And once again for the Mage class! Mage has been the ultimate random class for quite a while already. Why keep adding more randomness to it? Seems like a decent card though.
By the way, Flurry did not have to win the World Championships to get a card with his name on it, pogchamp! (I doubt it was done on purpose, except for the designated reveal opportunity of course)
No, I have 1 less incentive to play HS (temporarily). A pretty significant 1 indeed, but there are still other goals (like getting all of the 1000 wins hero portraits) left in the game for me to achieve/collect. Also, I rather enjoy the casual play since completing the rewards track, no pressure at all.
I piloted a Burn Tempo Mage deck to Diamond-5 and finished the short climb to legend with the Highlander Mage deck above. Having the 11-star bonus this season was great. Only lost a few games to very aggressive decks (with optimal curves) like: Weapon Rogue, Zoo Warlock and Token Druid.
There was no botting involved whatsoever. I dare not risk a potential ban by Blizzard. As for the amount of time required should be about 4+ hours daily I reckon, although I did not keep precise track of that. Also, I would not recommend it because I felt it took away quite some fun of playing Hearthstone. Thus, I will not repeat it myself for the next rewards track.
Since you inquired, I reached the pinnacle of the rewards track 5 days ago (level 350) with the purchased Tavern pass. This is about 3 weeks before the next rewards track starts and the overall feeling I have is that it is both liberating and also feels bad.
The grind towards reaching the upper limit has ended and the downside is that no more XP is rewarded at all; so any time spent in HS now is purely for fun without additional reward whatsoever. Seeing the 0 XP gained notification after each game played is amusing to me. It is up to you to decide if the pure fun of playing HS is satisfying enough without the additional splash of XP accumulation (extra fun). I do not know for sure for myself… I just know the long grind is over and I am not going to grind it out another time, unless there will be much more additional cosmetic rewards added to the track (not just gold).
Next to having fun, my main personal goal in HS is to obtain all the hero portraits and all the cardbacks that do not have a funky requirement. As for the hero portraits I still have some road ahead of me. I only have 3 classes above 1000 wins, the rest is very close though (850+ wins) except for Demon Hunter (100+ wins). As for the cardbacks, I miss a few handfuls, because I did not start playing HS since Beta (I only started playing regularly since Blackrock Mountain).
It would be nice if the rewards track would offer the old cardbacks which I still miss. I know people will be upset about it because they might think owning those means they are somehow more privileged or lose value otherwise. Being a collector myself, I think it is just strictly better to have more ways to achieve a full collection of cosmetics. Not everyone started playing HS since day 1 or went to each and every Blizzcon event (nor does anyone own a time machine). By the way, I do not really mind never getting those special event cardbacks, just the seasonal ones that required me to win a few ranked games. I am glad these are already reappearing in the shop once in awhile.
PS.: Unsure if this will be helpful advice or not; I finished a Duels run with 12 wins after I already cleared the rewards track and there is some XP to be collected still. I assume it will carry over to the next rewards track so I am not going to collect that XP right now.
EDIT: I expect to get quite a few downvotes for my cardbacks comment, so feel free to not disappoint me 😋
I have an enormous mountain of convertible arcane dust lying around which can be used to complete my entire Standard + Wild collections and afterwards I would still have plenty of arcane dust to spare. However, my brain is currently wired to not spend it freely.
I only craft the best missing must have legendaries of the new set after having already opened my average of 300 packs per expansion. As for missing cards from my Wild collection, I might still get them by opening packs from Wild promotion bundles.
Another FOMO thing, because by dusting duplicates which might get nerfed in the future means I would potentially miss out on the maximum dust refund of those nerfed cards. This of course also applies to my golden cards which I only dust for full refunds.
As for keeping a spreadsheet for Hearthstone… it's initial purpose was to keep track of all my class levels and amount of wins because there was no nice in-game accessible report for this in the past. Gradually, I kept track of my dust, how many packs I opened and which quests were offered to me. For instance, I wanted to know how often the challenge a friend quest was offered to me per rotation. More and more stuff got added to this spreadsheet over the past few years. I really enjoy having statistics to look at, so that part should not be very detrimental to my state of mind (I think).
I know exactly what the problem is (me), but I'm not willing to really acknowledge it nor take proper healthy actions. It's crazy and I know (sadly). One of the solutions is to simply stop playing HS which would be a similar measure I have taken in the past for other games. For now, I have trapped myself inside a self-fullfilling prophesized feedback loop. I can only hope that the rotation brings plenty of improvements.
Since the introduction of the reward track and there being a limit to it (level 350) I somehow succeeded to trick myself into thinking I have to finish it. In the past, I could not care less of earning the maximum amount of 100 gold by winning 30 matches per day.
The biggest drawback of the reward track is that MUCH more time is required to reach the same amount of gold. I'm not even exaggerating if I would say that that time expenditure is at least doubled or perhaps more.
As for potentially skipping on the pre-orders, you are right about catching up would be more difficult later on. I think the Fear Of Missing Out feeling has become a real issue for me.
If I would skip the latest druid hero portrait, it would be the very first limited available one I would not own. That's a seemingly more difficult decision to make. I actually don't think the art is particularly beautiful, but it's FOMO all over again.
IMO, my stash of gold is not super high nor low. I will end up with 16585 gold tomorrow without the possibility to earn more gold before the new reward track starts with the next expansion. In the past, I would spend all the gold on expansion launch day and start accumulating gold from scratch once more. Rinse and repeat with every single expansion.
According to my spreadsheet with data collected from the past 6 years of me playing Hearthstone, I usually open 110 packs with gold on average. With the mini-set being a regular thing now, I have to set aside another 2000 gold because I see no incentive to spend real money on that. Thus, along with the pre-orders and freebies I open about 300 packs each expansion in total and that still is not enough to get me a complete set even with the legendary and epic duplicates protection.
With the information above, I should be able to accurately calculate which reward track level I have to reach everytime to not go down gold wise. I'm too tired right now to do the exact math though. Maybe next time.
Playing Hearthstone almost feels like a chore these days which is not a good feeling at all and I only have myself to blame for it. I just hope the FOMO feeling has not already silently turned into a Sunken Cost Fallacy for me.
On-topic again; I reached level 348… so close, but no cigar yet!
I'm currently at level 346 right now and with minimal effort should reach the end of the reward track within 2 days. I will write a small post when this milestone has been achieved. If my F2P accounts get the 1800 XP challenge friend quest it will be even sooner.
Going off-topic again, I'm still wondering if I should keep investing in this game. Never ever has it taken this long for me to buy the preorder bundles, happens usually within 24 hours of becoming available. There is plenty of time to buy them though. By the way, it is not even the monetary value that is bothering me. I have a decently paid job and the money I spent on HS is not relevant at all.
As for cosmetics, I am an avid collector and I decided in the past I should "own" all the hero portraits. Since they are part of the tavern pass I will still purchase it for the upcoming expansion. The recent trend of increasing amount of collectible hero portraits does make me wonder if I will be able to keep up and if their monetary value is still worth it to me.
Iksar mentioned there will be some reward track improvements incoming, so I also wonder what those will be exactly. We will see those in a few weeks time.
By the way, this unhealthy collector addiction of mine is also applicable to other things like the Out of Cards currencies. For instance, I really felt the urge of collecting the daily limit of snowflakes during the snowpocalypse event and whenever there were snowstorms that feeling was further emphasized. Also, whenever there is a huge influx of new things to collect I always wonder if that is the moment to stop finally or continue with collecting that stuff.
I read in the official Blizzard Hearthstone forum that some people already reached it and there is nothing afterwards. Apparently, no more incentive whatsoever to continue playing since no more XP is rewarded.
I'm currently at level 328 and will reach the end in about 7 more days. Not really looking forward to it anymore nor will I try to repeat the same feat after the rotation hits unless there will be extra rewards involved (which I doubt).
Now for something more subtle and only noticable by yourself... What about playing a topdecked card (which flips the board state in your favor) instead of playing the exact same copy of that topdecked card which you already had several turns earlier in your hand. Would this also be considered as BM or does it just proof that you are being an ass**le? 😅
There is actually a good reason to do that: it makes your opponent more likely to think you didn't already have the card in your hand, and are therefore unlikely to play around the second copy in the following turn(s). However, if you play the version that's been sat in your hand for a while, the opponent knows you were holding onto it, so the second copy could easily be one of the other cards you've been holding onto. I'm sure game theory could weigh in here, but it's an area of maths that I never studied formally so I'll leave it to someone else to say exactly how (if at all).
That doesn't stop it being BM if the decision to play the top-decked card was based (partly) on annoying the opponent. The key part here is the intent, rather than the action itself. In other words I consider any action intended to tilt, anger, or otherwise annoy the opponent to be BM, but the same action made without any such intent is fine. Naturally it can be pretty difficult to tell them apart, but at least BM-ers are often kind enough to keep BM-ing to help make it obvious.
I totally agree with your assessment, intent is the key here. Often times though, it is hard to keep good and bad intent apart, because a game winning play should at least feel good to 1 of the 2 players and the reverse could be true for the other player. But did the feel good experience come purely from winning the game or also from how extremely well you managed to destroy your opponent? (by making the most optimal plays)
Furthermore, I think in a digital card game, intent is sometimes hard to get across the screen. You might have the best intent in the world, but if the opponent does not interpret it in the same way then the experience is different. Thus, whether or not some behavior is considered BM is always in the eye of the beholder probably.
Does not remove opponents secrets, so probably not good. Might still be an interesting companion tech card in Secret Mage though.
Seems like a better version of Violet Teacher, so good card.
Interesting card, but feels weird because the previous Kazakus only works in Highlander decks.
And once again for the Mage class! Mage has been the ultimate random class for quite a while already. Why keep adding more randomness to it? Seems like a decent card though.
By the way, Flurry did not have to win the World Championships to get a card with his name on it, pogchamp! (I doubt it was done on purpose, except for the designated reveal opportunity of course)
No, I have 1 less incentive to play HS (temporarily). A pretty significant 1 indeed, but there are still other goals (like getting all of the 1000 wins hero portraits) left in the game for me to achieve/collect. Also, I rather enjoy the casual play since completing the rewards track, no pressure at all.
I piloted a Burn Tempo Mage deck to Diamond-5 and finished the short climb to legend with the Highlander Mage deck above. Having the 11-star bonus this season was great. Only lost a few games to very aggressive decks (with optimal curves) like: Weapon Rogue, Zoo Warlock and Token Druid.
There was no botting involved whatsoever. I dare not risk a potential ban by Blizzard. As for the amount of time required should be about 4+ hours daily I reckon, although I did not keep precise track of that. Also, I would not recommend it because I felt it took away quite some fun of playing Hearthstone. Thus, I will not repeat it myself for the next rewards track.
Since you inquired, I reached the pinnacle of the rewards track 5 days ago (level 350) with the purchased Tavern pass. This is about 3 weeks before the next rewards track starts and the overall feeling I have is that it is both liberating and also feels bad.
The grind towards reaching the upper limit has ended and the downside is that no more XP is rewarded at all; so any time spent in HS now is purely for fun without additional reward whatsoever. Seeing the 0 XP gained notification after each game played is amusing to me. It is up to you to decide if the pure fun of playing HS is satisfying enough without the additional splash of XP accumulation (extra fun). I do not know for sure for myself… I just know the long grind is over and I am not going to grind it out another time, unless there will be much more additional cosmetic rewards added to the track (not just gold).
Next to having fun, my main personal goal in HS is to obtain all the hero portraits and all the cardbacks that do not have a funky requirement. As for the hero portraits I still have some road ahead of me. I only have 3 classes above 1000 wins, the rest is very close though (850+ wins) except for Demon Hunter (100+ wins). As for the cardbacks, I miss a few handfuls, because I did not start playing HS since Beta (I only started playing regularly since Blackrock Mountain).
It would be nice if the rewards track would offer the old cardbacks which I still miss. I know people will be upset about it because they might think owning those means they are somehow more privileged or lose value otherwise. Being a collector myself, I think it is just strictly better to have more ways to achieve a full collection of cosmetics. Not everyone started playing HS since day 1 or went to each and every Blizzcon event (nor does anyone own a time machine). By the way, I do not really mind never getting those special event cardbacks, just the seasonal ones that required me to win a few ranked games. I am glad these are already reappearing in the shop once in awhile.
PS.: Unsure if this will be helpful advice or not; I finished a Duels run with 12 wins after I already cleared the rewards track and there is some XP to be collected still. I assume it will carry over to the next rewards track so I am not going to collect that XP right now.
EDIT: I expect to get quite a few downvotes for my cardbacks comment, so feel free to not disappoint me 😋
By the way, me getting the 0 XP earned notification now after each game played is both liberating and feels bad man 😂
Thanks!
Lost count, so let's just say way too much for my liking and I honestly have no desire whatsoever to repeat this feat.
Well, I finally reached the pinnacle of the rewards track: Level 350. Job's done!
Q: "What did it cost?"
A: "EVERYTHING!"
I have an enormous mountain of convertible arcane dust lying around which can be used to complete my entire Standard + Wild collections and afterwards I would still have plenty of arcane dust to spare. However, my brain is currently wired to not spend it freely.
I only craft the best missing must have legendaries of the new set after having already opened my average of 300 packs per expansion. As for missing cards from my Wild collection, I might still get them by opening packs from Wild promotion bundles.
Another FOMO thing, because by dusting duplicates which might get nerfed in the future means I would potentially miss out on the maximum dust refund of those nerfed cards. This of course also applies to my golden cards which I only dust for full refunds.
As for keeping a spreadsheet for Hearthstone… it's initial purpose was to keep track of all my class levels and amount of wins because there was no nice in-game accessible report for this in the past. Gradually, I kept track of my dust, how many packs I opened and which quests were offered to me. For instance, I wanted to know how often the challenge a friend quest was offered to me per rotation. More and more stuff got added to this spreadsheet over the past few years. I really enjoy having statistics to look at, so that part should not be very detrimental to my state of mind (I think).
I know exactly what the problem is (me), but I'm not willing to really acknowledge it nor take proper healthy actions. It's crazy and I know (sadly). One of the solutions is to simply stop playing HS which would be a similar measure I have taken in the past for other games. For now, I have trapped myself inside a self-fullfilling prophesized feedback loop. I can only hope that the rotation brings plenty of improvements.
Since the introduction of the reward track and there being a limit to it (level 350) I somehow succeeded to trick myself into thinking I have to finish it. In the past, I could not care less of earning the maximum amount of 100 gold by winning 30 matches per day.
The biggest drawback of the reward track is that MUCH more time is required to reach the same amount of gold. I'm not even exaggerating if I would say that that time expenditure is at least doubled or perhaps more.
As for potentially skipping on the pre-orders, you are right about catching up would be more difficult later on. I think the Fear Of Missing Out feeling has become a real issue for me.
If I would skip the latest druid hero portrait, it would be the very first limited available one I would not own. That's a seemingly more difficult decision to make. I actually don't think the art is particularly beautiful, but it's FOMO all over again.
IMO, my stash of gold is not super high nor low. I will end up with 16585 gold tomorrow without the possibility to earn more gold before the new reward track starts with the next expansion. In the past, I would spend all the gold on expansion launch day and start accumulating gold from scratch once more. Rinse and repeat with every single expansion.
According to my spreadsheet with data collected from the past 6 years of me playing Hearthstone, I usually open 110 packs with gold on average. With the mini-set being a regular thing now, I have to set aside another 2000 gold because I see no incentive to spend real money on that. Thus, along with the pre-orders and freebies I open about 300 packs each expansion in total and that still is not enough to get me a complete set even with the legendary and epic duplicates protection.
With the information above, I should be able to accurately calculate which reward track level I have to reach everytime to not go down gold wise. I'm too tired right now to do the exact math though. Maybe next time.
Playing Hearthstone almost feels like a chore these days which is not a good feeling at all and I only have myself to blame for it. I just hope the FOMO feeling has not already silently turned into a Sunken Cost Fallacy for me.
On-topic again; I reached level 348… so close, but no cigar yet!
I'm currently at level 346 right now and with minimal effort should reach the end of the reward track within 2 days. I will write a small post when this milestone has been achieved. If my F2P accounts get the 1800 XP challenge friend quest it will be even sooner.
Going off-topic again, I'm still wondering if I should keep investing in this game. Never ever has it taken this long for me to buy the preorder bundles, happens usually within 24 hours of becoming available. There is plenty of time to buy them though. By the way, it is not even the monetary value that is bothering me. I have a decently paid job and the money I spent on HS is not relevant at all.
Nice piece of WoW lore added to Hearthstone, they should add many more in the future!
As for cosmetics, I am an avid collector and I decided in the past I should "own" all the hero portraits. Since they are part of the tavern pass I will still purchase it for the upcoming expansion. The recent trend of increasing amount of collectible hero portraits does make me wonder if I will be able to keep up and if their monetary value is still worth it to me.
Iksar mentioned there will be some reward track improvements incoming, so I also wonder what those will be exactly. We will see those in a few weeks time.
By the way, this unhealthy collector addiction of mine is also applicable to other things like the Out of Cards currencies. For instance, I really felt the urge of collecting the daily limit of snowflakes during the snowpocalypse event and whenever there were snowstorms that feeling was further emphasized. Also, whenever there is a huge influx of new things to collect I always wonder if that is the moment to stop finally or continue with collecting that stuff.
I read in the official Blizzard Hearthstone forum that some people already reached it and there is nothing afterwards. Apparently, no more incentive whatsoever to continue playing since no more XP is rewarded.
I'm currently at level 328 and will reach the end in about 7 more days. Not really looking forward to it anymore nor will I try to repeat the same feat after the rotation hits unless there will be extra rewards involved (which I doubt).
I will do the science and let you know in about 2 weeks time. I'm currently at level 303 ^_^
Level 300 (just 50 more to go)
14085 gold (only 2500 left to collect)
When exactly is the release date of Forged in the Barrens?
I totally agree with your assessment, intent is the key here. Often times though, it is hard to keep good and bad intent apart, because a game winning play should at least feel good to 1 of the 2 players and the reverse could be true for the other player. But did the feel good experience come purely from winning the game or also from how extremely well you managed to destroy your opponent? (by making the most optimal plays)
Furthermore, I think in a digital card game, intent is sometimes hard to get across the screen. You might have the best intent in the world, but if the opponent does not interpret it in the same way then the experience is different. Thus, whether or not some behavior is considered BM is always in the eye of the beholder probably.