Ben Lee, Game Director of Hearthstone, has responded to the community about the rewards track.
Quote From Ben Lee We have been listening to your feedback regarding the Rewards Track and it’s clear we missed the mark both in how we communicated and implemented the full functionality of this first version of our rewards system.
We apologize for the confusion and disappointment we have caused.
During the natural progression of the rewards cycle, our intention was, and still is, to give out extra XP over time through a variety of ways. The aim is to help players get through the Rewards Track, or catch-up if they join later in an expansion phase, ultimately ensuring players earn more rewards.
We also didn’t provide any details for how events will link into and support the rewards system. We will be providing bonus XP for various activities at each seasonal event every expansion cycle, and any additional bonus events as needed, again with the aim of ensuring that our players obtain more rewards. Our failure to communicate these factors has led to incomplete projections, for which we apologize.
In addition, you’ve provided us with a wealth of feedback, and we agree that the pack rewards at the end of the track don’t feel appropriate for the effort it takes to get them. We’re going to adjust these rewards in the later stages of the track, swapping six packs for a total of 1350 gold that players can spend as they see fit. If any players reach this milestone before we implement these changes, they will be retroactively compensated.
Our goal for the Rewards Track continues to be that all Hearthstone players earn more gold and total rewards per expansion. We’ll continue to evaluate the impact of these changes, listen to your feedback, and iterate as needed until we get it right.
We will stay true to our word and ensure that the system lives up to what we all believe Hearthstone deserves.
Thank you,
Ben Lee
Game Director
Comments
Events should be bonus, they weren't calculate before, they shouldn't be needed now. Weekly quests should be also on top of what we used to have, imagine if we had old system and they would added these weekly quests, 100g a piece would easily result to 3x4x4x100= 4800g per expansion, well that would be to generous for Blizzard even with the mid expansion mini expansion which should be something like 3000g (based on previous adventures). Now we have to do even weekly quests, daily quests, use our precious experience to unlock freebies that we used to get for free (legendary, 6 packs with new expansion).
Getting slightly less is typical Blizzard way of showing their greed when reworking some old system. The premium track containing some skins and experience boost is "really" generous for 20$, the track should really be part of preorder. Most of games with season pass cost 10$ and if you finish it, you will get premium currency for another one "free" of charge.
Why is the track soo barren, 90% is just gold, what about some dust and other stuff that we could have in there? Premium track could be littered with older packs if it cost 20$. In other games, season pass is first investment (with real money) that players do thanks generous offer of different stuff that is unlocked by them.
Moreover why we couldn't get gold in 1:1 ratio for achievement points? The experience that we get from some of them is really just good joke. Sure I have 7k without even trying, but it's thanks to all the stuff that I did during past 6 years. There is no way our generous overlords would ever do that.
I will keep my pitchfork in my hand, and torch in my other hand. I really can't overlook this and it's probably really a turning point to help me finally quit the game. Btw, I only bought Witchwood preorder otherwise, I was F2P with 12K gold and 30K dust before the expansion, but for last ~3 expansions this game really lost lot of it appeal.
Hearthstone isn't really a game that, I could recommend to a friend,and this is it's the biggest problem that this game have.
If you're almost entirely free-to-play, what makes you think Blizzard will miss you in the slightest? Free-loaders are not customers. Whether or not you play has no impact on anything.
As single person I'm no one, but that holds true esentially for all of us. Any online game will die out if the playerbase dissapears, it will not be today or tomorrow, but HS playerbase isn't growing for long time.
Respectfully, this is the last straw for me in terms of paying for HS again. The response is borderline a slap in the face and extremely passive aggressive still indicating the community is at fault and "miscalculating" things.
I (still) enjoy the game and have had an excellent time and achieved legend etc.
I will now become a 1-2 class player for as long as that is feasible and enjoy the game that way. I realize now that I was probably never as super casual as I would have liked to believe and this battlepass scenario has really opened my eyes.
I will still add in my 2 cents here every once in awhile and am firmly on the community/consumer side in this situation.
Off to dust many classes...may your ladders be rope free!!!!
So some re-calculation based on the following scenario (no tavern pass):
100% completion of daily quests at an average of 900XP/quest: 108,000 XP
100% completion of weekly quests, including 7 ranked wins: 102,000 XP
0.5 hour/day of ranked playtime: 24,000 XP
Total gold (without converting packs to gold): 6900
This is slightly less than what I got before but I expect the seasonal events to make up the difference and more. However, it should be noted that I have had to change my play pattern in order to achieve 7 ranked wins a week, which runs counter to the promise of getting comparable/higher gold for the same play pattern.
Those who are not competitive in ranked play remain significantly disadvantaged - XP from ranked wins should be a bonus, not a cornerstone to achieving previous levels of gold rewards.
1000XP/quest makes more sense. There are a few 1500XP ones that will factor in and you can always reroll to 1000 if you get 800. There are way, way more 1000s than 800s. You're including the new 1350 gold in the 6900? It's reasonable to assume people will get some achievements XP. Almost all of the 20,000+ XP from Duels comes from just winning 3, 4, 5, games etc. The free legendary and epic are part of the equation too.
Agree that requiring 7 wins in ranked is jarring to casual players not in line with their messaging.
I think it's debatable what the average daily quest XP is without more detailed math; based on my experience with the old system, I have on more than a few occasions found myself stuck with three 50G quests, or being 'forced' to complete a 50G quest along with a 60G quest. You're also assuming that the probability of receiving each quest is the same; I'm not sure that is true. That said, if the average is indeed 1000XP then I will receive an additional 450G.
Yes, I have included the additional 1350G that Ben Lee mentioned.
I didn't count Duels achievements because they're one-time, and spending time on them is a further deviation from my usual play pattern.
I will concede that the additional 2 legendaries and 1 epic are significant though I'm not sure how to how to value them. For example, a legendary you want is worth 1600 dust; a legendary you don't want is worth 400 dust.
As expected, there's the band aid solution.
You want a revolution? Drastic changes that make the game much less expensive? Those are high hopes. This seems like more than a bandaid to me. The system was already giving about equal value as before to everyone but F2P/aggro gold farmers. Now they're replacing 6 packs of dust with 1350 gold (6x225) and promising to give us extra experience through events that will boost gold income above what we previously got. I want the game to be a lot cheaper too but they're improving the rewards system and giving us what we're asking for.
So I’m still going to get like 30 exp for an hour’s worth of play? Can we work on fixing these issues first, because EXP does NOT equal to Gold or any sort of progression.
The entire letter from Ben might as well be shorted to: "We're going to change the last 6 packs to 1350 gold. Happy? Now can we please put all the torches and pitchforks down."
The lack of communication was obvious. It took all the way to start of Darkmoon to even so much acknowledge it. This is a good start, but more transparency and communication is needed.
Don't put too much weight in what was said about the bonus xp on seasonal events. This part might as well not exist in his letter. Its almost certainly inserted there just to put a more positive spin as we read on. Bonuses during seasonal events are hardly new, and have been dwindling in recent expansions, from the extremely generous double gold about 2 years back to the recent norm of just straight up packs (and frequently from previous expansions as well). Since we don't know when it will happen, or how generous it would be, its might as well just be described and treated as a 'maybe', and only if we behave and finish up all our vegetables.
The usual 6 packs via legendary quests at the start of the expansion is apparently no longer a thing. So that's yet another convention taken down in the name of progression.
The changes, though welcomed (like who the hell wants a YotDragon pack at level 47 when it will likely rotate in about a few weeks time), will hardly soothe anything until the numbers are crunched again. My take is that it will likely still be short by about 800-1000 gold compared to the old system, and the midexpansion will likely take a chomp at the wallet as well. Wouldn't surprise me if that the total gold I would be able to bring to the next expansion after Darkmoon would be around 5k gold, if that.
Well the only way to know if the seasonal events made a big enough difference is to look back at them after the expansion. I doubt they'll want to be in a position--after all this and after assuring us that events will make up the difference--where people that can do math (aka not 90% of Reddit) have crunched the numbers and found that some players are still short of where they would be. Not sure why you think them saying that events will fill the gap means nothing. It's a very concrete assurance that will be proven out one way or another.
The only thing that is assured right now is that we got another promise from the top that they will be doing something about the progression track (i.e. changing 6 packs to 1350 gold at the tail end)
As for the season events boost, that's neither new nor concrete. The boost can be as high as doubling xp to as low as giving us previous expansion packs (its not like this was never done before). Also, if it takes a booster granted solely on their discretion to get me on par with what I had before, that's not progress. That's taking away my left shoe, wrapping it up nice and presented to me as a birthday gift.
You're right on one thing. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes if this assurance falls short yet again.
They said the seasonal event will award extra XP, not old packs. They said if that's not enough they'll add more bonus XP for other events. Not too hard to believe that bonus XP was part of the plan. Not too hard to believe that they failed to predict how Reddit would react to Reddit math and didn't head that off with earlier assurances that what you see now is not all you get. Even if they're making this up on the fly they're committed to it now.
And all of this is besides the fact that the rewards track is only a problem for F2P gold farmers. Do you even know specifically what you're complaining about?
I do. But I simply don't share your optimism. And I can't say why I, or anyone else should. After all, if we're all just happy sitting on our hands while the farm is burning then we wouldn't have responses from blizz like we have now.
The problem is not just for f2p 'gold farmers' as you would call them. Many of us are used to just finishing off our daily quests, and have a decent time playing hearthstone. And we still have problems having a reasonable amount of cards to have fun with. And now here's something new that give us less while demanding more effort from our side.
Believe me I agree 100% that Hearthstone is exorbitantly expensive. I've thrown more money down the Blizzard hole than I will ever fully tell anyone most likely. I do hope that pressure from this outcry will make a difference. I just don't agree with the arguments stating that the the current rewards track is less rewarding for the average player, especially after the changes they just talked about and knowing that XP will be added from events. (We got stuff from events before but I can't remember what. I know you have to factor that in.) The math just doesn't lie, assuming XP per hour of actual play time (not queuing) is 400 or close to that. Maybe someone that plays 5 hours a day is worse off but someone that plays 3 hours a day is fine.
I'm done with HS, most likely for good. I had actually only just started dipping back into the HS waters after many months away, and then this happened. Combined with the fact that I don't care for the simplistic gameplay, this whole fiasco has made me not want to give any more time or attention to the game.
I'll probably even try to actively recruit my neighbor away from HS as well, over to LoR. He very recently started playing it again, kinda like me, and was wanting me to get back into it with him. I'll probably try to get him into LoR instead, since it's way more friendly to its players, communicates way better, has far better cosmetics, and the gameplay is so much better that you can hardly even make meaningful comparisons.
If you "don't care for the gameplay," why would you ever spend a single minute of your time on it? It's a game - gameplay is all there is! And if you're not a fan, why on earth are you wasting even ten seconds of your life on a fan forum?
Truly baffling, man.
I'm a little bit surprised I'm wasting 10 seconds of my life responding to your rude posts (responding to this one, but also referring to your other one), but you may want to look at the header of this fansite again, as well as its name. See Hearthstone anywhere in the name or web address? I see "Out of CARDS." I look at the header and I see (in addition to Hearthsone) Legends of Runeterra, Magic the Gathering, and Mythgard. And the forums have a section for Eternal.
So you can stop being rude now. I have plenty of reason to be on this site, even if I hated Hearthstone with every fiber of my being (which I don't, incidentally ... I did love playing it, once upon a time). It's just sad to realize how much worse it is than nearly all of its competitors, and the only reason it keeps its current players is because they have too much time and money invested to feel like they can stop, no matter how poorly they are treated.
Its sad that more and more players are turning away. I would probably stay on just to see how much gold I would end up at the end of the expansion before I start making any decisions.
I have absolutely no doubt I would not save up the same 8k gold by April 2021, what with this system as well as the midexpansion almost certainly ensuring that more resources are needed just to breakeven. But if at the end I end up not having enough cards, or my dust reserves are too drained (and I'm a fairly responsible and conservative crafter), then it might well be impossible to keep up even if I want to.