Even if the diversity at higher ranks will be limited to mostly “tier 1 decks”, the nature of the game makes games pretty diverse. Adding a board really adds to the experience. Therefore, I do no think the diversity issue is that big a deal. Plus, even if there is a metagame players have accepted, that does not mean this is the only way to play the game. Even better: a metagame changes over time, mainly because rogue builders come up with some crazy new deck. Just try to be one of the builders and do your own thing. Players perform worse against unknown decks, especially if these are geared to punish the cards commonly played in the environment.
Is duelyst lacking diversity?
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not that i miss swarm abyssian, but when was the last time you saw it?
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You should checkout Standard in Hearthstone to see what is the meaning of “lacking diversity”.
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Yesterday. I played a couple games of it for fun and went half and half for wins. Skorn never made an appearance. I mean, I’m only Rank 2, but its not that bad for a grind.
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Well I think the diversity in high level would increase if only we had a ****CASUAL MODE!
The thing is, people can’t do proper testing unless they have a consistent way to test with friends, which is far from being the case for the majority of the player base, even in s-rank/diamond. So if people can’t test they just play what has proven to be the strongest deck in the meta, no testing>no innovation>no diversity. If only people had a way to do serious testing they would try to explore other possibilities.
The other factor is that people are so busy grinding the ladder every single season that they don’t have time to do proper testing. I personally think that a ladder reset every month is WAY too much , people who don’t have much time to play the game but have the level to reach S-rank can basically only afford to ladder all the time. They don’t have the time to do testing: so no testing>no innovation>no diversity.
Also monthly reset cause other problems like the ladder being completely messed up and almost unplayable for beginners at the start of every season. Beside people would be more inclined to climb the ladder if they knew that they are going to keep their ranking longer.
What I suggest is to increase the duration of the season by one month, people would still be able to reach S-rank without having to ladder as often so they can enjoy and test on the Casual mode that should have been implemented a LONG TIME AGO. So people will have more possibilities and time for testing: more testing>more innovations>more diversity.
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No need for extending season really, casual mode would be fine, i don’t know what’s the big deal with implementing it. Everyone’s afraid of experimentation so they don’t lose the rank. It’s great that you don’t fall behind on rank 10/5 etc., but still, that ladder anxiety remains.
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But experimenting won’t even work in casual because it will most likely consist of people either:
- playing fun decks
- experimenting with their own weird decks
- playing factions they usually wouldn’t play in ranked so they can finish quests
- people with ladder anxiety
Playing against 3 out of 4 of these people won’t provide proper results when one is testing out their decks. And I doubt there will be enough people with ladder anxiety who play proper high tier decks in casual one can play against to get meaningful results.
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Casual Mode would be alright, but when it was available most matches would end in a concede cause there was no consequence.
If you want to play or test out meme-y decks, your best bet would be strim’s with friends.
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Yes, but fun is experimenting, out of experimenting comes new archetypes 
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Your point was that casual mode would be cool for people to test experiemental decks, because they are afraid of losing ranks if they test them on ladder. Raqyees point was that they would still lose on the ladder after experimenting in casual mode, since the testing in casual mode would tell nothing about the quality of the deck.
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One thing is to experiment with a new deck to establish how well it does and another thing is to just play a fun deck for the sake of playing it where you don’t necessarily want to win.
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I would really like a casual mode as well.
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I get your point in theory but I don’t think that is true in practice. Look at S-rank atm, for the vast majority of the players, the s-rank system doesn’t mean a shit and people play on it to test against good players. If the casual would be based on hidden MMR it would likely be like S-rank today, which means a place where people try stuff and play meta deck because they don’t want to play on ladder for whatever reason.
OFC it will never be as good as testing in scrim with dedicated teammates but it still better than nothing.
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No way the casual will have the games of same or even similar quality compared to S-rank.
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I think it will be pretty close, and even if not it will still encourage people to try out new stuff which will result into more diversity.
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Well it definitely be result in more diversity but I don’t think that diversity will effect ranked play in any significant way.
“Oh look, this deck is working well in casual game mode which consists of people with bad decks doing quests, people will ladder anxiety, people playing fun and silly decks and people experimenting with new decks such as myself. Surely testing the deck in this environment has proven to be sucessful and now I’ll start playing the deck actively in the ladder with a goal to climb and I definitely won’t give up on it after getting 17% winrate”.
I really have a really hard time believing something like that will happen. Agree to disagree I guess.
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Well, the point is in trying new things, experimenting with something viable. You can refine something you came up with in casual on the ladder.
But maybe i’m thinking too much in Hearthstone, Duelyst’s advantage is that you can’t drop too much, while in Hearthstone you can drop straight from rank 1 to rank 20, so it’s quite more relaxed to experiment on the ladder in Duelyst. However, casual would be ok for gimmick decks or daily quests with classes you don’t usually play, if nothing.
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Lacking diversity compared to what other games?
You want to play unranked you set up some matches against buddies or find some on Discord.
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That is easier said than done, I talk from experience and I have quite a few friends.
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Even decks within the same archetype like, say, Ranged Reva or Vomit Argeon can be vastly different in deck composition in Duelyst. Aside from Inquisitor Kron, the game has shown few signs of Hearthpetrification™.
If you want to see lack of diversity, try playing some Hearthstone, where every game you can predict your opponent’s deck down to her last three cards. =S
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