Hearthstone's Associate Game Designer, Cora, has provided confirmation on how Arena is going to work with the new progression system coming with Hearthstone's Battle Pass.
- Playing in the Arena will earn you experience towards the Battle Pass.
- Arena will retain its own reward structure.
- You are earning rewards in both Arena and the Battle Pass by playing Arena in the new progression system.
Quote From Cora My favorite mode is arena which Blizzard mostly ignores. I pay for my arena runs with gold…no way I would pay cash. What is going to happen to paying for arena with gold? I'll be gone if I can't play arena anymore.
Playing arena in the new system will earn you a comparable amount of experience to the other game modes towards earning gold and rewards. You'll earn gold in the new system and can still use that gold for arena. You don't have to pay anything. (Source)
I'm currently a 6,5 average wins arena player. I don't pay much to go really far in arena and can even sometimes gain gold from arena runs. Talking about a comparable amount to the other game modes i assume this will no longer be the case? I appreciate your work.
Nah rewards from the battle pass are entirely separate from Arena rewards. You'll still get rewards depending on how well you do in an arena run. You'll also be getting experience towards rewards in the battle pass from playing arena games. (Source)
Comments
So Arena is not going away?... Ufff! The way things haven't changed there for ages, I was fearful of that!...
I don't play arena anymore. Too random and too little rewards for the time spent
I think they should change the reward system for arena.
I played arena when I first started. I'm F2P, had barely any cards to make a deck, and didn't know any good sources for budget decks. Getting a ~5 win average meant I was getting cheap packs and cards to build my collection and lots of real-world experience. I was very excited with my first ever 12 win.
Now I build up 8k+ gold per expansion (playing standard), and with dupe protection, this gives me a solid base of cards. Together with careful timing with my card dusting, I no longer think arena is worth it. Having a bigger collection doesn't help my arena runs, and classic packs aren't that useful either (even though I don't have the complete collection yet).
I think they should change the reward system for arena. It's good that it will help towards battle pass *in addition* to its own rewards, but surely it could be tweaked to be better for more players?
Arena rewards are still worth it. They just serve a different purpose than Standard rewards. Arena helps you build up your collection more cheaply, but isn't desirable for players who want to save gold.
Overall, though, if you're very good at Arena, you can save more gold. In ranked, you get 10 gold for every three wins. In Arena, if you win 9 times, you can gain 100+ gold on top of the 150 you spent, plus a card pack (a card pack from the current expansion, they aren't classic packs like the BG rewards).
I would like to see changes to the Arena rewards - more golden cards or legendaries rewarded for great runs would be enticing incentive even for gold-savers to try the format, and much more fun - but I think the current purpose Arena serves is healthy. And, economics aside, it's just a fun format to play, since you can win more than you do in constructed and have some variety as you play - plus, deckbuilding. A few weeks after expac drop, deckbuilding in Standard is a pipe dream, but you can do that every day in Arena.
Also, your collection doesn't help you in Arena? Come on! Golden cards, man. You can't lose if you have golden cards.
As long as it works the other way too. I never want to have to play arena, I hate that game mode. I get my tickets from the pre-order and just retire my decks just to get the packs.
i just dont want to be forced to play arena or battlegrounds just because its needed to max out the battle pass.everyone should be able to max it out with any game mode they are playing
One of the goals of the Battlepass is to not force a player into playing a specific mode. You shouldn't worry about that
thanks i am hopeful i played games with battlepass before and i was always happy with it theres a lot of good examples out there so im sure they will make it good and even if it has flaws they will work on it.
At least they're not changing the arena rewards.
I'm guessing this is to make arena seem more appealing, to get more players to think that playing arena will not only get them the arena rewards but will also get them rewards earned while earning experience during the battle pass
Still not making arena rewards feel better though..
This was exactly my point while reading the tweets: really few people questioned the (first iteration of the) Battle Pass being less convenient for Arena, so I was surprised to see that concern.
However, Arena's rewards don't feel really exciting, at least from the point of view of a casual fan like myself: I understand that you can't ask to turn the mode in an easy goldmine, but winning 6 games for a card pack and, let's say, a Rare card is one of the worst feelings you can have from the game...
6-3 is guaranteed 100 gold though... So it is not that bad, but I got to like 11-3 got 200 gold pack rare and golden common... now that was anticlimactic 11-3...
What don't you like about the current arena reward structure?
I believe the addition of experience which contributes to earnings in the Battle Pass might make it feel better without changing the actual structure of the Arena Rewards, though I'd love to know what you think would make Arena itself better.
I am inherently bound to constructed and building against a known meta, so I am biased against Arena.
What makes it not appealing to me is the fact I have to spend resources for a bet, which I am likely to lose, especially as a beginner in Arena.
Resources I prefer to spend for something that I can keep for sure (cards or dust).
If one arena run per week was free, like Brawl, I'd play it more.
And rewards should probably have a steeper curve.
Amen to all of this. I only play arena when I am given a free ticket attached to a pre-order or for an arena rotation, because the cost doesn't feel like a risk I want to take.
I don't like that the runs take a lot of time and you needs an insane win rate to actually profit from arena, I don't feel like sitting through 12 wins only to get trice the entry fee.. the arena feels unrewarding for the time poured into them.. I didn't play arena for over 2 years and I used to play more when I didn't had many resources it's feels like a chore.. lower the entry fee, lower the max wins, increase the reward threshold..
suggested estimated rewards that would feel better:
entry fee:50 gold, win caps at 10 instead of 12.
0 you get 40 gold (so you can't reroll indefinitely)
1 win you get 70 gold worth of dust/cards/gold,
2 wins you get a pack and 20 gold worth of stuff. (the first pack is from the latest expansion)
3 wins you get a pack and 50 gold worth of stuff (3 wins is the new 7 wins, you have over 50% win rate at this point!)
4 wins you get a pack and 75 gold worth of stuff.
5 wins it's 2 packs and 20 gold worth of stuff. (the second pack can be anything even a yearly pack!)
6 wins you get 2 packs and 70 gold worth of stuff.
7 wins it's 3 packs the third is also random + a chance of a cosmetic.
8 wins you get 3 packs + a guaranteed golden rare + random reward worth 20 gold + a chance of a cosmetic.
9 wins you get 3 packs + a guaranteed golden rare + random reward worth 80 gold + chance of an epic + a chance of a cosmetic.
10 wins you get 3 packs + a guaranteed golden epic + random reward worth 100 gold + 50 gold + a chance of a cosmetic.
I just threw numbers and rewards but something that will be exciting to earn and not just.. "value" it feels bad to play arena and get some value we want to get special rewards or get guranteed rewards on good runs.. arena feels BAD to win at and feels bad to get less than 7 wins you get less than the fee.. and need insane win rates..
About the cosmetics: it's not a hero skin (maybe as a rare 10 wins drop) but it's something to grind for like some alternate card art or some old card backs.. give players a good reason to play more arena the mode is fun the entry fee is discouraging and so are the rewards.
The reward system is the same since beta SERIOUSLY...
Also maybe add arena tickets as rewards from quests + exp since they are 40 gold quest for none arena players this way.. people who don't want to play arena can start and exit just to get the 40 gold, it will intensify players to try arena more experiment more... return the rotations.. they stopped doing it cause arena is a dead mode, most people don't play it anymore I see 0 youtubers playing the mode it used to be more fun but the reward system killed it.
So basically your suggestion is cut the cost to half and tripple the rewards?
yes and it won't even be enough, they are buffing the rewards of the standard game they should buff arena as well.
hearthstone is insanely expensive, and unrewarding the beta numbers don't add up.. at 3 wins you are at above 50% win rate already..
The numbers/rewards are just something I didn't put too much thought but something along those lines probably like 100 gold less on the higher tiers, would be happy with just a random epic (none golden) at 10 wins at least you are advancing your collection and getting those elusive epics. They are probably overtunned AF but better rewards are needed and reduce the max wins.
Other games have much shorter arena runs with better rewards.
The entry cost needs to go down for the mode to be more fun and easier to get into. and the rewards need to be doubled while the mode needs to be less grindy.
if you increase arena rewards while also increasing the normal system with similar rewards it's still not gonna break the game.. It's along my expectation of the standard system being more rewarding of course so arena won't break the game.. but having those random drops would really intensify arena grinding.. rather than.. some gold.