My remark was referring to SoE/Vermin, but thanks for your elaboration
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Nerfs wouldn't be needed if people didn't sheepishly flock to these meta decks. Some good players playing unique decks, surrounded by copy cats. It's part of all games. When some janky deck is created all you mutants make the deck too. Blame yourselves for the nerfs. Like that lance discard deck, one guy figured how exactly to play it and the mutant sheep followed.
thats not the problem, its that the devs see something become popular and while only a few people do well with it, the numbers of how much its played think its too much and nerf cards. more than half the nerfs they have made in the past are because of popularity, the rest are because of complaints. maybe 2%, the card needed a nerf.
i dislike stall decks, but only when i'm playing against it. it's seriously a very NPE. tedious af. you sit there for >30 minutes and try to take the loss like a man. it's quite the opposite of rush decks. you're extremely annoyed bec rush decks are cheesy af, but at least you're relieved it only took <5 minutes of your time. you're like that prostitute who rejoices when the customer finishes quickly (rush decks) and you roll your eyes when it takes too long (stall decks). :mad:
but you can't really blame stall players. stall decks are extremely satisfying to play. it's like a well-laid plan all come together. when you get it right, it's a really satisfying win. and it's a valid win condition.
idk what the rule is now, but back then, i know Millstalker was banned in tournament play. so not many really played that deck, and besides, ppl who wanted to climb the ladder, wanted quick games. i think it's still the case today. if you want to climb the ladder, you need quick games.
one thing i can suggest to limit stall is not to nerf or ban or change any card but simply to limit the amount of times a stall deck can be played in QM. for example, you can only play a stall deck twice a day. that way, a stall deck can't be used to climb the ladder. we can probably program the game to be able to tag a deck if it is stall-y (perhaps list the requisite stall cards of a certain stall deck) and then prevent that deck from being played twice in a day. that would force players to play other decks.
we can also implement "time zones." for example during certain times, players cannot play the same deck consecutively in QM. that would allow a break from all the continuous stall decks that's being played. players who don't want to meet stall decks can play during those times. you can have four safe "time zones" to accomodate all major geographic areas.
you can add a randomized win condition in QM, like: player with highest health after T10 wins, or player with >5 allies than opponent on board wins, or something like that. the randomized condition can be triggered by a stall card but only 50% of the time or something like that.
what i've learned from playing HS a lot is that, in reality, more randomness makes the game more lively and more unpredictable, giving even weaker players a chance to defeat stronger players. here in SE where randomness isn't much of a force, 95% of the time, the stronger player always wins - barring a misplay or a bad MU.
implement random conditions to disrupt stall and i can assure you, the playing experience would get better.
one thing i have not seen you guys do is implement a daily quest to encourage variety in QM. daily quests will encourage deck variety in QM. because ppl will try to complete these daily quests, various decks would get played in QM, limiting certain deck types, or at least making the meta more refreshing instead of being stale.
one of the reasons why i went away for a while in this game was because development was so slow and the meta changed too slowly for my taste. i only got back now to try out the campaigns and the new sets of cards in the new expansion. but that's OT, so...
I agree with the concept of doing SOMETHING to limit the use of stall decks in quick match, but strongly disagree with adding more random stuff. Blizzard's combination of random copies, random thefts, random spells, random targets, and flip-a-coin results (could create a 1/1 chicken or a 5/5 monster) dumbs-down their game.
Do that and add in a few instant win cards, and you will completely wreck this game.