I had already beat the Hunter Book of Heroes but had to restart it when there was a reward tied to it. After winning round 1, the game recognized that I had beaten the content and gave me the reward. I closed it and didn't finish the run. Now I can't concede (it just restarts the attempt over and over) so I have to beat those before I can access the Warrior Book. :(
All pretty good changes. Killmox is still bad at +1/+1, though. His health needs to not scale up (and maybe start at 5 to compensate?) b/c he quickly becomes too hard to kill.
Currently level 38 with 1761/5800 towards 39. Obviously, that will change a bit next week with the patch. The 20% reduction should make this thing reasonable and much more likely to meet the dev's goal of providing better rewards. It's been a week since my last post so I jumped from 29 to 38 in 8 days.
I'd estimate 60% standard ranked with 30% duels & 10% arena. I did not purchase the pass. I hit 1000 wins with Demon Hunter over the weekend so my time will be mostly Duels and Arena moving forward. Once I hit diamond 5 (currently at 8) each season I'll say goodbye to ranked play.
All calculations I have seen, including the calculations provided by the design team, show a reduction in gold for any player that plays less than 3 hours per day. It's disappointing that the bean counters at BlizzAvision chose to force casual players to pay more or fall behind/quit rather than launching a system that would bring players back and improve the player experience.
So sad they aren't even acknowledging our existence. I hope it blows up in their face.
Well, technically, they are acknowledging our existence. They're just making it clear they don't find our current expenditures to be substantial enough.
With the ranked reset to start the month, you will see those players for a few days. Then they will rise up the ranks quickly and you should start to face more appropriately ranked players.
Omg this is such a TLDR showdown. Let's make it simple: HS is the best CCG out there so much so it made the game it ripped off be awful in comparison. Magic made tons of money over those years. So the cash grab worked. Now they are going to have to adapt bc game and favor is waning. My guess is that will be slowly.
lol.... still one of the best things about this site, for me. Discussions are civil, well constructed, and (generally) free of short/useless/troll posts.
To me it's all very simple: the casual player gets screwed over by the new system. That's a tremendously lousy move by blizzard. I have never seen the outrage at the current level and I think it will absolutely have a detrimental effect on the number of players that stick with HS, and that's a shame.
I fully expect that my ~1.5 hour per day gaming will have me fall well short of my usual earnings. I find that completely unacceptable. I've already decided to stop all purchases and have started LoR to get up to speed over the course of this reward track. What's worse is that the clear bad faith by BlizzAvision makes me unlikely to restart purchases even if they throw some "mystery events" at us to boost XP. I'm no whale, but my ~$100 per year tacked on to how ever many other ~$100 per year players will likely add up. My friends list, which is only anecdotal evidence, seems to reflect a decline in player interest. At any previous set launch I would see ~50 friends online playing whenever I logged in each day. With this set, I see 12-20.
A thought occurred to me. Perhaps part of the rewards system revamp/battlepass system is a first step in a direction that disincentives against aggro deck farming.
There were (and still are) people who think the only way to play is to play aggro decks because the old system encouraged fast games with aggro decks to farm wins (3x wins=10 gold). This of course promoted aggro play by people who wanted to farm the maximum per-day gold.
The new system with experience being generated on a variable game-length basis doesn't incentivize any particular deck. (if you spend 4 minutes in 1 game, 16 in the next, you're still getting 20 minutes of experience regardless of the deck you are playing).
This system of "growth" coupled with the ranked floor changes from the beginning of the year allows people to play decks they want to play, as opposed to playing strictly meta decks or strictly aggro decks. From my perspective this is a positive outcome. Perhaps not exactly the view people were looking for... "Blizz bad, me get pitchfork" but still I try to look at things to see what other reasons the system was changed.
That is a positive of the system, and it's not the only positive. Gaining XP in arena is huge for arena players (though the mode is hurting) and achievement hunting is something people enjoy. There are plenty of positive changes.
The problem is they are lost in the tidal wave of negative Blizzard brought on themselves.
The better way to discourage gold farming would have been to revamp the system into a wholly more reasonable economy. Farming is less of a concern if players can actually craft the cards they want to play without fear of choosing wrong and being set back by months of play time to catch up again.
I completely agree there is value to those items. Your post seems like a reasonable delve into the value but, ultimately, you agree the value is not 1:1 with gold.
The context is everything here. Again, the concern was absolute and specific: will we earn the same amount of gold in between expansions? The answer is no.
For one, a very recent analysis by Bunnyhopper suggests that lots of players will end up with more gold not less at the end of the expansion (https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srg57g). But more to the point, gold doesn't matter, and neither do packs really - all that matters is cards. Gold is only in contention here because specific things were said about gold, and historically it's the most direct way for F2P players to get new cards at the start of an expansion. Blizzard could just as easily have said "we're getting rid of gold entirely, and will be rewarding you with new 'player packs' that you can trade in for packs of any set you want" and you'd have a functionally equivalent system because gold is just a means to more cards.
My contention with your original point was not that the non-gold rewards were all equivalent to the gold rewards in value, but rather that you shouldn't throw them out of the analysis entirely the way you did. Understanding their gold-equivalent value is important to understanding the overall value to the player. The question that actually matters is not "will I get more gold?" but rather "will I get more new cards?" That question just happens to be easiest to answer in terms of gold-equivalence because gold still buys cards in the same way it used to, and gold is an easy tool for comparing to the old reward system. (Gold is also a good but imperfect way to measure card acquisition concretely, as it's easy to count packs from gold, but card probabilities from packs is largely opaque.)
Your conclusion that "analysis by Bunnyhopper suggests that lots of players will end up with more gold" seems vague. How are you defining "lots of players" in this situation?
I'd have to do some digging to source it [edit: source], but team 5 is on record stating that ~75% of players were below rank 15 in the old ranked system. That seems to suggest that most players are not putting in more than an hour per day, since even schlub's like me reach rank 5 with 1 hour per day of play. This suggests that most players are playing less than the 3 hours per day in Bunnyhopper's calculations. My math, which is actually supported by Bunnyhopper's math that you linked, suggests that all players that are under 3 hours per day will earn less. Combining both suggests that 75% of the player base will earn less gold in this new system. Again, I'll mention that those calculations are based on the minimum we'd earn in the old system.
This is why I feel that the bad faith started with Blizzard, and why I disagree with your assessment that the player base is arguing in bad faith.
I will say it's not cool for people to be attacking streamers and/or devs on their channels/streams. That's not going to help and is way out of line.
It may be helpful to mention the game mode and time played per day to get a feel for how different play styles are progressing.
I'm level 29 (close to 30 with 3598/4050 XP) while playing roughly 90 minutes per day. I'd guess 70% standard ranked, 25% arena, and down to 5% duels because it is so poorly balanced.
I did one queue into Battlegrounds and afk'd it but feel like that's a terrible thing to do to players that like that mode so I won't do that again and will not be reaching any BG achievements. Now I'm sticking to playing my way to get a true measure of how I progress in the new system that is supposed to reward us the same or more while playing our way. I should be able to reach 1000 wins with DH over the next few weeks.
Card rewards, packs from old sets, and Tavern Tickets cannot be used to buy packs...Assigning values to those non-gold rewards is disingenuous because those rewards are not 1:1 equivalent to gold, as they can’t be used to buy packs.
This is not really fair.
Card rewards for legendary and epic cards enable you to buy fewer packs. If I'm planning to get a full collection, then after about 50 packs or so I've got all the common and rare cards. A legendary comes in about 1 out of every 20 packs, so in some sense, that free legendary has saved me the cost of 20 packs. (Note that my math on this does not value a Legendary card at 2000 gold, but the 1 in 20 packs is illustrative of my point that they enable me to buy fewer packs on my way to a full set.) We can reasonably debate what the right gold-equivalent value of those is, but it's clear that anything that enables you to spend less gold on an expansion has a gold-equivalent value.
Tavern Tickets translate to Arena runs and Heroic Duels runs, which net packs of the latest set and gold. They are effectively much better than gold, as you can save them up until the next expansion and spend them to get packs and gold with which you can get more packs (all while completing your daily quests).
Packs from old sets are complicated, but it's clear they're not worth nothing because the dust you get from them can go toward crafting new cards. Where it gets tricky is in determining how much they should be valued.
Let's start with an extreme case, where the player in question has a full collection. Every pack from every set has the exact same value until a new set comes out. When the new set comes out, those new packs have dramatically greater value, but that value difference drops significantly after about 50 or so packs when all that's left to collect is the epics and legendary cards. The new packs are still more valuable because every now and then they'll provide some new card, but oftentimes you'll just get a bunch of common and rare cards you already have, all of which become dust. Those packs are basically the same value as a pack from any other set.
A much more common case is that the player in question doesn't have every card in every set, which shrinks the value differential even further because there are lots of older epic and legendary cards that see play in top tier decks (e.g. Kayn Sunfury and Soulciologist Malicia in Soul DH, Lady Liadrin and High Abbess Alura in Pure Pally, and Dragonbane and Lorekeeper Polkelt in Face Hunter).
Yes, everyone saves up gold to buy cards from the new expansion. But that's not because everyone collected up full collections and don't get anything new from old packs, it's because they know they'll get a lot more out of that gold by buying all the common and rare cards of the next set, plus a couple of legendaries. But that's not a compelling case for saying that a pack from an older set has zero gold-equivalent value. Given that much of the time, packs of each set are worth the same (i.e. some amount of dust because they're all dupes), it's at most a decent case for saying that a pack from an older set has less value than 100 gold (though how much less will vary by player).
I completely agree there is value to those items. Your post seems like a reasonable delve into the value but, ultimately, you agree the value is not 1:1 with gold.
The context is everything here. Again, the concern was absolute and specific: will we earn the same amount of gold in between expansions? The answer is no. It's still no even with the added 1350 on the track, and that is only when compared to the absolute minimum gold earned in the old system. Devs plainly stated we'd earn the same if not more and that is false.
I have very little faith I'll hit level 72 (just to break even) without an event dumping a large amount of XP. I refuse to play the game a different way to earn the same gold. The devs even stated we'd earn more for playing the way we want to play and I haven't even brought that aspect into the discussion, or the free legendary card at launch being moved to the reward track. I don't have any desire to achievement hunt (though I am glad it's available for those that do) and expect I'll fall well short of the achievement totals quoted by Nervig.
There are certainly some bad-faith arguments in the community. There always are, and always will be because this is the internet and, in general, people are stupid. Lots of old, bad blood comes up that isn’t relevant to the rewards track, and that obfuscates the root problem.
The root problem is simple. The community was specific and absolute in its response to the leaked survey: The gold earned between expansions is saved to buy packs of the newest set. The first iteration of the rewards track looked like it would reduce the amount of gold earned. Card rewards, packs from old sets, and Tavern Tickets cannot be used to buy packs. (This is something Blizzard has pulled before with arena rewards 4-5 years ago, adding packs and cards into the loot boxes to reduce the amount of gold earned.) Assigning values to those non-gold rewards is disingenuous because those rewards are not 1:1 equivalent to gold, as they can’t be used to buy packs.
So, was the gold earned reduced?
For me, the simplest way to calculate the gold earnings is to use a casual, 1 hour per day player. This player can log in, reroll & clear a daily quest, and win 3 games. This player would have earned a minimum of 60 gold each day over the 120 days used in Chad Nervig’s example, linked here. A very simple calculation in the old system (60gold x 120days) shows this player earns a minimum of 7200 gold.
Using Nervig’s charts, we can calculate the total gold under the initial version and the updated version that removed packs and added 1350 gold.
Daily Quests:
120days x 1000xp
= 120,000xp
Weekly Quests:
17weeks x (2500xp + 1750xp + 1750xp)
= 102,000xp
Ranked Playtime:
120days x 1hour x 400xp
= 48,000xp
Darkmoon Achievements:
75% x 14,800xp
= 11,100xp
Duels Achievements:
75% x 12,500xp
= 9,375xp
TOTAL: 290,475xp
290,475 XP puts our player at level 72. In the initial version of the rewards track, level 72 earned our player 6300 gold. The player base went ballistic because it was clear the gold earned would be lower than the minimum we had in the old system. The new rewards track grants a total of 7650 gold at level 72 now, which is better but still below the more accepted total of 8000-8500 gold most would earn in our 1-hour-casual example.
There are also several big issues just with play time and quests:
Our 1-hour Casual player would earn more if they won 6 games in that hour under the old system
Our 1-hour Casual would earn more if they have a few 100 gold quests over that 120 days
This player would earn more if they were gifted any Challenge a Friend quests.
They could earn that minimum in 30 minutes of play with a top deck (this would cut their XP down to 24000, knocking them down to level 66 and removing another 900 gold)
There are also several big issues with the game becoming even more expensive:
Achievements requiring Legendary and Epic cards will deplete a player’s dust reserve while crafting cards that may not be viable in other modes
Mini-set bundling into existing set packs means lower chances to open those new cards (Buy Packs Now!)
Duels has the best starting treasures locked behind collection requirements for DMF epics
On top of all of that, the system makes progress feel much slower. The only time I see any indication that I’ve progressed is when I get the required XP to move up a level. There are complaints by players that want to start an arena/duels run but can no longer grind gold that day, instead being forced to wait several days if they are staring down a few feelsbadman pack levels between their current level and the next gold reward.
Then we add Blizzard’s response via Ben Lee that tells us we didn’t have all the information needed about XP from additional events. Of course, that response didn’t bother to give us any of the information we were missing, only the promise that there will be more XP and bonus events “as needed” and that we should blindly accept that they “will stay true to” their word.
There are positives to the new system but they were crushed by a tidal wave of negatives because of Blizzard's bad-faith gold-equivalent math, substituting rewards that can't buy packs and considering the value assigned to be equal.
You are not alone in how you feel. This system is a huge disappointment. I made a detailed post about it in this thread, but the basic conclusion is that we need to hit what appears to be an unobtainable level in order to earn the minimum gold we would have earned in the old daily quest system.
"At level 50 we still need 3300 gold to reach the 8500 gold mark. Which means we need 22 more level up rewards @ 150 each. At level 72 we hit the mark, which is the low end of what the original system allowed."
Level 72 seems like a long shot based on how slow progress becomes at levels in the 20s.
Prior to staring my usual Sunday morning routine (Hearthstone and some Forzathon Live runs) I decided to redo the math on the rewards track. I'm a bit sluggish and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so I could certainly be off or have omitted something.
In the old system of daily quests and daily gold I am assuming earnings of 8500 gold per expansion, which is a low estimate based on 70g per day if 50g quest plus 6 wins. Better quests / re-rolls should have most above this figure playing a short time each day.
This calculation ignores:
all cosmetics and all packs from prior sets since they cannot be saved to purchase packs from the next set, which is what gold was saved for in the prior reward structure. Blizzard knows these packs are trash rewards and is insulting us by including their “value” in calculations.
the first legendary at level 1 since that was previously given out when a new expansion launched, anyway.
the second legendary at level 25 to offset the massive amount of dust required to craft legendary & epic cards needed to chase achievements, and that's being super generous.
This calculation includes:
all 7 Darkmoon Faire packs since they can be acquired while the pack is still relevant, though level 40 and 46 may be too late.
both Tavern Tickets since they certainly have a 150 gold value, even if it’s not useful to all players.
At level 50 we will have earned 5200 gold, though 700 is "spent" on packs and 300 on arena/duels entry. (Gold calculation: 7 MDF packs = 700, 2 Tavern Tickets = 300, 12 levels reward 100 = 1200, 6 levels reward 150 = 900, 6 levels reward 200 = 1200, 3 levels reward 300 = 900)
At level 50 we still need 3300 gold to reach the 8500 gold mark. Which means we need 22 more level up rewards @ 150 each. At level 72 we hit the mark, which is the low end of what the original system allowed.
One of my big complaints is that we were told we'd be rewarded for playing the same way we've always played. To me, that meant rewards weren't tied so heavily to ranked and reaching prior earnings could be done in any game mode, as I saw fit as the player. Instead, I am forced to play the way Blizzard prescribes in this system, including blowing through my dust to reach achievements. I don't care about achievements to begin with. Now am I forced to do them to earn gold and they cost me my dust, as well as my time digging around the interface to find them, then building & playing decks to achieve them. It looks like a huge, huge time sink, requiring more time playing (to reach achievements) and browsing the track to find & accept achievement rewards.
To me, there are only 2 possible explanations, both are bad. Either Ben Lee lied when telling us we'd earn the same amount or the devs have zero control over final earnings and the monetization team is to blame. There's no way any developer could look at this (original or now-patched version) and be surprised by the backlash.
I fully expect to be starving for gold by mid-December (I have about 3800 atm) if not earlier. This whole thing makes me rather sad as a fully invested player that started on day one of open beta. I absolutely refuse to engage in this terrible system. I'll stick around while I have in game gold and dust to spend with the hopes they'll fix this but I have no more faith in this company.
It seems wise to keep this conversation in view. Blizzard's band aid is not enough and they shouldn't be allowed to let this fade.
All good moves, for sure. Nothing feels worse than queuing into a hunter that got Lunar Band as their first treasure. Even playing it feels lame, though an easy run to double digit rewards was always nice.
I'm at level 20 and have played mostly Duels since the system released.
I haven't tracked time but I usually play roughly 2 hours per day, mostly once my family has gone to bed. I would guesstimate my play is split 30% ranked (mostly standard), 60% duels, 10% arena. I don't see myself spending much time digging through achievements and expect I'll be well below my usual 6k gold by the time the next set launches. Clicking around that interface to find unfinished items is not how I want to play Hearthstone.
It's very difficult to look at the timing and feel like Blizzard is actually being honest.
The feedback was brutal when first announced and we were told we'd definitely earn more. The system was introduced just prior to the set release and that, in retrospect, seems like a calculated move to ensure bundles were purchased prior to seeing the full structure. The response to the massive outrage is essentially to say "sorry, we'll add a bit over 1k gold" and "but wait, there's more!" like a shit TV ad.
I won't be purchasing anything unless the system changes in a way that is transparently designed and shows the earnings will be better than they were before.
Definitely bugged. Treasures/Bundles that have only 2 of the 3 options showing until you back out (or restart entirely if it freezes) and go back in. Disconnect issues.
A nice haul for me, so far. I purchased the small bundle to gain early access to Duels (which I love), plus the reward/promo packs, then purchased 12 to round out my day one opening at 60 packs.
I had already beat the Hunter Book of Heroes but had to restart it when there was a reward tied to it. After winning round 1, the game recognized that I had beaten the content and gave me the reward. I closed it and didn't finish the run. Now I can't concede (it just restarts the attempt over and over) so I have to beat those before I can access the Warrior Book. :(
All pretty good changes. Killmox is still bad at +1/+1, though. His health needs to not scale up (and maybe start at 5 to compensate?) b/c he quickly becomes too hard to kill.
Currently level 38 with 1761/5800 towards 39. Obviously, that will change a bit next week with the patch. The 20% reduction should make this thing reasonable and much more likely to meet the dev's goal of providing better rewards. It's been a week since my last post so I jumped from 29 to 38 in 8 days.
I'd estimate 60% standard ranked with 30% duels & 10% arena. I did not purchase the pass. I hit 1000 wins with Demon Hunter over the weekend so my time will be mostly Duels and Arena moving forward. Once I hit diamond 5 (currently at 8) each season I'll say goodbye to ranked play.
All calculations I have seen, including the calculations provided by the design team, show a reduction in gold for any player that plays less than 3 hours per day. It's disappointing that the bean counters at BlizzAvision chose to force casual players to pay more or fall behind/quit rather than launching a system that would bring players back and improve the player experience.
Well, technically, they are acknowledging our existence. They're just making it clear they don't find our current expenditures to be substantial enough.
With the ranked reset to start the month, you will see those players for a few days. Then they will rise up the ranks quickly and you should start to face more appropriately ranked players.
lol.... still one of the best things about this site, for me. Discussions are civil, well constructed, and (generally) free of short/useless/troll posts.
To me it's all very simple: the casual player gets screwed over by the new system. That's a tremendously lousy move by blizzard. I have never seen the outrage at the current level and I think it will absolutely have a detrimental effect on the number of players that stick with HS, and that's a shame.
I fully expect that my ~1.5 hour per day gaming will have me fall well short of my usual earnings. I find that completely unacceptable. I've already decided to stop all purchases and have started LoR to get up to speed over the course of this reward track. What's worse is that the clear bad faith by BlizzAvision makes me unlikely to restart purchases even if they throw some "mystery events" at us to boost XP. I'm no whale, but my ~$100 per year tacked on to how ever many other ~$100 per year players will likely add up. My friends list, which is only anecdotal evidence, seems to reflect a decline in player interest. At any previous set launch I would see ~50 friends online playing whenever I logged in each day. With this set, I see 12-20.
That is a positive of the system, and it's not the only positive. Gaining XP in arena is huge for arena players (though the mode is hurting) and achievement hunting is something people enjoy. There are plenty of positive changes.
The problem is they are lost in the tidal wave of negative Blizzard brought on themselves.
The better way to discourage gold farming would have been to revamp the system into a wholly more reasonable economy. Farming is less of a concern if players can actually craft the cards they want to play without fear of choosing wrong and being set back by months of play time to catch up again.
Your conclusion that "analysis by Bunnyhopper suggests that lots of players will end up with more gold" seems vague. How are you defining "lots of players" in this situation?
I'd have to do some digging to source it [edit: source], but team 5 is on record stating that ~75% of players were below rank 15 in the old ranked system. That seems to suggest that most players are not putting in more than an hour per day, since even schlub's like me reach rank 5 with 1 hour per day of play. This suggests that most players are playing less than the 3 hours per day in Bunnyhopper's calculations. My math, which is actually supported by Bunnyhopper's math that you linked, suggests that all players that are under 3 hours per day will earn less. Combining both suggests that 75% of the player base will earn less gold in this new system. Again, I'll mention that those calculations are based on the minimum we'd earn in the old system.
This is why I feel that the bad faith started with Blizzard, and why I disagree with your assessment that the player base is arguing in bad faith.
I will say it's not cool for people to be attacking streamers and/or devs on their channels/streams. That's not going to help and is way out of line.
It may be helpful to mention the game mode and time played per day to get a feel for how different play styles are progressing.
I'm level 29 (close to 30 with 3598/4050 XP) while playing roughly 90 minutes per day. I'd guess 70% standard ranked, 25% arena, and down to 5% duels because it is so poorly balanced.
I did one queue into Battlegrounds and afk'd it but feel like that's a terrible thing to do to players that like that mode so I won't do that again and will not be reaching any BG achievements. Now I'm sticking to playing my way to get a true measure of how I progress in the new system that is supposed to reward us the same or more while playing our way. I should be able to reach 1000 wins with DH over the next few weeks.
I completely agree there is value to those items. Your post seems like a reasonable delve into the value but, ultimately, you agree the value is not 1:1 with gold.
The context is everything here. Again, the concern was absolute and specific: will we earn the same amount of gold in between expansions? The answer is no. It's still no even with the added 1350 on the track, and that is only when compared to the absolute minimum gold earned in the old system. Devs plainly stated we'd earn the same if not more and that is false.
I have very little faith I'll hit level 72 (just to break even) without an event dumping a large amount of XP. I refuse to play the game a different way to earn the same gold. The devs even stated we'd earn more for playing the way we want to play and I haven't even brought that aspect into the discussion, or the free legendary card at launch being moved to the reward track. I don't have any desire to achievement hunt (though I am glad it's available for those that do) and expect I'll fall well short of the achievement totals quoted by Nervig.
There are certainly some bad-faith arguments in the community. There always are, and always will be because this is the internet and, in general, people are stupid. Lots of old, bad blood comes up that isn’t relevant to the rewards track, and that obfuscates the root problem.
The root problem is simple. The community was specific and absolute in its response to the leaked survey: The gold earned between expansions is saved to buy packs of the newest set. The first iteration of the rewards track looked like it would reduce the amount of gold earned. Card rewards, packs from old sets, and Tavern Tickets cannot be used to buy packs. (This is something Blizzard has pulled before with arena rewards 4-5 years ago, adding packs and cards into the loot boxes to reduce the amount of gold earned.) Assigning values to those non-gold rewards is disingenuous because those rewards are not 1:1 equivalent to gold, as they can’t be used to buy packs.
So, was the gold earned reduced?
For me, the simplest way to calculate the gold earnings is to use a casual, 1 hour per day player. This player can log in, reroll & clear a daily quest, and win 3 games. This player would have earned a minimum of 60 gold each day over the 120 days used in Chad Nervig’s example, linked here. A very simple calculation in the old system (60gold x 120days) shows this player earns a minimum of 7200 gold.
Using Nervig’s charts, we can calculate the total gold under the initial version and the updated version that removed packs and added 1350 gold.
Daily Quests:
120days x 1000xp
= 120,000xp
Weekly Quests:
17weeks x (2500xp + 1750xp + 1750xp)
= 102,000xp
Ranked Playtime:
120days x 1hour x 400xp
= 48,000xp
Darkmoon Achievements:
75% x 14,800xp
= 11,100xp
Duels Achievements:
75% x 12,500xp
= 9,375xp
TOTAL: 290,475xp
290,475 XP puts our player at level 72. In the initial version of the rewards track, level 72 earned our player 6300 gold. The player base went ballistic because it was clear the gold earned would be lower than the minimum we had in the old system. The new rewards track grants a total of 7650 gold at level 72 now, which is better but still below the more accepted total of 8000-8500 gold most would earn in our 1-hour-casual example.
There are also several big issues just with play time and quests:
There are also several big issues with the game becoming even more expensive:
On top of all of that, the system makes progress feel much slower. The only time I see any indication that I’ve progressed is when I get the required XP to move up a level. There are complaints by players that want to start an arena/duels run but can no longer grind gold that day, instead being forced to wait several days if they are staring down a few feelsbadman pack levels between their current level and the next gold reward.
Then we add Blizzard’s response via Ben Lee that tells us we didn’t have all the information needed about XP from additional events. Of course, that response didn’t bother to give us any of the information we were missing, only the promise that there will be more XP and bonus events “as needed” and that we should blindly accept that they “will stay true to” their word.
There are positives to the new system but they were crushed by a tidal wave of negatives because of Blizzard's bad-faith gold-equivalent math, substituting rewards that can't buy packs and considering the value assigned to be equal.
Definitely no reason to feel guilty about having fun. I'm still enjoying the game, despite my disappointment with the new system.
You are not alone in how you feel. This system is a huge disappointment. I made a detailed post about it in this thread, but the basic conclusion is that we need to hit what appears to be an unobtainable level in order to earn the minimum gold we would have earned in the old daily quest system.
"At level 50 we still need 3300 gold to reach the 8500 gold mark. Which means we need 22 more level up rewards @ 150 each. At level 72 we hit the mark, which is the low end of what the original system allowed."
Level 72 seems like a long shot based on how slow progress becomes at levels in the 20s.
Prior to staring my usual Sunday morning routine (Hearthstone and some Forzathon Live runs) I decided to redo the math on the rewards track. I'm a bit sluggish and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so I could certainly be off or have omitted something.
In the old system of daily quests and daily gold I am assuming earnings of 8500 gold per expansion, which is a low estimate based on 70g per day if 50g quest plus 6 wins. Better quests / re-rolls should have most above this figure playing a short time each day.
This calculation ignores:
This calculation includes:
At level 50 we will have earned 5200 gold, though 700 is "spent" on packs and 300 on arena/duels entry. (Gold calculation: 7 MDF packs = 700, 2 Tavern Tickets = 300, 12 levels reward 100 = 1200, 6 levels reward 150 = 900, 6 levels reward 200 = 1200, 3 levels reward 300 = 900)
At level 50 we still need 3300 gold to reach the 8500 gold mark. Which means we need 22 more level up rewards @ 150 each. At level 72 we hit the mark, which is the low end of what the original system allowed.
One of my big complaints is that we were told we'd be rewarded for playing the same way we've always played. To me, that meant rewards weren't tied so heavily to ranked and reaching prior earnings could be done in any game mode, as I saw fit as the player. Instead, I am forced to play the way Blizzard prescribes in this system, including blowing through my dust to reach achievements. I don't care about achievements to begin with. Now am I forced to do them to earn gold and they cost me my dust, as well as my time digging around the interface to find them, then building & playing decks to achieve them. It looks like a huge, huge time sink, requiring more time playing (to reach achievements) and browsing the track to find & accept achievement rewards.
To me, there are only 2 possible explanations, both are bad. Either Ben Lee lied when telling us we'd earn the same amount or the devs have zero control over final earnings and the monetization team is to blame. There's no way any developer could look at this (original or now-patched version) and be surprised by the backlash.
I fully expect to be starving for gold by mid-December (I have about 3800 atm) if not earlier. This whole thing makes me rather sad as a fully invested player that started on day one of open beta. I absolutely refuse to engage in this terrible system. I'll stick around while I have in game gold and dust to spend with the hopes they'll fix this but I have no more faith in this company.
It seems wise to keep this conversation in view. Blizzard's band aid is not enough and they shouldn't be allowed to let this fade.
I've already downloaded and started playing LoR.
All good moves, for sure. Nothing feels worse than queuing into a hunter that got Lunar Band as their first treasure. Even playing it feels lame, though an easy run to double digit rewards was always nice.
I'm at level 20 and have played mostly Duels since the system released.
I haven't tracked time but I usually play roughly 2 hours per day, mostly once my family has gone to bed. I would guesstimate my play is split 30% ranked (mostly standard), 60% duels, 10% arena. I don't see myself spending much time digging through achievements and expect I'll be well below my usual 6k gold by the time the next set launches. Clicking around that interface to find unfinished items is not how I want to play Hearthstone.
It's very difficult to look at the timing and feel like Blizzard is actually being honest.
The feedback was brutal when first announced and we were told we'd definitely earn more. The system was introduced just prior to the set release and that, in retrospect, seems like a calculated move to ensure bundles were purchased prior to seeing the full structure. The response to the massive outrage is essentially to say "sorry, we'll add a bit over 1k gold" and "but wait, there's more!" like a shit TV ad.
I won't be purchasing anything unless the system changes in a way that is transparently designed and shows the earnings will be better than they were before.
Definitely bugged. Treasures/Bundles that have only 2 of the 3 options showing until you back out (or restart entirely if it freezes) and go back in. Disconnect issues.
A nice haul for me, so far. I purchased the small bundle to gain early access to Duels (which I love), plus the reward/promo packs, then purchased 12 to round out my day one opening at 60 packs.
Rare: 63 (3 golden)
Epic: 13 (0 golden)
Legendary: 5 (1 golden - C'Thun, the Shattered)
(not counting legendary cards from the level 1 track reward, 1 from preorder, or Silas Darkmoon)
EDIT: My luck continues. 5 more packs yielded 4 rares, 1 epic, and a golden Zai, the Incredible!