Hearthstone - Pay To Win?

Willchill

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Some people argue that the game is pay to win. If you pay money, you get access to the "good" cards (essentially, buying packs gives you more chances to score a legendary / other card). With the cards you need, you can make stronger decks and win more constructed games. They also argue that Naxxramas is just a way to buy some good cards.

I personally disagree with these arguments because everything can be done in Hearthstone without paying, it just takes more time. What are your thoughts?
 

Willchill

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Assuming you got a 40 gold quest every day, it would take only 18 days to get enough to buy a Naxxramas wing with gold.

With 60 gold quests, 12 days.
These aren't including the ten gold you get for 3 wins, either.
 

Vatumok

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I'd say paying players have a big advantage over non-paying players (that haven't put thousands of hours of time in the game), so yeah it's pretty much pay to win. However, the game is still very fun to play and it's not a gamebreaking problem so I do not really mind it.
 

JKangaroo

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It is pay-to-win...
...But at the same time not pay-to-win, and that's largely attributed to it being an online game.

This is basically an argument always used when people refer to collectible card games, which Hearthstone is: Those people who don't put as much money into the game to get the newer or more powerful or more interesting/adaptable cards will most likely have a lesser chance when fighting against a player with more options who did buy the cards.
As almost all card games are based around this notion of collecting cards (by buying them) has almost always been an inherent flaw in card games as they grow larger and larger.
I can say for certain I, who used to love the first few seasons of Yu-gi-oh cards(Pre/slightly after GX), basically can't win when fighting those synchro monsters from... whenever they were released. As far as I can tell they don't even have "Normal type" monsters anymore, they're all effect monsters or otherwise.
This would go into other types of arguments, but in a broad sense, it's an example of card games being somewhat pay-to-win.

However, the great thing about Hearthstone, as you have said, is that I can basically unlock all these cards without having to pay for them as long as I put the hours in.
Frankly I don't, I only play Hearthstone occasionally, maybe like once or twice a month (but I do enjoy many other physical card games, mostly magic, but its still relevant to the question at hand since it happens there too >_>), but even with the basic cards for each class I have I can still stand a fairly decent chance against other players (at least for now...). And if I put more time into the game, the more chances I can get cards, whether from packs or from arena, or from dusting, which is another means of catching up.

So the argument in this case would be... Hearthstone's buying cards is more of a pay-to-skip-ahead for people who don't have all that time or want to have some quick fun rather than unlocking cards rather than strictly pay-to-win.
But this largely rests with people just starting out still having a chance against other players, so the cards have to remain somewhat equal (which is difficult with more expansions/etc).

So while it's not pay-to-win in theory (like sploorks said)
...yet at the same time you could say there are pay-to-win aspects within Hearthstone.
But really that's a flaw that almost all trading card games have to deal with and I'm not sure if there really is a solution outside of a few band-aids or easier means to give out cards (like the dusting system which is quite nice; in the future Blizz could even put designed decks/whatnot on the shop for gold or money which would be nice), but too much would just make it unprofitable.
But for now it's just an inherent mechanic that has to be lived with, whether in hearthstone or other collectible card games. *shrugs*
 
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It's essentially P2W if you don't have the skills to pay for card packs or expansions with Gold. I personally haven't spent a dime on the game, yet have all the Naxx Wings and most of the cards, including the new GVG cards. I like to think this is because I've gotten rather good at the game (Average Arena run for me is 8 wins) so I always make a profit. However, I have invested quite a bit of time into the game. If you don't get profit from arena runs or you simply don't play enough, you're gonna be stuck at rank 15 because lack of decent cards. Another thing is skill though, you can have the best cards in the game because you paid for them yet not "win". Plenty of popular Hearthstone players have tried to show it's not just P2W by taking Free to Play decks all the way to Legend.

All in all depends on the players skill.
 

Shinyshark

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Hearthstone is not a play 2 win game. You could argue saying that all the legendaries are good cards that will infinitely improve your deck and carry you through ranks. This is not the case for all legendaries. A lot of legendaries are tech cards; they are only good for certain match ups and to counter a certain meta. For example, Harrison Jones is a good card when playing against a weapon heavy meta, but not such a good card when playing versus a control deck heavy meta.

Naxxramas gives a lot of good cards, especially Zombie Chow and Haunted critter. Sludge Belcher is an insanely good minion due to it being a sticky taunt minion. It's almost a guarantee to pausing your opponents tempo and it will most likely stop a zoo deck from swarming you. However, there are substitutes for these cards. Whilst not the same card and on a different mana level, Sunwalker is also a relatively sticky minion which has taunt. I would however agree that Naxxramas has some good cards that can't be compared to the current cards. You can obtain these cards without paying real money, but it would take a bit longer. You can get 100 gold per day by winning 30 games (which is very possible, just time consuming) and you can get a minimum of 40 gold extra per daily quest.

To go a bit more in depth about the legendaries; people use those legendaries to fight current metas. For example, when people played a lot of control decks consisting of weapons a lot of good players started putting in Harrison Jones to counter the weapons and get that extra card draw. For those who didn't have Harrison Jones there was the Acidic Swamp Ooze. Then when people started playing sea giants and molten giants people started including Sylvanas Windrunner to counter that.

Now, the new expansion called Black Rock Mountain is going to release new cards that will change the meta. There will be free ways to counter this, but they will obviously have a lower success ratio than the decks that include the effective tech cards but it is very plausible that your deck will have a higher than 50% win ratio as long as you know what to do and what the opponent will play per turn.

In conclusion: Hearthstone is not pay 2 play, but if you don't have the patience to catch up with those who played since beta you will be tempted to pay and cheat in a shortcut.
 
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