Quote from TallStranger >>no reason to care whether they win or lose under the new system
If the system can be tweaked so there aren't losing groups compared to before and this is not done, it only favors their short term goals. In the long term HS loses when some groups of players are treated in such way, but it seems they don't care since they plan to put HS in maintenance mode.
And that won't be the last time the economy rules change, so have fun with a dying game.
Hearthstone, dying game since 2016
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Scratching my head on the Mindrender Illucia nerf. The dev notes say that it was originally designed as a "late game disruption tool" but was being abused as an aggro card. Since it is no longer able to disrupt your opponent and is unlikely to be very helpful in aggro, what possible purpose does this card serve?
Very glad to see The Demon Seed banned from Wild. Maybe we'll get a healthier meta there as a result.
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If Blizzard wasn't going to sell it, why on earth would it develop the mode? Companies aren't charities: they create new products to earn a return on their investment.
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It does not necessarily mean that you must pay to be competitive: if this mode is like many, many of the better f2p games, the stuff you can purchase essentially saves you time. You can either pay nothing, play a lot and slowly accumulate stuff, or you can pay for this stuff and get it right away. In that respect, it's a lot like HS itself: you can either pay to get all the cards you want, or you can play a lot and buy/ craft the cards with gold/ dust.
Given that Mercenaries appears to be primarily a PvE experience, what that means is that it will likely take the average f2p player longer to beat certain bosses/ complete certain tasks than someone who's got better characters and equipment. But if you're having fun, who cares? Now, if there winds up being a "wall" that f2p players can't get past (either because Blizzard did so deliberately or because of poor playtesting), Blizzard will have to either fix that problem or watch an awful lot of people quit the mode because they were mislead. Games that have those sleazy walls have a very high rate of people quitting.
As for the PvP part, since Blizzard is using something akin to the MMR system to ensure that you're not matched against someone with vastly better characters and equipment, being f2p is unlikely to make PvP frustrating. Sure, if there's something like the Arena Leaderboard, you're not going to see many f2p players there, but who cares?
Obviously, neither of us knows for sure what the mode will really end up being. My point is that there simply is not enough evidence to be able to say that Mercenaries will be p2w.
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Your question makes no sense. It isn't "extracting" anything. It's offering a product on the open market. If you like the product and think that the price is right, you buy it. If not, you don't. This product is no different from the red velvet Oreo I discussed above. Some love it, I think it's gross. To each his own.
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I never said anything about whether or not Blizzard is a "shady" company or not. Nor does that determination matter in this case. The company has created a new product, one which you can choose to play or not play. If you do choose to play it, you can pay for goodies or not. If you are not capable of controlling yourself in this matter, it is your responsibility to seek professional help.
It may end up being like BG: some people love it, some (like me) think it's moronic. I have no problem with people enjoying that mode. Unfortunately, there's a small but growing collection of nutjobs in this world who believe that if THEY think something is a problem, then EVERYONE must think the same and that people who disagrees with them are evil. That's fundamentally undemocratic and dangerous.
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Where did I say we should trust them unquestioningly? Here's a hint: nowhere. My point is that it appears this new mode is entirely separate from HS. You can, if you choose, pay to advance more quickly or you can (it appears) play it for free. You do not need to play Mercenaries to advance in HS, nor do you need to play HS to advance in Mercenaries. Therefore, the creation of this mode does not increase the cost of playing HS. So there's nothing for a standard HS player to complain about.
To use a simple analogy: I love standard, classic Oreos. Over the years, Nabisco has created all sorts of odd Oreo flavors (red velvet, mint, etc.) that I don't buy. Do I care? No. If other people like these flavors, they should buy them. But it doesn't affect me in the least. In fact, if it makes the company more profitable, that's a good thing. Yet for reasons which escape a normal human being, there's a sizable number of people on this forum who think that any time a company (Blizzard or another) creates a new product to sell, there's something evil/ wrong/ sleazy about that. There isn't. If companies never created new products, the world would be in much worse shape.
Nor should the fact that a small number of people with a gaming compulsion might "get hooked" on Mercenaries change the calculations. There are many, many alcoholics in this world (including a good friend of mine). Do you denounce your local brewery when it creates a new beer because "if this new beer is good, it's going to encourage people to drink it. Some of those people will get hooked."? Of course not (unless you're completely insane). The same reasoning applies here: if these people do have a problem, it is their responsibility to seek help. It is not Blizzard's responsibility to cater to this very, very small segment of the population at the expense of the vast majority of its customers.
As for your little cheap shots at the end, believe me when I say that there is probably no one on this forum more revolted than me by the CCP and its incredible brutality. I hate the fact that companies are doing business with those scumbags and I hope that, one day, all these companies (including Blizzard) wake up and realize what a terrible idea it is to be in bed with those monsters. Same goes for their treatment of women at the company. My point was that the "analysis" of some random dudes on the internet saying "it's a terrible idea, no one is going to play it, it costs too much" etc. doesn't amount to much. I'm pretty sure Blizzard would not have invested all the time and money it did to create this game if it wasn't very confident that it could make money on it. The company should no more take advice from those dudes than it should from me.
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Stop making sense. Didn't you know that any time a company creates a new product and tries to sell it, they're really a) trying to screw the little guy; b) charging too much; and c) only doing this because the company is on the brink of collapse? I mean, who knows more about running a business: the actual managers of the firm or a bunch of random dudes posting on a game site?
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Great idea!!!! While we're at it, let's just let the computer build our decks, play our cards, hell even craft new cards for us. Hearthstone idle, here we come!!
For those of us with an attention span longer than 2 minutes, a 4 turn game sounds like torture. A sizable portion of the HS community (myself included) considers battlegrounds to be Hearthstone for Dummies.
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Love the way you wrote this piece! Very clever. Just too bad Warrior didn't get a deck. Is it in that bad shape?
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Unless you have a whole lot of dust, I'd wait if I were you. Balance changes are going to happen in the next few weeks. While they may nerf one of the questlines (which would allow you to get a full dust refund), they might also instead adjust some of the supporting cards. If they do that and indirectly nerf the questline you crafted, you're going to be out a good amount of dust.
I always wait several weeks before crafting cards from the most recent expansion.