So the new progression system has not been received well by the community - so much so that Blizzard actually issued an apology and mentioned some half-hearted ways that they were going to "improve" it. I wanted to post some ideas of how I believe the progression track could be improved. Some initial comments first though:
* I initially liked the progression track. It seemed like a fun and visual way to move through an expansion. And the first 10 levels or so make you feel like you're getting 10x more rewards for playing Hearthstone. However, once you hit level 20 or so, you're looking at fairly long stretches of time between levels (obviously, depending on how much you play). Where I originally thought that pack rewards were awesome, I quickly realized that I didn't want to get an old AOO pack for an entire day of playing Hearthstone. When it takes half a week of playing, just to get 100 gold to buy a new pack, that just doesn't feel good.
* While their solutions were not good, I am impressed that Blizzard issued an apology. There have been so many times in the past where I wanted them to apologize for a snafu so badly, but they never did (Demon Hunter at AOO launch, I'm looking at you). This gives me at least a little hope that they're willing to make changes in the future.
* The random legendary reward at level 25 is really cool - especially since that's what we really want from packs anyway.
* I have no problem whatsoever with the monetization of the "fast track" for progression.
On to some ideas that I think could work to improve the progress track (this is an aggregation of my own ideas and ones I have seen in the forums or Reddit):
1. Do away with pack rewards. As I stated above, getting an old pack from a set that you have most of the cards feels horrible as a reward. Gold doesn't really cost Blizzard anything more to give instead, and gives autonomy to the player to buy whatever pack they find most interesting at the time.
2. Make it easier to understand how much XP you will get for playing. I've been shocked that the XP bar doesn't show up at the end of every game, letting you know how much XP you earned for that game. (It seems to only do that when the XP will level you up, unless I'm missing something?) I understand that there are likely a variety of factors at play (length of game, did you win or lose, etc), but it would be great to know in general how much XP to expect from a game in each mode. For example, if Blizz said, "A Top 4 finish in Battlegrounds will, on average, net you 100 XP" or "Even a loss in Ranked Standard will net you 20 XP" etc. Understanding what my time is worth would at least make me feel a little better about the new system, rather than just being lost in it.
3. Slightly improve the legendary Pity Timer. If the new progression system is slightly worse than the old system and Blizzard doesn't want to change it right now, they could change the pity timer to maybe 35 to improve the player experience and compensate a bit. I know they need to make it challenging to get all of the cards (in order to properly monetize the game), but there's probably a sweet spot somewhere slightly lower than the 40 timer.
4. Make all achievements worth at least some XP. I know that achievement systems are typically just for the player/bragging rights (which is why I've never understood them), but right now I find it really weird that Blizz has implemented an odd middle ground in that achievements don't give you XP...unless they are for Darkmoon Faire or Duels. I think that making all achievements worth XP could provide an interesting way to play Hearthstone. Oh you want more XP? Play a bunch of Yogg decks until you've gotten all six options to show up on the wheel. I could personally see myself enjoying this a lot.
5. Make certain game modes worth more XP each week. This idea is essentially if at the beginning of the week you got your 3 weekly quests, along with a message that said, "This week, Wild games are worth 10% more XP!" It would be a way to move up the track faster if you really wanted to, but also get people playing more modes in HS like Wild or Tavern Brawl. (Though admittedly, I hate tavern brawl.)
6. Improve de-enchant values. As with the idea about changing the legendary pity timer, this is really just an idea for Blizz to make overall game progression (read: collecting cards) feel better, despite the lower-value progression track implementation. If legendaries were worth 600 or 800 dust instead of 400, new players could feel like they have better access to cards they find interesting.
Just some thoughts. I'd love to hear other ideas from the community! (And when I say "ideas" I do not mean posting, "Blizz would never do any of this because they are greedy bastards.")
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Some good ideas here and well constructed. I think the thing that surprised me a bit was the achievements and XP. The ones that do give it are great and I've started actively checking them.
Maybe if giving it for all is a bit much, they can convert the achievement points into a currency of some description. Have a section in the store where you can trade X amount for packs, gold or arena tickets etc.
I've generally really enjoyed the update and its a move in the right direction for sure but the points for achievements seem oddly pointless. I don't feel like HS is the sort of game where someone will brag about having 7k points vs someone with 3k.
Having the points as a currency would give incentive to really go achievement hunting or grinding and it seems so pointless that I secretly hope this is a potential addition in future. Maybe monitor how people get one with them, how quickly they get achieved etc before deciding what they are worth, sure. But yeah, they are the main whiff for me. Weird because the achievements themselves seem really well thought through, there's far more depth to it than I assumed there would be.
They just feel.... Empty? Also have to agree on the DE values. They seem very dated and struggle to be relevant in the current economy. Tweaking these would be cool.
I just want to say that your 5th idea is very good IMO. We could have arena week, then duels week, wild week, and so on. Very good idea, Blizz should implement this!
I just want to say that your 5th idea is very good IMO. We could have arena week, then duels week, wild week, and so on. Very good idea, Blizz should implement this!
Thanks! I think it would be a big improvement to give players OPTIONS for progressing faster, rather than just having them be SOL whenever they’re out of quests
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
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I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
---------
I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
---------
I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Oooh. The idea of making cards cost less to craft due to little remaining time in the rotation is really interesting! They already do this with the BG pass (making it cost half after half the cycle is over), so doing it with legendaries too would be cool. I guess the counter argument from Blizzard would be “But you can play it in Wild.” That’s just not compelling to me though since Wild is horrible
An alternative to better disenchant value would be adding an extra card (or two) to each pack. More dust for f2p people and more incitement for people to actually spend money on them.
I have the impression that a lot of f2p people just don't want to spend anything since it's so overpriced (f2p players are welcome to comment on this). Maybe a little more bang for the buck could make us all care less about this major cut in resources? (that btw could also be fixed easily with lower XP requirements for higher levels)
Look, unless they calibrate this system to give us as much as they used to give us, we come out losing.
That said, if they are determined to give us less, the one thing I'd like is for them to spread out the rewards more evenly instead of frontloading them. I'm at level 23, and I can clearly see that in a few weeks, daily quest rewards are going to feel completely insignificant. Give smaller rewards, and give them more frequently. It will feel better.
Look, unless they calibrate this system to give us as much as they used to give us, we come out losing.
That said, if they are determined to give us less, the one thing I'd like is for them to spread out the rewards more evenly instead of frontloading them. I'm at level 23, and I can clearly see that in a few weeks, daily quest rewards are going to feel completely insignificant. Give smaller rewards, and give them more frequently. It will feel better.
Totally agree! I'm also currently on 23 and the SA pack I just got for grinding two days feels horrible since I have almost all the SA legendaries anyway. First 2 days of the progression system felt amazing, but now it feels very bleak.
The more I think about it I'm not sure messing with peoples gold was right for the battle pass, whether it improved their HS experience or not.
The last thing blizzard want is people farming gold so they had to make lvl 50 really hard to get to, but the fact that there's only 50 lvls for a 4 month pass means they've had to spread it out a lot which just makes it feel bad.
Maybe they should have spent more time and just made a cosmetics battle pass (boards, card backs, heroes, voice lines, emotes, gold card upgrades, some sort of cosmetic fidget toys for your board?) with a few packs and possibly some dust?
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
---------
I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
---------
I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Oooh. The idea of making cards cost less to craft due to little remaining time in the rotation is really interesting! They already do this with the BG pass (making it cost half after half the cycle is over), so doing it with legendaries too would be cool. I guess the counter argument from Blizzard would be “But you can play it in Wild.” That’s just not compelling to me though since Wild is horrible
"Since Wild seems to be horrible imo" there its fixed
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So the new progression system has not been received well by the community - so much so that Blizzard actually issued an apology and mentioned some half-hearted ways that they were going to "improve" it. I wanted to post some ideas of how I believe the progression track could be improved. Some initial comments first though:
* I initially liked the progression track. It seemed like a fun and visual way to move through an expansion. And the first 10 levels or so make you feel like you're getting 10x more rewards for playing Hearthstone. However, once you hit level 20 or so, you're looking at fairly long stretches of time between levels (obviously, depending on how much you play). Where I originally thought that pack rewards were awesome, I quickly realized that I didn't want to get an old AOO pack for an entire day of playing Hearthstone. When it takes half a week of playing, just to get 100 gold to buy a new pack, that just doesn't feel good.
* While their solutions were not good, I am impressed that Blizzard issued an apology. There have been so many times in the past where I wanted them to apologize for a snafu so badly, but they never did (Demon Hunter at AOO launch, I'm looking at you). This gives me at least a little hope that they're willing to make changes in the future.
* The random legendary reward at level 25 is really cool - especially since that's what we really want from packs anyway.
* I have no problem whatsoever with the monetization of the "fast track" for progression.
On to some ideas that I think could work to improve the progress track (this is an aggregation of my own ideas and ones I have seen in the forums or Reddit):
1. Do away with pack rewards. As I stated above, getting an old pack from a set that you have most of the cards feels horrible as a reward. Gold doesn't really cost Blizzard anything more to give instead, and gives autonomy to the player to buy whatever pack they find most interesting at the time.
2. Make it easier to understand how much XP you will get for playing. I've been shocked that the XP bar doesn't show up at the end of every game, letting you know how much XP you earned for that game. (It seems to only do that when the XP will level you up, unless I'm missing something?) I understand that there are likely a variety of factors at play (length of game, did you win or lose, etc), but it would be great to know in general how much XP to expect from a game in each mode. For example, if Blizz said, "A Top 4 finish in Battlegrounds will, on average, net you 100 XP" or "Even a loss in Ranked Standard will net you 20 XP" etc. Understanding what my time is worth would at least make me feel a little better about the new system, rather than just being lost in it.
3. Slightly improve the legendary Pity Timer. If the new progression system is slightly worse than the old system and Blizzard doesn't want to change it right now, they could change the pity timer to maybe 35 to improve the player experience and compensate a bit. I know they need to make it challenging to get all of the cards (in order to properly monetize the game), but there's probably a sweet spot somewhere slightly lower than the 40 timer.
4. Make all achievements worth at least some XP. I know that achievement systems are typically just for the player/bragging rights (which is why I've never understood them), but right now I find it really weird that Blizz has implemented an odd middle ground in that achievements don't give you XP...unless they are for Darkmoon Faire or Duels. I think that making all achievements worth XP could provide an interesting way to play Hearthstone. Oh you want more XP? Play a bunch of Yogg decks until you've gotten all six options to show up on the wheel. I could personally see myself enjoying this a lot.
5. Make certain game modes worth more XP each week. This idea is essentially if at the beginning of the week you got your 3 weekly quests, along with a message that said, "This week, Wild games are worth 10% more XP!" It would be a way to move up the track faster if you really wanted to, but also get people playing more modes in HS like Wild or Tavern Brawl. (Though admittedly, I hate tavern brawl.)
6. Improve de-enchant values. As with the idea about changing the legendary pity timer, this is really just an idea for Blizz to make overall game progression (read: collecting cards) feel better, despite the lower-value progression track implementation. If legendaries were worth 600 or 800 dust instead of 400, new players could feel like they have better access to cards they find interesting.
Just some thoughts. I'd love to hear other ideas from the community! (And when I say "ideas" I do not mean posting, "Blizz would never do any of this because they are greedy bastards.")
Cheers.
Biggest improvement for me would be if they included it at least in the price of the mega bundle, if not both bundles. They could still sell it seperate too but £60 / €70 so you're set for a new expansion and a season of battlegrounds seems reasonable to me.
That would be amazing!
Some good ideas here and well constructed. I think the thing that surprised me a bit was the achievements and XP. The ones that do give it are great and I've started actively checking them.
Maybe if giving it for all is a bit much, they can convert the achievement points into a currency of some description. Have a section in the store where you can trade X amount for packs, gold or arena tickets etc.
I've generally really enjoyed the update and its a move in the right direction for sure but the points for achievements seem oddly pointless. I don't feel like HS is the sort of game where someone will brag about having 7k points vs someone with 3k.
Having the points as a currency would give incentive to really go achievement hunting or grinding and it seems so pointless that I secretly hope this is a potential addition in future. Maybe monitor how people get one with them, how quickly they get achieved etc before deciding what they are worth, sure. But yeah, they are the main whiff for me. Weird because the achievements themselves seem really well thought through, there's far more depth to it than I assumed there would be.
They just feel.... Empty? Also have to agree on the DE values. They seem very dated and struggle to be relevant in the current economy. Tweaking these would be cool.
I just want to say that your 5th idea is very good IMO. We could have arena week, then duels week, wild week, and so on. Very good idea, Blizz should implement this!
Thanks! I think it would be a big improvement to give players OPTIONS for progressing faster, rather than just having them be SOL whenever they’re out of quests
Oh wow, totally agree with this.
---------
I like ALL of this so much. I think even reducing the price of packs & dust cost of cards that are no longer current would be great.
I really wanna try some decks, but some of them require legendaries I don't have from last year. Am I gonna craft a card I'll only be using in standard for 4-5 months? It'd be nice if it was like... 800 dust instead or something.
And then I think classic packs and cards should cost half as much as they do. This'd be especially good for getting new players into the game.
I don't mind the pack rewards, but we should get like 3 packs (300g value). Not 1 (100g value). Especially when the gold rewards in that tier are 150. How does that even make sense.
Oooh. The idea of making cards cost less to craft due to little remaining time in the rotation is really interesting! They already do this with the BG pass (making it cost half after half the cycle is over), so doing it with legendaries too would be cool. I guess the counter argument from Blizzard would be “But you can play it in Wild.” That’s just not compelling to me though since Wild is horrible
An alternative to better disenchant value would be adding an extra card (or two) to each pack. More dust for f2p people and more incitement for people to actually spend money on them.
I have the impression that a lot of f2p people just don't want to spend anything since it's so overpriced (f2p players are welcome to comment on this). Maybe a little more bang for the buck could make us all care less about this major cut in resources? (that btw could also be fixed easily with lower XP requirements for higher levels)
Look, unless they calibrate this system to give us as much as they used to give us, we come out losing.
That said, if they are determined to give us less, the one thing I'd like is for them to spread out the rewards more evenly instead of frontloading them. I'm at level 23, and I can clearly see that in a few weeks, daily quest rewards are going to feel completely insignificant. Give smaller rewards, and give them more frequently. It will feel better.
Totally agree! I'm also currently on 23 and the SA pack I just got for grinding two days feels horrible since I have almost all the SA legendaries anyway. First 2 days of the progression system felt amazing, but now it feels very bleak.
The more I think about it I'm not sure messing with peoples gold was right for the battle pass, whether it improved their HS experience or not.
The last thing blizzard want is people farming gold so they had to make lvl 50 really hard to get to, but the fact that there's only 50 lvls for a 4 month pass means they've had to spread it out a lot which just makes it feel bad.
Maybe they should have spent more time and just made a cosmetics battle pass (boards, card backs, heroes, voice lines, emotes, gold card upgrades, some sort of cosmetic fidget toys for your board?) with a few packs and possibly some dust?
"Since Wild seems to be horrible imo" there its fixed