Hmm that is true then a market where Blizzard gets a cut of everything would probably be more realistic.
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Hearthstone |OT| Why tap cards when you can roll need [Naxx final wing out now]
- Thread starter Minsc
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Hmm that is true then a market where Blizzard gets a cut of everything would probably be more realistic.
Hmm.. I'm guessing you never played D3 (just an honest guess).
The problem with the D3 RMAH never came down to facilitating player-to-player financial transactions. The problem with the D2 RMAH (and AH) were:
Itemization in the game was HORRIBLE. You could go for MANY hours and not get an item that was a significant upgrade for your character.
to make matters worse, the availability of a particular item (legendary or set piece) on the AH initially directly affected its probability of dropping in game. 200 of this item on the AH? Well then its chances of dropping in game were x% lower.
Add to that the ridiculous large ranges for rolls. So grats. That piece DID drop for you!!!!!! And it's rolls make it so that it isn't even a sidegrade for you. Meanwhile on the AH there's a version with near perfect rolls.
None of that exists here. We are talking pretty long standing market conditions existing for nearly 20 years here. There is honestly no reason for blizz to NOT do it.
a) it has no way of undermining the value of dust. Because dust ultimately ends up becoming the "base value", no one would sell like a Tinkmaster for less than $10.
b) it doesn't imbalance the game at all. You can already "buy cards" directly. All game mechanics in play are still there to make "running up the market" or some such infeasible.
c) it is honestly win/win/win. The seller wins by getting real money for his digital good, the buyer wins because he gets exactly the card he wants without having to go through the $10/$20/$50 bundle method I listed above, and blizz wins through both exposure of the game along with guaranteed percentages of all sales.
The only downside I can see is that as the marketplace becomes more saturated with cards, the number of booster sales go down.. BUT this will happen regardless. I am guessing booster sales have already dropped off dramatically since the beginning of open beta. It happens to all CCGs and is why expansions come out. Then the same cycle occurs. Gamers buy heavy on boosters for the better overall value, sell off extras (or DE them) and it continues for the rest of that expansion.
never never never happen. oh I see it was already covered. yeah.. trading, while good for players, ultimately does devalue the cards, ultimately devaluing dust as well.
I've spent around $60 (and played ~1700 games). Got most of the legendaries I want (missing Leeroy, Black Knight, Tirion, Van Cleef, Jaraxxus, crafting Alex next), a few rares (no Pyromancers or Keepers -.-) and epics (mountain giants, faceless, another Ancient of Lore, Warrior epics)
getting mostly duplicates now so it isn't really worthwhile for me to invest more money. Just hoping to open those cards in packs that I purchase with gold now
Not sure why you'd assume that. You're wrong. I understand how the market affected D3s game design, but hearthstone is a free game. If they got rid of the secondary market for a paid game, I dont see them implementing it for a free game. It destroys their model.
If players could sell cards, nobody would bother buying packs. I've dusted upwards of 1k cards at minimum and there are millions of players. You could just speead the extras around and everyone would have a full set.
Haunted
Member
I haven't seen the card stacking or card dancing bugs at all in the new version, but this Lorewalker Cho BULLSHIT has happened numerous times.Well done Blizzard:
That said, it's not too bad since you can still target them in their hand.
partyphone
Banned
the few times it has happened to me it fixed itself right after they played another token. which would never happen before the patch. so there's that at least.
I have seen the dancing minions in like every second match. It's really bad. No idea how that could get through if it happens this frequently.
Haunted
Member
Trading won't be implemented, and with a card pool as small as Hearthstone's, player to player sales will also not be implemented.
borghe, the system would work out [for Blizzard] with your $40 for a Ragnaros assumption, but in actuality, you're probably more likely to get Steam trading card prices. There's a lot of players out there and not a lot of cards, so prices would be low. Like, commons around the 5-10 cent range, with legendaries being worth maybe a dollar. That's not the way Blizzard wants to monetise the game.
I know you're looking for ways to complete your collection without paying a fortune, but I honestly think player to player sales/trading is not on Blizzard's plate at this moment.
Really. That's a shame. Looks like it's back to the drawing board for the programmers if that one's still not fixed.
Interfectum
Member
The problem with Blizzard though is D3 RMAH proved they don't have a good grasp on how to control an in-game market that deals with player money. Millions of gold being sold for pennies, legendary items being tossed around like junk, etc. If they lost control of the Hearthstone market like that it would pretty much kill the game's profitability.
Haunted
Member
Add to that that Hearthstone's card pool is finite, while Diablo III has an ever-escalating endless progression of loot and it's easy to see that cards wouldn't be worth much for long. There's a saturation point that'd be reached fairly quickly (with Blizzard's fanatic fanbase, probably REALLY quickly), something that didn't exist with Diablo III.
partyphone
Banned
yeah if they wanted player to player trading they'd have to lower the rates for epic and legendary cards to not just have the prices bottom out. at 1% you get 2-3 legendaries per 40 packs.
although the way crafting works may have an impact on that since a shitty legendary is a least worth 400 dust. so you could buy 4 of them to craft the one you wanted. so the absolute worst card will always be worth 1/4 as much as the best card(best and worst in terms of market value).
overall the systems in place just don't seem conducive to trading.
although the way crafting works may have an impact on that since a shitty legendary is a least worth 400 dust. so you could buy 4 of them to craft the one you wanted. so the absolute worst card will always be worth 1/4 as much as the best card(best and worst in terms of market value).
overall the systems in place just don't seem conducive to trading.
Haunted
Member
Looks smoth and responsive. Card text might be a bit hard to read.
The board fits the ipad playing space neatly, WHAT A SURPRISE.
Still bothers me that there's so much unused space in the PC version.Looks good. This will be so awesome. Now I don#t even need to leave the bet to play some Hearthstone!
Interfectum
Member
the size of the current set is a) comparative to other just-launched CCGs, and b) is largely irrelevant as it is guaranteed to grow with expansions
I already covered that though as there is a bare minimum value already set with DEing. No one is going to sell Ragnaros for $5 when they can DE him for 400 dust. Also the likelihood of someone getting Ragnaros in a pack, and not needing him OR the dust to the tune of willing to sell him for $5 is unlikely as well. The dust provides a minimum value of worth, and is very difficult to undermine in a way that you don't need the card, but also couldn't really use the dust from DEing.
or to put it another way, look at magic the gathering online, which does not have player to player sales, but DOES have trading, with players using tournament passes as currency. The economy there is as healthy as ever for magic, and the desired cards are still trading for great amounts of currency.
The most likely scenario, if someone did try pulling a steam trading card level of pricing (though to remember most of those have no inherent worth to being with), that $5 ragnaors is more likely to go to someone looking to resell it for $20 than it is to go to someone looking to actually use it for $5.
but the pool isn't finite (re: expansion packs). I mean everything you are saying is targeted at why RMAH didn't work (among many reasons) and largely ignoring the successful player-to-player economies in decades old games (MTG, YuGiOh, Pokemon, etc)
partyphone
Banned
like i said before crafting ruins your whole scheme since every legendary disenchants for 400 regardless of perceived value. so the most popular legendary can never be worth more than 1600 dust. which isn't hard to get considering the current drop rate of legendaries. you'd have to be pretty unlucky if opening 15 packs didn't get you enough dust to craft whichever one you wanted.
Hm, that's a little misleading since trading is typically done in tickets which have an actual set value.
Edit: And there's usually a parallel in terms of their modo price and physical price.
MTG online is absolutely fundamentally different... but that doesn't really affect anything I'm saying. I also largely contend that you don't "earn cards for free" in HS. I mean there is often a serious time commitment to get the gold for arena runs or packs. And you are not really earning that stuff at a rate (for only time) that works itself out to making selling legendaries for like $4 each worthwhile.
I think at this point it is also impossible to say how fast expansions will be added to this game. Any GOOD CCG will employ a fast release schedule. Pokemon had 3 sets. within the first year. YuGiOh had 4 sets in the first year. MTG had 6 sets. Even Blizz's own CCG had three sets released in the first year. Not really sure why you'd be expecting HS to be at a much slower rate than any of those (especially with zero need for physical distribution)
did not mean to mislead.. just that there is no cash purchasing in the game, so they've setup the tickets as the currency. yes you are right that it ends up being "dollars" considering that's what the tickets cost and can mostly only be purchased for actual cash.
as for the correlation between physical and virtual price.. that kind of goes to my point. The inherent value of the card is it's desirability. Someone gets 30 tickets for a card, they aren't likely going to use a huge chunk of those tickets for play, but instead are likely to use them to buy something else. The comparison was made in this thread to Steam Trading Cards, which are like XBOX Gamer score or PSN Trophies, three things containing very little or no inherent or desired value. In this case there is both an inherent value AND a desired value, making that comparison moot.
Minsc
Gold Member
Really? I get so many 40 dust packs these days.
Those 1 pack = 100 dust averages only work out when you go through 100s of packs though, and dust everything. Like if you keep a couple of golden cards, it brings the average down probably by 50%.
I think the average pack when obtained in just a couple packs (median?) at a time generally falls closer to 50 dust.
If you could earn cards just by playing mtgo though, the market would collapse. I'd even suffer through the horrible UI if I could earn cards without paying in ever.
When did mtg, pokemon etc first talk about expanding their sets? From what blizzard has said so far, we have no reason to expect more than one adventure mode this year. Once, they get rolling I wouldn't expect any more than 3 adventures and a larger expansion per year. There's going to be plenty of time to earn cards between releases. The hearthstone team is still small.
Not sure how many packs you've opened.. I'll just leave this, that I am closing in on 500 packs. My last bundle netted about 2200 dust. 2200 / 40 = 55 dust per pack on average. 55 * 15 = 825. Even assuming you got one legendary (nm that your legendary "probability" is only at 75% at that point) that still only raises that to, at best, 1220. You will still need some combination of another legendary, 4 epics, and/or 19 rares to hit that 1600.
mind you that my 2200 above is with I believe at least one dusted legendary. possibly two. I've only had one 40-pack bundle so far where I've dusted 2 legendaries and I can't remember if it was the 2200 dust one or not.
You can also redeem modo sets for physical cards which adds an extra incentive to having all the cards.
I really don't agree. f2p has some merit behind it, but again there is ultimately both inherent and desired value in play here. I guess for either of us to better prop up our points we'd need another example of where something like that exists (i.e. a f2p game with both a player marketplace as well as an inherent and desired value to the items)
Not really sure that I ever remember them "talking about expanding" anything... usually it was just "here is the first/next expansion to the super popular game". I would honestly be very shocked if blizzard went with one competitive expansion a year. It would be virtually unprecedented. Sales of a set fall off a cliff VERY quickly, and anecdotally speaking the vast vast majority of arena plays are gold-based. Speaking personally... I am done dropping cash on this set. However if they released a new set in say July-Aug I wouldn't really hesitate dropping whatever was needed on that set to accumulate a solid collection of legendaries and epics.
very true. truth be told I have been hoping blizz offers the same thing here. only... ummm... don't you "exchange" your modo sets for physical sets? heh, I would hope they don't emulate that as well....
If you don't mind my asking - that means you've spent around $500 if my math and guessing on packs won is correct?
So hyped for this.
heh.. getting close, yes. not too much crazier than I've approached other CCGs that I've enjoyed the hell out of, but admittedly a tiny bit more... damn ease of IAP.. so much more dangerous as opposed to having to run to a store and see if they even have boxes in stock, or even more tempering, having to order off of ebay and wait for shipping. uggh.
Minsc
Gold Member
I see them going at around 2-3 adventures per quarter, and an expansion every ~3-4 quarters. So if they get an expansion early 2015, it's possible they'd get another late 2015. Otherwise I doubt we'll see more than 1 a year (like if the 1st expansion makes it out Q3-Q4 this year, I definitely don't expect to see 2 expansions hit next year).
Interfectum
Member
How do you think they'll handle expansions? Seed new cards in with the old or will be be a separate purchase when you buy a pack?
I think it'll be seperate packs. They'll make more money that way.
will an adventure add expert cards? If so then maybe I'll agree with you. If adventures don't add expert cards then no way will I agree with that. More than likely within 2-3 months after the ipad release booster sales will fall off a cliff for this set. they need continuous monetization which is what expansions provide. adventures adding non-expert cards or no cards and just rewards will severely limit the tail on those sales.
is there any good info on what adventures are? Are they new CCG cards? New LCG card sets (I kind of hope not)? No cards with just rewards?
Minsc
Gold Member
Pick a pack (core set or expansion set), they'd get too much flak if they mixed them with the old set of cards.
They could be super mean too, and make different a colored dust for each expansion. So core packs disenchant and craft for "yellow" dust, and expansion cards can only be make with green dust, which can only be gotten from dusting expansion cards.
There's a few articles that touch briefly on it, but adventures are expected to bring in around a dozen or so cards each, and possibly introduce new gameplay elements in the cards. I believe the adventure mode is being humored at a mode you replay for a chance of those cards. The real answer is they still haven't even decided all the details themselves, last I read. They are still trying out different ways to implement the adventure mode and rewards.
Adventure Mode will add a set of reward cards that you cannot craft, I believe, and need to earn through playing the mode.
I doubt they will but with the inclusion of the gold cap recently, they may do something to prevent people from having enough gold/dust to acquire a full set immediately.
I doubt they will but with the inclusion of the gold cap recently, they may do something to prevent people from having enough gold/dust to acquire a full set immediately.
yes this would be mean... but I could see the thought process behind it. Someone with tons of dust and very few cards missing, just dusting a shit load and crafting new expansion cards with no money spent.
I hope not... but I can see the business sense behind it. ugh.
honestly this was my take on the gold cap. Because gold is a real cash equivalent, they have to turn off the faucet to prevent someone from essentially being a "HS millionaire". 20K cap means 200 packs (or ~5500 dust). Enough to give you a nice headstart in a new expansion but not complete it on day one.
The Incredible Muffin
Member
This going to be my first trading card game.
Could you guys give me some guidance which class to explore first? I would like to realy understand one class before moving on to the next.
Which steps should I take??
Could you guys give me some guidance which class to explore first? I would like to realy understand one class before moving on to the next.
Which steps should I take??
Minsc
Gold Member
Yes, they probably will address the issue of someone stocking up 20,000 gold from F2P/arena winnings and spending it on 200 packs day 1 of the expansion, getting ~80% of the set for free. That probably won't even be too uncommon by then, a lot of people can earn money really quick in Arena. Maybe down the road they will put a cap on the number of packs you can buy with gold per day or something I don't know.
Gold does seem like a quicker way to fill out an expansion on Day 1, than dust, so it's probably unlikely they'd separate dust I think now. It's a lot easier to get 20,000 gold than 20,000 dust, and the 20,000 gold gets you 200 packs of the new expansion (which is probably the vast majority of the cards from the set), while 20,000 dust only gets you a handful or two of the legendaries and nothing else.
You buy a bunch of packs and then use dust to fill the gaps.
The size of the set alters how the math for this works but it's probably not more than 200 cards added so 200 packs + 20k dust will basically be a playset or at least a playset of the most likely to be needed cards.
dude, that is a lot of dust. I mean a LOT of dust. Like talking laws of averages, around 500-900 boosters worth of dust. Obviously a few people will hit those levels, but not many. And if I'm wrong about that, I would expect a future set of patch notes to include the item "we've implemented a 10,000 dust cap. if you currently have dust above this cap...."
Minsc
Gold Member
I've seen people who hold on to all their extra cards for balance changes say they can get close to 10k dust per patch. Definitely not common, and going to be way less so as they don't want to keep altering the cards, but if you have the ability to disenchant for full value, dust comes very fast if you have dozens of the cards being changed. I've seen people suggest Blizzard might possibly limit the full value refund on changed cards (to only 1 or 2 @ full value) in the future to prevent this "abuse."
Tutorial > Play AI until level 10 > try other classes for a few matches > read links in OP & possibly on Blizzard's new players forum. Post here whenever you have questions and someone will probably answer them.
Haunted
Member
I guess this comes down to how big the card pool will be at that point.
Magic has over 10000 cards, I can imagine that there's a healthy trading community for that. As you say, it's just not comparable to Hearthstone with its current pool of 450 cards.
But yeah, I don't know anything about Yugioh or Pokemon to comment on those economies, I'm just going by the digital economies I know, and by these measures, it just wouldn't work now.
Maybe we can talk about player sales when Hearthstone's card pool is more substantial in a couple expansion's time.
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