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.
You have a 100% chance of getting a legendary when your Sneed's Old Shredder dies. Better than opening a pack? I think the answer is obvious.
What about Golden cards? they should have been released too.
I've opened 130 Un'Goro packs in total, and got 4 legendaries
On average, it's one legendary each 32.5 packs
There you go:
(130 * 32.5 + 95 * 11.8) / 225 ~= 23.
Math confirmed...
Blizzard also stated
"The sun rises from the East"
forgot to mentioned it
I just lost 2 min of my life right here.......
For Un'Goro packs, on release day, I opened ~120 pack and got 6 legendaries.
I don't remember the exact numbers of Old Gods packs opened on day 1, but were nearly the same, something like 22 or 23 packs per legendary gotten.
In last expansion I had legendaries on average at 16 packs, on this one so far is at 23 packs. Weird, just when there are a lot more of Legendaries around...
(I always keep a count of my opened packs :) )
In notifications I saw that one of my HS friends got 2 regular and 1 golden Legendary from 12 packs bought for gold.
For the current expansion, I opened 100 packs and got 2 legends. And then I opened another 100 packs and got 9 legends.
I keep stats on every expansion and the average for legend cards has always been 1/20 or better on average.
But legend cards should come at a more consistent pace. It's very painful to get 2 legends in 100 packs.
People claiming this is BS need to remember: judging by posts on the forums is a classic case of sampling bias. People who hit the average of one Legendary per 20 packs (or better) rarely post about it on the forums, while people who fall into the pity timer range post A LOT. So you're not seeing a perfectly random sample of Hearthstone players reporting their pack results - you mostly see the most pissed off players.
Now I'd like to know the probability of opening golden cards and especially legendaries. People say it's one every 200 packs on average, but the last time I got one was back in 2015 and
519packs ago...EDIT: 520 packs now
I made some calculations and the results seem like this (for a legendary) :
1 pack..................20 packs............................40 packs
2.5%.....................50%....................................100%
With the rate increasing by 2.5% per pack to open a legendary (at least it follows the rule they have said)
this isn't how it works the probability increases much faster the nearer to 40 packs you get, not at a constant rate.
Such that:
Your math is wrong.
https://pitytracker.com/insights
Well I know I got three legendary cards when Un'Goro when I open 40 packs, so the average does seem right.
However that said, knowing that there are more legendary cards in this expansion than in the other expansions released, having a 1 in 20 (up to 40 if RNG isn't on your side) chance of get a Legendary does seem a bit too steep.
Still however you see it, I can see why people complain about not getting Legendary cards too often.
I think my longterm average since I begun playing is about 1 leg per 11-12 packs
edit: in Un'goro I have opened around 170 packs so far and I found 11 or 12 legendaries though, so been slightly worse in Un'goro for me if Im correct