I added a comment to a deck thread in response to someone who said something like "I can't imagine what it's like to be a new player now". I can't speak for all new players, but I thought some of you old pros at the game might be interested in seeing how at least this new player feels about the game, so I'm reposting my comment here.
As a "new player" (I started playing 2 months ago), I can't compare starting now to starting years ago. But I can share my experience and thoughts.
To begin with, I just plain don't play Wild. I guess I might in the future, but I started playing after Witchwood was already out - so I don't have any Wild cards to play with right now, and I just get obliterated in that format.
I also don't buy packs. I bought 10 packs for $7.99 or something a few weeks ago, when there was a sale. My collection didn't really improve in a noticeable way. I guess I got a few gold cards, which are neat, but it doesn't improve my win rate. I know I could have gotten lucky with some legendaries, but the cards I actually got weren't worth having paid for, so I won't do it again.
Which leads to my first complaint. The game punishes you for having a limited collection, which isn't great for new players. By playing enough matches, I've been able to get to rank 20, but it's definitely not because I've got good decks. As soon as I can start losing stars, I get stuck. My best deck is about 50% win rate, so if I get really lucky with RNG, I can get to 19. Being rewarded a common and 5-10 dust isn't much incentive to keep banging my head against the wall.
Arena punishes new players in a different way, although I am more accepting of this - not having experience with the cards, knowing how arena is likely to present me options, not knowing various synergies, etc, puts me on shaky ground from the start. I often end up with cards that have no value (give this card a bonus if you have a weapon, and my deck has no weapons ... stuff like this happens to me all the time). I'm lucky to get 3 wins in arena, which means it's basically a losing proposition for me. I might get lucky and get a second card pack, or a rare card I don't have, but I usually end up realizing I'd have been better off just buying a card pack. But it's pretty much the only way I can get dust, even if it is a tiny amount per run.
I'm not willing to pour money into the game to "catch up". I can't accumulate dust in volume enough to improve my collection. My only real source of gold is daily quests, which basically amounts to a couple decks per week. If I'm lucky, one will be a useful card I didn't already have, and half a dozen more will build the collection in a mostly useless way (second copies of cards I don't use anyway). I've been able to get enough dust together to buy a 3 or 4 useful cards, but legendaries are out of reach for me. It feels really difficult to build a collection that opens options up to me.
And that brings me to my biggest complaint - the matching system for ranked play. It pairs me with people who are the same "rank" as me, as if rank has some value as an indicator of how fair the matchup is. I've gotten to the point that I just concede as soon as a game starts where someone has what I call "cheat cards" - Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater. They feel like cheats to me because I don't have them, I'm not likely to get them anytime soon, and they make the playing field very un-level. Those aren't the only cards, though - there are tons of good cards that I don't have that just change the momentum of the match when they come out. To be clear, I don't feel like the other player is cheating - I feel like the game is cheating me by putting me in a clearly unfair matchup. If the "dust cost" of my collection is 20,000, and my opponent's collection has a "dust cost" of 4,000,000, it doesn't matter that we have the same rank, because that person has a significant advantage. I can't explain why, but there seem to be a lot of players with good collections hanging out at rank 20, feeding on newbs like myself.
The most fun I have is the solo adventures, but I'm at a point with those that I've done pretty much whatever I expect to be able to complete, and what I have left seems like a brick wall. I played M:TG for a decade or so. After 2 months, I've already been thinking about quitting playing Hearthstone because it's not fun just as often as it is fun, not because of the outcome of games, but because of how the game basically serves new players up to experienced players on a platter.
I've been playing for about the same length of time as yourself (right after the Dominaria MtG prerelease), but feel my experience has been a little different. Firstly, I ADORE wild. But, I have spent money. First it was LoE, then the other adventures, and then 7 packs of each set for the 1/10 legendary. I absolutely loved the old adventures, collecting rewards for winning solo games was a rewarding experience. I'd recommend trying it out if you've clocked dungeon run, Monster hunt, and want something new. Well worth it.
I also purchased about 8 Get in Here Bundles, and I can agree that it didn't impact me that much with what I cracked. Extra dust, however, was great! With all that said, if those bundles were still available, I'd probably gamble on them a bit more to fill out my commons and rares.
I might sound a little spend crazy, and I won't argue. I'm loving the game, and recently moved to a new location and am not going out, boozing, or spending money. Yeah, nerd's sitting around playing digital cards rather than go socialise. This weekend was also another MtG prerelease weekend, but I'm enjoying Hearthstone more, so spent what I would have on the prerelease on extra old packs (which I wouldn't recommend, I should have went and made friends instead).
With all those purchases, I have an odd paladin deck that is standard viable (but I don't enjoy it). I also have a nice spread of a collection for building all sorts of wild decks. Nothing top tier, but more than enough to enjoy the game.
I've told myself I need to stop spending, go back to getting those free packs, and only purchase the prerelease specials. I don't regret my purchases, but reckon I would have lost interest if I hadn't. Standard, as a new player, sucks. I think a lot of old players are pretty jaded with it at the moment too.
If you're on the NA server, feel free to add me and we can have a muck around with my decks. See if you enjoy wild.
Arena punishes new players in a different way, although I am more accepting of this - not having experience with the cards, knowing how arena is likely to present me options, not knowing various synergies, etc, puts me on shaky ground from the start. I often end up with cards that have no value (give this card a bonus if you have a weapon, and my deck has no weapons ... stuff like this happens to me all the time). I'm lucky to get 3 wins in arena, which means it's basically a losing proposition for me. I might get lucky and get a second card pack, or a rare card I don't have, but I usually end up realizing I'd have been better off just buying a card pack. But it's pretty much the only way I can get dust, even if it is a tiny amount per run.
This is literally how games should work. You are bad. Then you get better. And arena is probably the best way to build a collection when starting out, which addresses some of the other concerns.
That isn't to say that the new player experience doesn't need work. It does. It needs a lot of it. But your arena complaints are off target.
I've gotten to the point that I just concede as soon as a game starts where someone has what I call "cheat cards" - Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater.
I mean, it's your life. You're free to take your ball and go home. But this, paired with the Arena complaint, makes me question how you played other CCGs.
I don't see Hearthstone as being substantively different from other TCGs CCGs where you spend the first "X" months getting your butt kicked by people more experienced and with better collections than you. The biggest difference in my mind is that there's no "local meta." Back when I played CCGs competitively in person, you knew certain people were going to show up with certain decks and that you would have to include certain counters to their strategies. It made things interesting because certain decks were viable in your meta because of what everyone else was playing, but were terrible at regional or national tournaments.
I think one thing that would be incredibly cool and add some legs for new players is a "pauper" mode where you can only use common and basic cards. Or set tight budgets on the dust value of decks. If there were leagues based around the budget concept, I could totally get behind that. a 1600 dust limit would be neat because it would force tough choices: do I play this one very powerful legendary alongside nothing but basic cards or do I spread my dust among commons, rares, and one or two epics.
More ways to play are basically always good for the life cycle of a CCG and would make the game more accessible to new players. Admittedly there would still be a learning curve, and more experienced players would still have an advantage, but it would be really neat to see some cards get play that otherwise are never used.
The first year for new players is full of pitfalls. Thats why I made the post linked in my signature. I wish the mods would have something like it on the site thats easy to find.
Arena punishes new players in a different way, although I am more accepting of this - not having experience with the cards, knowing how arena is likely to present me options, not knowing various synergies, etc, puts me on shaky ground from the start. I often end up with cards that have no value (give this card a bonus if you have a weapon, and my deck has no weapons ... stuff like this happens to me all the time). I'm lucky to get 3 wins in arena, which means it's basically a losing proposition for me. I might get lucky and get a second card pack, or a rare card I don't have, but I usually end up realizing I'd have been better off just buying a card pack. But it's pretty much the only way I can get dust, even if it is a tiny amount per run.
This is literally how games should work. You are bad. Then you get better. And arena is probably the best way to build a collection when starting out, which addresses some of the other concerns.
That isn't to say that the new player experience doesn't need work. It does. It needs a lot of it. But your arena complaints are off target.
I've gotten to the point that I just concede as soon as a game starts where someone has what I call "cheat cards" - Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater.
I mean, it's your life. You're free to take your ball and go home. But this, paired with the Arena complaint, makes me question how you played other CCGs.
I want to call the above comment out as unhelpful.
OP I really appreciate you sharing your experience, and I also found it extremely interesting comparing the first commenters post who spent money. I played about 3 months F2p and then dropped 100 bucks for old God's and MSG packs( both in wild now) this gave me a good start to build from and to craft a couple solid decks. I also buy every preorder now.
I don't know how people mange to F2P this game, but it's really good if you spend a bit. Just understand you are never going to get all the cards u want but you will get enough to craft the good ones. I didn't open gen or Baku, but I got enough dust to craft both.
As for arena, I would recommend playing eu and Asia servers or opening extra accounts. you can easly free to play infinite arenas just off of quest gold on multiple accounts, it won't help your collection, but you will get practice till you can hit a 5+ win average (soft infinite). Also watch Twitch streamers or you tube vids
Sad but new players need to grind on losses lucky packs or holding on gold and dust for 2 expansions until they can get a collection that can compete. But just by pouring a 50 bucks or so the price of a new game u can have a massive advantage.
But u have been playing Magic so u should know how crazy expensive card games can be at first.
What some people miss when they are talking about Arena in a thread about new players is that they are new players. They dont have good game play knowledge yet. They tend to get eaten alive in the Arena. New players need to have experience before going to the arena.
I added a comment to a deck thread in response to someone who said something like "I can't imagine what it's like to be a new player now". I can't speak for all new players, but I thought some of you old pros at the game might be interested in seeing how at least this new player feels about the game, so I'm reposting my comment here.
As a "new player" (I started playing 2 months ago), I can't compare starting now to starting years ago. But I can share my experience and thoughts.
To begin with, I just plain don't play Wild. I guess I might in the future, but I started playing after Witchwood was already out - so I don't have any Wild cards to play with right now, and I just get obliterated in that format.
I also don't buy packs. I bought 10 packs for $7.99 or something a few weeks ago, when there was a sale. My collection didn't really improve in a noticeable way. I guess I got a few gold cards, which are neat, but it doesn't improve my win rate. I know I could have gotten lucky with some legendaries, but the cards I actually got weren't worth having paid for, so I won't do it again.
Which leads to my first complaint. The game punishes you for having a limited collection, which isn't great for new players. By playing enough matches, I've been able to get to rank 20, but it's definitely not because I've got good decks. As soon as I can start losing stars, I get stuck. My best deck is about 50% win rate, so if I get really lucky with RNG, I can get to 19. Being rewarded a common and 5-10 dust isn't much incentive to keep banging my head against the wall.
Arena punishes new players in a different way, although I am more accepting of this - not having experience with the cards, knowing how arena is likely to present me options, not knowing various synergies, etc, puts me on shaky ground from the start. I often end up with cards that have no value (give this card a bonus if you have a weapon, and my deck has no weapons ... stuff like this happens to me all the time). I'm lucky to get 3 wins in arena, which means it's basically a losing proposition for me. I might get lucky and get a second card pack, or a rare card I don't have, but I usually end up realizing I'd have been better off just buying a card pack. But it's pretty much the only way I can get dust, even if it is a tiny amount per run.
I'm not willing to pour money into the game to "catch up". I can't accumulate dust in volume enough to improve my collection. My only real source of gold is daily quests, which basically amounts to a couple decks per week. If I'm lucky, one will be a useful card I didn't already have, and half a dozen more will build the collection in a mostly useless way (second copies of cards I don't use anyway). I've been able to get enough dust together to buy a 3 or 4 useful cards, but legendaries are out of reach for me. It feels really difficult to build a collection that opens options up to me.
And that brings me to my biggest complaint - the matching system for ranked play. It pairs me with people who are the same "rank" as me, as if rank has some value as an indicator of how fair the matchup is. I've gotten to the point that I just concede as soon as a game starts where someone has what I call "cheat cards" - Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater. They feel like cheats to me because I don't have them, I'm not likely to get them anytime soon, and they make the playing field very un-level. Those aren't the only cards, though - there are tons of good cards that I don't have that just change the momentum of the match when they come out. To be clear, I don't feel like the other player is cheating - I feel like the game is cheating me by putting me in a clearly unfair matchup. If the "dust cost" of my collection is 20,000, and my opponent's collection has a "dust cost" of 4,000,000, it doesn't matter that we have the same rank, because that person has a significant advantage. I can't explain why, but there seem to be a lot of players with good collections hanging out at rank 20, feeding on newbs like myself.
The most fun I have is the solo adventures, but I'm at a point with those that I've done pretty much whatever I expect to be able to complete, and what I have left seems like a brick wall. I played M:TG for a decade or so. After 2 months, I've already been thinking about quitting playing Hearthstone because it's not fun just as often as it is fun, not because of the outcome of games, but because of how the game basically serves new players up to experienced players on a platter.
I mean are you expecting to be a new player and climb a lot and reach high ranks? I don't see how that logic really works. Also Blizzards gives you 2 options, you can either buy all the cards (buy a lot of packs) or craft the cards by putting A LOT of time into the game, if you don't want to put any money then you're still fine, you don't need to have all the cards to climb, you need 1 good deck for doing it, if you want to have a big collection and play a variety of decks then prepare for an infernal ride, I've been playing for like 2.5 years and there's always like 2-3 meta decks that I'm 5k+ dust away from being able to play, but you don't need every card, not every class is gonna be fun for you either.
If that deck you're talking about has 50% you should be able to climb to rank 5 with it, with the bonus starts it should be easy, to climb to LEGEND you need only 51% winrate so to get to 5 is a lot less than that, the problem is not your collection, not your decks (Maybe your decks lol), the problem is you, you can't think you'll climb huge chunks of the ladder on your first 2 months, sure there might be people that get to rank 5 on their first 3 months, but there are also dudes that been playing since beta and can't get to rank 10, PLAY the game, or were you good at literally anything the first time you tried it? definitely not good after 2 months of doing it either. Put more time into the game, even if you buy all the cards that won't make you good, time will, multiple times pro players climbed at least to rank 5 with F2P account they started on the same month they climbed that far, you just need to know how to manage resources on a better fashion and actually understand the game.
The only way to get good at arena is to play arena so play it lol arena is definitely the best way to spend gold if you're at least decent at it but you'll lose some gold at first, but hey if you get good you'll get all that lost gold back eventually and will start earning a lot more, next topic.
As I said, either time or money buddy, your choice, you can't expect to be a new players and get all cards and/or climb to high ranks, it's just the natural flow of every game: You're bad ------> play a lot -------> You're not that bad anymore--------> play some more---------> You get better and better and then You have no cards--------> Put a money/ a lot of time into the game (Could be both)-------->Your collection grows proportionally to either. It's like you never played any game ever before, specially card games.
Matchmaking via something like how much is your collection worth would not only be a nightmare for blizzard but also completely inneficient, what if you have a 20k dust worth collection of pure trash and your opponent has 20k dust of pure tier 1 decks, with 20k dust you can craft 2 tier 1/high tier 2 decks without a problem, you would still complain cause maybe he manages his resources better and/or had more luck with packs, so it solves nothing. To that you can add that not all cards from the same rarity are the same, like it's not the same to have lets say Leeroy, Genn, Gul'dan, Edwin and Lich King than it is to have Cho, Millhouse, Nat, bad Aviana and Arfus right? Same dust cost but 2 complete opposite sides, again very flawed suggestion you got there. Finally they would also have to consider golden cards and they don't make you better what if someone has 50k dust collection of only golden stuff, would it be fair to compare it to someone with a 50k collection of regular cards, the latter would for sure have a lot more cards than the golden boy.
If you keep thinking that a big collection is = big ranks you'll hit a hard wall when you find out how different it is, just get a good deck and actually PLAY, don't expect to be pro level after a couple weeks of playing, people nowdays is used to getting everything so easily, money or time buddy, it's the only way, even with money you still need time to get good at the game so stop complaining about everything and grind. You don't even need a tier 1 netdeck to climb to 5, with like a tier 3 homebrew you can definitely do it if you put the hours into it, a tier 1 deck won't take you anywhere if you suck, and I'm not saying you suck but you definitely know nothing about this game, I'm pretty sure you don't even know how 80% of the interactions work or the composition of the meta decks so you can play around it by this point, put time and effort into the game.
Finally I don't get where this rant comes from, you said you played Magic for 10 years... What game did you play? Did you not have to put money into cards to play Magic? You literally can't play MTG without putting money into it, later down the road maybe you can trade cards or whatever or sell your own to buy more but I'm pretty sure your collection was 0 when you started and how many free cards, pack or money (gold in HS case) did you get on your Magic adventure? Blizzard gives you the chance to play this for free and as of lately they give a ridiculous amount of freebies, now it's probably the best time to start playing HS, Rotation means there are less cards and Blizzard is giving free stuff and making amazing event really often, before it was close to impossible to be F2P unless you started playing from beta.
I started HS almost 3 years ago during TGT, and was free to play until un'goro in April 2017. Maybe spent $150-$200 since, including old adventures.
The new player experience was challenging. I could never build a deck that could compete with real decks for at least 3 months. There was no standard/wild at that time, but I could not pass rank 18. After a handful of initial flops, I found that I started to enjoy arena where I had just as good a chance as a player with a complete collection. A month of practice got me to an average of 4-5 wins, and I spent all of my gold and most of my time playing arena. Eventually I played enough arena that I had enough cards to begin to play constructed competitively. My decks we're janky, but feasible and I could make rank 15. Only after more than a year could I actually compete with powerful decks. I started prebuying expansions with un'goro to replace the daily quest grind, but ended up doing I doing both.
Arena is really the best way to start in my opinion. It's frustrating at first when you feel like you're throwing your gold away, but that doesn't last long. Learn quickly that tempo is king in arena and keep practicing. Every two days should give enough gold for another run.
What some people miss when they are talking about Arena in a thread about new players is that they are new players. They dont have good game play knowledge yet. They tend to get eaten alive in the Arena. New players need to have experience before going to the arena.
That is the point though. The expectation should be that you are bad and you learn to become better. No one should expect to be brand new at something and magically be the best at it. There is a learning curve and there should be.
Not only that, but you will develop skills that translate to ladder. Learning how to trade and generate tempo as well as how to evaluate cards.
None of this is to say that Ranked play is not still too unfriendly to new players. They need more ranks or something. But Arena puts everyone on the same footing. Collection does not matter.
Here are ways you need to make the game I intend to play for free more fun for me. If you don't make changes I am quitting and you will lose this Free-to-Play player.
I still will say this all the time - if you want to have fun in a game, drop some money on it. Over 5 years (including a one and a half to two year break) I've spent about $200-$250 on this game, and I don't regret it at all. Most of the money spent has come in the past year with me coming back shortly after Ungoro release. I've preordered Frozen Throne, K&C, and Witchwood.
I do know that coming back can be hard. Thankfully I was able to dust my whole wild set and play competitively in standard right away, along with my previous knowledge of the game, which is at least a little bit important. I've also spent countless hours on this website, studying the ins and outs of however many different decks to help knowledge of the game.
I do know that it is tough to come in as a brand new player, but usually if you compare a free game to a full game that you spend $60-80 on, the $60-80 game will win 9 times out of 10. Apply that to even this game, if you spend that $50 on the preorder bonus, your enjoyment will increase immensely. I know it sounds like a weak argument, and it's hard to convince you to spend money on a game that you hate haha, but it does help for sure.
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Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
You dont need a good collection to climb to at least dad legend. You need good decks. If you are not gonna spend money then you better start dusting really bad cards and focus on 1 or 2 GOOD budget decks. You keep saying "i dont have a good collection" make me think you are not being smart and just make up decks with what cards you have, you really wont climb as f2p doing that. Theres really just a small fraction of cards that is used on meta, you can look it up on HS replay whether a card is safe to dust or not.
There are so many cheap budget decks there that can easily climb to rank 5, quick f2p climb to legend has been proven alot of times on youtube and popular streamers. On HS replay there are really cheap no legendary 1400-2500 zoolock/hunter decks that people use to climb to at least rank 5. You also need to start dusting those bad gold cards you got, i have spent almost 2000$ on this game since i started in KFT, and i still dust golden cards that i have normal copies of, i just like hoarding gold and dust for when the day comes i cant afford hearthstone anymore.
But yeah its really harsh for newer f2p players, its just how it is. Blizz should also make a better welcome bundle like seriously.
Hopefully Blizz/Team5 see posts like this. It's still a pretty abysmal experience for a new player to jump in without forking over big chunks of money. The Standard environment is basically all top decks in all formats and that's a fast track to losing new players when they simply can't compete without purchasing large blocks of cards. The pack opening doesn't yield enough useful cards and the dust economy is still the original structure despite 1230 cards being added over the last few years.
The grind is just vastly different in the current environment. The pack costs and/or dust economy are not adequate anymore.
I added a comment to a deck thread in response to someone who said something like "I can't imagine what it's like to be a new player now". I can't speak for all new players, but I thought some of you old pros at the game might be interested in seeing how at least this new player feels about the game, so I'm reposting my comment here.
As a "new player" (I started playing 2 months ago), I can't compare starting now to starting years ago. But I can share my experience and thoughts.
To begin with, I just plain don't play Wild. I guess I might in the future, but I started playing after Witchwood was already out - so I don't have any Wild cards to play with right now, and I just get obliterated in that format.
I also don't buy packs. I bought 10 packs for $7.99 or something a few weeks ago, when there was a sale. My collection didn't really improve in a noticeable way. I guess I got a few gold cards, which are neat, but it doesn't improve my win rate. I know I could have gotten lucky with some legendaries, but the cards I actually got weren't worth having paid for, so I won't do it again.
Which leads to my first complaint. The game punishes you for having a limited collection, which isn't great for new players. By playing enough matches, I've been able to get to rank 20, but it's definitely not because I've got good decks. As soon as I can start losing stars, I get stuck. My best deck is about 50% win rate, so if I get really lucky with RNG, I can get to 19. Being rewarded a common and 5-10 dust isn't much incentive to keep banging my head against the wall.
Arena punishes new players in a different way, although I am more accepting of this - not having experience with the cards, knowing how arena is likely to present me options, not knowing various synergies, etc, puts me on shaky ground from the start. I often end up with cards that have no value (give this card a bonus if you have a weapon, and my deck has no weapons ... stuff like this happens to me all the time). I'm lucky to get 3 wins in arena, which means it's basically a losing proposition for me. I might get lucky and get a second card pack, or a rare card I don't have, but I usually end up realizing I'd have been better off just buying a card pack. But it's pretty much the only way I can get dust, even if it is a tiny amount per run.
I'm not willing to pour money into the game to "catch up". I can't accumulate dust in volume enough to improve my collection. My only real source of gold is daily quests, which basically amounts to a couple decks per week. If I'm lucky, one will be a useful card I didn't already have, and half a dozen more will build the collection in a mostly useless way (second copies of cards I don't use anyway). I've been able to get enough dust together to buy a 3 or 4 useful cards, but legendaries are out of reach for me. It feels really difficult to build a collection that opens options up to me.
And that brings me to my biggest complaint - the matching system for ranked play. It pairs me with people who are the same "rank" as me, as if rank has some value as an indicator of how fair the matchup is. I've gotten to the point that I just concede as soon as a game starts where someone has what I call "cheat cards" - Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater. They feel like cheats to me because I don't have them, I'm not likely to get them anytime soon, and they make the playing field very un-level. Those aren't the only cards, though - there are tons of good cards that I don't have that just change the momentum of the match when they come out. To be clear, I don't feel like the other player is cheating - I feel like the game is cheating me by putting me in a clearly unfair matchup. If the "dust cost" of my collection is 20,000, and my opponent's collection has a "dust cost" of 4,000,000, it doesn't matter that we have the same rank, because that person has a significant advantage. I can't explain why, but there seem to be a lot of players with good collections hanging out at rank 20, feeding on newbs like myself.
The most fun I have is the solo adventures, but I'm at a point with those that I've done pretty much whatever I expect to be able to complete, and what I have left seems like a brick wall. I played M:TG for a decade or so. After 2 months, I've already been thinking about quitting playing Hearthstone because it's not fun just as often as it is fun, not because of the outcome of games, but because of how the game basically serves new players up to experienced players on a platter.
I've been playing for about the same length of time as yourself (right after the Dominaria MtG prerelease), but feel my experience has been a little different. Firstly, I ADORE wild. But, I have spent money. First it was LoE, then the other adventures, and then 7 packs of each set for the 1/10 legendary. I absolutely loved the old adventures, collecting rewards for winning solo games was a rewarding experience. I'd recommend trying it out if you've clocked dungeon run, Monster hunt, and want something new. Well worth it.
I also purchased about 8 Get in Here Bundles, and I can agree that it didn't impact me that much with what I cracked. Extra dust, however, was great! With all that said, if those bundles were still available, I'd probably gamble on them a bit more to fill out my commons and rares.
I might sound a little spend crazy, and I won't argue. I'm loving the game, and recently moved to a new location and am not going out, boozing, or spending money. Yeah, nerd's sitting around playing digital cards rather than go socialise. This weekend was also another MtG prerelease weekend, but I'm enjoying Hearthstone more, so spent what I would have on the prerelease on extra old packs (which I wouldn't recommend, I should have went and made friends instead).
With all those purchases, I have an odd paladin deck that is standard viable (but I don't enjoy it). I also have a nice spread of a collection for building all sorts of wild decks. Nothing top tier, but more than enough to enjoy the game.
I've told myself I need to stop spending, go back to getting those free packs, and only purchase the prerelease specials. I don't regret my purchases, but reckon I would have lost interest if I hadn't. Standard, as a new player, sucks. I think a lot of old players are pretty jaded with it at the moment too.
If you're on the NA server, feel free to add me and we can have a muck around with my decks. See if you enjoy wild.
This is literally how games should work. You are bad. Then you get better. And arena is probably the best way to build a collection when starting out, which addresses some of the other concerns.
That isn't to say that the new player experience doesn't need work. It does. It needs a lot of it. But your arena complaints are off target.
I mean, it's your life. You're free to take your ball and go home. But this, paired with the Arena complaint, makes me question how you played other CCGs.
I don't see Hearthstone as being substantively different from other TCGs CCGs where you spend the first "X" months getting your butt kicked by people more experienced and with better collections than you. The biggest difference in my mind is that there's no "local meta." Back when I played CCGs competitively in person, you knew certain people were going to show up with certain decks and that you would have to include certain counters to their strategies. It made things interesting because certain decks were viable in your meta because of what everyone else was playing, but were terrible at regional or national tournaments.
I think one thing that would be incredibly cool and add some legs for new players is a "pauper" mode where you can only use common and basic cards. Or set tight budgets on the dust value of decks. If there were leagues based around the budget concept, I could totally get behind that. a 1600 dust limit would be neat because it would force tough choices: do I play this one very powerful legendary alongside nothing but basic cards or do I spread my dust among commons, rares, and one or two epics.
More ways to play are basically always good for the life cycle of a CCG and would make the game more accessible to new players. Admittedly there would still be a learning curve, and more experienced players would still have an advantage, but it would be really neat to see some cards get play that otherwise are never used.
How about a matchmaking system based on ranked wins? I think at the start you can be matched within a 10-20% frame of your own wins.
Having won around 500 matches, your challenging people around 400 and 600 wins. Seems fair to me.
At ~2000 wins the frame can get bigger, maybe even 50%, facing opponents with 1000-3000 wins
Later on you can match anybody over 1000 wins (if you have around 5000 wins), so you don't face beginners.
I hope that system is clear to you, and i don't think it is that hard to implement in the game.
Current Golden Heroes: Shaman, Warrior, Druid, Warlock, Rogue
The first year for new players is full of pitfalls. Thats why I made the post linked in my signature. I wish the mods would have something like it on the site thats easy to find.
If you are in your first year of playing please read this post.
Dust does not burn a hole in the jar. Be careful what you craft, especially before and right after a rotation.
I think it's not true, I see frequently golden hero and that's on classic standard play mode
Just make this aqqount for finish the quest!
Are you saying as a new player it should be easy as a F2P to compete with people who have been playing for years or spent a lot of money on the game?
if that was the case no one would spend money and Blizzard would lose interest....
...The problem is not the problem, the problem is your attitude to the problem.
I want to call the above comment out as unhelpful.
OP I really appreciate you sharing your experience, and I also found it extremely interesting comparing the first commenters post who spent money. I played about 3 months F2p and then dropped 100 bucks for old God's and MSG packs( both in wild now) this gave me a good start to build from and to craft a couple solid decks. I also buy every preorder now.
I don't know how people mange to F2P this game, but it's really good if you spend a bit. Just understand you are never going to get all the cards u want but you will get enough to craft the good ones. I didn't open gen or Baku, but I got enough dust to craft both.
As for arena, I would recommend playing eu and Asia servers or opening extra accounts. you can easly free to play infinite arenas just off of quest gold on multiple accounts, it won't help your collection, but you will get practice till you can hit a 5+ win average (soft infinite). Also watch Twitch streamers or you tube vids
Sad but new players need to grind on losses lucky packs or holding on gold and dust for 2 expansions until they can get a collection that can compete. But just by pouring a 50 bucks or so the price of a new game u can have a massive advantage.
But u have been playing Magic so u should know how crazy expensive card games can be at first.
I'll call you out as merely disagreeing with me but calling it unhelpful. He's flat out wrong about arena.
What some people miss when they are talking about Arena in a thread about new players is that they are new players. They dont have good game play knowledge yet. They tend to get eaten alive in the Arena. New players need to have experience before going to the arena.
If you are in your first year of playing please read this post.
Dust does not burn a hole in the jar. Be careful what you craft, especially before and right after a rotation.
I mean are you expecting to be a new player and climb a lot and reach high ranks? I don't see how that logic really works. Also Blizzards gives you 2 options, you can either buy all the cards (buy a lot of packs) or craft the cards by putting A LOT of time into the game, if you don't want to put any money then you're still fine, you don't need to have all the cards to climb, you need 1 good deck for doing it, if you want to have a big collection and play a variety of decks then prepare for an infernal ride, I've been playing for like 2.5 years and there's always like 2-3 meta decks that I'm 5k+ dust away from being able to play, but you don't need every card, not every class is gonna be fun for you either.
If that deck you're talking about has 50% you should be able to climb to rank 5 with it, with the bonus starts it should be easy, to climb to LEGEND you need only 51% winrate so to get to 5 is a lot less than that, the problem is not your collection, not your decks (Maybe your decks lol), the problem is you, you can't think you'll climb huge chunks of the ladder on your first 2 months, sure there might be people that get to rank 5 on their first 3 months, but there are also dudes that been playing since beta and can't get to rank 10, PLAY the game, or were you good at literally anything the first time you tried it? definitely not good after 2 months of doing it either. Put more time into the game, even if you buy all the cards that won't make you good, time will, multiple times pro players climbed at least to rank 5 with F2P account they started on the same month they climbed that far, you just need to know how to manage resources on a better fashion and actually understand the game.
The only way to get good at arena is to play arena so play it lol arena is definitely the best way to spend gold if you're at least decent at it but you'll lose some gold at first, but hey if you get good you'll get all that lost gold back eventually and will start earning a lot more, next topic.
As I said, either time or money buddy, your choice, you can't expect to be a new players and get all cards and/or climb to high ranks, it's just the natural flow of every game: You're bad ------> play a lot -------> You're not that bad anymore--------> play some more---------> You get better and better and then You have no cards--------> Put a money/ a lot of time into the game (Could be both)-------->Your collection grows proportionally to either. It's like you never played any game ever before, specially card games.
Matchmaking via something like how much is your collection worth would not only be a nightmare for blizzard but also completely inneficient, what if you have a 20k dust worth collection of pure trash and your opponent has 20k dust of pure tier 1 decks, with 20k dust you can craft 2 tier 1/high tier 2 decks without a problem, you would still complain cause maybe he manages his resources better and/or had more luck with packs, so it solves nothing. To that you can add that not all cards from the same rarity are the same, like it's not the same to have lets say Leeroy, Genn, Gul'dan, Edwin and Lich King than it is to have Cho, Millhouse, Nat, bad Aviana and Arfus right? Same dust cost but 2 complete opposite sides, again very flawed suggestion you got there. Finally they would also have to consider golden cards and they don't make you better what if someone has 50k dust collection of only golden stuff, would it be fair to compare it to someone with a 50k collection of regular cards, the latter would for sure have a lot more cards than the golden boy.
If you keep thinking that a big collection is = big ranks you'll hit a hard wall when you find out how different it is, just get a good deck and actually PLAY, don't expect to be pro level after a couple weeks of playing, people nowdays is used to getting everything so easily, money or time buddy, it's the only way, even with money you still need time to get good at the game so stop complaining about everything and grind. You don't even need a tier 1 netdeck to climb to 5, with like a tier 3 homebrew you can definitely do it if you put the hours into it, a tier 1 deck won't take you anywhere if you suck, and I'm not saying you suck but you definitely know nothing about this game, I'm pretty sure you don't even know how 80% of the interactions work or the composition of the meta decks so you can play around it by this point, put time and effort into the game.
Finally I don't get where this rant comes from, you said you played Magic for 10 years... What game did you play? Did you not have to put money into cards to play Magic? You literally can't play MTG without putting money into it, later down the road maybe you can trade cards or whatever or sell your own to buy more but I'm pretty sure your collection was 0 when you started and how many free cards, pack or money (gold in HS case) did you get on your Magic adventure? Blizzard gives you the chance to play this for free and as of lately they give a ridiculous amount of freebies, now it's probably the best time to start playing HS, Rotation means there are less cards and Blizzard is giving free stuff and making amazing event really often, before it was close to impossible to be F2P unless you started playing from beta.
I started HS almost 3 years ago during TGT, and was free to play until un'goro in April 2017. Maybe spent $150-$200 since, including old adventures.
The new player experience was challenging. I could never build a deck that could compete with real decks for at least 3 months. There was no standard/wild at that time, but I could not pass rank 18. After a handful of initial flops, I found that I started to enjoy arena where I had just as good a chance as a player with a complete collection. A month of practice got me to an average of 4-5 wins, and I spent all of my gold and most of my time playing arena. Eventually I played enough arena that I had enough cards to begin to play constructed competitively. My decks we're janky, but feasible and I could make rank 15. Only after more than a year could I actually compete with powerful decks. I started prebuying expansions with un'goro to replace the daily quest grind, but ended up doing I doing both.
Arena is really the best way to start in my opinion. It's frustrating at first when you feel like you're throwing your gold away, but that doesn't last long. Learn quickly that tempo is king in arena and keep practicing. Every two days should give enough gold for another run.
That is the point though. The expectation should be that you are bad and you learn to become better. No one should expect to be brand new at something and magically be the best at it. There is a learning curve and there should be.
Not only that, but you will develop skills that translate to ladder. Learning how to trade and generate tempo as well as how to evaluate cards.
None of this is to say that Ranked play is not still too unfriendly to new players. They need more ranks or something. But Arena puts everyone on the same footing. Collection does not matter.
TL:DR version.
Here are ways you need to make the game I intend to play for free more fun for me. If you don't make changes I am quitting and you will lose this Free-to-Play player.
I still will say this all the time - if you want to have fun in a game, drop some money on it. Over 5 years (including a one and a half to two year break) I've spent about $200-$250 on this game, and I don't regret it at all. Most of the money spent has come in the past year with me coming back shortly after Ungoro release. I've preordered Frozen Throne, K&C, and Witchwood.
I do know that coming back can be hard. Thankfully I was able to dust my whole wild set and play competitively in standard right away, along with my previous knowledge of the game, which is at least a little bit important. I've also spent countless hours on this website, studying the ins and outs of however many different decks to help knowledge of the game.
I do know that it is tough to come in as a brand new player, but usually if you compare a free game to a full game that you spend $60-80 on, the $60-80 game will win 9 times out of 10. Apply that to even this game, if you spend that $50 on the preorder bonus, your enjoyment will increase immensely. I know it sounds like a weak argument, and it's hard to convince you to spend money on a game that you hate haha, but it does help for sure.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
You dont need a good collection to climb to at least dad legend. You need good decks. If you are not gonna spend money then you better start dusting really bad cards and focus on 1 or 2 GOOD budget decks. You keep saying "i dont have a good collection" make me think you are not being smart and just make up decks with what cards you have, you really wont climb as f2p doing that. Theres really just a small fraction of cards that is used on meta, you can look it up on HS replay whether a card is safe to dust or not.
There are so many cheap budget decks there that can easily climb to rank 5, quick f2p climb to legend has been proven alot of times on youtube and popular streamers. On HS replay there are really cheap no legendary 1400-2500 zoolock/hunter decks that people use to climb to at least rank 5. You also need to start dusting those bad gold cards you got, i have spent almost 2000$ on this game since i started in KFT, and i still dust golden cards that i have normal copies of, i just like hoarding gold and dust for when the day comes i cant afford hearthstone anymore.
But yeah its really harsh for newer f2p players, its just how it is. Blizz should also make a better welcome bundle like seriously.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I had to start my collection over, I'd quit.
There are two paths to cards: 1) Get good at arena and play it a lot, 2) Spend money. I chose both.
Places to know:
For arena: http://www.heartharena.com/tierlist
For constructed: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/