Hearthpwn

Uff that stings m8. I recall I was very lucky with the first packs I bought in HS, way back in Beta and early Classic. I got those 20 pack deals and in the first 2-3 times I got like 2-3 legends per 20 packs. I was very lucky, ofc that made me extra sore the first time I opened 20 and all I had to show for it was like 1 epic, few at best. You were like my worst pack, four times over. 

It is a really cheap move, Being able to DE these cards would have been a nice compensation for moving a set they said they never would.

Thanks for the correction @Bengalaas and @HorarceWalpol that explains how people hit 11-12k on average despite it seemingly being a horrific grind post 50. I guess it made sense to me that the XP would remain at 5k, but also post level 100 in the new track the XP was, well, 1300-1500 which I thought was halved and more from what it used to be, like other levels were.

I will edit my calculation soon.

Oof, hard to say. So many great cards over the years. Some in style, some in power, some in plain genius design.

If I had to pick one I will pick Open the Waygate as it was such a unique card that allowed for a very powerful (though not so easy to pull off) effect that was never seen before at the time. It also allowed for what is perhaps my all time favourite deck, the "Exodia" Mage with Antonidas and infinite fireballs.

Quote from SneezyDwarf_18710 >>

Well I can attest to the casual portion. I have the most gold going into an expansion that I have ever had.  I also bought the darkmoon races mini set for 2k gold in the middle of this expansion cycle and still am at 9500g. I typically play only 2-3 bgs games a day, and rarely any constructed (just enough to clear our my quest log every few days. I missed a few weekly quests here and there, but overall got a majority completed. I’m all on board with the new system. 

 Thanks for the input m8. So with the 2k you spent on the mini-set you made 11,5k this expansion cycle correct? None of that gold was from before and none was spent elsewhere (arenas, packs, etc)?

Quote from tomastefan >>

I used to think the same. I haven't made a gold calculus, but you didn't took into account the free extra guaranteed legendary. How much you value a legendary from a set, that's the question. 400 dust, 1600? I'd say about 700-800 dust, if I had to choose between a 8 packs and a random legendary, I'd take the legendary no question asked. (also, the statistics say that a pack contains ~98 dust in average if you were to disenchant everything. So in avg 1g=1dust and 1 pack=100dust=100g). If you see it this way, the new system is slightly better for even the mid and top tier. Also the mid and top tier would like a random legendary even more considering the duplicate protection. Also, add in the arena thickets (another 120g in value).

For me, I'd say I'm mid, lvl ~175, played a lot less then any other expansion. Got the 2k miniset, 2 heroes (3k g), and i'm still at ~7k profit this expansion. The best I ever had was 10k before and I used to play a lot more. Conclusion: another 10% xp for lvlup nerf would settle this discussion once and for all.

 I did take into account the non-gold material benefits of the reward track, packs, tickets, rares, epics and legends all. I estimated their value at 2,2k g. Now we can disagree on the estimate ofc (note the estimate is for FitB, the DF one is about half that). One thing for sure is that people value things differently, an old player probably doesn't value Phoenix packs much since they already have about all the cards they'd want. Given the popularity of the thread where a player says they won't buy FitB packs much it seems even they are not so hot right now. A player who intends to buy 40 or so packs has little need for the rares we are being given, etc. Again depends on the player but ultimately all would prefer the pure gold equivalent since that lets them do whatever it is they like most.

Another thing to consider is that before we got a few packs to celebrate the launch of new expansions, sometimes legends too (I recall C'thun at the very least) but now these have been rolled into the reward track. It is more sure but we did lose a bit in other areas.

Nonetheless I am glad you posted and shared your thoughts. Seems they are in line with what others have been saying, that they made about 11k without too much effort and that it is markedly better than before.

Quote from Kayel >>

I usually only play to do daily missions, before reward tracking I could get 6K gold, and now I’m with 10K, could be more but I spent 2K in packs after Darkmoon Races

 This player seems to corroborate it as well.

I need to grind XP like crazy to reach as deep into the track as I can before I run out of time. So knowing when the expansion is likely to hit will help me lots.

Will it hit 00:01 Tuesday or sometime during the day? When do expansions generally arrive?

Thanks for the answers in advance

The track resets Tuesday, your XP is very unlikely to carry over but it could happen given that this is the first time this is happening. Not sure if the expansion will launch Tuesday 00:01 or sometime during the day, been too long since I played too, I will ask in another thread.

Anyway ideally you want to hit Tuesday with just having completed a level, as little excess XP as possible. But if possible you want to finish as many levels on the current track as you can. It is just the optimal thing to do. Now that you are active again you will finish the next track easily in about two months but what you miss on this track is lost forever. Given how inefficient post lvl 50 questing is there is absolutely no benefit to leaving unclaimed stuff on this track to get very deep into the next one. Since again you are pretty much guaranteed to hit level 50 on the next track just from quests.

Sounds like some really weird bug, wish I had something more useful to say but I do not. Some points though, you may not know that duplicate protection has been implemented making it impossible to get duplicates unless you have already filled up that rarity (this also counts cards you pulled or crafted but DE). You are not crazy you know you got dupes though. Another, slim, possibility is that you saw Golden cards being awarded to you but not seeing them after, those are erroneously showing Core cards that will not be available until FitB launches. But you speak of opening packs so doesn't sound like that either. 

It is probably none of this however and some weird bug instead, hope you solve it. Good luck.

Quote from Dmo >>

Rolling after completing the 2500 xp they give you is when you roll = 100% so far (far left one atleast)

ok nevermind just rolled a non far left one still rolling 100%

 That is bad actually, it means they will treat this as a priority 1 bug to fix. If you could only get it sometimes then it might even have been left alone. Lucky for you who kept your weekly but overall bad news.

It hit, can't wait to dive in!

Oh wow! That was unexpected! I'm so glad you guys liked the entry :'')

Thanks a lot guys and thanks again to all the contestants and the amazing organiser! 

Quote from Neko_Tamo >>

I feel the deeper issue is power creep, if you keep putting more and more power into the cards for the same cost the game will inevitably get faster or at least more swingy. Probably both, and that is exactly what we see. Broken ass draws, mana cheats or minions are just the symptom, not the disease. In case it isn't clear to you, go play some Classic mode and compare the powerlevel of things there to Standard, or God forbid Wild. I am pretty sure if you put Dr. Boom in Core he would not see much play, and he was the OG WTF broken minion.

Power creep also has the effect of neutering your collection over time meaning you increasingly have less and less value in Wild and even from past expansions of Standard at this point. Makes any kind of long term satisfaction in this game feel like rolling a boulder up a hill. Or paying the boulder to go away. Which is why power creep is a tool, if I can even call it that, that they use. It makes them more money.

It is a big part of why I vowed never to pay money again until they sort this shit out, which they never will. It started with the Wild/Standard split which was basically them admitting that they can't make new cards that are both not OP but also interesting and playable without artificially chopping off a portion of your collection every year. It was a short stroll from there to abusing power creep. Add in some other questionable design choices and lies and this game is now in considerable shit.

 Completely agree. Too bad very few people realize this or care about it enough to stop giving them money for their stupid design decisions. I wish there were no more whales in the game such that it gets changed to a monthly subscription. Imagine the outcry then, for the shits they keep doing...

I've said it repeatedly - these designers need to go. Likely others from other games have fresh perspectives and are able to implement some easy fixes (e.g. cannot reduce any card cost below 1 mana, unless it started at 0).

Quote from Neko_Tamo >>

Quote from akaeskim0 >>

Statement above, dont want to waste time and do it twice.

 I had the same issue when I squared off Rokara. It shows I finished it, that crown above her head, but in the achievements tab it says I didn't.

Been meaning to report the bug for ages but kept putting it off, let me know if you do so I don't have to, or maybe if you want me to back you up on the bug report forums.

 I have the same thing with Rokara. I hoped they would have fixed it by now.  

Most of the people hating on Mercenaries aren't even thinking about pre-ordering. I guarantee you that at least 80% of the people calling Mercenaries a trainwreck and saying it's the end of Blizzard are free players who think they will not get enough free stuff out of it.

What about us, the 20% ? I really don't care about free stuff, it's not my point at all.

Earlier you were saying Mercs monetization is the exact same as hearthstone monetization so it's weird that we complain about one but not the other. Well I don't think it's weird at all. Mercs monetization isn't replacing hearthstone monetization, it's just adding up, so in reality monetization in Hearthstone just got twice as bad, especially since both game modes are linked by the same resource, gold.

At what point is it enough and at what point is it too much ? Battlegrounds monetization was enough, Mercs monetization is too much. How many more monetized game modes are they going to at ? When does it stop being about Hearthstone ? Cause that's the point, you're still launching HEARTHSTONE when you click the button, when I click on Hearthstone in the battlenet client I expect to arrive in the Hearthstone card game, I don't expect to arrive in another client with 3+ different games with a unique monetization when it comes to real money, but shared monetization when it comes to in game money. And when I spend money in hearthstone it's the same, I don't want my expansion pre order money to go to other game modes, I'm paying for hearthstone because I want to play hearthstone, so I reached a point where i'm relunctant to spend ANY more money, cause it's not invested where it should be by the devs. It's just not what hearthstone is about and it's not fair in my opinion that they are using the Hearthstone UI to make more cash grabs unrelated to hearthstone. Just keep grabing more of our cash with more Hearthstone content we would all be fine with that. That's what they did with the mini-sets in between expansions, more cash grab, but it's 100% hearthstone, so there was no outrage.

I like the idea of quest. However it broke the fundamental of the game - developing a board and win. Having minions on board vs mage or lock not only it doesnt benefit you, becouse they pewpew every minion down like with a minigun, but it actually punishes you. You get a minion down, boom, quest completed!!!! 

fuck this game seriously

Statement above, dont want to waste time and do it twice.

The Winglord

Introduction:

Hey there, lad. We've come a long way since we've joined forces back at Dragonblight, stopping that mad ethereal fella from raisin' the big bad dragon, but I have to say, it just feels like few weeks.

We've started the classic Gryphonrider's way wit' Sky'ree at our side we commanded grand forces and came up with all kinds of unique Formations - remeber the way we've made use of our allies from Dalaran? Well throwing Fireballs is not entirely my thing, but hey it worked!

But we've not stopped there and have also managed to master the magic of the Storm and honed Sky'ree's abilites to their fullest with a special type of training weapons.

After that we've split for a time and I had a few other adventures since then myself. If you want to take a look back at all we've been through you can check previous phases or look here - I might share a few more tales with ye there later.

Lemme thank ye wit' all me dwarven heart for all yer time, votes and feedback and repay you by being brief and not keep ye much longer. And with that said we've returned - a new refined Core set at our disposal as well as new trials in the hostile territory of the Barrens - So let us not tarry, lets see what is in store for us. Its Hammerin' Time!

Quick Class Recap:

Strenghts:

• Strong Hero Power capable of building a deck around.
• High board reactivity.
• Good card draw.

Weaknesses:

• Little survivability.
• Situational removal spells.

Intended Playstyles:

• Rush - Keep control of the board while chipping your opponents health away. Gryphon Lord Talonaxe is still ready for the final push to finish your foes.
• Token - Swarm the board with small creatures, then refill your hand with Cleared Passage.
• Sky'ree - Lost a little bit of fuel since rotation, but you could still dedicate yourself to the use of your Hero Power, either as a main focus of the deck or a complementary piece of other decks.
• No Hero Power - If gryphons are not yours cup of tea, you can help Mountfinder Thardian look for different means of Skyfights.
• Big Spells - A relatively new playstyle that relies on the high cost spells from the past, alongside newcomers like Inhurried Windcaller and Thunderheart.
• Windfury/Handbuff - A new playstyle from Forged in the Barrens, can even take the fight to the late game with the new legendary - Sister Rathalon.

Sets:

Showcase Cards:

Core Set:

Notes on Core set cards:

 Forged in the Barrens set:

 Tokens and Notes for expansion:

As f2p players you do contribute to the game, servers and developers... you may not be contributing with money, but with time...

A f2p player donates his time, making the servers full with players... imagine no f2p players on hearthstone, there would be massive waiting times, or you would encounter the same player over and over again...