i started a f2p account about 2 months ago to see what the experience is like for new players and ive been having a blast!
but i think new players need to be well informed of what to expect going into the game. like they shouldnt expect to build a full collection without putting in a good chunk of money or to be able to build a handful of the top netdecks right away.
perhaps it was only because I had heavy experience that I knew which decks I wanted to create right away in order to climb for that monthly rank 5 chest. I reckon if I was coming into the game with zero game knowledge, i'd waste a lot of dust and keep a bunch of bad legendaries. but even that whole discover process was fun! all that research and calculations!
but overall, i feel like the experience has gotten much better with all the beginner freebies, the no duplicate legendary openings, ability to test drive decks with friends before crafting a bunch of cards, and the solo play options. heck even arena has been more fun to play with the better card pools since the first big arena draft revamps.
As a semi F2P player since beta (always bought adventures to support them), i have quit the game over the last month. The experience is just not fun anymore. If you draw your win condition, you win, if your opponent draws his before you do, you lose. The decisions you make in game have become very watered down and its just not fun to lose (sometimes win) a game where your decisions did not matter anyway.
If you can play the game at around mid level, making good trades and playing to your outs, you will still lose to someone just playing a green card on curve and there is nothing to be done.
I can flip a coin by myself and get less frustrated than sit there and play the game.
Am i salty? - Probably, since the experience i always loved has been changed and i dont see it getting any better soon.
"Do you play games with lootboxes adding tot he fodder in the playerbase and keeping the games alive?"
"yes"
"Are you proud of every purchase you make for every microtransaction?"
"yes"
"so you buy a lot of lotboxes?"
"yes"
"do you consider that 'supporting developers' even though you should know that was contracted labor and they are already paid before the games even come and see none of the money people spend on the games and that all the money you spend on the games goes into the hands of stockholders, ceos, and other suits paid more than they deserve by the corporations that own the copywrongs for the games?"
"yes"
"so by saying yes you acknowledge you are Not supporting the developers and in fact enabling anti-consumer trends in the industry"
"..."
"I'm sorry if that was too much for your pea brain to process"
Hot take: the game isn't really that fun for experienced players anymore either.
This ^
Not even constructed brawls are any respite from the monotonous, trolling bs i see in the game any more. I can't even make decent mill decks in standard to vent my frustration for a while burning away cards after they destroyed coldlights and force dme to take big ones up the bum in wild to even use them any more defeating the entire purpose of my using them to begin with. every constructed brawl , as rare as they have always been, are absolute garbage using 'standard' (just like how they made arena unfun garbage) or outright banning epics and legends period ON TOP OF THAT bs. I can't even make amill deck to vent my frustration any more, I simply loa dup a warrior with taunts armor and a few removals and literally rope everybody while decktracker bring sup the window every couple of minutes so i throw anothe rtaunt and rope again. that's the only way i'll play the garbage any more. since that way I'm not invested, if it disconnects and doesn't come up I've gone almsot an hour before I even realized it since I couldn't care less about the game any more. I just hope to waste people's time as much as they waste my own with the roping and long games. I'm simply 'getting witht he program" and acknowledging it's unfun garbage now and not supposed to be anything more than a frustrating time waster. I'm currently roping priests in the ******** 'standard' brawl with a dead man's armor warrior and enjoying the instant concedes and "your opponent has left" when the little snots realize theyw on't gett o spam their garbage into my face on turn 6. I've stolen some's with azalina tob oot while having too much armor for them to burn before i can do that garbage to their faces instead on the next turn. i go into every match resenting the othe rplayer knowing they're nothing more than a netdecking scrub or a god awful troll like I was. never since league throwing full on premades into what used to be it's ranked mode have I got onto a game with no intent other than to waste others' time since I resent every single other player i come across. Only league has gotten me this sick of a game besides hearthstone.
Wow, that's alot of rage. I love that mill is no longer that prevalent in standard.
I have successfully collected all cards in HS (I discovered it was more than 1000$ wasted :( ) ,but the game no fun and repetitive decks.
I am now interested in Elder scrolls legends more fun, needs more thinking, you don’t know who will win till the last attack (rune system let you use card can damage your opponent in his turn) and new players friendly legendaries cost 1200 I was able to collect all cards with around 400$ (I’m old school player in the beginning the games was coming with just one payment no more dlcs or loot boxes I miss this days).
Adventures In ESL so much fun and good story telling.
you can buy complete decks with some legendaries by only 10$
I hear you. I decided to play on Asia as F2P (main is EU) and it's a horrible experience. Not only is there not much help apart from a crappy tutorial I even bought the welcome bundle as Amazon were having a deal on (yeah, yeah not strictly F2P) and made a fairly average hunter deck bearing in mind I know the game and how to construct a deck. I made it to rank 24, yes one rank above the starting rank before I was running into Top decks, Shudderwock Shaman, Odd Rogue, Token Druid etc
I'm not surprised your friends quit. Even compared to other F2P games this game is incredibly daunting and expensive for new players.
Same story. I don't play hunter on my main account (EU) and barely have any cards for this class, so decided to go all in with it on Americas. Netdecking in casual on Americas is simply horrendous: golden heroes with odd paladins, shudderwock shamans, even shamans, secret hunters etc. The ladder is not better. If at 25-20 you sometimes see wanky decks from players who just started, starting from 20 I only faced standard meta decks.
Though the new player experience has been attrocious since day1. You have to start somewhere, nobody just pushed the play button and BOOM instantly had an insane amount of cards or dust. To expect the ability to craft tier1 decks only a couple of weeks in is just silly.
I will say that the new ranks that Blizzard are planning to implement that only truly new players access sounds like it could be a tiny fix. But they do need to work on the rest of the game.
Just tell your friends to do Tavern Brawl and Daily quests in the meantime. Save up and buy like 30 packs at once and they'll have a better time at it when they get a large amount of Dust and Cards upfront.
When I meet someone on casual that uses a budget deck and/or many standard cards, I usually try to stall lethal a bit, so we can both enjoy a fight a bit more. Call me a showoff, but as a Pick Pocket Rogue, it's nice to finally get the time to drop a few Tess Greymane's :)
A mode more specific for net-decks / veterans to try things out or do dailies without ruining Casual for those looking to play there for fun or trying out silly decks. Maybe Unranked could even just be Ranked (and put you up against Ranked players you would normally face in Ranked) but winning or losing a game won't affect your rank. You can't go up or down. If you then want to try out say Cubelock or Hadronox Druid you can do so without destroying the Casual players just trying to have some fun. Leave the net-decks in Unranked and the fun/silly stuff in Casual.
The other option is to improve the matchmaking itself. Having a new player come up against a veteran is abysmally bad, you're almost better off as a new player to just play Ranked between Rank 25-20. The amount of games played, total amount of legendaries, total amount of dust value of all your cards in your collection and the dust value of the deck you're playing could all be used in matchmaking as statistics to ensure newer players don't get put up against the veterans. Obviously it won't be perfect but it would still be better than what Casual is currently throwing at new players.
Good news, in the last interview blizzard said something like they where planning to add a few ranks to the ladder where only new players could play.
i play the game for ~10 months now and it was pretty hard to start so i know how it feels. I really hope they find a way for new players to help them with starting out.
another idea that they could add is a small “pack discount” for example, the first pack you buy costs 10 gold, the second one costs 20, and each pack increases cost with 10 gold until the 10th one and all after that, they still cost the normal 100 gold.
Was surprised at the level of decks at that level.
I used to use my wild to quickly finish quests like win 7 games the new ladder seems to have pushed casual long term players up the ladder and hence the new players are against them and don't stand a chance.
I may be alone with that opinion but I think the power level of cards is still way too high. Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Carnivorous Cube, Sunkeeper Tarim and Master Oakheart just to name a few. If they would nerf a few more utterly broken cards new players could rank up way easier. Also a lot more Archetypes would be present. (I know there is already some variety after the nerfs but not enough)
I have inadvertently got 2 other players to try the game from them watching me play and finding it interesting. I asked how they were doing in the game yesterday and they both have already quit. They both relayed similar stories that when going into the casual mode they get completely slaughtered by what I recognized as constructed net decks. I logged onto their account and they barely had opened that many packs had very little dust to do anything with. They had gotten a few legendaries but no tools to build around them.
I decided to see what these newbies were facing. In 5 games I had to try and beat a Cubelock, 2 odd paladins, a taunt druid, and a recruit hunter. I could see why they quit. Is there any match making at work at all in this game? Does Blizzard not understand that they are losing out on growing the player base with this uneven system. This strategy did not make them spend money to get better decks they just quit completely.
I suggested the welcome bundle to get them some competitive cards hopefully, They looked up the Cubelock after I showed them what they had gotten destroyed by and when they saw the dust value they just saw the game as too much of a grind compared to what they started off with.
There are interested players out there Blizzard you are just crushing their souls from the get go. Do better.
My bros GF made a new account some weeks ago and although she's trying really hard (plays low budget MR Hunter, which is the only deck you can pilot efficiently as a newbie) it's hilarious what types of decks she has to put up with in Casual mode. I watched her yesterday and out of the first 10 attempts: Even Lock, Spell Hunter, Odd Rogue, three Odd Paladins... only the four other decks could be considered "casual", as in not being T1/T2 netdecks. And on top of that many opponents behavior was just ass, BM and emote spam all the time. One of those guys even sent a friend request to mock her for playing "lol basic cards, poor Hunter n00b". This is actually ridiculous and leads me to the question if Casual mode shouldn't just be removed. I mean, what's the point of a pseudo-ladder?
Cutting adventures for expansions is what killed new player experience. Those wings weren't even that expensive in real monies, just a few beers worth tbh.
Now it's not that fun and I'm happy I'm not a new player. I think the "new player experience" would be best described as "harrowing".
But hey, Blizzard is still pumping enough money from Hearthstone to keep Overwatch events going, so it's all green by them.
I have inadvertently got 2 other players to try the game from them watching me play and finding it interesting. I asked how they were doing in the game yesterday and they both have already quit. They both relayed similar stories that when going into the casual mode they get completely slaughtered by what I recognized as constructed net decks. I logged onto their account and they barely had opened that many packs had very little dust to do anything with. They had gotten a few legendaries but no tools to build around them.
I decided to see what these newbies were facing. In 5 games I had to try and beat a Cubelock, 2 odd paladins, a taunt druid, and a recruit hunter. I could see why they quit. Is there any match making at work at all in this game? Does Blizzard not understand that they are losing out on growing the player base with this uneven system. This strategy did not make them spend money to get better decks they just quit completely.
I suggested the welcome bundle to get them some competitive cards hopefully, They looked up the Cubelock after I showed them what they had gotten destroyed by and when they saw the dust value they just saw the game as too much of a grind compared to what they started off with.
There are interested players out there Blizzard you are just crushing their souls from the get go. Do better.
My bros GF made a new account some weeks ago and although she's trying really hard (plays low budget MR Hunter, which is the only deck you can pilot efficiently as a newbie) it's hilarious what types of decks she has to put up with in Casual mode. I watched her yesterday and out of the first 10 attempts: Even Lock, Spell Hunter, Odd Rogue, three Odd Paladins... only the four other decks could be considered "casual", as in not being T1/T2 netdecks. And on top of that many opponents behavior was just ass, BM and emote spam all the time. One of those guys even sent a friend request to mock her for playing "lol basic cards, poor Hunter n00b". This is actually ridiculous and leads me to the question if Casual mode shouldn't just be removed. I mean, what's the point of a pseudo-ladder?
I absolutely agree that something needs to be done about "Casual" because there is no casual anymore. A very simple thing that could help a lot would be making the 10 gold for 3 wins feature disabled in Casual. A LOT of degenerates just grind aggro decks in Casual to try to get their daily 100 gold from the 10 gold for 3 wins feature as quick as they can. I bet most if not all of the decks you mentioned were being used for exactly that. No doubt that something even bigger needs to be done to make Casual more casual, but I do think that this simple fix would go a long way. You listening Blizzard??
Neither it is for old players.
Check out my entry for this week's Card Design Competition. Vote for it if you like it.
i started a f2p account about 2 months ago to see what the experience is like for new players and ive been having a blast!
but i think new players need to be well informed of what to expect going into the game. like they shouldnt expect to build a full collection without putting in a good chunk of money or to be able to build a handful of the top netdecks right away.
perhaps it was only because I had heavy experience that I knew which decks I wanted to create right away in order to climb for that monthly rank 5 chest. I reckon if I was coming into the game with zero game knowledge, i'd waste a lot of dust and keep a bunch of bad legendaries. but even that whole discover process was fun! all that research and calculations!
but overall, i feel like the experience has gotten much better with all the beginner freebies, the no duplicate legendary openings, ability to test drive decks with friends before crafting a bunch of cards, and the solo play options. heck even arena has been more fun to play with the better card pools since the first big arena draft revamps.
As a semi F2P player since beta (always bought adventures to support them), i have quit the game over the last month. The experience is just not fun anymore. If you draw your win condition, you win, if your opponent draws his before you do, you lose. The decisions you make in game have become very watered down and its just not fun to lose (sometimes win) a game where your decisions did not matter anyway.
If you can play the game at around mid level, making good trades and playing to your outs, you will still lose to someone just playing a green card on curve and there is nothing to be done.
I can flip a coin by myself and get less frustrated than sit there and play the game.
Am i salty? - Probably, since the experience i always loved has been changed and i dont see it getting any better soon.
For new players, man i feel sorry for you.
Wow, that's alot of rage. I love that mill is no longer that prevalent in standard.
I have successfully collected all cards in HS (I discovered it was more than 1000$ wasted :( ) ,but the game no fun and repetitive decks.
I am now interested in Elder scrolls legends more fun, needs more thinking, you don’t know who will win till the last attack (rune system let you use card can damage your opponent in his turn) and new players friendly legendaries cost 1200 I was able to collect all cards with around 400$ (I’m old school player in the beginning the games was coming with just one payment no more dlcs or loot boxes I miss this days).
Adventures In ESL so much fun and good story telling.
you can buy complete decks with some legendaries by only 10$
Loot boxes give 6 cards and a lot of epics.
I believe a very good idea will be to make the classic/basic set available to everyone, so new players will only need to purchase standard packs
Same story. I don't play hunter on my main account (EU) and barely have any cards for this class, so decided to go all in with it on Americas. Netdecking in casual on Americas is simply horrendous: golden heroes with odd paladins, shudderwock shamans, even shamans, secret hunters etc. The ladder is not better. If at 25-20 you sometimes see wanky decks from players who just started, starting from 20 I only faced standard meta decks.
Though the new player experience has been attrocious since day1. You have to start somewhere, nobody just pushed the play button and BOOM instantly had an insane amount of cards or dust. To expect the ability to craft tier1 decks only a couple of weeks in is just silly.
I will say that the new ranks that Blizzard are planning to implement that only truly new players access sounds like it could be a tiny fix. But they do need to work on the rest of the game.
Just tell your friends to do Tavern Brawl and Daily quests in the meantime. Save up and buy like 30 packs at once and they'll have a better time at it when they get a large amount of Dust and Cards upfront.
When I meet someone on casual that uses a budget deck and/or many standard cards, I usually try to stall lethal a bit, so we can both enjoy a fight a bit more. Call me a showoff, but as a Pick Pocket Rogue, it's nice to finally get the time to drop a few Tess Greymane's :)
Not fun for any players at the moment
Full of talentless netdeckers chancing it, no variety
Maybe they need to add an Unranked mode?
A mode more specific for net-decks / veterans to try things out or do dailies without ruining Casual for those looking to play there for fun or trying out silly decks. Maybe Unranked could even just be Ranked (and put you up against Ranked players you would normally face in Ranked) but winning or losing a game won't affect your rank. You can't go up or down. If you then want to try out say Cubelock or Hadronox Druid you can do so without destroying the Casual players just trying to have some fun. Leave the net-decks in Unranked and the fun/silly stuff in Casual.
The other option is to improve the matchmaking itself. Having a new player come up against a veteran is abysmally bad, you're almost better off as a new player to just play Ranked between Rank 25-20. The amount of games played, total amount of legendaries, total amount of dust value of all your cards in your collection and the dust value of the deck you're playing could all be used in matchmaking as statistics to ensure newer players don't get put up against the veterans. Obviously it won't be perfect but it would still be better than what Casual is currently throwing at new players.
Good news, in the last interview blizzard said something like they where planning to add a few ranks to the ladder where only new players could play.
i play the game for ~10 months now and it was pretty hard to start so i know how it feels. I really hope they find a way for new players to help them with starting out.
another idea that they could add is a small “pack discount” for example, the first pack you buy costs 10 gold, the second one costs 20, and each pack increases cost with 10 gold until the 10th one and all after that, they still cost the normal 100 gold.
So just come back after a wee break rank 24.
Was surprised at the level of decks at that level.
I used to use my wild to quickly finish quests like win 7 games the new ladder seems to have pushed casual long term players up the ladder and hence the new players are against them and don't stand a chance.
The new ladder is a grind as well.
I may be alone with that opinion but I think the power level of cards is still way too high. Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Carnivorous Cube, Sunkeeper Tarim and Master Oakheart just to name a few. If they would nerf a few more utterly broken cards new players could rank up way easier. Also a lot more Archetypes would be present. (I know there is already some variety after the nerfs but not enough)
My bros GF made a new account some weeks ago and although she's trying really hard (plays low budget MR Hunter, which is the only deck you can pilot efficiently as a newbie) it's hilarious what types of decks she has to put up with in Casual mode. I watched her yesterday and out of the first 10 attempts: Even Lock, Spell Hunter, Odd Rogue, three Odd Paladins... only the four other decks could be considered "casual", as in not being T1/T2 netdecks. And on top of that many opponents behavior was just ass, BM and emote spam all the time. One of those guys even sent a friend request to mock her for playing "lol basic cards, poor Hunter n00b". This is actually ridiculous and leads me to the question if Casual mode shouldn't just be removed. I mean, what's the point of a pseudo-ladder?
It's a card game.. You need to toss money at it to have fun... Hs isn't noob friendly and it shouldn't be.
Cutting adventures for expansions is what killed new player experience. Those wings weren't even that expensive in real monies, just a few beers worth tbh.
Now it's not that fun and I'm happy I'm not a new player. I think the "new player experience" would be best described as "harrowing".
But hey, Blizzard is still pumping enough money from Hearthstone to keep Overwatch events going, so it's all green by them.
I've no clue what I'm doing...
I absolutely agree that something needs to be done about "Casual" because there is no casual anymore. A very simple thing that could help a lot would be making the 10 gold for 3 wins feature disabled in Casual. A LOT of degenerates just grind aggro decks in Casual to try to get their daily 100 gold from the 10 gold for 3 wins feature as quick as they can. I bet most if not all of the decks you mentioned were being used for exactly that. No doubt that something even bigger needs to be done to make Casual more casual, but I do think that this simple fix would go a long way. You listening Blizzard??
You must be willing to pay the price, my friend.
Agreed. This game isn't even fun for returning players who spent a lot in the past. It's absolute shit now.