A better solution is probably to discount the gold cost of the first 100 packs of classic cards for new players.
Giving everyone all the classic cards would create a less diverse meta with people having to only buy a handful of the new expansion cards to create the best decks.. there would be no need to be creative and find replacements for epics and legendaries you don't own and can't afford.
I maybe own 50-60% of the classic collection and the thought of suddenly having all the other cards added to my collection over night would probably turn me off the game fairly quick.
Control warrior uses 12-13 classic cards. You still need a lot from other sets.
Tempo rogue is the main 1 at 20 classic cards. This is always the case with rogue since their base set is so so strong and will most likely be altered in the future.
Thief rogue uses 13 classic cards.
Zoolock uses 13 classic cards.
Token druid uses 6 classic cards.
Bomb warrior uses 8 classic cards.
Summoner mage uses 7-8 classic cards.
Mech hunter uses 6 classic cards.
Control shaman uses 8 classic cards.
That's the majority of the top 2 tiers of decks coming in at an average of 10.5 classic cards per deck. I think you're going to need more than a handful of cards to complete these decks.
Keeping in mind this is standard directly after a rotation. Less and less classic cards will be used as more sets are released over the year.
I find it hard to comprehend how getting the rest of the set for free would put you off playing the game. You still have a shit load of cards to collect.
While a charitable thought, the end effect would be detrimental to the game.
It would benefit me greatly. I started in mate MSoG and really only have cards from Mammoth on, being largely F2P. When I play Rogue I have to play without double prep and double SI:7, I still don’t have two copies of Blizzard, Eaglehorn bow, and lightning storm, much less some Classic epics. I’d love to have those holes filled.
And yet, giving them away for free would seriously harm the game, not only in the potential offense taken by more established paying players.
The need to collect cards in a CCG serves more purposes than monetization. For one, it gives players a goal to strive for. In another game the developers made collecting too easy and even though I was late to the party I was able to get multiple copies of every collectible item without paying a dime (buying them all with premium currency would run close to 10,000$ US). Guess what happened when I finally got my last piece?
I quit the game. There wasn’t enough of a challenge anymore.
Obviously that’s not going to happen to everyone every time. Yet losing the draw of collecting would lose the game some of its players.
Secondly, collecting serves as a gateway to the game. In game design we talk about the learning curve of a game. And CCGs in particular have a solid approach to the learning curve: basic sets and a slow accumulation of cards. Consider the first time you played MtG, odds are someone gave you a mono red Sligh deck and you went face. Or perhaps a token green, the individual deck doesn’t matter. All your learning curve was the cards in your (likely borrowed) deck and the ones on the table in front of you. Most games have since come out with preconstructed boxed sets to help catch players who may not have the friendly aid of a loaner deck. SW:CCG was ridiculously complex, but starting with the pre-built decks, the mental load was significantly reduced. Hearthstone is no different. Wonder why they hit FWA with a mana bump instead of some text? FWA is basic, and one of the cards by which a level 1 Warrior learns what a weapon is. Starting out a new game with hundreds of different moving pieces would lend to choice paralysis and players would walk away.
This is only going to get worse. Could you imagine walking into a game store and asking to about MtG and being sat down at a table and handed 4x of every card from Alpha to Ravnica and being told “have fun!”. Experienced players would drool at the chance, a beginner would be more likely to run away and never look back.
But let’s say you’re an avid collector and had the fortitude to get through the mountain of cards handed to you on day one. Now what?
Well, you’ve got a few options. Arena looks interesting, but you don’t have much gold. Standard is supposed to be the main event, but you don’t have much of those cards, compared to the third option: most of the cards you got excited about are flagged as “Wild only” so let’s play wild. Great, welcome to the game: Big Priest. Odd Warrior. Hourlock. Well, you have enough of those cards to try some of those so let’s try that. Huh. That’s what Hearthstone is like?
The game just lost another group of players.
But say you push through even that. Welcome to the game, get buried in cards, play Wild and love it. Awesome. Now. At what point would you ever be incentivized to spend money? The cards in Standard (the only ones that require paying for in this world) don’t make a huge portion of influence in Wild. Maybe a card here or there. Ziliax looks good, maybe I’ll dust Millhouse and a few other obviously trash cards for him. What’s that? By making everything free you’ve made them undustable? Well, in return for the chance of a new player buying a few packs you’ve pissed off an even larger chunk of your older players. And what’s more, why pay anything for Ziliax? He’ll be free in another 10 months or so.
They’d need to amp the appeal of the newest set(s) hard to even stand a chance of making a dime. Each new set would need stronger-than-KFT/Kobolds type cards for them to appreciably make Wild-only new players even think about opening their wallets. Which means that those who can’t/won’t simply will not be able to compete.
Congratulations, you’ve either bankrupted the game or driven it to an entirely P2W model. All by trying to make things free and easier for beginners. Hopefully you don’t work in game development.
Though I understand there’s some positions in the US Government opening up soon. You sound like you’d fit in just fine there.
For me collecting is not a driver in fact it´s a way to piss me off if moving into grind or a paywall. Thats why i lost intrest in a bunch of games, next expac, more of all, higher level .... Awwwww. I want to be creative, construct decks and play with others giving them surprises and having a challenge. So i actually like PvP games where everyone has the same resources as long as there is huge diversity/individually possible.
i lost my mental health during 5 years while trying to complete my classic collection. so no, no pain no gain. hearthstone has already f2p basic set. so, they need to expand the meta and prohobit netdecking. so everyone can play competitive with their theorycraft decks
As Blizzard has previously made very clear, the classic set acts as the basis for most successful and enduring decks, for example Zoo Warlock or Control Mage. Most of the necessary cards to build the deck are found in the classic set, and since it doesn't rotate the decks will always be there in some capacity. Blizzard has nerfed classic and basic cards (or moved them to the hall of fame) since these long-enduring decks are always so prominent. Blizzard likes to have unique metas and some cards don't allow for that, however they still like to keep basic archetypes as part of a class's identity.
In my opinion, Blizzard won't dare to make the classic set free as it will hurt their profits ,as a business, too much. If everyone gets the classic cards for free then there won't be much point in spending actual money on the game as you could just use in-game gold to buy packs and won't really need to anyways since you will have most of the key components for any deck and could just operate off of free packs from events. Also, there is a lifetime quest to collect all of the classic cards so that would just hurt Blizzard's profit even more.
While a charitable thought, the end effect would be detrimental to the game.
It would benefit me greatly. I started in mate MSoG and really only have cards from Mammoth on, being largely F2P. When I play Rogue I have to play without double prep and double SI:7, I still don’t have two copies of Blizzard, Eaglehorn bow, and lightning storm, much less some Classic epics. I’d love to have those holes filled.
And yet, giving them away for free would seriously harm the game, not only in the potential offense taken by more established paying players.
The need to collect cards in a CCG serves more purposes than monetization. For one, it gives players a goal to strive for. In another game the developers made collecting too easy and even though I was late to the party I was able to get multiple copies of every collectible item without paying a dime (buying them all with premium currency would run close to 10,000$ US). Guess what happened when I finally got my last piece?
I quit the game. There wasn’t enough of a challenge anymore.
Obviously that’s not going to happen to everyone every time. Yet losing the draw of collecting would lose the game some of its players.
Secondly, collecting serves as a gateway to the game. In game design we talk about the learning curve of a game. And CCGs in particular have a solid approach to the learning curve: basic sets and a slow accumulation of cards. Consider the first time you played MtG, odds are someone gave you a mono red Sligh deck and you went face. Or perhaps a token green, the individual deck doesn’t matter. All your learning curve was the cards in your (likely borrowed) deck and the ones on the table in front of you. Most games have since come out with preconstructed boxed sets to help catch players who may not have the friendly aid of a loaner deck. SW:CCG was ridiculously complex, but starting with the pre-built decks, the mental load was significantly reduced. Hearthstone is no different. Wonder why they hit FWA with a mana bump instead of some text? FWA is basic, and one of the cards by which a level 1 Warrior learns what a weapon is. Starting out a new game with hundreds of different moving pieces would lend to choice paralysis and players would walk away.
This is only going to get worse. Could you imagine walking into a game store and asking to about MtG and being sat down at a table and handed 4x of every card from Alpha to Ravnica and being told “have fun!”. Experienced players would drool at the chance, a beginner would be more likely to run away and never look back.
But let’s say you’re an avid collector and had the fortitude to get through the mountain of cards handed to you on day one. Now what?
Well, you’ve got a few options. Arena looks interesting, but you don’t have much gold. Standard is supposed to be the main event, but you don’t have much of those cards, compared to the third option: most of the cards you got excited about are flagged as “Wild only” so let’s play wild. Great, welcome to the game: Big Priest. Odd Warrior. Hourlock. Well, you have enough of those cards to try some of those so let’s try that. Huh. That’s what Hearthstone is like?
The game just lost another group of players.
But say you push through even that. Welcome to the game, get buried in cards, play Wild and love it. Awesome. Now. At what point would you ever be incentivized to spend money? The cards in Standard (the only ones that require paying for in this world) don’t make a huge portion of influence in Wild. Maybe a card here or there. Ziliax looks good, maybe I’ll dust Millhouse and a few other obviously trash cards for him. What’s that? By making everything free you’ve made them undustable? Well, in return for the chance of a new player buying a few packs you’ve pissed off an even larger chunk of your older players. And what’s more, why pay anything for Ziliax? He’ll be free in another 10 months or so.
They’d need to amp the appeal of the newest set(s) hard to even stand a chance of making a dime. Each new set would need stronger-than-KFT/Kobolds type cards for them to appreciably make Wild-only new players even think about opening their wallets. Which means that those who can’t/won’t simply will not be able to compete.
Congratulations, you’ve either bankrupted the game or driven it to an entirely P2W model. All by trying to make things free and easier for beginners. Hopefully you don’t work in game development.
Though I understand there’s some positions in the US Government opening up soon. You sound like you’d fit in just fine there.
You don't give it all day 1. You expand upon the current free basic cards with quests and pve content to gradually introduce them to the cards and unlock them. I already linked how many cards are used from the classic set in standard, do you want me to do the same for wild? You will still need a lot of cards for any of those decks. You still have 4-6 expansions to collect from for standard. A lot more for wild. That's around 1000-1500 cards for standard. Nearly double that for wild. You will not be getting these by simply F2P. That's a fact. Ziliax won't be free in a few months. This isn't a continuous trend. A whole wall of text and not a single good argument in it outside of it pissing off a bunch of selfish assholes which it would. It already is a P2W model. If you can't see that then you are pretty ignorant.
As Blizzard has previously made very clear, the classic set acts as the basis for most successful and enduring decks, for example Zoo Warlock or Control Mage. Most of the necessary cards to build the deck are found in the classic set, and since it doesn't rotate the decks will always be there in some capacity. Blizzard has nerfed classic and basic cards (or moved them to the hall of fame) since these long-enduring decks are always so prominent. Blizzard likes to have unique metas and some cards don't allow for that, however they still like to keep basic archetypes as part of a class's identity.
In my opinion, Blizzard won't dare to make the classic set free as it will hurt their profits ,as a business, too much. If everyone gets the classic cards for free then there won't be much point in spending actual money on the game as you could just use in-game gold to buy packs and won't really need to anyways since you will have most of the key components for any deck and could just operate off of free packs from events. Also, there is a lifetime quest to collect all of the classic cards so that would just hurt Blizzard's profit even more.
No they aren't. I already linked how many classic cards are used in all of the top 2 tiers of decks. It's an average of 10. That's 33% of the deck. You still need to collect a shit load of cards. Even more for wild. You will never catch up by F2P. You have to spend money if you want all the other cards unless you were on-board from the start which I was and I still have to spend money despite doing nearly all of dailies since the game released.
@mojo your assumption is that the classic set is not bought a lot and blizzard will make more revenue (by attracting new players) when they would make it free.
My assumption is that the classic set is being bought (who has bought the welcome bundle...) and that blizzard would have made the decision to make the set free when that would make them more revenue.
My assumption is based on the intelligence of the sales department of a big (successful) company. Also it's known that the amount of registered users has increased by 40% between half 2017 to end of 2018 (to 100 million). This doesn't say anything about active users, but makes clear that there is a big enough influx of (potential) new players still. Part of those players will stick around and another part will spend money on the game.
We both made assumptions and we are both uncertain if those are correct. Calling my assumptions a fallacy however, while maintaining your own assumptions as not being a fallacy, gives the impression you are not willing to listen to other opinions.
That is your right, but doesn't add anything to the discussion either.
You had time to build up that collection when there were less card's along with all the free cards, packs and quests. It is harder than ever to do.
This is 100 percent false. It is actually EASIER than ever.
They have significantly increased the average gold rewards per quest.
The requirements for quest completion are now absolutely trivial compared to what they were before.
Expansions were coming out all the time back then, too. You HAD to pay cash or gold for Naxx, and those cards were essential for Ranked play. GvG was out in December of the first year, long before it would have been possible for any free player to complete the Classic set.
I'm aware that they market Hearthstone as free to play. Thanks for the snide google. But I think every reasonable person is aware that that's just marketing. It's not Blizzard announcing themselves as a charity. They do hope and expect that you'll give them money at some point. It is, in fact, their only reason for existing as a company.
Blizzard's current business model is to convert free players to paying players by making them want more cards faster than a free player can accumulate them. The psychological pressure to do so is much stronger than the desire to buy cosmetic items.
You already get 14.6 percent of the game for free, in the form of Basic cards. Classic represents another 26.3 percent. You are asking them to give away 41 percent of the Standard game without charge. That's ridiculous.
While a charitable thought, the end effect would be detrimental to the game.
It would benefit me greatly. I started in mate MSoG and really only have cards from Mammoth on, being largely F2P. When I play Rogue I have to play without double prep and double SI:7, I still don’t have two copies of Blizzard, Eaglehorn bow, and lightning storm, much less some Classic epics. I’d love to have those holes filled.
And yet, giving them away for free would seriously harm the game, not only in the potential offense taken by more established paying players.
The need to collect cards in a CCG serves more purposes than monetization. For one, it gives players a goal to strive for. In another game the developers made collecting too easy and even though I was late to the party I was able to get multiple copies of every collectible item without paying a dime (buying them all with premium currency would run close to 10,000$ US). Guess what happened when I finally got my last piece?
I quit the game. There wasn’t enough of a challenge anymore.
Obviously that’s not going to happen to everyone every time. Yet losing the draw of collecting would lose the game some of its players.
Secondly, collecting serves as a gateway to the game. In game design we talk about the learning curve of a game. And CCGs in particular have a solid approach to the learning curve: basic sets and a slow accumulation of cards. Consider the first time you played MtG, odds are someone gave you a mono red Sligh deck and you went face. Or perhaps a token green, the individual deck doesn’t matter. All your learning curve was the cards in your (likely borrowed) deck and the ones on the table in front of you. Most games have since come out with preconstructed boxed sets to help catch players who may not have the friendly aid of a loaner deck. SW:CCG was ridiculously complex, but starting with the pre-built decks, the mental load was significantly reduced. Hearthstone is no different. Wonder why they hit FWA with a mana bump instead of some text? FWA is basic, and one of the cards by which a level 1 Warrior learns what a weapon is. Starting out a new game with hundreds of different moving pieces would lend to choice paralysis and players would walk away.
This is only going to get worse. Could you imagine walking into a game store and asking to about MtG and being sat down at a table and handed 4x of every card from Alpha to Ravnica and being told “have fun!”. Experienced players would drool at the chance, a beginner would be more likely to run away and never look back.
But let’s say you’re an avid collector and had the fortitude to get through the mountain of cards handed to you on day one. Now what?
Well, you’ve got a few options. Arena looks interesting, but you don’t have much gold. Standard is supposed to be the main event, but you don’t have much of those cards, compared to the third option: most of the cards you got excited about are flagged as “Wild only” so let’s play wild. Great, welcome to the game: Big Priest. Odd Warrior. Hourlock. Well, you have enough of those cards to try some of those so let’s try that. Huh. That’s what Hearthstone is like?
The game just lost another group of players.
But say you push through even that. Welcome to the game, get buried in cards, play Wild and love it. Awesome. Now. At what point would you ever be incentivized to spend money? The cards in Standard (the only ones that require paying for in this world) don’t make a huge portion of influence in Wild. Maybe a card here or there. Ziliax looks good, maybe I’ll dust Millhouse and a few other obviously trash cards for him. What’s that? By making everything free you’ve made them undustable? Well, in return for the chance of a new player buying a few packs you’ve pissed off an even larger chunk of your older players. And what’s more, why pay anything for Ziliax? He’ll be free in another 10 months or so.
They’d need to amp the appeal of the newest set(s) hard to even stand a chance of making a dime. Each new set would need stronger-than-KFT/Kobolds type cards for them to appreciably make Wild-only new players even think about opening their wallets. Which means that those who can’t/won’t simply will not be able to compete.
Congratulations, you’ve either bankrupted the game or driven it to an entirely P2W model. All by trying to make things free and easier for beginners. Hopefully you don’t work in game development.
Though I understand there’s some positions in the US Government opening up soon. You sound like you’d fit in just fine there.
my first time with mtg someone gave me a WU esper control sun titan deck, that i couldnt figure out for my life, so i can back this point, i had no idea what i was doing annd gave it back to the guy and conformed with his janky yet simple to understand monoblue mill deck built around traumatize, hedron crab and arhcive trap.
This sounds like a nice idea, but in reality, it would decimate their economy because then the best option is to just play wild for free for example, and then people would potentially rather wait for old cards to rotate out so they can get them for free.
Also, it'd be a big middle finger to those who spent cash on adventures and old wild sets.
I will tell you why I THINK you should let new player have classic set.
Hearthstone revenue is falling each year and the player database too.
For example most of my friends (irl) who played HS competitively since beta with an average 2/3 hours per day. They also put money each(or 1/2) extensions except last year and this year.
Today they play nearly because they don't feel to grind another CCG and they still like to play HS but most of time between them that's why they disenchanted all their cards who are not standar. They refuse to put anymore money in HS for many reasons. I know many other "competitive" players (friends of friends or net) who basically do the same.
for other not competitve player , they don't play a lot and buy maybe 2 extensions that's and play only 1 class. They don't play each extension and not even the full extension. Most of players are casuals and will pay 50/100€ on the game and never do it again.
You can play HS free to play, but a casual can't really play HS as F2P because they don't play 2/3h per day, they don't really feel to progress (don't really want to try hard but don't like to have lose streak), they also have some time trouble to do quest and don't really know how to do their deck and play them.
So yes new player and casual players, need help definitively and even if I understand the fact you invested time and money and you don't want they have classic cards free. You should understand hearthstone revenues and players is falling down.
I don't say hearthstone is dying but the fact is they do 2x less revenues each year, they still earn a lot and there is still many players. But in the long term, if there is no new player and people play less and less, they will have to do a HS 2 for a new hype and all your time and money "will disappear" at the same time. That's my opinion.
I don't say hearthstone is dying but the fact is they do 2x less revenues each year, they still earn a lot and there is still many players. But in the long term, if there is no new player and people play less and less, they will have to do a HS 2 for a new hype and all your time and money "will disappear" at the same time. That's my opinion.
@mojo your assumption is that the classic set is not bought a lot and blizzard will make more revenue (by attracting new players) when they would make it free.
My assumption is that the classic set is being bought (who has bought the welcome bundle...) and that blizzard would have made the decision to make the set free when that would make them more revenue.
My assumption is based on the intelligence of the sales department of a big (successful) company. Also it's known that the amount of registered users has increased by 40% between half 2017 to end of 2018 (to 100 million). This doesn't say anything about active users, but makes clear that there is a big enough influx of (potential) new players still. Part of those players will stick around and another part will spend money on the game.
We both made assumptions and we are both uncertain if those are correct. Calling my assumptions a fallacy however, while maintaining your own assumptions as not being a fallacy, gives the impression you are not willing to listen to other opinions.
That is your right, but doesn't add anything to the discussion either.
That's a fair point. There are a lot of assumptions being made. We don't have the figures to know what the reality is. Registered users means nothing though. It's the retention of those users that is the important figure.
You had time to build up that collection when there were less card's along with all the free cards, packs and quests. It is harder than ever to do.
This is 100 percent false. It is actually EASIER than ever.
They have significantly increased the average gold rewards per quest.
The requirements for quest completion are now absolutely trivial compared to what they were before.
Expansions were coming out all the time back then, too. You HAD to pay cash or gold for Naxx, and those cards were essential for Ranked play. GvG was out in December of the first year, long before it would have been possible for any free player to complete the Classic set.
I'm aware that they market Hearthstone as free to play. Thanks for the snide google. But I think every reasonable person is aware that that's just marketing. It's not Blizzard announcing themselves as a charity. They do hope and expect that you'll give them money at some point. It is, in fact, their only reason for existing as a company.
Blizzard's current business model is to convert free players to paying players by making them want more cards faster than a free player can accumulate them. The psychological pressure to do so is much stronger than the desire to buy cosmetic items.
You already get 14.6 percent of the game for free, in the form of Basic cards. Classic represents another 26.3 percent. You are asking them to give away 41 percent of the Standard game without charge. That's ridiculous.
It's not 100% false. I'll tear your argument apart if you like though.
The gold rewards have not significantly increased for those who swapped their quests until they got 60g+. It's pretty much the same. Only difference now is you get a minimum of 50g instead of 40g.
The quests are easier sure. That doesn't mean more gold though.
It was far far easier to keep up with expansions as a F2P player back then. Every second expansion was an adventure mode with 5 wings. 1 wing free and 700g for each of the rest. A measly 2800g for every single card in the expansion. This allowed you to save a lot for the next real full expansion then as well. This is why they moved away from this model. The fact that you are suggesting that it was harder back when it was this model is laughable and proves you are completely clueless.
That number is including cards that got HoF so it's actually lower. The majority of those cards are unplayable and you know it. This is also the very start of a new rotation. That % will drop when we get a 5th and 6th expansion for this year. Most likely more cards will be HoF over time as well.
What about at least making the class cards free. Keeping the neutrals as collectables. Something has to be done as the current state of the game is awful for new players. Denying this is just wrong.
This sounds like a nice idea, but in reality, it would decimate their economy because then the best option is to just play wild for free for example, and then people would potentially rather wait for old cards to rotate out so they can get them for free.
Also, it'd be a big middle finger to those who spent cash on adventures and old wild sets.
I don't know why a handful of you keep repeating this as if it was fact. What wild decks are using only classic cards? You still need a crap load of cards from a lot of different expansions to make the best wild decks. Nobody is suggesting constantly making rotating cards free either. We're talking about making the classic set free. Nothing else.
Start by defining "awful for new players." You've been throwing that around for several pages, using it as fact and the basis of your argument. "Awful" is subjective. You're going to have to set up factual, objective parameters or else your whole argument is merely a glorified opinion.
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Sorry I can't go back all the way and read every other comment, so my apologies if any of this is repeat. First of all the answer is hell to the no. No no no...people need to stop suggesting ways to change the scope of Blizzard's card game. There is a huge community, a ton of sites, good E-sports viewership, and assuredly due to these things (most importantly) a strong daily log-in.
1. Recursive Dust Rewards. How in the world do you reward the people that didn't need the free content? Do they not get it? Do they get a dust drop? Can we dust these cards now or are they permanent? That is a VERY fast way to get every player every card they want or need and that is dangerous for the model. The salt factor you mentioned outside of dust for long-standing players would be VERY real.
2. A Collectible Card Game. At its core this game is about collecting. What is the point if you no longer need to collect and can play one of the game modes (Wild) essentially for free with almost no limitation? I understand there is a proposed year gap, but if you're telling me I get Classic and/or Year 1 and 2 expansions for free. At what point is the game no longer "collectible" if you are given so much for free, even if it is on a big delay timer?
3. Exploration Thoughts. People complain about net-decking every day. I was attached to multiple threads where this was the topic and all of them had more pages than this one; completely dominated by less than 5 people at that. Imagine a game where you log in first time as a player and go straight to the internet and learn the best builds for decks and already have 50% or more of what you need to succeed in either format. What are your goals at this point? The game becomes so casual and lackluster because most people will just see what is free with the highest win-rate and jam it. Terrible for the meta, and terrible to allow new players to not experience the little bit they have of new account exploration where you try to make a decent midrange deck with basic cards.
Listen OP, I tried hard to get people into this game. My friends don't want to play it either because they are convinced it is stuck behind a paywall. I've heard every variety of excuse from non-players that pushes people like you towards making threads like these. Your intentions are good, but you'll never have the answer. If you want to join a "living" game you have to understand that the game has been growing since its release. There may be things in place to help you get caught up minorly, but any game that develops over time doesn't have a true way for you to experience all it has to offer in any reasonable amount of time if you weren't there at the start. Hearthstone is just one of those games where if you want true exploratory, competitive, expansive outlets you need to either dish out the money, or grind harder than Chastity does at my local Solid Gold- god bless that core strength.
TL;DR: No your idea doesn't work. It simply is, and thus simply will be. The game is the game and for too many reasons making collection changes screws up the whole process. You can "catch up" as a new player in one of two ways: Grind or pull out the credit card.
As a player who's been here since Beta, and owns every card in the game except one I think it's a great idea for Classic to be awarded to all players! I want casuals to step their game up, and I want the game to be cheaper over all for players.
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A better solution is probably to discount the gold cost of the first 100 packs of classic cards for new players.
Giving everyone all the classic cards would create a less diverse meta with people having to only buy a handful of the new expansion cards to create the best decks.. there would be no need to be creative and find replacements for epics and legendaries you don't own and can't afford.
I maybe own 50-60% of the classic collection and the thought of suddenly having all the other cards added to my collection over night would probably turn me off the game fairly quick.
Allow me to tear your argument apart.
Control warrior uses 12-13 classic cards. You still need a lot from other sets.
Tempo rogue is the main 1 at 20 classic cards. This is always the case with rogue since their base set is so so strong and will most likely be altered in the future.
Thief rogue uses 13 classic cards.
Zoolock uses 13 classic cards.
Token druid uses 6 classic cards.
Bomb warrior uses 8 classic cards.
Summoner mage uses 7-8 classic cards.
Mech hunter uses 6 classic cards.
Control shaman uses 8 classic cards.
That's the majority of the top 2 tiers of decks coming in at an average of 10.5 classic cards per deck. I think you're going to need more than a handful of cards to complete these decks.
Keeping in mind this is standard directly after a rotation. Less and less classic cards will be used as more sets are released over the year.
I find it hard to comprehend how getting the rest of the set for free would put you off playing the game. You still have a shit load of cards to collect.
While a charitable thought, the end effect would be detrimental to the game.
It would benefit me greatly. I started in mate MSoG and really only have cards from Mammoth on, being largely F2P. When I play Rogue I have to play without double prep and double SI:7, I still don’t have two copies of Blizzard, Eaglehorn bow, and lightning storm, much less some Classic epics. I’d love to have those holes filled.
And yet, giving them away for free would seriously harm the game, not only in the potential offense taken by more established paying players.
The need to collect cards in a CCG serves more purposes than monetization. For one, it gives players a goal to strive for. In another game the developers made collecting too easy and even though I was late to the party I was able to get multiple copies of every collectible item without paying a dime (buying them all with premium currency would run close to 10,000$ US). Guess what happened when I finally got my last piece?
I quit the game. There wasn’t enough of a challenge anymore.
Obviously that’s not going to happen to everyone every time. Yet losing the draw of collecting would lose the game some of its players.
Secondly, collecting serves as a gateway to the game. In game design we talk about the learning curve of a game. And CCGs in particular have a solid approach to the learning curve: basic sets and a slow accumulation of cards. Consider the first time you played MtG, odds are someone gave you a mono red Sligh deck and you went face. Or perhaps a token green, the individual deck doesn’t matter. All your learning curve was the cards in your (likely borrowed) deck and the ones on the table in front of you. Most games have since come out with preconstructed boxed sets to help catch players who may not have the friendly aid of a loaner deck. SW:CCG was ridiculously complex, but starting with the pre-built decks, the mental load was significantly reduced. Hearthstone is no different. Wonder why they hit FWA with a mana bump instead of some text? FWA is basic, and one of the cards by which a level 1 Warrior learns what a weapon is. Starting out a new game with hundreds of different moving pieces would lend to choice paralysis and players would walk away.
This is only going to get worse. Could you imagine walking into a game store and asking to about MtG and being sat down at a table and handed 4x of every card from Alpha to Ravnica and being told “have fun!”. Experienced players would drool at the chance, a beginner would be more likely to run away and never look back.
But let’s say you’re an avid collector and had the fortitude to get through the mountain of cards handed to you on day one. Now what?
Well, you’ve got a few options. Arena looks interesting, but you don’t have much gold. Standard is supposed to be the main event, but you don’t have much of those cards, compared to the third option: most of the cards you got excited about are flagged as “Wild only” so let’s play wild. Great, welcome to the game: Big Priest. Odd Warrior. Hourlock. Well, you have enough of those cards to try some of those so let’s try that. Huh. That’s what Hearthstone is like?
The game just lost another group of players.
But say you push through even that. Welcome to the game, get buried in cards, play Wild and love it. Awesome. Now. At what point would you ever be incentivized to spend money? The cards in Standard (the only ones that require paying for in this world) don’t make a huge portion of influence in Wild. Maybe a card here or there. Ziliax looks good, maybe I’ll dust Millhouse and a few other obviously trash cards for him. What’s that? By making everything free you’ve made them undustable? Well, in return for the chance of a new player buying a few packs you’ve pissed off an even larger chunk of your older players. And what’s more, why pay anything for Ziliax? He’ll be free in another 10 months or so.
They’d need to amp the appeal of the newest set(s) hard to even stand a chance of making a dime. Each new set would need stronger-than-KFT/Kobolds type cards for them to appreciably make Wild-only new players even think about opening their wallets. Which means that those who can’t/won’t simply will not be able to compete.
Congratulations, you’ve either bankrupted the game or driven it to an entirely P2W model. All by trying to make things free and easier for beginners. Hopefully you don’t work in game development.
Though I understand there’s some positions in the US Government opening up soon. You sound like you’d fit in just fine there.
For me collecting is not a driver in fact it´s a way to piss me off if moving into grind or a paywall. Thats why i lost intrest in a bunch of games, next expac, more of all, higher level .... Awwwww. I want to be creative, construct decks and play with others giving them surprises and having a challenge. So i actually like PvP games where everyone has the same resources as long as there is huge diversity/individually possible.
i lost my mental health during 5 years while trying to complete my classic collection. so no, no pain no gain. hearthstone has already f2p basic set. so, they need to expand the meta and prohobit netdecking. so everyone can play competitive with their theorycraft decks
Basic set is free .
what more do you want ?
Season 36 = Legend Rank 60 . ( https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/20695745 )
As Blizzard has previously made very clear, the classic set acts as the basis for most successful and enduring decks, for example Zoo Warlock or Control Mage. Most of the necessary cards to build the deck are found in the classic set, and since it doesn't rotate the decks will always be there in some capacity. Blizzard has nerfed classic and basic cards (or moved them to the hall of fame) since these long-enduring decks are always so prominent. Blizzard likes to have unique metas and some cards don't allow for that, however they still like to keep basic archetypes as part of a class's identity.
In my opinion, Blizzard won't dare to make the classic set free as it will hurt their profits ,as a business, too much. If everyone gets the classic cards for free then there won't be much point in spending actual money on the game as you could just use in-game gold to buy packs and won't really need to anyways since you will have most of the key components for any deck and could just operate off of free packs from events. Also, there is a lifetime quest to collect all of the classic cards so that would just hurt Blizzard's profit even more.
You don't give it all day 1. You expand upon the current free basic cards with quests and pve content to gradually introduce them to the cards and unlock them. I already linked how many cards are used from the classic set in standard, do you want me to do the same for wild? You will still need a lot of cards for any of those decks. You still have 4-6 expansions to collect from for standard. A lot more for wild. That's around 1000-1500 cards for standard. Nearly double that for wild. You will not be getting these by simply F2P. That's a fact. Ziliax won't be free in a few months. This isn't a continuous trend. A whole wall of text and not a single good argument in it outside of it pissing off a bunch of selfish assholes which it would. It already is a P2W model. If you can't see that then you are pretty ignorant.
No they aren't. I already linked how many classic cards are used in all of the top 2 tiers of decks. It's an average of 10. That's 33% of the deck. You still need to collect a shit load of cards. Even more for wild. You will never catch up by F2P. You have to spend money if you want all the other cards unless you were on-board from the start which I was and I still have to spend money despite doing nearly all of dailies since the game released.
@mojo your assumption is that the classic set is not bought a lot and blizzard will make more revenue (by attracting new players) when they would make it free.
My assumption is that the classic set is being bought (who has bought the welcome bundle...) and that blizzard would have made the decision to make the set free when that would make them more revenue.
My assumption is based on the intelligence of the sales department of a big (successful) company. Also it's known that the amount of registered users has increased by 40% between half 2017 to end of 2018 (to 100 million). This doesn't say anything about active users, but makes clear that there is a big enough influx of (potential) new players still. Part of those players will stick around and another part will spend money on the game.
We both made assumptions and we are both uncertain if those are correct. Calling my assumptions a fallacy however, while maintaining your own assumptions as not being a fallacy, gives the impression you are not willing to listen to other opinions.
That is your right, but doesn't add anything to the discussion either.
This is 100 percent false. It is actually EASIER than ever.
I'm aware that they market Hearthstone as free to play. Thanks for the snide google. But I think every reasonable person is aware that that's just marketing. It's not Blizzard announcing themselves as a charity. They do hope and expect that you'll give them money at some point. It is, in fact, their only reason for existing as a company.
Blizzard's current business model is to convert free players to paying players by making them want more cards faster than a free player can accumulate them. The psychological pressure to do so is much stronger than the desire to buy cosmetic items.
You already get 14.6 percent of the game for free, in the form of Basic cards. Classic represents another 26.3 percent. You are asking them to give away 41 percent of the Standard game without charge. That's ridiculous.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
my first time with mtg someone gave me a WU esper control sun titan deck, that i couldnt figure out for my life, so i can back this point, i had no idea what i was doing annd gave it back to the guy and conformed with his janky yet simple to understand monoblue mill deck built around traumatize, hedron crab and arhcive trap.
This is going to happen for certain at some point. I just don't see it happening for another couple of years yet.
This sounds like a nice idea, but in reality, it would decimate their economy because then the best option is to just play wild for free for example, and then people would potentially rather wait for old cards to rotate out so they can get them for free.
Also, it'd be a big middle finger to those who spent cash on adventures and old wild sets.
I will tell you why I THINK you should let new player have classic set.
Hearthstone revenue is falling each year and the player database too.
For example most of my friends (irl) who played HS competitively since beta with an average 2/3 hours per day.
They also put money each(or 1/2) extensions except last year and this year.
Today they play nearly because they don't feel to grind another CCG and they still like to play HS but most of time between them that's why they disenchanted all their cards who are not standar.
They refuse to put anymore money in HS for many reasons.
I know many other "competitive" players (friends of friends or net) who basically do the same.
for other not competitve player , they don't play a lot and buy maybe 2 extensions that's and play only 1 class.
They don't play each extension and not even the full extension.
Most of players are casuals and will pay 50/100€ on the game and never do it again.
You can play HS free to play, but a casual can't really play HS as F2P because they don't play 2/3h per day, they don't really feel to progress (don't really want to try hard but don't like to have lose streak), they also have some time trouble to do quest and don't really know how to do their deck and play them.
So yes new player and casual players, need help definitively and even if I understand the fact you invested time and money and you don't want they have classic cards free. You should understand hearthstone revenues and players is falling down.
I don't say hearthstone is dying but the fact is they do 2x less revenues each year, they still earn a lot and there is still many players.
But in the long term, if there is no new player and people play less and less, they will have to do a HS 2 for a new hype and all your time and money "will disappear" at the same time. That's my opinion.
source ?
how you want to blizzard gain money?
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That's a fair point. There are a lot of assumptions being made. We don't have the figures to know what the reality is. Registered users means nothing though. It's the retention of those users that is the important figure.
It's not 100% false. I'll tear your argument apart if you like though.
The gold rewards have not significantly increased for those who swapped their quests until they got 60g+. It's pretty much the same. Only difference now is you get a minimum of 50g instead of 40g.
The quests are easier sure. That doesn't mean more gold though.
It was far far easier to keep up with expansions as a F2P player back then. Every second expansion was an adventure mode with 5 wings. 1 wing free and 700g for each of the rest. A measly 2800g for every single card in the expansion. This allowed you to save a lot for the next real full expansion then as well. This is why they moved away from this model. The fact that you are suggesting that it was harder back when it was this model is laughable and proves you are completely clueless.
That number is including cards that got HoF so it's actually lower. The majority of those cards are unplayable and you know it. This is also the very start of a new rotation. That % will drop when we get a 5th and 6th expansion for this year. Most likely more cards will be HoF over time as well.
What about at least making the class cards free. Keeping the neutrals as collectables. Something has to be done as the current state of the game is awful for new players. Denying this is just wrong.
I don't know why a handful of you keep repeating this as if it was fact. What wild decks are using only classic cards? You still need a crap load of cards from a lot of different expansions to make the best wild decks. Nobody is suggesting constantly making rotating cards free either. We're talking about making the classic set free. Nothing else.
Start by defining "awful for new players." You've been throwing that around for several pages, using it as fact and the basis of your argument. "Awful" is subjective. You're going to have to set up factual, objective parameters or else your whole argument is merely a glorified opinion.
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Sorry I can't go back all the way and read every other comment, so my apologies if any of this is repeat. First of all the answer is hell to the no. No no no...people need to stop suggesting ways to change the scope of Blizzard's card game. There is a huge community, a ton of sites, good E-sports viewership, and assuredly due to these things (most importantly) a strong daily log-in.
1. Recursive Dust Rewards. How in the world do you reward the people that didn't need the free content? Do they not get it? Do they get a dust drop? Can we dust these cards now or are they permanent? That is a VERY fast way to get every player every card they want or need and that is dangerous for the model. The salt factor you mentioned outside of dust for long-standing players would be VERY real.
2. A Collectible Card Game. At its core this game is about collecting. What is the point if you no longer need to collect and can play one of the game modes (Wild) essentially for free with almost no limitation? I understand there is a proposed year gap, but if you're telling me I get Classic and/or Year 1 and 2 expansions for free. At what point is the game no longer "collectible" if you are given so much for free, even if it is on a big delay timer?
3. Exploration Thoughts. People complain about net-decking every day. I was attached to multiple threads where this was the topic and all of them had more pages than this one; completely dominated by less than 5 people at that. Imagine a game where you log in first time as a player and go straight to the internet and learn the best builds for decks and already have 50% or more of what you need to succeed in either format. What are your goals at this point? The game becomes so casual and lackluster because most people will just see what is free with the highest win-rate and jam it. Terrible for the meta, and terrible to allow new players to not experience the little bit they have of new account exploration where you try to make a decent midrange deck with basic cards.
Listen OP, I tried hard to get people into this game. My friends don't want to play it either because they are convinced it is stuck behind a paywall. I've heard every variety of excuse from non-players that pushes people like you towards making threads like these. Your intentions are good, but you'll never have the answer. If you want to join a "living" game you have to understand that the game has been growing since its release. There may be things in place to help you get caught up minorly, but any game that develops over time doesn't have a true way for you to experience all it has to offer in any reasonable amount of time if you weren't there at the start. Hearthstone is just one of those games where if you want true exploratory, competitive, expansive outlets you need to either dish out the money, or grind harder than Chastity does at my local Solid Gold- god bless that core strength.
TL;DR: No your idea doesn't work. It simply is, and thus simply will be. The game is the game and for too many reasons making collection changes screws up the whole process. You can "catch up" as a new player in one of two ways: Grind or pull out the credit card.
As a player who's been here since Beta, and owns every card in the game except one I think it's a great idea for Classic to be awarded to all players! I want casuals to step their game up, and I want the game to be cheaper over all for players.