I wish I knew - Valve hasn't specifically commented on it to my knowledge. Surely though, they must be going F2P and giving everyone who bought the game previously something as compensation (maybe even a refund). I can't see this game having a decent audience if it remains a buy-in that also requires grinding to get the cards.
Nothing puts me above everyone else! I love how the chat is slow enough you can actually converse with people. Never the case when Esports are going on or huge reveal days.
Yeah, this is going to be a very tough go for Valve. I just can't see how people are going to jump into the space when Runeterra exists. When it was just Hearthstone and MTG, there was room for improvement. Riot has hit the nail on the head and sealed everyone's coffins as far as I'm concerned.
Always will keep an open mind because if a better game comes along, the older titans can find new inspiration to improve, but yeah... very tough.
This was one of the coolest pieces of content Blizzard has ever done. I'm hoping they will continue to build on this and open up some more development processes, letting the community watch.
Yeah, this needs to happen. We've got a few different types of pagination on the site which is a pretty shitty experience since it isn't consistent between pages. I'll make sure the forums get fixed next.
I think Hearthstone has done a very good job with the recent launch of the Year of the Phoenix and being more generous with its monetization. Now, it is far from perfect but it is so much easier to get into the game as far as commons and rares go, which is an EXCELLENT change. I'm still disappointed that we don't see additional ways to get packs from the current expansion though. Yes, classic card packs are great for new players, but old players get no value out of them at all. Tavern Brawl is such a disappointment for its rewards structure; It could be so much better.
If we received Wildcards like the ones we see in Runeterra and MTG Arena, it would go a long way in making that weekly pack feel less terrible and allow new players to choose what they want to create. An adjustment to disenchant costs of cards or the crafting costs would also help in this area quite a bit. I'm not saying that every player should have every single card with minimal effort because that would be silly, but the effort it takes to obtain even just a few good legendaries as a F2P player, which are definitely required for playing decks that aren't just aggro, becomes problematic.
I'd love to see the numbers on how people may make more purchases with the game when they actually can create a cool deck. Some players may stick to a single deck, but plenty do want to experiment and adapt to the meta. Also, Blizzard really is missing out on cosmetic revenue. The little board minions in MTG and LOR are fantastic and I remember talking about how cool this concept would be back when Hearthstone wasn't even in beta (that and alternate art).
Riot is seriously kicking ass with their monetization and honestly should be the way forward for a lot of games that need huge numbers of players to be successful. It is a bit different with card games in that you can still "sell progression" through cards/packs, selling guns in an FPS would be absurd, but low barrier of entry, solid progression systems, and plenty of cosmetics to deck yourself out in is fantastic.
The article was written to highlight the fact that the card game genre has problems that Riot is solving. The largest person in the space right now is Hearthstone and they have dropped the ball which is why they were used as the comparison. They also happen to have a mobile game when Magic and other titles do not which makes the 1:1 comparison easier, as does myself following Hearthstone since the game was announced at PAX East.
Now that's not to say things have been total garbage with Hearthstone -they have gotten a LOT better over the past year and the start of this year is the most exciting moment for the game since they fixed a lot of problems. The biggest issue though is they stagnated hard with the game for so many years, possibly because they needed to get rid of the old team, but maybe just because papa Blizzard wasn't letting them touch the goldmine for fear it would harm revenue until it ran out. I've spent a lot of time giving my personal opinions on Hearthstone and lately it has been a lot more positive than in the past. This just happens to be one of those times where Hearthstone has really, really screwed up.
I'd like to address several parts of your well-put-together post. Before I do though, I just wanted to say I appreciate your clear passion for the game and your willingness to talk about it.
I don't believe I've undercut myself when I stated that Blizzard is doing a poor job with patching. Yes, the last round of nerfs did happen server-side and that was cool. They have not addressed publicly though if this was something they were actually going to do going forward with reactive balance patching which is why I wouldn't consider it a standard just yet. Also, it isn't exactly a perfect process since this only applies to cards seen in-game and those in the collection manager itself lack the technology to show the updates which can create confusion. A large chunk of players are very casual and aren't checking the latest updates on sites. Imagine going into game, creating a deck with some cards you just opened up and then finding out that they are worse than they had appeared. That's a bad experience. Now, they did end up releasing an actual game data patch that rectified that within 24 hours, but mobile users still got that patch late which is the entire preface of the article - mobile users are treated worse than those on Battle.net's app.
Yes, I agree that the Shudderwock change was quite minor in comparison to even other changes made in Hearthstone, but it still feels like a bad excuse from Blizzard to not give him full refund status. It doesn't cost them anything to do so, and the majority of people playing with him weren't likely to disenchant it anyway since the card remained amazing. I can see this type of thing doing more harm than good when they choose to not refund it. You aren't going to make anyone angry by offering refunds, but you will make someone angry by not. Blizzard has had the (paraphrased) viewpoint of "your cards should feel physical, we don't want to make changes to them because that would hurt that experience" which is the whole reason why the offer refunds on changes. The hardcore version of this philosophy greatly hurt the game when they refused to balance anything. Thankfully, we are past that now and although I believe they still want stuff to feel physical and like we own the cards since they are willing to give us refunds, but it just feels weird otherwise. Riot has never gone on the record saying they want their game to feel physical, they're quite the opposite and have said they want to use the benefits of going digital to their advantage by being able to play with the game as they desire. It also doesn't really help things though when they have just come out of Beta which is the time where huge changes are most likely to occur. It will be interesting to see how many major changeups to cards we'll see in the future.
Now, botting and the gold cap. I can't agree that the reason is to prevent botting and if that really is the reason behind it, its a really shitty one. Yes, when you really look at it, not a whole lot of players even come close to reaching the limit each day, but why penalize the people that do love to actually grind the game every day? Or what if I'm one of those players that one or two days a week play all day and hit that cap regularly. If they're afraid of bots, then they should work on banning them. That would improve the player experience twice since we're actively getting rid of scum and the gold cap could be removed and not worried about. As you mentioned about Riot being a business with the goal of making money, yeah, and so is Blizzard which is the more likely reason why the gold cap exists. Let people grind to a cap, obtaining at most a set number of packs per week, and then have people pay for the rest when it ends up being a crazy grind. Riot monetized cosmetics with Runeterra and honestly, Blizzard should have gone more hardcore with that with Hearthstone.
Riot has been very open and honest about their monetization plans with the game, and they're actively discussing stuff with community members throughout the entire Beta and launch experience. Riot is multiple times more transparent than Blizzard is. I can't really say the same about Hearthstone when they are more likely to be active only when they're promoting a new expansion. Admittedly, Blizzard has gotten a bit better with this recently, but I'm interested to see if it continues being the case. Riot on the other hand, when looking at the amount of communication they do with League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, it is incredible to see what happens when developers are allowed to talk. Huge props to Dean Ayala though for being the leading force in engaging with the Hearthstone community as of late.
No company is perfect, especially with the bro culture that Riot has been in the press for over the past couple of years, but that transparency and that desire to create something that everyone can enjoy from the free to play side of things and only charging for cosmetics is what made them a titan in the MOBA genre. I don't have an issue calling Blizzard out on the bullshit when I see it just as I don't have a problem giving them props when they deserve it even at the risk of sounding like a "fanboy".
I'm sorry you weren't a fan of the article and for a lot of it, yeah, we're going to need to wait and see how Riot handles everything once the card pool expands. For now though, the game is more accessible than Hearthstone was when it first started. That would actually be a very interesting piece of content to work on, comparing all the card games and looking at their first era of digital. Magic certainly has been an interesting case on that side of things.
I am in love with the addition of Arcade themed stuff!
Thanks for the report!
I want all the showcases, damn.
I wish I knew - Valve hasn't specifically commented on it to my knowledge. Surely though, they must be going F2P and giving everyone who bought the game previously something as compensation (maybe even a refund). I can't see this game having a decent audience if it remains a buy-in that also requires grinding to get the cards.
That's awesome! Congrats!
Nothing puts me above everyone else! I love how the chat is slow enough you can actually converse with people. Never the case when Esports are going on or huge reveal days.
The dog barking got a great chat reaction though!
Updated with images from today
This thread can only lead to negative results so its being locked.
YUP!
This will definitely make me hit my pity timer... I just don't know if I want to open them yet. They're so pretty :D
Yeah, this is going to be a very tough go for Valve. I just can't see how people are going to jump into the space when Runeterra exists. When it was just Hearthstone and MTG, there was room for improvement. Riot has hit the nail on the head and sealed everyone's coffins as far as I'm concerned.
Always will keep an open mind because if a better game comes along, the older titans can find new inspiration to improve, but yeah... very tough.
This was just one of the ideas thrown around for the September card back. We don't know if the other ones will ever happen.
This was one of the coolest pieces of content Blizzard has ever done. I'm hoping they will continue to build on this and open up some more development processes, letting the community watch.
Can't wait for the next two streams!
Heya,
Yeah, this needs to happen. We've got a few different types of pagination on the site which is a pretty shitty experience since it isn't consistent between pages. I'll make sure the forums get fixed next.
Yeah, a lot of the HS people always hop into the new games early on for the viewership spike - its a wonderful idea!
I would love to see a lot more activity on the Runeterra stream side of things, though, the game is still pretty small compared to HS and event MTGA.
We're getting a linear-style adventure, no dungeon run \o/
Going to a Fireside Gathering is a huge pain in the ass though!
Sorry, that's what one-time quests are in the client and have been since Hearthstone began.
I think Hearthstone has done a very good job with the recent launch of the Year of the Phoenix and being more generous with its monetization. Now, it is far from perfect but it is so much easier to get into the game as far as commons and rares go, which is an EXCELLENT change. I'm still disappointed that we don't see additional ways to get packs from the current expansion though. Yes, classic card packs are great for new players, but old players get no value out of them at all. Tavern Brawl is such a disappointment for its rewards structure; It could be so much better.
If we received Wildcards like the ones we see in Runeterra and MTG Arena, it would go a long way in making that weekly pack feel less terrible and allow new players to choose what they want to create. An adjustment to disenchant costs of cards or the crafting costs would also help in this area quite a bit. I'm not saying that every player should have every single card with minimal effort because that would be silly, but the effort it takes to obtain even just a few good legendaries as a F2P player, which are definitely required for playing decks that aren't just aggro, becomes problematic.
I'd love to see the numbers on how people may make more purchases with the game when they actually can create a cool deck. Some players may stick to a single deck, but plenty do want to experiment and adapt to the meta. Also, Blizzard really is missing out on cosmetic revenue. The little board minions in MTG and LOR are fantastic and I remember talking about how cool this concept would be back when Hearthstone wasn't even in beta (that and alternate art).
Riot is seriously kicking ass with their monetization and honestly should be the way forward for a lot of games that need huge numbers of players to be successful. It is a bit different with card games in that you can still "sell progression" through cards/packs, selling guns in an FPS would be absurd, but low barrier of entry, solid progression systems, and plenty of cosmetics to deck yourself out in is fantastic.
The article was written to highlight the fact that the card game genre has problems that Riot is solving. The largest person in the space right now is Hearthstone and they have dropped the ball which is why they were used as the comparison. They also happen to have a mobile game when Magic and other titles do not which makes the 1:1 comparison easier, as does myself following Hearthstone since the game was announced at PAX East.
Now that's not to say things have been total garbage with Hearthstone -they have gotten a LOT better over the past year and the start of this year is the most exciting moment for the game since they fixed a lot of problems. The biggest issue though is they stagnated hard with the game for so many years, possibly because they needed to get rid of the old team, but maybe just because papa Blizzard wasn't letting them touch the goldmine for fear it would harm revenue until it ran out. I've spent a lot of time giving my personal opinions on Hearthstone and lately it has been a lot more positive than in the past. This just happens to be one of those times where Hearthstone has really, really screwed up.
I'd like to address several parts of your well-put-together post. Before I do though, I just wanted to say I appreciate your clear passion for the game and your willingness to talk about it.
I don't believe I've undercut myself when I stated that Blizzard is doing a poor job with patching. Yes, the last round of nerfs did happen server-side and that was cool. They have not addressed publicly though if this was something they were actually going to do going forward with reactive balance patching which is why I wouldn't consider it a standard just yet. Also, it isn't exactly a perfect process since this only applies to cards seen in-game and those in the collection manager itself lack the technology to show the updates which can create confusion. A large chunk of players are very casual and aren't checking the latest updates on sites. Imagine going into game, creating a deck with some cards you just opened up and then finding out that they are worse than they had appeared. That's a bad experience. Now, they did end up releasing an actual game data patch that rectified that within 24 hours, but mobile users still got that patch late which is the entire preface of the article - mobile users are treated worse than those on Battle.net's app.
Yes, I agree that the Shudderwock change was quite minor in comparison to even other changes made in Hearthstone, but it still feels like a bad excuse from Blizzard to not give him full refund status. It doesn't cost them anything to do so, and the majority of people playing with him weren't likely to disenchant it anyway since the card remained amazing. I can see this type of thing doing more harm than good when they choose to not refund it. You aren't going to make anyone angry by offering refunds, but you will make someone angry by not. Blizzard has had the (paraphrased) viewpoint of "your cards should feel physical, we don't want to make changes to them because that would hurt that experience" which is the whole reason why the offer refunds on changes. The hardcore version of this philosophy greatly hurt the game when they refused to balance anything. Thankfully, we are past that now and although I believe they still want stuff to feel physical and like we own the cards since they are willing to give us refunds, but it just feels weird otherwise. Riot has never gone on the record saying they want their game to feel physical, they're quite the opposite and have said they want to use the benefits of going digital to their advantage by being able to play with the game as they desire. It also doesn't really help things though when they have just come out of Beta which is the time where huge changes are most likely to occur. It will be interesting to see how many major changeups to cards we'll see in the future.
Now, botting and the gold cap. I can't agree that the reason is to prevent botting and if that really is the reason behind it, its a really shitty one. Yes, when you really look at it, not a whole lot of players even come close to reaching the limit each day, but why penalize the people that do love to actually grind the game every day? Or what if I'm one of those players that one or two days a week play all day and hit that cap regularly. If they're afraid of bots, then they should work on banning them. That would improve the player experience twice since we're actively getting rid of scum and the gold cap could be removed and not worried about. As you mentioned about Riot being a business with the goal of making money, yeah, and so is Blizzard which is the more likely reason why the gold cap exists. Let people grind to a cap, obtaining at most a set number of packs per week, and then have people pay for the rest when it ends up being a crazy grind. Riot monetized cosmetics with Runeterra and honestly, Blizzard should have gone more hardcore with that with Hearthstone.
Riot has been very open and honest about their monetization plans with the game, and they're actively discussing stuff with community members throughout the entire Beta and launch experience. Riot is multiple times more transparent than Blizzard is. I can't really say the same about Hearthstone when they are more likely to be active only when they're promoting a new expansion. Admittedly, Blizzard has gotten a bit better with this recently, but I'm interested to see if it continues being the case. Riot on the other hand, when looking at the amount of communication they do with League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, it is incredible to see what happens when developers are allowed to talk. Huge props to Dean Ayala though for being the leading force in engaging with the Hearthstone community as of late.
No company is perfect, especially with the bro culture that Riot has been in the press for over the past couple of years, but that transparency and that desire to create something that everyone can enjoy from the free to play side of things and only charging for cosmetics is what made them a titan in the MOBA genre. I don't have an issue calling Blizzard out on the bullshit when I see it just as I don't have a problem giving them props when they deserve it even at the risk of sounding like a "fanboy".
I'm sorry you weren't a fan of the article and for a lot of it, yeah, we're going to need to wait and see how Riot handles everything once the card pool expands. For now though, the game is more accessible than Hearthstone was when it first started. That would actually be a very interesting piece of content to work on, comparing all the card games and looking at their first era of digital. Magic certainly has been an interesting case on that side of things.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. That would require making the scrollbar longer. That might be a tad too confusing for even the old players.