Now what you consider relaxation is subjective. What one considers relaxing could in fact give another social anxiety, or other forms of stresses.
The fact is however you are able to relax, and put yourself into a state where your brain can actually release said dopamine; this is very good for you... Regardless of activity. This is just a fact..

And again, your opinion on grinding is also very subjective.. How many games of hearthstone have you actually played? Grinding bots or characters in diablo for example is a far greater grind then any stand alone game of hearthstone... You play as much or as little as you choose. If the cost is stressful - then clearly its not for you.. If you find it to be a grindfest - its clearly not for you. I have played for at least 1/2 of my very incomplete collection, but I'm able to hit legend multiple times - being restricted by cards and decks. There has never been a meta in which I was able to build every tier 1 - 2 deck since the game has started.. ive never felt obligated or pressured into having them either.

Anyways.. You make some fair points, but you're a little closed minded.

This post was edited by Hepzibah on Feb 22 2017 06:24pm

It's too difficult to stipulate everything without getting massively wordy, as I am already a little too wordy as it is. I understand that grinding can be relaxing in certain situations. However, I would argue that any game that requires grinding continuously and without an end in sight is unhealthy.

Here's the explanation in the direct context of Hearthstone:

If you enjoy the tasks required for grinding (that is, winning 30 games for 100 gold in a day, completing quests daily, logging in regularly), then 'grinding' may be relaxation to you. That is, the game to you is the grinding component within the game. Call the game itself the "Game-A", and what you make of the game "Game-B". What "Game-A" encompasses is all parts of the game: Grinding, and the game during non-grinding moments.

Let's define grinding as X, and non-grinding as Y.
Game-A (the actual game) = 0.5x + 0.5y
Game-B (the game played by someone who enjoys the act of grinding as the game itself, thus instantly translating any X values into Y values) = 1.0y

The reason why Game-B = 1.0y (100% non-grinding) is because all values of X (grinding) become Y instantly. That is, grinding is the game, and the game is the game, therefore all components of the game are "The Game". In a "Game-B" scenario, grinding doesn't even exist to the player. The equivalent of this would be comparing me doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter, to someone else who has been doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter for years. For me, it's (mostly) work. For the other person, it may (mostly) be relaxing and enjoyment. So to me, it's 'grinding', and for them the grinding component that I identified is just all 'non-grinding'.

But we have to remember that for X to translate to Y directly, grinding and non-grinding must be identical to the individual. That is, the individual would not identify the tasks attributed to grinding as grinding, but instead they would identify all aspects of the game as just relaxing gameplay. The issue is that X (grinding) and Y (non-grinding) cannot be identical if value is attributed to the benefits of X (grinding). If you attribute value to the rewards provided by grinding, then X cannot be Y, because the enjoyment of X is dependent on the rewards provided by playing. In the case that you attribute value to the rewards provided by grinding, you are playing "Game-A", in which X and Y are separate.

We can then look at components of X (grinding), and Y (non-grinding). Y (non-grinding) may translate roughly to a direct time spent to relaxation returned value. X (grinding) may be broken down further.

X (grinding) could look potentially something like this:
X-1: 30% instant relaxation
X-2: 70% ongoing benefit throughout the immediate range of time that the rewards from said grinding are relevant

You could then take the equation and attribute 30% of grinding into instant relaxation, but then 70% may be ongoing. That 70% may fit into a larger equation that would involve further relaxation return, but you may end up with 50% of the value of X acting like money in the bank that disappears. That is, you are satisfying something in your brain that thinks you have something of value stored away that will be cashed in on later. But... you can never cash in on it.

If I spent the next 5 years thinking I had 40 mil in the bank, but I didn't really, I'd be really really really happy for 5 years. But once the party ends and I need to use that money, man things would suck. With grinding games, that shit never ends. There's always the next thing. If you lose that 40 mil in the bank from Hearthstone, there's still 40 mil in another game. You quit Hearthstone, you don't feel the hit because your bank is elsewhere. Your account gets shut down when you don't have a back-up game to fall on, and man things suck.

Try totally quitting all grinding games, really quit them, don't touch them, don't leave them in a state that you could come back to them. See how you feel. You'll notice that there's a built-up return that you are expecting is no longer there (not the 50% that never comes, not the 30% of grinding that provides instant relaxation, but the 20% that trickles into your life periodically). But you'll also notice very quickly (with the free time you have), that you actually feel even better than before. That amount of joy that trickles into your life from time spent grinding will be replaced by better, more efficiently spent things... you'll just be happier.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Feb 22 2017 06:41pm

So what kind of games fall into the non-grindy category?
Do you recommend we not play anything online - and simply play board games? Any game that you will find on the PC or on console will have some form of grindy component.
You're trying to measure enjoyment on some kind of plausible scale.. Giving x and y examples but the whole logic is flawed; based on it being your opinion and no statistical fact at all.. ?

Cmon man this is next levels of autism we're experiencing on this forum lately.. If you don't like the game kindly fuck off.
Sorry to whoever that offends.. :/

e/ and for someone who has the game uninstalled, youre really not doing yourself any good by posting here about it. Dwelling on the fact or telling people to do as you is actually extremely toxic.
I'm not sure if you realize that or not..

This post was edited by Hepzibah on Feb 22 2017 06:55pm

Brass tax is grinding is usually potentially unhealthy, and it depends on the game and the nature of grinding. If you're spending hours and hours every day grinding (even a couple hours a day), just all the time, it's probably not healthy. Alcohol is potentially unhealthy, but a lot here or a bit there is fine. The very nature of grinding, though, demands you to not stop, and to play at specific intervals for specific amounts of time.

It's a matter of sensory numbness.

Eat too much unhealthy food? Healthy food likely to taste worse.
Masturbate 8 times in a day? Your baseline for arousal in real life and online becomes heightened.
Drunk every single day after 6pm? ... idk

In the case of grinding, it raises your threshold for the amount of effort put into a task, versus the amount of reward provided.

I bet you could correlate hours spent grinding in games per year to a lack of pursuit of successful endeavours, statistically over a population rather than in one specific individual.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Feb 22 2017 07:38pm

PLay a different game.
Hearthstone is not new player friendly at all

Shadowverse, Eternal, Hex, Legends, Yugioh, Faeria all better

This post was edited by FroggyG on Feb 23 2017 10:27am

Why is Yu-Gi-Oh on that list?

I just quit YuGiOh duel links (mobile game). The game is designed to be so grindy and force you to play it for 10-15 minutes every 4 hours at an absolute minimum interval (npc respawn timer)... it was just garbage.

You're still less behind than Hearthstone
Even if only a bit

Nah. I did the math. It's pretty bad.

It would take a long write-up, but it's objectively worse to play Duel Links. It just seems better. Remember Hearthstone before ladder? That's where Duel Links is. Everyone thinks their collection is decent enough because there's no real ladder system in place.

Hearthstone gold per year for grinding: (50 gold per quest per day x 365 days = 18,250) + (10 gold per day from 3-wins per day average x 365 days = 3,650) + (100 gold per week equivalent for completing brawls x 56 weeks = 5,600) + (100 gold equivalent per month for half-assing it in ladder x 12 months = 1200)
Total gold per year for half-assing it in Hearthstone: 28,700 gold (which equates to 287 packs)
Hours required for that degree of grinding: 365 hours approximately (1/day)

Hearthstone release schedule:
1 major set per 8-9 months (requiring 200 packs over time = 20,000 gold)
1 minor set per 8-9 months (requiring 700 gold x ~5 wings = 3500 gold)
Average gold per year required to keep up with Hearthstone: 33,700 (this doesn't include the cost of acquiring previous sets, base set, etc, just the cost of keeping up with current sets in rotation)

How much more gold can you acquire in Hearthstone for additional grinding? Probably around 10 per hour (3 wins per hour), but possibly 20 (6 per hour). Each additional hour of grinding per day generates 3,650 gold per year, if you sustain that for a year.

Any additional gold from Hearthstone? I think you could safely say players get somewhere in the range of 10-20 packs worth of free content a year from expansion release promotions, etc.

How grindy is that? A fair bit, but it's all within a doable range. 2 hours per day every day with efficient grinding equates to having what you want. 730 hours per year.

How accessible is the game if you start paying? About $100-$200 a year in addition to the 1-hour/day grinding would get you every card in the game over time (not instantly).

But as for Duel Links:

1 minor set = 80 packs ~= 240 packs
1 major set = 200 packs ~= 600 packs
Each set must be purchased 3x over in order to acquire 3x of every UR card. There is no dust system to allow players to complete their collection without brute pack opening. You have to keep opening until you get what you need.

Cost of 1 pack = 50 gems.
How many gems do you get for completing all content, collecting apology gems, all quizzes, character levels, account levels, etc? 27,000.

How often do sets come out? Once every 2 months.
How often to sets rotate out? Somewhere in the range of 4-6 months after they first came out. But every card stays in rotation.

How many packs do you need to open in a year to own every card? 2520 packs = 126,000 gems.
How many packs do you need to open right now to own every card? 1680 packs = 84,000 gems.

How many gems do you get if you grind for 1 hour per day, every day? There's a content wall, so this calculation is basically 27,000 (base ~150 hours to level all characters and account to max), plus additional hours spent. One level 40 duelist battle will average you about 3 gems. You can earn enough keys for about 4-5 legendary duelist battles per day, but with more than 1 hour of input per day. Closer to 2-3. That's about 12-15 gems per day. That's 4,927 gems per year, or about 99 packs per year from grinding. There's also about 9 or so gems per day from clicking constantly on things on the map, so another 3285 gems. And then you get about 800 or so gems per month from apology gems, another 9600 per year.

What does that all mean? It means that you need 126,000 gems in a year, but you're given (27000 + 4927 + 3285 + 9600) = 44,812. If they doubled the content cap, that'd add about 27000 additional gems, a total of 71,812.

How much grinding in a year does it take to get 71,812 gems (only 57% of the gems required to have every card to stay competitive, as opposed to Hearthstone's ~100% that players can acquire with 2 hours per day of gameplay)?

It takes about (150 hours for the gem cap of 27,000 gems... 300 hours if you think the gem cap will be doubled this year) + (2 hours per day of grinding NPC's and checking things) + (1 hour per day of cumulative grinding from events that come and go quickly that you need to access to reach that 27,000 gem cap) = 1395 hours per year of grinding.

So... what does that mean:

In Hearthstone, you can have 100% of what you want after 1.5-2 years of playing, with 0 dollars input, for 730 hours per year of grinding with patience.

In Duel Links, you can have 57% of what you want in 1 year of playing, with 0 dollars input, for 1395 hours of playing per year.

Also, Hearthstone packs cost $1 per pack ($1 = 100 gold). Duel Links packs cost $0.66 per pack ($0.66 = 50 gems). Per dollar spent, Hearthstone takes you a long way. You can spend about $400 in a year and just glide through the Hearthstone without having ever focus on grinding. Or $200 a year on Hearthstone, and just grind a bit. In Duel Links, you'd have to spend closer to $200 PER set (6 per year = $1200), PLUS grind, in order to achieve a similar collection level.

Duel Links sucks balls 8x harder than Hearthstone on the grinding front. They just offer a lot of content upfront, and do number trickery (and provide a shit ladder system) to make you think your collection is great.

But I'm not willing to pay or grind in Hearthstone either.

Sorry, it was a long post because "Duel Links is fucking expensive and a waste of time" is easily refuted by a "no it isn't" response.

I wanted to give the proof that Hearthstone is more F2P-friendly (over a 2 year period of time), although Duel Links sucks noobs in quicker by front-loading most of the gems the player will receive in a full year in the first 1-2 months of gameplay.

If I was going to die in 6 months from now I'd probably pick Duel Links as my game of choice for my final days (assuming I had nothing better to do, like, spend time with family).... that is, *IF* I had $0 in my bank account, and I was starting either game freshly, and no other game in the world existed. If I had any money in the bank to spend on either, Hearthstone would be the choice, Duel Links is costly AF.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Feb 23 2017 07:29pm