Hearthpwn

Quote from Anomaly98 >>

Lovely soliloquy...but nobody cares.

This post belongs in the salt thread.

 

 your post should not even exist,

a guy points out problems with the game and wants to share his experience and you want to shut him down. 

Do it in wild and priests will have 11 hour waits. 

lol, anyone with a brain who is not shilling knows its rigged

Further evidence that blizzard has no  clue what they are doing. i said at the time they unnerfed him that it was a stupid move. 

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

@3nnu1

Ok man, I was trying to have a serious conversation, but that's the second time in a row you've taken something I'm very serious about and completely misstated what I said and put words in my mouth.  There is no comparison between Hearthstone and a heroin habit, and anyone who thinks there is has never been addicted to something worse than their iPhone.

I'm sorry you can't just read what I said and assume I said what I meant, but since you're having your own argument on both sides now, I can't really contribute.

 you keep bringing up heroin, I thought that you thought it was relevant to the discussion. 

padge, your posts are not worth responding to. 

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

So, as a heroin addict, it always amuses me when the term addiction rolls into these discussions.

Inevitably, the analogy is made to gambling addiction, since Hearthstone is modeled after a physical card game, and we often think of poker or blackjack as the avatars of gambling as a pass time.  It's important to remember the difference between gambling addiction or any other lifestyle addiction and physical addiction to a chemical substance like a narcotic.  While BOTH types of addiction cause the classic dopamine hits in the brains of their sufferers, the "soft addictions" or "psychological addictions" to lifestyles almost exclusively are limited to psychological side effects such as anxiety and stress effects.

Meanwhile, the physical addictions carry an extra set of side effects that go beyond the lack of enjoyment experienced and/or expected by a pattern of lifestyle behavior.  Those of us who try to break physical addictions are served up a list of horrible physical symptoms that, with surprising regularity, can be life threatening.

I don't draw this distinction to turn around and say, "therefore soft addictions aren't real addictions".  That's not my point.  However, it is INCREDIBLY difficult for psychologists to manage to attach any meaningful criteria that differentiates an "addict" to a game like Hearthstone from a person who simply enjoys the game a lot.  Both groups of people experience dopamine increases when playing the game.  Both groups of people are targeted by the methods the OP speaks of, as well as basically any advertising or other effort to encourage people to play the game.  Some experts have hung their hat on the negative psychological symptoms to identify an addict, but how negative does the symptom have to be?  If you forget to do a week's worth of weekly quests and you commit suicide as a result, most of us would probably call that an addiction.  But of course, it's rarely if ever that extreme an example.

 

As a person who has experienced the ups and downs of hard addiction, I am somewhat amused by the OP's question:  "does the business model HAVE TO BE based on addiction?"  I think, once you appreciate the fine line between addict and enthusiast, the answer is actually "yes".

I don't see how it's possible to run a marketing program that doesn't leave oneself open to accusations of "exploiting" addictive behavior, while at the same time being a successful advertising effort.

 

Just a thought from a person who has lived it.

 So the argument is that hearthstone is not bad because it is not as addictive or as expensive as heroin?  I guess the counter argument is that at least heroin isn't usually marketed to 10 year olds. 

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

On the subject of $500 being a stupid amount of money to spend on a game.

I spend $730 on chocolate milk per year (a $2 bottle per day).

In my problem years, I spent approximately $100,000 a year on heroin.  That was while maintaining a law practice.

 

Given those two data points, no, a game I enjoy and spend a great deal of time playing is not something on which I'm afraid to spend less than $2 a day.  But, we've already established on a previous thread that the poster who did the whole, "I thought lawyers were smart" thing is a troll thru and thru.  Btw, most lawyers are grade-A morons.  Only someone who has no concept of what it takes to be a divorce or DUI attorney would think it takes brains to just generically be a lawyer.

No one is ever going to successfully argue how another person should spend disposable income, however.  Particularly when the amount in question is so ridiculously small.  And again, if $500 is a large yearly expense for you, I'm not talking shit to you.  I pity you.  I hope life changes for the better soon.  That's absolutely no sarcasm or puffery; I mean it.

 Even though we disagree on everything, your arguments are wonderful.  Hearthstone is reasonably priced because it compares favorably to a heroin addiction. I almost spit out my coffee on that one, cheers. 

 

As for the runeterra gameplay. I was a pretty good competitive magic player in a former lifetime. I find the ability to interact with my opponents plays and make more decisions that affect the outcome of the game to be a good thing. Though I know some will disagree with me. It can be pretty crushing to have your combo disrupted by a freeze or counterspell (deny in runeterra). But I enjoy trying to bait out the counters and playing counters of my own. I am around 10 days in and already knocking on the door to gold playing homebrews. 

 I'm sorry I didn't get my point across by including the heroin metric.  It certainly had nothing to do with comparing the cost to a computer game.  But, if you haven't lived it, I guess that's what it looked like I was trying to do.

My point was simply, there are lots of small things that will add up to over $500 in a year (e.g. milk), and, as a totally separate issue, I have experienced trying to keep up with a real addiction regardless of how destructive it is to my life.  $100k per year is a catastrophic expense (at least for me), and yet I somehow managed to string the money together for years.  The point is not that "Hearthstone compares favorably" with heroin.  But, my fault.  Bad writing.

I suppose that also brings up the tendencies of folks to talk about "taking advantage of addicts" with freemium monetization methods.  That's the sort of thing that gets me spitting out coffee.

 so you don't think gambling is addictive?

Quote from memo333 >>

Blizz-tard will NOT change the new reward system.

He is cool about  it.

All the changes are to "improve" old things as rewards exp this and that but NOT about taking out tavern pass.

Imagine that you play candycrush and you lost all your lives. You must ask for lives from your friends so you cant wait like 6 hours to try again. Now imagine that someday they charge you for getting THOSE lifes from your friends, whiche BEFORE WERE FREE as a game mechanic. thats total bs.

candy crush is free. and U DECIDE if you buy special powerups to keep going up the trail. thats FINE. but if u are going now to charge to do SOMETHING I SHOULD DO TO PLAY THE GAME AND HAVE A FAIR GAMEPLAY...dont jerk me off.....wtf?!

I think this fk**** bas***** planned this long ago. LETS GIVE THIS ***** a free game..so they get addicted....then when they are really high and drugged we will take that free drug away so the withdraw makes them to pay us now...to get the SAME RESULTS!

its that the case. fk u bliz. u are just another siniester greedy video game company, where u only care abourself. this is dictatorship. the town/people doenst matter..just the guys above in power.

While I dont get the old system back and improved or change this really **** greedy cashgrab I will NOT play your game OR BUY ANYTHING AT ALL!  ooooooooh..that HURTS BLIZ....BURN! NO MORE MONEY FOR YOU PAL! thats ALL U WANT!..OUR MONEY...but guess what b**** you will not get it from me anymore.

My loyalty to you is WAY WAY below my expectations. AND TONS OF PLAYERS WILL DO THE SAME...so..prepare your savings because ur game is going DOWN the toilet. good luck.

 you know blizzard bought the makers of candy crush right,?  the rewards tracks in the two games are scarily similar. 

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

On the subject of $500 being a stupid amount of money to spend on a game.

I spend $730 on chocolate milk per year (a $2 bottle per day).

In my problem years, I spent approximately $100,000 a year on heroin.  That was while maintaining a law practice.

 

Given those two data points, no, a game I enjoy and spend a great deal of time playing is not something on which I'm afraid to spend less than $2 a day.  But, we've already established on a previous thread that the poster who did the whole, "I thought lawyers were smart" thing is a troll thru and thru.  Btw, most lawyers are grade-A morons.  Only someone who has no concept of what it takes to be a divorce or DUI attorney would think it takes brains to just generically be a lawyer.

No one is ever going to successfully argue how another person should spend disposable income, however.  Particularly when the amount in question is so ridiculously small.  And again, if $500 is a large yearly expense for you, I'm not talking shit to you.  I pity you.  I hope life changes for the better soon.  That's absolutely no sarcasm or puffery; I mean it.

 Even though we disagree on everything, your arguments are wonderful.  Hearthstone is reasonably priced because it compares favorably to a heroin addiction. I almost spit out my coffee on that one, cheers. 

As for the runeterra gameplay. I was a pretty good competitive magic player in a former lifetime. I find the ability to interact with my opponents plays and make more decisions that affect the outcome of the game to be a good thing. Though I know some will disagree with me. It can be pretty crushing to have your combo disrupted by a freeze or counterspell (deny in runeterra). But I enjoy trying to bait out the counters and playing counters of my own. I am around 10 days in and already knocking on the door to gold playing homebrews. 

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

Since everyone ignored it last time, I'll just repost something that seems a tiny bit relevant to the discussion.

I'm not speaking from napkin math.  I'm not building a spreadsheet.  I can look at my bank account and see every 4 months like clockwork since 2014, the expenditure to maintain a full collection in Hearthstone.  The fact that we have a new class and thus more legendaries IS relevant.  The fact that we don't have adventures and instead have a full extra expansion from packs IS relevant.

Neither of these two facts add more to the overall expense than did duplicate protection reduce it.  It costs less money in 2020 to maintain a full collection than it did in 2015 or 2016.  There is no estimate involved in this statement.  This is pure lived experience.

I'm sorry if this fact goes against your narrative.  That doesn't make it any less a fact.

And if you're going to come back with "maybe you were just incredibly unlucky before duplicate protections", sure, that's a possibility.  But it would have to have happened for every single set for which it was possible to receive premature duplicates.  Yes, that's a possibility, but it's a very remote one.  Again, I'm not engaging in napkin math.  It simply has been the case that regardless of the Demon Hunter class and new sets, the overall trend is towards having to spend LESS money to maintain a full collection.

 

None of that reaches the question of whether the game is still too expensive.  It simply is not the case that it is more expensive today than in the past.

 how much do you spend annually to maintain your complete collection?

It's a scripted shitshow.

Quote from ShadowAldrius >>

Nobody said there's no more burst anymore, but it is evident, that burst is clearly and severely reduced across all classes, to a level where most classes get significantly slower, and some might even give up on aggressive strategies altogether. It's not impossible to die to an empty or small board, but it will be a whole lot less common.

What classes are going to give up their aggressive strategies? Demon Hunter? Hunter? Rogue? Mage? Rogue, Demon Hunter and Hunter still have weapons, Hunter still has it's hero power. They're not going to stop being aggressive.

Mage has less burn (for now) but it has a lot of spell damage cards to make that burn go far. And Ras Frostwhisper is still an incredibly strong card for face damage.

Warlock and Druid will no longer be spell damage classes I suppose. But Druid actually has more ways to go face now with feral attacks than it did with a lot of it's burn spells. And they're far more efficient. Double moonlit amulet with solar eclipse is 12 face damage. Feral Rage is another 4 each. Pounce is 2 for 0.

Also removing burn cards from core means there's room to print new ones in new sets.

Alexstrasza is also basically a new Ragnaros really. Giving a lot of decks that haven't had that extra little damage push to end games what they need to finish off a struggling opponent. But it won't be from getting double Eviscerate off of a secret passage on turn 6. It'll be from an expensive card on turn 9.

 I didn't want to go too far into individual class discussion since it would be deserving its own topic, and it is a bit of speculation since we don't know what the next expansion looks like, and would likely predict the meta wrongly if we knew anyway, but fine...

I certainly did not talk about Demon Hunter and Rogue. When I say "most classes", I obviously don't mean "all classes", and "some" only "might" give up playing aggressive. I would have assumed it goes without saying that Rogue and Demon Hunter have enough tools to remain as aggressive as they are now. I even mentioned DH specifically having a good amount of burst left. It honestly feels a bit like you are playing dumb here, just for the sake of it, but perhaps you felt like I'm overlooking something. So, if you want me to say that DH and Rogue are still aggressive classes, sure, consider it said. Moving on. 

I think Hunter will be one of the classes that slows down. When the best weapon hits for 2, and there's nothing like Toxic Reinforcements, Dragonbane, Unleash, KC etc., there isn't much hope in closing games before your opponent can stabilize. The hero power pushes the class to play aggressively, so any Midranger Hunter is still more about sustained pressure, but I think the "Face Hunter" thing might actually disappear.

Same with Shaman: Because of Inara Stormcrash and Doomhammer, the class might actually be in a good position to pursue an aggressive playstyle, and (nature) spell damage + Lightning Bolt is perhaps enough to close games out after weapon damage, but without Lava Burst and the Wrath of Air Totem, you have less reach and need more (expensive) cards for lots of damage. The Token playstyle is pretty much dead with every (temporary) board buff rotating out.

Paladin isn't changing much, and actually gets stronger. But I can't take it seriously, when someone claims that Libram or Pure Paladin is an "aggressive" deck, lest they want to declare anything aggressive that summons minions before turn 6. The deck is as Midrange as it can get, in my opinion.

Druid, I think will actually stop being aggressive. Maybe the Token playstyle does survive, but with Savage Roar being the main finisher, and Blessing of the Ancients rotating as well, I feel Power of the Wild and Arbor Up just isn't good enough to keep it alive, but I might be wrong there.
The "feral" attacks in Druid could potentially be used for face damage, but here I go with history: Druid had these kind of cards very often, for long periods of time, and never used them this way. I think the only time when Druid hero attacks were somewhat scary was during the time of Malfurion the Pestilent. Slamming a bunch of one-time attacks at the face doesn't seem like a good win condition to me, especially in a class that already lacks good removal. And I definitely wouldn't go so far to rate them superior to Malygos combos.

I am not certain about Mage and Warlock. Warlock has some wide-board synergy left, but no Sea Giant. Some discard stuff, but can they really get enough pressure on the board? Without Soulfire, there's essentially no way to win without board advantage, and Zoo isn't particularly good (or rather: not outstanding) already.

Mage, on the other hand, has some burst damage left, but way less overall, requiring more of a build-up than pushing damage whenever it's possible or convenient. Even if a focus on Spell Damage remains a good strategy, I think it will slow down as well. Aegwynn, the Guardian will help significantly with consistency, though.

Finally, I think Warrior is gonna drop any aggressive style for the time being. What is left for face damage can not be utilized like explosive Pirate builds of previous metas, and the Enrage deck is dropping out as well. Maybe a midrange Warrior is possible, more like new Hunter decks, perhaps with a bigger emphasis on Weapon buffs (Nitroboost, Krastinov), but even that I struggle imagining. Again, kind of like Zoolock, it's not a great build now, with more useful cards still around.

Now, I can't predict the future, so I admit: Yes, sure they can release new burst cards as well. I don't think they will, or else they could have just left these cards in the Core set. I take the Core set as a statement that they wanted less and more expensive burst in the next year of Standard. For the time being, I assume that Barrens won't give us many unconditional damage spells for less than 4 or 5 mana, if any. And a 9 mana "basically Ragnaros" has to be viewed in context: Ragnaros was, at times, actually good enough in some decks with all the old burst options. Now, those options are (mostly) gone, and your opponent might have 5-10 more health on average in such situations. And decks relying on a 8, 9 or 10 mana finisher to win are on a different level than decks with Leeroy being the most expensive card, and can hardly be called "aggressive".

In case I haven't made it clear enough already, I think there will still be aggressive decks. But under these circumstances, and unless Barrens just adds all the stuff again that was just tossed out, I think many (but not all) classes will shift more to a midrange style, as they need to rely more on board advantage than burst.

Quote from TheSpunYarn >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

You can wait for such a thread and it is not even new. One of the many from the know-it-all-kind, brainchild of a Blizzard henchman wannabee, deliberating from its bandwagon, pretending in fellow travellers style as if he frequently visits Ayala and consort, with one goal...to tell you how stupid you are. No, no, Blizzard can do no wrong, they are always right. The meta will be ok, card design flawless, skill level is high, diversity will be ok al always.....so how stupid you must be maggot to even dare to complain once again.

Over the years they've come and on this forum. Types that behave like that. One goal to defend devs by default. Pseudo-intellectuals.

It is types like these that Blizzard builds on to keep the meta unbalanced, overly aggressive, undivers, classes falling from ladder, a mindlessly low skill floor, polarized, too steep RPS, permanently suppressed control to name a few. And don't forget the mindlessness of Tikatus and Zephrys. Hail to the target audience.

Well nothing to complain. The mindless target audience will be served again. Spamm, buff, burn, go face will rule once again. How predictable. Repulsiveness as ever with a cool smile. The meta must and will be aggressive. Fast paced they call it. And henchmen wannabees to defend the gods. By the way isn't it funny to see 'balance changes' all the time. So every new change is the unbalance of the future. Keeping the meta unbalanced is the permanent balance. The politics of card design. Chew on that.

 

 I don't know if it's a good look to both Pose that all people who disagree with you are faux high-minded sheep who pretend to be intellectual, while doing so by waxing poetic about a digital card game.  Unless you're being deliberately ironic (in which case well played), you're just being un self aware.

It's just a game.

Even if it just a game - an old school argument btw - that doesn't mean unfairness and unbalance should be stock in trade.

42, hope to hit 50 in time, just by doing dailies. I don't want to play this game until the Classic Mode.

Quote from Patriot1776 >>

Quote from TheGentleman99 >>

Quote from ZCFlayer >>

What do you want changed?

 Ideally, I would like them to tweak the dust economy to make it better for players. At the very least, I'd them to be plain and just say that they have no intention of changing it without adding all the other bs like the free deck and free core set to make it seem like they've done stuff for us when they really haven't. The only really great thing they've gotten right was duplicate protection, though honestly I think that should have been in place from launch. The new rewards track is also pretty good now that they fixed it after the initial backlash.

 ideally, you want cards for practically nothing is what you really mean. I'm sorry to inform you that will not happen to the crafting system. As far as dust is concerned I got a free golden high abbess today because I had two regular copies. Seeing as how I have every card in the game because I have played since closed beta Im sitting on 100K+ dust and a 70% complete golden collection. The new RT system will have me at roughly 160 free packs when the Barren releases plus the 145 from both preorders plus the extra 120 packs from the three bundles I buy. 425 packs opening on release day will give me boatloads of entertainment value and the best meta decks in solid gold. 

As much as evryone would like things for free I'm sorry but that has to end at some point. Blizzard could give evrything away and people would still complain. 

The new system benefits people who spend money to support the game the most, as it should, but it also has greatly benefitted people who dont spend a dime. 

The continued begging for more free stuff is pretty degrading to those who do it and very insulting to those who have to listen to it.

When will anything be enough for some of these people is a question that has only once answer....NEVER.

Good Luck with your time!

 Aww, aren't you a proud consoomer. I am sure Blizz will milk you again soon for being such a good boy.

Or you can get off your high horse and act like an adult, either or. We are not complaining because we are poor peasants who can't put money into the game. I have while I still believed in it and would again if the game improved. Helping people keep up with the expansions without spending outrageous amounts of money would be a good step. So was duplicate protection if it works how I think it works (recently came back to the game so not sure). What would really secure me as a paying customer again would be dismantling Standard format. By that I mean ending power creep and making fun and fresh cards which are nonetheless balanced to fit with the totality of HS cards, or close to it. That was the straight and narrow but correct move. Predictably Blizz went for the easy and greedy option of Standard and giving your cards an effective 2y lifecycle. I know my last request is unlikely to happen but might as well speak my mind, if I don't no chance of it becoming a thing.

What we need is at least a doubling of dust value. The way I would do it is to simplify the whole system, which helps new players learn too. Each rarity level should require to disenchant two cards of the same rarity to craft the card of that rarity level you want. So two legends to make a legend, two rares to make a rare, etc. Golden cards always cost double of what a normal card does and also DE for half the cost to make them (this is mostly true already). This should roughly double the value of our dust. You can further play with the odds of gaining the higher rarities from packs to adjust this perfectly.

The final goal should be to have players who spent almost the whole season playing, doing all of their quests and putting in 1-3hrs a day gain virtually all commons and rares. As well as about half of the epics and legends, including a healthy majority of the "good" ones (since those are the ones you will be spending dust crafting). People who pay 20-40$ worth of money per expansion should have the vast majority of all cards period. And whales like you should be able to afford all goldens pretty much by spending 100ish dollars each expansion.

That is fair and reasonable, 20-40$ every few months is pricey but comparable to DLC and many people will be happy to pay it to have access to pretty much all the cards to make whatever deck they want. Whales aren't skinned alive for their shineys though they still pay well. And most importantly F2Ps will be able to craft most (though not all, so incentive exists to pay) meta decks they want and enjoy the game. Stuck up as you are because you help pay the way it is still F2Ps who make the soul of the game. Without them the queues would be terrible, matchups stale and cookie-cutter at all rank levels and our community much poorer. And God damn if we can let as many people enjoy as possible shouldn't we? It is also good for everyone. Better progression means more F2Ps come and more stay, which means more engagement and enjoyment for paying customers. Happy people spend more money. As I said many of us feel betrayed and used as cash cows and we just won't do it, improve the situation improve the cash flow. Blizzard pretty much only cares about money so they are happy too. The only people who would be unhappy are those who want to see poorer players suffer and scrape for leftovers just because they enjoy seeing it which despite being clearly disgusted by your attitude I hope you are not.

But hey that is just how I would help fix up the game, hope others agree too though ;)

at is core the game just isnt good anymore. the powercreep and randomness completely destroyed it.

but classic is on the horizon, so it might become a little better again.

you need to switch deck mane, if you dont got the dust just buy some packs LOL

Quote from P4dge >>

Quote from Tyk3 >>

Duels is obviously for people who like to shove all their crayons in their mouths at once rather than just eating 1 at a time. If you don't like losing on turn 1 or 2 then don't play it.

 Childish, incorrect, asinine and petty. Sums much of this community up pretty well! 

On the OP, I think making it more accessible wouldn't be a bad thing but it isn't a core game mode and I don't get the feeling it's really aimed at brand new players anyway. You can buy packs through in game gold and they are from the latest expansion so a majority of people will naturally get those packs fairly quickly.

They get grief at absolutely anything they do to generate money or engagement. I'm convinced these complainers can't have had an actual job because of they got called greedy every day simply because they only came to work due to being paid a salary, I don't expect they would be too happy. 

They have clearly put a ton of time and resources into this game. The classic rework is a big deal, a new class, new game modes, mini sets between expansions etc. They are going to want to entice people to either spend money or spend more money. 

Yes, they are profit driven, people need to get over it. Your supermarket is profit driven, your car manufacturer is, your broadband provider; your mailman only brings you your mail because someone pays him.

For all the good f2p models have done, they've also conned what seems like an entire generation of people into thinking they deserve anything for nothing. I've very, very rarely seen what I consider a reasonable post from a f2p player in any game I've played. I'm pretty apathetic towards people who remain f2p for a lengthy period of time and whilst I know I'm wrong for thinking this way, really just see them in a similar light to beggars really.

 Rich coming from the person who has just insulted the majority of HS players by calling them beggars. Entitled much?

Duels is obviously for people who like to shove all their crayons in their mouths at once rather than just eating 1 at a time. If you don't like losing on turn 1 or 2 then don't play it.