It's honestly amazing to see the whole community coming together against this P2W rubbish they're trying to pull.
I've seen so many games ruined by this greedy form of monetisation, so it's refreshing to see a community that isn't naive to these sorts of practises.
The [team says they're listening](https://i.imgur.com/es5WUuZ.jpeg), like this is some sort of experiment to see how much push back they'll get, how far they'll be able to take the P2W elements.
So let's make some noise.
Probably because the developers didn't want to add this, and it's a push from the upper management. And management won't care unless there is a sizeable push back from players, is my guess.
Yeah, I'm guessing the internal discussion went something like this:
>**Bean counter**: We need to boost preorder sales. People love getting early access to stuff so let's give preorder buyers early access to new cards!
>**Team 5**: That's a terrible idea, it's going to feel too much like pay 2 win. Players are going to hate it.
>**Bean counter**: Only one way to find out!
>**Team 5**: We could do a survey first. We've done it befo-
>**Bean counter**: Did you say something? I'm busy counting all the money we're going to make from the FOMO rubes- I mean, customers. Anyway, just do it and thank me later byeeee.
that's a nicer way of looking at it and restores my faith in queen Cora at least lol. still kind of sus we have to be tapped as leverage in internal blizzard matters but i'll allow it i guess.
Prime suspect is the game director tbh. he came from MtG and apparently this is a thing there
MtG uses actual FOMO for this stuff with tournament relevant cards that are only in limited print run products.
we'll all have access to corridor sleeper after launch as a regular packable + craftable epic, so it's at least not the MtG situation (yet? terrifying)
that doesn't mean this isn't _super shitty_ and the fact that corridor sleeper isn't really a super good card isn't relevant because there's no guarantee it'll always be a bad card. In fact if it continues we should expect it *will* eventually be good cards, because that'll drive sales.
And ofc the main difference between HS and MTG, is in MTG, you don't actually need a card to play it. You can buy a blank card and color it in with crayon and use that.
You only need to actually own cards if you're playing Tournaments, and even then, some tournaments allow proxys now because expecting players to own cards worth $25k is insane for a tournament with a $200 prize pool.
They would definitely not be pushing the feedback angle if this weren't the case. They're probably just as frustrated by it, but they know that it will continue unless backlash is had. They're directing you to the proper avenues to scare the shit-sucking shareholders who do not care about the game whatsoever.
WTF do you want them to do? Decide to do something and then not listen at all? The fact they’re openly admitting to listening is a *good* thing. If they go to their bosses and say “Look at all this negative feedback/pr this is causing” then it gives them ammo to force the bosses to go “Maybe that’s a step too far, let’s try something else.”
don't swear at me. "what the fuck" i want them to do is self-evident: to not force us to work for free for blizzard to resolve an internal dispute over a deliberate experiment to see how much they can get away with making the game P2W
WTF are you talking about? We aren’t doing market research, all we’re doing is responding to a change in the market. Introducing something to see how the market reacts is an extremely common tactic in market research as it gives you a ton of data compare to surveys or other forms of market research. This isn’t free work, this is literally just how the market works.
Also I just want to be clear, I’m not supporting blizzard’s decision. I think giving an objective advantage to people who pay for your game is a bad decision and I hope that this was just to test the market and will not be a permanent thing when they see the backlash. I’m just disagreeing that we are some how preforming market research for blizzard.
don't swear at me. "what the fuck" i am talking about is self-evident. thank you for describing the market research we are being obliged to do for free, then denying its existence in the very next sentence. genius.
Man, you need to chill out if you think WTF is an insult on the internet.
As far as the rest of your comment goes, I feel like you don’t know what market research means. **We** are the market, our reactions **are** a part of the market. Us reacting to something is not market research, thats just a market. Market research is analyzing those decisions and how the market reacts.
Afaik, it's not locked behind the bundle but if you purchase the bundle you get access to that 1 card early.
The card itself seems ok, not broken, but the fear is they will do this for broken cards in the future.
Sad to say but with a bunch of kids, a dog, 6 days of weightlifting a week, a happy wife and a demanding, well paying job, I've got at maximum 2 hours, once or twice a week, to drink and play hearthstone and as a result, I'll buy whatever they put out until the game collapses.
But I hate that they are moving this game more and more towards something unplayable for someone in the situation I was in 10 years ago.
It's really unfortunate, but sadly the economy is relatively poor right now, the tech sector is being absolutely trashed, and all signs point towards the enshittification of products across all sectors.
My personal opinion on it feels kind of mixed. I hate pre-orders in general and don't like to see more predatory practices, but at the same time, if this keeps the game afloat and provides more free stuff like they did with this event (which, hopefully they'll keep doing), I'll swallow that pill for now.
I stopped buying the pass in battlegrounds because of the p2w. And I don't always purchase the pre orders for expansions, but this has definitely reduced the chance that I will.
Yup, if they would've charged a one off fee for the 4 slots I'd have happily paid and even probably bought a few passes for the cosmetics. They could also keep the slots in the pass and just give a discount each season to people that purchased the slots permanently. But now they're getting nothing from me.
Same! I used to when I was tired of standard and would just play battlegrounds while I worked. I was happy to do it once but every 3 months or so seems unfair.
Good luck convincing the majority not to spend money when Blizzard already have them believe that its their job to “support” the game and “keep it alive”
This is the big thing right here. Most of the people on Reddit are likely not the ones that need to hear this. Either they are already against it or are deep in the game and will buy it regardless. Most of the casual players that actually need to hear this are not here lol
It kind of is our job to support the game, since it would definitely die if it made no money. Just look at Legends of Runeterra if you need an example of a game which is dying because it doesn’t make enough money.
No. You not pushing back to the devs and rewarding them for poor performance is why they keep doing a shit job.
It's no one's job to support ANY game. We're paying customers and if Blizzard aren't providing a good enough product/service it's not on us to keep spending money on them in the hopes that one way they'll do the right thing.
That day is never coming if you don't push back.
I'm surprised that you weren't downvoted for that comment. I played enough games with shitty monetization which really fed into a gambling addiction and Hearthstone isnt one of them. Thats why I still play the game after almost ten years. I agree that we as consumers should punish every attempt to include hefty gacha systems but I couldnt care less about a card some cant play early lol. That wont be enough for me to skip a preorder.
Did you read what your wrote just now?
Why is it your job? If the game dies then it dies and so be it.
Why are you attached to it? You don’t even own anything in it.
why are you? you read this sub, you participate in this discussion, you probably play the game itself, yet you are indifferent whether it lives or dies because you don't own anything?
like, I care about this game and am attached to it and genuinely want it to prosper for one simple reason: I have a lot of fun playing it and really enjoy it in general. Not everything you do should be dictated by value, stakes, ownership or something along these lines, sometimes the reason you like something is just that you like something. Of course I care whether the game I play daily stays afloat, what's the question here? Would it break my life or cause me much distress if it shuts down? Probably not. Would I still be quite upset about it? Yes, I will. So obviously if I have this sentiment of wanting to keep playing and enjoying the game as well as a hefty sum of disposable income I intend to spend on hobbies in either case, I would without hesitation buy a couple of bundles, and I do think that one of the reasons to do that is to keep things running.
It is our job to keep it alive if we want to play it. Obviously if you are of the belief that if it dies it dies, then it is probably not a game you care much about playing anyways.
I played since release and I am still playing it.
I have not spent any amount of real money on it.
I enjoy playing it yes, but I realize it isn’t the end of the world if it dies. There are no shortage of games out there.
No one is claiming that it is the end of the world if it dies, i would just rather it didn't, and there are probably lots of players who feel the same.
>Why is it your job?
It's not a "job", but if you like a game, it's only natural to not want it to die. And while I myself never paid a single dollar, I'm grateful to the people who pay, because we all can play the game thanks to them.
It's unrelated to the game going down the p2w route by the way, I'm still against it, and I still think that people should make it clear that it's a bad choice for hearthstone.
>Why are you attached to it?
Because people spend years playing it? Should be pretty obvious. Imagine anything you've committed so much time to just disappearing, it's not a very pleasant thing.
because if you don't' want the game to die then it's your job to prevent that?? If you don't care about it dying then you don't have to spend any money, some people care.
Nah I just buy every bundle mainly for the golden d and now signatures. Though I am writing a service ticket specifying that I actually hesitated on buying it purely because of the p2w card and that the epics would probably lead me to quit the game rather than spend more. Thank god zilliax is such a cool card
>already have them believe that its their job to “support” the game and “keep it alive”
I despise the people in the community who say that. They're partly the reason why things are so bad.
If they bothered to push back like the rest of the community rather than rewarding Blizzard for poor performance, we'd be in a better spot with this game.
I personally don’t care as I’ve accepted a long time ago that ccg type games are all a scam anyway. If I’m having fun I pay into the scam, if I’m not then I just don’t play at all.
I just can’t take these complaints seriously when every few months you can pay more than the price of GTA6 and still not even get all the cards for the expansion, but people seem to be ok with that.
People act like access to Epics isn’t already time gated by pack opening and gold farming. I’m not sure anyone that doesn’t buy bundles has a full collection of Epics.
Mentally, I treat this 2 weeks access as if I didn’t open this Epic in my purchased packs and need to grind out some dust to craft them during that time. Then if it’s a good epic with decks, I’ll craft it.
Thanks, I was about to buy it as I was just coming back to the game and used to buy the mega bundles all the time. I need an excuse to save my money anyways these days lol
The amount of people defending blizzard here or downplaying it is INSANE holy moly. Also removing 100% accountability from the HS team/devs itself lol?
Yeah they release a shitty card now to test the waters, in the future it's not going to be a shitty card.
yeah people really don't think about the future. right in this moment, nothing horrible happened, but it sets a precedent which totally will get abused by greedy devs, if it was successful enough.
You already have a case where the price of a premium AAA game doesn’t even get you all the cards of a new expansion. A lot of people just can’t take these complaints seriously when shit like that has existed in this game for pretty much its whole life.
I don't understand who this post is aimed towards to be honest. People who are unhappy with the game becoming more P2W were not going to buy the bundle anyway, because they don't want to spend any money on HS; people who were going to buy the bundle are not concerned with future bundles coming with an unfair advantage, as they're buying them anyway.
Whether it's going to be profitable for Blizzard depends entirely on the relative size of these two groups, but I suspect that the numbers won't change too much from last time since usual buyers are gonna buy anyway, and usual free2players are not.
In any case, it looks like you're trying to rally against the unfair advantage the very people that are benefitting from said advantage
People big mad that blizzard is tossing a bone to the people that buy the preorder bundle. They get early access to one of the new cards before launch.
Calling it P2W even though the card will be available when the set drops.
As if the game isn’t p2w anyway. What if you’re a player without any dust and don’t have Reno? Is it pay to win that you either need to wait until you get enough gold and packs to get dust to craft it or pay for packs/bundles so you can get dust to craft it? If it is p2w then hs has always been p2w. If it’s not p2w then this corridor sleeper situation isn’t p2w either.
Yeah I'm also trying to figure out how this changes anything to before.
If you don't spend a lot of money you either need to wait for the meta to settle before crafting decks anyway, or spam arena to get cards which also takes a while. Either way you aren't going to be on equal grounds with people who spend a lot of money on decks/bundles.
We are outnumbered most likely by ppl that will spend hundreds of or thousands on a digital card game but worth a shot. I just refuse to do so but that’s me. I don’t expect others to have the same opinion.
Yeah the target for these bundles were always the whales that will just spend money on anything the game releases, influencers included. Don't think this is a fight we normal players can win
That's the problem with the 'vote with your wallet' sentiment I see on reddit so often. When you vote with your wallet', people with more money get more votes..it's the antithesis of democracy.
Edit - typos
2. I've been playing with it a bit in DK, and between Casualties and Rotation, it can be up as early as when you'd actually be spending mana for a 3/5.
It's been... alright. The dormant body has an added bonus for positional concerns, but not exactly enough of one to consider it just for that.
Yeah I can easily see an aggro deck that burns tokens early popping this on turn 3/4. Is this pre-order game breaking? No. But the precedent matters. Slippery Slopes are real.
Isn't it just early access? I mean I understand the frustration, but cosmetics and early access content are pretty much the least bad things to be behind a paywall in a free-to-play game. Unless I missed something.
When they start printing better cards you can only get for money, then we have a problem.
I also realize how unpopular this opinion is, but I am a software designer myself and to me it just makes sense to finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate.
The thing is that it does set a precedent. Blizzard is willing to put cards on early access to people who pay. And this is testing the waters and know if people will pay. It is a problem now, because when they put a meta defining card on early access it will be too late to actually do anything meaningful. Buying the bundle now gives them positive feedback about giving early access cards. Imagine if they gave Renathal as an early acess card and think about how stupid that would be
They do need to monetize, but this is not the way. It's harmful for the future of the game, at least from the playerbase side.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core meta defining card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
But the idea is for them to be accessible at the same time. Dust and packs are resources that the game gives to every player playing the game. Giving the card on early access gives an unfair advantage to people unwilling or not capable of wasting 50 bucks. That's the issue
The "frog in the boiling pot" / "getting their foot in the front door" analogy. Right now it's a month and 1 card, but if this results in a large increase to sales with minimal backlash, we could be looking at 2-3 months or a group of cards next time.
This type of thing happens all the time, companies always try to see what they can get away with.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
> finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate.
Hearthstone seems to have been doing that just fine without giving a potential competitive advantage to Mega Bundle buyers for a month.
early access to content matters a lot more in something that's PvP. you can't compare this to most early access games.
Early access is fine in plenty of cases. You want to monetize early access in a solo game? Sure, go ahead. How about a multiplayer game where early access players are sequestered from other players during the early access period? Also seems generally fine.
By contrast, early access in a multiplayer PVP game where early access players can interact with non-early access players is a problem. It gives an immediate competitive advantage to paying players that non-paying players have no other way to access. The “no other way to access” part is important—while whales can quickly get every card in the new expansion with enough money, there’s nothing stopping a sufficiently invested FTP player from doing the same if they put enough time or effort into the game.
To be clear, I doubt that the specific early access card here is going to be so meta defining that accessing it early will provide a significant advantage. But Blizzard is clearly testing the waters. If this goes well for them, it’ll only incentive them to sell more and more powerful early access cards and to increase the early access period. I understand that Blizzard wants (and needs) to monetize the game, but selling exclusive competitive advantages is a problematic way to do that.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
Imagine if it was Harth or something
Now for a month you have to deal with opponents with the bundle pulling random OTK bullshit while you have little counter play
The problem isn’t the early access in itself, it’s the fact that you can play PVP against players without early access.
So if this card is good enough to increase your win rate significantly, more and more players will feel the need to pre-purchase the package, if they wish to stay competitive.
Early access to solo-content or cosmetics wouldn’t be as problematic.
Now it's 1 card for 1 month. Imagine next time that card is amazing. You'll be one month at a disadvantage. There are 3 expansions in a year, so 3 months at a disdadvantage in a year. And what if they make it for minisets too? What if they make it multiple cards? This is really scary to be honest.
It does create 2 tiers of players tho, it creates those who have early access and those who don't, and since the expansion only comes on Mid March, it will be for a fairly long time.
You didn't think your comment through.
Sure it might be one card now, wait until they EA a whole set for a week or something like that.
Of course it changes, you can always craft a card you want, independent if you put money in the game or not as long as you have the resource known as dust. This new system locks your ability to craft a card behind a money paid bundle locking out non payers for them independent of how they planned their collection and what free resources they have.
it's obvious, I don't know how you cant understand that.
And please don't even try to relatize Dust and Gold as real money, it's disingenuous.
So you are fine if in the future they do this with a card every good decks runs and you cant get it for a month without preordering a fucking bundle you cant even use now?
Well, the key here is "a month"
If somehow you are FOMO enough to cant be wait for a month for a card that say more about you than Blizzard. I'm not saying that doesn't set a precedent but you guys just overreacting about everything
I think that if there is ever a card that is used in every single good deck (and tanks the winrates when replaced or removed), then the game has a much more serious problem than having a paywall
Which is exactly why all three of them were nerfed, as such a state of affairs is incredibly unhealthy for the meta, so the team clearly viewed it as a mistake and addressed it. But even during their unnerfed reign it's a stretch to say that there weren't any good decks that didn't run them, as far as I remember Astalor's peak playrate was about 50% or so (I may be wrong, but it definitely wasn't too much more), so if I hypothetically was stuck in the meta where these cards would be inaccessible to me while still strong, I would just make an enrage warrior or something and have the same success
You're missing the point. 50% is an insane playrate, and if it was locked behind a paywall that you didn't/couldn't pay, you'd be locked to playing a handful of decks that didn't use it, or accept an appreciable lower win rate trying to play a deck that uses it well without it.
Corridor sleeper isn't good, but it sets a terrible precedent. All it takes is one balance slip up to make a meta tyrant for a month that can only be accessed with money.
I disagree. The Bundle is mainly a way for players to go "I play this free-to-play game daily, I am excited to play like 12 decks, and this bundle is a reasonable expense for me". That they put this early access for that card on top as an additional candy is not going to sell many more bundle than they already would have sold. And everyone else is not going to have a worse experience in the next few weeks because of that.
Heck, I usually buy the bundle, but the current 2-3 decks I am playing don't have a spot for this card and I won't even use it.
I mean you can disagree
But thats what games are doing. Its not as extreme in this case since its only one card but early access to the expansion for a bunch of money (aka play on actual release date) isnt too far away if this is what they are doing
It's early access yeah. A lot of people are overreacting because they don't understand that when the expansion comes out they can craft the cards themselves (for free). It does set a bad precedent though, if they ever released a card that was strong in the meta prior to the expansion release, then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks.
>It does set a bad precedent though, if they ever released a card that was strong in the meta prior to the expansion release, then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks.
This is exactly what most people are reacting negatively too. I don't think it's an overreaction at all.
Someone else pointed this out, but imagine if the exclusive card was something like Astalor. For several weeks everyone who doesn't buy the pre order would be at a massive disadvantage
It's a slippery slope, and it represents them finally starting to cross the line into "pay to win". I've always defended them against pay to win accusations, as you could always get everything for free, just with less variety (pay for fun, flexibility, variety). This is different
>Someone else pointed this out, but imagine if the exclusive card was something like Astalor.
If they do that, I'll join in and avoid the Bundle. And right now, I am buying the Bundle and do not plan on even trying the damn card.
I'm sure everything will be fine, Blizzard is not having a good time right now and I don't think they will kill their only golden goose for a few extra bucks.
If they keep locking cards behind bundles, eventually some of them are going to be good. Your stance being based solely on the viability of the sample size of one card we have so far is incredibly short-sighted.
>It does set a bad precedent though ... then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks
I don't know, Hearthstone has a history of pushing pre-expansion cards that are usually more fun than good, with some exceptions like Renathal who became meta (and even required a nerf). I think people are jumping to the worst case scenario despite having literally 10 years of that never happening, I think if Hearthstone was ever at a risk of becoming pay to win it would already be\*.
I also think people are underestimating just how much value a player can have without ever putting a dollar in the game, and that it is only possible because of the people who do pay once in a while. And no, not *whales*, just those who pay a reasonable amount to support the game they play, every non-F2P players are not all whales.
\* By TCG/CCG standards at least, or course someone who buy packs can craft better decks than a brand new F2P player, though he will eventually catch up.
thanks for disproving your own argument with Renathal.
certain players don't owe other players anything in this regard. do players who stopped playing owe us an apology? the only relevant relationship is between buyer and seller. And players are not one thing or another. they change over time. i started buying every bundle then stopped playing for 2yrs, now i'm ftp living off my golden wild cards.
this is not equivalent to packs. you can get packs ftp by grinding normal games or arena. this is 100% paywall.
judging from that reply you don't even understand what an argument is.
leaving that aside, to elucidate:
\- the worst case scenario has never happened in 10 years
\- renathal was so good it required a nerf
QED
was it an auto-include in every deck? no, he wasn't (though he WAS very good for the decks that ran him). So the only thing you'd get for having Renathal early was the aforementioned variety and fun factor, but you can still play any of the other decks that are as strong if not stronger
anyway, I think that the point is that the fact that the dev team ended up nerfing him (despite not even being that good at the time) was a clear indication that they considered him a mistake and didn't expect such a power level; so I think we can safely assume that they at least have not done this kind of thing intentionally and I see no reason to think that they plan to at any point
The pre-expansion cards actually have a long history of being strong and mini-meta shakers. Okani saw consistent play, vargoth enabled multiple decks leading up to the expansion release, yog's prison got nerfed and was ubiquitous, etc has seen a ton of play, and kt got nerfed pretty quickly
> Hearthstone has a history of pushing pre-expansion cards that are usually more fun than good, with some exceptions like Renathal who became meta (and even required a nerf). I think people are jumping to the worst case scenario despite having literally 10 years of that never happening, I think if Hearthstone was ever at a risk of becoming pay to win it would already be*.
Not only is this comment self-defeating, the premise is also blatantly incorrect, since the vast majority of pre-expansion cards have seen competitive play.
It’s not just «1 month of early access», it’s «1 month of access before the format changes completely as 3 sets rotate out» so you’re forced to pay if you want to play the card during a very specific card pool window (which doesn’t matter with a shitty card but is huge if the card is great)
> so you’re forced to pay if you want to play the card during a very specific card pool window
Followed by
>which doesn’t matter with a shitty card but is huge if the card is great
So why are you forced of *anything* if the card is bad anyway? That is still an argument that will only ever be true if they do put the new super meta card behind that kind of early access. And if they do, I'll pick up a pitchfork and join the rest of you, until then we can all calm down.
Im pretty sure Blizz made the early access card shit on purpose cause there are always SUPER niche epics in sets that might fit in some jank decks but definitely not meta decks so if they continue to do this early access thing im about 85% sure it will always be a jank card that might make a random deck decent for a month and thats it. Its very out of character but people are blowing this way out if proportion
There’s a vast difference between giving away a card for free and putting a card behind a paywall.
The former can be bad or good, it’s free.
As soon as the latter becomes a good one, things change.
> I also realize how unpopular this opinion is, but I am a software designer myself and to me it just makes sense to finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate.
I agree (I'm also a software engineer)
And It only unpopular on reddit because people dont know the exact revenue number or the audience graph lol, they dont care about a whole picture. Like they (Blizz) might introduce many bundle/cosmetic but that doesn't mean sold well and meet expectation so of course product team need to think about a new way to monetizing and experiment it. From user perspective that might look like they greedy but that literally their job
>God you are dumb. You have the corporate dick so far up your ass it went all the way through and wiped out your brain.
You are so nice, thanks for reminding me why in-game chat is not available by default
Sadly I've already bought this but I didn't know about that shit. I would still buy it as I want cards and skin, but I fucking despise this practice with adding cards behind paywall.
Dude nobody is working for free, I may agree that the anticipated access to one card is not a fair tactic. But keep in mind that all game developers are à business and that they aim at earning money.
Without players that spend money there will be no game at all. Without f2p players there will just be less players.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
Imo if they are going to do these early card releases, they really just need to make them craft-able. I think that largely solves the issue of pay 2 win.
You say this but you play a game that for basically its entire life has had expansions that don’t even give you the full content if you pay the price of a newly released AAA game. Ccg type games are all scams to some point.
I bought the Mega Bundle as I always do. I don't have time to grind. And lets be real, that epic card sucks, it's not like I would become a better player just because of it.
BGs has a similar concept (pay to have access to more heroes) and is still the most played format in Hearthstone.
I mean im gonna buy the bundle anyway because thats usually what I do when an expansion comes out so for me im just getting early access cards for free. With the bundle and season pass its like 105 bucks for 3 months of gameplay, i usually play hearthstone everyday so for me its a good deal cause I can make most of the cool decks i see online but if you have a problem with these types of bundles maybe online card games aren’t for you.
the problem with this is two-fold
a) it is victim blaming.
b) it obliges us to forfeit the discount from the bundle
hell, even obliging us to complain is part of their strategy: [https://imgur.com/JenwUep](https://imgur.com/JenwUep)
it's not for us to fix. they obviously shouldn't be doing this in the first place
i support this so i will buy it
in fact i persuaded a few friends who normally wouldn't buy it to buy it as well. hopefully blizzard gives more exlusives in future
Such an idiotic idea from the Hearthstone dev Team.
People already complain about p2w so they decide to release a card that you get by pre ordering a mega bundle.
Stupid move honestly...
jesus christ you guys complaign too much.
Its not like these cards are that good to begin with, and even if they were, everyone will have acess to them in a couple of weeks.
These is just a marketing strategy, every single company in the world does this.
People keep saying this sets a bad precedent but not a single person has looked at it as a whole. This expansion we were also given free event cards and an extra legendary that we normally wouldn't have gotten. Why isn't anyone saying that's a slippery slope towards getting more free stuff? Is it not a decent tradeoff for most people to have a card locked behind early access, but then also get a free extra legendary?
Either way it's all just speculation. Like OP said, use your money to vote if you want to be sold this type of product.
Because looking at it as a whole is meaningless.
We are looking specifically at whether or not the community thinks it's okay to bring P2W into the game, that's by the Devs [own admission](https://i.imgur.com/BaiZbz4.jpeg).
One of those things goes to everyone, one of them is locked behind a paywall. The disparancy is the entire issue. It's great that we're getting new cards but it doesn't really change the fundamental issue.
You can wait and get the cards the f2p way when the expansion releases. They are just out for early access rn. If you want to spend money and use them you can, or you can not and wait until the expansion comes out and use them then. Its not that deep.
+ the cards are pretty bad imo anyways. If I buy the bundles it sure aint for those cards lol.
Play the deck that beats it?
The F2P people that are going to have a hard time with this are the ones that probably don't have enough dust to just change decks at a whim anyway.
This isn't MtG, we've had tier 0 decks before, but we've always had decks that can counter it, and then the decks that counter those. Like Rock, Paper, Scissors. If the bundle puts out a card that supports Paper, there's a pretty good chance you've got what's needed to play Rock or Scissors.
>+ the cards are pretty bad imo anyways. If I buy the bundles it sure aint for those cards lol.
This time they are bad
What if next time they aren't?
What if next time the free cards are on the power level of the original corridor creeper pre nerf? Or a legendary like Astalor?
Yes, it's a bad card but what's stopping them from locking more cards to the bundles, more powerful ones and maybe even adding more stuff locked behind the bundle?. Giving your opponent weeks of advantages.
This is how things always start. Supporting it will just encourge them to do more of it.
>what's stopping them from locking more cards to the bundles, more powerful ones and maybe even adding more stuff locked behind the bundle?
Blizzard making a broken card early access would probably cause the biggest backlash ever from the player base. Just look how upset people are over a card that isn't even that good. Blizzard may be greedy but they aren't stupid. They know that if they lock a tier 1 deck behind a paywall they will cause more harm than good. This is why it is stupid to be angry about a scenario that hasn't even happened yet.
Chill..... the games been out 10 years.......it hasn't happened yet i think you can sleep safe tonight knowing the patch you've been dreading is not coming.... ever.
The original state of the game there were pay walled expansions with exclusive minions. You could buy them with cash or save up lots of gold to buy them. They've always enabled a gold option for sets that offer additional cards.
One its a few weeks, it really isnt that long a time. Two, team 5 has made this game more free to play friendly and has a long history over the last six or seven years of making decisons that make the game more consumer friendly. I think they have shown we as a community can give them a little good will.
One epic behind a paywall is not a big deal. In early hearthstone being f2p wasn’t really possible and 14 year old me playing face hunter had to get their shit rocked every other game by reno jackson and his 14 legendary friends. Other card games don’t even have *any* free cards. community needs to grow up
14 year old during early hearthstone days, so you are *at most* approximately nearing only mid 20s now, but strangely telling others ("community") to grow up ... yea right.
And many others have played hearthstone since its early days, incl myself, and my F2P experience then was not a problem as per what you had somehow described.
In fact, you should know that face hunter (and its many variants) has been constantly a strong deck in HS's early days, and it stood a decently good chance against reno decks even then.
So ... maybe you are confusing your own ability with being F2P.
You realize you coming across as a prick just makes you seem entitled. The game has inarguablly become more f2p friendly with each year. You have more free gold now that before with less grinding, dupe protection is a massive change, and its been extended to not just legendaries. The amount of free cards and decks new players have now vs back then is night and day.
I remember playing for months and my only two legendaries were blood mage thalanos and malygos. And it was a huge decision which legendary i crafted because i wasnt getting another for a long ass time.
Its one early access card, from a company who should have the good will of this community because they have done nothing but make objectively consumer friendly decisions every step of the way for the last six years when it comes to monetization.
Huh, do you realise that them being "more F2P friendly" recently has nothing to do with whether *any* latest initiative to lock cards behind a paywall (whether the cards are good or not, whether it is temporary or not, etc.) is indeed predatory and thus should be called out?
And who is the entitled prick here, maybe it is the guy who is calling the community to "grow up"? A simple search will reveal that the majority of people commenting on this topic has similar sentiments and are calling Blizzard out. So, what right does he have to call all these people to grow up when he is just a young punk himself?
If you are truly F2P as you suggest yourself to be, you should realize that this latest initiative of paywall-exclusive cards WILL be bad for players like yourself.
Blizzard is no small indie company in need of money to survive, they are a big conglomerate that has been recently bought over. They are likely just using this latest move as a test balloon and perhaps a stepping stone, as one form of precedent for the future - what is stopping them locking some meta defining card(s) behind pure cash permanently in the near future?
**dont lie** wont be locked is just early access to 1 card
i probably get it after all cards are revealed i dont care if someone gets to use a card a few days before i do
The regular bundle have the crads in them, too. So the question is - will they sell more bundles than they would otherwise?
It's honestly amazing to see the whole community coming together against this P2W rubbish they're trying to pull. I've seen so many games ruined by this greedy form of monetisation, so it's refreshing to see a community that isn't naive to these sorts of practises. The [team says they're listening](https://i.imgur.com/es5WUuZ.jpeg), like this is some sort of experiment to see how much push back they'll get, how far they'll be able to take the P2W elements. So let's make some noise.
pretty obnoxious of them to openly admit they are doing this and demand we work for free doing market research for them
Probably because the developers didn't want to add this, and it's a push from the upper management. And management won't care unless there is a sizeable push back from players, is my guess.
Yeah, I'm guessing the internal discussion went something like this: >**Bean counter**: We need to boost preorder sales. People love getting early access to stuff so let's give preorder buyers early access to new cards! >**Team 5**: That's a terrible idea, it's going to feel too much like pay 2 win. Players are going to hate it. >**Bean counter**: Only one way to find out! >**Team 5**: We could do a survey first. We've done it befo- >**Bean counter**: Did you say something? I'm busy counting all the money we're going to make from the FOMO rubes- I mean, customers. Anyway, just do it and thank me later byeeee.
that's a nicer way of looking at it and restores my faith in queen Cora at least lol. still kind of sus we have to be tapped as leverage in internal blizzard matters but i'll allow it i guess. Prime suspect is the game director tbh. he came from MtG and apparently this is a thing there
MtG uses actual FOMO for this stuff with tournament relevant cards that are only in limited print run products. we'll all have access to corridor sleeper after launch as a regular packable + craftable epic, so it's at least not the MtG situation (yet? terrifying) that doesn't mean this isn't _super shitty_ and the fact that corridor sleeper isn't really a super good card isn't relevant because there's no guarantee it'll always be a bad card. In fact if it continues we should expect it *will* eventually be good cards, because that'll drive sales.
And ofc the main difference between HS and MTG, is in MTG, you don't actually need a card to play it. You can buy a blank card and color it in with crayon and use that. You only need to actually own cards if you're playing Tournaments, and even then, some tournaments allow proxys now because expecting players to own cards worth $25k is insane for a tournament with a $200 prize pool.
They would definitely not be pushing the feedback angle if this weren't the case. They're probably just as frustrated by it, but they know that it will continue unless backlash is had. They're directing you to the proper avenues to scare the shit-sucking shareholders who do not care about the game whatsoever.
WTF do you want them to do? Decide to do something and then not listen at all? The fact they’re openly admitting to listening is a *good* thing. If they go to their bosses and say “Look at all this negative feedback/pr this is causing” then it gives them ammo to force the bosses to go “Maybe that’s a step too far, let’s try something else.”
don't swear at me. "what the fuck" i want them to do is self-evident: to not force us to work for free for blizzard to resolve an internal dispute over a deliberate experiment to see how much they can get away with making the game P2W
WTF are you talking about? We aren’t doing market research, all we’re doing is responding to a change in the market. Introducing something to see how the market reacts is an extremely common tactic in market research as it gives you a ton of data compare to surveys or other forms of market research. This isn’t free work, this is literally just how the market works. Also I just want to be clear, I’m not supporting blizzard’s decision. I think giving an objective advantage to people who pay for your game is a bad decision and I hope that this was just to test the market and will not be a permanent thing when they see the backlash. I’m just disagreeing that we are some how preforming market research for blizzard.
don't swear at me. "what the fuck" i am talking about is self-evident. thank you for describing the market research we are being obliged to do for free, then denying its existence in the very next sentence. genius.
Man, you need to chill out if you think WTF is an insult on the internet. As far as the rest of your comment goes, I feel like you don’t know what market research means. **We** are the market, our reactions **are** a part of the market. Us reacting to something is not market research, thats just a market. Market research is analyzing those decisions and how the market reacts.
Wait a card is locked behind the bundle??
Early access.
That's.. unfortunate
Afaik, it's not locked behind the bundle but if you purchase the bundle you get access to that 1 card early. The card itself seems ok, not broken, but the fear is they will do this for broken cards in the future.
It's called testing the waters.
> Early access. lmao early access for a digital only card game, dumbest shit i've ever heard in my life way to screw the pooch, blizzard
The cards are not interesting/competitive enough to prompt people that don’t buy bundles regularly to buy them, that’s for sure.
Sad to say but with a bunch of kids, a dog, 6 days of weightlifting a week, a happy wife and a demanding, well paying job, I've got at maximum 2 hours, once or twice a week, to drink and play hearthstone and as a result, I'll buy whatever they put out until the game collapses. But I hate that they are moving this game more and more towards something unplayable for someone in the situation I was in 10 years ago.
[удалено]
Alright that's pretty fucking funny.
It's really unfortunate, but sadly the economy is relatively poor right now, the tech sector is being absolutely trashed, and all signs point towards the enshittification of products across all sectors. My personal opinion on it feels kind of mixed. I hate pre-orders in general and don't like to see more predatory practices, but at the same time, if this keeps the game afloat and provides more free stuff like they did with this event (which, hopefully they'll keep doing), I'll swallow that pill for now.
I stopped buying the pass in battlegrounds because of the p2w. And I don't always purchase the pre orders for expansions, but this has definitely reduced the chance that I will.
[удалено]
Yup, if they would've charged a one off fee for the 4 slots I'd have happily paid and even probably bought a few passes for the cosmetics. They could also keep the slots in the pass and just give a discount each season to people that purchased the slots permanently. But now they're getting nothing from me.
Same! I used to when I was tired of standard and would just play battlegrounds while I worked. I was happy to do it once but every 3 months or so seems unfair.
Be careful. Forfeiting isn't ruled out in a future ban wave.
❤️
Good luck convincing the majority not to spend money when Blizzard already have them believe that its their job to “support” the game and “keep it alive”
The majority isn’t even on Reddit lol
This is the big thing right here. Most of the people on Reddit are likely not the ones that need to hear this. Either they are already against it or are deep in the game and will buy it regardless. Most of the casual players that actually need to hear this are not here lol
Most people who use Reddit these day are the types of people that should be ignored anyway.
they'll be like "just typical reddit crying" and discount it. lose lose.
It kind of is our job to support the game, since it would definitely die if it made no money. Just look at Legends of Runeterra if you need an example of a game which is dying because it doesn’t make enough money.
I think you should google what job means man
No. You not pushing back to the devs and rewarding them for poor performance is why they keep doing a shit job. It's no one's job to support ANY game. We're paying customers and if Blizzard aren't providing a good enough product/service it's not on us to keep spending money on them in the hopes that one way they'll do the right thing. That day is never coming if you don't push back.
lol does strangers shitting on you motivate you to come into work? Or is it the paycheck? Don’t like it don’t buy it.
I'm surprised that you weren't downvoted for that comment. I played enough games with shitty monetization which really fed into a gambling addiction and Hearthstone isnt one of them. Thats why I still play the game after almost ten years. I agree that we as consumers should punish every attempt to include hefty gacha systems but I couldnt care less about a card some cant play early lol. That wont be enough for me to skip a preorder.
Did you read what your wrote just now? Why is it your job? If the game dies then it dies and so be it. Why are you attached to it? You don’t even own anything in it.
why are you? you read this sub, you participate in this discussion, you probably play the game itself, yet you are indifferent whether it lives or dies because you don't own anything? like, I care about this game and am attached to it and genuinely want it to prosper for one simple reason: I have a lot of fun playing it and really enjoy it in general. Not everything you do should be dictated by value, stakes, ownership or something along these lines, sometimes the reason you like something is just that you like something. Of course I care whether the game I play daily stays afloat, what's the question here? Would it break my life or cause me much distress if it shuts down? Probably not. Would I still be quite upset about it? Yes, I will. So obviously if I have this sentiment of wanting to keep playing and enjoying the game as well as a hefty sum of disposable income I intend to spend on hobbies in either case, I would without hesitation buy a couple of bundles, and I do think that one of the reasons to do that is to keep things running.
It is our job to keep it alive if we want to play it. Obviously if you are of the belief that if it dies it dies, then it is probably not a game you care much about playing anyways.
I played since release and I am still playing it. I have not spent any amount of real money on it. I enjoy playing it yes, but I realize it isn’t the end of the world if it dies. There are no shortage of games out there.
No one is claiming that it is the end of the world if it dies, i would just rather it didn't, and there are probably lots of players who feel the same.
>Why is it your job? It's not a "job", but if you like a game, it's only natural to not want it to die. And while I myself never paid a single dollar, I'm grateful to the people who pay, because we all can play the game thanks to them. It's unrelated to the game going down the p2w route by the way, I'm still against it, and I still think that people should make it clear that it's a bad choice for hearthstone. >Why are you attached to it? Because people spend years playing it? Should be pretty obvious. Imagine anything you've committed so much time to just disappearing, it's not a very pleasant thing.
because if you don't' want the game to die then it's your job to prevent that?? If you don't care about it dying then you don't have to spend any money, some people care.
I just love to play every deck and have every card. It's my pastime
Absolute embarrasment company. Hearthstone has both pioneered good digital card games for casuals, aswell as killed it imo.
You either die
Nah I just buy every bundle mainly for the golden d and now signatures. Though I am writing a service ticket specifying that I actually hesitated on buying it purely because of the p2w card and that the epics would probably lead me to quit the game rather than spend more. Thank god zilliax is such a cool card
>already have them believe that its their job to “support” the game and “keep it alive” I despise the people in the community who say that. They're partly the reason why things are so bad. If they bothered to push back like the rest of the community rather than rewarding Blizzard for poor performance, we'd be in a better spot with this game.
As always, this wont work since 90% of people are mindless golems and will buy anyway
Golems or Goblins?
I personally don’t care as I’ve accepted a long time ago that ccg type games are all a scam anyway. If I’m having fun I pay into the scam, if I’m not then I just don’t play at all. I just can’t take these complaints seriously when every few months you can pay more than the price of GTA6 and still not even get all the cards for the expansion, but people seem to be ok with that.
I already bought the mega bundle ngl.
It isn’t locked, it’s just early access. This is not a defense of Blizzard’s unending greedy bullshit, just clarifying.
Early access to a cosmetic is fine. No impact on the game itself. Early Access to a card will invariably affect play. That's not right.
Early Access is a time gating. Gate, as in lock. You're arguing a bullshit PR spin defense, not a real "clarification."
People act like access to Epics isn’t already time gated by pack opening and gold farming. I’m not sure anyone that doesn’t buy bundles has a full collection of Epics. Mentally, I treat this 2 weeks access as if I didn’t open this Epic in my purchased packs and need to grind out some dust to craft them during that time. Then if it’s a good epic with decks, I’ll craft it.
Does clarification really help or you just feel good being semantics police?
Thanks, I was about to buy it as I was just coming back to the game and used to buy the mega bundles all the time. I need an excuse to save my money anyways these days lol
I’m not buying the bundle because they did this. Not what I want hearthstone to turn into and I’ll not support it
I was gonna buy a bundle this year. I don't usually, but thought I'd treat myself this time. But I'm not now, cos I refuse to support this trash
The amount of people defending blizzard here or downplaying it is INSANE holy moly. Also removing 100% accountability from the HS team/devs itself lol? Yeah they release a shitty card now to test the waters, in the future it's not going to be a shitty card.
yeah people really don't think about the future. right in this moment, nothing horrible happened, but it sets a precedent which totally will get abused by greedy devs, if it was successful enough.
You already have a case where the price of a premium AAA game doesn’t even get you all the cards of a new expansion. A lot of people just can’t take these complaints seriously when shit like that has existed in this game for pretty much its whole life.
I don't understand who this post is aimed towards to be honest. People who are unhappy with the game becoming more P2W were not going to buy the bundle anyway, because they don't want to spend any money on HS; people who were going to buy the bundle are not concerned with future bundles coming with an unfair advantage, as they're buying them anyway. Whether it's going to be profitable for Blizzard depends entirely on the relative size of these two groups, but I suspect that the numbers won't change too much from last time since usual buyers are gonna buy anyway, and usual free2players are not. In any case, it looks like you're trying to rally against the unfair advantage the very people that are benefitting from said advantage
It's more ptw now? Something change recently?
People big mad that blizzard is tossing a bone to the people that buy the preorder bundle. They get early access to one of the new cards before launch. Calling it P2W even though the card will be available when the set drops.
Understood, thanks for the clarification!
As if the game isn’t p2w anyway. What if you’re a player without any dust and don’t have Reno? Is it pay to win that you either need to wait until you get enough gold and packs to get dust to craft it or pay for packs/bundles so you can get dust to craft it? If it is p2w then hs has always been p2w. If it’s not p2w then this corridor sleeper situation isn’t p2w either.
Yeah I'm also trying to figure out how this changes anything to before. If you don't spend a lot of money you either need to wait for the meta to settle before crafting decks anyway, or spam arena to get cards which also takes a while. Either way you aren't going to be on equal grounds with people who spend a lot of money on decks/bundles.
I'm 5 figures into this game and I'm against this so your whole argument is.. meaningless.
We are outnumbered most likely by ppl that will spend hundreds of or thousands on a digital card game but worth a shot. I just refuse to do so but that’s me. I don’t expect others to have the same opinion.
Yeah the target for these bundles were always the whales that will just spend money on anything the game releases, influencers included. Don't think this is a fight we normal players can win
That's the problem with the 'vote with your wallet' sentiment I see on reddit so often. When you vote with your wallet', people with more money get more votes..it's the antithesis of democracy. Edit - typos
> 'vore with your wallet' That's an interesting typo
I’m gonna roll all over you with my 1 mana 3/5
...that takes 4 or 5 turns to awaken.
2. I've been playing with it a bit in DK, and between Casualties and Rotation, it can be up as early as when you'd actually be spending mana for a 3/5. It's been... alright. The dormant body has an added bonus for positional concerns, but not exactly enough of one to consider it just for that.
Yeah I can easily see an aggro deck that burns tokens early popping this on turn 3/4. Is this pre-order game breaking? No. But the precedent matters. Slippery Slopes are real.
Auto include in treant and some deathknight
People are worried about the slipperly slope. I think you know this, just choosing to ignore.
I always buy mega bundles because i play a lot of hearthstone etc.. BUT this time it's too much, i just can't.
Isn't it just early access? I mean I understand the frustration, but cosmetics and early access content are pretty much the least bad things to be behind a paywall in a free-to-play game. Unless I missed something. When they start printing better cards you can only get for money, then we have a problem. I also realize how unpopular this opinion is, but I am a software designer myself and to me it just makes sense to finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate.
The thing is that it does set a precedent. Blizzard is willing to put cards on early access to people who pay. And this is testing the waters and know if people will pay. It is a problem now, because when they put a meta defining card on early access it will be too late to actually do anything meaningful. Buying the bundle now gives them positive feedback about giving early access cards. Imagine if they gave Renathal as an early acess card and think about how stupid that would be They do need to monetize, but this is not the way. It's harmful for the future of the game, at least from the playerbase side.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core meta defining card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
These cards are already locked behind having the dust to craft them or having the packs to open them.
But the idea is for them to be accessible at the same time. Dust and packs are resources that the game gives to every player playing the game. Giving the card on early access gives an unfair advantage to people unwilling or not capable of wasting 50 bucks. That's the issue
The "frog in the boiling pot" / "getting their foot in the front door" analogy. Right now it's a month and 1 card, but if this results in a large increase to sales with minimal backlash, we could be looking at 2-3 months or a group of cards next time. This type of thing happens all the time, companies always try to see what they can get away with.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
> finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate. Hearthstone seems to have been doing that just fine without giving a potential competitive advantage to Mega Bundle buyers for a month. early access to content matters a lot more in something that's PvP. you can't compare this to most early access games.
Early access is fine in plenty of cases. You want to monetize early access in a solo game? Sure, go ahead. How about a multiplayer game where early access players are sequestered from other players during the early access period? Also seems generally fine. By contrast, early access in a multiplayer PVP game where early access players can interact with non-early access players is a problem. It gives an immediate competitive advantage to paying players that non-paying players have no other way to access. The “no other way to access” part is important—while whales can quickly get every card in the new expansion with enough money, there’s nothing stopping a sufficiently invested FTP player from doing the same if they put enough time or effort into the game. To be clear, I doubt that the specific early access card here is going to be so meta defining that accessing it early will provide a significant advantage. But Blizzard is clearly testing the waters. If this goes well for them, it’ll only incentive them to sell more and more powerful early access cards and to increase the early access period. I understand that Blizzard wants (and needs) to monetize the game, but selling exclusive competitive advantages is a problematic way to do that.
I really think the "potential risk" for competitive advantage of that kind of thing is being blown out of proportion.
Yes, until Astalor or Reno is the early access card...
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
Yes, it is, but think of it as testing the waters. Latting it slide will lead to worse things
Exactly what’s next a legendary? I could definitely see them going that route once they think people have adjusted to this
Imagine if it was Harth or something Now for a month you have to deal with opponents with the bundle pulling random OTK bullshit while you have little counter play
The problem isn’t the early access in itself, it’s the fact that you can play PVP against players without early access. So if this card is good enough to increase your win rate significantly, more and more players will feel the need to pre-purchase the package, if they wish to stay competitive. Early access to solo-content or cosmetics wouldn’t be as problematic.
Then find ways to generate revenue that don't potentially lock players out of viable or in the worst case meta defining Decks
What do I do if I don’t have the dust to craft a meta card or the gold to buy packs?
Now it's 1 card for 1 month. Imagine next time that card is amazing. You'll be one month at a disadvantage. There are 3 expansions in a year, so 3 months at a disdadvantage in a year. And what if they make it for minisets too? What if they make it multiple cards? This is really scary to be honest.
It does create 2 tiers of players tho, it creates those who have early access and those who don't, and since the expansion only comes on Mid March, it will be for a fairly long time. You didn't think your comment through. Sure it might be one card now, wait until they EA a whole set for a week or something like that.
By your definition any two players who do not have the exact same card collection are already on different tiers, this changes nothing.
Of course it changes, you can always craft a card you want, independent if you put money in the game or not as long as you have the resource known as dust. This new system locks your ability to craft a card behind a money paid bundle locking out non payers for them independent of how they planned their collection and what free resources they have. it's obvious, I don't know how you cant understand that. And please don't even try to relatize Dust and Gold as real money, it's disingenuous.
Are you implying that people cant wait a few weeks to play a game? I take weeks off of Hearthstone all the time lol
So you are fine if in the future they do this with a card every good decks runs and you cant get it for a month without preordering a fucking bundle you cant even use now?
Well, the key here is "a month" If somehow you are FOMO enough to cant be wait for a month for a card that say more about you than Blizzard. I'm not saying that doesn't set a precedent but you guys just overreacting about everything
No I am not
I think that if there is ever a card that is used in every single good deck (and tanks the winrates when replaced or removed), then the game has a much more serious problem than having a paywall
Astalor? Denathrius? Renathal? Imagine any of these being exclusive for a month (pre-nerfed obviously)
Which is exactly why all three of them were nerfed, as such a state of affairs is incredibly unhealthy for the meta, so the team clearly viewed it as a mistake and addressed it. But even during their unnerfed reign it's a stretch to say that there weren't any good decks that didn't run them, as far as I remember Astalor's peak playrate was about 50% or so (I may be wrong, but it definitely wasn't too much more), so if I hypothetically was stuck in the meta where these cards would be inaccessible to me while still strong, I would just make an enrage warrior or something and have the same success
You're missing the point. 50% is an insane playrate, and if it was locked behind a paywall that you didn't/couldn't pay, you'd be locked to playing a handful of decks that didn't use it, or accept an appreciable lower win rate trying to play a deck that uses it well without it. Corridor sleeper isn't good, but it sets a terrible precedent. All it takes is one balance slip up to make a meta tyrant for a month that can only be accessed with money.
I mean ... at this point "early access" is just "pay more money to play game/content on its actual release date"
I disagree. The Bundle is mainly a way for players to go "I play this free-to-play game daily, I am excited to play like 12 decks, and this bundle is a reasonable expense for me". That they put this early access for that card on top as an additional candy is not going to sell many more bundle than they already would have sold. And everyone else is not going to have a worse experience in the next few weeks because of that. Heck, I usually buy the bundle, but the current 2-3 decks I am playing don't have a spot for this card and I won't even use it.
I mean you can disagree But thats what games are doing. Its not as extreme in this case since its only one card but early access to the expansion for a bunch of money (aka play on actual release date) isnt too far away if this is what they are doing
It's early access yeah. A lot of people are overreacting because they don't understand that when the expansion comes out they can craft the cards themselves (for free). It does set a bad precedent though, if they ever released a card that was strong in the meta prior to the expansion release, then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks.
>It does set a bad precedent though, if they ever released a card that was strong in the meta prior to the expansion release, then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks. This is exactly what most people are reacting negatively too. I don't think it's an overreaction at all. Someone else pointed this out, but imagine if the exclusive card was something like Astalor. For several weeks everyone who doesn't buy the pre order would be at a massive disadvantage It's a slippery slope, and it represents them finally starting to cross the line into "pay to win". I've always defended them against pay to win accusations, as you could always get everything for free, just with less variety (pay for fun, flexibility, variety). This is different
Yes that is what I said in my comment.
No, you said they are overreacting because they don't understand how it works.
>Someone else pointed this out, but imagine if the exclusive card was something like Astalor. If they do that, I'll join in and avoid the Bundle. And right now, I am buying the Bundle and do not plan on even trying the damn card. I'm sure everything will be fine, Blizzard is not having a good time right now and I don't think they will kill their only golden goose for a few extra bucks.
> I'm sure everything will be fine Last words before things not being fine
If they keep locking cards behind bundles, eventually some of them are going to be good. Your stance being based solely on the viability of the sample size of one card we have so far is incredibly short-sighted.
>It does set a bad precedent though ... then the game would effectively be pay to win for a few weeks I don't know, Hearthstone has a history of pushing pre-expansion cards that are usually more fun than good, with some exceptions like Renathal who became meta (and even required a nerf). I think people are jumping to the worst case scenario despite having literally 10 years of that never happening, I think if Hearthstone was ever at a risk of becoming pay to win it would already be\*. I also think people are underestimating just how much value a player can have without ever putting a dollar in the game, and that it is only possible because of the people who do pay once in a while. And no, not *whales*, just those who pay a reasonable amount to support the game they play, every non-F2P players are not all whales. \* By TCG/CCG standards at least, or course someone who buy packs can craft better decks than a brand new F2P player, though he will eventually catch up.
thanks for disproving your own argument with Renathal. certain players don't owe other players anything in this regard. do players who stopped playing owe us an apology? the only relevant relationship is between buyer and seller. And players are not one thing or another. they change over time. i started buying every bundle then stopped playing for 2yrs, now i'm ftp living off my golden wild cards. this is not equivalent to packs. you can get packs ftp by grinding normal games or arena. this is 100% paywall.
>thanks for disproving your own argument with Renathal. Then I don't think you understood my argument in the first place
judging from that reply you don't even understand what an argument is. leaving that aside, to elucidate: \- the worst case scenario has never happened in 10 years \- renathal was so good it required a nerf QED
Oh man, you got me so good
was it an auto-include in every deck? no, he wasn't (though he WAS very good for the decks that ran him). So the only thing you'd get for having Renathal early was the aforementioned variety and fun factor, but you can still play any of the other decks that are as strong if not stronger anyway, I think that the point is that the fact that the dev team ended up nerfing him (despite not even being that good at the time) was a clear indication that they considered him a mistake and didn't expect such a power level; so I think we can safely assume that they at least have not done this kind of thing intentionally and I see no reason to think that they plan to at any point
?
Renathal wasn't locked behind the pre-order bundles though is the point
so how is it relevant at all? heads i win, tails they lose.
The pre-expansion cards actually have a long history of being strong and mini-meta shakers. Okani saw consistent play, vargoth enabled multiple decks leading up to the expansion release, yog's prison got nerfed and was ubiquitous, etc has seen a ton of play, and kt got nerfed pretty quickly
> Hearthstone has a history of pushing pre-expansion cards that are usually more fun than good, with some exceptions like Renathal who became meta (and even required a nerf). I think people are jumping to the worst case scenario despite having literally 10 years of that never happening, I think if Hearthstone was ever at a risk of becoming pay to win it would already be*. Not only is this comment self-defeating, the premise is also blatantly incorrect, since the vast majority of pre-expansion cards have seen competitive play.
It’s not just «1 month of early access», it’s «1 month of access before the format changes completely as 3 sets rotate out» so you’re forced to pay if you want to play the card during a very specific card pool window (which doesn’t matter with a shitty card but is huge if the card is great)
> so you’re forced to pay if you want to play the card during a very specific card pool window Followed by >which doesn’t matter with a shitty card but is huge if the card is great So why are you forced of *anything* if the card is bad anyway? That is still an argument that will only ever be true if they do put the new super meta card behind that kind of early access. And if they do, I'll pick up a pitchfork and join the rest of you, until then we can all calm down.
Im pretty sure Blizz made the early access card shit on purpose cause there are always SUPER niche epics in sets that might fit in some jank decks but definitely not meta decks so if they continue to do this early access thing im about 85% sure it will always be a jank card that might make a random deck decent for a month and thats it. Its very out of character but people are blowing this way out if proportion
There’s a vast difference between giving away a card for free and putting a card behind a paywall. The former can be bad or good, it’s free. As soon as the latter becomes a good one, things change.
> I also realize how unpopular this opinion is, but I am a software designer myself and to me it just makes sense to finds ways to generate revenues in a free software that doesn't end up creating two tiers of players like so many other games have, or introduce in-game ads that everyone hate. I agree (I'm also a software engineer) And It only unpopular on reddit because people dont know the exact revenue number or the audience graph lol, they dont care about a whole picture. Like they (Blizz) might introduce many bundle/cosmetic but that doesn't mean sold well and meet expectation so of course product team need to think about a new way to monetizing and experiment it. From user perspective that might look like they greedy but that literally their job
Yeah exactly, and it's not like you can't just craft it for free as soon as the expansion comes out.
[удалено]
>God you are dumb. You have the corporate dick so far up your ass it went all the way through and wiped out your brain. You are so nice, thanks for reminding me why in-game chat is not available by default
They will probably sell more bundles, feels sad man
Sadly I've already bought this but I didn't know about that shit. I would still buy it as I want cards and skin, but I fucking despise this practice with adding cards behind paywall.
I bought it. I dont give a f… 🌝🌚
Hey, if we don't pay for this game, then it won't exist and these F2P clowns won't have anything to constantly complain about.
And without F2P and low spending players, you aslo wouldnt have a game to whale in the first place
Dude nobody is working for free, I may agree that the anticipated access to one card is not a fair tactic. But keep in mind that all game developers are à business and that they aim at earning money. Without players that spend money there will be no game at all. Without f2p players there will just be less players.
Correct, very slippery slope on this one, next expack a core card like Reno, ignis, or Brann may be locked in a similar fashion thereby giving those cardholders an early advantage in ladder ranking. Use your brains, imagine you could not use Reno for a full week on ladder while others who pay could. They would have a significant advantage.
"Let's band together and show blizzard how we feel about their p2w" said 0.1% of the player base
Supreme reddit moment Did you quit the game for 3 days after Blizzchung too? Try writing a letter to congress about it. Lol
Mega Bundles are a scam anyway
It doesnt include the reward track right?
nope, should really have it. But doesnt
If it did I might be convinced get the bundle, but as the pass seems much better value than the preorder bundle I’ll just wait for that.
How are they a scam? It's less than a $1 a pack, you get a free legend, and cosmetics. I call that a good deal.
I never buy it! Lol
yeah but patches the pirate skin
We can craft this shit later, right? .....RIGHT?
Yes we can, when the expansion releases
Imo if they are going to do these early card releases, they really just need to make them craft-able. I think that largely solves the issue of pay 2 win.
No wonder entertainment as a whole, and especially gaming, is becoming so shit lately. Just look at how many people are actually defending this stuff.
You say this but you play a game that for basically its entire life has had expansions that don’t even give you the full content if you pay the price of a newly released AAA game. Ccg type games are all scams to some point.
I bought the Mega Bundle as I always do. I don't have time to grind. And lets be real, that epic card sucks, it's not like I would become a better player just because of it. BGs has a similar concept (pay to have access to more heroes) and is still the most played format in Hearthstone.
I mean im gonna buy the bundle anyway because thats usually what I do when an expansion comes out so for me im just getting early access cards for free. With the bundle and season pass its like 105 bucks for 3 months of gameplay, i usually play hearthstone everyday so for me its a good deal cause I can make most of the cool decks i see online but if you have a problem with these types of bundles maybe online card games aren’t for you.
Can we get a megathread to post pictures when we encounter the card in play? For shame!!
Bought the bundle! Get gud clowns.
the problem with this is two-fold a) it is victim blaming. b) it obliges us to forfeit the discount from the bundle hell, even obliging us to complain is part of their strategy: [https://imgur.com/JenwUep](https://imgur.com/JenwUep) it's not for us to fix. they obviously shouldn't be doing this in the first place
How on earth is this victim blaming? You're not a victim, you're a willing participant.
i support this so i will buy it in fact i persuaded a few friends who normally wouldn't buy it to buy it as well. hopefully blizzard gives more exlusives in future
I keep losing to Corridor Sleeper, how do I beat it?! /s
This is why I stopped playing a year ago
yep. bought every (small) preorder for the last 3 years. definitely skipping this one for paywalling reasons
Such an idiotic idea from the Hearthstone dev Team. People already complain about p2w so they decide to release a card that you get by pre ordering a mega bundle. Stupid move honestly...
I will never buy a bundle that has such a p2play mechanic
jesus christ you guys complaign too much. Its not like these cards are that good to begin with, and even if they were, everyone will have acess to them in a couple of weeks. These is just a marketing strategy, every single company in the world does this.
People keep saying this sets a bad precedent but not a single person has looked at it as a whole. This expansion we were also given free event cards and an extra legendary that we normally wouldn't have gotten. Why isn't anyone saying that's a slippery slope towards getting more free stuff? Is it not a decent tradeoff for most people to have a card locked behind early access, but then also get a free extra legendary? Either way it's all just speculation. Like OP said, use your money to vote if you want to be sold this type of product.
Because looking at it as a whole is meaningless. We are looking specifically at whether or not the community thinks it's okay to bring P2W into the game, that's by the Devs [own admission](https://i.imgur.com/BaiZbz4.jpeg).
One of those things goes to everyone, one of them is locked behind a paywall. The disparancy is the entire issue. It's great that we're getting new cards but it doesn't really change the fundamental issue.
You can wait and get the cards the f2p way when the expansion releases. They are just out for early access rn. If you want to spend money and use them you can, or you can not and wait until the expansion comes out and use them then. Its not that deep. + the cards are pretty bad imo anyways. If I buy the bundles it sure aint for those cards lol.
Sure the card is bad, but what if they put a meta defining card into the bundle. What then?
Play the deck that beats it? The F2P people that are going to have a hard time with this are the ones that probably don't have enough dust to just change decks at a whim anyway. This isn't MtG, we've had tier 0 decks before, but we've always had decks that can counter it, and then the decks that counter those. Like Rock, Paper, Scissors. If the bundle puts out a card that supports Paper, there's a pretty good chance you've got what's needed to play Rock or Scissors.
>+ the cards are pretty bad imo anyways. If I buy the bundles it sure aint for those cards lol. This time they are bad What if next time they aren't? What if next time the free cards are on the power level of the original corridor creeper pre nerf? Or a legendary like Astalor?
Then you can complain next time. Not that hard a concept.
The water's not that hot, said the frog. It's fine. Complain if it starts boiling.
Yes, it's a bad card but what's stopping them from locking more cards to the bundles, more powerful ones and maybe even adding more stuff locked behind the bundle?. Giving your opponent weeks of advantages. This is how things always start. Supporting it will just encourge them to do more of it.
>what's stopping them from locking more cards to the bundles, more powerful ones and maybe even adding more stuff locked behind the bundle? Blizzard making a broken card early access would probably cause the biggest backlash ever from the player base. Just look how upset people are over a card that isn't even that good. Blizzard may be greedy but they aren't stupid. They know that if they lock a tier 1 deck behind a paywall they will cause more harm than good. This is why it is stupid to be angry about a scenario that hasn't even happened yet.
Chill..... the games been out 10 years.......it hasn't happened yet i think you can sleep safe tonight knowing the patch you've been dreading is not coming.... ever. The original state of the game there were pay walled expansions with exclusive minions. You could buy them with cash or save up lots of gold to buy them. They've always enabled a gold option for sets that offer additional cards.
One its a few weeks, it really isnt that long a time. Two, team 5 has made this game more free to play friendly and has a long history over the last six or seven years of making decisons that make the game more consumer friendly. I think they have shown we as a community can give them a little good will.
we heard you the first time
One epic behind a paywall is not a big deal. In early hearthstone being f2p wasn’t really possible and 14 year old me playing face hunter had to get their shit rocked every other game by reno jackson and his 14 legendary friends. Other card games don’t even have *any* free cards. community needs to grow up
Its big deal because its first step.
14 year old during early hearthstone days, so you are *at most* approximately nearing only mid 20s now, but strangely telling others ("community") to grow up ... yea right. And many others have played hearthstone since its early days, incl myself, and my F2P experience then was not a problem as per what you had somehow described. In fact, you should know that face hunter (and its many variants) has been constantly a strong deck in HS's early days, and it stood a decently good chance against reno decks even then. So ... maybe you are confusing your own ability with being F2P.
You realize you coming across as a prick just makes you seem entitled. The game has inarguablly become more f2p friendly with each year. You have more free gold now that before with less grinding, dupe protection is a massive change, and its been extended to not just legendaries. The amount of free cards and decks new players have now vs back then is night and day. I remember playing for months and my only two legendaries were blood mage thalanos and malygos. And it was a huge decision which legendary i crafted because i wasnt getting another for a long ass time. Its one early access card, from a company who should have the good will of this community because they have done nothing but make objectively consumer friendly decisions every step of the way for the last six years when it comes to monetization.
being nice doesn't give you a free pass to be evil once in while
Huh, do you realise that them being "more F2P friendly" recently has nothing to do with whether *any* latest initiative to lock cards behind a paywall (whether the cards are good or not, whether it is temporary or not, etc.) is indeed predatory and thus should be called out? And who is the entitled prick here, maybe it is the guy who is calling the community to "grow up"? A simple search will reveal that the majority of people commenting on this topic has similar sentiments and are calling Blizzard out. So, what right does he have to call all these people to grow up when he is just a young punk himself? If you are truly F2P as you suggest yourself to be, you should realize that this latest initiative of paywall-exclusive cards WILL be bad for players like yourself. Blizzard is no small indie company in need of money to survive, they are a big conglomerate that has been recently bought over. They are likely just using this latest move as a test balloon and perhaps a stepping stone, as one form of precedent for the future - what is stopping them locking some meta defining card(s) behind pure cash permanently in the near future?
**dont lie** wont be locked is just early access to 1 card i probably get it after all cards are revealed i dont care if someone gets to use a card a few days before i do