During the distant 2014 the very famous software house Blizzard, surprisingly released the open beta of a collectible card game. It was about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, a title with a unique and unmistakable graphic design, which brought to the market a card game with simple and intuitive mechanics, but in any case well mastered and comprehensible. Its free-to-play nature and its peculiar characteristics, such as its extreme self-irony and randomness in the various games, made this game a real success on the PC market.
Hearthstone he had basically no competitor, and he had managed to conquer the monopoly of virtual card games, a title he continued to hold even when it arrived on mobile, although it remained exclusive to IOS for about a year. The software house Blizzard he has continued to develop his creature to this day - after assigning it a dedicated team - but many things have happened in recent years. The title is in fact in a state of crisis, given the many incidents that have occurred, both from external and internal sources.
Let's analyze his current situation together, trying to understand how the developers intend to revive their card game, allowing him to worthily fight all the opponents who have deprived him of the monopoly.
Hearthstone post-launch support
After the beta ended, several changes were made, and regular expansions started rolling out. Heroes of Warcraft disappeared from the title of the work and new cards instead landed in the new packs that were added over the years. The game now receives without ever missing an appointment, an update with 135 new cards that expand the collection players and fundamentally change the current meta.
These updates have enabled Hearthstone to maintain its monopoly market, at least for a while. Blizzard, coinciding with the start of the updates, it brought one good idea after another into play, with charisma-laden expansions and the invention of magnificent single-player adventures. Once the game officially presented itself as the backbone of the software house, this however began to lose hits due to some wrong choices in the development environment, which sank it during the end of theYear of the Mammoth and throughout the course ofYear of the Raven.
The dark road taken by Blizzard
Perhaps due to a dedicated team Hearthstone not enough, perhaps for having let his guard down by having sung victory, the software house has made its card game take the wrong path, bringing the inn very close to bankruptcy. During the 2 years following theYear of the Mammoth, a series of behaviors have strongly shaken the community for various reasons, but always in a negative way.
- Management of the wild mode absolutely not sufficient and disrespectful - After adding the wild inside Hearthstone, Blizzard he decided to basically wash his hands of it. For entire years, in fact, the premises that saw an interesting battlefield for new archetypes with many more variations and possibilities, turned into a waste basket for old cards. No nerfs to various problems, bugs related to inconsistencies, cards that were the same and any type of support. A real disaster so great as to be unbridgeable from every point of view.
- Stop to traditional adventures - The great single player experiences that started with La Curse of Naxxramas were drastically interrupted by Blizzard, being replaced by lukewarm shipments. Although the latter were free and all in all also pleasant at the beginning, they presented a myriad of problems, from bugs to repetitive gameplay and basically devoid of any bite. A background story was absent and all the mechanics were not treated in detail but linked to extreme randomness. The presence of the old adventures also allowed to have several exclusive and very strong cards with little gold or real currency, while the expeditions provided 3 packages as a sop without really giving anything useful.
- A series of wrong and useless nerfs - Many balances have been applied in recent years to patch up the meta stagnation problems, with a series of unclear actions. The effects of some cards were in fact weakened in silence - how can we forget Yogg-Saron and Ciciazampa? - but the amount of arcane dust was not duly returned to the possessor. Also, hoping to be able to put a patch without investing any budget, the team began at every good opportunity to send some classic cards in wild format, without obtaining results other than the dissent of the public.
The problems that afflicted the world of Hearthstone
After all the interventions described above, the game found itself up to about a year ago with a mountain of problems, which were the cause of the various wrong choices made by the developers. In fact, the meta continued to stagnate, after about 1 month and a half from the release of an expansion there was 2 or 3 decks that completely dominated the games. Any balances were always useless and not very long-lasting, given that the situation reappeared in the same way after a few days, with some variations.
All expansions since Kobolds and Catacombs turned out to be devoid of interesting mechanics, which pushed the players to deepen the new styles of play ... in fact nonexistent. Often some additions were completely neglected as not viable, such as the case of the freeze shaman which remained only a wasted attempt. Some classes found themselves then to take on roles other than those designed by the developers, like the priests who took clubs and pitchforks and favored aggression.
The odd and even mechanics were then the straw that broke the camel's back. After the release of Boscotetro the games almost always began to last even more than half an hour and many players left the inn in desperation. The magic that distinguished Hearthstone from all other card games was completely lost!
Blizzard picks up the situation at the inn on the fly
Just when all seemed lost and the Hearthstone continued to depopulate day after day, Blizzard he managed to quickly raise the situation against all expectations. The problems were all taken and faced head on, with difficult but reasoned and courageous choices. It started immediately with the announcement of The Rise of Shadows, the first expansion ofYear of the Dragon. This wanted to be a stance, which could put a patch on all the wrong choices made in previous years. After a series of trailers that created a magnificent aura of mystery, new details were revealed, as well as the fact that the story would have been singular enough.
It was not a narrative sector like that of singleplayer adventures, because we wanted to stay on the idea of dungeon runs, but it was decided to make the 3 expansions of the year also linked historically to each other. Because of this, these expeditions cost gold or real currency, although not very much, but they are a godsend compared to what we have seen in previous periods. Nerfs were immediately announced and the situation was taken in hand. Away from standard mode to odd and even mechanics, even one year early! It was absolutely necessary to eradicate all the problems starting from a solid foundation, which did not include mechanics that all the players hated deeply. The game had to return to the glories of the past even if with new additions and a renewed spirit!
The new arena was also implemented for all lovers of this secondary mode. In rotation, the now wild expansions had to enter the competition with a straight leg and be strongly present in the draft. Thus began the process of enhancing the wild, which continued when to avoid stagnation of the meta in Uldum Saviors all players were given momentary copies of some of the most iconic cards, which will be playable in standard mode until the release of The Descent of the Dragons.
What will happen to Hearthstone now?
Blizzard is currently continuing to work to resolve the issues that still plague this game, on the other hand when the wild cards return to their corner the stagnation of the meta will probably be present again. The first step was that of add the Battlegrounds after the sizzling Blizzcon 2019, which can be supported without the need for updates.
The game is also preparing to face the arrival of Legends of Runeterra next year, after it has already managed to counter Magic the Gathering: Arena, and some news will certainly be presented in the coming months. the software house no longer wants to leave the inn in a state of neglect! We will certainly see tournaments that have been previously announced although not yet implemented, but we still don't know what we can really expect from this resourceful team.
