Ben Nagy’s Big Picture – Five Resolutions and Five Wishes for 2016

Introduction

We’re taking a break from our series on Game Creep and Power Levels to take advantage of New Year’s Day! Today, we’ll look at five resolutions I have for my own Hearthstone career, and five wishes I have for the 2016 season. Along the way, I’ll be giving you some protips and advice on how to achieve your own Hearthstone goals as well as critically discussing the larger Hearthstone environment. Instead of a long-form essay-styled approach, today we’ll be hitting a lot of ground in quick bullet points to talk about the new year of gaming. While today is a little different, if this is your first time reading a Big Picture, I think you’ll enjoy it. If you’re a regular, then strap in and get ready for quite the ride through what the next year of Hearthstone may look like!

Welcome to Ben Nagy’s Big Picture, where we will look at how new cards/sets, various aspects of Hearthstone, and changes in the metagame reflect how Hearthstone is positioned against other games in the genre, and what that means for the future of the game. You’ll get a game designer’s perspective on how Hearthstone is being built from the ground up, which will help with your understanding of the changes Blizzard makes, as well as become more skilled at playing.

With the help of these articles, you’ll be able to see deeper into how Hearthstone ticks, impress your friends with your pro-level knowledge, opinions, and perspective on the Hearthstone game, and be the go-to guy in your circle for keeping up-to-date with commentary on the latest events in the world of Hearthstone.

Resolution #1: More Hearthstone Content

The last year has been a good one for Hearthstone in the press and with fans. The game has been growing ever more popular, and with that popularity, there are more and more fans than ever.

As the fanbase has evolved, however, the outlets for Hearthstone media have not expanded in kind. Instead, there are the same few channels for hearing all your Hearthstone news and tips that have existed for some time. This next year, I believe players are ready for new modes of content. They’ve seen the videos from Trump and Reynad on YouTube, showing off clever one-of plays and general strategies. Now, more players are tuning into Twitch and sites like HearthstonePlayers.com to learn higher-quality tips for Hearthstone success. But there is so much more to Hearthstone than just professional play, and more ways to enjoy it than just articles and videos.

I love the new articles HearthsonePlayers writers have been producing on different elements of the game. Just this week you could read on flavor text, new card designs, and sum up the latest in streaming. There are also many more ways to reach the Hearthstone audience just waiting to be explored, such as podcasts, magazines, and companion apps. Not only do I want to find more excellent content for Hearthstone in the coming year, but I aim to produce more of it.

Try this at home: Try to engage Hearthstone a little differently. Read a few articles you normally wouldn’t read. If you often read, trying watching Twitch. If you already consume a lot of Hearthstone content, perhaps it’s time you make some.

Resolution #2: Design More Hearthstone

There is no practice for game design better than designing games. In October, as part of an application to a game design company, I took a week to build a complete Magic set from the ground up. While I had made my own card sets before, casually, there’s nothing else quite like sharing all your cool ideas, and getting feedback.

The week I spent throwing that set together was some of the most fun I’ve had, even if I can’t market the work. I plan, this year, to make sure I design a few games, at least one of which will be a full Hearthstone set. While doing the odd card and mechanic is fun, nothing beats putting together a grand vision of how you want a set to play out.

Try this at home: Build your own card or two, and share it here, on reddit, or with a friend!

Resolution #3: Hit Legend Every Month

When you work on many projects, it’s difficult to make sure all of them get enough time and energy spent on them. Indeed one of the struggles of life is making sure that you can balance everything you’ve put on your own plate.

Hitting Legend is one of the goals that you can put off until the end of the month, then find yourself with not enough time to reach Legend. This happened to me several times throughout the past year, as I prioritized other projects first. But by setting aside a reasonable amount of time every month, anyone can make it to Legend with dedication and a ready deck!

Try this at home: Set a schedule for when you will play Hearthstone. Hearthstone can deceptively fit in at odd times for quick sessions, but you still need to set time aside for grinding!

Resolution #4: Pay Attention to Tournaments

Along the same lines, tournaments are easy to miss unless you’re really tuned in and ready for them. This year, I hope to register for more tournaments, and place in at least a few of them. A doable task.

I will be also tracking my performance throughout the year, using a spreadsheet to keep myself on track, and also to make sure that I’m learning how to use my decks effectively against opponents during tournaments. I will do this by tracking my decks and theirs, in order to see how well I have chosen my deck order.

Try this at home: Look up a couple tournaments, and sign up for one by the end of the month.

Resolution #5: Track My Results Better

Tracking your results with different decks and even specific lists is one of the most important things for adjusting to grow along with the metagame. As more and more cards are released, and decks become more and more complex, tracking your successes and winrate for decklists becomes ever more important.

I believe that my back-of the-napkin sketches and accounts of my deck performances has been holding me back. Along with my planning to pursue Hearthstone more seriously in 2016, tracking my stats is one important part of moving forward and continuing to progress as a player.

Try this at home: Go to hearthstonetracker.com and try out their tracking tool. I’m not sponsored, but I’ve tried out a lot of these tools, and this one, I feel is the best, if you want to use one for tracking your game performance.

Wish #1: Rotating Formats

At risk of sounding of like a broken record, I believe rotating formats to be the next logical evolution of Hearthstone. As we will discuss more in my closing piece on power levels in Hearthstone, rotation of the format allows for a longer-lasting game, and also affords Blizzard more flexibility in the directions they can take the game.

There is a lot of room with which Blizzard can maneuver a new format style into Hearthstone, and possibly do something never seen before. While Magic is the obvious choice to clone a rotating format from, Blizzard could make their own system, likely making Base Set an eternal set, and then rotating out various sets for a season or even a year. With the control that the digital medium affords Blizzard, there is no end to the ways they could develop a new format rotation system, while capturing all the advantages of those currently in place in other games.

Wish #2: Arena Upgrade

Arena needs some help. In its current state, it holds appeal for a small portion of players, but there a lot of room for improvement.

I won’t beat an old horse to death. You can find some of my thoughts and suggestions on this topic here. But I would like to stress again that by balancing Arena, Blizzard would not only encourage people to play with it more, but would also allow players to use it for more, too, such as a tournament platform for unique tournaments such as ChallengeStone. As it stands, Arena is just a place to get lucky and grind for some packs. It can be so much more.

Wish #3: More Dialoguing with Blizzard

Blizzard’s fatal flaw is that it sometimes appears to be an ivory tower. While the designers are certainly approachable and have even reached out to the community a few times to discuss specific issues, players would love to interact more with the people who make the game they love.

Compare the websites for Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, and you’ll see a huge disparity in how much contact there is between the developers and the fans in each game. I believe that Wizards is able to react quicker and more effectively to fan wants and needs than Blizzard can, simply because it is very in tune with its fans.

Blizzard, especially since it is a digital game producer, needs to be even faster. They should be tapped into everything that their fans are thinking. They may very well be scouring reddit and watching Twitch. But there should also be regular communication from them on what to expect from the game. Ben Brode put out a designer video on the Warsong Commander nerf that was very well received. I want to see more of this from Blizzard.

Wish #4: Virtual Reality Hearthstone?!

This is the year of virtual and augmented reality for games. Every magazine and newspaper has been saying it for awhile, but how does this relate to Hearthstone?

Hearthstone is still at least a couple years from being translated into augmented or virtual reality, if at all. But the prospect of a new medium of card game is certainly exciting. Every year introduces new technology that makes new games available. Hearthstone wouldn’t be able to exist without the computer, for instance, just as Magic requires the printing press. As virtual reality and augmented reality continue to progress, how might this force older games to evolve?

As a purely digital game, Hearthstone is limited somewhat. You can’t carry your deck around in your back pocket and just compete with anyone on the street. Instead you have to load up usernames and get some Wi-Fi, or a good signal. And then, you’ll likely be working with a much smaller screen than you have at home. While the advantages certainly outweigh the disadvantages, Hearthstone could eventually move into a new space of augmented reality and using new modes of play by experimenting with devices similar to the Skylanders line of toys. By making a physical game of Hearthstone that could communicate with the web, the game would evolve and expand significantly.

Wish #5: More of the Same

This year marked Hearthstone hitting its stride as a CCG. Everything simply fell into place and went off without a hitch. No major errors or embarrassing leaks, no unbalanced gameplay on par with Undertaker, and good quality content throughout! This year also marked the release of some really innovative Adventures, card designs, and mechanics (including the best designed mechanic yet: Inspire).

I hope, this year, that Blizzard does more of the same that has made Hearthstone as amazing as it currently is. On a whole, the game has been managed rather well, and though there a few areas that we as fans always want improved, they are no large matters. Hearthstone is alive and doing well. And most importantly of all, it’s still as much fun as the day we first installed it.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this look forward into the next year of Hearthstone, and are both inspired to do more with your year, as well as curious as to what the year may hold. As always, reach out and let me know what you think of the new year, and feel free to request any topics or answers to questions that you may have. I love games, in part, because they are all about learning. I encourage you, if you have no other Hearthstone resolutions this year, to make this year one of learning. May the New Year inspire you to do more with your own Big Picture.

-Ben Nagy

I want to engage you readers in this week’s article. What are you working to improve on this year? Any special wishes you have for Hearthstone in the coming year? Leave your answers and any questions you may have in the Comments below!

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