Pack opening data suggests no significant decrease in legendaries drop rate for Un'Goro [source: pitytracker.com]

But shouldn't the drop rate reflect the card type representation as a percentage of the expansion in question? Not just overall being about the same? Otherwise it's a legitimate concern to say that the game has gotten more expensive when A) we're doing s3 expansions a year now, so that's more expensive with number of lelegendaries (and other rarities), and number of cards, per expansion held consistent and B) They just printed one of those expansions with the same drop rates but a decently higher number of legendaries in the packs.

I'd assume there is an argument for not needing all legendaries due to individual card use value and building specific decks, plus also the dust value ending up being the route to complete a set - not, as it were, expecting to open more packs and get all the legendaries that way.

But I disagree with those arguments. Cost to play and collect should be relatively same - regardless of what number and rarity they print in a set.

Let's compare it to a AAA title with yearly updates. Call of Duty, for instance. How much can you expect to pay for a new COD installment? How much then for considered mandatory DLC/Season Passes for multiplayer?

Does Activision, son of Activision-Blizzard, make about $150 a year off a COD title? That seems outrageous but let's say they do. If you put $150 a year down on COD, I sure a shell hope you're getting basically all the content.

If you put down $150 a year on Hearthstone, that gets you... 3x $50 preorders (in the US, probably more expensive relative to other regions). This doesn't even scratch the surface of getting all of a set, and we no longer have at least one adventure to look forward to for a cheap guarantee set, even if smaller.

Why should a digital card game cost so much more? Call it F2P all you want, but the reality is that the gold grind isn't feasible to complete a set or even get enough from a set without destroying you ability to play wild (dusting rotated sets) and also cards you don't think you'll use... Which sucks not just because you might use them but because you collected them and now they're gone. Even then, the gold grind can be looked at via an hourly wage thing. Is a F2P player playing the game they want for the first month or two - effectively half an expansion time before another expansion - if they don't have access to the cards they'd like to play? Is it wrong to want to earn cards and keep them without kneecapping the F2P aspect? SOMETHING has to give here. Either card pack price decreases, rarity drop rate adjustments, dust value increases, SOMETHING!

CoD, for all it's issues (and I'm not a fan) can be obtained cheaper as time goes on and it's eventually replace with a new installment. At a minimum, the base gets cheaper and eventually complete versions are made available. Hearthstone's old expansions stay the same price until they rotate, at which point they are effectively far more expensive to craft based on dust cost for packs.

And with COD, the development and maintenance costs is significantly far more than Hearthstone, yet it costs significantly less to access all the content. They assigned multiple entire development teams just to ensure yearly releases, as reach team then has multiple yearw for their release. Team 5 is smaller and a single team pulling in far more value.

Idk where I missed wanting to say this so I'll just put it here:

F2P is only viable in so much as you're trying to not spend money and do as best you can. Residing that urge quickly flies out the window when you want to achieve anything else, like be competitive in a new meta, or try out new decks to vary play more and test things (costly if you constantlty rotate in and out niche cards you aren't sure if you will keep playing). You quickly rationalize the cost per hour grinding gold vs an hour of wages from work. Even at low minimum wages, it's still a no brainier that working an hour and paying provides far more valueable play and time savings versus grinding for gold if you are avoiding the masochism of a "I'm a F2P player" mantra.

Do they really even want that player? Well no, catering to them would be bad if thst pereon could get everything reliablt without wanting to spend money. But they can still do it... The problem isn't the F2P player, who isn't the paying customer. Their experience should require a lot of time and effort. The problem is the average player who is glad to spend a bit of money to enjoy the game; the average player cost outside of F2P is way too high!

/r/hearthstone Thread Parent