LogFAQs > #947574406

Something about the needlessly condescending post inspired me to respond. A couple quick notes: First, I haven't formed a strong opinion on the rewards track as of yet, and am waiting to see if Blizzard responds with more info about the 'seasonal events' that they said are happening and/or if they make more changes (like the changes they already made to make later levels give gold instead of packs). Second, remember that Blizzard implied (and at times outright stated) that everyone would be better off with the new system. Therefore, if there are notable (and not just edge cases) instances of players who will see a negative return compared to the old system then Blizzard either lied or was wrong and that is a reasonable source of consternation.

dowolf posted...

Old system quests got you 420 gold/week. New system gets you 13k XP/week. At levels past 50, 4.5k XP is worth exactly 150 gold, so that's 433.33 gold/week. We're slightly ahead in the new system!

Here is the first issue, and it's quite major. 2,500 of that XP is locked behind a quest requiring 7 wins in constructed. This quest can't be rerolled. Therefore, those arena/BGs/casual/tavern brawl players you mentioned later are, at least for the time being, ALWAYS missing out on 2,500XP per week. This means they are getting 10,500XP per week, equating to 350 gold by your calculations. This leaves them significantly behind the 420 gold/week you assigned to them from the old system. The fact that tavern brawls don't count for quests is a baffling omission, and the highest XP quest being locked behind a single game mode is also ridiculous.

I'm also going to quibble a bit with a blanket assumption that a level is 150 gold, because as you stated that is only the case starting at level 51. Even if we grant 13k experience a week (which won't be the case for anyone not willing to grind some constructed every week), and assume 1 hour of playtime a day at 300XP a day, then after 16 weeks you are looking at a player hitting level 60. That means the vast majority of their time in the rewards track will be spent before getting the blanket 150 gold per 4500 experience. You'd have to figure out the average rewards per XP for the first 50 levels (which requires making a lot of assumptions about value of non-gold items as you've said). The math could work out for some people, but many people would prefer straight gold and would prefer it as front loaded as possible because what many players want are new packs and they want them as early into the expansion as possible.

dowolf posted...

That brings us to Ranked. Let's assume you're playing control and your average match time is 10 minutes. In the old system, this gets you 10 gold/hour. 400 XP is worth 13.33 gold. You're ahead!

Looking at HSReplay data for the 6 decks they list at Tier 1 at the moment we get an average match duration of 6.65 minutes. Using your assumptions (3 wins is 10 gold, 50 percent winrate), you are looking at 15 gold per hour under the old system and not 10. Ranked seems to be in quite an aggro meta at the moment. There are only 2 decks in Tier 1 or 2 that get to 10 minutes.

dowolf posted...

the bundle they just put in the store is absurdly valuable for anyone on a shoestring budget

I'm not sure how you get to 'absurdly valuable' from the current offer. The bundle is 20 Scholomance packs and 2 random legendaries for $20. Giving Scholomance packs a value of 40 dust (aka 40 gold) and the legendaries a value of 400 dust (aka 400 gold) gives you a total of 1600 gold in value which is of course terrible value. Now, some people would value these things at a much higher gold/dust amount but 1600 would be the minimum. Scholomance packs will be quite close to 40 dust for anyone that played through the last expansion, and since the legendaries are random they could easily be worth 400 dust if they are for a class you don't play (perhaps because you can't build a deck because you haven't sunk the requisite time/money needed to have a decent deck for all classes) or because you get a crappy legendary. Maybe you do get lucky and get the perfect legendary to build a deck you wanted, but relying on chance to maximize your value would be, in my view, the antithesis of 'absurdly valuable'.

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