We've got some great updates to share with you today for Hearthstone Mercenaries thanks to a developer post from Paul "Kaizor" Nguyen over on the Mercenaries Discord server.
Kaizor has given us a rough outline of what we can expect from the next couple of content patches before Hearthstone's next expansion comes out (which would be the 23.0 update) and that includes some content we previously datamined - The Training Grounds.
What is the Mercenaries Training Grounds?
The Training Grounds is a new building that is coming in Hearthstone Patch 22.2 (release date unknown) which helps your Mercenary characters earn experience while you aren't playing. Although this may not be a feature that everyone needs as the most hardcore players level their characters quite fast, the more casual audience will certainly appreciate earning experience while offline.
We previously datamined the Training Grounds and everything we know about it so far can be found in that dedicated article.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Gets a Dedicated Team
The Hearthstone team underwent an internal reorganization this year which divided the team members into more concrete groups that work on different features. Mercenaries is now one of these main groups and gets dedicated support which in the words of Kaizor, "should make the things we want to accomplish this year easier to do".
This is undoubtedly a huge win for the game mode which made its debut last October in Hearthstone Patch 21.4.
What is Coming Next to Hearthstone Mercenaries?
With not too many content updates so far for Mercenaries, just the addition of a few more Mercenaries and Bounties, it looks like the first updates of the new year are going to be much larger. Here is what we can expect so far:
Hearthstone Patch 22.2
- New Mercenary Characters
- New Zones
- New Bounties
- Training Grounds v1*
- New Mercenaries Equipment Change
- 3rd Equipment no longer comes from Task 7, instead, clear the appropriate Heroic Bounty with them on your team.
Hearthstone Patch 22.4
- Possible New Feature
After 22.4
- End Game System for PVE
Source
Quote From Paul Nguyen Happy new year all. Trying to get back into the swing of things.
We had some restructuring of the team - Mercs is now one of the main pods with fully dedicated support from other disciplines so that should make the things we want to accomplish this year easier to do. Not sure what I can announce/talk about yet. But I'll throw in a few things I feel comfortable sharing now.
22.2 - New Mercs + New Zone/Bounties. Training Grounds V1 should be out as well. 3rd Equipment no longer unlocks from Task#7 for the new Mercs. You now get them from clearing the appropriate Heroic Bounty with them on your team.
22.4 - Trying to see if we can deliver on a new feature that I'm actively working on right now. Hopefully we can make this in time. After that, the focus will be on an End Game system for PvE.
Comments
The main thing I'm concerned about is coins for maxed out mercenaries. Unless they either prevent those from spawning or introduce a way to recycle them, over time it will become harder and harder to get the coins for the mercenaries that you haven't maxed out yet.
I expect we'll continue to be given them since most rewards in each bounty are tied to specific trios of mercs, but being given a way to 'dust' them into coins of other mercs feels likely and consistent with how normal HS works. It would probably be at the usual ~25% return, which isn't great but at least we'd then know all coins we get are going somewhere useful. It would also help alleviate the issue of it being more and more difficult to find coins for crafting newly added mercs, since even at 25% return grinding for them in bounties would be much quicker than it is now.
Very eager to hear what the new PvE thing is. Right now, for a game mode that seems so heavily based around PvE, there isn’t anything worthwhile to do at endgame. It’s like you PvE just to PvP.
I’d really love to see a kinda’ randomized dungeon mode with better rewards since you can’t prepare as well for what you’ possibly face.
I will be happy to see if they can reignite my interest in Mercs. Tho i do hope they stop with the ridiculously priced 'deals' for mercs.
The prices are often ridiculous, but it's the inconsistency that really befuddles me. Right now I have the shop offering me a skin and 5 packs for Diablo and the Lich King, at the same price as just a skin for Anduin. Just, why?
B-but... they're special deals! You cannot refuse them!
The weird thing is that deals for constructed have been getting better over time, with more packs and guaranteed legendaries, plus proper duplicate protection, but Mercenaries hasn't had a good deal since its introduction.
No information regarding alternative way to obtain potraits. No information regarding the use of spare coins to level up other mercaneries. No information regarding a change to packs, which are worthless to open right now. The training ground is the most stupid thing, even casual players level up their mercaneries very fast. It takes not even an hour to max out a mercanery. I am sure what the feature might be: More customized bundles for players, to try to steal some money.
Keep in mind, this is a dev comment on the unofficial Mercenaries Discord server. It's like if a dev were to make an announcement of an announcement. I'd never expect huge insights here, that's what the official communications through patch notes are for.
That's a very broad statement and likely doesn't take into account what a casual player really is. Casual at its core is someone who pops in, plays a round or two in a day and moves on to something else. Maybe its on the train to work or when you're in the bathroom. Casual players are not maxing out their characters in an hour play session, I can almost guarantee that.
I believe what you mean is the more "hardcore casual" type of player, and yes, that person who goes into the game mode with an understanding of how they can do stuff efficiently but they don't play the mode all that much are also not the primary target of this passive XP machine.
Casual players aren't even likely to be looking up what the best decks are, or in the case of Mercs, parties. They aren't super committed to the game(s) they are playing. These folks would greatly benefit from passive XP. It gives them progression so things can feel new when they login the next time. Logging in and having slightly more power than last time means they might clear their next objective or it might make them feel much stronger so that they play a little more.
Not everything in a game is designed for the hardcore. Perfect example of this is the reluctance to add additional deck slots to Hearthstone. They didn't want to overcomplicate things.
While I agree that it's not completely useless, it isn't all that much work to get characters to level 30 by sticking them on the bench for a few days while you complete dailies. The real grind is getting coins and I'd be pleasantly surprised if The Training Grounds provides those.
You underestimate how long it can take to reach level 30 for a casual player. It takes around 1-2 hours for me to reach level 30 if I farm the heroic Nefarian Boss. That alone is quite a lot of time for a casual player who just plays less than 20min per day.
Now Casual players probably won't try to be as efficient as possible, which also increases the needed time by a couple hours. If you now also consider that it's obvious (even to a casual player) that most tasks can easily be done in the earliest bounties, then you can also add extra time since you barely get any xp there.
And now take the total ammount of mercs, divide it by 3 (since you can train them while they are in your bench) and multiply it by the before mentioned time needed.
Does a casual player need every merc at level 30? No
Would it be nice for them to have some alternatives to their main party? Absolutely.
Yes, god please make them coins not XP
I’m unsure if these small changes will help to repopulate the Mercenaries. Are there players still playing the gamemode?
Definetely, I'm hitting a consistent 30s que time. It may not sound like a lot, but you have to consider that the vast majority of players focus on pve and maybe get the first daily pvp chest.
I don't think the primary goal will ever be to win over a large population of the player base into Mercenaries, it simply isn't a game for everyone. It's to keep the players they have and maybe catch some others to join in the fun occasionally when they're feeling bored of Constructed or Battlegrounds (or Arena) and a new event is going on.
We've had quite a bit of discussion over here. Personally, I choose to be cautiously optimistic. These immediate changes might only go so far, but having a team dedicated to Mercenaries should yield more good things down the road.