blizzard's hearthstone, more epic pay2win failure

[darkewaffle]

Yeah, my friends are enamored with watching Hearthstone recently lol. I'd like to give it a try at some point but watching streams of people open booster packs is way further down the rabbit hole than I care to go.

I tried Solforge but after two games against the computer I uninstalled. It just didn't feel like there was much going on. Like compared to... Yugioh or Pokemon I played as a kid, it really felt like a few steps backwards. I have no idea how Hearthstone actually plays, but if it's that simple I don't see it keeping my interest.

The one thing I did notice Solforge doing was taking advantage of digital card manipulation that wouldn't really be possible in normal 'irl' circumstances. Such as a 'tree' card being destroyed but leaving behind a sapling card in its place, or one card creating a duplicate of itself under certain circumstances. I think that's a nice touch to set the digital games apart from 'real' cards, but ultimately they need a good foundation for the game itself first.

 

[diesbudt]

It's been "out" in closed beta for a few days now. No trading, which seems odd, but I guess I can partially understand why.

Watching streams of it on twitch.tv it looks like fun, at least for now while everyone is new.

Solforge is also out in beta now, open beta and on steam. I've played a bit of solforge but the game servers seem to be heavily overloaded and the game is very buggy and laggy. Also solforge seems to be very heavy pay2win. It's expected somewhat for any card game, but it's most rare legendary cards are often simply outright overpowered compared to common or rare equivalents.

While hearthstone also has real money boosters I can't say yet if it's as bad as solforge, it doesn't look like legendary cards in hearthstone are arbitrarily stronger than the more common cards, they just have more interesting abilities.

Another online TCG coming out (Alpha is late Sept.), is Hex: Shards of Fate.

It has a similar MtG feel, and is close to what any real TCG looks like, except it can do digital things (random effects on decks and stuff).

Trading, AH, Lots of PvE dungeons (A.I. to play), Raids (3 v 1).

So there are other options coming down the pipeline.

 

[CWRMadcat]

As someone who was lucky enough to get a beta invite, Hearthstone is a pretty fun casual game. It's not something I would ever replace my normal pc gaming time, but if I'm away from my computer on a tablet or something I could definitely see myself knocking out a few games.

I will say this though. As it currently stands, the reward structure for free booster packs creates incentives to play a couple of games a day as opposed to grinding out hours of games. It costs 100 gold to get a booster pack. 40g is handed out for completing a daily non repeatable quest (usually something trivial like win 3 games). Winning a game outright gives you 1 gold, a loss gives you nothing. If you want a wide selection of cards, you're gonna pay for it.

I personally haven't paid for anything yet but I've enjoyed the experience so far.

 

[lupi]

You bastard

 

[Chiropteran]

A couple things:

Rarer cards should inherently be better than common cards,

I was getting ready to say "hell no!" but then you kept writing...

but they should not be overpowered. I've played MTG for a very long time, and there are always rare cards more powerful than common. However, they usually cost more, have some sort of downside, or are situational; they need to be played on top of a base of common cards.

This I generally agree with. For the most part, the rares and mythics of magic are strong cards, absolutely, but they have high costs, or limited scope, or odd drawbacks, or something- they usually can't just be tossed into any old deck and fit, though a few do fit into a large number of decks.

In contrast, it seems like many of the legendary and heroic (most rare and 2nd most rare card types) cards in solforge are just plain better versions of common cards. No hidden downside, no higher cost, no situational use- just high power generally useful cards. In playing the game I have faced players who literally cast nothing but legendary cards, and even if I play extremely well it's nearly impossible to win when every card they cast is causing multiple effects each just as strong as a single common or rare card.

In Magic, if you tried to just make a deck of all your mythic rare cards, it obviously wouldn't work at all. And some of the strongest cards are common, for example lightning bolt or rancor.

Trading cards games are, inherently, P2W. Sorry but I'm going to cream your 12th Edition white deck, unless we're doing drafts or closed box or something.

True, but a certain level of that is fair, IMO. I take $50 as baseline. I'll pay $50 for a fun game that I can get 20 hours of entertainment out of, absolutely. So I'll consider paying about that much for a free2play game, and think about if it would make it fun enough to enjoy for 20+ hours.

In MTG, this is absolutely the case. I can buy cards to build bargain-competitive decks for $50 or even well less than $20. Or I can play 4 drafts, which is close to 20 hours worth, and have cards after the fact.

In Solforge, $50 would buy me 4 guaranteed legendaries, and if I'm lucky maybe I'd get as many as 6 from packs. Considering it's 30 cards to a deck, and the legendaries I earn would be split across 4 factions while only 2 are usable per deck, the chance of actually having a viably strong deck after that investment is very small.

On the other end of the scale, I can by a playset of every magic card in a sit for about $500. Sounds like a ton of money for a hobby, but the nice thing is that the cards all have established value and could be resold later for nearly the same money, as long as they are taken care of.

A lot of money to be sure, but I calculated it out for solforge and I get over $1000. For a brand new game with no established aftermarket value.

 

[OCNewbie]

You're not bias at all.

Says the #1 poster in the AT Official Diablo 3 thread (453 posts and counting).

 

[Chiropteran]

Another online TCG coming out (Alpha is late Sept.), is Hex: Shards of Fate.

It has a similar MtG feel, and is close to what any real TCG looks like, except it can do digital things (random effects on decks and stuff).

Trading, AH, Lots of PvE dungeons (A.I. to play), Raids (3 v 1).

So there are other options coming down the pipeline.

Sounds cool, I'll check it out.

 

[Grey!matter]

Bobby Kotick wants your moneys.

Design game based on microtransactions that can be developed in a few months with a small team, exploit popularity of warcraft brand and magic trading card games. Genius

This is random as shit but did you play priest in Cuties only?

 

[Ns1]

Trading cards games are, inherently, P2W. Sorry but I'm going to cream your 12th Edition white deck, unless we're doing drafts or closed box or something.

Back in the Revised days, as a 14 year old kid I routinely killed P2W geeks with my $5 red/green speed deck.

Maybe things have changed, but it's not all about money =P

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It's all about goblins... bloodlust, blust frenzy, goblin grenade win in 4-5 turns every time ^.^

Scrolls is a pretty good card game by the way if you want something to play online.

 

[TidusZ]

This is random as shit but did you play priest in Cuties only?

yeah disc #1, I'm also from London ontario too which is weird

 

[Grey!matter]

yeah disc #1, I'm also from London ontario too which is weird

what the fuck lol, you guys were pretty hilarious.

 

[Rinaun]

Kotick is trying to turn Blizzard into the next cash cow. It's such a shame how far they've fallen. I'm sure everyone internally who is management would care to disagree, and would probably say everything has never been better. I think though the spirit of blizzard and how they made games is a thing of the past. It really is sad, too. They were one of the more perfect, untainted, honest game developers. Once WoW took off as well as it did, it was only time before money became the only goal for upper management.

A good analogy would be one cookie now, two cookies later. Blizzard chose the one cookie now. I'd be amazed if blizzard games are held as highly regarded as they once were. I have yet to hear people refer to WoWandaria, D3, or SC2 except in a less than nostalgic way. I hear all the time, however, people mention how much fun they had in WC/2/3 or D2/SC. Some even made huge memories with friends and family playing these games. Not saying it doesn't happen still, but it sure isn't the customer-oriented company it used to be.

 

[Ns1]

I think though the spirit of blizzard and how they made games is a thing of the past. It really is sad, too.

agreed.

 

[lupi]

anyone else get in the beta yet?

it is interesting that with this getting close to open beta, they've announced that the hardcopy tcg license was cancelled.

 

[Dunkman04]

anyone else get in the beta yet?

it is interesting that with this getting close to open beta, they've announced that the hardcopy tcg license was cancelled.

Yeah I've been in for a week or so. I don't really have much to add, it's fun. The first few days I played basically all evening and now after about an hour I'm done. Part of that is just the grind of learning the classes and getting all of them up to lvl10.

I'm torn on whether I'd call it pay to win. Clearly buying a ton of decks will help. If one person just has what they start with and the other guy buys 50 decks it would, I'd guess, give him a 55-45 advantage. Add another 5% if he/she buys more or gets lucky on rares+. With crafting and a little luck (ideally hitting a legendary with a free deck to disenchant) you could build a good deck for one class in a reasonable amount of time with little if any money. However, unless you got lucky that would mean a decent amount of disenchanting cards that other classes need which will paint you into a corner.

There's certainly a few QoL issues they need to fix but it's a beta (achievements, cross-game chat, etc.). One thing I think the game desperately needs is a free arena. Half the gameplay is hidden behind the pay wall and to me that's worse than needing to buy decks. Make a free one that only uses common cards or something, and has a bit of rewards. Maybe like 1 gold per win for the first 6, then 10/25/50 or something just to give people a bit of a goal. The pay arena would be more fun (more card possibilities) and more rewarding so it seems like a good compromise while making the entire game accessible to everyone. I would imagine they'll end up adding all sorts of things like WoW loot cards to the decks, at least to the ones you buy.

 

[cuafpr]

I'm in the beta, and have zero experience with any other type of Trading Card Game, and find it fun, its simple enough for a nooby like me to pick up and play and i'm sure people with experience will have fun as well, probably destroying people like me lol.

 

[diesbudt]

anyone else get in the beta yet?

it is interesting that with this getting close to open beta, they've announced that the hardcopy tcg license was cancelled.

With a digital, more casual, higher cash possibility for blizzard coming out and Cryptozoic (The company that has produced the card game for most of the life) creating their own Online TCG (Which they are calling an MMOTCG). It was time to part ways for WoW TCG.

And as I stated before if anyone is interested in looking (I know I am) Cryptozoic is creating Hex:Shards of Fate.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hex is an online TCG free to play. Costs nothing to sign up, and you get 1 free starter deck upon sign up. (This free starter cannot be traded/sold).

-Decks cost $10

-Packs cost $2 (15 cards a pack + 1 treasure chest with chance of extra cards/PvE currency (Gold) and a "uber pack" with all 15 cards being rare+)

-Drafts costs $1 + 3 packs ($7 total)

-VIP system where you can pay $4/mo, and get 1 free pack each month (basically $1/pack through this) and have access to a opening hand draw simulator

-PvE is free, and you earn PvE cards through PvE. So it has F2P aspects in PvE. This gets complicated so I wont go into details unless people are interested.

There is so much information on this, if there is interest I can type up a long separate post on all the information about Hex... though that could take hours.

There are a few other options too, coming down the pipeline. And honestly they all put Hearthstone to shame in my opinion.

 

[Chiropteran]

I got in the HS beta. Having a lot of fun, Arena is where it's at. $1.99 to play, which isn't terrible really. Even if you suck and lose every game, it's like $2 for an hour or so of entertainment. Best case, you win 10 and maybe lose 1 or 2, and you get more than enough gold to cover you next entry costs.

Realistically, even on a bad run I'll win 4-5 games before losing 3, and it's a good level of value for the money.

Not sure about constructed yet, haven't played enough to really give my opinion, but it's fun if nothing else.

I will say the game is not at all Pay2Win in the way Solforge is. I really wanted to like solforge, but it's so blatantly obvious that they want to make people buy cards given how ridiculous the legendary cards are.

In comparison, I feel like the hearthstone cards are balanced independently of rarity, for the most part. The legendary cards tend to be more flashy and have a more dramatic effect, or they might allow you to build a strategy around them, but they aren't really that strong in a direct sense. A lot of my favorite cards are common or free.

You will have a larger pool to build from with more cards, that much goes without saying, but you can't just toss together all the legendary cards and have a winning deck, not at all.

 

[smackababy]

The arena is a draft tourney correct? I've watched a bit of the play, and if you don't have to buy the packs, $1.99 isn't bad. In MTGO, it is a bit more than that unless you win your packs. Is there a marketplace to sell cards?

And how does the mana work? It isn't like lands in MTG, so I am unsure how you build them up.

 

[Aikouka]

And how does the mana work? It isn't like lands in MTG, so I am unsure how you build them up.

I've only seen a few games, but it looks like you get one more mana gem per turn unless you have some card that grants you more.

 

[smackababy]

I've only seen a few games, but it looks like you get one more mana gem per turn unless you have some card that grants you more.

That is what it looked like when I was watching, but I am not sure. I guess that helps remove the randomness of the "need to draw lands or this game is over fast" aspect, but it also removes certain strategy; and a potential revenue stream from things like dual lands and such.

 

[lupi]

Can you get gold in pve to play arena or must you pay first.

 

[smackababy]

Can you get gold in pve to play arena or must you pay first.

From what I've seen you have to pay to enter. But, if it works like other MTGO type games, you win cards / booster packs and you can sell those or use them to enter. In MTGO, you have to have 3 packs to enter a draft (because you get 3 packs worth of cards). For each opponent you beat, you get a pack in return, so you could use them (or open and sell them on the market).

 

[Chiropteran]

Can you get gold in pve to play arena or must you pay first.

Yes, you can earn gold in PvE. There is a daily quest that takes usually 5-10 games of unranked (free) to complete which award 40 or 60 gold. You only get 1 per day, but up to 3 stack, so if you don't play for a couple days you can come back and do all the daily quests you missed. This will buy you a pack or arena entry every 2-4 days.

You can also earn gold one-time each, per achievement. Getting level 10 on each class and beating all the AI on expert mode gave me something around 700 gold, which was pretty nice, but it is just a one time boost. You also unlock free cards by leveling up the various classes, and a few special cards are unlocked through achievements, for example a bird that calls a random pirate from your deck is unlocked by collecting every single pirate card.

You earn 5 gold per 5 wins. This is nothing really, IMO it should just be removed because it gives some players the false idea that they should grind out enough wins to buy another pack, when I don't think it's supposed to encourage that at all. It's just a tiny perk to incentivize winning.

When you play arena (not normally free, but you do get to play your first arena free of charge and you still get full normal winnings), you will often win gold, with 7 or more wins it's guaranteed to be enough gold to re-enter arena. If you are skilled enough at arena you can basically glide forever just playing off your previous game's winnings. Of course bad luck will hit you occasionally, but some of the top players such as Trump can get the critical 7-10 wins very often.

From what I've seen you have to pay to enter. But, if it works like other MTGO type games, you win cards / booster packs and you can sell those or use them to enter. In MTGO, you have to have 3 packs to enter a draft (because you get 3 packs worth of cards). For each opponent you beat, you get a pack in return, so you could use them (or open and sell them on the market).

1 pack costs 100 gold (can't buy with real money)
2 packs cost $2.99 (or 200 gold)

Arena costs $1.99 or 150 gold. Even if you lose all your games, you will always walk away with at least 1 pack of cards and some dust.

If you win 7 or more games in arena, I understand you are guaranteed to win at least 150 gold (which is the cost of entry) along with the pack. I have seen several cases where going 8-10 wins gives you as much as 300 gold plus the pack, but it's random and not guaranteed.


In beta, anything you buy is getting wiped eventually. Blizzard will refund you gold equivalent for all purchases. So I am mostly playing arena, working on getting good at it, and then I plan to play the hell out of it after the account wipe/reset and see if I can just ride off my winnings and never add any more money to my account.

That is what it looked like when I was watching, but I am not sure. I guess that helps remove the randomness of the "need to draw lands or this game is over fast" aspect, but it also removes certain strategy; and a potential revenue stream from things like dual lands and such.

You gain 1 mana per turn until you reach 10, which is the maximum. If you don't go first, you get "the coin", which is an extra card you can use once to gain 1 extra mana that turn. Some cards give you an extra mana crystal early.