Hey, different type of video this time. I really like psychology and after stumbling across this reddit thread I wanted to make a video on what strategies are applied in the game to get us as players to spend money on it. There are definitely things that I didn't even consider so if there is anything else that gives you this marketing kinda vibe let me know!
Hey solem, would you do a video covering all major nerfs throughout the history of hearthstone, and why they were needed? Thx for the great content as always, have a nice day!
Hey there! Question: what other books/sources have you used for this video? I am doing some sort of a related semestrial paper for college and i would really appreciate if you could tell me more. BTW the video you talked about was a real help, thank you! And "Start with why" is something i will likely be picking too.
super cool video, I've only ever spent money twice on hearthstone (the welcoming bundle, and one adventure) and the longer I play hearthstone the more aggressive the game feels to play, I can only play in wild, since I never ever have enough cards for standard to make a competitive deck, and this battlepass has pretty much ruined the game for me. I have like no gold for any packs and I just don't feel the drive to play. I would ALWAYS do my daily's but now, I just don't feel the need to play and it makes me sad.
It's funny you said this I was testing my all legendary mage deck with a couple goldens c'thun the shattered and Prince Malchezaar. So I went into casual because I was currently grinding to legend and I saw the most free to play bs :D
Why did I click this video? Simple, everybody's talking about Hearthstone's greed in Reddit... wait a minute, that's social proof. I'm just a cog in the machine and I have no free will.
Tbh I dont think so. Just at the end of the video he said that hes not mad about any of the points he mentioned. Hes just quite into psychology somehow
Yea but the crafting system exists If i want to get a certain legendary i can just invest some of the stuff i dont really need and get myself whatever i want Whereas in a gacha game such as genshin impact, if i want a 5star i need to open it exactly and theres no other way to get it
@@Derpe69420 yeah But genshin is a pve Game and You can do all the contenta with the characters You get for free, in hs if You want yo win You do have yo pay....
did the same thing and im happy, for u too brother. the amount of time u put into it and the rewards are incomparable. As he said its like a job more than having fun. Look at LoL allthough i dont play it that much either i have an account with skins worth 400 eu in total and i have spent 0 eu, i didnt have to work for those skins i jus played aram and enjoyed. They work on their balancing of the game meanwhile hearthstone does shit. Most streamers changed game or stopped hearthstone, good for them too. Lemme tell ya hearthstone is dead and for all you out there that disagree, you are just a butthurt b1tch that spent way too much money and cant admit it. peace ✌️
Honestly I have so often lost after a winstreak just before hitting a safe floor just by bad machups/draw, that I feel the game just doesn't want you to hit the safefloor so you can't stop playing.
I usually make an agreement with myself to stop playing after one of two loses, so I often avoid that kind of lose streak. Really saves you time and energy and allows to climb more effectively. When I see that my deck is going good, I keep playing until I see some change in the meta. So I usually hit legend after only 3-4 separate days of climbing.
Literally, 1 victory from checkpoint. 1 time I was diamond 6 3 stars in wild, I started to lose all games, I dropped to diamond 10 0 stars. No kidding, when a deck with 70% winrate becomes 10% winrate or less, there is literally no way that is a possible thing. People that have perfect counters to your cards, game impossible to win, they have all you have nothing. I tell you, is scripted.
@@briscoletta5182 That's just you ending up in full tilt mode. When you start losing your frustration levels go up and thx to stress hormones your critical thinking ability goes down.
Not afraid to speak his mind. I respect and appreciate that from him. Yesterday, I spoke my mind about tavern pass in the Duels youtube live chat and they timed me out. Didn't swear or anything that warranted a timeout, they literally didn't want to see my opinion be heard.
A concise and highly insightful video that absolutely nails the core psych/behavioral components underlying the (malignant) monetization efforts of big gaming. Thank you this significant contribution to the gaming community.
I"m loving the straight talking. Also a psych fan, so interesting to see how you connected these well known techniques into the HS franchise. For anyone wanting to create their own business, you just have them gold to get started with :)
"you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with." Very interesting insight, and makes me happy to know that i helped steer my friend, who introduced me to the game, away from spending more money on it. (He'd been playing for a couple of years, but I had been a perma player on mtgo for half a decade, and easily beat him repeatedly despite having weaker decks and no exp with the game, which ended up being an eye opener for him.) Just received another text from him about a newer card game he has been playing for a bit called Legends of runeterra, and one of the biggest points he made was the cheap economy of the game! So proud of him
There's also the difference between the early HS expansions, which had 1 legendary per class and the sets since Un'Goro where every class gets two legendaries. Meaning you have to spend way more to get all the legendaries in a set.
All I ever want to do in Hearthstone now is hit legend so I've finished the game technically speaking. However, I am just stuck at diamond between 5 and 3. I pretty much go 50/50. Since the new expansion and the new rewards, I log in, do my daily, leave. I used to get gold for winning. Now I don't. I used to get about 6 packs a week. I've had 2 this week. Res priest got better in wild. Secret mage is still a bore. Token druid may as well flip a coin. I've just stopped grinding it out as the game is the same 3 decks over and over and over. I'll get the adventures. They are fun. I actually enjoy them. But anything else, hero portraits, card packs, pre orders etc. I'll never pay money for them. Especially card packs. I've earned them by playing the game. The card packs are worth exactly that. My time. Changing the rewards system will not change the value to me. They will never be worth the money. As Solem said the other day, GOTY Witcher 3 is 15 euros. You can spend 200 euros on an expansion and still not get all the cards. One way to make people keep playing would be offer a complete set bundle. Yes it would be pay to win. But the game is already. Sorry I've gone on WAYYYYYY too long!
For me it ended several years ago when they tried to push out more and more timed exclusives. I like to dump money into lootboxes, i played yugioh for my entire life, it feels so good to be lucky and get the cards you crave. But there must be balance. If i pump 120€ into hearthstone an dont get any good stuff for it, i'm out. There are so many wallet-swallowing hobbies that give you so much more serotonin for your cash. If blizzard really wants my money, they have to give me more good feelings. Until then, i will bust open more of them juicy yugioh-displays.
Love the analysis Solem, keep up the great work fella! Ive been playing since the start and even off meta decks that would be considered weak give me around a 50% win rate. I have felt for a long time there are hidden mechanics to keep a balance of win/loss.
I played hearthstone for many years and spent a lot of money and I never felt that I had it all, currently I play runeterra and now I have practically the entire collection without having spent anything.
Tbh Solem you could probably make a mini series about hearthstone talking about different psychological concepts people face when playing the game. E.g. why people tilt when, why people BM whatever. I know you might not think you're a professional psychologist but no one has to be a professional at something to advice or teach things. Being a professional accredited psychologist will just make you more valuable and premium for people that need those kinds of "lessons" but this is hearthstone and this channel is an entertainment one. Point being if you really enjoy psychology you should challenge yourself to make videos about. Not only will it encourage you to make new and original content, but it will he fulfilling and it will encourage you to delve more into the wonders and mysteries of the human mind. Thanks for this great video as always
Oh look, it's me. I was hoping telling people to watch Let's Go Whaling would get more people to look at the video, but I never would have thought a streamer was going to signal boost it like this. Cheers mate!
Solem, I've been really enjoying your content the past few days. You come across as a very well spoken individual who sums up the entirety of Hearthstone's existence with a few simple jokes and well thought out ideas concerning the game. I started to play right before Whispers of the Old Gods released, so I was able to explore Curse of Naxxramas and Blackrock, which hooked me. Subsequently from that point I 'invested' hundreds in every expansion forward, then had an epiphany in Rastakhan's Rumble, that the "Paying literal house bills for a weighted dice roll" archetype wasn't worth it anymore. People should see this video. Well done.
Your theory about matchmaking being gamed to show newbs crazy golden legendaries is interesting. When I started HS in 2015 or so, I remember being matched against some crazy mismatches... games where I had ZERO chance of winning against players with multiple golden legendaries. Wondering now if that was poor matchmaking or matchmaking designed to make me more interested in HS.
Thank you for spreading this information. Every player deserves to know what they're spending their money on. If you want to know, I clicked on this video because I think it's incredibly important for people to know the ways that games with microtransactions trick them into paying money, and I want people to be able to consent to that if they want to. If you end up spending hundreds of dollars on everything in a game over the course of 2 or 3 years, you deserve to know what you've been compelled to do. Publishers don't want customers to have this information, they don't want people to be aware of how much they're spending or why, because that'll cut into their profits. So yeah, I'll watch the whole video and support it as much as I can, so that everybody knows what's happening.
I do agree with what you say at 8:00 . In my packs I got I had 2 legendaries and was really excited since it was only 10 packs I had. They were both shaman legendaries and got disappointed.
@bokeh18 tbh something solid and real doesn’t mean it’s not temporary. For example I’ve been playing hs for 5 yrs, shits basically not temporary, but if I just go n buy let’s say some decorations or some cloth, I might use the decorations n wear the cloth for a few times n that’s it. In my case, hs is more value.
10:55 i can assure you that great chess moves will empress, be remembered and even studied in decades while some random heartstone RNG will be watched and forgotten in an instance.
Out of all these concepts Scarcity is definitely the one that works the most on me personally. When I saw the N'zoth hero portrait even though I played so little during the last expansion I though maybe the game would turn and I would want to play in the future.
RIP "Challenge a Friend" Quest! Asking to use my friend's decks was a cool way to see what they have built, what they value, and why not just test some builds I don't have access to? I can't imagine that wasn't motivating for some. Without the quest reward, there is no incentive for them to respond, unless you're already "actual" friends.
I can definitely agree, I play pokemon tcg and they have mastered making cards desired. Even if a card is garbage in the game it could be a full art rainbow and you really really want it. They also have new dice and sleeves or pins every expansion. It's very well made to get you into the game by making league decks that are very good decks that you can bring online. The one major thing I do think they do very very well is forming an in game economy for online version so not matter what your cards have value in game and offline.
Good summary of the psychology behind these type of games. Collecting card games has been around for ages. It has always been something we get into, just for the fun of collecting the cards, the excitement of getting really good/ rare cards, and playing the game. If everyone just got card packs and legendaries thrown at them for just playing the game a little, for me, that would take away some of the excitement. I feel like they're at least trying to balance it out, by giving you something good here and there, but still doesn't make it so you get all the goodies without either playing a lot, or investing a lot in the game. Games, in general, get kinda boring for me the moment everyone just has all the best stuff. If I had a say in this, I'd even go as far as creating some new limited supply cards every now and then. Either version of cards that has slightly better stats, or just a cosmetic upgrade, like a platinum card, or something. Just so that we have a chance to get something truly unique every once in a while.
6:50 I'm pretty sure this is 100% true. About a year ago I thought a little bit about the rng in hearthstone after my sneed's pulled mukla for the third time that night. I thought that maybe the random really wasn't random. If this is the case it would be reasonable to think that they would use this to make the game more addictive. Since then I've noticed a few things; after taking 2 month off then opening packs, I got 5 legendaries in 40 packs; if I lose or win multiple games in a row my rng will flip to counter my streak; decks like spell mage are extremely powerful because they constantly add random cards to your hand, which could be weighted to give you what you need in a certain situation. Now I realize that this could be confirmation bias at work, but if Blizzard wanted to maximize playtime for their game, it would only make sense that they would use "fixed rng".
To answer the question of why I clicked on the video, I thought this would be some new news on the state of hearthstone. Though it wasn't particularly new information, having words to describe the psychology is nice. Thank you Solem for being non-ragey.
1.i watch your vids every so often 2. i saw the word “trick” “money” and “Blizzard” and i’m like yeah a hot topic, prolly has a lot i(everyone) can agree on.
Sunk Cost Fallacy is something I feel like is very relevant with Hearthstone players. No one wants to drop a game they put so much time and money into, yet people are still choosing to quit. I feel like that says enough about this new system to incite some changes.
It's honestly one of those decks that never gets boring, not matter how many times you play it. Sadly, I disenchanted my evolve cards and legendaries just to stay relevant in Standard. Now I'm chilling in Wild trying to have fun from time to time with old decks that I really loved and couldn't disenchant!
Why did I click the video was actually the first thing i ask myself when I clicked this video, incredibly impress with you solem Response to the question "why I clicked the video?": I like solem, not hearthstone, in fact I'm rely interested in hearthstone demise and eventual death so people start playing games with less micro-transactions and more heart put into them, nowadays hearthstone is more of a heavy stone you carry in your pocket than a fantasy hearth where you can escape your problems.
For me, it’s watching content creators play fun decks and deck archetypes that I want to try out but don’t have nearly enough cards to play. I’d say my overall favorite deck style is either Highlander decks or combo decks, both of which require a high amount of legendaries and epics to create. I’ve not spent money on the game aside from buying the league of explorers adventure and the welcome bundle (of which I got onyxia from rip). As much as I’d like to spend money on the game to have fun with these decks, I can’t with my situation and have to resort to constantly dusting my collection down to the bare bones just to play a deck, which certainly could fuel that desire for some people.
The crafting dust costs. I was under the impression (and still am) that it would be inefficient to craft all the cards I wanted from old sets I did not have, so I ended up buying a 60 pack of GvG. When I probably could have crafted most of what I wanted, but it didn't feel like I was organically building my collection that way. Same thing with adventure cards. If you craft some adventure cards and then later buy the adventure, you're wasting your dust getting duplicates that you crafted. Now, you can just buy Wild packs with gold, so you're not faced with that choice as much
i remember clearly big streamers mention hidden win/lose rate ration that is like 60% to win a game and 40% to lose a game thats why you see many decks in hearthpwn or other websites staying near that range , ever notice you win a match and next match you face someone 100% counter your deck easily ? yeah thats why , one of big streamers try to do it off stream with different account and he notice massive difference , which means many twitch streamers their accounts can be rigged to win more often but not 100% chance ( player skill aside i mean what he play and what he facing and probability of it ) its main reason i quit hearthstone
Games like this and Gacha games prey on FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. You mentioned this as well with the Mecha Jaraxxus hero frame. Tons of players feel the need to buy something that is promoted as a one time only deal, even though it maybe obtainable a different way later. Basically any game with microtransactions has that now.
It made me happy to see you featured on the launcher yestoday. Thank you for voicing these concerns. I love hearthstone but i hate hearthstone marketing team
I clicked on the video because it was revelant and nothing more or less^^ To be honest one thing you can add on the list is the fact that new cards are more and more powerful so even if you bought every card from the last year, they will look useless, in comparison of the newest. For example, the Demon warlock card that deals 3 damage to all non-Demon minion is something that would have not been designed before. Still we can be positive : at some point the winrate will be exactly 50% because the first to play will OTK the opponent turn 1 haha.
I just wanted to point out what I think is a really good example of anchoring, though it's not from Hearthstone, it's from Magic Arena. Magic Arena has special card styles that can be applied to your cards for extra flair, kind of like golden cards in Hearthstone. The thing is that these card styles cost a ridiculous amount of money, like over $5 for a single card style (though it's in in-game currency to help obfuscate the price). It's obviously a rip-off, but the fact that they set the price so high means that they can later discount the card styles temporarily to make people think they're getting a better value, even though the high starting price is totally arbitrary. Card styles are also put as rewards into battle passes and other pay-to-enter events for similar reasons, to help inflate the sense of value you get from buying them.
6:09 ive actually suspected this in HS for a long time, that I just happen to be facing say unlikely match ups several times in a row with a niche deck against another less commonly played deck that counters it. Or I play the mirror with the cards missing from mine that I need to complete the deck, also multiple times in a row. To the point where it just makes me want to stop playing the deck until I get the new cards. Part of me just assumed everyone else im playing already has all of the cards, or at least all of the cards for one specific deck they will play.
Hearthstone was more p2w and took more skill years ago. After you spent certain amount of money, and got what you needed, that was it, you were all set. Now you can win with just about anything cause god bless fking rng, and god bless the fact that every 10th card in hearthstone does something random. Nowadays ppl just spend money to have fun, you don't have to spend money to win, and you can win with pretty much anything, same way you can lose with anything regardless of cost and skill/knowledge you got of your deck, cause god fucking bless rng. It feels like years ago, in legend vs silver match, legend would win in 99% of games, and in 1% silver would win, due to rng, and nowadays it feels more like 95% of the time legend would win, 5% silver, and depending on what decks each of them use it could go all the way to 70/30.
You picked the BEST chess clip that exists to date that fully undermines your point about chess being less entertaining than Yogg but thanks for the vid its cool
Isn't that how you are supposed to build arguments? Put the opposing argument in the strongest possible light and defeat it so there is no question that your viewpoint is right? What's the point of strawmanning your opponent, you ain't convincing anyone like that.
@@Fuskobot Clip starts at around 1:50 and it's crit1kal's pure joy and commentary that makes it so much greater in comparison to the horror on everyone else's face lol ruclips.net/video/ekMVSQBlSOo/видео.html&ab_channel=penguinz0
I'm late and you probably won't see this but the game you were thinking of wasn't CoD (maybe it was but here's a familiar story anyways!), it was Destiny 2. Season pass content/raids and other dlc would be released, people would get better gear and those without that gear would be intentionally matched into people WITH it, so they would see and desire them.
Play at the beginn of Hearthstone and have 18 golden legendary. i have create some with dust but not more then two. And gz for your first golden card :D
@@dermilestailsprowerbeutel6644 my first (and probably last) lgolden legendary was Millhouse manastorm..i will never have dust to craft golden legendary of my choice because u know,3200 dust is like grinding forever
Great video. I stopped putting monry in the game after Uldum and was able to play at rank 5 to legend as a F2P in the Galakrond and Demon Hunter expansions, but know I have nothing else to disenchant. I havent played since April and seeing all the shit Blizzard has been pulling recently, I'm happy I stopped. Its crazy how you are supposed to spend 50 AUD every 4 months to play. Shit is more expensive than Netflix. I think it would be better if Hearthstone had like a membership where you pay something like 10 bucks every month and you get access to every card.
It’s very funny on the fact that rng is the biggest factor in Hearthstone. One time, I accidentally clicked on competitive with my mage spell deck, with the spell quest and Reno hero. I meant to just play normal, but I didn’t really want to lose some rank, so I played anyways. The warlock I fought was so much better than me, but because of the bs I was able to pull out with my quest and then Reno saved me from a game where I was two hits away from dying. The rng was just too big on my end. And even playing that same spell deck, unchanged from last expansion, playing it when people still bring serious decks into casual play I still bs wins because of how much random I get, so much to the point where I am debating on focusing on that deck for comp rather than the serious decks I have built.
Hey Solem. Can you maybe make a video on witch books you read, have read or intend to read, and if you choose to do so, i would like to know why you read the books you do, and why you read the books you did, and why you intend to read some other books in the future. Maybe thats an idea for a video on your second chanel. Love your hearthstone videos btw
9:14 lol i haven't played clash of clans in years but recently started trying it again. I played it when I watched this video and then you mentioned it. Also why I clicked on this video: Cause you're entertaining ofcourse
I play the trifecta of card games: yugioh, mtg, and hearthstone. The ability to buy singles on a market is so satisfying and adds a player based sub-economy to the game. Hearthstone doesnt have one so I just don't put money into the game (may have put ~20 dollars over the past 4 years). The thing is, the player economy incentivizes me to buy packs because now I'm chasing after cards that could give me a return on value. If blizzard added a market place where i could sell my eysor for 800 dust, both the buyer and seller would be winning out.
I think you might have been right on the legendary (even if there is no way to prove it) around 2012 or 2013 when I was playing, I would be using a deck full of commons (I'm poor) so I would often be playing with people who also had commons. However, at least two of their cards would be legendaries, and I would nearly always die to them whenever the legendary was summoned. So I put my only legendary card, ragnaros, into my deck, and now I had people with slightly less common cards, and two to three legendaries. Since legendaries against a common almost always resulted in a lose, I stopped playing the game for a year. It's harder to seen nowadays since with the free deck, almost everyone is playing along the meta, meaning near all the cards are expected. If you all play meta, feel free to throw one or more outside the meta just to mess with everyone. Golden transfer student ftw
As a relatively new player, I tried the older extensions like the "witch hunt" with 4 hunters. Still full price and not updated anymore. I had huge issues because the last boss uses new spells, which were not available at the time of the expension. So Blizzard does not check or update them, even not limit the cards to a certain time. But charges full price. They just do not care. That's it. Regardless of the many errors and bugs upcoming each "update"
Great video! @Solem I have found once you understand psychological marketing principles it is easier to avoid their allure. Thank you for making such an awesome video dude! Financial education is always important :)
Solem is a beast. Love your content not specifically because of heartstone but I love the twist your personality gives to it. Thanks for such quality content
The set rotation benefits blizzard more than it helps new players since rotating cards go obscene due to only being usable in wild. Thus you have to rebuy new cards to play standard.
What about this? Blizzard creates a subscription system for Hearthstone. You pay "€" for the subscription and get ALL the cards in the game (or atleast most of them). This would still make them money and I think alot of people would actually buy this instead of gambling.
Hah, joke's on them. Been playing for way too many years without spending a dime on the game. Not fueling the greedy, lying, dumpster trash that is blizzard.
This is the first expansion I haven't spent any money on, and won't until I run out of gold and can't stay relevant with the two classes I play anymore.
The only time I really wanted to spend money on the game was when the n'zoth skin for warlock was available, but I'm glad I held myself back. Sick portrait tho.
Not sure if this is still true, as I don't really play too much anymore, but the discover mechanic; it used to be weighted towards the newest expansion, and the class of the player as a secondary condition, (if it can fulfill both, great) . I definitely think that it was (or is) intentional design as to get any new players exposed to the newest cards, even in a game that doesn't have any new cards being used they could always be "randomly" generated. New card sees play, maybe you buy packs to get it etc etc This is nothing I can hard confirm, as I never bothered to do the math and play 5000 stonehill defenders but I did play a lot from around un'goro to a couple of expansions ago (and still used discover cards) and it's definitely something I noticed
I think I know something that would make a lot of people happy and that would be a standard and wild format with only commons. crafting is low and buying packs would get you most if not everything you want hell getting a useless legendary would be almost a good thing because you could get the dust and make every other card you would need for your decks.
finde sollten mehr solcher videos existieren. hoffentlich unternimmt blizzard etwas das bisschen gold da istn anfang aber nicht wirklich zu friedenstellent evtl würde ich mir den arenapass auch lieber kaufen wollen als in als belohnung zubekommen , jedes stück gold zählt für die nächste erweiterung :) mach weiter so solem
When they redesigned the in-game store interface last year, they changed the default purchase option on packs from the '100 gold' option to the '$9.99' option. I can absolutely guarantee you that some people went to the store to try and buy packs with gold, and accidentally bought the 10$ pack bundle. Another example of insidious greed-first game design.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some time ago I read a post that claimed Hearthstone improved the RNG of drafts in Arena and card packs for certain streamers. It wouldn't surprise me tbh.
I agree everything you said about HS in this video. Blizzard should separate hero portraits from card packs instead of making bundles, even though I know it’s not gonna happen.
I'm watching this video with my drunk friend, and he was like "Woaaahhh... this lads so good at hearthstone" when Solem begin to talk about his books collection and psychology
What was funny is for the longest time I was only free to play, then I got into the competitive world of Hearthstone, and someone found out I was free to play and said after a really bad loss “you don’t have all the cards? Then what did you expect?!” After that I put $20 into my collection and immediately saw a jump in my wins.
There's this sneaking suspicion I've had for years about spending money. I've always felt that buying packs with real money gives you much better rewards than using gold. I've tried to buy in bulk with gold to emulate the money purchases to try to weed out biases. While that was inconclusive, I do feel like the game gives you higher chances of hitting epic and legendary cards when you spend real money.
I've stopped playing hearthstone 3 years ago, and today I've subscribed because this was a very well made and interesting video (yes, I've clicked on it because the title was interesting)
When you get your first rank, you have a 10x star multiplier. Hence, your MMR is rigged, and you encounter either other new players (majority) or some ex-legend players.
6:45 "RNG is random", that Made me think of the 5/4 Hunter minion that awakens and attacks a "random" character. Ive been counting the outcomes of that. Interesting: on 24 situations where it had 50 % chance to hit a minion, it hit face 18 times.. I must be very unlucky
I know 24 is not enough to make any assumptions. 1000 samples would already give a good result. But no player collects that much data, meaning they can code their cards with random effects as they wish, we wont be able to verify it
I never understood one thing: -In the OG days of hearthstone there was 1 expansion and 1 adventure a year. You obtained cards just as fucking slow as the new system(maybe you got more actually) , but you had more time to collect the cards. There were complains from less patient people but not as mutch as in recent years, now it is not enough to just complete the daily quests, you need extra 30-40 gold from wins, aka playing 1-1.5 hours to stay with copetitive collection. I think the solution is simple - revert to the original system and give the players 1.5x more gold than before.
You've missed how important adventures were. Adventures were the most accrued progression for the cost they've ever done - for a flat one time fee you received every card. No collecting, no missing out, no gambling, pity timers, RNG - you got the all the cards, could play all the decks using them, and you got them right away. This was the fairest model, but of course, the least greedy. And so they stopped making adventures, replacing them with gambling expansions instead. Now it takes 10-100x the amount of money to get every card.
Interesting Video! Wouldnt mind if you make more like this. In fact it seems like hearthstone's card draw and randomness isnt completely random. At least thats what i experienced,when i *almost* hit legend multiple times in different seasons and lost over and oder again when i was just one win away. And i lost because of Bad draws.
Probably the best and more interesting video you've done ever. Every day seems that Hearthstone is like a casino. I spent 20€ in packs last expansion and got legend and payed lot of hours. I'm out of dust and only have like 30% legenderys. PAY FOR FUN.
3:28 that perfectly sums up the situation I am in. However I been trying my best to not buy everything that appears, such as new hero portraits, adventure wings, extra packs with money, etc. I am still buying expansions though, hopefully I can slowly stop doing that too
Hey, different type of video this time. I really like psychology and after stumbling across this reddit thread I wanted to make a video on what strategies are applied in the game to get us as players to spend money on it. There are definitely things that I didn't even consider so if there is anything else that gives you this marketing kinda vibe let me know!
Hey solem, would you do a video covering all major nerfs throughout the history of hearthstone, and why they were needed? Thx for the great content as always, have a nice day!
Very interesting and educational video Solem. I like your application of hearthstone examples to justify the psychological terms and concepts.
Hey there!
Question: what other books/sources have you used for this video?
I am doing some sort of a related semestrial paper for college and i would really appreciate if you could tell me more.
BTW the video you talked about was a real help, thank you!
And "Start with why" is something i will likely be picking too.
super cool video, I've only ever spent money twice on hearthstone (the welcoming bundle, and one adventure) and the longer I play hearthstone the more aggressive the game feels to play, I can only play in wild, since I never ever have enough cards for standard to make a competitive deck, and this battlepass has pretty much ruined the game for me. I have like no gold for any packs and I just don't feel the drive to play. I would ALWAYS do my daily's but now, I just don't feel the need to play and it makes me sad.
It's funny you said this I was testing my all legendary mage deck with a couple goldens c'thun the shattered and
Prince Malchezaar. So I went into casual because I was currently grinding to legend and I saw the most free to play bs :D
Why did I click this video? Simple, everybody's talking about Hearthstone's greed in Reddit... wait a minute, that's social proof. I'm just a cog in the machine and I have no free will.
NOOOOOO
Or maybe its just something you care about and trying to apply psychological concepts to everything is a little bit like reading a horoscope.
@@americantoastman7296 That's such a Capricorn thing to say.
meditate bro, trust me
@@suakeli yeah, incredibly Slytherin of americantoastman
Solem is DEFINITELY not getting any packs to give away next expansion
Tbh I dont think so. Just at the end of the video he said that hes not mad about any of the points he mentioned. Hes just quite into psychology somehow
wym he's complimenting Blizzard on how smart they're being with their marketing?
He is in Blizzard' jail😂
@@mcdattle lol right
Blacklisted with Savjz and Zeddy
“There is even a rogue hero portrait, which is unheard of” kekw
lmao
*laughs in Maiev*
@@neonmadness9498 *also laughs in Maiev*
@@robertlupa8273 *laughs in Maiev as well*
But why tho (in terms of lore or anyt)
Lmao I'm broke so even if I'm tricked I cant even buy anything :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Same, it sucks. Then I watch videos like this and think "well at least I can't fall for this shit"
a simple spell but quite unbreakable
@@Flukky-th7ok Indeed
Same. :'D
Tbh ive been calling HS a gacha game cuz legendaries are like 5 stars
Yea but the crafting system exists
If i want to get a certain legendary i can just invest some of the stuff i dont really need and get myself whatever i want
Whereas in a gacha game such as genshin impact, if i want a 5star i need to open it exactly and theres no other way to get it
And how some 5 stars are broken and others aren't even worthy of being a 2-star. Yeah, sounds right.
@@Derpe69420 yeah ik its more of a joke but like packs seriously are like gambling and the economy is shit similar to a gacha game
@@Derpe69420 yeah But genshin is a pve Game and You can do all the contenta with the characters You get for free, in hs if You want yo win You do have yo pay....
@@Derpe69420 There are gacha games that allow it. Guardian Tales for example has a pity system that allows to buy specific characters.
I quit After 6 years of Hearthstone and i am not regretting it at all.
Smart choice
Welcome to Gwent.
did the same thing and im happy, for u too brother. the amount of time u put into it and the rewards are incomparable. As he said its like a job more than having fun. Look at LoL allthough i dont play it that much either i have an account with skins worth 400 eu in total and i have spent 0 eu, i didnt have to work for those skins i jus played aram and enjoyed. They work on their balancing of the game meanwhile hearthstone does shit. Most streamers changed game or stopped hearthstone, good for them too. Lemme tell ya hearthstone is dead and for all you out there that disagree, you are just a butthurt b1tch that spent way too much money and cant admit it. peace ✌️
As a psychologist, I give You a Seal Of Approval.
This video is a great step in combating gambling addictions.
Great work Solem
Honestly I have so often lost after a winstreak just before hitting a safe floor just by bad machups/draw, that I feel the game just doesn't want you to hit the safefloor so you can't stop playing.
I usually make an agreement with myself to stop playing after one of two loses, so I often avoid that kind of lose streak. Really saves you time and energy and allows to climb more effectively. When I see that my deck is going good, I keep playing until I see some change in the meta. So I usually hit legend after only 3-4 separate days of climbing.
*3 stars dia 1 intensifies*
Literally, 1 victory from checkpoint. 1 time I was diamond 6 3 stars in wild, I started to lose all games, I dropped to diamond 10 0 stars. No kidding, when a deck with 70% winrate becomes 10% winrate or less, there is literally no way that is a possible thing. People that have perfect counters to your cards, game impossible to win, they have all you have nothing. I tell you, is scripted.
@@briscoletta5182 That's just you ending up in full tilt mode. When you start losing your frustration levels go up and thx to stress hormones your critical thinking ability goes down.
@@ruukinen no, don't take me for a fool. I used to play aggro decks to rank and I can assure that is impossible what I witnessed.
“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” jokes on you Solem I only have 2 friends
Same lmao
Look at mister social here with his two friends
So you are 3/5ths nobody?
2 good friends are better than 4 bad friends.
I don't get it, how do I average my 0?
What a mad lad, he releases this video the same day he gets promoted by Blizzard.
What a coincidence!!! That means that blizzard could be listening to him...maybe
Not afraid to speak his mind. I respect and appreciate that from him. Yesterday, I spoke my mind about tavern pass in the Duels youtube live chat and they timed me out. Didn't swear or anything that warranted a timeout, they literally didn't want to see my opinion be heard.
A concise and highly insightful video that absolutely nails the core psych/behavioral components underlying the (malignant) monetization efforts of big gaming.
Thank you this significant contribution to the gaming community.
I"m loving the straight talking. Also a psych fan, so interesting to see how you connected these well known techniques into the HS franchise. For anyone wanting to create their own business, you just have them gold to get started with :)
"you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with." Very interesting insight, and makes me happy to know that i helped steer my friend, who introduced me to the game, away from spending more money on it. (He'd been playing for a couple of years, but I had been a perma player on mtgo for half a decade, and easily beat him repeatedly despite having weaker decks and no exp with the game, which ended up being an eye opener for him.) Just received another text from him about a newer card game he has been playing for a bit called Legends of runeterra, and one of the biggest points he made was the cheap economy of the game! So proud of him
Blizzard- "It ain't no lie, baby. Buy buy buy."
There's also the difference between the early HS expansions, which had 1 legendary per class and the sets since Un'Goro where every class gets two legendaries. Meaning you have to spend way more to get all the legendaries in a set.
All I ever want to do in Hearthstone now is hit legend so I've finished the game technically speaking.
However, I am just stuck at diamond between 5 and 3. I pretty much go 50/50.
Since the new expansion and the new rewards, I log in, do my daily, leave. I used to get gold for winning. Now I don't. I used to get about 6 packs a week. I've had 2 this week.
Res priest got better in wild. Secret mage is still a bore. Token druid may as well flip a coin. I've just stopped grinding it out as the game is the same 3 decks over and over and over.
I'll get the adventures. They are fun. I actually enjoy them. But anything else, hero portraits, card packs, pre orders etc. I'll never pay money for them.
Especially card packs. I've earned them by playing the game. The card packs are worth exactly that. My time. Changing the rewards system will not change the value to me. They will never be worth the money.
As Solem said the other day, GOTY Witcher 3 is 15 euros. You can spend 200 euros on an expansion and still not get all the cards.
One way to make people keep playing would be offer a complete set bundle. Yes it would be pay to win. But the game is already.
Sorry I've gone on WAYYYYYY too long!
For me it ended several years ago when they tried to push out more and more timed exclusives. I like to dump money into lootboxes, i played yugioh for my entire life, it feels so good to be lucky and get the cards you crave. But there must be balance. If i pump 120€ into hearthstone an dont get any good stuff for it, i'm out. There are so many wallet-swallowing hobbies that give you so much more serotonin for your cash.
If blizzard really wants my money, they have to give me more good feelings. Until then, i will bust open more of them juicy yugioh-displays.
Or maybe spend cash on things that doesn't feed a really nasty marketing scheme
As a another Yu-Gi-Oh player, this is also summarizes how I have been feeling about Hearthstone lately
Me too with duel links
@@swefress If you go it then live like you do.
Love the analysis Solem, keep up the great work fella! Ive been playing since the start and even off meta decks that would be considered weak give me around a 50% win rate. I have felt for a long time there are hidden mechanics to keep a balance of win/loss.
I played hearthstone for many years and spent a lot of money and I never felt that I had it all, currently I play runeterra
and now I have practically the entire collection without having spent anything.
@人へんたい really? Runeterra has been pretty awesome. There are a lot of viable decks right now and I love it.
@人へんたい
runeterra is only 1 year old , have a lot of time to improve & for the moment is a really nice game
Tbh Solem you could probably make a mini series about hearthstone talking about different psychological concepts people face when playing the game. E.g. why people tilt when, why people BM whatever. I know you might not think you're a professional psychologist but no one has to be a professional at something to advice or teach things. Being a professional accredited psychologist will just make you more valuable and premium for people that need those kinds of "lessons" but this is hearthstone and this channel is an entertainment one. Point being if you really enjoy psychology you should challenge yourself to make videos about. Not only will it encourage you to make new and original content, but it will he fulfilling and it will encourage you to delve more into the wonders and mysteries of the human mind. Thanks for this great video as always
This guy is featured in game client but makes this vid, mad respect lmfao
Oh look, it's me. I was hoping telling people to watch Let's Go Whaling would get more people to look at the video, but I never would have thought a streamer was going to signal boost it like this.
Cheers mate!
I have mad respect for Solem. This is very tough for a big hearthstone streamer to do. But is much needed to help us consumers.
Solem, I've been really enjoying your content the past few days. You come across as a very well spoken individual who sums up the entirety of Hearthstone's existence with a few simple jokes and well thought out ideas concerning the game. I started to play right before Whispers of the Old Gods released, so I was able to explore Curse of Naxxramas and Blackrock, which hooked me. Subsequently from that point I 'invested' hundreds in every expansion forward, then had an epiphany in Rastakhan's Rumble, that the "Paying literal house bills for a weighted dice roll" archetype wasn't worth it anymore. People should see this video. Well done.
Your theory about matchmaking being gamed to show newbs crazy golden legendaries is interesting. When I started HS in 2015 or so, I remember being matched against some crazy mismatches... games where I had ZERO chance of winning against players with multiple golden legendaries. Wondering now if that was poor matchmaking or matchmaking designed to make me more interested in HS.
Thank you for spreading this information. Every player deserves to know what they're spending their money on.
If you want to know, I clicked on this video because I think it's incredibly important for people to know the ways that games with microtransactions trick them into paying money, and I want people to be able to consent to that if they want to. If you end up spending hundreds of dollars on everything in a game over the course of 2 or 3 years, you deserve to know what you've been compelled to do.
Publishers don't want customers to have this information, they don't want people to be aware of how much they're spending or why, because that'll cut into their profits.
So yeah, I'll watch the whole video and support it as much as I can, so that everybody knows what's happening.
I dont even play hearthstone anymore but watching your content is always a breath of fresh air for some reason
Love your energy
I do agree with what you say at 8:00 . In my packs I got I had 2 legendaries and was really excited since it was only 10 packs I had. They were both shaman legendaries and got disappointed.
Why do I keep spending money on Hearthstone?
(1) - Because I like playing it
(2) - My hour is worth more than 100 gold
@bokeh18 tbh something solid and real doesn’t mean it’s not temporary. For example I’ve been playing hs for 5 yrs, shits basically not temporary, but if I just go n buy let’s say some decorations or some cloth, I might use the decorations n wear the cloth for a few times n that’s it. In my case, hs is more value.
10:55 i can assure you that great chess moves will empress, be remembered and even studied in decades while some random heartstone RNG will be watched and forgotten in an instance.
I clicked on this video not because of hearthstone.
I clicked cause I love this guy's personality and attitude
oh from meme deck channel to hs economics one nc
Out of all these concepts Scarcity is definitely the one that works the most on me personally. When I saw the N'zoth hero portrait even though I played so little during the last expansion I though maybe the game would turn and I would want to play in the future.
RIP "Challenge a Friend" Quest! Asking to use my friend's decks was a cool way to see what they have built, what they value, and why not just test some builds I don't have access to? I can't imagine that wasn't motivating for some. Without the quest reward, there is no incentive for them to respond, unless you're already "actual" friends.
Dont be that stupid,ive get this quest today :) 1500XP
I can definitely agree, I play pokemon tcg and they have mastered making cards desired. Even if a card is garbage in the game it could be a full art rainbow and you really really want it. They also have new dice and sleeves or pins every expansion. It's very well made to get you into the game by making league decks that are very good decks that you can bring online. The one major thing I do think they do very very well is forming an in game economy for online version so not matter what your cards have value in game and offline.
Good summary of the psychology behind these type of games. Collecting card games has been around for ages. It has always been something we get into, just for the fun of collecting the cards, the excitement of getting really good/ rare cards, and playing the game. If everyone just got card packs and legendaries thrown at them for just playing the game a little, for me, that would take away some of the excitement. I feel like they're at least trying to balance it out, by giving you something good here and there, but still doesn't make it so you get all the goodies without either playing a lot, or investing a lot in the game. Games, in general, get kinda boring for me the moment everyone just has all the best stuff. If I had a say in this, I'd even go as far as creating some new limited supply cards every now and then. Either version of cards that has slightly better stats, or just a cosmetic upgrade, like a platinum card, or something. Just so that we have a chance to get something truly unique every once in a while.
6:50 I'm pretty sure this is 100% true. About a year ago I thought a little bit about the rng in hearthstone after my sneed's pulled mukla for the third time that night. I thought that maybe the random really wasn't random. If this is the case it would be reasonable to think that they would use this to make the game more addictive. Since then I've noticed a few things; after taking 2 month off then opening packs, I got 5 legendaries in 40 packs; if I lose or win multiple games in a row my rng will flip to counter my streak; decks like spell mage are extremely powerful because they constantly add random cards to your hand, which could be weighted to give you what you need in a certain situation. Now I realize that this could be confirmation bias at work, but if Blizzard wanted to maximize playtime for their game, it would only make sense that they would use "fixed rng".
To answer the question of why I clicked on the video, I thought this would be some new news on the state of hearthstone. Though it wasn't particularly new information, having words to describe the psychology is nice. Thank you Solem for being non-ragey.
Color coded bookshelf deserves a like
1.i watch your vids every so often
2. i saw the word “trick” “money” and “Blizzard” and i’m like yeah a hot topic, prolly has a lot i(everyone) can agree on.
Sunk Cost Fallacy is something I feel like is very relevant with Hearthstone players. No one wants to drop a game they put so much time and money into, yet people are still choosing to quit. I feel like that says enough about this new system to incite some changes.
This is why I play evolve shaman every expansion lmao
It's honestly one of those decks that never gets boring, not matter how many times you play it. Sadly, I disenchanted my evolve cards and legendaries just to stay relevant in Standard. Now I'm chilling in Wild trying to have fun from time to time with old decks that I really loved and couldn't disenchant!
Why did I click the video was actually the first thing i ask myself when I clicked this video, incredibly impress with you solem
Response to the question "why I clicked the video?": I like solem, not hearthstone, in fact I'm rely interested in hearthstone demise and eventual death so people start playing games with less micro-transactions and more heart put into them, nowadays hearthstone is more of a heavy stone you carry in your pocket than a fantasy hearth where you can escape your problems.
For me, it’s watching content creators play fun decks and deck archetypes that I want to try out but don’t have nearly enough cards to play. I’d say my overall favorite deck style is either Highlander decks or combo decks, both of which require a high amount of legendaries and epics to create. I’ve not spent money on the game aside from buying the league of explorers adventure and the welcome bundle (of which I got onyxia from rip). As much as I’d like to spend money on the game to have fun with these decks, I can’t with my situation and have to resort to constantly dusting my collection down to the bare bones just to play a deck, which certainly could fuel that desire for some people.
The crafting dust costs. I was under the impression (and still am) that it would be inefficient to craft all the cards I wanted from old sets I did not have, so I ended up buying a 60 pack of GvG. When I probably could have crafted most of what I wanted, but it didn't feel like I was organically building my collection that way. Same thing with adventure cards. If you craft some adventure cards and then later buy the adventure, you're wasting your dust getting duplicates that you crafted.
Now, you can just buy Wild packs with gold, so you're not faced with that choice as much
i remember clearly big streamers mention hidden win/lose rate ration that is like 60% to win a game and 40% to lose a game thats why you see many decks in hearthpwn or other websites staying near that range , ever notice you win a match and next match you face someone 100% counter your deck easily ? yeah thats why , one of big streamers try to do it off stream with different account and he notice massive difference , which means many twitch streamers their accounts can be rigged to win more often but not 100% chance ( player skill aside i mean what he play and what he facing and probability of it ) its main reason i quit hearthstone
Games like this and Gacha games prey on FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. You mentioned this as well with the Mecha Jaraxxus hero frame. Tons of players feel the need to buy something that is promoted as a one time only deal, even though it maybe obtainable a different way later. Basically any game with microtransactions has that now.
Bro I'm a psychology student and I literally watched this video RIGHT after your lecture on anchoring.
Blizzard tricked me with the Old Gods this time. I love those creatures and their lore so much.
tbh the most fun moments in trolden videos are thijs getting as unlucky as humanly possible
It made me happy to see you featured on the launcher yestoday.
Thank you for voicing these concerns.
I love hearthstone but i hate hearthstone marketing team
I clicked on the video because it was revelant and nothing more or less^^ To be honest one thing you can add on the list is the fact that new cards are more and more powerful so even if you bought every card from the last year, they will look useless, in comparison of the newest. For example, the Demon warlock card that deals 3 damage to all non-Demon minion is something that would have not been designed before.
Still we can be positive : at some point the winrate will be exactly 50% because the first to play will OTK the opponent turn 1 haha.
I just wanted to point out what I think is a really good example of anchoring, though it's not from Hearthstone, it's from Magic Arena. Magic Arena has special card styles that can be applied to your cards for extra flair, kind of like golden cards in Hearthstone. The thing is that these card styles cost a ridiculous amount of money, like over $5 for a single card style (though it's in in-game currency to help obfuscate the price). It's obviously a rip-off, but the fact that they set the price so high means that they can later discount the card styles temporarily to make people think they're getting a better value, even though the high starting price is totally arbitrary. Card styles are also put as rewards into battle passes and other pay-to-enter events for similar reasons, to help inflate the sense of value you get from buying them.
6:09 ive actually suspected this in HS for a long time, that I just happen to be facing say unlikely match ups several times in a row with a niche deck against another less commonly played deck that counters it. Or I play the mirror with the cards missing from mine that I need to complete the deck, also multiple times in a row. To the point where it just makes me want to stop playing the deck until I get the new cards.
Part of me just assumed everyone else im playing already has all of the cards, or at least all of the cards for one specific deck they will play.
Hearthstone in 2016: Use skills to win
Hearthstone in 2020: Use credit card to win
you lost the point
It sure was skillful when Pavel got lethal from babbling book eh?
Hearthstone was never a game of skill.
Hearthstone was more p2w and took more skill years ago. After you spent certain amount of money, and got what you needed, that was it, you were all set. Now you can win with just about anything cause god bless fking rng, and god bless the fact that every 10th card in hearthstone does something random. Nowadays ppl just spend money to have fun, you don't have to spend money to win, and you can win with pretty much anything, same way you can lose with anything regardless of cost and skill/knowledge you got of your deck, cause god fucking bless rng.
It feels like years ago, in legend vs silver match, legend would win in 99% of games, and in 1% silver would win, due to rng, and nowadays it feels more like 95% of the time legend would win, 5% silver, and depending on what decks each of them use it could go all the way to 70/30.
Solem is my favorite Wild hearthstone creator.
You picked the BEST chess clip that exists to date that fully undermines your point about chess being less entertaining than Yogg
but thanks for the vid its cool
Link please!
Isn't that how you are supposed to build arguments? Put the opposing argument in the strongest possible light and defeat it so there is no question that your viewpoint is right? What's the point of strawmanning your opponent, you ain't convincing anyone like that.
@@Fuskobot
Clip starts at around 1:50 and it's crit1kal's pure joy and commentary that makes it so much greater in comparison to the horror on everyone else's face lol
ruclips.net/video/ekMVSQBlSOo/видео.html&ab_channel=penguinz0
@@ruukinen the probleem is that he didnt defeat the argument
Best chess clip that exists?????????????????????
I don’t even play hearthstone anymore but I still watch all of your videos
I'm late and you probably won't see this but the game you were thinking of wasn't CoD (maybe it was but here's a familiar story anyways!), it was Destiny 2. Season pass content/raids and other dlc would be released, people would get better gear and those without that gear would be intentionally matched into people WITH it, so they would see and desire them.
I clicked on this video because the title got me thinking. Pretty interesting video, well done.
Been playing for 5 years
*Still haven't gotten my first golden legendary*
I only got 2
My only one was that useless piece of shit grull and i already had a non golden grull needless to say i quit
Play at the beginn of Hearthstone and have 18 golden legendary. i have create some with dust but not more then two. And gz for your first golden card :D
@@dermilestailsprowerbeutel6644 my first (and probably last) lgolden legendary was Millhouse manastorm..i will never have dust to craft golden legendary of my choice because u know,3200 dust is like grinding forever
@@Rxdriguezz Is it random that Millhaus manastorm and your Avatar first and last name begins with the same letters xD
Great video. I stopped putting monry in the game after Uldum and was able to play at rank 5 to legend as a F2P in the Galakrond and Demon Hunter expansions, but know I have nothing else to disenchant. I havent played since April and seeing all the shit Blizzard has been pulling recently, I'm happy I stopped. Its crazy how you are supposed to spend 50 AUD every 4 months to play. Shit is more expensive than Netflix.
I think it would be better if Hearthstone had like a membership where you pay something like 10 bucks every month and you get access to every card.
Best video you've ever done tbh. This gave me so much to think about
It’s very funny on the fact that rng is the biggest factor in Hearthstone. One time, I accidentally clicked on competitive with my mage spell deck, with the spell quest and Reno hero. I meant to just play normal, but I didn’t really want to lose some rank, so I played anyways. The warlock I fought was so much better than me, but because of the bs I was able to pull out with my quest and then Reno saved me from a game where I was two hits away from dying. The rng was just too big on my end. And even playing that same spell deck, unchanged from last expansion, playing it when people still bring serious decks into casual play I still bs wins because of how much random I get, so much to the point where I am debating on focusing on that deck for comp rather than the serious decks I have built.
Hey Solem. Can you maybe make a video on witch books you read, have read or intend to read, and if you choose to do so, i would like to know why you read the books you do, and why you read the books you did, and why you intend to read some other books in the future.
Maybe thats an idea for a video on your second chanel. Love your hearthstone videos btw
9:14 lol i haven't played clash of clans in years but recently started trying it again. I played it when I watched this video and then you mentioned it.
Also why I clicked on this video: Cause you're entertaining ofcourse
I play the trifecta of card games: yugioh, mtg, and hearthstone. The ability to buy singles on a market is so satisfying and adds a player based sub-economy to the game. Hearthstone doesnt have one so I just don't put money into the game (may have put ~20 dollars over the past 4 years). The thing is, the player economy incentivizes me to buy packs because now I'm chasing after cards that could give me a return on value. If blizzard added a market place where i could sell my eysor for 800 dust, both the buyer and seller would be winning out.
I think you might have been right on the legendary (even if there is no way to prove it) around 2012 or 2013 when I was playing, I would be using a deck full of commons (I'm poor) so I would often be playing with people who also had commons. However, at least two of their cards would be legendaries, and I would nearly always die to them whenever the legendary was summoned. So I put my only legendary card, ragnaros, into my deck, and now I had people with slightly less common cards, and two to three legendaries. Since legendaries against a common almost always resulted in a lose, I stopped playing the game for a year.
It's harder to seen nowadays since with the free deck, almost everyone is playing along the meta, meaning near all the cards are expected. If you all play meta, feel free to throw one or more outside the meta just to mess with everyone. Golden transfer student ftw
As a relatively new player, I tried the older extensions like the "witch hunt" with 4 hunters.
Still full price and not updated anymore. I had huge issues because the last boss uses new spells, which were not available at the time of the expension. So Blizzard does not check or update them, even not limit the cards to a certain time. But charges full price.
They just do not care. That's it.
Regardless of the many errors and bugs upcoming each "update"
Great video! @Solem I have found once you understand psychological marketing principles it is easier to avoid their allure. Thank you for making such an awesome video dude! Financial education is always important :)
Solem is a beast. Love your content not specifically because of heartstone but I love the twist your personality gives to it. Thanks for such quality content
The set rotation benefits blizzard more than it helps new players since rotating cards go obscene due to only being usable in wild. Thus you have to rebuy new cards to play standard.
What about this? Blizzard creates a subscription system for Hearthstone. You pay "€" for the subscription and get ALL the cards in the game (or atleast most of them). This would still make them money and I think alot of people would actually buy this instead of gambling.
Hah, joke's on them. Been playing for way too many years without spending a dime on the game. Not fueling the greedy, lying, dumpster trash that is blizzard.
Choo-choo!
This is the first expansion I haven't spent any money on, and won't until I run out of gold and can't stay relevant with the two classes I play anymore.
@bokeh18 That's what I'm saying, I didn't spend any money this xpac, and I won't again unless they change things significantly.
The only time I really wanted to spend money on the game was when the n'zoth skin for warlock was available, but I'm glad I held myself back. Sick portrait tho.
ive been f2p since league of explorers. It feels like im attempting a challange
You're probably right about the matchmaking thing. If I'm not mistaken, Activision was the company that patented this type of matchmaking.
Not sure if this is still true, as I don't really play too much anymore, but the discover mechanic; it used to be weighted towards the newest expansion, and the class of the player as a secondary condition, (if it can fulfill both, great) . I definitely think that it was (or is) intentional design as to get any new players exposed to the newest cards, even in a game that doesn't have any new cards being used they could always be "randomly" generated. New card sees play, maybe you buy packs to get it etc etc
This is nothing I can hard confirm, as I never bothered to do the math and play 5000 stonehill defenders but I did play a lot from around un'goro to a couple of expansions ago (and still used discover cards) and it's definitely something I noticed
Wow that music at the end of the vid hit me with some serious nostalgia
I think I know something that would make a lot of people happy and that would be a standard and wild format with only commons. crafting is low and buying packs would get you most if not everything you want hell getting a useless legendary would be almost a good thing because you could get the dust and make every other card you would need for your decks.
finde sollten mehr solcher videos existieren. hoffentlich unternimmt blizzard etwas das bisschen gold da istn anfang aber nicht wirklich zu friedenstellent
evtl würde ich mir den arenapass auch lieber kaufen wollen als in als belohnung zubekommen , jedes stück gold zählt für die nächste erweiterung :) mach weiter so solem
When they redesigned the in-game store interface last year, they changed the default purchase option on packs from the '100 gold' option to the '$9.99' option. I can absolutely guarantee you that some people went to the store to try and buy packs with gold, and accidentally bought the 10$ pack bundle. Another example of insidious greed-first game design.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some time ago I read a post that claimed Hearthstone improved the RNG of drafts in Arena and card packs for certain streamers. It wouldn't surprise me tbh.
I agree everything you said about HS in this video. Blizzard should separate hero portraits from card packs instead of making bundles, even though I know it’s not gonna happen.
I'm watching this video with my drunk friend, and he was like "Woaaahhh... this lads so good at hearthstone" when Solem begin to talk about his books collection and psychology
I subbed before you even said "why not consider subscribing" lol.
This was such a fascinating video! Thanks for putting so much time and thought into it.
What was funny is for the longest time I was only free to play, then I got into the competitive world of Hearthstone, and someone found out I was free to play and said after a really bad loss “you don’t have all the cards? Then what did you expect?!” After that I put $20 into my collection and immediately saw a jump in my wins.
There's this sneaking suspicion I've had for years about spending money. I've always felt that buying packs with real money gives you much better rewards than using gold. I've tried to buy in bulk with gold to emulate the money purchases to try to weed out biases. While that was inconclusive, I do feel like the game gives you higher chances of hitting epic and legendary cards when you spend real money.
I doubt it, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Solem: Across your entire friends list
*looks at friends list*
Me: *cries*
That outro made me sub, nice going!
I've stopped playing hearthstone 3 years ago, and today I've subscribed because this was a very well made and interesting video
(yes, I've clicked on it because the title was interesting)
When you get your first rank, you have a 10x star multiplier. Hence, your MMR is rigged, and you encounter either other new players (majority) or some ex-legend players.
6:45 "RNG is random", that Made me think of the 5/4 Hunter minion that awakens and attacks a "random" character. Ive been counting the outcomes of that. Interesting: on 24 situations where it had 50 % chance to hit a minion, it hit face 18 times.. I must be very unlucky
I know 24 is not enough to make any assumptions. 1000 samples would already give a good result. But no player collects that much data, meaning they can code their cards with random effects as they wish, we wont be able to verify it
10:54 hey watching Charlie beat xqc was one of the best things to ever be recorded on video
I clicked on this video because you make good, reasonable points in your videos
Holy shit.. I had that exact moment on my 1st play of expansion.. guy had golden yogg and fully decked , deck of new cards.
I never understood one thing:
-In the OG days of hearthstone there was 1 expansion and 1 adventure a year. You obtained cards just as fucking slow as the new system(maybe you got more actually) , but you had more time to collect the cards. There were complains from less patient people but not as mutch as in recent years, now it is not enough to just complete the daily quests, you need extra 30-40 gold from wins, aka playing 1-1.5 hours to stay with copetitive collection. I think the solution is simple - revert to the original system and give the players 1.5x more gold than before.
You've missed how important adventures were. Adventures were the most accrued progression for the cost they've ever done - for a flat one time fee you received every card. No collecting, no missing out, no gambling, pity timers, RNG - you got the all the cards, could play all the decks using them, and you got them right away.
This was the fairest model, but of course, the least greedy. And so they stopped making adventures, replacing them with gambling expansions instead. Now it takes 10-100x the amount of money to get every card.
@@Thanatos2k true
Interesting Video! Wouldnt mind if you make more like this.
In fact it seems like hearthstone's card draw and randomness isnt completely random. At least thats what i experienced,when i *almost* hit legend multiple times in different seasons and lost over and oder again when i was just one win away. And i lost because of Bad draws.
Probably the best and more interesting video you've done ever. Every day seems that Hearthstone is like a casino. I spent 20€ in packs last expansion and got legend and payed lot of hours. I'm out of dust and only have like 30% legenderys. PAY FOR FUN.
3:28 that perfectly sums up the situation I am in. However I been trying my best to not buy everything that appears, such as new hero portraits, adventure wings, extra packs with money, etc.
I am still buying expansions though, hopefully I can slowly stop doing that too