I don't know about the last six years, but I posted in detail why, over the last 15-20 years, several areas of the process of making video games has dropped to zero. So unless there's a gigantic increase to offset all that, common sense says video games are significantly cheaper to produce today than they were 15-20 years ago.
There may, in fact, be such a gigantic increase, but I don't see it. It certainly isn't in hardware. Computers are significantly cheaper than they were back in the day, I remember vividly paying almost $3k for a slightly-above average model in the late 90s.
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
Fair enough if the team has actually gotten larger, I didn't realize that.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
I don't know about the last six years, but I posted in detail why, over the last 15-20 years, several areas of the process of making video games has dropped to zero. So unless there's a gigantic increase to offset all that, common sense says video games are significantly cheaper to produce today than they were 15-20 years ago.
There may, in fact, be such a gigantic increase, but I don't see it. It certainly isn't in hardware. Computers are significantly cheaper than they were back in the day, I remember vividly paying almost $3k for a slightly-above average model in the late 90s.
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries? they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
Once again, I would have to agree with the general statement that the power level of cards has shifted more towards legendaries.
There are exceptions. I remember back in the classic meta there was a deck called "Wallet Warrior". It was the first iteration of control warrior we had, and the damn thing had every legendary you could pack into a warrior deck.
However, I look at all the decks that I have built which basically includes everything from t1 to t4 on Tempo Storm plus a couple of fun things, and the percentage of the decks made up of legendaries is definitely higher than it used to be.
Not as pronounced with the epics, but the point is made with legendaries alone.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
I don't know about the last six years, but I posted in detail why, over the last 15-20 years, several areas of the process of making video games has dropped to zero. So unless there's a gigantic increase to offset all that, common sense says video games are significantly cheaper to produce today than they were 15-20 years ago.
There may, in fact, be such a gigantic increase, but I don't see it. It certainly isn't in hardware. Computers are significantly cheaper than they were back in the day, I remember vividly paying almost $3k for a slightly-above average model in the late 90s.
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries? they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
All card games add in set rotation at some point. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s never easy and never pleasant, but it’s why evergreen formats exist in most games (like Wild in Hearthstone). Heck I remember when the Pokémon TCG first added set rotation and there were so many complaints about collections going to waste, but 18 years later the game is still going strong. Rotation is also a time to try new things with a class/creature type which lets people who enjoy a single class try different play styles. It also keeps things fresh and allows newer players a chance to join in instead of having to buy 4+ years worth of cards. Lastly, rotation in Hearthstone, unlike other CCG, Is less brutal. When a set rotates you aren’t left with the old cards if you don’t want them. You can dust them (at a very poor rate, but that’s for other discussions) and craft new cards.
I agree with you, but they way they started to do it these days is way more cold and calculated, everything is way more forced with full packages of up to 11 cards just straight up powercreep
Of course it is still making money. But have in mind: The goal is a growth. Especially the shareholders and the people on top of Activision Blizzard want a growth each and every year. There is a reason they bring up a battle pass because it's more money when people buy it with almost no effort.
These companies are not happy when they are making money with it, they want more money every year. And if they make terrible decisions like they did recently it won't grow. If a game is usually showing no sign of growth anymore it mostly gets put in mainteneance mode, which means no big development anymore.
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries? they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
Again... with all due respect, the things you are saying simply aren’t true. Aggro Demon Hunter, Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are all decks that can get you to legend in the current meta and in the first two of those decks, the most popular builds contain no legendaries. Totem Shaman contains one.
Shaman has always been a class that’s strongest archetype has been tempo oriented. Hunter is primarily aggro and the best decks are still primarily aggro. Face Hunter is another deck that only runs two legendaries, and to be honest you could probably get away with dropping Polkelt and still maintain a +50% win rate.
I really don’t like the term Pay to Win, because since I’ve played Hearthstone there have always been top tier decks that can be built for very little dust. Of course, they’re primarily aggro decks, but Hearthstone has always been a game you can do well in with no financial investment. It all depends on what your personal goals are. If you want to get as big of a collection as possible, then yeah, of course you’re going to do better if you invest some money (not 140 euros per deck) into the game. But that’s not abnormal.
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries? they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
First off, way to change the topic (again). Initially, you claimed that the number of HS players is declining (which was the initial point I disagreed with). When asked for proof, you resorted to citing streamers. In other words, you made a claim that has no evidence to support it. When called out on that fact, you instead shifted over to whining that prices have gone up, while the costs of production haven't. I pointed out that basic logic tells you that production costs (specifically salary) has gone up, if only because the number of employees on the development team has increased almost fivefold. I also pointed out that, at least in the US, bundle prices (and, I believe, individual pack prices) haven't changed in years. It now appears that you've stopped talking about production costs (since you're obviously wrong about that), and are just engaging in name calling ("simpleton") and spouting a tedious, conspiratorial and flawed interpretation of capitalism. Instead, you're now claiming that "legendary and epic cards are becoming more essential" and making the argument that the creation of new archetypes is some devious plot to drain money from people.
As Killjack has pointed out, several competitive decks are quite affordable. Looking at Tempostorm's tier list, 2 of the 3 tier 1 decks are pretty cheap. Tempo demon hunter has Kayn Sunfury and two epics, while Soul Demon Hunter has Kayn and Il'gynoth, but no epics. Looking at tier 2, there are several decks running few epics or legendaries: Zoolock (it lists 2 legendaries, but one is ZTG which really is not needed for that deck), Totem Shaman (1 legendary), Secret Hunter (2), Revolve Shaman (2), and OTK Demon Hunter (2, but one is Bloodmage Thalnos which is really not needed). In short, of the top 10 decks listed on Tempostorm, 7 of them have 2 or fewer legendaries. So you CAN play highly competitive decks without spending huge amounts of dust. Legendaries and epics are not "more essential" if you want to ladder.
As for your theory about the creation of new archetypes being some devious plot to bilk you out of your savings, it doesn't make sense. Take shaman, for example. (And no, shaman has not typically been only a combo class, as you claim. Murloc shaman and overload shaman were real back in the day.) If Blizzard was trying to do what you claim (create a new archetype to get players to buy packs/ dust), why would they make Totem Shaman so cheap? It's literally one of the cheapest tier 2 decks.
More broadly speaking, it appears Blizzard can't win with people like you. If the company doesn't create new archetypes, people complain that the meta is getting stale. If it attempts to shake things up by introducing new archetypes, people complain that it's trying to rip them off. I personally like the idea of not knowing what kind of deck I'm up against. If multiple classes had multiple archetypes, we'd have a much better meta. I'd love to see a control hunter or a midrange mage. But if Blizzard did that, you and your buddies would just scream, "Scam!!"
I can't wait to see how you change the topic this time, since your current crop of complaints is demonstrably wrong (again).
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries? they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
First off, way to change the topic (again). Initially, you claimed that the number of HS players is declining (which was the initial point I disagreed with). When asked for proof, you resorted to citing streamers. In other words, you made a claim that has no evidence to support it. When called out on that fact, you instead shifted over to whining that prices have gone up, while the costs of production haven't. I pointed out that basic logic tells you that production costs (specifically salary) has gone up, if only because the number of employees on the development team has increased almost fivefold. I also pointed out that, at least in the US, bundle prices (and, I believe, individual pack prices) haven't changed in years. It now appears that you've stopped talking about production costs (since you're obviously wrong about that), and are just engaging in name calling ("simpleton") and spouting a tedious, conspiratorial and flawed interpretation of capitalism. Instead, you're now claiming that "legendary and epic cards are becoming more essential" and making the argument that the creation of new archetypes is some devious plot to drain money from people.
As Killjack has pointed out, several competitive decks are quite affordable. Looking at Tempostorm's tier list, 2 of the 3 tier 1 decks are pretty cheap. Tempo demon hunter has Kayn Sunfury and two epics, while Soul Demon Hunter has Kayn and Il'gynoth, but no epics. Looking at tier 2, there are several decks running few epics or legendaries: Zoolock (it lists 2 legendaries, but one is ZTG which really is not needed for that deck), Totem Shaman (1 legendary), Secret Hunter (2), Revolve Shaman (2), and OTK Demon Hunter (2, but one is Bloodmage Thalnos which is really not needed). In short, of the top 10 decks listed on Tempostorm, 7 of them have 2 or fewer legendaries. So you CAN play highly competitive decks without spending huge amounts of dust. Legendaries and epics are not "more essential" if you want to ladder.
As for your theory about the creation of new archetypes being some devious plot to bilk you out of your savings, it doesn't make sense. Take shaman, for example. (And no, shaman has not typically been only a combo class, as you claim. Murloc shaman and overload shaman were real back in the day.) If Blizzard was trying to do what you claim (create a new archetype to get players to buy packs/ dust), why would they make Totem Shaman so cheap? It's literally one of the cheapest tier 2 decks.
More broadly speaking, it appears Blizzard can't win with people like you. If the company doesn't create new archetypes, people complain that the meta is getting stale. If it attempts to shake things up by introducing new archetypes, people complain that it's trying to rip them off. I personally like the idea of not knowing what kind of deck I'm up against. If multiple classes had multiple archetypes, we'd have a much better meta. I'd love to see a control hunter or a midrange mage. But if Blizzard did that, you and your buddies would just scream, "Scam!!"
I can't wait to see how you change the topic this time, since your current crop of complaints is demonstrably wrong (again).
dude, what is it with you and writing a wall of text and even worse than just a wall of text it is a wall of text of what is already been said, wtf are you on dude? is that how you try to win an argument? by being insufferable to listen to? cmon man.
as to the affordability of the game, the top deck cost 13600 dust which translate to something around 210 euro and some of the cards are even locked behind a paid adventure so the price is even larger than that (but iv not included that) all the different decks are centered around different legendary cards, not like the wallet warrior of old days where the legendary cards where largely neutral, now decks are pretty much 90% class cards... another way blizzard is manipulating the price up (but you are not trying to hear anything, you just wanna make a huge block of insufferable text)
and to your point of totem shaman being tier 2, it is tier 3 and it is not cheap because all of its cards are basically useless outside of the archetype, it would be considered cheap if the deck had some type of overlap with other archetype of decks, but this properly goes over your head and you just gonna wall me again
dude, what is it with you and writing a wall of text and even worse than just a wall of text it is a wall of text of what is already been said, wtf are you on dude? is that how you try to win an argument? by being insufferable to listen to? cmon man.
He's writing specific and logic-based refutations of the specific arguments you've made, with evidence and sources where available. That is, in fact, how adults win arguments. Sometimes that takes several words. I, for one, find it extremely sufferable.
Yepap has been known to stick around a thread for 8 pages bitching about the length of replies. I'm pretty sure at one point he called two paragraphs a wall of text.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
these long replies if I had to address everything in them with the expect level depth that I bestow I would have to write a book, I cannot be asked to write an entire book.. I got depression man
I can't afford a Lamborghini, and its not fair. Don't they realize that if Lamborghinis were cheaper, more people would buy them? They use the same type of parts, same employees, at the same factory, but the price keeps going up each year. The original Lamborghini Jalta was $60,000, and now the new ones are like $250,000. It's not fair.
dude, what is it with you and writing a wall of text and even worse than just a wall of text it is a wall of text of what is already been said, wtf are you on dude? is that how you try to win an argument? by being insufferable to listen to? cmon man.
as to the affordability of the game, the top deck cost 13600 dust which translate to something around 210 euro and some of the cards are even locked behind a paid adventure so the price is even larger than that (but iv not included that) all the different decks are centered around different legendary cards, not like the wallet warrior of old days where the legendary cards where largely neutral, now decks are pretty much 90% class cards... another way blizzard is manipulating the price up (but you are not trying to hear anything, you just wanna make a huge block of insufferable text)
and to your point of totem shaman being tier 2, it is tier 3 and it is not cheap because all of its cards are basically useless outside of the archetype, it would be considered cheap if the deck had some type of overlap with other archetype of decks, but this properly goes over your head and you just gonna wall me again
I'm soooo sorry if my factual, logical responses trigger you. I didn't know reading a few paragraphs was such a huge problem for you. That probably explains your stream-of-consciousness style rants and insults.
I do owe everyone an apology, however. The review of Tempostorm I gave above was based on the November 30 ranking. Apparently, they've updated the rankings for December 1. Not sure why that version didn't load when I went to the site this morning, but that's why some of the numbers I gave don't match up. Sorry about that. But the broader point is that, in the current meta, there are many cheap decks.
You keep trying to equate dust with monetary costs, which doesn't really make sense. I assume you are f2p, which means (if you're as smart as you think you are) you were saving the gold you earned prior to the release of this expansion to buy packs. And, if you bought (via gold or money) a significant number of packs, you're going to have all the commons and rares in the expac. That's actually one of the best things about the duplicate protection policy Blizzard created: it pretty much guarantees players will have most/ all of the lower rarity cards very early in the expansion.
So the real factor that drives deck cost is the number of epic and legendary cards it has. And yes, ETC Warrior is a very expensive deck. So what? What makes you think that everyone ought to be able to play every deck at some absurdly low price? Shouldn't people who have opened more packs (because they bought them with cash or gold) have an advantage in terms of how many decks they can play? Why should someone who plays twice a week for a couple hours have access to the same array of decks as someone who plays 5 hours a day? Or are you just jealous of people who have better collections than you?
And I have no idea which cards you are talking about when you say they're locked behind a paid adventure. You might be right, but I'm blanking on what you're talking about here.
The closest you come to making sense is when you point out that there is a greater use of class legendaries now than in the past. And some of that is undoubtedly a business decision. But there are also very good gameplay reasons to do so: certain legendaries would be beyond broken if playable by every class. Strengthening class identity and creating new deck archetypes (which are good things) by definition requires more class cards. And I will point out that not all legendaries are required for every deck archetype. There are budget version of most meta decks. These versions usually substitute out legendaries for epics or rares. You don't need Kanrethad Ebonlocke in a zoolock deck. It might slightly reduce your winrate, but you can still play, have fun, and ladder without it.
dude, what is it with you and writing a wall of text and even worse than just a wall of text it is a wall of text of what is already been said, wtf are you on dude? is that how you try to win an argument? by being insufferable to listen to? cmon man.
as to the affordability of the game, the top deck cost 13600 dust which translate to something around 210 euro and some of the cards are even locked behind a paid adventure so the price is even larger than that (but iv not included that) all the different decks are centered around different legendary cards, not like the wallet warrior of old days where the legendary cards where largely neutral, now decks are pretty much 90% class cards... another way blizzard is manipulating the price up (but you are not trying to hear anything, you just wanna make a huge block of insufferable text)
and to your point of totem shaman being tier 2, it is tier 3 and it is not cheap because all of its cards are basically useless outside of the archetype, it would be considered cheap if the deck had some type of overlap with other archetype of decks, but this properly goes over your head and you just gonna wall me again
I'm soooo sorry if my factual, logical responses trigger you. I didn't know reading a few paragraphs was such a huge problem for you. That probably explains your stream-of-consciousness style rants and insults.
I do owe everyone an apology, however. The review of Tempostorm I gave above was based on the November 30 ranking. Apparently, they've updated the rankings for December 1. Not sure why that version didn't load when I went to the site this morning, but that's why some of the numbers I gave don't match up. Sorry about that. But the broader point is that, in the current meta, there are many cheap decks.
You keep trying to equate dust with monetary costs, which doesn't really make sense. I assume you are f2p, which means (if you're as smart as you think you are) you were saving the gold you earned prior to the release of this expansion to buy packs. And, if you bought (via gold or money) a significant number of packs, you're going to have all the commons and rares in the expac. That's actually one of the best things about the duplicate protection policy Blizzard created: it pretty much guarantees players will have most/ all of the lower rarity cards very early in the expansion.
So the real factor that drives deck cost is the number of epic and legendary cards it has. And yes, ETC Warrior is a very expensive deck. So what? What makes you think that everyone ought to be able to play every deck at some absurdly low price? Shouldn't people who have opened more packs (because they bought them with cash or gold) have an advantage in terms of how many decks they can play? Why should someone who plays twice a week for a couple hours have access to the same array of decks as someone who plays 5 hours a day? Or are you just jealous of people who have better collections than you?
And I have no idea which cards you are talking about when you say they're locked behind a paid adventure. You might be right, but I'm blanking on what you're talking about here.
The closest you come to making sense is when you point out that there is a greater use of class legendaries now than in the past. And some of that is undoubtedly a business decision. But there are also very good gameplay reasons to do so: certain legendaries would be beyond broken if playable by every class. Strengthening class identity and creating new deck archetypes (which are good things) by definition requires more class cards. And I will point out that not all legendaries are required for every deck archetype. There are budget version of most meta decks. These versions usually substitute out legendaries for epics or rares. You don't need Kanrethad Ebonlocke in a zoolock deck. It might slightly reduce your winrate, but you can still play, have fun, and ladder without it.
I am a paying customer, that is why I feel justified in being angry nice wall btw, you and that trump picture guy really a good fit with your walls of basically no substance. I feel like you wanna play the devils advocate and it is tiresome of course you can always spread diversion and argue counter points to anything everyone is saying and with that nothing moves forward and everyone waste their time (do you by any chance work a buecratic job?) you sure don't seem to have any experience in business, the whole strategy of milking customers, I am in advertising / marketing + I got my own startup on the side, I am really good at strategy, iv won many chess championships and Iv reached top 2 legend with an original deck nobody else played. I know the robes is basically what I am trying to say
shareholder companies are all doomed to fail sooner or later due to the greedy nature of it, which is what hearthstone is currently experiencing, and this makes me sad because hearthstone is one of the only things that I like to do currently (I got depression)
the audience for hearthstone is (I believe) between 16-30 so basically kids and students who are getting targeted by addicting and manipulating tactics and it is just sad to see so I try to rant about it a little, makes me feel a little better that there is some talk about it instead of it going unnoticed but it is a pointless battle regardless because people are sheeps with stockholm syndrom getting their small little sheep nips milked for all they are worth, enjoy
btw risky skipper is the card locked behind the paywall
the audience for hearthstone is (I believe) between 16-30 so basically kids and students who are getting targeted by addicting and manipulating tactics
If you're going to choose "Addicting and manipulating tactics" as your point then Hearthstone isn't a great example for that. Take any and all FTP Gatcha game on the market. Those are the games that are pounding the drums of "Addiction and Fear of Missing Out" far harder than Hearthstone has ever and will ever. Its like comparing a caffeine addiction to an addiction to hard drugs. You think $500 a year is high? The Gatcha games will wring $500 or more a month from players with their limited time banners. Come back when Hearthstone starts doing that with cards and make your point again then.
you think that is an argument for hearthstone not being predatory? that Gatcha games are worse?? that is like saying kicking and hitting someone is not violence because shooting someone does more damage
if anything they are an inspiration, look at the c'thun package, another time limited purchase option that did not used to be there
The way I read his drivel was that he was claiming that the production costs for HS have not gone up. His "logic" seems to be that, since costs have not risen, prices should not either. I was ignoring the broader idiocy of that idea and focusing solely on input costs.
Certainly, if one compares video games today to those of the 1990's, it's lower. My point (and I should have made this clearer, but I was trying not to write too much, since we know people complain about that) is that the total salary for HS development and production has almost certainly increased over the past 5-6 years. The development team has gotten much larger, if nothing else. You may very well be right that individual salaries in this field are stagnant, but in sheer numbers, I'm quite certain that total salary costs have gone up since 2014. Now, Blizzard has more than made up for that increase (either due to technological advances, increased productivity, and market power), which is (partly) why the game remains profitable.
Fair enough if the team has actually gotten larger, I didn't realize that.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Per Hearthstone Wiki (admittedly not a perfect source), Team 5 began as 15 developers, and now numbers "more than 70."
for someone who has a bare minimum understanding of capitalism it sure is rich to call my simplistic take of the raise of product cost of games idiocy, what do you know about running a business? I assume bare minimum
blizzard is artificially increasing the price of their product with tactical, discreetly measures, something a simpleton who does not understand the game to its full effect will not catch on to due to community backlash.
legendary and epic cards have become more essential, fx what is a highlander deck without the legendaries?
they are rotating the archetypes - making a class like hunter, known for aggro into combo and a class like shaman known for combo into aggro in hopes that the people who enjoy the archetype of lets say combo will start building a hunter deck to get his combo fix and the guy who likes aggro will build a shaman deck to get his aggro fix
Once again, I would have to agree with the general statement that the power level of cards has shifted more towards legendaries.
There are exceptions. I remember back in the classic meta there was a deck called "Wallet Warrior". It was the first iteration of control warrior we had, and the damn thing had every legendary you could pack into a warrior deck.
However, I look at all the decks that I have built which basically includes everything from t1 to t4 on Tempo Storm plus a couple of fun things, and the percentage of the decks made up of legendaries is definitely higher than it used to be.
Not as pronounced with the epics, but the point is made with legendaries alone.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
All card games add in set rotation at some point. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s never easy and never pleasant, but it’s why evergreen formats exist in most games (like Wild in Hearthstone). Heck I remember when the Pokémon TCG first added set rotation and there were so many complaints about collections going to waste, but 18 years later the game is still going strong. Rotation is also a time to try new things with a class/creature type which lets people who enjoy a single class try different play styles. It also keeps things fresh and allows newer players a chance to join in instead of having to buy 4+ years worth of cards. Lastly, rotation in Hearthstone, unlike other CCG, Is less brutal. When a set rotates you aren’t left with the old cards if you don’t want them. You can dust them (at a very poor rate, but that’s for other discussions) and craft new cards.
I agree with you, but they way they started to do it these days is way more cold and calculated, everything is way more forced with full packages of up to 11 cards just straight up powercreep
Of course it is still making money.
But have in mind: The goal is a growth. Especially the shareholders and the people on top of Activision Blizzard want a growth each and every year. There is a reason they bring up a battle pass because it's more money when people buy it with almost no effort.
These companies are not happy when they are making money with it, they want more money every year.
And if they make terrible decisions like they did recently it won't grow. If a game is usually showing no sign of growth anymore it mostly gets put in mainteneance mode, which means no big development anymore.
finally someone gets it
Again... with all due respect, the things you are saying simply aren’t true. Aggro Demon Hunter, Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are all decks that can get you to legend in the current meta and in the first two of those decks, the most popular builds contain no legendaries. Totem Shaman contains one.
Shaman has always been a class that’s strongest archetype has been tempo oriented. Hunter is primarily aggro and the best decks are still primarily aggro. Face Hunter is another deck that only runs two legendaries, and to be honest you could probably get away with dropping Polkelt and still maintain a +50% win rate.
I really don’t like the term Pay to Win, because since I’ve played Hearthstone there have always been top tier decks that can be built for very little dust. Of course, they’re primarily aggro decks, but Hearthstone has always been a game you can do well in with no financial investment. It all depends on what your personal goals are. If you want to get as big of a collection as possible, then yeah, of course you’re going to do better if you invest some money (not 140 euros per deck) into the game. But that’s not abnormal.
First off, way to change the topic (again). Initially, you claimed that the number of HS players is declining (which was the initial point I disagreed with). When asked for proof, you resorted to citing streamers. In other words, you made a claim that has no evidence to support it. When called out on that fact, you instead shifted over to whining that prices have gone up, while the costs of production haven't. I pointed out that basic logic tells you that production costs (specifically salary) has gone up, if only because the number of employees on the development team has increased almost fivefold. I also pointed out that, at least in the US, bundle prices (and, I believe, individual pack prices) haven't changed in years. It now appears that you've stopped talking about production costs (since you're obviously wrong about that), and are just engaging in name calling ("simpleton") and spouting a tedious, conspiratorial and flawed interpretation of capitalism. Instead, you're now claiming that "legendary and epic cards are becoming more essential" and making the argument that the creation of new archetypes is some devious plot to drain money from people.
As Killjack has pointed out, several competitive decks are quite affordable. Looking at Tempostorm's tier list, 2 of the 3 tier 1 decks are pretty cheap. Tempo demon hunter has Kayn Sunfury and two epics, while Soul Demon Hunter has Kayn and Il'gynoth, but no epics. Looking at tier 2, there are several decks running few epics or legendaries: Zoolock (it lists 2 legendaries, but one is ZTG which really is not needed for that deck), Totem Shaman (1 legendary), Secret Hunter (2), Revolve Shaman (2), and OTK Demon Hunter (2, but one is Bloodmage Thalnos which is really not needed). In short, of the top 10 decks listed on Tempostorm, 7 of them have 2 or fewer legendaries. So you CAN play highly competitive decks without spending huge amounts of dust. Legendaries and epics are not "more essential" if you want to ladder.
As for your theory about the creation of new archetypes being some devious plot to bilk you out of your savings, it doesn't make sense. Take shaman, for example. (And no, shaman has not typically been only a combo class, as you claim. Murloc shaman and overload shaman were real back in the day.) If Blizzard was trying to do what you claim (create a new archetype to get players to buy packs/ dust), why would they make Totem Shaman so cheap? It's literally one of the cheapest tier 2 decks.
More broadly speaking, it appears Blizzard can't win with people like you. If the company doesn't create new archetypes, people complain that the meta is getting stale. If it attempts to shake things up by introducing new archetypes, people complain that it's trying to rip them off. I personally like the idea of not knowing what kind of deck I'm up against. If multiple classes had multiple archetypes, we'd have a much better meta. I'd love to see a control hunter or a midrange mage. But if Blizzard did that, you and your buddies would just scream, "Scam!!"
I can't wait to see how you change the topic this time, since your current crop of complaints is demonstrably wrong (again).
dude, what is it with you and writing a wall of text and even worse than just a wall of text it is a wall of text of what is already been said, wtf are you on dude?
is that how you try to win an argument? by being insufferable to listen to? cmon man.
as to the affordability of the game, the top deck cost 13600 dust which translate to something around 210 euro and some of the cards are even locked behind a paid adventure so the price is even larger than that (but iv not included that)
all the different decks are centered around different legendary cards, not like the wallet warrior of old days where the legendary cards where largely neutral, now decks are pretty much 90% class cards... another way blizzard is manipulating the price up (but you are not trying to hear anything, you just wanna make a huge block of insufferable text)
and to your point of totem shaman being tier 2, it is tier 3 and it is not cheap because all of its cards are basically useless outside of the archetype, it would be considered cheap if the deck had some type of overlap with other archetype of decks, but this properly goes over your head and you just gonna wall me again
He's writing specific and logic-based refutations of the specific arguments you've made, with evidence and sources where available. That is, in fact, how adults win arguments. Sometimes that takes several words. I, for one, find it extremely sufferable.
This is nothing.
Yepap has been known to stick around a thread for 8 pages bitching about the length of replies. I'm pretty sure at one point he called two paragraphs a wall of text.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
these long replies if I had to address everything in them with the expect level depth that I bestow I would have to write a book, I cannot be asked to write an entire book.. I got depression man
I can't afford a Lamborghini, and its not fair. Don't they realize that if Lamborghinis were cheaper, more people would buy them? They use the same type of parts, same employees, at the same factory, but the price keeps going up each year. The original Lamborghini Jalta was $60,000, and now the new ones are like $250,000. It's not fair.
I'm soooo sorry if my factual, logical responses trigger you. I didn't know reading a few paragraphs was such a huge problem for you. That probably explains your stream-of-consciousness style rants and insults.
I do owe everyone an apology, however. The review of Tempostorm I gave above was based on the November 30 ranking. Apparently, they've updated the rankings for December 1. Not sure why that version didn't load when I went to the site this morning, but that's why some of the numbers I gave don't match up. Sorry about that. But the broader point is that, in the current meta, there are many cheap decks.
You keep trying to equate dust with monetary costs, which doesn't really make sense. I assume you are f2p, which means (if you're as smart as you think you are) you were saving the gold you earned prior to the release of this expansion to buy packs. And, if you bought (via gold or money) a significant number of packs, you're going to have all the commons and rares in the expac. That's actually one of the best things about the duplicate protection policy Blizzard created: it pretty much guarantees players will have most/ all of the lower rarity cards very early in the expansion.
So the real factor that drives deck cost is the number of epic and legendary cards it has. And yes, ETC Warrior is a very expensive deck. So what? What makes you think that everyone ought to be able to play every deck at some absurdly low price? Shouldn't people who have opened more packs (because they bought them with cash or gold) have an advantage in terms of how many decks they can play? Why should someone who plays twice a week for a couple hours have access to the same array of decks as someone who plays 5 hours a day? Or are you just jealous of people who have better collections than you?
And I have no idea which cards you are talking about when you say they're locked behind a paid adventure. You might be right, but I'm blanking on what you're talking about here.
The closest you come to making sense is when you point out that there is a greater use of class legendaries now than in the past. And some of that is undoubtedly a business decision. But there are also very good gameplay reasons to do so: certain legendaries would be beyond broken if playable by every class. Strengthening class identity and creating new deck archetypes (which are good things) by definition requires more class cards. And I will point out that not all legendaries are required for every deck archetype. There are budget version of most meta decks. These versions usually substitute out legendaries for epics or rares. You don't need Kanrethad Ebonlocke in a zoolock deck. It might slightly reduce your winrate, but you can still play, have fun, and ladder without it.
I am a paying customer, that is why I feel justified in being angry
nice wall btw, you and that trump picture guy really a good fit with your walls of basically no substance.
I feel like you wanna play the devils advocate and it is tiresome of course you can always spread diversion and argue counter points to anything everyone is saying and with that nothing moves forward and everyone waste their time (do you by any chance work a buecratic job?) you sure don't seem to have any experience in business, the whole strategy of milking customers, I am in advertising / marketing + I got my own startup on the side, I am really good at strategy, iv won many chess championships and Iv reached top 2 legend with an original deck nobody else played. I know the robes is basically what I am trying to say
shareholder companies are all doomed to fail sooner or later due to the greedy nature of it, which is what hearthstone is currently experiencing, and this makes me sad because hearthstone is one of the only things that I like to do currently (I got depression)
the audience for hearthstone is (I believe) between 16-30 so basically kids and students who are getting targeted by addicting and manipulating tactics and it is just sad to see so I try to rant about it a little, makes me feel a little better that there is some talk about it instead of it going unnoticed but it is a pointless battle regardless because people are sheeps with stockholm syndrom getting their small little sheep nips milked for all they are worth, enjoy
btw risky skipper is the card locked behind the paywall
If you're going to choose "Addicting and manipulating tactics" as your point then Hearthstone isn't a great example for that. Take any and all FTP Gatcha game on the market. Those are the games that are pounding the drums of "Addiction and Fear of Missing Out" far harder than Hearthstone has ever and will ever. Its like comparing a caffeine addiction to an addiction to hard drugs. You think $500 a year is high? The Gatcha games will wring $500 or more a month from players with their limited time banners. Come back when Hearthstone starts doing that with cards and make your point again then.
you think that is an argument for hearthstone not being predatory? that Gatcha games are worse??
that is like saying kicking and hitting someone is not violence because shooting someone does more damage
if anything they are an inspiration, look at the c'thun package, another time limited purchase option that did not used to be there