The Kumbaya of Hearthstone Fun

General Discussion
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Ok, here’s a kumbaya moment about having fun…

So what is fun? Fun is about feeling good, it is about pleasure. And pleasure is about gene survival. Every time we do something that increases the odds of survival of our genes, we get a chemical fix to some receptors of our brain that triggers some form of happiness. The opposite is also true for pain, sorrow, etc.

I know this doesn’t sound like Hearthstone related but bear with me for a couple of minutes and hopefully it will make sense.

We are all different and how we contribute for gene survival, therefore fun and pleasure, is also different. Some of us are more social, we tell stories, we amaze and we are amazed. Others are systematic thinkers and builders. Finally we have the fighters, the warriors, the hierarchy climbers. We need all of them to have the society we live in and some more even… but as far as Hearthstone is concerned, we need these three. The more social ones are the Timmys, the builders are the Johnys and the fighters are the Spikes.

One of the fundamental problems of most Hearthstone players as far as their fun goes, is that while they fit into one of the categories, they fail to understand what is the point of the others. There’s a tremendous lack of empathy and compassion towards other types of players. Timmys fail to understand what is the fun in competing with murderous intent like Spikes do. Johnys kinda understand both but they don’t really see the point of not building your own stuff. Spikes think that not defeating others and especially themselves, is pointless.

Understanding that others are having fun THEIR OWN WAY does miracles. Assuming our way to have fun is the only way to have fun is just awkward when we put things into an evolutionary perspective. No one decides how it is they want to have fun. They have fun the way they do because that’s who they are. It is unrelated with skill or intelligence. It is simply a matter of gene survival after many layers of evolutionary history.

So, appreciate your fellow players for who they are and for how useful they are to the game. All of them bring something to the table and all of them have fun in different ways. Learn to appreciate that and you will tilt less and appreciate the game more. Think of what this game would be if you remove one of them. The design decisions that would be different… no storytelling, no fun cards or mechanics, no “what can I do with this” cars, no ultra-competitive cards, no balancing.

Appreciate the others. Even if they fail to appreciate you.

5 Likes
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Brilliant post,
yet, i don’t think most of the ranters will relate or even understand it. They are here mostly to demand - fun, wins, changes, whatever suits them from the point of personal entitlement. And that point is centered on them, so realising what their opponent wants/does is beyong comprehension, while you are self centered, imo.

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Thanks, mate. I see your point but let’s be honest, I’m not writing for them, am I? I’m writing for those who want to learn, who want to understand and for the very rare case that, while upset, is able to see beyond their initial reaction.

I remember a couple of those cases and they turn out to be great community members in the long run and fun to play and interact with. Those that, like you and me, are available to learn and understand just pile knowledge. But that rare case… that’s why we discuss… I hope… :slight_smile:

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So where would i go under? I love building like a Johny, i love socialising and amazing friends with my meme decks like a Jimmy and a bit of spike as i like making proper decks to get wins in ranked and foil the plans of people to get win, for example many hunter games i went against today, some of which opened up with a threat, won all of them as druid and was happy, of course once i get a losing streak i never touch comp again till next month and stick to casual and the memes i play

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A lot of Timmies in HS are also Johnnies for the simple reason that there aren’t that many netdecks using multiple “big” cards.

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@LeoXblader, there are many interactions of the three archetypes. Your description fits a competitive Johny.

@Phillybear, yeah that’s pretty much me, if you think about it. I admit that it’s the self expression of Johny that I mostly identify with but that building part is on top of some Timmy like idea.

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Me being a Johny made me a Spike, I really like building decks and I want them to be successful, so more than anything, when I’m building a deck I’m most proud of its results, getting to rank 5 with discard tempo warlock, freeze burn mage (I think i was the only one playing mage at the time) or the other many decks that I made was my proof that I was a good deck builder, most of them, like discard tempo warlock were build for fun on top of everything.

On the other hand being a Spike made me a Johny, I love, not wining, but crushing my opponents like bugs, grinding their weak bodies under my overwhelming weight…maybe I’m more of a Spike… anyhow, because I enjoy wining I realized that I’m not one to play Tempo Rogue right now, for example, not when everyone is targeting it especially, I’d rather have my own deck that beats the others very fairly and is unknown to the poor souls that won’t even mulligan right against me. That’s why I prefer to look into the weaknesses of other classes and powerful decks when building my own, I built my freeze burn mage back in the day and miracle exodia mage now to beat people real hard, I saw that aggro doesn’t do it in wild and that heavy late game is the norm, so what could I do? mill them cards, draw my own, deal 100 damage in a turn, how fair, am I right? The only downside, if you’re not like me, is that now, whenever I see a weak deck I loose all my motivation, I wither change the whole meaning of the deck or give up all together. I built my best decks to counter the meta and reaching my goal (rank 5) with quite high of a winrate was a good indicator that I did right.

In real life when playing games I’m fairly competitive but I enjoy having weird shenanigans the most, if your description of a Timmy was right

I’d be a Timmy, I’m really all over the place when it comes to people, so I’m asking myself, is this classification flawed, pretending to be based on personality over all while only taking into consideration very isolated aspects or did you just explain a simplified version of it?

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Simplified version. Timmys are about awe, fun, telling stories and socializing. I focused on the socialization because of the evolutionary implications.

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The classification was never meant to be an absolute description of three completly different personalites (imo), but rather as a description of the different ways people enjoy (and thus play) card games.

It is perfectly possible to feel like you belong in multiple categories at the same time.