Thank god the US Dollar is a currency here so I don't have to worry about spending 560x as much in Costa Rica Colón (or twice or 3 times as much, depending on what you compare between the 2 currencies)
There is no way winning 3 games for 10 gold is generous when Eternal gives you a pack just for winning your first game of the day.
If people think Hearthstone isn't expensive as hell, I would like their drugs.
You're ignoring the fact that games like Eternal and Gwent are competing with Hearthstone. They have to offer these bonuses that Hearthstone doesn't to attempt to draw in more customers.
I can guarantee you that if either of those games were the first of their kind to come onto the market and Hearthstone didn't already exist then you wouldn't be getting so many free packs on a daily basis.
Do you know that TCGs live from people spending money in it?
HS gives free stuff and you complaint about it?
WoW offers pets, mounts, and transmog from anywhere between $5 & 30$.
Hearthstone gates a cosmetic hero behind an $80 paywall.
I'm fine with some things costing money. However, there are much much better ways to actually do it. Make the hero available for $10-$20 and I could care less about the price of the digital pack bundles.
For people who just arrived, hearthstone is an incredibly expensive game, since they have 5 sets to buy cards from. However, if you're a real competitive player, you can always wait a month or 2 to get a viable tier 1 deck running and slowly get your collection from there. It's going to occupy your whole time tho, but that's up to you. Wild is out of question in less than a year, if you're lucky with packs.
Anyway, either you spend or you work hard for it, the game is only generous to people who have been playing for a long time, as a fresh f2p is never going to experience the full gameplay, since they'll only be able to fill their collections after at least more than a year.
I disagree. Play for dailies and slowly build a collection by only keeping what you play. you'll have a good deck to ladder with and start collecting other good cards in a month or two.
I think most people think you need to have all of the cards to be competitive. It is true you will have more bad matchups, and not get much past rank 15, but that is how it should be. Keep learning the game and adding good cards to your collection. Hearthstone is in a much better place than it used to be. Tons of free packs during launches, free legendaries, and lots of gold for quests. Not to mention free leg in first 10 packs of each set.
1) You can play this totally f2p, but you will need a LOT of time (like 2+ years) to really enjoy the game in all of its aspects
So the game isn't really f2p friendly, even more if you consider that we had adventures in the past that were really good for f2p. Blizzard has done a lot in the past year to help f2p but I don't think it's still as good as before
2) The game is expensive FOR PEOPLE WHO WISH TO PAY, yes that is true comparing it to other digital card games
All in all I think that the situation isn't that bad but it could be better for f2p but also for paying customers.
I play 1 arena run a day, never had to spend anything and my collection is doing just fine. I started at the end of gadgetzan and right now I have a collection whereby I can play whatever I want. Its really how much time you are willing to spend, if you’re very busy then maybe the F2P option isn’t for you, but it can be done.
I play Hearthstone for free. For free you can have only 1-2 good decks per expansion. So if you want to have more than 1-2 decks you need to spend money.
This is only partly true, and really only applies to new players, or players who manage their collections very poorly. I've been F2P since TGT, and have always had at least one competitive deck for each class since I decided not to spend any more money on the game. While lots of folks complain that the game is expensive, Blizzard also throws well over 300 free packs every year at everyday players. I'd recommend posting on the "Make a Friend" thread on this site - it's currently on its seventh iteration, with each previous iteration having as many as 50K people looking to exploit the "Play a Friend" quest. With about three dozen friends, I get a couple requests each week - about 800 gold each month, or 100 free packs every year, simply for playing games with folks I've met at FSGs.
The math isn't difficult - 300+ free packs every year, is 100+ free packs for each expansion. It's enough to collect a complete set of Commons, all the playable Rares, three or four sets of playable Epics, and three or four good Legendaries. And all that's for free. And any player who manages all of this free stuff properly will be able to build more and more decks with those cards over time. On the other hand, players that dust cards as soon as they fall out of the meta are perpetually scrambling around, trying to get enough dust to make the latest "flavour of the month" - a dude at a FSG I attended last month dusted his Tirion Fordring and Alexstrasza in order to scrounge up the dust to craft Shudderwock. His rationale was that neither card had seen much play in a year or so, and they were safe cards to dust. But once Mid-range Paladin becomes viable again, or a combo/control deck becomes popular that requires Alex to set up its OTK, the dude is going to have to dust four legendaries in order to re-craft each of the perfectly good legendaries he previously dusted. And I imagine a lot of those types of players will blame Blizzard, rather than themselves, for how expensive the game always seems to be . . .
The problem is that many players expect to basicly get everything every single expansion while investing casually - no money and little time invested. Let's not forget that getting 150g a day is about 55000g a year - being 550 packs, enough to play different meta decks in all 3 seasons AND building up a good collection for wild. Yeah, the system is designed to not hand out gifts all the time. Is that a bad thing?
It is very expensive. With their preorder price you can buy a new videogame. Indeed Hearthstone is a cash machine. It requires less than 4 months for develop a new expansion, very few people and it will cost like a new videogame where behind are involved hundreds of people and years of works. It is a real cash machine.
I think Blizzard has done a good job trying to make the bar lower for entry. You need look no further than the recent "Get in Here" bundle to see an example where Blizzard offered a promotion to help players get a good "starting set" for the standard season. (For any who didn't see it, it was $8 for 2 packs of each standard set, so for $40 a new player would get 10 packs of each set, which in turn means at least five legendary minions.) Another example is the Hearthstone Welcome bundle, which is only $5 and gets you ten packs and a guaranteed class legendary from the classic set. There's always room for improvement - maybe Blizzard could have offered a smaller expansion bundle, or kept the "Get in Here" bundle around for longer, etc. - but I think we should be very thoughtful about what the core problem is.
As others have said, if you consistently re-roll your 50g quests and complete a quest each day, your expected value for gold is something around 23000, which translates to 230 free packs annually. Add to that ~50 packs for weekly Tavern Brawls and you're looking at a lot of content if a new player is willing to play for a year. This is a big part of why experienced players don't have the same complaints about financing the game - they don't spend gold between expansions because they have enough of a base set and prefer to cash out for new cards every few months.
That, I think, is the crux of the issue. New players and F2P players shouldn't expect to have a full set, but they should expect to have a good time playing the game. Today we conflate having a large collection with the new and F2P experiences because there aren't enough ways to play the game, and the ranked ladder is oppressively dominated by meta decks even as low as rank 20. (Casual mode is often also too dominated by meta decks.) Blizzard is trying to fix this - they've talked about adding new ranked levels, and they're planning to add things like in-game tournaments which might create a new avenue for playing against comparable players.
Thank god the US Dollar is a currency here so I don't have to worry about spending 560x as much in Costa Rica Colón (or twice or 3 times as much, depending on what you compare between the 2 currencies)
Do you know that TCGs live from people spending money in it?
HS gives free stuff and you complaint about it?
it is not expensive but it is getting expensive.
Dead but dreaming
50 Pack preorder Bundle
63$ CDN
80 Pack preorder Bundle
100$ CDN
Any other way to pay besides CC for Canadians?
You're ignoring the fact that games like Eternal and Gwent are competing with Hearthstone. They have to offer these bonuses that Hearthstone doesn't to attempt to draw in more customers.
I can guarantee you that if either of those games were the first of their kind to come onto the market and Hearthstone didn't already exist then you wouldn't be getting so many free packs on a daily basis.
WoW offers pets, mounts, and transmog from anywhere between $5 & 30$.
Hearthstone gates a cosmetic hero behind an $80 paywall.
I'm fine with some things costing money. However, there are much much better ways to actually do it. Make the hero available for $10-$20 and I could care less about the price of the digital pack bundles.
I disagree. Play for dailies and slowly build a collection by only keeping what you play. you'll have a good deck to ladder with and start collecting other good cards in a month or two.
I think most people think you need to have all of the cards to be competitive. It is true you will have more bad matchups, and not get much past rank 15, but that is how it should be. Keep learning the game and adding good cards to your collection. Hearthstone is in a much better place than it used to be. Tons of free packs during launches, free legendaries, and lots of gold for quests. Not to mention free leg in first 10 packs of each set.
when? what packs, all of them have at least 5 legendaries, you are either lying or trolling us
Oh look: it's THAT topic again.
For what profit is it to a man, if he gains the world and loses his own soul?
do you think it is fun to play with only common cards? f2p is boring
F2P since last year and hit legendary/12 wins arena plus own a few meta decks. it's not expensive if you are patient enough to work your way up.
You can also buy packs with in-game gold. Price is 100g / pack.
The reality of things is:
1) You can play this totally f2p, but you will need a LOT of time (like 2+ years) to really enjoy the game in all of its aspects
So the game isn't really f2p friendly, even more if you consider that we had adventures in the past that were really good for f2p. Blizzard has done a lot in the past year to help f2p but I don't think it's still as good as before
2) The game is expensive FOR PEOPLE WHO WISH TO PAY, yes that is true comparing it to other digital card games
All in all I think that the situation isn't that bad but it could be better for f2p but also for paying customers.
Top deck is cheat
I play 1 arena run a day, never had to spend anything and my collection is doing just fine. I started at the end of gadgetzan and right now I have a collection whereby I can play whatever I want. Its really how much time you are willing to spend, if you’re very busy then maybe the F2P option isn’t for you, but it can be done.
Also the stupid fixation on here that you must only play standard.
Is it 'Internet Coolness' that you must only play standard ?
There is a thing called an uninstall button. Nobody cares that you are quitting Heathstone
Honestly if they kept the +20 bonus pack offer they did for witchwood i wouldnt even complain. That was a pretty good deal
This is only partly true, and really only applies to new players, or players who manage their collections very poorly. I've been F2P since TGT, and have always had at least one competitive deck for each class since I decided not to spend any more money on the game. While lots of folks complain that the game is expensive, Blizzard also throws well over 300 free packs every year at everyday players. I'd recommend posting on the "Make a Friend" thread on this site - it's currently on its seventh iteration, with each previous iteration having as many as 50K people looking to exploit the "Play a Friend" quest. With about three dozen friends, I get a couple requests each week - about 800 gold each month, or 100 free packs every year, simply for playing games with folks I've met at FSGs.
The math isn't difficult - 300+ free packs every year, is 100+ free packs for each expansion. It's enough to collect a complete set of Commons, all the playable Rares, three or four sets of playable Epics, and three or four good Legendaries. And all that's for free. And any player who manages all of this free stuff properly will be able to build more and more decks with those cards over time. On the other hand, players that dust cards as soon as they fall out of the meta are perpetually scrambling around, trying to get enough dust to make the latest "flavour of the month" - a dude at a FSG I attended last month dusted his Tirion Fordring and Alexstrasza in order to scrounge up the dust to craft Shudderwock. His rationale was that neither card had seen much play in a year or so, and they were safe cards to dust. But once Mid-range Paladin becomes viable again, or a combo/control deck becomes popular that requires Alex to set up its OTK, the dude is going to have to dust four legendaries in order to re-craft each of the perfectly good legendaries he previously dusted. And I imagine a lot of those types of players will blame Blizzard, rather than themselves, for how expensive the game always seems to be . . .
The problem is that many players expect to basicly get everything every single expansion while investing casually - no money and little time invested. Let's not forget that getting 150g a day is about 55000g a year - being 550 packs, enough to play different meta decks in all 3 seasons AND building up a good collection for wild. Yeah, the system is designed to not hand out gifts all the time. Is that a bad thing?
It is very expensive. With their preorder price you can buy a new videogame. Indeed Hearthstone is a cash machine. It requires less than 4 months for develop a new expansion, very few people and it will cost like a new videogame where behind are involved hundreds of people and years of works. It is a real cash machine.
I think Blizzard has done a good job trying to make the bar lower for entry. You need look no further than the recent "Get in Here" bundle to see an example where Blizzard offered a promotion to help players get a good "starting set" for the standard season. (For any who didn't see it, it was $8 for 2 packs of each standard set, so for $40 a new player would get 10 packs of each set, which in turn means at least five legendary minions.) Another example is the Hearthstone Welcome bundle, which is only $5 and gets you ten packs and a guaranteed class legendary from the classic set. There's always room for improvement - maybe Blizzard could have offered a smaller expansion bundle, or kept the "Get in Here" bundle around for longer, etc. - but I think we should be very thoughtful about what the core problem is.
As others have said, if you consistently re-roll your 50g quests and complete a quest each day, your expected value for gold is something around 23000, which translates to 230 free packs annually. Add to that ~50 packs for weekly Tavern Brawls and you're looking at a lot of content if a new player is willing to play for a year. This is a big part of why experienced players don't have the same complaints about financing the game - they don't spend gold between expansions because they have enough of a base set and prefer to cash out for new cards every few months.
That, I think, is the crux of the issue. New players and F2P players shouldn't expect to have a full set, but they should expect to have a good time playing the game. Today we conflate having a large collection with the new and F2P experiences because there aren't enough ways to play the game, and the ranked ladder is oppressively dominated by meta decks even as low as rank 20. (Casual mode is often also too dominated by meta decks.) Blizzard is trying to fix this - they've talked about adding new ranked levels, and they're planning to add things like in-game tournaments which might create a new avenue for playing against comparable players.