So the Rumors of Gehenna have finally come to pass and a new ladder format is upon us. Like every change, there will be some winners and losers. Here is some analysis of how I think things may play out. Actual mileage may vary and it could go either way, unless it doesn't.
Winners:
New Players People who are new to the game stand to reap several benefits. The first is that as better equipped and higher skilled players get trapped under the ranked floors, new players will face more opponents that are in the same boat as them - limited experience and smaller collections. The other benefit is that they will get to play a lot more games from 25-20, building more experience, before potentially hitting a wall because of now losing stars for each loss.
People Pursuing Golden Heroes Given the increased number of games at lower ranks, getting 500 wins will take far less time than it used to. This should help people catch up with those of us who have been playing since beta.
Deck Builders Possibly the biggest benefit, since the tier 1 builds will quickly be trapped below ranked floors, deckbuilding will finally mean something. The spectrum between tier deck and garbage will widen. Getting a legendary or epic in a pack will have a better chance of boosting deck performance, whereas now, the deck is either dynamite or dog crap. The ability to invest in your deck's capability and build it over time is sorely lacking in the game and will be a welcome addition.
Losers:
Try-hards and Net-deckers Pay to win and net-decking just took a huge blow. Go ahead and make a tier deck; if you don't have the skill to match, you will find yourself trapped below a floor facing only the same decks, except they are played by people better than you. The incentive to blast past the lower ladder using a lopsided build you saw on the internet now has a downside unless you have the skill to match.
High-Rank Players High-rank players will find more players in their ranks and more players at Legend. Blizz says this isn't the case, but they may need to expand the text field on the legend gem to accommodate another digit. True, there will be less grind, but crunch-time will begin on day one of the new season and win-streak stars will be a forgotten memory.
Blizzard With fewer wins needed to get the card back and to maintain the reward tiers, Blizzard is going to be giving away more content for free. It isn't much, but it will be much easier to get the next level of rewards than before, especially for people with limited time. This isn't a bad thing as they are presently quite stingy.
I've said it before but i'll say it again: this change only makes sense in a game without rank floors. I don't hate the change, I just think it should have been made instead of the implementation of rank floors back then. I think that way it would reward and punish everyone equally.
The new ladder changes are nice. The ranked floors are good. However Blizzard should have also increased the ladder rewards to compensate for 3 expansions per year instead of only 1-2 expansions per year and the fact that the average dust cost for competitive decks has gone up throughout the years.
People Pursuing Golden Heroes Given the increased number of games at lower ranks, getting 500 wins will take far less time than it used to. This should help people catch up with those of us who have been playing since beta.
they are not always the winners, if you are new yes, it will be easier to get 500, cuz we have more stars at lower ranks after the change.
but if you are a regular high rank player and have missed to get your golden hero with some classes, it is even harder now, cuz you can't have easy wins in ranks 5-1. for example i haven't played much paladin at ranks and i'm a regular legend player, it will be much harder for me now to get 500 wins with paladin.
The only players who are sort of hit that I can think of, (losers would be too strong a word) are those who only want to reach for rank 15 for the golden rare. They currently get tossed back to rank 20 and need 15 stars to climb back. In the new system they will need 20 stars.
Blizzard With fewer wins needed to get the card back and to maintain the reward tiers, Blizzard is going to be giving away more content for free. It isn't much, but it will be much easier to get the next level of rewards than before, especially for people with limited time. This isn't a bad thing as they are presently quite stingy."
Blizzard loses very little here and they do not care about giving away the monthly cardback that has no monetary value in-game. Players will be enticed to rank up as much as they can because of the opportunity to achieve better rewards than they could before. Getting matched against more players of relatively equal skill level will mean more wins for 25-15 ranked players. If these players start spending more time laddering that means there is less time for them to discover other games to play or other things to do with their lives. This is a big win for Blizzard because they managed to appear more generous with rewards while hooking the casual players in more and maybe even getting them to spend real money on Hearthstone. They could have just increased rewards with nothing in return for themselves, but Blizzard will never want to do that as a for profit company! I do not see Blizzard in the loser category.
Blizzard With fewer wins needed to get the card back and to maintain the reward tiers, Blizzard is going to be giving away more content for free. It isn't much, but it will be much easier to get the next level of rewards than before, especially for people with limited time. This isn't a bad thing as they are presently quite stingy."
Blizzard loses very little here and they do not care about giving away the monthly cardback that has no monetary value in-game. Players will be enticed to rank up as much as they can because of the opportunity to achieve better rewards than they could before. Getting matched against more players of relatively equal skill level will mean more wins for 25-15 ranked players. If these players start spending more time laddering that means there is less time for them to discover other games to play or other things to do with their lives. This is a big win for Blizzard because they managed to appear more generous with rewards while hooking the casual players in more and maybe even getting them to spend real money on Hearthstone. They could have just increased rewards with nothing in return for themselves, but Blizzard will never want to do that as a for profit company! I do not see Blizzard in the loser category.
This.
F2P companies have been figuring out that it's less about forcing players as it is keeping them in the game as much as possible. Not so much Gametime long, but players who stick with a game are more likely to pay into it eventually. And if not they'll create buzz and a community which is the environment that whales thrive on. Thus making a ladder that feels more rewarding, or even IS more rewarding, and thus more likely to keep players is very much Pro for Blizzard's financial side.
It's something the AAA industry hasn't gotten right just yet, since they are making the mistakes F2P games made years ago. However, Activision-Blizzard has King which very much knows how to run a f2p game.
The system is designed for maximum profit. don't worry about that. Blizzard will get paid. It just will also help a lot of other groups as well.
Honestly the only group I can see suffer are SOME of the newbie slayers. Not the ones bottom feeding on rank 20 but the ones that bottom feed then try to rise up to grab the rank 5 reward. THAT won't work anymore.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So the Rumors of Gehenna have finally come to pass and a new ladder format is upon us. Like every change, there will be some winners and losers. Here is some analysis of how I think things may play out. Actual mileage may vary and it could go either way, unless it doesn't.
Winners:
New Players
People who are new to the game stand to reap several benefits. The first is that as better equipped and higher skilled players get trapped under the ranked floors, new players will face more opponents that are in the same boat as them - limited experience and smaller collections. The other benefit is that they will get to play a lot more games from 25-20, building more experience, before potentially hitting a wall because of now losing stars for each loss.
People Pursuing Golden Heroes
Given the increased number of games at lower ranks, getting 500 wins will take far less time than it used to. This should help people catch up with those of us who have been playing since beta.
Deck Builders
Possibly the biggest benefit, since the tier 1 builds will quickly be trapped below ranked floors, deckbuilding will finally mean something. The spectrum between tier deck and garbage will widen. Getting a legendary or epic in a pack will have a better chance of boosting deck performance, whereas now, the deck is either dynamite or dog crap. The ability to invest in your deck's capability and build it over time is sorely lacking in the game and will be a welcome addition.
Losers:
Try-hards and Net-deckers
Pay to win and net-decking just took a huge blow. Go ahead and make a tier deck; if you don't have the skill to match, you will find yourself trapped below a floor facing only the same decks, except they are played by people better than you. The incentive to blast past the lower ladder using a lopsided build you saw on the internet now has a downside unless you have the skill to match.
High-Rank Players
High-rank players will find more players in their ranks and more players at Legend. Blizz says this isn't the case, but they may need to expand the text field on the legend gem to accommodate another digit. True, there will be less grind, but crunch-time will begin on day one of the new season and win-streak stars will be a forgotten memory.
Blizzard
With fewer wins needed to get the card back and to maintain the reward tiers, Blizzard is going to be giving away more content for free. It isn't much, but it will be much easier to get the next level of rewards than before, especially for people with limited time. This isn't a bad thing as they are presently quite stingy.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
I've said it before but i'll say it again: this change only makes sense in a game without rank floors. I don't hate the change, I just think it should have been made instead of the implementation of rank floors back then. I think that way it would reward and punish everyone equally.
The new ladder changes are nice. The ranked floors are good. However Blizzard should have also increased the ladder rewards to compensate for 3 expansions per year instead of only 1-2 expansions per year and the fact that the average dust cost for competitive decks has gone up throughout the years.
I don't get about netdeckers. They always will exist. You can play tier 1 on rank 20 or 4. Rank doesn't matter.
One day this game will stop existing. I can't wait.
The only players who are sort of hit that I can think of, (losers would be too strong a word) are those who only want to reach for rank 15 for the golden rare. They currently get tossed back to rank 20 and need 15 stars to climb back. In the new system they will need 20 stars.
"Losers:
Blizzard
With fewer wins needed to get the card back and to maintain the reward tiers, Blizzard is going to be giving away more content for free. It isn't much, but it will be much easier to get the next level of rewards than before, especially for people with limited time. This isn't a bad thing as they are presently quite stingy."
Blizzard loses very little here and they do not care about giving away the monthly cardback that has no monetary value in-game. Players will be enticed to rank up as much as they can because of the opportunity to achieve better rewards than they could before. Getting matched against more players of relatively equal skill level will mean more wins for 25-15 ranked players. If these players start spending more time laddering that means there is less time for them to discover other games to play or other things to do with their lives. This is a big win for Blizzard because they managed to appear more generous with rewards while hooking the casual players in more and maybe even getting them to spend real money on Hearthstone. They could have just increased rewards with nothing in return for themselves, but Blizzard will never want to do that as a for profit company! I do not see Blizzard in the loser category.
We players who enjoy long games do win a bit! We wont spend 20 hours to climb high anymoar 😎
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.