EU server.

I've decided not to buy any cards, and see how it goes. I'm still player even from closed beta, but I must admit I'm far behind paid players, it is ok, I see it as a challenge and I like collecting all the cards and I attach more value to it if I have to work for it.

My only real complaint is that opponents can reall play slow and drag out a game, I wish they could add different timed leagues...

Yes HS is a good example to me that TCG or CCGs can be super fun and pleasing, even with limited collection size. However, they can still do alot more with it, and it is humbling to see that even a big company like Blizzard is prepared to release to Android when it is buggy on that platform...

Maybe we can have a local tournament or something?

Tuism · 12:38pm 8 Jan 2015

Everyone has their style of play and preference, mine is that I like to have all the options available to me for exploring, so I can build whacky, silly, strong, dumb, mad decks. In that way the LCG model where I don't ever have to booster-hunt or rely on a secondary market or grinding to get access to cards is the one that makes the most sense to me.

Of course, many people don't have the same needs as I do, and for them HS is a fantastic game :)

raithza · 1:29pm 8 Jan 2015

Quite! It's super frustrating having a deck idea but not being able to build it due to missing a few cards, and then the terrible decision of what to disenchant so you can build it. But I find that's not a problem once you have a bit of a collection going and you have a sense of what cards are good and which can be freely disenchanted. I also have a couple of classes that I focus on playing which frees me to D/E all hunter cards cause screw hunter.

@boysano have you seen the new "mill druid" deck that's popped up recently? As well as some other fatigue based decks. If you hate slow players you'll loooove those.....

my Battlenet if anyone wants to add me: raithza#2484

Boysano · 2:09pm 8 Jan 2015

Boysano#2759

Rigormortis · 5:11am 9 Jan 2015

@Tuism & @raithza, I think that what you are talking about is the difference between a card game, and a collectible card game. I think that the collecting part of the game creates a great sense of tension as well as reward when you finally get the cards you want. I like this about collectible card games, but then I like collectibles in general.

That being said, I'd much rather prefer it to be more like Netrunner where you have all the cards available at all times. Especially now since they have started adding expansions. It will only get harder and harder to build the decks I want if I don't "keep up" with the other collectors.

The Arena game mode solves this for me though. I usually play just that because I feel that levels the playing field quite nicely and allows me to focus on improving my skill in the game instead of feeling that my deck lacks the cards I want to put in.

Going back to the part about the juice though. I think @Elyaradine said something that is overlooked when we talk about juice. If it's not overlooked I don't think it's explicitly said enough.

I think they're masters at communicating game design information

I think that the most important function juice serves is to let the player know what the hell is going on. You should be able to take any effect in isolation and be able to answer the question: "What is this telling the player?". I feel that Blizzard always makes this a high priority in their games.

How do you guys feel about the fact that the animation times can sometimes cause you to not execute properly on a plan of action you decided? I'm torn in two about it a little. On the one hand I get that the turns are timed and both players have the same amount of time, so it's fair. But on the other hand, the game systems are causing me to fail, not my own lack of skill, so it's unfair. (I use fair and unfair in a very loose sense here). Thoughts?

Boysano · 6:39am 9 Jan 2015

@raithza I tried the mill deck, and variations on it last night. It is fun to play, but I find it still very weak and not that much faster. Since it is safer to wait for the mill combos to hit in one turn, which makes it another deck that waits to play. So not that much faster, so I combined the milling with creatures which do damage on their death to all, and that sped things up a bit. Still not really that great past rank20.

raithza · 12:20pm 9 Jan 2015

@boysano I was being sarcastic :) Mill druid games tend to go 20+ minutes easy as the point is just to have both players draw their entire decks, clear the board & outheal while they die to fatigue.

Tuism · 12:48pm 9 Jan 2015

Rigormortis said:
@Tuism & @raithza, I think that what you are talking about is the difference between a card game, and a collectible card game. I think that the collecting part of the game creates a great sense of tension as well as reward when you finally get the cards you want. I like this about collectible card games, but then I like collectibles in general.

That being said, I'd much rather prefer it to be more like Netrunner where you have all the cards available at all times. Especially now since they have started adding expansions. It will only get harder and harder to build the decks I want if I don't "keep up" with the other collectors.

I'm well aware that there are enjoyable things about that tension and reward, I'm not disputing that, plenty of people love that. I'm just not one of them :) It's a system of monetising and game design that interlocks and draws people who enjoy it in.

How do you guys feel about the fact that the animation times can sometimes cause you to not execute properly on a plan of action you decided? I'm torn in two about it a little. On the one hand I get that the turns are timed and both players have the same amount of time, so it's fair. But on the other hand, the game systems are causing me to fail, not my own lack of skill, so it's unfair. (I use fair and unfair in a very loose sense here). Thoughts?

I haven't played the game extensively, but are you saying there's not enough time in a turn to execute a series of actions because animations are taking up that time? Could you not know better what you want to do and execute it/them faster/sooner? I think if there is a hard cap on what you can do because animations are disrupting the process, then it's a game design fail. Unless they intend it like that (but I thought that mana was the limit on what you can do, time shouldn't be, unless there are cards that sped up or slowed down animation times, in which case I can understand that they've thought about it and it was part of the game).

iceblademush · 1:01pm 9 Jan 2015

I actually stopped playing magic online and now play hearthstone exclusively, just because its a better smoother experience. Its like they have taken everything about magic and optimized it for online play , as well as giving it little tricks that would be impossible to do in a real card game, like copying cards or producing new random cards. i Initially thought it was quite shallow and simple but only compared to the complexities of magic,but there are plenty of strategies, and the games are nice and quick.

Its improved a lot with the addition of new cards and the expansion pack, was a bit of a grind at first, but its just getting better and better.

Tuism · 1:14pm 9 Jan 2015

Man, I wish anyone here played Assassin's Creed: Recollection. It really brought together a really good, solid CCG mechanic into the digital era and was a super solid CCG that could only work digitally in a way that really made sense. The mechanic/platform mesh was just fantastic.

But alas the game's basically gone, you can still get it and play it, but there are no more expansions :( There was a fully functional market and everything in it. Ubisoft obviously didn't see $_$ in it, sigh.

Boysano · 9:21pm 10 Jan 2015

Interesting.

I must say for me tcg is meant to be played online and not in real life, it can be so juicy and also prevents mis interpretations of the rules which caused many fist fights in my younger days with my older brother over a game of MTG... Now I also just play HS, funny cause I'm trying to sell my MTGo Bot business which has a 100000 card collection, its like worth $4000 and I'm bored of it ... Anyone interested?

I really miss the RPG or adventure mechanic of the original single player MTG game on PC, where you traveled on a map like HoMM and win or lose cards by ante and thus effectively level up byusing your new cards for new deck combos...

Delicious Hearthstone

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