I always see people complaining about how horrible the New Player Experience is and they have no idea how to fix it.... but the solution is so much simpler than most people make it.
The simple solution is; make Classic free for every player. Doing this is all upside.
See, most people say "Buying three expansions in a year is HORRIBLE for a new player", but a new player isn't buying three expansions; they're buying four, further compounding the problem. Handing out Classic allows those players to hit the ground running by actually starting with a collection rather than having five cards or so per class, many of which would never be run in an actual deck (Ancestral Healing, Windspeaker, Windfury, looking at you). It's absolutely HORRID to FORCE new players play with substandard cards like Windspeaker to just be able to finish a deck.
Second, it doesn't actually lose Blizzard a ton of money; most veterans have a near complete classic collection, and no one is going to waste money/gold on Classic considering that's 90% of what Tavern Brawl rewards. As of right now it's just a giant gate for newer players that's preventing them from enjoying the game; Old players have it already, new players have nothing and will always have another expansion they need to buy.
Third, it allows Blizzard to create new cards with the idea that certain cards are available to everyone. Would Ozruk been overpowered if he had Shroud as well? A 5/40 that's unable to be removed by spells might be overpowered...... if everyone didn't have The Black Knight readily available. They could start making Weapons with higher charges as an actual DOWNSIDE because everyone has access to Harrison Jones. Creatures with 7 Power could have powerful effects because of Big Game Hunter being readily available. Handing out Classic creates design space since you know exactly what players will have in order to counter it.
But the most powerful thing it would do for a new player is actually allow them to play decks that clearly need improvement, but are fully viable as it stands. Miracle Rogue and Burgle Priest are both options that are doable with only Classic Cards, Midrange/Control Pally is there, Archmage Antonidas is readily available. All of them are usable, but you're not giving people free wins since the decks all need drastic improvement.
And it's a card game; new players are going to have a ton they have to learn whether they have the cards or not. But the new player experience would drastically improve if they saw Antonidas and thought "Why would want my hand clogged with 4 mana spells?", get WRECKED by Antonidas, and most importantly actually have him available to experiment with without having to feel like the game is PTW.
TL;DR: -Nobody buys Classic unless their new, so it's just a giant gate to the game for new players. -Classic contains powerful Silver Bullet cards that would allow certain design space to be opened if you KNEW people had access to them. -Giving people a small collection that actually allows them to play the game without handing them every card in the game creates a much better "Illusion of Fairness"; people are much more likely to stay with a game if they feel it's been fair to them compared to just throwing them in the meat grinder.
no, fuck that. i spent a lot of time and money getting classic cards. unless blizzard gives me a refund, fuck them. either spend the time farming classic packs or spend some fucking money. easy as that
no, fuck that. i spent a lot of time and money getting classic cards. unless blizzard gives me a refund, fuck them. either spend the time farming classic packs or spend some fucking money. easy as that
You're literally saying you'd rather have a collection than more people to play the game with.....
See, here's the thing; card games are incredibly hard to get into, and adding in an arbitrary gate in the form of Classic just prevents new players coming in and competing. More players will always be better than fewer with money; that's why Legacy is often considered the most *fun* Magic format, but the least played because only people with millions can afford to play it.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't give everyone a Golden Classic set that've played the game since forever, but Classic is the best set to give away to get the new players. Anything else is simply pissing in the problem-wind, as it were.
yap, some days ago i thought about this idea too and i see it the same way. but this year they will try and see how three expansions will work out. so this won't happen before the next rotation.
You'd have to give players with classic cards a ton of gold and/or dust as compensation. So you're taking your most likely repeat customers and giving them a ton of free stuff, then you're taking new customers and taking a huge expense away from them. It doesn't make business sense, and unfortunately we live in a world of "what does this do for profits next quarter?". Long term it might be a great business move, but that's an expensive experiment that might not even work. Psychology is a weird thing, it could have the opposite effect new players not feeling invested in the game because they didn't earn the cards and spoil them into never wanting to earn cards or pay for them.
Who says the new player experience is a problem besides people who haven't actually played the game?
Quite..... quite a few people, in all honesty.
Ben Brode has been talking about how they want to improve the New Player Experience for quite a while now, and he's definitely played this game before.
Kripparian talks about New Player Experience quite often as well, and he's definitely played this game more than you or I.
Quite a few streamers talk about it, actually.
And I'm sure most of us have friends who complain about the game being Pay to Win or just too expensive in general, who would probably stay for much longer if they only had to tweak a deck with one or two cards whenever a new expansion came out (Wild MIracle Rogue only needed two cards, one of them common, to help it from Un'Goro). The Official Forums are actually quite ripe with "Legendary Quests make this game Pay to Play" or "Why would New Players play this game?".
I don't think they need to go as far as giving the whole classic collection to new players but there should definitely be some kind of bonus rewards for their first week or month(whichever would be better). I would think something like a daily log in bonus for them or more gold or maybe even the collection unlock for a week or so to make it easier for them to build decks, try them out and gain some wins and gold under their belts. If new players were just given the whole classic collection it would feel like any time, effort or money spent on the game from the players who have been with it from the start have just wasted their time and everything they did was for nothing in my opinion. But that's going to the extreme I'm sure there are plenty of people who also wouldn't care and have valued their time but I think the negatives that could come from giving away classic to new players would outweigh the positives.
If they give the classic set away then I would say people like myself that got every single classic card should get the golden version of it - at least that is a wish thought. It would be great for new players to get the classic set - would let more of my friends get a better grip of the game.
I like the idea a lot, however, they would need to find a way to appease the community that has already invested so much into attaining Classic cards. Providing dust for every card would probably be too much, as they would have enough dust to complete a couple of expansions, but anything less than that may be too little and would cause a lot of anger. It would be difficult to pull off smoothly but would be great if they can figure out a good way to do it.
no, fuck that. i spent a lot of time and money getting classic cards. unless blizzard gives me a refund, fuck them. either spend the time farming classic packs or spend some fucking money. easy as that
You're literally saying you'd rather have a collection than more people to play the game with.....
See, here's the thing; card games are incredibly hard to get into, and adding in an arbitrary gate in the form of Classic just prevents new players coming in and competing. More players will always be better than fewer with money; that's why Legacy is often considered the most *fun* Magic format, but the least played because only people with millions can afford to play it.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't give everyone a Golden Classic set that've played the game since forever, but Classic is the best set to give away to get the new players. Anything else is simply pissing in the problem-wind, as it were.
Lets say you go out and buy an expensive car, and after a few days of having it, everyone else. And i mean EVERYONE else just get one for free, but not you, because you already have one, and you can't get a refund.
How would you feel? You'd be OUTRAGEOUS! Why can they have something for, that you had to work you ass off to get?
Now look at what you're promoting, and tell me its different.
It's completely different. Your scenario tries to compare driving; a task most people would prefer to do alone (as in with no other cars on the road) to one that NEEDS other people; in playing a card game. That's a pretty major flaw.
Also, the amount of money spent to buy a car FAR exceeds what you probably spent on this game (if it doesn't then you have bigger problems, unless you're mega rich, in which case why do you even care?).
Then you compare to having "worked your ass off" to earn this card collection of yours. Hearthstone is a game. You're supposed to be having fun while earning the rewards of packs/gold. Which leads back to OP's point in that the new players now aren't having the same fun as a player that evolved with the game from the start. And that they should be given a leg up to keep them interested - at which point they will probably stick around and spend some cash in order to play with the newer expansion's cards.
no, fuck that. i spent a lot of time and money getting classic cards. unless blizzard gives me a refund, fuck them. either spend the time farming classic packs or spend some fucking money. easy as that
You're literally saying you'd rather have a collection than more people to play the game with.....
See, here's the thing; card games are incredibly hard to get into, and adding in an arbitrary gate in the form of Classic just prevents new players coming in and competing. More players will always be better than fewer with money; that's why Legacy is often considered the most *fun* Magic format, but the least played because only people with millions can afford to play it.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't give everyone a Golden Classic set that've played the game since forever, but Classic is the best set to give away to get the new players. Anything else is simply pissing in the problem-wind, as it were.
Lets say you go out and buy an expensive car, and after a few days of having it, everyone else. And i mean EVERYONE else just get one for free, but not you, because you already have one, and you can't get a refund.
How would you feel? You'd be OUTRAGEOUS! Why can they have something for, that you had to work you ass off to get?
Now look at what you're promoting, and tell me its different.
There are so many things wrong with this argument that I don't even know where to begin.
Cards are digital, Cars are physical; even if they WANTED to hand everyone a ferrari, the material has to come from somewhere.
When you purchase anything digital, you're purchasing it as it is, for that amount of time; hence why you can be banned from an account with no repercussions on Blizzards end, why they can make balance changes, and so on. Blizzard could simply argue that you've had your fun previously with those cards.
As long as I could get to work and back, or the club or back, I wouldn't care. I'm not a Car guy, I'd never buy a super expensive car anyway.
If I could afford an expensive car, but everyone got it for free, I could probably afford quite a bit of expensive detail work that would make my car that much better than everyone else's.
It'd be interesting to see what everyone did with their car, detail/customization wise, that it wouldn't really matter to me in the first place?
I'd much rather have a bunch of people who appreciate a cool car be able to appreciate it than hoard the car away from them?
Because when important game pieces are locked behind a stupid pay wall (Looking at you, Tarmogoyf/Liliana of the Veil) it creates an artificial difficulty in obtaining the game. This creates a game that's more about who has more money to throw around than who is the best player.
Because you're not handing everyone the same expensive car, you're giving everyone the model from 50 years ago that still drives but doesn't have all the new and shiney features that people have?
People that say "New player experience is bad" are the ones that want to reach legend right after they make an account, and to compete with guys that spent hundreds of hours playing the game.
Well, not really.
I know I have a couple of friends who put down the game immediately after they picked it up because they couldn't get out of Rank 23, and were losing 5 games for everyone 1 they won. And there was nothing they could do to change it; they couldn't alter their decks, they had nothing to alter it with.
Also, simply by saying that people are only stating that"The New Player Experience is bad because people want to reach legend and compete with people who spent hundreds of hours playing the game", you're kind of admitting that you think the game is Pay to Win because player skill accounts for nothing apparently.
The new player experience is pretty crazy. I started playing a month ago and because I liked the game a bunch and saw I'd have more fun fitting into the meta, I bought Karazhan and preordered Un'Goro a couple weeks into playing. Before that, it's very hard to have a good time. Luckily, you don't realize how much more fun the game is after you get into the expansions--I just tried to make some decks with the just the basic cards and some with just Karazhan, and it just wasn't fun to have so little synergy etc. I'm aware you can go very far with those cards if you're extremely experienced, but for a player who's barely rank 10 it's tough!
The solution is giving for players a time test card, what I mean ? well. You will receive a limit time for test a card before dusting. But Blizz dont care right ? yes.
Yeah, the problem with this is that for every one person in this thread who wouldn't mind giving new players something that they've had for years now, there will be five or ten more who agree with Jferr and Malt (let alone the 15 or 20 more people who just want the free stuff and don't care either way about "hard work" or entitlement).
Wish the world worked that way OP, I completely do. But... strokes and folks, I guess.
Giving classic for free is a bad idea,Not only it doesn't really solve the problem since new players are still at least 2 years behind but it pisses of old players too.The best solution should be what shadowverse and elderscrolls do.Give a lot of stuff for free at the beginning.Shadowverse offers about 40 packs when you start the game and 10 packs for every expansion.Tes gives you the cards from story mode and you get a lot of stuff whenever you level up(packs,gold and even legendaries!).This way a new player has enough enjoy and explore the game while he must invest time or money to keep up.
However this is blizzard that we are talking about,they are greedy as fuck and won't give shit.The sad thing is...that i don't blame them,they have this army of fanboys that are willing to be anally raped for them.Just in this forum,you will notice so many of them and they will defend anything blizzard does,and i mean ANYTHING.So why wouldn't they be stingy?They make profit not matter what.
Yeah, the problem with this is that for every one person in this thread who wouldn't mind giving new players something that they've had for years now, there will be five or ten more who agree with Jferr and Malt (let alone the 15 or 20 more people who just want the free stuff and don't care either way about "hard work" or entitlement).
Wish the world worked that way OP, I completely do. But... strokes and folks, I guess.
Eh, the problem isn't with the idea, it's more of the fact that the only people who post on forums are the ones who usually have more time and money than sense (And yes, I do include myself in that category).
So you are saying all my time , effort , money i invested for this game should mean nothing. No, fuck that.
All your time, money and effort you invested in this game actually do mean nothing if they can be striped away from you by handing other players a leg up in the game.
Here's a thing you probably don't realize; if you're not playing the game for the game, what you're doing is worthless.
Your collection? You can't do anything with it, you can't trade it, the moment Activision goes out of business and the servers get shut down it's all going to disappear anyway, Hearthstone 2 comes out? Your perfect collection you've put so much effort into disappears.
And the worst part? Wizards of the Coast or Konami go out of business and stop making the game? You'll still have all the cards available to play. Blizzard goes out of business? Everything goes.
Let's enjoy the game and let everyone enjoy it, and with more people enjoying it, the game lasts longer :D
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I always see people complaining about how horrible the New Player Experience is and they have no idea how to fix it.... but the solution is so much simpler than most people make it.
The simple solution is; make Classic free for every player. Doing this is all upside.
See, most people say "Buying three expansions in a year is HORRIBLE for a new player", but a new player isn't buying three expansions; they're buying four, further compounding the problem. Handing out Classic allows those players to hit the ground running by actually starting with a collection rather than having five cards or so per class, many of which would never be run in an actual deck (Ancestral Healing, Windspeaker, Windfury, looking at you). It's absolutely HORRID to FORCE new players play with substandard cards like Windspeaker to just be able to finish a deck.
Second, it doesn't actually lose Blizzard a ton of money; most veterans have a near complete classic collection, and no one is going to waste money/gold on Classic considering that's 90% of what Tavern Brawl rewards. As of right now it's just a giant gate for newer players that's preventing them from enjoying the game; Old players have it already, new players have nothing and will always have another expansion they need to buy.
Third, it allows Blizzard to create new cards with the idea that certain cards are available to everyone. Would Ozruk been overpowered if he had Shroud as well? A 5/40 that's unable to be removed by spells might be overpowered...... if everyone didn't have The Black Knight readily available. They could start making Weapons with higher charges as an actual DOWNSIDE because everyone has access to Harrison Jones. Creatures with 7 Power could have powerful effects because of Big Game Hunter being readily available. Handing out Classic creates design space since you know exactly what players will have in order to counter it.
But the most powerful thing it would do for a new player is actually allow them to play decks that clearly need improvement, but are fully viable as it stands. Miracle Rogue and Burgle Priest are both options that are doable with only Classic Cards, Midrange/Control Pally is there, Archmage Antonidas is readily available. All of them are usable, but you're not giving people free wins since the decks all need drastic improvement.
And it's a card game; new players are going to have a ton they have to learn whether they have the cards or not. But the new player experience would drastically improve if they saw Antonidas and thought "Why would want my hand clogged with 4 mana spells?", get WRECKED by Antonidas, and most importantly actually have him available to experiment with without having to feel like the game is PTW.
TL;DR:
-Nobody buys Classic unless their new, so it's just a giant gate to the game for new players.
-Classic contains powerful Silver Bullet cards that would allow certain design space to be opened if you KNEW people had access to them.
-Giving people a small collection that actually allows them to play the game without handing them every card in the game creates a much better "Illusion of Fairness"; people are much more likely to stay with a game if they feel it's been fair to them compared to just throwing them in the meat grinder.
no, fuck that. i spent a lot of time and money getting classic cards. unless blizzard gives me a refund, fuck them. either spend the time farming classic packs or spend some fucking money. easy as that
Who says the new player experience is a problem besides people who haven't actually played the game?
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My mandibles which are capable of pressing down and tearing, my talons which are known to intercept and hold.
yap, some days ago i thought about this idea too and i see it the same way. but this year they will try and see how three expansions will work out. so this won't happen before the next rotation.
You'd have to give players with classic cards a ton of gold and/or dust as compensation. So you're taking your most likely repeat customers and giving them a ton of free stuff, then you're taking new customers and taking a huge expense away from them. It doesn't make business sense, and unfortunately we live in a world of "what does this do for profits next quarter?". Long term it might be a great business move, but that's an expensive experiment that might not even work. Psychology is a weird thing, it could have the opposite effect new players not feeling invested in the game because they didn't earn the cards and spoil them into never wanting to earn cards or pay for them.
I don't think they need to go as far as giving the whole classic collection to new players but there should definitely be some kind of bonus rewards for their first week or month(whichever would be better). I would think something like a daily log in bonus for them or more gold or maybe even the collection unlock for a week or so to make it easier for them to build decks, try them out and gain some wins and gold under their belts. If new players were just given the whole classic collection it would feel like any time, effort or money spent on the game from the players who have been with it from the start have just wasted their time and everything they did was for nothing in my opinion. But that's going to the extreme I'm sure there are plenty of people who also wouldn't care and have valued their time but I think the negatives that could come from giving away classic to new players would outweigh the positives.
If they give the classic set away then I would say people like myself that got every single classic card should get the golden version of it - at least that is a wish thought. It would be great for new players to get the classic set - would let more of my friends get a better grip of the game.
I like the idea a lot, however, they would need to find a way to appease the community that has already invested so much into attaining Classic cards. Providing dust for every card would probably be too much, as they would have enough dust to complete a couple of expansions, but anything less than that may be too little and would cause a lot of anger. It would be difficult to pull off smoothly but would be great if they can figure out a good way to do it.
Mmm
The new player experience is pretty crazy. I started playing a month ago and because I liked the game a bunch and saw I'd have more fun fitting into the meta, I bought Karazhan and preordered Un'Goro a couple weeks into playing. Before that, it's very hard to have a good time. Luckily, you don't realize how much more fun the game is after you get into the expansions--I just tried to make some decks with the just the basic cards and some with just Karazhan, and it just wasn't fun to have so little synergy etc. I'm aware you can go very far with those cards if you're extremely experienced, but for a player who's barely rank 10 it's tough!
The solution is giving for players a time test card, what I mean ? well. You will receive a limit time for test a card before dusting. But Blizz dont care right ? yes.
hell no i spent money, new players can spent money as well and get all those answers u mention in op
Yeah, the problem with this is that for every one person in this thread who wouldn't mind giving new players something that they've had for years now, there will be five or ten more who agree with Jferr and Malt (let alone the 15 or 20 more people who just want the free stuff and don't care either way about "hard work" or entitlement).
Wish the world worked that way OP, I completely do. But... strokes and folks, I guess.
So you are saying all my time , effort , money i invested for this game should mean nothing. No, fuck that.
Giving classic for free is a bad idea,Not only it doesn't really solve the problem since new players are still at least 2 years behind but it pisses of old players too.The best solution should be what shadowverse and elderscrolls do.Give a lot of stuff for free at the beginning.Shadowverse offers about 40 packs when you start the game and 10 packs for every expansion.Tes gives you the cards from story mode and you get a lot of stuff whenever you level up(packs,gold and even legendaries!).This way a new player has enough enjoy and explore the game while he must invest time or money to keep up.
However this is blizzard that we are talking about,they are greedy as fuck and won't give shit.The sad thing is...that i don't blame them,they have this army of fanboys that are willing to be anally raped for them.Just in this forum,you will notice so many of them and they will defend anything blizzard does,and i mean ANYTHING.So why wouldn't they be stingy?They make profit not matter what.