I think it worked out pretty well, it got a discussion going! Sure, some folks don't agree, others are doing exactly what I'm saying is a problem, but then we also have some that do agree. Its made for a great read so far!
Yeah, some of the little details like headings and flavor are a bit out there and we could have easily gone without them, but I think it adds a bit to the piece and I have no regrets for adding them. There are plenty of folks out there being incredibly childish about Wild. Anyone that isn't should know that they aren't being included in that group.
Games are an incredibly passionate bunch and I'd hate to see it any other way. Everything we do is out of love for the games and communities we hang out in - there are just several people who need to get better at communicating their thoughts and I feel that many of us can do a better job and telling people when they walk over that line.
The rewards track is an interesting one because although there were tons of people that were being really dumb about it, we also had lots of voices that were being very smart and being constructive about it. We had folks doing the deep math, providing their own previous stats to match up with the new one. Blizzard really screwed that one up by not including the full picture when they first talked about the track, which, surprise, is the same problem we have with Mercenaries (as you've said).
Most of the Mercenaries negativity could have been avoided if Blizzard god better at painting the full picture.
Definitely don't intend to blame all the players, I even called out Blizzard's poor management of Mercenaries so far. Players do need to grow up a bit though.
Hearthstone itself is not a cash grab, nor do I have any reason to believe at this time that Mercenaries is. Hearthstone is a good product and its worth buying into. Hell, you can be successful as a free to play player too!
Cash Grabs, as Caro said before me, are bad products that are produced to take advantage of the market. Hearthstone built this damn market and the reason it is a powerhouse is because of how good the game itself is. The big card games are not cash grabs.
Every company is out there to make money. Some of them are going to monetize the entire game, some are going to monetize the contents (which has been a thing forever in card games, thats always been the way they work), and others will just monetize cosmetics over the core gameplay loop (see Legends of Runeterra).
Whoever thought these puzzle achievements were a good idea should be fired. They are designed to frustrate people. I could understand if the puzzles were capable of actually being solved by by an average person, but these puzzles are not that. This just takes away time from players that could be using that time on modes that the actually enjoy.
If you release a game and you want to make the most money possible, doesn't it have to be a good game? If Mercenaries is trash tier, people are going to play it and then move back on to whatever they were playing before within Hearthstone. Maybe they suck some money in from folks during pre-orders, but that is not going to last and it isn't going to create loyal customers.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
They have one opportunity with this mode to make it standout. If they screw everything up, mark my words, they won't get a second chance.
Mercenaries would have been a fantastic opportunity to run a Hearthstone Public Test Realm. Keep everything separate from the main game so people understand they're going to lose any progression when it goes live.
It would have let people give proper feedback and then we'd better understand the value.
Players are always going to have lots of reasons to complain, they should do so though while being constructive. If you want to say something sucks, go for it, but tell people WHY it sucks. The why part of it matters so much to moving conversations forward. The devs don't want to talk to people who are just being negative and as the negativity compounds within the community, everything just feels like shit.
Yeah, its a shame that there isn't a linear relationship between the number of members of the team and the amount of content going out. The larger it gets, the harder it is to get anything done. That's why its important to very slowly add people and make them productive members of the team instead of mass hiring, which they have definitely done in the past. Damn, Hearthstone was so messy in the start!
I'm excited to see the next 6 months of Hearthstone now that Mercenaries is going to be coming out. It'll really tell us what the next zodiac year is going to be like as far as content drops go. I'd love if they could give us a dive into what the team is prioritizing post-mercenaries. Like, is someone already starting to look at what new kind of brawls we could see or should we expect new heroes in Duels? It'll be a good question for the next Dean AMA.
Mercenaries was definitely more than they could chew though with their team size. Its so crazy how much content Hearthstone pumps out now. If you asked me 3 years ago if anything we've seen in the past couple was possible, I would have laughed. The game has come such a long way - I honestly wanted to give up on it before "Hearthstone 2.0" hit because I was just drained with nothing new and exciting happening.
If you know me, you know I'm an advocate for more introducing Constructed Formats, not Modes, into Hearthstone.
Yeah, I'd love nothing more than extra ways to play with our cards. I really don't know why they won't just add in an extra rotating format where they can constantly change which expansions are in it. Imagine a meta that would be tough to solve completely due to sets being rotated every month or two. Keep the newest 3 expansions in the format so they remain valuable.
If we go down the path of balancing Wild, choices and changes should be made with the intention of being impactful and encouraging a healthy meta that changes as much as the Standard meta does when new cards are released. It would be a disservice to balance the Format just for the top decks to still dominate the meta.
For sure! A properly balanced Wild, although difficult, is going to need so many buffs as well. There are so damn many old cards that should be allowed to have a chance at seeing light but when they were originally printed, they weren't even good. I think that would help with bringing forward new decks quite a bit, more so than a round of nerfs on current content.
You could do special events/patches where they focus on certain parts of the game to dish those buffs out to. Rise of Mechs was a neat event, what if they did something similar where the mech-focused sets would get retuned so that they became more viable.
Haha! It takes about 15 minutes, less time if you are lucky with card draws.
That is, if you have a second monitor so you can quickly go between the game and the tool. Tabbing out and back in might add some extra time to that. I don't even want to think about how bad it would be on mobile...
Im assuming that this is a pack of mercs to be used immediately on purchase so anyone who swipes his or her credit card gets an early advantage in battle on top of a likely exclusive merc. So all in all, the money will roll out from exclusive mercs, and likely coin purchases.
There is no need to (incorrectly) assume anything. They flat-out stated that the pre-order mercs are NOT exclusive. You can earn them in-game in exactly the same way as any other merc.
You use coins from packs to get an early advantage in PvE, yes, but not in PvP, so I'm not sure why you would care about that. (Your own skill is the ONLY advantage you have in PvP.)
You are probably correct that they expect most of their profit to come from pack purchases, as that's the only thing you can buy directly with cash. But no matter how many packs you buy, the only way to level up a merc is by playing the game. Coins can improve abilities and equipment, but they cannot buy levels for your mercs.
On one hand, I had no trouble absorbing the information in the reveal video, and I think it's weird that everyone has been acting so confused.
On the other hand, people obviously are confused, so Blizzard clearly failed to create the reveal experience they were hoping for.
The worst part about a bad reveal is that confused fans quickly become angry fans. The parts they misunderstand get blown way out of proportion, and the tiniest negative preconception seems to become absolute fact, even if little or no confirmation appeared in the reveal. Sometimes a bad reveal can definitively contradict people's preconceptions, and they will still swear up and down that their fears were confirmed.
In this case, the whole "pay to win" outcry has been particularly strange to me. They clearly state -- both in the video and on the dev blog -- that PvP matchmaking will not match you against a vastly stronger opponent. Slightly stronger (or weaker)? Maybe, occasionally, but only to prevent long queue times -- similar to the way Hearthstone might occasionally match you with someone one rank higher or lower on ladder. I'd love to hear anyone's ideas on how it could realistically be better than that.
And make no mistake, that small possibility of a small power differential would not disappear if they removed all monetization from the game. You would still occasionally encounter a free player who has been grinding longer than you. There's no way around it.
The other weird complaint is, "How dare they steal my precious gold?!" The obvious answer is: If Hearthstone cards are more important to you than building a town in Mercenaries, don't build the town. There's no reason to be mad about it. Free players have to make these decisions all the time. You aren't required to play Mercenaries at all. But if you choose to play, there's nothing wrong with asking you to pay a bit of gold. It's pretty unrealistic to expect this humongous new game mode to be given to you for free. If a little gold is all you have to fork over to get your town up and running, that's actually quite generous on Blizzard's part. Free games are not a human right.
If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had Pandarens. He was the one who made them. So, yeah, I definitely wouldn't mind a Pandaren card in his art style with a simple nod to him. Probably a Monk specific one or Chen Stormstout Monk 1000 win Hero Portrait for when that class is added. I still have my MoP Collectors Edition artbook and his work is phenomenal. I don't know if he did anything wrong, but if he didn't, he does need something that pays homage to the race he created
I'm willing to open up the front page here to folks that want to start an actually constructive conversation about Wild. I would love to see Blizzard take a more hands-on approach to the format because there are tons of really cool cards that should get a chance to shine. There are a few different ideas that I've had regarding Wild over the years:
Keep Wild as Wild - Make a new format that is Standard+Some Wild Sets+Banned Cards, rotate twice a year.
Balance Wild, create a new format called Eternal with NO CARD CHANGES EVER. Much like Classic mode, unnerf everything.
If you are interested in starting that discussion and want to write intelligent, constructive walls of text, my messages are open.
During the time where Wild was mostly untouched and the dominating decks at the time were Odd Paladin, Rez Priest, Secret mage, and outliers here and there I created Explorer which was a Wild Format with a monthly rotation aimed at crippling the most prominent decks every month. I still believe it's a fun middle ground between Wild and Standard that no other CCG has ever done and could be fun for those who like building decks or those players have have a full/near full collection with cards that never get used in Wild. Anyway, onto the points you highlighted and I'll give my two cents.
Keep Wild as Wild - Make a new format that is Standard+Some Wild Sets+Banned Cards, rotate twice a year.
I'm all for keeping Wild as Wild. I want my Warsong Commanders and my Dreadsteeds back to how they were when the released (yes, Molten Giant OTK Warrior). I want Wild to be a place where busted decks exists with all the other busted decks. What I don't want in Wild is mild moderation in some decks/classes while some decks/archetypes go untouched for years cough Big/Rez Priest cough. That's what Team 5 has been doing, mild moderation, which I personally don't like but I'm sure most, if not all Wild players, prefer this sort of balancing while keeping the spirit of Wild alive in their eyes.
If you know me, you know I'm an advocate for more introducing Constructed Formats, not Modes, into Hearthstone. That being said, I'm totally down for a mixed Format involving primarily Standard cards with some Wild sets included. What would Standard look like right now with Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane in the Stormwind meta? Would Odd Paladin be as polarizing as it was in the Year of the Raven? Would Dr. Boom, Mad Genius coupled with Raid the Docks change the meta at all? Or are the Deathknights able to hold their own in United in Stormwind? Wild keeps these decks from existing and with a "mild" format these ideas could be experimented upon.
Balance Wild, create a new format called Eternal with NO CARD CHANGES EVER. Much like Classic mode, unnerf everything.
If we go down the path of balancing Wild, choices and changes should be made with the intention of being impactful and encouraging a healthy meta that changes as much as the Standard meta does when new cards are released. It would be a disservice to balance the Format just for the top decks to still dominate the meta.
As for the Eternal Format, I'll advocate for this because busted decks should exist with other busted decks. Also, I'd call it the "Backroom" format and say it takes place in the Backroom of the tavern.
I wish that I could simply say they need to hire more folks. It's obvious that they need to produce more content - Wild needs balance/philosophy updates, Standard needs balance updates, Duels needs a reskin and new treasures, Tavern Brawl is stagnant, Arena hasn't been updated in years, the main menu and UI needs an overhaul - but I also know that hiring more people onto a team makes that team less cohesive. Hiring more folks isn't necessarily the right solution - with no experience, I don't know what is, re: hiring.
What I do know is that biting off a whole new game under these stressors was a bad idea. But that wasn't intentional! I haven't seen anyone mention this - because of COVID, their plans were moved back months. It's absolutely no wonder that the entire game feels unstable at the moment; they committed themselves to a promise at the absolute worst time, and they've suffered for it.
Because of Dean's words (no new modes for at least two years) and how frustrated they must be working internally on Mercenaries (if the announcement is anything to go by), there is hope. They've mentioned UI changes, Arena changes, a Duels overhaul - these two years will be when that all finally happens! Maybe a year from now we can look back and say, "Eh, it sucked for a bit, but we got a new mode and everything's fine now, so win-win?" Devs and teams are people too, and I imagine that they've learned their lesson when it comes to biting off large projects.
And re: players -- words are better listened to when the speaker is respected. There are plenty of ways to get your voice heard without being an ass.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
I think it worked out pretty well, it got a discussion going! Sure, some folks don't agree, others are doing exactly what I'm saying is a problem, but then we also have some that do agree. Its made for a great read so far!
Yeah, some of the little details like headings and flavor are a bit out there and we could have easily gone without them, but I think it adds a bit to the piece and I have no regrets for adding them. There are plenty of folks out there being incredibly childish about Wild. Anyone that isn't should know that they aren't being included in that group.
Games are an incredibly passionate bunch and I'd hate to see it any other way. Everything we do is out of love for the games and communities we hang out in - there are just several people who need to get better at communicating their thoughts and I feel that many of us can do a better job and telling people when they walk over that line.
The rewards track is an interesting one because although there were tons of people that were being really dumb about it, we also had lots of voices that were being very smart and being constructive about it. We had folks doing the deep math, providing their own previous stats to match up with the new one. Blizzard really screwed that one up by not including the full picture when they first talked about the track, which, surprise, is the same problem we have with Mercenaries (as you've said).
Most of the Mercenaries negativity could have been avoided if Blizzard god better at painting the full picture.
Definitely don't intend to blame all the players, I even called out Blizzard's poor management of Mercenaries so far. Players do need to grow up a bit though.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Hearthstone itself is not a cash grab, nor do I have any reason to believe at this time that Mercenaries is. Hearthstone is a good product and its worth buying into. Hell, you can be successful as a free to play player too!
Cash Grabs, as Caro said before me, are bad products that are produced to take advantage of the market. Hearthstone built this damn market and the reason it is a powerhouse is because of how good the game itself is. The big card games are not cash grabs.
Every company is out there to make money. Some of them are going to monetize the entire game, some are going to monetize the contents (which has been a thing forever in card games, thats always been the way they work), and others will just monetize cosmetics over the core gameplay loop (see Legends of Runeterra).
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
Whoever thought these puzzle achievements were a good idea should be fired. They are designed to frustrate people. I could understand if the puzzles were capable of actually being solved by by an average person, but these puzzles are not that. This just takes away time from players that could be using that time on modes that the actually enjoy.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Here's my problem with that train of thought.
If you release a game and you want to make the most money possible, doesn't it have to be a good game? If Mercenaries is trash tier, people are going to play it and then move back on to whatever they were playing before within Hearthstone. Maybe they suck some money in from folks during pre-orders, but that is not going to last and it isn't going to create loyal customers.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
They have one opportunity with this mode to make it standout. If they screw everything up, mark my words, they won't get a second chance.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Saying Bliz$$ard is the same as the kids who used to say Micro$oft.
If you truly think the company is that greedy, why are you still playing their products? I honestly want to know.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Mercenaries would have been a fantastic opportunity to run a Hearthstone Public Test Realm. Keep everything separate from the main game so people understand they're going to lose any progression when it goes live.
It would have let people give proper feedback and then we'd better understand the value.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Players are always going to have lots of reasons to complain, they should do so though while being constructive. If you want to say something sucks, go for it, but tell people WHY it sucks. The why part of it matters so much to moving conversations forward. The devs don't want to talk to people who are just being negative and as the negativity compounds within the community, everything just feels like shit.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Yeah, its a shame that there isn't a linear relationship between the number of members of the team and the amount of content going out. The larger it gets, the harder it is to get anything done. That's why its important to very slowly add people and make them productive members of the team instead of mass hiring, which they have definitely done in the past. Damn, Hearthstone was so messy in the start!
I'm excited to see the next 6 months of Hearthstone now that Mercenaries is going to be coming out. It'll really tell us what the next zodiac year is going to be like as far as content drops go. I'd love if they could give us a dive into what the team is prioritizing post-mercenaries. Like, is someone already starting to look at what new kind of brawls we could see or should we expect new heroes in Duels? It'll be a good question for the next Dean AMA.
Mercenaries was definitely more than they could chew though with their team size. Its so crazy how much content Hearthstone pumps out now. If you asked me 3 years ago if anything we've seen in the past couple was possible, I would have laughed. The game has come such a long way - I honestly wanted to give up on it before "Hearthstone 2.0" hit because I was just drained with nothing new and exciting happening.
Balance in Wild: Don`t worry, be memey!
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #28 - Warlock in Wild, Arena, Rewards Track Cosmetics Coming for Mercenaries & Battlegrounds, & More
"Buffs are being considered." ? That is the wrong way, I want mass nerfs to bring the power level of the game down, not increase it.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
These are nowhere near as interesting or satisfying as getting the Lucid Nightmare mount in WoW.
Fabulous card back, though.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
Yeah, I'd love nothing more than extra ways to play with our cards. I really don't know why they won't just add in an extra rotating format where they can constantly change which expansions are in it. Imagine a meta that would be tough to solve completely due to sets being rotated every month or two. Keep the newest 3 expansions in the format so they remain valuable.
For sure! A properly balanced Wild, although difficult, is going to need so many buffs as well. There are so damn many old cards that should be allowed to have a chance at seeing light but when they were originally printed, they weren't even good. I think that would help with bringing forward new decks quite a bit, more so than a round of nerfs on current content.
You could do special events/patches where they focus on certain parts of the game to dish those buffs out to. Rise of Mechs was a neat event, what if they did something similar where the mech-focused sets would get retuned so that they became more viable.
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
To have such little success in life that they only thing you can do successfully is be miserable. Truly incredible.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
And I have the bonus step of having to discover an Oracle of Elune beforehand.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
Haha! It takes about 15 minutes, less time if you are lucky with card draws.
That is, if you have a second monitor so you can quickly go between the game and the tool. Tabbing out and back in might add some extra time to that. I don't even want to think about how bad it would be on mobile...
Mercenaries: My First Impressions
There is no need to (incorrectly) assume anything. They flat-out stated that the pre-order mercs are NOT exclusive. You can earn them in-game in exactly the same way as any other merc.
You use coins from packs to get an early advantage in PvE, yes, but not in PvP, so I'm not sure why you would care about that. (Your own skill is the ONLY advantage you have in PvP.)
You are probably correct that they expect most of their profit to come from pack purchases, as that's the only thing you can buy directly with cash. But no matter how many packs you buy, the only way to level up a merc is by playing the game. Coins can improve abilities and equipment, but they cannot buy levels for your mercs.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
After reading how many steps there were, I don't want the cardback anymore.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
Haha, yeah, its takes a little bit even with a tool to assist.
Solving the "???" Gift of Elune Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Stormwind Mysteries
231 steps... I mean I kinda understand... but WHY???
Mercenaries: My First Impressions
On one hand, I had no trouble absorbing the information in the reveal video, and I think it's weird that everyone has been acting so confused.
On the other hand, people obviously are confused, so Blizzard clearly failed to create the reveal experience they were hoping for.
The worst part about a bad reveal is that confused fans quickly become angry fans. The parts they misunderstand get blown way out of proportion, and the tiniest negative preconception seems to become absolute fact, even if little or no confirmation appeared in the reveal. Sometimes a bad reveal can definitively contradict people's preconceptions, and they will still swear up and down that their fears were confirmed.
In this case, the whole "pay to win" outcry has been particularly strange to me. They clearly state -- both in the video and on the dev blog -- that PvP matchmaking will not match you against a vastly stronger opponent. Slightly stronger (or weaker)? Maybe, occasionally, but only to prevent long queue times -- similar to the way Hearthstone might occasionally match you with someone one rank higher or lower on ladder. I'd love to hear anyone's ideas on how it could realistically be better than that.
And make no mistake, that small possibility of a small power differential would not disappear if they removed all monetization from the game. You would still occasionally encounter a free player who has been grinding longer than you. There's no way around it.
The other weird complaint is, "How dare they steal my precious gold?!" The obvious answer is: If Hearthstone cards are more important to you than building a town in Mercenaries, don't build the town. There's no reason to be mad about it. Free players have to make these decisions all the time. You aren't required to play Mercenaries at all. But if you choose to play, there's nothing wrong with asking you to pay a bit of gold. It's pretty unrealistic to expect this humongous new game mode to be given to you for free. If a little gold is all you have to fork over to get your town up and running, that's actually quite generous on Blizzard's part. Free games are not a human right.
Going Forward, Characters in Hearthstone Won't be Named After Employees
If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had Pandarens. He was the one who made them. So, yeah, I definitely wouldn't mind a Pandaren card in his art style with a simple nod to him. Probably a Monk specific one or Chen Stormstout Monk 1000 win Hero Portrait for when that class is added. I still have my MoP Collectors Edition artbook and his work is phenomenal. I don't know if he did anything wrong, but if he didn't, he does need something that pays homage to the race he created
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
During the time where Wild was mostly untouched and the dominating decks at the time were Odd Paladin, Rez Priest, Secret mage, and outliers here and there I created Explorer which was a Wild Format with a monthly rotation aimed at crippling the most prominent decks every month. I still believe it's a fun middle ground between Wild and Standard that no other CCG has ever done and could be fun for those who like building decks or those players have have a full/near full collection with cards that never get used in Wild. Anyway, onto the points you highlighted and I'll give my two cents.
I'm all for keeping Wild as Wild. I want my Warsong Commanders and my Dreadsteeds back to how they were when the released (yes, Molten Giant OTK Warrior). I want Wild to be a place where busted decks exists with all the other busted decks. What I don't want in Wild is mild moderation in some decks/classes while some decks/archetypes go untouched for years cough Big/Rez Priest cough. That's what Team 5 has been doing, mild moderation, which I personally don't like but I'm sure most, if not all Wild players, prefer this sort of balancing while keeping the spirit of Wild alive in their eyes.
If you know me, you know I'm an advocate for more introducing Constructed Formats, not Modes, into Hearthstone. That being said, I'm totally down for a mixed Format involving primarily Standard cards with some Wild sets included. What would Standard look like right now with Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane in the Stormwind meta? Would Odd Paladin be as polarizing as it was in the Year of the Raven? Would Dr. Boom, Mad Genius coupled with Raid the Docks change the meta at all? Or are the Deathknights able to hold their own in United in Stormwind? Wild keeps these decks from existing and with a "mild" format these ideas could be experimented upon.
If we go down the path of balancing Wild, choices and changes should be made with the intention of being impactful and encouraging a healthy meta that changes as much as the Standard meta does when new cards are released. It would be a disservice to balance the Format just for the top decks to still dominate the meta.
As for the Eternal Format, I'll advocate for this because busted decks should exist with other busted decks. Also, I'd call it the "Backroom" format and say it takes place in the Backroom of the tavern.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #28 - Warlock in Wild, Arena, Rewards Track Cosmetics Coming for Mercenaries & Battlegrounds, & More
If this is true, it only shows how unhealthy the game is most of the time. (And I don't doubt it.)
Going Forward, Characters in Hearthstone Won't be Named After Employees
Interesting theory. How does one then point out stupidity and narcissism without being labeled a stupid narcissist?
Rant: Why Devs Making New Content Aren't Ruining the Game, Players Are
I wish that I could simply say they need to hire more folks. It's obvious that they need to produce more content - Wild needs balance/philosophy updates, Standard needs balance updates, Duels needs a reskin and new treasures, Tavern Brawl is stagnant, Arena hasn't been updated in years, the main menu and UI needs an overhaul - but I also know that hiring more people onto a team makes that team less cohesive. Hiring more folks isn't necessarily the right solution - with no experience, I don't know what is, re: hiring.
What I do know is that biting off a whole new game under these stressors was a bad idea. But that wasn't intentional! I haven't seen anyone mention this - because of COVID, their plans were moved back months. It's absolutely no wonder that the entire game feels unstable at the moment; they committed themselves to a promise at the absolute worst time, and they've suffered for it.
Because of Dean's words (no new modes for at least two years) and how frustrated they must be working internally on Mercenaries (if the announcement is anything to go by), there is hope. They've mentioned UI changes, Arena changes, a Duels overhaul - these two years will be when that all finally happens! Maybe a year from now we can look back and say, "Eh, it sucked for a bit, but we got a new mode and everything's fine now, so win-win?" Devs and teams are people too, and I imagine that they've learned their lesson when it comes to biting off large projects.
And re: players -- words are better listened to when the speaker is respected. There are plenty of ways to get your voice heard without being an ass.