I know some people don't mean a literal Hearthstone 2, and they certainly mean well when talking about it, but the way I see it, we're already past HS 2.
The base of Hearthstone was a very simple game. We had standard, we had the forge, and we had a couple of card sets. Each time new features have been added to the game, it kept going farther away from the base. At this point, we must at least be on HS 4.
A new client is not needed and would be the largest waste of engineering time, time that could be better spent adding new features. Unity is an excellent platform to develop on and Blizzard has improved their tooling a ton over the years for it. If there are bugs, they need to fix the bugs, not create more by developing a new client. Performance problems? They are continuing to optimize the game which is great to see, though maybe not quite quickly enough for everyone's taste.
It would be a poor choice to scrap the interface. They do need to update parts of it (like the main screen only having 4 buttons to access all the content in the game, but for the most part, we're really lucky to have what we have since the HS team is generally good at UI/UX.
This expansion and the goodies that came with it was definitely a step into a new era of Hearthstone and I like it.
Opened 84 packs, got 6 legendary, 17 epic. 0 golden at all Opened 5 golden pack. none epic or legendary (crying)
Still had 8K gold from Scholomance. but I think I'm gonna wait until the 35 cards add-on.
This is slightly better than my Uldum Pack Opening. EDIT. I mean, my worst was Uldum, where I got only 4 Legend total. But maybe it was something to do with buying adventure with gold.
The achievements UI is bad. There is no sugarcoating it at all, they didn't do a good job. I should not have to click on them to earn my points. It is super silly that the points don't display on my friendslist, and it is a bit weird that there are zero rewards tied to any individual achievement.
I know Blizzard will argue that experience is a reward that gets you to the real rewards, but the experience on those DMF achievements is only going to last until the next expansion comes out. Where are the classic pack rewards for some of the more basic achievements for new players?
I agree that I may be too optimistic at times, but the way I see it, Blizzard backed themselves into a corner on this one.
If they truly were to not at least match gold rates from the old system after constantly saying they were going to, they are going to have an even worse time on their hands. They were unbelievably dumb for not giving us the full picture out the gate, especially when they had to of known we'd have the XP rates datamined day 1 since it was all client-side.
I think Duels is in an okay spot. I understand I may be in the minority with that and it is an excellent discussion topic, but the way I see it is as follows:
Not every mode in the game needs to have the same accessibility (mainly describing F2P)
Being a constructed-driven mode, it makes sense that a certain set of cards is going to have influence over it
Now, what I think is bullshit with Duels is the heroic mode. I see both sides of the argument with the mode but its just makes me feel off that we're still locked based on our collections. Its like the ultimate win-more mode requiring a solidly sized collection and then money on top of it to enter. The gamble is cool, I like that just like I like it in Brawliseum, but I don't like that it is inaccessible to newer players. I don't have any sympathy for older players who dusted their wild collections years ago because I always felt that was a silly thing to do when you never knew what the future would hold or if you may have wanted to hop onto the wild train (its why I never touched my wild cards to get dust), but it does suck that new players are penalized that heavily.
The dust economy in Hearthstone is definitely shit though. With most legendaries feeling mandatory to have, and even if that isn't statistically true, it still feels like it is which isn't great. Nothing feels worse than not getting that one legendary you wanted to play with and needing to disenchant four others to make up for it. I'm surprised we haven't seen more out there considering Runeterra has changed the landscape on what F2P means for a card game. I know it isn't anywhere near as large as HS, but I see more and more posts in the Runeterra community of people leaving Hearthstone for it due to the accessibility. We've been begging Blizzard for more cosmetics, make the game more about cosmetics, monetize it by providing cosmetics with good value and not just by adding more legendaries into the game.
Achievements I'm fine with. Achievements do not matter at all in the grand scheme of things, especially not the first round of them. I expected very little out of the achievement system because I know their goal was going to be to use key patches to add more "normal" achievements as a way to get people to hop back into Hearthstone. A lot of games do achievements differently but from my experience with WoW, I would never expect to get every achievement in a game anyway, especially considering the game is an active service and not something single player you get through and never again. Having achievements with different levels of accessibility is important to pave way for long-term goals and to allow for there to be variance in the number of achievements all the players are unlocking.
I still think they should leave in the later rewards while still giving out gold in addition to them. Giving people a handful of older expansion packs DOES NOT HURT AT ALL. We're talking an average of 100 dust per pack so with 5 packs you can make... an epic card.
Hearthstone as a whole though has improved so much over the past 2 years though which gives me a lot of hope for the overall lifespan of the game. Around the time when Second Dinner was formed, when I wished Yong and Brode a farewell from the community, I was actively looking to disengage as well because I wasn't feeling it anymore. I'm glad I ended up staying because things did a 180 and we started getting solid improvements.
There will always be something bad, but I think Hearthstone does a good enough job now with the good things that we have some room for mistakes, especially if we know it'll be fixed as is the case with the rewards track. They're only human, minus that devil Kotick, so the best thing we can do as a community is say we won't stand for nonsense and stop playing if it ends up becoming a shit show.
That's also why Out of Cards isn't just a site focused on Hearthstone (though admittedly lately we've been lacking in the other titles). I refuse to rely on one single company, especially one that has been making some interesting choices lately across most of their titles, as a source of primary income. If Hearthstone flopped tomorrow, it would be very easy to move on right now, not so much if we were only Hearthstone focused. Diversification ftw!
I opened 88 packs and got 11 legendaries. It kind of made up for last expansion when I opened up 130 packs and got 5. With the free legendary from buying the smaller pre release I now have 12 legendaries for this expansion.
I have bought the paid path so this expansion is kind of a test for me. I play around 5 or 6 games a night when I can so if I cannot reach the end after paying for extra xp then I shall not bother next expansion.
Excellent article, I hope we can see some improvements after this... The UI Design is terrible, they can't keep the same opening screen when they keep piling new features and hide them under some encrypted icons in "Modes"...
Furthermore, Achievements are terribly implemented. They are spoiling some results, they should be popping-up at the end of the game or at the end of revealing your cards in booster opening, as well as HAVING THE DESCRIPTION, not just the title of the achievement that you have no idea why you earned it. At the moment, is random pop-ups that you have no idea why you earned them, and you have to remember to go to a special menu after game, with very bad and bugged UI, clicking random buttons with notifications to find out.... simply terrible.
Finally, the overall cost of getting all cards has increased a lot considering the mini expansion.. I believe the pity timer should decrease from 40.. is way too high.. especially if you are unlucky like me that gets to the maximum 40 before opening one!
It is so disappointing when a company with the usual good UI makes these blunders.
Seriously though, why is Tavern Brawl so front and center? I know they don't want to abandon the box because its "Hearthstone", but it's time to take it out into the backyard and put it into a grave.
Or, have two modes (MTG Arena sorta does this). Have a simplified UI for when you're new and then swap to advanced later on. Not that MTG Arena should be used as an interface king, because it is so far from it, but at least I can find most of the modes there in a single menu with... WORDS!
Thanks a lot for feedback! I've decided to opt for the spell route, but this meant a lot of reevaluation. Now this minion can fully embrace being part of any heavy Minion Mage deck, which we haven't really seen since Witchwood. Now, which art do you prefer, and should I even include the Corrupted tokens?
I'm not sure about past events giving extra gold. Most event quests under the old system gave packs I think. But none of the comparisons took events from the old system into account either.
I have yet to see a good-faith calculation that shows the new system is going to short players on rewards. I really think this whole "controversy" is pretty over the top, and some of y'all truly need a time out. There is no apology or promise they could have made at ANY point in this process that would've stemmed the avalanche of nonsense from supposed "fans" of the game. If you're determined to be toxic and demand that they "owe" free-to-play users the moon and the sky, you will never be happy.
I look forward to your downvotes - let's see how quickly you can get me to -25! I believe in your negative energy, guys. Can you do it in less than 12 hours?
You're intentionally misquoting them. They've ALWAYS said you will get at least as much or more than you got for an entire expansion before. That includes ALL sources, and has always included all sources. Stop arguing in bad faith.
Good article. I'll say this much. I do trust that the actual rewards will be greater under this system than the old. I don't think they've been straight lying. But the lack of communication and detailed math is insulting to pretty much any player base in this day and age. I know there's gambling psychology/principles behind a lot of design choices, but you simply can't hide the odds, experience rate, and rewards behind math. The community will figure it out.
And yes, the UI is atrocious. I can't stand Arena, Duels, and Battlegrounds being behind several menus while Tavern Brawl, the least interesting game mode, if it can even be called that, is featured on the main menu. Redesign the menu! Make it bigger! The Journal view is somehow even worse with the Achievements tab being the pinnacle of bad design. UI is usually Blizzard's strongest area which makes this all the more offputting.
I don't think datamining is overly damaging, though I broadly agree with your final point. Responsible dataminers go to extra lengths to point out that datamining may include abandoned, experimental, or out-of-context data. As long as the information they're presenting is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge (and it usually is), it's up to individuals to form their own opinions on it... with those disclaimers in mind. Sure, because of the "telephone game effect" it's easy for "new Hero art found in latest Hearthstone patch" to morph into "WE'RE GETTING A NEW HERO IN THE NEXT EXPANSION GUARANTEED," but I think that happens regardless of how the information is obtained. A developer's statement gets turned into a promise; a content creator gets access to a sneak peek and drops hints on social media, and people mistake them for solid proof of new content. Every one of us chooses how we react to each event, even if there's uncertainty or misconception around the original data source.
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
I don't like the idea of a Hearthstone 2.
I know some people don't mean a literal Hearthstone 2, and they certainly mean well when talking about it, but the way I see it, we're already past HS 2.
The base of Hearthstone was a very simple game. We had standard, we had the forge, and we had a couple of card sets. Each time new features have been added to the game, it kept going farther away from the base. At this point, we must at least be on HS 4.
A new client is not needed and would be the largest waste of engineering time, time that could be better spent adding new features. Unity is an excellent platform to develop on and Blizzard has improved their tooling a ton over the years for it. If there are bugs, they need to fix the bugs, not create more by developing a new client. Performance problems? They are continuing to optimize the game which is great to see, though maybe not quite quickly enough for everyone's taste.
It would be a poor choice to scrap the interface. They do need to update parts of it (like the main screen only having 4 buttons to access all the content in the game, but for the most part, we're really lucky to have what we have since the HS team is generally good at UI/UX.
This expansion and the goodies that came with it was definitely a step into a new era of Hearthstone and I like it.
Pack Opening Results
While commons and rares are not discussed.
Opened 84 packs, got 6 legendary, 17 epic. 0 golden at all
Opened 5 golden pack. none epic or legendary (crying)
Still had 8K gold from Scholomance. but I think I'm gonna wait until the 35 cards add-on.
This is slightly better than my Uldum Pack Opening.
EDIT. I mean, my worst was Uldum, where I got only 4 Legend total. But maybe it was something to do with buying adventure with gold.
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
Honestly, it could be better. We're still really small so the effort that is put into a lot of the articles isn't really worthwhile.
I love that you love what we're doing though <3
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
The achievements UI is bad. There is no sugarcoating it at all, they didn't do a good job. I should not have to click on them to earn my points. It is super silly that the points don't display on my friendslist, and it is a bit weird that there are zero rewards tied to any individual achievement.
I know Blizzard will argue that experience is a reward that gets you to the real rewards, but the experience on those DMF achievements is only going to last until the next expansion comes out. Where are the classic pack rewards for some of the more basic achievements for new players?
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
I agree that I may be too optimistic at times, but the way I see it, Blizzard backed themselves into a corner on this one.
If they truly were to not at least match gold rates from the old system after constantly saying they were going to, they are going to have an even worse time on their hands. They were unbelievably dumb for not giving us the full picture out the gate, especially when they had to of known we'd have the XP rates datamined day 1 since it was all client-side.
I think Duels is in an okay spot. I understand I may be in the minority with that and it is an excellent discussion topic, but the way I see it is as follows:
Now, what I think is bullshit with Duels is the heroic mode. I see both sides of the argument with the mode but its just makes me feel off that we're still locked based on our collections. Its like the ultimate win-more mode requiring a solidly sized collection and then money on top of it to enter. The gamble is cool, I like that just like I like it in Brawliseum, but I don't like that it is inaccessible to newer players. I don't have any sympathy for older players who dusted their wild collections years ago because I always felt that was a silly thing to do when you never knew what the future would hold or if you may have wanted to hop onto the wild train (its why I never touched my wild cards to get dust), but it does suck that new players are penalized that heavily.
The dust economy in Hearthstone is definitely shit though. With most legendaries feeling mandatory to have, and even if that isn't statistically true, it still feels like it is which isn't great. Nothing feels worse than not getting that one legendary you wanted to play with and needing to disenchant four others to make up for it. I'm surprised we haven't seen more out there considering Runeterra has changed the landscape on what F2P means for a card game. I know it isn't anywhere near as large as HS, but I see more and more posts in the Runeterra community of people leaving Hearthstone for it due to the accessibility. We've been begging Blizzard for more cosmetics, make the game more about cosmetics, monetize it by providing cosmetics with good value and not just by adding more legendaries into the game.
Achievements I'm fine with. Achievements do not matter at all in the grand scheme of things, especially not the first round of them. I expected very little out of the achievement system because I know their goal was going to be to use key patches to add more "normal" achievements as a way to get people to hop back into Hearthstone. A lot of games do achievements differently but from my experience with WoW, I would never expect to get every achievement in a game anyway, especially considering the game is an active service and not something single player you get through and never again. Having achievements with different levels of accessibility is important to pave way for long-term goals and to allow for there to be variance in the number of achievements all the players are unlocking.
I still think they should leave in the later rewards while still giving out gold in addition to them. Giving people a handful of older expansion packs DOES NOT HURT AT ALL. We're talking an average of 100 dust per pack so with 5 packs you can make... an epic card.
Hearthstone as a whole though has improved so much over the past 2 years though which gives me a lot of hope for the overall lifespan of the game. Around the time when Second Dinner was formed, when I wished Yong and Brode a farewell from the community, I was actively looking to disengage as well because I wasn't feeling it anymore. I'm glad I ended up staying because things did a 180 and we started getting solid improvements.
There will always be something bad, but I think Hearthstone does a good enough job now with the good things that we have some room for mistakes, especially if we know it'll be fixed as is the case with the rewards track. They're only human, minus that devil Kotick, so the best thing we can do as a community is say we won't stand for nonsense and stop playing if it ends up becoming a shit show.
That's also why Out of Cards isn't just a site focused on Hearthstone (though admittedly lately we've been lacking in the other titles). I refuse to rely on one single company, especially one that has been making some interesting choices lately across most of their titles, as a source of primary income. If Hearthstone flopped tomorrow, it would be very easy to move on right now, not so much if we were only Hearthstone focused. Diversification ftw!
Pack Opening Results
I opened 88 packs and got 11 legendaries. It kind of made up for last expansion when I opened up 130 packs and got 5. With the free legendary from buying the smaller pre release I now have 12 legendaries for this expansion.
Our Day 1 Picks for Madness at the Darkmoon Faire - Six Decks We're Taking to Ladder
Thanks for posting this. Il'gynoth is the only new legendary I pulled from any of these lists, so... guess I'm running DH on day 1.
Hearthstone's Game Director Responds to the Rewards Track
I have bought the paid path so this expansion is kind of a test for me. I play around 5 or 6 games a night when I can so if I cannot reach the end after paying for extra xp then I shall not bother next expansion.
Pack Opening Results
Opened 39 packs, 1 legendary. Looks like I'm off to Battlegrounds this expansion.
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
So I spent all my saved up gold to open 73 packs... I'm counting only 3600 gold that can be unlocked in my reward track.
I used to open 100 packs every launch day (just from the saved up gold!)... now, I don't see me getting anywhere close to what I was opening before.
I played this game since classic/core 2014... I think it's time to say goodbye... it was a good 8-year run though..
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
Excellent article, I hope we can see some improvements after this... The UI Design is terrible, they can't keep the same opening screen when they keep piling new features and hide them under some encrypted icons in "Modes"...
Furthermore, Achievements are terribly implemented. They are spoiling some results, they should be popping-up at the end of the game or at the end of revealing your cards in booster opening, as well as HAVING THE DESCRIPTION, not just the title of the achievement that you have no idea why you earned it. At the moment, is random pop-ups that you have no idea why you earned them, and you have to remember to go to a special menu after game, with very bad and bugged UI, clicking random buttons with notifications to find out.... simply terrible.
Finally, the overall cost of getting all cards has increased a lot considering the mini expansion.. I believe the pity timer should decrease from 40.. is way too high.. especially if you are unlucky like me that gets to the maximum 40 before opening one!
Our Day 1 Picks for Madness at the Darkmoon Faire - Six Decks We're Taking to Ladder
Menagerie all day and all night.
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
Yup, yup, and yup.
It is so disappointing when a company with the usual good UI makes these blunders.
Seriously though, why is Tavern Brawl so front and center? I know they don't want to abandon the box because its "Hearthstone", but it's time to take it out into the backyard and put it into a grave.
Or, have two modes (MTG Arena sorta does this). Have a simplified UI for when you're new and then swap to advanced later on. Not that MTG Arena should be used as an interface king, because it is so far from it, but at least I can find most of the modes there in a single menu with... WORDS!
Old Gods, New Tricks - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Thanks a lot for feedback! I've decided to opt for the spell route, but this meant a lot of reevaluation. Now this minion can fully embrace being part of any heavy Minion Mage deck, which we haven't really seen since Witchwood. Now, which art do you prefer, and should I even include the Corrupted tokens?
Pack Opening Results
I just finished my pack opening which ended up being 65 packs. Here are my stats:
Lothraxion the Redeemed (1), N'Zoth, God of the Deep (19), Grand Totem Eys'or (36). & Maxima Blastenheimer (59).
Hearthstone's Game Director Responds to the Rewards Track
I'm not sure about past events giving extra gold. Most event quests under the old system gave packs I think. But none of the comparisons took events from the old system into account either.
The Best Community Theorycrafted Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Decks for Hearthstone's Wild Format
Thanks for featuring my deck! I created it relatively early in the reveal season so there are probably some good cards I didn't add.
Hearthstone's Game Director Responds to the Rewards Track
Same here mate. It's sad to see the battle pass feature in these games being so grindy and unfriendly to casual players...
New Neutral Minion - Wriggling Horror
Good support for aggro/token archetype
New Neutral Minion - Costumed Entertainer
Pack filler
Hearthstone's Game Director Responds to the Rewards Track
I have yet to see a good-faith calculation that shows the new system is going to short players on rewards. I really think this whole "controversy" is pretty over the top, and some of y'all truly need a time out. There is no apology or promise they could have made at ANY point in this process that would've stemmed the avalanche of nonsense from supposed "fans" of the game. If you're determined to be toxic and demand that they "owe" free-to-play users the moon and the sky, you will never be happy.
I look forward to your downvotes - let's see how quickly you can get me to -25! I believe in your negative energy, guys. Can you do it in less than 12 hours?
Hearthstone's Game Director Responds to the Rewards Track
You're intentionally misquoting them. They've ALWAYS said you will get at least as much or more than you got for an entire expansion before. That includes ALL sources, and has always included all sources. Stop arguing in bad faith.
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
Good article. I'll say this much. I do trust that the actual rewards will be greater under this system than the old. I don't think they've been straight lying. But the lack of communication and detailed math is insulting to pretty much any player base in this day and age. I know there's gambling psychology/principles behind a lot of design choices, but you simply can't hide the odds, experience rate, and rewards behind math. The community will figure it out.
And yes, the UI is atrocious. I can't stand Arena, Duels, and Battlegrounds being behind several menus while Tavern Brawl, the least interesting game mode, if it can even be called that, is featured on the main menu. Redesign the menu! Make it bigger! The Journal view is somehow even worse with the Achievements tab being the pinnacle of bad design. UI is usually Blizzard's strongest area which makes this all the more offputting.
Let it go PepeHands
How can this deck be possible?? I count 30 cards being 2 of them Kingsbane 😅😅😅
Blizzard Screwed Up With the Rewards Track - A Letter to Hearthstone
I don't think datamining is overly damaging, though I broadly agree with your final point. Responsible dataminers go to extra lengths to point out that datamining may include abandoned, experimental, or out-of-context data. As long as the information they're presenting is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge (and it usually is), it's up to individuals to form their own opinions on it... with those disclaimers in mind. Sure, because of the "telephone game effect" it's easy for "new Hero art found in latest Hearthstone patch" to morph into "WE'RE GETTING A NEW HERO IN THE NEXT EXPANSION GUARANTEED," but I think that happens regardless of how the information is obtained. A developer's statement gets turned into a promise; a content creator gets access to a sneak peek and drops hints on social media, and people mistake them for solid proof of new content. Every one of us chooses how we react to each event, even if there's uncertainty or misconception around the original data source.