I think that nerfing the mysterious stranger encounter was a missed opportunity for Blizzard.
I have spent a fair bit of money on the game mode and have all the mercs available to date. I imagine that I am in the lower percentile of mercenary players paying for coins vs free to play players. meaning I am spending money vs those who are not. As someone who has spent a fair bit of money on this mode I have obtained all mercenaries available. I have tons of skins as well. What I don't have is mercs who are task level 7 or higher.
I spend alot of money on this mode but I am not your target audience. There are way more people who might be willing to spend 10 or 20 bucks on merc packs if they knew they could fully level their team up.
I don't think most players mind having to grind out levels to obtain coins for their mers but having to always see the hot tato or sabotage over and over because of bad luck is pretty uninspiring for the average person to decide to spend X amount of dollars on a game.
Increase mysterious stranger encounters in blackrock by 65% and decrease the potato encounter by 50% across all areas. Maybe then more people might spend some money. Just my 2 cents.
Maybe I'm wrong because I don't play too many games, but the Activision greed seems unsatible to me. The money one can poor into Mercenaries mode seems endless, and for what? To grind even more afterwards?
I tried to make this game mode working but it is extreme. The time needed to upgrade a single Merc is brutal. And we are not even talking about maxing it, like it is often enough to have 5-5-3 and 4 for one equipment.
It is not stupid the nerf of the Mysterious stranger.
It is stupid the Mysterious stranger. People cannot spend days in farming and doing very repetitive things only to play, because, in the end, the real game is the PVP. PVE is only the tool to have the equipment.
Mercenaries is very bad structured, this is the issue.
If you want to do PVP you have to do a ton of PVE before.
If you want to do PVE there is not a real challenge, only to repeat the same things over and over.
What is also total crazy to me is how the game is structured in terms of coins. Since there is no duplicate protection, you can still find coins of merceneries that you have already full and there is no use for the surplus of coins. This is total madness.
Especially now that they released new merceneries, the amount of money that a person who already pre-order before should spend, is equal to a person that is starting the mercenaries now. Yes because with this system you have the same probability to find the new mercenaries coins that someone that have 0 coins.
Blizz developed this mode and wanted us to not play it. It is so very bad developed.
Mercs lost me due to the grind. I had great fun when I first bought a little bundle and got to try a cool build, but now I get tired of the mercs before I even reach task 5. Definitely a wasted potential here...
What is also total crazy to me is how the game is structured in terms of coins. Since there is no duplicate protection, you can still find coins of merceneries that you have already full and there is no use for the surplus of coins. This is total madness.
Especially now that they released new merceneries, the amount of money that a person who already pre-order before should spend, is equal to a person that is starting the mercenaries now. Yes because with this system you have the same probability to find the new mercenaries coins that someone that have 0 coins.
Blizz developed this mode and wanted us to not play it. It is so very bad developed.
agreed. they also made cariel and some other very common merc's coins as rewards for sooooo many bounties. I've maxed cariel and few other very common mercs and now sometimes after completing a bounty, I get my 5 reward boxes, all containing coins for the maxed mercs. all that time, all that clearing, was for nothing. I really hate getting a BIG NOTHING accompanied with cheering "yeee-hoo" sounds, makes me wanna punch the devs afterwards..
What is also total crazy to me is how the game is structured in terms of coins. Since there is no duplicate protection, you can still find coins of merceneries that you have already full and there is no use for the surplus of coins. This is total madness.
Especially now that they released new merceneries, the amount of money that a person who already pre-order before should spend, is equal to a person that is starting the mercenaries now. Yes because with this system you have the same probability to find the new mercenaries coins that someone that have 0 coins.
Blizz developed this mode and wanted us to not play it. It is so very bad developed.
agreed. they also made cariel and some other very common merc's coins as rewards for sooooo many bounties. I've maxed cariel and few other very common mercs and now sometimes after completing a bounty, I get my 5 reward boxes, all containing coins for the maxed mercs. all that time, all that clearing, was for nothing. I really hate getting a BIG NOTHING accompanied with cheering "yeee-hoo" sounds, makes me wanna punch the devs afterwards..
Honestly this isn't actually an easy thing to fix without completely breaking the game's economy. You can't just give people epic & legendary coins in place of rare ones. You can give other rare coins maybe. And honestly, as bad as it does feel, you were able to max out multiple mercs in less than a month while some people are still catching up. So I don't actually think it's that HUGE a deal to get rare coins you're waiting on some use for.
OP: I think the progression/task/mysterious stranger system is pretty awful, and probably a higher priority to fix than duplicate coins.
The mysterious stranger aspect is easy to fix, though, honestly. Just separate the Mysterious Stranger coin from the Mystery coin. Introduce some other new mysteries to compensate. Or conversely, just make the Mysterious Stranger a chance on completion thing. After you complete a bounty, 50% of the time (or whatever) a mysterious stranger appears.
You'd still have the problem that the equipment system is bound to this weird RNG mechanic, but it would be A LOT better this way.
The mysterious stranger aspect is easy to fix, though, honestly. Just separate the Mysterious Stranger coin from the Mystery coin. Introduce some other new mysteries to compensate. Or conversely, just make the Mysterious Stranger a chance on completion thing. After you complete a bounty, 50% of the time (or whatever) a mysterious stranger appears.
You'd still have the problem that the equipment system is bound to this weird RNG mechanic, but it would be A LOT better this way.
The Mystery coin was just poorly implemented in the first place. It needs WAY more options in order to be interesting, and it never should have been tied to tasks. At launch, if tasks had come from the Campfire only, players wouldn't have worried so much about cheesing them in the most efficient, most boring way possible. Players would have had to play the game as it was intended, and the most efficient way to improve your mercs would have been to play appropriately challenging encounters.
Mysterious Strangers after appropriately challenging encounters (as you mentioned) wouldn't have been a bad thing to add after the first month or so. It would have given players a far more positive impression than they got when things had to be nerfed.
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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
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I think that nerfing the mysterious stranger encounter was a missed opportunity for Blizzard.
I have spent a fair bit of money on the game mode and have all the mercs available to date. I imagine that I am in the lower percentile of mercenary players paying for coins vs free to play players. meaning I am spending money vs those who are not. As someone who has spent a fair bit of money on this mode I have obtained all mercenaries available. I have tons of skins as well. What I don't have is mercs who are task level 7 or higher.
I spend alot of money on this mode but I am not your target audience. There are way more people who might be willing to spend 10 or 20 bucks on merc packs if they knew they could fully level their team up.
I don't think most players mind having to grind out levels to obtain coins for their mers but having to always see the hot tato or sabotage over and over because of bad luck is pretty uninspiring for the average person to decide to spend X amount of dollars on a game.
Increase mysterious stranger encounters in blackrock by 65% and decrease the potato encounter by 50% across all areas. Maybe then more people might spend some money. Just my 2 cents.
Maybe I'm wrong because I don't play too many games, but the Activision greed seems unsatible to me. The money one can poor into Mercenaries mode seems endless, and for what? To grind even more afterwards?
I tried to make this game mode working but it is extreme. The time needed to upgrade a single Merc is brutal. And we are not even talking about maxing it, like it is often enough to have 5-5-3 and 4 for one equipment.
It is not stupid the nerf of the Mysterious stranger.
It is stupid the Mysterious stranger. People cannot spend days in farming and doing very repetitive things only to play, because, in the end, the real game is the PVP. PVE is only the tool to have the equipment.
Mercenaries is very bad structured, this is the issue.
If you want to do PVP you have to do a ton of PVE before.
If you want to do PVE there is not a real challenge, only to repeat the same things over and over.
You got this wrong. This is exactly why you ARE the target audience.
What is also total crazy to me is how the game is structured in terms of coins. Since there is no duplicate protection, you can still find coins of merceneries that you have already full and there is no use for the surplus of coins. This is total madness.
Especially now that they released new merceneries, the amount of money that a person who already pre-order before should spend, is equal to a person that is starting the mercenaries now. Yes because with this system you have the same probability to find the new mercenaries coins that someone that have 0 coins.
Blizz developed this mode and wanted us to not play it. It is so very bad developed.
Played 10 bounties today and got 6 mysterious strangers, just play bouties with the right level for your mercs and all is fine.
They will anounce changes today
Mercs lost me due to the grind. I had great fun when I first bought a little bundle and got to try a cool build, but now I get tired of the mercs before I even reach task 5. Definitely a wasted potential here...
agreed. they also made cariel and some other very common merc's coins as rewards for sooooo many bounties. I've maxed cariel and few other very common mercs and now sometimes after completing a bounty, I get my 5 reward boxes, all containing coins for the maxed mercs. all that time, all that clearing, was for nothing. I really hate getting a BIG NOTHING accompanied with cheering "yeee-hoo" sounds, makes me wanna punch the devs afterwards..
Honestly this isn't actually an easy thing to fix without completely breaking the game's economy. You can't just give people epic & legendary coins in place of rare ones. You can give other rare coins maybe. And honestly, as bad as it does feel, you were able to max out multiple mercs in less than a month while some people are still catching up. So I don't actually think it's that HUGE a deal to get rare coins you're waiting on some use for.
OP: I think the progression/task/mysterious stranger system is pretty awful, and probably a higher priority to fix than duplicate coins.
The mysterious stranger aspect is easy to fix, though, honestly. Just separate the Mysterious Stranger coin from the Mystery coin. Introduce some other new mysteries to compensate. Or conversely, just make the Mysterious Stranger a chance on completion thing. After you complete a bounty, 50% of the time (or whatever) a mysterious stranger appears.
You'd still have the problem that the equipment system is bound to this weird RNG mechanic, but it would be A LOT better this way.
The Mystery coin was just poorly implemented in the first place. It needs WAY more options in order to be interesting, and it never should have been tied to tasks. At launch, if tasks had come from the Campfire only, players wouldn't have worried so much about cheesing them in the most efficient, most boring way possible. Players would have had to play the game as it was intended, and the most efficient way to improve your mercs would have been to play appropriately challenging encounters.
Mysterious Strangers after appropriately challenging encounters (as you mentioned) wouldn't have been a bad thing to add after the first month or so. It would have given players a far more positive impression than they got when things had to be nerfed.
"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