Do we have enough money left to continue playing Hearthstone?

The cost to get a full set of cards has more than doubled since launch, and that number is not intended to decrease.

This is a familiar prospect for the Hearthstone giants. There is a very hot deck that is making waves in the ladder, but to get enough cards you need to craft a strong legendary card. This time it’s a Tempo Rogue deck, centered around Prince Keleseth, a card that didn’t appear much before the recent nerfs to Fiery War Ax and Innervate. Time to hit the wallet and buy a bunch of packs, expecting to accumulate enough dust to create the Second Prince. Of course, when crafting is done, you will feel it’s completely worth it when we are crushing opponents as we climb the rank.

Trading card games have always been an expensive hobby, and Magic: The Gathering fans are ready to prove it. But when Hearthstone entered the market entirely with the virtual world, it created a free play experience. However, over time, Hearthstone became more and more difficult for players with tight pockets. Over the past 18 months, Blizzard has continuously made changes to make it more expensive to own strong cards. Some of these changes, including an increase in pack prices in Europe, are evident, as the UK is most affected by the rise in currency rates as a result of Brexit. There are other changes that are harder to detect, and they are eroding fans’ pockets.

The biggest change has to be the end of Adventure expansions. In the past, we’ve often seen Adventures, a PvE (machine-to-machine) single-player game that you can buy, which when completed will reward a set of cards. Although the number of cards is smaller, Adventures sets are much cheaper than buying packs with gold or real money – because packs have a large number of cards and all drop randomly. Blizzard initially reduced the number of Adventures to 1 in every 3 updates, and recently decided to stop completely when the Standard rotation happened earlier this year. You will still have PvE play. In the most recent update, Knights of the Frozen Throne, there are missions against the Lich King. These quests are completely free, but you also get no cards.

Started a F2P Asia acct since Un’Goro, never missed dailies/TBs. Saw a cool variant of my fav deck…this is how much of it i can afford lol pic.twitter.com/ttkQC78iFe

— Frodan (@Frodan) October 5, 2017

The article predicts that the cost of a full collection has increased from $550 a year to almost $1,000 a year. However, don’t just look at the price for a full collection. At first, expansions usually only have 130 cards compared to 45 in Adventure, while this year the number of cards is more than ever.

Second, card games aren’t designed with all the cards in mind: you don’t need to complete your collection to be able to compete, because many of the cards are never touched by anyone. . However, there is no denying that costs are increasing. In the early days of Hearthstone, we could plow the equivalent of about $500 a year in gold. Now you can only get half that number.

Legendary cards problem

What makes average players like me a headache is changing the design of the cards, especially in the rarity distribution. In the old days, there was usually only one Legendary card in each class in each expansion, the remaining Legend cards were neutral and all classes could be used. I got to use them in the Mean Stretts of Gadgetzan meta just fine thanks to the trio: Aya Blackpaw, Patches the Pirate, and Kazakus – three powerful legendary neutral cards.

Journey to Un’Goro marks a complete change with Quest cards. Each class receives its own Legendary plus a Legendary Quest, doubling the cost of ownership. The good news for frugal players is that the vast majority of Quests are pretty weak right now, meaning you shouldn’t have to worry too much about crafting them, but we probably won’t get a chance to sit back and play against the power of the heroes. this leaf. Knights of the Frozen Throne also goes this way: with Hero cards. They’re pretty strong right now, with Scourgelord Garrosh, Bloodreaver Gul’dan, Shadowreaper Anduin, Deathseer Thrall, and Malfurion the Pestilent all appearing at regular intervals. As a result, a lot of good legendary cards have been increasing in the last two sets.

The cost is also increased for Epic cards, the rarity is only lower than Legendary. The Journey to Un’Goro expansion has a bunch of must-own Epic cards. Try playing Mage without Primordial Glyph or Priest without Shadow Visions? Good luck. Failing to open any of the cards above and receiving up to 6 Tortollan Primalist cards – currently considered a heavyweight contender for the worst Epic card of the year – is sure to make you scream. The cost of having a deck strong enough to rank up requires players to have quality cards and is forced to add 50 cards per set to keep up with the current meta.

The good news is that the Basic and Classic cards don’t rotate making them fairly safe to invest in for newbies as well as old players, but Blizzard designers are constantly complaining about the frequent appearance. of them in today’s decks, making the meta a bit boring. Many of the powerful cards that have been nerfed or disqualified in the Standard have encouraged players to try the cards, and the process doesn’t stop.

Players are compensated by receiving full dust equivalent to the initial value of crafting it, and many applauded the move: the famous legendary cards Ragnaros the Firelord and Sylvanas Windrunner were dropped from Standard in the spring 2017, and the player gets the full dust back. But the truth is, crafting a Legendary card that will be removed from the Standard in the future – usually for that exact class – doesn’t really make up for the cost of previous Legend cards, cards you can use temporarily. without the hottest leaves.

These individual changes – rotating the Standard, no longer Adventures, increasing the value of rare cards, and nerfing the Basic and Classic sets – have transformed Hearthstone from a free-to-play game into the most expensive title in the lineup of games. by Blizzard.

With the resounding success of Hearthstone, game makers have begun to step in to grab this market pie. For example, like the daily quests found in Hearthstone, Shadowverse also offers a daily login bonus (a daily login bonus), while The Elder Scrolls: Legends, also offers free packs and Twitch currency. Drops. Eternal and Gwent also give new players decent starting decks. Most games reward leveling up/leveling up, and the end-of-season bonuses are often more valuable than Hearthstone.

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Blizzard just made a decision to make Hearthstone cheaper: the Legendary drop rate has been changed by removing the drop of duplicate cards and ensuring you get 1 Legendary for every 10 packs you open from a new set. This helps players who want to collect the entire set or those who only open a dozen packs to receive a few Legendary cards. They also experimented with a temporary bonus scheme: Fire and Frost festivals this past summer with more gold rewards, free Arena tickets, and a free giveaway. However, we still do not know if they will appear again or not.

There are many other ways that Blizzard can keep players. Changing the existing Arena and ladder bonus schemes, adding login bonuses, and selling ready-made decks are just a few examples that they could use.

Knights of the Frozen Throne is the third full update in a row, happening with Hearthstone for the first time. You yourself cannot save enough gold when Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and Journey to Un’Goro come out, to be able to buy enough packs in the new set, which means that the purse in the pocket has to be taken out. This happens to a lot of other players.

CCG (Card Collectible Game) fans will be the main audience willing to spend money to play. Unless Blizzard puts in extra changes that will save you – and they obviously have all the analytics to know how much each of us is willing to spend – you’ll definitely have to pay extra if you want. My account is still strong. Or you can switch to other publishers’ games, which are more economical. There are many great games on the market, along with Valve’s arrival next year (Artifact). However, we have yet to see Hearthstone shaken by any opponents. And until that happens, Blizzard has nothing to worry about.

Source: pcgamer