Gold rewards are ridicolous.

[haxartus]

Yeah, now check the date. Then go find the next run (F2P rogue) which he couldn't complete and had to abandon despite no lack of trying.

And zoo can still do it. It only requires the first wing of naxx for the egg and haunted creeper...

[rda]

And zoo can still do it. It only requires the first wing of naxx for the egg...

I don't think it can. Remember, we are playing an hour a day, so it will take quite some time to climb and while you are doing that, the meta will render the prototype useless.

Besides, you'd have to get dust to craft quite a number of cards for that to even begin.

[haxartus]

Besides, you'd have to get dust to craft quite a number of cards for that.

A month of play. To get to legend, basically the biggest achievement in the game. That's pretty casual to me.
To get the biggest achievement in WoW back when it was even remotely difficult (Lich King 25 Heroic), you had to play 3-4 hours a night every night.

[rda]

A month of play. To get to legend, basically the biggest achievement in the game. That's pretty casual to me.
To get the biggest achievement in WoW back when it was even remotely difficult (Lich King 25 Heroic), you had to play 3-4 hours a night every night.

Re-read what I said about the meta de-powering the deck obsolete while you do this. It happens all the time.

And I think you underestimate the amount of time to get dust for the cards. What amount of dust do you assume you'd be getting playing casually per day? We are talking about arenas, right? Then it's 3 wins average, once per three days, for what amount of dust? Like, 30? So, 300 dust per month? LOL.

And, just so it doesn't get lost, we aren't talking about casual noob getting to legend, we are talking about an experienced already multi-legend player, who has all the skill you want, doing this playing an hour per day. And no, he can't do it. Because the cards matter more than his skill and they take a heck of a lot of time to get.

[grom33]

Not really, I've haven't gotten a game with less than 3 wins in months. If the worst is 3, each peak up to 5,7 or 12 counts up and your average can only be higher than 3.
Below 3 wins you get people who have no idea what is going on, and occasionally someone skilled who is just passing by. Any informed player can get 4-5 wins.

You assume that for each informed player with 4-5 wins there is a "not-informed" player with 1-2 wins. I do not agree with this.

First, do you log your arenas? Before I started logging my arenas, I though my average was much higher. When I started logging my real average was much lower than i though.

And second, if you are really good at arena, you are part of a minority of players. "Go get good at arena" is not valid advice for the majority of the population, and even less valid for beginners. Any way you cook up numbers, average wins is 3.

And third, even if you average 4-5 wins per arena, the rewards at that point are probably not worth the effort if you dont like the format.

[Pengalor]

F2p almost always means p2w. Rare are free games where the things you buy with real money are just vanity, and you should know this by now. There are plenty of free games that make you either work your ass off to get the items in the game OR pay a sum of money and get it instantly. The idea is to discourage the player from trying to obtain the same item for free, because then the player isn't paying for the game at all and that's not how a business works.

You should know this by now. I'm not saying you don't have the right to criticize free games, I'm saying you don't have the right to be shocked by this unless you've been living in a cave.

I'm sorry, that's simply not true. Sure, there are a lot of screwy F2P models but there are also quite a few that are very fair (or were until recently). SolForge is an example of another card game that has a pretty fair F2P model. As for other games in general: TF2, Dota 2, LoL for the most part, Planetside 2 until implants were put in, GW2's wasn't that bad, and there are more. Honestly, I wouldn't even have a huge problem with Hearthstone's if the ranking system wasn't so easy to game and I could play against players with similar levels of cards. In games where I play against people who have obviously put together their own decks and working with what cards they do have I generally have a blast and don't mind losing. The problem is the playerbase being how it is mixed with the way the F2P model is it simply doesn't work well in my opinion. I still love the game, I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't love the game and didn't want to keep playing it, I just have a difficult time getting beyond my frustration with what I feel like is basically a stall in progress because of the problems mentioned.

[rda]

And second, if you are really good at arena, you are part of a minority of players. "Go get good at arena" is not valid advice for the majority of the population, and even less valid for beginners. Any way you cook up numbers, average wins is 3.

The irony is that when some of these other players do get good, he'd find himself magically getting worse than before. It's a zero-sum game.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry, that's simply not true. Sure, there are a lot of screwy F2P models but there are also quite a few that are very fair (or were until recently). SolForge is an example of another card game that has a pretty fair F2P model. As for other games in general: TF2, Dota 2, LoL for the most part, Planetside 2 until implants were put in, GW2's wasn't that bad, and there are more. Honestly, I wouldn't even have a huge problem with Hearthstone's if the ranking system wasn't so easy to game and I could play against players with similar levels of cards. In games where I play against people who have obviously put together their own decks and working with what cards they do have I generally have a blast and don't mind losing. The problem is the playerbase being how it is mixed with the way the F2P model is it simply doesn't work well in my opinion. I still love the game, I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't love the game and didn't want to keep playing it, I just have a difficult time getting beyond my frustration with what I feel like is basically a stall in progress because of the problems mentioned.

GW2 is not free, you still have to pay for the box as well as the expansions.

Also, when it comes to making paid content for free games, you gotta work within limitations. Some games allow the dev to make content that is just vanity and attractive to the player at the same time, like in MOBA games. Those skins are nice and the players would want them. But in a simple card game? There is not a whole lot you can interest players in, like I said some posts ago, other than portraits, card backs and ornaments, things that I don't see anyone paying even 5$ for.

Planetside 2 makes you pay for weapons and everything else. Yes, you can grind them in the game but it takes a long time during which you will face players that have already obtained what they wanted and are very strong. I remember I quit Planetside 2 about 2 hours after I started it because I came face to face with an enemy player while I was in one of those super suits and in a closed space, so odds are I should have rekt him. Nope, he actually outdamaged me while being even tankier than my suit. Yeah, not gonna go through a gearing phase like in wow if I want to pvp.

[rda]

Also, when it comes to making paid content for free games, you gotta work within limitations. Some games allow the dev to make content that is just vanity and attractive to the player at the same time, like in MOBA games. Those skins are nice and the players would want them. But in a simple card game? There is not a whole lot you can interest players in, like I said some posts ago, other than portraits, card backs and ornaments, things that I don't see anyone paying even 5$ for.

Not sure why skins work in MOBAs, but wouldn't work in HS.

Custom faces, custom emotes, heck, you can have your whole side of the board be custom if you want. And that's just off the top of the head.

[Pengalor]

GW2 is not free, you still have to pay for the box as well as the expansions.

Also, when it comes to making paid content for free games, you gotta work within limitations. Some games allow the dev to make content that is just vanity and attractive to the player at the same time, like in MOBA games. Those skins are nice and the players would want them. But in a simple card game? There is not a whole lot you can interest players in, like I said some posts ago, other than portraits, card backs and ornaments, things that I don't see anyone paying even 5$ for.

Planetside 2 makes you pay for weapons and everything else. Yes, you can grind them in the game but it takes a long time during which you will face players that have already obtained what they wanted and are very strong. I remember I quit Planetside 2 about 2 hours after I started it because I came face to face with an enemy player while I was in one of those super suits and in a closed space, so odds are I should have rekt him. Nope, he actually outdamaged me while being even tankier than my suit. Yeah, not gonna go through a gearing phase like in wow if I want to pvp.

You're correct about GW2, maybe I was thinking of Rift. As for limitations, I understand that and I'm not even suggesting they neuter the F2P model entirely, I'm just asking that they examine the direction their game has taken and maybe reconsider the decisions they made at the release of the game in the context of what the game has become since last year.

As for Planetside 2, I don't know what to tell you. I didn't have any issues with their F2P model or the base equipment you were given. I'd honestly still be playing it had they fixed the lag that ended up plaguing it.

[Deleted]

It is expected to have less cards, the disconnect is that cards play much bigger role than skill and so you are toast for way more time than you thought you'd be.

My first thought is to point out that the gap between cards and skill is always tipped in the favor of skill. I know it's popular for people to insist otherwise but that's just the way it is, and even if it weren't; how can there be a disconnection between the importance of owning cards, while still expecting to have fewer cards?

Not sure I was able to articulate the contradiction as well I wanted, but hopefully you get my point.

Secondly, who exactly are these people, and why are their expectations the fault of the game?
It is a card game after all; the whole point of it is to collect cards, which I'm going to point out again, for emphasis, the game literally throws free packs at you when first start playing, so it's not like you only start out with just the basic cards, of which many are solid cards themselves.

To me it seems like people come to the game with certain expectations, varying from thinking they should start with more cards and thinking they are entitled to rank up quickly, with very little in the form of card collection and time spent learning the game.

Part of the blame is in the community though, which never seizes to brag about how supposedly easy it is to get X wins on the arena or ladder to rank 5+. Then when new players listen, gullible as they are, and actually start playing they suddenly realize it isn't all easy piecy like they were lead to believe.

[Okacz]

At least they don't reward more gold the higher your rank is.

Yeah, encouraging you to seek challenge and play on higher difficulty levels is a terrible idea.

It's a problem anyway, there is no reason to rank up really other than the vague bragging rights. Can't there be some ranked rewards of some sort?

[Deleted]

Yeah, encouraging you to seek challenge and play on higher difficulty levels is a terrible idea.

It's a problem anyway, there is no reason to rank up really other than the vague bragging rights. Can't there be some ranked rewards of some sort?

I don't see why, since ranking up should be its own reward for those who care about it. Not to mention, you will naturally rank up as long as you play and get better.

[rda]

My first thought is to point out that the gap between cards and skill is always tipped in the favor of skill. I know it's popular for people to insist otherwise but that's just the way it is, ...

It's the reverse, it's popular to say that the game is about skill and those who say that it's more about cards are just noobs who know no better, but cards do indeed play a bigger role than skill - former multi-legendary players not being able to do much with F2P decks proves this plenty.

[muto]

At least they don't reward more gold the higher your rank is.

Too bad they don't. I really wish they did.

[haxartus]

former multi-legendary players not being able to do much with F2P decks proves this plenty.

That's bullshit.
Trump had 60% winrate with the F2P rogue. 60% winrate is enough to get to legend within a few hundred games. Of course, the lower your winrate is, the more games it requires. Trum is not going to play 150 games on the stream just to get from 5 to legend.
You can do it with 51% but that's about 900 games.
So the most important thing is to react to the meta, if you see a lot of face hunters you start running things like Kezan Mythic and Sludge Belcher, both rare cards.

[Deleted]

... cards do indeed play a bigger role than skill

If that was the case, the same people wouldn't dominate the top legend ranks. Heck, getting to legend itself would simply be a matter of getting the best cards, but that simply isn't the case. Heck, plenty people around ranks 5 through 10, and even 15, have excellent card collections and still never rank higher, no matter how hard they try.

They blame a lot of different culprits from the meta, to rng, and card collections but the simple fact is that they just aren't playing as well as they could, and that's the difference between them and those who progress further.

[rda]

Trump had 60% winrate with the F2P rogue. 60% winrate is enough to get to legend within a few hundred games.

He had that winrate across all games, it was near 100% at first and dropped dramatically when he got to the rank ceiling which he couldn't break. Learn to make sense of numbers instead of parroting things you don't understand (yes, if in some spherical imaginary world you have a constant winrate of 60% or even 50%, you are guaranteed to reach legendary, but this doesn't apply here at all, the winrate wasn't nearly constant).

- - - Updated - - -

If that was the case, the same people wouldn't dominate the top legend ranks.

You really think that the same people dominating top ranks disproves that cards play a role? They have all the cards they need, dear. Yes, that's not all they have, they have skill and plenty of time as well, but they do have the cards, so, no, them dominating top ranks does nothing to the point that cards matter more than skill. It doesn't prove that, but it doesn't disprove that either, and the way we prove that cards play a bigger role than skill is that when we put those legend players into a situation where they have no cards - surprise, they stop being legend.

- - - Updated - - -

Really, I get it that it's fashionable to keep saying that everyone who says that it's about cards and not skill is just a whiner and can't play bla bla bla, but ask yourself this: suppose it *is* about cards and not skill - how would you know it? what would prove it to you? Because if there's nothing that would prove it to you - and it sure seems that way, because you just ignore everything people say about that - well, you constructed yourself a religion. You aren't arguing, you are believing.

[Deleted]

On average, you will earn 50 gold per day and 40 dust every 2 days. That means, at the end of the month, you will get a minimum of 1500 gold (15 packs) and 600 dust (no arena involved).

For a F2P game it's not that bad, I think.

[rda]

On average, you will earn 50 gold per day and 40 dust every 2 days. That means, at the end of the month, you will get a minimum of 1500 gold (15 packs) and 600 dust (no arena involved).

For a F2P game it's not that bad, I think.

What exactly do you mean by earning 40 dust every 2 days?