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
Here's the issue with all this. Since these additional rewards, these seasonal events, are not part of the reward track and are essentially "extras" that come in from outside of the track, without any indication of when that is going to happen or how, it is impossible to objectively keep track of changes should any of that vary from year to year and season to season. If, at some point, they sneakily decide to not award certain XP bonuses and legendary quests at points where they previously used to, unless you have been keeping track, screencapping, archiving Blizz posts etc., it's gonna be real hard to unequivocally say "Hey! They're fucking us over this season!" The track will look exactly the same, the numbers on it will be exactly the same, yet you can be getting shafted when Blizz just don't feel like giving out legendary quests of the same value they did last season.
Moreover, we've already been getting legendary quests on set releases, adventure releases etc. Most of the calculations I've seen regarding how much a person would earn per month do not include these quests. Nor are these quests really retroactively available for review and comparison. So how exactly do these new "extras" stack up to the extra quests we've been getting in the past?
Using these extra sources of XP to balance out what is otherwise a shitty reward track seems like a really convoluted, hard-to-track, easy-to-tinker-with method to mislead people and just generally do whatever the fuck you want. I would not be surprised if a year, two years down the line, we suddenly reaslise that these extra XP sources are like 50 % as rewarding as they used to be, and that the new track is now just objectively worse than the old one unless, of course, you fork out the dolla dolla. Which, let's be frank, was likely the point from the get go.
Posts like these remind me of the vitriolic mindset of most gamers.
A Blizzard rep responded. They said that they will be adjusting rewards down the track.
They then further said that they will continue to evaluate things as time progresses.
That the community, despite it's datamining and "investigative math" wasn't aware of bonus exp through special events and the such. That they were taking that into account.
Yet you respond with the "worst intentions possible" instead of the best.
With regards to your quote, when do you consider that the interaction with Activision Blizzard started then? I think many people might have tried to "assume positive intent" at first when companies like EA and Activions started to get involved in the games they used to loved but after having many bad experiences from these companies they might have the right to be skeptical? And this is just assuming that your reference to what seems a good way to interact with people is also applicable on interactions with large companies.
I have to admit that I don´t know much about the relation between Hearthstone and Activision but the general things I have heard about Activision makes me take a skeptical standpoint on most things they are connected to until they proved me wrong.
The reason to respond like this might be same as to why I prefer to be skeptical when a telemarketer contacts me and want to sell a fantastic vacuum cleaner bag subscription that is very good and it is super easy to cancel and everything is just generally fantastic. If I don´t use my experience here and instead go with "assume positive intent" and believe that they actually want the best for me I would have had to regret my self so many times.
Assuming positive intent in this frame of reference just assumes that the company inherently wants to keep you as a customer. Expansions don't draw in new customers. Expansions keep current customers engaged, and re-engage previous customers. A brand spanking new customer coming into an expansion is like a unicorn: Rare, and most likely non-existent.
The developers DO have our best interests at heart. Many of them play the game like us. They want to enjoy the same experience we will have. And at the end of the day, Blizzard may not be the company it once was because Activision executives may be forcing them to have quota percentage incomes per expansion, but the developers are trying to make the game fun for the playerbase and themselves.
Traditionally, events give us a lot of extra packs or gold. If they will now give us experience, that IS NOT BONUS EXPERIENCE. Instead, we’re losing the event’s traditional bonuses, and the progression track needs to provide even MORE to make it work.
What I hear is “we'll give you more than you got from daily quests and crowns, as long as you forget about the other things you used to get.
You're intentionally misquoting them. They've ALWAYS said you will get at least as much or more than you got for an entire expansion before. That includes ALL sources, and has always included all sources. Stop arguing in bad faith.
Yes, they’ve said that. And I kept defending Blizzard on this site because I believed them. But I realize now that I was wrong.
I’m not sure how I was arguing in bad faith. Most calculations to date haven’t accounted for the fact that we could expect several extra packs thanks to events. If they’re supposed to account for events, they should remember what we used to get from events instead of just adding in what they will give in the future.
Zeddy is a prophet, they are doing exactly what he said they would, lol.
and thats why he is blacklisted. the truth hurts. Zeddy is actually making a name for himself despite all of it
Deflector shields engaged! This was just a first version and we were already going to replace it anyway, pinky swear.
Pretty much the same thing they did with the "beta" label on BG: please spare us, we know we fucked up big time but it's definitely not intentional and things are gonna change for sure! (TM) Now buy packs.
It sounds to me a bit like they have the intention to give out a bit less with the reward track, but through special events we will get extra amounts to make it feel more rewarding so we end up with a bit more compared to the old track.
The other track just gave you straight out rewards, which might feel less rewarding.
So to sum it up they want to "feed" us with special xp events to make it feel better.
Though we had special events with extra gold before, which is not in the calculations of the new system. Also rewards like a random legendary for an expansion launch is now just part of this track.
I am sure they never planned to give out less over all, but they want to disguise their reward system to make it feel more special and generous to get something.
We might end up with the same amount, maybe a bit more. Only time will tell.
I personallly think the reward overhaul is long overdue and a step into the right direction, unfortunately Blizzard tripped on that first step...
Rember first Fellfire festival in 2018? Well, now we won't even get rewards that we got in 2020, since they are slicing them up year by year. This is their grand scheme to offer us some way worse variant of something that we already had to only tweek it a bit (still ending with worse variant) and players will be thankfull for it.
Seems pretty good that their listening, and fixing some of the problems with the pass. But i'm still skeptical. We'll have to see how everything works when they actually give us more information on how events work with events first.
Also did they just confirm the fact that they failed on providing information how the pass and events work together, AND not provide to give ANY information about it in the same post? That seems.. unwise...
Also they didn't say anything about the fact that the EXP we get is a LOT lower per hour than what they stated before. (It aint 400 exp per hour in standard & wild. If i remember correctly Zeddy said in his video that he got like 700 ish exp or something after playing like 5 hours, and that's WITH the exp boost.. But i don't remember that exactly..)
But i'm glad their changing those worthless Year of the Dragon packs at the end of the pass. But i.m.o. they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Why give people packs, that by the time you unlock them ONLY give cards that stay in standard FOR ONLY A FEW WEEKS.. Who thought that a smart idea? Also to most players is only 40 dust, which is way worse than the 300 gold rewards next to it... I'm so glad their changing that!
I'm glad their listening, but on the other side... Reddit is one giant nuclear bomb right now... (Compared to the toxic wasteland it normally already is), and a few content creators like Zeddy, Solem, Dekkster and Regis also spoke out against blizzard by making video's about it... (And POTENTIALLY losing some content creator privileges because of this... Because Blizzard hates it when content creators speak out against them.) so the HS team were pretty much forced to address this...
I appreciate the response but I don't think bonus XP through future events is a satisfying solution. I mean what they basically say here is: Guys trust us that all will be fine because we add some events in the future. That is not a tangible solution but yet another promise. Rewards should be transparent and players should be able to plan in advance.
I mean they are selling the tavern pass now and want our money now, then the reward structure should be clear now also. That would be only fair. Call me a cynic but given Blizzard's recent track record on promises their response does not seem really ensuring.
Maybe the community should just give it chance its not even be implement for a week
The community is going full nuke withou even knowing everything
Also blizzard have no data its just a guess i am sure if they see that the average of the playerbase not gonna make at least the same amount of gold
They gonna do something about that but to know that they need data
Are you kidding me? They have no data about their own player base? This shouldn't be situation when we end up with same amount of gold after revamp of 6 year old system.
Yes, but us not knowing much is entirely their fault. Also I am sure that they have the necessary data, they know how much people make in gold, how much the play etc. Based on this you can easily do a projection of the new system before.
That is the point tho, we dont know much, the communication from Blizzard is the biggest problem, always has been. They can do better in this department and no one can say otherwise.