I used to spend time doing the daily tasks in Mercenaries, and tried to get into the grind for various comps, but just got super bored of it. For the PvP to be fun, you need to have tons of fully buffed Mercs, but getting there requires way too much boring PvE. How many times can you battle the same line-up of Furbolgs or Dragons or what have you over and over before you die of boredom? There's just not enough variety in each run, and I think that stems largely from the fact that the perks you get along the way are just not all that impactful. "Here's a stat buff for your Horde characters." "Here's a little more Arcane damage." Okay, great, but that doesn't really meaningfully impact the choices I make in game.
Let us hope for the improving trend to continue and revisit this discussion when new achievements get introduced. Then we can review them in the same way. For now, we can only wait, remain critical and enjoy the game as it is currently.
Threw together 5 level 30s and a level 13, hoping for an easy match vs AI. Nope: got creamed by 6 maxxed out level 30 Mercs.
This is exactly what discourages me from even trying PvP: I know I cannot just avoid strong opponents by self-harming my own comp, but there has to be some form of compromise in the middle!
There's definitely room for improvement: I feel like in some cases they just didn't know what tasks to come up with (especially, but not limited to the Neutral section) and just settled on the "do something with this card over and over again" - Kobold Taskmaster's achievement is a clear example. I feel like Stormpike Quartermaster could've received an achievement, but it is what it is.
However, things have changed (for the better) since achievements were introduced with Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, and I am sure the positive trend will continue.
As for the bugged achievements, I think they just happened to take place in a rather unfortunate window of time, since Team 5 went home for the winter holidays roughly two weeks after Alterac went live - I dare to say that if it weren't for the vacation, those bugs would've already been fixed.
I'm still enjoying doing a few bounties daily and SLOWLY leveling up all my Mercs. I had given up on the Fighting Pit, but decided to try it out again today, thinking that at Rank 0 I might have some luck. Threw together 5 level 30s and a level 13, hoping for an easy match vs AI. Nope: got creamed by 6 maxxed out level 30 Mercs, mostly Legendaries too. That type of matchmaking is completely unacceptable, IMO.
You are definitely right that grindy achievements are better than the older hope to get lucky ones, especially if they are tied to owning legendaries (or epics). Thus, improvements have been made already, I agree. However, some of the newer grindy achievements just take too long to setup and we still need to do these in ranked games with uncompetitive cards where your opponent is most of the times just there to crush you.
I know these achievements are optional and I am not advocating they should simply turn them into free XP handouts, but there is still room for further improvements I feel.
What also does not help is that some of them are bugged and still not fixed which reduces our time frame to collect the attached XP which goes away just before the next expansion gets launched. I know there is still plenty of time to accomplish them though depending on if the fixes get released sooner than later.
I played a lot of Mercenaries the first week it was released, but then I suddenly stopped because of many reasons:
Even if you sink money into the mode, you are required to grind a remarkable amount of PvE.
PvE, after a few runs, becomes repetitive and boring.
Even if you start upgrading a Merc, you'll never want to bring it to PvP if it's not maxed (or at least has the most important moves at level 5).
This means that the hours you spend grinding your Mercs in PvE are absolutely useless unless you complete your goal.
While there are "F2P" builds, PvE is completely dominated by Legendary Mercenaries, with the preorder ones being very prevalent.
Long story short, I am not saying that the mode is pay to win, but rather that you never started on a equal foot and you need an absurd amount of time to get on par with those with a larger collection - way more time than you need to actually enjoy Constructed.
See, this last point is particularly enlightening for me: if you need more grind than Constructed (which is the emblem of "grind" in Hearthstone), then there's definitely something wrong going on. And if I ever had to choose between a game move I've been playing for 4+ years (and that gets massively shaken up with a regular frequency) and a new and even more time-consuming one, there's no way in hell I would pick the latter. Sure, I would try it, but nothing more.
Just my two cents, so please don't take me as the most informed/influential person ever.
Its hard to call this a cheating, because it has much to do with hardware and the fact that the most common 'cheat' is not something that requires a third party software or any coding experience at all. Also, the game clearly allows you to queue more actions than the timer theoretically allows (hence skipping your opponent's turn) so its not even to do with the game timers, its just players exploiting how the game is built, which consequently makes it hellish for their opponents at times.
If team5 wouldn't or couldn't address it because its too deep in the code, then do the next best thing: design your game to do without it. Its not like there's going to be a riot because we're not going to see anymore mozaki mages or test subject bs. I think the game is better off without it.
I haven't looked into what exactly they do, so you can fill me in on the specifics, but from what I can tell they are either bypassing the animations involved in shuffling Ignite and drawing a card, or skipping the finite turn timer itself. Without doing one of those they cannot queue enough actions regardless of how many actions the game allows you to queue, and by meddling with either of those they are changing the time-based rules of the game (i.e. cheating).
If it's a repeat of the old Noz + Joust issue where you could use animations to skip your opponent's turn, then I thought they fixed that years ago by making sure your own turn timer doesn't start 'til the animations have stopped (far from a guarantee it hasn't reappeared, I know). Unless they only half-fixed that so it only actually applies to Noz's 15 second (give or take :P) time limit, in which case copying the same code over to normal turns should be pretty easy.
I personally wouldn't be the least bit sad to see APM decks disappear, but that is subjective and hence isn't a reason to remove them. At least not with such a minuscule sample of opinions. They'd need a convincing majority of players to really dislike them before there is a real case to remove them, and I'm not sure we have that. Now, if we want to instead discuss changing cards that are repeatedly central to problems (in this case Sorcerer's Apprentice), then there we have an over-abundance of evidence that something ought to be changed.
I personally still have hope for mercs but I have stopped playing it in the meantime.
I like the grind type game but there needs to be PVE end game. Right now the only end game is PVP which does not interest me. Without the end game, grind is unmotivating.
Bottom line for me is that team5 really should avoid designing decks that tests APM skill because every time one such deck appears the whole argument about animation starts raging and people start noticing that the nicely made, very intricate animations which makes the game a joy to watch is actually a hindrance rather than something to be celebrated.
I'd argue the animations are just part of the game's rules, and them being a hindrance doesn't make them problematic. Most game rules can be considered a hindrance, be it summoning sickness, only attacking once per turn, having finite mana etc. in the same way the animations are attributes of the cards, not ones that are stated explicitly on the cards, but valid attributes within the game nonetheless, and relevant in a game which imposes a finite turn timer.
APM is consequently a relevant property of the game, even if you remove animations because of the turn timer and the fact humans take time to perform actions. That doesn't make HS better or worse for having it, just different. Bypassing that is essentially playing a different game, and hence cheating, no matter how one feels about hypothetically having an infinite loop.
Its hard to call this a cheating, because it has much to do with hardware and the fact that the most common 'cheat' is not something that requires a third party software or any coding experience at all. Also, the game clearly allows you to queue more actions than the timer theoretically allows (hence skipping your opponent's turn) so its not even to do with the game timers, its just players exploiting how the game is built, which consequently makes it hellish for their opponents at times.
If team5 wouldn't or couldn't address it because its too deep in the code, then do the next best thing: design your game to do without it. Its not like there's going to be a riot because we're not going to see anymore mozaki mages or test subject bs. I think the game is better off without it.
Bottom line for me is that team5 really should avoid designing decks that tests APM skill because every time one such deck appears the whole argument about animation starts raging and people start noticing that the nicely made, very intricate animations which makes the game a joy to watch is actually a hindrance rather than something to be celebrated.
I'd argue the animations are just part of the game's rules, and them being a hindrance doesn't make them problematic. Most game rules can be considered a hindrance, be it summoning sickness, only attacking once per turn, having finite mana etc. in the same way the animations are attributes of the cards, not ones that are stated explicitly on the cards, but valid attributes within the game nonetheless, and relevant in a game which imposes a finite turn timer.
APM is consequently a relevant property of the game, even if you remove animations because of the turn timer and the fact humans take time to perform actions. That doesn't make HS better or worse for having it, just different. Bypassing that is essentially playing a different game, and hence cheating, no matter how one feels about hypothetically having an infinite loop.
I've seen some discussion in the comment section (and in other parts of the site, really), so I figured out I may as well express my humble opinion.
I feel like people already forgot how may bad achievements there were in previous expansions. It is true: we are definitely experiencing a swift in Team 5's philosophy, moving away from combo achievements and directing towards grindy ones, but... is it really a bad thing?
Let's take United in Stormwind for example: while there were some really grindy achievements in there, here's a list of the combo ones:
BBQ Broiler - Deal 10 damage with a single cast of Ignite.
Not the Face! - After playing Antonidas, have all 3 Fireballs hit the opposing hero and destroy them.
The Usual Suspects - Summon a Legendary minion from Stubborn Suspect.
On the other hand, the only real "combo" achievements we've got in Alterac are:
Snowball Effect - Have 10 minions participate in a single Snowball Fight!
You're In Irondeep Trouble - Control 7 Irondeep Troggs at the same time.
Grindy achievements may take more time to complete and may ask you to play otherwise unplayable cards, but at least you can actively work towards your goal, and bit by bit you'll get there. Sure, they won't be finished in a couple games, but we can say that your plays (and not your luck) do matter.
Long story short, I'll take long achievements all day instead of "hey, hope you're feeling lucky today" ones, and Alterac did go in that direction, which I think is an improvement, especially from the F2P point of view, given that most grindy achievements are tied behind Commons/Rares.
The end of turn effect can be increased with spell damage and mad summoner allows for the maximum amount of damage done. In fact you can easily do it in 2 games assuming your opponent doesn't pressure your face.
I am glad for the guides. These achievements are harder to get than other expansions so nice to have help getting them done. Past expansions were like just throw certain cards in decks but this one requires specific decks for most achievements
I got Gankster one with a hunter secret deck, that did decently, maybe 45% win rate.
The Hippo one is decent just slowly get it over maybe 50 games, just throw two in achievement decks. There are worse ones, like the Warrior one where you need to do 400 damage with a end of turn spell. The achievement idea is fine just the damage takes too long.
I got my pack on the first attempt when I loaded an extraaccount on one device then did challenge a friend. I had not used it in over a year so you get a free deck, so that is nice.
If anyone intends to get those extra xp, they'd better start now. I've tried completing nearly all the neutral achievements in one deck, and its awkward as hell trying to both survive and get these done. Sometimes I swear my opponent thinks Im either crazy or too much a newbie in this game. In that respect, I appreciate that someone's posting a list here to help out.
And paladin achievement bug? Let's hope its fixed before the midset, because there's no guarantee that paladin remains on top. Because if Rustrot Viper is meta again, then this achievement is close to impossible to finish without tearing your head off.
Wasn't this guide a bit too fast? I mean, miniset is right there, thus, the extra achievements is coming soon. Twice the hard work I'd say.
Appreciated the guide nonetheless. Any info about the Paladin achievements bugs? I mean it's ridiculous enough to have wait a month and not getting any fix.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I used to spend time doing the daily tasks in Mercenaries, and tried to get into the grind for various comps, but just got super bored of it. For the PvP to be fun, you need to have tons of fully buffed Mercs, but getting there requires way too much boring PvE. How many times can you battle the same line-up of Furbolgs or Dragons or what have you over and over before you die of boredom? There's just not enough variety in each run, and I think that stems largely from the fact that the perks you get along the way are just not all that impactful. "Here's a stat buff for your Horde characters." "Here's a little more Arcane damage." Okay, great, but that doesn't really meaningfully impact the choices I make in game.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
Let us hope for the improving trend to continue and revisit this discussion when new achievements get introduced. Then we can review them in the same way. For now, we can only wait, remain critical and enjoy the game as it is currently.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
This is exactly what discourages me from even trying PvP: I know I cannot just avoid strong opponents by self-harming my own comp, but there has to be some form of compromise in the middle!
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
There's definitely room for improvement: I feel like in some cases they just didn't know what tasks to come up with (especially, but not limited to the Neutral section) and just settled on the "do something with this card over and over again" - Kobold Taskmaster's achievement is a clear example. I feel like Stormpike Quartermaster could've received an achievement, but it is what it is.
However, things have changed (for the better) since achievements were introduced with Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, and I am sure the positive trend will continue.
As for the bugged achievements, I think they just happened to take place in a rather unfortunate window of time, since Team 5 went home for the winter holidays roughly two weeks after Alterac went live - I dare to say that if it weren't for the vacation, those bugs would've already been fixed.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I'm still enjoying doing a few bounties daily and SLOWLY leveling up all my Mercs. I had given up on the Fighting Pit, but decided to try it out again today, thinking that at Rank 0 I might have some luck. Threw together 5 level 30s and a level 13, hoping for an easy match vs AI. Nope: got creamed by 6 maxxed out level 30 Mercs, mostly Legendaries too. That type of matchmaking is completely unacceptable, IMO.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
You are definitely right that grindy achievements are better than the older hope to get lucky ones, especially if they are tied to owning legendaries (or epics). Thus, improvements have been made already, I agree. However, some of the newer grindy achievements just take too long to setup and we still need to do these in ranked games with uncompetitive cards where your opponent is most of the times just there to crush you.
I know these achievements are optional and I am not advocating they should simply turn them into free XP handouts, but there is still room for further improvements I feel.
What also does not help is that some of them are bugged and still not fixed which reduces our time frame to collect the attached XP which goes away just before the next expansion gets launched. I know there is still plenty of time to accomplish them though depending on if the fixes get released sooner than later.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I played a lot of Mercenaries the first week it was released, but then I suddenly stopped because of many reasons:
Long story short, I am not saying that the mode is pay to win, but rather that you never started on a equal foot and you need an absurd amount of time to get on par with those with a larger collection - way more time than you need to actually enjoy Constructed.
See, this last point is particularly enlightening for me: if you need more grind than Constructed (which is the emblem of "grind" in Hearthstone), then there's definitely something wrong going on. And if I ever had to choose between a game move I've been playing for 4+ years (and that gets massively shaken up with a regular frequency) and a new and even more time-consuming one, there's no way in hell I would pick the latter. Sure, I would try it, but nothing more.
Just my two cents, so please don't take me as the most informed/influential person ever.
Ignite rope
I haven't looked into what exactly they do, so you can fill me in on the specifics, but from what I can tell they are either bypassing the animations involved in shuffling Ignite and drawing a card, or skipping the finite turn timer itself. Without doing one of those they cannot queue enough actions regardless of how many actions the game allows you to queue, and by meddling with either of those they are changing the time-based rules of the game (i.e. cheating).
If it's a repeat of the old Noz + Joust issue where you could use animations to skip your opponent's turn, then I thought they fixed that years ago by making sure your own turn timer doesn't start 'til the animations have stopped (far from a guarantee it hasn't reappeared, I know). Unless they only half-fixed that so it only actually applies to Noz's 15 second (give or take :P) time limit, in which case copying the same code over to normal turns should be pretty easy.
I personally wouldn't be the least bit sad to see APM decks disappear, but that is subjective and hence isn't a reason to remove them. At least not with such a minuscule sample of opinions. They'd need a convincing majority of players to really dislike them before there is a real case to remove them, and I'm not sure we have that. Now, if we want to instead discuss changing cards that are repeatedly central to problems (in this case Sorcerer's Apprentice), then there we have an over-abundance of evidence that something ought to be changed.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I personally still have hope for mercs but I have stopped playing it in the meantime.
I like the grind type game but there needs to be PVE end game. Right now the only end game is PVP which does not interest me. Without the end game, grind is unmotivating.
Ignite rope
Its hard to call this a cheating, because it has much to do with hardware and the fact that the most common 'cheat' is not something that requires a third party software or any coding experience at all. Also, the game clearly allows you to queue more actions than the timer theoretically allows (hence skipping your opponent's turn) so its not even to do with the game timers, its just players exploiting how the game is built, which consequently makes it hellish for their opponents at times.
If team5 wouldn't or couldn't address it because its too deep in the code, then do the next best thing: design your game to do without it. Its not like there's going to be a riot because we're not going to see anymore mozaki mages or test subject bs. I think the game is better off without it.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I completed both the Ivus and the Abominable Lieutenant one with ramp druid, which plays both minions anyway. Also gives you Mo Mana Mo Problems!
Ignite rope
I'd argue the animations are just part of the game's rules, and them being a hindrance doesn't make them problematic. Most game rules can be considered a hindrance, be it summoning sickness, only attacking once per turn, having finite mana etc. in the same way the animations are attributes of the cards, not ones that are stated explicitly on the cards, but valid attributes within the game nonetheless, and relevant in a game which imposes a finite turn timer.
APM is consequently a relevant property of the game, even if you remove animations because of the turn timer and the fact humans take time to perform actions. That doesn't make HS better or worse for having it, just different. Bypassing that is essentially playing a different game, and hence cheating, no matter how one feels about hypothetically having an infinite loop.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I've seen some discussion in the comment section (and in other parts of the site, really), so I figured out I may as well express my humble opinion.
I feel like people already forgot how may bad achievements there were in previous expansions. It is true: we are definitely experiencing a swift in Team 5's philosophy, moving away from combo achievements and directing towards grindy ones, but... is it really a bad thing?
Let's take United in Stormwind for example: while there were some really grindy achievements in there, here's a list of the combo ones:
On the other hand, the only real "combo" achievements we've got in Alterac are:
Grindy achievements may take more time to complete and may ask you to play otherwise unplayable cards, but at least you can actively work towards your goal, and bit by bit you'll get there. Sure, they won't be finished in a couple games, but we can say that your plays (and not your luck) do matter.
Long story short, I'll take long achievements all day instead of "hey, hope you're feeling lucky today" ones, and Alterac did go in that direction, which I think is an improvement, especially from the F2P point of view, given that most grindy achievements are tied behind Commons/Rares.
Ignite rope
Very interesting. How can you report if you suspect an abuse?
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
For Mary Had a Litte Ram, Playmaker and Oracle of Elune are basically equivalents in terms of achievement progression.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
Also another nice synergy with the Battle Rams, you can summon 2 copies with Playmaker
Quest Trading - Play A Friend!
DONE.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
For the warrior achievement, finished it in 4 games with this list.
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Iceblood Garrison
# 2x (2) Man the Cannons
# 1x (2) Minefield
# 2x (2) Novice Engineer
# 2x (2) To the Front!
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Coldlight Oracle
# 2x (3) Heavy Plate
# 2x (3) Mo'arg Artificer
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (4) Guild Trader
# 2x (4) Outrider's Axe
# 2x (6) Mad Summoner
The end of turn effect can be increased with spell damage and mad summoner allows for the maximum amount of damage done. In fact you can easily do it in 2 games assuming your opponent doesn't pressure your face.
Its certainly nowhere near as dumb as hippogryph.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I am glad for the guides. These achievements are harder to get than other expansions so nice to have help getting them done. Past expansions were like just throw certain cards in decks but this one requires specific decks for most achievements
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I got Gankster one with a hunter secret deck, that did decently, maybe 45% win rate.
The Hippo one is decent just slowly get it over maybe 50 games, just throw two in achievement decks. There are worse ones, like the Warrior one where you need to do 400 damage with a end of turn spell. The achievement idea is fine just the damage takes too long.
A New Year Bash
I got my pack on the first attempt when I loaded an extraaccount on one device then did challenge a friend.
I had not used it in over a year so you get a free deck, so that is nice.
Today’s Class Will Be Outside - A Full Guide To Midrange Beast Druid on the Wildest of Wednesdays
Completely agree with Pezman! Welcome back, and I just wanted to say I was excited to see this article pop up today.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
If anyone intends to get those extra xp, they'd better start now. I've tried completing nearly all the neutral achievements in one deck, and its awkward as hell trying to both survive and get these done. Sometimes I swear my opponent thinks Im either crazy or too much a newbie in this game. In that respect, I appreciate that someone's posting a list here to help out.
And paladin achievement bug? Let's hope its fixed before the midset, because there's no guarantee that paladin remains on top. Because if Rustrot Viper is meta again, then this achievement is close to impossible to finish without tearing your head off.
New Legends of Runeterra Balance Changes Coming This Week Focus on Dominant Decks and Improving Region Diversity
Look out folks - Poros will definitely be a real thing now.
How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
Wasn't this guide a bit too fast? I mean, miniset is right there, thus, the extra achievements is coming soon. Twice the hard work I'd say.
Appreciated the guide nonetheless. Any info about the Paladin achievements bugs? I mean it's ridiculous enough to have wait a month and not getting any fix.