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Hearthstone Beta Feedback Survey
If you've been participating in the Hearthstone closed beta test, you may be receiving en email within the next few days asking for your feedback. Details below!
Sometime in the next few days, you may receive an email inviting you to participate in a feedback survey about your experiences so far with Hearthstone. While we received lots of great comments and suggestions during BlizzCon, we want to make the same opportunity available to the full Hearthstone beta community.
The survey invitation will originate from a Battle.net address and be sent to the email address for your Battle.net account. It will direct you to an external site; this is a legitimate survey link. The feedback survey does not request any login or other account information.
Thank you for playing during closed beta, and helping us make Hearthstone a better game.
Hearthstone and "Pay to Win"
A popular debate in the Hearthstone community is the Pay to Win status of Hearthstone. There has been quite a bit of back and forth on the official Battle.net forums, reddit, and even our very own forums. Blizzard stated during BlizzCon that there were quite a few high ranked players that haven't spent a dime on the game, and now we've got a number to back that up. While it isn't a majority of high ranking players, Zeriyah shared a the number of 3-Start masters who haven't spent any money on the game. 44%.
If you need some help creating better decks, why don't you ask for some help over on our class discussion forums or general deck building forums!
44% of our current 3-Star Master players have spent no money on Hearthstone. Just keep practicing, and create a variety of decks!
Blues and Development Feedback
Zeriyah had quite a bit to say about the feedback the community provides and the blues "enjoying themselves" on the forums.
I really dont care about balancing.no developer has ever posted in regards to that because if they do its set in stone and along with alot of other information posted.
However, I would like to know about the current state and plans for development. Atleast a road map to where the game is heading. Stating some BS in fireside chat at blizzcon is just bogus, half of the BS they stated that was going to be changed everyone already knew that it was going to happen.
Plus it just showed the community that they are listening to the whiners/cryers thats why you see so many stupid %^- post flooding the forums.There's a significant difference between listening to the community and implementing everything mentioned in the forums. There are no snap judgement calls here, and all information is carefully evaluated because, well, it has to be.
The Fireside Chat was a very good road map if you are looking for game direction. We've been working on Ranked Play for some time now, and it was the first time we've revealed the actual structure of it to the public. Making Ranked Play appeal to both casual players and the more hardcore is not a simple task, and creating content for everyone is very important to us.
Card changes were also included in the Chat, including changes to Starving Buzzard, Mind Control and Unleash the Hounds, all of which have been commented on by the community.
Balance and the state of the game was also mentioned, and a few keen-eyed members of the community have noticed that an often-commented on class was actually not dominating the meta at high levels of play, although that perception continues to exist. So, that's another issue entirely we are looking at.
We also announced Adventures as well as Expansions. It's a bit soon for the details of each of those, but as Eric mentioned, Adventures are a focused single player experience in which you can earn cards, while we plan on Expansions offering more cards than Adventures.
To sum things up, we (the Hearthstone Blues™) do talk a lot, and we discuss various things that are of interest to us. Sometimes we pop into fun threads, and other times we get serious. We talk about things we enjoy, because we are as much a part of the community as you are, and we discuss upcoming features and game-related issues as well when it is appropriate to do so. Generally, this is when things are no longer in a state of flux to minimize confusion.I hope these proposed changes to buzzard and unleash the hounds are done carefully. Unleash the hounds is not an issue: The public perception is really an outspoken minority. If "balancing" entails slowing the game down and nerfing fun strategies to the ground, then I am fearful for the near-future of the game :-( Rogue is not fun (hint). Blizzard/Hearthstone Blues indeed.All of our changes are done with the utmost care. We don't change a card simply because the community says it should be so. In the case of Unleash the Hounds, it was promoting a rather un-fun play environment in this particular type of deck. I believe we touched on this at BlizzCon, but games of Hearthstone should be like a puzzle, where decisions you make are important and have an impact on the game. Even if you made an incorrect choice when deducing the "puzzle", you still end up learning something in the end and growing as a player by experience. With Unleash the Hounds, it went against that philosophy and left the opponent feeling more or less helpless when suddenly it's BEASTS, BEASTS EVERYWHERE. While it's an effective strategy of sorts, that feeling isn't fun, and we want Hearthstone to be fun for both players.
No Beta Waves Today - But Soon
Although we won't be seeing any beta keys out today, Blizzard is working on some Hearthstone server maintenance tomorrow to improve stability to they can resume sending out invites. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!
Are there going to be any keys today or have I missed a blue post saying that there will not be?It should be assumed that unless it is announced otherwise, there will not be any beta invites sent out that day.
With that said, we have some promising optimization and fixes being implemented during the maintenance tomorrow. If everything goes well during this process, then we hope to be able to resume sending out beta opt-in invites again shortly thereafter.
Open Beta Plans
Aratil clarified some time related questions with the Open Beta.
Two months is a long time, and I've no doubt that in that time your team could have easily made what was already a very solid and polished game ready for open beta, which is after all, still a beta. You said in an earlier post in this very thread that the reason you sent beta keys to new accounts was because you wanted new players feedback too. Well, with open beta, you could have everybody's feedback! Plus you wouldn't have bored fans like me hanging around the forum posting our own interpretations of what's going on behind the scenes. ;)
To conclude, my issue is that it feels like the closed beta has been artificially extended, for the sake of hype, and to coincide with Christmas spending urges. While I'm sure this is sound business strategy, it does tend to make people like me post crap like this.Our number one goal right now is to get Hearthstone into open beta as fast as possible for the very reasons that you stated. In fact, if everything went according to our initial plans, Hearthstone should already be in open beta now. However, the reality is that we ran into a number of significant issues resulting in where we are today. As announced at BlizzCon, our current target is to enter open beta next month, but that is largely dependent on how many issues we are able to address by that time, and can very easily slip into next year depending on the situation. Christmas spending urges have absolutely no bearing on when Hearthstone will enter open beta. In fact, I can assure you that the current stability and gameplay issues are not a part of "sound business strategy".
Hearthstone Beta Key Giveaway
If you'd like a chance to win a Hearthstone beta key, simply create a draft deck using our Arena Simulator! Drop us a link to your saved draft in this news post, and you'll be entered into our contest.
How To Enter
- Reply to this news post with a link to your draft on our Arena Simulator. It must be a draft performed after this news was posted - no oldies!
How To Win
- Contest closes on November 19th at 10 PM EST.
- Winners will be chosen randomly and sent private messages on HearthPwn.
- You are allowed one entry into this contest. If you are found to have entered more than once, you will be disqualified and your accounts will be banned.
- Winners will have 48 hours to respond to their private messages before their keys will be given out to someone else.
Name says it all!
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18710-worst-warrior-deck-ever
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18674-my-hunter-deck :)
http://www.hearthpwn.com/deckbuilder/priest#103
I Call it my Battle Ready priest deck!
http://www.hearthpwn.com/arena/druid#16DgRjAHVC
I like this deck by Midget
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18611-mage-deck
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18657-first-try
Funny how I named mine first try and most other people did also also don't judge ><
My first attempt at making a deck. Don't judge me.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/deckbuilder/warlock#25:1;36:1;84:1;88:1;123:1;157:1;173:1;178:2;221:1;265:1;280:1;305:1;327:1;346:1;348:2;420:1;452:1;479:1;507:1;566:1;577:1;603:1;610:1;625:1;641:1;673:3;
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18621-ezpz
<3
http://www.hearthpwn.com/deckbuilder/warlock#24:2;112:1;178:2;236:1;247:1;265:1;280:1;323:1;339:1;357:1;360:1;372:1;389:1;392:1;422:1;452:1;500:1;529:1;557:1;566:2;577:1;598:1;634:1;637:1;660:1;675:2;
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18616-the-goat-destroyer
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18604-druidspellpower
Pure pain for the enemy!
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18600-priest1
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18599-warlockmadness
Warlock for the win!
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18585-battlecry
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18584-mage
oops
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18575-oops
My arena deck
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18556-magedeckn2
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/18555-mage-arena
http://www.hearthpwn.com/deckbuilder/paladin#29:1;47:1;74:1;112:1;158:1;173:1;206:1;209:1;221:1;265:1;293:1;325:1;357:1;372:1;389:1;392:1;414:1;434:2;463:1;467:1;473:1;509:2;510:1;572:1;610:1;624:1;637:1;659:1;