I just don't like "virtual cards". The awesome thing about any hobby, comic books, table-top gaming, tcg, is actually physically having the items, and having them gain in monetary value/rarity as time goes on, due to either people "throwing them away/bad things happen", or just 10 years down the line, the card isn't printed anymore, or has "black border" versus "white border" or "mis-prints".
Even though I love this game, I feel it is extremely pay 2 win. I hate to use that term even, but it's just true. Those who buy a ton of packs can get amazing cards.
Buying boosters to improve your deck(s) is what collectible card games are all about...
This P2W misconception is commonplace ever since HearthStone hit the scene. "Pay2Win this, Pay2Win that", an absolutely absurd way of thinking that has been bred by ignorant individuals who never played a tcg/ccg in there life and spend entirely too much time reading what other random individuals on the internet claim.
These sheeple people then go on to spend just as much time repeating it ad nauseam, perpetuating the whole vicious circle.
Ridiculous.
It's not a misconception - it's a fact. You blew my statement way out of proportion, and you know it. I like the game. It's balanced, and like others have said, card games by nature are pay 2 win. Get a grip. You reveal your smug self-righteousness by calling people 'sheeple', when in-fact they speak truth. It's sad because I can't play some of my friends because i've spent a lot of money in Hearthstone. My decks simply destroy theirs because they haven't put much money into it. Sorry, but it's true.
Longevity,not sure how anyone can even make an assumption that is positive because anyone that knows this type of game,it will kill it self very soon.
I would like to know what the future plans are for this game to make an assumption of longevity?
First of all it is FUN yes and/or addictive.
Ok now what i see is adding more O/P cards to entice spending then players will slowly but surely keep whittling out all the normal cards until everyone has 30 orange cards in their deck or 20+ anyhow.
That is the exact same mistake MTG made,eventually all the older cards become obsolete and that turns people off because they spent money on them.
It also takes a massive amount of card data base to make a game with a lot of variety.As of right now most classes are 1-2 decks that everyone is playing.Some form of SPEED is the current meta game with the other choice being control.What the game needs is more coherent choices,as of right now the BEAST and Murloc races are the ONLY ones that operate fluently.Other choices like Pirates are lol and Demons well they really don't work together but more like under one concept as in self damage or the other concept of random card tossing.
The FUN for me was the old days of Angel decks and Goblin decks and Tog decks,we need LOTS of racial decks to make it fun and ALL need to be viable.
I really wish Blizzard would make demons and pirates much more viable than they are now. Oh, and Kidnapper. That poor bastard of a card. I play Rogue by the way (not Miracle) and I am Rank 9 at the moment and climbing, so it's certainly possible to play more than just aggro beast and murloc decks.
The problem I have with this game, and had with this game all through the beta, is the balance feels off. No I'm not a bad player, I'm very decent in Arena, but my best game is ranked.
The problem with balance is, at no point in any card game, should you roll your eyes playing against a certain class. For me that's mages. Certain classes if played well, can beat another certain class played just as well. This is just a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors, with luck involved.
Looking past balance, Arena, is also messed up, all about luck drawing cards, and if you have a bad deck, playing your best to grind a couple of wins out and hoping you meet some bad players in it. Yes skill is involved, if you get the right deck, with low cost cards, and decent heavy hitters (very few if any taunt). But RNG for decks seems to be in place, to give bad players a chance.
I get it, they leave a bit of this game up to luck, so skilled players won't dominate and it makes the game more fun for casuals. This allows blizzard to make more money off a larger demographic.
Another problem I have with the game is during the beta, they kept flipping back and forth if they wanted to perform a final wipe, before launching. They sided with the cry babies, and didn't do a wipe. I have never heard of many Betas not wiping before. That would be like a MMO allowing you to keep the same characters you leveled in a Beta, for the official launch.
It's a pretty good game, but I think it's more addictive than it is fun, like most blizzard games. I am surprised they haven't made a, "Washing dishes, the MMO", or "Standing in line at the DMV, the MMO".
Blizzard seems to think, a fun game, is having tons of grind in it, with time sinks. Diablo III, you could grind your eyes out, or go to the auction house and buy gold then buy gear, because the loot system was horrible until 2.0, I know they removed it still (Are there any other Jay Wilson's Ideas left in the game? Fuck that Loser).
WoW used to be free of this give or take (not free of grind, free of paying to skip grind), but then added the 90 boost. So either waste your life leveling a class, or pay a high cost. Hearthstone is a free to play game, so it's more forgivable and they need to make money. However that system in still in there, pay or waste your life with a unfun grind. I get some people like this, and good for them. I'm not one of the ones who does.
StarCraft is a different sort of beast, and hasn't seen microtransactions yet. But you never know next expansion.
Hearthstone does deserve a decent score, I'd say a 7.0/7.5 is fair, but I stand by the fact, it's more addictive then it is fun. Which can be said about, most, Blizzard games.
Even though I love this game, I feel it is extremely pay 2 win. I hate to use that term even, but it's just true. Those who buy a ton of packs can get amazing cards. Then again, if you don't know how to play them correctly, it doesn't matter much anyway.
You never played card game like Magic the Gathering did you?
Card games like Magic and Hearthstone are grounded upon for lack of better term since the community here won't grasp any concept beyond P2W.
Normally in these type of card games you get booster packs n get X rares or chance of rares, X uncommons, and X commons. While you can go to a hobby shop and buy a specific rare card, however many do trade. Granted if you get a certain ultra rare card then yeah you won't be trading that and could sell it for a lot of cash.
Didn't read the review but saw in the cons that there was no trading which takes away a core feature that you generally have with these type of card games. Sure they did it so Blizz wouldn't lose any profit if that's the case.
I know this site was selling out by covering RPGs in addition to MMOs, are they now covering Card games, RTS, FPS, and all sorts of other games? Should I expect a mario kart 8 preview next?
What the Reviewer failed to mention is: The Hacks that are going on in Hearthstone and the customer service.
Let me explain: So there is a timer hack in which they can pretty much take out Blizzards 90 sec timer and when the person your fighting never plays again and you sitting there for almost an hour watching the person span the limited emotes that you get with the game over and over and over so you have either 2 options Concede or quit.
Then there is another timer take out to the Game when a person goes to play a card as long as that card hangs over the board the timer will never work. You ask is there any proof of this here are a couple screens for you. Blizzard States Exactly and this is from their email:
"Game Master Shomser here! I have received your ticket, and I'm here to help! I get how frustrating it is when someone won't pass their turn right away. But they may actually be using the time to decide on what they wish to do. So this is allowed.
By the way, we don't ever use screen shots to verify anything, as pics can be altered. And your card info is safe, don't worry about that.
I hope this helps, and take care!
Sincerely Game Master Shomser Customer Service Blizzard Entertainment"
Notice the time: 8:03am
Notice the time 8:22am
30 minutes into the game
After 45 minutes I quit and the guy was still spamming ty ty ty ty ty ty and not playing
Well, I don't know about all this Pay 2 Win griping going on, but here is my experience. I have 2 accounts to review here, so I will cover each.
1st account:
My 12 yr old boy played this for hours unlocking all the classes 100% during the initial Beta release months ago.
He never purchased any booster packs. and saved up 400 coins from battles.
I used those 400 in game coins, and did in game purchase of 4 booster packs.
I received some rares, and some junk cards. each pack containing 5 cards.
I went through and won 3 battles, was having fun so i creamed another 5 or 6 opponents. and got my WOW mount ;-)
Account 2 (wife's account)
She logged in, and did the initial story tutorial with Jana P. Moore. (MAGE) then she was let loose upon the public.
She went through and won her 3 games and immediately jumped to wow when the achievement popped up.
No mount was found on any toon's (mailbox)
She logged back into hearth stone and played a bit longer and won a few more rounds.
When returning to wow, she found her mount.
Hearth Stone is very playable with a ZERO cash investment, in fact I would say even more fun playing knowing we have invested nothing but time having fun!
Very addictive.
Exactly correct stating Easy to Learn hard to Master.
The extremely P2W nature of this game makes it not very addictive for me. You are barely rewarded at all simply for playing, unlike Duel of Champions which heavily rewards you. There is also a huge power creep issue between several legendary cards and...everything else; which makes the game not fun at all for non payers, come turn 8.
I would happily pay a $60 box price for the game, if they removed microtransactions completely, and created a more liberal progression system, but I will never pay money for imaginary cards.
Hearthstone is like the ultra-themepark version of digital CCGs, and MTGO would be the ultra sandbox version.
Hearthstone:
- looks cute
- players are taken by the hand and even the most simple stuff explained
- no trading so you won't get scammed
- no chatting so you won't get insulted
- no different formats, all decks of the same size, no game modes with more than two players
MTGO:
- clunky interface
- no tutorial
- you can build decks of any size, from 40 cards to 1000 cards
- from playing with no opponent to test decks up to 6 player
- several dozen different formats with different rules
- tenthousands of cards
- trading
- huge tournaments
- cards can have actual value and be sold on ebay for example
- you can have the company delete your digital cards and send you the paper versions
- clans
Seriously, MTGO all the way for me. It's just far more versatile than Hearthstone. But the worst thing about Hearthstone is the lack of trading.
I open a booster and get a super rare cards? Well screw me! It has absolutely zero value because I can't trade it! On MTGO, the top cards are worth over 100$.
I got a lot of cards I don't need and a friend starts playing? Well, in most other digital CCGs I could trade my excess cards to him. Not on Hearthstone. Screw you friend! No cards for you, no matter how many I got and how few you got!
I open a card that is great but I don't need, and that my friend wants badly? Well, a pity, because we can't trade them!
Seriously, wtf? And all that.. why? Oh right, because Blizzard makes more money that way. Screw you players. Trading, an economy? Who gives a shit about what makes sense for players. Let's just ignore all that, so that they buy more boosters
Gah.... Oh, and it's extremely pay to win. Most of the time when you lose, you don't lose to a player with a superior strategy. You lose instead to a player who spent more money and got more rare cards.
i've around 500 victories in this game, i never pay a cent, and i've 4 legendary cards. This game it's like a chess you must think and anticipate the moves of you opponent and luck it's a big factor.
Sometimes i win in 6 or 7 moves and other time i spend all my deck to win anyways it's more important unblock the epic cards that have a buch of legendary heros and isn't pay to win just if you dont pay you spend much more time in get a great deck.
i've around 500 victories in this game, i never pay a cent, and i've 4 legendary cards. This game it's like a chess you must think and anticipate the moves of you opponent and luck it's a big factor.
Sometimes i win in 6 or 7 moves and other time i spend all my deck to win anyways it's more important unblock the epic cards that have a buch of legendary heros and isn't pay to win just if you dont pay you spend much more time in get a great deck.
Like chess? You got to be kidding me.
The only way to actually get a decent amount of those legendaries is by buying boosters, everything else is taking decades. And 99% of those legends are far superior to anything of any other rarity.
In the beta, I was about to win a lot of games that I'd then lose because "whoops, I play a legend, you lost". And why did they do that? So that the players who don't have dozens of legends get frustrated, say "wtf I want to win too! I need legends!" and buy boosters.
If the matchmaking system ensures that you'll win about half of your matches, and buying better cards just means that you get higher ranked matches but still only win about half, is it really pay to win?
Longevity,not sure how anyone can even make an assumption that is positive because anyone that knows this type of game,it will kill it self very soon.
I would like to know what the future plans are for this game to make an assumption of longevity?
First of all it is FUN yes and/or addictive.
Ok now what i see is adding more O/P cards to entice spending then players will slowly but surely keep whittling out all the normal cards until everyone has 30 orange cards in their deck or 20+ anyhow.
That is the exact same mistake MTG made,eventually all the older cards become obsolete and that turns people off because they spent money on them.
It also takes a massive amount of card data base to make a game with a lot of variety.As of right now most classes are 1-2 decks that everyone is playing.Some form of SPEED is the current meta game with the other choice being control.What the game needs is more coherent choices,as of right now the BEAST and Murloc races are the ONLY ones that operate fluently.Other choices like Pirates are lol and Demons well they really don't work together but more like under one concept as in self damage or the other concept of random card tossing.
The FUN for me was the old days of Angel decks and Goblin decks and Tog decks,we need LOTS of racial decks to make it fun and ALL need to be viable.
I really wish Blizzard would make demons and pirates much more viable than they are now. Oh, and Kidnapper. That poor bastard of a card. I play Rogue by the way (not Miracle) and I am Rank 9 at the moment and climbing, so it's certainly possible to play more than just aggro beast and murloc decks.
Nice, at least Im not the only Pressure-Midrange Rogue out there. Rank 10 at the moment ;P
Comments
I just don't like "virtual cards". The awesome thing about any hobby, comic books, table-top gaming, tcg, is actually physically having the items, and having them gain in monetary value/rarity as time goes on, due to either people "throwing them away/bad things happen", or just 10 years down the line, the card isn't printed anymore, or has "black border" versus "white border" or "mis-prints".
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I just can't subscribe to any virtual TCG game that I have to use real money in. But hey, maybe I am just too "old school/stubborn"
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
It's not a misconception - it's a fact. You blew my statement way out of proportion, and you know it. I like the game. It's balanced, and like others have said, card games by nature are pay 2 win. Get a grip. You reveal your smug self-righteousness by calling people 'sheeple', when in-fact they speak truth. It's sad because I can't play some of my friends because i've spent a lot of money in Hearthstone. My decks simply destroy theirs because they haven't put much money into it. Sorry, but it's true.
I really wish Blizzard would make demons and pirates much more viable than they are now. Oh, and Kidnapper. That poor bastard of a card. I play Rogue by the way (not Miracle) and I am Rank 9 at the moment and climbing, so it's certainly possible to play more than just aggro beast and murloc decks.
The problem I have with this game, and had with this game all through the beta, is the balance feels off. No I'm not a bad player, I'm very decent in Arena, but my best game is ranked.
The problem with balance is, at no point in any card game, should you roll your eyes playing against a certain class. For me that's mages. Certain classes if played well, can beat another certain class played just as well. This is just a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors, with luck involved.
Looking past balance, Arena, is also messed up, all about luck drawing cards, and if you have a bad deck, playing your best to grind a couple of wins out and hoping you meet some bad players in it. Yes skill is involved, if you get the right deck, with low cost cards, and decent heavy hitters (very few if any taunt). But RNG for decks seems to be in place, to give bad players a chance.
I get it, they leave a bit of this game up to luck, so skilled players won't dominate and it makes the game more fun for casuals. This allows blizzard to make more money off a larger demographic.
Another problem I have with the game is during the beta, they kept flipping back and forth if they wanted to perform a final wipe, before launching. They sided with the cry babies, and didn't do a wipe. I have never heard of many Betas not wiping before. That would be like a MMO allowing you to keep the same characters you leveled in a Beta, for the official launch.
It's a pretty good game, but I think it's more addictive than it is fun, like most blizzard games. I am surprised they haven't made a, "Washing dishes, the MMO", or "Standing in line at the DMV, the MMO".
Blizzard seems to think, a fun game, is having tons of grind in it, with time sinks. Diablo III, you could grind your eyes out, or go to the auction house and buy gold then buy gear, because the loot system was horrible until 2.0, I know they removed it still (Are there any other Jay Wilson's Ideas left in the game? Fuck that Loser).
WoW used to be free of this give or take (not free of grind, free of paying to skip grind), but then added the 90 boost. So either waste your life leveling a class, or pay a high cost. Hearthstone is a free to play game, so it's more forgivable and they need to make money. However that system in still in there, pay or waste your life with a unfun grind. I get some people like this, and good for them. I'm not one of the ones who does.
StarCraft is a different sort of beast, and hasn't seen microtransactions yet. But you never know next expansion.
Hearthstone does deserve a decent score, I'd say a 7.0/7.5 is fair, but I stand by the fact, it's more addictive then it is fun. Which can be said about, most, Blizzard games.
"What tastes like purple?"
Not sure if anyone mentioned it but...
I have to admit they did a great job with the voice overs like the "Mind if i roll NEED!" LMAO
Ready for ACTION !!
or the Murlocs rwl rwl rwl lmao.
Does someone need assistance !!
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You never played card game like Magic the Gathering did you?
Card games like Magic and Hearthstone are grounded upon for lack of better term since the community here won't grasp any concept beyond P2W.
Normally in these type of card games you get booster packs n get X rares or chance of rares, X uncommons, and X commons. While you can go to a hobby shop and buy a specific rare card, however many do trade. Granted if you get a certain ultra rare card then yeah you won't be trading that and could sell it for a lot of cash.
Didn't read the review but saw in the cons that there was no trading which takes away a core feature that you generally have with these type of card games. Sure they did it so Blizz wouldn't lose any profit if that's the case.
This game is neither an MMO or an RPG.
I know this site was selling out by covering RPGs in addition to MMOs, are they now covering Card games, RTS, FPS, and all sorts of other games? Should I expect a mario kart 8 preview next?
"Just me and Mr. Bitey!"
Great game for us old Magic players who no longer have the time to truly invest in MTG.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
What the Reviewer failed to mention is: The Hacks that are going on in Hearthstone and the customer service.
Let me explain: So there is a timer hack in which they can pretty much take out Blizzards 90 sec timer and when the person your fighting never plays again and you sitting there for almost an hour watching the person span the limited emotes that you get with the game over and over and over so you have either 2 options Concede or quit.
Then there is another timer take out to the Game when a person goes to play a card as long as that card hangs over the board the timer will never work. You ask is there any proof of this here are a couple screens for you. Blizzard States Exactly and this is from their email:
"Game Master Shomser here! I have received your ticket, and I'm here to help! I get how frustrating it is when someone won't pass their turn right away. But they may actually be using the time to decide on what they wish to do. So this is allowed.
By the way, we don't ever use screen shots to verify anything, as pics can be altered. And your card info is safe, don't worry about that.I hope this helps, and take care!
Sincerely
Game Master Shomser
Customer Service
Blizzard Entertainment"
Notice the time: 8:03am
Notice the time 8:22am
30 minutes into the game
After 45 minutes I quit and the guy was still spamming ty ty ty ty ty ty and not playing
NONe
A single question comes to mind
When will the game release to ipad?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Well, I don't know about all this Pay 2 Win griping going on, but here is my experience. I have 2 accounts to review here, so I will cover each.
1st account:
My 12 yr old boy played this for hours unlocking all the classes 100% during the initial Beta release months ago.
He never purchased any booster packs. and saved up 400 coins from battles.
I used those 400 in game coins, and did in game purchase of 4 booster packs.
I received some rares, and some junk cards. each pack containing 5 cards.
I went through and won 3 battles, was having fun so i creamed another 5 or 6 opponents. and got my WOW mount ;-)
Account 2 (wife's account)
She logged in, and did the initial story tutorial with Jana P. Moore. (MAGE) then she was let loose upon the public.
She went through and won her 3 games and immediately jumped to wow when the achievement popped up.
No mount was found on any toon's (mailbox)
She logged back into hearth stone and played a bit longer and won a few more rounds.
When returning to wow, she found her mount.
Hearth Stone is very playable with a ZERO cash investment, in fact I would say even more fun playing knowing we have invested nothing but time having fun!
Very addictive.
Exactly correct stating Easy to Learn hard to Master.
---Retired---
WAR - Lots
Vanguard - Lots
---Live---
WoW - LOTS
EQ - LOTS
The extremely P2W nature of this game makes it not very addictive for me. You are barely rewarded at all simply for playing, unlike Duel of Champions which heavily rewards you. There is also a huge power creep issue between several legendary cards and...everything else; which makes the game not fun at all for non payers, come turn 8.
I would happily pay a $60 box price for the game, if they removed microtransactions completely, and created a more liberal progression system, but I will never pay money for imaginary cards.
Hearthstone is like the ultra-themepark version of digital CCGs, and MTGO would be the ultra sandbox version.
Hearthstone:
- looks cute
- players are taken by the hand and even the most simple stuff explained
- no trading so you won't get scammed
- no chatting so you won't get insulted
- no different formats, all decks of the same size, no game modes with more than two players
MTGO:
- clunky interface
- no tutorial
- you can build decks of any size, from 40 cards to 1000 cards
- from playing with no opponent to test decks up to 6 player
- several dozen different formats with different rules
- tenthousands of cards
- trading
- huge tournaments
- cards can have actual value and be sold on ebay for example
- you can have the company delete your digital cards and send you the paper versions
- clans
Seriously, MTGO all the way for me. It's just far more versatile than Hearthstone. But the worst thing about Hearthstone is the lack of trading.
I open a booster and get a super rare cards? Well screw me! It has absolutely zero value because I can't trade it! On MTGO, the top cards are worth over 100$.
I got a lot of cards I don't need and a friend starts playing? Well, in most other digital CCGs I could trade my excess cards to him. Not on Hearthstone. Screw you friend! No cards for you, no matter how many I got and how few you got!
I open a card that is great but I don't need, and that my friend wants badly? Well, a pity, because we can't trade them!
Seriously, wtf? And all that.. why? Oh right, because Blizzard makes more money that way. Screw you players. Trading, an economy? Who gives a shit about what makes sense for players. Let's just ignore all that, so that they buy more boosters
Gah.... Oh, and it's extremely pay to win. Most of the time when you lose, you don't lose to a player with a superior strategy. You lose instead to a player who spent more money and got more rare cards.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
fun game when u win:) played game 3 month least, just doing daily quests only.
buying better cards give better % chance to win, so its not totally pay to win.
Its just will u get right cards at right time.
i've around 500 victories in this game, i never pay a cent, and i've 4 legendary cards. This game it's like a chess you must think and anticipate the moves of you opponent and luck it's a big factor.
Sometimes i win in 6 or 7 moves and other time i spend all my deck to win anyways it's more important unblock the epic cards that have a buch of legendary heros and isn't pay to win just if you dont pay you spend much more time in get a great deck.
Like chess? You got to be kidding me.
The only way to actually get a decent amount of those legendaries is by buying boosters, everything else is taking decades. And 99% of those legends are far superior to anything of any other rarity.
In the beta, I was about to win a lot of games that I'd then lose because "whoops, I play a legend, you lost". And why did they do that? So that the players who don't have dozens of legends get frustrated, say "wtf I want to win too! I need legends!" and buy boosters.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
This game is really bad. Don't know where to begin with... There is no tactic involved - too much luck
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
Nice, at least Im not the only Pressure-Midrange Rogue out there. Rank 10 at the moment ;P
Hodor!