Arena rewards need to change

I commented on the latest news but I think this is worth the discussion.. I think arena has no real fun reason to play it, most of this OP will be a copy paste from that comment on the news article: but I reformatted parts of it to be more readable.

https://outof.cards/hearthstone/1792-the-arena-will-keep-separate-rewards-from-hearthstones-battle-pass

What is wrong in arena? (At least for me)

I don't like that the runs take a lot of time and you needs an insane win rate to actually profit from arena, I don't feel like sitting through 12 wins only to get trice the entry fee.. the arena feels unrewarding for the time poured into them.. I didn't play arena for over 2 years and I used to play more when I didn't had many resources it's feels like a chore..

I do enjoy the gameplay but it feels like such a big time and gold commitment to play.. I just hate playing it and losing too fast or make risky picks.

The reward system is the same since beta... SERIOUSLY.

Suggested estimated rewards that would feel better:

lower the entry fee, lower the max wins, increase the reward threshold.

I just threw numbers and rewards but something that will be exciting to earn and not just.. "value" it feels bad to play arena and get some value we want to get special rewards or get guaranteed rewards on good runs.. arena feels BAD to win at and feels bad to get less than 7 wins you get less than the fee.. and need insane win rates. About the cosmetics: it's not a hero skin (maybe as a rare 10 wins drop) but it's something to grind for like some alternate card art or some old card backs.. give players a good reason to play more arena the mode is fun the entry fee is discouraging and so are the rewards.

More improvements suggestions:

1.Would also enjoyed the mixture of the expansions in arena but it wasn't conveyed correctly had no idea what to play or not around there was no way in game to tell which expansions were available.. for that a new feature needs to be implemented which is a peek into the available pool just open a collection manager which shows you the expansion available and what cards are legit or not, from the draft screen no need to do in game.

2. Arena tickets as rewards from quests + exp since they are 40 gold quest for none arena players this way. people who don't want to play arena can start and exit just to get the 40 gold, it will intensify players to try arena more and experiment more.

I hope I formatted this post correctly so it's easy in the eyes.

I would love these changes a lot, but Blizz would probably never do this because well... Blizz wants people to buy packs.

One thing I would like is that CARDS are removed from the early arena rewards. It sucks when you get a bad run and instead of Gold, you are treated with some garbage rare cardwhich you didn’t need. 

To be honest, arena rewards are currently still okay, assuming you'd put the work in. Like yourself, I've grinded arena in my early days cause' I have literally no cards or dust to build even a decent aggro deck to go into ranked (I got my first month-end card back around 8 months from my start date. To put things in perspective, all you needed to do then was to reach rank 25).

A simplification of the details; you pay 150 gold, and you get 1 pack no matter what + a random reward of either dust or gold. The rewards scale with the number of wins, and the common ideal is to reach 7 wins, whereupon you get your gold back guaranteed. But this is only half the picture. To get the ticket's worth in gold, the actual number of wins required is 2 (for a chance of 40-50 gold) to 4 (where you are guaranteed 50 gold).

So all that is required to basically get 50 gold + a pack is actually 2-4 wins, very achievable. 3 wins is basically a gold standard in many cases. I won't discuss any higher than that, since most players don't get past 3 wins anyway.

But to go back to your proposal, its just broken. 50 gold to start, and only 1 win is all that is required to get value, 3 wins to get your gold back AND a pack. Let's be honest. If this was the structure back then I would be swimming in gold right now. Arena is grindy, and it should be grindy because the rewards it gives out for those who grind it is always better than it would be if you were grinding up gold via quests.

I left arena once I had a few decks to play with and never looked back. The reason is simple. Arena is only fun for only a small portion of players (and I mean really small). The vast majority of us (who play it at all) grind it for gold. If the idea is to make arena fun, its simple enough to remove all the rewards and allow players to go for it without charge. Hell, I'd play arena every now and then if I can go for it without charge, even without the rewards.

Quote From PopeNeia

One thing I would like is that CARDS are removed from the early arena rewards. It sucks when you get a bad run and instead of Gold, you are treated with some garbage rare cardwhich you didn’t need. 

I second this. And while we're on it, please for the love of god blizz, remove those nasty odd 5 gold/dust rewards. If ever there was a way to thumb up other people's butt it would be to grant them a reward they can neither use nor remove.

Quote From dapperdog

To be honest, arena rewards are currently still okay, assuming you'd put the work in. Like yourself, I've grinded arena in my early days cause' I have literally no cards or dust to build even a decent aggro deck to go into ranked (I got my first month-end card back around 8 months from my start date. To put things in perspective, all you needed to do then was to reach rank 25).

A simplification of the details; you pay 150 gold, and you get 1 pack no matter what + a random reward of either dust or gold. The rewards scale with the number of wins, and the common ideal is to reach 7 wins, whereupon you get your gold back guaranteed. But this is only half the picture. To get the ticket's worth in gold, the actual number of wins required is 2 (for a chance of 40-50 gold) to 4 (where you are guaranteed 50 gold).

So all that is required to basically get 50 gold + a pack is actually 2-4 wins, very achievable. 3 wins is basically a gold standard in many cases. I won't discuss any higher than that, since most players don't get past 3 wins anyway.

But to go back to your proposal, its just broken. 50 gold to start, and only 1 win is all that is required to get value, 3 wins to get your gold back AND a pack. Let's be honest. If this was the structure back then I would be swimming in gold right now. Arena is grindy, and it should be grindy because the rewards it gives out for those who grind it is always better than it would be if you were grinding up gold via quests.

I left arena once I had a few decks to play with and never looked back. The reason is simple. Arena is only fun for only a small portion of players (and I mean really small). The vast majority of us (who play it at all) grind it for gold. If the idea is to make arena fun, its simple enough to remove all the rewards and allow players to go for it without charge. Hell, I'd play arena every now and then if I can go for it without charge, even without the rewards.

it only pays for itself at 1 win, that's of course if 1 win in constructed is also worth more than 3.33 gold(the current system).. here it's worth 20 gold but you put 50 gold,  so the 1 win is fair.. the earlier tiers were more carefully placed in this suggestion, I actually thought about them being fair.

3 wins = higher than 50% win rate already that's where your deck is "Good" kind of the pack + fee is a reward that has value but.. it doesn't feel great at 7 wins which is actually an insane win rate and at least 40 minutes into a run....... if not a hour.. I find arena interesting but requires too much time and grinding for while the rewards are good compared to the entry fee, they are not exciting... at all..

1. Add guaranteed epics to the end

2.make the arena grind for max reward shorter

3. make the arena entry fee more affordable.

of course the arena rewards can increase that way cause the whole economic system is increasing!

also do note that on 6 wins for example you are missing on 20 gold from the 3 wins thing which is also really really grindy..

I think people who grind need to be rewarded more.. that's the point.. and of course as a player I want bigger rewards but something in the middle will be also much better but having a mode for 6 years while having the same rewards.. it's just not scalable.

Arena is supposed to be grindy because its the main method for anyone to get a decent amount of gold off this game, aside from your daily quests. I think getting your money's worth in 2-4 wins is a decent enough compromise.

I absolutely believe, as you do, that grind should be provided with comparable rewards. But this should come with a certain balance, with pros for both consumer and producer. Your reward tier is simply too generous, at least on the gold front.

I would advocate letting the gold/dust rewards stay as it is, but improve the other rewards, like granting guaranteed extra packs for higher milestones. Maybe also remove the useless rewards too like getting random bs cards.

Also, a short comment on your statement "cause' the whole economic system is increasing". It hasn't. Packs still cost 100 gold, dust value is still at 4x the card's worth, and a decent player can expect at least 8k gold per expansion. Unless the battlepass system causes this to crumble, I just can't agree with you on this.

The thing is.. If they increase the overall reward of playing.. What's the point of arena? It stays the same. 

When you ask for something you always have to ask for more than it is doable.. But I insist a guranteed epic at 7 wins would totally make me to play the mode. 

And I really think an arena ticket as a quest reward is a great way to make players play arena more (a rare quest of course)..

Arena Awards are fine: if you just get back 50 gold you broke even. All that takes is 3 wins usually.

The rewards used to be higher, I just don't know when it was. You could get 2 packs with 3 wins from time to time and you would get your 150 gold back on 5 wins average

Quote From Aventurin

The rewards used to be higher, I just don't know when it was. You could get 2 packs with 3 wins from time to time and you would get your 150 gold back on 5 wins average

wait? its not like that anymore? I haven't played arena in so long. That sucks man, why would anyone want to play arena anymore

Real enjoyement about Arena is the drafting and you suggested nothing to enhance it. Enhancing Arena (Draft Mode) isn't about rewards if you ask me.

I mean, Arena isn't just for spamming rewards, Draft mode is the best thing for a card game and should be balanced like there is some bans for that mode at every expansion cycle.

Some cards are more dominant in Draft, it is nature of the card games but Blizzard always way too late to balance draft mode, Even mostly they simply ignore to balance it.

I'm ok with the current rewards tbh. I'm more concerned about Blizzard's approach of balancing the mode, rarity appearance etc.

This line is personal approach; For me, it is like you pay that fee(150g) for your enjoyement + some rewards. It doesn't guaranteed that you get your fee back. Draft mode is just like that. Like going a bar that has only entry fee and free to drink anything. You know, you don't need to drink everything there and it is like you don't even care how the bar is (there are fights every minutes, dirty as hell, bartenders with bad behaviours etc.) and you only care about how much drink you can drink. This is wrong in my opinion. You are paying that fee for your enjoyement + some rewards. If you want just rewards, You can simply go buy booster packs. Why are you even bothered to play draft at the first place if you don't like drafting and do want only rewards ? Don't get me wrong this paragraph is just my personal thoughts about it.

You seem like you are playing Arena only for rewards. I'm playing it for enjoyment only. Especially after I moved to Runeterra, I missed to play Draft mode and playing Hearthstone just for its draft mode. If i can afford it, I would have played MTG:A for its draft mode tbh but couldn't. Of course you have your rights to want more rewards from a mode that you pay some fee but there is more enhancements about it rather than just rewards.

I know, people don't have to be like me or other draft mode players. Everyone doesn't have to enjoy it but I think that doesn't annoy you that I want blizzard to enhance it balance-wise rather than reward-wise. I need to say that it doesn't bother me aswell if blizzard enhance the reward side.

So, rewards are my last concern about the mode. I am looking forward to see that Blizzard deals with it more professional way rather than simply ignoring it. Banning some problematic cards, more Draft-wise balancing for expansion releases etc. and I have no problems with more rewarding arena (again) for the record.

If the mode has better rewards and lower entry fee as well as feels less grundy, maybe keep as is but remove 12 and 11 wins and distribute the rewards more equally along the tiers.. I feel like arena is not rewarding your time, and it feels at high stakes for no real reason..

You pay 150g for a minimum of 1 pack and fun part of drafting and 3 games completely different from ladder. So you can lose at max 50g, and if you enjoy the mode I wouldn't even call that a loss. You get valuable experience in a potentially profitable mode, you learn Arena meta and can exploit that knowledge in your next runs.

The thread should be called ‘I’m entitled to receive more! More!’ 
Rewards are fine, main fun is in playing, rewards are only the topping.

Quote From Ethardoth

You pay 150g for a minimum of 1 pack and fun part of drafting and 3 games completely different from ladder. So you can lose at max 50g, and if you enjoy the mode I wouldn't even call that a loss. You get valuable experience in a potentially profitable mode, you learn Arena meta and can exploit that knowledge in your next runs.

You get a crazy win rate deck and get what? a pack and the 150 back? yes 7 wins is crazy, when you look at that you got over 80% win rate with a draft deck.. and then you get that random rare as a reward.. the 12 wins reward is what? 3 packs and some gold? and how many decks go there? 1 every 1000?

Blizzard removing the rotation is a statement the mode is not really doing well also there were no statement about arena is a while...

@Aifi: the stockholm syndrome is strong with this one, the rewards are only "fair"... this is in response to the rework to the reward system as a whole if they increase the base rewards and not the arena rewards it wouldn't be worth to play the mode anymore. besides you are probably only looking at the numbers and I said some of them are probably too much anyway it's alsways better to ask for more than what you would be good with, maybe it's too much.

Quote From DoubleSummon

Quote From Ethardoth

You pay 150g for a minimum of 1 pack and fun part of drafting and 3 games completely different from ladder. So you can lose at max 50g, and if you enjoy the mode I wouldn't even call that a loss. You get valuable experience in a potentially profitable mode, you learn Arena meta and can exploit that knowledge in your next runs.

You get a crazy win rate deck and get what? a pack and the 150 back? yes 7 wins is crazy, when you look at that you got over 80% win rate with a draft deck.. and then you get that random rare as a reward.. the 12 wins reward is what? 3 packs and some gold? and how many decks go there? 1 every 1000?

Blizzard removing the rotation is a statement the mode is not really doing well also there were no statement about arena is a while...

@Aifi: the stockholm syndrome is strong with this one, the rewards are only "fair"... this is in response to the rework to the reward system as a whole if they increase the base rewards and not the arena rewards it wouldn't be worth to play the mode anymore. besides you are probably only looking at the numbers and I said some of them are probably too much anyway it's alsways better to ask for more than what you would be good with, maybe it's too much.

 

I just thought it isn't much of high stakes, as you said above. It's just a daily quest lost at maximum.

It seems that you have fun just in grinding resources in game, which is fine, and you could definitely reach the level in Arena where you get good profits, along with satisfying feeling of expertise. It's not that rare to hit 7+ when you get the hang of it, and rewards for 12 is not some, but around 300 g plus one or two packs and ~100 dust. For 11 and 10 wins are not much off, and all those aren't that incredibly rare.

The rewards you suggested, though, are so high that they would eliminate any kind of challenge from the mode, which most of us enjoy. Even worse, many players would go infinite resources and feel obliged to "mine" the mode. This is unrealistic from Blizzard perspective and would never happen.

That said, I agree that individual rares are really lame, that sometimes I just wish they gave me dust instead so I would feel less bad. Maybe if we could get golden cards and epics more easily as a reward instead of those rares, it would be better. But no more than that. 

I played Arena for the first time in YEARS because of this thread.

I too would like some minor changes to the gold amount, only because earning an amount ending in 5 doesn't help earn a pack, its an integer that just kinda stays there

Quote From Ethardoth

Quote From DoubleSummon

Quote From Ethardoth

You pay 150g for a minimum of 1 pack and fun part of drafting and 3 games completely different from ladder. So you can lose at max 50g, and if you enjoy the mode I wouldn't even call that a loss. You get valuable experience in a potentially profitable mode, you learn Arena meta and can exploit that knowledge in your next runs.

You get a crazy win rate deck and get what? a pack and the 150 back? yes 7 wins is crazy, when you look at that you got over 80% win rate with a draft deck.. and then you get that random rare as a reward.. the 12 wins reward is what? 3 packs and some gold? and how many decks go there? 1 every 1000?

Blizzard removing the rotation is a statement the mode is not really doing well also there were no statement about arena is a while...

@Aifi: the stockholm syndrome is strong with this one, the rewards are only "fair"... this is in response to the rework to the reward system as a whole if they increase the base rewards and not the arena rewards it wouldn't be worth to play the mode anymore. besides you are probably only looking at the numbers and I said some of them are probably too much anyway it's alsways better to ask for more than what you would be good with, maybe it's too much.

 

I just thought it isn't much of high stakes, as you said above. It's just a daily quest lost at maximum.

It seems that you have fun just in grinding resources in game, which is fine, and you could definitely reach the level in Arena where you get good profits, along with satisfying feeling of expertise. It's not that rare to hit 7+ when you get the hang of it, and rewards for 12 is not some, but around 300 g plus one or two packs and ~100 dust. For 11 and 10 wins are not much off, and all those aren't that incredibly rare.

The rewards you suggested, though, are so high that they would eliminate any kind of challenge from the mode, which most of us enjoy. Even worse, many players would go infinite resources and feel obliged to "mine" the mode. This is unrealistic from Blizzard perspective and would never happen.

That said, I agree that individual rares are really lame, that sometimes I just wish they gave me dust instead so I would feel less bad. Maybe if we could get golden cards and epics more easily as a reward instead of those rares, it would be better. But no more than that. 

Yeah you are right the reward structure I suggested is too generous and not realistic at all,

The main reason I don't play arena is the feeling of every run being "important" and that I can't play more.. also it's too grindy when you do well.

After thinking about it I think this suggestion is more realistic and more intuitive:

Those changes aren't overly exaggerated like in the OP, make arena more playable (in terms of more often playable) and less grindy.. also once you hit that deck that is crazy good you can get those epic cards..

Will people play arena cause that's the way to get epics? yes.. so what?

@PLANETCRUNCH oh yes those 5 gold rewards... remove them, if the arena would give 5 gold.. give 10 instead or 5 dust..