Hearthpwn

My corporate employer is more and more often focused on increasing profits for the next quarter. Long-term strategizing has very much been put in the back seat in favor of finding ways to increase profit NOW. To me, this move by Blizzard (or whoever owns them these days) smells like exactly such a strategy - no consideration of the long term in favor of pressuring people to play more NOW, spend more NOW, etc. It's the same as locking the last quest line behind having the Joymancer card. It's stupid and short-sighted, but that seems to be how many corporations are operating these days (hint - look at corporations blatantly ripping people off at grocery stores now). To me, the fact that Blizzard devs are quiet about these moves tells me their managers have a hand in these decisions.

Why do they keep doing this? Stop. Get help.

A part of me was praying they would retire Hearthstone and roll out Hearthstone 2 (ridiculous, I know) so I would no longer be in the thrall of FOMO, and that my collection would be 'complete' and be something I could revisit from time to time (super ridiculous, I know). Hearthstone gives me some occasional dopamine but it gradually got less and less fun. That doesn't mean it doesn't have high points or isn't fun at all at times, and that I didn't have hope that it would become generally more fun at some point in the future, but I think I was just clinging to that, and got taken advantage of with that specifically. Sometimes when I look at an old minion or hear their voice acting it takes me back years to the time when the game was simply a joy to play, and this makes the game stickier, too.

Just before the 10th anniversary I was considering quitting (played since beta). I was also considering writing an 'I'm leaving' post somewhere on the Internet so that my little adventure with the game could leave a tiny trace, and to express my dissatisfaction with what the game has become. Then the 10th comes, a new event comes, expansion, whatever. Maybe I'll stick around since it looks sort of fun (the usual expac trap).

Then this happens. Well, these geniuses have actually done it. They've figured out a way for me to quit a game I've played regularly for almost TEN YEARS. I'm going to wait to see what the response to all this is, and if it's not a major restructuring of the game and team vision, or something similarly satisfactory, I'm probably going to dust every single card I've accumulated over the past decade to make sure there's nothing left to return to should the itch arise. Maybe their analytics will pick up that disturbance in the tavern as a blip on the radar, as thousands of cards cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

Ben Brode was so right.

We created this post for you to vent your feelings over this change, submit ideas for what needs to change, or leave comments on what you are going to do after this change has been made.

This was smart, thank you for letting me pontificate.

 It's like Blizzard is trying to break up with us but doesn't have the courage to come out and say it.  Instead it treats us worse and worse, hoping that we'll be the ones to end the relationship.  Sort of like the time that my ex, Emma, locked me out of the house.

It wasn't that long ago that I held Blizzard up as an example of a good software house that deserved my money. It's no exaggeration to say that those days are over.  I'm feeling unvalued as a customer and I feel no good will towards the company.

I'm not given to hyperbole but I am starting to wonder how much more of this I'm willing to put up with.  

If it wasn't against the rules to sell your Blizzard account, I'd be considering cashing it all in.

I guess the change is good for all hardcore players who will complete the quests no matter what. They'll just have higher rewards. Then again there is the question whether for those players the slightly higher rewards have any actual impact. The casual players are screwed. If the quests would yield partial xp as you progress, like 10% of the xp if you complete 10%, then that would be much better for casual players. In the end though it's just bad press for Blizzard and casual players being bummed. And all that for nothing. Blizzard doesn't gain anything by that. I mean sure, someone up there might think "then they play more and we have a higher player count", but if they make Hearthstone less and less attractive that will backfire. Having said that, I recently tried MTG Arena again and I think a new set was released today.

This is a very bad change, way to many games and I can only see it have negative impact on the game.

For starters the increase in wins will for sure increase the amount of botters in the game which also will decrease the diversity since most botters just have the most popular aggressive deck lined up game after game and the amount of botters is already high so many games versus DH's the last weeks I'm almost 100% sure they were bots rather than players not that hard to spot.

Quite sure the change will also cause quite a few players that was already on the ropes to take the step to quit the game and tbh a casual player is still better than someone that doesnt play at all. The weekly and dailys being casual is just positive for the player count and something that also makes it alright to pickup the quests will be terrible for new players and push them away from the game.

Sad to say but to me this just smells pure greed to decrease the casual players gold income in a way so they are hoping they buy packs instead. Because its absolutly targeting the players that plays the least for players who play 2-3 hours a day this won't change much.

Also if the wins is gonna go up they should combine it into one quest instead of two, having to win 30 games across several modes is just annoying especielly during stale metas.

I have been playing HS everyday for 6+ years
Now there are 2 options:
1- Quitting the game because you have to spend more time for less reward
2- Don't care about finishing the quests and spend money
I can't spend money, so I like the first option...

Late stage live service gaming.

best summary comment

The exact opposite way to reduce botting

so completing quests has become a full-time job? 

my feeling is they dont want that players have before a new expansion, 5000 or 6000 gold to spend on packs for free (that are 50 or 60 packs), that means less people buying bundles and packs with money, now mutiple for tens of thousands of players and they are "losing" millions.

i said this because i play almost every day, but not like 4 or 5 hours... and i end up every expansion with 5000 and something and normally i spend the first 1000 gold that i win in packs...

this was only an economic decision from the top, i dont believe the devs and ppl who work with the community (pros/streamers, hsreplay, hearthpwn etc...) make this decision.

Hopefully the last step for me to finally quit this crap. Till now i was still loitering around because i invested too much time to build my collection. I just need a kick in the ass to quit. Maybe this will be the kick.

If its bli$$ard$ intention to coerce players into investing money into this lottery game, they will fail. At least regarding me.

This is absolutely me. This game had captured me because of the collection I've amassed since beta. Every single monthly cardback, and FOMO to get the next one. I'm probably gone, too.

My honest reaction.

To be fair, it is April.

*shrugs* That's me ignoring quests from now on.

I'll go back to an argument I had back when the tavern pass was first introduced...considering the number of games that are releasing every single year, and the growing number of live service models getting adopted, you'd think a team behind a game that at its peak had tens of millions of people playing every day would figure out the best ways of keeping their player base interested in playing the game and wanting to come back because of the fun and desire to experiment, or anything that's enjoyable.

Grinding quests is anything but enjoyable.

I've had the same reaction when they introduced achievements, instead of something simple and rewarding, we got more grind for next to no reward...

This a dangerous move. As most people already said they increased the objectives so much just so people accept the change to a lower bar without barging to the previous they were.

With the removel of duels whoch was probably not profitable for them and costed a lot of resources but a lot of people like me spent more time on that mode than in the others and the questions were completed. They increased this also to keep people more time online, increasing player variety now in the remaining modes and watching all the skins and other stuff that people buy, keeping luring them to buy them too.

As a f2p since beta I will say that without duels, without a good rewarding system in arena and the only playable modes being wild and standard I will rather not even touch the weekly and playing something else. I will not commit my time to grind those rewards. If I wanted insane grind I would go back to Diablo 4 (that I regret buying).