Achievements can reach a total of 27300XP (14800XP from DMF cards + 12500XP from Duels). That's 18,2 levels (post level 50) or 900G. Like you said, it's not a lot, but it's something (also, there is a certain satisfaction on going to wild ladder and simply troll your way through losses to get those achievements).
When they announced the ~20% XP loss, I expected that number to include levels past level 50, which actually made me very excited. So, that expectancy I had didn't get fulfilled, which was a letdown (you'll see why later), although I do understand it was my fault there.
But will the changes lead to a substantial increase in gold for the full expansion? Well, let's take a look:
The 800XP -> 900XP change affects 10 out of 66 dailies. The average gold you get every week (i.e. the sum of all gold from each daily divided by the number of dailies) went from 1015,(15)XP to 1030,(30)XP. Multiplied by 7 days, we went from 7106,(06)XP to 7212,(12)XP;
Weekly quests became overall easier to finish, but had no change in numbers, so we still get 6000XP from there;
I'll use the same 1 hour of ranked play Flux used here, so we get 2800XP (7x400XP) from playing;
So, that means 1 week of playing will net us a total of 15906,(06)XP (before) or 16012,(12)XP (after);
Now, I don't recall exactly when did the expansion start, but I ended up considering that this expansion cycle will have a total of 19 weeks (around 4 and a half months). This means we get a total of 302215,(15)XP (before) or 304230,(30)XP (after) [the 800XP -> 900XP change will give us a total of 2015,(15)XP throughout the expansion, so around 50G (1 level)];
Now, let's also assume we complete 75% of all achievements (11100XP) and we get up to 10 wins of duels (8200XP);
That means the total XP we'll get will be 321515,(15)XP (before) or 323530,(30)XP (after).
How does that translate into levels? In the old system, we would get to level 78 and, in the improved system, we'll get to level 163. In that scenario, we'll go from a total of 9750G to 11300G, so we'll get an extra 1550G, which is pretty good.
PS: If the system also reduced post level 50 XP by 20% (which I wrongly interpreted), that means we would need ~1200XP per level between levels 51 and 350 and would put us at level 207 which means, we would get a total of 13500G. Now that would put me back on the paying customer side of the game for sure.
EDIT: So, @Torgal did a much more comprehensive version of my work. Then again, I made these calculations in around an hour and using very basic parameters. This also makes me understand how poor my Excel skills are xD
Tried the deck, really fun to play, like the older version before Darkmoon Faire. In my opinion, DMF did wonders to the deck's curve, allowing us to keep up with aggro tempowise more easily while keeping the late game win condition very viable. I did do some changes though: swapped out Teron Gorefiend and one Sap for two Secret Passages. Considering the low curve of the deck and its card generation, Secret Passage serves not only as a nice resource generation tool, but as an extra card to draw our shuffled win conditions and, considering how both Sap and Teron Gorefiend feel a bit off on an aggressive meta as the one we have right now, the subs felt natural without disrupting the deck's identity.
2 mana, gain +2 Attack. Simply increasing the Hero Power's mana makes it worthless. The change I'd propose would be much more in line with the other Hero Powers.
The leveling system after level 50 being changed is a good change, but I would argue that there should be no level cap rather than a level 350 cap, even if it's virtually impossible to get to the level cap right now, because on the off chance you do reach the level cap, you'll have zero incentive to keep playing.
I'm pretty sure you are doing something wrong with your life if you make it all the way to level 350 with the rewards as your only incentive for playing. You must either enjoy the game a heck of a lot to play it that much, or you should spend most of that time doing something else. Even the people who go AFK or use bots to maximise daily XP without actually playing are shooting themselves in the foot because it still costs power (and therefore money) to do that.
So yeah, the 350 level cap is really a non-issue.
My argument regarding the level cap isn't so much "what if you decide to spend time to reach that level cap", it's more on the line of "why is it there in the first place". It's the same reason I didn't really like the 10G/3wins 100G cap: why was it there? In fact, the 10G/3wins system was even worse; the probability of people spending 4 months playing the game to get max rewards in a full season is much smaller than the probability of people having one day without work/school/chores and spend that day playing HS.
I see the removal of the level cap as just extra candy for people trying to go pro or trying to stream the game full-time (a valid reason to spend 6-8 hours every day in HS and the only realistic people capable of reaching the level cap). Those are some of Blizzards main advertisers. Just give them the extra candy, even if they end up never using it (like Kibler, for example). There's no reason to have a level cap in this system the same way there was no reason to have the level cap in the system before.
Some numbers were dropped in the past, like was it 400/hr for ranked? Casual mode should be worth the same.
I don't know about any mode for 7 games, but I'd say, Arena, Duels, Tavern Brawl, Casual and Ranked. Maybe Battlegrounds, but I think it should require more effort than just queueing up 7 games against the Innkeeper and collecting your 2000 exp.
They dropped those numbers, 400XP for Ranked/Arena/Duels and 300XP for BG iirc. But I believe that's not enough: you don't play one hour worth of games for one hour, there's waiting periods between games, there's deck making/tweaking, there's accessing menus, there's bucket selections in Duels and so on. So, i believe simply showing how much XP you gain each game should add extra clarity. And you're right, Casual should give similar numbers.
And regarding the last paragraph, yes, I meant 7 wins in any PvP mode, forgot PvE and Practice aganst Innkeeper existed lol.
Ok, good. A step in the right direction. The new system actually gives more than the old one right now, but it's by such a thin margin that the outrage was, in my opinion, justified. To me, however, its biggest issue is the lack of transparency, which was addressed to a certain degree;
We didn't have the full picture of the actual expected level the average play would reach when factoring events - we still don't, but the XP reduction can allow us to somewhat speculate the total event XP earned through events in this expansion could be around 30k to 50k XP, based on the 37k XP reduction we will have between levels 1 through 50. It's not fully transparent, but it's something;
We didn't immediately know how much XP we gain from each game - unless Ben Lee forgot to mention it, we still won't, but I'd argue it's a change that's needed: if we want to know how much XP we gain, we have to memorize how much XP we currently have by going through the player menu, play a game, then go back to the player menu to find out the difference in XP. It's a long and boring process for the sake of clarity;
Now, regarding the daily/weekly quests change:
Quote From Ben Lee
We’re removing weekly quests that require Legendary cards and Arena runs. These quests are more difficult than intended for players due to the investment necessary. Frankly, these were a mistake and we shouldn’t have included them to begin with. They’ll no longer be in the quest pool after the update. Please note that if they are among your active quests after the update, they will not be automatically removed, but you can reroll them for a different quest.
Never had the Legendary cards quest, but that's something that's well implemented in the achievement portion of the system, the quest overall wasn't needed. Regarding the Arena quest, it's a welcome change: not only because not everyone plays arena, but because it required the arena run to actually end: I had a run midway when the quest popped up last week, I was 4-1, and only got the reward after the arena run ended (I ended at 4-3, the deck wasn't that good, I just highrolled like hell the first few games).
Quote From Ben Lee
We’re changing the weekly quest “Win 7 Games of Ranked Play Mode” to “Win 5 Games of Ranked Play Mode.” This quest, as a guaranteed weekly quest, feels like it requires too much effort to complete. Adjusting the win requirement will ensure that a larger number of players will complete this weekly quest and keep up with the rewards.
In my opinion, the difficulty of that quest wasn't the number of wins needed: it was the fact that those wins had to come through Ranked Mode. If the original quest was "Win 7 games IN ANY GAME MODE", that would actually go towards the promise that we can get ahead by playing HS "our way", rather than just "the main game mode way". If I just want to get to D5 and focus on other game modes for the rest of the month (like I usually do), I shouldn't need to play more ranked just to get the weekly quests. And as far as BG is concerned in that scenario, simply consider any game we end at top 4 as a win, like the old system did when counting towards 10g/3win.
Quote From Ben Lee
Tavern Brawls and Battlegrounds will now contribute to quest progress. Tavern Brawls and Battlegrounds will reward progress for any daily or weekly quests that they should naturally apply to. This should allow more flexibility in how to complete quests and make the rewards more consistent with previous gold earnings. For example, you’ll now be able to complete a quest like “Play Three Games as Priest, Rogue, or Warlock” by playing Tavern Brawls, and quests that require you to play Beasts, for example, can be completed by playing Beasts in Battlegrounds.
Honestly, great change, especially the BG part. That can give the mode an extra breath of fresh air.
Quote From Ben Lee
We’re making small tweaks to certain quests. Some quests simply aren’t working as well as we think they should or are harder to complete than intended. For example, the quest “Play 50 Corrupt Cards” had a couple of issues making it too hard to complete. Now, Corrupted cards will properly count toward progress of this quest. We’re also reducing the requirement to 30 Corrupt Cards. These changes should make completing the quest much easier.
Good. I got the Corrupt cards weekly today and I was justifiably salty when my Corrupted Strongman didn't count towards the quest.
Quote From Ben Lee
All 800 XP daily quests will now reward 900 XP. We want to make quests feel more rewarding, so we’re increasing XP for daily quests so you can earn to your next rewards more quickly. Our hope is to make every quest feel like it rewards you for your time appropriately, and we’ll continue to make changes as needed.
800XP quests always get re-rolled. 900XP quests will also always get re-rolled. But they won't feel as bad if we end up with another 900XP daily.
Now, the rest of the changes, especially the XP per level discount, were good steps towards the right direction. Putting an extra 50G on level 27 and 30 puts those level rewards on par with what we get around those levels (150G or equivalent). The leveling system after level 50 being changed is a good change, but I would argue that there should be no level cap rather than a level 350 cap, even if it's virtually impossible to get to the level cap right now, because on the off chance you do reach the level cap, you'll have zero incentive to keep playing. The 5 packs and 500G are a nice "we're sorry we didn't deliver our promises" gift.
Don't get me wrong: the changes announced are good. Really good. They really are a step towards the right direction regarding the game economy. But the system can still be improved and I believe the changes I proposed here (XP gained shown after each game and no level cap) can improved the system even more without even giving more resources. Always seeing our XP can give the feeling of "just one more game to level up" and no level cap rewards players who dedicate virtually all of their free time to the game (in case you're asking, I'm definitely NOT in that category).
I know its the salt thread, but as a friendly PSA, you have to play the base version of the corrupt card for the quest, bcs the HS team just doesn’t care anymore
I kind of expected that, but I was hopeful it was actually just a bug and not something as infuriatingly stupid as designing a keyword and forcing us to not utilize said keyword to its fullest potential.
So, here's an idea for a new HS series (especially considering the debate around HS economy these days): "*Writter's name* F2P adventures" where said writter would start a new HS account from scratch (kind of what Trump used to do in the past) and see where he/she'll go in, for example, 2 months of content, with weekly recaps and resource management, tackling not only how expensive the game is but also where and in what order should a new player go to gather all free resources. If done correctly, it could be a very interesting series of articles.
Reminder: HSReplay shows top decks from bronze to gold for free. If you're higher on the ladder, the info in there might not be the most accurate, unless you pay a subscription.
That Level 58 determination assumes you're only doing 75% of your daily and weekly quests (as noted in the table breakdown). He's quite clear in the Q&A section that doing all of your quests gets you a lot more ("The 5400g example is someone who doesn't do all their Quests, and doesn't reroll. Someone who *does* reroll for max gold, and does all their quests/achievements, will get much more than that.")
Now, I'm sure there are players out there who aren't doing every daily and weekly quest, but I suspect anyone engaged enough to join this discussion (and probably anyone engaged enough to be mad about this system) is doing every daily and weekly quest.
Fair enough regarding the level 58 thing, although it's quite inconsistent that a player plays for 1 hour every day and only completes only 75% of dailies...
But damn, I wish I didn't lose the other post though, I used the 5hr/day example instead for some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that in the old system, a player would get around 15000g-16000g (something in the middle, I don't remember exactly), which compared to the new system (14400g + packs/legendary/tickets), the new system would give slightly more value, but that extra value was very minimal before speculating on event rewards and reaching the conclusion I put on the other post I posted here: we need clarity. I even used this:
Quote From Angry Shuckie
Now, what Blizz should do is just show the XP being added after each game, so you can see what it has earned you.
as an example of adding clarity to the system without even giving more rewards.
PS: I'll probably remake the calculations and edit here later, I'm getting frustrated not remembering the exact number. PPS: As someone who played his fair share of Pokémon, Angry Shuckie is an awesome name.
EDIT: Calculations made, with some rudimental winrate analysis included (fun fact: you needed an 80% winrate to get 100g from wins in 5 hours with my calculations)
So, I just lost an hour worth of a post here.... but tl;dr of that post: we need clarity. The improvements in rewarding players are negligible unless events fix that issue and we don't know what those events will give us. Therefore, sending most of the gold gains for the back end of the expansion cycle ends up feeling extra bad. Also, like @AngryShuckie said, show us the XP bar growing after each game. Again, for clarity.
I like watching Trump, but he kind of missed out on the calculations though. I didn't see the whole thing, but he was implying we'd get to level 50 on around day 90. However, according to Chadd Nervig's post here, that means we'd need 30 days to get the extra 8 levels Chadd Nervig calculated (he said a player with 1hour/day average playtime would reach around level 58).
Quote From AngryShuckieNow, what Blizz should do is just show the XP being added after each game, so you can see what it has earned you.
This exemplifies one of the core issues that lead to the backlash from the new system: there is a huge lack of transparency in it.
We have no idea if there are plans to make events XP based instead of gold/packs based. We have no idea how many of those events will there be on an expansion cycle. The only idea that we have right now is this:
So I wanted to share a distilled summary of a couple hypothetical situations, to help that discussion out. Here are a couple hypothetical players, and the rewards they'd get from the new system, with current tuning numbers (which could still change before anyone gets there).
Added clarification: These numbers are WITHOUT the Tavern Pass. All of that is from the Free Reward Track.
Let's pick up the 5hr/day example: in the old system, a player with that playtime and a 57% winrate (which can be a fairly assessed winrate, considering experience factors in on a players ability to improve in the game). Let's also add up the fact that the average game that player has is 8 minutes (which is a fair game lenght overall, as most aggro decks tend to be faster than 8 min and most control games tend to be slower). Now, I'll put it my calculations on a spoiler so as to not clutter the post so much. I'll also put in a small speculative estimate regarding events.
Show Spoiler
Assuming the player rerolled all quest in the old system to be on average, 60g quests:
60g x 120 days =7200g
5hr/day games / 8min = 37,5 games (let's round down to 37 games per day)
37 games x 57% winrate = 21,09 wins (21 wins)
21 wins x 10g / 3 wins = 70g from the bonus gold per day
70g x 120 days = 8400g
Total gold per expansion = 7200g + 8400g = 15600g
A couple of thing in my calculations: a 57% winrate is a very good winrate, but even in a 50% winrate scenario, that player would get around 14400g mark. So, a player with a 50% winrate would benefit fron the new system, as 2 tavern tickets, 1 legendary, 1 epic and around 3 extra packs is better than 200g, but I would argue that, if you compare it to a more likely scenario of a 57% winrate for a player with that time consumption (I myself have around 55% winrate with an average 1hr/day spent in the last 3 months according to HSReplay, and I'm far for being that above average as a player), those extra rewards become very negligible when compared to the old system (despite those rewards being arguably slightly better than 1400g). So, we're left with the impact that events will have on the expansion.
In the old system, all events combined would leave you with the equivalent of about 1200g-1500g (I'll use the lower number, even though I don't know what the real number would look like, I expect it to be in that range). In the new system,
1200g / 150g/level = 8 levels
8 levels x 4500XP/level = 36000 XP
The events throughout the expansion cycle should give you more than that XP in total to be rewarding.
And here's the issue with the calculations that I made (and my biggest argument regarding the system itself): they're mostly speculative. The normal rewards you get by playing the game are only arguably better instead of definitely better and even then, the speculation I made especially on the event front leaves a lot of question marks regarding how good and transparent the system actually is.Showing XP gained after each game, like you suggested, is a way to give more transparency (as well as giving a slight sense of accomplishment; in the old system, we would see the crown light up after every win counting towards the 10g). Blizzard can't expect to give us extra rewards that end up being negligible in the grand scheme of rewards per expansion cycle without telling us something along the likes of this:
Quote From Random Blizzard Announcement
We expect players who put X hours into the game to reach level Y if you factor in all events we have planned to have through the expansion cycle, allowing players to get an overall extra average of Z gold. What are those events, though? Just wait and see, we hope you guys like it *smiley face emoji* *fist bump emoji* *extra emoji to show anticipation or something*
Yeah, I know, the last part would be just random promotion associated with the announcement. But there has to be transparency. Otherwise, this system will just look like the old one, except most gold will only come out later in the expansion insteat of right now.
Game under control, preventing opponent from evolve shenanigans and boom, Internet decides to disconnect itself from Hearthstone. Not the computer, I was never disconnected, just Hearthstone.
Whether you dislike facing aggro, facing control, facing Priest, Librams, "fun and interactive combos" or whatever highroll your opponent has, nothing will ever be as frustrating as random connection issues midgame when said game was in the bag.
Ok, so I just posted some ideas on another thread regarding the Tavern Pass, which I'l simply copy paste here under a spoiler:
Show Spoiler
Experience per level should be flat. The same experience throughout the entire expansion cycle would give the BP a similar feeling to what the old dailies system gave: a feeling of constant progression.
NO LEVEL CAP! Both RSL's and MtGA's BPs were reward systems that were introduced to complement their daily based original reward systems, not replace them. So a level 100 cap, for example, (with enough time to spare to complete the full BP) makes sense there. However, when maybe 90% of the reward system in your game revolves around the BP (the other 10% would be arena rewards and Brawl packs), a level cap is detrimental to give you a reason to play the game past a certain point. I know it's incredibly farfetched, but what if someone actually reaches level 150? How would that player actually have any motivaton to play the game after that? No level cap, or infinite level cap, could solve those issues.
This one was touched in zeddy's video: restruture the reward order and the rewards themselves. At level 47 and 49, we get 300G. At level 48, we get a Year of the Dragon pack. Now, let's ignore the fact that Year of the Dragon cards have, right now, a 4 month life in standard. Why are we getting 300G in two levels and only the equivalent of 100G between those levels? And if we actually consider these are Year of the Dragon cards, that's 100G forcefully spent on basically wild packs (if you play only standard, that's an even more rotten reward). Which lead me to my next idea:
Pack tickets. I get that, by giving us diferent packs throughout the BP, you're making the BP look more varied with every level giving out a unique reward. But, in reality, packs are dimished value. With pack tickets, the BP can still have a similar gold/packs/arena tickets/cosmetics ratio it currently has while literally giving us more value.
Experience events. These would go extra handy in a world where the BP has no level cap.
(EDIT) Totally forgot about this one, because it's more of a quality of life change: show how much XP you gain after every match. Not only for clarity, but also as a way of showing that every game you play matters and gives you progression.
The tl;dr of it is simple: remove the level cap and increased XP per level to increase the playing=reward feeling, with a better rewarding structure, pack tickets instead of locked packs to give you more options while leveling, a buttload of XP events to actually allow us to have a life outside of HS and more clarity on the XP per game side (kind of like, when defeating a Pokémon, you see how much exprience your Pokémon gains by having a cute growing blue bar under their HP).
Also, the numbers @KANSAS used for dust ratios feel great as a balance between monetization/rewards.
Ok, so when the Battle Pass (BP) idea was announced in the first place, I was skeptical. When Ben Lee came and answered questions regarding the BP around 3 months ago, I was annoyed at the answers (a big understatement, but I don't want to swear). But as time wore on and as we got closer to today and as we got constantly reassured that the new system would be better than the existing one at the time, I actually started giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. And that benefit of the doubt came for two reasons: because, if the system would be crap, the backlash could be gigantic (which is kinda happening right now) and because of Raid Shadow Legends, of all things.
Because about a year ago, I actually tried RSL, that crap excuse of a "game". My experience: the thing played by itself, every single aspect of it revolved around RNG and there was nothing but shining particles and pretty effects that would sometimes give you that dopamine rush to disguise the fact that you every single thing implemented in RSL was designed to squeeze money out of you (and no, they didn't squeeze it out of me). Those aspects made me eventually uninstall RSL after playing it for around 4 months because the game was literally gambling except there was no chance in hell you'd get money back.
But the only thing in RSL that actually made me think about spending money was the BP system they implemented, because it was well designed for what the game was about. Everything given in that system was very generous for the reality of the game and there was actually no gambling associated with it. And I thought "if RSL, the most predatorial piece of shit (again, an understatement and I still don't want to swear but with RSL it's impossible not to) got the BP right, I can afford to give HS a chance to do this right". That was the other reason I gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt.
Now, after looking at what the BP in HS is about, the first thing that came to mind (after actually giving it a few days experimenting with it instead of throwing a random hothead rant on the internet) was: "What were the original numbers?" Because let's not forget. After the whole "I get around 5000G per expansion" debacle Ben Lee threw at us, Blizzard told us the numbers would be better. The current version is not the one that should be improved, the current version is be improved version. The original BP would be even worse!
The second thing that came to my head was: what would a better BP system be? Well, I believe we should take the example of the competition: in this case, of MtGA. They had a BP that was pretty ok back when I was playing the game and some of those characteristics could be implemented in the current HS game. So, here's what I believe HS's BP should have:
Experience per level should be flat. The same experience throughout the entire expansion cycle would give the BP a similar feeling to what the old dailies system gave: a feeling of constant progression.
NO LEVEL CAP! Both RSL's and MtGA's BPs were reward systems that were introduced to complement their daily based original reward systems, not replace them. So a level 100 cap, for example, (with enough time to spare to complete the full BP) makes sense there. However, when maybe 90% of the reward system in your game revolves around the BP (the other 10% would be arena rewards and Brawl packs), a level cap is detrimental to give you a reason to play the game past a certain point. I know it's incredibly farfetched, but what if someone actually reaches level 150? How would that player actually have any motivaton to play the game after that? No level cap, or infinite level cap, could solve those issues.
This one was touched in zeddy's video: restruture the reward order and the rewards themselves. At level 47 and 49, we get 300G. At level 48, we get a Year of the Dragon pack. Now, let's ignore the fact that Year of the Dragon cards have, right now, a 4 month life in standard. Why are we getting 300G in two levels and only the equivalent of 100G between those levels? And if we actually consider these are Year of the Dragon cards, that's 100G forcefully spent on basically wild packs (if you play only standard, that's an even more rotten reward). Which lead me to my next idea:
Pack tickets. I get that, by giving us diferent packs throughout the BP, you're making the BP look more varied with every level giving out a unique reward. But, in reality, packs are dimished value. With pack tickets, the BP can still have a similar gold/packs/arena tickets/cosmetics ratio it currently has while literally giving us more value.
Experience events. These would go extra handy in a world where the BP has no level cap.
(EDIT) Totally forgot about this one, because it's more of a quality of life change: show how much XP you gain after every match. Not only for clarity, but also as a way of showing that every game you play matters and gives you progression.
So, I didn't touch the gold numbers there. They should, of course, simply be higher, especially when compared to the old monetization system and if suggestions number 2 and 5 never become a reality. The BP system, by itself, is not a bad system. The current iteration definitely is. Especially when it seems the usual special quests and random legendary were probably slapped into the first levels as a "hey, look at all the cool stuff you already won with our new reward system" while pretending they don't already give us that through those special quests and logins on expansion day.
EDIT: I didn't touch the achievement system. Honestly, it's really good right now. I believe achievement points could be used in someway but even if they end up being just a number that shows up next to your name, they're still fine. Maybe a bit underwhelming in that scenario, but still fine.
Achievements can reach a total of 27300XP (14800XP from DMF cards + 12500XP from Duels). That's 18,2 levels (post level 50) or 900G. Like you said, it's not a lot, but it's something (also, there is a certain satisfaction on going to wild ladder and simply troll your way through losses to get those achievements).
When they announced the ~20% XP loss, I expected that number to include levels past level 50, which actually made me very excited. So, that expectancy I had didn't get fulfilled, which was a letdown (you'll see why later), although I do understand it was my fault there.
But will the changes lead to a substantial increase in gold for the full expansion? Well, let's take a look:
How does that translate into levels? In the old system, we would get to level 78 and, in the improved system, we'll get to level 163. In that scenario, we'll go from a total of 9750G to 11300G, so we'll get an extra 1550G, which is pretty good.
PS: If the system also reduced post level 50 XP by 20% (which I wrongly interpreted), that means we would need ~1200XP per level between levels 51 and 350 and would put us at level 207 which means, we would get a total of 13500G. Now that would put me back on the paying customer side of the game for sure.
EDIT: So, @Torgal did a much more comprehensive version of my work. Then again, I made these calculations in around an hour and using very basic parameters. This also makes me understand how poor my Excel skills are xD
Tried the deck, really fun to play, like the older version before Darkmoon Faire. In my opinion, DMF did wonders to the deck's curve, allowing us to keep up with aggro tempowise more easily while keeping the late game win condition very viable. I did do some changes though: swapped out Teron Gorefiend and one Sap for two Secret Passages. Considering the low curve of the deck and its card generation, Secret Passage serves not only as a nice resource generation tool, but as an extra card to draw our shuffled win conditions and, considering how both Sap and Teron Gorefiend feel a bit off on an aggressive meta as the one we have right now, the subs felt natural without disrupting the deck's identity.
2 mana, gain +2 Attack. Simply increasing the Hero Power's mana makes it worthless. The change I'd propose would be much more in line with the other Hero Powers.
My argument regarding the level cap isn't so much "what if you decide to spend time to reach that level cap", it's more on the line of "why is it there in the first place". It's the same reason I didn't really like the 10G/3wins 100G cap: why was it there? In fact, the 10G/3wins system was even worse; the probability of people spending 4 months playing the game to get max rewards in a full season is much smaller than the probability of people having one day without work/school/chores and spend that day playing HS.
I see the removal of the level cap as just extra candy for people trying to go pro or trying to stream the game full-time (a valid reason to spend 6-8 hours every day in HS and the only realistic people capable of reaching the level cap). Those are some of Blizzards main advertisers. Just give them the extra candy, even if they end up never using it (like Kibler, for example). There's no reason to have a level cap in this system the same way there was no reason to have the level cap in the system before.
They dropped those numbers, 400XP for Ranked/Arena/Duels and 300XP for BG iirc. But I believe that's not enough: you don't play one hour worth of games for one hour, there's waiting periods between games, there's deck making/tweaking, there's accessing menus, there's bucket selections in Duels and so on. So, i believe simply showing how much XP you gain each game should add extra clarity. And you're right, Casual should give similar numbers.
And regarding the last paragraph, yes, I meant 7 wins in any PvP mode, forgot PvE and Practice aganst Innkeeper existed lol.
Ok, good. A step in the right direction. The new system actually gives more than the old one right now, but it's by such a thin margin that the outrage was, in my opinion, justified. To me, however, its biggest issue is the lack of transparency, which was addressed to a certain degree;
Now, regarding the daily/weekly quests change:
Never had the Legendary cards quest, but that's something that's well implemented in the achievement portion of the system, the quest overall wasn't needed. Regarding the Arena quest, it's a welcome change: not only because not everyone plays arena, but because it required the arena run to actually end: I had a run midway when the quest popped up last week, I was 4-1, and only got the reward after the arena run ended (I ended at 4-3, the deck wasn't that good, I just highrolled like hell the first few games).
In my opinion, the difficulty of that quest wasn't the number of wins needed: it was the fact that those wins had to come through Ranked Mode. If the original quest was "Win 7 games IN ANY GAME MODE", that would actually go towards the promise that we can get ahead by playing HS "our way", rather than just "the main game mode way". If I just want to get to D5 and focus on other game modes for the rest of the month (like I usually do), I shouldn't need to play more ranked just to get the weekly quests. And as far as BG is concerned in that scenario, simply consider any game we end at top 4 as a win, like the old system did when counting towards 10g/3win.
Honestly, great change, especially the BG part. That can give the mode an extra breath of fresh air.
Good. I got the Corrupt cards weekly today and I was justifiably salty when my Corrupted Strongman didn't count towards the quest.
800XP quests always get re-rolled. 900XP quests will also always get re-rolled. But they won't feel as bad if we end up with another 900XP daily.
Now, the rest of the changes, especially the XP per level discount, were good steps towards the right direction. Putting an extra 50G on level 27 and 30 puts those level rewards on par with what we get around those levels (150G or equivalent). The leveling system after level 50 being changed is a good change, but I would argue that there should be no level cap rather than a level 350 cap, even if it's virtually impossible to get to the level cap right now, because on the off chance you do reach the level cap, you'll have zero incentive to keep playing. The 5 packs and 500G are a nice "we're sorry we didn't deliver our promises" gift.
Don't get me wrong: the changes announced are good. Really good. They really are a step towards the right direction regarding the game economy. But the system can still be improved and I believe the changes I proposed here (XP gained shown after each game and no level cap) can improved the system even more without even giving more resources. Always seeing our XP can give the feeling of "just one more game to level up" and no level cap rewards players who dedicate virtually all of their free time to the game (in case you're asking, I'm definitely NOT in that category).
I kind of expected that, but I was hopeful it was actually just a bug and not something as infuriatingly stupid as designing a keyword and forcing us to not utilize said keyword to its fullest potential.
Did you know Strongman is a Corrupt card? Because the weekly "Play 50 Corrupt cards" doesn't.
Battletag: ElSabidon#2943
Region: EU
Trade Only?: Yes, you go first, but I can show you my quest if needed
Done!
So, here's an idea for a new HS series (especially considering the debate around HS economy these days): "*Writter's name* F2P adventures" where said writter would start a new HS account from scratch (kind of what Trump used to do in the past) and see where he/she'll go in, for example, 2 months of content, with weekly recaps and resource management, tackling not only how expensive the game is but also where and in what order should a new player go to gather all free resources. If done correctly, it could be a very interesting series of articles.
Reminder: HSReplay shows top decks from bronze to gold for free. If you're higher on the ladder, the info in there might not be the most accurate, unless you pay a subscription.
Yeah, it happened as you said. Thanks
Ah yes, finishing 2 quests at the same time and only getting XP for 1. Good job, Blizzard.
Fair enough regarding the level 58 thing, although it's quite inconsistent that a player plays for 1 hour every day and only completes only 75% of dailies...
But damn, I wish I didn't lose the other post though, I used the 5hr/day example instead for some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that in the old system, a player would get around 15000g-16000g (something in the middle, I don't remember exactly), which compared to the new system (14400g + packs/legendary/tickets), the new system would give slightly more value, but that extra value was very minimal before speculating on event rewards and reaching the conclusion I put on the other post I posted here: we need clarity. I even used this:
as an example of adding clarity to the system without even giving more rewards.
PS: I'll probably remake the calculations and edit here later, I'm getting frustrated not remembering the exact number.
PPS: As someone who played his fair share of Pokémon, Angry Shuckie is an awesome name.
EDIT: Calculations made, with some rudimental winrate analysis included (fun fact: you needed an 80% winrate to get 100g from wins in 5 hours with my calculations)
So, I just lost an hour worth of a post here.... but tl;dr of that post: we need clarity. The improvements in rewarding players are negligible unless events fix that issue and we don't know what those events will give us. Therefore, sending most of the gold gains for the back end of the expansion cycle ends up feeling extra bad. Also, like @AngryShuckie said, show us the XP bar growing after each game. Again, for clarity.
I like watching Trump, but he kind of missed out on the calculations though. I didn't see the whole thing, but he was implying we'd get to level 50 on around day 90. However, according to Chadd Nervig's post here, that means we'd need 30 days to get the extra 8 levels Chadd Nervig calculated (he said a player with 1hour/day average playtime would reach around level 58).
This exemplifies one of the core issues that lead to the backlash from the new system: there is a huge lack of transparency in it.
We have no idea if there are plans to make events XP based instead of gold/packs based. We have no idea how many of those events will there be on an expansion cycle. The only idea that we have right now is this:
A couple of thing in my calculations: a 57% winrate is a very good winrate, but even in a 50% winrate scenario, that player would get around 14400g mark. So, a player with a 50% winrate would benefit fron the new system, as 2 tavern tickets, 1 legendary, 1 epic and around 3 extra packs is better than 200g, but I would argue that, if you compare it to a more likely scenario of a 57% winrate for a player with that time consumption (I myself have around 55% winrate with an average 1hr/day spent in the last 3 months according to HSReplay, and I'm far for being that above average as a player), those extra rewards become very negligible when compared to the old system (despite those rewards being arguably slightly better than 1400g). So, we're left with the impact that events will have on the expansion.
In the old system, all events combined would leave you with the equivalent of about 1200g-1500g (I'll use the lower number, even though I don't know what the real number would look like, I expect it to be in that range). In the new system,
The events throughout the expansion cycle should give you more than that XP in total to be rewarding.
Game under control, preventing opponent from evolve shenanigans and boom, Internet decides to disconnect itself from Hearthstone. Not the computer, I was never disconnected, just Hearthstone.
Whether you dislike facing aggro, facing control, facing Priest, Librams, "fun and interactive combos" or whatever highroll your opponent has, nothing will ever be as frustrating as random connection issues midgame when said game was in the bag.
Ok, so I just posted some ideas on another thread regarding the Tavern Pass, which I'l simply copy paste here under a spoiler:
Original post found here.
The tl;dr of it is simple: remove the level cap and increased XP per level to increase the playing=reward feeling, with a better rewarding structure, pack tickets instead of locked packs to give you more options while leveling, a buttload of XP events to actually allow us to have a life outside of HS and more clarity on the XP per game side (kind of like, when defeating a Pokémon, you see how much exprience your Pokémon gains by having a cute growing blue bar under their HP).
Also, the numbers @KANSAS used for dust ratios feel great as a balance between monetization/rewards.
Ok, so when the Battle Pass (BP) idea was announced in the first place, I was skeptical. When Ben Lee came and answered questions regarding the BP around 3 months ago, I was annoyed at the answers (a big understatement, but I don't want to swear). But as time wore on and as we got closer to today and as we got constantly reassured that the new system would be better than the existing one at the time, I actually started giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. And that benefit of the doubt came for two reasons: because, if the system would be crap, the backlash could be gigantic (which is kinda happening right now) and because of Raid Shadow Legends, of all things.
Because about a year ago, I actually tried RSL, that crap excuse of a "game". My experience: the thing played by itself, every single aspect of it revolved around RNG and there was nothing but shining particles and pretty effects that would sometimes give you that dopamine rush to disguise the fact that you every single thing implemented in RSL was designed to squeeze money out of you (and no, they didn't squeeze it out of me). Those aspects made me eventually uninstall RSL after playing it for around 4 months because the game was literally gambling except there was no chance in hell you'd get money back.
But the only thing in RSL that actually made me think about spending money was the BP system they implemented, because it was well designed for what the game was about. Everything given in that system was very generous for the reality of the game and there was actually no gambling associated with it. And I thought "if RSL, the most predatorial piece of shit (again, an understatement and I still don't want to swear but with RSL it's impossible not to) got the BP right, I can afford to give HS a chance to do this right". That was the other reason I gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt.
Now, after looking at what the BP in HS is about, the first thing that came to mind (after actually giving it a few days experimenting with it instead of throwing a random hothead rant on the internet) was: "What were the original numbers?" Because let's not forget. After the whole "I get around 5000G per expansion" debacle Ben Lee threw at us, Blizzard told us the numbers would be better. The current version is not the one that should be improved, the current version is be improved version. The original BP would be even worse!
The second thing that came to my head was: what would a better BP system be? Well, I believe we should take the example of the competition: in this case, of MtGA. They had a BP that was pretty ok back when I was playing the game and some of those characteristics could be implemented in the current HS game. So, here's what I believe HS's BP should have:
So, I didn't touch the gold numbers there. They should, of course, simply be higher, especially when compared to the old monetization system and if suggestions number 2 and 5 never become a reality. The BP system, by itself, is not a bad system. The current iteration definitely is. Especially when it seems the usual special quests and random legendary were probably slapped into the first levels as a "hey, look at all the cool stuff you already won with our new reward system" while pretending they don't already give us that through those special quests and logins on expansion day.
EDIT: I didn't touch the achievement system. Honestly, it's really good right now. I believe achievement points could be used in someway but even if they end up being just a number that shows up next to your name, they're still fine. Maybe a bit underwhelming in that scenario, but still fine.