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Hearthstone | Posted by | 5 years, 7 months ago
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How the Battlepass Issue may ruin F2P

So, there is this survey that has been going around about a Battlepass that may replace gold gained from quests with an experience system. The short version of it is:

1) no more quests/gold per 3 wins
2) you receive experience through game modes that reward less gold and packs than you would usually grind for
3) disables you from saving 8000+ gold for an expansion launch
4) grant hero skin upgrades (which have little value compared to cards/gold/dust)

The worry is that this system is put in place to look like value is retained (like the AMA claimed) but the rewards themselves are worth less. If you gain less packs when the expansion launches and only earn some over the next months, these packs are worth less. Instead you are pushed to buy packs with real money to keep up with a meta.

Her eis a video by Hearthstone mathematics that goes into the issue:

 
As a recent reddit thread points out, these changes may be right around the corner, aimed to cripple the F2P economy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/i6ucxr/putting_how_bad_the_battle_pass_would_be_into/
 
I am seeing very little attention being paid to this issue but it would be a massive deal and change to a system that already is borderline impossible to keep up with as a F2P-player, and not a good one at that.
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  • So, there is this survey that has been going around about a Battlepass that may replace gold gained from quests with an experience system. The short version of it is:

    1) no more quests/gold per 3 wins
    2) you receive experience through game modes that reward less gold and packs than you would usually grind for
    3) disables you from saving 8000+ gold for an expansion launch
    4) grant hero skin upgrades (which have little value compared to cards/gold/dust)

    The worry is that this system is put in place to look like value is retained (like the AMA claimed) but the rewards themselves are worth less. If you gain less packs when the expansion launches and only earn some over the next months, these packs are worth less. Instead you are pushed to buy packs with real money to keep up with a meta.

    Her eis a video by Hearthstone mathematics that goes into the issue:

     
    As a recent reddit thread points out, these changes may be right around the corner, aimed to cripple the F2P economy:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/i6ucxr/putting_how_bad_the_battle_pass_would_be_into/
     
    I am seeing very little attention being paid to this issue but it would be a massive deal and change to a system that already is borderline impossible to keep up with as a F2P-player, and not a good one at that.

  • Don't forget that it's a progressive system, where you can only enjoy high level rewards when you nearing the end of the expansion.

    For examples, you may be getting that sweet Legendary cards rewards at the end of the 4th month, and it sounds pretty awful, why? because you need all the legendary at the earliest time possible. Getting them at the end of expansions only benefit collectors, and not F2P players.

    Plus, yeah, no more 80+ packs for the next expansion

    As Lee suggest it was 5000 golds, I was so shocked because I alone manage to get 8900 golds for scholomance without even reaching the daily gold cap. Only 6 wins average per day plus daily quests.

    I'm telling you, honestly I don't like this battlepass system.

    EDIT. I approve that video by Hearthstone Mathematics when they suggest "Pay or Get Out" to F2P.

    • Quote From h0lysatan

      Don't forget that it's a progressive system, where you can only enjoy high level rewards when you nearing the end of the expansion.

      For examples, you may be getting that sweet Legendary cards rewards at the end of the 4th month, and it sounds pretty awful, why? because you need all the legendary at the earliest time possible. Getting them at the end of expansions only benefit collectors, and not F2P players.

      Plus, yeah, no more 80+ packs for the next expansion

      As Lee suggest it was 5000 golds, I was so shocked because I alone manage to get 8900K for scholomance without even reaching the daily gold cap. Only 6 wins average per day plus daily quests.

      I'm telling you, honestly I don't like this battlepass system.

      One thing, you're skewing what Lee said. He said he makes 5000 gold and wouldn't expect himself to get less than that for the amount of work he puts in. This doesn't mean everyone will get 5000, nor he would get 5000 gold.

    • Quote From h0lysatan

      Don't forget that it's a progressive system, where you can only enjoy high level rewards when you nearing the end of the expansion.

      For examples, you may be getting that sweet Legendary cards rewards at the end of the 4th month, and it sounds pretty awful, why? because you need all the legendary at the earliest time possible. Getting them at the end of expansions only benefit collectors, and not F2P players.

      Plus, yeah, no more 80+ packs for the next expansion

      As Lee suggest it was 5000 golds, I was so shocked because I alone manage to get 8900 golds for scholomance without even reaching the daily gold cap. Only 6 wins average per day plus daily quests.

      I'm telling you, honestly I don't like this battlepass system.

      EDIT. I approve that video by Hearthstone Mathematics when they suggest "Pay or Get Out" to F2P.

      Pretty much everything you said after seeing the video in my feed.  (aside from 5K gold cap as already pointed out).

      Right now, on 3 regions I just do daily quests and get to D5.  That's 9K gold or so each expansion cycle for each region.

      If I can't open 80+ packs on expansion day release for a similar amount of effort it's much worse/less generous.  I don't care about cosmetic hero skins and the like.

      Will wait to see what the final system is but the one proposed in the survey results is MUCH worse.

      I hate misleading marketing (I don't even know if I had to put misleading in front of marketing there).  Be careful Blizzard, most people aren't stupid (or so I like to think).

  • The whole thing still has room to change from what was listed in the survey. Indeed, they wouldn't have bothered with an opinion-gathering survey if they were planning to just implement it as is. So for now I'd just wait to see what it ends up at, and consider whether I think it is problematic then.

    Honestly, I'd be surprised if they could justify it to their accounting department if it gave out as much gold as the gold-grinding F2P players get each cycle. They'd likely be aiming to be closer to the average amount of gold accumulated by regular players. Of course that is bound to get the gold-grinders complaining, and justifiably so, but that doesn't have to mean it is just some dastardly plan to cripple the HS economy.

    People often end up overly cynical or too willing to defend the company, without accepting there is a balance between being making the game better and appeasing the accountants in almost every decision they make, and it is never completely one-sided.

  • bah ... the unique way to make people happy is if the system will allow to store "next expansion" packs (to open when expansion starts)

    Old expansions pack have no value ... whatever is needed to be competitive has been already crafted. So ,in my view, to be proud of old packs as reward is just a joke.

  • Getting about 80 packs from gold usually amounts to about 4 to 5 legendaries and several epics. The dust you get from doubles is uaually enough for another 2 legends and some epis you are missing. For a F2P system that is okay-ish. Personally I still get a preorder here and there to keep my dust resources from dwindling. Even in this situation this game has received more money than I have paid for any other game collectively over the past 5 years so it is not like they are not making frequent money off of me.

    The system as it is right now works but if it gets changed to the current iteration of this battlepass, it will force players to invest money if they want to have any hope to play ranked.

  • My hope with the battle pass (since they seem to be pushing it no matter what) is for them to re-evaluate the value of the rewards they are giving as replacement. They should at the very least retain the same value.

    As the video has mentioned, in their progressive system, 100 gold =/= to 1 pack of the current expansion. So if they plan on replacing say 1000 gold, it should not just be 10 packs of the current expansion.

    IMO, it should be either:

    1. 10 packs of the next expansion, or
    2. More packs to compensate for the loss of value. Say a pack of the current expansion is worth 50 gold (just spitballing the value here), they should offer 20 packs instead of 10.

    My 2 cents.

  • personally I'd like it more if they implemented the battle pass along with the daily quests.

    Shadowverse, which is the only other card game I've played online - has a system that gives you daily quests to earn in game currency, along with login rewards AND a system that rewards you for earning experience in that month, which is usually card backs, new icons, and extra resources and packs for the next expansion.

    I doubt Blizzard will ever give login rewards that weren't part of an event, but having the battle pass run alongside their current daily quests would be acceptable to me.

    Edit: Also having the hero portraits be behind the paywall kinda blows.

    And after you get to level 100 the gold rewards is diminished SEVERELY. I'm guessing they're wanting people to play the Arena for the extra gold rewards, too.

    Which is a shame, I don't like Arena

  • I'm sure they'll have to face a huge sh1tstorm and be forced to rollback, the day people without preorder will be unable to open their 70-80 packs out of gold (or any other source).

    I mean, it's not like making F2P life harder will suddenly result in more people paying: you'll just get less people playing instead.

    In my case, if the above happens, I'll probably be forced back to focus on less classes, or stop playing entirely if the grind is too frustrating and the rewards delayed in time after each Expansion.

    And I'm fairly sure they are aware of that, so I do hope they will design the new system in a balanced way for everyone.