A Format Rant

So it is Friday, and it is time for the Reader Post. This week I decided to go with someone who was a little upset. Final is really up in arms about the new mechanics Hearthstone is going for. Now I don't completely agree with everything he says, but does make a few good points. If you haven't heard about the new systems you can read about them here. After have a read about what he has to say.

New players are going to find it even more impossible to play when this new format system kicks in.

They won't be able to buy packs to get cards to play in the wild format. WHY Blizzard thought this was a good idea I'll never know. By itself this reason alone kills Hearthstone for new players. So unless they dump a bunch of cash into the allowed "Standard" packs they have no chance to play either format. It was bad enough new players had a huge paywall to get over just to have a chance of playing ladder but instead of a paywall it's now an impenetrable wall that says "You can't even buy packs, you just suffer". 

This game might as well have a disclosure to anyone that hasn't been playing since open beta that states "Either play arena or give us lots of money to play Standard. You're never going to stand a chance in Wild".

Since Blizzard is basically copying MTG in this lets go over the differences between MTG no longer producing cards for older sets and Blizzard not allowing anyone to buy packs from older sets.

Hearthstone is purely digital with no way to trade cards. With MTG players can buy cards from each other or trade them. Hearthstone has no such mechanic that allows players to do this. This was done to make it simpler for Blizzard not having to manage another auction house which is fine as long as they keep their cards available to earn/buy. Taking away the ability to earn/buy cards when there's no way to trade or buy from other players is mind blowing to me. Especially since these cards will still be used in one of the two main formats for the game. WHAT?!

"So what they do then? How can they do this in a better way?"

There's a number of solutions that are INFINITELY better than what Blizzard has currently announced. I'll name a few that I can think of on my own.

1. Discount older cards no longer purchasable (non-standard) so that they only cost their disenchant value for crafting. Either raise the disenchant value or lower the crafting cost of these cards to match each other. This alleviates SOME of the pressure to try and get the newer cards for standard. 

2. Have arena give older cards as rewards along with packs. Arena rewards are pathetic right now. NO ONE can keep up with any format just by playing arena. You might say "Well that's the way it's suppose to be, they have to make money!" Blizzard makes A TON of money off this game (more than it rightfully should), bridging the gap between the players that buy their packs versus those that earn them isn't going to change that. In fact it would probably INCREASE how much they make with this game because then new players would join in as they have a means to actually get cards. Arena needs to start giving out more than 1 packs (I suggest one of each current standard pack) in order for players to have a chance to keep up with formats.

It's obvious why Blizzard doesn't do these things. They're greedy and people keep giving them money despite the BS they pull. You think they didn't think of these things along with countless other ways to solve these problems? Of course they did! They just didn't result in as much immediate revenue for them. 

O well someday it'll happen. People will start waking up and realize they don't need to put up with this crap that Blizzard pulls. They can decide NOT to give Blizzard money and just do something else. Not like there isn't plenty of other games that we can play.

So I can see he was upset. What do you guys think of the new Hearthstone system? Or want the weekend to think about it?