Hearthpwn

Quote from Strongpoint >>

Well, I just watched Trump's Merc gameplay video. As every reasonable person expected - first levels of buildings cost... 0 gold. Who knew that Blizzard won't force you to spend anything to try.

 Oh, noes! What are the haters going to complain about now?! You've ruined so many lives with this information.

Quote from AnimationCancering >>

Quote from FailURGamer >>

I have a feeling that this post might just age like milk once the mode releases.

I'm just gonna play the game when it comes out (and hopefully have fun), honestly this is aging like fine vinegar, I didn't expect so much heat it's funny 

 Blizzard could offer an actual life-size, solid gold statue of Sylvanas delivered to your home just for completing the tutorial, and free players would complain that they didn't throw in Diablo and Lich King statues as well.

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

We can't agree to disagree if we're not going to ignore each other on this topic, and I'm too polite or stupid to ignore someone who's talking to me, so please ignore my claims that you personaly believe are false within your own logic system.

You keep making baseless, inflammatory comments -- the very definition of a troll -- and telling people not to reply to you. Well, I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. Keep saying false and spurious things, and I will keep shooting you down. If you don't like it, you can ignore me.

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

If you think everyone else is sane for spending money on and playing games you enjoy, that's not really your problem or your business. See how ridiculous that sounds ?

That does not sound ridiculous. That sounds normal. I do not keep making posts all over the place saying, "Way to go, guys! You are all super sane for liking this game! Keep up the good work!"

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

why do you seem so personally involved in making people believe there is nothing wrong with what they did with Mercs ?

 I understand that it can be hard to see this, but my primary motivation is to combat misinformation and flaws in logic. In several cases, I have advised people that Mercenaries might not be the right game for them and that they should not bother playing it. I have told you several times that you should ignore it since it bothers you so much.

Spreading unreasonable negativity based on incorrect information, bad logic, and personal vendettas against a company is generally considered to be bad etiquette, and I am always happy to point that out.

So yes, I agree to disagree, but don't expect me to ignore your false claims and faulty arguments.

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

Let me ask you this. How would you feel if WoW and Overwatch came directly into the Hearthstone client ? The games and the monetizations that come with them. Would that make sense to you ? Would you feel ok spending money in hearthstone at that point ? How many games and ways to spend money inside hearthstone client does it take for you to say enough ? I guess you will answer my the usual "b-b-but its the same with battlenet client, it's just one more click now" then how about a game client inside a game client inside a game client ? Again, how long until this is enough ? How many click does it take to access hearthstone after you've clicked on Hearthstone before this is enough ? Why not just stick to 1 client for all blizzard games and stop shady shitty stuff that will punish both Blizzard and the community for basically no reason ?

 I would be perfectly fine with that. I would ignore the games I don't care about, just like I currently ignore Arena and Battlegrounds. It would not reduce the amount I spend on Hearthstone, because why should it?

Are you really this pissed off about the number of clicks it takes to play Hearthstone? They didn't even increase that number. Now you click a button that says "Hearthstone" instead of one that says "Play." It's the same number of clicks.

These games are all on the same client because they all share the same software engine. WoW and Overwatch are not bundled in with card games because they do not share any code. Moreover, they are less likely to share a common fan base than these various card games do. There are perfectly good reasons for structuring these clients the way they have. Yes, it's partially about marketing, but it's just as much about simple efficiency.

And finally, I consider the ability to share gold extremely important. If I could not share gold between Hearthstone and Mercenaries, it would make me much less likely to continue playing both games at once. They cannot "steal" your gold by offering you another way to spend it. If you don't want to spend it on something, that's up to you and you alone.

In the end, if you don't like the way Mercenaries is monetized or presented, don't play it. If you think Hearthstone has gone too far downhill (regardless of why), don't play it. If you think everyone else is crazy for spending money on and playing games you don't enjoy, that's not really your problem or your business. Weird arguments about numbers of clicks aren't going to change any minds.

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

What about us, the 20% ? I really don't care about free stuff, it's not my point at all.

Earlier you were saying Mercs monetization is the exact same as hearthstone monetization so it's weird that we complain about one but not the other. Well I don't think it's weird at all. Mercs monetization isn't replacing hearthstone monetization, it's just adding up, so in reality monetization in Hearthstone just got twice as bad, especially since both game modes are linked by the same resource, gold.

At what point is it enough and at what point is it too much ? Battlegrounds monetization was enough, Mercs monetization is too much. How many more monetized game modes are they going to at ? When does it stop being about Hearthstone ? Cause that's the point, you're still launching HEARTHSTONE when you click the button, when I click on Hearthstone in the battlenet client I expect to arrive in the Hearthstone card game, I don't expect to arrive in another client with 3+ different games with a unique monetization when it comes to real money, but shared monetization when it comes to in game money. And when I spend money in hearthstone it's the same, I don't want my expansion pre order money to go to other game modes, I'm paying for hearthstone because I want to play hearthstone, so I reached a point where i'm relunctant to spend ANY more money, cause it's not invested where it should be by the devs. It's just not what hearthstone is about and it's not fair in my opinion that they are using the Hearthstone UI to make more cash grabs unrelated to hearthstone. Just keep grabing more of our cash with more Hearthstone content we would all be fine with that. That's what they did with the mini-sets in between expansions, more cash grab, but it's 100% hearthstone, so there was no outrage.

 What you are saying is that Frito-Lay should never make new flavors of Doritos or develop entirely new kinds of chips because you already like regular Doritos and already spend money on regular Doritos and do not want to buy another kind of chip, and it's just not fair because all those different chips appear in the same aisle of the store!

SO DON'T BY THE OTHER CHIPS. Asking the company not to create new things and sell them is preposterous.

Quote from Psy_Kik >>

You shouldn't be pre-ordering video games anyway. It's bad for the industry.

You can make the argument that pre-ordering a hearthstone expansion is fair to you, the consumer, as you have a solid idea of the content you are paying for, and therefore the value to you.

No one has played mercenaries yet. How many of us thought Duels would be be fun and turned out to be disappointed? Mercenaries might disappoint you in the same way. Blizzard, as a dev, is motivated to care for the product prior to release if it's not ordered in it's hundreds of thousands when it's still vapour. Take the power back as a consumer, try it on release, and if you enjoy then maybe consider buying a few packs, not the other way around.

 Most of the people hating on Mercenaries aren't even thinking about pre-ordering. I guarantee you that at least 80% of the people calling Mercenaries a trainwreck and saying it's the end of Blizzard are free players who think they will not get enough free stuff out of it.

For the record, Duels is reasonably fun now, which just goes to show that Blizzard does make an effort to correct its mistakes, even in a game mode they did not directly monetize.

As for this particular pre-order, the main reason not to do it isn't about "bad for the industry" (a battle that has already been lost, by the way -- you might as well tell people not to shop at Amazon or Walmart, for all the good it will do). The main reason the Mercenaries pre-order isn't great is that Blizzard has added so little extra value to the bundles. You get exactly as many packs in each pre-order as you would if you waited until after launch to spend the same amount of money. The only difference is a single free portrait in each bundle. That's pretty skimpy from a value perspective.

I don't know how it would be possible to replicate those things in Hearthstone. I will note, however, that grinding a specific class in HS will unlock golden Core cards and portraits for you. That's kind of similar.

Quote from Suikiele >>

That said, I do have concerns not just on what Mercenaries appears to be, but what it appears to imply for this game in general. The focus of direction, the shunting of resources, etc. From a business standpoint, I honestly can't criticize a business for wanting to go this direction. Looking at the rampant and unslowing success of the gacha gaming system (and bizarrely, the people who defend it here because of card packs?), it does make sense from a money making standpoint. But as a consumer who remembers buying whole games for a fixed dollar amount, and then accepting the fixed "subscription" model of an MMO (when $15 a month was balked at by some), whatever this new system is appears to be nakedly exploitive towards something in the lizard brain of humans. And I don't want to reward that monster with my money.

 The monetization in Mercenaries is identical to that in Hearthstone in every possible way, so I find it a little weird that people are choosing to become all concerned at this moment, yet they still fully accept the existing Hearthstone monetization and even complain that Mercenaries will somehow reduce their ability to participate in the exact same system over in Hearthstone.

They could have made it much, much, MUCH worse by more closely following the true gacha models that are out there. If they had made Mercenaries anything like Genshin Impact, for example, I'd be sharpening my pitchfork right alongside everyone else. But they didn't. They made it much more forgiving by following their own model, which has worked just fine for the past seven years.

Furthermore, because Mercenaries is primarily a PvE game (a fact that everyone seems unable to grasp), you do not have to keep up with other players. Even if you participate in PvP, you will not be matched against someone with a numerically stronger party. They may turn out to be stronger because they created a more synergistic build than you, but they will not be higher level or more upgraded. My point is, no one should feel pressured to buy more than they can afford or are comfortable with -- and that's a lot better than Hearthstone in my opinion.

Quote from MvonTzeskagrad >>

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

the game mode isnt pay2win, its pay2progress. Representing the worst elements of gachi gameplay loops.

 You cannot accelerate a mercenary's XP gain (leveling up) with cash. You can only upgrade Abilities and Equipment that way. There has to be some reason to buy packs, so I don't know what you expect.

We've already seen how many Mercenary Coins you get from low-level Bounties, and it's safe to assume those numbers increase at higher levels. We also know roughly how much it costs to upgrade things. It's not going to be that hard to upgrade your stuff without paying.

 Do we? I'd like to know what's the rough eestimation, because I've had that concern for a while and I somewhat consider that the main thing that will say if it's really wworth giving much time or not.

 If you watch the videos, you can see them upgrading some things. The upgrades I've seen all cost less than 200 coins, and that includes a higher-tier upgrade on a legendary unit. The smallest stack of Coins for a low-level Bounty is 20 coins; 50 seems average for PvP. And you get several stacks (for different mercs) every time you earn them.

So it looks like rares will be super easy to upgrade, while epics and legendaries are a bit (to a lot) harder because their specific coins will drop less often (even in purchased packs). Maxing out a legendary will be a big undertaking for anyone, whether you're paying or not.

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

the game mode isnt pay2win, its pay2progress. Representing the worst elements of gachi gameplay loops.

 You cannot accelerate a mercenary's XP gain (leveling up) with cash. You can only upgrade Abilities and Equipment that way. There has to be some reason to buy packs, so I don't know what you expect.

We've already seen how many Mercenary Coins you get from low-level Bounties, and it's safe to assume those numbers increase at higher levels. We also know roughly how much it costs to upgrade things. It's not going to be that hard to upgrade your stuff without paying.

Some free players will complain about literally ANYTHING that has a price tag attached, even if the purchase is totally optional -- hell, even if the price isn't even real money.