Hearthpwn

I think part of the problem with Hearthstone, is that everyone has access to all the cards. Let me explain...

When I use to play Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, even Pokemon back in the day...there was no better feeling than opening a booster pack with a really rare card inside. With those card games, there is no way to "craft" cards, so the people who had them either spent tons of money or just were super "lucky". But owning a special card made you known, and also feared to be played against. I think part of the problem with Hearthstone is that players can craft anything, (given they have the dust) making the game feel stale. When the majority of people have the same decks, no one card makes you feel like you "earned" it. 

Even in WoW or other MMO games, super rare items have to be earned through chance and hard work... raiding bosses repeatedly,etc. to get the item you want, but at the end of the day it was a limited number of people who "earned" it and the feeling makes you feel good. Hearthstone is like being on WoW PvP with all players having the best gear, no exceptions. It gets stale after awhile. 

I believe HS could change it up even a little by having special art cards that can only be earned from packs. That way people can tell if it was earned, or crafted. But this route still doesn't change the staleness of the game, but it would just be a cool concept. 

These are just my two cents, would like feed back. 

That's what certain Card backs are used for. Cards are meant to be played with, this would only cause confusion.

Also, rarity =/= power.

I can't speak for magic or pokemon tcg, but YU-GI-OH is like Hearthstone in that everyone drops the hard cash for good decks, people don't buy booster packs unless they are vendors, cheap budget players looking for high-rarity cards, or its the new set just came out. YU-GI-OH is p2w, while hearthstone you can still be f2p and have the same collection as a p2p player. 

I do however like your idea of alternate art cards from packs only. That would be cool, but seems like too much extra costs for Team 5.

edit: my bad double post

With physical card games you play the same people often, since you have to be in the same location to play. With Hearthstone, you will be matched to someone on the same continent. Unless you're battling for the top legend spots, you're not going to run into the same people often. So I don't think ultra-rare cards are going to make you famous.

I wouldn't mind rarer-than-gold cosmetic variations, although it wouldn't excite me much. If you mean cards that actually do different things, I think it would be a bad idea, since there will always be people who pump insane amounts of money into a game to get everything and it would feel bad losing to cards you can't ever afford.

Edit: I think it's weird that you use the word "earned" for cards you pull from packs. Rewards like the Arthas hero or certain special card backs are earned because you have to accomplish something to get them. Opening a pack of cards requires no skill or dedication.

This is like saying "golden cards should have an extra stat or something"

Thank God Blizzard knows better than to listen to such people .

Just use a unique cardback if you wanna feel special .

I once thought is would be a good idea that all cards in hall of fame should have another skin which cannot be crafted with dust. The text stays the same but the art is different.

I agree with the points posted, but still feel packs should be more rewarding. Special art work or even only being able to obtain golden through packs.

you forget to mention that in those irl TCGs you could trade for cards which was an even easier way to get your goods than crafting

if you take out crafting, this game is strictly p2w then. idk about you, but i dont care for the current state of the game with druid being op and all these random effects being added. because of that, i havent spent a dollar on this game besides the welcome bundle since old gods came out and i didnt even pre-order that. 

I've played a couple tcgs at a semi competitive level and everybody just has all of the cards they could want for their deck so I don't get the sense you are describing. There is nothing special about having all of the best net decked cards, that's just the standard from my experience. In fact building a half competitive deck from buying booster packs would be far more expensive than just buying exactly what you needed.

Special art cards...

If only we had a sort of animated .gif artform that would be more rewarding than normal cards without impacting gameplay 

🤔 

i believe that there should be class cards that are pretty much the same thing as other class cards but with different art that you can only get through an achievement

Giving players that complete certain achievements an edge in gameplay is a bad idea. It'd be incredibly unfair. There's already plenty of cosmetics in the game to show off one's achievements and aren't available to all players.

Your topic has very little to do with your actual post. That being said:

Should packs feel more rewarding? I don't know, I don't really think so in general. Should they feel more rewarding in the sense that I would need to spend $500 on every single expansion to be able to play the decks that I want? Definitely not.

You're just looking at this from your perspective. I get the feeling that you can afford to by as many packs as is needed to be able to get the cards that you want. Well, a lot of players can't. For a 14-year old kid, I imagine it feels very rewarding when he packs a legendary because his allowance isn't enough to actually mass buy packs. As for me, if I had to, I probably would spend $500 on every expansion if that's what it took, because I could afford it. 

My point is that no matter how "hard" you make it to get "special" cards, it's always just going to be a matter of how much money you spend to get what you want. As it is now, I think that the balance between how hard it is to get premium decks together and the purchasing power of blizzards customers is just about right.

I think the recent pack change to Legendaries is relevant to the OP. It makes the packs feels less like the inevitable funnel of gold/packs to dust at some expected value rate. I'm fine with the crafting system because if many folks are paying real $ for packs, their viability in constructed shouldn't be determined so much by their pack RNG. 

For alternate art, I think the devs got it right keeping cards golden & non-golden to 1 image. Cognitively, it makes it easier on our ability to read the board & hand state if we only have to remember 1 image is associated to 1 card. I always keep 1 copy of a golden precisely because I value that as the alternate card art. 

i couldnt care less if you were lucky to get the card you play or not, tbh it is one of the most stupid idea ive seen here 

its supposed to be a strategic game, how can you call is strategic if it is constantly changing ? if people are bored it is because the lack of cards in their collection and the lack of mods to play differently but asking for less staleness on the ranked ladder is like asking the game to become something else, if i constantly play against decks i don"t know i surely will rage quite this shit game in less time than you can imagine 

This is not a TCG.

On the other hand, I agree that rarity is abused in HS: just look at how many legendaries are actually created and played.

It feels expensive (to craft) but not exclusive at all.

There should be more unique cards but less legendaries per set.

Something very common can still have value, but something unique and rare is more of a prize. Most legendary cards are now common cards meaning most players have them or most players can craft them. 

Quote from jferrante831 >>

if you take out crafting, this game is strictly p2w then. idk about you, but i dont care for the current state of the game with druid being op and all these random effects being added. because of that, i havent spent a dollar on this game besides the welcome bundle since old gods came out and i didnt even pre-order that.