Hearthstone's next update is going to be a big one and with it comes an upgrade to the system that gives new and returning players a free deck. Originally, this system made its debut with Year of the Phoenix when the Ashes of Outland expansion arrived, so a huge quality of life update is welcome almost 3 years after the release.
The update will allow players to test six "loaner decks" during their first week in the game, which should help players catch up on where the action is at. After the week is over, they will be able to select one of the six decks to keep permanently. Blizzard is hopeful that this will let players make a more informed decision about which deck to add to their collection.
Quote From Blizzard Starting with Patch 24.6, new and returning players* will have an upgraded free deck experience. Instead of being immediately asked to choose a free deck to rejoin the ladder with, they will be able to test six loaner decks for one week before selecting one to permanently add to their collection for free! We’re excited that this will give new and returning players a variety of options to immediately jump onto the ladder with, and help them make a more informed decision about how they want to reignite their collections.
* Includes players who didn’t play the Murder at Castle Nathria expansion. See the official post for decklists and eligibility details.
What do you think? Will such a change get players who return to stick around longer if they get a chance to get a more varied meta experience?
Comments
Disclaimer: I strongly dislike most of the broad decisions Team 5 has made and absolutely do not like the current direction of the game.
That said: this is easily one of the best ideas the devs have ever had.
This is only upside for the customer with the tiny exception of the FOMO caused when you lose access to the new decks. But even that is acceptable because we (as a society) have low-key decided/accepted that some FOMO is acceptable in a f2p game in order to make it profitable in capitalism. And this level of FOMO is way beneath the bar.
Even if the decks suck, this is still a good idea. You're giving players exposure to the game and they can learn what cards suck. It's not the best execution in this case, but positives still beat negatives even here.
From the dev/owner side, I don't know if it will help retention, but it will definitely increase play rates. People into the game will likely run all the decks. I can't see how it could possibly hurt retention. It doesn't even hurt the bottom line much: you must give returning/new players new cards in order for them to engage the game at all so you're not losing much in the way of more FOMO generation, and you're not even giving them all the cards forever. There are costs in hiring a curator to make decks (note that Team 5 is shockingly bad at that, but as mentioned above, that's not a serious downside since it doesn't matter much if the decks suck) but outside of that and the programming, that's it. Seems cheap.
This not only helps newbies/returning players, it doesn't upset or even disturb existing players. Just wins all around.
More of this, and possibly more of whoever thought of this.
Great way to make the game more approachable for new players.
This doesn`t make a difference for me, because I play HS every week.
But I think this is still a nice change to give new and returning players a better chance to get (back) into the game. This way they can make a more reasoned choice how to invest their gold and dust. :)
I mean, I think the game should be cheaper so this is a step in the right direction. I actually quit Hearthstone for a year August 2021 - 2022 because I was so annoyed by the investment into Mercenaries over tons of issues with the core game. However, it's been a lot of fun returning this fall, and getting the free deck absolutely helped get me back into the game (the meta is way better now too than at the release of United in Stormwind).
I think the entire digital CCG model is poisoned from the success of real-world MtG which I quit 25 years ago (yes, I'm old) because of the expense (I was a kid with no money; I'm not that old). To me it's ridiculous that with a $50 pre-order purchase and daily play that I don't achieve a full expansion collection before the next one rolls out. I'm also annoyed that there was no single player content for Castle Nathria because they're still investing in Mercenaries. There are so many cool ways they could incentivize play with a large collection, not make that collection impossible to achieve, and still get dollars in through large and small transactions. I'm not expecting big things anytime soon, but I'll take anything that moves the needle in the right direction.