Last I remember you can’t get anything for free in Hex - did that change?
Depends on what you’re looking to do. The entire singleplayer side of the game is free, and the gold you earn by playing it can be exchanged on the auction house for the paid currency or anything else that can be sold on the auction house, including single cards, boosters, equipment, etc. Plus quests, some overworld encounters, and dungeons reward equipment, adventure zone/dungeon booster packs (which include singleplayer-specific cards, competitive-usable commons, equipment, etc), and special unique reward cards. And people who are paying real money definitely do want gold because it’s used to spin the Wheels of Fate on the chests you get from opening boosters. (There will be more uses for it coming.) If you want to play the competitive side without ever touching the singleplayer side, I don’t believe there’s currently any way to expand your collection without paying at least enough to get into drafts and, in theory, win them enough to “go infinite” and make back more packs than you invest (though this requires you to be pretty good at drafts). This may change as they add more competitive modes (perhaps when they introduce a ladder mode, say), but I don’t know for sure.
I’m specifically recommending Hex for its singleplayer, because that was what Razgon professed interest in in Hearthstone, and I think that’s a place where Hex has a vastly stronger offering than Hearthstone and as far as I’ve seen, pretty much every other digital TCG. And that’s the free bit, whereas in Hearthstone it’s the single most expensive part in either time or money, depending.
But, FWIW, I don’t generally think it’s fair or reasonable to expect to play most F2P games (especially TCGs) on a long-term basis without spending -any- money. The question for me is generally how much money you’d have to spend and how regularly, in order to have fun, and whether their business model is exploitative. (Randomized boosters are an inherently exploitative model, so the answer for TCGs is, “Yes.” Sometimes I play them anyway because I am a hypocrite.)
Razgon
3225
Thanks for the exhaustive answers guys. I’ve looked into Hex aa well, and it looks very slick. I don’t expect to play any game for free that I enjoy, just for the record. I like how Hearthstone feels, because I used to play Wow, but that’s pretty much all the connection I have. If it’s more pvp based, I should probably stick to Hex and its single player campaign.
If you can still get the first wing of Naxxramas (or maybe one of the other adventures) for free in Hearthstone, there’s no reason not to give it a look, if only for comparison. I don’t know if you can, though.
I’ve tried Hex as well. I don’t have any Kickstarter benefits, so it was purely with what they gave me for the single-player stuff. It’s all right, but it’s too much like Magic for my taste. I play enough of that with friends in real life, would rather do something different on my video game time. Progressing without spending real money in Hex didn’t seem much different than most F2P games, including Hearthstone…pretty darn slow. Nothing unexpected there.
kerzain
3228
Nerf patch just went live (On PC in North America anyway, with other formats/regions getting it soon).
As a reminder, here are the nerfs:
There are also a few other changes noted in the full patch notes, which can be viewed from the Battle.net launcher. Also, the guaranteed pack from Arena will now always be from the latest expansion. Also, players are now slightly more likely to receive a second pack form another Standard set. And there are a few other smaller new things things to prep the game for Tuesday’s expansion launch, and a few new card backs etc.
That’s awesome that the arena rewards will be packs from the new set.
Also worth reminding that the nerfed cards can be dusted for their full cost. I’m on the fence about if it’s worth just dusting everything and buying back later if they turn out to be still relevant. Had no problem dusting Ancient of Lore, Force of Nature, Blade Flurry, Arcane Golem, Molten Giant so far.
kerzain
3230
I’m not dusting anything till after I open a bunch of Old God packs on Tuesday/Wednesday. Counting the 13 free packs we’ll be getting, I have enough gold to open 50ish packs at the moment. I also have several thousand dust I’ll probably spend after Tuesday, depending on what I open. I know I can re-create something I dust for equal value, but I’m lazy and don’t want to keep track of what I’ve dusted and what I haven’t.
Also, for those interested, the full dust refund expires on May 10th, per this post.
I already experienced a bit of schadenfreude after watching an opponent in the Brawl play an Arcane Golem and then sit there staring at the card for 10-15 seconds before conceding.
What happens if you draft your arena deck pre-patch and then play a round post-patch? Is it possible he drafted Classic Golem™, then had it turn into Nu Golem during his run?
kerzain
3232
I was in the Brawl, not Arena. And this week’s brawl had players discovering/choosing minions on the fly, every round.
But to answer your question about Arena, drafted minions still get nerfed, and players are stuck with them for the duration of the run.
Reading fail on my part. Thanks for the arena answer though.
A couple times I’ve been so annoyed by the terrible deck I’ve drafted that I’ve sat on the arena run for a couple days, I hadn’t considered what happens if someone swings the nerf bat in that time.
I have an arena going from before the patch, but sadly I didn’t have any of the cards that got changed. I’m pretty sure you get the new versions, though.
JFrazer
3235
I’ve been questing and Tavern Brawling since my “it’s impossible to come back to this game” post. With the Raven Idol Tavern Brawl, I was able to complete all my quests since Wednesday. Dusted my extras (didn’t realize how many extras I had) and ended up with a little over 900 dust. Used ~400 of it to make priest cards that I needed for a new deck and managed to get at least one of my decks in the realm of being competitive. Stored up 450 gold so far from quests and getting the 10-per-3 wins things. Going to probably blow all that gold on arenas tomorrow and Wednesday since it’s my favorite mode of play and might as well wait until I get the new set from it.
All-in-all, it’s probably the best time to come back to the game.
Hahaha, after dusting my Ancients of Lore, Arcane Golems, Blade Flurries, and Masters of Disguise, I have over 8k dust apparently.
What to do, what to do…
kerzain
3237
Wait till tomorrow, then make 5 Boogeymonsters.
kerzain
3238
Iron Beak Owl and Knife Juggler are tearing it up in my Zoo deck. So far my decks that utilize them seem completely unaffected by the half-assed nerfs applied to them. Between the two cards, the Owl can be more difficult to work around in a pinch, but neither has cost me a game yet.
Of course, I plan to play strictly Standard after tomorrow, and my current Zoo deck is getting a bullet in the head once Implosion, Haunted Creepers, Nerubian Egg, and Loatheb go away.
Won’t be sad to see Loatheb gone. I mean, he was great, but undercosted enough that basically everyone ran him. Or did last time I was actually playing HS. Such a ridiculous aggro card.
FYI the nerfs do retroactively apply to in flight Arena games, I had a Warlock rage quit last night after he played his golem, double power overwhelmed it, played an abusive, then rather feebly clicked on it a few times to try and kill me, it took a few seconds for the penny to drop, then the rage quit hit. :)
After tomorrow I am changing my focus almost entirely to Arena. I have found I enjoy myself way more in that format and I am skeptical that the nerfs/ changes to “standard” are going to make things much better in the ladder. If I do need to play constructed I will just play “wild”. I am not convinced that simply removing cards instead of balancing them will make a noticeable difference to the “all decks are the same” problem with the meta, they will just be different decks everyone plays.
Oh, I’m sure there will be plenty of netdecking in Standard. Same happens in MTG standard every time it rotates. The difference will be that the set of often-played decks changes more often (as cards rotate in and out). Also, new cards won’t have to be better than the older cards to see any play, since some of those will go away on a regular basis.
Having said that, I wholeheartedly agree with Arena being a more enjoyable format than constructed. I do the vast majority of my playing in Arena and Brawl, only dipping into “Play” mode of any kind if it’s the easiest way to finish off a quest. Well, that and a few games to get to rank 20 once per month.
Yeah its a fair point. I came across more whiney than I meant it. I think it will freshen things up a bit. Its just going to be different “everybody plays them” cards versus the current ones. Thats fine. I am particularly interested in the new elder gods making new KINDS of decks, much like Reno did. That should be very fun.
