Unclear mercenaries tags

I know it was mentioned few times before, mercenaries have only race in tags and because of that we aren't sure which character is horde/alliance/neutral.

But to mess it up more, in last patch they added "Pirate" tag, which obviously isn't a race, right? Wrong! I have Mr. Smite and went to run with Lady Anacondra, I picked up +3/10 buff for elves and taurens and it didn't work for Mr. Smite (and humans buff probably doesn't work with Edwin). So Smite and Edwin belongs to mysterious Pirate race and they only look like common races. Blizzard please...

For all intends and purposes, the tribe tag is the 'race' of which the mercs belong. There's other examples, like Illidan not being a demon (despite this being the case in hearthstone), we just have to align with the fact that each merc only have one tribe tag, which is displayed clearly (unlike the much maligned horde and alliance labels)

Its likely done like this for balancing reasons. Dumb as it is, its not entirely unheard of for developers to forgo flavor and certain amount of logic for the sake of a better game.

If you're a lore wonk, don't forget that it's possible they could release a different version of an existing character, but with a different tribal tag. I'm not saying it's super likely, but certainly possible.

As a hypothetical example, in Hearthstone, normal Rokara would be an Orc, but Cap'n Rokara is a Pirate.

These tags are meant to lend flavor and mechanical effects to one version of a character, not to cement that character as one single type of creature for all time.

Yea yea, but they could add hidden race tags for pirates (tauren/human). And with more and more merceneries this this will be total mess. They should add 2nd label with faction name and this would solve most problems - "Tauren - Pirate", "Troll - Horde", "Human - Neutral" etc.

Quote From Skorpionex

Yea yea, but they could add hidden race tags for pirates (tauren/human). And with more and more merceneries this this will be total mess. They should add 2nd label with faction name and this would solve most problems - "Tauren - Pirate", "Troll - Horde", "Human - Neutral" etc.

Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.

Its a bit like pokemon in this respect. Flygon is ground/dragon, but it clearly has wings and can learn fly so why isn't it part flying as well? Aggron can learn surf as stupid as it sounds, but is 4x weak to water. Or hilariously primeape can learn iron tail whilst having none. Sometimes we suspend part of our disbelieve for the sake of gameplay, story, or balancing, and that's not always a bad thing.

Quote From dapperdog

 

Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.

If u put Edwin in human team, then he can be buffed twice as human and once as a pirate. He can get 3 buffs, but he can't share his own buff with non-pirates, so his teammates will be weaker, so pure pirate team would be better anyway (3x pirate buff for all).

Also you can make orc/horde team where everybody gets buffs from horde and orc tags so what's the difference?

Quote From Skorpionex

Quote From dapperdog

 

Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.

If u put Edwin in human team, then he can be buffed twice as human and once as a pirate. He can get 3 buffs, but he can't share his own buff with non-pirates, so his teammates will be weaker, so pure pirate team would be better anyway (3x pirate buff for all).

Also you can make orc/horde team where everybody gets buffs from horde and orc tags so what's the difference?

I would agree with one thing, and that's the horde and alliance tags should be removed, because of ambiguity and also because its just ridiculous considering many builds require both horde and alliance members.

But to answer your point; Let's assume for argument sake you have 6 mercs, 3 human & 3 pirates. All of them have the human/pirate buff giving around 5/10 stats each. If Edwin fits both tags, that's an astounding 30/60 buff on one merc. Edwin would have a statline of 42/130 at the start of the game, and since one of his ability allows him to attack twice, that's 84 health in one attack. Even if his teammates were weaker, you start with such a monstrous merc only a boss would be able to remove it, and that's only if they have an OTK ability.

And this sets a dangerous precedent, because then current and future mercs need necessarily be endowed with 1-3 tags for the sake of consistency. If team5 tells me that they don't want to do that because that's too much work balancing each and every tag, I wouldnt fault them one bit.

I can see we would need to agree to disagree on this one. You might believe that adding additional tags for the sake of logical consistency is a good thing, and that's a perfectly valid argument. But I think the devs's intentions are about game balance, which is also perfectly fair to them.