The Hearthstone arena needs a revamp. The developers just need to agree on a way forward.
The arena in Hearthstone is one of the most popular game modes with a pretty loyal community. However, over the recent expansions, fan motivation has waned as with the expansion of new card sets, the balance in the arena seems to be drifting further apart. Certain classes, like the Mage, are almost “automatically picked” because they promise a solid win rate, whereas Priests are more at the bottom of the food chain.
The developers Yong Woo and Dean Ayala discussed some plans and ideas for the future in Trump’s stream (not the Trump … the other one) and on Reddit.
According to them, there are only two possible routes for developers to make the balance in the arena more even. Option 1 involves adjusting the synergy effects, or as the developers describe it:
“We could increase the deck quality in the arena so that there are more synergies. For example: If you pick a dragon, then you have a higher chance of getting more dragons. We can try this in the future, but then it would feel more and more like the normal [Constructed] game mode.”
But there is also another way being considered:
“Or we reduce the quality of arena decks and completely remove things like the Spider Tank or the River Crocolisk. Many arena games are now only about playing a lot of minions for 1 and 2 mana. Spells are becoming less and less chosen as players focus only on the minions. I believe that games could be made more exciting by lowering the quality of the decks as a whole.”
Cortyn believes: Arena has always been the “anything goes” mode, where the really “fun” decks became rarer over time. I can only hope that the developers can turn this around and make the arena as exciting as it was at the beginning of the game. Because still, the arena is my favorite way to convert the gold earned into card packs.
Have you seen the new “Jade Golem” super monster from the Gadgetzan expansion?
