Part of Blizzard’s new year announcement was that single player content will now be partially locked behind a paywall. Not only did they switch from alternating expansions and adventures, now they are doing both at once and it is going to take a toll.
I could be considered a moderate whale, I have had 100% standard collection the past three years. with the new monetization system, I am going to drop most if not all monetary support of this game.
The fact that the adventure is released weeks later is the real slap in the face. I basically can’t get all the cards I want day one because it will make the packs I get with the adventure a total waste. It’s basically slapping me with an extra $20 toll to play the game to its fullest. I have zero faith that Blizzard will be smart enough to actually offer the package at or before the expansion releases, which would at least allow all the packs to be bought and opened on day one. It’s funny because my whole mentality is just that if I can’t have the whole expansion day one, I might as well not get it at all or at the very least I will stick with a vastly reduced spending compared to the previous years.
This is also a continuation of a massive problem of the game getting ever more expensive. Three expansions per year offer players zero respite to build up gold or even save up some entertainment budget. The problem is, with such a steep cost it is simply too taxing and not at all a sustainable cost. If the game was $60 per expansion flat, I would probably keep going with it. $100 dollars and I would probably stick it out for another year at least. The problem is were are talking $200-$300 per expansion based on luck. That alone was wearing down my goodwill and now they are throwing a $20 slap on it.
They said that the game isn’t designed for players to have a full collection as an expectation. I can hardly begin to describe how absolutely idiotic that sentiment is. Some of the greatest enjoyment I have gotten from this game is the ability to create any deck I want using any cards I want. It’s also a minor factor limiting the diversity in the meta, when players have to commit what they have to a few meta decks.
Another big problem that hit hard lately is indirect nerfs. It really hurts players when legendary cards like Kingsbane and Shudderwock are very blatantly nerfed and yet no refund is given due to Blizzard’s asinine policy. When I had a full collection, I could hardly care because I had all the cards and no intention of dusting them anyway. Going with an incomplete collection though, I am extremely hesitant in giving Blizzard anything considering they might just take things away from me.
Anyway, looking forward to watching everything burn down. Blizzard keeps milking the existing player base dry which simultaneously makes the game cost prohibitive for new players to pick up.
Personally I think this is F2P done right. 15 packs = $20, and youre getting bonuses on top of that like the gold classic pack and the adventure itself. It would be nice if it was only a week or two after the set launch.
For my own reasons its still not enough for me to open my wallet again, but this is F2P done right. F2Pers choose if they like solo content and if they dont they get more packs than awarded without the adventure for their 700G per wing.
It seems like it’s not worth it if all you care about is packs, although the Golden Classic pack sweetens the deal a little. Perhaps there will be more details/rewards as the expansion comes closer to launching.
Despite the despicable behavior of their Activision overlords, I’m willing to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, especially since they’ve targeted several longtime problem cards with their picks for the HoF. If they make a well-thought-out, balanced, and fun expansion, I will gladly return to play it. And I’ll play the single-player content if they really put some elbow grease into it.
IDK, with the first wing being free, it’s essentially 12 packs (plus goodies and golden Classic pack) for $20 or 2800 gold.
That throws the dollar:gold conversion rate out the window from a resource-based perspective unless you’d value a golden Classic pack at 1600 gold.
There’s that new golden legendary that you get for owning each expansion as well though, and it’s being marketed as “the new Whizbang” so maybe we need to be looking at this from much more than just a pack:dollar:gold viewpoint.
lol well spotted sensei, I was just thinking that right now. using minimum dust cost on the golden pack (300) and there is speculation golden packs have their own pity timer/1-in-10 legend counter (speculation, not fact!), so some might be interested in chasing it. it would break even with 15 pack bundle in terms of dust value, so all youre really getting for free is the content and a few cosmetics.
Yeah, not as good as it initially sounded in my head, but still not TOO bad if pve is your thing.
You may dislike that but that is the general CCG/TCG policy.thought process. You may not like it but until another game breaks the mold and is VERY successful why wouldn’t I copy MtG and (now) HS as it is a proven model?
As for your overall complaint… we’ll see what the new adventures look like first. My first reaction is that this is just more gated content behind a gold/pay wall for no real reason but… maybe there will be something more interesting/worthwhile in these single player adventures. I’m inclined to agree with you on what this sounds like but I’d like to see the new product before saying this is complete BS move.
Source? Whizbang wasn’t free and I have a hard time seeing how there can be a new thing that lets you try out full decks when there is still a current one that will stay relevant.
The timing on when this can be purchased is one of my biggest grievances. It needs to be available at or before launch or else the packs are worth so much less. There is usually only about a two or three week window before the meta starts settling and experimentation becomes more difficult and restricted.
Even then, the bad ratio is sapping just a little value out of players. This is as much about a moral stand and trying to stop an already slipping slope as it is about actual money. Speculating the worst, who is to say they don’t just raise the overall expansion cost again or find something else to put a price tag on?
For me as almost f2p player (bought Welcome bundles) this announcment came as an unpleasant surprise.
I’m definitely not wasting my gold on wings because it means less overall packs. It’s just really feels like a step backwards after all the good stuff Blizzard has done lately to help out f2p - 50 rank system, goodies from events, easier quests and better quest rewards.
Not that I care much about solo modes, but it’s just feels like they’re saying: 'If you won’t drop some cash or don’t spend your ingame resources in a very unprofitable way part of content will be locked to you. ’ And that seems like a sheity way to treat their players.
This is an excerpt from the PCGamer article, quoted on the Hearthpwn article about the recent announcments:
Quote from PCGamer
PS, if you’re wondering what Zayle, Shadow Cloak is (see the image listing all the PvE content), it’s the new Whizbang the Wonderful. You’ll earn a golden copy of Zayle for owning all five wings, and he’ll enable you to play with five new deck recipes. And because Zayle is golden, so will all the cards in those decks be. Again, great for new players, or those who love a bit of bling.
So, not only is it going to function like Whizbang, but Golden Whizbang. That’s the added value you get for acquiring the full set of adventure episodes, be it by cash bundle (which will probably be purchaseable ahead of time like a season pass) or individually via gold - simply owning all five gets you this card.
It has been changing recently. Games like Netrunner, Keyforge, and Legend of the Five Rings have expansions and decks as full packages. It would be like if HS gave one of each legendary and two of each other card in an expansion pack. This is the new model card game players have been voting for with their wallets and companies have started to listen.
There will be a time when I feel like opening packs becomes a waste of dust due to duplicates, and that’s when I feel like spending 2,800 gold to open Adventure Wings can be worth. My concern is that if they’re doing it for all three Expansions, that will mean that you’re setting aside 8,400 gold for 45 packs. That’s a Godawful conversion, and if anything is similar to Dungeon Runs that’s not worth it at all. There is the golden classic pack and card back as a side incentive, but we’ll see how they turn out. If they’re doing golden classic packs every time, I’ll at least be able to control what golden legendary I get just so long as I wait long enough to open them.
Thanks! I don’t know why Blizzard wouldn’t say this first hand. It also seems very redundant given that Whizbang is still in the game. It is a “wait and see” sort of moment, but I have very little faith in Blizzard right now. They really need some increased visibility or transparency.
On one hand, we did ask for a more reasonably priced option. $50 preorders are looney for some, but a $20 investment for 12 packs, a golden pack, the fun of the adventure itself, and I think I read something about having two heroes involved? I’m not willing to dump $50 on HS, but maybe shunting $20/2400 gold is worth it for the extra goodies.
On the other hand, it’s still a farcry from the old adventures. League of Explorers really spoiled us - $20 / 2400 gold for, what, fifty something cards ranging from situational to deck-defining, the birth of the “Discover” mechanic, four guaranteed legendaries and no chance of excess duplicates? Can this new Year of the Dragon adventure even come close to that?
The main problem here is the gold price.Like…
People need extra content to have fun with the game and what blizzard is speaking is:
We do but you must pay.
But the gold price is just overpriced as hell. If it was any less than 700 gold like 500 it would be okay but 700 make any player compare it to older adventures where you just got something around 30 to 40 unique cards…
Know what would really fix it?
Give a decent amount of dust instead so the player lose in quantity of cards but still can craft what he wants like 1k dust.
It would still not at old adventures but the choice power would make for it.
Well, the fact of the matter is anyone can scrounge up twenty bucks. The whole point is to make it so folks will prefer to spend cash instead of in game resources. Blizzard is a company that needs to keep their lights on as well.
Ive been gold/dust-only for so long now that I dont even remember what its like to pay for anything in this game. It has to get back to how I like it before money will ever be spent again.
Its expensive if you want all the fun,biggest fun is right after expansion trying new things and for that you need all the cards right away but that’s expensive. Luckily there are more ways to have fun and be satisfied with the game without spending that much.
~120-150 should do for the coming year. 3x pre-order and that’s it.
For the average casual gamer I can see it being way to expensive,but for me personally it is not. All depends on what you want from the game and what you consider to be expensive. 150 a year is not unreasonable imo,you pay that for wow as well.
Nope. I use my brains and a little discipline and I don’t have to pay a single penny for anything. Anyone who thinks they have to pay money to play the game is either a bad manager of their resources, a bad planner, or both.
By an utter lack of balancing ability combined with a lazy dev team and deaf management team who don’t understand that to make players happy, sometimes you should listen to them? Yes