Mercenaries: Exploit Fixes - BG: Toki Disabled - Patch Notes Coming This Week
During the night several hotfixes went out and Blizzard announced Patch Notes for Patch 21.6 to be coming out this week as well as a bigger communication update for Mercenaries coming next week. Read the details below!
UPDATE: Another Hotfix was added, which is in the process of being deployed. Read more below!
Quote from Blizzard10/26 Update: We deployed a small server-side hotfix today to address an issue preventing Mercenaries MMR from properly adjusting after players lose a game at 0 MMR (such as players who lost their first-ever Fighting Pit game). The patch also prevents a hack that allowed players to cheat more than 6 Mercenaries into their Party. This is our last planned hotfix for the 21.4 patch cycle. Look out for future updates in the 21.6 Patch Notes, coming later this week, ahead of next week’s patch!
10/26 Update 2: We have temporarily disabled Toki from Battlegrounds due to a bug with some of her skins. We are preparing a fix and will reenable her once we are able to get the hotfix in to correct the bug.
10/26 Update 3: We’ve rolled out a server-side hotfix that addresses exploits in the Fighting Pit rewards system that players were abusing through wintrading. Going forward, wins will only count towards Fighting Pit daily rewards if you defeat three or more enemy Mercenaries. This change will not affect how MMR is calculated after a win, regardless of how many enemies were defeated.
Separately, we see that many players are excited about Mercenaries. We wanted to let you know that we are working on a bigger Mercenaries communication update that we have planned for next week.
Update Late Wednesday the 27th:
Quote from Blizzard10/27 Update: We are in the process of deploying a server-side hotfix that:
- Fixes a bug that prevented players from claiming Mercenaries seasonal rewards if you passed the ranking threshold for that reward from a game where your opponent conceded too quickly. Note: this fix will not retroactively grant the seasonal awards to people who were affected by this bug. The team will manually grant those awards to the affected people at a later time.
- Fixes the bug that caused some Toki Battlegrounds skins to have an Attack value. Once the hotfix has been deployed, Toki will be added back into the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
Yes, I still click on some stories about the mode because I want to see if it's gonna pick up or not. If it picks up, it could be bad news for HS ranked as I do not see, at all, players putting money in Mercs and HS. That is why I am checking on it.
Honestly, if this game is about PvE the way they originally said it was, maybe just don't give rewards for PvP?
If topping the leaderboard is the only reward people need in BGs, why can't it be the same in Mercs?
Because BG is absolutely free and nothing to collect. While mercenaries needs a lot of coins. If they dont give you coins for ldder it would he even harder. But I agree that they need to do something for pve to make it more engaging. Some weekly chalenges or dungeons for example.
What PvE needs is a better UI, better balanced HCs (Garr is such a stupid fight on HC, you can see the intended mechanic but it just doesn't matter! Plus, BRM should be harder than winterspring, IMO), more mercs for synergies, and similar. Something to keep it fresh after you've done the solo content enough to grind all mercs would be decent, but that's the perils of HS' PvE - it's always got a limited lifespan.
Quite honestly, getting tasks is not hard, they're very common if you do content of the right level. The grumbles about that are hilariously bad, speaking as someone who's been grinding for data collection on other stuff.
You do not need coins for PvP. You can PvP with mercs of absolutely any level or state of upgrade. People simply choose not to because they worry about getting matched with someone stronger, which is not supposed to happen. If it does happen, then that is the piece of this puzzle that needs to be fixed.
Curiously enough, both of the recent Mercenaries things (win trading and farming Mysterious Strangers) are manifestations of something Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) once called "The Mechanar Syndrome":
"We call it the Mechanar syndrome. Players didn't farm Mechanar because it was our crowning achievement in dungeon design."
The issue was "efficiency is more fun than non-efficiency. And non-efficiency = time wasting = frustration." So people are automatically going to try to pursue the min-max route if available, AND if the gameplay isn't sufficiently fulfilling enough to merit just playing the game. I.e., I know there are speed run strats and techniques for "Breath Of The Wild", but it's a game I'll just play for the sake of playing it. The bigger problem is that they don't make the game any more engaging but instead punish players for trying to play effectively. That's generally a bad thing.
Except that people who were grinding were also complaining about the grind, so obviously it wasn't fun for them anyway.
Meanwhile, those of us who actually enjoy the game (and plenty of us DO exist), who have always played it normally, had fun the whole time and managed to accumulate plenty of coins and equipment along the way.
This isn't a problem of game design. It's a lesson that if you don't like the game, maybe just don't play the game. Or at least try playing it as it was intended before you call it a grind.
Righto, the game mode exists and if you enjoy it that way, you can play it in whatever manner you want. From that very lens, why would it matter if people play it in a different manner (min/max) and why would it be alright for a company to remove their very option of playing that way? It doesn't affect you specifically at all, but it takes away from them?
Kind of like how older NES and SNES games had "cheat codes": You threw in a button combination and had FUN. Somehow, maybe around the time online gameplay became a thing, it became the norm that games had to be locked down and no unsanctioned fun was allowed. If it's a game that isn't "competitive" and doesn't detract from anyone else, why not allow those options (I guess I'm specifically talking about non-PVP now)?
Because the game does need to generate income for Blizzard, and allowing players to earn huge amounts of free coins runs counter to that goal.
NES games were paid for up front, so they didn't have to worry about that.
"We see that many players are interested in mercs". So much for "dead mode" or "will be dead in a few days lol". This here is just salt from players. For the change: its bad. Simple and easy but because I dont care about PvP it does not affect me.
Yeah they would never lie, especially when they have a financial incentive to lie. Because we know how upstanding this company is.
keep the salt coming. Pirates are coming!
meanwhile....Tyrantus is waiting for 2027's rotation to get it's nerf reverted....
Glad I skipped this mode..
Yet you are still clicking on stories about the mode. Why is that?
The faster Mercenaries dies, the faster the actual game of Hearthstone gets its dev resources back and we can get bugs fixed and more focus put on balancing it before sets release instead of after.
Or ... OR ... the faster traditional Hearthstone dies, the sooner we can get more support for Mercenaries.
But Mercenaries is shallow and boring, so that would be rather foolish.
Sorry, I forgot your opinion is more valid than everyone else's.
Oh, so if I lose 2 mercenaries and it looks like I'm losing the match, I can just concede and make sure no one gets rewards?
SMART MOVE, Blizzard. Surely, there will be no unanticipated fallout from this change.