Will Hearthstone survive? New generation of online card games are more F2P friendly

[Chadow]

According to Hearthstone Mathematics youtube chanel, the constructed game mode in HS is losing interested big time.

With the recent success of Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel...that followed on Legends of Runeterra trend to make the game more Free to Play friendly...
Do you think (like i do) this 2 games mark the start of a new generation of online card games which is much more F2P friendly than Blizzard's itteration?

That may result in HS's downfall? Maybe?

Much more information and opinions in Hearthstone Mathematics video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617aTwjMFg4

[Ealyssa]

I never played Hearthstone since Runeterra launch. And I play it way more than I played HS.

They can fuck themselves with virtual card packs. Let me buy what I want.

[Chadow]

I never played Hearthstone since Runeterra launch. And I play it way more than I played HS.

They can fuck themselves with virtual card packs. Let me buy what I want.

IMO

A card game...is a card game as a whole.
Is not "bro, you can easily make one deck as F2P and reach legend rank"

This new card games...are much easier to collect cards...

[loras]

According to Hearthstone Mathematics youtube chanel, the constructed game mode in HS is losing interested big time.

With the recent success of Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel...that followed on Legends of Runeterra trend to make the game more Free to Play friendly...
Do you think (like i do) this 2 games mark the start of a new generation of online card games which is much more F2P friendly than Blizzard's itteration?

That may result in HS's downfall? Maybe?

Much more information and opinions in Hearthstone Mathematics video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617aTwjMFg4

I hope so, a kick to the crotch might make them rethink their self-defeating strategies. And if it does not, then death is not an unfair fate.

[Woggmer]

With the recent success of Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel...that followed on Legends of Runeterra trend to make the game more Free to Play friendly...
Do you think (like i do) this 2 games mark the start of a new generation of online card games which is much more F2P friendly than Blizzard's itteration?

That may result in HS's downfall? Maybe?

I doubt that. Aside from WoW, Hearthstone is the other big cash-cow under Blizz's belt. There's no way they'll let it die.

What it really is, is that Hearthstone hasn't had much of a competitor up until this point. There is the Magic The Gathering Online games, but there's two of them that distinctly different from each other with one of them being more of a copycat to Hearthstone. I don't know much about how Legends of Runeterra plays, but F2P Online YuGiOh game is something a lot of people would want since it is one of the few online card games that doesn't play like a simplified MTG game.

So, with these two games, Hearthstone now has actual competition and they might be feeling the effects of it. (Plus I think a lot of people only played that new game mode just for the mouse mount for WoW).

[pennywise377]

IMO

A card game...is a card game as a whole.
Is not "bro, you can easily make one deck as F2P and reach legend rank"

This new card games...are much easier to collect cards...

But this is precisely what is pushing players away from Hearthstone. For many years every meta had cheap decks with a cost of 1k dust or thereabouts that were competitive enough to allow you progression. Now, not so much. Take a look at dust costs for aggro decks - dust cost often is around 10k and requires cards from multiple expansions. How do they expect new player to splash hundreds of euros just to start playing at competitive level? People are not stupid, maybe it is about time devs realise exactly that.

[LordVargK]

Isn't Hearthstone Battlegrounds (or whatever it's called) only by now?

[McNeil]

Traditional Hearthstone is losing interest but it will survive for some time, especially considering that it still gets new expansions. Battlegrounds might be more popular by now which is an entirely different game and also much more F2P friendly. Not sure how well mercenaries is doing.

The card game is getting way too expensive to keep up and I've heard from a lot of people that they are tired of the power creep with every new set. Do keep in mind that new games like Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duels will be very F2P friendly in the beginning, but it will get much more expensive as the game goes on and new players will face the same problem of not being able to keep up without having to spend a lot of money.

[Khaza-R]

But this is precisely what is pushing players away from Hearthstone. For many years every meta had cheap decks with a cost of 1k dust or thereabouts that were competitive enough to allow you progression. Now, not so much. Take a look at dust costs for aggro decks - dust cost often is around 10k and requires cards from multiple expansions. How do they expect new player to splash hundreds of euros just to start playing at competitive level? People are not stupid, maybe it is about time devs realise exactly that.

This. In the past you could cobble together a decent enough budget deck and jump right into standard.

Now, it definitely feels like the barrier to entry every season is steeper and less fun if you are a F2P player.

[Chadow]

But this is precisely what is pushing players away from Hearthstone. For many years every meta had cheap decks with a cost of 1k dust or thereabouts that were competitive enough to allow you progression. Now, not so much. Take a look at dust costs for aggro decks - dust cost often is around 10k and requires cards from multiple expansions. How do they expect new player to splash hundreds of euros just to start playing at competitive level? People are not stupid, maybe it is about time devs realise exactly that.

I on the other hand am very "roleplay-ish" in all my card games.

I dont know if this is the case for most...but for me...the soul of a card game is in trying new decks, exciting decks, clickbait decks, troll decks etc
So it was extremely hard for me to have fun when i only played HS.

I would spend 100 bucks at a time...just to suppress my hunger to play this "crazy decks".

[Ragnarohk]

It will survive

One of the only online card games where aethetics and a user friendly experienced are top. Sometimes you forget you are playing a card game. Everything is really intuitive.

[Jester Joe]

This. In the past you could cobble together a decent enough budget deck and jump right into standard.

Now, it definitely feels like the barrier to entry every season is steeper and less fun if you are a F2P player.

Up until the yearly reset, sure. Or if you just stick to Classic format, there will never be a cost increase on that. Granted I'm unsure of the queue times for Classic ranked.

Blizzard has been making an effort at least to try to make it easier to collect packs. Without delving too much into other games, Master Duel is popular for nostalgia and hype. It gave a huge amount of currency up front, sure. But last I checked, most of those were just one time rewards. Past the initial hurdle, if people focused the wrong deck they'll get screwed over. Especially considering how prevalent OTKs are.

We've already seen with this year reset, Blizzard gave a core set to make it easier for new players to get in, added the ability to unlock more cards through achievements, and gave meta decks as a flat purchase fee similar to structure decks, while also offering decks to new players and returning players.

I would love to see them redo the "returning player" aspect of the free deck offers, since it was really restrictive last time overall. Drop the price of the structure deck purchase by a bit. Maybe give a free ticket a week to do arena/duels. Perhaps for arena even, add a way to actually obtain some of the cards you draft. That one would be a bit harder to balance though because it's only 150 coins I believe for arena still? I've had so many free passes I don't use so I forget the cost, but compared to other games drafting formats where you have to pay for all the packs you're getting too or at least close to that cost, a pack and a half is a bit too cheap to get 30 cards for free.

[Ghost of Cow]

Constructed has just always felt awful in Hearthstone.

Playing little "NPC Adventures" was never particularly compelling either, though.

"Collecting" was always complete shit, especially since the cards had no value whatsoever.

Aside from the polish and the Blizzard name, I don't really see what the game had going for it.

[aceperson]

hearthstone has been unfriendly to customers since it launched. even when hearthstone changed their gold gain method, it was still unfriendly. mercs has been worse than normal (is it even still played?) and the card game has been losing interest for a while. i think hearthstone has a lot of core problems they need to solve in quick succession. overpowered cards are not only getting made, it's happening more and more often, the f2p method is way too strict, the b2p method is just as unfriendly, because its an online card game, you usually only see a couple decks when you play and it gets incredibly repetitive, etc.

of course it could survive but it would take a heck of a lot of work.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I was most active when Goblins vs Gnomes came out. Had fun making engineering themed decks.

The problem with Hearthstone is that you can't play Hearthstone competitively for free. You have to lay down money to get good cards, and the devs introduce more powerful cards with every expansion (and even removed old cards) so you have to keep paying to remain competitive. Otherwise the game turns into a second job where you have to log in every day and do your chores to grind for a pittance of coins to spend on cards and turn them into a miniscule amount of dust, that after a year of grinding will allow you to buy 1 deck that remains competitive for a few months before becoming outdated again. League of Explorers was the breaking point for me.

I played a little bit of Runeterra. You are definitely able to play competitively as a F2P player without having to turn the game into a second job. I didn't stick with it, however. Didn't like the lore and the aesthetics.

One tremendous advantage that Hearthstone has over all of the other card games is that it presents itself as very easy to get into. You look at a screenshot of a Hearthstone game, and you see the HP of both players, and the cards they have on the table (with no text unless you mouse over, and if you do the text is only a couple lines at most). To a lesser extent, Runeterra is also somewhat easy to read at a glance. Not so with Yugioh/Pokemon/MTG, where you look at the game and there are two dozen different numbers and there are two dozen cards laid out and half of each card is taken up by a paragraph of text.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Hearthstone is toast if they don't make things drastically easier to collect all the cards. The new Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel blows it out of the water in nearly every regard. I'll never, ever go back to Hearthstone.

[Schmilblick]

- Absolutely awful Meta right know, tit's just face hunters, burns and otk,
- It's just my opinion and after years of playing, but the game is rigged to death
- I'm tired of the randomness of this game genre.

That's the 3 things that are killing it for me.

[xenogear3]

One day, I login and got 8000 free dusts !
The next day, Blizzard took away 10000 dusts. I end up with -2000 dusts.

As for Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel, it started with 7000 cards.
Unless you are a Yu-Gi-Oh expert, it is too much for new players.

[Rennadrel]

I haven't touched Hearthstone since like the second League of Explorers expansion came out whatever it is, 4 years ago. I just don't have the time and energy to grind to be competitive. The constant removal of cards over the course of time and the cost to actually make competitive decks in terms of dust is crazy and I don't have the time to be grinding a bunch of dailies every single day to still be weeks or months behind without spending what amounts to the full cost of a game for a card pack. I'd rather spend that money to just buy a full priced game that gives me a hundred hours of play time and I can do it on my own time.

[Twoddle]

Used to enjoy this game somewhat until Blizzard overstepped the mark with their greed.