[UNCONFIRMED] It seems they removed the pity timer on legendaries

I Know some streamers (Solem, Zeddy, Dexter) complained about low amounts of legendaries in their pre-order packs,

Also saw a few posts about 100+ packs with 2 legendaries..

It seems Blizzard also removed the pity timer.. it wasn't never officially stated to be there but proven statistically.

Looking as everyone would be focused on the new reward system they sneakily removed that safety net of course it's speculation but it makes sense looking at those use cases.. they could at ANY TIME change their pack distribution and nobody would notice..

source: https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/245933-we-need-to-talk-about-it

He got a response from Blizzard denying the existence of said pity timer, they didn't deny in the pasts

According to this they removed it, in the past they confirmed there is some sort of pity timer!

Pure speculation I know but I wonder if someone will check the stats again on a big scale, unlikely now that people are focused on the reward system, but I would like to know if it was indeed removed. the pity timer was a fact, if someone gone 40 packs without a legendary it's a proof it was removed/changed.

Until there's like video proof of it it will always be speculative at best.

I think its likely a bug, along with the deluge of bugs that has only been increasing ever since battlegrounds was added, made worst in the past week by the new progression system.

Can't see why blizz would actively remove it. Most players will never reach the 40 pack timer to get their legendary, so its mostly going to upset whales, and we all know that's the last thing blizz needs on their plate right now. Besides which, its something that can be demonstrated, so hiding it would be near impossible. So if they can't hide it, and its not really affecting the majority of the playerbase, and its not going to make them more money, there's just no reason to believe this as anything other than an unintentional bug.

Quote From dapperdog

Until there's like video proof of it it will always be speculative at best.

I think its likely a bug, along with the deluge of bugs that has only been increasing ever since battlegrounds was added, made worst in the past week by the new progression system.

Can't see why blizz would actively remove it. Most players will never reach the 40 pack timer to get their legendary, so its mostly going to upset whales, and we all know that's the last thing blizz needs on their plate right now. Besides which, its something that can be demonstrated, so hiding it would be near impossible. So if they can't hide it, and its not really affecting the majority of the playerbase, and its not going to make them more money, there's just no reason to believe this as anything other than an unintentional bug.

I see what you are saying, but I am talking about their response:

"This can happen, it happens that for Hearthstone, it is guaranteed that you will receive a legendary in the first 10 packages of an expansion that you are opening for the first time. After that, the legends would not be guaranteed and may or may not come."

It seems to be quite shady, I remember them not denying the pity timer before now they just did with that, and this users' experience.

There was no guaranteed way to check just that statistics at some scale just tell the actual probabilities if enough data is provided and seeing as most players get rewards much slower and don't actually track what they get.. anyway if you keep playing it would be best if you kept a counter about your pity timer if we see more players reporting it's absence  or posting similar results from Blizzard it would confirm it was intentionally removed.

That would be a yikes for me if that's actually the case. Hopefully, it's just like dapperdog actually said and it's a bug and they will give players some dust refunds as they did before. Other than that, it's hard to prove that the pity timer is removed because having 40+ packs costs a lot of money and then you have to hit the pity timer? Good luck with that, that's about a 0.1% chance.

I run two accounts. Bought exactly 60 packs each (saving gold for the mini expansion). 

On one account I got 2 legendarys.

One the other I got 7 (!).

I don't think it's rigged. Just stochastic destribution. 

I buy dapperdog's argument that these claims (if true) could be a potential bug. Any other speculation about Blizzard removing the pity timer strikes me as just people looking for more things to be mad at Blizzard for. A couple of things worth noting on the topic of the Legendary card pity timer:

• Blizzard has said that Legendaries come approximately 1 in every 20 packs
• Blizzard has effectively comfirmed the pity timers by saying that opening packs increases the odds of getting higher quality cards

(source: translated Chinese disclosure)

These announcements were made as part of compliance with Chinese law, so it's very unlikely that they'd change the game behavior without a subsequent disclosure. Doing so would open them up to being caught lying on these compliance reports, which needlessly opens up legal issues for Blizzard in the Chinese market. Given Blizzard's initial actions during the Blitzchung controversy, it's safe to say they care a lot about continued access to the Chinese market, and won't take steps that jeopardize that. (Anecdotally, my experience opening Darkmoon Faire packs lines up well with the 1 in every 20 packs average.)

One important caveat to these disclosures is that they don't mean you will get an average number of Legendaries, or that a Legendary card is ever guaranteed. Statistical studies of pack opening in the past have shown the Legendary pity timer to guarantee a Legendary within 40 packs of your last opened Legendary card, but those aren't official numbers from Blizzard. It may be possible to tweak the odds of opening a Legendary to increase that statistical 40 pack cut-off while maintaining an average of 1 in 20 packs, but there's no evidence of that. PityTracker's current stats for Darkmoon Faire look the same as every other expansion in terms of how often you'll get a Legendary card.

Honestly, I think more likely than not, this is just a few people having bad luck (which happens every expansion) paired with angst and paranoia over the new Rewards system.

I don't know. The entire issue right now seems highly speculative to me. Firstly we have no proof, secondly I would not place too much credibility on the isolated statement of a local customer support rep and lastly this could easily be a bug. If it really happened then it should be a bug. If they really changed it to the worse and this becomes known (which it will be sooner or later if true) then this will cause another huge uproar. But again I dont think this is intentional.

That said it was always my opinion that they should clearly state the odds for transparency reasons.

The only thing that I can say about this, I didn't get the guaranteed legendary on my first 10 packs, but I did get 2 on my first 40 packs.

I ordered the big bundle, opened the 5 golden ones first, no legendary (as expected...), then moved to the normal packs, opened 17 and then I got the first one (Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate), and after 5 more packs got the second one (Zai, the Incredible).

In the end I fell quite robbed of the guaranteed at 10 packs, but could be worse...

Worth mentioning, I got Inara Stormcrash as my first Reward Track reward, and I opened it before opening any pack, maybe it counts towards the first 10 packs timer? It really shouldn't but as stated above, the game is full with this kind of bugs right now.

Quote From Fedrion

Worth mentioning, I got Inara Stormcrash as my first Reward Track reward, and I opened it before opening any pack, maybe it counts towards the first 10 packs timer? It really shouldn't but as stated above, the game is full with this kind of bugs right now.

If there's a bug, I agree that this would be the most likely source - Blizzard's pity timer erroneously identifying the reward Legendary as a pack Legendary, in turn clearing the 10 pack timer and resetting your timer back to 40 packs before you've opened one. That doesn't match my experience, but it's very believable.

But if a bug is determined to be real, I expect Blizzard will respond appropriately. Folks will recall that when Gadgetzan came out, there was a massive bug with pack open that favored Tri-Class cards, and thanks to the lack of duplicate protection, people missed out on a ton of new cards. Blizzard resolved that and gave people new packs to make up for the mistake.

Quote From meisterz39

But if a bug is determined to be real, I expect Blizzard will respond appropriately. Folks will recall that when Gadgetzan came out, there was a massive bug with pack open that favored Tri-Class cards, and thanks to the lack of duplicate protection, people missed out on a ton of new cards. Blizzard resolved that and gave people new packs to make up for the mistake.

Now that you mention it, it can really be that the legendary received in the reward track is taken by the system as the first legendary gained, thereby removing the 1 legend every first 10 pack guarantee.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see them owning up to this or give out compensation, much like the maligned missed dailies and weeklies quest debacle. Sucks that every time they ride high on the good side of the community it all comes crashing down the mountain made from their own poor decisions and miscommunications.

Quote From dapperdog

Quote From meisterz39

But if a bug is determined to be real, I expect Blizzard will respond appropriately. Folks will recall that when Gadgetzan came out, there was a massive bug with pack open that favored Tri-Class cards, and thanks to the lack of duplicate protection, people missed out on a ton of new cards. Blizzard resolved that and gave people new packs to make up for the mistake.

Now that you mention it, it can really be that the legendary received in the reward track is taken by the system as the first legendary gained, thereby removing the 1 legend every first 10 pack guarantee.

 

Not in my experience as I was rewarded Deck of Chaos as my level 1 reward prior to launch. On launch I then opened my very 1st pack that contained Lothraxion the Redeemed.

For a possibly useless anecdote, I got Greybough as my level 1 reward, then got Shek'zara in my third pack. I got Whatley after another 29 packs, but I stopped after there, as I was thinking about saving gold for the mini-set. So, so far I got my next legendary within 40 packs, but I could've just been lucky.

I keep track of my pity timers manually, and so far they are holding up (legendary within 40 packs, and 1 within the first 10 packs of any expansion/pack type, which the exception of golden packs).

Yeah, I have definitely had some 37-38 pack droughts between legendaries before in the Classic set. Feels brutal, when it happens (and the only pack you're opening from that set is your weekly Tavern Brawl prize). And then you'll get a legendary, and sometimes one 3 packs later, so it tends to even itself out over the long run.

Quote From Fedrion

The only thing that I can say about this, I didn't get the guaranteed legendary on my first 10 packs, but I did get 2 on my first 40 packs.

 

I ordered the big bundle, opened the 5 golden ones first, no legendary (as expected...), then moved to the normal packs, opened 17 and then I got the first one (Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate), and after 5 more packs got the second one (Zai, the Incredible).

In the end I fell quite robbed of the guaranteed at 10 packs, but could be worse...

Worth mentioning, I got Inara Stormcrash as my first Reward Track reward, and I opened it before opening any pack, maybe it counts towards the first 10 packs timer? It really shouldn't but as stated above, the game is full with this kind of bugs right now.

The golden packs have no pity timer.  Same as the "Year of..." packs and class specific packs.  So if you opened those 5 golden packs, then 5 regular packs without a legendary, you are still within the 10 pack pity timer for your first legendary.  Even if the golden packs did have a timer, they would be on a separate timer than the regular packs, because they are technically different pack types despite being for the same expansion.

EDIT: I meant to say those special packs have no first 10 legendary timer.  They may have a 40 pack timer, but the golden packs for sure do not count towards the pity timer of regular packs even if they are the same set.

Quote From Fedrion

I already knew, I am only commenting on everything I did so that the experience I had, when telling it has coherence.


The main issue I have is that still, even if they shared a pity timer, I didn't get the first guaranteed one on the first ten packs.

I mean, I'm not complaining just with the bundle and 15 more pack I've gotten 6 legendaries, which of course could be better, but it's RNG even with the packs, so I'm ok with it.

So this is something that's actually wrong and people should point it out..

The pity timer set at 30 for the first 10 packs is something Blizzard STATED to be true... if there's a bug preventing it IT'S A PROBLEM! Hope people who experienced it will be compensated in any way, you should bug report it, it's probably cause the new reward system somehow messed up with the pity timer.

The thing with gambling is that you can get 1 in every pack or 1 ever 40 packs. You depend on luck.

This was one of my best expansions, with 1leg every ~15 packs. I was coming from 1 every ~30 on AoO...  Yogg giveth and yogg taketh away.

You can use HsDecktracker plugin and it's simpler

No no, you misunderstood, 6 legendaries in 95 (now 103) packs.

Spent 100s on this game. Roll to end of pity timer every time nowadays. Go figure.