I’m not saying it’s 50/50 or a coin flip. My post was about card draw and decisions, so I’m never talking about coin flips.
Regarding doing bots and models to influence the output of the game, I’ve said in the past and I’ll say it again, I work in game development for 14 years now, the last 8 of those in data science, and I find all these theories amusing. While it is true that game development companies create bots and models, it is a lot more effective to use those for increased retention and engagement and let the marketing teams handle the monetisation. What this means in practice, is that either Blizzard isn’t doing it at all or is doing it wrong.
Well, one thing is certain. Hearthstone is not a charity club. Of course Blizzard made this game to make money. That it has a Free to Play model is irrelevant.
In fact, I will say more, it’s one of the most profitable titles for Blizzard and will continue to be.
To expect it to be continuously updated with new content while remaining completely free to play is just not feasible.
I was never a crazy person to reach to the point that i’d say “the game is rigged”.I started Hearthstone back at winter of 2014,so i can safety say im not just a kid crying,even though im prepared of what toxicity ill get with this post.But i cant hold it anymore.The last 1 year,the game is severely rigged/botted/scripted,you call it whatever you want.
I was patient,always reading others to say its just bad luck,change decks,bad timings.But you have no idea how many times i caught myself losing so “predefined” games that i wished to recorded them to post on YT.But then i think "you will go against Blizzard,with blind sheep followers,the guys that told us “you dont have phones?”
I play both ranked normal and battlegrounds.A LOT of them.Both of them,give a feeling of a calculated % of wins/loses,predefined.Like the first post maker said,i cant unstuck of my rank,and im not a cheap players,i always be smart to end up have 30-40k dust per rotation.Checkin youtuber decks,customize them if need,check monthly sites of rank decks.Nothing works.If the game wants you to lose,you will lose no matter what.
In battlegrounds,its worse.Im nearly convinced that,since i havent spend for some time now,i got a rigged account.
Today after a long time,i decided to play murlocs.It was the worst game ever,pushed more to believe that even battlegrounds are bot controlled:
At the whole game,the refresh didnt gave me ANY good murloc to boost.Even after reaching 6-star,refresh kept giving me Tidecaller(i had it golden already),tidehunter,rockpool hunter.And when i say these,i dont mean a plenty of them.There were even 10 refreshes with giving me 1 murloc.
Most disappointing part is not that.Its the pool rate.Being on 5/6 star and i didnt got ANY(i swear to Jesus) Seer/Navigator/Lookout/Bagurgle.
Only one Toxicfin on my last refresh(i froze it in hope to get it) but it was too late,i had murlocs with 10 hp MAX vs a guy with 120/120 & 60/60s pirates(yes,it was so advanced in rounds the game).
So ye,go ahead and call me all the names you want,id just hope you wont experience a CONSTANT feeling that your game is rigged.
Thanks Blizzard(cause im nearly to quit this thing,is unplayable anymore for me)
p.s:Continuing of the post creator questions,why Blizzard dont allow us to post any links,especially of photos or videos of our games related,to show to people if we are crazy or not?You gonna tell me its hard to have few employees for Moderators and a little of botting to filter if the mentioned posts contain inappropriate stuff to remove them?
Or they simply they dont want people to “spill” their perfect forums with stuff like accusations of problems(even if bugs)?
Have anyone else wondered that?
You can put up links to trusted websites like Youtube without any problem. Sites like imgur and so on though aren’t on the list (No I do not know what sites are on the trusted list), but there is a workaround:
By putting a pair of ` symbols around the link, you wrap it in a code block that allows you to post a link. Some people do unnecessary stuff like putting X in front of the link but I don’t like doing that.
To make an example, here’s a funny image of me getting a fair amount of Rockpool Hunters: https://i.imgur.com/fqVJTus.jpeg
You just have to take the game for what it is, an RNG fest. I have consistently hit legend and 90% of the time it’s down to grinding until I get a lucky RNG streak.
Sure most of the skill in this game comes from building your own deck, but then it’s all down to card draw and whatever cards you/your opponent happen to discover/draw and the RNG outcomes of the cards that target/generate things randomly. At high ranks the chances of someone playing incorrectly on their turn is negligible.
I see repeats of this type of post from time to time and it never made much sense to me.
The general idea that a multi-million (if not billion) dollar company would spend time and resources to rig the system (which I believe is illegal btw) PURELY to stop YOU… yes you, the one reading this, sole center of the universe and obviously best player ever from winning games in some way or another is… well… silly.
The sheer amount of effort, time, money, resources and murders they would have to commit to keeping it quiet to prevent legal action simply would NOT be worth it to mess with one or more players game experience. I think posts like this always forget something; for every loser of a match, there is a winner. Saying the system is rigged to make you lose is also saying they rigged it so another player would win. What logic is there in doing that when it would happen naturally? To get a specific player to spend more money? Most players who feel like they have rigged games quit, not buy more content. I’m mostly a FTP player, but I’ve had both lucky and unlucky streaks with my skill, RNG and the meta contributing to both instances.
The thing that mostly annoys me is these types of posts that flood the forum, hiding actual issues and giving Blizz essentially a free ride on problems for a while until a majority of the forum gets together to complain about something hard enough. Enough feeding for now, I’m aware that ops like this are insurmountable in their dedication to an idea, I just wanted to chip in because I’m tired.
You should check the forum Adamaeus, i remember to have been reading a post from somebody that have been programming games, that described how easy it was to rig a game and a little about how it could be done.
So no it don’t cost that much time or money to do it, and yes a company like Blizzard would do it because there are a huge amount of money to earn, if you get ppl hugged on something and make them pay in the hope they will stand better.
On the other hand i don’t think the game is rigged in the way ppl described, more so it ensure that ppl stay on the same place on the ladder for a long time, because we can’t all be legend player.
Please explain to me why would Blizzard prevent people from reaching Legend.
I’ve reached Legend several times.
This is silly. There’s literally nothing to gain from attaining Legend other than the satisfaction that you have, and another pack and an Epic card is all that separates Diamond 5 from Legend rank.
It’s not like there’s some hidden money prize.
Ranked is competitive because many people want to climb the ladder, and for many it’s their first time trying to attain Legend, so they try to climb with the best decks they can find online.
While for those who consistently reach Legend it’s just a sort of achievement, a challenge if you will. Trying to beat others to Legend, cracking the top 100, etc.
I don’t know much about programming, but i work with optimizing big companies, and making shareholders happy.
I can tell you that one of the most importent things for any company, is to get as much money out of their products as possible, even if they hide it behind other stuff, like nature protection, animal protection or other things like that.
The reason for keeping ppl at every part of the ladder is simple, first of all they need to keep their hope up, so they use their money, second you need to have ppl spread out, so everybody have opponents to play against.
This game sells hope and goals to reach, nothing more or nothing less. Think about some of the players that reach legend, they hope to get a little higher so the can compete in the tournements, the rest of us just hope to get a little higher on the ladder this month.
so yes there are a lot of money to earn by rigging the game, and at the same time it isn’t against the law in most countries, because this is a game for fun not a casino.
But there will always be people who reach Legend every month regardless, and those who don’t.
Let’s say hypothetically that instead of 1% of players who reach Legend every month, there will be 75% of them.
You want to tell me then that the game will be less profitable?
The game is profitable because people buy bundle packs and cosmetics,because they buy Tavern Passes and Battleground Perks. And why do they do that? Because they want to have access to the new content and cards without having to play Arenas and grind quests.
Because people have expendable income they can spend to support a game they like.
And then there’s the free to play crowd who like to take it easy, and earn everything gradually without paying anything. It’s a choice people make.And there’s nothing wrong with either approach.
Hearthstone is a hobby game just like Magic:The Gathering. Some people will buy everything for it, others will only get choice content.
The reason why Hearthstone became more expensive? Because a lot more new content is getting released for it every year than in its early days.
And let’s assume that you’re a top 100 Legend player, in the 0.1 % percentile every month.
This may open a door to the tournaments for you.
The question is: how willing are you to compete on a national scale?
Not everyone is built for this sort of thing regardless of their skill level
Just like not every chess wizard wants to compete in championships.
Just like not every person with a great singing voice can make it, or wants to make it in show business.
There’s a huge difference between being a consistently great player and wanting to take it to the next level.
English is sadly enough not my native language, so it is defficult for me to explain how the mechanisme of a marked works in english, but basically a game as Heathstone or Magic the Gathering trives on competition between the players, because that is what make the marked where they can sell their product.
if let say 75% of all players reach legend, most of them will not have a goal they haven’t reached yet and therefor there will be no reason for them to buy booster packs, which means that it will only be the fluff they might buy from time to time.
Lets take a game like Warcraft, they keep comming with new expansion, not because they like to make them, but to give players new goals to reach, so they keep them in the game.
The same mechanisme is in Heathstone just on anothe scale, and build in another way, which is the ladder.
So basically if 75% of the players reach their goal every month, you will see more and more of them leave, simply because they don’t have a new goal to reach for and the reaching legend become a normal thing for them. That means that letting almost everybody reach legend, will be a bad decision, when you look at the prevenue.
So it will be very strange if Blizzard didn’t do what they could to keep the marked up, like they do in all other games, just as every other company in the world do different things to keep their marked away from the competitor.
I don’t say that anybody are doing something wrong, i just say i will be surprised, if Blizzard are doing things so much different from other companies, as it first of all are a business, that offer a product, they want to earn money on.
Hearthstone is played by millions of players every day. It has a competitive mode that gauges your performance against other players.
Of course, there will always be those who get to the top and those who will fall behind. There can be no other way. If the entire world ran a marathon, a lot of people would make it to the finish line. And someone would always be first to tear the ribbon.
Which is why it doesn’t make sense that Blizzard would gain something from rigging matchmaking. Are those people who consistently hit Legend consistently lucky? Are they above the system if it’s rigged? Do they play more hours than those who don’t? Maybe they don’t give up as easily. Because the road from Diamond 5 to Legend is always the longest.
The game is popular and profitable because people like it.
The game has to generate revenue to survive. Think of all the costs associated with running the servers, developing new content, updates and patches.Look at the art design-it’s gorgeous. Who would want to work for free?
Hearthstone would never survive this long if it were just some freebie project. It’s a hugely successful game for a reason.
I have reached legendary rank for maybe last 5-6 months, but problem is that I win 8/10 games and then I lose 8/10 games without any chance to do something with it. For example got cards with high mana which are not playable, random effect and so on. It is annoying and I dont believe that is the coincidence.
Imagine if Hearthstone were not a card game, but a chess-like game where both you and your opponents had a level playing field.
The only thing that separates a win from a loss is your individual skill level.
And you’re a really good player. But each win bracket you reach requires you to be even better.
So let’s say if you’ve reached the highest win bracket, and now you have to win 25 consecutive games to reach the very top.
Now, you’re playing against people who are as good or are better than you but you have to beat them all consecutively .
Does it matter if it’s card game or a game with completely open information? I don’t think so . If you’re required to get a consecutive win streak against the best players to reach the top, it’s going to be challenging either way.
But in a card game you also have to contend with luck of the draw. The skill lies in extracting maximal value from what you drew. And there will be times where the hand you drew will be the worst possible hand. It happens to everyone.
The game might be “rigged” in some way - there are definitely some question marks:
Why can’t we see the rank of our opponent anymore?
Am I actually being paired fair?
How much money did my opponent push into this game?
Am I, as a free-to-play player, deliberately being paired against those with a fully bought deck in order to incentivize me to also spend money on cards?
Am I constantly being paired against counters in order for me to spend money on buying an alternative deck to counter the counter?
This is the rigging I would assume exists. Not preventing player X from reaching a certain rank, but to push people into buying as much as possible.
There will be counters to any deck, no matter how strong.
Rush Warrior is strong, but loses to Control Priest
Miracle Rogue is fantastic but loses to Rush Warrior, and Hunter is a hard matchup.
You being paired against a counter deck has nothing to do with “rigged” matchmaking, but the simple fact that people are playing with this deck, and you happened to encounter it during your climb.
As someone who has started as a free-to play player(for the first five years) , but slowly shifted to getting bundles, I can assure you that my matchmaking is the same as yours.
As I showed earlier, the challenge in Ranked is the fact that once you hit a high enough rank, you need to secure a consecutive win streak in order to progress.
If players had been getting three bonus stars per every two/three wins in Diamond rank, we wouldn’t even be talking about matchmaking. We’d be flying through the ranks. The bad matchups would be negligible to our progression.
The reason you’re noticing bad matchups to your decks is because your progression through the ladder is slowed down considerably the higher you climb.
Also consider that we’re talking about Standard ladder here, but there are two more ladders in the game: Classic and Wild
The people playing there most surely have all the cards required to progress through the ranks. You can build a winning deck in Wild without tapping into any of the latest sets.