We've received insight into a survey Blizzard sent out to some players asking about a Hearthstone "battle pass". This new addition to the game would potentially replace rewards from dailies, achievements, and simply winning games with a system based on experience. There are both paid and free versions of this battle pass that are discussed, and they have some very interesting rewards including alternate art for cards for the first time ever.
The survey states that this pass would launch with a new expansion and would last until the next set releases, giving you around 4 months to complete the pass. Earning the maximum amount of experience per week would take you 16 weeks to get the full 100 levels of the battle pass, where the main reward structure is.
Battle passes have become very popular with games over the past few years with it originating in Valve's DotA 2, back during The International tournament pass. The goal is simple: You play the game, earn experience, unlock rewards. The passes last a limited amount of time so they get players to engage more with the game so they don't miss out on rewards. Epic Games really pushed the battle pass approach to free-to-play monetization with its Battle Royale game, Fortnite, giving it a huge spotlight and getting other companies to jump on board such as rival Battle Royale, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Whether you like them or hate them, the battle pass appears to be here to stay. Although this survey, which we're going to get into in a moment, is a solid indication of development plans for Hearthstone's new progression systems, it should not be taken literally for the rewards may change based on survey feedback. This is potentially good news for Hearthstone due to rival card game, Legends of Runeterra, being more rewarding to play and thus open to free to play players. If this pass is done right, this could be a huge boost to the free-to-play side of the game and may even beat out the pass that MTG Arena has been doing for a few sets now.
Let's check out that survey!
Types of Rewards Discussed
Here are all the different types of rewards mentioned in the survey.
- Latest Expansion Packs
- Prior Expansion Packs
- Upgradable Hero Skins
- Experience Boost for the Pass
- Arena Tickets
- Individual Random Cards
- A Choice of Hero Skins
- Alternate Art for The Coin
- Expansion Card Back
- Gold
Rewards Breakdown
Here is a breakdown of the rewards and what level you would obtain them at.
As you can see, the idea is that you'd be able to upgrade the skins of certain heroes with 3 different tiers available. We're assuming this means each upgrade they get cooler looking. Perhaps this is related to the new heroes that we datamined just over a week ago.
In total, here's what this pass would give you as a member of the free tier if you get to level 100.
- 18 Packs for the Latest Expansion
- 14 Packs for a Prior Standard Expansion
- 4 Arena Tickets
- 2 Legendary Cards
- 2 Epic Cards
- A choice of a Hero Skin (unknown list)
- Expansion related Card Back
- 3990 Gold
Paid members of the pass would receive these rewards in addition to the free ones:
- 1 Non-disenchantable Golden Legendary (Likely a unique legendary and not random)
- 2 Upgradeable Hero Skins (3 levels of upgrades each) (Jaina and Rexxar)
- 20% XP Boost for the Pass
- Alternate Art for The Coin
- 17 Packs for the Latest Expansion
- 14 Packs for a Prior Standard Expansion
- 4 Arena Tickets
- 2 Legendary Cards
- 2 Epic Cards
Additionally, all players are able to earn 25 Gold for each level above 100, to a cap of 150, which would grant you an additional 1250 Gold.
How This Changes Progression Now
The way it is explained in the survey, this would remove the Gold rewards from daily quests, winning 3 games, and achievements. Instead, you'd be earning experience from completing these tasks.
A rough maximum of experience earned per week is stated to be 9000. With a total XP count of 145000 being required for Level 100, a free to play pass player would have to max out their experience for 16 weeks - roughly the full 4 months. I don't know about you, but I've never maxed out my daily wins more than a handful of times which means if that's the metric to go by, this might be a hard experience for the free-to-play among us.
Other Mentions
In addition to the above, the following were mentioned.
- Appropriate gold costs for cosmetic upgrades.
- More upgradeable hero portraits.
- Emblems by your name depending on your current experience.
- Crafting cost discounts for cards from the current expansion.
- Customizable visual emotes.
Fitting Into the Year of the Phoenix Roadmap
Since earlier this year, we've already known that we'd be getting an achievement system and player progression update in Hearthstone during Phase 3, which means if this battle pass does happen, it should begin with Hearthstone's December expansion to allow the pass go through its full 4 months of play.
That still leaves the question of whether or not achievements gets launches with the December set or if we'll see it in the new year as some nice new bait to get everyone back into Hearthstone as things begin to calm down mid-set. We've also still got a few more "locked spells" so it will be interesting to see what the Hearthstone team is cooking.
Achievements & Progression - Phase 3
Comments
So those hero portraits in datamined infos are for this battle pass system ? Because much of them is for jaina or uther which are basic hero portraits and now it makes more sense.
I would HATE this. I feel this is just going against this new ranked system, in which you can play the same each month. This would make people have to grind a lot again. Maybe it could be used in a new game mode only?
I just hate it
Seems terrible hopefully they won't implement such system.. Unless they keep the current gold system as is and just add a layer of rewards then it's fine.
This works well in LoR and tft cause first in tft it's all about cosmetics, and in LoR you can get a full collection at some point.
I like the idea of being rewarded for just playing. Obviously, any company that does a Battle Pass has to incentivize people to grind for it, so I'll understand if there are some unique - hopefully only cosmetic - rewards that some people might feel compelled to chase, even if they don't have the time or requisite interest in the game. I think a good compromise is that all gameplay-related rewards are in the free track, while those same rewards are obtained faster in the paid track and cosmetic stuff fills the higher tiers of that track. Also, hopefully, it wouldn't take anywhere near the full 4 months to complete the pass. More like 2 months, at most, if you play 1-2 hours a day. I'd also like to see the Tavern Pass rolled into this such that picking a third/fourth hero becomes a reward on the free track which, again, is obtained sooner if you buy the paid track. This reward would probably have to be very early, given how important more hero choices is.
I guess we'll see what happens.
I was f2p but now have put some limited cash into the game, which I'm fine with. What sucks is even this isn't enough to keep up: I'm effectively sitting out the first week (maybe more) of the expansion because I don't have enough cards or resources to craft anything that could whiff.
I guess what I am looking for is a more rewarding f2p system and some lower cost bundles or card pack options. Even $50 per expansion isn't in my gaming budget. My 2 cents. I get it, there are other games that are more or less expensive, blah, blah, blah. They're not Hearthstone, which seems to me to be inherently casual. If that's true (debate it amongst yourselves) then a more rewarding f2p system and/or lower cost resources would engage more casual players and make the game healthier.
I actually hate the way they are handling the battlepass if this is the way they are taking. As a player who has spent money on both preorders some times and also bien F2P depending económic situation I can Say that for me, that both F2P and Paid players Will dislike this idea. It just seems too grindy and a downgrade. They should just give gold and free/paíd tier cosmétics and let people decide where to spend it. Also rewards seem jokingly Bad for a 4 month period if they remove normal quests. Right Now If I really wanted I could get 160 gold per day. Knowing myself it would be closer to 80/100 in 4months this 100 becomes 12000 gold I can use in whatever I want. Right Now for example. I saved 4000 for scholomance and decides to keep 500 around for the old card back that I could not get because I was taking a break. That decisión would be Lost in the new system
Edit: I was fighting with my spanish google corrector on the phone while writing this, so dont expect perfect grammar at all xD
HMMMMMM not sure how I feel about this. I'm pretty casual, there's sometimes days or weeks I don't touch this game. I'd need to see how fast the progression is.
And is XP given by games played, not won, so that's good.
The system limits you to 9000XP a week. which means progression may be fast?
I'm curious about tier rewards for Hero Skin Choice and Expansion Card back. Are they offering previous hero skins and card backs or something completely new?
Cuz if it's a cool new hero skin I'd totally grind for that
Since the plan isn’t finalized, and Blizzard didn’t say anything directly to Out of Cards, we can hope that a lot of these details are wrong. As everyone is pointing out, the system listed here is so stingy with cards that it just wouldn’t be fun. (And I’m not even F2P - I usually buy the $50 preorder with each expansion, and I count on that PLUS my gold to make my collection good. With such a stingy list of packs, my preorder purchase wouldn’t be enough to keep me in the game.)
The thing most people miss is that Hearthstone’s system is much MORE generous than other games, if you play about 20 minutes per day. Beyond those initial couple games, though, Hearthstone gives you almost nothing while other games keep handing out rewards. My hope has been that they keep the daily quests that give you an easy pack every other day, but replace the “3 crowns” system with something that’s actually worthwhile. If Blizzard is smart, that’s how this will work.
Agreed. The daily system has kept me logging in every day for the four years I've played this game, and I'd hate to see it go, but the three crowns does seem like not much bang for your reward.
Definitely not a fan of the Battle Pass but I have not the slightest doubt that this will be implemented (regardless of survey results). HS is already a very expensive game if you buy all pre-orders (equivalent of several AA games per year) but that is obviously not enough. Blizzard has significantly stepped up monetarization lately beginning with the Tavern Pass, which is essential if you want to play Battlegrounds semi competitive, new pack types and bundles and bringing old cardbacks back to the shop. The increasing powercreep from expansion to expansion is also part of this. From their perspective it is the logical next step. From a player perspective of course this is a very unfortunate development especially as the rewards seem lackluster. F2P players might be slowly pushed out of the game (standard at least).
P.S. We obviously do not know the price yet but we all know Blizzard and this will not be cheap.
I’ve played this dang game since launch. While I still enjoy it, I certainly don’t want to be forced to play more to keep up with some dang battle pass. I already have to do that with Apex Legends. And I tell ya, Blizzard, if you make me choose between the two for how I split my time, you won’t like the result
I think this would be a completely fine change.
with one requirement - do it like MTGA where battle pass (they call it mastery) is only a new layer above existing daily quest rewards.
so if the 50-100 gold daily rewards remain, this system is completely acceptable.
exactly ... but the article says
This new addition to the game would potentially replace rewards from dailies, achievements,
If quests will be replaced I don't see any reasons to play anymore ... what I can do with a bunch of decks of "old" expansions? I want to get cards from day 1.
This system sucks.
It's ok in games like LoR because obtaining cards is much easier (i'm f2p and have the whole collection, and still some resources) where you can easily craft what you need
In hearthstone it will be brutal, especially when finding good cards in a pack is very hard (i opened 53 packs of the new exp and only found 2 legendaries) and so you are almost forced to craft them for a high cost.
Now we will be forced to open packs of the current expansion and past expansions, so you have to craft what you need to play a deck (let's be real, even the big 80 cards bundle won't be enough, and we are talking a lot of money here, more than a good game you can just buy) this means opening those packs will just be collecting dust.
They have at least to change the rate of finding a legendary, right now it's ridicolous, in 80 packs you can just find 2 legendaries if you are unlucky, this is a good reason for me to never spend a cent in this game. They just should do more cosmetic things to balance the new rate. Still i'd hate the new system.
The feel you have to grind for the rewards isn't nice too, a lot of people don't have time, some don't want, some just can't play another game after losing to a bs and have to cool down (talking about me). If winning rewards more exp than losing it will be even worse, already people only play tier 1 decks all day, this will be a reason to do that even more.
So i can only see bad things about this new system, but i guess is going to come and stay. Too bad.
Here you will get 2 legendaries granted For F2P players
2 random legendaries at that point will not make up for it, both for f2p and not f2p.
Especially when you already crafted the legendaries you want
EDIT: from a rough calculation, with the 9000 exp for week, you should get your first legendary card at the end of the second week, and the second one much later (edit: calculated, it comes the 10th week) this if you get max exp every week (we can't say if it will be easy or not)
Current quest-based gold system is already quite of a grind.
Having it turned into an xp-based continuum looks pretty at first glance, but it's actually just a worse grind.
I am ok with xp giving cosmetics and perks, but gold should be bound as less as possible on intensive grind.
UNLESS there is an easy enough threshold that can give you a favourable compromise as a reward (similar to D5 in ladder), beyond which you only get cosmetics and perks.
Ah, just as I thought things are taking a better direction, I might be leaving if this goes off.
As a long time player, I naturally got burnt out, and with less time on my hands, I decided to get in once every three days for quests, and have a gaming day once a week. Truth to be told, current quest system is really boring and should be modernized. But psychological torture of having to grind to not lose something important for players like me is much worse. And I think there are a lot of us. Not to mention long waiting for those rewards, which functionally is probably the most detriminal factor.
Anyway, this will most likely be introduced in the end, it's too well planned not to. I feel the best way for them not to disappoint the majority of players is to just let gold quests stay, along with the new system. It would still have the same hook-up effect, just without the frustrating part of not longer being able to play normally if you don't pay money. I get their plan, but I think it's not a logical one, considering their competition. Let's just hope this is not the beginning of the end.
P. S. I'm not full f2p, I'll gladly give money if it brings me fun, as I did as soon as I got my first job. Fun has its price. But this doesn't sound like fun to me, more like torture.
Where is written that
Paid members of the pass would receive these rewards in addition to the free ones:
I don't see that in the reward table
I believe it is left out for clarity. I found that a little odd as well though, but they do specifically mention that the paid pass has those extra rewards.
It's also a little odd that it is only 17 packs for the latest expansion and not 18. I expected it to be doubled up.