Anyone else burned out by pricing?

Multiplayer Discussion
181

The math is all that matters. According to the math of a Dust-Cost system, 14 junk Legendaries is 31.4% “ownership” of the Journey to Ungoro expansion. And that illustrates perfectly why using only Dust-Cost is a lousy method.

A person who had those cards would have not had much effective ownership of the expansion set because those cards were not relevant. They could build a few snowflake decks for fun, and that’s fine. But a lot of them are just unusable junk.

And mathematically all the commons & rares are only 15.6% of the set using this method. Even though those cards include many high-value meta staples that have been constantly in use for 2 years. Stuff like Firefly, Glacial Shards, Rockpools, Igneous, Tar Creepers, Phoenix, Roc, Stormwatcher, Golakkas, Devilsaur Eggs, Stonehill Defender, Flappy Bird, Tolvir, Servant of Kalimos, McCaw, Razormaw, Stalker, Arcanologist, Flame Geyser, Shimmering, Steam Surger, Lost in the Jungle, Hydrologist, Spikeridge Steed, Vinecleaver, Binding Heal, Radiant Elemental, Shellraiser, Crystalline Oracle, Free from Amber, Hallucination, Fireplume, Primalfin, Volcano, Lakkari, Sentry, & Direhorns.

Are all the Commons/Rares important? Certainly not. There’s junk in those tiers as well. So in ideal “Set Ownership Metric” would be something that weights cost against usefulness all the way up an down the rarity tiers.

But there is no simple mathematical value you can create for usefulness because it’s a variable that changes constantly. It’s unacceptable to simply shrug and say, “Well, I guess I’ll just use dust cost by itself” because doing that results in valuation that is provable nonsense. The best solution I’ve been able to find is to just use the Collectible Card Percentage. It’s not the best solution - which would factor cost and usefuless. But it’s better than the alternatives and I’ll keep using it until someone can demonstrate something that is better. Hasn’t happened yet.

Then for free you can get 80+ packs ever expansion which will (on average) give you…
All the Commons
All (or almost all) the Rares
16 Epics
4.5 Legendaries
2,000 or so dust for crafting

Is that not plenty of content for both creativity and freedom?

182

Spelling out the exact expected value from 80 packs is by far the most useful thing you’ve posted on this topic. All the stuff regarding “percent ownership of the set” can easily be used to support almost any argument you want, depending how you calculate it.

Though in my experience, you may have double counted some of the “dust for crafting”, unless you already factored in having to craft missing rares. In my experience, you only end up with about 60 or so unique rares from 80 packs, so you’d have to craft the remaining 12 if you wanted “all the rares”. Of course, since that only costs 1200 dust and you have 2000 to play with, it’s more than possible to do it, which is why I said any free player can get all the commons/rares without spending any money in another post.

All that said, it doesn’t remotely prove anything about whether the prices are too high for people who are considering a purchase, rather than playing for free.

They’re certainly too high to get much of my money. But I accept the fact that I can’t have a top notch deck from every class and just go ahead and lose to people who have better cards when I’m playing one of my weaker classes. He spent the money to get exactly that advantage and I wasn’t willing to do so.

183

Riddler, you are so full of excrement with your 83% of the cards from 70 free packs schtick. Let me break down the “value” of your pulls…

Commons: 98 (3920 dust) of 98 (3920)
Rates: 72 (7200 dust) of 72 (7200)
Epics: 28 (11,200 dust) of 54 (21,600)
Legendary: 8 (12,800 dust) of 28 (44,800)

Pulled/crafted: 35,120 dust worth of cards

Full set: 77,520 dust

Looks like you only opened 45% of the set to me.

184

To be fair, he has raised that number to 80 packs (+ “freebies”) recently, but I’ve been plugging 90 packs into this simulator (which uses well known drop rates) for a while now, and cant replicate that level of completion/enough dust to achieve it consistently:

https://speedodevo.github.io/packr/

As I have said before, if factual numbers he should be buying lottery tickets 'cos they are FAR above average results which, apparently, happen all the time for him.

E: after crafting, no longer prioritising golden cards as I used to, this is what can be expected from ~80 packs +freebies (TW, Boom & RR sets, close to my openings in those sets after crafting):

https://www.hearthpwn.com/members/Bowser1961/collection

About 78% set completion. OFC the response will be along the lines of “I’m better at resource management!”… But the only way to improve set completion to his claimed level is by crafting “useless” commons & rares. (Yes, I am still missing commons and/or rares after ~80 packs + “freebies” in all of the 3 sets!) OR buying more packs, throwing the 80 pack claim out the window.

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185

4.5 legendaries with 80 packs, sure

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186

I’ve never once gone though my typical set release day binge without having at least 68 of the 72 rares. I’ve done video streams of it. I’ve never found it necessary to have to craft more than a couple of Rares because I end up with pretty much everything except maybe an odd card out. Whether I bother crafting it or not depends on how the meta unfolds. If it’s never needed, then i don’t bother.

Nothing wrong with that. I don’t feel the need to spend money on cards either, and as long as I am patient and craft carefully I have never felt I’ve missed out on anything. I don’t have everything, but I have more than enough.

I am at 86% on average for the Standard sets (83% for RR). I’ve been very open in saying that I don’t get to that value only from 70 pack on opening day. I’ve always said “the packs I buy with free gold I’ve saved plus Blizzard freebies”. Blizzard freebies include the free Legendary they toss out, the dust from all the duplicates and golden cards, the packs Blizzard gives out for free, and any dust refunds relevant in the set window.

They’re all free resources and they all buy the same thing … cards from the expansion. The sources are all fungible. There’s no sense in arbitrarily discounting a card from set completion because it was crafted 2 weeks after release day or even 2 months after.

Did you need a primer on how averages work? I assume most people who can type are old enough to have gone over some basic mathematics, but perhaps you’re an exception.

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187

4.5 legends per 80 packs is far more realistic than 10+, even with the freebie and guaranteed 1 in first 10 packs (6.5). Even AFTER crafting your claims are statistical anomalies. Do you need a refresher in how averages work? Perhaps it is YOU that is the exception, 'cos hard data certainly says your claims are far above average.

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188

how do you know there’re will be one free legendary? or even any event for the release of ros?

don’t talk about maths when all your numbers come from your hat xD

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189

It should be 2 full expansions and 1 adventure a year. The old school adventures with weekly wings and guaranteed cards. Also the PvE content they are releasing is pointless anyways especially to spend gold as they stated you get less packs then gold spent cause its just for the story.

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190

If you’re naturally opening 68/72 rares with 80-90 packs you are on the high end. That figure is indicative of over 100 packs because of all the duplicate rares.

I’ve had to craft Bonfire Elemental, didn’t get a single copy, but usually the rares you’re missing aren’t one of the top ones.

That’s about what I have for Rastakhan.

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191

4.5 Legendaries from 80 packs isn’t uncommon.
You’ll have one within the first 10, and I believe the average otherwise is around 1 Legendary in 20 packs.

192

Its 1 in 40 packs

20charlimntimsadd

193

1 in 40 is the unofficial “pity timer”, not the average.

194

Ah yes, a bit tired but indeed

195

No probs, just leaving this from the Wiki for anyone else curious.

  • China is, by law, requiring games which feature random drops purchasable by money, to publicly release the drop rates/statistics for those random drops, effective May 1, 2017. This includes [Hearthstone]

Blizzard complied with this law on April 2, 2017, by making a post to their Chinese forums.[[12]] The officially announced drop rates are:

  • RARE - At least 1 rare or better in each pack.
  • EPIC - Average of 1 every 5 packs.
  • LEGENDARY - Average of 1 every 20 packs.
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196

I’m all about full disclosure so here’s the fully Monty.

If all you count are Legendaries that randomly drop while opening the 80 packs then 4.5 is the average. 1 Legendary in the first 10 packs, and then 3-4 Legendaries from the remaining 70 (3.5 on average) … making a 4.5 average from nothing but opening packs on day 1. For those who have a hard time understanding averages - say between 4-5 Legendaries.

Now add the free Legendary that Blizzard has always been tossing at players for the past 6 expansions (5-6). Now add a Legendary you craft after watching the meta for a while from your dust stash (6-7). Now add in 1 or 2 more Legendaries you get from dust refunds during the expansion, drops from freebies, or other free resources during 4 months before the next set drops (8-9). Add in the slow drip of 2 years and by the time the set rotates out of Standard? Not in any way unusual to see the total hit 10+ Legendaries.

You don’t get them all at once, but like a patient spider the Legendaries just drop into your web if you’re patient and smart.

Is quest gold & Blizzard freebies the only resource I’ve ever had? No. I have spent some money on the game over the past 3 years…

  • April 2016: $49.99 for WotoG bundle - my annual ‘chip in’ election.
  • Sept 2016: $4.99 for the Welcome bundle - too good a deal to pass up.
  • 2017: Skipped spending entirely. Mean Streets didn’t do it for me.
  • April 2018: $49.99 for the Witchwood bundle - my chip in election.
  • October 2018: $4.99 for the Welcome Bundle - again too good to pass up.
  • Dec 2018: $19.99 for the Winter Viel Bundle - good deal + Christmas bonus.

So for 2016 through 2018 (3 calendar years) my total cash spend on the game has been $129.95 … or $43.32 a year for 150 packs (20 of which were Classic). In the same time frame I got at least 642 free packs from dailies and Brawls as well as “?” from Blizzard promos. The cash packs comprise somewhere less than 15% of the total with 85+% being free.

The net result for Year of the Kraken, Year of the Mammoth, and Year of the Raven?

  • 100% of all the Commons & Rares.
  • 62.34% of the Epics (202 of 324)
  • 53.62% of the Legendaries (74 of 138)
  • 87.11% of all the collectible cards (1,291 out of 1,482).
  • 53.18% of “Dust Value” (265,920 out of 417,120 for the weirdos who use this dumb valuation).

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

197

Don’t forget though, that the “freebie pack” from tavern brawl ends up being nearly 100% dust for someone who has been playing for a long time, given that they likely already have most of the cards from classic.

For a newer player, the freebie classic packs are the only way (other than paying) to fill in their classic set, so they end up with minimal dust from those (perhaps 15-20 dust per week from dusting extra commons).

That makes a measurable difference over the course of a set in how much freebie dust a person has available to craft those “couple extra legendaries”.

198

What dust refunds, HoF? This year, sure, if you own all HoF cards you might get 3 legendaries, but last year you would have gained enough dust to craft one.

If you’re talking about nerfed cards then the numbers you cited for set completion in another thread are fraudulent as they show no indication of nerfed cards, like Hunter Spellstone for example, being dusted:

And, again, your claim is to getting close towards 100 packs in value with non-gold (accounted for in your 80 pack claim) freebies within a single set.

Your numbers simply dont match anything even remotely resembling a normal HS experience, no matter how well you think youre managing your resources the numbers are suspicious.

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199

A.K.A the boring cards. Again, not every player is a Spike player. I don’t play tar creeper because it is fun, I do it so that aggro can’t burn me down all the time so I might have the chance to do something cool or fun. You need all these cards to be the backbone of a good deck, but that still doesn’t mean they are the fun part of the deck.

Not really, and that is one of the main points of the thread. With 30% of the epics and 20% of the legendary cards, it is likely that I’m going to need to craft something for the deck I want to play or get railroaded into playing decks I happen to have the cards for. I would also only have enough dust for an epic and a legendary or four more epics.

The Prelate deck I am enjoying relies on 7 legendary and 6 epic cards. I also have a Jungle Giants deck with 8 legendary and 6 epic cards that are all different. Both of these decks would be weaker or unplayable if they were missing any cards and I wouldn’t be able to have both if I had much more limited resources and had to craft the more critical missing pieces.

If you are counting commons and rares as a given even for free to play, how about a collection percentage based off the epic and legendary cards? That seems like it would be somewhat indicative of the quantity of playable decks you would have. Using your Un’Goro numbers, it would be 24%. That is a pretty bad percentage, especially considering the epics are not guaranteed to be unique.

Edit: I had to edit the percentages and my conclusion. I somehow managed to forget to double the set epics because you can use two copies of each.

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200

Just go f2p (free, not fee).
Use your behemoth collection and play wild.

Once you miss a few things you won’t feel compelled to dump your cash on every little cosmetic they come out with any more.

80$ heroes? Lol…

I’m getting tired of these triple A company monetization schemes.

The last thing I may buy from Blizzard will have been wc3 remastered. Since I pirated the game as a kid when I had no money I’m happy to pay now that I have the cash. The difference is that I’m buying a complete game. It’s actually amazing that Blizzard used to make games like Warcraft 2, 3… So much content and care.

Now we have Diablo immortal.

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