Amazing breakdown and comparison between games. Definitely found the loot boxes in HOTS very lackluster and didn't bother with them at all. Just goes to show how a company (in this case GGG) can make loot boxes enticing to purchase. I do find though that I'm buying more boxes now since the duplicate protection than before. Then again, the fact the MTX add an extra gameplay interaction raises the value of each item in the boxes.
Appreciate the time you took detailing the comparisons and can definitely say GGG should be the king of MTX and loot boxes.
Loot boxes seem to be on a slightly downward trend recently, but microtransactions as a whole aren't going anywhere.
This statement might be true for other games but damn, when GGG took forever to release the TOTA mystery box in August, all their news posts comments were: "where's the mystery box?"
I for one spend too much money on PoE MTX coz they are that good. I eventually sold all my Dota 2 cosmetics on the Steam Marketplace just to purchase one of the (more expensive) PoE supporter packs.
My friends and I also have a "rule" at the start of a new league: You found a divine? Best thank Chris Wilson by buying a mystery box 😜
According to Mythic+ data and Warcraft logs, the number of players completing raids and dungeons were substantially less in the Dragonflight expansion launch compared to Shadowlands. So according to data, it just goes to show how badly Shadowlands burnt players that never returned for the next expansion. I'm sure Blizzard also have this data so maybe that's why they brought Chris Metzen back to try salvage what's left of Retail WoW.
As for WoW Classic, whatever they do, they better not remove Deathwing from the lore. I'd be very upset with that retcon.
No idea why American companies are so harsh with lay offs. In the company I work for, if there are redundant positions, the employees are first given the opportunity to change teams or at least go through the interview process again for a different team/department (within the same company) if there's vacancies available.
ABK definitely has that "corporate no care" behavior, very sad.
Great news to see! Looking forward to all the new content on this site 😊 Always enjoyed the Hearthstone content from way back when Flux was still working on Hearthpwn and found outof.cards the much superior site after the move. I've had very little site issues and always enjoyed the welcoming community. Hope outof.games gets a boost in content and popularity coz Flux and the team deserve a big win 😎🦄
I'd say out of all the classes, Rogue got the "most interesting/most RNG" this mini-set with the concoction/Chaotic Tendril miracle rogue. The card isn't that bad and every time I've faced the deck, each spell cast was beneficial to the owner. Doesn't take long to get to the 10 mana spells and those start to hurt
OMG this is such valuable info! I've been using the fandom poe wiki for way too long 😥 glad to see though as I google search "poe wiki" it shows poewiki.net as the first link.
Overall very valuable info and great article Flux. I've always used adblockers so didn't noticed so many ads on Fandom wikis but have noticed the lack of/ or bad quality of information on their wikis over the years. Sadly this includes all types of entertainment, not just gaming.
So 4 years have gone by since I've started this thread and not only have I changed my mind about not doing a Hearthstone specific tattoo, I also came up with a unique design of my own. Luckily I have a very talented stepdaughter who polished it up a bit and so I've made an appointment for October the 13th to get the Hearthstone tattoo done! I'll post the design and a picture of the execution afterwards, just wanted to share my excitement for the moment :)
This is awesome to see 10 years after a game. Just goes to show that this game is loved albeit all it's issues. I have 3 tattoos currently but won't be getting anymore as the hype has worn off over the years. Really excited to see the design and hope it comes out nicely! There's quite a few talented tattoo artists nowadays and the stigma of tattoos is all but gone now.
Also just a word of advice on the positioning of the tattoo, any area that covers bone can be extremely painful. Best avoid areas like ribs, shoulder blades, ankles etc. I almost passed out from the pain of having one done on my ribs 😅
Pretty mediocre warlock cards if I'm being honest. But seeing how warlock is currently doing, I guess that's fine. Curse of Flesh could see play in a zoo/aggro lock to lock out your opponent when they on low health but it's not necessary. Doubt these cards will see much play, probably will be randomly discovered/generated cards.
I really like the art direction for the anomalies. Having Yogg visually corrupt the HS box is pretty cool. Keen to see the other anomalies and it's gonna make constructed quite interesting. Now we just need a masters tour with anomalies to see how the pros handle them in each game
Do you mean they started tracking cards you previously owned in 2020? Because there doesn't need to be any special tracking for cards you currently own.
From how I understand it, Blizzard only started tracking duplicates from 2020 when they enabled the duplicate protection, so all cards you owned before 2020 won't be tracked for duplicate protection. Not sure why they can't retroactively track cards that are in your collection.
Well it's safe to assume that Heroic Scamiseum will be a normal thing now before mini-sets which is just a trap for new players. Long time players know when to avoid it now as we all know it's a scam but new players won't. I'd love to know the stats on how many ppl quite HS after going 0-3 in a Heroic brawl then didn't have enough gold to purchase the mini-set a week later.
Yup agreed. The CoT packs are a complete waste of time coz you do get duplicates even though everyone is saying duplicate protection is working.
For eg: I already owned 6 copes of Jade Spirit from MSoG but I opened 2 copies in CoT packs, before I got new cards like Rat Sensei or Invigorate.
But who knows, some ppl were saying it was working correctly for them but it didn't for me and I'm still missing a lot of CoT specific common and rare cards.
The reprint idea was just a bad idea to begin with. Blizzard should've just treated the brand new CoT cards like a mini-set but ofc, they want money.
The reason this is happening to me is coz Blizzard only started tracking duplicates from 2020. So if you're a long time player, the CoT packs will be a waste of time coz you will get duplicate cards.
I still have my physical fireside gathering HS pin from my first gathering I attended years ago, such fond memories. Sad to see they removing the entire feature from the game but I'm sure Blizzard did due diligence and found hardly anyone using it.
As for mass pack openings... the hype for pack openings over the years has died down substantially (at least for me). Realized this when I felt opening packs for Titans was more a chore than actual fun so probably gonna be using the mass pack opening feature in future. Didn't ever request it but from the above gif, the way they implemented it is quite nice.
Good job on adding all the MTX on out of games here. Shows them off really nicely. I've opened 5 boxes so far but only really want the Dragon Fire Rare Finisher Effect (for obvious reasons 😁) so might just wait a few months to buy it directly from the store.
I did get Transmuted Peddler's Rain Hideout Decoration and do a lot of trading so quite happy with that although the Chaotic Peddler's Rain would be the more apt decoration considering everything is traded in chaos
Amazing breakdown and comparison between games. Definitely found the loot boxes in HOTS very lackluster and didn't bother with them at all. Just goes to show how a company (in this case GGG) can make loot boxes enticing to purchase. I do find though that I'm buying more boxes now since the duplicate protection than before. Then again, the fact the MTX add an extra gameplay interaction raises the value of each item in the boxes.
Appreciate the time you took detailing the comparisons and can definitely say GGG should be the king of MTX and loot boxes.
This statement might be true for other games but damn, when GGG took forever to release the TOTA mystery box in August, all their news posts comments were: "where's the mystery box?"
I for one spend too much money on PoE MTX coz they are that good. I eventually sold all my Dota 2 cosmetics on the Steam Marketplace just to purchase one of the (more expensive) PoE supporter packs.
My friends and I also have a "rule" at the start of a new league: You found a divine? Best thank Chris Wilson by buying a mystery box 😜
According to Mythic+ data and Warcraft logs, the number of players completing raids and dungeons were substantially less in the Dragonflight expansion launch compared to Shadowlands. So according to data, it just goes to show how badly Shadowlands burnt players that never returned for the next expansion. I'm sure Blizzard also have this data so maybe that's why they brought Chris Metzen back to try salvage what's left of Retail WoW.
As for WoW Classic, whatever they do, they better not remove Deathwing from the lore. I'd be very upset with that retcon.
No idea why American companies are so harsh with lay offs. In the company I work for, if there are redundant positions, the employees are first given the opportunity to change teams or at least go through the interview process again for a different team/department (within the same company) if there's vacancies available.
ABK definitely has that "corporate no care" behavior, very sad.
Great news to see! Looking forward to all the new content on this site 😊 Always enjoyed the Hearthstone content from way back when Flux was still working on Hearthpwn and found outof.cards the much superior site after the move. I've had very little site issues and always enjoyed the welcoming community. Hope outof.games gets a boost in content and popularity coz Flux and the team deserve a big win 😎🦄
I'd say out of all the classes, Rogue got the "most interesting/most RNG" this mini-set with the concoction/Chaotic Tendril miracle rogue. The card isn't that bad and every time I've faced the deck, each spell cast was beneficial to the owner. Doesn't take long to get to the 10 mana spells and those start to hurt
OMG this is such valuable info! I've been using the fandom poe wiki for way too long 😥 glad to see though as I google search "poe wiki" it shows poewiki.net as the first link.
Overall very valuable info and great article Flux. I've always used adblockers so didn't noticed so many ads on Fandom wikis but have noticed the lack of/ or bad quality of information on their wikis over the years. Sadly this includes all types of entertainment, not just gaming.
This is awesome to see 10 years after a game. Just goes to show that this game is loved albeit all it's issues. I have 3 tattoos currently but won't be getting anymore as the hype has worn off over the years. Really excited to see the design and hope it comes out nicely! There's quite a few talented tattoo artists nowadays and the stigma of tattoos is all but gone now.
Also just a word of advice on the positioning of the tattoo, any area that covers bone can be extremely painful. Best avoid areas like ribs, shoulder blades, ankles etc. I almost passed out from the pain of having one done on my ribs 😅
Agreed! And seeing as the mini-set releases a day before my birthday, I'm gonna treat myself and get it 😁
As for that Kabal N'Zoth skin, why N'Zoth? What's wrong with a Yogg skin seeing as the mini-set is centered around him...
Also I'd imagine Yogg would be a mage skin considering he's spell centric
All 3 warrior cards look pretty good and should see play. That Battleworn Faceless will probably enable some combo shenanigans
Pretty mediocre warlock cards if I'm being honest. But seeing how warlock is currently doing, I guess that's fine. Curse of Flesh could see play in a zoo/aggro lock to lock out your opponent when they on low health but it's not necessary. Doubt these cards will see much play, probably will be randomly discovered/generated cards.
I really like the art direction for the anomalies. Having Yogg visually corrupt the HS box is pretty cool. Keen to see the other anomalies and it's gonna make constructed quite interesting. Now we just need a masters tour with anomalies to see how the pros handle them in each game
I'm laughing at that Pool cleaning simulator game. No offence to the studio but I have no idea who the target audience is for that game 🤣
Only funny scenario I can think of is the wife telling you to clean the pool, then you play this game instead 😅
From how I understand it, Blizzard only started tracking duplicates from 2020 when they enabled the duplicate protection, so all cards you owned before 2020 won't be tracked for duplicate protection. Not sure why they can't retroactively track cards that are in your collection.
Well it's safe to assume that Heroic Scamiseum will be a normal thing now before mini-sets which is just a trap for new players. Long time players know when to avoid it now as we all know it's a scam but new players won't. I'd love to know the stats on how many ppl quite HS after going 0-3 in a Heroic brawl then didn't have enough gold to purchase the mini-set a week later.
Yup agreed. The CoT packs are a complete waste of time coz you do get duplicates even though everyone is saying duplicate protection is working.
For eg: I already owned 6 copes of Jade Spirit from MSoG but I opened 2 copies in CoT packs, before I got new cards like Rat Sensei or Invigorate.
But who knows, some ppl were saying it was working correctly for them but it didn't for me and I'm still missing a lot of CoT specific common and rare cards.
The reprint idea was just a bad idea to begin with. Blizzard should've just treated the brand new CoT cards like a mini-set but ofc, they want money.
Edit: After some investigating I found Old Guardian's video quite enlightening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NROP88Em5TA
The reason this is happening to me is coz Blizzard only started tracking duplicates from 2020. So if you're a long time player, the CoT packs will be a waste of time coz you will get duplicate cards.
I still have my physical fireside gathering HS pin from my first gathering I attended years ago, such fond memories. Sad to see they removing the entire feature from the game but I'm sure Blizzard did due diligence and found hardly anyone using it.
As for mass pack openings... the hype for pack openings over the years has died down substantially (at least for me). Realized this when I felt opening packs for Titans was more a chore than actual fun so probably gonna be using the mass pack opening feature in future. Didn't ever request it but from the above gif, the way they implemented it is quite nice.
Good job on adding all the MTX on out of games here. Shows them off really nicely. I've opened 5 boxes so far but only really want the Dragon Fire Rare Finisher Effect (for obvious reasons 😁) so might just wait a few months to buy it directly from the store.
I did get Transmuted Peddler's Rain Hideout Decoration and do a lot of trading so quite happy with that although the Chaotic Peddler's Rain would be the more apt decoration considering everything is traded in chaos
Pretty good mystery box I'd say. The timer on the map device is a really neat feature for those speed runners
We also (finally) have news about the mystery box: https://twitter.com/pathofexile/status/1698969219852108103?ref