Your opinion on spending money in game?

[Omnoms]

Through just playing arena and doing plenty dailies, I've not really spent cash on the game. Just... learn to trade and deck build, then the arena is beyond amazing.

[Twoddle]

Come on, we're under a CCG thread... Like we're talking about a deck of fucking playing cards

Quick analogy:

CCG's are a subset of card games, Racquet sports are a subset of sports. It would not be correct in a Tennis Forum to say, "You need a racquet to play Tennis just like in all other sports".

[Sierra85]

this was the first expansion i didnt pre-order the 50packs, and i don't regret it.

i like that when i open packs now from dailies or arena that they aren't all dust instantly. gives some wonder back to the game.

[Deleted]

Your money, your decision.

I'm not in a position to berate someone for spening his own money. Spend $10,000 if you want to have every single card in golden version, if that's what you want to do, then feel free to do so. People blow more money on dumber things, such as jewellery, needlessly expensive sports cars or over-the-top apartaments costing $50 million+.

I personally only buy adventures for money. They're far too expensive gold-wise, I'd rather spend my gold on Arena runs, as Arena is the best way to get packs if you are good at it. I am pretty good at Arena, thus this is where my gold goes into (and gives me packs for Constructed in return). By playing a lot of arena I'm not earning much gold from raw wins (10g/ 3games), thus I can't afford BOTH arena and adventures without excessive grinding. 3500 gold needs 1.050 games won in TB or constructed, that's an insane amount of grinding compared to money saved. If adventures were $200 each maybe I'd consider saving up, but for mere $25 it's not worth the effort.

[Mormolyce]

I have invested neither significant amounts of time nor money into Hearthstone and I've been consistently hitting ranks 17-15 with a deck made up entirely of the basic cards you start with. I've opened up a total of 3 packs since I started playing last year and I'm currently sat on a couple of unopened GvG packs from the arena, unopened Old Gods packs Blizz have been handing out recently and ~3k gold that I have no idea what to spend on.

The basic set alone gives you enough solid cards to make a functional deck if you put some thought into it. Cards like Fiery War Axe, Hex and Flamestrike are all worth playing for their own benefit. Good play always puts you ahead of having "good" cards. When I do lose, its usually either my fault for making a mistake somewhere along the line or me not being able to answer a play my opponent made in time.

If people want to drop cash to get the best decks right now, more power to them. I don't really mind what people spend their own money on, but pretending that simply having those cards is automatically going to make you a better player is flat out wrong on every level.

Yeah I mean, it all depends what your goal is. If you want to hit Legend, then you need a strong deck. How many packs you need to make that deck varies A LOT depending on what deck it is - how competitive a deck is is not related to how expensive it is. Hell, zoo locks are pretty strong at the moment and they're your classic cheapo deck.

But most people don't want to commit to that massive grind every month so we all set a goal of where we want to get (if we even play Ranked). Personally I have a big collection since I've been playing since beta so I like to hit at least rank 10 (but more importantly, do my dailies and have fun with various decks). With a smaller collection I'd set my sights on lower ranks.

Not that it even matters, all the ranks do is give you very slightly better end of month boxes. And even that is recent.

- - - Updated - - -

this was the first expansion i didnt pre-order the 50packs, and i don't regret it.

i like that when i open packs now from dailies or arena that they aren't all dust instantly. gives some wonder back to the game.

That's why I've always resisted preordering or buying packs. I like that feeling of progression. "Damn I need a Disciple of C'Thun" - and then when I open one - "fuck yes! Finally!".

[StrawberryZebra]

The only games that have felt really out of my control were ones where either my opponent, or myself, had crazy luck with RNG. Sure, there are those games where you end up with 2 Flamestrikes and a 6 drop after mulliganing but those are few and far between even if they are incrediably frustrating when they happen. But they happen just as much to everyone else as to do to me so I figure it evens out in the end.

[Omnoms]

This is a nice mentality to have overall in any competitive thing...but it's really just not true in this case. 80-90% of your games are going to be largely out of your hands, they're steamrolls in either direction.

That 10-20% in the middle is where you can raise your winrate, and those are the games where your play matters.

If you have the mentality that it's out of your hands, it'll actually quite drastically affect your performance.

[ComputerNerd]

Does paying money increase the odds of getting cards, or ease doing so due to more dust.
Yes.
Does paying money "win" the game for you, in guaranteeing any cards or guaranteeing easy wins ?
No.

It potentially can get you to get from A to B quicker.
It just isn't guaranteed.

[StrawberryZebra]

It's not a "mentality", it's just how games with variance are. A lot of hands/games/etc are out of your hands, it's just how it is. You'll draw well and stomp your opponent, or they'll draw well and stomp you. (Note that it's not always readily apparent when this happens.)

The games in between are where you raise your win rate. There's not much point in fretting over the "given" losses/wins in card games.

I just assume that the number of games I'm going to automatically win due to variance is equal to the number I'm going to automatically lose. Even pushing to a 55 or 60% win rate is going to see you rocketing up the ladder. Winning as many of those games that aren't just given wins/losses as you can is what seperates the good players from the bad.

You can play around most of the variance. You can improve your odds that cards that select random targets hit the ones you want by either removing some of the minions you don't want it to hit, or you can swing it in your favour by playing it first then deciding how best to follow it up. Its not entirely in your control, but you can make a calculated gamble and come out ahead with ease with some forethought. The one card that really throws me off most, however, is Spellslinger. You never really know what came out of it making it hard to play around.

I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm constantly thinking about what cards my opponent has in their hand at any time, and which of them they're wanting to play on a given turn. Avoiding obvious mistakes like over commiting into board clears or playing minions that are just going to die for free is an easy way to quickly improve your game. Suspecting that the Priest your playing has a Mindcontrol in hand, and playing with that in mind by not giving them a good minion to use it on, is whats nudged me up a couple more ranks.

Somewhat off topic, but what would be the best way to spend ~3k gold for someone with just the basic set right now? I would assume classic packs, but I've never really bothered looking into which cards come from where.

[Mustardisbad]

Hearthstone is a huge cash grab. More so than any other game I have played. I enjoy playing the game, but I find that players who spend hundreds of dollars in game will have a massive advantage over those who choose to play for free.

It's a card game, and if you have ever played one like yugioh, pokemon, magic.. etc. then you would know that you have to sink some money into it to get a good variety of cards. Atleast there is an option to play for free compared to physical card games.

[Twoddle]

Somewhat off topic, but what would be the best way to spend ~3k gold for someone with just the basic set right now? I would assume classic packs, but I've never really bothered looking into which cards come from where.

The Grand Tournament will be the next expansion to be phased out so probably not a good idea to spend gold on them if you're starting out.

Otherwise buy from the set of which you have the greatest proportion of missing cards, that way you get more value by reducing the chance of duplicates.

[StrawberryZebra]

The Grand Tournament will be the next expansion to be phased out so probably not a good idea to spend gold on them if you're starting out.

Otherwise buy from the set of which you have the greatest proportion of missing cards, that way you get more value by reducing the chance of duplicates.

That would be all sets missing all of their cards right now. When I said "basic" I ment "Boulderfist Ogre and Stormwind Champion are the most exciting cards I currently own". I was never really sure if it was worth buying packs or adventures so the gold just accumilated over time until I decided what I wanted to do with it. Given that GvG and Naxx have been phased out, I'm even less sure than ever where best to invest it.

[Malacrass]

I started the game close after launch and thus never needed to actually buy packs in order to stay "competitive", but after two years I felt a bit bad for not supporting the game with cash.
However, after the announcement of Standard I'm happy I didn't.

Now that the monkey is out of the bag, I just limit myself to Arena and see what accumulates over the months. Treating Hearthstone as a cheap way to pass a few minutes, not like an AAA game.

[Jester Joe]

That would be all sets missing all of their cards right now. When I said "basic" I ment "Boulderfist Ogre and Stormwind Champion are the most exciting cards I currently own". I was never really sure if it was worth buying packs or adventures so the gold just accumilated over time until I decided what I wanted to do with it. Given that GvG and Naxx have been phased out, I'm even less sure than ever where best to invest it.

Honestly, I would start with Classic unless you want to aim to make an C'thun deck or something.

Classic still has really good cards that will always be usable (Unless Blizzard decides to change their mind).

[Pantalaimon]

Hearthstone is a huge cash grab. More so than any other game I have played. I enjoy playing the game, but I find that players who spend hundreds of dollars in game will have a massive advantage over those who choose to play for free.

Keep in mind that money spent on a lot of packs still technically does not garuntee rng will work in your favor & give you that specific legendary or epic you're wanting. As I mentioned in another thread on this page there are posters who shared in the WotOGs thread about how they felt they basically wasted the pre order 50 back bonus because they got only 1 or 2 useless legendaries, and that is on top of another others they got with gold or the free 13 packs. Just for an example of bad pack rng of mine, I never got a single Wrymrest Agent or that other epic taunt dragon from TGT without using crafting. Not a single bought or free pack gave me either of those since TGT launch up til now. I also only barely got an armorsmith from classic. I know, anecdotal is anecdotal, but anecdotes make up the argument for pack rng not always being in your favor. Same goes with spending real money on packs.

[PaladinBash]

I've spent almost $200 total across the expansions. I bought that big card pack deal for Grand Tournament too but otherwise I never buy actual packs. I bought some when I first got it but that was it. You really do need to do that when you start (especially now) but you get enough free card packs from quests, events, brawls and just sharding things you don't like. If you only play 1-2 decks, it's very easy to shard everything you don't need and make strong decks to start out.

[Deleted]

Friend of mine put over 150 euros into the expac yet complains of being strapped for cash whenever we organize a get together or go out. gave him both barrels.

I have friends like that :/

[Nutri]

I bought a few packs and I bought the december promo with 50 classic packs. Also bought the xpacs when I didn't have enough gold.
When my Warlock turned gold I loved the idea of having a full golden deck and was almost finished with it, made quite a number of TGT/Naxx golden legendaries. Then 6 weeks later they announced standard and I'll never spend real money on HS again.

I don't mind others spending money on it but I'll never do it again.

[Pantalaimon]

Does paying money increase the odds of getting cards, or ease doing so due to more dust.
Yes.
Does paying money "win" the game for you, in guaranteeing any cards or guaranteeing easy wins ?
No.

It potentially can get you to get from A to B quicker.
It just isn't guaranteed.

Technically probability doesn't work like that. It's a common misconception to think that if you do something more often, or in this have more packs, that you're increasing the probability of getting <insert card here> when in actuality the odds of pulling that card are the same every time regardless of how many you have (barring of course the built in bad luck prevention in the pack opening system). As I mentioned earlier, I only recently got my first Armorsmith from classic and that card is a freaking rare, not epic or legendary. Imagine how many classic packs I've opened between launch and now. You would think my odds of getting that Armorsmith would have kept going up with each pack it wasn't in, but what happened in my case is that the relatively high chance of getting that rare card kept being missed by the random number generator for HS packs while the odds stayed the same.

The few things that buying packs does garuntee is at least 40 worth of dust per bought pack, one rare or better card in each one, an epic in every ten packs if you don't pull one sooner, and a legendary in every 40 if you don't pull one. Everything else is entirely rng dependent, whether you put a ton of money into the game or not. However, you are correct in saying that you can ease the dust costs of crafting cards when buying packs because the system does ensure that you will get some dust out of your bought packs in the end. The total amount you get will still widely vary though.

[Twoddle]

Technically probability doesn't work like that. It's a common misconception to think that if you do something more often, or in this have more packs, that you're increasing the probability of getting <insert card here> when in actuality the odds of pulling that card are the same every time regardless of how many you have (barring of course the built in bad luck prevention in the pack opening system).

You're talking about the Gambler's Fallacy which doesn't change the fact that someone who is prepared to buy 100 packs will always have a greater chance of ending up with the Legendary they want compared to someone who can only afford 50 packs.