I’ve said this before, and even on the official HS forums, but the system could be vastly improved by 1 or 2 small changes.
1) Bring back 100 gold/day for wins. What I suggested on the official forums was actually just making it 5 gold/win, making it 20 wins/day to cap out instead of 30.
2) Give a little boost to quest XP; or, hand out daily quests at 12 am AND 12 pm Blizz time (or whatever time for each region). XP increase helps make progression faster and therefore feels more rewarding like Blizz said the system would. However, option 2 of having 2 daily quests per day also works towards increased player engagement like they wanted from the “time played” XP. If you play more often and grind out quests, you get rewards. If you miss playing a day you might miss out on 1 or 2 quests based on when timing. However, you could stop with no quests, come back with 3... it’s still like you got one more quest than before even if you didn’t play for a bit!
These suggestions wouldn’t likely get us to the final version of the track, but could boost it immensely while they figure out if it works that way or if there is another iteration that works better.
But I’m not a game designer, or a marketer. So what do I know.
Having a ton of fun today with a Control Mill Lock in Wild, getting closer and closer to Legend with it. Just took down an Even Shaman who unfortunately for him played a naturally occuring Octosari as his last card after I had pretty much sealed the game and burned 15 of his cards with multiple Tickatus and a Gnomeferatu. Poor lad!
My two suggestions for improving the system would be bring back x gold for y wins. Could be 10 for 3 like before, or maybe 10 for 2, or even 5 for each win. Even if it caps at 100g like before it is still more potential gold.
Then, update the quests to either have more XP rewards, OR get a new daily quest every 12 hours. So essentially you’d get two/day.
These changes don’t seem like a lot, but they both push in a direction that they seemed interested in with the time based xp: rewarding players with higher engagement levels. If you play a lot you can get that extra gold each day for wins. Also the more frequent quest handouts means you need to put in a little more time each day to clear them both. So they can raise that metric while rewarding players.
Would this require a little balancing of the xp needed to progress the track? Maybe. But say they increased each level by 20%. You are still getting about double xp in my suggested 12 hours between daily quest handouts if you finish them all.
The only thing that I can say about this, I didn't get the guaranteed legendary on my first 10 packs, but I did get 2 on my first 40 packs.
I ordered the big bundle, opened the 5 golden ones first, no legendary (as expected...), then moved to the normal packs, opened 17 and then I got the first one (Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate), and after 5 more packs got the second one (Zai, the Incredible).
In the end I fell quite robbed of the guaranteed at 10 packs, but could be worse...
Worth mentioning, I got Inara Stormcrash as my first Reward Track reward, and I opened it before opening any pack, maybe it counts towards the first 10 packs timer? It really shouldn't but as stated above, the game is full with this kind of bugs right now.
The golden packs have no pity timer. Same as the "Year of..." packs and class specific packs. So if you opened those 5 golden packs, then 5 regular packs without a legendary, you are still within the 10 pack pity timer for your first legendary. Even if the golden packs did have a timer, they would be on a separate timer than the regular packs, because they are technically different pack types despite being for the same expansion.
EDIT: I meant to say those special packs have no first 10 legendary timer. They may have a 40 pack timer, but the golden packs for sure do not count towards the pity timer of regular packs even if they are the same set.
Crazy that two of the best decks according to this are a Paladin deck and a Hunter deck that existed pre-DMF. Could those win rates be inflated due to player experimentation being exploited by established decks?
Also, poor Priest! I feel like they have got to have a better deck than that 47% win rate list. May just be that no one has figured it out yet. Guess it's time for me to start experimenting with C'Thun Priest!
If you are reading this, I'm sorry that my decision to try out new cards in an Odd Paladin build offended you so much that you had to concede and instantly friend me on the mulligan. Honestly, that friend request came in so instantaneously that I thought you were my previous Mill Rogue opponent that couldn't beat me despite the game going 14 turns. I mean, honestly, what kind of Mill Rogue deck that keeps an Odd Paladin off the board for that many turns loses?!?!
But back to us! Trevolock, I never got a chance to respond to your message. I quote, "can you people really not stop or something" "shits been aroumd for yrs"
Now, had you waited for me to respond before instantly unfriending me and then denying my requests to refriend you, I would have told you that I play a wide variety of decks from Aggro, to Control, to Combo, to even the very meme-iest of decks! You just happened to catch me trying out an Odd Paladin build of my own design using Lothraxion and other new cards! I mean, yeah... Odd Paladin may have been "aroumd" for years, but so have a lot of other decks? Do you flame on everyone who plays old deck styles? If so... are you okay?! Because I am here for you. I want to be your friend! Please come back and hang out. For real! I think we could have had something really special, you and I.
One thing I thought of yesterday: Pack rewards are essentially equal to 100 gold. Some of the pack rewards are along parts of the Rewards track that offer more than 100 gold/level. So offering packs any point past level 25 is essentially a downgrade to your reward.
With the new patch this only comes into play twice now. Level 27 offers you an Ashes of Outland pack instead of 150 gold like level 26. Level 30 offers you a Madness at the Darkmoon Faire pack instead of 150 gold as well. But again, if you convert these two packs to gold they randomly downgrade your reward back to 100 gold at levels 27 and 30 for some reason. So while it's only another 100 gold total to replace them with 150 gold sacks... why didn't they?
Again, small issue as the new patch resolves this already. But for me it's the small details that Blizzard missed here that are the issue. I personally like the new rewards track, and I am optimistic they will hold true to their word and make sure it is more rewarding. This quick patch to change a few things already shows that they are willing to keep their word. I mean, they aren't going to purposefully piss off the entire player base and just do nothing about it to make them happy. They make too much money off of this game at Activision-Blizzard to intentionally kill it by implementing a new reward system that is horrible for all players.
Okay, five games into trying this and I finally get the board full of 8/8 taunting clowns. But I'm playing against Galakrond Warlock so all it takes him is 1 mana to clear it all...
I must have the worst luck, drawing nothing but cards that cost 7+ until there is nothing but cheap stuff left in my deck. Which makes me think this Clown Druid must be related to Pennywise from IT. Because it promised me lots of fun, but really it just drug me down into the sewer where I got eaten alive!
But at least I got the achievement for a board full of clowns!
Yeah, but they re-released her for free in the shop when they changed the in-game shop to include Wild content. Which I want to say was around Dec 10, 2019. And I think they may have even put her back in the shop between then and now as well. So most people who didn't just join in the last 5 or 6 months should have her. Unless they took a long break from the game or ignored the previous free offering in the shop.
That's why he's a FUN card, not a competitive card.
I got a golden Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate through the mega bundle freebie and I had to try him out. Made a Mage deck that is kind of a mix between the two recipes: Cyclone for lots of spell generation, secrets and Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon for a big draw engine. Started off 5-1, but currently 5-6! One of the losses was Rod of Roasting, both of us needing three hits, several minions on board! But in my case I was behind. Yogg instead teased me while we were both at 10 or less hp, one Pyroblast after another shot away from my face, only to hit a minion. And then once the entire board was clear, he hit me in the face for lethal!
I lost, but had a hell of a ride along the way! :)
I loved the Feat of Strength commentary that it’ll only ever see play in a Roffle deck, because he stated when opening packs how it’ll probably be a bad card, but he’s excited to try making a deck that uses it and Bolster.
“Hey! Should we do something about this rewards system and all the mad players out there?”
”Well, we could dangle some flashy prizes in their faces!”
”... YEAH!!! Sounds great! Should fix everything.”
I’ve said this before, and even on the official HS forums, but the system could be vastly improved by 1 or 2 small changes.
1) Bring back 100 gold/day for wins. What I suggested on the official forums was actually just making it 5 gold/win, making it 20 wins/day to cap out instead of 30.
2) Give a little boost to quest XP; or, hand out daily quests at 12 am AND 12 pm Blizz time (or whatever time for each region). XP increase helps make progression faster and therefore feels more rewarding like Blizz said the system would. However, option 2 of having 2 daily quests per day also works towards increased player engagement like they wanted from the “time played” XP. If you play more often and grind out quests, you get rewards. If you miss playing a day you might miss out on 1 or 2 quests based on when timing. However, you could stop with no quests, come back with 3... it’s still like you got one more quest than before even if you didn’t play for a bit!
These suggestions wouldn’t likely get us to the final version of the track, but could boost it immensely while they figure out if it works that way or if there is another iteration that works better.
But I’m not a game designer, or a marketer. So what do I know.
Having a ton of fun today with a Control Mill Lock in Wild, getting closer and closer to Legend with it. Just took down an Even Shaman who unfortunately for him played a naturally occuring Octosari as his last card after I had pretty much sealed the game and burned 15 of his cards with multiple Tickatus and a Gnomeferatu. Poor lad!
My tiny brain can’t even comprehend such a high win rate! It’s a Thanksgiving Day miracle!!!!
My two suggestions for improving the system would be bring back x gold for y wins. Could be 10 for 3 like before, or maybe 10 for 2, or even 5 for each win. Even if it caps at 100g like before it is still more potential gold.
Then, update the quests to either have more XP rewards, OR get a new daily quest every 12 hours. So essentially you’d get two/day.
These changes don’t seem like a lot, but they both push in a direction that they seemed interested in with the time based xp: rewarding players with higher engagement levels. If you play a lot you can get that extra gold each day for wins. Also the more frequent quest handouts means you need to put in a little more time each day to clear them both. So they can raise that metric while rewarding players.
Would this require a little balancing of the xp needed to progress the track? Maybe. But say they increased each level by 20%. You are still getting about double xp in my suggested 12 hours between daily quest handouts if you finish them all.
As he should be! :)
The golden packs have no pity timer. Same as the "Year of..." packs and class specific packs. So if you opened those 5 golden packs, then 5 regular packs without a legendary, you are still within the 10 pack pity timer for your first legendary. Even if the golden packs did have a timer, they would be on a separate timer than the regular packs, because they are technically different pack types despite being for the same expansion.
EDIT: I meant to say those special packs have no first 10 legendary timer. They may have a 40 pack timer, but the golden packs for sure do not count towards the pity timer of regular packs even if they are the same set.
I mean, I don't really WANT a version of Big Priest to thrive. But... I guess. LO
Crazy that two of the best decks according to this are a Paladin deck and a Hunter deck that existed pre-DMF. Could those win rates be inflated due to player experimentation being exploited by established decks?
Also, poor Priest! I feel like they have got to have a better deck than that 47% win rate list. May just be that no one has figured it out yet. Guess it's time for me to start experimenting with C'Thun Priest!
Missed Connections
To Trevolock,
If you are reading this, I'm sorry that my decision to try out new cards in an Odd Paladin build offended you so much that you had to concede and instantly friend me on the mulligan. Honestly, that friend request came in so instantaneously that I thought you were my previous Mill Rogue opponent that couldn't beat me despite the game going 14 turns. I mean, honestly, what kind of Mill Rogue deck that keeps an Odd Paladin off the board for that many turns loses?!?!
But back to us! Trevolock, I never got a chance to respond to your message. I quote, "can you people really not stop or something" "shits been aroumd for yrs"
Now, had you waited for me to respond before instantly unfriending me and then denying my requests to refriend you, I would have told you that I play a wide variety of decks from Aggro, to Control, to Combo, to even the very meme-iest of decks! You just happened to catch me trying out an Odd Paladin build of my own design using Lothraxion and other new cards! I mean, yeah... Odd Paladin may have been "aroumd" for years, but so have a lot of other decks? Do you flame on everyone who plays old deck styles? If so... are you okay?! Because I am here for you. I want to be your friend! Please come back and hang out. For real! I think we could have had something really special, you and I.
Sincerely,
Thonson
One thing I thought of yesterday: Pack rewards are essentially equal to 100 gold. Some of the pack rewards are along parts of the Rewards track that offer more than 100 gold/level. So offering packs any point past level 25 is essentially a downgrade to your reward.
With the new patch this only comes into play twice now. Level 27 offers you an Ashes of Outland pack instead of 150 gold like level 26. Level 30 offers you a Madness at the Darkmoon Faire pack instead of 150 gold as well. But again, if you convert these two packs to gold they randomly downgrade your reward back to 100 gold at levels 27 and 30 for some reason. So while it's only another 100 gold total to replace them with 150 gold sacks... why didn't they?
Again, small issue as the new patch resolves this already. But for me it's the small details that Blizzard missed here that are the issue. I personally like the new rewards track, and I am optimistic they will hold true to their word and make sure it is more rewarding. This quick patch to change a few things already shows that they are willing to keep their word. I mean, they aren't going to purposefully piss off the entire player base and just do nothing about it to make them happy. They make too much money off of this game at Activision-Blizzard to intentionally kill it by implementing a new reward system that is horrible for all players.
I’m disappointed to not see an Augmented Elekk for when that last piece gets played!
More C’thuns = more fun!
Okay, five games into trying this and I finally get the board full of 8/8 taunting clowns. But I'm playing against Galakrond Warlock so all it takes him is 1 mana to clear it all...
I must have the worst luck, drawing nothing but cards that cost 7+ until there is nothing but cheap stuff left in my deck. Which makes me think this Clown Druid must be related to Pennywise from IT. Because it promised me lots of fun, but really it just drug me down into the sewer where I got eaten alive!
But at least I got the achievement for a board full of clowns!
Going to have to try the Druid list. I need my “board full of clowns” acheivement!!
Yeah, but they re-released her for free in the shop when they changed the in-game shop to include Wild content. Which I want to say was around Dec 10, 2019. And I think they may have even put her back in the shop between then and now as well. So most people who didn't just join in the last 5 or 6 months should have her. Unless they took a long break from the game or ignored the previous free offering in the shop.
I think Hero skins and card backs don’t show in the shop for you if you already have them.
If that’s not true, it should be!
That's why he's a FUN card, not a competitive card.
I got a golden Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate through the mega bundle freebie and I had to try him out. Made a Mage deck that is kind of a mix between the two recipes: Cyclone for lots of spell generation, secrets and Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon for a big draw engine. Started off 5-1, but currently 5-6! One of the losses was Rod of Roasting, both of us needing three hits, several minions on board! But in my case I was behind. Yogg instead teased me while we were both at 10 or less hp, one Pyroblast after another shot away from my face, only to hit a minion. And then once the entire board was clear, he hit me in the face for lethal!
I lost, but had a hell of a ride along the way! :)
Golden Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate from my mega bundle!!! Nice!!!
I loved the Feat of Strength commentary that it’ll only ever see play in a Roffle deck, because he stated when opening packs how it’ll probably be a bad card, but he’s excited to try making a deck that uses it and Bolster.