Pro Hearthstone Player Maxime Pelletier Lays Out Exactly How The Game Has Worsened Over Time

Pelletier states that over the years, minion power creep and design philosophy has worked to inadvertently remove 2 core concepts.

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Since launching back in 2014, Hearthstone has undergone significant changes in its design philosophy. This should not be too surprising when considering the Blizzard releases three expansions per year along with additional content in between, but a series of tweets by competitive player Maxime Pelletier today put into words what long time players have seen for years, but did not fully appreciate until explicitly stated by someone else.

Original Hearthstone – The Importance Of Initiative And Card Advantage

Pelletier begins his argument by stating that over the years, minion power creep and design philosophy has worked to inadvertently remove two core concepts of Hearthstone that were important in its early years following release: initiative and card advantage.

Initiative refers to having minions who survive beyond their first turn to provide additional value later on, either by trading into an opposing board or by going face. Value trades, and by extension early board clears helped with the main goal of establishing or taking control of a board. Cards like Doomsayer used to be a staple in many decks specifically because it provided both a full board clear outside of Deathrattle mechanics and provided initiative.

Card advantage is, as the name states, related to having sufficient cards in hand to use all of one’s mana efficiently. Early tempo decks used to thrive when players were able to effectively use their cards, whereas playing too many small cost cards to use all of one’s mana came at the cost of running out of cards. The Warlock class Hero Power was so devastatingly strong early on for Zoo archetypes for this reason because it had such strong draw potential at most stages in the game to access low-cost cards. Both of these concepts were important thanks to the early design philosophy of minions and removal spells.

Designing Minions And Removal Spells

Coldwind Yeti, Carine Bloodhoof, and Voidwalker are examples of cards with stats proportional to their mana cost and rarity, while others like Tirion Fording have slightly less thanks to the benefit of their Deathrattle effect. This was the primary design constraint of most minions in the game. Those with immediate powerful effects to the board or with card generation often had a large stat penalty to offset the ability to generate tempo for the secondary benefit.

Removal spells on the other hand provided an immediate response to a board state that generally had higher stats than minions with similar costs but would then have no effect on subsequent turns. These worked perfectly as an answer to a sudden or developing board threat. With these simple design guidelines, players were able to create four main deck archetypes: Aggro, Control, Midrange, and Combo.

Pelletier argues that overtime, power creep and Rush were added to Hearthstone that effectively removed the stat penalty given to minions with either card generation or secondary effects to the board, removing the previous strategic trade-off between stats and an immediate effect. Since so many new minions can act as removal by design, why even run removal spells anymore?

In Pelletier’s opinion, the Descent of Dragons expansion was the height of the “Minions-as-removal” design philosophy, resulting in turn after turn of rush minions from both players. The result is that since strategic trade-offs have been eliminated, Control and Combo decks have been effectively removed as archetypes from the game, while Aggro no longer needs initiative to win.

Instead, we see games that feel all to alike to watch from an eSports perspective, and games feel “swingy” due to the long reach needed and provided over time with these changes. Anyone who has closed out a game as a Pirate Warrior or Highlander Hunter, or lost to one, knows all too well how often one can go from a safe, empty board, to death in a single turn.

At the same time, Blizzard has often used the reasoning of wanting to eliminate certain combo potential because it can feel bad to lose in a single turn to rotate cards from the basic set to the Hall of Fame. Power Overwhelming used to be an integral part of a Warlock combo deck with Emperor Thaurissan, Leeroy Jenkins, and Faceless Manipulator, until it was rotated into the Hall of Fame. Most recently, Divine Spirit was also removed. By also removing these key pieces that players need to dig through their decks to find to create a specific win condition, Blizzard works to ensure that many other decks feel far too similar.

A Possible, But Improbable Solution

In closing, Pelletier argues that a solution is readily available in that Blizzard should go back towards its initial design of minions with heavy stat penalties for secondary benefits like immediate effects and card generation. At the same time, removal spells should be made useful again relative to those minions.

While the solution is simple in principle, it is not one that Blizzard is likely to adopt. Since the release of The Frozen Throne expansion Blizzard has been deliberate in increasing power levels throughout a Standard rotation year. Power creep is not a good thing when left unchecked, and not inherently sustainable, but Blizzard allows players to have strong, powerful decks for a short while, at least until an expansion rotates into Wild. This is why the first and second expansion of the year tends to feel underpowered relative to the third.

As we have seen with the release of the Demon Hunter class, Blizzard seems far more interested in bringing in more customers with bright, shiny new toys, so to speak. Going back to the way things were might seem ideal from a competitive point of view for those who enjoyed the old style of game, but for a business model, it is not nearly as attractive. For now, we are unlikely to see any reversions, which is a shame, because Pelletier’s points all resonate quite well with this old Hearthstone player.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/pro-hearthstone-player-maxime-pelletier-critique/