Everyone seems to be complaining about the mode being 'Pay to Win' and all of their greedy money jokes, even though there is not much evidence supporting as such.
They are currently charging for are optional Rare Promotional Mercenaries for the release of Mercenaries mode. They may be overpriced. Also, no one needs to buy these; however, everyone seems to be using this as their fundament towards the whole mode being pay to win. And I believe some people may be misguided into believing this is an entrance fee to unlock the game mode.
The only other thing that they have an option to buy is: Mercenary Packs. These can also be bought with gold. These packs are only to unlock new heroes. After getting some new heroes to your collection: the mode is entirely play to win. Your heroes only get stronger via playing more and levelling up. I believe in their new shop in the game mode, they may have certain Mercenaries or their pieces and skins on sale; however, it still doesn't look like it will be necessary to participate.
Also, this is almost an entirely single player game, that may be intended to take a very long while to complete over the course of hundreds or thousands of runs. Weaker minions will get stronger via playing and levelling, synergies, and equipment during each run. The one thing that may be considered 'pay to win' would be the PvP Arena, only if certain mercenaries are very overpowered, and a meta forms around only a few, causing people to go buy packs for those mercenaries. This will always happen to an extent, but no one knows how far this will go. And this mode to is a completely optional endeavour to play a fun game with others.
Friend, have you never played a gacha game?
The way games with collectible units work is that the basic units you get through gameplay are useless for anything past basic story content. You have to have a full team of max rarity units to even attempt any sort of endgame content.
It's possible that Blizz is going to balance this differently, but it's definitely worth being leery of that very strong possibility until we've seen the game in action.
4
I've noticed a lot of uninformed people on this thread that have the opinion that just because someone chooses to be a F2P Player, that must mean that they are completely worthless to a company and don't deserve to be catered too, I can assure you, that is not true.
People need to understand that as with most products that are marketed as free to use, just because someone doesn't pay, doesn't mean that they aren't invaluable to the longevity of the product or the company's revenue. If you are a F2P Player, you become the product being sold, and you have actual value because of that.
F2P Players themselves, just by choosing too participate in product, do so and provide free content for all the other users, including those who actually spend money, and in return their existence provides actual real value to the product as a whole, which encourages more people to spend money.
Studies typically find anywhere around 90%+ of active users in many F2P games don't spend any money whatsoever, and you can add on top that that even more people who are considered low tier investors AKA 'Minnows'. If all these F2P players and minnows packed their bags and left due to being unhappy, the game would suffer greatly overall, and in previous cases the game itself enters a death spiral, similar to what happened with Heroes of The Storm.
That is because even less people would spend money if there is a poisonous perception that the product itself is dying and losing value when people stop playing, and thus because there is less revenue, less development time is spent, and therefore players who would be willing to pay spend even less money.
...And it can all be traced back to not appeasing the largest percent of their player base who don't actually spend much money if any at all.
Then of course you have all those F2P players who then go on to provide the most valuable forms of advertising or criticism to other people via friends and family, who themselves might go on to spend money, or not based on their recommendations, so it's very reductionist to simply say "F2P Players are entitled", and "Don't deserve to be listened too". They are literally the reason F2P Models exist and can thrive, and it is a constant balancing act to find the correct balance.
4
I don't know. It's obviously a good card, but I think it's too slow and Odd Paladin gets eaten alive by Aggro Druid that frequently ends the game on turn 4.
...However Control Warlock/Reno Warlock, with Tickatus...I think that has the potential to shift the meta, specifcally against Reno Priest...Not only is it more likely too survive the aggro onslaught in Wild, but Warlock can now instantly destroy match ups against other control and combo decks past turn 7 by milling a huge portion of their decks.
4
It might not be anything, but I can't help but be a little concerned whenever I see Activision-Blizzard fiddling around with MMR systems in the background of their games that are reliant of Micro-transations without declaring them or going in depth on the changes.
I remember a few years ago reading about how Activision patented a MMR system that encourages players to buy micro-transactions by purposely messing with players user experiences within the match-making. They did say it was purely exploratory and for R&D at that time, but it's been a few years of silence since then.
Here's an article about it from the time if anyone is interested.
https://kotaku.com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937
3
I was thinking about how good Commanding Shout and Deathwing, Mad Aspect as a combo could be, would Deathwing continue to murder any extra minions spawned by possible Deathrattle effects? It seems like a match made in heaven, but it's too slow for a tempo deck, maybe it's more of a control/highlander type tool.
-7
I was looking forward to Murozond, but I think this card is very close to unplayable.
The mechanic of 'play the cards your opponent played last turn' could be good, but assuming targets will be chosen randomly, like Tess Greymane.
Best case scenario is that your ultimately spending 8 mana for an 8/8 and to do the same thing your opponent just did. whilst doing nothing to keep yourself alive or gain tempo...except you have much less control, and it's just as likely to make things worse and lose the game outright, AND your opponent will have the initiative to either go face, or trade and use a full turns worth of mana on top of it after you wasted your entire turn failing to catch up.
Plus you don't get the value of things like Battlecries when your opponent plays a battlecry minion, you are just stuck with the likely somewhat poor stated body. An example of a bad copy that I can think of is Siamat, which would just be a 6/6 no Taunt, Rush, Divine Shield or Windfury.
I think Murozond, The Infinite would be INFINITELY more playable, if instead it did something more controllable, like temporarily add the cards your opponents played last turn to your hand (They cost 0)
6
The 'whole play the cards your opponent played last turn' could be good, but assuming targets will be chosen randomly, like Tess Greymane, I don't see this being very playable. Your ultimately spending 8 mana for an 8/8 and to do the same thing your opponent did, but with much less control, and it's just as likely to make things worse and lose you the game.
Plus you don't get the value of things like Battlecries when your opponent plays a battlecry minion.
I think Murozond, The Infinite would be INFINITELY more playable, if instead it added copies of the cards played by your opponent last turn to your hand, but they cost (0). That way, not only do you have control over the outcome and order, you actually have the flavor of Murozond going back in time and trying to change the past.
1
I was gonna say that this is pretty good for Big Priest in Wild, but now that I think about it. Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is just objectively better in that deck and performs basically the same role.
Maybe if Ramp Druid somehow makes a return Colossus of the Moon could find a place, otherwise I think this is basically a Legendary pack filler, which really sucks.
2
I feel like Bomb Warrior is gonna be a meta deck and crush any deck that has a good draw engine as well as any control deck without some really strong heals or armour gain...
I think this deck is gonna have issues. Especially with win conditions like Chef Nomi...I doubt Hex Lord Malacrass will help that much, but it's probably a tiny little bit better with it.