Gold rewards are ridicolous.

[Deleted]

... 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.

Actually there are a couple of tests that we could perform but much of it you can simply observe on the ladder. E.g. most people at rank ~10 and on wards have a big enough card collections to put together at least one or two good, meta decks. That is; build a consistent deck, with high quality cards, and one that performs well on the current meta.

In other words, even without a full collection, the decks they play are complete and the only thing they are missing is the skill to progress, whether to rank 5 or further to legend, doesn't even matter which.

Another tangible test you could perform is take a highly skilled player, give him an inferior collection of cards, and then pit him against inferior players with superior collections. I guarantee you the more skilled player will win majority of the time.

It is about reading the meta, taking advantage of it, how to counter it, deck building, understanding value, how to trade, how to balance, build a curve, how to mulligan, play around your opponent's deck, and so on. These are all things that new and inexperienced players need to learn and just by doing so they will improve their play immeasurably. If anything, getting enough cards for one functional deck is the easy part.

but ask yourself this: suppose it *is* about cards and not skill - how would you know it? what would prove it to you?

A compelling argument would be a good start. Perhaps some observable facts maybe. So far you've produced none and talking about ignoring everything people say, you've been pretty good at that yourself. It's the pot calling the kettle black.

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.

For one thing, that applies to you as much as it applies to me, and secondly, it's a load of shite. It is essentially you say, "I can't win a rational argument so I'll just argue he's irrational."

Here's an advice for winning arguments that I'll gladly provide; attack the argument, not the person. Starting to make up stuff about me will get you nowhere.

[haxartus]

the winrate wasn't nearly constant

It was above 50%.
And the entire idea that you should be able to get to legend with crap cards is bullshit. It is not supposed to happen.
If you want to be F2P, then you spend 1-2 months collecting cards and then you get to legend. Yes, the game is not entirely skill. But it is not entirely cards either. There are decks that cost 1000-2000 dust and will have over 50% winrate in normal or between ranks 20 and 5.
Trump's 70% winrate between ranks 5 and legend zoo costs below 1000 dust and 700 gold.
And I'm not even talking about face hunter, which has 3 rares, 0 epics, 0 legendaries and it has a high enough winrate to get to legend. Face hutner doesn't care that you have Ragnaros and Boom and Sylvanas. It entirely bypasses people with strong legendaries because the game is over by round 5 or 6.
Also pretty much any expensive deck costs that much because of the legendaries. You craft the deck for 1000 dust and then put replacements for the legendaries, for example Piloted Sky Golem is good enough to replace quite a bit of legendaries.
Also I don't know why people assume that F2P means bad cards. In 3 months of play, if you do the dailies only, you get 60 packs, which is usually 3 legendaries, 12 epics and 60 rares. Also you can use the beginning quest's gold to buy Naxx wings so you can get a few legendaries from there.

[Ravex]

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.

Nice comparison of a casual card game to a mmorpg..

Jeez...

[Deleted]

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

If you buy a pack every 2 days, you will get 40 dust if you disenchant everything.

[Jester Joe]

That's very little. The 100 gold daily is very rare and the 60 gold ones are pretty rare as well. For perspective, with the current model, you are looking at spending two weeks to unlock a raid wing, playing every day. You'll get the first two wings for free because of one-time rewards, but there are ten of them, so, yeah... And that's just raid wings, I am not talking about arenas (and no, the advise to win 7+ games is noise, only 9% can do this *by design*, that's just math, average number of wins is and will always be 3).

Realistically, it's like 3 months before you even can begin thinking about making something competitive, and that's me being generous.

They're not "very rare" at all. You get them like, every 2-3 days usually. Also you have to factor in with the 60 gold ones, you need 5 wins, so that's an extra 10-20 gold. You can get a pack reliable every other day, sometimes two packs if you get the 100 gold one.

[haxartus]

If you buy a pack every 2 days, you will get 40 dust if you disenchant everything.

100 dust per pack, it was calculated over a long run.

They're not "very rare" at all.

You actually get more 60g quests than 40g if you reroll every 40g one. 9 x 60g + 15 x 40g, but the chance of getting a 60g one is 0.33 so in 5 of 15 rerolls you get a 60g quest.
That is, if it is completely random and not tampered in any way.

[Ravex]

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.

The hell is your argument?

If you don't play a lot you don't get a lot of rewards?

No shit.

Welcome to any grinding game EVER.

[rda]

It was above 50%.

It wasn't *constant*.

And the entire idea that you should be able to get to legend with crap cards is bullshit. It is not supposed to happen.

I am sorry, you are constantly losing track of the discussion. My argument is that cards matter more than skill. If you are saying that you aren't supposed to get to legend (I'd add: or even close to it) with crap cards, no matter the skill, then we are done, my point is made.

- - - Updated - - -

If you buy a pack every 2 days, you will get 40 dust if you disenchant everything.

Wait, then your:

"That means, at the end of the month, you will get a minimum of 1500 gold (15 packs) and 600 dust (no arena involved)."

...is misleading in that you get either 1500 gold (15 packs) *or* 600 dust from these packs. The way you worded it, it looked like a player would get both.

- - - Updated - - -

They're not "very rare" at all. You get them like, every 2-3 days usually.

No, you don't get the 100 gold quests nearly as often as 2-3 days.

See this, for example:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/...0_gold_quests/

- - - Updated - - -

Another tangible test you could perform is take a highly skilled player, give him an inferior collection of cards, and then pit him against inferior players with superior collections. I guarantee you the more skilled player will win majority of the time.

We had exactly this test performed. You'd knew, if you paid attention. Trump had an F2P rogue. He was stopped way short of legend, and not for lack of trying. He was a multi-legend player with shit cards, he played rank 10-5s with good cards, and guess what - he lost, he couldn't get through no matter how hard he banged his head against the wall. And the kicker - this was almost a year ago, it got way worse now.

[Deleted]

We had exactly this test performed. You'd knew, if you paid attention. Trump had an F2P rogue. He was stopped way short of legend, and not for lack of trying. He was a multi-legend player with shit cards, he played rank 10-5s with good cards, and guess what - he lost, he couldn't get through no matter how hard he banged his head against the wall. And the kicker - this was almost a year ago, it got way worse now.

I see you are still going by the route of not pay any attention to what is being said; this is not a get to legend with rubbish cards -test. Trump got to rank 5-ish, with a F2P rogue which is a heck of a lot higher than what many get with the best rogue decks. That means that even with bad cards, playing against better cards, he did twice as well than people with better cards and less skill.

And if you really want to start a F2P legend test, you might as well mention all the F2P decks that he played that did make it to legend.

[haxartus]

My argument is that cards matter more than skill.

No they don't.
If they did, there will be no people at rank 20 with full net decks and 3-4 legendaries.
It honestly starts to feel like someone is unable to get to legend and blames the game and not his skills. When you finally get to legend, you will start seeing people with 1000 dust decks at legend ranks below 100. Imagine the horror...

[Pengalor]

No they don't.
If they did, there will be no people at rank 20 with full net decks and 3-4 legendaries.
It honestly starts to feel like someone is unable to get to legend and blames the game and not his skills. When you finally get to legend, you will start seeing people with 1000 dust decks at legend ranks below 100. Imagine the horror...

Yyyyeah, that's not true. It's laughably easy to purposely derank in this game.

[Deleted]

Wait, then your:

"That means, at the end of the month, you will get a minimum of 1500 gold (15 packs) and 600 dust (no arena involved)."

...is misleading in that you get either 1500 gold (15 packs) *or* 600 dust from these packs. The way you worded it, it looked like a player would get both.

You get both 1500 gold and 600 dust:

Day 1: 50 gold
Day 2: 50 gold (Buy pack, get 40 dust of it)
Day 3: 50 gold
Day 4: 50 gold (Buy pack, get 40 dust of it)
...
Day 30

End of the month profit: 50 gold * 30 days = 1500 gold. | 1500 gold / 100 gold = 15 packs. | 1 pack = 40 dust therefore 15 packs * 40 = 600 dust.

Hope it's clear now.

[xalenthas]

So at the end of the month you're left with 600 dust and no gold (you used it all to get the dust). That about right?

[rda]

I see you are still going by the route of not pay any attention to what is being said; this is not a get to legend with rubbish cards -test. Trump got to rank 5-ish, with a F2P rogue which is a heck of a lot higher than what many get with the best rogue decks. That means that even with bad cards, playing against better cards, he did twice as well than people with better cards and less skill.

And if you really want to start a F2P legend test, you might as well mention all the F2P decks that he played that did make it to legend.

That Trump get *somewhere* with the cards that he had means that skill plays *some* role. That he lost to other players who had way lower skill than him, but had better cards, means that cards play a very significant role as well - significant enough to make legendary players lose to rank 10-5s so much they can't rank up.

I am saying that cards play a *bigger* role than skill does because (a) it is perfectly clear that you more or less can't rank up to legend unless you have good cards (one argument in favor of this: Trump couldn't, another argument: none of the decks considered competitive can be obtained without quite a bit of grinding, and just so people shut up about zoo - which also requires quite a bit of grinding, but less than other decks - one deck is not enough, you'd be altering and even switching decks on your way to legend plenty, there are other arguments, too), but (b) it hasn't been shown that a person with cards but with just average or slightly above-average skill couldn't reach legend. In terms of (b), I'd say we are more likely to see proofs to the contrary - that a person with cards but with pretty average skill - *can* indeed grind to legendary, he just has to put in the hours. But anyway, if you want to argue about the word "bigger", let's just not waste time, my point is that cards play a role that is big enough to cancel everything else you have, that's all.

Regarding the F2P decks that you mention that did succeed at getting to legend - they did so some time before even Trump's F2P rogue which was already long ago. The F2P rogue that couldn't climb happened almost a year ago, it's got way worse since then.

- - - Updated - - -

No they don't.
If they did, there will be no people at rank 20 with full net decks and 3-4 legendaries.

Non-sequitur.

- - - Updated - - -

You get both 1500 gold and 600 dust:

Day 1: 50 gold
Day 2: 50 gold (Buy pack, get 40 dust of it)
Day 3: 50 gold
Day 4: 50 gold (Buy pack, get 40 dust of it)
...
Day 30

End of the month profit: 50 gold * 30 days = 1500 gold. | 1500 gold / 100 gold = 15 packs. | 1 pack = 40 dust therefore 15 packs * 40 = 600 dust.

Hope it's clear now.

LOL, OK, "You get both 1500 gold and 600 dust" like you say even though you get 1500 gold and if you decide to get 600 dust, you lose 1500 gold.

[Deleted]

So at the end of the month you're left with 600 dust and no gold (you used it all to get the dust). That about right?

Correct.

/10 char

[haxartus]

40 dust per pack is not correct. Over a large amount of packs (100-200 and more) you are making 100 dust per pack.
The correct value for a month is 20 packs, which means 2000 dust.

[BicycleMafioso]

40 dust per pack is not correct. Over a large amount of packs (100-200 and more) you are making 100 dust per pack.
The correct value for a month is 20 packs, which means 2000 dust.

I think he's intentionally shooting low, absolute worst case scenario.

[Jester Joe]

No, you don't get the 100 gold quests nearly as often as 2-3 days.

See this, for example:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/...0_gold_quests/.

"What are 60 gold quests?"

I was talking about 60 gold quests.

[QuiteTheNoob]

A new pack every 2 or 3 days is pretty good, especially when its a F2P game. F2P games tend to be far more grindy than that, not to mention usually imposing other restrictions as well.

[xenogear3]

The biggest complain is the pack always has 4 common + 1 rare. (I wonder Blizzard nerfed recently.)
The legendary/epic drop rate is not as high as some people claimed.

It is a big waste of time/money on this game.
I feel sorry for the people who spend $20-$50 and expect to get a "full" experience.

By the way, that 100 gold quest doesn't show up any more.
It is replaced by the "watch a game".