They deserved the outrage from start to finish. And well Reddit is Reddit. I mean how could anybody at Team 5 not predict the backlash? The whole community reaction was totally predictable. That is also the reason I think the whole "Give them time to react" argument is flawed. Yes Blizzard is a big corporation but they should have seen this coming from miles away even before release. Time enough to prepare a Plan B. The bottom line is that they screwed it and were punished.
And there won't be. They will not further address the system itself. I wrote my fair share of posts, but this thing is through. They will not backtrack. The only thing you can do is go full F2P or quit totally. I went full F2P currently and mull quitting in the medium term
I bet it is. Given that the Championship already starts in about a week we should have it now. If I remember correctly from the last times you had at least two weeks prior. Either this or they are really late.
Thanks for all the great work. I won't apply probably although it sounds good. I am not a native speaker and more importantly I don't feel that I am proficient enough in HS or MTGA to produce content in the required quality on a constant basis. Despite me playing for years. I could however imagine writing a guest article in case an idea pops up in my head (should this ever be the case). :)
That said there are a lot of great people around here who could probably fit the offered roles neatly.
As a wild player Convincing Infiltrator and Raza the Chained are on top of my wishlist. Cannot understand why the unnerfed the latter. But of course this is just dreaming.
Your proposal is unfortunately not that good as people already pointed out above. My thoughts on HS monetization:
HS monetization is bad, really bad; the game is simply too expensive
High price point is not only hurting the playerbase but also not optimal for Blizzard's revenue
A high price point can actually hurt your revenues; in business there is an "optimal price" which maximizes revenue; raising your price beyond this point actually decreases your revenue and profits; I am convinced HS is beyond that price
If you are looking for real world evidence that lower prices can be better for all just look at LoL which brought in a whopping USD 1.5 billion in 2019 and has a far less greedy monetization system
My proposal would have been to simply halve the prices, although for this it might be too late now. This should have happened a year ago latest. I am convinced that reducing the prices at an earlier point would have been lucrative for Blizzard too. Of course not in the short-term but in the long-term.
That said I am well aware that this will not happen. They will continue to milk HS even if this will kill the game and hurt their long-term profits. Why? Because Blizzard like many other companies in Corporate America and elsewhere is short-term oriented. Management is incentivized this way. Just take Bobby Kotick as an example. The bulk of his annual salary comes from stock options, this information is public as Blizzard is listed on the stock exchange. In other words he cashes in when the stock price increases which means he is incentivized to value short-term profitability over long-term profitability.
You miss the main aspect here: Blizzard making misleading and false statements about the new system. They made statements / promises they did not honor. And that is certainly a thing people can rightfully be angry about.
So real quick, where is the hate coming from? Mostly it seems like it's coming from two places: the cost of Hearthstone generally, and the negative reaction to the new Progression system. Both stem from what I believe are bad-faith arguments:
Hearthstone is often compared to AAA titles, with people complaining that buying into an expansion costs way more than a typical $60 game.
This is a ridiculous comparison - AAA titles don't get regularly patched, they don't generally feature weekly evens (i.e. tavern brawl) or seasonal events (e.g. the Felfire Festival). Developing these patches and the content for these events costs Blizzard money, so the base price is going to be higher.
CCGs and AAA titles are generally not even the same type of game. It makes much more sense to compare Hearthstone to other CCGs, and while it's not the cheapest CCG on the market, it's not the most expensive either (e.g. in MTG Arena you can easily spend $200 just building a single deck.
You don't have to buy a full set of expansion cards to play the game, so comparing a $60 sticker price for a AAA title to $130 for pre-release bundles is disingenuous.
Just a couple of thoughts:
I think you overestimate the cost of weekly events / patches in HS; I mean brawls are recycled permanently (how many new do we receive per year? not many) and events are mostly a special quest or double gold or something (which is little work); I would argue that the effort here is not huge
Your claim on MTGA is wrong imo, if you are completionist yes but all other players no; I am almost F2P and have several meta decks with enough wild cards lying around for 2-3 others; HS is the most expensive mainstream CCG by far imo
A new expansion comes not even close in cost to a newly developed AAA game but they charge twice the price; based on effort a new expansion would have to be much cheaper than a new AAA title (a new AAA game costs about $60-80 million); I bet a HS expansion is a fraction of this
There are enough Freemium games out there with regular updates which do not charge as excessively as HS
That said most of the current outrage stems not from Blizzard charging too much, but from them making false and misleading statements; players are rightfully pissed off; people are feeling ripped-off and that is entirely their fault
I do not expect Blizzard to be cheap or give a multitude of freebies but I expect them to honor their promises and statements
I don't know. The entire issue right now seems highly speculative to me. Firstly we have no proof, secondly I would not place too much credibility on the isolated statement of a local customer support rep and lastly this could easily be a bug. If it really happened then it should be a bug. If they really changed it to the worse and this becomes known (which it will be sooner or later if true) then this will cause another huge uproar. But again I dont think this is intentional.
That said it was always my opinion that they should clearly state the odds for transparency reasons.
I hate it too. I am completely lost on how they managed to screw this from start to finish. I mean most of the issues and reactions were entirely predictable:
XP per hour: How could they not anticipate that people will abuse this system with bots? I played a match just yesterday which I strongly suspect was against a bot (HP every turn, not played a single minion only removal and armor gain spells)
Rewards: Its a disgrace, too few and too grindy; again how could they not anticipate the backlash? I mean they either intentionally lied before ("players will have the same as before") or the actual HS dev team has no say in monetization
The UI is very bad and feels just outdated; I mean having to click on every achievement really (where is the usability)
You are aware that the XP needed to level up scales pretty significantly? You wont reach Level 50 in four weeks. Also the rewards and the amount of time are atrocious, just compare it to other games.
This changes nothing about the underlying problem. The rewards are still worse than the old system and on top we got an atrocious grind. Blizzard you need to do better.
In MTGA you also have a battle pass, but this one was implemented much better. Rewards are better, you can buy it for in-game currency and the XP needed per level is flat. Compared to that the HS system is a joke.
Thanks for the post. I mostly share your opinion. I would like to point out one thing though. This is no communication blunder or general mishap. This is a calculated move from start to finish. Blizzard is testing out how far they can go. The entire timing and process clearly points towards intention from their side. And this is what annoys me most. I have the impression they try to take us for fools.
Another point is that HS has become way too expensive. 100 bucks or more every four months and then not even getting the whole set is pretty ridiculous. I understand they need to maximize sales. But I think it is hurting the game, driving away players and ultimately even diminshing their profits. Why? Maximizing sales does not mean hiking prices as at a lower price point you appeal to more customers. I think HS is beyond that point, they very likely could make more sales at a lower price point. Working in business myself I know that price cuts are very difficult to sell to management, they rather hike prices to make a short-term gain than thinking about what is best for the medium- to long-term. I speculate that this is the core of the problem here too. People joke about Bobby Kotick having to buy another sports car, but I think this is closer to the reality than people would think.
Yes, but us not knowing much is entirely their fault. Also I am sure that they have the necessary data, they know how much people make in gold, how much the play etc. Based on this you can easily do a projection of the new system before.
I appreciate the response but I don't think bonus XP through future events is a satisfying solution. I mean what they basically say here is: Guys trust us that all will be fine because we add some events in the future. That is not a tangible solution but yet another promise. Rewards should be transparent and players should be able to plan in advance.
I mean they are selling the tavern pass now and want our money now, then the reward structure should be clear now also. That would be only fair. Call me a cynic but given Blizzard's recent track record on promises their response does not seem really ensuring.
Thanks for the reminder. I think the voting part is great. Not sure about the card discussion part to be honest, I guess I will skip this. I have read a lot of the card discussion threads but for the most part I comment only when I feel I have something somewhat substantially to add to the discussion (might not always be actually the case though :) )
They deserved the outrage from start to finish. And well Reddit is Reddit. I mean how could anybody at Team 5 not predict the backlash? The whole community reaction was totally predictable. That is also the reason I think the whole "Give them time to react" argument is flawed. Yes Blizzard is a big corporation but they should have seen this coming from miles away even before release. Time enough to prepare a Plan B. The bottom line is that they screwed it and were punished.
And there won't be. They will not further address the system itself. I wrote my fair share of posts, but this thing is through. They will not backtrack. The only thing you can do is go full F2P or quit totally. I went full F2P currently and mull quitting in the medium term
I was wrong, really thought they would skip this. Pleasant surprise
I bet it is. Given that the Championship already starts in about a week we should have it now. If I remember correctly from the last times you had at least two weeks prior. Either this or they are really late.
Thanks Blizzard. Guess I am just a second class player due to my region (thankfully I am allowed to pay first class prices) :)
Thanks for all the great work. I won't apply probably although it sounds good. I am not a native speaker and more importantly I don't feel that I am proficient enough in HS or MTGA to produce content in the required quality on a constant basis. Despite me playing for years. I could however imagine writing a guest article in case an idea pops up in my head (should this ever be the case). :)
That said there are a lot of great people around here who could probably fit the offered roles neatly.
As a wild player Convincing Infiltrator and Raza the Chained are on top of my wishlist. Cannot understand why the unnerfed the latter. But of course this is just dreaming.
Your proposal is unfortunately not that good as people already pointed out above. My thoughts on HS monetization:
My proposal would have been to simply halve the prices, although for this it might be too late now. This should have happened a year ago latest. I am convinced that reducing the prices at an earlier point would have been lucrative for Blizzard too. Of course not in the short-term but in the long-term.
That said I am well aware that this will not happen. They will continue to milk HS even if this will kill the game and hurt their long-term profits. Why? Because Blizzard like many other companies in Corporate America and elsewhere is short-term oriented. Management is incentivized this way. Just take Bobby Kotick as an example. The bulk of his annual salary comes from stock options, this information is public as Blizzard is listed on the stock exchange. In other words he cashes in when the stock price increases which means he is incentivized to value short-term profitability over long-term profitability.
You miss the main aspect here: Blizzard making misleading and false statements about the new system. They made statements / promises they did not honor. And that is certainly a thing people can rightfully be angry about.
Just a couple of thoughts:
That said most of the current outrage stems not from Blizzard charging too much, but from them making false and misleading statements; players are rightfully pissed off; people are feeling ripped-off and that is entirely their fault
I do not expect Blizzard to be cheap or give a multitude of freebies but I expect them to honor their promises and statements
No more money from me unless they honor their word and fix the system
200k or like Blizzard could also say every card in the upcoming four sets :)
I don't know. The entire issue right now seems highly speculative to me. Firstly we have no proof, secondly I would not place too much credibility on the isolated statement of a local customer support rep and lastly this could easily be a bug. If it really happened then it should be a bug. If they really changed it to the worse and this becomes known (which it will be sooner or later if true) then this will cause another huge uproar. But again I dont think this is intentional.
That said it was always my opinion that they should clearly state the odds for transparency reasons.
I hate it too. I am completely lost on how they managed to screw this from start to finish. I mean most of the issues and reactions were entirely predictable:
As a reaction I went full F2P
You are aware that the XP needed to level up scales pretty significantly? You wont reach Level 50 in four weeks. Also the rewards and the amount of time are atrocious, just compare it to other games.
This changes nothing about the underlying problem. The rewards are still worse than the old system and on top we got an atrocious grind. Blizzard you need to do better.
In MTGA you also have a battle pass, but this one was implemented much better. Rewards are better, you can buy it for in-game currency and the XP needed per level is flat. Compared to that the HS system is a joke.
Thanks for the post. I mostly share your opinion. I would like to point out one thing though. This is no communication blunder or general mishap. This is a calculated move from start to finish. Blizzard is testing out how far they can go. The entire timing and process clearly points towards intention from their side. And this is what annoys me most. I have the impression they try to take us for fools.
Another point is that HS has become way too expensive. 100 bucks or more every four months and then not even getting the whole set is pretty ridiculous. I understand they need to maximize sales. But I think it is hurting the game, driving away players and ultimately even diminshing their profits. Why? Maximizing sales does not mean hiking prices as at a lower price point you appeal to more customers. I think HS is beyond that point, they very likely could make more sales at a lower price point. Working in business myself I know that price cuts are very difficult to sell to management, they rather hike prices to make a short-term gain than thinking about what is best for the medium- to long-term. I speculate that this is the core of the problem here too. People joke about Bobby Kotick having to buy another sports car, but I think this is closer to the reality than people would think.
Yes, but us not knowing much is entirely their fault. Also I am sure that they have the necessary data, they know how much people make in gold, how much the play etc. Based on this you can easily do a projection of the new system before.
I appreciate the response but I don't think bonus XP through future events is a satisfying solution. I mean what they basically say here is: Guys trust us that all will be fine because we add some events in the future. That is not a tangible solution but yet another promise. Rewards should be transparent and players should be able to plan in advance.
I mean they are selling the tavern pass now and want our money now, then the reward structure should be clear now also. That would be only fair. Call me a cynic but given Blizzard's recent track record on promises their response does not seem really ensuring.
Thanks for the reminder. I think the voting part is great. Not sure about the card discussion part to be honest, I guess I will skip this. I have read a lot of the card discussion threads but for the most part I comment only when I feel I have something somewhat substantially to add to the discussion (might not always be actually the case though :) )