There was a faction that was always going to be pissed if Mercenaries was a monetized game with collectible characters rather than a free or inexpensive mode like Battlegrounds. But a lot of the takes on it are hyperbolic. The total spend to get all the mercenaries available day 1 at release is a couple hundred bucks, and a moderate spend looks like it will put players in position to earn the rest. The rarest, most expensive items look to be the diamond cosmetics for legendary minions, rather than having a super-rare tier of super-powered characters. By contrast, gacha games like Raid Shadow Legends and Genshin Impact are designed to suck thousands of dollars out of their whale players. However, Blizzard is launching this with $130 worth of preorders and many players will potentially spend an additional $100 on top of that, and that ain’t nothing.
There are several things Blizzard can do to make this mode more appealing:
1. First of all, if upgrades and packs are going to cost gold, then Mercenaries needs to generate gold above and on top of what players earn from other modes. That doesn’t mean adding Mercenaries quests to the regular daily Hearthstone quest pool, it means separate quests with distinct rewards for playing mercenaries. If Mercenaries runs on Mercenaries-exclusive currency, then Mercenaries quests can award those currencies, but if Mercs is going to run on gold, and its pack-system looks like it will, then it needs to pay out gold. If Blizzard is hoping players will substantially increase their spending into what it now apparently views as a card-game platform, then it needs to substantially increase free rewards.
2. The per-hour pass experience needs to be brought in line at least with Battlegrounds. It’s understandable if Ranked Hearthstone has reward incentives to get casuals to play ranked, but this mode can’t trail others in value for time spent if it is going to be successful.
3. Frankly, if Blizzard wants to extend goodwill, it should straight up cut the price for the preorders and give extra rewards to anyone who preordered before the price cut. Legends of Runeterra is coming from Blizzard’s most direct competitor, and it’s a lot less expensive to play, with regular players getting access to effectively all cards for free. Hearthstone doesn’t necessarily need to be as cheap as Runeterra, but it’s a bad look to come in with new ways to spend a lot of money when the base product is being undercut by a competitor. Hearthstone is not Raid Shadow Legends, but it would still be nice if it was more like Runeterra in its monetization strategies. This is a very expensive game to keep up with, and prohibitive to return to after a break, and Blizzard should be thinking about how to relieve that, rather than trying to get hundreds more dollars per year from players.
4. Mercenaries rewards should be added to the Tavern Pass, but they should be in addition to, rather than replacing, all the stuff we’re getting for standard Hearthstone and other modes. Players of other modes should not feel that they’re losing any value because of Mercenaries. Taking this up should mean more stuff rather than draining your resources from other modes.
Blizzard has been silent on Mercs since the poorly-received announcement, and they’ve got a lot of work to do to salvage this with the players. Hopefully their silence over the last couple of weeks means they’ve heard community dissatisfaction and are going to come back on Tuesday and say something we’ll like.
I agree with most of your points, if they are going to make a new stand-alone game, it needs the rewards to be able to support that. It would be massively unfair to require gold from a game that doesn’t have its own separate quests and methods of earning gold. (I agree with the below point as well, personally I just don’t understand the need to make people play gold to play. Sure buy packs and the rest, but why should I use the gold I’ve saved for a year to upgrade some buildings? I feel like they’re anxious of all the gold hoarding for some reason.)
The fact that we have so many questions and not even a demo, yet 3 bundles at 130 is disappointing. My excitement has definitely changed since before the reveal, and I hope more info comes out so that I can justify spending money on a mode that was meant to be released back in March.
Lastly as much as I agree with the argument about price point, I think that will only happen if the whole thing flops. I mean they stealth-nerfed arena rewards and haven’t even made an attempt at making the mode better (arena specific cards, in-game menu to explain what cards or sets are in, etc.) Instead they are thinking of adding ranks to arena, likely causing arena to be even less profitable.
I know businesses need to be profitable, but sometimes it really seems like straight greed :/
Lastly as much as I agree with the argument about price point, I think that will only happen if the whole thing flops. I mean they stealth-nerfed arena rewards and haven’t even made an attempt at making the mode better (arena specific cards, in-game menu to explain what cards or sets are in, etc.) Instead they are thinking of adding ranks to arena, likely causing arena to be even less profitable.
I know businesses need to be profitable, but sometimes it really seems like straight greed :/
It is amazing to me how many people went all-in on Genshin, considering how harsh its monetization is. If the market rewards monetization practices like that, we get more of them. I am absolutely floored at how much people are paying into Raid Shadow Legends.
1. First of all, if upgrades and packs are going to cost gold, then Mercenaries needs to generate gold above and on top of what players earn from other modes. That doesn’t mean adding Mercenaries quests to the regular daily Hearthstone quest pool, it means separate quests with distinct rewards for playing mercenaries. If Mercenaries runs on Mercenaries-exclusive currency, then Mercenaries quests can award those currencies, but if Mercs is going to run on gold, and its pack-system looks like it will, then it needs to pay out gold. If Blizzard is hoping players will substantially increase their spending into what it now apparently views as a card-game platform, then it needs to substantially increase free rewards.
2. The per-hour pass experience needs to be brought in line at least with Battlegrounds. It’s understandable if Ranked Hearthstone has reward incentives to get casuals to play ranked, but this mode can’t trail others in value for time spent if it is going to be successful.
3. Frankly, if Blizzard wants to extend goodwill, it should straight up cut the price for the preorders and give extra rewards to anyone who preordered before the price cut. Legends of Runeterra is coming from Blizzard’s most direct competitor, and it’s a lot less expensive to play, with regular players getting access to effectively all cards for free. Hearthstone doesn’t necessarily need to be as cheap as Runeterra, but it’s a bad look to come in with new ways to spend a lot of money when the base product is being undercut by a competitor. Hearthstone is not Raid Shadow Legends, but it would still be nice if it was more like Runeterra in its monetization strategies. This is a very expensive game to keep up with, and prohibitive to return to after a break, and Blizzard should be thinking about how to relieve that, rather than trying to get hundreds more dollars per year from players.
4. Mercenaries rewards should be added to the Tavern Pass, but they should be in addition to, rather than replacing, all the stuff we’re getting for standard Hearthstone and other modes. Players of other modes should not feel that they’re losing any value because of Mercenaries. Taking this up should mean more stuff rather than draining your resources from other modes.
The majority of Blizzard customers and Hearthstone players don't write on Reddit or HearthPwn, the need to "save" the mode is imaginative. It may very well be that Blizzard got all expenses covered by the first wave of preorders, we simply don't know.
1. You are offering to disbalance the whole Hearthstone economy, by creating additional gold quests within Mercenaries you are soft-FORCING every F2P\budget Hearthstone player to grind those even if they dislike the mode and Blizzard will have to make constructed more expensive to compensate their losses. Awful, awful, awful idea.
2. If, and only if, Mercenaries take an unreasonable amount of gold to upgrade the camp. Otherwise, this amount of XP may be enough to upgrade the camp at a reasonable pace
3. Don't teach professionals how to do marketing, especially when you have no idea how many preorders are already sold. Also, don't tell a corporation "please, make less money to make me happier."
4. I will be amazed if this won't be the case for the next reward tracks. I expect roughly the same amount of gold, roughly the same amount of Hearthstone packs and arena\duels tickes, etc. Plus few mercenary packs here and there, a mercenary hero or two, mercenary coins, etc.
We already know that mercs PvE exp will = Duels, BGs, and Arena and PVP will = Ranked Standard/Wild
We already know? Source?
What we could see in some YT videos is that mercs PVE exp = current PVE xp (according to HS Mathematics 170 xp/hour but it seems to me that its closer to 100-120 xp/hour) and about mercs PVP we dont know anything but its safe to assume that its gonna be equal to duels/bgs/arena xp.
It would be pretty unfortunate if Mercs acted to split the current amount of gold gain between the two modes, so you'd basically just have to choose which mode you want to play and only play that. I doubt they would make it like that, but if they did... then let it be so, I won't play Mercs at all then. And I'm sure others will feel the same way. They will see the lacking numbers and make changes. Makes sense.
And if they did make new ways to generate gold only in Mercs, I wouldn't mind. It's like playing any other online game. You don't have to do that sidequest, but it will give you rewards, so we can go do that for a little bit. The game mode itself does not seem to be overly complicated or a massive time sink, so playing a few rounds to get some extra gold is fine, really. I know some people don't have as much time as others, but it would still be free stuff you can get for playing a game... that doesn't sound bad to me.
1. You are offering to disbalance the whole Hearthstone economy, by creating additional gold quests within Mercenaries you are soft-FORCING every F2P\budget Hearthstone player to grind those even if they dislike the mode and Blizzard will have to make constructed more expensive to compensate their losses. Awful, awful, awful idea.
If people had some extra gold to spend on packs I really doubt that they would consider that "losses". People can buy both preorder bundles and have 3 months worth of legend rank free cards and packs from ladder and still not collect the whole set each expansion. They'll be fine.
If people had some extra gold to spend on packs I really doubt that they would consider that "losses". People can buy both preorder bundles and have 3 months worth of legend rank free cards and packs from ladder and still not collect the whole set each expansion. They'll be fine.
You don't understand what I am talking about....
Imagine there is an additional 4th weekly quest that grants 2000XP for playing Mercs. You can't reroll this quest into a Hearthstone\Battlegrounds one, you must play mercs to get this 2000XP. To complete this quest you need.... let's say 3 hours of Merc gameplay. Now imagine that you find Mercs BORING. Now your choice is two 1) Feel bad by playing the mode you actively dislike or 2)feel bad because you aren't getting this 'free' XP for your Hearthstone collection. It is a lose-lose for a huge number of players. It will be like the current brawl situation but WAY worse. Some brawls are just boring. For me it means 1 less pack in a week (feel bad), for other it means grinding till the win (feel bad). But not all brawls are boring and victories don't take that long.
Playing 100 hours of constructed Hearthstone should give you more resources for constructed Hearthstone than playing 80 hours of constructed Hearthstone and 20 hours of another game masquerading as a game mode.
Do you want more gold in Hearthstone? There are better ways to do it. (But keep in mind that Blizzard isn't a charity) Do you want more gold in Mercs? Well, make them do something like in game merc tasks that give -1% to the cost of some town upgrade (up to zero) or something like this but don't make people play a game they don't want to get Hearthstone cards. I don't mind occasional special Merc events or rare 1500 XP daily quests but making it mandatory for every week if not every day? No thanks.
If people had some extra gold to spend on packs I really doubt that they would consider that "losses". People can buy both preorder bundles and have 3 months worth of legend rank free cards and packs from ladder and still not collect the whole set each expansion. They'll be fine.
You don't understand what I am talking about....
Imagine there is an additional 4th weekly quest that grants 2000XP for playing Mercs. You can't reroll this quest into a Hearthstone\Battlegrounds one, you must play mercs to get this 2000XP. To complete this quest you need.... let's say 3 hours of Merc gameplay. Now imagine that you find Mercs BORING. Now your choice is two 1) Feel bad by playing the mode you actively dislike or 2)feel bad because you aren't getting this 'free' XP for your Hearthstone collection. It is a lose-lose for a huge number of players. It will be like the current brawl situation but WAY worse. Some brawls are just boring. For me it means 1 less pack in a week (feel bad), for other it means grinding till the win (feel bad). But not all brawls are boring and victories don't take that long.
Playing 100 hours of constructed Hearthstone should give you more resources for constructed Hearthstone than playing 80 hours of constructed Hearthstone and 20 hours of another game masquerading as a game mode.
Do you want more gold in Hearthstone? There are better ways to do it. (But keep in mind that Blizzard isn't a charity) Do you want more gold in Mercs? Well, make them do something like in game merc tasks that give -1% to the cost of some town upgrade (up to zero) or something like this but don't make people play a game they don't want to get Hearthstone cards. I don't mind occasional special Merc events or rare 1500 XP daily quests but making it mandatory for every week if not every day? No thanks.
I think you quoted the wrong half of my post - but I get what you're saying.
I think I kind of see it both ways - if they give you a task to get stuff for a bit of time investment, you would personally need to weigh if its worthwhile to you. And maybe if you deem its not worth your time and don't do it, you would feel bad for missing out... but should you feel bad? You've chosen not to do it, because your time is more valuable than the reward, so what have you actually lost? You've spent your time in better ways to get more enjoyment out of the game (or life, doing something else).
So if they added a new, 4th weekly quest, totally in addition to the 3 we normally get, then it doesn't seem to me like I'm missing out if I don't do it. And we're also assuming how difficult and time consuming a weekly Mercs quest might be, too. A lot of current weekly quests can be done in a handful of games, if you choose your modes/decks properly.
But ultimately, we'll need to see how they actually roll it out and the rewards to resources ratio before we call this one a mistake or in need of being salvaged.
Personally, I hope they do separate the game modes completely, but given the speculation that all Mercs games will give exp on the same rewards track for regular Hearthstone... I guess it will end up being some combination. :\
I think I kind of see it both ways - if they give you a task to get stuff for a bit of time investment, you would personally need to weigh if its worthwhile to you. And maybe if you deem its not worth your time and don't do it, you would feel bad for missing out... but should you feel bad? You've chosen not to do it, because your time is more valuable than the reward, so what have you actually lost? You've spent your time in better ways to get more enjoyment out of the game (or life, doing something else).
So if they added a new, 4th weekly quest, totally in addition to the 3 we normally get, then it doesn't seem to me like I'm missing out if I don't do it. And we're also assuming how difficult and time consuming a weekly Mercs quest might be, too. A lot of current weekly quests can be done in a handful of games, if you choose your modes/decks properly.
But ultimately, we'll need to see how they actually roll it out and the rewards to resources ratio before we call this one a mistake or in need of being salvaged.
Personally, I hope they do separate the game modes completely, but given the speculation that all Mercs games will give exp on the same rewards track for regular Hearthstone... I guess it will end up being some combination. :\
You may not see it as feel bad, many will. And I absolutely don't think that a united economy is bad and here is why.
Let's assume someone is tired of Hearthstone, perhaps meta is soooo bad that they don't want to play at all and they skip few months and use their free time to play some other game. Then they decide to come back and... boom, they missed a whole reward track and will need to catch up.
Now, lets assume that the very same someone is tired of Hearthstone and moves to playing Battlegrounds rerolling all quests to ones that can be completed in Battegrounds. They will lose a chunk of rewards but will still get a reasonable amount of resources but thanks to the nature of the rewards track they will still get some packs\tickets\cards and won't fall behind that much. It is a good thing. And if they don't go to an extreme and instead spend their playing time to 10% regular Hearthstone 90% Battlegrounds, they will be fine.
I don't think "salvage" is the right word for a game mode that hasn't even been released yet. There are plenty of people who are excited for it, and plenty of people who will cautiously give it a try and judge it for what it is, not what a bunch of naysayers claim it's going to be.
Now for the point-by-point:
1. We already know that the Campfire quests will include mercenaries coins and packs, so it doesn't make sense to expect gold on top of that. You don't need a separate currency when you get actual packs as a reward.
2. We don't know the XP reward per hour, but there's no reason to believe it will be out of line with other modes.
3. I agree that the bundles lack value, but that's no reason to hate the game, and it shouldn't keep anyone from buying packs if they want to. It's just a reason not to buy the bundles. (Or move to Korea, where you at least get a free Illidan with purchase of any bundle.)
4. The Reward Track is in a weird spot where other modes are concerned. At the moment, I hate getting quests for Battlegrounds, etc., but if I start playing more Mercenaries than traditional Hearthstone (a distinct possibility), I will welcome a few Mercenaries quests there. In a perfect world, there would be checkboxes so you can pick which modes you want quests for, but I don't see that happening.
I actually think it would be best if they took out all the Battlegrounds quests and made that section just about traditional Hearthstone. (Duels and Arena are included there because regular quests can be completed in those modes.) Battleground quests should happen in the Battlegrounds part of the client, just as Mercenaries quests are handled at the Campfire.
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"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I haven't looked into Mercs much yet. I figured I would just wait til it is out then give it a spin.
Blizzard has never frustrated me too much with monitization. I actually think they balance that fairly well. And I anticipate the same will be true for Mercs.
4. The Reward Track is in a weird spot where other modes are concerned. At the moment, I hate getting quests for Battlegrounds, etc., but if I start playing more Mercenaries than traditional Hearthstone (a distinct possibility), I will welcome a few Mercenaries quests there. In a perfect world, there would be checkboxes so you can pick which modes you want quests for, but I don't see that happening.
There will be Mercenaries weekly quests, I am 99.9% sure. It just makes sense. Blizzard uses quests to motivate players to try specific types of cards or gamemodes.
I also think that we may get XP granting Mercenary achievements for one season just like Duels had
If people had some extra gold to spend on packs I really doubt that they would consider that "losses". People can buy both preorder bundles and have 3 months worth of legend rank free cards and packs from ladder and still not collect the whole set each expansion. They'll be fine.
You don't understand what I am talking about....
Imagine there is an additional 4th weekly quest that grants 2000XP for playing Mercs. You can't reroll this quest into a Hearthstone\Battlegrounds one, you must play mercs to get this 2000XP. To complete this quest you need.... let's say 3 hours of Merc gameplay. Now imagine that you find Mercs BORING. Now your choice is two 1) Feel bad by playing the mode you actively dislike or 2)feel bad because you aren't getting this 'free' XP for your Hearthstone collection. It is a lose-lose for a huge number of players. It will be like the current brawl situation but WAY worse. Some brawls are just boring. For me it means 1 less pack in a week (feel bad), for other it means grinding till the win (feel bad). But not all brawls are boring and victories don't take that long.
Playing 100 hours of constructed Hearthstone should give you more resources for constructed Hearthstone than playing 80 hours of constructed Hearthstone and 20 hours of another game masquerading as a game mode.
Do you want more gold in Hearthstone? There are better ways to do it. (But keep in mind that Blizzard isn't a charity) Do you want more gold in Mercs? Well, make them do something like in game merc tasks that give -1% to the cost of some town upgrade (up to zero) or something like this but don't make people play a game they don't want to get Hearthstone cards. I don't mind occasional special Merc events or rare 1500 XP daily quests but making it mandatory for every week if not every day? No thanks.
There is no balance concern about the amount of gold available through Mercs, because gold is cash, so it’s never unfair to give people more gold, because it just makes the game less expensive. If Mercs is going to cost $130 for the base set preorders and get expansions that Blizz hopes people buy big bundles of, then it should generate free currency that is equivalent to a game of that cost, which means we should double the total gold/pass exp available with mercenaries or at least come close. If HS players don’t want to play Mercs, they’ll still get as much HS gold, and they won’t be pouring any of their resources (cash, gold, time) into an alternate mode.
There is no balance concern about the amount of gold available through Mercs, because gold is cash, so it’s never unfair to give people more gold, because it just makes the game less expensive.
Making the game less expensive IS a concern because it affects Blizzard's bottom line.
The goal of Blizzard is to make X amount of dollars and the game is balanced around that.
Introducing another mode that increases gold income, will result in changes to keep it equal but it will also set the expectation that you need to complete these new gold resources or you are missing out. Thus creating pressure on players that don't want to play Mercs.
I don't think "salvage" is the right word for a game mode that hasn't even been released yet. There are plenty of people who are excited for it, and plenty of people who will cautiously give it a try and judge it for what it is, not what a bunch of naysayers claim it's going to be.
Now for the point-by-point:
1. We already know that the Campfire quests will include mercenaries coins and packs, so it doesn't make sense to expect gold on top of that. You don't need a separate currency when you get actual packs as a reward.
2. We don't know the XP reward per hour, but there's no reason to believe it will be out of line with other modes.
3. I agree that the bundles lack value, but that's no reason to hate the game, and it shouldn't keep anyone from buying packs if they want to. It's just a reason not to buy the bundles. (Or move to Korea, where you at least get a free Illidan with purchase of any bundle.)
4. The Reward Track is in a weird spot where other modes are concerned. At the moment, I hate getting quests for Battlegrounds, etc., but if I start playing more Mercenaries than traditional Hearthstone (a distinct possibility), I will welcome a few Mercenaries quests there. In a perfect world, there would be checkboxes so you can pick which modes you want quests for, but I don't see that happening.
I actually think it would be best if they took out all the Battlegrounds quests and made that section just about traditional Hearthstone. (Duels and Arena are included there because regular quests can be completed in those modes.) Battleground quests should happen in the Battlegrounds part of the client, just as Mercenaries quests are handled at the Campfire.
I absolutely think talking about "salvaging" Mercenaries is reasonable right now. I have been watching YouTubers talk about Mercs and Regis Killbin said that he felt like he was wasting time putting effort into Mercs videos because nobody was watching them. Maybe the pre-orders are rolling in and Blizzard is happy -- Iksar did say something about the response to Diablo in Mercs being successful. But online communites would have to be incredibly nonrepresentative for that to be true, because the sentiment has been incredibly negative, and I do think the people on Hearthpwn and Reddit probably represent the people who spend several hundred bucks a year on Hearthstone, and they were massively annoyed with Blizz asking them to drop $130 on Mercs. If Blizz were getting the response they expected, I don't think they would have gone totally silent about it after the announcement. It really seems like they're on a back foot and regrouping in response to the negative community reaction to the announcement.
Now, on a couple of your points:
1. Merc packs and coins aren't as good as gold, which is the same as cash. Gold can be used on future releases, and current-set packs and currencies cannot. If the packs cost gold and the camp upgrades cost gold, then the mode needs to pay out gold. Playing this mode shouldn't leave you with fewer free resources to allocate to regular Hearthstone.
4. We currently get one daily quest and three weekly quests for Hearthstone. A couple of the weeklies are Battlegrounds exclusive, and one of the Weeklies is can be completed in any mode except main Hearthstone. Adding Mercs quests to this pool means that people who don't play Mercs will have to spend more rerolls, a scarce resource, rerolling their Mercs quests to get quests for other modes. I will say again that if Blizzard is asking us to significantly increase our spend on the Hearthstone platform for Mercenaries, then it needs to come with a similarly significant increase in the free cash-equivalent gold rewards for participating in this expensive new mode.
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There was a faction that was always going to be pissed if Mercenaries was a monetized game with collectible characters rather than a free or inexpensive mode like Battlegrounds. But a lot of the takes on it are hyperbolic. The total spend to get all the mercenaries available day 1 at release is a couple hundred bucks, and a moderate spend looks like it will put players in position to earn the rest. The rarest, most expensive items look to be the diamond cosmetics for legendary minions, rather than having a super-rare tier of super-powered characters. By contrast, gacha games like Raid Shadow Legends and Genshin Impact are designed to suck thousands of dollars out of their whale players. However, Blizzard is launching this with $130 worth of preorders and many players will potentially spend an additional $100 on top of that, and that ain’t nothing.
There are several things Blizzard can do to make this mode more appealing:
1. First of all, if upgrades and packs are going to cost gold, then Mercenaries needs to generate gold above and on top of what players earn from other modes. That doesn’t mean adding Mercenaries quests to the regular daily Hearthstone quest pool, it means separate quests with distinct rewards for playing mercenaries. If Mercenaries runs on Mercenaries-exclusive currency, then Mercenaries quests can award those currencies, but if Mercs is going to run on gold, and its pack-system looks like it will, then it needs to pay out gold. If Blizzard is hoping players will substantially increase their spending into what it now apparently views as a card-game platform, then it needs to substantially increase free rewards.
2. The per-hour pass experience needs to be brought in line at least with Battlegrounds. It’s understandable if Ranked Hearthstone has reward incentives to get casuals to play ranked, but this mode can’t trail others in value for time spent if it is going to be successful.
3. Frankly, if Blizzard wants to extend goodwill, it should straight up cut the price for the preorders and give extra rewards to anyone who preordered before the price cut. Legends of Runeterra is coming from Blizzard’s most direct competitor, and it’s a lot less expensive to play, with regular players getting access to effectively all cards for free. Hearthstone doesn’t necessarily need to be as cheap as Runeterra, but it’s a bad look to come in with new ways to spend a lot of money when the base product is being undercut by a competitor. Hearthstone is not Raid Shadow Legends, but it would still be nice if it was more like Runeterra in its monetization strategies. This is a very expensive game to keep up with, and prohibitive to return to after a break, and Blizzard should be thinking about how to relieve that, rather than trying to get hundreds more dollars per year from players.
4. Mercenaries rewards should be added to the Tavern Pass, but they should be in addition to, rather than replacing, all the stuff we’re getting for standard Hearthstone and other modes. Players of other modes should not feel that they’re losing any value because of Mercenaries. Taking this up should mean more stuff rather than draining your resources from other modes.
Blizzard has been silent on Mercs since the poorly-received announcement, and they’ve got a lot of work to do to salvage this with the players. Hopefully their silence over the last couple of weeks means they’ve heard community dissatisfaction and are going to come back on Tuesday and say something we’ll like.
We already know that mercs PvE exp will = Duels, BGs, and Arena and PVP will = Ranked Standard/Wild
(https://twitter.com/IksarHS/status/1433826071263137800?s=20)
I agree with most of your points, if they are going to make a new stand-alone game, it needs the rewards to be able to support that. It would be massively unfair to require gold from a game that doesn’t have its own separate quests and methods of earning gold. (I agree with the below point as well, personally I just don’t understand the need to make people play gold to play. Sure buy packs and the rest, but why should I use the gold I’ve saved for a year to upgrade some buildings? I feel like they’re anxious of all the gold hoarding for some reason.)
The fact that we have so many questions and not even a demo, yet 3 bundles at 130 is disappointing. My excitement has definitely changed since before the reveal, and I hope more info comes out so that I can justify spending money on a mode that was meant to be released back in March.
Lastly as much as I agree with the argument about price point, I think that will only happen if the whole thing flops.
I mean they stealth-nerfed arena rewards and haven’t even made an attempt at making the mode better (arena specific cards, in-game menu to explain what cards or sets are in, etc.) Instead they are thinking of adding ranks to arena, likely causing arena to be even less profitable.
I know businesses need to be profitable, but sometimes it really seems like straight greed :/
It is amazing to me how many people went all-in on Genshin, considering how harsh its monetization is. If the market rewards monetization practices like that, we get more of them. I am absolutely floored at how much people are paying into Raid Shadow Legends.
It's easy. Make standard/wild/battlegrounds etc. even less appealing so people don't have any other choice.
The majority of Blizzard customers and Hearthstone players don't write on Reddit or HearthPwn, the need to "save" the mode is imaginative. It may very well be that Blizzard got all expenses covered by the first wave of preorders, we simply don't know.
1. You are offering to disbalance the whole Hearthstone economy, by creating additional gold quests within Mercenaries you are soft-FORCING every F2P\budget Hearthstone player to grind those even if they dislike the mode and Blizzard will have to make constructed more expensive to compensate their losses. Awful, awful, awful idea.
2. If, and only if, Mercenaries take an unreasonable amount of gold to upgrade the camp. Otherwise, this amount of XP may be enough to upgrade the camp at a reasonable pace
3. Don't teach professionals how to do marketing, especially when you have no idea how many preorders are already sold. Also, don't tell a corporation "please, make less money to make me happier."
4. I will be amazed if this won't be the case for the next reward tracks. I expect roughly the same amount of gold, roughly the same amount of Hearthstone packs and arena\duels tickes, etc. Plus few mercenary packs here and there, a mercenary hero or two, mercenary coins, etc.
While the announcement wasn’t great, I wouldn’t talk about salvaging something that isn’t even out yet.
Release it first, let us play around with it (sure, there is the potential drawback of losing players) and then think about changes.
We already know? Source?
What we could see in some YT videos is that mercs PVE exp = current PVE xp (according to HS Mathematics 170 xp/hour but it seems to me that its closer to 100-120 xp/hour) and about mercs PVP we dont know anything but its safe to assume that its gonna be equal to duels/bgs/arena xp.
It would be pretty unfortunate if Mercs acted to split the current amount of gold gain between the two modes, so you'd basically just have to choose which mode you want to play and only play that. I doubt they would make it like that, but if they did... then let it be so, I won't play Mercs at all then. And I'm sure others will feel the same way. They will see the lacking numbers and make changes. Makes sense.
And if they did make new ways to generate gold only in Mercs, I wouldn't mind. It's like playing any other online game. You don't have to do that sidequest, but it will give you rewards, so we can go do that for a little bit. The game mode itself does not seem to be overly complicated or a massive time sink, so playing a few rounds to get some extra gold is fine, really. I know some people don't have as much time as others, but it would still be free stuff you can get for playing a game... that doesn't sound bad to me.
If people had some extra gold to spend on packs I really doubt that they would consider that "losses". People can buy both preorder bundles and have 3 months worth of legend rank free cards and packs from ladder and still not collect the whole set each expansion. They'll be fine.
Nah, it's too late, they fucked up and they'll pay for it. And those who quit hearthstone won't come back.
You don't understand what I am talking about....
Imagine there is an additional 4th weekly quest that grants 2000XP for playing Mercs. You can't reroll this quest into a Hearthstone\Battlegrounds one, you must play mercs to get this 2000XP. To complete this quest you need.... let's say 3 hours of Merc gameplay. Now imagine that you find Mercs BORING. Now your choice is two 1) Feel bad by playing the mode you actively dislike or 2)feel bad because you aren't getting this 'free' XP for your Hearthstone collection. It is a lose-lose for a huge number of players. It will be like the current brawl situation but WAY worse. Some brawls are just boring. For me it means 1 less pack in a week (feel bad), for other it means grinding till the win (feel bad). But not all brawls are boring and victories don't take that long.
Playing 100 hours of constructed Hearthstone should give you more resources for constructed Hearthstone than playing 80 hours of constructed Hearthstone and 20 hours of another game masquerading as a game mode.
Do you want more gold in Hearthstone? There are better ways to do it. (But keep in mind that Blizzard isn't a charity)
Do you want more gold in Mercs? Well, make them do something like in game merc tasks that give -1% to the cost of some town upgrade (up to zero) or something like this but don't make people play a game they don't want to get Hearthstone cards. I don't mind occasional special Merc events or rare 1500 XP daily quests but making it mandatory for every week if not every day? No thanks.
I think you quoted the wrong half of my post - but I get what you're saying.
I think I kind of see it both ways - if they give you a task to get stuff for a bit of time investment, you would personally need to weigh if its worthwhile to you. And maybe if you deem its not worth your time and don't do it, you would feel bad for missing out... but should you feel bad? You've chosen not to do it, because your time is more valuable than the reward, so what have you actually lost? You've spent your time in better ways to get more enjoyment out of the game (or life, doing something else).
So if they added a new, 4th weekly quest, totally in addition to the 3 we normally get, then it doesn't seem to me like I'm missing out if I don't do it. And we're also assuming how difficult and time consuming a weekly Mercs quest might be, too. A lot of current weekly quests can be done in a handful of games, if you choose your modes/decks properly.
But ultimately, we'll need to see how they actually roll it out and the rewards to resources ratio before we call this one a mistake or in need of being salvaged.
Personally, I hope they do separate the game modes completely, but given the speculation that all Mercs games will give exp on the same rewards track for regular Hearthstone... I guess it will end up being some combination. :\
Salvage what? Merceneries isnt even out yet.
You may not see it as feel bad, many will. And I absolutely don't think that a united economy is bad and here is why.
Let's assume someone is tired of Hearthstone, perhaps meta is soooo bad that they don't want to play at all and they skip few months and use their free time to play some other game. Then they decide to come back and... boom, they missed a whole reward track and will need to catch up.
Now, lets assume that the very same someone is tired of Hearthstone and moves to playing Battlegrounds rerolling all quests to ones that can be completed in Battegrounds. They will lose a chunk of rewards but will still get a reasonable amount of resources but thanks to the nature of the rewards track they will still get some packs\tickets\cards and won't fall behind that much. It is a good thing. And if they don't go to an extreme and instead spend their playing time to 10% regular Hearthstone 90% Battlegrounds, they will be fine.
I don't think "salvage" is the right word for a game mode that hasn't even been released yet. There are plenty of people who are excited for it, and plenty of people who will cautiously give it a try and judge it for what it is, not what a bunch of naysayers claim it's going to be.
Now for the point-by-point:
1. We already know that the Campfire quests will include mercenaries coins and packs, so it doesn't make sense to expect gold on top of that. You don't need a separate currency when you get actual packs as a reward.
2. We don't know the XP reward per hour, but there's no reason to believe it will be out of line with other modes.
3. I agree that the bundles lack value, but that's no reason to hate the game, and it shouldn't keep anyone from buying packs if they want to. It's just a reason not to buy the bundles. (Or move to Korea, where you at least get a free Illidan with purchase of any bundle.)
4. The Reward Track is in a weird spot where other modes are concerned. At the moment, I hate getting quests for Battlegrounds, etc., but if I start playing more Mercenaries than traditional Hearthstone (a distinct possibility), I will welcome a few Mercenaries quests there. In a perfect world, there would be checkboxes so you can pick which modes you want quests for, but I don't see that happening.
I actually think it would be best if they took out all the Battlegrounds quests and made that section just about traditional Hearthstone. (Duels and Arena are included there because regular quests can be completed in those modes.) Battleground quests should happen in the Battlegrounds part of the client, just as Mercenaries quests are handled at the Campfire.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I haven't looked into Mercs much yet. I figured I would just wait til it is out then give it a spin.
Blizzard has never frustrated me too much with monitization. I actually think they balance that fairly well. And I anticipate the same will be true for Mercs.
There will be Mercenaries weekly quests, I am 99.9% sure. It just makes sense. Blizzard uses quests to motivate players to try specific types of cards or gamemodes.
I also think that we may get XP granting Mercenary achievements for one season just like Duels had
There is no balance concern about the amount of gold available through Mercs, because gold is cash, so it’s never unfair to give people more gold, because it just makes the game less expensive. If Mercs is going to cost $130 for the base set preorders and get expansions that Blizz hopes people buy big bundles of, then it should generate free currency that is equivalent to a game of that cost, which means we should double the total gold/pass exp available with mercenaries or at least come close. If HS players don’t want to play Mercs, they’ll still get as much HS gold, and they won’t be pouring any of their resources (cash, gold, time) into an alternate mode.
Making the game less expensive IS a concern because it affects Blizzard's bottom line.
The goal of Blizzard is to make X amount of dollars and the game is balanced around that.
Introducing another mode that increases gold income, will result in changes to keep it equal but it will also set the expectation that you need to complete these new gold resources or you are missing out. Thus creating pressure on players that don't want to play Mercs.
I absolutely think talking about "salvaging" Mercenaries is reasonable right now. I have been watching YouTubers talk about Mercs and Regis Killbin said that he felt like he was wasting time putting effort into Mercs videos because nobody was watching them. Maybe the pre-orders are rolling in and Blizzard is happy -- Iksar did say something about the response to Diablo in Mercs being successful. But online communites would have to be incredibly nonrepresentative for that to be true, because the sentiment has been incredibly negative, and I do think the people on Hearthpwn and Reddit probably represent the people who spend several hundred bucks a year on Hearthstone, and they were massively annoyed with Blizz asking them to drop $130 on Mercs. If Blizz were getting the response they expected, I don't think they would have gone totally silent about it after the announcement. It really seems like they're on a back foot and regrouping in response to the negative community reaction to the announcement.
Now, on a couple of your points:
1. Merc packs and coins aren't as good as gold, which is the same as cash. Gold can be used on future releases, and current-set packs and currencies cannot. If the packs cost gold and the camp upgrades cost gold, then the mode needs to pay out gold. Playing this mode shouldn't leave you with fewer free resources to allocate to regular Hearthstone.
4. We currently get one daily quest and three weekly quests for Hearthstone. A couple of the weeklies are Battlegrounds exclusive, and one of the Weeklies is can be completed in any mode except main Hearthstone. Adding Mercs quests to this pool means that people who don't play Mercs will have to spend more rerolls, a scarce resource, rerolling their Mercs quests to get quests for other modes. I will say again that if Blizzard is asking us to significantly increase our spend on the Hearthstone platform for Mercenaries, then it needs to come with a similarly significant increase in the free cash-equivalent gold rewards for participating in this expensive new mode.