"Whenever this attacks a minion set the defender's attack and health to 3." That should set it to 3 no matter what. Seems reasonable that should override auras. They just forgot to code it in.
The stupid garbage broken one you know what I mean. Gets huge and has rush. I attacked it with Turalyon and its stats didn't change because it starts off as a 3/3 and its buff still applied. Garbage. Fix your game retards.
"Reduce the cost" cannot apply to a 0-cost card unless you want make it cost -1. In that case Bloodweaver is not reducing the cost of a random card. It's just doing nothing. Anyway it a confirmed bug.
I haven't played it a ton yet but it has been VERY fun and not at all Rez Priesty. It's done VERY well against Demon Hunter and held its own in general. Everything just flows and synergizes so well together in this deck. In my experience so far at least. If you like Priest DEFINITELY try this and stick with it long enough to figure out what you're trying to do. I'm not guaranteeing it has the chops but it's fun and feels like it has potential.
Perhaps blizzard focus too much on stats for individual cards rather than the overall experience for ladder, because I feel like if Blizzard cared about their own themes for each expansion, they'd be a little quicker to nerf a lot of the broken aggro nonsense that's permeating ladder at the moment, and preventing players trying out the more fun, slow decks.
Well first off you do have to wonder if they're trying to make the game faster in general to accommodate the mobile crowd. I really hope not. Also, hard as it is to comprehend, control players seem to be in the minority and many more players seem to prefer aggro. Now let's not be too harsh. Aggro does require some decision making and sometimes even more when it comes to predicting what the opponent is likely to do next. Control players don't have to do that so much since our decks are more reactive, whereas aggro is proactive. Our decision making is more about resource management.
They're two very different playstyles. Aggro can be fun actually. I'm just out of the habit with it. I, like most control players probably, only tend to play it when I've had my fill of control. I haven't felt satisfied in a while though. I've kinda been starved for options with control since Dr. Boom rotated so really just been searching. I'm starting to feel just a little better though since I've been playing Control Warrior and Big Priest the last couple days. Control Warrior seems legit good and runs 2 Old Gods. Big Priest feels like lower Tier 2 and it's fun (probably actually Tier 3 through). The two decks are very different from each other and they win enough so right now I'm getting my fix. Maybe Druid has something to offer? Not sure yet. And you can gear Pure Paladin more towards value so maybe there's some fun to be had there. If Warlock can just find a good control deck then I guess for now we count our blessings.
I'd like the pendulum to swing back towards a slower, more controlling game in general. We've had quite a few aggressive metas. It's a good time to shift into something different.
BTW who else (potential problems aside) would love for them to add the Monk class from WoW and for it be very controlling? I'm imagining powerful attack buffs that only can target minions (self defense), healing, animal companions or some kind of nature theme, defense and control tools (but board clears etc. feel un-Monkish), and of course the classic monk thing of going into different stances or something which would maybe change the hero power. You could play a card which changes your hero power and then play cards that synergize with that and then come out of that stance. Kind of like the monk style guy in Slay the Spire.
I posted the same thing on Hearthpwn and got the following answer back. It blew my mind. Makes a LOT of sense.
"I think you already know the answer to this question. This game originated on PC and offered mobile as a secondary means of playing; over the years, that model has completely flipped and now we are looking at a mobile experience which allows you to play on your computer if you so desire.
Control style decks are not conducive to a mobile game play style model which needs to keep the player engaged for short bursts of time while they play on the train to work, a lunch break, taking a dump, etc. Control is dead and never coming back."
I just felt my love for Hearthstone start to die a little inside me for the first time. Nothing to do with anything on Reddit or any of that stuff. If control really is dying then the game is basically dead for me. I have no interest in aggro. Or in playing only meme decks with 45% winrates or worse. This is really depressing.
The meta right now is Face Hunter, Evolve Shaman, Aggro Demon Hunter (is there another kind?), Totem Shaman, "Enhancement" (Face) Shaman, "Soul" Demon Hunter (uh, be real and just call it Face DH), Highlander Hunter, Silver Hand Paladin (board flood).....and Pure Paladin.
Every single one of those decks is ultra aggro/face with the exception of the Paladin decks, which are aggressive midrange. I don't know of a single viable control deck right now. Druid's trying to make big clowns but that deck's gotta be getting wrecked by these face decks. Same thing with any controlling Warrior, Priest or Mage. If you look at Tiers 3 and 4 on HSReplay you'll see all the control decks. Tiers 1 and 2 are all aggro with a few midrange decks in the bottom half of Tier 2, and Paladin.
I first discovered Hearthstone during the Kobold and Catacombs meta, which was very controlling. It was all the great control decks and epic games you could have with them that made me fall in love with the game. I feel like we're as far as can be from that. There's a lot of talk about Blizzard's business practices and the restrictiveness of the the new rewards track. I'm on board with most of that but the lack of control decks is a much bigger problem for me than any of that. Anyone having the same experience? I've been willing to pay for Hearthstone. I'd love to pay less and all that, but if I buy in and all I can do is a) play an aggro/face deck, b) play Pure Paladin, or c) play the kind of control deck that I love and feel impotent as aggro rushes me down....then...I hate to say it but what am I doing here?
In fact I can't even play a control deck that I enjoy because I enjoy playing good control decks that have a decent chance to at least win over 50% of their games. There's not a single one right now. Not one.
Demon Hunter has obviously pushed the game in an aggro direction. They said they didn't want to print more charge cards, yet they flood DH with powerful damage from hand every expansion. What is that if not charge??? They give hunter meme deathrattle cards and meta-defining face cards like Toxic Reinforcements. They pushed Shaman towards aggro with this expansion. They gave Zoo Warlock powerful tools like Revenant Rascal and Wriggling Horror. They even gave Paladin an aggro deck with all the silver hand cards!
Meanwhile what did control players get to work with? Tickatus? Control Warlock isn't even in the meta as far as I can see. Warrior got control tools right? Nope. The menagerie stuff is all oriented to aggressive midrange lists. Only Priest got some decent control tools. But they're not enough to make the deck even Tier 2. Maybe Big Priest can just eke out a 50% winrate.
I was actually kinda hoping this meta would slow down due to the old gods and the corrupt mechanic but it's actually worse than ever!! So what it is going on? Why is control being squeezed out? Because the people shouting on Reddit are mostly F2P aggro players and Blizzard thinks everyone hates control? Because they did market research and found out most players don't have the attention span for control? Because they made some toxic control decks that took too long to lose to like Quest Priest and now they're playing it safe by letting every lose quickly to aggro...so that they can lose quickly to aggro again or just play aggro? Because only whales play control decks and most people that play the game just have one cheap aggro deck that they can run?
I need answers. If the game is going to be like this from now on then, all theatrics and denunciations aside, this is just not Hearthstone anymore. Not for me and players like me. I'm not an aggro player. I'm not into rushing face damage and flooding boards. I'm into reacting and carefully executing my plan. I'm into cool combos and synergies and fun interactions. I'm into mid-length games and the occasional long game, not races. I'm into epic, awesome, control matches. That's my thing. Is it just me? Has the game and the community left me behind? If Hearthstone is all about aggression now and control is a thing of the past someone please let me know and at least put me out of my misery!
Eh...it's quest priest that I hate dealing with. This deck does some OP things if it can, just like any deck with a positive winrate. Doesn't seem liek it would be too annoying to paly against. Worst it does is build a wall usually.
1000XP/quest makes more sense. There are a few 1500XP ones that will factor in and you can always reroll to 1000 if you get 800. There are way, way more 1000s than 800s. You're including the new 1350 gold in the 6900? It's reasonable to assume people will get some achievements XP. Almost all of the 20,000+ XP from Duels comes from just winning 3, 4, 5, games etc. The free legendary and epic are part of the equation too.
Agree that requiring 7 wins in ranked is jarring to casual players not in line with their messaging.
Believe me I agree 100% that Hearthstone is exorbitantly expensive. I've thrown more money down the Blizzard hole than I will ever fully tell anyone most likely. I do hope that pressure from this outcry will make a difference. I just don't agree with the arguments stating that the the current rewards track is less rewarding for the average player, especially after the changes they just talked about and knowing that XP will be added from events. (We got stuff from events before but I can't remember what. I know you have to factor that in.) The math just doesn't lie, assuming XP per hour of actual play time (not queuing) is 400 or close to that. Maybe someone that plays 5 hours a day is worse off but someone that plays 3 hours a day is fine.
They said the seasonal event will award extra XP, not old packs. They said if that's not enough they'll add more bonus XP for other events. Not too hard to believe that bonus XP was part of the plan. Not too hard to believe that they failed to predict how Reddit would react to Reddit math and didn't head that off with earlier assurances that what you see now is not all you get. Even if they're making this up on the fly they're committed to it now.
And all of this is besides the fact that the rewards track is only a problem for F2P gold farmers. Do you even know specifically what you're complaining about?
Well the only way to know if the seasonal events made a big enough difference is to look back at them after the expansion. I doubt they'll want to be in a position--after all this and after assuring us that events will make up the difference--where people that can do math (aka not 90% of Reddit) have crunched the numbers and found that some players are still short of where they would be. Not sure why you think them saying that events will fill the gap means nothing. It's a very concrete assurance that will be proven out one way or another.
You want a revolution? Drastic changes that make the game much less expensive? Those are high hopes. This seems like more than a bandaid to me. The system was already giving about equal value as before to everyone but F2P/aggro gold farmers. Now they're replacing 6 packs of dust with 1350 gold (6x225) and promising to give us extra experience through events that will boost gold income above what we previously got. I want the game to be a lot cheaper too but they're improving the rewards system and giving us what we're asking for.
Very well said sir. I could have said every word myself, though I do play ranked but often casual as well. I've definitely spent over $2000 on this game, maybe closer to $3000. I'm scared to go back and look. It's unimaginable. I'll never tell most people I know probably. My everyday sane mind keeps telling me I can't keep spending $300 to $400 on the same game year after year...but I keep throwing money at em. I've gotten a lot of fun out of Hearthstone of course but in the end I feel like a sucker. I don't feel good at all about having spent that much money just to have this online collection. I don't feel good about feeling like I have to preorder if I'm going to play constructed at all. I definitely feel like I've been milked and milked and I'm sensitive to being taken advantage of even further. Clearly a lot of people feel that that's what's happening with this new system, or they feel that their tenuous F2P or semi-F2P workarounds will no longer work.
As I explained in my post below the rewards in the new progression system do seem to even out with the past rewards for the average player (1 hour/day completing all quests), but some people will get less gold than I showed below due to play time lower than 7 hours a week. However, people that play a lot and don't aggro gold farm will actually make more gold than before as they get XP from all that time played and some extra achievements. Even playing casually and just completing quests you'll get past level 50 but people that play like 2 hours a day and then sometimes 4 or 6 hours will go way beyond that, and for those people the Tavern Pass will almost pay for itself in gold along with the cosmetics.
The main group that loses with new system are the people that ran super efficient aggro decks to farm 30 wins/day. To each their own and I don't blame them too much because, as we know all too well, Hearthstone is unfairly overpriced, so kudos to them for finding a way to work around costs. However, this style of play forces an aggro gold farming economy on the game. It warps the game towards aggro. This has become increasingly wearisome to me. Honestly I'm glad to see it go.
Having said that....it's still a fact that some players are worse off now and Blizzard was pretty explicit in saying that we wouldn't be earning less gold than we have been and would in fact be earning more. That is true in some cases, but not true for people who play less or who farmed wins. They should have been more specific about the cases. They shouldn't have been so vague. Looking at the new rewards it is a bit of a slap in the face to be given packs from old expansion (basically dust) instead of gold. It's hard to interpret that as anything other than them wanting us to have less gold to spend on the next expansion. A much better mechanic would be to allow us to choose: take an old pack you can open now or a pack from the next expansion that you can't open until it starts.
Even though I don't agree with the logic of what a lot of people are saying on Reddit I agree that Blizzard has already pushed us to the limit and not throwing us a bone with this new system and making it clearly, unquestionably more rewarding is really disappointing and frustrating. They're already sucking us dry. Why risk Artifacting the game just to gain that extra little monetary edge? Player loyalty and appreciation is another kind of currency that maybe they don't value enough.
Yeah the packs from older expansions are just dust. I get that. These packs will be trickling in through the expansion so for most of them by the time you get them they're just dust except for epics and legendaries. You can say the same for those last 15 packs you open up right at the start of the expansion right? That's why these packs come out to about the same value. Instead of 15 packs of dust plus a couple epics and hopefully a legendary you get 12 packs of dust with old epics and a new one and at least one legendary.
Honestly I always preorder so for F2P players maybe those packs will still have rares they need but the main thing is the epics and legendaries and in this system we're slightly better off with those.
As for achievements even you will get some points from achievements. It'll be hard not to get at least 1000 without even trying. A little bit of trying will get you a lot more. But yeah that is effort.
Guys...everyone needs to take a deep breath. There is almost no difference from before for a player that completes all his quests, plays about an hour a day and puts minimal effort into achievements. If anything we come out slightly ahead, despite all the howls of rage on Reddit from people that aren't great at math (God bless em). Allow me to explain:
Previous system: Completing a 60 gold quest every day, playing about an hour a day and earning 10 gold a day from wins on average gets you 70 gold per day. Over 120 days that's 8400 gold. That's the number we're comparing to.
New System -
Daily Quests: Some people say we'll get 900 daily XP on average. I don't agree. There are ones that give 1500 XP and there are many more 1000 ones than 800 ones. I think 1000 is a better estimate. So that's 120,000 XP for all daily quests over the 120 days of an expansion.
Weekly quests: This is a set number: 102,000 XP for completing all over 17 weeks.
Achievements: No way most people are getting all the achievements but some will come without even trying and I think most people will look at them and try to get some XP from some. We're comparing this to not having to do anything before so whatever number goes here has to be from casual effort into it and even having a bit of fun with it. We can't be sure but I think it's reasonable to think you can get to 10,000 (out of the 27,300 XP available) before you start grinding.
Play time: Players are already experiencing XP gains that are under the the 400 XP/hour so maybe 350 XP/hour is closer to what we're getting. At an hour a day over 120 days that's 42,000 for play time over the expansion.
Add it all up: 120,000 + 102,000 + 10,000 + 42,000 gets you 274,000. That's 1000 XP from level 68. That's within a reasonable margin of error so let's just say playing about an hour a day, completing all quests, and putting mild effort into achievements you get to level 68 before the battle pass expires. That gets you 6900 gold. That's 4,200 from levels 1-50 and 2,700 from 51-68.
6900 gold is 1500 less than the 8400 gold we would have got before. So is what we're getting in the battle pass worth 15 packs? Let's look at it.
We get 16 card packs (7 Darkmoon), 2 tavern tickets (worth a pack each), 2 Darkmoon legendaries and 1 Darkmoon epic. Subtract the 6 free packs we're not getting from legendary quests, subtract the legendary we're not getting free when the expansion starts, count the tickets as packs, and we're left with 12 packs, 1 legendary and 1 epic. So we have 12 packs that are divided between different expansions and thus not getting us a good chance at legendaries BUT we get a free legendary. One legendary out of the 15 packs we would have had in the old system would have been great (and there's a chance to pull one from the 12 packs) so we're actually in better shape for legendaries. We're kind of even on epics (rolling from 12 packs instead of 15, mostly from old expansions...but then add the free one from Darkmoon). And what's left is: we're down 3 packs (unless you did well with those tickets). For that we get to choose a hero skin.
So that grinds down to a really small difference in my eyes. Please break down my logic if you can but the numbers don't lie. We end up in basically the same situation if not slightly better off.
Most people who play the game regularly will pass 50 so yeah I'd like to see rewards past there too. Hero skins will never happen for that but a card back to tell people "yeah I got to 150 in Darkmoon beesh come at me" would be pretty sweet.
Quick question: casual previously awarded no gold right? And now it awards no XP for time played?
Ok good example. That card is just horseshit then.
"Whenever this attacks a minion set the defender's attack and health to 3." That should set it to 3 no matter what. Seems reasonable that should override auras. They just forgot to code it in.
The stupid garbage broken one you know what I mean. Gets huge and has rush. I attacked it with Turalyon and its stats didn't change because it starts off as a 3/3 and its buff still applied. Garbage. Fix your game retards.
"Reduce the cost" cannot apply to a 0-cost card unless you want make it cost -1. In that case Bloodweaver is not reducing the cost of a random card. It's just doing nothing. Anyway it a confirmed bug.
Priest may be showing a glimmer with this new deck from NoHandsGamer. Here's Dekkster playing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKOw12tD68&t=517s
I haven't played it a ton yet but it has been VERY fun and not at all Rez Priesty. It's done VERY well against Demon Hunter and held its own in general. Everything just flows and synergizes so well together in this deck. In my experience so far at least. If you like Priest DEFINITELY try this and stick with it long enough to figure out what you're trying to do. I'm not guaranteeing it has the chops but it's fun and feels like it has potential.
NoHands Priest:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1372758-nohandsgamers-cube-priest
AAECAa0GBpcC0wqwugPIvgPXzgP+0QMMyQaspQOBsQOYtgOTugOWugObugOvugPezAPA0QPi3gPK4QMA
(Nazmani Bloodweaver is still bugged and may apply cost reduction to 0-cost cards but it hasn't been a problem for me yet. Just be aware of it.)
Well first off you do have to wonder if they're trying to make the game faster in general to accommodate the mobile crowd. I really hope not. Also, hard as it is to comprehend, control players seem to be in the minority and many more players seem to prefer aggro. Now let's not be too harsh. Aggro does require some decision making and sometimes even more when it comes to predicting what the opponent is likely to do next. Control players don't have to do that so much since our decks are more reactive, whereas aggro is proactive. Our decision making is more about resource management.
They're two very different playstyles. Aggro can be fun actually. I'm just out of the habit with it. I, like most control players probably, only tend to play it when I've had my fill of control. I haven't felt satisfied in a while though. I've kinda been starved for options with control since Dr. Boom rotated so really just been searching. I'm starting to feel just a little better though since I've been playing Control Warrior and Big Priest the last couple days. Control Warrior seems legit good and runs 2 Old Gods. Big Priest feels like lower Tier 2 and it's fun (probably actually Tier 3 through). The two decks are very different from each other and they win enough so right now I'm getting my fix. Maybe Druid has something to offer? Not sure yet. And you can gear Pure Paladin more towards value so maybe there's some fun to be had there. If Warlock can just find a good control deck then I guess for now we count our blessings.
I'd like the pendulum to swing back towards a slower, more controlling game in general. We've had quite a few aggressive metas. It's a good time to shift into something different.
BTW who else (potential problems aside) would love for them to add the Monk class from WoW and for it be very controlling? I'm imagining powerful attack buffs that only can target minions (self defense), healing, animal companions or some kind of nature theme, defense and control tools (but board clears etc. feel un-Monkish), and of course the classic monk thing of going into different stances or something which would maybe change the hero power. You could play a card which changes your hero power and then play cards that synergize with that and then come out of that stance. Kind of like the monk style guy in Slay the Spire.
I posted the same thing on Hearthpwn and got the following answer back. It blew my mind. Makes a LOT of sense.
"I think you already know the answer to this question. This game originated on PC and offered mobile as a secondary means of playing; over the years, that model has completely flipped and now we are looking at a mobile experience which allows you to play on your computer if you so desire.
Control style decks are not conducive to a mobile game play style model which needs to keep the player engaged for short bursts of time while they play on the train to work, a lunch break, taking a dump, etc. Control is dead and never coming back."
I just felt my love for Hearthstone start to die a little inside me for the first time. Nothing to do with anything on Reddit or any of that stuff. If control really is dying then the game is basically dead for me. I have no interest in aggro. Or in playing only meme decks with 45% winrates or worse. This is really depressing.
The meta right now is Face Hunter, Evolve Shaman, Aggro Demon Hunter (is there another kind?), Totem Shaman, "Enhancement" (Face) Shaman, "Soul" Demon Hunter (uh, be real and just call it Face DH), Highlander Hunter, Silver Hand Paladin (board flood).....and Pure Paladin.
Every single one of those decks is ultra aggro/face with the exception of the Paladin decks, which are aggressive midrange. I don't know of a single viable control deck right now. Druid's trying to make big clowns but that deck's gotta be getting wrecked by these face decks. Same thing with any controlling Warrior, Priest or Mage. If you look at Tiers 3 and 4 on HSReplay you'll see all the control decks. Tiers 1 and 2 are all aggro with a few midrange decks in the bottom half of Tier 2, and Paladin.
I first discovered Hearthstone during the Kobold and Catacombs meta, which was very controlling. It was all the great control decks and epic games you could have with them that made me fall in love with the game. I feel like we're as far as can be from that. There's a lot of talk about Blizzard's business practices and the restrictiveness of the the new rewards track. I'm on board with most of that but the lack of control decks is a much bigger problem for me than any of that. Anyone having the same experience? I've been willing to pay for Hearthstone. I'd love to pay less and all that, but if I buy in and all I can do is a) play an aggro/face deck, b) play Pure Paladin, or c) play the kind of control deck that I love and feel impotent as aggro rushes me down....then...I hate to say it but what am I doing here?
In fact I can't even play a control deck that I enjoy because I enjoy playing good control decks that have a decent chance to at least win over 50% of their games. There's not a single one right now. Not one.
Demon Hunter has obviously pushed the game in an aggro direction. They said they didn't want to print more charge cards, yet they flood DH with powerful damage from hand every expansion. What is that if not charge??? They give hunter meme deathrattle cards and meta-defining face cards like Toxic Reinforcements. They pushed Shaman towards aggro with this expansion. They gave Zoo Warlock powerful tools like Revenant Rascal and Wriggling Horror. They even gave Paladin an aggro deck with all the silver hand cards!
Meanwhile what did control players get to work with? Tickatus? Control Warlock isn't even in the meta as far as I can see. Warrior got control tools right? Nope. The menagerie stuff is all oriented to aggressive midrange lists. Only Priest got some decent control tools. But they're not enough to make the deck even Tier 2. Maybe Big Priest can just eke out a 50% winrate.
I was actually kinda hoping this meta would slow down due to the old gods and the corrupt mechanic but it's actually worse than ever!! So what it is going on? Why is control being squeezed out? Because the people shouting on Reddit are mostly F2P aggro players and Blizzard thinks everyone hates control? Because they did market research and found out most players don't have the attention span for control? Because they made some toxic control decks that took too long to lose to like Quest Priest and now they're playing it safe by letting every lose quickly to aggro...so that they can lose quickly to aggro again or just play aggro? Because only whales play control decks and most people that play the game just have one cheap aggro deck that they can run?
I need answers. If the game is going to be like this from now on then, all theatrics and denunciations aside, this is just not Hearthstone anymore. Not for me and players like me. I'm not an aggro player. I'm not into rushing face damage and flooding boards. I'm into reacting and carefully executing my plan. I'm into cool combos and synergies and fun interactions. I'm into mid-length games and the occasional long game, not races. I'm into epic, awesome, control matches. That's my thing. Is it just me? Has the game and the community left me behind? If Hearthstone is all about aggression now and control is a thing of the past someone please let me know and at least put me out of my misery!
Eh...it's quest priest that I hate dealing with. This deck does some OP things if it can, just like any deck with a positive winrate. Doesn't seem liek it would be too annoying to paly against. Worst it does is build a wall usually.
https://hsreplay.net/decks/3qOYU8Eq9Av5s02mQKnXQe/
This big priest has been played 5000 games and has a 54% winrate. Looks fun.
1000XP/quest makes more sense. There are a few 1500XP ones that will factor in and you can always reroll to 1000 if you get 800. There are way, way more 1000s than 800s. You're including the new 1350 gold in the 6900? It's reasonable to assume people will get some achievements XP. Almost all of the 20,000+ XP from Duels comes from just winning 3, 4, 5, games etc. The free legendary and epic are part of the equation too.
Agree that requiring 7 wins in ranked is jarring to casual players not in line with their messaging.
Believe me I agree 100% that Hearthstone is exorbitantly expensive. I've thrown more money down the Blizzard hole than I will ever fully tell anyone most likely. I do hope that pressure from this outcry will make a difference. I just don't agree with the arguments stating that the the current rewards track is less rewarding for the average player, especially after the changes they just talked about and knowing that XP will be added from events. (We got stuff from events before but I can't remember what. I know you have to factor that in.) The math just doesn't lie, assuming XP per hour of actual play time (not queuing) is 400 or close to that. Maybe someone that plays 5 hours a day is worse off but someone that plays 3 hours a day is fine.
They said the seasonal event will award extra XP, not old packs. They said if that's not enough they'll add more bonus XP for other events. Not too hard to believe that bonus XP was part of the plan. Not too hard to believe that they failed to predict how Reddit would react to Reddit math and didn't head that off with earlier assurances that what you see now is not all you get. Even if they're making this up on the fly they're committed to it now.
And all of this is besides the fact that the rewards track is only a problem for F2P gold farmers. Do you even know specifically what you're complaining about?
Well the only way to know if the seasonal events made a big enough difference is to look back at them after the expansion. I doubt they'll want to be in a position--after all this and after assuring us that events will make up the difference--where people that can do math (aka not 90% of Reddit) have crunched the numbers and found that some players are still short of where they would be. Not sure why you think them saying that events will fill the gap means nothing. It's a very concrete assurance that will be proven out one way or another.
You want a revolution? Drastic changes that make the game much less expensive? Those are high hopes. This seems like more than a bandaid to me. The system was already giving about equal value as before to everyone but F2P/aggro gold farmers. Now they're replacing 6 packs of dust with 1350 gold (6x225) and promising to give us extra experience through events that will boost gold income above what we previously got. I want the game to be a lot cheaper too but they're improving the rewards system and giving us what we're asking for.
Very well said sir. I could have said every word myself, though I do play ranked but often casual as well. I've definitely spent over $2000 on this game, maybe closer to $3000. I'm scared to go back and look. It's unimaginable. I'll never tell most people I know probably. My everyday sane mind keeps telling me I can't keep spending $300 to $400 on the same game year after year...but I keep throwing money at em. I've gotten a lot of fun out of Hearthstone of course but in the end I feel like a sucker. I don't feel good at all about having spent that much money just to have this online collection. I don't feel good about feeling like I have to preorder if I'm going to play constructed at all. I definitely feel like I've been milked and milked and I'm sensitive to being taken advantage of even further. Clearly a lot of people feel that that's what's happening with this new system, or they feel that their tenuous F2P or semi-F2P workarounds will no longer work.
As I explained in my post below the rewards in the new progression system do seem to even out with the past rewards for the average player (1 hour/day completing all quests), but some people will get less gold than I showed below due to play time lower than 7 hours a week. However, people that play a lot and don't aggro gold farm will actually make more gold than before as they get XP from all that time played and some extra achievements. Even playing casually and just completing quests you'll get past level 50 but people that play like 2 hours a day and then sometimes 4 or 6 hours will go way beyond that, and for those people the Tavern Pass will almost pay for itself in gold along with the cosmetics.
The main group that loses with new system are the people that ran super efficient aggro decks to farm 30 wins/day. To each their own and I don't blame them too much because, as we know all too well, Hearthstone is unfairly overpriced, so kudos to them for finding a way to work around costs. However, this style of play forces an aggro gold farming economy on the game. It warps the game towards aggro. This has become increasingly wearisome to me. Honestly I'm glad to see it go.
Having said that....it's still a fact that some players are worse off now and Blizzard was pretty explicit in saying that we wouldn't be earning less gold than we have been and would in fact be earning more. That is true in some cases, but not true for people who play less or who farmed wins. They should have been more specific about the cases. They shouldn't have been so vague. Looking at the new rewards it is a bit of a slap in the face to be given packs from old expansion (basically dust) instead of gold. It's hard to interpret that as anything other than them wanting us to have less gold to spend on the next expansion. A much better mechanic would be to allow us to choose: take an old pack you can open now or a pack from the next expansion that you can't open until it starts.
Even though I don't agree with the logic of what a lot of people are saying on Reddit I agree that Blizzard has already pushed us to the limit and not throwing us a bone with this new system and making it clearly, unquestionably more rewarding is really disappointing and frustrating. They're already sucking us dry. Why risk Artifacting the game just to gain that extra little monetary edge? Player loyalty and appreciation is another kind of currency that maybe they don't value enough.
Yeah the packs from older expansions are just dust. I get that. These packs will be trickling in through the expansion so for most of them by the time you get them they're just dust except for epics and legendaries. You can say the same for those last 15 packs you open up right at the start of the expansion right? That's why these packs come out to about the same value. Instead of 15 packs of dust plus a couple epics and hopefully a legendary you get 12 packs of dust with old epics and a new one and at least one legendary.
Honestly I always preorder so for F2P players maybe those packs will still have rares they need but the main thing is the epics and legendaries and in this system we're slightly better off with those.
As for achievements even you will get some points from achievements. It'll be hard not to get at least 1000 without even trying. A little bit of trying will get you a lot more. But yeah that is effort.
Guys...everyone needs to take a deep breath. There is almost no difference from before for a player that completes all his quests, plays about an hour a day and puts minimal effort into achievements. If anything we come out slightly ahead, despite all the howls of rage on Reddit from people that aren't great at math (God bless em). Allow me to explain:
Previous system: Completing a 60 gold quest every day, playing about an hour a day and earning 10 gold a day from wins on average gets you 70 gold per day. Over 120 days that's 8400 gold. That's the number we're comparing to.
New System -
Daily Quests: Some people say we'll get 900 daily XP on average. I don't agree. There are ones that give 1500 XP and there are many more 1000 ones than 800 ones. I think 1000 is a better estimate. So that's 120,000 XP for all daily quests over the 120 days of an expansion.
Weekly quests: This is a set number: 102,000 XP for completing all over 17 weeks.
Achievements: No way most people are getting all the achievements but some will come without even trying and I think most people will look at them and try to get some XP from some. We're comparing this to not having to do anything before so whatever number goes here has to be from casual effort into it and even having a bit of fun with it. We can't be sure but I think it's reasonable to think you can get to 10,000 (out of the 27,300 XP available) before you start grinding.
Play time: Players are already experiencing XP gains that are under the the 400 XP/hour so maybe 350 XP/hour is closer to what we're getting. At an hour a day over 120 days that's 42,000 for play time over the expansion.
Add it all up: 120,000 + 102,000 + 10,000 + 42,000 gets you 274,000. That's 1000 XP from level 68. That's within a reasonable margin of error so let's just say playing about an hour a day, completing all quests, and putting mild effort into achievements you get to level 68 before the battle pass expires. That gets you 6900 gold. That's 4,200 from levels 1-50 and 2,700 from 51-68.
6900 gold is 1500 less than the 8400 gold we would have got before. So is what we're getting in the battle pass worth 15 packs? Let's look at it.
We get 16 card packs (7 Darkmoon), 2 tavern tickets (worth a pack each), 2 Darkmoon legendaries and 1 Darkmoon epic. Subtract the 6 free packs we're not getting from legendary quests, subtract the legendary we're not getting free when the expansion starts, count the tickets as packs, and we're left with 12 packs, 1 legendary and 1 epic. So we have 12 packs that are divided between different expansions and thus not getting us a good chance at legendaries BUT we get a free legendary. One legendary out of the 15 packs we would have had in the old system would have been great (and there's a chance to pull one from the 12 packs) so we're actually in better shape for legendaries. We're kind of even on epics (rolling from 12 packs instead of 15, mostly from old expansions...but then add the free one from Darkmoon). And what's left is: we're down 3 packs (unless you did well with those tickets). For that we get to choose a hero skin.
So that grinds down to a really small difference in my eyes. Please break down my logic if you can but the numbers don't lie. We end up in basically the same situation if not slightly better off.
Once you get to 50 though it lowers to 4000 and then quickly gets to 4500 and stays there.
Most people who play the game regularly will pass 50 so yeah I'd like to see rewards past there too. Hero skins will never happen for that but a card back to tell people "yeah I got to 150 in Darkmoon beesh come at me" would be pretty sweet.
Quick question: casual previously awarded no gold right? And now it awards no XP for time played?