I haven’t had a chance to dig into LOTRO: The Warden’s Return (self titled) with all the fun holiday shenanigans on the go. I have been playing Hearthstone daily and I have noticed a curious reoccurrence to my playing pattern. I just play to finish the daily quest(s).
This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me because the reliance on daily quests to advance in WOW made me quit the game.
This does  makes sense in one regard – it isn’t WOW and since it is beta, and I’m not spending money in the beta (although they are offering you a free, special card if you give them money during beta – limited 1 per player) I can only advance myself in a couple methods. One is levels, which you get a bit of XP every game. From what I can tell levels only help to get free, class specific cards (which you can get other ways as well). They are reskins (gold) from regular old cards. Most of that is not motivating for me. A gold framed card with some moving graphic elements is just as handy to me as the plain one that does the same thing.
The second advancement is by getting new packs of cards (5 to a pack) and there are two ways. Spend $$ (which I already shared I am not willing to do in this beta) or get points. You need 100 points to get a deck of cards, and there are two ways to get points without spending money.
1) Win three games. Not in a row or during a specific time frame – every 3 games you win you get 10 points. So 30 wins for a deck.
2) Finish any quests that may be available at the time. I have had three at the most, and I believe you get one a day. So if you skip a couple days you have a few extra quests waiting. In my experience, these quests give 30 to 60 points so it is always worthwhile to do. They also do a good job of forcing you to play other characters as some quests are win X games as a Y (Paladin, Shaman, etc.)
Matchmaking is feast or famine depending on who else is on at the time so you might win 3 in a row and then lose 10. It is a slow grind to 100 points. So the wins in (1) above are just in the normal time frame of trying to complete (2).
(2) is the way to go. I log in, do my quests and then….
Logoff. After getting the efficient points I find there isn’t much else motivating me to play. Don’t get me wrong I’m having fun but there isn’t anything else to do after that. There is RANKED play but right now that is filled with people who have these crazy cards I can’t get without spending a lot of money or a ridiculous amount of time doing activity (1). I am limited on what I can do with (2).
This makes me think about other games and what has M2P in the past and it was a combination of leveling, gearing, and people. Definitely not in that order.