Imagine stepping into a new game which is already 11 expansions deep of cards ( and this is already excluding adventures and classic sets).
Ignore the wild for now? That’s the logical path since you need to gather cards as priority in order to progress.
Assuming you are willing to invest a bit of money (the price of a typical PC game), you buy the welcome bundles and maybe the latest expansion’s bundle.
What do you get?
A fairly incomplete collection of the classic set and a somewhat incomplete collection of the latest expansion.
You climb the ladder.
You grind from 50-20. You reached 20!
Because of your limited collection - realising ladder doesn’t really progress further once you hit 20 (within 1 month for serious players), you take to casual.
Casual is where the other players easily crush you with good net decks.
Tavern brawls are also out of reach (skills wise) for new players. Hopefully they realise this before depleting all their gold on it, as they would be better off spending gold on packs.
You then realise you probably have to further spend probably the cost of a few PC games to get a larger collection and enjoy the game better. That is even with the quests and daily grinding (which doesn’t get you much gold because, point 8 and 9 above).
All in all, the ascension process is just so daunting for a new player with no prior knowledge of this game. Mentally, going through steps 1 -11 is already tiring and draining for new players.
And then if you hang on for a year, there’s step 12!
The game rotates and some expansions are now gone. Unfortunately, as a newbie you bought some of the expansions that were available last year, but not now.
You dive into Wild! And get demoralised badly. Return to step 11 to get gold or packs.
We are long time players so it doesn’t matter, but the difficultly level (time and $ wise) is clearly shutting the doors on new players. There are times when I see I am playing with a new player in casual and I just concede the game for them to win. You have no idea how sad it is to see them try their best, watching them play card after card of classic and non-classic cards that have no synergy, but is all they could afford. Of course there is also the question about skills, but let’s be honest, we know the card collection matters even more at times.
This game sucks. You shouldnt invest money to win but to have fun. There is nothing to win on the ladder. The decks you face rank 20 are the same you face legend. Its just the Grind.
id just try to get as far as i can with my collection and focus only on dailies to get a pack a day
you shouldnt aim for a full collection or to legend ASAP
stopped playing shadowverse and eternal almost 2 years ago now and thats probably how i would return just doing dailies and testing what i can build with i can get thats how i enjoy CCGs
i dont expect everyone to enjoy it the same way i do
Well, the practical aspect is that new players can just stick to Budget decks, remain there for probably 2-3 years, just to amass enough gold, just to get enough cards, in order to enjoy the wild expansions.
And in 2021, the gap for new players to catch up would be 17 expansions. In 2022, 20, etc.
You see how progressively challenging it gets for new players? Unless you feel that new players should only stick to standard play because they joined too late. Then objectively you see how that feels if you were in their position.
I play weekly after work for fun. Ever since battlegrounds, the game’s gold generation has increased. I’m looking at 1500-2000 gold a week. That’s 15-20 packs! Don’t give up. You got this, friend. As quoted from a few cards.
Assuming 7 minutes per game * 50% win rate for newcomers (which is already very good), and assuming you get 60 gold quests daily,
Quests → 60*7 = 420 gold per week
So you get 2000 - 420 = 1580 gold from games
1580 gold = 5266 games
twice the number of games because 50% win rate = 10,532 games
7 minutes per game = 1229 hours per week = 175 days a week
Buddy, there’s no way you’re getting 175 days worth of gold in a week. I think you’re probably looking at the gold new players get for the starter quests etc. After these quests are completed, it’s about 90 gold per day = 630 gold per week. And that’s if you play really to win gold and not for fun matches / deck etc.
Yeah but you have to ask yourself this from a company’s perspective:
if your prospective new clients / players can just as easily pick up any other mobile or PC games, and still catch up fairly easily (ie. a year’s worth of play should get them fairly decent collection / gear etc), why would they pick up your game which is so difficult to catch up, $ and time wise?
This means only long time players will continue with the game. In the Long run, the weakness of this business model will surface as long time players move on, while new players are kept away due to costs.
Eh, I dunno. I just play the game. It’s roughly once a week I’m sober enough to look at my gold. It’s january 6th, 12:26am, and I’m at 1500. I was at like, 100 a week ago. I think. Tbh, you might be right. But I’m one of the few that just enjoys playing this game, win or lose. So to each their own? Also, I’d love to add you as a friend. Get different perspectives at this game. Every match, win or lose, is a learning experience.
See, a typical new player with difficulty making progress (and fun) in the game. The only advice for such new players is : stay in casual because that’s where you can make some gold. And standard casual only.
I don’t deny that it’s nigh on difficult for new players to ease into the game, but I’d like to offer my own counterpoints and perspective. I have put some extended discussions in spoilers to get to the point quicker.
Also logical because in Standard you have less cards to learn to play around: playing Wild effectively requires that you have learnt some “history” about each of the sets and their cards.
I’d recommend to play F2P before you decide to get invested with $$$.
I’m not saying this is ideal, but this is the form of progression for a new player that has been most natural, given the rewards and free packs you receive.
For now, that is getting familiar with the Basic/Classic cards and adding DoD commons/rares, which are very much your lifeblood for a new casual player. Some examples include Dwarven Sharpshooter, Sky Raider, Blazing Battlemage, Bad Luck Albatross and you will likely have opened the likes of an Argent Squire or Dire Wolf Alpha in Classic packs, which fill in the gaps for what would otherwise be more synergistic cards.
Sure, Bloodfen Raptor and River Crocolisk in the Basic set are memed on as being “terrible cards” and “power crept to hell” (eg: Phase Stalker is just strictly better), but they are still minions with stats that put pressure on the board.
Learning that is a key point in being able to adapt and add new cards to your decks as you open them, because you can evaluate a card based on its efficiency and value, rather than on whether it’s in the meta right now.
After grinding to 25, 20-15 is where you will likely spend many games in, at first. It is possible to find your own way and hone your deck that is (usually) midrange to be able to out-tempo your opponent enough for an aggressive finish. The reason is, try to go slow and you will most certainly get outvalued. So you need to go fast, but also be strong on the board.
TL;DR - Classes to do this
While I say it’s possible, even for me I can only confidently do this in a couple of classes with homebrew hodge-podge decks, namely Mage, Hunter, Druid. These classes have strong Basic/Classic cards and/or direct damage that allow you to fight that uphill battle. Eg: also with Druid, Rise of Shadows is an excellent set to build up your Token Druid options. A couple of Acornbearers and a copy of Blessing of the Ancients can go a long way.
Rogue has strong Classic cards, but I would not recommend it as one of your first classes, as the Combo mechanic and weapon management can take getting used to. Warrior can be a good class to learn weapon management.
Paladin and Priest have the problem of being the most reliant on expansion cards, and as such, they have significant peaks and troughs in their viability for players with limited collections. Shaman, to a certain extent, as well, though Bloodlust is a very accessible win condition for any Shaman deck to go wide on the board.
Warlock is in the mix, because while they have strong Zoo options every expansion, their theme of self-damaging themselves can sometimes be too much: it cripples the slow decks and even affects the faster Zoo decks. Or that everyone is just bad at playing non-meta Warlock decks . Learning to utilise the Warlock hero power is an important part in understanding to use health as a resource.
Now, going from Rank 15-5, the homebrew/hodge-podge deck way.
I will refer to DisguisedToast’s Un’Goro run to Legend with Midrange Hunter, while old, I feel illustrates this concept well.
Sure he had Alleycats and Crackling Razormaws, which were staples for Hunter at the time, but also a bunch of basic cards. The 1 Raptor Hatchling in there, which I assumed he opened in a pack. This, ideally is the sort of deck that gives a new player the best chance to bridge the gap between “Basic deck” and “expensive meta deck”
There is a certain misconception that you need the “full deck” or just abouts to even have a chance to get out of 20-15. I myself have never believed this to be the case and played multiple deck archetypes with substituted cards up to Rank 5.
After Rank 10, however, there is more merit to having a polished deck with 2 copies of all the core cards. You want this for consistency’s sake, in being able to draw a card that will be useful to you, most of the time. If you have, for example 1 copy of Springpaw and 1 Argent Squire substituted, then the times when you need those Rush 1/1s and you draw the Squire, well that could impact your winrate, per se.
This requires more dusting of your collection, and well a new player doesn’t know what card’s good or bad! It’s what I said before, in being able to adapt and add new cards to your decks as you open them, evaluating cards based on their efficiency and value, rather than on the meta.
IMPORTANT PART: Because you have a limited collection as a new player, you have to IGNORE what the popular decks tell you to build and craft, and go by what you opened in collection.
And welp, yes, I know that doesn’t suit a decent portion of the population, and it’s not clear cut black or white either (everyone’s different).
I think you mean Arena for “spending gold” since you should always try and get the free Classic pack from Tavern Brawl every week. Some Tavern Brawls that require you to build a constructed deck can be difficult, but if you have been playing ranked the homebrew/hodge-podge way, you will be far better equipped to build a deck, that suits your collection, to get that free pack.
This one I have to agree on, and the last few sets have only made the problem worse. But I’ll break it down.
So, a player with a limited collection, they have their commons/rares forming the bulk of their budgety decks. They have a few legendaries, and this is where things really fall down.
There are 5 main types of legendaries that you open, and what type your first couple of legendaries are can make or break your experience and fun:
Legendary staples, neutrals that can go into multiple classes or a class card staple useful in multiple decks.
My personal example during my new player days, was when I opened Sunkeeper Tarim. That single legendary opened the whole of Paladin to me at the time.
Examples: Zilliax, Leeroy Jenkins, Malygos, Tirion Fordring
Good legendaries that require support, that could be rather expensive
Examples: Shudderwock, Reno the Relicologist, Valdris Felgorge, Heistbaron Togwaggle,
Fun/unique legendaries, without or without support, but not necessarily top competitive
Examples: Toki, Time Tinker, Tess Greymane,
Hard to use legendaries, still a unique effect to have some fun with. Not competitive at this point.
Examples: Dr. Morrigan, Illidan Stormrage,
99.9% unusable legendaries, they may as well be trash.
Duskfallen Aviana, Harbinger Celestia
And even these interpretations can change and are subject to the meta (i.e. I even had a friend argue to me how Celestia could be somewhat useful)
The question becomes, can you have fun with a legendary you opened on a budget? Note I am talking outside what’s “meta” at this point.
Example
During Uldum, I created a thread outlining how a player might make use out of a legendary or 2 they opened, and potential crafts they might want to look at. Tips on using each Legendary from Saviors of Uldum
I don’t really know if I got the message across, but this is what you face as a new player with limited resources. Dusting a leg for 400 is really bad value, and you most certainly cannot afford to craft a lot of legendaries you want either. Maybe only for 1 class.
And the answer to the question is… sometimes. The answer becomes a series of specific cards in the Standard meta that only go in one or two decks. Say a new player opened Reno the Relicologist. Great card, though it has to be in a Mage deck with no duplicates. So, does that mean Zephrys becomes a must craft, otherwise there is no payoff for highlander!
Additionally, a limited collection will have trouble finding 30 single cards to put in their deck without a couple being too suboptimal. Reno is just a 4/6 for 6 mana and why wouldn’t a new player just put a Boulderfist Ogre in instead?
On the other hand, Toki, Time Tinker could be a decent card to play around with and try for fun. You still get a 5/5 and more value in another card later on. That’s the difference in the type of legendary you open.
A new player just wants to use Reno
For trying to build highlander Mage on a budget to play casually:
Kalecgos can be substituted, but the substitute may as well be another legendary, Ysera. That is if you happened to open a decent Classic Legendary. You don’t have the flexibility to adapt your highlander deck to have more cheap spells if you don’t happen to own those spells in Standard (Magic Trick, Ray of Frost, Elemental Evocation)
All this is additional dust cost, and dust is scarce as heck for these types of crafts, when it’s more dust-efficient to open them in packs.
Repeat this process for a player wanting to get into a new deck archetype. I was able to do this but I would be very conservative and go for the least crafts possible, and most slow decks were not open to me as a result. There is frustration here in never feeling like you have options and being unable to catch up in time because of the fact that you did not play in the earlier years of Hearthstone.
This is a fair point, but I also do think the type of information needed for new players is lacking/limited and/or outdated. It is quite easy to forget what it was like as a new player, and too often when us established players talk, it sounds like another language to those casual and new to the game. I certainly remember feeling that for a long time when I started out.
I’ve wanted to create my own set of articles/videos on this sort of thing, but I haven’t been satisfied with keeping things concise enough, but leaving things open for players to learn for themselves.
This new player series by Asmodeus does go through a lot of useful content for new players though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUH30gok49s
If a new player is determined, they can beat the “collection curve” by religiously playing Arena. The collection they acquire this way will outpace the new expansions every 4 months, they will eventually find themselves with excess gold and dust to be able to spend on fun stuff from older sets. However, when even established players who have played for many years find it quite difficult to consistently play and enjoy arena, how can you expect new/casual players to do so if that’s their only option, other than to pay?
This is where Wild is better for long term investment on a budget, because you can craft a Branching Paths for Druid and it’ll be good for a very long time. But it’s even more bewildering for a new player to learn. You have to learn all the older sets. For me, I enjoyed learning the “history” of what old cards and decks were good and how they are now, as well as once useless cards that are not so useless now, because of new cards. But some people hate history. There’s the temptation to just dust everything for one deck that’s top right now, and when it gets nerfed, then your collection has trouble adapting to find another deck.
The most important thing though, is to have fun playing Hearthstone. There are just many ways to fall in the trap of getting frustrated.
I do agree with your points, but I think Arena is way out (skill wise) for new players to play as a main game mode. I mean, by the time one can do reasonably well in Arena (as a new player), then one would probably already have no issues catching up with the collection or laddering.
And as you suggested, new players may not necessarily invest in the bundles in the first few months, since they are trying the game out. And the lack of decent cards then makes it even more painful to climb after the starter quests are completed and you are at lvl 20 (and this is supposed to be the honeymoon period in most of the other games, where your opponent commensurate in strength with you). At this stage you can’t do ladder well with limited cards, and net decks crush new players in casual too (see the woe of a new player that I just mentioned in my earlier post just before yours).
So realistically, it is still the 1 option of laddering on casual standard for a good 1 year at least. Even then, one is still far from being able to enjoy wild…
The title is a topic I have ponder about for sometime.
The greatest pitfall for new HS players is not learning about the game in it’s entirety, before making important decisions such as spending resources, DE & Crafting, etc.
There are alot of guides available and it does mitigate the impact a considerable lot. However, I observe most new players are not interested/ in building on thier fundamentals.
Since they have a weak fundamental, then future decisions further tax on thier reserves. (time, money, energy) A vicious cycle ensures.
On the other spectrum, players whom does learn, seems to be able to cope with the game’s progress and changes.
But from the company’s perspective, we can’t just expect 100% commitment and initiatives from the new players. Instead, we should be trying to entice them to spend with the game, by giving them whatever help they need.
However:
Blizzard’s lack of QoL improvements doesn’t help. I still have to rely on third party websites to tell me what’s the stat of a deck I have built (X spells X weapons X minions), what’s the win rate by classes or deck for a given month, the in-game filter doesn’t allow you to filter for multiple conditions (like, legendary weapon or epic spell).
A game with minimal need for community interaction also doesn’t help (millions of player apparently, but how many are active on this forum?) I myself only come to this forum for bug reports initially. Only now (5 year or so into the game), I got bored of the game and started to spend more time on the forum. A game that doesn’t require interaction just doesn’t help to form strong bonds among players. You don’t even have weekly guild or server wars, for example!
the cost (as above)
the way Devs and support ticket team have been pushing me around (support team told me to go forum, and when I do so the the Devs keep quiet) and my complaint about my missing packs issues remain unsolved. This shows the commitment of the Dev and support team.
the lack of understanding that 10 gold per 6 games (assuming 50% win rate) is simply out of reach for many players who are working, and after trying out the game and realise how difficult it is to get gold, they decide not to invest in this game. These players, ironically, should be their key customer segment too.
When we approach the game with a more impartial view, we can see that HS does have it pros/cons in many ways. In my opinion it falls above the grade of good (not great).
With each addition (feature) to the game, there are aspects that most players does not recognise and understand. e.g. the technical requirements for that feature (e.g. RAM) where we can see older mobiles are not able to run HS BG. Thus, a new feature but affecting a portion of the player base as well. This aspect is quite extensive to be discuss in short.
In regards to the game for new players, there are certainly some help available, both for F2P and payers. Atm, it is still within an acceptable state in general.
Future changes are to be reviewed once implemented.
Yes, I put myself in the shoes of the company‘s shareholders for that split second. Previously I contemplated investing in Blizzard as the fundamentals look fine, but given the current state of this game (and I don’t know if the other Blizzard games are just like how Hearthstone is), I decided not to do so.
Your math is off by a factor of 10. 3 wins gives 10 gold, not 1 gold. 1580 gold would only require 526 games.
Assuming he hits the cap each day, he wins 30 games a day and gets 700 gold per week from doing so. Assuming 50% WR (though good players can do much better than that), 60 games/day at 7 minutes each is 420 minutes, or 7 hours per day. Daunting, but doable.
Better players and faster decks can do this much quicker, I play for a couple hours a day usually and pull about 80g from match wins per day.
If your new, just play the Battlegrounds since you don’t need a collection to enjoy the game. That said, I hardly ever play the regular mode anymore because it’s really not fun. Even with a solid collection after playing for years, I only play the normal mode to knock out my quests and then do the Brawl once a week. That’s it.
Mmmm…
How often will new players (new to the game) create an account and say, “Hmm I’m going to give this game a try and devote 7 hours a day, continuously for 6 months, so that I collect enough knowledge and cards, just to decide if I even like this game enough to devote even resources”? You have to consider that most new players have a life outside game, prior to playing this game.
It’s like the equivalent of asking a tourist to stay in a particular hotel in an overseas hotel for 1 month to decide if they like that hotel, so that the tourist can stay in that hotel when they do visit that country for sightseeing.
yeah once you hit rank 35 its meat grinder time. You tiny pathetic card collection hits the P2Ws and Lifer collectors and just WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM!
And if you dont know that you NEED to study the meta card, see which card are OP. Learn EXACTLY what to craft so you have SOME hope of winning vs the Tier 1 gold border boys in rank or casual. You have a rough rough road ahead.
AND more importantly, if they dont know how the game is designed to pass out cards from turns 1 to 10 and there ARE cards that are RNG biased = they won’t know how to make those “good curve” or perfect Netdecks that just seem so killer.
I was playing vs a Druid who ALL the legends in his deck and dropping them on cue. Doesn’t matter that they are a 1/30 car din the deck or a 4% chance to draw (based on card trackers) BOOM THEY ARE THERE!
Druid hits turn 9 and drops Ysera Unleashed! Of course you do, it costs 9 and. you have it on turn 9. Add 7 dram cards to your deck. Next card drawn was a RANDOM dragon it was…
YSERA UNLEASHED! Add another 7 dream cards to your deck. Of course that is what you got. Because the game is designed to encourage micro transactions by MAKING THINGS happen in a game and just putting “random” on the cards to make folks ‘think’ its randomly happening.
. Learning to utilise the Warlock hero power is an important part in understanding to use health as a resource.
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