News Realms Remove Ads - Go Premium! Sign In or Register

Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Current rewards - what would make you play more?

Per expansion cycle:

Current:

  • Gold (120 days): 9000 gold (60g per quest average, 10g winning 3 games every day, 160g trading 80g quest once per 30 days). A lot more than the 5000 gold Ben Lee mentioned in the AMA, playing relatively casually.
  • 17 classic packs (tavern, one per week)
    Free expansion packs per expansion (current standard):
    Rise Shadows: 26 (not counting 3 from twitch promotion since it is for only 1 account)
    Saviors of Uldum: 32
    Descent of Dragons: 17
    (Year of the dragon packs: 3)
    Ashes of Outland: 6 (we got duplicate protection, saving about 25 free packs lost but with also 4 less epics and 1 less legendary due to opening a lot less free packs)
    Scholomance Academy: 6
  • in summary, 6 free expansion packs for logging in, legendary quests, etc.
  • +1 bonus legendary (not counting uncraftable cards)
  • ranked rewards:
    casual play (gold 5) = 5 rares, 2 packs, per month. 20 rares, 8 packs, per cycle.
    ranking up using all of star bonus (diamond 5) = 7 rares, 1 epic, 4 packs, per month. 28 rares, 4 epics, 16 packs, per cycle.

New:

  • 18 Packs for the Latest Expansion
  • 14 Packs for a Prior Standard Expansion
  • 4 Arena Tickets
  • 2 Legendary Cards
  • 2 Epic Cards
  • A choice of a Hero Skin (unknown list)
  • Expansion related Card Back
  • 3990 Gold +1250 gold grinding XP

Difference:

  • -17 Classic Packs (not in the battle pass?) = dust
  • +10 or +2 Latest Expansion Packs (bad as you want these packs at the start of the expansion) = dust
  • +14 Prior Expansion (Standard) = dust
  • +4 Arena Tickets = cool
  • +1 Legendary Card = cool
  • -2 or +2 Epic Cards = meh
  • +1 cosmetic = meh
  • +1 cosmetic = meh
  • -3750 to -5000 gold (this completely dwarfs any gains)

In summary, we lose 50 packs of our choice, for 4 arena tickets and 1 legendary card.

What would make me (f2p) play more, currently questing and playing Standard:

  • 4 Arena tickets and Gold, I'll play more Arena.
  • 14 Wild packs and Gold, I'll play more Wild.
  • similar Ranked Rewards in Battlegrounds, I'll play more Battlegrounds.

What would make me play less: less gold. What would make me stop playing: a lot less gold

Comments welcome.

  • Iksar
    Posted 5 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    I've been playing this game pretty much since day one as an F2P player.

    The amount of time I spend playing the game is pretty static.

    I still feel like I get the full experience as an f2p player.

    As soon as I feel like I'm not getting the same experience or I have to put in twice the amount of work that I usually do then I quit this game.

    I've done it before for other games that I played almost religiously when they introduced a battle pass system that required more of the time that I'm not willing to give (or otherwise my money) out of my pocket.

    Any way you spin it, if at the end of the day I feel like I have to play more to get the same experience or spend money, then I'm going to leave this game. You don't need to quantify it with numbers, if the player experience is such that I feel I have to spend more time or money, then I'm done.

    That's it.

    Great, you should not receive less rewards for the same effort in the new system. In almost all cases, you should receive more.

  • Iksar
    Posted 5 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Assuming you play the same amount and have the same quest completion rate, you shouldn't earn less gold or non-gold in the new system. In nearly all circumstances you should be earning slightly more gold and more non-gold (packs, etc).

    Our plan is to remove rewards from quests, though the experience you earn per quest on average will net you as much or more rewards as quests give you now.

    Something that has come up a lot is the idea that you will no longer be able to obtain the packs you want on day 1, and instead will get a 'drip feed' of packs over the expansion. While you will receive rewards as the expansion goes on, the gold you earn per expansion should remain relatively flat from what you earn now. This should make your ability to buy packs on day 1 similar to what you get now, but with more non-gold rewards added on top.

    Our intent with the system is for it to be upside for all players. We've done many checks on different player segments to try and make sure that is the case no matter how you play. Despite all this, we're making XP per level and XP bonuses as tuning knobs in case our predictions were incorrect. We can push legendary quests or give out additional rewards during events as well.

    [Source: Countless hours spent staring at an excel sheet trying to get this right.]

  • Iksar
    Posted 5 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    You mention that gold gain shouldn't decrease; I will take your word for it since our calculations are probably not taking into account the full picture, as no one here has actually tested the system. I am curious of one thing - the Battle Pass seems very much tuned for Standard; with the lack of more 'immediate' gold gain quests provided, will this affect players' ability to consistently buy Wild packs if they would choose to forfeit grinding the latest expansion?

    Quests give you experience, which helps you level up. Leveling up gives you rewards, most of which is gold. Gold gains should be roughly the same amount of 'immediate' in the new system as in the old system.

  • Iksar
    Posted 5 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    Seems more like a big upside for NEW players, while existing players used to ripping 50+ packs on day one of a new Expansion will have to wait ~4 months to get the same rewards

    No, the amount of packs you will be able to open on day 1 shouldn't change much because your gold income shouldn't change much.

  • Iksar
    Posted 5 years, 4 months ago (Source)

    I don't want packs instead of gold, i want the same gold (actually more, but at least the same) as before, and then i decide if i want the new packs or to open some frozen throne packs to flesh out some commons and rares. Or use it for arena, battleground perks, adventures or whatever suit my fancy.

    But i want to decide, not you. If i want to save 100 packs worth of gold for a big opening day 1 of the new expansion, i should be able to just like i did before.

    And i want the battleground perks be purchasable f2p.

    Great, we also don't want you to earn packs instead of gold. As a result, you will still earn lots of gold you can choose to do whatever you want with.

Tweet