I may be done with Hearthstone for good. At the very least, it has been more than a month since I last logged in. While my participation has ebbed and flowed over the last twelve (12!) years I have played, this time feels a bit different. I just… have no specific desire to log in again. The impetus is gone.

And I’m pretty sure it’s because of the Event quest changes.

When we talk about the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” we refer to a number of isolated causes that, over time, accumulate to the point of sudden failure. But what is often not addressed, is how… lame the very last one can be. I didn’t stop playing because of some Blizzard controversy (remember Hong Kong?), or reintroducing mechanics that the devs hate and whom consequently made bad on purpose, or leveraging terrible AI artwork in promotional material, or making sets intentionally weak as a power level reset while still charging full price, or introducing $158 pet gacha mechanics, or any of the multitude of other reasons. Hell, I didn’t even quit over the first disastrous quest overhaul.

Nah, the last straw for me was Blizzard getting too cute with the Event quests.

For context, Event Quests are an extra layer of Weekly/Daily quests that grant Event XP that moves you along a reward track. These Events last 4-5 weeks or so, and the rewards are usually free packs, hero portraits, and occasionally free epic/Legendary cards. Blizzard has actually stepped up the number of Events lately – or at least it felt that way – so in many respects, I should have been feeling grateful for the extra stuff. Instead, I felt worse.

Thing is, I used to be able to complete quests, including Event quests, while doing Battlegrounds. This was helpful for those time periods in which Standard was feeling boring, or perhaps I didn’t have all the Legendaries needed for a competitive deck, or just enjoyed Battlegrounds more at that time. These new quests have the “Traditional Modes” limiter, which means Standard or Wild only.

Also, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m something of an optimizer. If you tell me I need to either play 2000 minions OR 500 Day of Rebirth deathrattle minions in Ranked Standard, I’m going to try the latter. And it’s going to feel horrible, not the least because any deck filled with those specific kind of minions is going to lose, on account of them being non-competitive. So here I am, trashing my Rank by losing constantly with cards I barely get to play – as games don’t last long when you play bad cards – and I still have to play like 500 of them, all because some fucking black-hat psychologist thought it would maximize engagement. Fuck every bit of that.

“Just ignore the quest and play normally.” Hearthstone isn’t the only game I play, and I sometimes go days without playing at all. Without focusing specifically on completing the quest, including the specific game modes it requires, completion won’t actually happen naturally. “Events aren’t required for anything, just enjoy whatever rewards you can get at your level of engagement.” Missing rewards, which now sometimes includes Legendary cards in the final steps, feels worse than not having Events happening at all. It would be one thing if it were a hidden achievement, or unlocked just a new skin or whatever, but it’s a rather in-your-face tracking mechanism that pops up after every game.

It’s a straw. Individually immaterial. Completely harmless to anyone who still enjoys playing Hearthstone on a baseline level. I 100% recognize that, by all measures, I would have likely drifted further and further away from the game independent of any changes to Event quests or otherwise.

However… it’s the last fucking straw. Perhaps not the one I deserve, but the one I have right now.