I agree that HS is between F2P and P2W, maybe more of a F2P.
But the problem is, a paying player still has the upper hand. An example is, when an expansion comes out, paying players get to craft tier-1 top decks easily, while a F2P player may catch up only after a month or 2. Between this stage, a better player may lose because he/she might not have the dust need to craft tier 1 decks, especially if this tier 1 deck requires a lot of dust.
I know this might mean little to others, but I’m just demonstrating the point that paying makes a difference between win rates. Of course a better skilled player can outplay a casual net-decking player; but a skilled player without tier 1 decks is probably gonna lose to a skilled player with a full collection.
Adventures with fixed-price same-cards is what I think is a better model; but BZ don’t sell like this anymore, probably because this makes them less money (and a company has to make money, of course).
P.S. I’m a paying customer and I buy all pre-purchases, and I don’t enjoy winning with a card advantage, because such wins don’t count in my point of view. So I’ll probably just hit R5 and play arena.
This is false. You might climb higher with a better deck but your winrate won’t improve beyond the short term because you will just end up facing better opponents with better decks both in casual and in ranked.
Any reasonably knowledgeable played should be able to maintain a 50% winrate or so at whatever level they’re currently at. If you’re below 50% you need more experience. Better players obviously play better and will beat you, but their relative win rate is very similar to yours.
Blizzard fanbois, you know he’s talking about real stuff. I’m a F2P player as well, and I can still remember clear as day how I suffered back then during the KoTFT days. I suffered for 2 years before finally getting enough dust for the meta decks, and can go to rank 5 consistently. The game is not newbie friendly, it’s not a secret and blizzard isn’t making it a secret
Except any F2P player worth their salt knows to save up Gold/Dust in the months leading up to an expansion. We have entire threads here made for and by people who do nothing but save in the months leading to an expac, then buy 70-80 packs Day 1, building what they can until the meta settles and they can correctly invest in meta decks like anyone else. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll have Tier 1 meta decks at the same time as people who preorder.
While it sounds odd, one of our points is that there are no skilled players without Tier 1 deck (or if there are, their lack of those decks is by choice and not a lack of funds). There are always Tier 1 decks that can be build in their most optimal forms on an extreme budget, and if you’re skilled at the game then you almost certainly know what decks do well, what they cost, and how to save gold/dust to afford at least one Tier 1 deck each meta. Simply having more decks doesn’t magically improve your winrate either (in fact it’s often better to just hone your skills with one good deck than switch between a bunch of different ones).
Money aside, models like that one will likely never become the norm because they depart from the core model of any CCG: buying packs. I’d like to see them return as well (with the caveat that we can actually craft the cards before unlocking them), but we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
why? you can be competitive on day 1 in most games
btw, have you ever tried to bring friends to hs? well, try (spoiler: they won’t stick to the game because they won’t have any fun unless they grind for years or spend thousands of € whereas they can have fun for free on fortnite) and you’ll understand why there are no new players (or far less than on other games)
I brought 5-6 friends to the game. I told them that it will take time to build good decks and I played with them a lot with my own decks to show them what can be done and with their collection (teaching them how to build coherent decks with what they got). We played a lot of arena together as well so they could learn the basics as equal with everyone.
They weren’t dumb enough to expect going legend while beginning the game. They did grind the ladder steps after steps and are still playing now with a card collection that allow them to do whatever they want to play.
Of course, i they expected to reach rank 5 of their first 6 months, they would have ragequit, but they didn’t, and just enjoyed themselves without thinking they should have a better ranked.
But my friends are awesome, so I don’t know if I can make a generality out of that.
i’ve just noticed this xpac will be the most expensive one since the adventure will bring 35 cards (2800golds i guess) which means if you don’t buy packs with €, you’ll only get 50 (+10ish given by blizzard) packs out of 250-280 needed
If you start playing a game where other people can pay to get more rewards or one-ups… It’s not truly F2P. I get REAAALLLLY tired of hearing this stupid crap. This game is made by Blizzard and if you think for one, tiny… insignificant second, that they are not going to try to rake in as much money as possible on a VERY popular game that they spent time and money developing. I mean…
Just buy Casino Kid on the Nintendo Entertainment Systemm and play that forever.
So, the conclusion is that a f2p with paid options is not really “free” after all. You pay money or time, and if you’re not enjoying the process, you’re better off doing something more meaningful. Time is really precious and you can’t get it back. Optimize your life with happiness instead.
