I do not mind the grind, but the excess Merc coins thing is just ridiculous. Especially since I have an overabundance of many and I still have not maxed out all of the Mercs at this moment (still 8 left).
This is my top 3 of Mercs with excess coins:
Rokara -> 11910
Bru'kan -> 11569
Xyrella -> 10891
Also, they should really tone down the flashiness of Mercs entering the battlefield. It got old quickly and hurts my eyes.
I reached level 91 and finally got my hands on that new shiny Faction Pride coin.
Not planned, but last week I hit Legend once again and this time with Freeze Shaman because it is just too good, even after the recent Snowfall Guardian nerf. My XP achievements are 89% done now and I am waiting for Team 5 to patch the broken ones. My collection is still missing 1 single legendary (Bearon Gla'shear) to complete the Fractured in Alterac Valley expansion so I can get the other new shiny Alterac General coin. Hopefully, the missing Shaman legendary will make its appearance in this season's ranked chest reward packs.
The current Standard meta is better than during last expansion and enjoyable again. The Wild meta on the other hand is still shitty, F those United in Stormwind questlines, really.
Anyone else getting more and more annoyed by the increasing amount of bugs in HS which do not get enough attention by Team 5? I mostly play on my mobile phone, so it might not be happening in the HS client that much, I do not know.
Good luck with the grind and most of all have lots of fun! See y'all again in 2022!
It seems everyone is playing traditional hearthstone after the expansion release :D
I was trying to make deathrattle priest work in Duels since the Alterac release and I tried to make this deck for a while. This was my 5th or 6th attempt with the same list and been able to reach to 12 win finally. Run is in casual and ended up as 12-2. It's almost the same deathrattle priest list in the last meta report but I went for Mind Tether as hero power instead of the healing one.
Best cards in deck was Bag of Coins, Korrak, Undying Disciple, and Xyrella the Devout.
I started this run last week and apparently deleted my first screenshot so I'm pasting my first match's replay instead of screenshot.
I just hit legend with Freeze Shaman! THE MEME IS DEAD!!!
On a serious note, it's a real fun deck to play, and pretty powerful too. One of my favorite decks ever, for sure. After years of being frustrated with my board getting frozen and locked out by Mages, I have to say it feels great to be on the other side this time.
I have a question about Bolner-Macaw interaction. Suppose we play Brilliant Macaw with Bolner Hammerbeak on board. Macaw will play a battlecry from last turn (twice). Then we play another battlecry minion. Which battlecry will be repeated by Bolner parroting Macaw: from last turn, or newly played?
I did a quick search to see if Kulzon is an existing character from Warcraft lore. Well, I didn't found Kulzon, but there is a character with very similar name Kurzon the False. Apparently, he only exists in Warcraft TCG, and he shares his artwork with our favorite Lord Jaraxxus.
Merc is either grind or pay to get the best mercs, so like others have said it focuses on fustration in order to get people to spend. I mostly did Merc mode to get achievements and I am nearly done about 70% of those which is my goal. After reaching that, I don't have any goals left for that mode so will likely drop it until something new is added.
The only time I have regretted spending money on Hearthstone was when I bought the mercs pre-order. Absolute shame because I enjoyed everything else that T5 has put out (to a degree). My biggest issue was that it lacked a certain depth that is present in wild. Maybe as the game mode gets older and more mechanics are introduced, I will come back and I might enjoy it more.
I will say this though, and this is my personal opinion: the reason why I haven't completely given up on Mercs (and HS in general) is that the devs still care about the game. I don't put my money on it because I don't like a lot of the current design decisions (or because I don't want to spend 20€ on 8 Jpegs and a couple of voicelines in BGs case [come on, T5, lower those prices, I bought Valheim for 17€ around 5 months ago and have almost 300 hours of play time already while juggling studies and work, that's just so much more value than what you're offering it's almost sad]), but I understand why people still put money on this game. Just look at how the devs still try to cater to the requests of the community while having to deal with Bobby Kotick's greedy little shadow everywhere. Iksar doesn't need to do weekly AMAs, he chooses to. Celestalon doesn't need to do weird puzzles for us, he chooses to (although dude, spend more time fixing bugs, Wildpaw Gnoll is a buggy mess, for example). Those are just some examples. But we also see a lot of community interaction through advertising content creators and other background stuff like that. That's why HS survived through 7 years of game life or the rise of other digital card games like LoR or MtG Arena or Artifact (LUL) or other "HS killers".
I dont actually recall a Wildpaw Gnoll bug, far as I know its working as intended. Can you clarify on this?
And it's not like we only see Activision's grubby little fingers in Mercenaries, I feel a non insignificant percentage of the design process in Standard HS is revolved around selling the newest expansion above all things, which is why the newest expansions feel like the most broken ones (just look at a card like Soulciologist Malicia, an insanely powerful card that was a staple for a couple of expansion cycles before being rendered useless not because she was nerfed but because the environment around her just started chewing her for breakfast) [yes, this is a power creep rant, you can ignore it].
I dont think there's anything particularly wrong if expansions are designed to overtake the previous meta. In fact, I'd argue that's particularly one thing it should be doing: freshen up the meta, something which the midset tends to fail doing.
There are cards that are still seeing play from earlier expansion. Librams, amusingly enough, sees more play after it was first introduced and are still seeing play now. Insane cards can be pushed away simply because of the meta is not conducive to it, not necessarily because of power creep.
Last time I checked their Twitter/Discord, nobody was actually sharing individual deck codes for us to put here. It's unfortunate, the tournament organization wasn't really checking all these boxes. Best bet might actually be finding these moments of interest in the broadcast where they go over the cards.
Here's my two cents: we're being fed an alpha stage game and being sold a buttload of bundles on it. Now, I'm not saying this is solely T5's fault (although there is a small amount of blame to share to them, they did release the game in this state), this is mostly Activision doing Activision things.
And it's not like we only see Activision's grubby little fingers in Mercenaries, I feel a non insignificant percentage of the design process in Standard HS is revolved around selling the newest expansion above all things, which is why the newest expansions feel like the most broken ones (just look at a card like Soulciologist Malicia, an insanely powerful card that was a staple for a couple of expansion cycles before being rendered useless not because she was nerfed but because the environment around her just started chewing her for breakfast) [yes, this is a power creep rant, you can ignore it].
And this is why Mercenaries has a lot of issues. The game's focus is around money, not fun. That's why the game mode feels (and definitely is) unfinished. That's also why there were so many bugs around tasks, that's also why tasks (your main resource generator) are hidden behing a single RNG tile per run or that's why we don't have a use for excess coins yet, even if that one is a bit counter intuitive (if we could have a use for extra resources, we would feel less bad spending money). All these issues and more show that we're playing a rushed game mode whose main focus is making us spend more and more money rather than giving us a good experience. Hell, that's even why some of the initial design ideas we we're promised got scrapped, like "evolving" our mercs (which we can see it was a thing in the initial design through the baby King Krush skin or baby King Mukla skin or even the young Anduin Wrynn skin or how there's a clearly living Arthas Lich King skin or a clearly alive Elf Sylvanas Windrunner skin.
Just compare Mercenaries to Battlegrounds: the latter was made with the sole purpose of being almost like an one off thing for a while, but since the primary focus was on fun, it now rivals the main game in playrate and even viewership on Twitch, for example (just look at how a lot of HS content creators shifted their focus to BGs).
I will say this though, and this is my personal opinion: the reason why I haven't completely given up on Mercs (and HS in general) is that the devs still care about the game. I don't put my money on it because I don't like a lot of the current design decisions (or because I don't want to spend 20€ on 8 Jpegs and a couple of voicelines in BGs case [come on, T5, lower those prices, I bought Valheim for 17€ around 5 months ago and have almost 300 hours of play time already while juggling studies and work, that's just so much more value than what you're offering it's almost sad]), but I understand why people still put money on this game. Just look at how the devs still try to cater to the requests of the community while having to deal with Bobby Kotick's greedy little shadow everywhere. Iksar doesn't need to do weekly AMAs, he chooses to. Celestalon doesn't need to do weird puzzles for us, he chooses to (although dude, spend more time fixing bugs, Wildpaw Gnoll is a buggy mess, for example). Those are just some examples. But we also see a lot of community interaction through advertising content creators and other background stuff like that. That's why HS survived through 7 years of game life or the rise of other digital card games like LoR or MtG Arena or Artifact (LUL) or other "HS killers".
The dev team would certainly want a lot more investment on their work (through more QA testers mostly, but also through card designers or a bigger balance team or probably through something more trivial like more artists for a more varied art style on their cards) but daddy Activision would probably just disregard their request. And yes, Iksar has stated multiple times he likes a smaller team, but I'm definitely sure he'd welcome an extra pair of working hands.
PS: Regarding the Deathblow Grom task you mentioned, the game didn't count game ending Deathblows, i.e., when you would activate Deathblow on the final enemy. I know this because I recently did that task on Cookie, the Cook's fishes and it counted all of them except for the last one I ended the fight with. It then happened again for like 3 fights (me triggering Deathblow on the final opponent) and I finally realized what was happened. Then I triggered the Deathblow on a non final opponent and it counted and now I assume it works that way for every single Deathblow related tasks, but I could be wrong and it could just be a Grom thing.
PPS: Sorry I got a little ranty at times, I tend to do that.
Cru, if you're looking to try something without much filler, try a book of short stories, like Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.
I've also enjoyed Tolkien and the Pullman series mentioned above.
For those of you who enjoy sci-fi, I recommend The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin. Parts of that book wandered around my brain for months after reading it.
Other books that lingered (in a good way) include:
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (I could smell these scenes, the writing is that perfect)
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas (this book may be old, but boring it is not!)
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (the movie is fun, and the book is a whole nother level)
Winter is a great time for reading, thanks for all the recommendations. Will be lining them up against what my local library has available at the moment.
- The boons can be easily farmed in felwood against our dear friend Lord Banehollow, where there's a near guarantee of 2 of them stacked one match away from one another
- The excess coin issue is an outstanding thing that has yet to be resolved, and in my opinion, will likely end up as a means to get more portraits rather than exchange for other merc coins.
- It would appear that the design document has made out mercs to be some kind of money making mode, unlike both battlegrounds and duels. So many promos and sales, it almost makes regular hearthstone look tame by comparison. The latest is a 15 bucks promo for a portrait + 5 packs, I kid you not.
And then the latest change, which was to guarantee legendary coins from boss chest, only works when you've beaten a heroic boss at level 30. In effect this would change nothing: vets would rather grind it on barrens heroic 1, and newcomers (without better collections) would struggle to ever beat these at all.
All this leads me to believe that the grind is deliberate, and will likely stay on for the foreseeable future. As to whether mercs has a foreseeable future at all, that's a story for another time.
I've stopped grinding strangers ever since AV started because ranked standard was actually fun for the first time in 3 months and my attentions has largely been there. Haven't even played much duels at all, let alone mercs. In term of being a game, in my opinion, mercs would need to address the following;
- Retaliatory damage for physical attacks is dumb. Like seriously. The best team currently in PvE is either nature bros, or spam fire, mostly because they deal AoE or are simply more efficient: dealing more damage while taking less.
- Losing a merc in PvE is devastating, and the mechanics around reviving them are inconsistent at best. Meaning, there's no reason to take risks and fight more difficult fights. So what we have here is a game whereby best results are gained by strategically avoiding fights. Not good, when fighting is supposed to be fun.
- The gameplay is very one note. Pokemon avoided this by having EVs (meaning you can have the same pokemon with different stats and therefore different gameplans) and enabling switching, which means sniping is not a guaranteed option. In mercs however, whenever you see a beast build you know 100% how it plays out (King krush is always offensive, etc.) and sniping is near impossible to avoid. This makes the game very repetitive, and too efficient.
- And lastly, mercs feels a lot like a game that is designed not to be fun first, but as a cash generator. A similar souless triple AAA tripe that we see year to year, designed specifically to make money first and gameplay a secondary (if at all necessary) option. Except mercs lack the casual appeal and reach of your typical assassin's creed, madden, starwars etc.
Who is this game made for? A question yet unanswered.
The only thing I think I wasn't clear on is the Boon tasks. I always choose a bounty where there is at least one Boon, but my problem is that I get offered the wrong one (for example, it's always Caster or Fighter if what I need is Protector, even after MANY re-rolls). I know it's a bit tin-foil-hatty to suggest this is deliberate, but it's happened too often to be coincidence.
Also, I agree that my "system" of using the Fighting Pit to level up against bots is a little cheaty, but my larger complaint is still there: matchmaking takes VERY long and the matches are super unfair (even when I play my best Mercs, my opponents have more upgrades).
I'm glad to know that the devs are listening and fixing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and info.
A fun deck :) Reminds me of the Galvadon deck I have that uses Northshire Farmers to clone him like 12 times. This deck has more variety though and with Yogg included just makes it better.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I do not mind the grind, but the excess Merc coins thing is just ridiculous. Especially since I have an overabundance of many and I still have not maxed out all of the Mercs at this moment (still 8 left).
This is my top 3 of Mercs with excess coins:
Also, they should really tone down the flashiness of Mercs entering the battlefield. It got old quickly and hurts my eyes.
Shudder Freeze Shaman
Love it. Especially when you steal/change the HP of a Quest Hunter
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
I reached level 91 and finally got my hands on that new shiny Faction Pride coin.
Not planned, but last week I hit Legend once again and this time with Freeze Shaman because it is just too good, even after the recent Snowfall Guardian nerf. My XP achievements are 89% done now and I am waiting for Team 5 to patch the broken ones. My collection is still missing 1 single legendary (Bearon Gla'shear) to complete the Fractured in Alterac Valley expansion so I can get the other new shiny Alterac General coin. Hopefully, the missing Shaman legendary will make its appearance in this season's ranked chest reward packs.
The current Standard meta is better than during last expansion and enjoyable again. The Wild meta on the other hand is still shitty, F those United in Stormwind questlines, really.
Anyone else getting more and more annoyed by the increasing amount of bugs in HS which do not get enough attention by Team 5? I mostly play on my mobile phone, so it might not be happening in the HS client that much, I do not know.
Good luck with the grind and most of all have lots of fun! See y'all again in 2022!
Master Duelist 1.5: The Battle For Alterac - Submission & Discussion Thread
Hi,
It seems everyone is playing traditional hearthstone after the expansion release :D
I was trying to make deathrattle priest work in Duels since the Alterac release and I tried to make this deck for a while. This was my 5th or 6th attempt with the same list and been able to reach to 12 win finally. Run is in casual and ended up as 12-2. It's almost the same deathrattle priest list in the last meta report but I went for Mind Tether as hero power instead of the healing one.
Best cards in deck was Bag of Coins, Korrak, Undying Disciple, and Xyrella the Devout.
I started this run last week and apparently deleted my first screenshot so I'm pasting my first match's replay instead of screenshot.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/uRWnfHQWTDt3dxMEvPxzNm
First Bucket:Fireshaper
Second Bucket:Mummy Magic
Duels · Deathrattle Priest · by Calenmir · 4 years, 8 months ago
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
The new one
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
I just hit legend with Freeze Shaman! THE MEME IS DEAD!!!
On a serious note, it's a real fun deck to play, and pretty powerful too. One of my favorite decks ever, for sure. After years of being frustrated with my board getting frozen and locked out by Mages, I have to say it feels great to be on the other side this time.
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
I have a question about Bolner-Macaw interaction. Suppose we play Brilliant Macaw with Bolner Hammerbeak on board. Macaw will play a battlecry from last turn (twice). Then we play another battlecry minion. Which battlecry will be repeated by Bolner parroting Macaw: from last turn, or newly played?
Is Hearthstone Duels' Next Group of Heroes the Mercenaries? Datamined Details Possibly Point Toward Next Season's Cast
I did a quick search to see if Kulzon is an existing character from Warcraft lore. Well, I didn't found Kulzon, but there is a character with very similar name Kurzon the False. Apparently, he only exists in Warcraft TCG, and he shares his artwork with our favorite Lord Jaraxxus.
2021 Retrospective - Fan Community Spotlight
looks at a suspicious absence of my custom Core Set changes spread into six articles 🧐
Nevermind. I forgot I've done my Core Set last year. Funny how long time has passed since. :D
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
Hit lvl 60 today all weekly and daily done for this week.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
Merc is either grind or pay to get the best mercs, so like others have said it focuses on fustration in order to get people to spend. I mostly did Merc mode to get achievements and I am nearly done about 70% of those which is my goal. After reaching that, I don't have any goals left for that mode so will likely drop it until something new is added.
Snowpocalypse 2
Snowball fight!
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
The only time I have regretted spending money on Hearthstone was when I bought the mercs pre-order. Absolute shame because I enjoyed everything else that T5 has put out (to a degree). My biggest issue was that it lacked a certain depth that is present in wild. Maybe as the game mode gets older and more mechanics are introduced, I will come back and I might enjoy it more.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
I dont actually recall a Wildpaw Gnoll bug, far as I know its working as intended. Can you clarify on this?
I dont think there's anything particularly wrong if expansions are designed to overtake the previous meta. In fact, I'd argue that's particularly one thing it should be doing: freshen up the meta, something which the midset tends to fail doing.
There are cards that are still seeing play from earlier expansion. Librams, amusingly enough, sees more play after it was first introduced and are still seeing play now. Insane cards can be pushed away simply because of the meta is not conducive to it, not necessarily because of power creep.
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
We do a little bit of memeing
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
Northshire Farmer into macaw for that perpetual freeze.
You're an evil one aren't you?
Thijs' Legends Invitational Is Taking Place Today and Tomorrow (Dec 22-23) - Community Event With Giveaways and Activities
Last time I checked their Twitter/Discord, nobody was actually sharing individual deck codes for us to put here. It's unfortunate, the tournament organization wasn't really checking all these boxes. Best bet might actually be finding these moments of interest in the broadcast where they go over the cards.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
Here's my two cents: we're being fed an alpha stage game and being sold a buttload of bundles on it. Now, I'm not saying this is solely T5's fault (although there is a small amount of blame to share to them, they did release the game in this state), this is mostly Activision doing Activision things.
And it's not like we only see Activision's grubby little fingers in Mercenaries, I feel a non insignificant percentage of the design process in Standard HS is revolved around selling the newest expansion above all things, which is why the newest expansions feel like the most broken ones (just look at a card like Soulciologist Malicia, an insanely powerful card that was a staple for a couple of expansion cycles before being rendered useless not because she was nerfed but because the environment around her just started chewing her for breakfast) [yes, this is a power creep rant, you can ignore it].
And this is why Mercenaries has a lot of issues. The game's focus is around money, not fun. That's why the game mode feels (and definitely is) unfinished. That's also why there were so many bugs around tasks, that's also why tasks (your main resource generator) are hidden behing a single RNG tile per run or that's why we don't have a use for excess coins yet, even if that one is a bit counter intuitive (if we could have a use for extra resources, we would feel less bad spending money). All these issues and more show that we're playing a rushed game mode whose main focus is making us spend more and more money rather than giving us a good experience. Hell, that's even why some of the initial design ideas we we're promised got scrapped, like "evolving" our mercs (which we can see it was a thing in the initial design through the baby King Krush skin or baby King Mukla skin or even the young Anduin Wrynn skin or how there's a clearly living Arthas Lich King skin or a clearly alive Elf Sylvanas Windrunner skin.
Just compare Mercenaries to Battlegrounds: the latter was made with the sole purpose of being almost like an one off thing for a while, but since the primary focus was on fun, it now rivals the main game in playrate and even viewership on Twitch, for example (just look at how a lot of HS content creators shifted their focus to BGs).
I will say this though, and this is my personal opinion: the reason why I haven't completely given up on Mercs (and HS in general) is that the devs still care about the game. I don't put my money on it because I don't like a lot of the current design decisions (or because I don't want to spend 20€ on 8 Jpegs and a couple of voicelines in BGs case [come on, T5, lower those prices, I bought Valheim for 17€ around 5 months ago and have almost 300 hours of play time already while juggling studies and work, that's just so much more value than what you're offering it's almost sad]), but I understand why people still put money on this game. Just look at how the devs still try to cater to the requests of the community while having to deal with Bobby Kotick's greedy little shadow everywhere. Iksar doesn't need to do weekly AMAs, he chooses to. Celestalon doesn't need to do weird puzzles for us, he chooses to (although dude, spend more time fixing bugs, Wildpaw Gnoll is a buggy mess, for example). Those are just some examples. But we also see a lot of community interaction through advertising content creators and other background stuff like that. That's why HS survived through 7 years of game life or the rise of other digital card games like LoR or MtG Arena or Artifact (LUL) or other "HS killers".
The dev team would certainly want a lot more investment on their work (through more QA testers mostly, but also through card designers or a bigger balance team or probably through something more trivial like more artists for a more varied art style on their cards) but daddy Activision would probably just disregard their request. And yes, Iksar has stated multiple times he likes a smaller team, but I'm definitely sure he'd welcome an extra pair of working hands.
PS: Regarding the Deathblow Grom task you mentioned, the game didn't count game ending Deathblows, i.e., when you would activate Deathblow on the final enemy. I know this because I recently did that task on Cookie, the Cook's fishes and it counted all of them except for the last one I ended the fight with. It then happened again for like 3 fights (me triggering Deathblow on the final opponent) and I finally realized what was happened. Then I triggered the Deathblow on a non final opponent and it counted and now I assume it works that way for every single Deathblow related tasks, but I could be wrong and it could just be a Grom thing.
PPS: Sorry I got a little ranty at times, I tend to do that.
Combo Harvester - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I hope everyone here has had (or is having, depending on timezones) a pleasant Christmas and of course good luck to the other finalists.
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
Yo, that sounds sick! I played a lot of Galvadon back in the day, so I'm glad to hear he's still fun in wild :D
Books
Cru, if you're looking to try something without much filler, try a book of short stories, like Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.
I've also enjoyed Tolkien and the Pullman series mentioned above.
For those of you who enjoy sci-fi, I recommend The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin. Parts of that book wandered around my brain for months after reading it.
Other books that lingered (in a good way) include:
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (I could smell these scenes, the writing is that perfect)
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas (this book may be old, but boring it is not!)
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (the movie is fun, and the book is a whole nother level)
Winter is a great time for reading, thanks for all the recommendations. Will be lining them up against what my local library has available at the moment.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
Just a few comments of my own:
- The boons can be easily farmed in felwood against our dear friend Lord Banehollow, where there's a near guarantee of 2 of them stacked one match away from one another
- The excess coin issue is an outstanding thing that has yet to be resolved, and in my opinion, will likely end up as a means to get more portraits rather than exchange for other merc coins.
- It would appear that the design document has made out mercs to be some kind of money making mode, unlike both battlegrounds and duels. So many promos and sales, it almost makes regular hearthstone look tame by comparison. The latest is a 15 bucks promo for a portrait + 5 packs, I kid you not.
And then the latest change, which was to guarantee legendary coins from boss chest, only works when you've beaten a heroic boss at level 30. In effect this would change nothing: vets would rather grind it on barrens heroic 1, and newcomers (without better collections) would struggle to ever beat these at all.
All this leads me to believe that the grind is deliberate, and will likely stay on for the foreseeable future. As to whether mercs has a foreseeable future at all, that's a story for another time.
I've stopped grinding strangers ever since AV started because ranked standard was actually fun for the first time in 3 months and my attentions has largely been there. Haven't even played much duels at all, let alone mercs. In term of being a game, in my opinion, mercs would need to address the following;
- Retaliatory damage for physical attacks is dumb. Like seriously. The best team currently in PvE is either nature bros, or spam fire, mostly because they deal AoE or are simply more efficient: dealing more damage while taking less.
- Losing a merc in PvE is devastating, and the mechanics around reviving them are inconsistent at best. Meaning, there's no reason to take risks and fight more difficult fights. So what we have here is a game whereby best results are gained by strategically avoiding fights. Not good, when fighting is supposed to be fun.
- The gameplay is very one note. Pokemon avoided this by having EVs (meaning you can have the same pokemon with different stats and therefore different gameplans) and enabling switching, which means sniping is not a guaranteed option. In mercs however, whenever you see a beast build you know 100% how it plays out (King krush is always offensive, etc.) and sniping is near impossible to avoid. This makes the game very repetitive, and too efficient.
- And lastly, mercs feels a lot like a game that is designed not to be fun first, but as a cash generator. A similar souless triple AAA tripe that we see year to year, designed specifically to make money first and gameplay a secondary (if at all necessary) option. Except mercs lack the casual appeal and reach of your typical assassin's creed, madden, starwars etc.
Who is this game made for? A question yet unanswered.
Can we talk about Mercenaries?
Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
The only thing I think I wasn't clear on is the Boon tasks. I always choose a bounty where there is at least one Boon, but my problem is that I get offered the wrong one (for example, it's always Caster or Fighter if what I need is Protector, even after MANY re-rolls). I know it's a bit tin-foil-hatty to suggest this is deliberate, but it's happened too often to be coincidence.
Also, I agree that my "system" of using the Fighting Pit to level up against bots is a little cheaty, but my larger complaint is still there: matchmaking takes VERY long and the matches are super unfair (even when I play my best Mercs, my opponents have more upgrades).
I'm glad to know that the devs are listening and fixing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and info.
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
I understood that reference!
Magnificent Multiplying Macaw Battlecry Freeze Shaman Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #22
A fun deck :) Reminds me of the Galvadon deck I have that uses Northshire Farmers to clone him like 12 times. This deck has more variety though and with Yogg included just makes it better.