Power Creep in Hearthstone (and other CCGs)

[hyzmarca]

Thanks to Zug and Shlo though. I did not think I'd ever find somebody who'd say "Hearthstone isn't pay to win, but Chess is."

I've been trying to to convince the World Chess Federation to introduce a new piece that can teleport anywhere on the board and automatically capture all adjacent pieces, but costs $20 every time you play it.

So far they've been unconvinced.

[talozin]

My definition is that you can't win in a pay to win game without paying or that you automatically win as long as you pay.

So, following the first branch of that definition ("can't win ... without paying"): suppose the existence of a game we'll call Darthstone. Darthstone is free to play, and it is provably true that a free-only player can win a game. However, the odds against the appropriate circumstances required for that to happen actually occurring in any individual game are so low that if every person in the world played Darthstone for the expected lifespan of the universe, there would still be less than a 50% chance of any of those free players actually winning a game. If they don't win, they either lose (if they play someone who spent money), or draw (if they play another free player).

Is Darthstone pay to win? If so, approximately how high do a free player's average odds of winning against a paid player have to be before it is no longer pay to win? If not, how do you reconcile that viewpoint with the reality that in practice, no free player is ever going to win or even hear about a free player winning a game their lifetime?

[Username17]

Really? I assumed that position was a stupid strawman that noone actually held.

Yeeah. I'm pretty weirded out by where this conversation has gone as well. When I suggested that that was the conclusion of Zlug and Shlo's statements, I kinda thought they were going to accuse me of being a strawmanning asshole. Or step back from the abyss and admit that their lame attempts to redefine language were dumb and they should just admit that Hearthstone is a Pay 2 Win game because it's a CCG and literally all CCGs are Pay 2 Win to one extent or another.

I was not expecting them to double down on the insanity and say that my characterization of their stupid argument was completely accurate and they were sticking to it.

Thanks to Zug and Shlo though. I did not think I'd ever find somebody who'd say "Hearthstone isn't pay to win, but Chess is."

Zug's position is that Pay to Win games literally cannot exist, which is one of those stupid sorites positions where you semantically quibble until words have no meaning and then declare that you aren't wrong because that would require words to have positive truth values. But Shlo literally is saying that Hearthstone is not a Pay 2 Win game, but Chess is.



Anyway, the real point is that Zug and Shlo are stupid and wrong and we should point and laugh.

-Username17

[Sir Aubergine]

[...] I don't know how the computer chose the "equal-level-opponent", but after a few game they all have a deck far better than yours; each of their cards is worth two of yours, their card advantage is so high it's basically unplayable.

The thing to remember is that Hearthstone has an extraordinary degree of randomness placed in its design. You can only have two copies of a card (or one in the case of elite minions) in your deck, and there is no way to ensure that you will have the card you need at a crucial moment (unlike MTG and other CCGs). You can have an amazing deck crammed with elite minions, but if you mulligan a hand comprised entirely of mid-game cards and get even more expensive late-game cards, you'll be at an extreme disadvantage.

Though you might have a well constructed deck and play with perfect efficiency, you will still lose games to luck of the draw or power creep. I contend that it is vital to be able to play every class with equal ability, both for the sake of variety and because the contents of new packs are completely randomized.

GâtFromKI, I think be can both agree that the presence of and our frustration with power creep are likely to result in an onerous environment for new players if Blizzard continues to design set after set without increasing the rate at which players can add to their collections.

[shlominus]

Thanks to Zug and Shlo though. I did not think I'd ever find somebody who'd say "Hearthstone isn't pay to win, but Chess is."

don't think i did.

anyway...

Your face.

The gauntlet has been thrown. It has been thrown at your face. Present another definition that makes any sense and conveys any meaning and actually describes anything in the real world or shut the hell up.

-Username17

i actually did that already.

to me a game is pay-to-win if players cannot compete at the highest level unless they pay.

like i said, there is no single widely accepted definition (unless you accept "urban dictionary" ). you gave one, a highly subjective one. what's a "substantial advantage" anyway?

i like the following definitions better:

a player cannot compete at the highest level without spending money - not true in hearthstone, as there are several f2p decks that have been taken to legendary.

there is content that is only available to paying players - not true in hearthstone, everything can be earned in game.

The problem with your definition is that it's stupid and wrong. It conveys no information. All freemium games are not pay 2 win by your definition. All games where you you have to buy a physical product to play the game are pay 2 win by your definition. It's retarded.

So in an LCG, everyone who buys a card set gets the same cards and can make the same decks. By any sane person's definition of pay 2 win, that isn't it. But by your definition, it is, because of course you have to pay to get the card set and be able to make decks at all.

In a freemium game (other than shit like Hat Fortress), you get some game elements for free and can pay money to add additional game elements that give you an advantage. You can pay money to win more and thus by any sane person's definition that's what fucking Pay 2 Win means. But by your mouth breathing definition, that isn't because the free stuff player has any chance of victory at all and thus does not "have to" pay any money to "compete."

So if it seems like maybe people are being mean to you, it's because people are being mean to you. You have put forward and continue to defend a definition of Pay 2 Win which indicates that you are either a drooling idiot who should be kept away from sharp objects or a disingenuous shill who is attempting to destroy communication by trying to make words and phrases become contextually meaningless.

Jesus fuck, in Magic the Gathering, the best modern tournament decks full of rare cards from six different card sets have a win rate of about 70-80% against a pile of cheap aggressive creatures and burn spells. Does that mean that Magic is no more or less pay 2 win than the Game of Thrones game where all players have access to all of the game elements and no player has a financially mediated advantage? Or does it mean that you are a mouth breather whose ideas are bad? I'm leaning towards the latter.

-Username17

what are you talking about?! of course some (most?) freemium games are p2w under my definitions. if they have superior content for paying players or the structure of the game doesn't allow f2p-players to compete in pvp. it's pretty simple really. reread my definitions, it might help. trying to twist my argument to include "buying physical product" as p2w is dumb (and dishonest). obviously my second definition assumes access to the basic tools necessary to play. you'd have to be an idiot or a dishonest fuck to assume otherwise. is this the right time for me to point out your strawman?

you seem to have ignored the part about "being able to compete at the highest level" as a definition, which is possible in hearthstone (at least at this time). care to comment? does this even enter the equation in your mind? what constitutes a "substantial advantage"? this seems a bit vague.

i can't grasp what you are trying to say with that weird rant about magic vs. got. one cannot be p2w by any definiton, the other can be. if cheap or free decks have no chance at reaching the highest levels in magic than it is a p2w game by your definition and mine.

i'll offer the point of view of someone better qualified than myself. probably another drooling, mouthbreathing idiot, considering he doesn't seem to share your definition of p2w. it might be interesting to the more openminded here.

http://bmkgaming.com/free-play-pay-win- ... ible-games

Really? I assumed that position was a stupid strawman that noone actually held.

Yeeah. I'm pretty weirded out by where this conversation has gone as well. When I suggested that that was the conclusion of Zlug and Shlo's statements, I kinda thought they were going to accuse me of being a strawmanning asshole. Or step back from the abyss and admit that their lame attempts to redefine language were dumb and they should just admit that Hearthstone is a Pay 2 Win game because it's a CCG and literally all CCGs are Pay 2 Win to one extent or another.

I was not expecting them to double down on the insanity and say that my characterization of their stupid argument was completely accurate and they were sticking to it.

Thanks to Zug and Shlo though. I did not think I'd ever find somebody who'd say "Hearthstone isn't pay to win, but Chess is."

Shlo literally is saying that Hearthstone is not a Pay 2 Win game, but Chess is.

look frank, try to be at least a little honest here.

i haven't replied to your "conclusion" until now, so it's kind of weird how i already doubled down on anything. almost like you made that up. noone is trying to redefine language either. you have a very broad definition of the term p2w that is not shared by everyone. sure, probably all idiots, but there are people in other corners of the world that use other definitions.

still, using your own definition, as long as people can reach the highest rank in hearthstone with free decks the advantage gained from paying isn't substantial enough to qualify as p2w.

[zugschef]

Frank, I guess that you don't even read the stuff people write before attacking them with childish insults. But hey, it's not like you didn't do that in the reaction rolls thread as well. You stumble over your ego way too often. I could mention that you're writing a lot of great material, but as you've said yourself, after eating a baby you don't become a nice person if you fix all the roofs in your neighbourhood for free. I'd call people who're unable to reflect and don't even try to unterstand other people's opinions stupid. You'd call people who don't share exactly your opinion stupid. Man whatever. Have your lolly.

[Omegonthesane]

Frank, I guess that you don't even read the stuff people write before attacking them with childish insults.

Isn't it traditional to actually point out what the strawman was, specifically, if accusing someone of mischaracterising your position?

Your claim was that Pay To Win is applicable only if payment either is a literal prerequisite for victory or can dominate all other factors to grant you victory. No game that actually exists has these properties.

I'm just going to quote something that you really should address if you want your position in this thread to be credible:

So, following the first branch of that definition ("can't win ... without paying"): suppose the existence of a game we'll call Darthstone. Darthstone is free to play, and it is provably true that a free-only player can win a game. However, the odds against the appropriate circumstances required for that to happen actually occurring in any individual game are so low that if every person in the world played Darthstone for the expected lifespan of the universe, there would still be less than a 50% chance of any of those free players actually winning a game. If they don't win, they either lose (if they play someone who spent money), or draw (if they play another free player).

Is Darthstone pay to win? If so, approximately how high do a free player's average odds of winning against a paid player have to be before it is no longer pay to win? If not, how do you reconcile that viewpoint with the reality that in practice, no free player is ever going to win or even hear about a free player winning a game their lifetime?

[zugschef]

Frank, I guess that you don't even read the stuff people write before attacking them with childish insults.

Isn't it traditional to actually point out what the strawman was, specifically, if accusing someone of mischaracterising your position?

Your claim was that Pay To Win is applicable only if payment either is a literal prerequisite for victory or can dominate all other factors to grant you victory. No game that actually exists has these properties.

No it wasn't. My point was that that's how I understand the term and that people who've got another definition for it will of course come to a different conclusion.

And yes there are games which are only won by those who invest the most money. I even gave an example: european football leagues. And it's not only on the professional level. Amateur teams who afford a player who just didn't make it in the pros usually dominate their regional league. No amount of time will make a team which doesn't spend similar amounts as the top team(s) ever truly competitive. In hearthstone if time is your only ressource, you can be competitive.

In magic you can't play without paying, and if casinos wouldn't cheat with table limits and throwing you out, you would win in the long run if you had a shitload of money to spend. Thus, there are games where you can't play and win without paying and there are games in which you automatically win if you invest enough money. But as said, I respect that other people use the term P2W differently and I understand that my position doesn't make any sense based on this definition. And if you show me a legit dictionary with the definition of the term pay to win backing these people up, I was obviously wrong. But nobody has done that, yet.

[hyzmarca]

and if casinos wouldn't cheat with table limits and throwing you out, you would win in the long run if you had a shitload of money to spend.

No, you really wouldn't. Casinos function at all because the odds are stacked in their favor, quite literally. The more you play, the more money you will lose. Over the long term, you will always lose. Which is why professional vegas gamblers do not play to win, they pay to get comped. If you go slow most of the time, and then speed up when a pit boss is looking at you, they'll think that you're spending more money than you actually are. But people who actually shoot for a multiple big wins always lose. Because the house advantage is the house advantage.

[angelfromanotherpin]

if casinos wouldn't cheat with table limits and throwing you out, you would win in the long run if you had a shitload of money to spend.

Did you just out yourself as a deluded idiot?

http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/house-edge/

[Kaelik]

JUST REMEMBER GUYS, EUROPEAN FOOTBALL IS PAY TO WIN, BUT CLASH OF CLANS ISN'T!

THIS POSITION TOTALLY MAKES SENSE.

ALSO, IT IS FALSE, BECAUSE TEAMS THAT SPEND LESS MONEY SOMETIMES WIN.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

And yes there are games which are only won by those who invest the most money. I even gave an example: european football leagues. And it's not only on the professional level. Amateur teams who afford a player who just didn't make it in the pros usually dominate their regional league. No amount of time will make a team which doesn't spend similar amounts as the top team(s) ever truly competitive. In hearthstone if time is your only ressource, you can be competitive.

"In Smash Brothers: Melee tournaments the most sponsored player tends to win, so Smash Brothers: Melee is pay to win because those sponsors' players win and they throw down the most money" is a stupid statement. The same goes with your football league statement. You pay for better players, but the game is played by the fucking players, NOT BY OWNERS. If the players themselves could hurl cash into the air to get the ball from the other team then it would be pay-to-win, but that isn't how the game works. In Hearthstone the player hurls cash into the air and obtains an advantage, and that is kind of the point of Hearthstone.

Also, your stupid fucking example only proves you wrong. Looking at it from a team owner perspective, Hearthstone cards are your players and you are the owner of your team (also the coach). You can pay money, time, or both for better players. Two teams go up against each other, one who spent only time and one who spent wads of cash and also time. Who wins (Hint: Not the poor person)?

[zugschef]

ALSO, IT IS FALSE, BECAUSE TEAMS THAT SPEND LESS MONEY SOMETIMES WIN.

Now pray tell me which team that isn't top3 money-wise in its national league won the uefa champions league in the past 20 years?

And btw, this is what Sottle, a professional HS-player wrote on the matter:

Just for perspective, I recently started a series on my stream where I took a brand new account on the Asia server, and invested no money into it. These sorts of runs have been done before, but some people question whether they're still possible now that the expansion cards are so important. I played 5-6 days on stream, for 5 hours each, and reached Rank 5 before the Ladder reset, I have no doubt that I would have hit Legend in the first month if I had started earlier, and I will certainly get it this month if I play on that account enough. So yes, starting out with no cards kinda sucks, but if you learn the game quickly, and are efficient with your resources, you can build one or two top level decks quite easily.

As a direct answer, it's pay to save time. There's no way you can argue that Hearthstone fits the definition of pay to win, nothing is hidden behind a paywall. Everything you can unlock with a financial investment, can also be unlocked with a time investment.

[Username17]

ALSO, IT IS FALSE, BECAUSE TEAMS THAT SPEND LESS MONEY SOMETIMES WIN.

Now pray tell me which team that isn't top3 money-wise in its national league won the uefa champions league in the past 20 years?

You are moving those goalposts at tremendous speed. First of all, 12 different teams have won the UEFA Champions League in the last 20 years. I am not going to dumpster dive into their financials, but I'm willing to bet that at least 9 of them were not in the top three of spenders. You should realize that the top single team in spending almost never wins the UEFA Champions League. They usually do pretty well, but the final victory bounces around a lot. There are 32 teams in the group stage, and even a fairly hefty advantage still makes you rather unlikely to win the whole thing.

Which makes your whole position look and sound so crazy to well... everyone. Except Shlomius, because every idiot has a twin. Even if you were right in saying that one of the top three spending teams wins the UEFA Champions League every year, which you are not, you'd still have implicitly failed to support your stance that the team that spends the most always wins. By your own stupid criteria, the thing you say is Pay 2 Win is not.

Your criteria are stupid and wrong. They apply to literally zero games in the history of ever. If we accepted your definition we couldn't have conversations about anything because all phrases would refer only to empty sets.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Now pray tell me which team that isn't top3 money-wise in its national league won the uefa champions league in the past 20 years?

No, because 1) That isn't the standard. If the 3rd highest spending team is the patriots of the league, and wins more often than everyone else, then already your league doesn't match the pay 2 win qualification that you already established.

2) The standard wasn't "win a championship" anyway. Winning 60% of your games as the lowest paying team in the league definitely proves wrong your alleged definition of pay to win.

3) European football basically cannot be any more pay to win than American Baseball, which features no salary cap, and fuck poor teams. And yet, there is a book, that was made into a movie that exists just to describe how some guy found market inefficiencies and exploited them to make his team great. Are you really telling me it is impossible that could happen in football?

3) I don't know the specifics, but I have absolutely no doubt that the championship has been won by a team that wasn't in the top3 in payouts that year multiple times anyway.

As a direct answer, it's pay to save time. There's no way you can argue that Hearthstone fits the definition of pay to win, nothing is hidden behind a paywall. Everything you can unlock with a financial investment, can also be unlocked with a time investment.

Here is the thing. When I hilariously mocked you by showing how your stupid definition means that Clash of Clans isn't pay to win, or Evony, or any other shitty pay to win freemium game that exists on the market, that was funny precisely because if literally any game in the universe is pay to win, it is those games, since the term was invented to apply to specifically them.

So when you come back with some pro player talking about how he could make legendary by grinding 12 hours a day for a month to get the specific cards that allow him to build a legendary deck instead of paying money to do that, that doesn't mean it isn't pay to win. 90% of all stupid freemium games that the term pay to win was invented to describe allow people to substitute laboriously boring grinding for months in place of money. They just also know that no one is going to set months of their life on fire just to get there.

Except, apparently, people who are literally paid to do that, and who still get bored and cop out after a month.

[Leress]

As a direct answer, it's pay to save time. There's no way you can argue that Hearthstone fits the definition of pay to win, nothing is hidden behind a paywall. Everything you can unlock with a financial investment, can also be unlocked with a time investment.

I know these aren't your words Zug, but that is still part of the pay to win criticism of the game. The payment is either time or money to obtain cards, hell some cards can only be obtain by time such as the golden soul-bound cards. Hearthstone is nowhere that bad about it since there are no paywalls.

Pay to win is the term for the criticism of the Free to play model.

[maglag]

Really? I assumed that position was a stupid strawman that noone actually held. A game where you automatically win as long as you pay? That is insane! Can you name such a game? Here's a hypothetical for you. What happens when both players hit the "I win" money hose? I don't even.

It's not a strawman only because you say it is. And rolling your eyes doesn't change it either. The European Champion's League is pay to win or any European football league for that matter. It's the same teams every year, and it's no coincidence that it's the teams which spend the most $$$. There are team sports where that's different. The NFL is a good example. So yes, there are games where you pay and you win because you pay.

The difference is who pays to win.

In the European Champion's League the sponsors pay, but the players themselves don't spend a dime. Heck, they're actually being paid to play!

In CCG however the players themselves need to pay to win.

[shlominus]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

what do you all base your judgement on? win-rate? amount of grind needed? ability to compete? what factor is most important?

is it possible to design a digital ccg that's not p2w (but still profitable) and if so, how? know of any examples that might fit that bill?

[Leress]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

Well good thing that is not the only criteria, huh.

what do you all base your judgement on? win-rate? amount of grind needed? ability to compete? what factor is most important?

Do I have to pay to unlock gameplay effecting options?
Then it is probably pay to win.
Can I pay money to shorten time investment to get content?
Probably pay to win.
Is there gameplay effecting content behind a paywall?
Probably pay to win.

is it possible to design a digital ccg that's not p2w (but still profitable) and if so, how? know of any examples that might fit that bill?

Not a CCG, maybe a LCG

[Username17]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

No. There is no one else unhappy with it at all. People who are unhappy with it are by definition wrong.

A game could be more Pay 2 Win or less Pay 2 Win by having skill and random elements be larger relative to the advantages conferred by purchasable elements. But if there's any advantage you can have by spending more than your opponent, it's Pay 2 Win. That is what the term means. That is what it has always meant since the term was coined.

All CCGs are Pay 2 Win. All of them. No exceptions. And no one is unhappy with that definition except people who are butt hurt about defending their favorite CCG from completely justified criticism.

-Username17

[shlominus]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

Well good thing that is not the only criteria, huh.

that's what i have been trying to get at all along. ah well...

"my favourite ccg"? ahahahahahahaa!!! you moron!

[RadiantPhoenix]

is it possible to design a digital ccg that's not p2w (but still profitable) and if so, how?

• Pay-to-Play: you will never encounter an opponent you can gain an advantage over by spending money, because non-payers are excluded from the sample set.
• Sponsorship: someone else pays you, such as an advertiser.
• Hat Fortress: sell stuff that doesn't actually give players an edge.
• Donations: like hat fortress without the hats.

[brized]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

Look, if you want to run statistical analysis on Hearthstone game results to see if there isn't a statistically significant relationship between money spent on deck and rank, winning % in tournaments, etc. go right on ahead. Prove us all wrong.

Until then, the rest of us will go on doing the mental math well enough to gauge and use "substantial advantage" as a term instead of "statistically significant advantage" when referring to the positive relationship between spending money and winning in games we refer to as "pay 2 win".

[shlominus]

is there really noone else here who is unhappy with the vague and utterly subjective benchmark "substantial advantage" as the only way to tell if a game is p2w?

Look, if you want to run statistical analysis on Hearthstone game results to see if there isn't a statistically significant relationship between money spent on deck and rank, winning % in tournaments, etc. go right on ahead. Prove us all wrong.

Until then, the rest of us will go on doing the mental math well enough to gauge and use "substantial advantage" as a term instead of "statistically significant advantage" when referring to the positive relationship between spending money and winning in games we refer to as "pay 2 win".

contrary to popular belief i don't care if hearthstone is p2w or not and i don't care about proving anyone wrong either (what exactly gave you that idea? frank's method of mindreading? "my favorite ccg" ). my point is that there should be useful benchmarks because there's little to "prove" either way without any. i just wish the statistical analysis you mention was already available for the most popular games. maybe there is and i don't know about it. i'd be interested in those numbers.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Did zug really just argue that because a pro player spent ~30 hours a week grinding and STILL didn't hit legendary during his first month of play that Hearthstone is not pay-to-win?

Holy shit man, 30 hours a week is almost a full-time job. What the fuck?


"I invested 120 hours grinding the most efficient way possible into a new sever and, even though this game is literally my job and thus I am great at it, I still did not obtain the highest rank (or that close to the highest rank). Thus, this game is not pay-to-win."

What the fuck?