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Hearthstone | Posted by | 4 years, 6 months ago
Mercenaries

The radio silence is deafening

Despite what I'm about to say, I am still excited for Mercenaries. I think it will be fun and have a fair amount of depth to its Pokemon-esque collecting, leveling, and battling systems. With that in mind...where the fuck is Blizzard?

This is not a normal card reveal-season where one can just disappear for three weeks without a word: it's a brand new game, and there exists a very vocal subset of the player-base which is upset. The reveal stream was a whirlwind of information, and left a bad first impression for some. PC Gamer called it "a masterclass in how not to announce a game." Blizzard needs to do right be these people and provide more details: an AMA, play-time with a streamer, another blog; something to help rebuild the lost hype. I want Mercenaries to be my go-to Hearthstone game in the future, but as the days go by in silence my concern that it will be dead-on-arrival continues to grow.

Don't let me down, Team 5: you and I both need this win, and right now you're blowing it.

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  • Despite what I'm about to say, I am still excited for Mercenaries. I think it will be fun and have a fair amount of depth to its Pokemon-esque collecting, leveling, and battling systems. With that in mind...where the fuck is Blizzard?

    This is not a normal card reveal-season where one can just disappear for three weeks without a word: it's a brand new game, and there exists a very vocal subset of the player-base which is upset. The reveal stream was a whirlwind of information, and left a bad first impression for some. PC Gamer called it "a masterclass in how not to announce a game." Blizzard needs to do right be these people and provide more details: an AMA, play-time with a streamer, another blog; something to help rebuild the lost hype. I want Mercenaries to be my go-to Hearthstone game in the future, but as the days go by in silence my concern that it will be dead-on-arrival continues to grow.

    Don't let me down, Team 5: you and I both need this win, and right now you're blowing it.

    Friendly

  • I agree they have a lot of clarifying to do after the reveal stream, but the mode is still nearly a month away with nowhere near a month's worth of communications (whatever that means) needed, so I understand the silence. Really I'm a bit surprised they did the full (if flawed) reveal stream so early. They could easily have done an announcement of an announcement instead, and left that reveal 'til about now.

    All that being said, I would appreciate them revealing maybe 1 or 2 characters per day from now. We might not fully appreciate what all the abilities really mean yet, but it will keep everyone engaged for a while and there is so much to unpack with each character that seeing them all slowly would be beneficial.

  • Judging by no gameplay-time, or beta access to any streamer, I'm gonna say that it's not ready yet.
    They probably facing a lot of unstability in game, or worse, game-breaking bugs. It's a huge new mode with more than 30 chars and a lot of progresses.

    Releasing it to the masses in this state will only make the already-bad impression into a worse state of publicity. More worse than asking to buy bundles for something that's not working properly even though it's "free to play".

    Heck, I don't know, but I got this feeling where they would postponed the release until the next expansion. Mark my words.

    One thing for sure, the longer they stay developing this mode, the longer we have to deal with unstable client. Honestly, I can count my gametime, it's between 5-10 games where I must restart the client because of bugs.

  • I'm currently laid up on medical leave due to my back, so maybe I have too much free time to worry about this lol :/ ...

    Friendly

  • I agree -- I'm excited about the mode and disappointed at the lack of information.

    At the very least, I'd love a run-down of all the abilities and equipment. Even if the exact numbers are subject to change, it would be fun to be able to do some party comp theorycrafting.

  • I'm considering buying all the bundles but I'm also waiting for more info on the mode. I've played Hearthstone since closed beta and have every card in the game. I have supported the game by buying every preorder and bundle that was ever released for it but I might even be at my end with this new mode. I typically average about 150 free packs from the RT each season and on top of that I buy both pre-orders and another 2-3  40 pack bundles for each expansion. Reading that mercenaries requires in game gold to bolster your town is pretty harsh. I'm one of the few people who have a lot of downtime at work and I am able to play there but who has the time to play both modes and progress? I am able to clear all 4 quests on Monday in less than an hour but I can only do that because I have a complete collection at my disposal. 

    Devs need money for their work and I don't expect anyone to work for free but I do find it as odd and concerning as the rest of you that for a new mode that has $130 worth of pre-orders in the shop has had such a poor introduction with no follow-up at all. 

    Blizzard wants me to spend  $30-$130 on a game they have shown no enthusiasm for since the lackluster announcement.  This would lead one to believe the product will be sub-standard upon official release and only those who spent money on it will agonize through it just because they already purchased it.

    The real tip-off for the grand disappointment Mercenaries will be at launch is not the lack of info about the game but rather the prices of the pre-orders. Nobody in their right mind would release a product they knew would be great on day one and charge what they are charging. I'd rather have three people give me $19.99 than one person give me $49.99.  This also feeds into the "whale" theory for those that do buy the bundles they will be so far ahead of everyone else that the time needed to offset that gap won't be worth it. 

    I was one of the people surveyed months ago about pricing structures and how much I was willing to spend on products that were released. This survey was before blizzard released the multi-game anniversary bundles. They wanted to figure out how to structure these bundles in such a way to provide the most revenue from different combinations of games  and rewards at each tier of the offer. There were a lot of questions about the upcoming mercenary mode as well. Pricing , UI layout,  loading screen graphics, etc...I left comments specifically for the Mercenaries mode and told blizzard I would not even play the game if I had to buy each mercenary nor would I play it if I had to spend more than 30-40 minutes playing to clear all of the quests for the week.

    Don't get me wrong, the mode looks very cool. The art and voice acting are what has kept me playing hearthstone for all these years. Blizzard will definitely be releasing more on the mode before it goes live and only then will I make my final decision to buy all the bundles or none of them.  If I don't buy any of the bundles chances are I'll probably play it as much as I play duels and that's almost never. 

    • Quote From WarNerve

      Blizzard wants me to spend  $30-$130 on a game they have shown no enthusiasm for since the lackluster announcement.  This would lead one to believe the product will be sub-standard upon official release and only those who spent money on it will agonize through it just because they already purchased it.

      I'm not at all concerned about the game being substandard. I can tell from the videos I've already seen that it will be entertaining enough to keep my attention for quite a while.

      My reason for not pre-ordering is not the price point per se, but the lack of bonus content in the bundles. I can get 50 packs for 50 bucks (or 30 for $30) anytime, so I might as well wait until the game comes out to decide how much I am willing to spend. The specific legendary Mercs they chose to give away don't interest me all that much either, or else I might be more tempted.

      Also, no caster pre-order? Really?!

      • Quote From FortyDust
        Also, no caster pre-order? Really?!

        Right? I would have included Ragnaros instead of Sylvanas. I might have went for the trifecta, then, as Sylvanas' abilities are not compelling to me.

        Edit: Or Jaina! We could've used a hero instead of three villains.

        Friendly
        • Quote From linkblade91
          Quote From FortyDust
          Also, no caster pre-order? Really?!

          Right? I would have included Ragnaros instead of Sylvanas. I might have went for the trifecta, then, as Sylvanas' abilities are not compelling to me.

          What do you mean? She can nuke entire enemy board when she dies :D That seems rather good, as a last resort, or as a strategy for at least PVE farming :)

          Staff
        • Quote From linkblade91
          Right? I would have included Ragnaros instead of Sylvanas. I might have went for the trifecta, then, as Sylvanas' abilities are not compelling to me.

          Actually, Ragnaros is Protector, not a caster or fighter.

          • Quote From Alfi
            Quote From linkblade91
            Right? I would have included Ragnaros instead of Sylvanas. I might have went for the trifecta, then, as Sylvanas' abilities are not compelling to me.

            Actually, Ragnaros is Protector, not a caster or fighter.

            Fair enough, but I didn't know that at the time :P Ragnaros was a Caster in the streamer reveal, as was Alexstrasza

            Friendly
            • Quote From linkblade91
              Quote From Alfi
              Quote From linkblade91
              Right? I would have included Ragnaros instead of Sylvanas. I might have went for the trifecta, then, as Sylvanas' abilities are not compelling to me.

              Actually, Ragnaros is Protector, not a caster or fighter.

              Fair enough, but I didn't know that at the time :P Ragnaros was a Caster in the streamer reveal, as was Alexstrasza

              Looking at the abilities of those two, I'm convinced there's something not quite right with the data that was mined. Same with Guff.

              I guess it's possible that they wanted to open up fire synergies to other roles so you could have a more balanced fire team, but if that's the case, I'd expect them also to rework their abilities to be more in line with what a protector is supposed to do.

              • Quote From FortyDust

                Looking at the abilities of those two, I'm convinced there's something not quite right with the data that was mined. Same with Guff.

                I guess it's possible that they wanted to open up fire synergies to other roles so you could have a more balanced fire team, but if that's the case, I'd expect them also to rework their abilities to be more in line with what a protector is supposed to do.

                Yeah, its really strange at how some of the mercenaries are situated. I think this is purely an "unreleased oddities" thing, if not large changes that happened later down the line, and we'll see correct data once the data goes live. What we got to see through datamining, without a doubt, is not final.

                I can say for certain though that I manually confirmed a lot of the weird stuff we were seeing and they are indeed flagged the way they are.

                • I wasn't doubting your mining skillz, to be sure! "Unreleased oddities" is exactly the way to put it.

  • Quote from Blizz page: When you first enter the Tavern, you’ll notice that your Mercenaries are organized into three sections, called Roles, each with a corresponding color. Red Mercenaries are called Protectors; green Mercenaries are called Fighters; and blue Mercenaries are called Casters. 

    This bugs me. Blue for Casters is OK, but why are Fighters not red (aggresive color, color of blood) and Protectors green (calm color)??

    • Quote From Alfi

      Quote from Blizz page: When you first enter the Tavern, you’ll notice that your Mercenaries are organized into three sections, called Roles, each with a corresponding color. Red Mercenaries are called Protectors; green Mercenaries are called Fighters; and blue Mercenaries are called Casters. 

      This bugs me. Blue for Casters is OK, but why are Fighters not red (aggresive color, color of blood) and Protectors green (calm color)??

      I view it by association with the roles of WoW/HS classes: blue is mage/shaman, so obviously casters; green is hunter, a DPS class; leaving red to adopt the tank side of warrior.

      Abstracted from that context, I agree red and green seem misplaced, though I would personally separate fighters from being necessarily aggressive or even spilling lots of blood. I expect rogues will mostly end up in the fighter role, for example, but they are characterised by being calm and calculating, not messy and hot-headed. So there will be plenty of fighters for whom green is actually a better fit than red.

      Similarly, I could argue that being a protector requires grabbing the opponent's attention (which is why HS uses the word 'taunt'), to let the fighters go by unnoticed. Valeera's blood elf heritage notwithstanding, there's a reason rogues and hunters don't tend to wear bright red, while a shieldbearer might consider that an advantage.

  • I'm like 99% sure they're that color because of Pokemon: Fire (red) beats Grass (green), Grass beats Water (blue), and Water beats Fire. For anyone who has played those games this would seem perfectly natural, as it has been that way for about 25 years. I could say something like "tanks are red because Warriors are associated with red", but come on: it's Pokemon lol :D

    Friendly
  • Quote From linkblade91

    I'm like 99% sure they're that color because of Pokemon: Fire (red) beats Grass (green), Grass beats Water (blue), and Water beats Fire. For anyone who has played those games this would seem perfectly natural, as it has been that way for about 25 years. I could say something like "tanks are red because Warriors are associated with red", but come on: it's Pokemon lol :D

    The Pokemon colour cycle is fine, but the problem is none of the colours line up with how those types function. It would surely make red/fire the fighter, green/grass the caster (lots of status effects and healing), and then blue/water defaults to tank, which I suppose water type is fairly good for (it's no match for steel but it's pretty solid defensively). That would be the true Pokemon-inspired version.

    (Sorry. I can't help being pedantic when it comes to Pokemon.)

    • I think red for Warrior (tank), blue for Mage (caster), green for Hunter (DPS) is the most immediate and important association for players of Hearthstone and WoW.

      The secondary association with the Pokémon type match-ups is a useful way to remember the relationships, but we should resist the urge to dive too deeply into that comparison. Mercenaries is its own game, and though it may have borrowed this sliver of a Pokémon mechanism, we wouldn't want it to be completely derivative of that game.

  • The mode will be released tomorrow and there was no pre-release streamer event or similar. I'm used to be on the positive side for Mercenaries but for me that looks like Blizz is not very confident about the game (mode)...

    • Quote From aposteljoe

      The mode will be released tomorrow and there was no pre-release streamer event or similar. I'm used to be on the positive side for Mercenaries but for me that looks like Blizz is not very confident about the game (mode)...

      Several streamers have been playing it for a while. That sounds like something similar to me.

      I'm not sure the usual sort of streamer event would work very well with Mercs. because unlike normal HS you don't just get all the cards and everyone is on a level playing field. It takes time to level characters, and that process is a large part of the game. Hence why the drawn out stuff we've seen with a handful of streamers is more appropriate.

      • What about a PvP Event with fully developed Mercs? Or a kind of draft format: every player get's X Packs and has to form a team from it.

        • Quote From aposteljoe

          What about a PvP Event with fully developed Mercs? Or a kind of draft format: every player get's X Packs and has to form a team from it.

          These can be done, but they're not without problems. Using fully leveled mercs won't actually be representative of what players experience when it goes live. Meanwhile, using mercs straight from packs leaves them at level 1, when they only have 1 ability, so PvP won't be very engaging.

          On top of all of that, people just don't have the same understanding of the game that they do with normal HS. One of the things that makes HS so good to watch is that you're in some sense 'passively engaged', because you can see the hand and the current board state, so you can consider what you would do in that situation. Until we've all had a chance to actually play it and internalise what the different characters can do, there will be a much greater disconnect when watching Mercs gameplay, with a lot of stuff just happening in front of you.

          When all this is considered together, I don't really see what such an event achieves right now. That said, I could picture doing one ahead of the next batch of mercs characters being added. Then people can combine them with characters we already know and understand. 

  • Even Duels had a pre-release event.

    • Quote From aposteljoe

      Even Duels had a pre-release event.

      Right, and Duels is just PvP dungeon run with a tiny bit of constructed to it, so doesn't have any of the issues I said exist for doing it with Mercs.  

      I think you're way too bothered by it anyway. It really doesn't matter if Blizz is confident about the mode or not. What matters is whether you like the mode as it is, so just wait 'til it releases tomorrow and decide whether you like it or not then. 

      • Why wasn't there any effort to build up hype then?

  • They kinda tried. Over the past week or so the twitter account made more than 10 posts about the merc release and the youtube channel uploaded 4 videos in the same timespane.