21.4 Patch Notes - Mercenaries, New Skins, Bug Fixes & Known Issues
Blizzard just published patch notes for tomorrow's patch that will feature a new game mode - Mercenaries, new skins, and bug fixes. There's a list of bugs that will be shipped with the update and will get fixed in a later patch.
Quote from BlizzardThe 21.4 patch, releasing tomorrow, launches Hearthstone’s newest game mode, Mercenaries! The patch also includes some bug fixes and preparations for future updates.
Quite the Roster
Mercenaries is launching with 51 playable Mercenaries! We’ve compiled a list of all Mercenaries who will be playable at launch, as well as all their Abilities and Equipment. The Card Library will hold all this information in a future update. On top of the stats shown here, every Mercenary gets an additional +1/+5 when you fully max them out at level 30, with max Abilities and Equipment.
Keep in mind, this is just a snapshot of all the Mercenaries as they will exist at the launch of Hearthstone Mercenaries. We plan to cover future updates in patch notes and other blog posts, and in the Card Library once it’s been updated.
A Village Comes to the Tavern
With the addition of Mercenaries comes a new way to interact with Hearthstone, in the Mercenaries Village. The Village is the jumping off point for all things Mercenaries, including managing your collection in the Tavern, setting off on Bounties, jumping into the Fighting Pit, and more! You can also upgrade the buildings in your Village as you play, to upgrade their functionality or make them more efficient. Some upgrades are free, unlocked through gameplay, while others cost Gold. At launch, it will cost 900 Gold to fully upgrade your Village: 100 to unlock the Fighting Pit, 200 to upgrade the Travel Point (which unlocks Heroic difficulty for Bounties), 200 to upgrade the Campfire (to add a slot to the Task Board), and another 400 to upgrade the Campfire a second time (to add another slot to the Task Board). You can learn more about navigating by checking out our Village/Collection blog.
Mercenaries Matchmaking and Rating System
The Mercenaries Fighting Pit will have its own, new matchmaking and rating system. This new system is the most complex matchmaking and rating system Hearthstone has ever seen, to account for all the variables in each Mercenaries matchup. And if the perfect match can’t be found, we’ll make one for you with new A.I. opponent technology! Look for an article highlighting and further explaining the new system, soon.
A Note on Quests and Other Known Issues
At launch, most Daily and Weekly Quests will not be compatible with Mercenaries. The only Quests that will be able to be completed in Mercenaries will be those that require you to win games in any mode, and those that require you to take a certain number of turns. In future patches, we will be fixing the Quests that are not working properly, as well as possibly making new Daily and Weekly Quests or adjusting the language of certain existing Quests to include Mercenaries.
Don’t worry, you will still be able to complete your Daily and Weekly Quests in the other modes. On top of that, the new Campfire Tasks in Mercenaries are separate from the Daily and Weekly Quest system, so you can still complete those for even more rewards. You can head to the forums for a list of known issues shipping with 21.4.
Spooky Season is Nearly Here
Preparations for Hallow’s End begin in patch 21.4, with festive box dressing and fun, costumed cosmetic options coming next week. The Fairy Tales Bundle includes fairy tales-themed hero skins for Rexxar, Jaina, Thrall, and Anduin. The Battlegrounds Bundle – Hallow’s End includes a Gala Medivh alternate Bartender and seven costumed hero skins. After you’ve gotten your costume picked out, the festivities will kick off in patch 21.6 (details coming closer to that patch).
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the middle of the screen to become unclickable.
- Fixed a bug where Blood Knight would cause Highlord Fordragon to trigger for all minions, regardless of whether they had Divine Shield.
- Changed the name of the 3/3 token spawned by The Beast to Pip Quickwit - The original name being Finkle Einhorn.
- Fixed a bug where, when the Duels Treasure Meek Mastery was in play, and a minion affected by it was Silenced, the minion got healed 1 Health.
- Fixed a bug where minions buffed by the Duels Treasure Avenging Armaments retained their buffs if moved from the board into the hand or deck.
- Updated the wording and punctuation on several Duels cards and effects to be clearer and more consistent with established Hearthstone formatting.
- Fixed a bug that caused players to get stuck in the Boomsday Project and Dalaran Heist single-player content, and cause the game to crash.
- Fixed a bug that caused friends who are online, but not in the Hearthstone client, to appear able to be challenged to a Friendly Challenge.
- Fixed a bug that made you unable to re-challenge a friend after completing a match against them.
- Fixed a bug where having your friends list open while reconnecting to Battle.net would cause the friends list to sometimes not fully populate.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Options menu to be cut off while playing in Practice mode on mobile.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused pack types to switch places on the pack opening screen.
- Fixed a bug that incorrectly showed Achievements as completed after clicking through them.
Launch Day Known Issues
Quote from BlizzardHello all, we wanted to make you aware that there will be some known issues shipping with 21.4, which we intend to address in future updates. This post will house the known issues prior to launch, in all languages, and another post will be made if any unexpected live issues pop up.
The following are known issues that will be shipping with Patch 21.4, to be fixed in future updates:
- Most Daily and Weekly Quests cannot be completed in Mercenaries. Only quests that require you to win a certain number of games in any mode, or take a number of turns, can be completed at this time. Quests can still be completed normally in the other game modes.
- In Mercenaries, the general rule is that Taunt blocks an Attack, unless the Ability designates a specific target for the Attack (such as “Attack the lowest Health enemy” or “Attack the left-most enemy”). That said, at launch there are a few Treasure Abilities that will incorrectly ignore Taunt when they shouldn’t: Ogre Warmaul, Hysteria, Mass Hysteria, To the Death!, Blinding Rage 3, and The Beast Within 1-5.
- Visual bug with the Diablo Mercenary’s Ability, Apocalypse level 3, combined with the Magma Horn Equipment, showing the wrong damage. The move applies the correct damage.
- Visual bug with the Survival of the Fittest Ability, level 1, not showing the Ability’s Speed. The correct Speed is 9.
- Rexxar’s “Mama Bear’s Claws” Equipment does not buff Mercenaries that are played before Rexxar, or to Rexxar’s left, during the placement phase. This is caused by the effects being read in play order, and from left-to-right. The workaround at this time is to play Rexxar before, and to the left of, any Beast Mercenaries you want him to buff.
- Visual bug where the “upgrade available” indicator will sometimes continue to show after a Mercenary’s Ability or Equipment have been upgraded, even if there are not enough remaining Coins to upgrade that Mercenary any more.
- Performance bug where playing Mercenaries for longer periods (around 1.5-2 hours) will cause lag and performance slowdowns, especially in devices with less RAM. The workaround at this time is to restart the client if that begins.
- Visual bug where some tooltips and pop-ups are clipped off the edge of the screen on mobile devices.
Thanks for your patience, and good luck out there, Mercenaries!
Eh, mostly some minor procedural and visual bugs with clarifications so that you know what they are. Probably preferable to delaying the release to fix them. Not too, too bothered by them, but it's silly.
"We are launching the game with a massive memory leak. You should restart the game every couple hours."
Absolutely insane.
Why has Finkle Einhorn been replaced? is there a lore reason for this?
It was a reference to this: https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/sinful-cinema-ace-ventura-pet-detective-the-most-offensive-and-homophobic-football-movie-ever-made/
After reading the article, it obviously can be seen as abhorrent towards trans people. But everyone has to remember, during that time transphobia wasn't even a concept. Though, that last scene where Ace forcefully removes articles of clothing to prove his claims is absolutely disgusting, and I completely forgot about that scene. Comedy was very rampant and unhinged, and really didn't have a person think, "is this okay". In today's age, stuff like this would never exist, and for good reason.
Would I deem Jim Carrey, who was a co-writer, transphobic or homophobic? No, not at all. Comedy was created and accepted differently back then. It was normal for comedians to poke fun on hot button topics.
The sequel was far better, and definitely took some care in its comedy.... mostly. A lot of comedy pre-2000 was very distasteful, but can still be viewed as "funny" as we know they're telling a joke. Even today we still see homophobia/transphobia in movies. IT remake rings a bell
They changed the name because certain kinds of people can't take a joke and must remove everything in pop culture that offends them personally. As they have been doing over at Blizzard some time now.
There's a huge difference between homophobia and transphobia still being in movies as a plot point and a movie having "look a trans person, let's all throw up" as a joke. Transphobia wasn't really a "hot button" topic in the 90s, and more to the point, what they do with it in Ace Ventura could barely even be considered a joke.
Most homo/transphobic humor in the past boiled down to little more than pointing out that a character is gay or trans. That's it. That's the extent joke. "Look, it's a gay or trans person. Gross!" It's lazy, and it punches down, which makes it cowardly too.
Should the people involved with 30 year old movie be cancelled for a tasteless joke? No. Is criticism warranted? Yes.
Should Blizzard still be making references to the joke in their games in 2021? I'm gonna say no.
Should anyone actually care what a random gnome is called in a card game, or be upset that the name was changed? If you're that invested in the name of a minor character in a card game, you definitely shouldn't be. Get your priorities in order.
No one is judging Jim Carrey really. They just hate the character.
It is a joke. People do still find it funny, more people than you're comfortable admitting. YOU are the problem. The people who can't leave others alone to enjoy their own hobbies and sense of humour. You will continue to make excuses like "it's punching down, it's _____phobic, it's [current year], it's violent, lazy, cowardly..."
If you need this many excuses it's because they aren't good enough justification to censor and change other people's work. You and people like you are making jokes at the expense of others all the time. Held to your own standard, you punch down, and make lazy, spiteful jokes, cowardly behind the group you're referencing's backs. Everyone does. You are lying if you claim to behind the single outlier in this fact of life and we all know it.
Don't come crying to me when people like you infiltrate a franchise that you love, or that you created and change it to suit their agenda, or to bend to a mob. It's been said before but it is a slippery slope. You are giving the vocal minority power and they'll use it against you sooner or later because as much as you are afraid to admit it, everyone is different and you'll find at least one point of disagreement with everybody.
Huh.... seeing the up and downvotes really tells how many homophobic and transphobic people still exist on this site. What a shame :\
And yeah, no. Criticism for whether a joke "punches down" is not warranted, it's childish and unfounded at best (manipulative and disingenuous at worst). And actually a reference made by one of WoW's original design team against the trans hive is absolutely punching up if you're going to go that way. I struggle to think of a group who would be "punching down" at trans people when it comes to jokes made on the internet.
probably another one of Brode's brainchilds, which Kotick wants to eradicate from the Earth's surface.
(my answer on "Why they renamed Finkle")
These soft ass people can't take a joke. If we can't laugh at ourselves, we are doomed.
Dude. Who the fuck is laughing at a gnome being named "Finkle Einhorn"? It's not even a joke, it's a reference to a joke. And that joke is gross and not funny. It's not worth keeping if it bothers people.
Seriously, the movie references in WC3 could be funny. You click on a unit a couple of times, and oh look, my rifleman is quoting Dirty Harry. That's a little funny. The ones in WoW were lazy substitutes for actually writing story content.
In this instance, it's a name. A cheap reference to a joke where the idea of a transgender woman existing is *SO DISGUSTING* it causes men to vomit. This isn't Blizzard removing the flirt option from World of WarCraft. Or any of the other inane, overreaching things they're doing. You're directly defending that they should keep a single, lazy ass name because you think a single name that some intern probably came up with on their coffee break is too sacred to change.
Actually the joke was that Ace was sexually assaulted by an alleged trans woman who also murdered two people and assaulted another man previously :)
But yeah, keep believing that they're just "existing" and that we're somehow snapping them from existence like Thanos when we joke about them.
RIP Finkle Einhorn. Any idea why it was changed to Pip Quickwit though?
Was his name based on a real Blizzard personnel that was an asshole?
It was a reference to this: https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/sinful-cinema-ace-ventura-pet-detective-the-most-offensive-and-homophobic-football-movie-ever-made/
Considering the legal situation Blizzard is in due to EEO troubles, this is probably a proactive move due the the origin of the name. I could be totally wrong, but that's my take.
The name is an Ace Ventura reference, which has garnered complaints in the past for being inherently transphobic. I hadn't seen any notes about it, but if the character has been renamed on the ptr in WoW, it would stand to reason they would change the name in Hearthstone as well.