I’m trying to get into the habit of blogging every Friday
about the games I’ve been playing each week, so that I’m updating consistently.
I think it’s a format that works well for me because it feels less like a
formal review of stuff and more of just an ongoing expression of what I’m
enjoying (or not) about whatever I happen to be playing. So, here we go.
Hearthstone
Hearthstone updated this week with Patch 16.2, launching
Chapter One of a new paid adventure, Galakrond’s Awakening, and updating
Hearthstone Battlegrounds with a couple of new heroes and cards, and other
changes. I’m still playing Standard on occasion, trying to get my rank up to 15
this month. My best deck right now is Paladin with a focus on lifesteal and
buffs and no Neutral cards. It’s been working pretty well for me, though I’ve had
to make some adjustments as I go along. I’ve been playing a little bit of Galakrond
Shaman with a focus on Battlecry mechanics, and Highlander Mage, which is just
my fun deck.
Galakrond’s Awakening
I was initially excited that the Hearthstone team was
bringing back paid adventures because I love hoarding cards, and the adventures
tend to have more “fun” cards to add to the meta, but as I opened up Chapter
One of this new adventure and started playing, I felt disappointed by the
actual gameplay of it. I’ve had so much fun playing the “Dungeon Run” style adventures
that they’ve been doing for the last several expansions, the challenge involved
in the way that games are set up, and the ability to build my deck as I go,
constantly changing the strategies as the bosses get harder and harder. There
is a ton of replayability in that system.
Galakrond’s Awakening has none of that. It’s nothing
but basic games with basic pre-built decks and hero powers pitted against an
opponent. You win, you get some cards to add to your collection, you move on to
the next boss. Wash, rinse, repeat. Right now, only Chapter One is available,
so there are only three bosses to fight for each team, six in total.
It feels silly to complain about getting new cards and a
silly story in exchange for my money, but the Hearthstone team raised the bar
so high with the free-to-play Dungeon Run style gameplay that I guess I
expected more from a new paid adventure. Maybe the later chapters will offer
more of a challenge, or something more interesting, but right now, I feel a bit
let down by the adventure.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds
New Heroes
Tirion Fordring
Hero Power: Give minions with no minion
type +1/+1. Costs 1 Gold.
I have yet to play as this hero, but I’ve played a few games
against him now, and I think this is an extremely strong hero power if you
build your board correctly, and I think it’s easy to do. Almost every other
player is going to be going for type synergy, whether it’s demons, beasts,
murlocs, or mechs, which means that the minion pool is going to be more likely
to have non-typed minions in the rotation. That should make it easier to get
triples of minions, and with the low cost buffing each turn, you should be able
to manage a really strong board throughout the entire game.
I’d rate Tirion an Always Pick, if you have the option.
Millhouse Manastorm
Hero Power: Passive. Minions cost 2 Gold.
Refresh costs 2 Gold. Start with 2 Gold.
In concept, I think this is actually a fairly strong hero. The
one time I played as him, I ended the game in 8th place, but I think
that’s more to do with my inability to get any good synergies going on my board
than to do with the hero. With minions costing only two gold, you have really
strong buying power mid- to late-game, with the downside of tavern refreshes
costing an extra gold. Even so, selling minions still gives you 1 Gold in return,
so you can trade minions out much more easily than other players.
I would like to test my theory about him being a strong
hero, but until then, I’m going to say he is a Maybe Pick until I get
more data from playing him more than once.
New Minions:
Imprisoner, Tier-2, 3/3 Demon with Taunt,
Deathrattle: Summon a 1/1 Imp.
This is a decent addition to demons, though I don’t think it’s
a minion worth hanging onto for long, once you upgrade your tavern.
Fiendish Servant, Tier 1, 2/1 Demon with Deathrattle:
Give this minion’s Attack to a random friendly minion.
Now, I think this is a really strong card to have on your
board, whether you are running demons or not, but even stronger when you are. The
ability for it to buff a friendly minion with its attack has won me several
matches, and when you triple this minion and get the golden version, the
deathrattle upgrades so that it triggers twice, buffing two minions instead of
one.
Additional Changes:
Voidwalker (Tier-1 1/3 Demon with Taunt) was
removed from the minion pool, which I find interesting. It was a weaker pick
compared to the other Tier 1 Demon with Taunt, Vulgar Homunculus (2/4 Demon
with Taunt and Battlecry: Deal 2 damage to your hero), but still
a decent pick compared to other minions because of the higher health.
Golden Zapp Slywick (Tier-6 14/20) now has
Mega-Windfury instead of regular Windfury, which allows it to attack four times
instead of just two. This card is already really strong as it is, and giving it
Mega-Windfury makes it all the more valuable late game.
The hero Sir Finley Mrrgglton has been removed from
the hero pool with a note that he’ll return in a future update with a new hero
power. His previous hero power was Give a random friendly minion +1/+1.
After you sell a minion, refresh this. Costs 1 Gold. This allowed him to
buff single minions to extremes by late game, which may be why he is being changed.
I expect the win-rate was too high to be considered balanced. I’m curious to
see what they change with him.
World of Warcraft
Well… I haven’t played through Ny’alotha, the Waking City
yet, the final raid of Battle for Azeroth, but I have watched the two
cinematics for it, and…
/sigh
That basically killed all interest I had in continuing
to play this expansion. I’m actually kind of mad that I’ve been playing this shit
expansion for two years for it to end like that, and of course, my subscription
just re-upped for three months, so I get to be angry about that now, too. I think
at this point, I’m just going to play for PvP and then unsub for a while. I’m
legitimately mad about this stupid expansion and the stupid story they cobbled
together for it.
I’ve defended World of Warcraft for a really long time. I’ve
spent countless hours playing this game and reading the novels and comics and
immersing myself in the lore. And Blizzard just took a big fat shit on it. I
don’t know what the fuck they’re doing over there in Irvine, but it’s not
writing a good story or giving a shit about the lore, I can tell you that much.
Which brings us to…
Elder Scrolls Online
After a very long rage rant about whateverthefuck is going
on with World of Warcraft right now, my husband and I both purchased Elder
Scrolls Online last week to start playing (it’s now on sale for $8 for the base
game, because of course it is). We’re both longtime fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise,
but we were both hesitant about ESO because it seemed like trying to turn the
Elder Scrolls experience into an MMO would ruin the gameplay and lose all the
aspects of the original RPGs that we both loved.
I am so happy to be proven wrong.
ESO is such a natural extension of the Elder Scrolls games
that you can almost forget that you’re playing an MMO. You can feel the love
and care that they put into this game to make it a proper Elder Scrolls game. The
interface is slightly different with the MMO format, (especially since I am
playing on PC, not Xbox, like I have in the past) but the story and gameplay are
just as immersive as the single-player games are, only now, my husband and I
can play together.
The map is gargantuan. We’re still questing around a tiny
sliver of Vvardenfell, giving me fond memories of playing through Morrowind, and
I’m having so much fun exploring and questing. And I can’t wait to see what
else is out there once we move on to other places. I’ve probably put a thousand
hours into single-player Elder Scrolls games over the years, and I can easily
see myself pouring just as many into this game.
That said, the game isn’t without its problems. It is
free-to-play if you purchase the base game, or you can choose to subscribe to
have access to all content. My husband and I just bought the base game because
it was a small enough investment to see if we liked it, and for $20, I figured
if I got at least four hours of gameplay out of it, it was worth the price. I’m
now up to 11 hours played. The problem is that a lot of the quality of life
adjustments to the game are gated behind spending actual money. Want bigger
bags? You have to spend money. Want more bank space? You have to spend money. It’s
frustrating, to say the least. If you subscribe though, you get all of that awesome
stuff for as long as you’re paying the subscription fee. Maybe once I unsub
from World of Warcraft, I might sub to ESO for a while to see if it’s worth the
$15 a month, but right now, I find the push to spend actual money annoying.
Next Week
Warcraft III: Reforged drops on Tuesday, just in time
for my birthday, so I’m going to spend a lot of time playing through the story
campaign for that next week. Despite my hatred of Battle for Azeroth, I still
love the world and lore that was built in the early years of the franchise. I
never actually played Warcraft III when it originally came out, and though I
know the story already, I’m excited to actually play through it first-hand.
I’ll let you know next week what I think about it.
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