Hearthstone

[Kuro]

Something to consider is that you can enjoy Hearthstone without getting Legend rank or anything, if you're happy with trying to claw to Rank 10 or whatever the skill ceiling is a lot lower. Perhaps more importantly, Hearthstone is very little P2W compared to other card games: You can easily play without paying a single cent and crafting means that, say, 40 packs for 49.99 is very likely to get you a lot of good stuff or discenchantable stuff. By comparison, there are times in card games like Yugioh where a single card that's needed to compete in the meta is in the range of 300 dollars (The DAD Return format) and decks for Yugioh/Magic that are competitive usually go into the triple digits in price. By comparison, Hearthstone can be played totally free (theoritically) and it has a lower price floor to get into "P2W" mode to begin with.

While Trump just disenchanted everything, that's really only something you need to do if you're trying to get to Legend, as someone who was free for a good while and has only spent like 20 dollars on the game you can make effective and fun Decks for multiple classes with fairly good speed. Not Legend, but once I had gotten decently good at playing it wasn't too hard to get around Rank 12 to 10 and I think most people would be happy with that. And the price ceiling to get to Legend is much lower than it is to, say, win a Yugioh or Magic big tournament. The only other card game I know that is as little P2W is Scrolls.

Also, since WilliamLP brought up The Beast: I've actually been teching The Beast in my version of Sunshine Hunter! It's working pretty well, the downside has only ever really been a downside once, and it allows a sneaky trick of putting another guy on the board vs. Decks that don't put out a lot of monsters like Control Warrior to get bigger Hounds. It also ends the game very quickly and forces the opponent to deal with it ASAP, which often hurts their ability to deal with Highmanes.

Yeah, I don't think its pay to have fun at all. But I don't think too many people would consider 'winning' sitting around rank 10.

Anyway, I don't mean to bash the game, I enjoy it thoroughly. I went on a 7 game winning streak earlier today which is by far my longest so I'm especially feeling good about it.

I consider around Rank 10 to be when you're starting to do good is why I said that. Also, I didn't feel you were bashing it, it is just that as someone who has played card games for a very long time (Mostly Yugioh and not Magic though, admittedly) Hearthstone is one of the least Pay to Win card games around. I dunno how P2W it is compared to non-card games, but compared to most card games it is extremely budget friendly.

[Kuro]

Also, is it just me or have there been a LOT more time out errors when trying to start Hearthstone lately?

[sunrise089]

Also, is it just me or have there been a LOT more time out errors when trying to start Hearthstone lately?

Qft

[yuris125]

And the price ceiling to get to Legend is much lower than it is to, say, win a Yugioh or Magic big tournament.

Well, you have to consider that the prize for winning a big Magic tournament (assume Yugioh too) is much higher than the prize for reaching Legend (bragging rights?)

[Kuro]

And the price ceiling to get to Legend is much lower than it is to, say, win a Yugioh or Magic big tournament.

Well, you have to consider that the prize for winning a big Magic tournament (assume Yugioh too) is much higher than the prize for reaching Legend (bragging rights?)

That's true as well. Might be different as the Hearthstone tournament scene developes, of course in that case my qualifier should change to winning the tournament. (Though the general point I was trying to make is just that the price ceiling is lower for Hearthstone to get to the top than to get to the top of Magic)

[Jowy]

Just played against a guy who has 500+ ranked hunter wins after last patch. My highest class has 30..

[yuris125]

And the price ceiling to get to Legend is much lower than it is to, say, win a Yugioh or Magic big tournament.

Well, you have to consider that the prize for winning a big Magic tournament (assume Yugioh too) is much higher than the prize for reaching Legend (bragging rights?)

That's true as well. Might be different as the Hearthstone tournament scene developes, of course in that case my qualifier should change to winning the tournament. (Though the general point I was trying to make is just that the price ceiling is lower for Hearthstone to get to the top than to get to the top of Magic)

Yeah no argument about that. Although that's probably to be expected when you compare a paper TCG with an online one. In Hearthstone, you can play arena without spending any real money, in Magic you always pay for the packs you draft or play sealed with

[haphazard1]

A few questions from a complete newbie to Hearthstone (just installed it and played around for an hour or so). Apologies in advance if these have all been discussed before -- this thread is rather large so I have not gone through it all.

- Suggestions for good sites to learn more about Hearthstone?

- I played through the opening set of fights, and have been playing practice rounds (AI opponents) to unlock other hero classes and get more mage cards. (Have not tried anything but a mage yet.) I also played one "standard" game against a human opponent. What else should I be looking at, if anything? I don't have any gold yet so Arena is out, and I would probably get laughably stomped in Arena if I tried right now anyway.

- I have seen references to playing 'Daily Quests' to get gold. What are Daily Quests and how do they work?

- How do packs work? I was given a pack as a quest reward (first quest was playing one standard game against a human opponent), but I can't seem to open it. Maybe I just have not unlocked this ability yet? I went into the open packs screen and clicked on the pack, but nothing happened.

- How do I send messages/statements to a human opponent (assuming I can do so at all)? My opponent was popping up various messages, but I was not sure how to do so.

There is probably an introductory guide that explains all this stuff, and I just obliviously missed it. But any advice is appreciated! I have played a fair bit of Magic in the past, and so far Hearthstone has been fun without having quite so many phases and moving parts. But I am not really sure what I am doing quite yet.

[sunrise089]

You send messages by right clicking your champion picture (intuitive!) and then left clicking the message. If the enemy is spamming a message to an annoying degree you can right click their picture and mute them for the rest of the match.

You're just missing a step trying to open the pack. You open the pack area screen...place...and then you drag the pack to the slot on the right side of the screen, which opens it and reveals the five cards.

Daily quests will pop-up when you log in for the first time each game day, and active quests can be viewed in the quest tab/place on the homescreen. They award 40-100 gold for doing some sort of in-game actions, such as winning a certain number of times with a class (most common), or playing or killing a certain number of minions or cards. You can re-roll one quest one time per day by clicking on the small X on the quest icon. Daily quests give a gold cushion so that arena players don't have to average quite so many wins in order to be able to make one run per day. Only games versus humans count towards quests.

The main thing I'd do after unlocking each class is to 1) play through each class enough to unlock all of it's free cards, and 2) complete the easier rewards to start building your gold supply.

[pindicator]

I'm a newcomer myself and I would say don't be intimidated by the arena. My first time through I lost three straight. But after unlocking more cards and gaining more experience I just finished my second arena attempt with four wins.