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.
In my opinion the current quest system and 'rewards track' is allready a problem. And if Mercenary stuff are added it becomes worse for everyone who only plays 1 mode in this game. I think only a small part of players want to play all 3 modes. So a more NEUTRAL quest and ''rewards track'' is needed. In addition Mercenaries seems to become on the same level as normal Hearthstone in terms of gold investment for packs. So I dont think players really can afford to play booth on the same competive level. Mercenaries is pretty much a game on it's own with it's own economy, the fact that it has it's own upgradeable town and coin system just proves that. And even if no Mercenary quests get added in the main game. We will still end up with a group of players who only play Mercenaries. Just like we now have a group who only plays Battlegrounds. So in my opinion it needs a rework. And "seducing" players to play a game for quests rewards while they dont want to play it, will only make them hate that game more I think. Atleast that's how I experience it.
The 200 gold upgrade said it was to unlock Heroic Bounties. But even if the wording seems to imply all Heroic Bounties. I cant help to think it will be Heroic Barrens only. In wich case unlocking Heroic Felwood would cost like 400 or 500 gold. Heroic WInterspring 800 or 1000 gold and Heroic Black Rock Mountain would be like 1600 or 2000 gold. So a total of 3000 or 3700 gold...
Oh, good classic presenting some absurd groundless claim that fits your agenda and saying "I could be wrong." to save yourself from being called out for spreading disinformation.
Game clearly states "unlock heroic bounties"
It is like "Politician X rapes 5 children per day. I could be wrong but I don't believe in the chastity of the Politician X"
Well that escalated quickly. Why not bring Hitler in your comparison while your at it.
My "claim" comes from experience as things generaly go this way, so it aint absurd. But atm there is currently no ground for it. Meaning I was not "claiming" anything just posting a warning to watch out with burning all your gold and then getting stuck later on cause you cant upgrade your stuff! Not to mention I even say at the beginning that the game mentions: 'Unlock Heroic Bounties'. And what agenda am I even pushing here??? Are you just going to bash me with your own groundless claims?
SERIOUSLY WTF IS YOUR PROBLEM? Is Diablo stuck in your ass or something?
Looks like discussions like this allways derail into trash comments.
You know I wish it was like the old days, were you did not have F2P but just pay 50 euro/dollars for a game and it was yours to play for as much as you liked. And should an expansion come out it would be like 25 or 30 euro/dollars and no extra cost after that unless another expansion. But those expansions only came like once a year. This was a fair system. But like allways some wanted to play it for free, and pirated the games. So to counter these pirates we got online accounts. Wich allowed the products to become digital only no more hard copies required wich is fine but once everyone is required to play through an account it allso opened the door for our current F2P system.
Currently the F2P system is held up by the players who dont want to pay (atleast not at the start). I mean if players would ignore any game that is F2P and instead only chose games with a price tag. The industry would change. Now this is obviously not going to happen. But it is just as silly to blame the industry for having switched to this very effective way of money making system.
And if you think that playing F2P and NEVER PAYING but just grinding your way up instead is not enabling but using/abusing this system? Well what you really are is a 0 cost Blizzard employ that offers a challenge to other players. Playing against a human player is generaly more fun than playing against AI. So your just one of the humans to offer fun for the paying players. Though the paying players are allso offering fun towards other players so it does not matter much. The thing is that the paying players only spend like 1 or 2 hours a day or even less. While the grinding players waste like 6 or 8 hours a day. Wich makes it silly that they get upset because grinding is no fun. Indeed playing just 1 or 2 hours is for fun after that it becomes work lol. (Unless you really love it)
So blame yourself for letting yourself get abused, instead of blaming the company's who abuse you. Because your the one who can stop yourself, but you cant stop those company's from doing their thing just by posting your complaints and being angry lol.
As for me. Well I guess I m a moderate spender. If I m really hyped I buy the pre-orders and generaly I play for a week and 8 to 10 hours a day, after wich I get bored and move on, until the next hype. Playing games like this with the F2P system is like 6 or 9 times more expansive compared to the old days. But still cheaper than going to a themepark. I obviously avoid the really greedy F2P games that suck out a 1000 euro/dollars to get you anywere.
In my opinion Hearthstone as been on the more 'fair' side with it's F2P system and to me it looks like Mercenary's is going to be on the same level as the rest of Hearthstone. Though Hearthstone has become more expansive compared to the first day of it's release. But it's still more 'fair' compared to other F2P games. If your fed up with this, just stop playing F2P and play games with a price-tag without the extra cost, you can find alot of those on steam.
Thanks for this indepth post! Very curious about the town upgrade costs. 200 gold could just be the start, I imagine more costly upgrades especially in expansion style content. I don't mind the gold cost to upgrade the town as long as it seems fair, you are able to earn gold in the mode, and you are rewarded for spending the gold.
The 200 gold upgrade said it was to unlock Heroic Bounties. But even if the wording seems to imply all Heroic Bounties. I cant help to think it will be Heroic Barrens only. In wich case unlocking Heroic Felwood would cost like 400 or 500 gold. Heroic WInterspring 800 or 1000 gold and Heroic Black Rock Mountain would be like 1600 or 2000 gold. So a total of 3000 or 3700 gold...
Now obviously I could be wrong, but I dont believe in a generous Blizzard. So I m gonna keep atleast 3000 gold in bank until I know for certain I wont need that much. I probably will have the other 700 gold by the time I reach Heroic Black Rock Mountain so. I mean you can allways burn your gold on packs later on, there is no need to do it at the start. XD
Moderate spenders who bought one or more of the pre-order bundles will be able to max out their their most PvP relevant Mercs in probably a couple of weeks if they focus on them and play a lot. Fairly dedicated F2P players — I am talking about 80+ hours spent with this mode — should be able to field at least one fully-upgraded PvP meta team by the second month.
Are you sure it's 1500 coins? That seems way to much generosity. (tbh I only expect 450 coins and all level 1 equipment) I mean getting those 1500 coins from quests/tasks is WAY easyer than just grinding. I mean the hardest part is just getting the 500 coins for the legendary but after that it's just focusing on completing the Tasks, wich probably hardly takes a day. UNLESS it requires the hardest zone on Heroic and you cant even get it done on normal. But I expect Guides to show up on youtube with ways to 'cheese' all those tasks. Trump will probably start a 'Broke in Mercenary' series. Though having seen him screw arround in early acces, I dont expect much wisdom from that.
On your second part: If doing all the tasks really award 1500 coins total then 'moderate spenders' will only need a few days of playtime to max out their favorite Team. And they will be able to do it with pve only. UNLESS blizzard made a restriction allowing you to complete only 1 Task for the same mercenary once a day, or a max amount of tasks a day. Since getting tasks seems RNG based, Blizzard can hide this restriction pretty easily.
On a side note: Like 90% of the Mercenaries seem to have breakpoints in their skill levels at skill level 3. So only 450 coins is needed to reach these breakpoints. Sylvanas is a big exception, she needs a massive coin sink but after that she becomes supreme. But for the rest of the Mercs, what is the point of these Breakpoints if their giving away 1500 coins from tasks? It just does not seem to match...
What is the point of collecting mercenaries if having top tier is unnecessary for high rank? 1) Some (many) players like the collecting aspect itself 2) Beating highest tier bounties in heroic mode.
Sure, but I mean from Blizzard perspective. Very few players will spend money for beating pve content in this game or for the collecting aspect. They have to convince you to spend a lot of money and they can only do this through pvp side of the mode. And if this will be through pvp, then it will surely be not even-strength matches. They can say you, that, look, your characters have the same levels as opponent's, why isn't this an even-strength match? But your rare team will compete against legendaries, or their mercenaries will be with fully leveled abilities and equip, and so on. There are a lot of questions about that.
Funny that I m most interested in the pve content and expect dissapointment from the pvp part. But that's just from my experience with normal Hearthstone, there has never been a meta that i really liked. It was allways first 2 days are fun after that I lose interest and wonder if the 50 euro/dollar pre-order was worth the 2 days of fun.
With Mercenary's I expect only like a week of fun from the pvp part. Mainly because the whole game is so new that it will take longer before players know how to play best. But after a week it's going to be like same 4-5 merc Teams every time you play pvp, and you will know wich Merc they will target first, wich ability their going to use and so forth, so hardly any suprices and you probably allready know if your going to win or lose. And if your going to use some strange weird team, when the meta is settled, it's just auto lose.
Wich is why I really think & hope the pve part will keep things interesting for a much longer time, specialy if you have alot of different Merc Teams on hand. It's a much more fun experience to test unusual Merc Teams if the pve content is challenging enough, but not out right unfair, as you experience in a pvp settled meta.
Did they say anything about "dusting" duplicate mercenary cards or portraits into coins or gold?
Still no word on what happens if you gain coins for a Merc that is already fully upgraded.
I think that is a problem only whales will have to deal with. 2760 coins to max everything on a Merc, I dont see that happening unless you buy a 1000+ packs. And if you want to grind that amount your probably hardly there when the next expansion comes out. What I m more concerned about is coin investment 'mistakes'. Like investing in a equipment but later on either because a different Merc got nerfed or you just thought it would be good but it ended up not. Having to start over on a new piece equipment could be pretty frustrating.
I m actualy pretty hyped for this mode! Normal Hearthstone has been dead for me for over 2 years or so. I sometimes play Battlegrounds but I mainly watch kripp play it while I eat LOL. Now that I know that even if I would buy all pre-orders It wont ruin the PVE fun, (though it's probably wise 'for fun' not to spend your coins on the really low level parts) but instead add to the fun: 'You can make loads of different Merc Teams' instead of being limited to the few Mercs you have. And as I mention before the amount of coins you get are just enough to get 2 skills to breakpoint (skill level 3) but atleast you will have that for all Mercs you get. I think that's a much better way of doing things instead of letting players have 1 maxed out team, and nothing else.
Having seen most of the streamers that got early acces I think the PVE content is going to be very interessting and HARD in the later parts. Mainly because the PVE part this time is actualy going to be rewarding, so Blizzard needs players to FAIL. Unlike how they did things before and make it so that everybody can get it done...
I am a bit concerned about the PVP part that happends after 1 week. As in that you will be running into the same 4 or 5 Merc teams because those are the best so everybody is playing them. (including you) Just like standard Hearthstone becomes super lame with the same 4 or 5 decks each season.
But while I m thinking of these possible Merc Team combinations I m getting more and more excited with the much larger ways I can make them work. Especially when I m realizing that the NO-BRAINER Teams like: 'Diablo + Fire Mercs' is not going to work and that a good working Diablo team is looking quite different from the original fire setup. Not to mention that other NO-BRAINERS like Team Orc or Team Human aint going to be that strong. Atleast not compared to the more 'creative' Teams. So this all in all got me really hyped! It has been long since ive been this excited about a game.
And about the visuals... I like it clean as it is! The animations would just get in the way of planning and playing lol. And after a week your bored of them anyway. Allso when I see Raid Shadow Legends, it feels like I m on a Casino website with bells shining everywere just to get me spend my money. HS still got that nice atmosphere, though the shop gets flooded with more and more useless garbage. Why spend money on a lame 'Mega Bob' skin that loses to the original and worse Kripp actualy uses it...
Though I have not yet done so I m pretty sure I m going to pre-order all. I m still bussy thinking up new Merc Teams, but it starts to look like I want to play with 90% of them lol.
So when you open 100 packs you get on average arround: 4200 to 5400 rare coins, 3500 to 4500 epic coins and 2800 to 3600 legendary coins. Note that you get coins for Merc's you dont have! So those coins are divided over all Mercs you can collect.
On average this means you get arround: 233 to 300 per rare Merc, 206 to 265 per epic Merc and 165 to 212 per legendary Merc. Leveling all their skills to breakpoint (wich is level 3 for most Mercs) costs 450 coins. So you dont even reach that. Should you want to max a Merc's skills and 1 of their equipment slots your looking at 1700 coins. If you do all equipment it will be 2760 coins.
All in all your mainly getting a large variety of low level skill Merc's to chose from instead of a maxed out team that grinds the F2P players into the dust. The F2P player will be forced to stick with mainly 1 Merc team but it will be arround the same strength as those who pre-order. And if the F2P players focus on grinding coins for these Mercs, he will be able to keep up in power with the pre-order players. But once best 'Merc combinations' are known the F2P players will be at a obvious disatvantage. Though only slightly because of the average breakpoints for Merc skills. The 'task system' that each Merc can do should help reach those breakpoints. (though some Merc's will have expansive breakpoints)
Conclusion: pre-order packs = PAY FOR FUN! Even if you buy all pre-orders your just getting a large variety of Mercs but not much power. If you want to PAY 2 WIN you need to buy over a 1000 packs!!! I dont think the amount of whales who do this will ruin PVP. But obviously the top spots in the rankings will be reserverd for whales/streamers.
Personaly I think this game will be boring and frustrating in just a week for players who go F2P, because they get stuck in their grind with the same Mercs. Players who pre-order will probably have alot more fun, but might get frustrated later on because getting their 'Merc Build' at the proper skill level could take ages.
Looking at the coins to upgrade skills I can allready see that when we open 100 packs were not getting very far on the Merc's we want to play, unless your really lucky.
Heres why:
So when you open 100 packs you get on average arround: 4200 to 5400 rare coins, 3500 to 4500 epic coins and 2800 to 3600 legendary coins. Note that you get coins for Merc's you dont have! So those coins are divided over all Mercs you can collect.
So on average this means you get arround: 233 to 300 per rare Merc, 206 to 265 per epic Merc and 165 to 212 per legendary Merc. Leveling their skills to level 2 only cost 50 coins each but after that it's 100 coins. The breakpoints in powerlevel seem to be at arround rank 3. But the equipment is really expensive to upgrade since that starts at 150 coins! Note that skills go to rank 5 and equipment to rank 4. So maxing 1 Merc's skills and 1 equipment slot cost 1700 coins. If you do all equipment it will be 2760 coins. But reaching just breakpoint skill level is only 450 coins. Still that is out of range with 100 packs unless your really lucky.
All in all your mainly getting a large variety of low level skill Merc's to chose from instead of a maxed out team that grinds the F2P players into the dust. The F2P player will be forced to stick with mainly 1 Merc team but it will be arround the same strength as those who pre-order. And if the F2P players focus on grinding coins for this Merc team he will be able to keep up in power with the pre-order players. But once best 'Merc combinations' are known the F2P players will be at a obvious disatvantage. Though only slightly, because the average breakpoints for Mercs are just 450 coins and with the 'task system' that each Merc can do; reaching those 450 + free equipment should not be that hard.
Conclusion: pre-order packs = PAY FOR FUN! If you want to PAY 2 WIN you need to buy over a 1000 packs! I dont think the amount of whales who do this will ruin PVP. But top spots in the rankings will be reserverd for whales/streamers.
Additional note: Even if you pre-order because you have a favorite Merc team in mind, for example the fire team: Diablo, Ragnaros, Antonidas. Because Ragnaros is legendary it cost 500 coins to craft him should you not have him. So you probably have to grind Black Rock mountain which is the hardest zone at Launch. It might be hard enough that you may not even reach Black Rock Mountain in the first week. So being unlucky at pack opening can be really frustrating, if you really wanted to play that team.
0
In my opinion the current quest system and 'rewards track' is allready a problem. And if Mercenary stuff are added it becomes worse for everyone who only plays 1 mode in this game. I think only a small part of players want to play all 3 modes. So a more NEUTRAL quest and ''rewards track'' is needed. In addition Mercenaries seems to become on the same level as normal Hearthstone in terms of gold investment for packs. So I dont think players really can afford to play booth on the same competive level. Mercenaries is pretty much a game on it's own with it's own economy, the fact that it has it's own upgradeable town and coin system just proves that. And even if no Mercenary quests get added in the main game. We will still end up with a group of players who only play Mercenaries. Just like we now have a group who only plays Battlegrounds. So in my opinion it needs a rework. And "seducing" players to play a game for quests rewards while they dont want to play it, will only make them hate that game more I think. Atleast that's how I experience it.
0
Scanned through it but nothing is really said lol. Just some long rambling that could go on forever...
0
Well that escalated quickly. Why not bring Hitler in your comparison while your at it.
My "claim" comes from experience as things generaly go this way, so it aint absurd. But atm there is currently no ground for it. Meaning I was not "claiming" anything just posting a warning to watch out with burning all your gold and then getting stuck later on cause you cant upgrade your stuff! Not to mention I even say at the beginning that the game mentions: 'Unlock Heroic Bounties'. And what agenda am I even pushing here??? Are you just going to bash me with your own groundless claims?
SERIOUSLY WTF IS YOUR PROBLEM? Is Diablo stuck in your ass or something?
0
Looks like discussions like this allways derail into trash comments.
You know I wish it was like the old days, were you did not have F2P but just pay 50 euro/dollars for a game and it was yours to play for as much as you liked. And should an expansion come out it would be like 25 or 30 euro/dollars and no extra cost after that unless another expansion. But those expansions only came like once a year. This was a fair system. But like allways some wanted to play it for free, and pirated the games. So to counter these pirates we got online accounts. Wich allowed the products to become digital only no more hard copies required wich is fine but once everyone is required to play through an account it allso opened the door for our current F2P system.
Currently the F2P system is held up by the players who dont want to pay (atleast not at the start). I mean if players would ignore any game that is F2P and instead only chose games with a price tag. The industry would change. Now this is obviously not going to happen. But it is just as silly to blame the industry for having switched to this very effective way of money making system.
And if you think that playing F2P and NEVER PAYING but just grinding your way up instead is not enabling but using/abusing this system? Well what you really are is a 0 cost Blizzard employ that offers a challenge to other players. Playing against a human player is generaly more fun than playing against AI. So your just one of the humans to offer fun for the paying players. Though the paying players are allso offering fun towards other players so it does not matter much. The thing is that the paying players only spend like 1 or 2 hours a day or even less. While the grinding players waste like 6 or 8 hours a day. Wich makes it silly that they get upset because grinding is no fun. Indeed playing just 1 or 2 hours is for fun after that it becomes work lol. (Unless you really love it)
So blame yourself for letting yourself get abused, instead of blaming the company's who abuse you. Because your the one who can stop yourself, but you cant stop those company's from doing their thing just by posting your complaints and being angry lol.
As for me. Well I guess I m a moderate spender. If I m really hyped I buy the pre-orders and generaly I play for a week and 8 to 10 hours a day, after wich I get bored and move on, until the next hype. Playing games like this with the F2P system is like 6 or 9 times more expansive compared to the old days. But still cheaper than going to a themepark. I obviously avoid the really greedy F2P games that suck out a 1000 euro/dollars to get you anywere.
In my opinion Hearthstone as been on the more 'fair' side with it's F2P system and to me it looks like Mercenary's is going to be on the same level as the rest of Hearthstone. Though Hearthstone has become more expansive compared to the first day of it's release. But it's still more 'fair' compared to other F2P games. If your fed up with this, just stop playing F2P and play games with a price-tag without the extra cost, you can find alot of those on steam.
0
The 200 gold upgrade said it was to unlock Heroic Bounties. But even if the wording seems to imply all Heroic Bounties. I cant help to think it will be Heroic Barrens only. In wich case unlocking Heroic Felwood would cost like 400 or 500 gold. Heroic WInterspring 800 or 1000 gold and Heroic Black Rock Mountain would be like 1600 or 2000 gold. So a total of 3000 or 3700 gold...
Now obviously I could be wrong, but I dont believe in a generous Blizzard. So I m gonna keep atleast 3000 gold in bank until I know for certain I wont need that much. I probably will have the other 700 gold by the time I reach Heroic Black Rock Mountain so. I mean you can allways burn your gold on packs later on, there is no need to do it at the start. XD
0
Are you sure it's 1500 coins? That seems way to much generosity. (tbh I only expect 450 coins and all level 1 equipment) I mean getting those 1500 coins from quests/tasks is WAY easyer than just grinding. I mean the hardest part is just getting the 500 coins for the legendary but after that it's just focusing on completing the Tasks, wich probably hardly takes a day. UNLESS it requires the hardest zone on Heroic and you cant even get it done on normal. But I expect Guides to show up on youtube with ways to 'cheese' all those tasks. Trump will probably start a 'Broke in Mercenary' series. Though having seen him screw arround in early acces, I dont expect much wisdom from that.
On your second part: If doing all the tasks really award 1500 coins total then 'moderate spenders' will only need a few days of playtime to max out their favorite Team. And they will be able to do it with pve only. UNLESS blizzard made a restriction allowing you to complete only 1 Task for the same mercenary once a day, or a max amount of tasks a day. Since getting tasks seems RNG based, Blizzard can hide this restriction pretty easily.
On a side note: Like 90% of the Mercenaries seem to have breakpoints in their skill levels at skill level 3. So only 450 coins is needed to reach these breakpoints. Sylvanas is a big exception, she needs a massive coin sink but after that she becomes supreme. But for the rest of the Mercs, what is the point of these Breakpoints if their giving away 1500 coins from tasks? It just does not seem to match...
0
Funny that I m most interested in the pve content and expect dissapointment from the pvp part. But that's just from my experience with normal Hearthstone, there has never been a meta that i really liked. It was allways first 2 days are fun after that I lose interest and wonder if the 50 euro/dollar pre-order was worth the 2 days of fun.
With Mercenary's I expect only like a week of fun from the pvp part. Mainly because the whole game is so new that it will take longer before players know how to play best. But after a week it's going to be like same 4-5 merc Teams every time you play pvp, and you will know wich Merc they will target first, wich ability their going to use and so forth, so hardly any suprices and you probably allready know if your going to win or lose. And if your going to use some strange weird team, when the meta is settled, it's just auto lose.
Wich is why I really think & hope the pve part will keep things interesting for a much longer time, specialy if you have alot of different Merc Teams on hand. It's a much more fun experience to test unusual Merc Teams if the pve content is challenging enough, but not out right unfair, as you experience in a pvp settled meta.
0
I think that is a problem only whales will have to deal with. 2760 coins to max everything on a Merc, I dont see that happening unless you buy a 1000+ packs. And if you want to grind that amount your probably hardly there when the next expansion comes out. What I m more concerned about is coin investment 'mistakes'. Like investing in a equipment but later on either because a different Merc got nerfed or you just thought it would be good but it ended up not. Having to start over on a new piece equipment could be pretty frustrating.
1
I m actualy pretty hyped for this mode! Normal Hearthstone has been dead for me for over 2 years or so. I sometimes play Battlegrounds but I mainly watch kripp play it while I eat LOL. Now that I know that even if I would buy all pre-orders It wont ruin the PVE fun, (though it's probably wise 'for fun' not to spend your coins on the really low level parts) but instead add to the fun: 'You can make loads of different Merc Teams' instead of being limited to the few Mercs you have. And as I mention before the amount of coins you get are just enough to get 2 skills to breakpoint (skill level 3) but atleast you will have that for all Mercs you get. I think that's a much better way of doing things instead of letting players have 1 maxed out team, and nothing else.
Having seen most of the streamers that got early acces I think the PVE content is going to be very interessting and HARD in the later parts. Mainly because the PVE part this time is actualy going to be rewarding, so Blizzard needs players to FAIL. Unlike how they did things before and make it so that everybody can get it done...
I am a bit concerned about the PVP part that happends after 1 week. As in that you will be running into the same 4 or 5 Merc teams because those are the best so everybody is playing them. (including you) Just like standard Hearthstone becomes super lame with the same 4 or 5 decks each season.
But while I m thinking of these possible Merc Team combinations I m getting more and more excited with the much larger ways I can make them work. Especially when I m realizing that the NO-BRAINER Teams like: 'Diablo + Fire Mercs' is not going to work and that a good working Diablo team is looking quite different from the original fire setup. Not to mention that other NO-BRAINERS like Team Orc or Team Human aint going to be that strong. Atleast not compared to the more 'creative' Teams. So this all in all got me really hyped! It has been long since ive been this excited about a game.
And about the visuals... I like it clean as it is! The animations would just get in the way of planning and playing lol. And after a week your bored of them anyway. Allso when I see Raid Shadow Legends, it feels like I m on a Casino website with bells shining everywere just to get me spend my money. HS still got that nice atmosphere, though the shop gets flooded with more and more useless garbage. Why spend money on a lame 'Mega Bob' skin that loses to the original and worse Kripp actualy uses it...
Though I have not yet done so I m pretty sure I m going to pre-order all. I m still bussy thinking up new Merc Teams, but it starts to look like I want to play with 90% of them lol.
1
OPENING PACKS REGARDING COINS.
So when you open 100 packs you get on average arround: 4200 to 5400 rare coins, 3500 to 4500 epic coins and 2800 to 3600 legendary coins. Note that you get coins for Merc's you dont have! So those coins are divided over all Mercs you can collect.
On average this means you get arround: 233 to 300 per rare Merc, 206 to 265 per epic Merc and 165 to 212 per legendary Merc. Leveling all their skills to breakpoint (wich is level 3 for most Mercs) costs 450 coins. So you dont even reach that. Should you want to max a Merc's skills and 1 of their equipment slots your looking at 1700 coins. If you do all equipment it will be 2760 coins.
All in all your mainly getting a large variety of low level skill Merc's to chose from instead of a maxed out team that grinds the F2P players into the dust. The F2P player will be forced to stick with mainly 1 Merc team but it will be arround the same strength as those who pre-order. And if the F2P players focus on grinding coins for these Mercs, he will be able to keep up in power with the pre-order players. But once best 'Merc combinations' are known the F2P players will be at a obvious disatvantage. Though only slightly because of the average breakpoints for Merc skills. The 'task system' that each Merc can do should help reach those breakpoints. (though some Merc's will have expansive breakpoints)
Conclusion: pre-order packs = PAY FOR FUN! Even if you buy all pre-orders your just getting a large variety of Mercs but not much power. If you want to PAY 2 WIN you need to buy over a 1000 packs!!! I dont think the amount of whales who do this will ruin PVP. But obviously the top spots in the rankings will be reserverd for whales/streamers.
Personaly I think this game will be boring and frustrating in just a week for players who go F2P, because they get stuck in their grind with the same Mercs. Players who pre-order will probably have alot more fun, but might get frustrated later on because getting their 'Merc Build' at the proper skill level could take ages.
0
Looking at the coins to upgrade skills I can allready see that when we open 100 packs were not getting very far on the Merc's we want to play, unless your really lucky.
Heres why:
So when you open 100 packs you get on average arround: 4200 to 5400 rare coins, 3500 to 4500 epic coins and 2800 to 3600 legendary coins. Note that you get coins for Merc's you dont have! So those coins are divided over all Mercs you can collect.
So on average this means you get arround: 233 to 300 per rare Merc, 206 to 265 per epic Merc and 165 to 212 per legendary Merc. Leveling their skills to level 2 only cost 50 coins each but after that it's 100 coins. The breakpoints in powerlevel seem to be at arround rank 3. But the equipment is really expensive to upgrade since that starts at 150 coins! Note that skills go to rank 5 and equipment to rank 4. So maxing 1 Merc's skills and 1 equipment slot cost 1700 coins. If you do all equipment it will be 2760 coins. But reaching just breakpoint skill level is only 450 coins. Still that is out of range with 100 packs unless your really lucky.
All in all your mainly getting a large variety of low level skill Merc's to chose from instead of a maxed out team that grinds the F2P players into the dust. The F2P player will be forced to stick with mainly 1 Merc team but it will be arround the same strength as those who pre-order. And if the F2P players focus on grinding coins for this Merc team he will be able to keep up in power with the pre-order players. But once best 'Merc combinations' are known the F2P players will be at a obvious disatvantage. Though only slightly, because the average breakpoints for Mercs are just 450 coins and with the 'task system' that each Merc can do; reaching those 450 + free equipment should not be that hard.
Conclusion: pre-order packs = PAY FOR FUN! If you want to PAY 2 WIN you need to buy over a 1000 packs! I dont think the amount of whales who do this will ruin PVP. But top spots in the rankings will be reserverd for whales/streamers.
Additional note: Even if you pre-order because you have a favorite Merc team in mind, for example the fire team: Diablo, Ragnaros, Antonidas. Because Ragnaros is legendary it cost 500 coins to craft him should you not have him. So you probably have to grind Black Rock mountain which is the hardest zone at Launch. It might be hard enough that you may not even reach Black Rock Mountain in the first week. So being unlucky at pack opening can be really frustrating, if you really wanted to play that team.