Hearthstone vs Shadow Era (again)

[Sprinkles]

I used to be on the fence. But now I've come to the conclusion that Hearthstone just plain sux ass. Complete utter trash. Over simplified game mechanics doesn't even allow the developers to release any interesting cards. How many fluppin ways can you give a 1/2 or a 2/3 or a 3/5 minion +1/+1? Hm!? Millions according to Blizzard cuz they just can't get enough of this thing called "pump up". Just draw a goblin on one and a dwarf on the other and now they're completely different!!

Even the concept of Legendarys has 90% fallen on its ass as 90% of all Legendaries are ACTUAL ass in the face of all the tremendous overwhelming mind boggling aggression. And looking at the Blackrock mountain cards they are teasing just makes me want to slap Ben Brode or whatever his name is across the teeth (Yes, we are getting violent on forum tonight.) especially when they are charging way too much for a group of cards that do nothing to solve the agro problem, but in fact, make agro even more fast and consistent.

So I come back to check out the latest version of shadow era and all the interesting well thought out patch notes and I just have to take a deep breath and say "thank you" to shadow era. Why? Well, the answer's obvious isn't it? Thank you for not being Hearthstone.

That is all.

[tman507]

Well, I wouldn't get that violent over it, lol.

But yeah, I tried HS for a bit because of some co-workers who play it constantly, and I just couldn't get into it at all compared to SE. So much harder to make a decent deck if you don't pay any money, and so much less balance IMO compared to SE. Too many cards with things like same cost and ability but one have strictly better stats than the other, even if both neutral cards, lol. Just too many non-balanced things. In SE there are still strong cards, but anything can be countered some way. HS does have some good things, although mainly just in the visual presentation of it being very polished.

Makes me hope even more that someday Wulven will be able to get a good solid release schedule going, get in many new features like campaign, 2 v 2, 4 player FFA, etc. Cause if they can get that going and establish themselves well enough against a big company like Blizzard, Wulven has made a much more easily accessible and balanced game IMO.

[LucasBlitz]

Lol HS is amazing. It's meant to be a fast paced game engineered squarely towards fun and gimmicks unlike the hours and hours one would put into magic or SE.
Imo I sort of wish the legendaries in SE were more like HS being odd and dynamic where they each aim only to cause chaos and madness to the game.
All we get is dissapointing Rothem, big body Karlstrad, neverused Collosus and Loest who's actually pretty good ._.
Another point on every minion being a 3/4 that its pretty amazing how these simple mechanics strategize the game where people would wish for a 4/5 4 drop now lean to a 4/3 4 drop that spawns a 2cc.
On the point of aggro, yes that can't be helped but its better than facing Millstalker in SE or just rush in SE which is slightly more consistent than its HS rush counterpart.
Blackrock mountain is just like Naxrammus, all the cards are going to be trash except a select few that will shape the meta.

TLDR: It's a casual RNG game, its SUPPOSED to be fast paced and chaotic. You're probably taking it too seriously than the creators themselves.

[Crusader]

Lol HS is amazing. It's meant to be a fast paced game engineered squarely towards fun and gimmicks unlike the hours and hours one would put into magic or SE.
Imo I sort of wish the legendaries in SE were more like HS being odd and dynamic where they each aim only to cause chaos and madness to the game.
All we get is dissapointing Rothem, big body Karlstrad, neverused Collosus and Loest who's actually pretty good ._.
Another point on every minion being a 3/4 that its pretty amazing how these simple mechanics strategize the game where people would wish for a 4/5 4 drop now lean to a 4/3 4 drop that spawns a 2cc.
On the point of aggro, yes that can't be helped but its better than facing Millstalker in SE or just rush in SE which is slightly more consistent than its HS rush counterpart.
Blackrock mountain is just like Naxrammus, all the cards are going to be trash except a select few that will shape the meta.

TLDR: It's a casual RNG game, its SUPPOSED to be fast paced and chaotic. You're probably taking it too seriously than the creators themselves.

very nice approach. I dont know about the aggro in hs but i know that the aggro in SE is just getting annoying.doesn't leave a place for strategy.

[bobrossw]

HS has several things that limit its strategic depth compared to SE.
In SE these things promote strategic depth and are what make the game more interesting and fun for me:
1) 4 of the same card per deck in a 40 card deck limit - this encourages people to build focused decks around a specific strategy. HS has 2 of the same card per deck, which makes decks feel sort of haphazard.
2) slower release cycle - most of the cards in SE feel truly unique. In HS, they have different art but do very similar things. I suppose this gets around that 2 of same card per deck limit, but this is a silly way to do it.
3) Difficult choices - sacrificing cards for resources means making difficult strategic choices throughout the game, even when you have limited knowledge of what your opponent's plans are. This offers room for knowledge of the game and metagame, intuition, planning and strategy to all have an impact on the game. HS just gives you a resource each turn, and so the most important factors in the game become the specific matchup and luck of the draw.

That said, I'm happy there's an HS out there. I think it's a fine way to get people into CCGs. So long as people learn that HS is a "light" version of a CCG and that all the interesting and strategic elements of the game are done better elsewhere, I think it's a good thing.

[Alzorath]

I'm fine with HS as a casual game, but I stand by the fact that it's not a legitimate 'competitive' level game - too much chaos and luck (I mean 15-minimum variety... for comparison MtG is generally 9-ish ignoring land, SE is 10, etc. and lower is better for 'consistency'... and the "2 of" limit also just basically makes every card a tech card... it's irritating).

I will likely just stick with arena in hearthstone. I will be covering more hearthstone in the near future... but it's as part of an overall larger project.

[FDL]

That said, I'm happy there's an HS out there. I think it's a fine way to get people into CCGs. So long as people learn that HS is a "light" version of a CCG and that all the interesting and strategic elements of the game are done better elsewhere, I think it's a good thing.

This. HS does a lot of things right, but I'm not a big fan of the gameplay myself. And I find card acquisition cost to be rather high.

It's interesting to me that while I find Shadow Era and Magic to be super fun games to play, they're rather boring to watch, but HS is pretty funny to watch but a little boring to play...

[Demnchi]

I'm fine with HS as a casual game, but I stand by the fact that it's not a legitimate 'competitive' level game - too much chaos and luck (I mean 15-minimum variety... for comparison MtG is generally 9-ish ignoring land, SE is 10, etc. and lower is better for 'consistency'... and the "2 of" limit also just basically makes every card a tech card... it's irritating).

I will likely just stick with arena in hearthstone. I will be covering more hearthstone in the near future... but it's as part of an overall larger project.

Eh, I dunno. I think the competitive scene has enough to work with, its just that the skill is WAY more focused on the side of understanding chance than in other card games. Not perfect, but hey, maybe that's just my view. Besides, isn't rather a game is competitive or not up to the people playing it and not the game itself?

Personally, I think HS's whole ideal is the idea of chance and manipulating it and handling the chaos that comes from it. I mean, look at a card like Deadly Shot (Kill a random enemy minion), its a card by its very nature that is random, but if you play it smart you can increase the chances of what you want it to hit (even to 100% in some cases). Unstable Portal (put any minion in your hand at random and reduce its cost) is CRAZY random (and likely a bit TOO random, but hey not my point), but its also another example of a card that creates chaos and how you manage it is an interesting moment that the card creates. I think this goes hand in hand with the 2 copy limit as well, although I personally despise that limit as making the kind of decks I like to play (centered around one idea or gimmick) usually don't work well enough to justify even bringing them for fun.

I don't think HS is a bad game though (in fact, I think its great), its just not necessarily the kind of CCG enthusiasts are looking for, and that's a positive thing imo.

(ps: I do agree the cost of the game is too high though, I don't even come close to having everything and I still have 3400 dust because I can't pull epics or legendaries out of the packs (that's a LOT of duplicate cards for people who don't know what dust is), and some legendaries really aren't worth pulling.... although i did get a Vol'jin, which I'm currently loving :3).

[bobrossw]

It's interesting to me that while I find Shadow Era and Magic to be super fun games to play, they're rather boring to watch, but HS is pretty funny to watch but a little boring to play...

-says a guy who records shadow era games for youtube . But I'm with you, the art and animation in HS is certainly appealing, and one thing that it does better than SE.

[FDL]

-says a guy who records shadow era games for youtube . But I'm with you, the art and animation in HS is certainly appealing, and one thing that it does better than SE.

Haha.

Let me rephrase that: I watch SE and MtG vidoes to get insight from other players (which helps me enjoy those games even more) but I'm not really 'entertained' by them. On the other hand, HS games are just easy to watch and funny with all the sounds, explosions and randomness.

It's like watching a documentary or a cartoon episode. Both are valid, but they serve different 'purposes'.