Is there a point to playing this game at all without spending money?

[deadman1]

comparing a ptp card game with a f2p DIGITAL card game is intellectually dishonest.

It's mind numbing that anyone could think they could achieve anything in a game without putting in any time or money.

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so when was the last time they reached legend without spending money? furthermore the skill level needed is a factor too. not everyone has the skill to reach legend or even past rank 20 with the basic cards.

In november of last year, which was after LoE came out.

[Mormolyce]

I saved up about 1-2 months of gold and dust (from just dailies), wound up with enough to buy 10+ packs and craft two legendaries. Only made one so far but I already have a very competitive near-complete C'Thun Druid. So it's really not that hard to get to a semi-competitive level even in a new expansion.

Although I already had a solid collection of classic cards. If you're literally playing HS for the first time today, you'd have more work to do.

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All players should have all the cards. Then you could let skill decide all the way from newbie to pro.
Oh I'm sorry this is Hearthstone, I meant you could let RNG decide.

You realise you are describing Arena mode right?

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I opened the game yesterday after like 2 months.

.....I don't have the cards to play standard so I can't even do the quests. I closed the game because my old decks wouldn't even work. Like, I can't even construct them because I don't have enough passable cards besides the basics.

This is horrible. Making the game more accessible? I feel pretty shut out. I don't even know what to do to play besides spend $$ on packs.

Did you have a zoo deck or miracle rogue?

New expansions always mean new progression, so don't expect to be rank 1 on day 1 if you haven't played in ages. But catching up isn't that hard if you're patient, do your dailies and watch the meta for inspiration.

[Pantalaimon]

I kinda wish that this MMO bullshit type of thinking would get the hell away from other games.

Simple "time spent" is not - or at least should not - be something of value in any competitive activity. Leave that nonsense thinking to the people who want to spend their evenings farming bear asses to show their "dedication".

I don't know where you're drawing your morals from about what certain video games should or shouldn't be, but I know it isn't from what real life teaches us about hobbies. In the real world many hobbies, and some 'careers', are all about time spent (I'd actually extend that to say "time spent well"). For example, many aspects of athletics or sports (both Olympic or national/local), old classic games like chess, hell even art often requires someone to dedicate a lot of time into it in order to be at a comparative 'advantage' over other people. You don't spend more time with hobbies/entertainment in the real world you often will be less adept at it. Why do you expect online hobbies/entertainment to suddenly impose different rules that many mainstream cultures do not use with the rest of their entertainment?

Hate to be that guy, but your comment very much puts off what a lot of WoW players have if they don't put effort into clearing content & want what everyone else has because they won't and/or can't spend time to do it (ie entitlment aura). I've never gotten to Legend (highest has only been rank 5) and & suck at arena and yet even I'm backing up the point that if you can't manage an hour a day, if that, for your dailies then sometimes tells me you probably shouldn't be going to video games for your entertainment. As casual as HS is it still isn't some Candy Crush or Farmville game where you just pop in & get your entitled rewards after playing for 5 minutes a day. On the flip side, it still doesn't take that much time to do one daily each day. To complain about time commitment being a requirement to stay at the level of other F2P players is a non issue for the average gamer.

[Twoddle]

Yeah, I play mainly ranked mode and winning 30 games is a bit absurd to be able to buy one pack with gold. Only once too since the cap is 100 gold per day (not counting quest).

This is reasonable since otherwise you could bot your way to a full collection in no time.

Really wish people would stop saying this, because it's not a viable method for very many people at all. Even if you're a good player, "going infinite" in arena is extremely unlikely unless you already have a significant pile of gold saved up to buffer the inevitable dry spells.

You need at least 7 wins to reliably get your gold back, and 7 wins is in the top 9% of all arena runs. It's not really a viable or reliable path at all.

Sure any noob will get a lucky 7+ win every 9% of arena runs or so but it's even worse than that if you want to AVERAGE 7+ wins. I have done simulations with appropriate ELO distributions and found that it's hardly even possible for more than 5% of players to average 7 wins or more over a large sample size. An 'infinite arena' player is in the top 5% percentile and would be equivalent to being an 'Expert' chess player one step below master.

I don't know where you're drawing your morals from about what certain video games should or shouldn't be, but I know it isn't from what real life teaches us about hobbies. In the real world many hobbies, and some 'careers', are all about time spent (I'd actually extend that to say "time spent well"). For example, many aspects of athletics or sports (both Olympic or national/local), old classic games like chess, hell even art often requires someone to dedicate a lot of time into it in order to be at a comparative 'advantage' over other people. You don't spend more time with hobbies/entertainment in the real world you often will be less adept at it. Why do you expect online hobbies/entertainment to suddenly impose different rules that many mainstream cultures do not use with the rest of their entertainment?

I agree with Bovinity Divinity here. Chess players don't have to grind to make their pieces more powerful. Bridge players don't have to grind before they can play their aces and kings. The 'time spent' should be reading books and learning the game while playing, not being forced to log in every day to 'earn' more power.

[Rhaide]

SLIGHT advantage my ass. while it is not insurmountable it takes an absurd about of time to be able to catch up to that advantage. and again, if you want to be competitive you would have to decimate your collection to DE just to put together a single deck

Study good deckbuilding and play arenas a lot. You can easily do a poor man's version of 'going infinite' if you subsidize your arena runs with a few quests here and there if you're willing to study arena play.

I've spent probably around 30 dollars total on the game and it was 100% arena runs when I was bored and unable to play anything else. I have almost every card I need.

[Jester Joe]

I agree with Bovinity Divinity here. Chess players don't have to grind to make their pieces more powerful. Bridge players don't have to grind before they can play their aces and kings. The 'time spent' should be reading books and learning the game while playing, not being forced to log in every day to 'earn' more power.

Completely different styles of games, and way too late in this case. CCGs/TCGs have always been about spending more money, and there's no way Hearthstone would even exist as a Free to Play game without in game purchases. And even if you wanted the game to be a flat purchase like Smite could be, then you're shooting down the ability for anyone to be able to play, since unlike Smite, Hearthstone packs function on RNG, whereas Smite you just pick what character you want to buy, and then buy them. That allows them to put a reasonable amount on the bundle for all of them (As in, it costs x amount for all of them, so you bundle them together for less).

Hearthstone on the other hand, depends on your luck. Can't really put a price on that.

[xChurch]

Wait, this game involves skill??? wuuuuutttt....

[Filipse]

Is there a point playing Hearthstone Spending real money?... it's like cheating in my eyes, you clear the entire collection by buying shit, but that's like the optional-cheat version of it, what's fun is the journey there.

[Polarthief]

There are plenty of decks that are budget and still work really well.

PS: They gave you 13 free WoG packs and you get a free pack every week (for tavern brawl). I dare you to find that in real life where card shops just hand you packs

If you don't want to spend any money whatsoever, either find a budget deck (which can go to legend!) or play Arena/TB only. That, or stop complaining.

[Super Kami Dende]

I've hit Rank 8 without ever spending Money and don't play that much.

seems like a get good situation.

[Pantalaimon]

I agree with Bovinity Divinity here. Chess players don't have to grind to make their pieces more powerful. Bridge players don't have to grind before they can play their aces and kings. The 'time spent' should be reading books and learning the game while playing, not being forced to log in every day to 'earn' more power.

The thing is though that you don't need to log on everyday. Dailies will add up to a certain point before you start losing out on gold value, plus you can also reroll a daily once per day until you have 2, or even all three, that can be done on one hero. HS's time gating is very generous & flexible to say the least.

[Pantalaimon]

I've touched on this before, but it's actually kinda disturbing to me that people think that, "Time spent practicing something and improving themselves" is the same as "Time spent on activities with absolutely no redeeming value at all, for no reason other than the game said you have to do it."

And then you equate it to "entitlement". If anything, the "entitlement" is wanting to feel "good" and "accomplished" for no reason other than the fact that you dumped time into the game. Not because you got better, or because you were more skilled, but because you had 40 hours more than the next guy to mindlessly pour into the game.

And if anything, thinking this way is basically conceding that the game in question in any given discussion actually takes very little skill at all, since you're saying that the "time spent" is a substitute for actual practice/learning/etc.

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Indeed, but since the other guy decided to try to make it about "entitlement" and some bullshit about "putting people off WoW" or whatever, I figured we had ventured far enough into "general topic" rather than CCG specific.

Time simply spent playing the game is sometimes the same thing for "actual practice/learning" for HS. I can theorycraft & watch youtube videos/streams all I want, but sometimes you just need to actually play a very unfamiliar deck archtype to do better at it. This is why you have so many players try an experimental deck in non rated games or with friends before trying to rank with it. For all of these people spending some arbitrary 40 hours from doing their quest dailies does sometimes equate into real practice. It isn't an either/or arguement.

And like I said for the average gamer having a little time each day isn't a problem for them. So I wouldn't really say one gamer has 40 less hours to play than another, but much more likely the case that they don't want to prioritize HS higher in their free time so they choose not to do one daily a week. I find it very hard to believe that even a busy person with real life responsibilities absolutely does not have enough free time to do a daily. If that was really the case then they most likely don't have time to watch TV, netflix, play other games, take a walk, lay down & listen to music, read a book, etc etc. Now, I'm in no wise saying that HS should be objectively some highest priority form of entertainment for anybody (I know HS isn't always my highest priority form of entertainment), but it should go to say that it is less of someone not having the time & more that they choose other non essential things to do in their entertainment time other than HS. Regardless of how much you do or do not value HS for entertainment it is not hard to imagine how much *choosing* to place it on a lower priority could hamper your progress in the game.

EDIT: Keep in mind the average F2P player does not need to win 30 games to maximize the 10g bonus, you just need 2-3 games. That's all (unless you're intent on keeping more of your 5 win dailies & then I could understand a little more of keeping some of those 5 win quests til the weekend).

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Yes, we know.

You're being a bit dishonest here by taking the general topic and then veering back into the HS specific topic like that.

It does have to do with HS? I did kinda mention HS & the daily quest mechanic that is quite seperate from other games like WoW. Don't see what you're complaining about here.

[Pantalaimon]

Again, you're taking the general topic that Twoddle and I touched on and keep dragging it back to the HS specific stuff, which is pretty dishonest.

Not really. I took a general topic & applied it to a specific game. Quit trying to make non-issues into something bigger than it is. Plus, trying to measure my degree of honesty about my posting ethics doesn't even loosely relate to the topic of this thread.