Would You Pay For New Features? Blizzard Asks in a New Hearthstone Survey
Blizzard sent out a 62 page Hearthstone survey to ask players questions about their experience with the game. This happens from time to time and in addition to the survey asking about your gaming experiences, there is usually some sort of question about new features players would like to see; this survey was no different.
Features that have never been included on surveys before have been bolded below. All of these possible features were asked an additional question, which was Would you be willing to pay for any of these features?
Remember that this doesn't mean that Blizzard will be charging for any of these features in the future, they're just gauging interest.
Quote from Blizzard Research SurveyWhich features would improve the game?
- More customization of characters, cards, etc.
- A campaign mode (NEW)
- Better ways to play with my friends
- More chat features
- A tutorial
- Better ways to find new friends
- Better matchmaking, based on cards held, etc. (NEW)
- Guilds / Clans
- A new tournament mode
- More in-game help with deck design (NEW)
- A new mode to be able to play "doubles" with friends
- To play offline (NEW)
Would you pay for any of the Features?
Answer our incredibly scientific poll below.
Survey Gallery
You can find all the questions we were asked in the survey below. Thanks to ShadowsOfSense for the pictures!
tournaments would be a great addition, with some 5 dollar entry or something, and a small prize pool. It would spice hearthstone up for me quite a bit
It's kinda crazy that the majority of things on this list are improvements that Blizzard should be making to the game, regardless of whether or not they will or won't be free. I can't understand why Blizzard would even associate most of these things with money, by framing the question like that and including development work that should obviously be done to the game in updates...
And as for the couple things that might not be expected in the normal course of patch updates, ehhh... I could think of a lot more valuable things to spend money on. In fact, everything on this list should be free; I can't imagine paying for any of it, especially the improvements that should be done regardless. Pretty mindless and inflammatory survey, Blizz...
Remember, the game itself is free, micro-transactions are it's business model - I don't think anyone would mind the option for cosmetic customisation for money, and that was one of the options; It's also a potential way to see how much people -really- want to see something added, if everyone answers the survey that, yes, they want all those features, how can things be prioritised? If someone says they'd pay for it then that potentially means it's something they want more than others (cosmetic versus game-play not withstanding), whether or not they actually choose to make it a paid feature.
Finding out quantitative information on what players would like to see is a valuable endeavour - just because the question about money is being asked, doesn't mean they will do it that way. Co-op mode being behind a pay wall would make me annoyed but I have no problem with the question being asked against a list of a dozen things.
I know that Blizzard is a small Indie gaming company, and that they almost broke their budget by giving us 9 additional deck slots, but there's no reason why a free to play game should require money for anything other than skins. Any feature that can't be acquired through in game currency should have no affect on gameplay.
one of the things i love most about heartstone is that i do not need to be in a guild or play 2v2 or in groups. card games are best played 1v1. that being said campaigns and playing offline would be awesome.
Do they mean pay monthly? b/c i will never do that
Based on reading i feel like they were talking about paying for heroes, cards, adventures, etc just whatever you'd normally pay for in hearthstone.
Blizzard is too greedy these days.
I want them to implement something like Shadowverse's multiplayer with friends, where you can play an Arena game mode against your friends with no rewards. Each player making their own deck, the arena way, then playing against each other.
I'd be happy to pay for these features... with gold.
They need a chat mode like how battle.net was with d2 with different channels u can hang out in and talk to ppl and what not. Meet new ppl and challenge them, form a community etc.
Then also they need a built in tournament mode.
Thing is both of those should be free imo.
I would pay for a 2v2 mode. Though that is only because I've been playing for a while and would welcome it as an expansion of sorts. If I were a new player and saw that 2v2 was behind a paywall, then I'd probably find it unacceptable since it feels like a basic feature, and all basic features in a free to play game should be earnable through in-game means.
I would pay for a full fledged campaign. The production quality doesn't have to be super high (no custom hero assets or cards, etc), I'd rather want as many "levels" as possible, and they got to have a proper difficulty (unlike adventures which are usually either super easy, super easy with a custom deck, or brutally difficult to the point where you just win trough luck).
I'd pay for certain clan/guild features, but I'm not sure what a clan/guild could be used for in the current state of Hearthstone, since there are zero cooperative elements aside from the Mechazod brawl.
I wouldn't pay for this, but better matchmaking would be greatly appreciated. Right now your success as a player on ladder is more based on the deck you use than how good you are at playing the game, at least until you reach high legend. This greatly limits which decks you can use to rank up with, which is further limited by which cards you own, and even further by what you actually enjoy playing. The only upside of the current system is for people who really like building and optimizing decks, which the current system does reward, mostly right after a new set release. Personally I would like a rating system where if you are playing a weaker deck than the average strongest deck, the system will match you with similarly skilled players using similarly weak decks, or with worse players using better decks. So in the current meta, Midrange Shaman would be the only deck with zero handicap since it's the statistically best deck, and something like Mill Rogue would have a lot of handicap. Finding a way to estimate the strength of decks might be a little tricky, but with so many players and with most decks of a certain type being almost identical in their card lists, it should be possible to do something like assign all decks that are similar enough to a broad category, and then crunch match statistics for that category to produce a score similar to what HearthArena does for cards in Arena.
No game replays BibleThump
Tournament mode PogChamp
The question is NOT would you pay for any of the features that were listed in the first image. At the top of that list, it very clearly asks "Which features would improve the game?"
I can't tell if this thread is misleading or if the vast majority the people commenting are stupid. Or both.
Check slide 54: "Which of these would you be willing to pay for?"
They asked both questions as stated prior to the Blizzquote.
How much would the features cost?
2 vs 2 or a tourney mode :)
I would like to see more play modes. For example a mode where you can only use basic/common cards in your deck... or all commons with 1 legendary permitted per deck. That sort of thing will greatly increase the fun of the match and will requiere alot more skill than just copying any net deck. Not only that, we would see a TON of cards being used in these modes which dont suffice in ladder right now. (Ex, Yeti, senjin, etc) Meaning MOST cards will see play, one way or another.
But no, I dont think we should pay for this.