Players are furious over the new reward system in Hearthstone – they are canceling pre-orders for the expansion and promise to no longer spend money on CCG

What is this new system?

If you have played Hearthstone at least once, then you know that since ancient times, in-game currency (gold) could be earned in two ways. The first is to complete daily tasks: summon a certain number of creatures, win two matches, play with a friend, etc. Each quest brought from 50 to 100 gold. The second is to win matches. For every three victories, players received ten gold coins, and in total, up to a hundred coins could be earned this way per day.

The new system works in a very different way. Now, with each addition, the player will have access to the so-called ribbon of rewards, divided into levels. You can increase the level simply by playing, as well as by completing tasks and getting some achievements. In a word, now, instead of gold itself, players earn XP: they collected the required amount for level-up – they got a level and earned a reward. In addition to daily quests, Hearthstone now has weekly quests. They are more difficult and bring more experience.

Among the rewards are not only gold, but also tickets to the Arena / to the new Duel mode, card sets and legendaries. For each level, only one reward is available – from 100 to 300 gold, one pack of cards, one tavern ticket, one legendary.

When the user reaches level 50, he opens one of ten portraits per hero. All levels from 51st to 150th are considered bonus, for each user will receive 150 gold. At first glance, the system looks at least interesting, but in fact it is an endless grind. And in it, users who play regularly will receive much less gold than before. Although Blizzard promised the opposite.

Is the problem in the system itself?

The Ribbon is a very cool idea from Blizzard that pushes users to play more often. If in the previous system a player could log into Hearthstone for 10-20 minutes, complete a task and calmly wait for the next day, now the CCG encourages longer sessions – and rightly so.

The logic of the developers is clear and does not raise questions: Blizzard wants users to spend more time in Hearthstone. In addition, the new system solves the problem for Battleground players: when the “Battlegrounds” first appeared in HS, many veterans of the ladder moved to the new mode, which was a breath of fresh air for them. Now you can get experience (and therefore rewards) just by playing BG games – great!

The variety of awards should also be noted. For example, at the same 50th level, the user can choose one of ten unique portraits of their favorite hero. Well, who will be against a skin that will become, if not unique, then at least very rare? In short, there is nothing wrong with the ribbon. The problem is the lack of awards themselves.

Why will players earn less gold?

No matter how interesting and varied the tape may look, you need to remember that the main resource in Hearthstone is gold. And now most players will receive several thousand less coins than before.

Reddit enthusiasts counted how much gold players received in the old and new systems. For clarity, a Torgalko user has provided several graphs that compare the systems and game patterns of gamers (depending on how much time they spend in Hearthstone). It turned out that in order to get the same amount of gold for the expansion as before, you need to spend an average of about 8.7 hours a day in Hearthstone – madness.

It should be noted that now, in addition to pre-orders of the add-on, users can buy for ₽1,099 the so-called regular pass – it gives various cosmetic items and at some levels opens boosters for the experience. And if you buy it, then the grind, of course, will become smaller. In a word, you can get closer to the old system (and maybe even earn a little more gold) only by spending money – you can’t get a pass for in-game gold.

Hearthstone is more expensive than ever

Blizzard’s new approach will hit f2p players a lot. It’s not just the gold-making system. It should be remembered that now with each expansion, so-called mid-expansions will appear, that is, mini-sets of maps included in the expansion’s card sets – they will be released approximately two months after the start of the add-on.

It looks like mid-expansions have replaced paid adventures that previously offered additional maps. But at the same time, one must remember that adventures could always be purchased for gold, and now this opportunity will not be. The number of expansion cards will now greatly increase, which means that it will become even more difficult to collect a complete collection. Or much more expensive.

Having spent about ₽8 thousand on both pre-orders and purchasing a regular pass, users are far from guaranteeing themselves a complete collection of add-on cards. This is enough to get all the common and rare cards, but epic and even more legendary are out of the question. Calculate how much AAA games can be bought with this money.

How do players react?

When users saw the calculations and realized that several thousand gold would be missing, they immediately flew into a rage. If you open the Hearthstone themed subreddit now, the vast majority of threads will be devoted to the developers’ accusation. Some players considered themselves cheated and in protest began to cancel pre-orders of the Madness Fair add-on, others promised not to spend a single penny on HS (some of them play from beta), and still others decided to leave Hearthstone forever.