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  1. #1
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    New Hearthtone changes (relevant to SE's future)

    If this is posted in the wrong area, I apologize, and please move it, but I thought it seemed like the right spot once you read past the first two paragraphs.

    I'm not sure how many of you play Hearthstone, but I've gotten pretty into it over the past year or so. Anyway, the proposed change coming soon is that "old" sets (Goblins vs Gnomes) will no longer be sold, nor will old adventures be available for purchase. Blizzard plans to segregate the community into "Standard" and "Wild" play. "Standard" being restricted to cards that are in the base set, and the two most recently-released expansions, as well as any adventures that come out during that time. "Wild" is for play without those restrictions. Major tournaments and competitive play will be encouraged to go the standard route, with wild being just for funsies.

    To me, this seems like a move to encourage sales of only the newest product (while rendering old sales worthless) to anyone wishing to stay competitively viable, and not have to put effort into balancing new cards to what's already out there. Also, no longer selling the GvG packs (you can still craft them) creates a false scarcity of those cards since getting "dust" to craft cards is a lousy return on gold spent for packs.

    My concern, and what will tie it to game discussion is: as we go forward with Shadow Era (which brought me back to CCGs after quitting MtG), is this a potential change that could happen? I haven't seen any evidence to think that Wulven would do this, but the money-grubbing move made by Blizzard has left a bad taste in my mouth, and concern for the future of a game I genuinely love.

  2. #2
    DP Visionary tman507's Avatar
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    Tried HS and could never really get into it, partly because it was already pretty money-grubbing to begin with. Therefore I don't really keep up with news like this, but yeah, is a pretty greedy move. Obviously hope SE never becomes like this (if anything just having a couple of banned cards to keep balance, if even that). Is the reason that I've purchased every one of the special deals so far for SE, I'm willing to support Wulven with that cash, because they are a smaller company that can use the support and has never been greedy with it. Blizzard was already a huge company before HS was a thing, they don't need the extra money, but they do things like this to make sure the cash keeps rolling in.
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  3. #3
    Europe Regional (Winter 2012) Champion jacqui's Avatar
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    They may not "need" the extra money, but the existence of the company and their primary goal is in fact to make money. They also have a duty to their shareholders to be as profitable as they can be.

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    Lead Developer / Designer Gondorian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jacqui View Post
    They may not "need" the extra money, but the existence of the company and their primary goal is in fact to make money. They also have a duty to their shareholders to be as profitable as they can be.
    Completely agree. They cite everything but money as the reason for this, but it doesn't stack up. I can't believe they presented this as "exciting" news.

    We have no plans to rotate any cards out in Shadow Era. We fully intend to keep expanding on the existing pool in all directions. Yes, this means that occasionally we will have some OP combinations of cards out there briefly if we didn't spot them in testing, but our live balancing policy means we can address any issues relatively quickly as they are discovered.

    I think what's probably happening with Hearthstone is that they've marketed so aggressively that they have now saturated most of the potential playerbase and can't easily continue making profit by taking on new players alone. The expensive nature of collecting viable cards (whether through money or grinding) would have also turned people off over time. So they require the hardcore players to keep dumping money into it for it to not become a failing aspect of the business, and set rotation ensures a certain percentage of the hardcore players will keep paying each year.

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    Senior Member Recktafy's Avatar
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    I don't see this happening tbh
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    DP Visionary Kosmiker's Avatar
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    Shadow Era is a whole different league so I doubt that would happen here but that doesn't mean players shouldn't help Wulven with an occasional purchase every now and then, support the developers so they can support the game.
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  7. #7
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    Shadow era is the least money grubbing CCG/TCG that is available. I really wouldn't worry about Wulven doing a u-turn anytime soon as the best thing about them is they realise that screwing the customer out of money nonstop for the best cards is not the way to go.

    Ill happily drop 20 bucks every now and then when new cards drop and then grind out gold to finish the collection, so I don't think they have anything to worry about money IF they release cards at a decent speed.

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    I don't like rotating policy. It makes old cards obsolete. If we want to attract new players, selling cheap core sets will be enough.

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    DP Visionary Demnchi's Avatar
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    I personally don't think the only reason they did this was for money (although I will say I hate the set rotation practice because it just feels lazy solution to their problems, albeit a solution none the less). The game has a few issues in the form of design space that they've never addressed and they really corned themselves with their refusal to balance cards (they'd rather kill them, examples being Starving Buzzard and Warsong Commander). Magic needed this because of this physical format, but Hearthstone is a digital game and there are far more solution's available to them. This does open things up a lot more for them though, and that is a good thing for the way they want to design hearthstone.

    However, even if players want to use all the cards, the wild mode will never be as solid as standard because the sets will be designed for standard. Wild will likely never be considered when designing any card and/or set, which is a real shame. At the very least, new players can get started a bit faster and not pay into the game quite as much as if they weren't rotating sets, but I still feel like its a lazy solution to the new player experience.

    A new issue now (that op mentioned) is the artificial scarcity of older packs for players whom wish to play wild as the exchange rate for dust is so terrible. I REALLY don't understand why you can't be allowed to buy these packs and adventures (especially the adventures, maybe a new player really would like to play through the single player content). I get they want standard to shine, but there shouldn't be something stopping players from buying the older sets with cash instead of wasting god knows how many hours trying to get the dust for them.

    All that being said, because they didn't want to take the time out to balance cards correctly, this will lead to a positive for many players. Make no mistake, players will be quite happy with this change removing things like Dr. Boom and Piloted Shredder because of how limited they make the design space for new cards. I just think there are better solutions to that than rotating sets, but it is good news for the health of the sets and potential for unique cards going forward. They should also be able to produce sets at a faster rate, but that's not necessarily a good or bad thing.

    As for SE, i wouldn't expect this to happen anytime soon. Wulven just can't produce those sets fast enough for it to become a problem. We have ample time to balance cards even after a new set release, so I don't feel it will ever be a problem. Besides, I'd rather see Wulven remove their "no erata" policy or even ban cards, long before I would enjoy seeing set rotation.
    Last edited by Demnchi; 02-05-2016 at 12:19 AM.
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  10. #10
    Europe Regional (Winter 2012) 3rd Place Maximont's Avatar
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    Hearthstone is quite pricey to buy up a single set, so with so many sets now released they need to reduce the barrier to entry for new players. They either rotate, or drastically reduce the prices of old sets.

    I wouldn't get too worked up about collecting non-Standard cards - how many people starting out in MtG now are worried about collecting the whole back catalogue? And if u are bothered then just buy up the GvG packs now.

    The change is probably not needed for SE as its a lot cheaper. However some time from now then SE will also reach a point where the barrier to entry is too high, as there are too many cards to acquire, and a solution will be needed to help bring new players in.
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