Hearthstone Mercenaries launches on October 12 and we've got a round of datamining to share the costs of upgrading them. First though, what are buildings and what in the world is this village?
What is the Mercenaries Village?
Mercenaries takes place inside of a scene called "The Village". Here you will be able to maintain your army, find new tasks to complete, open your mail, fight other players, and play the core of Mercenaries. The village is your portal into everything Mercenaries. There are several locations inside of the village that will open up over time and by purchasing them with Gold - yes, regular Hearthstone gold has another use in the game.
Here are all the different locations inside the Village and what they do.
- Workshop - Build and upgrade buildings for your Village.
- Tavern - Manage your collection and build Parties. Upgrade your Mercenaries and their Abilities & Equipment.
- Travel Point - Access bounties, the core of Mercenaries, and choose where you want to hunt.
- Fighting Pit - PVP Matchmaking to fight other players with your Parties.
- Merchant Cart - A shortcut to the Hearthstone Shop, but it is dedicated to Mercenaries content.
- Mailbox - Direct access to the latest in-game announcements for Mercenaries.
- Campfire - Questlog and Achievement for Mercenaries. Once a day a Mercenary will sit here to offer you tasks.
We've got a larger overview of the village inside our main Mercenaries guide.
How Expensive Are the Building Upgrades?
The biggest question when new content gets added to a game is how expensive is it going to be. Through datamining, we've been able to determine the following upgrades and their costs for each of the Village buildings.
Note that all buildings have a Tier 0 which is an empty plot of land. You get this for free, hence a cost of 0 Gold. The first tier upgrade for every building is also free. In total, as of everything we know right now, a fully upgraded Mercenaries Village will cost 1500 Gold, with just over a third of this, or 600 Gold, being used towards the Training Grounds, a building not present on the original map. So assuming it is not present at launch, we can expect to spend 900 Gold instead for a fully upgraded initial Village.
Travel Point Upgrade Costs
Travel Point - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
Travel Point - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Travel to an exciting Bounty!
Travel Point - Tier 2
- Cost: 200 Gold
- Unlocks: Unlock Heroic Bounties.
Fighting Pit Upgrade Costs
Fighting Pit - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
Fighting Pit - Tier 1
- Cost: 100 Gold
- Unlocks: Battle other players.
Tavern Upgrade Costs
The Tavern - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
The Tavern - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Power up your Mercenaries.
Merchant Cart Upgrade Costs
The Merchant Cart - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
The Merchant Cart - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Access the shop.
Mailbox Upgrade Costs
The Mailbox - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
The Mailbox - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Access your recent messages.
Training Grounds Upgrade Costs
Blizzard has not formally announced this building. You can learn more about it here.
The Training Grounds - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
The Training Grounds - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: A place to train your Mercenaries.
The Training Grounds - Tier 2
- Cost: 200 Gold
- Unlocks: Improve the training experience
The Training Grounds - Tier 3
- Cost: 400 Gold
- Unlocks: An additional training slot
Campfire Upgrade Costs
The Campfire - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: An empty plot of land.
The Campfire - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Visiting mercenaries need your help with tasks.
The Campfire - Tier 2
- Cost: 200 Gold
- Unlocks: Gain an additional Visitor slot.
The Campfire - Tier 3
- Cost: 400 Gold
- Unlocks: Gain an additional Visitor slot.
Workshop Upgrade Costs
The Workshop - Tier 0
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
The Workshop - Tier 1
- Cost: Free (0 Gold)
- Unlocks: Improve your Village!
All in all, the cost of the building upgrades doesn't seem too insane, especially when you look at the amount of value a building like a Campfire will give to you with more tasks being available every day.
Comments
900-1500 gold seems very reasonable. If you could just upgrade right away to the highest level with no cost, then what would be the point? The point is to have a certain sense of progression.
Alternatively, they could have locked upgrades behind a certain amount of gameplay (eg: Upgrade Campfire when you get 2 Mercenaries to Level 10)
It's so stupid you have to pay Gold, and that much gold as well, to play the gacha. I don't understand why those aren't free, they should not be like that at all. This is like Constructed costed Gold besides the cards.
The buildings you can't do without are absolutely free. You have everything you need to get the feel for the game without spending anything, not even gold. That's all the free-to-play portion of any game is -- a chance to get your feet wet and see if you like it.
And don't forget, you're earning Reward Track XP (i.e., gold) as you play, so it's reasonable that you'd be asked to reinvest some of that back into the mode where you earned it. If you'd rather spend the gold on cards, that's your business, but all that means is Mercenaries isn't that important to you. There's nothing wrong with that. We all make decisions based on our own desires.
I personally think Mercenaries is worth way more than a few hundred gold.
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Seeing that you can go solo against AI I'd say it's a fair cost for a lot of gaming hours, that will give you xp that equals gold. So you might not spend on packs and just get whatever bounties/quests give you, and spend on buildings to have more of those.
It would be funny, if you ll need to spend some gold for spending gold in the shop. Full ActiBlizz :D
I had never considered that it might cost anything to upgrade these buildings... Not sure why I hadn't thought of that. Maybe because I haven't been spending a lot of time thinking about the mode other than thinking "I'll give it a try when it's out!"
It was mentioned in the reveal video (but no prices were given), and free players latched on and blew it way out of proportion because they incorrectly assumed none of it would be free.
I think these prices seem quite reasonable.
Yeah, I would agree. Especially for players who aren't too invested in the main game mode these prices are more than fine! I was more so just stating how dumb I felt having not even considered that they would have some cost associated with upgrading them... LOL!
Not sure what I expected. Maybe something tied to the Bounties or whatever would help you level up buildings... ? But how would that have ever made sense???
Can't wait for Oct 12. I even have the day off work! (The day off work is unrelated to Mercs, but still a plus!)
That isn't bad at all; for whatever reason I was expecting a much-worse total. With my current savings I'll be able to drop about 40 packs-worth of coinage on Mercenaries (to go with my 100 preorder packs) while still allotting for a full village and the Stormwind mini-set.