Could Hearthstone Players on iOS Soon be Buying Dust Instead of Card Packs?
Note: Blizzard has not yet made an official statement on the change.
Back in June, Hearthstone players in China were no longer able to buy card packs but instead were purchasing a small amount of Arcane Dust with their money. As a bonus for their purchase, card packs were thrown into the mix as a "gift" for their dust purchase.
Why did Blizzard make this change? This is because of a change to laws in China regarding loot boxes in video games where it was required for video games to publish the odds of their drop rates.
The shop interface for Hearthstone in China.
So then, why on Azeroth are iOS players potentially buying dust soon? That's thanks to a policy change in Apple's App Store.
The Apple App Store Update on Loot Boxes
In the Apple App Store guidelines, a document which details the rules app devs must follow to get through the app approval process, there is now a section which states apps need to make note of the odds of receiving each type of item to customers.
- Apps offering “loot boxes” or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase.
With this addition, it looks like Hearthstone will need to go the same way as it did in China to prevent disclosure of the drop rates which would be accomplished through giving players another object and tack on card packs as a gift. The alternative would be to cut the crap and officially state card drop rates which have been well known for years at this point. On the plus side if they do try to get around it by using arcane dust and not disclosing the odds, it's a little bit more dust in everyone's pockets which will help craft the powerhouses we need for our decks.
Rarity Distribution in Card Packs Today
Card rarity distribution hasn't changed since Hearthstone launched, though players will see slightly more Legendaries now thanks to a guaranteed Legendary in your first 10 packs for each set. The following rarity distribution is from our TGT community card pack opening and is still inline with other documented, more recent pack openings.
Rarity | Normal | Golden | Total | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Legendary | 696 | 0.94% | 56 | 0.08% | 752 | 1.01% |
Epic | 3029 | 4.09% | 143 | 0.19% | 3172 | 4.28% |
Rare | 16017 | 21.61% | 934 | 1.26% | 16951 | 22.87% |
Common | 52153 | 70.36% | 1097 | 1.48% | 53250 | 71.84% |
Total | 71895 | 96.99% | 2230 | 3.01% | 74125 | 100.00% |
We've also got some totally new information from Blizzard China from in May which was posted with loot box regulations in mind.
- 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.
It's possible we could see the above being enough for the Apple App Store and it wouldn't require Blizzard to provide the actual drop rates which means they won't need to move forward with giving users dust for their money instead.
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.
Loot Boxes: How Do You Feel?
It's been a very popular topic in gaming communities over the past few weeks thanks to EA and their garbage with Star Wars: Battlefront II having absurd lengths of time being required for character unlocks unless you buy loot boxes and I'd like to know how everyone else feels about loot boxes both specifically with Hearthstone and then with other titles.
And before you comment, remember that developers in large companies usually aren't the people deciding how much stuff sells for and the drop rates for these; There's a whole different team of people to thank for this. Don't be a dick to game developers and call them out personally. Attacking developers, especially when they aren't even to blame for the fiasco, pushes them away from interacting with the community and then everyone gets upset no one comes out to talk with us anymore.
What platform? Consoles, maybe, but I don't think it could ever happen wide scale on PC, when most big game companies host their own games. Valve will DEFINITELY never drop lootboxes, and Blizz won't do it on PC unless it becomes illegal to do otherwise.
Well there has been a whole lot of news going around about lootboxes. Mainly because of star wars battlefront 2, and I see it fully possoble that changes will need to be made by blizzard because of that. I really encourage anyone to go to the youtube of chris lee, representative of hawai and see what work he is doing on this because this whole lootbox thing is a good discussion that we also need to have in the hearthstone community.
How is possible that i play hearthstone for 3 years, opened shit load of packs and never get a single golden legendary? All my friends have at least one and i play more them they :(
It's called probability.
Or pretty shit luck. I'm not whiny about that.. I just wanted to find out how many of you guys have the same.
nah i think you are looking for "Bad Luck"
Ture blizz could sell dust.10.000 ( 10k Dust are worth 80 Euros round about). I dont think that anyone will be happy with it. It also would make the game more stale than anything. Card games need packs and so on. Otherwise it dosent have the flavor anymore... Also OW and HotS lootboxes are pure cosmetic while other game use them to sell more content. I think a lot of people dont understand that lootboxes for pure cosmetic items are not the problem. Again in a card game it should be nessesary because otherwise it would be a board game like chess over time and lose there spirit.
just opened 35 packs yesterday and didnt get 1 legendary.
although during K and C launch i opened 120 and got 8 legends so that was cool (+the freebie).
Still to open 35 packs and not get one legend is kind of insane blizzard... Your making your big spenders that keep your game running question if they want to spend more. 100$ should get me all the cards of a set.
It's not insane, the pity timer limit is 40 packs, if you open 39 packs (of the same expansion) and don't get a legendary, you're guaranteed a legendary on the 40th pack.
wow so yesterday i bought 60 packs for 87 CND
Got 2x Golden legendaries, 3x normal legendaries
the golden legendaries were back to back
That won't happen cuz it would mean less money for Blizzard, also they want players to have the same feeling you have when you open a rare card in a physical TCG pack.
So they want us to continue gambling? Which is what the current system is. Its loot box/crate gambling. No difference at all between card packs and loot boxes.
The current method was fine up until adventures were discontinued. Something needs to change. My friend bought 250 K&C packs and only has 3/4 of the set after disenchanting duplicates. Most of the cards he did get were useless filler cards that stink of lazy design. 250 packs for not a complete set? That's horrendous!
What i can say i opened 33 packs only 1 legendary thx blizz
its still RNG. Pitty timer is at 40 packs.
Loot boxes will stop in all games when the regulation is passed (world - wide) that classifies them as gambling, then...
Persons under the age of 18 are not permitted to gamble..
The one time EA did something good, is reveal how greedy as fuck Activision-Blizzard is. Fuck you Blizzard. I hope congress brings the smackdown on your asses for all the loot box shit you did to Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone.