Hearthstone

[karfhud]

It's more like 'pay-2-catch-up with people who have been playing since beta.' Also Handlock is fucking gay. Don't play gay decks. I find Shaman to be one of the most strategic since they have a wide variety of tools that have synergy both with totems and each other.

Shaman is the most fun for me. Every game feels a bit different, I don't have to rely on certain cards in order to win, which is awesome and very unlike my mage or warrior.

 

[Blaine]

It's more like 'pay-2-catch-up with people who have been playing since beta.'

How shocking!

If I buy $2,000 worth of cards, will I win? And can I "trade" rare cards?

 

[Metro]

Doesn't work that way -- this isn't Star Citizen, Grand Admiral. There's also no trading as it would obviously lower the sale of packs.

 

[Blaine]

Bullshit, it does work that way. Stop being a tool. It's understood that I'd have to learn how to build a deck and play properly as a prerequisite.

A TCG derivative with no trading—phenomenal.

 

[Metro]

Buy me some packs, too. N-e-ways, it's $50 for 40 packs. If you wanted to buy in I'd just drop $100 first and see what you end up with. For $2 you can also buy an Arena entry (although you get one free one at the start) which is the random draft mode so while you could face someone who got an extremely lucky draft you won't run into people with a perfectly constructed deck playing the latest and gayest meta. That said you'll want to watch some videos by this dude 'Trump' (and consult his lists) before you delve into Arena. He does a good job of explaining what the better cards are, how you should draft, and generally what you should trade off and when.

I'm Metro #1494 on Battle.net if you want to play me although I'm not particularly good.

 

[Blaine]

Buy me some packs, too.

Nah. I doubt these modern online card games can even come close to recapturing the fun of collecting, trading, deck-building, and playing for fun back in the 1990s. You can't even find some dumb kid and trade him four Craw Wurms or two Serra Angels for his Black Lotus in these damn things.

I dropped MtG like a bad habit when I realized it made me look like a huge faggot to girls/at military school, probably for the best.

 

[Metro]

It's not a particularly deep game, anyway. I play around five hours a week at most. Still, fun in limited doses.

 

[J1M]

Buy me some packs, too.

Nah. I doubt these modern online card games can even come close to recapturing the fun of collecting, trading, deck-building, and playing for fun back in the 1990s. You can't even find some dumb kid and trade him four Craw Wurms or two Serra Angels for his Black Lotus in these damn things.

I dropped MtG like a bad habit when I realized it made me look like a huge faggot to girls/at military school, probably for the best.

Trading exists. With the way the crafting numbers work, you are essentially able to trade 4 cards for 1 card of the same rarity.

 

[Blaine]

Trading exists. With the way the crafting numbers work, you are essentially able to trade 4 cards for 1 card of the same rarity.

I mean trading with other people. Destroying 4 cards of a kind to get 1 new card isn't the same thing at all.

In any event, Polygon has a decent article on the game's pay-to-win qualities:

Spoiler

Also: http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1zdka3/what_pay_to_win_means_and_why_hearthstone_is_a/

I've done some further digging, and according to what I've found, you need to purchase or acquire approx. 400 five-card packs in order to obtain one of each legendary and two of every other card, thus completing your (current) collection. This would cost $500 in bulk. Some cards can only be acquired as quest rewards or as part of the basic set. There are a total of 382 cards.

There are 30 new cards (you get six for free) coming this month in the expansion, so I expect that figure will rise to something like 430 packs, or $537.50, to complete your set.

This is probably a lot less expensive than completing a Magic: The Gathering Limited Edition set back in 1993, but then again, you don't get physical cards (though you also don't have to worry about damaging them) and you can't trade with other players.

 

[Grinolf]

In any event, Polygon has a decent article on the game's pay-to-win qualities:
Also: http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1zdka3/what_pay_to_win_means_and_why_hearthstone_is_a/

First article ignore and second one underestimates arena. First thing, it isn't just a way to acquire cards, but a game mod equall (and in some ways superior) to the constructed, where it doesn't matter how much packs one bought from Blizzard. So real moneys give you advantage only in one of two (currently) parts of the game. Second thing, even average arena (5 wins) would reduce cost of the pack to 50 gold, which is what you get from daily quests. So by playing arena one could get one pack for free. And it isn't hard to win 5 games there. Also 2 legendaries, that were used as an example in th second article, were nerfed several months ago.
What first article was right about, is that paying real money give you much more option in the constructed right from the begining, so one could easily switch decks dependinding on the mood, tastes and decks, that he faces. Also Control Warrior deck, that rightfully used as an example of the expensive decks that one couldn't play a months without spending money, is very fun to play as, but not that strong and, as I wrote earlier, easily countered by much cheaper Shamans ones. And even F2P Shaman deck would perform well against it.

There are 30 new cards (you get six for free) coming this month in the expansion, so I expect that figure will rise to something like 430 packs, or $537.50, to complete your set.

No. You wouldn't get new cards from the packs, but from a new game mode, that require one time payment with real or ingame money.

 

[Metro]

So when are you buying me cards, Blaine ?

 

[J1M]

Blaine, for a point of reference I've spent $4 on the game and completed all of the quests since the card reset. I have 87% of the cards.

A couple of disclaimers: I got bored of arena and stopped playing it for 3 or 4 of those months. Generally, playing arena will double the number of packs you gain per month. Of the 60 cards I have left to collect, 15 of them are legendaries.

At this point, the only deck that I'd like to have but can't make is the warrior control deck that uses several legendary cards I am missing. Overall, I still think arena is the best feature the game has, and you can easily get 2 or 3 of those free per week.

Aside: Looks like the only commons I'm missing are both unleash the hounds.

 

[Blaine]

Well, those 15 legendaries (there seem to be 39 legendaries total) are a significant chunk. On the upside, once someone pays their $500, presumably they'd never need to use real money to obtain newly-introduced cards again if they play on a regular basis, due to obtaining gold each day for presumably months on end.

There are 13,920 Magic cards (Jesus Christ). Since August 5th, 1993, when MtG was first released, until today's date, an average of 1.82 Magic cards (including the original set) have been released per day. That's 665 cards per year on average, which I presume represents a couple of expansion sets per year. It doesn't seem as though Hearthstone will ever come anywhere near that number of cards over a similar time period.

If there are enough Codexers playing the game who want to play Duel mode, I might buy in. Deck construction, pitting certain decks against others, and experimentation were my favorite parts of playing MtG.

 

[Grinolf]

Well, those 15 legendaries (there seem to be 39 legendaries total) are a significant chunk.

36 including the one that you could only get by collecting certain type of cards, most of which are rares and comons. And then it depends on what type of legendaries he is missing. 16 of them is almost never used in the constructed and 7 more are class specific ones, so one don't really need them if don't want to play as specific class. So there are only 13-20 lendaries currently, that players should aim for. Most decks run 1-3 of them, so he most likely could play most of the current decks.

 

[Scruffy]

oook, so i registered and play VS the AI to understand how it works, i like the priest as a play style, so i start the arena and... i cannot select priest or mage, which were the ones i had try to play with. Ah well.

One thing though: what's the keyboard shortcut for "end turn"? because obviously this can't be so retarded that i HAVE TO mouse over the damn button, right?

 

[Blaine]

I read about Arena mode on the Curse wiki. Restricted class selection is apparently part and parcel with random deck drafting.

It's worth noting that Arena costs 150 gold or $1.99 to enter, which could make it rather annoying for new players who have no gold stockpiled and who aren't yet adept with the game's mechanics. If they screw up, they have to pay the fee again. Practice makes perfect, and you can't practice without paying, especially if your intention is to avoid Constructed and play Arena mode only. In other words, it's designed to eke cash out of people. It's all well and good for someone who's already skilled enough to earn enough gold to enter a second Arena almost every time they complete their first, but for anyone else I find it obnoxiously exploitative due to top-heaviness.

This is why I've always wished for a closed-set, semi-one-time-purchase (possibly with optional expansion) card game with TCG-like deck building and mechanics, otherwise known as "customizable card games," that more than a tiny amount of people actually play, but there really aren't any online. All are actively monetized, full-on TCGs. There are a few, such as Blue Moon (which isn't that great unfortunately), but online? Race For The Galaxy is playable online: http://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=raceforthegalaxy But you don't build decks in RftG.

 

[1451]

No shortcuts, they can't be arsed to add one because they aimed the game at tablets.

But you can press enter to open chat

 

[Grinolf]

I read about Arena mode on the Curse wiki. Restricted class selection is apparently part and parcel with random deck drafting.
It's worth noting that Arena costs 150 gold or $1.99 to enter, which could make it rather annoying for new players who have no gold stockpiled and who aren't yet adept with the game's mechanics. If they screw up, they have to pay the fee again. Practice makes perfect, and you can't practice without paying, especially if your intention is to avoid Constructed and play Arena mode only. In other words, it's designed to eke cash out of people. It's all well and good for someone who's already skilled enough to earn enough gold to enter a second Arena almost every time they complete their first, but for anyone else I find it obnoxiously exploitative due to top-heaviness.

Or, you know, bother to read/watch some guide before playing it? I know, that is as an insane idea in this time.
And even a low tier arena reward +2-3 daily quests provide enough money for the next arena. So if someone playing 2-3 times in a week (like most players, a think, after a week or two) they could play it without wasting any money. And its't really a big deal to get a 5 wins on average there.

 

[Blaine]

Don't get snippy. It's mathematically impossible for everyone to win more than they lose, let alone almost twice as much as they lose. Less experienced players are much more likely to be in the group that either has to pay up, or grind out gold to pay their arena fee.

All else being equal, the average player wins 3 and loses 3 in the Arena. It is, in effect, a mild in-game currency sink for Blizzard, and the rewards are no doubt engineered to ensure this. It cannot be otherwise; for every winner, there is a loser. My point is that it's more difficult to practice early on without paying or grinding, and that point logically stands. "Read a guide" is valid advice but doesn't change that. Reading is no substitute for playing experience.

 

[Grinolf]

All else being equal, the average player wins 3 and loses 3 in the Arena.

Yes, it is. But daily quests provide enough gold for compensating the loses. And they are pretty easy to complete as long as one stays at the lowest ranks in the constructed and doing them isn't anything close to grinding.

"Read a guide" is valid advice but doesn't change that. Reading is no substitute for playing experience.

Strange, because at the start of this conversation I managed to get 6 wins with the class I have almost no experience to play as (played him 2 or 3 times before) and with the deck, that I find very lacking in some departments. But I guess at this time of the day there aren't many strong players on the EU.

But you managed to almost make me to believe, that I was forced to pay Blizzard my money in order to play arena, even despite the fact, that I know that I didn't play anything for the arena games and more than month have 2k gold stockpiled.

 

[Metro]

So when are you buying me cards, Blaine ?

 

[Blaine]

Strange, because at the start of this conversation I managed to get 6 wins with the class I have almost no experience to play as (played him 2 or 3 times before) and with the deck, that I find very lacking in some departments. But I guess at this time of the day there aren't many strong players on the EU.

But you managed to almost make me to believe, that I was forced to pay Blizzard my money in order to play arena, even despite the fact, that I know that I didn't play anything for the arena games and more than month have 2k gold stockpiled.

I'm sure your anecdote is representative of new players, especially those who'd like to play several rounds of Arena per day in order catch up to those with more experience playing the game.

I explicitly stated that experienced players should have few issues winning more than they lose most of the time, unless they're just bad (the implication).

Why are you taking the role of apologist, here? This is a F2P game, after all. It's designed to extract money from people, and they do pay, otherwise the business model wouldn't work. Every F2P game has evangelists like you who get butthurt when someone points out the game's exploitative elements, and say "But I [X]," or what-have-you. Why is this even a debate?

 

[1451]

If you are not willing to support the game financially, start hoarding gold to unlock the upcoming adventure mode.

 

[Grinolf]

Why are you taking the role of apologist, here? This is a F2P game, after all. It's designed to extract money from people, and they do pay, otherwise the business model wouldn't work. Every F2P game has evangelists like you who get butthurt when someone points out the game's exploitative elements, and say "But I [X]," or what-have-you. Why is this even a debate?

No, you just read something, and make some conclusion. Or more likely, made a conclusion and then read something supporting that. And then you trying to persuade the one who actually plays the game in your conclusion. And no, I wasn't always an experienced player. I am not sure that I am an experienced player now, since I play a few months 2-3 times in a week on average and mostly playing as 4 classes. And during all this time there wasn't any need for me to play any money for the Arena. If stating this is called an apologism, then you have a very broad definition of it.
Also there is nothing to catch up on the arena. And if someone really want to catch up constructed players, but bad on the Arena, it is much more productive to buy an actual packs instead.

 

[Blaine]

No, you just read something, and make some conclusion. Or more likely, made a conclusion and then read something supporting that.

Your assertion that winning nearly twice as often as one loses in Arena mode is easy (or "not a big deal," as you put it) is at odds with elementary mathematics, which demand that the average player wins exactly as often as he loses. It's your viewpoint that's distorted here, not mine. Not only the dull-witted but also inexperienced players logically make up the shortfall for those who win more than they lose. I don't need to know anything at all about the actual playing mechanics to determine this. It's enough to know how Arena mode is structured and how much it costs to enter according the Curse wiki article, and also that relatively few players will begin as experts.

Aren't you the one who advised that people should "read some guides"? Here you are bitching at me for reading about how the game works before playing, as though that's somehow shameful.