Hearthpwn

Is there any info as to when the patch will be?

On one hand, I hope Alecom as final design lead, has learned a lesson. On the other hand:

This sparked a lot of internal discussion about certain gameplay patterns in the current meta – particularly hyper-efficient AoE board clears, “OTK” style decks that lack sufficient counterplay, and powerful Legendary cards like Zarimi, Reno Lone Ranger, and Wheel of Death, which tend to either end the game on the spot or create such a dramatic swing in the game state that the game can feel like it is effectively over.

They got it, they got it! I’m waiting for what the changes will end up being but they’ve written it down.  I had to read it a couple of times and pinch myself. Good news! 

Wish I could upvote your comment twice. Your analysis is spot on, especially regarding Wheel.

There was a time when our relationship with Blizzard felt mutually beneficial, like we were all part of one team, trying to make Hearthstone better.

What? That made me chuckle. When was that? I’m not saying you’re wrong but I missed the timeline where players and Blizzard was just one happy family. 

Also, you might be interested to read the latest news on the front page where the dev themselves admit they went too far:

Yesterday, Patch 29.2 went live with some changes to Weekly Quests, making them harder to complete but grant more XP. We had seen that many players routinely completed their Weekly Quests through their regular play, without even really engaging with the Weekly Quest system. Our aim with the adjustments was to give all our players goals to play towards, and to reward our most engaged players (who would likely still complete the Weekly Quests without too much difficulty) for their commitment to the game.

But we’ve heard your feedback and it's clear that we pushed too far.

We want to reward players for their additional efforts, not make those rewards outside of their reach. That’s why we’re putting together an unscheduled hotfix patch scaling most of the Weekly Quest requirements back down to a number between what they were before and what they are now. We’ll keep the additional XP where it is. We’ll have more information on the timing of this unscheduled hotfix soon, but it will be in addition to our first scheduled hotfix that is already planned for this Friday.

There might be some weird effects of this scaling down of Quest requirements. When you login, for instance, you might see a Weekly Quest over 100% completion. If that happens, it should get cleared up after you play a game and progress that particular Quest once more.

Thanks for your feedback on this update. We look forward to hearing how the changes feel after these adjustments.

 

So, the more you know, right?

All companies exist to make a profit because if they don’t they cease to exist

That’s a truism. It’s not so much about making profit so much as what needs to be done to drive profit. 

 If you don’t like it you don’t have participate because in the capitalist system you have a choice unlike the communist system we don’t kill you if you don’t agree with us. 

This sounds like 2024 McCarthyism. It’s also beside the point, I doubt people complaining about the increase in requirements are exclusively communists, I’m baffled I need to actually write this down.

btw blizzard gave me overwatch for free and I never even bothered to install it because It looked like another dumb shooter not worth playing even for free I guess Blizzard came to that conclusion as well because nobody was paying for it so hey no harm there.

It does look like shit, agreed. 

f2p can’t be whales bud because they don’t have the money to begin with or else they wouldn’t be whining about the stupid fking quest changes like they do. 

Nonsense, “bud”:

Free-to-play gamers fall into three categories: Minnows, Dolphins, and Whales. Minnows spend the least out of the three, about $1 a month. Dolphins are moderate spenders who fork out an average of $5 per month. But, Whales spend a lot on microtransactions and drive the most revenue for game developers.

This is from a different article:

Whales take a longer time to convert, spending up to 18 days before they make their mind to pay, while minnows only 8 days.

Keyword being ‘convert’ here. 

The day the players who actually quit hearthstone that say they are will be the day the  sun rises in the west.  Seeing as how complaining gets the company to change things you guys should start complaining about the pricing really loud and maybe they will just make it all free because that’s what the hearthpwn community wants…everything for free. 

Your mind works in binary and absolutes, it’s like you can’t process subtlety, why is that do you think? You disagree with the reward requirement = communist. It’s unreal. You have no clue if the people disagreeing with this recent change are whales or not, none. Zip. Hearthstone business model of FREE to play, so yeah, some people are engaging on that premise. 

I do agree that I doubt a significant amount of players will quit over this. I think it’s likely posturing, they’ll probably play as much as they used to. 

I can’t figure out how to make you understand that the business model is to attract customers by making it free in the first place in order for them to spend later. So for *currently* F2P players to leave shouldn’t be something Blizzard doesn’t care about. 

…says the shareholder. 

My bad regarding Overwatch being subscription, I misremembered. 

when the reward track was implemented into Hearthstone, I remember a lot of people number-chrunching who determined that it was less gold as a ftp. However, my anecdotal experience was an increase in the amount of gold I earned; likely because I was not min-maxing and had never hit the 200g max from 3-wins that was present before the reward track. I prefer the reward track system, as it helps contextualize my time spent and rewards me with things other then just raw gold.

You're wrong about this, however:

Hearthstone's new seasonal reward track and paid Tavern Pass has not gone over well with players. We dove into the details here, but the short version is that Blizzard said the new battle pass would absolutely not reduce gold rewards, and it did—and when Blizzard later apologized and boosted the gold outlay, it took away other rewards. It's fair to say the whole thing has been the kind of debacle that gives debacles a bad name.

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstones-reviled-new-reward-system-is-getting-a-major-overhaul/

I mean, you do mention that your evidence is anecdotal but, as you're aware, that's beside the point. The point being: there was an overhaul because people quote 'threw a fit' which benefit all the players. So, 'throwing a fit' is something which is, at times, justified. 

Who's saying Blizzard is anti-F2P? 

A f2p model gets people in the door, which encourages spending. People who come, and don’t pay but remain f2p are good for community health, but are not the target audience of the financial side of the business.

My understanding is that the F2P model works because, given enough time, there's a good probability f2p players will end up investing at some point. To say Blizzard doesn't care if those potential customers leave is, therefore, false. Who's to say who will end up investing at some point or another? What we can say for certain is that people who quit the game altogether aren't likely to spend at all. In other words, 2fp players are potential customers. As you've put it yourself, the idea is to 'get people in the door'. 

And when the business needs to make more money, decisions are made regarding the established purchasers, not the prospective ones.

I don't understand how that relates to what we're discussing, sorry. Do you mean that the decision to increase requirements but to lower rewards is to cater to paying customers as opposed to f2p ones?

I used to do a $50 preorder every expansion, but took a break during Scholomancy (my phone was no longer supported and I don’t play hearthstone in he desktop.) Since then, I’ve pretty much just bought the reward track, and a single preorder for Festival. I enjoy the game, and will keep casually engaging with it for a long while. $20 an expansion is okay by me.

And...?

Do you remember when the community “threw a fit” regarding the reward track when it was implemented? Do you remember who ended up benefiting from it? 


”I find it very intriguing that a person who supposedly likes a game would ever complain about having to play it more, that whole concept sounds counterintuitive to me.”

Speaking of counterintuitive: 

Overwatch 1 used to use a subscription service. Overwatch 2 moved to F2P. Does this strike you as a move from a company who doesn’t care if F2P players leave? (Overwatch is a game from Blizzard). Since, as you’ve said, companies exist to make money, isn’t the logical conclusion that F2P is a better business model? 

Based on your reasoning:

1. companies exist to make money 
2. Blizzard uses F2P as its business model.
3. Blizzard doesn’t care if F2P players leave.

Can you see how there’s something off in premises? If F2P are to turn into whales like you, they need to stick around long enough to do so. If they leave, do you not understand how it’s something they probably *do* care about? 

The deck build I'm referring to, I haven't seen since shortly before the new set launched - of course, that may be more of a "me" issue, since I refuse to play Standard or even attempt to ladder there in this current environment - but it's also quite possible enough people did exactly what you're asking for and sent it to Blizzard and they realized they got caught and "fixed it”.

Now, isn’t *that* convenient, just when the truth was about to come out. Such bad luck, haha.

There you have it folks, when pressed for evidence, the opposition crumbles into personal attacks. No proof, no substance, nothing.

You know when someone has run short of arguments? They start insulting other people. Sounds familiar? 

Again, 100$ if you provide data to back up your claims. Considering you’re so sure of yourself, it’s easy money. Show some data, provide 10 replays with identical draws from game to game. I dare you to. 

Now don’t get distracted with ad hominem, just focus on proving your point. Good luck! 

This isn’t true. It may seem true but it isn’t. I’m willing to bet it’s not true, money I mean. I bet you 100$ that if we were to compile the first 10 hands played by ten different bots they would differ. We can use PayPal for payment. Let’s determine what statically speaking would prove the bots are cheating and compile some stats and make this happen. 

@op: Are you under the impression that the individuals behind the bot pandemic have any consideration at all for other people? If you are, you're in for rude awakening.

The whole bot infestation is driven solely by profit, period. If they could make more money by roping, they would, don't worry about that. It is essentially parasitic and antisocial. It will potentially end up killing the game too. Once the host is dead, they would move on to other games and try to parasite their way there too. 

On the bright side, a lot of HS Players enjoy playing against bots, so playing only against bots might end up being a good things for everyone.

I mean, you also think that bringing Leeroy Jenkins with the charge mechanic is a good idea because it's a classic character (still haven't gotten over that one, haha). You're entitled to your opinion but generally speaking I'd say we have a very different perception of the game.

As for spending 600$ bucks on the game, did you read that sentence I wrote? It's pretty important if you want to understand my message:

Just to be clear, I'm not judging you on spending that much, I just wasn't even aware that it was possible that people would want to spend that much a year.

I find it surprising that anyone would spend that much. The 600 bucks a year opened up my eyes on how much other people are spending. If people want to spend 1,000$ on Hearthstone they can do anything they like. In a way, that way other people are financing the game for all the F2P players, which is great. Have at it.

But indeed I dropped from spending like 600 per year to maybe 60 at most.

600 bucks a year? 600 BUCKS! Holy mother of god. Are you a millionaire? I honestly thought (naively) people spend like, say, 30 bucks a year on Hearthstone. I've spent money twice: once for a tavern pass and once for some packs, that's over years of playing. So, like maybe 50$ in total? 

The reason I find 600$ shocking is because I never imagined there could ever be a need for it. Just by that initial investment and playing the game, I always had enough dust/gold to get the cards I wanted. I only play one archetype though, that might be it. 

Just to be clear, I'm not judging you on spending that much, I just wasn't even aware that it was possible that people would want to spend that much a year. I guess it explains why the game remains afloat financially. Even a few players spending this much equates to quite a lot of revenue.