I'd have to imagine Kael'thas would get nerfed again. I have heard/seen the Druid stats aren't actually amazing, BUT I think Kael'thas creates and encourages a really unfun style of play with it's mana cheating. I don't know enough about design to be an expert on it or w/e, but I think it should be "your third spell you cast on your turn costs (1)." That way it's not "every 3rd spell" and whatever spell you casts still *costs* something. When you make expensive cards free it defeats the purpose of making them expensive.
I don't think it's a good idea to make the progression non-linear. The end of a season is already the least interesting time to play Hearthstone, since the meta is often stale, so increasing the time between rewards as the season progresses will make it more likely people drop out during the last month.
It could also be a competitive legendary like Archmage Vargoth or Kael'thas Sunstrider where everyone gets the normal version but the gold version is part of the paid battlepass rewards.
So the first time I read this, I read it as "optional battle pass alongside the current system."
I see that is not the case. So the 8000 gold I save between expansions would be useless...? I don't think that's very good.
I would love a Battlepass that's just an optional (yes paid for) add-on that doesn't replace anything, so we can still do quests and achieve gold and F2P players aren't just screwed. That doesn't make any sense.
What I'd like to know is why Activision felt this business risk was necessary. Memes about greed aside, was Hearthstone not already incredibly profitable as it currently stands? Why just completely break something that wasn't financially broken and risk creating uproar with your customers?
From any business majors out there, is this really a smart decision for them?
One possible use for Lorekeeper Polkelt would be for Warlock to cheat out Flesh Giant (unless sorting accounts for current cost) or Hand of Gul'dan, but having the deck ordered like that could be annoying after that. So I guess then shuffle in Soul Fragments to shuffle the deck. Sounds really niche and kinda annoying to use.
I called it “poor reporting”, because even though everything in this article is technically true, it is very misleading. Assuming the commenters are representative of the readers, most people are coming away with the impression that this is the new system (or at least something very much like it). Since even I have run into surveys like this before, I assume Flux should be able to give people some more context.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new system at the end of the year looks like this one in a lot of ways. But I would be SHOCKED if it was this greedy. It will either have a lot more rewards, or it will be an extra bonus alongside the daily quests. The system in this article is obviously unviable, and it’s a big leap from “someone was asked about it in a survey” to “expect this to be the real thing”.
I expect Blizzard to try to maximize the money they can take from us. But based on their other recent changes, it looks like they think the best way to make money is to be more generous. Their special offers, especially preorder packs, have slowly improved in value over the past year, the duplicate protection makes it a lot easier for non-whales to flesh out their collection, and they’ve been quicker to nerf epic and legendary cards. We may end up with a new system that asks us to grind more or encourages us to buy another pass, but if you do those things you WON’T end up with fewer cards
You have no idea how much f2p players out there that literally mine the game. At the start of each expansion they collect around 10k w/o even playing arena and some of them are doing great in ladder. But you are right somehow, Blizzard *cough* Activision *cough* doesnt care. And by that Pass they want to push these players -who cannot just quit after 7 years of grinding- to spend them bucks. But you know who's the real winner? Legends of Runettera ...
Exactly. It's obvious that they're pushing the f2p players that grinds the heck out of the game to spend money cause they know a good percentage of them that can't leave the game after all these years. But i think if that ever happens, it would be the last nail in the coffin.
Can I just say its kinda interesting you classify Glide as an anti fun card and to screw over control decks. While you classify Mindrender Illucia as an interesting tech card.
I should have mentioned that Glide is an anti-control tech for aggressive DH decks. And Illucia is indeed an anti-combo tech for control priests. Both are techs and both seem situational. I like slow strategies that rely on resource management and having a card that interferes directly with that while i'm unable to do anything about it is not fun for me. But i don't play exclusively control decks. I prefer those decks but i play everything and i understand everyone's perspective. It feels awful to play an aggro deck while a control player just turtles behind taunts and remove everything you play until you have no choice but to concede. It also feels terrible when i lose a combo piece because my opponent just played some weird tech that just wins the game instantly for them. It's also not fun trying to survive against face decks while they just ignore everything you do. It's all a matter of perspective.
That is most definitely true. I personally feel that this game has been lacking tech cards speficaly against control other than hurderdur go face harder. So seeing them add things like Mana burn and Glide makes it more interesting. While ofcourse it feels bad if its used against you, but I think all tech cards suffer from that.
I agree with you that we don't know the details on the new system and that we cannot properly judge until we know this details. I strongly disagree about the poor reporting though.
Fact is that Blizzard has pretty significantly stepped up monetization of Hearthstone lately which is arguably already a pretty expensive game when you buy the pre-orders alone every year. This new plan fits the picture and I have trouble believing that the new system, however it will look like in detail, will be an actual improvement for the majority of players. The outlined points indicate the general direction they want to go and this will certainly not benefit the majority of players (especially F2P and casual players).
Casual players are not necessarly poor f2p players, but simply those who play sporadically and non-competitively. They are not taking the game seriously nor they progress at full speed. Like me in MtG:A before; I had one deck there and played once a week some memes, not knowing much.
Many f2p players are fully focused, aware and knowledgeable about the game and grind for every piece of resource.
And the outlay of this Battlepass screws both these players, together with those who pay something. This only satisfy / encourages casuals by giving them to open 10-15 packs more throughout a season for their one deck in hope some percentage of that huge player-base will start paying money eventually.
Can I just say its kinda interesting you classify Glide as an anti fun card and to screw over control decks. While you classify Mindrender Illucia as an interesting tech card.
I should have mentioned that Glide is an anti-control tech for aggressive DH decks. And Illucia is indeed an anti-combo tech for control priests. Both are techs and both seem situational. I like slow strategies that rely on resource management and having a card that interferes directly with that while i'm unable to do anything about it is not fun for me. But i don't play exclusively control decks. I prefer those decks but i play everything and i understand everyone's perspective. It feels awful to play an aggro deck while a control player just turtles behind taunts and remove everything you play until you have no choice but to concede. It also feels terrible when i lose a combo piece because my opponent just played some weird tech that just wins the game instantly for them. It's also not fun trying to survive against face decks while they just ignore everything you do. It's all a matter of perspective.
This system screws paying and competitive players even more. Casuals don't care much do they get 5 or 10 or 30... packs whenever (for their 1 deck). I'm buying small pre-orders (50-60 packs) on top of c. 100 packs from gold, because I think that number is the breaking point of what I need in HS. There's no point for me to ever buy that pre-order on top of freaking 39 packs! Because now I would need to buy 2 or 3x more packs (which I will not). Additionally, I couldn't care less about postponed packs, older random packs and stupid digital cosmetics.
Taking freedom of earning gold from us is such a disgusting move it's unbelievable. These restrictions, forced redirection are a huge downgrade, 100% fake, it's like going back to TV era where they forced programs on you, instead of letting me rather freely pick on internet what I want to consume. And it's funny how they present this as "an improvement".
Unless they make this crappy system 3x as rewarding at minimum, this will be laughable and the only result will be making me not spending money on HS anymore. They demand more money from people who barely decided to give them any. Holy shit! They're really screwing invested players recently over gaining new casuals who will never start spending their money anyway. Nor will paying ones willingly pay more.
Can I just say its kinda interesting you classify Glide as an anti fun card and to screw over control decks. While you classify Mindrender Illucia as an interesting tech card.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Agreed and well said.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Mana cheating makes me feel bad. grr.
Top 10 Hearthstone Cards That Are Gonna Get Hit by the Nerf Bat in Scholomance Academy
I'd have to imagine Kael'thas would get nerfed again. I have heard/seen the Druid stats aren't actually amazing, BUT I think Kael'thas creates and encourages a really unfun style of play with it's mana cheating. I don't know enough about design to be an expert on it or w/e, but I think it should be "your third spell you cast on your turn costs (1)." That way it's not "every 3rd spell" and whatever spell you casts still *costs* something. When you make expensive cards free it defeats the purpose of making them expensive.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
I don't think it's a good idea to make the progression non-linear. The end of a season is already the least interesting time to play Hearthstone, since the meta is often stale, so increasing the time between rewards as the season progresses will make it more likely people drop out during the last month.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
It could also be a competitive legendary like Archmage Vargoth or Kael'thas Sunstrider where everyone gets the normal version but the gold version is part of the paid battlepass rewards.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
So the first time I read this, I read it as "optional battle pass alongside the current system."
I see that is not the case. So the 8000 gold I save between expansions would be useless...? I don't think that's very good.
I would love a Battlepass that's just an optional (yes paid for) add-on that doesn't replace anything, so we can still do quests and achieve gold and F2P players aren't just screwed. That doesn't make any sense.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
This sounds so complicated and unnecessary..
Seven Awesome Legend Rank Scholomance Academy Decks to Take for a Spin
Guardian Druid feels so disgusting to play. Druid feels absolutely broken right now. I
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
What I'd like to know is why Activision felt this business risk was necessary. Memes about greed aside, was Hearthstone not already incredibly profitable as it currently stands? Why just completely break something that wasn't financially broken and risk creating uproar with your customers?
From any business majors out there, is this really a smart decision for them?
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
Exactly this. I play this game when I want to . I will just drop it if i am forced to grind
My analysis of the early days of the expansion and my legendary cards
One possible use for Lorekeeper Polkelt would be for Warlock to cheat out Flesh Giant (unless sorting accounts for current cost) or Hand of Gul'dan, but having the deck ordered like that could be annoying after that. So I guess then shuffle in Soul Fragments to shuffle the deck. Sounds really niche and kinda annoying to use.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
I called it “poor reporting”, because even though everything in this article is technically true, it is very misleading. Assuming the commenters are representative of the readers, most people are coming away with the impression that this is the new system (or at least something very much like it). Since even I have run into surveys like this before, I assume Flux should be able to give people some more context.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new system at the end of the year looks like this one in a lot of ways. But I would be SHOCKED if it was this greedy. It will either have a lot more rewards, or it will be an extra bonus alongside the daily quests. The system in this article is obviously unviable, and it’s a big leap from “someone was asked about it in a survey” to “expect this to be the real thing”.
I expect Blizzard to try to maximize the money they can take from us. But based on their other recent changes, it looks like they think the best way to make money is to be more generous. Their special offers, especially preorder packs, have slowly improved in value over the past year, the duplicate protection makes it a lot easier for non-whales to flesh out their collection, and they’ve been quicker to nerf epic and legendary cards. We may end up with a new system that asks us to grind more or encourages us to buy another pass, but if you do those things you WON’T end up with fewer cards
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
You have no idea how much f2p players out there that literally mine the game. At the start of each expansion they collect around 10k w/o even playing arena and some of them are doing great in ladder. But you are right somehow, Blizzard *cough* Activision *cough* doesnt care. And by that Pass they want to push these players -who cannot just quit after 7 years of grinding- to spend them bucks. But you know who's the real winner? Legends of Runettera ...
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
Exactly. It's obvious that they're pushing the f2p players that grinds the heck out of the game to spend money cause they know a good percentage of them that can't leave the game after all these years. But i think if that ever happens, it would be the last nail in the coffin.
My analysis of the early days of the expansion and my legendary cards
That is most definitely true. I personally feel that this game has been lacking tech cards speficaly against control other than hurderdur go face harder. So seeing them add things like Mana burn and Glide makes it more interesting. While ofcourse it feels bad if its used against you, but I think all tech cards suffer from that.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
I agree with you that we don't know the details on the new system and that we cannot properly judge until we know this details. I strongly disagree about the poor reporting though.
Fact is that Blizzard has pretty significantly stepped up monetization of Hearthstone lately which is arguably already a pretty expensive game when you buy the pre-orders alone every year. This new plan fits the picture and I have trouble believing that the new system, however it will look like in detail, will be an actual improvement for the majority of players. The outlined points indicate the general direction they want to go and this will certainly not benefit the majority of players (especially F2P and casual players).
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
Casual players are not necessarly poor f2p players, but simply those who play sporadically and non-competitively. They are not taking the game seriously nor they progress at full speed. Like me in MtG:A before; I had one deck there and played once a week some memes, not knowing much.
Many f2p players are fully focused, aware and knowledgeable about the game and grind for every piece of resource.
And the outlay of this Battlepass screws both these players, together with those who pay something. This only satisfy / encourages casuals by giving them to open 10-15 packs more throughout a season for their one deck in hope some percentage of that huge player-base will start paying money eventually.
The Artwork Process of Scholomance Academy - Concept Art Spotlight
Intrepid Initiate looks a bit like the protagonist of one o' those CGI Chinese anime. Like Duoluo Dalu - if you've seen it, you know what I mean, heh.
My analysis of the early days of the expansion and my legendary cards
I should have mentioned that Glide is an anti-control tech for aggressive DH decks. And Illucia is indeed an anti-combo tech for control priests. Both are techs and both seem situational. I like slow strategies that rely on resource management and having a card that interferes directly with that while i'm unable to do anything about it is not fun for me. But i don't play exclusively control decks. I prefer those decks but i play everything and i understand everyone's perspective. It feels awful to play an aggro deck while a control player just turtles behind taunts and remove everything you play until you have no choice but to concede. It also feels terrible when i lose a combo piece because my opponent just played some weird tech that just wins the game instantly for them. It's also not fun trying to survive against face decks while they just ignore everything you do. It's all a matter of perspective.
Seven Awesome Legend Rank Scholomance Academy Decks to Take for a Spin
No hunter decks? Did Blizzard kill the class?
New Deck Tracker Plugin Released for Automatic Collection Syncing (v0.0.3)
Every Hearthstone site has different users with some skilled players uploading decks. It's a means to an end to try recommended decks from Hearthpwn.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
What are you talking about? This screws over casuals by capping out how much gold they can get between expansions.
Blizzard Adding a Battle Pass to Hearthstone? Survey Highlights Alternate Art for The Coin, New Hero Skins, Paid Leveling Rewards
This system screws paying and competitive players even more. Casuals don't care much do they get 5 or 10 or 30... packs whenever (for their 1 deck). I'm buying small pre-orders (50-60 packs) on top of c. 100 packs from gold, because I think that number is the breaking point of what I need in HS. There's no point for me to ever buy that pre-order on top of freaking 39 packs! Because now I would need to buy 2 or 3x more packs (which I will not). Additionally, I couldn't care less about postponed packs, older random packs and stupid digital cosmetics.
Taking freedom of earning gold from us is such a disgusting move it's unbelievable. These restrictions, forced redirection are a huge downgrade, 100% fake, it's like going back to TV era where they forced programs on you, instead of letting me rather freely pick on internet what I want to consume. And it's funny how they present this as "an improvement".
Unless they make this crappy system 3x as rewarding at minimum, this will be laughable and the only result will be making me not spending money on HS anymore. They demand more money from people who barely decided to give them any. Holy shit! They're really screwing invested players recently over gaining new casuals who will never start spending their money anyway. Nor will paying ones willingly pay more.
My analysis of the early days of the expansion and my legendary cards
Can I just say its kinda interesting you classify Glide as an anti fun card and to screw over control decks. While you classify Mindrender Illucia as an interesting tech card.
The Artwork Process of Scholomance Academy - Concept Art Spotlight
Imagine you're the guy who made Blood Herald and you learn afterwards what its effect is :^)