Paladins Players Mad About Latest Patch, Hi-Rez Responds
Paladins Open Beta Patch 44 went live earlier this week and it made some major changes to the way the game works. A new type of card called "Legendary cards" was introduced, allowing players that own them to add them to their loadout at the beginning of a match for "powerful benefits."
The way that Radiant Chests work was also changed. Radiant Chests are now available for 3000 Gold each, but they no longer reward the player with Gold in any way. Instead, duplicate items will provide "Essence," which is the new currency that is used to unlock both loadout cards and Legendary cards. It seems a bit like a needless complication, but I digress.
When the patch initially went live, a duplicate Common Card obtained from a Radiant Chest would grant players 60 Essence. At the time, Legendary cards would set players that bought them back 18,000 Essence. Due to the way that this was set up, players were almost immediately angered, calling Paladins "pay-to-win" and denouncing the amount of grinding that newer free-to-play players would have to do to ensure that they can obtain Legendary cards. As one user was quick to point out, you can obtain Legendary cards from Radiant Chests, but another user has reported that they obtained a mere five from a set of 100 chests.
One Steam review also points out that the Legendary cards that are currently in-game make use of abilities that were previously available to the game's characters in a less-difficult-to-obtain way.
Following the outrage, Hi-Rez Studios Lead Game Designer Drybear responded via Reddit. The cost of Legendary cards was dropped to 12,000 Essence and duplicate Common Cards now grant players 250 Essence. Additionally, "a future patch" will make it so that each achievement that players earn will grant them 1000 Essence, making the initial grind feel less insurmountable. What's more, Essence earned from achievements will be granted retroactively for players that completed said achievements long before the update.
Surprisingly, most players seem sated by the changes. There are still a few dissenters, but the grand majority seem to be okay with the new systems now that they've been balanced a bit.
To those of you that play Paladins: How did you feel about Open Beta Patch 44?
