It feels like Blizzard doesn't want us to play the game

Multiplayer Discussion
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It happens every expansion. I’m absurdly hyped about the new cards, I check the subreddit everyday to see what’s new. Everything sound so fun, I can’t wait for the expansion to hit. The first week is amazing, everything is so fresh. The game is fun, the new expansion is awesome, it’s all fun and games. And then I quit shortly after.

Why, you may ask? Cause there’s literally no reason to play. There’s NOTHING to achieve, NOTHING to grind for, NOTHING to expect. You’re getting a single daily quest, and that’s the softcap. You get 50 gold in 10 minutes, and then to get 50 more we are talking about hours and hours of grinding. That’s a ridiculously stupid softcap. When it comes to buying cards and building a collection, the game almost forces you to login once every 3 days, clear your dailies in 20 minutes, and peace out. That’s absolute bullsh*t. And then, you know what happens? I clear my dailies once, twice… and then I just stop bothering. It becomes a chore because I can’t play the game actively, and have to login every once in a while instead. I start forgetting about it and looking forward to other things, so I start playing something else and only come back when the next expansion is announced.

“But you’re supposed to play for fun, you don’t need to be rewarded for it.”

Bullsh*t. That’s not how humans work, and that is not how the industry works. Just look at literally every other game in the market. Even MOBAs, that don’t have anything to unlock, implemented meaningful reward systems and things to incentivize you to play. EVEN SHOOTERS! Look at any MMORPG, any MOBA, any shooter, any other card game, anything really. All of them have implemented systems that reward your time ingame and bring reason to play more. Building incentive to play the game is super effective and makes for way better games. Yet here we have a CARD GAME, about BUILDING A COLLECTION, by BUYING PACKS WITH GOLD, and you can’t grind the damn currency. It’s ridiculous. There’s a single online game that doesn’t reward you for your playtime. IT’S CHESS. And that one at least has a meaningful ladder to climb.

Last expansion I wanted, I really legit wanted to play Hearthstone. But the game presented me with a blank screen of daily quests, and the opportunity to grind 1/33th of a pack every other match. Meanwhile, MTG:Arena was screaming at my face with multiple different things to do, multiple quests, multiple things to grind, a huge incentive to play more. What do you think I did? I played MTG and never looked back at Hearthstone. And here comes the plot twist - I DON’T EVEN LIKE MTG. I really don’t. Hearthstone is a million times more fun imo. Then I installed Eternal - and the same thing happened. There were so many things to do, quests to grind, achievements to go through, everything rewarding me fairly. I could play for a few hours and feel great about it as I opened pack after pack. And once again - I don’t like Eternal. Once again, Hearthstone is a million times better imo. Yet I never came back. I was playing those other TCGs thinking about how much more fun Hearthstone is, but never once did I consider coming back to the ghost house that it is while playing games that actually reward your ingame time. Blizzard has such a nice system in Overwatch, and they own the biggest MMORPG ever. And yet they fail so hard about all this in Hearthstone. Different teams, I know, but it’s still ridiculous.

“You can grind arena.”

Ha. Hahahahaha. I hate arena. And a lot of people do. And going infinite is pretty difficult on top of it, at least compared to any other CCG/TCG around. And even if it was easy, being forced into playing a secondary gamemode that plays completely different from the core game to be able to grind currency is nonsense.

“They would lose money if they made it easy to grind packs.”

No, they wouldn’t. I’m not gonna go against a huge team of experts at Blizzard, working everyday to see what would be more lucrative for the company. But literally every other game is doing this, games much bigger than Hearthstone. Trust me, giving the players meaning and incentivizing them to play the game will only bring more spenders.

“There are things to do, you can climb the ladder.”

Ha. Hahahahaha. No. The rewards are an absolute joke, it’s piss easy to get to rank 5 and there’s no reason to go past that.

“If you find the game fun, just play for fun.”

Yeah, no. HS is competing with other TCGs, MOBAs, shooters, Autochess games, even MMORPGs. It’s competing with any other online game really. And trust me, there are other games that are fun. And those reward your time ingame and ask you to play more. If you’re fine spending an entire evening playing Hearthstone only to get half a 40 dust pack in currency, cool, go on and have fun. But there’s a huge part of the playerbase, specially people that have played multiple online games before, that won’t really fall for that. Hearthstone could be 10x better and more fun if they at least tried to keep you engaged. A better ladder system with good rewards, a level-up and prestige system like in Overwatch, more daily quests, a new achievement system, you name it. Anything that made the game ANY rewarding would work. And don’t even get me started on how unfun it is to play the same 1 or 2 decks if you’re F2P. Maybe you spend 500 bucks every expansion to get all the cards, so you don’t really know what I’m talking about. Being able to play any deck you want, switch a few cards to your liking and theorycraft here and there, that’d be awesome. But even as a player that pre-orders the expansion, that is not my reality. I’m stuck playing very few meta decks that get old really fast. If only I could grind everyday and slowly build a collection, have more fun cause I feel rewarded for my time, and then get to play more fun decks as a result…

I wanna play your damn game, Blizzard. But it seems like you just don’t want me to play it.

Also, don’t be polarizing. It’s not like giving you the option to get more gold will break the company. As I said, it works for literally every other PC game. As it stands, you farm 10 gold an hour. That’s 10 cents per hour. Even if you multiply that TEN FOLD, at 1 dollar an hour, it’s still absolutely worth it to buy packs with cash, and people will spend just as much money, if not more.

TL;DR: 1 quest per day isn’t enough, I have no reason to play the game except “playing for fun”. This is not enough for a lot of people, and is completely against what every other game tries to accomplish. Every other game has a meaningful reward system to make your ingame time worth it, Hearthstone feels 20 years dated in this aspect. If you don’t reward me for spending my time playing your game, I’m done with it. Especially in a game ABOUT building a collection of cards that can and should be purchased with ingame currency. And especially when the numbers of cards you have directly impacts the fun you have playing the game. And especially when every other CCG in existance does this 100x better.

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Except it’s not. Did you ever play a CCG/TCG in real life? Did you require some over-the-top reward structure just to get you to pull out your deck and play?

It sounds like you aren’t even interested in video games, just addicted to progression hype.

Handwaiving the ladder and legend system doesn’t suddenly make them not count. I could go into each and every example YOU listed on good reward structures, copy/paste your reasoning for dismissing those of Hearthstone and it would be the exact same thing you’re trying to say here.

TL:DR - your assessment is simply wrong and yes, you need to re-learn how to enjoy playing a game instead of needing the flashy reward system of your brain overstimulated every five seconds.

edit: For the record, I’m not against cool progressive additions to the game like an acheivement point system with a robust list of both normal and oddball acheivements - I think it would add another layer of awesomeness to the game as a whole - however if you NEED something like that (and more) just to bot be sick of the game after a single week into an expansion, the issue lies with you as an individual and your approach to games, not the game itself.

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It doesn’t make sense to compare it to TCGs in real life. As I mentioned, HS is competing against any other online PC game out there.

It sounds like you aren’t even interested in video games, just addicted to progression hype.

instead of needing the flashy reward system of your brain over stimulated every five seconds.

That’s common human behavior, sorry if you have transcended beyond our race.

Handwaiving the ladder and legend system doesn’t suddenly make them not count. I could go into each and every example YOU listed on good reward structures, copy/paste your reasoning for dismissing those of Hearthstone and it would be the exact same thing you’re trying to say here.

I don’t get your point, I really don’t. Could you try and do that, then?

Also, this is not specific to me. I said 100x already, every other game is doing this. Because this is how people work. A game with a good reward system IS better than a game without.

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Achievements would be awesome. Well written post.
I can’t believe we don’t have achievements this many years in. There could be SO MANY good ones, too!

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And what do you have in mind? An acheivement system? See my comment above. There are already ways to gain in-game resources. The game has Arena, a progressive ladder and the legend system to ascend once you climb that, not even considering the sports scene unoess you’re into that sort of thing.

Hearthstone as a CCG can’t really make super good use of cosmetics like a lot of games can - you simply don’t get the use out of them in this type of game, so holding cosmetic upgrades all over the place as rewards likely wouldn’t act as any major motivator for playing either.

I still maintain the point that if flashy progression points are more of a priority than the game itself to you, you have your priorities messed up. Obviously everyone is entitled to like what they like, but >>I<< would rather have an enjoyable game to play than a bunch of shallow hype fluff thrown at my face all day.

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There are already ways to gain in-game resources.

Yes, my point is that they aren’t enough.

The game has Arena, a progressive ladder and the legend system to ascend once you climb that.

I already adressed the above.

Hearthstone as a CCG can’t really make super good use of cosmetics like a lot of games can - you simply don’t get the use out of them in this type of game, so holding cosmetic upgrades all over the place as rewards likely wouldn’t act as any major motivator for playing either.

I’m not suggesting cosmetics, I definitely never said that.

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And yet, there was a solid 20+ years of gaming industry growth that did not require achievements or other sort of micro-progression to attract and retain customers.

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I can relate to the OP on the emotional aspect of the “feel”
However, OP forms a part of a greater community that enjoys/dislike the game with individual differences in preference.
The Dev could not design a game to focus on a narrow group of niche players, but to a wider range of player groups.

The only discuss-able point (I feel) should be if the present progression system still fit today’s market (new players + veteran players) and how it could be redesigned/restructured. (There may not be a need to increase rewards but how current rewards can be repackaged)

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With that same reasoning, I can say I won’t vax my kids cause humanity has survived thousands of years without it.

I could say we don’t need games to run on more than 8bits cause the industry was already doing well back then.

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Sorry you can’t build a full collection for free in a month, then?

All your points boil down to is you handwaiving everything because you don’t actually want to put effort into competing (Arena is too hard, I don’t like it!! No point going past rank 5!!) but you want a crapton of resources just thrown at you.

This was a gigantic post of “GIMME MORE FREE STUFF, BLIZZ!! GETTING A TON OF FREE STUFF THROWN AT ME IS THE ONLY REASON I PLAY!!”

Just tell then to give you 1,000 gold per day for (however much you actually play) and you could’ve skipped your entire OP.

Perhaps this discussion might be going differently if you actually listed some suggestions of what you find to be a more reasonable reward system?

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Very reasonable.

What I do think, though, is that I’m not part of a niche in this aspect, and implementing these features aren’t a rare thing.
Look at LoL for example, and how they went from 0 ingame rewards to a nice system as they grew. There are very, very few games nowadays that don’t have an engaging reward system, it’s everywhere. Lootboxes are huge.

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Laughable argument, Madmax

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Amazing how fast you got those goalposts moving. Are they on greased rails, or is it just wheels?

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My points were never about free stuff, you’re missing the point really hard.

Let’s turn it into numbers so it’s easy, shall we? In Hearthstone, you get 10 cents per hour of ingame playtime. The industry average is 2-3 dollars.

And Jesus Christ. What you’re saying is this:
doing QA for a game
“Hmm, I think this boss specifically was a bit unfair. His mechanic wasn’t explained well enough, it made for a difficult and confusing boss fight.”
“OH, YOU WANT IT EASIER HUH? THESE PUTRID NEW AGE GAMERS, SUCH SCORN. THEY WANT EVERYTHING TO BE EASY, HERE, TAKE YOUR FREE WIN CARD, SINCE YOU DON’T WANT ANY DIFFICULTY.”

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Not everyone needs a treat dispensed every 5 seconds to have fun. Progression systems are all well and good but if you don’t enjoy the base gameplay it’s idiotic to keep playing the game just for rewards. Jesus Christ you sound like a dog waiting on a bacon strip for sitting down on command. So pretty much with Wardrum on this one, and also if you aren’t a fetus you’d remember that games have been around a lot longer than the past decade and they did just find without an unending stream of rewards.

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I think maybe a better way of approaching this would be accompanying a critique of something that “isn’t good enough” with a suggestion of what we feel would be a solid direction for said target of critique.

For example - I think Hearthstone could really use a solid acheivement system. From normal stuff to abstract situations/plays, there are a lot of people who play games for more than just resources/grinding that would find such a thing to be a FAR better motivator than rank/stars/etc.

While I won’t say HS is the absolute most open with resources across the entire genre, this is a gross exaggeration and you know it.

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I had never heard of that fallacy, good thing you mentioned it.

“Moving the goalposts is an informal fallacy in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded. That is, after an attempt has been made to score a goal, the goalposts are moved to exclude the attempt. The problem with changing the rules of the game is that the meaning of the result is changed, too.”

Interesting. In what way do you think I did that though? My atempt was to apply a logic that I think was flawed into other examples to show it’s inconsistency.

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Quoting this because just thinking about an achievement system makes me happy.

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I think maybe a better way of approaching this would be accompanying a critique of something that “isn’t good enough” with a suggestion of what we feel would be a solid direction for said target of critique.

The lack of a solution shouldn’t dismiss the argument about the problem. And I did mention them, briefly for sure, but I did.

While I won’t say HS is the absolute most open with resources across the entire genre, this is a gross exaggeration and you know it.

If a match takes 10 minutes, with a 50% winrate, you win 3 times every hour. 3 wins is 10 gold, 1 tenth of a pack, 10 cents. 10 cents an hour, there you go.

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I know right?!?! It gets brought up in like every Q&A and the way they dance around it makes me think we probably won’t get one. :confused:

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