The catch-up mechanism is that the rewards are very front-loaded, so if you join late in the expansion, you will get a lot more out of the track in the last few weeks of the expansion than someone who's already reached level 50.
Honestly, all this drama is so uncalled-for. It reminds me of the people who insist that matchmaking is rigged or that the pity timer deliberately screws free players. As I always say to those people: What does Blizzard have to gain from a lie that is so easily debunked? They know they will be raked over the coals by every media outlet if someone proves they deliberately misled players. Doesn't it make more sense to assume that the calculations of the people with LESS information than Blizzard might be significantly skewed -- indeed, that it would be impossible for anyone outside of Blizzard to accurately predict the end-of-season reward totals?
We all know that there are plenty of gold-accountants among our ranks, and Team 5 knows it too. It is safe to assume that those individuals will sound all kinds of alarms next March or April if the numbers aren't lining up. So why not give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt until then? If and when the bean-counters can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the rewards are worse -- THAT is when we should sharpen our pitchforks. What's happening now is ridiculous.
Innocent until proven guilty is still a thing, and we do not have nearly enough information to prove Blizzard guilty (or even that anything is actually wrong). The one thing they ARE guilty of is poor communication, but come on, that's always been the case.
Rogue-like games are always about starting off weak and trying (and sometimes failing) to become as broken as possible as you go along. Sometimes you are given the nuts, other times you have to muddle through with treasures which aren't best suited to your deck.
Except this isn't a rogue-like. Rogue-like games are single-player, and it's not a big deal if you die and have to try again.
Duels is a competitive game, and it can cost gold or cash to enter. Also, when you die (3 times), you're out. People are less likely to enter if the game is inherently unfair.
I especially disagree with the idea of Rare and Ultra Rare pools with extravagantly overpowered cards. Sure it's fun to play with a deck that can't lose, but it's not at all fun to be on the other side of that. I'd love to know how much those Ultra-Rare cards kick up the win rate; I'm sure it's a large, unhealthy number. At least if all treasures were the same rarity, it would be more about skill (picking the right card) instead of luck (being offered the right card).
OK, fine. Here are some statements with which I categorically disagree:
"The suggestion of making the kick not work with overwhelm is a non-starter -- he’s so dependent on the overwhelm damage to be effective." -- Lee Sin was fine before it became so easy to add Overwhelm, so this is blatantly false.
"Lee needs to be able to end games." -- No, a 5-mana Champion does not need to be ending games.
"[Vladimir's] new effect is to the right (as opposed to the left) because that’s what players are used to" -- TERRIBLE reason
"Shyvana effective heals herself when she attacks, so more health might "make her unkillable". -- Not even close to being the hardest to kill.
"There is also a desire for Demacia to have "square" stats (i.e., X|X instead of X|Y)." -- Yeah, that really enhances the game.
"Giving Taric +1 HP would be problematic since he often has Tough, so he might also become effectively unkillable." -- see above
"I think Lulu is objectively one of the stronger champions, she just doesn't fit in a lot of decks". -- actually self-contradictory
"Lulu, Taric, and Vlad all need to participate in an attack to get additional value, which makes them difficult to balance." -- This is actually true for a lot of other Champions who are extremely powerful, so let's not pretend it can't be done.
“I think Darius is better than people think” -- He's been in some of the most popular Noxus decks since beta, so no, people know exactly how good he is.
"Teemo + mushroom decks are not competitive, but you can still play them." -- Same is true of any completely random deck. Why are you even talking right now?
"1 drop champions are hard to balance." -- My job isn't super easy, either, but I do it.
"Giving (Minah Swiftfoot) more agency and flexibility in how she's used. The Quick Attack allows her to “eat” big units on attack." -- She already "eats" three units when she's played, often ending games. Isn't that enough for a follower?
"The problem with the Zephyr Sage infinite combo deck wasn't it's power, it was that the client's turn timer doesn't handle it well." -- No, the problem is that it was infinite, which is pretty much always a huge design flaw.
"Thinks Flock is 'exactly what the doctor ordered' for Swain decks" -- No, Flock is exactly what makes Swain decks (and other burn decks) problematic.
I think that's enough for now. I didn't make it all the way through, but suffice it to say that most of this article rubbed me the wrong way.
Complaining isn't going to change anything. Nothing will get through to Blizzard unless people actually quit playing, but there are so few players willing to do that.
As long as the majority of players are married to the idea of randomized packs, the game will never get any less expensive. Not in a significant way.
Here is the system that makes the most sense to me:
Drop the free-to-play pretense. Everyone knows it's next to impossible to enjoy the game for free unless you sink most of your waking hours into it.
Make it a subscription game, but with several tiers of service so that you can enjoy it according to the amount you are comfortable spending.
Basic Tier: Access to all cards of one single class, plus all neutral cards, for just a few dollars ($3 to $5 per month, maybe).
Multi-basic: You can pick up access to additional classes on an "a la carte" basis, but they are cheaper because you've already paid for neutrals.
Silver Tier: Access to all the cards in the game on a monthly basis. Maybe $20 a month or so.
Gold Tier: Access to all the cards in the game for the duration of the expansion (4 months) for the price of a normal AAA game ($60).
Platinum Tier: As Gold Tier, plus automatically receive all non-competitive cosmetic items that are released during the expansion. (Price depends on the number and value of cosmetic items included, but should be cheaper than Gold Tier plus those items purchased separately.)
Cosmetic items are divided in to competitive (earned through wins, achievements, or other game play requirements) and non-competitive (generally purchased with gold or cash).
Honestly, the claim that the game is "free" has created far more drama than it's worth. Just drop it already.
In many cases, the reasoning given here for changing/not changing various cards only confirms what I've suspected for a long time now -- the live team's idea of fun and my idea of fun share very little common ground.
Right, because they conduct business in a way that encourages people to spend money. There is nothing wrong with that.
If you don't want to spend the money, don't. If there's not enough demand for the product at the price they set, they will lower the price. It's the most basic rule of economics. They are under no moral, ethical, legal or fiduciary obligation to give their product away for free.
The price hasn't gone up, though. If anything, it dropped dramatically when they propagated the no-duplicates rule to all rarities. At least, I know I personally don't have to spend nearly as much to keep up my collection.
And no, the game would not be in danger of dying if all the f2p players disappeared. That's a weird fantasy propagated by f2p players with absolutely no evidence to back it up.
You receive three times as much gold per level near the end of the track, so it shouldn't actually feel all that bad.
What you get for each level is actually irrelevant. What matters is how much gold you end up with by the next expansion. It would be super-crazy for a Blizzard developer to lie about any of this, so I think it makes sense to trust that you'll end up with at least as much gold as you used to, given the same play habits.
It's a really complex system, with a wide variety of XP sources, and a ton of different rewards, so the math can get rather involved. Leaving parts out or estimating things can lead you significantly off.
1. I would rather not estimate the xp I get out of my quest but your system leave me with little choice since there's an effing tier system that makes no sense. Why the hell would I not reroll an 800xp quest for a better one? Again, I don't understand why they'd even go with this bs tier system in the first place. Not only will I reroll every 800xp quest, if I get another 800xp from my reroll, I wouldn't want to play more hearthstone that day so I can reroll it tomorrow. In effect I'm softlocked from the game, because ironically making it easy to accomplish also makes it impossible to avoid finishing.
Believe it or not, some players prefer easier quests that can be completed more quickly. You may think that's the stupidest thing in the world, but that is why you are allowed to reroll them.
People have calculated the real values. That is exactly how Chadd arrived at the numbers he gave us in this article. That is how he knows you should have no trouble making as much gold as you did before.
If you can't play very much, then you weren't making a lot of gold before. There's no reason to complain about the new system.
You also probably won't get your money's worth out of the pass. You should not have bought it until you had a better idea of how far you might get. The Tavern Pass rewards are retroactive, so even if you buy it on the last day of the expansion, you still get everything you would have earned up to that point.
There is no cap at the moment. When they do add a cap, it will be universal, not per mode, and it will be so high that you cannot reach it "through natural play," i.e, if you are not a bot.
The catch-up mechanism is that the rewards are very front-loaded, so if you join late in the expansion, you will get a lot more out of the track in the last few weeks of the expansion than someone who's already reached level 50.
Honestly, all this drama is so uncalled-for. It reminds me of the people who insist that matchmaking is rigged or that the pity timer deliberately screws free players. As I always say to those people: What does Blizzard have to gain from a lie that is so easily debunked? They know they will be raked over the coals by every media outlet if someone proves they deliberately misled players. Doesn't it make more sense to assume that the calculations of the people with LESS information than Blizzard might be significantly skewed -- indeed, that it would be impossible for anyone outside of Blizzard to accurately predict the end-of-season reward totals?
We all know that there are plenty of gold-accountants among our ranks, and Team 5 knows it too. It is safe to assume that those individuals will sound all kinds of alarms next March or April if the numbers aren't lining up. So why not give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt until then? If and when the bean-counters can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the rewards are worse -- THAT is when we should sharpen our pitchforks. What's happening now is ridiculous.
Innocent until proven guilty is still a thing, and we do not have nearly enough information to prove Blizzard guilty (or even that anything is actually wrong). The one thing they ARE guilty of is poor communication, but come on, that's always been the case.
The number to the right of the XP bar is the level you are going to be, not the level you are.
It's not the smartest way to do the interface.
Except this isn't a rogue-like. Rogue-like games are single-player, and it's not a big deal if you die and have to try again.
Duels is a competitive game, and it can cost gold or cash to enter. Also, when you die (3 times), you're out. People are less likely to enter if the game is inherently unfair.
I especially disagree with the idea of Rare and Ultra Rare pools with extravagantly overpowered cards. Sure it's fun to play with a deck that can't lose, but it's not at all fun to be on the other side of that. I'd love to know how much those Ultra-Rare cards kick up the win rate; I'm sure it's a large, unhealthy number. At least if all treasures were the same rarity, it would be more about skill (picking the right card) instead of luck (being offered the right card).
OK, fine. Here are some statements with which I categorically disagree:
I think that's enough for now. I didn't make it all the way through, but suffice it to say that most of this article rubbed me the wrong way.
Complaining isn't going to change anything. Nothing will get through to Blizzard unless people actually quit playing, but there are so few players willing to do that.
As long as the majority of players are married to the idea of randomized packs, the game will never get any less expensive. Not in a significant way.
Here is the system that makes the most sense to me:
Honestly, the claim that the game is "free" has created far more drama than it's worth. Just drop it already.
In many cases, the reasoning given here for changing/not changing various cards only confirms what I've suspected for a long time now -- the live team's idea of fun and my idea of fun share very little common ground.
Any reason you stopped saying what the achievement requirements were after the first one?
Not true, because they propagated the no-duplicates rule to commons and rare. Furthermore, you don't need every card to be able to play.
However, I do tend to collect (nearly) every card, and I know for a fact I am personally spending less now for each expansion than I used to.
Right, because they conduct business in a way that encourages people to spend money. There is nothing wrong with that.
If you don't want to spend the money, don't. If there's not enough demand for the product at the price they set, they will lower the price. It's the most basic rule of economics. They are under no moral, ethical, legal or fiduciary obligation to give their product away for free.
The price hasn't gone up, though. If anything, it dropped dramatically when they propagated the no-duplicates rule to all rarities. At least, I know I personally don't have to spend nearly as much to keep up my collection.
And no, the game would not be in danger of dying if all the f2p players disappeared. That's a weird fantasy propagated by f2p players with absolutely no evidence to back it up.
That's why you are allowed to reroll Weekly quests. I intend to reroll every Arena quest I see, and probably most of the Battlegrounds ones.
I certainly don't mind that those quests exist for the players who enjoy them.
EDIT: I got a BG quest this week, and it's actually so easy that I'll probably just complete it instead of rerolling.
You receive three times as much gold per level near the end of the track, so it shouldn't actually feel all that bad.
What you get for each level is actually irrelevant. What matters is how much gold you end up with by the next expansion. It would be super-crazy for a Blizzard developer to lie about any of this, so I think it makes sense to trust that you'll end up with at least as much gold as you used to, given the same play habits.
Believe it or not, some players prefer easier quests that can be completed more quickly. You may think that's the stupidest thing in the world, but that is why you are allowed to reroll them.
People have calculated the real values. That is exactly how Chadd arrived at the numbers he gave us in this article. That is how he knows you should have no trouble making as much gold as you did before.
If you can't play very much, then you weren't making a lot of gold before. There's no reason to complain about the new system.
You also probably won't get your money's worth out of the pass. You should not have bought it until you had a better idea of how far you might get. The Tavern Pass rewards are retroactive, so even if you buy it on the last day of the expansion, you still get everything you would have earned up to that point.
So you're actually surprised that Blizzard doesn't want you to be f2p forever?
It's not nasty -- it's how they keep the lights on.
Absolutely, if you don't think it's worth your time to play the game, you should not play the game.
But you get dust from packs and cards, which means you do not need to spend as much gold.
There is no cap at the moment. When they do add a cap, it will be universal, not per mode, and it will be so high that you cannot reach it "through natural play," i.e, if you are not a bot.