Great job Rarran. Your content is varying quite a lot. Love your videos, subscribed some months ago and so far you are one of my favorite Hearthstone RUclipsrs. Keep on the good work, man
Thanks for this Rarren. Your "infotainment" videos are what brought me to this channel and your game shows were an excellent addition. You make these in a way that is easy to understand, relatable, pleasant to watch, and overall very professional versus being highly opinionated and ranting. Even if I have a frustrating experience with Hearthstone based upon topics like these, it's comfortable to see what you talk about and it helps shake off the salt. I look forward to seeing what other great ideas you spawn for the community.
Great video and content.. Informative and entertaining with some humor sprinkled in .. like Kibler saying "Cheaterrr" I LoL 🤣.. keep up the great work and keep growing.. road to 200k
Randomness adds a very important element to card games that is very dear to me. The ability to blame my loss, not on my own lack of skill, but in the randomness of how i drew my cards. Its not my fault i lost, it was RNG.
Their RNG have BROKEN IMPOSSIBLE math probabilities where I HAVE BETTER CHANCES OF WINNING THE LOTTERY, DYING, GETTING KISSED BY A CELEBRITY CRUSH, ALL IN THE Next HOUR than the that happens in the game.
The game break probability odds so bad, that life on Mars starting right now have a better chance of happening than the things the game pulls where it need a billion to one odds to happen 5 times in a row just to win. You know the odds on that?! Over a Google Plex YET IT HAPPENS IN HEARTHSTONE.
I think another example of a "not random" meta was the Stormwind questlines. Definitely felt like a lot of games were more about matchups rather than how you played them. Fantastic video as always
except sadly that devolved the game into solitaire where you just raced to complete your quest and effectively win the game. It's like polar opposites in game design, very little RNG but also very little actual interaction lol
The introduction of quest lines is a huge opportunity missed for me. Instead of putting in different requirements for the phases to increase decision making, it's just do x more times of this thing.
@@homosapiens-pymoEn6SOmxcqtdXJX now that you point it out it really sounds interesting if maybe questlines would have you do different things (kind of like priests but even priest is not really different) I think that would be great to build your deck around that and have to decide whether to push your questline or do something different
For the unfamiliar Re: Genn&Baku. They upgraded your hero power (weak filler ability that you can do once per turn) at the cost of restricting your deck to only even, or only odd cost cards. At first this seems kind of cool, you normally only use your hero power in niche situations or when you have extra mana left over - so it might seem like this would be a cool way to build a deck that synergizes around your hero power. The problem is, the upgraded hero power is just so consistently strong and reliable that even as new sets came out, many classes(like colors in MTG) felt obligated to be built as even or odd decks. Also the decks felt very homogeneous because the requirement cut the deck building card pool in half aaand the strong hero power encouraged you to draw from an even smaller pool of cards that synergized with using your hero power as often as possible. The result was a boooring meta that dragged on for multiple expansions. Normally the meta shifts with each expansion ( 3 per year) , but Genn and Baku wer just so reliable and strong in many classes that they continued to dominate across the next two expansions. Often a card can be good for its entire rotation in standard, but these were nearly entire decks only swapping in a few new cards each time. It was so bad that the devs stepped in and gave them an early farewell, sending them to HS eternal format, wild, a full year ahead of schedule. Even then, they were so strong in wild that a few odd/even decks clung on to relevancy untill only a few expansions ago ... but the most recent expansion (and a card buff) brought back even Shaman and odd Paladin. Even Shaman is once again one of the strongest decks in wild and although odd Paladin isn't nearly as strong its at least playable again. The cards are really cool and drastically alter how you build and play a deck, but they just made the meta too samey for too long. I love that HS can do this kind of thing with start of game effects.
I always saw your content as a mix of fun HS nostalgia and super interesting card game theory. This vid is a great mix of both and I think that's an avenue you can explore to branch out of pure HS. You have a knack for explaining the different concepts that make a card game interesting or stale and it shows amazingly here.
Hey Rarran! I found this while browsing your channel's older videos (only a month old at time of post but hey) and while its fairly different from your normal content I think its really well done and informative!
The thing about Hearthstone is that it has a pretty similar problem to Yugioh, high impact extensive turns, the difference between the two is that Yugioh is about comboeing your pieces as fast as possible, but in return there are ways to interact with your opponent in the form of traps, hand traps, quick effects and quick spells. Hearthstone on the other hand, save for secrets which are very far in between, has long turns with no interaction, so in order to balance that out they have to introduce randomness, because if there was no randomness then all plays would become more deterministic. Pokemon solves this by making fights a 1 on 1, and if you hit your opposing pokemon by 10.000 it only kills 1 and gives you 1 prize card (save exceptions with multiprize and attacks that hit the bench)
Problem with hearthstone is, it isn't true RNG IT IS FIXED BY THE GAME. The algorithm will fix games for your opponent when the game feels the need you are winning too much and therefore they aren't making enough money off you.
This is the same issue I have with Runeterra. So many cards generate units, generate spells, randomly buffing/damaging units, etc. It was one thing when only Targon was Invoking a small pool of Celestial cards, but now half the decks in the game can just create a ton of free junk.
It does feel like it's getting out of hand as the developers are rushing out too many expansions too quickly and are running out of good ideas as a result, forcing them to fall back on releasing bad ideas instead.
First things first, fantastic video Rarran! I love these type of video essays that break down dynamics and mechanics in card games. They've always fascinated me and you nail the breakdowns perfectly. I think the dichotomy between Magic and Hearthstone's RNG issues is that while drawing land is, in a vacuum random, it is far easier to circumvent that issue in Magic. The occurrence of losing to just flat-out not drawing the right land or right amount of land in Magic is far less common than Hearthstone just "randomly" giving your opponent or you the EXACT card you need in that situation. It's like topdecking except at least with topdecking you'll draw a card that already exists, instead of discovering a card that can just win the game randomly. RNG is a fickle concept but at least with magic or yugioh, the core game itself is not revolved around it. That being said Hearthstone is a very fun casual game but its competitive merit suffers heavily because of its RNG mechanics.
I'd argue the opposite. MtG's system is worse because when you get RNG screwed, you literally can't play the game. It's so bad that MtG introduced a pseudo-RNG system to their online client which is designed to prevent feels-bad moments you would get when playing paper.
The issue with hearthstone is it isn't TRUE RNG. The game knows AT ALL TIMES WHAT IS WIN CONDITION AND HOW TO MAKE YOU LOSE. This is very apparent to the fact that they literally HAVE A CARD THAT GIVES YOU EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED IN ANY GIVEN SITUATION. It would be very easy to tell if it is true RNG as the constant useless card you and your opponent gets would be equal to good cards you can get from RNG. Yet hearthstone pulls assanine RNG where the RNG will pull off combo RNG where it will allow your opponent to get THE EXACT CARDS THEY NEED IN ORDER TO WIN IN EVERY TURN AND THE GAME WILL DO IT IN MULTIPLE GAMES AGAINST YOU and just for good measure the game has an algorithm where it will make sure your combination of cards can't be reached. It will for multiple games won't let you have your early game cards and will continuously put away your draw, and early game cards deep into the deck. Even with the new dredge mechanic those cards will be just above the dredge threshold. The game will do this continuously until you have lost a certain amount of games. Some great players can outplay the RNG with a little help of horrible players, but that's when the RNG algorithm WILL WORK HARDER AND THE GAME LAGS AND EAT MEMORY UP IN ORDER TO CALCULATE IT FOR EVERY TURN AND REARRANGE YOUR CARDS FROM THE DECK. I have had my sludge somehow magically gets drawn or aren't at the bottom. Which proves the game can and will change your deck order.
Major 'Simply Explained' youtube video vibes. Great pronunciation and you explained the things for people outside the HS bubble well. Have a good one, Rarran!
Great video my dude, you pretty much summed up why I love card games, inherent randomness to get a different game every time but also try to make your deck as consistent as possible
I personally find lands to be the worst part of mtg. So many games where you want to throw decks against each other and see how they interact. But lands often make it a steamroll. And most lands that pro players use are not only very boring, but also the most expensive cards. To me, their only redeeming factor is the ones that have interesting abilities.
Great video Rarran, thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Valuable information and great research on all of your points. As an OG player of the game, your HS content made me come back to the game after 6 years of absence and Blizzard should thank you for this cause I am sure I am not the only player that came back after your vids. Made me hungry to grind to 1000 wins on my Mage with the deck I love playing the most, Freeze Mage. However I only play classic since it is the most competitive mode and that's what was fun for me in HS. Not only becoming really proficient with your own deck but also trying to make the best play each turn, playing around your opponents cards and deck idea. Unfortunately it is not the way Blizzard decided to go with HS and when Yogg came around I stopped playing. I am glad they introduced the classic mode where people like me can enjoy old school HS and live in the nostalgia of what the game used to be like. Love your Content, especially the classic money matches with legends like Savjz. Best of luck to you and your channel. Keep up the great work you goat :)
I've been watching your videos since the Magic card evaluation vids and I don't really like or want to play Hearthstone, but I've loved watching your personality, and your silly challenges, and I loved this video as well. Grats on 100k, here's to many more
Would be really interested to see you talk about Keyforge. Probably the closest I’ve seen to a physical hearthstone in terms of how swingy turns can be but since the decks are all random too it can be real wild
Memories of the start of Sunken City when mech discover pools were overloaded with great cards, last time I felt RNG needed tweaking in the game. They've definitely found a good formula to make things fun but not fully high roll crazy
my problem there was definitely amalgam of the deep that was so consistent paladins could easily get the mage mech legendary and win games almost entirely on that
This is a really interesting video from an LoR player's perspective. Legends of Runeterra has much less randomness in it, and what it has either has very limited effect (Invoke) or isn't good enough to see play outside of meme decks (Howling Abyss). And once a card that was *both* completely random *and* very good was introduced (Loping Telescope), the state of the game was considered to be one of the worst of all time. Well, that card wasn't the only reason, Bundle City on release was busted as a whole, but Telescope was a big part of it.
This is so right but the thing is the game is starting down the path of too much RNG which is while fun break the meta. Invoke was the example of good RNG since is from a limited pool unlike norra which can win you thr game but a portal giving you the best minions in the game
@@DanteMustLearn Norra at least has some limits to the rng of her portals, at least until she levels up. Her card also stating which exact mana values they can generate does help form a gameplan against it. It's not perfect, but it's not full rng, there's still limits to what it can do.
Glad to see you finally addressing this. I've always hated randomness in general beyond the basic randomness of the draw needed to keep every match of a CCG from being the same, but I can tolerate it to a point. Hearthstone reached this point and went way, _way,_ *WAY* beyond it. Contrary to what you say, in my opinion, the distinction is between limited and unlimited RNG (or what you call "wide generation"). For example, an effect that can generate a limited number of random results, like say Arcane Missiles, is relatively fine, because you can predict the possible range of results from using it and take that into account when planning your moves. Sure, it sucks when your opponent randomly hits your face instead of any of the 7 minions you had on the board, but you knew that was a possibility, right? It was a long shot and they went for it. A card that can do almost ANYTHING, like Unstable Portal which can generate any minion _in the entire game_ before discounting it by 3, is complete bullshit, because this is the point where planning, strategy and preparation go completely out the window in favour of "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Limited RNG can enhance strategic options ("Do I want to risk gambling on this or should I go for a safer play?"), unlimited RNG just completely negates them ("Eh, let's just do this and see what happens"). This is why the original iteration of Yogg-Saron was the worst card Blizzard ever released, no matter how many people liked it, because he could literally win (or lose) you the game on the spot from ANY position, to the point that you might as well have just decided the entire game with a coin flip on the first turn. You may say this kind of RNG is integral to Hearthstone, but I'd counter that it's the reason that Hearthstone is actually _not a very good game._
The current good mage deck is literally RNG dependent. It is ridiculous. Same with Shaman and priest. They're now the 3 unpopular classes, when they were popular.
best "good" RNG card : Mogor the Ogre. Lot of RNG sure but both player can interact with the card and minmax RNG. It also says "50% to attack the wrong enemy" not "wrong target" which is nice. It also had the bonus of "countering" stealth auctionneer which was funny.
Hearthstone introduced RNG... people didn't like it from a competitive standpoint, but loved it on a casual one. Blizzard embraced RNG, and now HS is super fun to goof around in. Casino Mage, Burgle Rogue, Steal Priest... amazing archetypes!
I think that RNG in Hearthstone sometimes dips into the point of not being fun, but it really depends on the card. I think when something does a random effect and it's more than 6 mana, it can feel like too big of a swing. People are okay with small swings, but when it feels like no skill was involved in your opponent's victory, it can leave a sour taste. Randomness is Hearthstone is really at it's best when it feels like it's power ranges from "Perfect answer" down to "Last resort", where it's effects have trackable, probable outcomes. When a card's power is built more like "Neutral outcome" to "Sudden win", with say Yog, that can be a problem.
The "replay value" can be seen in the fact, that Magic: The Gathering's most popular format is Commander, which is a Highlander variant. Because your decks are not 60 cards but 100 cards and there is only one of each card instead of maximum 4 times of the same. The replay value is much higher and the game are more different with each play. Also with Commander having different banlists, there are cards you would not be allowed to play anywhere else.
I think the replay value from Commander also comes from having so many options for deck building due to the large card pool and also the wide ranges in power level and play styles (also having 4 players increases variety wildly). Formats like Standard (which is my favourite) often become stagnant due to certain cards just being so powerful that they warp the format for prolonged periods of time so you get the same deck types and cards on repeat (just look at black decks in standard right now or cards like goldspan, luminarch aspirant, oko etc in the past).
I was playing Hearthstone back when C'thun and Gedgetzan was out and I remember building like a C'thun/Discover Warlock with cards like Kabal Courier, Kabal Chemist, Kazakus... alongside Kooky Chemist, Dirty Rat and Kabal Trafficker it was the funniest deck I've ever played =D
"Drawing a card is completely random" smh rarran this is why you're bad at yugioh, not even acknowledging the heart of the cards Great video as always, really cool breakdown between what I've heard called input and output randomness
I played Duel of Summoners (Mabinogi Duel) for a short while when it was up. That was a card game that removed alot of the RNG from the card game format: Your deck is just 10 to 12 cards (don't remember how many) You start the game with all cards in hand. You can see your opponent's most powerful card before the start of the match. Units attack at the end of your turn, and only the space opposing them (unless they have an effect that changes it). If your opponent doesn't have something in front of your bruiser, they take face. You had a finite number of moves per turn, from 1 at the start of the game to 3 later, between: Play a card, draw mana, recycle your graveyard to your hand, discard a card for that card's mana type, or level up (increasing your moves per turn by 1) Each time a card goes to the graveyard, its cost increases by 1. Buuuuut, the game had some pretty rough RNG: Units could have armor, which is more or less HP, except they lose armor equal from 1 to half the amount of armor damage they took. So if their tank has 6 armor, and you smack them from 6 damage, they'll lose between 1 and 3 armor. Now imagine your opponent has an Armor Generator, and buffs its bruiser with say 20 Armor; you play your big damage spell, to knock off 1 armor. Good game. Your mana pool was random, and playing mono color decks was virtually impossible. Duo and tri color decks got twice as much mana per turn as mono. Not to mention the cards in the game weren't terribly well balanced, but it was a good concept I'd like to see again.
What makes Hearthstone unique for me is the randomness - more randomness = more fun. If everything is set in stone and you can predict every turn it can become a bit boring. I know that many people won't agree with this especially the more competitive minded players but I believe that the main thing that set apart Hearthstone from others is randomness and taking advantage of the digital format
Awesome video, it addresses some of the more annoying problems in hearthstone in a chill way while explaing why its more factors than just heads or tails, love it or hate it rng is an aspect of hearthstone that makes it stand out from other games
Yogg was a huge problem, and the example was when toast summon a mechatun from a mind games, draw all his deck with unstable element, and destroy his hand and board with cataclysm. Imagine if that happends in a tournament
It's really telling when the best decks are and always have been "ok how do I get rid of the most RNG" unless you like relying on pulling magic out of your butt
"Yogg Saron, hopes end" is an intresting case because despite the fact that it was THE most random card in the game at that point, having acces to all spell pools, it was a very consistant card. If you played it it was very likely to: 1. draw you cards 2. Destroy all minions 3. Build you a board. There were a few cards it could cast that totally messed you up, but since you usually played him as a last ditch effort that didn't really matter. So they ended up nerfing him because he was almost the best 10 drop in the game (C'thun was still very strong).
This might be a hot take, but I still think the nerf they put on Yogg absolutely destroyed the spirit of the card. Building a Yogg over the course of the game and then just letting it go embodied the absolute peak of what Hearthstone meant to me, and watching the whole thing just putter out by silencing himself on his first cast took all that joy away from me. I still think they should have kept it as it was, but instead ban it from ranked ladder, Arena, and any other 'official' competitive environments where balance and win/loss rates matter way more.
@@sallas09 that's not really a hot take, that's what pretty much everyone said at the time. The discussion was more about whether the change was necessary or not.
I dont think HS has that much rng just to make the game less boring. I think its just to make it so even shitty players can win against pros as skill is changed into rng. Like magic for ex. has to rig their games to get simillar results (giving you bad matchups or mana screw/flood you, etc.) Shadowverse on the other hand just used to balance their cards like once per month (stopped playing so dunno how its now)
have you ever looked into flesh and blood? it's a pretty cool tcg that does a lot of new things (or at least does it differently than magic/yugioh/pokemon/hearthstone), and one of those things is how it ends up being a lot more consistent of a game. for example, every turn you draw cards until you have 4 cards in hand and you typically play out your whole hand (or save 1 for next turn, which lets you have an effective 5 card hand), meaning you go through your deck a lot faster (40 or 60 card decks depending on format), so you end up seeing all of your cards pretty consistently. on top of that, cards have multiple versions in different colors (it's related to the resource system, which i won't go into) which lets you have up to 6 or 9 (depending on format) of almost the same card in your deck, so if you really want a specific card played as often as possible, you're basically drawing a copy of it every other turn. it still definitely has rng, drawing into good hands/high rolling is still very much a thing, the resource system definitely can hamper a turn if you're unlucky, and some decks like brute are built to have rng, but the consistency is just very refreshing in a card game. it makes the deckbuilding process feel so much more concrete knowing that you can basically craft your average hand to such a fine degree. and the game naturally has a ton of interactivity which helps with the "replayability" that it could suffer from having less rng. anyway, thanks for the vid rarran
CCG's dont add randomness for replayability, they add it because it closes the skill gap and lets lower skilled players win against a higher skill opponents. Every single game like this falls prey to a thing called the downward skill spiral: In a purely skill based system, the lower skilled 20% of the population loses 80% of their games and then quits. Losing a full quarter of your population every month is gonna bring ole Bobby Kotick to your office door with a hatchet.
With targeting randomnes, it enablels a whole bunch of card effects that couldn't be pulled of in another was, Dethrattles for example could only ever deal dmg to your opponent or be an aoe if it couldn't be random, same for knife jugler
Thanks for all these insights, now I understand a lot of things (and players) way better. I guess I'm the odd one out here, because I really enjoyed the witchwood-meta (Genn and Baku). I played a lot back then and card draw RNG combined with the possibility of playing another deck was more than enough variety for me.
>.> when i used to play sometimes id feel bad winning with my spell mage since my win condition was usually deck of lunacy or the mage quest that just gave you a rando spell......or my "im playing your deck now" priest where i out jaded a jade druid and out evolved an evo shaman with it
There is the obvious “card drawing” RNG. You draw different cards from one game to another game, resulting in different power level combos. We had some highrole decks, like Barnes, where the card draw RNG increases your winrate enormously. RNG thus also entails the power difference between single cards. A recent example was drawing the guff-hero-card.
I wanna play chess, not casino. Overall, RNG is bad. In competitive games RGN we should try to decrease RNG. I blame not Hearthstone, but rather stupid people that allow blizzard keep doing that.
"Today we dive into Legends of Runeterra, a game from Riot available on pc and mobile." Excuse me? I thought this was a Heartshtone video! I can't believe they brought Yogg to LoR!
Yeah I've made my piece with this. I hate the randomness of HS so I'll probably never really come back to play it but I get that the randomness is what others enjoy about it.
The poster child on generation into generation has to be the Warrior 2/2 Taunt Discover a Taunt which would find itself a lot of the time because it was one of 3 warrior taunt minions and Dragon Queen Alexstrasa because 0 mana do it again was very good
One of the best way to implememt rng in any game, regardless of genre, is to use "options rng" instead of "outcome rng". Outcome rng, is when the result of your actions is completely unpredictable. 99% of "rng hell" are of this category. Noteworthy examples: random loot drops, critical hits and general shenanigans Options rng, is when the result of your actions are 100% predictable, yet what actions you get to choose from is random. Noteworthy examples: procedurally generated worlds, drawing cards and random mob or collectible spawns In order to make lets say, the "unstable portal" a more fair, and still fun card, while retaining the rng, it could tell you in your hand which random minion it is going to summon should you play it. And then, it will change to a different minion each round. That way the card is functionally the same, but with an added level of fairness, risk evaluation (deciding not to play it with the hopes of rolling a better minion) and providing a new dynamic choice each turn. Basically, porobot from lor. Not all cards can be reworked into this type of rng, but those that do, stand a lot to gain from doing so
Yeah I definitely think there's a good balance between random good and random bad. For the most part, having cards utilize the digital card space makes it the most fun and entertaining for me. Right now I'm starting to not like the meta because Denathrius is a thing. People can argue it's "random," because wide boards will protect you, but in most cases there's not much that can save you from a 40-60 damage Denathrius. And sometimes he doesn't even need to be that big. 15 damage is already half your life. And because Druid can use him with Brann it basically means if I'm not playing Aggro, and I see a Druid, no point in even playing that match at all.
Could not agree more. Whenever I lose in the game im mostly fine with it, unless its some random card generating or spell generating thing that comes out of nowhere, it started with the discover mechanic and now its rampant. Really hope they change their direction but im cynical enough to think they wont cause they only care as long as whatever they release sells.
In Yugioh there is something called Garnets. Imagine having a deck package like being able to run 2 Barnes that could only pull a specific creature but you could shove that package into a lot of decks, including those with a lot of different creatures. A lot of decks ran it even though there was a chance of drawing the 1 other creature because the odds were in your favor and the advantage was worth it. I wouldn't say that the idea is bad for the game but I'm not really a fan of it. Another example is the limited list. You can only run 1 copy of a card instead of 3. Imagine if Pot Of Greed was limited instead of banned. The player who pulls their 1 copy of Pot Of Greed would get a major advantage. It would be "fair" in the sense that both players are running Pot Of Greed. Edit: A better first example would be how so many decks ran Pirates to get pre nerf Patches out.
Randomness is necessary in card games. It's what separates cards games from other games, like chess. In a game with no randomness the newer, less experienced player can theoretically never win against a superior opponent. There is no sense of "discovery" that comes with the random nature of card draw in the way that a new player might be able to luck in to a combo that can win them the game. That adds excitement when you're learning the game in a way that a game that is all deterministic would just crush their dreams each and every time they played and make it more difficult to want to overcome the challenge through practice and study.
I don't think rng is the real issue, people just need something other then themselfs to blame for losing. Like even in other card games where the only rng is what you draw, people still complain about rng, but also only when they lose. There is a few things that feel as nice in Hs as winning a highroll, and generating the out, or winning a brawl
if randomness wasn't so important in HS I would actually still play it. I played since blackrock mountain, and eventually i just became fed up with the randomness and quit around 2019. it is too much and I cannot continue to support it directly.
I think HS's overall design favours randomness because as you stated, it's for a casual player base. It's hard to make a competitive game when you've already set the foundation of your game to just be "don't take things too seriously and just have fun messing around". For me, I enjoy the game the most not at a competitive level like I would in Magic The Gathering but in a casual level where I can max out my Yogg RNG fiesta and absurd games/turns because it's fun and what the game philosophy is designed around. If you swap this around and have a competitive game that adds RNG later, then you get formats like Alchemy in MTG:A which is heavily disliked by the community for various reasons. One of those being extremely powerful cards that generate extra value and have an RNG aspect to them (e.g. key to the archive).
I stopped playing HS around Yogg-Saron because I absolutely hated what it did, how little actual gameplay had in it and how everybody seemed to play the same decks. So yeah, I agree. That expansion ruined hearthstone for me.
I feel like you keep on picking on Genn and Baku. Yes their same-ish gameplay is a thing, but many games with consistent gameplay still are super fun. Chess for example
And this is why I play MTG arena and only occasionally hearthstone when I want to lose in a fun way. Even then I’d rather just play a game of EDH with my friends. But hey MTG is almost 30 years old now so they’ve been there and done that already. I man there was a spell from alpha that is “the best way to spend 1 blue mana” it just said draw 3 cards for 1 mana and no penalty.
I still stand by the belief that while Yogg's power needed to be reined in in some capacity, they did it in the wrong way. They should have left it as it was, but just banned it from Ranked ladder, Arena, and other high-level, competitive events and modes. That way, the casual players still get to enjoy their high-rolly boss monster, and competitive players who don't like how swingy it is never have to see it. But, as is, casual players might not want to ever use it because it is so unreliable, and also competitive players never have to see it because no one wants to bother using it., so a really cool and iconic card just rots in the void. This leaves one group upset and one group satisfied whereas they could have had two satisfied groups.
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Hey everyone! This took a while to make, but this is the 100k special. Thanks for much for watching and I really hope you enjoyed the video!
Great job Rarran. Your content is varying quite a lot. Love your videos, subscribed some months ago and so far you are one of my favorite Hearthstone RUclipsrs. Keep on the good work, man
Thanks for this Rarren. Your "infotainment" videos are what brought me to this channel and your game shows were an excellent addition. You make these in a way that is easy to understand, relatable, pleasant to watch, and overall very professional versus being highly opinionated and ranting. Even if I have a frustrating experience with Hearthstone based upon topics like these, it's comfortable to see what you talk about and it helps shake off the salt. I look forward to seeing what other great ideas you spawn for the community.
Great video and content.. Informative and entertaining with some humor sprinkled in .. like Kibler saying "Cheaterrr" I LoL 🤣.. keep up the great work and keep growing.. road to 200k
Huge congratz on 100k! I love analysis videos :D
Cheers man was fun a interesting for sure! Keep it up!
Randomness adds a very important element to card games that is very dear to me. The ability to blame my loss, not on my own lack of skill, but in the randomness of how i drew my cards. Its not my fault i lost, it was RNG.
LOL
the pseudo-teammate to blame
Yeah and people with skills gets screwed by RNG ESPECIALLY SINCE IT IS FIXED RNG. that's the issue I have with its RNG
Their RNG have BROKEN IMPOSSIBLE math probabilities where I HAVE BETTER CHANCES OF WINNING THE LOTTERY, DYING, GETTING KISSED BY A CELEBRITY CRUSH, ALL IN THE Next HOUR than the that happens in the game.
The game break probability odds so bad, that life on Mars starting right now have a better chance of happening than the things the game pulls where it need a billion to one odds to happen 5 times in a row just to win. You know the odds on that?! Over a Google Plex YET IT HAPPENS IN HEARTHSTONE.
I think another example of a "not random" meta was the Stormwind questlines. Definitely felt like a lot of games were more about matchups rather than how you played them. Fantastic video as always
except sadly that devolved the game into solitaire where you just raced to complete your quest and effectively win the game. It's like polar opposites in game design, very little RNG but also very little actual interaction lol
The introduction of quest lines is a huge opportunity missed for me. Instead of putting in different requirements for the phases to increase decision making, it's just do x more times of this thing.
@@homosapiens-pymoEn6SOmxcqtdXJX now that you point it out it really sounds interesting if maybe questlines would have you do different things (kind of like priests but even priest is not really different) I think that would be great to build your deck around that and have to decide whether to push your questline or do something different
Stormwind meta was, in fact, loved by the pros, it was boring but extremely predictable and if you actually played well you couldn’t ever be scamazed
For the unfamiliar Re: Genn&Baku. They upgraded your hero power (weak filler ability that you can do once per turn) at the cost of restricting your deck to only even, or only odd cost cards. At first this seems kind of cool, you normally only use your hero power in niche situations or when you have extra mana left over - so it might seem like this would be a cool way to build a deck that synergizes around your hero power.
The problem is, the upgraded hero power is just so consistently strong and reliable that even as new sets came out, many classes(like colors in MTG) felt obligated to be built as even or odd decks. Also the decks felt very homogeneous because the requirement cut the deck building card pool in half aaand the strong hero power encouraged you to draw from an even smaller pool of cards that synergized with using your hero power as often as possible.
The result was a boooring meta that dragged on for multiple expansions. Normally the meta shifts with each expansion ( 3 per year) , but Genn and Baku wer just so reliable and strong in many classes that they continued to dominate across the next two expansions. Often a card can be good for its entire rotation in standard, but these were nearly entire decks only swapping in a few new cards each time.
It was so bad that the devs stepped in and gave them an early farewell, sending them to HS eternal format, wild, a full year ahead of schedule. Even then, they were so strong in wild that a few odd/even decks clung on to relevancy untill only a few expansions ago ... but the most recent expansion (and a card buff) brought back even Shaman and odd Paladin. Even Shaman is once again one of the strongest decks in wild and although odd Paladin isn't nearly as strong its at least playable again.
The cards are really cool and drastically alter how you build and play a deck, but they just made the meta too samey for too long. I love that HS can do this kind of thing with start of game effects.
I always saw your content as a mix of fun HS nostalgia and super interesting card game theory. This vid is a great mix of both and I think that's an avenue you can explore to branch out of pure HS. You have a knack for explaining the different concepts that make a card game interesting or stale and it shows amazingly here.
Hey Rarran! I found this while browsing your channel's older videos (only a month old at time of post but hey) and while its fairly different from your normal content I think its really well done and informative!
The thing about Hearthstone is that it has a pretty similar problem to Yugioh, high impact extensive turns, the difference between the two is that Yugioh is about comboeing your pieces as fast as possible, but in return there are ways to interact with your opponent in the form of traps, hand traps, quick effects and quick spells.
Hearthstone on the other hand, save for secrets which are very far in between, has long turns with no interaction, so in order to balance that out they have to introduce randomness, because if there was no randomness then all plays would become more deterministic.
Pokemon solves this by making fights a 1 on 1, and if you hit your opposing pokemon by 10.000 it only kills 1 and gives you 1 prize card (save exceptions with multiprize and attacks that hit the bench)
Problem with hearthstone is, it isn't true RNG IT IS FIXED BY THE GAME. The algorithm will fix games for your opponent when the game feels the need you are winning too much and therefore they aren't making enough money off you.
This is the same issue I have with Runeterra. So many cards generate units, generate spells, randomly buffing/damaging units, etc. It was one thing when only Targon was Invoking a small pool of Celestial cards, but now half the decks in the game can just create a ton of free junk.
It does feel like it's getting out of hand as the developers are rushing out too many expansions too quickly and are running out of good ideas as a result, forcing them to fall back on releasing bad ideas instead.
this new type of content is actually pretty fire
honestly i love you going for a more diverse gaming community rather than just hs playes
First things first, fantastic video Rarran! I love these type of video essays that break down dynamics and mechanics in card games. They've always fascinated me and you nail the breakdowns perfectly.
I think the dichotomy between Magic and Hearthstone's RNG issues is that while drawing land is, in a vacuum random, it is far easier to circumvent that issue in Magic. The occurrence of losing to just flat-out not drawing the right land or right amount of land in Magic is far less common than Hearthstone just "randomly" giving your opponent or you the EXACT card you need in that situation. It's like topdecking except at least with topdecking you'll draw a card that already exists, instead of discovering a card that can just win the game randomly. RNG is a fickle concept but at least with magic or yugioh, the core game itself is not revolved around it.
That being said Hearthstone is a very fun casual game but its competitive merit suffers heavily because of its RNG mechanics.
I'd argue the opposite. MtG's system is worse because when you get RNG screwed, you literally can't play the game. It's so bad that MtG introduced a pseudo-RNG system to their online client which is designed to prevent feels-bad moments you would get when playing paper.
The issue with hearthstone is it isn't TRUE RNG. The game knows AT ALL TIMES WHAT IS WIN CONDITION AND HOW TO MAKE YOU LOSE. This is very apparent to the fact that they literally HAVE A CARD THAT GIVES YOU EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED IN ANY GIVEN SITUATION.
It would be very easy to tell if it is true RNG as the constant useless card you and your opponent gets would be equal to good cards you can get from RNG.
Yet hearthstone pulls assanine RNG where the RNG will pull off combo RNG where it will allow your opponent to get THE EXACT CARDS THEY NEED IN ORDER TO WIN IN EVERY TURN AND THE GAME WILL DO IT IN MULTIPLE GAMES AGAINST YOU and just for good measure the game has an algorithm where it will make sure your combination of cards can't be reached. It will for multiple games won't let you have your early game cards and will continuously put away your draw, and early game cards deep into the deck. Even with the new dredge mechanic those cards will be just above the dredge threshold. The game will do this continuously until you have lost a certain amount of games. Some great players can outplay the RNG with a little help of horrible players, but that's when the RNG algorithm WILL WORK HARDER AND THE GAME LAGS AND EAT MEMORY UP IN ORDER TO CALCULATE IT FOR EVERY TURN AND REARRANGE YOUR CARDS FROM THE DECK.
I have had my sludge somehow magically gets drawn or aren't at the bottom. Which proves the game can and will change your deck order.
Major 'Simply Explained' youtube video vibes. Great pronunciation and you explained the things for people outside the HS bubble well. Have a good one, Rarran!
me over here with a deck containing all RNG cards
Great video my dude, you pretty much summed up why I love card games, inherent randomness to get a different game every time but also try to make your deck as consistent as possible
I personally find lands to be the worst part of mtg. So many games where you want to throw decks against each other and see how they interact. But lands often make it a steamroll. And most lands that pro players use are not only very boring, but also the most expensive cards. To me, their only redeeming factor is the ones that have interesting abilities.
But hearthstone has a fixed RNG not the RNG
Great video Rarran, thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Valuable information and great research on all of your points. As an OG player of the game, your HS content made me come back to the game after 6 years of absence and Blizzard should thank you for this cause I am sure I am not the only player that came back after your vids. Made me hungry to grind to 1000 wins on my Mage with the deck I love playing the most, Freeze Mage.
However I only play classic since it is the most competitive mode and that's what was fun for me in HS. Not only becoming really proficient with your own deck but also trying to make the best play each turn, playing around your opponents cards and deck idea. Unfortunately it is not the way Blizzard decided to go with HS and when Yogg came around I stopped playing.
I am glad they introduced the classic mode where people like me can enjoy old school HS and live in the nostalgia of what the game used to be like.
Love your Content, especially the classic money matches with legends like Savjz. Best of luck to you and your channel.
Keep up the great work you goat :)
Fiery Bat vs Flame Juggler was the most RNG way to win or lose the game on turn 2
I've been watching your videos since the Magic card evaluation vids and I don't really like or want to play Hearthstone, but I've loved watching your personality, and your silly challenges, and I loved this video as well.
Grats on 100k, here's to many more
Would be really interested to see you talk about Keyforge. Probably the closest I’ve seen to a physical hearthstone in terms of how swingy turns can be but since the decks are all random too it can be real wild
Randomly card generation is what kills my enjoyment of this game. It completely kills my enjoyment of the game.
Memories of the start of Sunken City when mech discover pools were overloaded with great cards, last time I felt RNG needed tweaking in the game. They've definitely found a good formula to make things fun but not fully high roll crazy
my problem there was definitely amalgam of the deep that was so consistent paladins could easily get the mage mech legendary and win games almost entirely on that
As someone that doesn't play Hearthstone anymore, these types of videos are some of the ones that I like to watch.
This is a really interesting video from an LoR player's perspective. Legends of Runeterra has much less randomness in it, and what it has either has very limited effect (Invoke) or isn't good enough to see play outside of meme decks (Howling Abyss). And once a card that was *both* completely random *and* very good was introduced (Loping Telescope), the state of the game was considered to be one of the worst of all time. Well, that card wasn't the only reason, Bundle City on release was busted as a whole, but Telescope was a big part of it.
This is so right but the thing is the game is starting down the path of too much RNG which is while fun break the meta.
Invoke was the example of good RNG since is from a limited pool unlike norra which can win you thr game but a portal giving you the best minions in the game
@@DanteMustLearn Norra at least has some limits to the rng of her portals, at least until she levels up. Her card also stating which exact mana values they can generate does help form a gameplan against it. It's not perfect, but it's not full rng, there's still limits to what it can do.
Discovery is still the best thing that ever happened to Hearthstone, even if its gone overboard here and there.
Glad to see you finally addressing this. I've always hated randomness in general beyond the basic randomness of the draw needed to keep every match of a CCG from being the same, but I can tolerate it to a point. Hearthstone reached this point and went way, _way,_ *WAY* beyond it. Contrary to what you say, in my opinion, the distinction is between limited and unlimited RNG (or what you call "wide generation"). For example, an effect that can generate a limited number of random results, like say Arcane Missiles, is relatively fine, because you can predict the possible range of results from using it and take that into account when planning your moves. Sure, it sucks when your opponent randomly hits your face instead of any of the 7 minions you had on the board, but you knew that was a possibility, right? It was a long shot and they went for it. A card that can do almost ANYTHING, like Unstable Portal which can generate any minion _in the entire game_ before discounting it by 3, is complete bullshit, because this is the point where planning, strategy and preparation go completely out the window in favour of "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Limited RNG can enhance strategic options ("Do I want to risk gambling on this or should I go for a safer play?"), unlimited RNG just completely negates them ("Eh, let's just do this and see what happens"). This is why the original iteration of Yogg-Saron was the worst card Blizzard ever released, no matter how many people liked it, because he could literally win (or lose) you the game on the spot from ANY position, to the point that you might as well have just decided the entire game with a coin flip on the first turn. You may say this kind of RNG is integral to Hearthstone, but I'd counter that it's the reason that Hearthstone is actually _not a very good game._
The current good mage deck is literally RNG dependent. It is ridiculous. Same with Shaman and priest. They're now the 3 unpopular classes, when they were popular.
Nailed it. The line lies somewhere in the middle, randomness cannot always be the best answer but it can be the most fun.
It can be the most fun for you or most fun for the opponent lol
This is excellent thank you. I can understand why it would have taken longer to make but I would love to see more videos like this.
Love the fact that your upload schedual is so tight that your vids show up at exactly 12pm before I sleep
Great video Rarran!
This video addresses every single thing that made me leave Hearthstone. Much love to you Rarran.
best "good" RNG card : Mogor the Ogre. Lot of RNG sure but both player can interact with the card and minmax RNG. It also says "50% to attack the wrong enemy" not "wrong target" which is nice. It also had the bonus of "countering" stealth auctionneer which was funny.
Random cards like yogg shouldn't have seen play in competitive but here we are
In a created by game
Hearthstone introduced RNG... people didn't like it from a competitive standpoint, but loved it on a casual one.
Blizzard embraced RNG, and now HS is super fun to goof around in. Casino Mage, Burgle Rogue, Steal Priest... amazing archetypes!
I think this is the first time I've heard someone say "Blizzard learned of their mistake", specially when talking about the RNG in this game.
Barnes pulling a 30/30 the ancient one is insane
8:13 Made me say “GET NOGGENFOGGER’ED, IDIOT” out loud >:D. Literally only something Hearthstone can do
I think that RNG in Hearthstone sometimes dips into the point of not being fun, but it really depends on the card. I think when something does a random effect and it's more than 6 mana, it can feel like too big of a swing. People are okay with small swings, but when it feels like no skill was involved in your opponent's victory, it can leave a sour taste.
Randomness is Hearthstone is really at it's best when it feels like it's power ranges from "Perfect answer" down to "Last resort", where it's effects have trackable, probable outcomes. When a card's power is built more like "Neutral outcome" to "Sudden win", with say Yog, that can be a problem.
The "replay value" can be seen in the fact, that Magic: The Gathering's most popular format is Commander, which is a Highlander variant. Because your decks are not 60 cards but 100 cards and there is only one of each card instead of maximum 4 times of the same. The replay value is much higher and the game are more different with each play. Also with Commander having different banlists, there are cards you would not be allowed to play anywhere else.
But it also has consistency, because you will always be able to play your commander.
I think the replay value from Commander also comes from having so many options for deck building due to the large card pool and also the wide ranges in power level and play styles (also having 4 players increases variety wildly). Formats like Standard (which is my favourite) often become stagnant due to certain cards just being so powerful that they warp the format for prolonged periods of time so you get the same deck types and cards on repeat (just look at black decks in standard right now or cards like goldspan, luminarch aspirant, oko etc in the past).
I think casual play has a lot of replay value, because you and your friend can make 5 wacky decks and throw them against each other
I was playing Hearthstone back when C'thun and Gedgetzan was out and I remember building like a C'thun/Discover Warlock with cards like Kabal Courier, Kabal Chemist, Kazakus... alongside Kooky Chemist, Dirty Rat and Kabal Trafficker it was the funniest deck I've ever played =D
"Drawing a card is completely random" smh rarran this is why you're bad at yugioh, not even acknowledging the heart of the cards
Great video as always, really cool breakdown between what I've heard called input and output randomness
I played Duel of Summoners (Mabinogi Duel) for a short while when it was up. That was a card game that removed alot of the RNG from the card game format:
Your deck is just 10 to 12 cards (don't remember how many)
You start the game with all cards in hand.
You can see your opponent's most powerful card before the start of the match.
Units attack at the end of your turn, and only the space opposing them (unless they have an effect that changes it). If your opponent doesn't have something in front of your bruiser, they take face.
You had a finite number of moves per turn, from 1 at the start of the game to 3 later, between: Play a card, draw mana, recycle your graveyard to your hand, discard a card for that card's mana type, or level up (increasing your moves per turn by 1)
Each time a card goes to the graveyard, its cost increases by 1.
Buuuuut, the game had some pretty rough RNG:
Units could have armor, which is more or less HP, except they lose armor equal from 1 to half the amount of armor damage they took. So if their tank has 6 armor, and you smack them from 6 damage, they'll lose between 1 and 3 armor. Now imagine your opponent has an Armor Generator, and buffs its bruiser with say 20 Armor; you play your big damage spell, to knock off 1 armor. Good game.
Your mana pool was random, and playing mono color decks was virtually impossible. Duo and tri color decks got twice as much mana per turn as mono.
Not to mention the cards in the game weren't terribly well balanced, but it was a good concept I'd like to see again.
Love these more in-depth videos!
What makes Hearthstone unique for me is the randomness - more randomness = more fun. If everything is set in stone and you can predict every turn it can become a bit boring. I know that many people won't agree with this especially the more competitive minded players but I believe that the main thing that set apart Hearthstone from others is randomness and taking advantage of the digital format
Do a video with crazy rng
Awesome video, it addresses some of the more annoying problems in hearthstone in a chill way while explaing why its more factors than just heads or tails, love it or hate it rng is an aspect of hearthstone that makes it stand out from other games
This is the smartest video you have ever made. I wasnt expecting to watch Core A gaming.
Yogg was a huge problem, and the example was when toast summon a mechatun from a mind games, draw all his deck with unstable element, and destroy his hand and board with cataclysm. Imagine if that happends in a tournament
Rarran you have outdone yourself with this video + thumbnail
It's really telling when the best decks are and always have been "ok how do I get rid of the most RNG" unless you like relying on pulling magic out of your butt
Awesome explanation thanks Rarran!
Great video Rarran! Time to play some Magic.
"Yogg Saron, hopes end" is an intresting case because despite the fact that it was THE most random card in the game at that point, having acces to all spell pools, it was a very consistant card. If you played it it was very likely to:
1. draw you cards
2. Destroy all minions
3. Build you a board.
There were a few cards it could cast that totally messed you up, but since you usually played him as a last ditch effort that didn't really matter.
So they ended up nerfing him because he was almost the best 10 drop in the game (C'thun was still very strong).
This might be a hot take, but I still think the nerf they put on Yogg absolutely destroyed the spirit of the card. Building a Yogg over the course of the game and then just letting it go embodied the absolute peak of what Hearthstone meant to me, and watching the whole thing just putter out by silencing himself on his first cast took all that joy away from me. I still think they should have kept it as it was, but instead ban it from ranked ladder, Arena, and any other 'official' competitive environments where balance and win/loss rates matter way more.
@@sallas09 that's not really a hot take, that's what pretty much everyone said at the time. The discussion was more about whether the change was necessary or not.
Great video Rarran! I like it a lot!!
nice effort rarran
I dont think HS has that much rng just to make the game less boring.
I think its just to make it so even shitty players can win against pros as skill is changed into rng.
Like magic for ex. has to rig their games to get simillar results (giving you bad matchups or mana screw/flood you, etc.)
Shadowverse on the other hand just used to balance their cards like once per month (stopped playing so dunno how its now)
Alright, I haven’t watched the video yet but let’s see how long it takes him to talk about Yog
Damn a whole 4 minutes
WOOOOOOOOOO RARRAN HEARTHSTONE VIDEO ESSAY! LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO
Great vid! Would love more like this.
Love these kinds of videos, amazing!
have you ever looked into flesh and blood? it's a pretty cool tcg that does a lot of new things (or at least does it differently than magic/yugioh/pokemon/hearthstone), and one of those things is how it ends up being a lot more consistent of a game.
for example, every turn you draw cards until you have 4 cards in hand and you typically play out your whole hand (or save 1 for next turn, which lets you have an effective 5 card hand), meaning you go through your deck a lot faster (40 or 60 card decks depending on format), so you end up seeing all of your cards pretty consistently. on top of that, cards have multiple versions in different colors (it's related to the resource system, which i won't go into) which lets you have up to 6 or 9 (depending on format) of almost the same card in your deck, so if you really want a specific card played as often as possible, you're basically drawing a copy of it every other turn.
it still definitely has rng, drawing into good hands/high rolling is still very much a thing, the resource system definitely can hamper a turn if you're unlucky, and some decks like brute are built to have rng, but the consistency is just very refreshing in a card game. it makes the deckbuilding process feel so much more concrete knowing that you can basically craft your average hand to such a fine degree. and the game naturally has a ton of interactivity which helps with the "replayability" that it could suffer from having less rng.
anyway, thanks for the vid rarran
I scrolled past this video in my feed several times because it's cover made me think it's an ad
Babe wake up new Rarran video essay just came out
CCG's dont add randomness for replayability, they add it because it closes the skill gap and lets lower skilled players win against a higher skill opponents.
Every single game like this falls prey to a thing called the downward skill spiral: In a purely skill based system, the lower skilled 20% of the population loses 80% of their games and then quits.
Losing a full quarter of your population every month is gonna bring ole Bobby Kotick to your office door with a hatchet.
With targeting randomnes, it enablels a whole bunch of card effects that couldn't be pulled of in another was, Dethrattles for example could only ever deal dmg to your opponent or be an aoe if it couldn't be random, same for knife jugler
Thanks for all these insights, now I understand a lot of things (and players) way better.
I guess I'm the odd one out here, because I really enjoyed the witchwood-meta (Genn and Baku). I played a lot back then and card draw RNG combined with the possibility of playing another deck was more than enough variety for me.
And that's not all, the Elementals are calling and if you put 'em all in, you gon' be ballin
This is a great video really enjoyed it
>.> when i used to play sometimes id feel bad winning with my spell mage since my win condition was usually deck of lunacy or the mage quest that just gave you a rando spell......or my "im playing your deck now" priest where i out jaded a jade druid and out evolved an evo shaman with it
There is the obvious “card drawing” RNG.
You draw different cards from one game to another game, resulting in different power level combos.
We had some highrole decks, like Barnes, where the card draw RNG increases your winrate enormously.
RNG thus also entails the power difference between single cards.
A recent example was drawing the guff-hero-card.
I wanna play chess, not casino. Overall, RNG is bad. In competitive games RGN we should try to decrease RNG. I blame not Hearthstone, but rather stupid people that allow blizzard keep doing that.
"Today we dive into Legends of Runeterra, a game from Riot available on pc and mobile."
Excuse me? I thought this was a Heartshtone video! I can't believe they brought Yogg to LoR!
Yeah I've made my piece with this. I hate the randomness of HS so I'll probably never really come back to play it but I get that the randomness is what others enjoy about it.
good video! targeting randomness is also foundational to battlegrounds - i just wish my baron would stop getting sniped
3:28 Actually first random generation was already in classic - Ysera, ETC, Gelbin, Bane of Doom etc
I need to come back to this video every time I get salty over some bullshit combo in today's meta lol.
The poster child on generation into generation has to be the Warrior 2/2 Taunt Discover a Taunt which would find itself a lot of the time because it was one of 3 warrior taunt minions and Dragon Queen Alexstrasa because 0 mana do it again was very good
surprised paveling book never made an appearance
And now the very next expansion has RNG cards for mage. I’m excited 😂
One of the best way to implememt rng in any game, regardless of genre, is to use "options rng" instead of "outcome rng".
Outcome rng, is when the result of your actions is completely unpredictable. 99% of "rng hell" are of this category. Noteworthy examples: random loot drops, critical hits and general shenanigans
Options rng, is when the result of your actions are 100% predictable, yet what actions you get to choose from is random. Noteworthy examples: procedurally generated worlds, drawing cards and random mob or collectible spawns
In order to make lets say, the "unstable portal" a more fair, and still fun card, while retaining the rng, it could tell you in your hand which random minion it is going to summon should you play it. And then, it will change to a different minion each round. That way the card is functionally the same, but with an added level of fairness, risk evaluation (deciding not to play it with the hopes of rolling a better minion) and providing a new dynamic choice each turn. Basically, porobot from lor.
Not all cards can be reworked into this type of rng, but those that do, stand a lot to gain from doing so
Love the video quest preist is still super broken discovers over and over lol but I still dig it
I was hoping you'd mention the Babbling Book that won World's that one time
Yeah I definitely think there's a good balance between random good and random bad. For the most part, having cards utilize the digital card space makes it the most fun and entertaining for me.
Right now I'm starting to not like the meta because Denathrius is a thing. People can argue it's "random," because wide boards will protect you, but in most cases there's not much that can save you from a 40-60 damage Denathrius. And sometimes he doesn't even need to be that big. 15 damage is already half your life. And because Druid can use him with Brann it basically means if I'm not playing Aggro, and I see a Druid, no point in even playing that match at all.
LOVE THE CONTENT 👏👏
One say that you can destroy a game by RNG then you have gatcha :^)
Could not agree more. Whenever I lose in the game im mostly fine with it, unless its some random card generating or spell generating thing that comes out of nowhere, it started with the discover mechanic and now its rampant. Really hope they change their direction but im cynical enough to think they wont cause they only care as long as whatever they release sells.
In Yugioh there is something called Garnets. Imagine having a deck package like being able to run 2 Barnes that could only pull a specific creature but you could shove that package into a lot of decks, including those with a lot of different creatures. A lot of decks ran it even though there was a chance of drawing the 1 other creature because the odds were in your favor and the advantage was worth it. I wouldn't say that the idea is bad for the game but I'm not really a fan of it. Another example is the limited list. You can only run 1 copy of a card instead of 3. Imagine if Pot Of Greed was limited instead of banned. The player who pulls their 1 copy of Pot Of Greed would get a major advantage. It would be "fair" in the sense that both players are running Pot Of Greed.
Edit: A better first example would be how so many decks ran Pirates to get pre nerf Patches out.
My favorite archetype is thief rouge, every game is so vastly different
Rarran I would let you do unspeakable things to me. Thank you for the endless entertainment and knowledge
Do you think they might make cards that are banned from a certain ranking ? Like if you enter are Legend you are not allowed to play Yogg anymore ?
I don't usually comment but this video was so so informative and incredibly well made. Thank you Rarran
Randomness is necessary in card games. It's what separates cards games from other games, like chess. In a game with no randomness the newer, less experienced player can theoretically never win against a superior opponent. There is no sense of "discovery" that comes with the random nature of card draw in the way that a new player might be able to luck in to a combo that can win them the game. That adds excitement when you're learning the game in a way that a game that is all deterministic would just crush their dreams each and every time they played and make it more difficult to want to overcome the challenge through practice and study.
I don't think rng is the real issue, people just need something other then themselfs to blame for losing. Like even in other card games where the only rng is what you draw, people still complain about rng, but also only when they lose. There is a few things that feel as nice in Hs as winning a highroll, and generating the out, or winning a brawl
Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is a great example of how RNG Ruins a card game
Hi Rarran, why don't you try the color challenge? You make a deck based just on one color and see how it goes
if randomness wasn't so important in HS I would actually still play it. I played since blackrock mountain, and eventually i just became fed up with the randomness and quit around 2019. it is too much and I cannot continue to support it directly.
I think HS's overall design favours randomness because as you stated, it's for a casual player base. It's hard to make a competitive game when you've already set the foundation of your game to just be "don't take things too seriously and just have fun messing around". For me, I enjoy the game the most not at a competitive level like I would in Magic The Gathering but in a casual level where I can max out my Yogg RNG fiesta and absurd games/turns because it's fun and what the game philosophy is designed around. If you swap this around and have a competitive game that adds RNG later, then you get formats like Alchemy in MTG:A which is heavily disliked by the community for various reasons. One of those being extremely powerful cards that generate extra value and have an RNG aspect to them (e.g. key to the archive).
I stopped playing HS around Yogg-Saron because I absolutely hated what it did, how little actual gameplay had in it and how everybody seemed to play the same decks. So yeah, I agree. That expansion ruined hearthstone for me.
I feel like you keep on picking on Genn and Baku. Yes their same-ish gameplay is a thing, but many games with consistent gameplay still are super fun. Chess for example
I flipped a coin to decide whether to watch this video.
And this is why I play MTG arena and only occasionally hearthstone when I want to lose in a fun way. Even then I’d rather just play a game of EDH with my friends. But hey MTG is almost 30 years old now so they’ve been there and done that already. I man there was a spell from alpha that is “the best way to spend 1 blue mana” it just said draw 3 cards for 1 mana and no penalty.
Great video! Still wont play HS again though
I still stand by the belief that while Yogg's power needed to be reined in in some capacity, they did it in the wrong way. They should have left it as it was, but just banned it from Ranked ladder, Arena, and other high-level, competitive events and modes. That way, the casual players still get to enjoy their high-rolly boss monster, and competitive players who don't like how swingy it is never have to see it. But, as is, casual players might not want to ever use it because it is so unreliable, and also competitive players never have to see it because no one wants to bother using it., so a really cool and iconic card just rots in the void. This leaves one group upset and one group satisfied whereas they could have had two satisfied groups.