Progression Changes Aimed At Getting Players To Play More Did The Exact Opposite, So Hearthstone Has New Progression Updates Inbound

We're getting ever closer to the launch of Hearthstone's "The Great Dark Beyond" expansion on November 5th. This is the card game's expansion that will add Draenei minions, the Starship keyword, and bring back the Spellburst keyword, among other updates.

When the expansion drops, the team will be making a few key changes to their progressions system. Yes, you may be saying, "they just did that, didn't they?" You'd be right. Earlier this year, Hearthstone made changes to daily and weekly quests specifically aimed at their more committed players. The changes hoped to both reward those that played often and to encourage others to play more often.

As it turns out, those changes had the exact opposite effect.

More casual players played even less as the rewards took longer to obtain, and more committed players felt the weekly quests in particular were a huge chore.

The new changes will aim to reverse this trend with 3 key updates. First, weekly quests are being reverted back to their pre-patch 29.2 state. This means their XP amounts are restored as is their lower time to completion. Second, the rewards track will see 5 of its "50 Gold" reward slots updated to be packs of the latest expansion instead. Four "The Great Dark Beyond" packs will be added to the Tavern Pass, too. Third, the Tavern Brawl reward pack will no longer be part of the standard set, it'll be from The Great Dark Beyond.

If you're curious why these changes weren't added earlier if players were playing less, the team's post explains that as well. The team wanted to wait one full expansion cycle to collect data, and they also felt that lining up the quest changes with the rewards track changes were better completed at the same time. They will, however, continue to monitor these changes and are willing to adjust quests mid-expansion, if needed.

You can expect more details on these changes and more coming when the team drops their full Rewards Track preview post closer to The Great Dark Beyond's launch.