We Learn Nothing New About Card Pack Drop Rates
A new set of rules in China that became active on May 1st requires that games with "loot boxes" publish their odds publicly as to let consumers know what they're getting into. There was a lot of hype surrounding this announcement of these rules because we'd finally learn the deep dark secrets of Hearthstone's card packs, but that's not what happened.
A blog on the Hearthstone China website came out and had this to say about card packs.
- You'll get at least 1 rare, or better, in each pack.
- An epic will be received, on average, in 1 of every 5 packs.
- Legendaries, on average, will be received in 1 of every 20 packs.
- As players open more packs, the actual probability of opening cards with higher quality increases.
TADA! We learned nothing new. Over the past few years, the community itself has done a better job at figuring out the various card drop rates, and even figured out the pity timer. You should check out the card pack statistics page on the Hearthstone Wiki.
Blog Post Translation
Google Translate to the rescue! You should be able to get the gist of it.
Interestingly, the post has been backdated April 2nd. We're assuming this is because they didn't want it to be on the front of their blog and thus widespread knowledge to more casual fans. Fun.
Quote from BlizzardAccording to the relevant national laws and regulations, "slag legend" is now the probability of taking cards to publish, as follows:
Note: "slag legend" card package a total of five cards, including four different quality.
Rare cards
Each slag card package, at least to get a rare or higher quality card.
Epic card
An average of 5 slag card card package, you can get an epic quality card.
Legend card
An average of 20 slag card card package, you can get a legendary quality card.
In addition, it should be noted that: with the number of cards to increase the number of packages, players actually get high-quality card card probability will also increase.
Obviously Blizzard are not telling the truth
They kinda have to, I think they (at least their Chinese department) have to give the code to the government to check, otherwise this regulation would be a waste of time
This is bullshit. I have opened over 30 packs since ungoro and have only recieved 3-4 epics and not a single legendary.
Maybe they are talking about every 20 packs you open and a legendary will be opened by another player
Meanwhile, I opened 12 packs and got 3 legendaries. Both are too small of a sample size to say the frequency. I really don't think Blizzard is lying. Some of us just get lucky. Some of us don't.
That's how averages work. You're due a legendary, the bad luck protection is slowly kicking in. You got unlucky, it happens. Lucky people don't come to forums to complain, that's why you don't see many claiming to be lucky here.
lul :D
that's closer to the truth :D
well i open 1 pack everyday . For last 3 weeks i got 2 epics and 0 legendaries
Point?
well since ungoro i opened packs everyday and with extra packs they gave only got 2 legendaries , shit ton of duplicates in same packs etc.. my point is i do not believe in their pity anymore. as if blizzard forcing players to buy more packs by decreasing legendary drop compared to before. At least this is what i feel like. Try to buy 15 packs from shop with cash and open 15 packs normally with gold. i feel like there is a difference in that.
Well I saw several thinks like you said here. But comparing so small amount of packs like 15 or 20 actually doesn't proove a lot. If I compare my legedary ratio from preorde 50 packs and 70 packs by gold. It's almost no difference. Preorder - 4 leg, by gold - 4 (one duplicate, one golden) it's in fact like 1 leg per 15 packs.... Bu I have my stats for all HS history and e.g. for Old Gods I had only like 1/30. If count 700 pack I bought all the time, the ration is around 1/17 (counting duplicates in). It's just about a fortune and time. Logicaly if you buy more packs you should be closer to the 1/20 ration, it's just logic. GL
Game is dying and is not sustainable in its current state. Plenty of financial articles about this. It's confusing why they don't take the basic measures to keep their current base happy which would be the best advertisement possible to bring potential new base in or, back. Does no one in employ there have a marketing degree??
You may not like it but to say the game is dying is just plain wrong. Especially considering they've hit 70 million players and have more people playing daily and monthly than ever before with the release of Un'goro. So I'd be interested to see these financial articles claiming otherwise.
well if you get one next pack its still 1 in 23.5 so very close to average so that doesnt really mean anything yet
also even if you get the 2nd legendary in 80th pack (1 in 40, pity timer) if you get the next 2 in 10 packs its still 4 legendaries in 100 packs so 1 in 25, close to average
Even though every legendary i get is after 30 packs -_-
I agree with you. I opened 160 packs when the latest expansion was released and I only received 4 legionaries. After that I decided not to purchase anymore until the next expansion.
Wish there was a pity timer for epics. Takes me in average 12 packs to get one of those. At least my legendary drops are just fairly below normal.
Your google works different than mine. Most data supports the rates blizzard states and not yours :\.
Isnt there a pity timer for epics already? Kripp is always talking about it, he is saying that its 10packs or so...
The big question for me is whether the cards are selected rarity first (as in Shadowverse) or card first (as in Pokémon Go, where the Pokémon come before the eggs). In other words, does Blizzard first determine rarity based on some table of odds, then pick a card randomly from the selected rarity, or does it rather just given each card a chance of being selected based on rarity, pick one, and then merely display the rarity. I've monkeyed around with both options quite a bit but can't find a simple formula for either method that generates the types of odds we actually observe, no matter how I try to account for the pity timer and the guaranteed non-common.
A way to distinguish between the two methods would be getting some good data from Un'Goro with large numbers of packs. Since Un'Goro had more legendaries than normal, if the card-first method was used, the odds of a legendary probably went up a bit (23/20, or a 7.5% increase). If the rarity-first method is used, it probably stayed constant. I haven't seen any bulk Un'Goro data yet, though.