Could Hearthstone Players on iOS Soon be Buying Dust Instead of Card Packs?
Note: Blizzard has not yet made an official statement on the change.
Back in June, Hearthstone players in China were no longer able to buy card packs but instead were purchasing a small amount of Arcane Dust with their money. As a bonus for their purchase, card packs were thrown into the mix as a "gift" for their dust purchase.
Why did Blizzard make this change? This is because of a change to laws in China regarding loot boxes in video games where it was required for video games to publish the odds of their drop rates.
The shop interface for Hearthstone in China.
So then, why on Azeroth are iOS players potentially buying dust soon? That's thanks to a policy change in Apple's App Store.
The Apple App Store Update on Loot Boxes
In the Apple App Store guidelines, a document which details the rules app devs must follow to get through the app approval process, there is now a section which states apps need to make note of the odds of receiving each type of item to customers.
- Apps offering “loot boxes” or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase.
With this addition, it looks like Hearthstone will need to go the same way as it did in China to prevent disclosure of the drop rates which would be accomplished through giving players another object and tack on card packs as a gift. The alternative would be to cut the crap and officially state card drop rates which have been well known for years at this point. On the plus side if they do try to get around it by using arcane dust and not disclosing the odds, it's a little bit more dust in everyone's pockets which will help craft the powerhouses we need for our decks.
Rarity Distribution in Card Packs Today
Card rarity distribution hasn't changed since Hearthstone launched, though players will see slightly more Legendaries now thanks to a guaranteed Legendary in your first 10 packs for each set. The following rarity distribution is from our TGT community card pack opening and is still inline with other documented, more recent pack openings.
Rarity | Normal | Golden | Total | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Legendary | 696 | 0.94% | 56 | 0.08% | 752 | 1.01% |
Epic | 3029 | 4.09% | 143 | 0.19% | 3172 | 4.28% |
Rare | 16017 | 21.61% | 934 | 1.26% | 16951 | 22.87% |
Common | 52153 | 70.36% | 1097 | 1.48% | 53250 | 71.84% |
Total | 71895 | 96.99% | 2230 | 3.01% | 74125 | 100.00% |
We've also got some totally new information from Blizzard China from in May which was posted with loot box regulations in mind.
- You'll get at least 1 rare, or better, in each pack.
- An epic will be received, on average, in 1 of every 5 packs.
- Legendaries, on average, will be received in 1 of every 20 packs.
- As players open more packs, the actual probability of opening cards with higher quality increases.
It's possible we could see the above being enough for the Apple App Store and it wouldn't require Blizzard to provide the actual drop rates which means they won't need to move forward with giving users dust for their money instead.
Quote from BlizzardAccording to the relevant national laws and regulations, "slag legend" is now the probability of taking cards to publish, as follows:
Note: "slag legend" card package a total of five cards, including four different quality.
Rare cards
Each slag card package, at least to get a rare or higher quality card.
Epic card
An average of 5 slag card card package, you can get an epic quality card.
Legend card
An average of 20 slag card card package, you can get a legendary quality card.
In addition, it should be noted that: with the number of cards to increase the number of packages, players actually get high-quality card card probability will also increase.
Loot Boxes: How Do You Feel?
It's been a very popular topic in gaming communities over the past few weeks thanks to EA and their garbage with Star Wars: Battlefront II having absurd lengths of time being required for character unlocks unless you buy loot boxes and I'd like to know how everyone else feels about loot boxes both specifically with Hearthstone and then with other titles.
And before you comment, remember that developers in large companies usually aren't the people deciding how much stuff sells for and the drop rates for these; There's a whole different team of people to thank for this. Don't be a dick to game developers and call them out personally. Attacking developers, especially when they aren't even to blame for the fiasco, pushes them away from interacting with the community and then everyone gets upset no one comes out to talk with us anymore.
People like you are the problem. It will change nothing in the end.
Michael Chu, Ben Brode, and The ghost of Chris Metzen took my baby away.
Perhaps instead of worrying about if some rube blew their savings on virtual loot, Apple should get working on making sure the new Mac Pro isn't a repeat of the last one. I guess it's always easier to tell others what to do instead of actually doing what you are supposed to do.
Good unrelated rant. 10/10
Except that it is a criticism of an Apple policy posted to an article disclosing and discussing the impact of Apple policy on in-game purchases. It may bear a slight relevance.
Nope. It doesn't.
I'm not sure the information in this article is correct. Hearthstone *did* publish their drop rate in response to the new law in China - it was those figures you quoted later in the article (1 rare per 5 packs etc). It was a massive anti-climax at the time because all they did is confirm what we already knew. The change where they sold 1 dust and gave away a free pack was in response to a totally different requirement.
i have open over 50 kobold packs. buy i get only one. i open it first ten packs. so other packs 0 legendary.
Good to see changes against loot boxes, hope blizzard doesn't get around it like in China. Maybe someday in the future we'll get a fair system where paying 50 bucks will give you the entire expansion, like any digital game should be. This is not a CCG.
Actually people in china get 1 more dust per pack
Um... yes it is. It is literally a CCG. If you change the pricing to what you propose then the end result will be huge numbers of people quitting the game because part of the reason they play it is that they *like* collecting cards.
It is not literally a CCG. All your cards belongs to Blizz.
Our 'collection' means jack as soon as the servers are turned off. We're not collecting anything.
This is a ccg (collectible card game) it however is not a tcg (trading card game).
And even in a tcg (magic the gathering, pokemon, yu-gi-oh) $50 won't get you a full expansion.
However the prices to complete a set in Hearthstone compared to a tcg are definatly over priced.
Actually, this is why less and less news sites are allowing comments. There is an inherent conflict of interest when the site publishes material offensive to the sources. As a Dev I talk to angry customers all the time - they yell they scream, world keeps turning. I can understand the concern of the site as these people are the hand that feeds and not all are as stoic as myself.
Considering how many times people make toxic topics on the forum where nothing but insults is thrown around, often commenting either the random aspect of the game or accusing the Blizzard Team of incapability in any way, I blame the failure of the community at large, but particularly the mod team, to not stand up to any of that.
When someone on the forum calls another fellow player a failure at live who should delete their account, that player gets told to follow through, often commenting things like "It's the internet, get used to it." or "Retreat to your safe space, snowflake" - This is the culture we've built over years and its pretty much our fault it got so bad that no one really wants to talk to the gaming community because most of the time open channels to the players are flooded with abuse and petty complaints as well as straight up trolling.
This is why Blizz is communicating with top players behind the scenes and only has very limited avenues open on what info they give out. Even if there is nothing wrong with for example the card drop rates, they don't know if some gamers find it unfair and start a shitstorm which costs them money. And pretty much any minor gripe players have can start massive shitstorms.
I disagree. The issue is not within the anonymity, its the lack of care and accountability. People don't want to hold others to their shitty abusive and toxic behavior because they'd have to step out of their comfort zone to do that. This isn't an intrinsic fault of the net being anonymous - its that communities online are completely okay with toxic behavior as long as they don't get bothered to change it or are personally attacked. Anyone complaining is ridiculed as an SJW or snowflake who doesn't belong. I could go at lengths about cultural issues here but I can tell you that things would get a lot better if Mods gave a shit. This whole notion of "Free Speech" is ingrained in net culture and is always used as an excuse by mod teams from 4chan to SA to reddit and also to smaller communities like here to excuse and ignore any and all toxic behavior by members as long as it doesn't cause too much of an uproar. Because calling someone slurs and telling them to off themselves is certainly protected speech *eyeroll*
Really Mod Team, if you're reading this, step it up.
THANKS, EA!