Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

The biggest problem with the new player experience - not enough separation from veteran players

The biggest problem that new players face is that they are basically thrown to the wolves on day one. There's not enough delineation between the Ranks on ladder - in fact some veteran players even abuse that they can farm gold at Rank 20 by feeding on new players with their Tier 1 deck.

Casual mode is no different. The same casual mode that I use to test deck tweaks before I risk stars on the ladder is the mode that a new player is using to try to learn the game.

There is no point in this game where a new player is made to feel like it is okay that his collection is limited, and that starting out it's fine that he has Boulderfists and Yetis in his deck. He is constantly having the top-tier deck, ladder climbing, how fast can I get to legend this month, aspect of the game shoved into his face.

Right now the game progression seems to be all-or-nothing. Either you can build a deck that can play with the big boys, or you lose. There is no kiddie table to sit at.

The result is that new players' first impression of the game is that Hearthstone is pay-to-win. The only goal they have is to get into legend, and the only way to do that is to shell out hundred of dollars to build a deck that is capable.

What Hearthstone needs to fix this problem is a much better system to nurture new players. There needs to be more goals and achievements for them to complete besides getting to the top of the ladder. There needs to be more separation between them and the veterans that are playing with the most powerful decks in the game.

  • Ben Brode
    Posted 9 years, 9 months ago (Source)

    Hey there!

    We agree that the new player experience needs more work. We've been tweaking it for years and have seen significant increases in retention among new players since launch. Most new players start playing against the AI and then take on other players in Casual. The Casual matchmaker has gone through a lot of iteration and new player winrates have increased by ~15%.

    Ranked is a different story. Ranked is becoming more difficult for new players over time. I spoke about some of the challenges we are currently facing with our ladder system before I left for paternity leave here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/58pxgt/ben_brode_confirms_the_2_game_win_streak_is_not/

    Something you may not realize is that new players actually play in a seperate matchmaking pool for their first several sessions. In Casual, we match them entirely against other brand new players with similarly-sized collections.

    That all said, we think the introductory missions up through Illidan feel pretty good, and after that it still feels like a bit of a cliff. It's definitely something we're aware of. Thanks for your feedback, and for the feedback of everyone else who's been chiming in on this over the last few months.

Tweet