Here, let me take an extra 1 Attack and Taunt and give you a card FREE of charge! Sounds like a fair deal? I think every reasonable person who knows Hearthstone would say no.
The menu system for achievements is, to put it mildly, like trying to navigate through the 4 digestive systems of a cow. I didn't mention this because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, and its no doubt something they would fix in time. I wouldn't attribute anything malicious to it.
That said, it is very much sprawling all over the place, and the fact that I have to click on every one of them to get the rewards is a little more than tilting.
They could also just display the amount of xp I gained from each game, instead of having me having to find out myself. But I think stuff like these will be fixed in time.
Can I just add, them adding multiple sources of XP, some of which are buried in menus, and making levels inconsistent in how much XP is needed, it all smells like a lot of trying to make it as confusing as possible so we would have a hard time trying to prove that they're up to something so the average player doesn't even try to question them
Same here. With family and work I finish all quests every two-three days. Last expansions it netted mi around 7000 gold. Spending an hour every day is not possible for me. I will see and decide upon real results but I’m afraid the new system gives less. I’m not interested in old packs as they are 40 dust mostly. Also, getting the 4th or 5th skin for Jaina is pointless, as I now have 5-6 skins for class on average and I can play only one.
Yeah the packs from older expansions are just dust. I get that. These packs will be trickling in through the expansion so for most of them by the time you get them they're just dust except for epics and legendaries. You can say the same for those last 15 packs you open up right at the start of the expansion right? That's why these packs come out to about the same value. Instead of 15 packs of dust plus a couple epics and hopefully a legendary you get 12 packs of dust with old epics and a new one and at least one legendary.
Honestly I always preorder so for F2P players maybe those packs will still have rares they need but the main thing is the epics and legendaries and in this system we're slightly better off with those.
As for achievements even you will get some points from achievements. It'll be hard not to get at least 1000 without even trying. A little bit of trying will get you a lot more. But yeah that is effort.
It is a similar story with the mini-sets: people want more content to reduce the time spent with a stale meta, but they don't want there to be a corresponding cost increase to the game. I am also torn on whether HS is an expensive game or not: certainly it sounds expensive to spend $80 every 4 months and still not have access to every card, but that is balanced by the fact you can enjoy the game for years without spending any money at all. If I wanted to be cheeky, I could argue the F2P players are actually raising the cost for everyone else.
Just want to jump into this one specific quote.
- If you're not a wild player then the timeline for enjoying the cards you have now is specifically 2 years. Also, the argument that I can enjoy it for years applies to any game, except none of them will ever end up costing me as much as hearthstone does.
- The idea of F2p players may be costing everyone else (especially those who regularly pays 80 bucks for this) is ludicrous. To begin with, and as artefact has shown us, pasting a price tag on the game and demand we pay for collecting all the cards is a real non starter and will likely end up with many not taking up the game at all. The game is not sustained by its whales, its sustained by its playerbase. Sure, we can paste a 20 bucks price tag to play the game now, and then suffer 10 minutes of queuing time per game because of diminishing players.
Also, let's not forget that hearthstone is a virtual card game. Its not a zero sum world where theres only a specific number of rare-hollows in existence. If Blizz gives out 1000 gold today, it wouldn't crimp the game in anyway, or disadvantage anyone. So there's no reason other than corporate greed for withholding rewards from its playerbase. Like many others, I would prefer that hearthstone makes a profit out of all this, and will and have willingly parted money because the game means something to me. But I've often been taken aback at how greedy that little wide mouthed Yogg-Saron of a company they can get. Its not enough to spend 80 bucks, but not only will you not get all the cards, you're not getting all the content there is as well. On top of that the new mid-expansion idea is going to be a regular thing now. So how much do I have to spend, in both time and money, to get even close to enjoying the game?
I am looking forward to new challenges but can't afford to play every day for one hour...
Having a family and a job you find yourself often enough in a position where you hardly play 3 games per day.
So Yes, i bought that pass, but i will not change my behavior. If i will not be able to reach rank 50, i am likely to quit, as i am a fanatic collector sind 1at Saison...
I just wish Weekly Quests weren't based on specific modes, especially on performances in specific modes.
Like, I'm not going to spend hours trying to get 2nd in a BG or wasting gold to finish Arena runs with 4 wins...
The concept of the track is great tho. I'm almost more excited about it than about the incoming expansion. As long as it is properly tuned about gold gains per playtime.
It's a good thing we can refresh 1 weekly quest a day to try & get an weekly that would suit each of us.
Ranked includes both Standard & Wild. If you don't want to try to complete the win 7 game weekly on the mode you ladder than just smorc the other mode for the easy wins.
The current system forces you to play ranked. The old system didnt. In order to get the top weekly quest you have to win 7 ranked games. That leaves out people who mostly play battlegrounds or Duels. You cant even reroll it to get a weekly quest that gives lower experience.
This sure doesnt sound like "play Hearthstone your way".
It's a really complex system, with a wide variety of XP sources, and a ton of different rewards, so the math can get rather involved. Leaving parts out or estimating things can lead you significantly off.
1. I would rather not estimate the xp I get out of my quest but your system leave me with little choice since there's an effing tier system that makes no sense. Why the hell would I not reroll an 800xp quest for a better one? Again, I don't understand why they'd even go with this bs tier system in the first place. Not only will I reroll every 800xp quest, if I get another 800xp from my reroll, I wouldn't want to play more hearthstone that day so I can reroll it tomorrow. In effect I'm softlocked from the game, because ironically making it easy to accomplish also makes it impossible to avoid finishing.
2. Variety of xp sources is in effect meaning accomplishing the achievements. I already ranted earlier about this, so the gist of it is this: I don't like achievements, and find the conditions not only walled off by needing specific cards, it also handicaps my gameplay. I don't have anything against anyone who'd go all out in their way to do this, but the xp gain here should NOT be considered in the pool
Also, it counts xp from duels. I played it (because of the packs, obviously) and I'm not keen on it. I wouldn't do it again too. I don't feel like counting the xp gains from a mode that's not fun to me as fair to me, or to anyone who shares my opinion. Just saying.
I would recommend that they stop twisting and turning and start telling us straight: Are we getting more gold (and only gold) from the new system as compared to the old one? If the answer is no, then why aren't we getting it? Especially since it was promised earlier.
Despite how insane a 3 mana 4/3 weapon is, I think the surrounding DH context is important to consider the impact Felsteel Executioner will have. At earliest, this as a weapon comes out on turn 5, and DH doesn't have many great tempo 4 drop options to corrupt this. Also, this competes with Marrowslicer, which helps fill in the 4 slot curve for DH and is a more consistent draw at later stages in the game. Overall, I think Marrowslicer is more consistent at what Felsteel Executioner is trying to do.
The importance of the time spent playing looks to be central the whole issue, and it is honestly something that I struggle to find a good argument against. Having had 6 years of aggro being rewarded simply because the games are faster, and people making complaints about that, it only feels right that time spent is the primary method of obtaining XP outside of quests. But at the same time that is the very thing that will be hurting you if you choose to spend time on other accounts.
It is a similar story with the mini-sets: people want more content to reduce the time spent with a stale meta, but they don't want there to be a corresponding cost increase to the game. I am also torn on whether HS is an expensive game or not: certainly it sounds expensive to spend $80 every 4 months and still not have access to every card, but that is balanced by the fact you can enjoy the game for years without spending any money at all. If I wanted to be cheeky, I could argue the F2P players are actually raising the cost for everyone else.
Now I have written all of this down, it is clear to me why I end up neutral on most matters. Almost every aspect of the game has a balance where making an improvement forces something negative elsewhere, and not making an improvement leads to player dissatisfaction anyway. If you were playing at the time, recall the Brode-era HS when major changes were rare but monetisation of the game was quite tame. Contrast that to post-Brode HS which has seen many improvements both small and large, but has also led to more and more places to spend money on the game.
I guess that brings us to whether we trust the devs when they say they really want us to get the same amount of gold PLUS extras. Honestly, I'm not sure we have been given much reason to not trust them yet. There have been many decisions they have made that people have disagreed with, but none that come to mind that don't fall under the description above, where players with different philosophies will always come to different opinions. The only times they've really dropped the ball have been the ludicrous power level of Galakrond Shaman and Demon Hunter upon release, but they were very quick to act on them.
So for now I'll impassively take the devs' word for it, but don't worry, I'll join the chorus of complaints if it ends up actually costing us :)
-----------------------------------
Regarding 800XP quests being weighted more highly, I suspect that is indeed the case, but I'm also pretty sure they weighted the 50g quests more highly than the 60g ones before (specifically the 'Play 3 games with class X, Y and Z' ones because there's so many of them you'd rarely see anything else otherwise). So that's nothing new.
The Old Gods have each come back and are at the Darkmoon Faire, perhaps indulging in their own psychotic fun toying with people at the fair? There's fun, and there's madness... at the Darkmoon Faire! Play some carnival games, watch the performers, engage in weird culty action. Take a trip down the menagerie perhaps? This set includes some support for Menagerie decks, and some cards designed with next year preparations in mind.
Full Madness at the Darkmoon Faire set
Tokens
Minigame Master explanation
When you play Minigame Master, he will randomly select one of three minigames for you to play. If you successfully beat one, you'll get to choose a prize (a set of 4 tokens).
Spot The Real Card - You will see three versions of the same card. Two of them are fake (be it different stats, wrong grammar, or wrong class, subtle changes like that). One of them is the real card. Click/tap the real card and you win the minigame.
Cup Shuffle - Exactly as it sounds. One cup out of three has a prize. The cups will shuffle for a few seconds. Pick the correct one to win the minigame.
Lowest to Highest - Three random cards in the game, all of different mana costs, will be displayed to you. However their stats, cost, and effects are blank. You are to click/tap on the cards in the correct order from lowest mana Cost to highest mana Cost. If you're right, you win the minigame.
This reminds me of the fallout 76 email. Where too many people were asking for refunds because the game was broken, and they ended up turning people down and saying "We're sorry for your poor experience with the game, we don't plan on doing anything about it."
For ramp up I would say that Umbral Owl has the potential for being considered on this category.
And for weapon warrior we got Sword Eater and Ringmaster's Baton. So the only missing category onthis bingo will be Big Demons if we didn't consider Bladed Lady for it
The way the ramp up description is worded, Umbral Owl should definitely count
It's worded perfectly fine. It uses the same transforming mechanic, but it doesn't actually change the result based on Cost. The Evolve effect strictly relies to transforming minions into ones of different costs.
As long as there are multiple people disagreeing about its meaning, it means that things could have been worded in a clearer way. There is no such thing as an official evolve mechanic, Evolve is a card that uses the transform mechanic. Your second sentence is what should have been written in the bingo sheet explanations. I don't want to argue, I'm just bummed Revolve doesn't count because the bingo slot was too specific.
I think you are about correct, and Blizzard are too (except I think they probably value cosmetics way too much when they do their calculations - the 'other rewards' - from their point of view, I'm sure it is one more product that they are selling, but it really isn't in my opinion).
But you, and they, should keep in mind that this game is already realllllly expensive. And if you were concerned about that now, and were hoping for something even a little bit better, you are going to be dissappointed. And people are very disappointed. If you look behind the numbers arguments, I want to guess that for most it is not the rational counting and arguments that get to them, it is this feeling that, oh man, I was hoping for this game to give me a break, but it sure as hell didn't...
In all honesty you should disclude the following from your math;
- Achievement xp - I've seen some of the conditions and have deemed them too much a fuss. I don't play hearthstone to purposefully fulfill esoteric conditions that crimps my game. Especially since my opponent will likely not be sympathetic or cooperative in any way. I know some people will find it fun, and I'm not about to shit on that, but that's what it should be: just for fun. The reward structure of xp is supposed to make it rewarding as well, and while I personally don't have anything against that, I start getting annoyed when people start adding it to the pool of 'rewards' that you're supposed to be getting per expansion.
Some of them are, you can say, going to be accomplished anyway, like spinning the wheel of yogg (Yogg will likely be competitive anyway). Others are as painful up the arse as they are impossible, like dealing lethal damage with Oh My Yogg!. Let's also consider this obvious problem: Many of us play only a few classes, and these achievements are not just spread across the classes, they require specific cards to even start doing. What are the off chances of me getting that epic card Darkmoon Rabbit? And that's 600xp off this one card alone. Am I to craft 2x of a card I think nothing of just for this bs?
- Packs from older expansions - This is a bonus. Nothing more, nothing less. After an expansion has passed, I would already have crafted all the cards I want so how much does a pack from, say, Descent of Dragons mean to me? especially since its only 1 pack? The answer is small. About as small as my little pinky is to a piano.
- Cards. Or anything that's not a current expansion pack - Legendaries are not equal to 15 packs, or any other sort of calculations. Again, this is a bonus and should be treated as one. If the argument goes that a legendary card should be taken into consideration as they are extremely rare and therefore valuable, I would say "just give me 15 packs and I'll go away happy". Its obvious a legendary is very valuable indeed. But if we're going to use it as a sort of barometer, I don't see why they don't just give us 15 packs for it. Given the mid expansion being a staple now, I would appreciate 15 packs more anyway.
I'm not particularly up in arms over the new system - yet. But I do think that when they specifically promised that we'll be seeing more gold, they should deliver on it, or we'll hold their feet up the fire until it chars to a nice ebony black. Nothing more, nothing less.
This doesn't give you any tempo advantage for having to spend your entire turn on it or cheating it out. Instead of removing threats and putting threats into play to create a swing like Reno the Relicologist for example, or removing all threats like Twisting Nether, you spend your entire turn trying to catch up but still end up behind at the end of the turn. No competitive deck will actively run this card by itself.
I agree. I won't show all my work, but I worked out the XP math for playing ~10 hours/week and finishing all my daily and weekly quests (NOT including expansion achievement XP or bonus event XP) and it put me at Level 72. That means 7,500 gold, 2 Arena/Duels tickets (300g value), 7 Current (MDF) packs (100g value), 9 Standard packs, 2 Current Legendaries, and 1 Current Epic. Let's put the Standard pack value at 50g if they're not from the current expansion, a legendary is worth 20 packs of chance or dust (2000g), and an epic is worth 5 packs of chance or dust (500g).
Now, under the old system I was earning about 450g/week (not including Arena rewards) for 17 weeks = 7,650 gold. People citing 500 gold/week are playing for more than 10 hours/week, and are underestimating their XP rewards under the new system. Plus we'd get 6 Current packs (600g) and a free Legendary (2000g) at expansion launch. So even subtracting that out I'm basically earning 7,500 gold vs. 7,650 (-150g), but I'm getting an additional legendary (2000 gold), an additional epic (500g), 2 Arena/Duels tickets (300g), an extra pack (100g), and 9 extra Standard packs (~450g). People are being too dismissive of these freebies. Gold can only buy packs and tickets.
TL;DR
Old System @ all quests complete in 10 hours/week for 17 weeks = 10,250 gold value before special events and Arena Rewards
New System @ all quests complete in 10 hours/week for 17 weeks = 13,450 gold value before special events and Arena Rewards and Expansion Achievement XP.
New Neutral Minion - K'thir Ritualist
Here, let me take an extra 1 Attack and Taunt and give you a card FREE of charge! Sounds like a fair deal? I think every reasonable person who knows Hearthstone would say no.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
The menu system for achievements is, to put it mildly, like trying to navigate through the 4 digestive systems of a cow. I didn't mention this because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, and its no doubt something they would fix in time. I wouldn't attribute anything malicious to it.
That said, it is very much sprawling all over the place, and the fact that I have to click on every one of them to get the rewards is a little more than tilting.
They could also just display the amount of xp I gained from each game, instead of having me having to find out myself. But I think stuff like these will be fixed in time.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Paladin Cards
Murloc Paladin runs the dragon that gives divine shield to murloc. I can definitely see this card being played there.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Can I just add, them adding multiple sources of XP, some of which are buried in menus, and making levels inconsistent in how much XP is needed, it all smells like a lot of trying to make it as confusing as possible so we would have a hard time trying to prove that they're up to something so the average player doesn't even try to question them
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Same here. With family and work I finish all quests every two-three days. Last expansions it netted mi around 7000 gold. Spending an hour every day is not possible for me. I will see and decide upon real results but I’m afraid the new system gives less. I’m not interested in old packs as they are 40 dust mostly. Also, getting the 4th or 5th skin for Jaina is pointless, as I now have 5-6 skins for class on average and I can play only one.
Early Darkmoon achievements for XP
Do we know if we can complete the Duels achievements that reward xp in Casual or is it only for playing Heroic?
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Yeah the packs from older expansions are just dust. I get that. These packs will be trickling in through the expansion so for most of them by the time you get them they're just dust except for epics and legendaries. You can say the same for those last 15 packs you open up right at the start of the expansion right? That's why these packs come out to about the same value. Instead of 15 packs of dust plus a couple epics and hopefully a legendary you get 12 packs of dust with old epics and a new one and at least one legendary.
Honestly I always preorder so for F2P players maybe those packs will still have rares they need but the main thing is the epics and legendaries and in this system we're slightly better off with those.
As for achievements even you will get some points from achievements. It'll be hard not to get at least 1000 without even trying. A little bit of trying will get you a lot more. But yeah that is effort.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Just want to jump into this one specific quote.
- If you're not a wild player then the timeline for enjoying the cards you have now is specifically 2 years. Also, the argument that I can enjoy it for years applies to any game, except none of them will ever end up costing me as much as hearthstone does.
- The idea of F2p players may be costing everyone else (especially those who regularly pays 80 bucks for this) is ludicrous. To begin with, and as artefact has shown us, pasting a price tag on the game and demand we pay for collecting all the cards is a real non starter and will likely end up with many not taking up the game at all. The game is not sustained by its whales, its sustained by its playerbase. Sure, we can paste a 20 bucks price tag to play the game now, and then suffer 10 minutes of queuing time per game because of diminishing players.
Also, let's not forget that hearthstone is a virtual card game. Its not a zero sum world where theres only a specific number of rare-hollows in existence. If Blizz gives out 1000 gold today, it wouldn't crimp the game in anyway, or disadvantage anyone. So there's no reason other than corporate greed for withholding rewards from its playerbase. Like many others, I would prefer that hearthstone makes a profit out of all this, and will and have willingly parted money because the game means something to me. But I've often been taken aback at how greedy that little wide mouthed Yogg-Saron of a company they can get. Its not enough to spend 80 bucks, but not only will you not get all the cards, you're not getting all the content there is as well. On top of that the new mid-expansion idea is going to be a regular thing now. So how much do I have to spend, in both time and money, to get even close to enjoying the game?
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
I am looking forward to new challenges but can't afford to play every day for one hour...
Having a family and a job you find yourself often enough in a position where you hardly play 3 games per day.
So Yes, i bought that pass, but i will not change my behavior. If i will not be able to reach rank 50, i am likely to quit, as i am a fanatic collector sind 1at Saison...
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
It's a good thing we can refresh 1 weekly quest a day to try & get an weekly that would suit each of us.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Ranked includes both Standard & Wild. If you don't want to try to complete the win 7 game weekly on the mode you ladder than just smorc the other mode for the easy wins.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
300 levels with the same amount of points between them is better than 50 with the increasing system they have now
Like MTG arena 1000XP needed to level up is constant
but here 100, then 200, then 2000 by the time we get to from 49 to 50 it will be a million points *
* math is not accurate but the sentiment its the same, feel free to calculate or added the real values.
Edit: not talking about rewards just how many points it takes to level up.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
The current system forces you to play ranked. The old system didnt. In order to get the top weekly quest you have to win 7 ranked games. That leaves out people who mostly play battlegrounds or Duels. You cant even reroll it to get a weekly quest that gives lower experience.
This sure doesnt sound like "play Hearthstone your way".
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
1. I would rather not estimate the xp I get out of my quest but your system leave me with little choice since there's an effing tier system that makes no sense. Why the hell would I not reroll an 800xp quest for a better one? Again, I don't understand why they'd even go with this bs tier system in the first place. Not only will I reroll every 800xp quest, if I get another 800xp from my reroll, I wouldn't want to play more hearthstone that day so I can reroll it tomorrow. In effect I'm softlocked from the game, because ironically making it easy to accomplish also makes it impossible to avoid finishing.
2. Variety of xp sources is in effect meaning accomplishing the achievements. I already ranted earlier about this, so the gist of it is this: I don't like achievements, and find the conditions not only walled off by needing specific cards, it also handicaps my gameplay. I don't have anything against anyone who'd go all out in their way to do this, but the xp gain here should NOT be considered in the pool
Also, it counts xp from duels. I played it (because of the packs, obviously) and I'm not keen on it. I wouldn't do it again too. I don't feel like counting the xp gains from a mode that's not fun to me as fair to me, or to anyone who shares my opinion. Just saying.
I would recommend that they stop twisting and turning and start telling us straight: Are we getting more gold (and only gold) from the new system as compared to the old one? If the answer is no, then why aren't we getting it? Especially since it was promised earlier.
What Free Legendary did you get?
Tickatus and Jewel of N'Zoth. I don't care about Tickatus, but I do like the Epic. I'll experiment with it for sure.
New Demon Hunter Minion - Felsteel Executioner
Despite how insane a 3 mana 4/3 weapon is, I think the surrounding DH context is important to consider the impact Felsteel Executioner will have. At earliest, this as a weapon comes out on turn 5, and DH doesn't have many great tempo 4 drop options to corrupt this. Also, this competes with Marrowslicer, which helps fill in the 4 slot curve for DH and is a more consistent draw at later stages in the game. Overall, I think Marrowslicer is more consistent at what Felsteel Executioner is trying to do.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
The importance of the time spent playing looks to be central the whole issue, and it is honestly something that I struggle to find a good argument against. Having had 6 years of aggro being rewarded simply because the games are faster, and people making complaints about that, it only feels right that time spent is the primary method of obtaining XP outside of quests. But at the same time that is the very thing that will be hurting you if you choose to spend time on other accounts.
It is a similar story with the mini-sets: people want more content to reduce the time spent with a stale meta, but they don't want there to be a corresponding cost increase to the game. I am also torn on whether HS is an expensive game or not: certainly it sounds expensive to spend $80 every 4 months and still not have access to every card, but that is balanced by the fact you can enjoy the game for years without spending any money at all. If I wanted to be cheeky, I could argue the F2P players are actually raising the cost for everyone else.
Now I have written all of this down, it is clear to me why I end up neutral on most matters. Almost every aspect of the game has a balance where making an improvement forces something negative elsewhere, and not making an improvement leads to player dissatisfaction anyway. If you were playing at the time, recall the Brode-era HS when major changes were rare but monetisation of the game was quite tame. Contrast that to post-Brode HS which has seen many improvements both small and large, but has also led to more and more places to spend money on the game.
I guess that brings us to whether we trust the devs when they say they really want us to get the same amount of gold PLUS extras. Honestly, I'm not sure we have been given much reason to not trust them yet. There have been many decisions they have made that people have disagreed with, but none that come to mind that don't fall under the description above, where players with different philosophies will always come to different opinions. The only times they've really dropped the ball have been the ludicrous power level of Galakrond Shaman and Demon Hunter upon release, but they were very quick to act on them.
So for now I'll impassively take the devs' word for it, but don't worry, I'll join the chorus of complaints if it ends up actually costing us :)
-----------------------------------
Regarding 800XP quests being weighted more highly, I suspect that is indeed the case, but I'm also pretty sure they weighted the 50g quests more highly than the 60g ones before (specifically the 'Play 3 games with class X, Y and Z' ones because there's so many of them you'd rarely see anything else otherwise). So that's nothing new.
Custom Class - Time Traveler (Updated February 17th - Return to Naxxramas added!)
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire set out.
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
The Old Gods have each come back and are at the Darkmoon Faire, perhaps indulging in their own psychotic fun toying with people at the fair? There's fun, and there's madness... at the Darkmoon Faire! Play some carnival games, watch the performers, engage in weird culty action. Take a trip down the menagerie perhaps? This set includes some support for Menagerie decks, and some cards designed with next year preparations in mind.
Tokens
When you play Minigame Master, he will randomly select one of three minigames for you to play. If you successfully beat one, you'll get to choose a prize (a set of 4 tokens).
Spot The Real Card - You will see three versions of the same card. Two of them are fake (be it different stats, wrong grammar, or wrong class, subtle changes like that). One of them is the real card. Click/tap the real card and you win the minigame.
Cup Shuffle - Exactly as it sounds. One cup out of three has a prize. The cups will shuffle for a few seconds. Pick the correct one to win the minigame.
Lowest to Highest - Three random cards in the game, all of different mana costs, will be displayed to you. However their stats, cost, and effects are blank. You are to click/tap on the cards in the correct order from lowest mana Cost to highest mana Cost. If you're right, you win the minigame.
Prizes
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
This reminds me of the fallout 76 email. Where too many people were asking for refunds because the game was broken, and they ended up turning people down and saying "We're sorry for your poor experience with the game, we don't plan on doing anything about it."
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire - Reveal Season Community Bingo
The way the ramp up description is worded, Umbral Owl should definitely count
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire - Reveal Season Community Bingo
As long as there are multiple people disagreeing about its meaning, it means that things could have been worded in a clearer way. There is no such thing as an official evolve mechanic, Evolve is a card that uses the transform mechanic. Your second sentence is what should have been written in the bingo sheet explanations. I don't want to argue, I'm just bummed Revolve doesn't count because the bingo slot was too specific.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
I think you are about correct, and Blizzard are too (except I think they probably value cosmetics way too much when they do their calculations - the 'other rewards' - from their point of view, I'm sure it is one more product that they are selling, but it really isn't in my opinion).
But you, and they, should keep in mind that this game is already realllllly expensive. And if you were concerned about that now, and were hoping for something even a little bit better, you are going to be dissappointed. And people are very disappointed. If you look behind the numbers arguments, I want to guess that for most it is not the rational counting and arguments that get to them, it is this feeling that, oh man, I was hoping for this game to give me a break, but it sure as hell didn't...
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
In all honesty you should disclude the following from your math;
- Achievement xp - I've seen some of the conditions and have deemed them too much a fuss. I don't play hearthstone to purposefully fulfill esoteric conditions that crimps my game. Especially since my opponent will likely not be sympathetic or cooperative in any way. I know some people will find it fun, and I'm not about to shit on that, but that's what it should be: just for fun. The reward structure of xp is supposed to make it rewarding as well, and while I personally don't have anything against that, I start getting annoyed when people start adding it to the pool of 'rewards' that you're supposed to be getting per expansion.
Some of them are, you can say, going to be accomplished anyway, like spinning the wheel of yogg (Yogg will likely be competitive anyway). Others are as painful up the arse as they are impossible, like dealing lethal damage with Oh My Yogg!. Let's also consider this obvious problem: Many of us play only a few classes, and these achievements are not just spread across the classes, they require specific cards to even start doing. What are the off chances of me getting that epic card Darkmoon Rabbit? And that's 600xp off this one card alone. Am I to craft 2x of a card I think nothing of just for this bs?
- Packs from older expansions - This is a bonus. Nothing more, nothing less. After an expansion has passed, I would already have crafted all the cards I want so how much does a pack from, say, Descent of Dragons mean to me? especially since its only 1 pack? The answer is small. About as small as my little pinky is to a piano.
- Cards. Or anything that's not a current expansion pack - Legendaries are not equal to 15 packs, or any other sort of calculations. Again, this is a bonus and should be treated as one. If the argument goes that a legendary card should be taken into consideration as they are extremely rare and therefore valuable, I would say "just give me 15 packs and I'll go away happy". Its obvious a legendary is very valuable indeed. But if we're going to use it as a sort of barometer, I don't see why they don't just give us 15 packs for it. Given the mid expansion being a staple now, I would appreciate 15 packs more anyway.
I'm not particularly up in arms over the new system - yet. But I do think that when they specifically promised that we'll be seeing more gold, they should deliver on it, or we'll hold their feet up the fire until it chars to a nice ebony black. Nothing more, nothing less.
New Neutral Minion - Darkmoon Rabbit
This doesn't give you any tempo advantage for having to spend your entire turn on it or cheating it out. Instead of removing threats and putting threats into play to create a swing like Reno the Relicologist for example, or removing all threats like Twisting Nether, you spend your entire turn trying to catch up but still end up behind at the end of the turn. No competitive deck will actively run this card by itself.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
I agree. I won't show all my work, but I worked out the XP math for playing ~10 hours/week and finishing all my daily and weekly quests (NOT including expansion achievement XP or bonus event XP) and it put me at Level 72. That means 7,500 gold, 2 Arena/Duels tickets (300g value), 7 Current (MDF) packs (100g value), 9 Standard packs, 2 Current Legendaries, and 1 Current Epic. Let's put the Standard pack value at 50g if they're not from the current expansion, a legendary is worth 20 packs of chance or dust (2000g), and an epic is worth 5 packs of chance or dust (500g).
Now, under the old system I was earning about 450g/week (not including Arena rewards) for 17 weeks = 7,650 gold. People citing 500 gold/week are playing for more than 10 hours/week, and are underestimating their XP rewards under the new system. Plus we'd get 6 Current packs (600g) and a free Legendary (2000g) at expansion launch. So even subtracting that out I'm basically earning 7,500 gold vs. 7,650 (-150g), but I'm getting an additional legendary (2000 gold), an additional epic (500g), 2 Arena/Duels tickets (300g), an extra pack (100g), and 9 extra Standard packs (~450g). People are being too dismissive of these freebies. Gold can only buy packs and tickets.
TL;DR
Old System @ all quests complete in 10 hours/week for 17 weeks = 10,250 gold value before special events and Arena Rewards
New System @ all quests complete in 10 hours/week for 17 weeks = 13,450 gold value before special events and Arena Rewards and Expansion Achievement XP.