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.
a news that's 3,5 years too late
because it always was this way and never changed
I don't understand. They didn't change anything. They are just repeating what we have known from collecting player statistics for years. Nothing was ever broken.
What? There was nothing to fix. There is no conspiracy that Blizzard had adjusted Un'Goro drop rates to be low so that nobody could get legendaries easily. You're just unlucky.
Yes, they regularly cheking your child salty posts here and they modifed the algorithms just for you to have lower chance to get legendaries. Sureeee...
You cant have 5-6 epics in 80 packs because the pity timer on the epic is like 10 packs.
Best case scenario you have to double Blizzards numbers and then you realise that you are close to real numbers...If there were correct I would have almost all legendaries by now or at least most of them,same with epics!I take this as a try to make players believe and go buy more packs..
We came to the exact same numbers by ourselves. Blizzard definitely isn't lying. You can literally look at large data samples of people opening packs and that is what they are getting on average.
Its a shame but I am not too worried about it. What we know is pretty accurate. And even if we knew the exact numbers, people would still call it lies. What I recommend to salty people is to revisit primary school math.
@KaptainTrips
Are you saying that we should start calling pessimistic complainers something else instead of Salty? How about Sodium Chloride?
Except your sample size is like what, 103?
More than 60 packs, only 1 Legendary... FeelsBadMan :(
The regulations must not have been as strict as people originally thought... Either that, or Blizzard is flexing its nuts with China and trying to win the showdown game, because they have so much economic influence in China to use as leverage. I'd guess that it's the former, and the news sites that originally reported this didn't dig deep enough to figure out that the regulations don't require strict, exact transparency... In which case, what they provided (which we already knew) was sufficient enough.
Originally, back when people were assuming the regs would require exact transparency, I figured Blizzard would rather do away with packs in China completely, and change the system to some kind of crafting-only system, with dust as the only currency. Apparently though, if what they provided was actually enough, then yeah they lucked out and the Western gaming media just wasn't digging deep enough (or they were purposely making it seem more sensational that it actually was).
Either way, I think it's an interesting precedent for gaming in China. I'm curious to see if the trend will continue in other countries as the video game economy proves its value, because in my opinion a little regulation here and there would help consumers. Like this aspect; the RNG thing... There's no reason we should have to feel like we're gambling with unknown odds when we're spending money as customers of video game companies. If it's a gambling game, of course; whatever... But I think we could use a little more transparency with this kinda stuff, because if it's left unchecked, things will just spiral more out-of-control. In-app purchases with random elements are a lot more profitable for companies than single purchases, so gaming companies will run wild with it if we don't put some boundaries on them today.
But... but... the tinfoil hats!!!
Its all about the KNAWWWLEDGE. I open one card pack a day.
Passive aggressive much? Not sure why people are surprised a company is meeting the letter of the law when it comes to company secrets.