There’s a typo in the “More rewards” part.
What’s written is : “Even just one rank below – at Rank 5 – […]”
What I believe should be written is : “Even just one rank below – at Rank *6* – […]”, because the rewards mentioned afterwards are rank 6 rewards, not rank 5.
I’m cautiously optimistic about this rank system update.
Strictly speaking, better end-of-month rewards and new first-time rewards are a huge plus, while adding ranks and leagues should be fine as long as the star multipliers are correctly balanced.
But reaching these rewards will be a vastly different experience. Previously, if I reached rank 1 or Legend on a month, I could take it easy even in the next month, because I was guaranteed rank 5 or 4 rewards with near equal value. Now, winning up to your previous rank, even if facilitated, is mandatory to earn similar rewards.
That’s also a reason why I’m not sure about pure MMR based matchmaking : facing players of similar ELO consistently from Bronze 10 up to last month’s rank – and further – will most likely also make every match a challenge. Although star multiplier does mean you can get by early with even below 40% winrate, this will definitely slow down the climb. Analyzing the meta could also be more inconsistent as sorting data by rank can’t include players’ average ELO ranking since it’s hidden until Legend : data of players from many different levels could be mixed at Bronze 10 at least early in the season. But I’ll wait until the first meta reports to see if it ends up like this.
Anyway, I think this new system will be a grind for everyone to reach same or better rewards as last month. The new reward help players long-term, but not day-to-day. For example, I would have liked to see a rework of daily quest and of the “10 gold per 3 win” system to make playing Hearthstone lightly (like 5-10 games) accumulate slightly over a pack’s worth of gold, while of course not allowing extreme gold farming. That would help more with the F2P experience than this ranked system overhaul imo, playing casually is way less tiring than grinding dozens of games, as long as the player is fine with only barely maintaining their current Standard collection.
Even moreso since a 10th class is coming, with 15 new cards to every set from now on. This also counterbalances the new end-of-month and first-time rewards, since sets will cost more to acquire. At least, duplicate protection on all rarities will also help.
So I think there’s a lot of give and takes with this new ranked system, especially since nothing has changed for daily rewards. Still, potentially earning more Epic cards, packs, and even a Legendary card per month sounds pretty good. I hope this system fares even better than my expectations.
Lastly, adding leagues makes it convenient to market this reworking to players, but I can’t help but feel that there might be league-based events coming later on. That would be hype!
There’s a typo in the “More rewards” part.
What’s written is : “Even just one rank below – at Rank 5 – […]”
What I believe should be written is : “Even just one rank below – at Rank *6* – […]”, because the rewards mentioned afterwards are rank 6 rewards, not rank 5.
I’m cautiously optimistic about this rank system update.
Strictly speaking, better end-of-month rewards and new first-time rewards are a huge plus, while adding ranks and leagues should be fine as long as the star multipliers are correctly balanced.
But reaching these rewards will be a vastly different experience. Previously, if I reached rank 1 or Legend on a month, I could take it easy even in the next month, because I was guaranteed rank 5 or 4 rewards with near equal value. Now, winning up to your previous rank, even if facilitated, is mandatory to earn similar rewards.
That’s also a reason why I’m not sure about pure MMR based matchmaking : facing players of similar ELO consistently from Bronze 10 up to last month’s rank – and further – will most likely also make every match a challenge. Although star multiplier does mean you can get by early with even below 40% winrate, this will definitely slow down the climb. Analyzing the meta could also be more inconsistent as sorting data by rank can’t include players’ average ELO ranking since it’s hidden until Legend : data of players from many different levels could be mixed at Bronze 10 at least early in the season. But I’ll wait until the first meta reports to see if it ends up like this.
Anyway, I think this new system will be a grind for everyone to reach same or better rewards as last month. The new reward help players long-term, but not day-to-day. For example, I would have liked to see a rework of daily quest and of the “10 gold per 3 win” system to make playing Hearthstone lightly (like 5-10 games) accumulate slightly over a pack’s worth of gold, while of course not allowing extreme gold farming. That would help more with the F2P experience than this ranked system overhaul imo, playing casually is way less tiring than grinding dozens of games, as long as the player is fine with only barely maintaining their current Standard collection.
Even moreso since a 10th class is coming, with 15 new cards to every set from now on. This also counterbalances the new end-of-month and first-time rewards, since sets will cost more to acquire. At least, duplicate protection on all rarities will also help.
So I think there’s a lot of give and takes with this new ranked system, especially since nothing has changed for daily rewards. Still, potentially earning more Epic cards, packs, and even a Legendary card per month sounds pretty good. I hope this system fares even better than my expectations.
Lastly, adding leagues makes it convenient to market this reworking to players, but I can’t help but feel that there might be league-based events coming later on. That would be hype!