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.
It's actuall $300.00 See my post on Reddit here: Real Numbers
I don't care how "rich" you "are", if you spend $200 for 1 supper you are an idiot :) Btw I'm a billionaire who lives in a 25,000 sqft house.
I recently tried out Gwent, which has a similar card rarity system as Hearthstone. However in Gwent, disenchanting a common gives 10 scraps (dust), and crafting a Legendary or Epic costs respectively 800 and 200 scraps. Well, that makes a 4x difference. Poor us Hearthstone players lol
Hearthstone is a CCG, not a CDG (dust)....
'Nuf said!
If anyone here has played any other games out there other than Hearthstone, you'd know that loot boxes are a fucking cancer. It's sugar-coated gambling, simple as that. And any laws and changes put up to help curb that get all the support from me.
If Hearthstone suffers slightly as a result, it's for the greater good. At worst it simply means getting certain cards will be slightly less obnoxious.
If Hearthstone suffers because loot box laws crack down on Blizzard, then that is telling of their awful game design. Let it burn. ALL OF IT.
so you're saying a TCG shouldn't be a TCG? if that's the case then pokemon TCG, yu-gi-oh and MTG would have to obey the same rules. In comparison to those hearthstone is EXTREMELY generous. In Magic you NEED to spend hundreds of dollars/pounds to stand a chance but in hearthstone if you manage gold and quests properly you can craft at least 1 or 2 viable decks per expansion for free and only need to spend money to have more variety or memey decks.
Card packs in HS are the exact same as loot boxes. There is no difference. Grind for endless hours or pay up. If we could actually trade cards in HS it would be different but as it stands card packs = loot boxes.
then don't play ....what is your argument? You can't afford to sit at the $100 dollar blackjack table so go sit at the $1 one son.....
only question I have after this post is: why do people in china get 78 packs for what is worth 50 euros, and they also get 78 dust with it.
I can only get 50 packs for 50 euros and that is only during prepurchase.
I also feel bad for those guys there, because blizzard sells packs in really odd bundles. 9, 52, 78????
I mean the honest answer here is because you will pay it. I'm not trying to disparage pack buying but if players stopped paying 50 euros for 50 packs one of two things would happen. The pack amount would increase or the cost would decrease. However it would take a lot of players not buying packs for Blizzard to take this outcome.
they could sell me 69 packs, 86.7 packs for those prices and i wouldnt give two shits tbqh
Because they think it's ok to fuck EU players. So what I did was install the US Amazon app store. The biggest discount isn't even the actual discount, it's being able to pay in USD. Paid 33 EU for 40 packs last night.
i've been playing for 4 months now or more i got 2 bloodmage thalnos and lyra the sunshard so i guess that's prettyyyyy gooood
I really feel bad for you guys about not getting any golden legendaries.........i have gotten at least one per expansion (got really lucky in MSoG and got the all three faction bosses golden......d/e'ed Hancho pretty quickly of course......unfortunately spent the dust on Sergeant Sally....). I rarely keep the golden legendary cards the dust is just too tempting and I have never cared about cosmetic things in games.
ive opened over 25 golden legendaries and ive even gotten them out of the fucking brawl packs dude........sorry but i have to laugh at you.
If they got rid of paks it would actually encourage me to spend more money, I 100% endorse this change.