The did it again

General Discussion
1

I won’t go into detailed explanations so my post won’t be 3 pages long. Just understand that buying (or unlocking with gold) an adventure and then getting 100% of the expansion’s cards is much better for the player than buying random packs.

This is the evolution of the Hearthstone paid content:

  • Year 1: we switched between adventure and packs.
  • Year 2: we switched between adventure and packs.
  • Year of the Kraken: we switched between adventure and packs.

So far so good. Players who can stack some gold can unlock adventures for free. When it’s time to buy packs most players need to spend their gold and put a bit of cash on top to make sure they get all cards they need, since randomness makes it harder. It’s fair though, not a lot of money per year, and the developers need to be paid. Bear in mind we bought heroes for that too.

But then Activision Blizzard needs more money.

  • Year of the Mammoth: packs only, adventure for free.
  • Witchwood, Boomsday, Rastakhan and Shadows: packs only, adventure for free.

The part where you have to put a bit of money on top stopped being every other expansion and became a constant. When I called them out for this, the fanboys told me this was good for us because it was better to not have cards locked behind an adventure mode. Let’s see what they say now.

But wait, there’s more.

  • Saviors of Uldum: packs only, adventure costs money/gold.

Why bother using model A or B when you can do both at the same time and charge for them, right?

But wait, there’s more.

  • Descent of Dragons: packs only, adventure costs money/gold, there are 35 new cards locked behind it.

I challenge all fanboys to come out now and tell me how this benefits the players. Go ahead. I also challenge a PR guy to show up and justify this move, but I doubt they will.

I personally have made the decision to stop paying for this game. I’ve been here since day 1, and I’ve spent so much money I’m ashamed of myself. I could buy an RTX with that kind of cash. Go to your Battle net account and add up all the money you’ve put in this game. You’ll be surprised. It’s feels so little but it adds up to so much.

From now on I play 100% for free, and as soon as the game goes unplayable I’ll have to quit. I have skipped 2 expansions and I’m already feeling out of the game. I suggest you all do the same.

I also strongly encourage you to watch Let’s Go Whaling, by Torulf Jernström. It will help you understand what this game is doing to you without you noticing, and hopefully help you break free.

Cheers.

5 Likes
2

I don’t disagree with much of what you’re saying. it’s basically just two things:

  1. your talk of ‘fanboys’. this is essentially just setting yourself up to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you. in other words: anyone who thinks differently, must be a blind lap dog for this company aka a fanboy.

  2. back when there was the 2 expansions - 1 adventure (or vice versa) schedule, you got less stuff. for example back when I started (a week before karazhan), you didn’t get a guaranteed legendary in your first 10 packs and you also didn’t get the guaranteed legendary from the expansion release. also you could get duplicate legendaries. the daily quests started at 40g instead of 50g and I have a feeling that your first new quest of the day is a 60g one by default (might be wrong on this one).

to sum up, I don’t know which situation is better for the players. to do the math requires more dedication than I’m willing to give for this. I have a feeling that one isn’t better than the other across the board, but that for different people, different situations are better.

in any case, my point of this post was that you handled this subject too one-sidedly. comparing the present with the past only makes sense if you take the good things into account as well as the bad things.

2 Likes
3

ill never get why its bad that a company tries to earn money …

i mean im only here for about 2 years now and the amount of stuff we get is getting more and more

free legendaries for loging in, better quests (my gold is rising even faster then it was 3 months ago) and you can definitly get EVERYTHING without spending a single dime

i have friends who do that

and me? im neraly f2p

i didnt spend a single euro last year on the expansions

yes i bought 2 adventures

go on judge me. why? because i want to have packs when the release is here again and i like to save my gold

the adventures are really cool to play “single player” on the train or the bus so i like tho have variation in there

also what do you mean with “all the cards they need”?

i got with my gold only

1st expansion last year 8 legendaries
second expansion 12
and 3rd only 3 and i craftet two

and quess what

im doing very fine

in fact i NEVER climbet that high as i did today so yes its all very doable

i got 78 packs only for ingame gold since sou and dod and i took a month or more off because of another game

i agree the system isnt perfect probably but its EASILY doable for everyone if they know how to manage their resources

i dont care if you call me a fanboy. That statement alone makes it hard to take you seriously

Also when you try to make your point then dont start with “i challenge”

that makes you look condecending, not intelligent or surperior

and my FINAL POINT

if you made the desicion to quit

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Are you soooo full of yourself that you really think that everyone else in the blizzard world or maybe just in this forum cant think for themself without your help?

i know most of the regulars here and most of them are grown which can handle their money and their life pretty well!

Not much harm in spending money for your hobby if you freely choose to do so

1 Like
4

Wow, it’s almost like we’re getting 4 expansions instead of 3 in a year. Ain’t that really cool, I don’t mind paying for it since it’ll basically be like what the first 4 adventures were.

5

You have to stop using this as an argument in itself…
There’s a company out there that sells baby seal fur coats. Guess how they get the fur… But it’s okay, because it’s a company trying to earn money, yeah?

1 Like
6

You’re probably going to call me “fanboi” because I don’t blindly agree with everything you write. And that means you’re probably not even going to read what I write, or at least not take it into serious consideration.
But for all others who follow my thread, here is my counterpoint.

  • First years, alternation between expansion (135 cards) and adventures (24 cards first, later increased to 30 and then 45).
    Lots of people complained that cards that were essential were locked behind a paywall. Instead of just crafting the two or three cards they needed, they had to buy the adventure (or at least the wings up to the one that had the card). Instead of being able to craft Zombie Chow for 40 dust, they had to sink 2800 gold into a game mode they didn’t enjoy, just to get to the fourth wing and earn the card.
    During the end of this period complaints also increased about the meta being stale. With just 45 new cards, adventures didn’t stir up the meta as much as a full expansion did.

  • Year of the Mammoth: Blizzard changes from (1 or 2) to three expansions per year. This silenced the complaints about cards that were only available by buying a whole adventure, and there were now three major meta shake-ups each year. They still want to make solo content too, so they now make solo adventures for each expansion (except the first). And because there is no exclusive reward to get people to pay, they decide to not ask for payment at all.
    You claim this is because they wanted more money? I might have bought that if it had been a change to three expansions without solo content. But in reality they increased number of expansions, AND increased amount of solo content, AND give the solo content for free.
    But of course, people complain. Life’s only constant, it seems. Now the complaint that I saw over and over on the forums was that there was no reward for the solo adventures, or that the reward was “just a card back” or “just a pack”, and people felt cheated because after investing a lot of time to beat the mode they wanted a reward.
    Oh, and people also complained about the gameplay of the solo mode being too shallow. Not enough content. Not exciting enough. “We get it for free, and it’s not good enough”. Yeah, I like to complain too. I complain about the whiners.
    As to your statement: “The part where you have to put a bit of money on top …” … is nonsense. You don’t have to put any money in. You can, if you want to get more cards, get them faster, etc. But you don’t have to. I’ve been playing this game since just before Blackrock Mountain, and I have never spent as much as a dime on it. Yes, that means that I do not have a full collection at the start of the expansion. I usually have enough gold for 50-60 packs or so, and then open more during the expansion. If you are impatient, if you want to have every meta deck available on day 1 of the expansion … yes, that costs money. Welcome to real life, where what you consider worth having, is worth paying for.

  • Year of the Dragon: Blizzard decides to give in to the pressure to make solo mode more interesting, and to the demands for better rewards. This is a good combination in fact, since better rewards justify an entry price, and an entry price gives them budget to develop more and deeper content. We see for the first time solo mode that has unlimited replayability. (Okay, technically previous solo modes were replayable too but that got kind of boring since the encounters were all fixed).
    And yes, this came with an entry fee, and with rewards. No exclusive rewards, they still didn’t want to go back to that, so the rewards were packs.
    And obviously, people still complained. “I paid 700 gold and got only 3 card packs, total rip off!” Sigh. You got exactly what was advertised on the package, and of course you pay more for “3 packs + loads of content” than for “3 packs”.
    Or: “it’s all random, when I get bad RNG I have zero chance and have to play over and over again”. Sigh. If you hate playing this mode so much, you should have spent those 700 golds on just 7 packs, 'kay?

  • Descent of Dragons: Still expansion + adventure, but now according to the announcement there will be 35 new cards as rewards, exclusive to the adventure.
    I personally don’t like this move. When the old adventures were abolished, I understood the reasoning: players who just want to be ranked should not be forced to play something else; and having exclusive rewards also limited the designers in how difficult the normal mode could be because they felt that every player should be able to get the rewards.
    I don’t understand their reason to move back to this format, it doesn’t appear to be in response to any common complaints I have seen on the forums I visit. But I have to add that, until final and official announcements are made, there’s too much unknown, too much speculation, to make a final assessment. So I’ll hold back on my judgement, but I start sceptical.

However … your claim that all of this is done to squeeze more pennies out of their player base makes no sense.
I started playing this game when there were no freebies. Maybe (I don’t recall, I didn’t track as much information as I do now) you got three or so packs free when an expansion launched, but that was it. In the last two or so years, I always get between 6 and 12 free packs at the start of each expansion; I get a free classic pack (almost) each week in Tavern Brawl; I get a handful of free packs each year due to promotional events for large tournaments; and I get much more gold per day then before (remember the days of the 40g quests?). And this list is not even complete.
All those increases in freebies are not the actions of a company that tries to increase its bottom line by extracting more money per player. They are the actions of a company that tries to retain existing players and attract new players, realizing that a larger player base is good for their bottom line even if the earnings per average individual player are lower.

Done.
Zero.
Not surprised at all.

1 Like
7

Thats not even close to the same

I doubt blizzard is clubbing baby seals to produce card packs

8

Yes, that’s what i said. I said blizzard is clubbing baby seals to produce card packs…

9

No but why did you make that argument then?

Im ok with a normal company, who doesnt hurt people even tough they choose voluntary to give them money to get better toys, earn profit.

Im not ok with a company who kills animals for a in my opinion useless product because fur isnt by far the only product to keep you warm.

In this chase i dont care if they want to make profit.

Doing something capitalistc like providing something for money (and for free as well if you invest the time) is totally fine for me

Killing animals for a product to sell is a ridiciolus comparison. That is evil and those people should go to jail

1 Like
10

How is it a ridiculous comparison? You confirmed we basically are in agreement. Trying to make money does not justify the use of any means.

Blizzard is more subtle about it than clubbing baby seals, but if you can’t see why i made the comparison, I think you should read Tercenya’s post again to be honest.

1 Like
11

could you instead explain what you meant?

1 Like
12

yes pls explain

dont be offended but in my opinion your weakest arguments are those where you write “if you dont understand then read it again” or my favourite one was “i cant explain it any simpler because i dont understand why you cant understand it”

i honestly think you are a smart one but those arguments are weak and in a discussion from person to person i doubt many people will take you seriously

and ofcour4se trying to make money doesnt jsutify the use of any means

i mean

bankrobberies
murder for money
armed robbery
kidnapping
etc

i assume those are very view of the many many different things we can agree are not justified when someone says “i just did it to earn money”

1 Like
13

Before the topic gets locked, just want to quickly add that if like anything, you dont like the costs, just dont buy it, if everyone feels the same, the company will be forced to re-evaluate their pricing.

Personally, I think that £16.99 for the upcoming adventure is fair as I will get value from that.
Also, i didn’t buy any packs last expansion, as i thought i wouldn’t get value and used my saved up gold instead.

See how easy it it?

1 Like
14

It is widespread common knowledge that Blizzard fans will come out to bite anyone who speaks ill of the company, regardless of what is being spoken. I know what it sounds like when I say it, and I don’t like building a straw man, but I believe we’ve reached a point where the statement can be considered fact.

Giving us a free legendary, or even five, is a marketing tactic. If you give your players something for free they are more likely to spend their cash. They quite likely made some calculations and realised handing us one legendary at the beginning provokes a larger income afterwards, especially when the gift has synergy with another legendary card.

The same thing applies to quest gold, more or less. They probably gave us 20% more gold from quests but internally devaluated the gold somehow to counteract it. Inflation if I may.

15

we can defnitly agree on the fact that they gave us better quests and far more free legendaries like in the past (of what i hear because i wasnt around in the dark ages)

we can also agree that if blizzard gives me something for free for one of my favourite games then im willing to put more time into that game.

also which statement can be considert fact? the one with the Blizzard fans?

16

My point was it’s not black and white.
You say armed robbery is bad, but Blizzard’s marketing is fine, because it’s a company trying to make money. Correct me if I’m wrong by the way.

But what’s your view on those Evangelists in the USA manipulating people into donating their savings so they can buy their third private jet?
There are countless examples of these grey zones where legality meets morality.

17

I would call that a widespread prejudice.

the thing is, when someone complains about an aspect of hearthstone and another one counters this complaint, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is in defense of blizzard.

taking this forum as an example, the usual complaint here isn’t very far-sighted. it wants one thing changed and ignores everything that doesn’t support the theory that this thing needs to be changed. in my opinion this is useless feedback because it is obvious that it is not thought-through. so it’s very easy for the devs to disregard it and in many cases it’s better to disregard it.

this is where the “fanbois” come in. they simply try to show the holes in those complaints, in an attempt to make it more balanced, more fair and thus more valuable.

and the way I see it, the usual response to a counter to a complaint is not to show that the complaint is valid the way it was brought forward, but rather a dragging it to the personal level, by attacking the integrity of the person who criticized the complaint. this wouldn’t be necessary if those counters were so unfounded.

as a disclaimer: I’m not talking about you here. you don’t fit this pattern and I wouldn’t have brought it up here, if you hadn’t started with that fanboi thing. I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to speak out for those, who are misjudged. sorry for making such a big off-topic thing.

I know. but still it is an improvement for the players. and my point was that if you say that the adventure/expansion model of 2020 is worse than that of 2017, you should also take that stuff of 2020 into account that is better than 2017.

how would they have devalued gold though? the way I see it, gold is even more valuable than a couple of years ago because changes like a guaranteed legendary in the first 10 packs and no duplicate legendaries increase the amount of dust you get from your packs (albeit only slightly).

1 Like
18

I’m pretty sure that he meant that it’s not reprehensible for a company to try to maximize their revenue and that he didn’t mean that wanting to make money justifies any means (like clubbing seals).

1 Like
19

well i dont held any high opinion on every religion so maybe thats an example for someone else

i think those evangelists are basicly the opposite of what they are praying and when i see in which kind of houses they live they should be ashamed of what they do.

And you even say it yourself they manipulating people in search of hope, community or what else. So basicly they dont even provide a real product so its a really bad thing.

but i dont see why we compare people who prey on the weak to get their money but basicly nothing in return but promising that they wont go to hell if they pay for it with a company which charges money for a product they provide which gives me entertainment.

also yes i say exactly that blizzard marketing is fine because its legal and should be legal as capitalism actually is right now (and i hope that stays that way) and armed robbery is bad.

I dont see why those things are in the same sentence.

If you guys want me to not apear as a Blizzard Fan boy we can talk about a different company as well IF they have the same concept.

im not talking about pay to win situations like from EA or this ridiciolus Mobile Game Companies (for example there is a Command and conquer game which has a Quest to progress in the early stages of the game which says buy something in the shop with real money)

so pls how is clubbing baby seals not black?

im happy to discuss black and white scenarios but i honestly dont think that this is the best example for that.

20

I read it. Took a while.