I’ll start off by saying that I don’t despise the new reward track as much as other people do. I think it’s poorly implemented and a bit wonky, but I find the foundation to be solid and a breath of fresh air after years of the same grind in this game. However, I think it has very apparent issues that should be directly addressed by Team 5:
1. Regardless of how the math lines up on how much gold people can really earn down the line (which seems to be very unfavorable according to most) the real problem is that it just feels like you’re getting less out of your games. Whether or not Blizzard intended to make up for lost gold with special events and additional weekly quests, you just can’t tell what progress you’re even making by playing standard anymore once you hit level 20, etc. The daily quests start to barely make a dent in the experience bar and you can spend multiple days stuck in a single tier with no way out. Before the change there was a reliable system that let you buy a new pack at least every two days as an F2P player as long as you did your dailies. That should be the bare minimum.
My idea for a fix is to close the gap on the experience needed for levels 25 to 50. They should be a fixed amount across the board or increase only marginally to make people feel rewarded for coming back to the game every day. After level 50, at which point the reward track is complete, the gaps could be higher being that at that point one is just earning bonuses, but still to the point where level 150 could be somewhat attainable without playing the game 24/7.
2. The new metric for experience as you play a game is extremely biased toward control decks and condones roping. This is just a huge fumble on the developer’s part and I can hardly explain why it would be implemented this way. Before this change one could count on getting 1/10th of a pack (10 gold) as long as they won three games. Now you could win exponentially more and get almost nothing depending on how fast you can close out a match, which is frankly unacceptable. One could argue the previous system was catered more to aggro players, which was true, but winning 30 games for one pack was time-consuming enough regardless of how fast your deck was.
I believe re-implementing the old 10 gold for 3 wins system alongside the new time-based experience system could potentially restore order here. The premise being that it would let players with fast decks feel rewarded for securing wins, and make control players speed up their process when they feel that they can close out a game. Could certain players still rope nonstop when they feel like they’re losing? Perhaps, but ideally the 10 gold system could make it more appealing to just wrap up the game and queue up another match that could be more favorable than the meager XP you’d get by stalling.
I’m sure I’m missing a few other big issues like the fact that year of the dragon packs are being offered as progression rewards, the way achievements were set up, etc., but let me know what you guys think or if you have any other ideas for restructuring the new system.
Yes, I believe the psychology of it could be improved.
Blizzard could give out the same total amount but in smaller, more frequent increments, and it would feel better. When we reach level 40+, and it takes over a week to get any kind of reward at all, that's going to feel bad. I'm used to doing an Arena run every other day or so based on completing daily quests. By the end of this expansion, I may have to wait 10 days to do a single Arena run. And if I go 2-3 in that run and get no gold, that's gonna feel even worse.
The frontloading of the rewards feels good at the start, but it's really gonna be a slog a month from now. In the past, they still frontloaded an expansion with rewards, but then it was a steady stream. I think they could easily adjust this system to give out the same total overall but to make it feel less grindy.
Yes, I believe the psychology of it could be improved.
Blizzard could give out the same total amount but in smaller, more frequent increments, and it would feel better. When we reach level 40+, and it takes over a week to get any kind of reward at all, that's going to feel bad. I'm used to doing an Arena run every other day or so based on completing daily quests. By the end of this expansion, I may have to wait 10 days to do a single Arena run. And if I go 2-3 in that run and get no gold, that's gonna feel even worse.
The frontloading of the rewards feels good at the start, but it's really gonna be a slog a month from now. In the past, they still frontloaded an expansion with rewards, but then it was a steady stream. I think they could easily adjust this system to give out the same total overall but to make it feel less grindy.
I agree, the progression is very similar to a predatory F2P iOS game which could really deter new players that Hearthstone desperately needs at the moment. It’s just not a favorable route to take especially when games like LoR are almost giving away their entire expansion sets and making HS look greedy and expensive.
With the old system I was managing to buy one pack every two days by completing quests. Yet like now I have been playing for two days, yet have earnt no gold at all as in between levels.
Even worse is after I finally get 100 gold it will take nearly 4/5 days to get 100 gold again. Very frustrating as I am F2P player and can only manage 2 hours at the most a day play time.
The old system was ideal for me, as could log in, complete the daily quest and earn my gold. Really not liking this new system.
With the old system I was managing to buy one pack every two days by completing quests. Yet like now I have been playing for two days, yet have earnt no gold at all as in between levels.
Even worse is after I finally get 100 gold it will take nearly 4/5 days to get 100 gold again. Very frustrating as I am F2P player and can only manage 2 hours at the most a day play time.
The old system was ideal for me, as could log in, complete the daily quest and earn my gold. Really not liking this new system.
Yes I am also F2P and because of how unlikely I am to be able to get more packs i haven’t crafted anything or decided to start building any new deck until there’s another update on how they’ll change the system. I’m basically frozen here because if I spend any dust I don’t know how long it’ll take to be able to recuperate the crafting costs for any cards I want to try.
Even buying MDF packs yesterday with the reward track gold I'd earned so far, I could only get 76 packs. I guess that's the price of a November release. (For the past few expansions, I've bought about 85 packs with gold.)
Having now spent a few of the reward track levels' gold an expansion early, I've worked out I'll need to get to about level 84 for the same amount of gold that I'm accustomed to stockpiling over a 4-month expansion. I'm currently on level 18.
It'll be interesting to see if this is more work than my typical dailies plus a few wins.
I also hope there 's resource support (extra XP, gold, dust, cards and packs) for the mini set coming in a couple of months.
I don't even mind getting less stuff (though I obviously like getting stuff). I play 30 minutes on the exersize bike every morning and then sometimes at night. I want to feel like that is getting me something. If I go two weeks of completing daily quests and get no reward at all, that won't feel good.
Just make 100 levels instead of 50, make them give out less (40 gold? 50? whatever balances it), and make them more frequent. Just make us feel like the daily quest is actually getting us something.
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I’ll start off by saying that I don’t despise the new reward track as much as other people do. I think it’s poorly implemented and a bit wonky, but I find the foundation to be solid and a breath of fresh air after years of the same grind in this game. However, I think it has very apparent issues that should be directly addressed by Team 5:
1. Regardless of how the math lines up on how much gold people can really earn down the line (which seems to be very unfavorable according to most) the real problem is that it just feels like you’re getting less out of your games. Whether or not Blizzard intended to make up for lost gold with special events and additional weekly quests, you just can’t tell what progress you’re even making by playing standard anymore once you hit level 20, etc. The daily quests start to barely make a dent in the experience bar and you can spend multiple days stuck in a single tier with no way out. Before the change there was a reliable system that let you buy a new pack at least every two days as an F2P player as long as you did your dailies. That should be the bare minimum.
My idea for a fix is to close the gap on the experience needed for levels 25 to 50. They should be a fixed amount across the board or increase only marginally to make people feel rewarded for coming back to the game every day. After level 50, at which point the reward track is complete, the gaps could be higher being that at that point one is just earning bonuses, but still to the point where level 150 could be somewhat attainable without playing the game 24/7.
2. The new metric for experience as you play a game is extremely biased toward control decks and condones roping. This is just a huge fumble on the developer’s part and I can hardly explain why it would be implemented this way. Before this change one could count on getting 1/10th of a pack (10 gold) as long as they won three games. Now you could win exponentially more and get almost nothing depending on how fast you can close out a match, which is frankly unacceptable. One could argue the previous system was catered more to aggro players, which was true, but winning 30 games for one pack was time-consuming enough regardless of how fast your deck was.
I believe re-implementing the old 10 gold for 3 wins system alongside the new time-based experience system could potentially restore order here. The premise being that it would let players with fast decks feel rewarded for securing wins, and make control players speed up their process when they feel that they can close out a game. Could certain players still rope nonstop when they feel like they’re losing? Perhaps, but ideally the 10 gold system could make it more appealing to just wrap up the game and queue up another match that could be more favorable than the meager XP you’d get by stalling.
I’m sure I’m missing a few other big issues like the fact that year of the dragon packs are being offered as progression rewards, the way achievements were set up, etc., but let me know what you guys think or if you have any other ideas for restructuring the new system.
Yes, I believe the psychology of it could be improved.
Blizzard could give out the same total amount but in smaller, more frequent increments, and it would feel better. When we reach level 40+, and it takes over a week to get any kind of reward at all, that's going to feel bad. I'm used to doing an Arena run every other day or so based on completing daily quests. By the end of this expansion, I may have to wait 10 days to do a single Arena run. And if I go 2-3 in that run and get no gold, that's gonna feel even worse.
The frontloading of the rewards feels good at the start, but it's really gonna be a slog a month from now. In the past, they still frontloaded an expansion with rewards, but then it was a steady stream. I think they could easily adjust this system to give out the same total overall but to make it feel less grindy.
I agree, the progression is very similar to a predatory F2P iOS game which could really deter new players that Hearthstone desperately needs at the moment. It’s just not a favorable route to take especially when games like LoR are almost giving away their entire expansion sets and making HS look greedy and expensive.
With the old system I was managing to buy one pack every two days by completing quests. Yet like now I have been playing for two days, yet have earnt no gold at all as in between levels.
Even worse is after I finally get 100 gold it will take nearly 4/5 days to get 100 gold again. Very frustrating as I am F2P player and can only manage 2 hours at the most a day play time.
The old system was ideal for me, as could log in, complete the daily quest and earn my gold. Really not liking this new system.
Yes I am also F2P and because of how unlikely I am to be able to get more packs i haven’t crafted anything or decided to start building any new deck until there’s another update on how they’ll change the system. I’m basically frozen here because if I spend any dust I don’t know how long it’ll take to be able to recuperate the crafting costs for any cards I want to try.
Even buying MDF packs yesterday with the reward track gold I'd earned so far, I could only get 76 packs. I guess that's the price of a November release. (For the past few expansions, I've bought about 85 packs with gold.)
Having now spent a few of the reward track levels' gold an expansion early, I've worked out I'll need to get to about level 84 for the same amount of gold that I'm accustomed to stockpiling over a 4-month expansion. I'm currently on level 18.
It'll be interesting to see if this is more work than my typical dailies plus a few wins.
I also hope there 's resource support (extra XP, gold, dust, cards and packs) for the mini set coming in a couple of months.
I don't even mind getting less stuff (though I obviously like getting stuff). I play 30 minutes on the exersize bike every morning and then sometimes at night. I want to feel like that is getting me something. If I go two weeks of completing daily quests and get no reward at all, that won't feel good.
Just make 100 levels instead of 50, make them give out less (40 gold? 50? whatever balances it), and make them more frequent. Just make us feel like the daily quest is actually getting us something.