Before I start, I'm going to make it clear that I'm not for or against the new system because I don't know how my net gold or rewards will look at the end of this expansion cycle.
- I am currently level 18 (with the XP boost from purchasing) while only playing ~1-2 hours a day so that means, according to this table found here, that I have earned at least 23,400 experience in three days by doing dailies, weeklies, and random achievement bonuses. That being said, an expansion cycle is (typically) 4 months/~120 days. So if we do the math; 23,400 divided by 3 is 7,800. Now multiply that by 120 and we get 936,000, which according to the graph table listed above puts me at maxing out the rewards track. If my math is wrong please correct me, and I'm not making a case for the rewards track, I'm just putting out what I (super capitalized) have gotten to and what I might get to by the end of this cycle.
- I hop between Ranked Wild (with trash decks because Rez Priest infests Casual Wild) and BG's most of the time and haven't really touched Duels all that much. One common complaint among players and myself is that most of the achievements are only obtainable by playing Ladder. Meaning no matter what tribe you run, strategy you use, or keyword you're working with is not being tracked in the achievement system which is a big no-no. Hearthstone attracted a lot of players with the new FREE mode and making a system that requires them to step into unfamiliar territory unwillingly is likely to drive a few players away since they'll max out the BG achievements in no time.
- The urge to win is still there, 500/1000 win portraits are still a thing and many players haven't achieved that amount of ranked wins, myself being an example even though I've played since Naxx (out). You've also missed a HUGE point. It would be a slap in the face (and another 50 r/hearthstone forum posts) to not reward players somehow for playing. Imagine playing a ~20 minute control game to lose and not get XP, #feelsbadman.
- I like the Rewards Track, it gives me more goals other than "Play X games as X", or the 500/1000 win goals mentioned earlier. However, looking at the paid track VS the free track, it's not good. They could've sprinkled a little more gold here and there rather than only get a paid reward every 5 levels.
- Is Hearthstone getting more expensive? Yes. Did Hearthstone ever get cheaper in the past? Yes, in theory. Back when they implemented duplicate protection across all rarities earlier this year I thought to myself, "They'll make up for the loss somehow". Because of that now we have (objectively) less gold at the end of the rewards track unless you play an unhealthy amount of Hearthstone. Additionally now we have the mini sets, which is something LOATHED because I knew the set wouldn't be free, yet people won't look beyond a stale meta to figure that out. So because of people shouting ideas at Team 5 without thinking of the possible ramifications we get 35 extra cards that aren't going to be free.
- As a paying player, the Rewards Track felt fucking awful to pay for. That's $150 US dollars for one expansion, the Mega-Bundle, the standard pre-order bundle, and the rewards track is what I've paid for this cycle. I cannot fathom why the Rewards Tack wasn't included in the Mega-Bundle, I cannot understand why I can't trade my 30+ Arena Tickets in for the Track. So all that means for me is that I'm not buying both bundles anymore. Wild has become my Format of choice and it's incredibly cheaper in the long run.
Encouraging interaction on the site remains tough though. We can't encourage people too much because that could lead to fatigue or it'll lead to a whole lot of nonsense. One point that has been brought up in the past with encouraging voting and commenting on new cards is that we get low-quality discussion. I both agree and disagree on that topic, something I know I've talked about a few times in the past on the forums. The main issue is how do we avoid that in general.
We have some interaction from the WCDC's, but unfortunately it's been done to death and there's an entire forum dedicated to it on reddit. The point being that it's not anything that's really new or different. By all means keep doing it but during dry seasons it seems like that's the only thing going on.
We get low quality comments on cards because most people here have played their respective games long enough to not overreact to a singular card that some may deem OP, so they don't comment at all or just say that it's "neat".
Wanting to get players to comment and vote on cards can be done is Card of the Day, since if we're trying to grow the site that's one way to get players to kind of explore pages and explore.
Quote From Author
I can't really create a quest to go and upvote something. It might work for the forums and comments, or even news articles themselves, but asking someone to go an upvote a deck is going to cause problems. Maybe limiting something like deck voting to once a week would help, I don't know. It could also be interesting to try and establish a "new queue" for deck guides and to ask people to go through it and provide feedback. Maybe you'd have to have some form of "certification" before you would be eligible for quests like that, like having a certain post count or account age. Again, I don't know but it is something we need to tread carefully on.
Definitely don't reward people for inflating something, everyone can see on the surface level that this is a meaningless thing to do.
Quote From Author
I do like what having the Shop and Gold will do for us though. We can give out rewards a lot more freely to people without giving out a big reward. Letting everyone save up and buy what they desire will be nice. The hard part will be having enough stuff available that people want to actively spend their gold. I have 3 additional ideas for site cosmetics/customization that we'll roll out in the new year, with one of those things coming with the Holiday event.
You could do site ran tournaments? Incentivize users to try to earn and hoard gold to apply for a tournament ticket and potentially win prizes. Probably going to be impossible because of shear man power, but hey, something to consider.
As for stuff available for the site, that's even tougher. Besides banners and profile pic borders there's not much you can do. You could have unlockable site backgrounds but I don't know how well that'd work out. What comes to mind is the current background with the symbol lines filled with color, I'm just spit ballin' here.
Quote From Author
I also want to give all the staff a weekly amount of currency to freely give out to posts they deem appropriate. It might only be 10 or 20 Gold, but they'll have the option to give it out to decks and comments that they find meet their own special criteria. Maybe it was funny, maybe it was high quality. Having more personalized handouts adds some fun to the system, especially if people know who is giving it to them.
^ That, I also want to let some community members do too, once we figure out a solid criteria for enabling it. Maybe we'll start by giving premium members an allowance to hand out each month and see where that takes us.
Just do it for the premium members, it's another incentive to become premium.
Old champs leave, and new ones step in. It’s the way of things.
I hope he succeeds in his future, he’s a genuinely fun guy to watch play hearthstone (which is rare) and I’m sure he’ll do well with whatever steps he decides to take.
Seems like an ad on a YouTube video. So having “#Mastertheunexpected” as the new hashtag could lead us to believe it has something to do with the new mode.
OoC is definitely where it’s at if you want level headed discussions about the various card games the site is dedicated to.
I only actively play Hearthstone, so comparing this forum to others like Reddit and Hearthpwn is night and day. On OoC we don’t have hundreds of posts complaining about the new Mage hero, but in contrast we also don’t have posts that really (if ever) break 100 plus comments. The Reddit (and the site as a whole) feels more like a place where people go to just complain about a children’s card game because they’ve let it affect their lives so much.
Looking at Hearthpwn, it still looks the same as it did when I first ever visited it. No updates to the site layout, nothing innovative, and it honestly feels like those random abandoned forums that litter the internet. It might have something to do with their best web programmer leaving or something, I don’t know ;)
There’s also more original content on the site, ranging from the Card Design Competitions, class reworks, and mode/format creations. People here put effort into what they create, you can tell if you compare it to r/customhearthstone.
Lastly, as of now the site feels more like a community, like I’m familiar with the usernames of the people on this site to kind of assume their mannerisms, attitudes, and what they like to talk about. DoubleSummon can sometimes come off as an abrasive cynic, but he means well. Anytime I see RavenSunHS’s name on anything I automatically think it’s something Wild related because some of the decks he’s made. Whereas anywhere else they’d be just “another face in the crowd”
I cannot fathom why people bring Raza/Rez Priest, Pogo/Mill Rogue, Big/Demon/Cube Warlock, Jade/Aviana/Togwaggle/Maly Druid, and Quest Mage into CASUAL Wild when I'm just BS'ing around with some dumb Homebrew decks.
What is the point? I know they're not practicing piloting the decks since they seem to be VERY proficient at winning with them, they're not earning wins towards golden heroes, so why??
I think there is one BIG issue with DR's, and The Book of Heroes WILL face the same problem if they go the route I'm thinking.
Dungeon Run got tiresome because it was being churned out for almost every expansion up until Descent of Dragons. Naturally people are going to get tired of the formula, I love DR's but god damn I was tired of them by the time Rastakhan's Rumble came out. I think everyone is in agreement that DR's are great and highly replayable, but having them back-to-back-to-back is not healthy and leads to burn out, hence everyone complaining about them.
The Book of Heroes very well can suffer the same fate. If Team 5 releases a hero story every expansion cycle from this point on, it will be August of 2023 before we have all of the stories unlocked. Is this likely? Probably not, hopefully this is just their way of adding other single player content into the game while simultaneously releasing DR's and other forms of single player content (more puzzle labs please) without burning players out on one kind of experience.
*puts on tinfoil hat* With all that being said and with the Battle Pass right around the corner, I honestly wouldn't doubt it if they announced that some of the stories are paid for. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen anywhere that it is stated that all of the Hero Stories are F2P(BTW).
I agree with you and RavenSunHS. I made it to legend in Standard in the old system once with Mech Hunter which was great because I "discovered" the viability of the deck before it became popular. The experience wasn't my idea of fun nevertheless. Same goes for wild, where I did it with Darkest Hour Warlock merely 2 days before the nerf bat killed it. I don't think I'll ever do it again, since I'm playing to have fun in both formats right now, which means constantly switching between decks and trying out off meta stuff like YourPrivateNighmare's Hunter deck.
Thank you!
It's so nice being in Legend so I can goof off again with whatever I can come up with/find.
I've been playing since LoE and finally hit standard legend earlier this year after being a dad legend player for a good while before. It's nice to be able to mess around with less competitive decks in dumpster legend without that niggling voice telling to focus on climbing, and to know you've maxed out your rewards for the season. I'm also having a go at the wild ladder now - hit r5 this morning - and just enjoying the game before next week's ladder reset.
And now that I've hit it I don't feel like I need to ever again. I could go after the rewards but I don't want to play to the point where I experience burnout.
Same feeling here. However, Legend is luring me back for my homebrew decks (to prove they are decent). I don't like the stress of the grind tho, so I am there, at D1 with Aggro Reno Paladin, slowly climbing, playing 1-2 ranked matches every 3 days or so because that's the maximum stress I can afford. Jeez...
Luckily, the new ranked system with shorter stilts between floors helps a lot with competitive anxiety.
Anyway, congrats on your first climb!
Thank you!
I think if the new ranking system didn't exist I wouldn't have climbed as much as I did. It really does incentivizes players to try harder.
What is your experience in using The Soularium? When do you usually use it (and at how many HP)? I am a bit worrying about discarding the more expensive cards (Loatheb, maybe the giants) when playing it too early.
In all honesty, I think I've wasted more cards than actually using them when I've used The Soularium. But it does highroll into the giants on occasion and it's also useful for Pen Flinger combos to get more mana from Darkglare. If you can find a replacement let me know!
Loatheb is a game ender against Warrior if you play the combo with him in it on turn 5 so the opponent can't play Brawl.
I've been playing since LoE and finally hit standard legend earlier this year after being a dad legend player for a good while before. It's nice to be able to mess around with less competitive decks in dumpster legend without that niggling voice telling to focus on climbing, and to know you've maxed out your rewards for the season. I'm also having a go at the wild ladder now - hit r5 this morning - and just enjoying the game before next week's ladder reset.
And now that I've hit it I don't feel like I need to ever again. I could go after the rewards but I don't want to play to the point where I experience burnout.
I wouldn't hold my breath. Sorry :(
Before I start, I'm going to make it clear that I'm not for or against the new system because I don't know how my net gold or rewards will look at the end of this expansion cycle.
- I am currently level 18 (with the XP boost from purchasing) while only playing ~1-2 hours a day so that means, according to this table found here, that I have earned at least 23,400 experience in three days by doing dailies, weeklies, and random achievement bonuses. That being said, an expansion cycle is (typically) 4 months/~120 days. So if we do the math; 23,400 divided by 3 is 7,800. Now multiply that by 120 and we get 936,000, which according to the graph table listed above puts me at maxing out the rewards track. If my math is wrong please correct me, and I'm not making a case for the rewards track, I'm just putting out what I (super capitalized) have gotten to and what I might get to by the end of this cycle.
- I hop between Ranked Wild (with trash decks because Rez Priest infests Casual Wild) and BG's most of the time and haven't really touched Duels all that much. One common complaint among players and myself is that most of the achievements are only obtainable by playing Ladder. Meaning no matter what tribe you run, strategy you use, or keyword you're working with is not being tracked in the achievement system which is a big no-no. Hearthstone attracted a lot of players with the new FREE mode and making a system that requires them to step into unfamiliar territory unwillingly is likely to drive a few players away since they'll max out the BG achievements in no time.
- The urge to win is still there, 500/1000 win portraits are still a thing and many players haven't achieved that amount of ranked wins, myself being an example even though I've played since Naxx (out). You've also missed a HUGE point. It would be a slap in the face (and another 50 r/hearthstone forum posts) to not reward players somehow for playing. Imagine playing a ~20 minute control game to lose and not get XP, #feelsbadman.
- I like the Rewards Track, it gives me more goals other than "Play X games as X", or the 500/1000 win goals mentioned earlier. However, looking at the paid track VS the free track, it's not good. They could've sprinkled a little more gold here and there rather than only get a paid reward every 5 levels.
- Is Hearthstone getting more expensive? Yes. Did Hearthstone ever get cheaper in the past? Yes, in theory. Back when they implemented duplicate protection across all rarities earlier this year I thought to myself, "They'll make up for the loss somehow". Because of that now we have (objectively) less gold at the end of the rewards track unless you play an unhealthy amount of Hearthstone. Additionally now we have the mini sets, which is something LOATHED because I knew the set wouldn't be free, yet people won't look beyond a stale meta to figure that out. So because of people shouting ideas at Team 5 without thinking of the possible ramifications we get 35 extra cards that aren't going to be free.
- As a paying player, the Rewards Track felt fucking awful to pay for. That's $150 US dollars for one expansion, the Mega-Bundle, the standard pre-order bundle, and the rewards track is what I've paid for this cycle. I cannot fathom why the Rewards Tack wasn't included in the Mega-Bundle, I cannot understand why I can't trade my 30+ Arena Tickets in for the Track. So all that means for me is that I'm not buying both bundles anymore. Wild has become my Format of choice and it's incredibly cheaper in the long run.
We have some interaction from the WCDC's, but unfortunately it's been done to death and there's an entire forum dedicated to it on reddit. The point being that it's not anything that's really new or different. By all means keep doing it but during dry seasons it seems like that's the only thing going on.
We get low quality comments on cards because most people here have played their respective games long enough to not overreact to a singular card that some may deem OP, so they don't comment at all or just say that it's "neat".
Wanting to get players to comment and vote on cards can be done is Card of the Day, since if we're trying to grow the site that's one way to get players to kind of explore pages and explore.
Definitely don't reward people for inflating something, everyone can see on the surface level that this is a meaningless thing to do.
You could do site ran tournaments? Incentivize users to try to earn and hoard gold to apply for a tournament ticket and potentially win prizes. Probably going to be impossible because of shear man power, but hey, something to consider.
As for stuff available for the site, that's even tougher. Besides banners and profile pic borders there's not much you can do. You could have unlockable site backgrounds but I don't know how well that'd work out. What comes to mind is the current background with the symbol lines filled with color, I'm just spit ballin' here.
Just do it for the premium members, it's another incentive to become premium.
What the actual fuck.
Old champs leave, and new ones step in. It’s the way of things.
I hope he succeeds in his future, he’s a genuinely fun guy to watch play hearthstone (which is rare) and I’m sure he’ll do well with whatever steps he decides to take.
Seems like an ad on a YouTube video. So having “#Mastertheunexpected” as the new hashtag could lead us to believe it has something to do with the new mode.
You missed the most important book of all.
OoC is definitely where it’s at if you want level headed discussions about the various card games the site is dedicated to.
I only actively play Hearthstone, so comparing this forum to others like Reddit and Hearthpwn is night and day. On OoC we don’t have hundreds of posts complaining about the new Mage hero, but in contrast we also don’t have posts that really (if ever) break 100 plus comments. The Reddit (and the site as a whole) feels more like a place where people go to just complain about a children’s card game because they’ve let it affect their lives so much.
Looking at Hearthpwn, it still looks the same as it did when I first ever visited it. No updates to the site layout, nothing innovative, and it honestly feels like those random abandoned forums that litter the internet. It might have something to do with their best web programmer leaving or something, I don’t know ;)
There’s also more original content on the site, ranging from the Card Design Competitions, class reworks, and mode/format creations. People here put effort into what they create, you can tell if you compare it to r/customhearthstone.
Lastly, as of now the site feels more like a community, like I’m familiar with the usernames of the people on this site to kind of assume their mannerisms, attitudes, and what they like to talk about. DoubleSummon can sometimes come off as an abrasive cynic, but he means well. Anytime I see RavenSunHS’s name on anything I automatically think it’s something Wild related because some of the decks he’s made. Whereas anywhere else they’d be just “another face in the crowd”
I cannot fathom why people bring Raza/Rez Priest, Pogo/Mill Rogue, Big/Demon/Cube Warlock, Jade/Aviana/Togwaggle/Maly Druid, and Quest Mage into CASUAL Wild when I'm just BS'ing around with some dumb Homebrew decks.
What is the point? I know they're not practicing piloting the decks since they seem to be VERY proficient at winning with them, they're not earning wins towards golden heroes, so why??
Bug report.
On mobile, on the hearthstone page, in the forums tab, selecting “new threads” shows threads from a year ago.
Don’t know if this a known thing but it’s there.
I think there is one BIG issue with DR's, and The Book of Heroes WILL face the same problem if they go the route I'm thinking.
Dungeon Run got tiresome because it was being churned out for almost every expansion up until Descent of Dragons. Naturally people are going to get tired of the formula, I love DR's but god damn I was tired of them by the time Rastakhan's Rumble came out. I think everyone is in agreement that DR's are great and highly replayable, but having them back-to-back-to-back is not healthy and leads to burn out, hence everyone complaining about them.
The Book of Heroes very well can suffer the same fate. If Team 5 releases a hero story every expansion cycle from this point on, it will be August of 2023 before we have all of the stories unlocked. Is this likely? Probably not, hopefully this is just their way of adding other single player content into the game while simultaneously releasing DR's and other forms of single player content (more puzzle labs please) without burning players out on one kind of experience.
*puts on tinfoil hat* With all that being said and with the Battle Pass right around the corner, I honestly wouldn't doubt it if they announced that some of the stories are paid for. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen anywhere that it is stated that all of the Hero Stories are F2P(BTW).
There are three types of players....
Smorc is the only strategy you need with this deck.
Thank you!
It's so nice being in Legend so I can goof off again with whatever I can come up with/find.
Thank you!
I think if the new ranking system didn't exist I wouldn't have climbed as much as I did. It really does incentivizes players to try harder.
Thank you
In all honesty, I think I've wasted more cards than actually using them when I've used The Soularium. But it does highroll into the giants on occasion and it's also useful for Pen Flinger combos to get more mana from Darkglare. If you can find a replacement let me know!
Loatheb is a game ender against Warrior if you play the combo with him in it on turn 5 so the opponent can't play Brawl.
Then...... why do you play it? Or visit fan sites and forums about it?
Thank you
Thank you! I got The Black Knight
And now that I've hit it I don't feel like I need to ever again. I could go after the rewards but I don't want to play to the point where I experience burnout.