ShadowEra vs Hearthstone

[AnomalousT]

I'll add my two sense considering I've played a good month of Hearthstone now. I've really enjoyed playing Hearthstone, but sometimes I think it's a little too "fun" and lacking on the strategy aspect. I personally enjoy the "deck building" aspect of card games more than the actual "playing" aspect and I don't feel that Hearthstone has delivered on the deck building. (Instead it's much more focused on the playing aspect).

Another thing I find happening in Hearthstone is that I'll feel cheated out of a victory. Like I'll be winning the whole game and my opponent will pull off some epic combo at the end to kill me. (For example the Warrior - Molten Giant, Brewmaster, charge Combo if you know what I'm talking about.) It's a legit strategy but I'm not much a fan of that type of Gameplay.

The last point I want to make is about expansions. Not exactly sure how Blizzard plans on doing expansions, but just adding more neutral minions or just more classes seems boring. (And I don't really think they have the option of adding another hero to a class but who knows). While as with Shadow Era, I feel they have more room to grow. So my heart's set on Shadow Era, but I suppose I'll try to keep an open mind.

[Junk Style]

I'll add my two sense considering I've played a good month of Hearthstone now. I've really enjoyed playing Hearthstone, but sometimes I think it's a little too "fun" and lacking on the strategy aspect. I personally enjoy the "deck building" aspect of card games more than the actual "playing" aspect and I don't feel that Hearthstone has delivered on the deck building. (Instead it's much more focused on the playing aspect).

Another thing I find happening in Hearthstone is that I'll feel cheated out of a victory. Like I'll be winning the whole game and my opponent will pull off some epic combo at the end to kill me. (For example the Warrior - Molten Giant, Brewmaster, charge Combo if you know what I'm talking about.) It's a legit strategy but I'm not much a fan of that type of Gameplay.

The last point I want to make is about expansions. Not exactly sure how Blizzard plans on doing expansions, but just adding more neutral minions or just more classes seems boring. (And I don't really think they have the option of adding another hero to a class but who knows). While as with Shadow Era, I feel they have more room to grow. So my heart's set on Shadow Era, but I suppose I'll try to keep an open mind.

interesting. I feel like the card interactions gives a lot of room to hearthstone. Concepts such as armor (rather than weapons), or stalling with immunity (like iceblock) for your example...

Not to say i don't think SE cant grow, but the more it grows, the more it becomes about deck building and meta, and seemingly becomes slower and slower. I feel like, given equal skill, SE games are often decided before the game even begins, simply based on the deck. That to me is lame.

[Airact]

i'm assuming you are at 4+ rating then? Or are you just playing with basic cards and not a full set, and therefor not really playing the game seriously?

I only play Arena

[Alzorath]

Just as an aside, Blizzard has already made it fairly well known that they don't want stall/mill/etc. in their game (ie control deck), so it sort of comes down to rush/burn/beats in format - faster games, more aggressive too. To put it in perspective... if you put MtG in the realm of Baldur's Gate, Hearthstone would be Diablo 2. Good game, same principles, but extremely different feel and delivery (and much faster paced). Shadow Era would probably be on par with Dungeon Siege 1 for comparison's sake.

As for expansions... not sure... the fact that "Heroes of Warcraft" is the second part of the name (Read - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft), it could go 2 ways, either expand deeper into the warcraft world, digging deeper into the lore for more heroes/allies (which there's still a lot of room to go) -OR- it could expand into other franchises (ie - Hearthstone: Heroes of Starcraft).

[Maldazar]

One of the things i really like about Hearthstone is how they abuse the fact that it's a digital card game and NOT a phisical card game, with lots of cards that give buffs, remove buffs, create tokens (like a 2/2 creature), etc, this would just be extreemly painfull to play with in a phisical game, but works perfectly on a digital game.. It also opens a lot more options for interesting cards (simple cards like for example a 2/3 creature, that, when it dies, creates a 2/1 token, so basicly it has the be killed twice) or cards like polymorph/hex, that transform a creature in a 1/1 creature...

Anyway, that said, I agree with iClipse that the random cards/effects are just stupid and should not exist in any kind of competitive game... I really hope that blizzards sees that and stops at least making new random cards (even better, change the current cards with random effects as well..)

Anyway, I still think that Hearthstone is made for the non TCG players, and is a perfect start point, it's simple, but with enough strategy to make it fun.. but as for dept, SE (and some other digital TCG's) are far ahead.

[Junk Style]

Just as an aside, Blizzard has already made it fairly well known that they don't want stall/mill/etc. in their game (ie control deck), so it sort of comes down to rush/burn/beats in format - faster games, more aggressive too. To put it in perspective... if you put MtG in the realm of Baldur's Gate, Hearthstone would be Diablo 2. Good game, same principles, but extremely different feel and delivery (and much faster paced). Shadow Era would probably be on par with Dungeon Siege 1 for comparison's sake.

As for expansions... not sure... the fact that "Heroes of Warcraft" is the second part of the name (Read - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft), it could go 2 ways, either expand deeper into the warcraft world, digging deeper into the lore for more heroes/allies (which there's still a lot of room to go) -OR- it could expand into other franchises (ie - Hearthstone: Heroes of Starcraft).

They don't want games lasting longer than say 10 minutes, but they aren't against stall. Mage stall was very dominant for a couple months before it encountered some nerfs.

[AnomalousT]

interesting. I feel like the card interactions gives a lot of room to hearthstone. Concepts such as armor (rather than weapons), or stalling with immunity (like iceblock) for your example...

Not to say i don't think SE cant grow, but the more it grows, the more it becomes about deck building and meta, and seemingly becomes slower and slower. I feel like, given equal skill, SE games are often decided before the game even begins, simply based on the deck. That to me is lame.

I see your point. Sometimes playing SE can feel like a game of rock, paper, scissors. In my fantasy world I think that SF is going to alleviate the problem, but I know that's not true. (Hopefully there are more strategies for each hero, though).

Right now Arena is by far the best way to play Hearthstone IMO. I just don't see constructed ever being that worth-while. And that would kill it for me. I want to have fun playing both modes, not just the drafting version of playing the game.

[Jets]

Am I the only one who thinks hearthstone is gay?

[galwyn]

heartstone combat system just sucks, i played long time and its just child's play, since its beta, maybe it would change, on the other hand, like all blizzard stuff, its pay to win.

[Alzorath]

Wouldn't exactly call anything blizzard "pay to win"... pay to play maybe (there's honestly only one dCCG that I feel has done 'free to collect' system right...but it's a pay-to-access game: Ironside Tactics - an engaging storyline campaign w/ challenge campaigns to unlock the full list of cards)

Hearthstone is a 'grind or pay' system, just like every other dtcg (something normal tcgs can't do logistically - they can't earn enough money by you just showing up to play).

WoW pay to win? nope.
Diablo pay to win? nope. (I suppose you could argue Auction house, but you can find anything from the auction house yourself with enough grinding - and In d1 and d2 this system wasn't present)
Starcraft pay to win? nope.
Hearthstone pay to win? not really - you can grind for -everything- nothing is 'pay wall only' (not even cosmetic foils).

I find it idiotic how many people throw around 'pay to win' nags, when it's actually NOT pay to win. (people accuse SE of being 'pay to win'... when paying doesn't give you access to ANY cards that grinding doesn't give you access to). I find it just wreaks of entitlement.

"Pay to Win" is a game where an advantage is gained over non-pay users through access to 'pay only' available tools. (for example - if SE made it so you could 'pay' to reduce the shadow energy cost of hero abilities by 1 shadow energy, SE would be pay to win. SE is -not- pay to win, because it allows for access to all the same cards regardless of whether you used in-game currency or real world currency).


[PS - I should note that people calling WoW or the diablo series 'pay to win' because of sites that are against the ToS that sell in-game items/gold for real cash - should say that their house is a 'flea market' because people can steal from it and sell it wherever - it's an activity not endorsed or promoted.)