The board does look very empty, probably because it is lacking the heroes and clickable corner things we are used to. I notice those corners are present in the background of the image of Gromm, Xyrella and Cariel, so I expect the empty look is just because it was an incomplete build. Certainly if there is anything we can trust the HS devs to do well, it is to make the game look good.
As for the 'glorified puzzle mode' thought, I would ask where you draw the line? The AI/opposing players will surely respond to what has happened before and/or the current state of the game. You could definitely still call that a puzzle as you are working out a route to victory, but in that sense almost every game that has ever existed is a puzzle. (For the record, being considered a puzzle is not a bad thing, and would certainly appeal to a lot of players.)
For Hearthstone, there should've been one account for all servers from the beginning. Enough would be to put a small warning when switching servers that my gameplay experience might be ruined because of lag and that's it. If I still want to play with lag on another server, that's entirely my choice. Instead, when I try to switch servers I get a warning that my collection isn't traveling with me. And why not, may I ask? Because reasons...
Okay, last try with a more interesting take of Sylvanas:
This captures the effect of OG Sylvanas and the flavor of the Forsaken since it raises your opponent's dead minions to fuel your own army. It obviously sucks against Token decks but that never stopped OG Sylvanas from being good. Summoning two units should acertain that this is a solid play at least stat-wise (comparable to Jandice).
Which version is better? "Resurrect" is an established mechanic, but it has never been applied to enemy minions before, so the second version might be the safe way to go. I don't want people to think the card summons minions for your opponent. Some late feedback would be great!
@Lundy: Making a Thalnos card is very ambitious. I can easily picture him in Warlock (a Bloodmage in the blood magic class), but the effect doesn't work out for me yet. Maybe you should focus on that aspect some more. What I imagine definesThalnos as a Bloodmage design-wise is having paid with his life force for the spell damage (low stats) and gaining resources upon death.
@Me0203: Wow, what a great read! I have rarely seen such an elaborate an well verbalized post. I also appreciate it very much that you have given constructive criticism and made suggestions what we could do. If you want to polish up the spoilers, you start out as usual: type your text, mark it, click the "Spoiler" button. Then you add " text="name"" between the first brackets. Here's an example: {spoiler text="Me0203"} I hope this is understandable. Credits to Demonxz95 who taught me this in the first place.
There are so many more new things here than you might think from first looking at it!
1. "Expand Your Village:" Seems like a big part of the mode they havn't talked about it. I wonder how it will impact the gameplay
2. Seems like you could share your seed, otherwise the wouldn't show it to you. I can already see how people fight over what code is the hardest
3. It looks like every level will either upgrade your health or attack.
4. Also did you notice the different Icons for the left stat? Seem like there will be atleast two different attack types (I'd guess physical and magical, possibly more) EDIT: Those Icons can be found at the bottom middle of the merc Keyart. I'm 99% sure that there will be 3 attack types
5. The Image on the top left also reveals some new art including Eudora and an WIP Shadow Orc (?). I don't know who he is,I'm not deep into the WoW lore
6. The HP like Icons in the middle seem to be the attacks of a single character of which two are on cooldown. But now I do wonder where you can see the qued up attacks
7. I'm not sure what the numbers above the attacks mean. Like really, no Idea
8. The gameplay background is the same as the one for the map from the looks of it. Maybe there will be a fluid transition between those two, similar to how "Trials of Fire" (a different game, not "Trials by Felfire") handled it.
9. There also seems to be some attacks that can shuffle something into your deck. I wonder how you make this work in a non-deckbuilding gameplay. Maybe an "charge up" attack?
10. Each level seems to impact atleast one stat. Also notice how there will be merc exclusive types like "Dreanai", "Orc" and "Human"
11. One thing that confused me for a while was the "Encounter" bar on the right because that image was nowhere to be seen on the map. Now I'm certain that you can pre-view already won fights and the dev then just scrolled up the map to show how the boss looks like.
All in all this makes me super exited to learn more about the details of the mode. Though I do have to say that I'm a bit dissapointed on the mercs ingame frame. They seem so tiny compared to how important they are. The fact that there will never be more than 3 on the same board size should leave enough room for improvement.
The questions also provide a lot of context that the screenshots do not, the big one for me being if it being called a gacha game would impact your decision to play the mode. That plus the new description makes it seem like everyone's favorite mobile game ad, Raid: Shadow Legends. Now, without the gacha portion it could be an interesting mode, but I am definitely a bit less excited now.
If we knew what the questions were, we'd have posted them! I'm also very curious because there is certainly some missing context here that can help explain things more.
I can't imagine this being a pay to play mode though. Blizzard wants more people in the Hearthstone ecosystem, especially as it becomes more of a platform to play different games and not just the core Hearthstone. After getting people on board for free, then they can start monetizing stuff.
I'm fully expecting animated heroes in Battlegrounds, just as example of why it makes sense to have Battlegrounds free. Maybe Mercenaries will see some sort of pass that will allow you easier access to some new content kinda like BGs as well.
Oh, they're certainly in-development screenshots, though they are almost certainly weeks or a month old at the point of the survey going out since they prepare these things before they going out to the public. What you pointed out though are fairly minor details - the art positioning looks like its from when they would have used minion frames - though it is kinda weird that they wouldn't fix those couple of problems to just make it look more polished.
Battlefield, I don't know; I think we're missing some extra context. Maybe the battlefield is bare in the earlier stages of your runs or when your mercenaries are still just starting out. If that screenshot is final and representative of the entire end of the product though, I'd hope its just one iteration or as you said, visuals are kinda the last stage of polish.
I'm kinda bummed out that we didn't get to see screenshots of the questions that were being asked. It would have helped so much more in knowing what Blizzard is thinking about with the visuals and descriptions we got to see. Also, its crazy to think we were supposed to get into this mode so long ago.
Am I the only one who thinks this looks pretty unimpressive as of now? Like, don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of something new and different but so far the battlefield looks pretty stale and doesn't leave much room for all the polish the other modes have. So much of HS' charm is animations and FX and so far this appears like a glorified puzzle mode that may not live up to the hype. Maybe I am just wary considering this is the only mode in HS that doesn't use cards.
I hope my impression is wrong, though. I really want this to be good.
The million dollar questions would be, is it free like BG? Can people just jump to it without the need to collect cards? Is there any level restriction to it like, you need DemonHunter lv.10 etc?
Now that I think about it more thorough, I believe it's true. Most people that play multi-region must have a main account where they spent most, while the other account just for something else and F2P. I get it.
I guess the only thing left was for them to actually implement this and not mess it up, it is a huge one nonetheless. Too far too late? or it was impossible back then? I don't really know.
If you look at the 4th screenshot you can see that Xyrella and Cariel's images are miscropped since there's white at the top. There's also a lot that looks off visually. Like the deckholders being pitch black and the battlefield looking exceptionally empty.
Don't get me wrong I think it looks like it'll be sick, but it seems that it's still got a bit to go with visuals and some ui design. Visuals are often done later in the process anyways so I don't think it'll be too crazy long of a wait.
I don't think it'll happen, but here's hoping to technicolor murloc Jesus that our collections will be merged. I made an EU account a couple years back with the sole purpose of getting most of the Murlocs golden, and I'm mostly there. Everything else is dusted. Mgrlrgle vibes only!
Also, I should become a logo designer. Take five minutes to choose a 'gamer' font and put a blue dot in the middle. Earn millions!
Anything they release will be soured by the wait, so it's good that they're taking their time and doing it well. . . . I guess. My expectations are low, following all the kerfuffle.
I wonder how those monthly new characters will be obtained?
I don't know; I feel like this is pretty close to what I'd consider final, we're just missing a lot of the context for what stage of a battle the battle screenshot is from.
The map seems pretty solid, and experience at the end of the game must be final (frames are awesome btw).
I don't have real numbers here, but the number of folks buying packs on multiple servers is likely a tiny amount of the revenue pie. People do play on multiple servers, but we're talking the more hardcore audience of the game which is quite small, and only a subset of that is going to be buying packs.
Out of those people that play on multiple servers, many that I know will play F2P on their "second" account (horribly small sample size here) which means Blizzard ain't getting anything from them. Players who play on all 3 servers? Yeah, that's a crazy niche audience when we are talking about putting actual money toward card packs. The super hardcore.
Not everything is about money. The addition of rarity protection across all rarities certainly proves that. I now spend half the money on card packs since I no longer end up with 6 of the same epic card and 2 of the same legendary after pre-orders.
Blizzard is finally looking to escape the grasp of 1996, and sure, there may be a microscopic monetary loss by doing so, but having the entire community connected is worth more than the potential losses. Honestly, I could see them making more money once everything gets combined.
Look at Overwatch as an example. You and your friends play on PC but there's that one other friend or that guy from work that plays games on consoles. They know you play Overwatch on PC but there's no point in picking it up since you can't play together. Well, with cross-play, you can and that means more sales potential for folks in that situation. It is a little different for Hearthstone since we're talking about regions and not device types (the game has always been "cross-play") but there are definitely still situations where you've got internet friends in another region and maybe you don't play Hearthstone as often since you can't play together.
I can vouch for the massive pain in the ass it is to just get Battlegrounds games going within our staff. Some of us, not to name names, won't play on NA or won't play on EU (tutorials? why would I do those) so if we could all just play regardless of region, that'd be a tremendous boost to playing internally. It might not contribute to more spending for any of us, I know we're all fairly consistent in how we spend money in Hearthstone, but it would definitely increase Blizzard's engagement. Better engagement looks better for shareholders and overall should get more earnings, especially as more cosmetics become a thing across other modes.
They'd have to transfer gold over. If you earned it while on a paid Tavern Pass or from paid Arena tickets, that's definitely yours to keep! If they didn't the shit-show might be larger than the tavern pass itself.
But yeah, gaining some progression on other servers for the rewards, if one has the time to do so, is not a bad idea at all.
Except that comment about Wild was more targeted toward China, which won't be a part of Global Battle.net because of the game being run by another provider there. While I don't doubt that effect may trickle out to other Eastern countries, just having more players in the collective pool should help things in the Wild zone.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
The board does look very empty, probably because it is lacking the heroes and clickable corner things we are used to. I notice those corners are present in the background of the image of Gromm, Xyrella and Cariel, so I expect the empty look is just because it was an incomplete build. Certainly if there is anything we can trust the HS devs to do well, it is to make the game look good.
As for the 'glorified puzzle mode' thought, I would ask where you draw the line? The AI/opposing players will surely respond to what has happened before and/or the current state of the game. You could definitely still call that a puzzle as you are working out a route to victory, but in that sense almost every game that has ever existed is a puzzle. (For the record, being considered a puzzle is not a bad thing, and would certainly appeal to a lot of players.)
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
4 - I think it is merc types: tank, dd(Eudora on second pic) and caster (very like strenght , agility, intellect types in WC3).
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
For Hearthstone, there should've been one account for all servers from the beginning. Enough would be to put a small warning when switching servers that my gameplay experience might be ruined because of lag and that's it. If I still want to play with lag on another server, that's entirely my choice. Instead, when I try to switch servers I get a warning that my collection isn't traveling with me. And why not, may I ask? Because reasons...
Still No News From Riot?
Funny read, the Runeterra team balance manifesto :-)
Source: https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/patch-0-9-0-notes/
The Price Of Progress - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Okay, last try with a more interesting take of Sylvanas:
This captures the effect of OG Sylvanas and the flavor of the Forsaken since it raises your opponent's dead minions to fuel your own army. It obviously sucks against Token decks but that never stopped OG Sylvanas from being good. Summoning two units should acertain that this is a solid play at least stat-wise (comparable to Jandice).
Which version is better? "Resurrect" is an established mechanic, but it has never been applied to enemy minions before, so the second version might be the safe way to go. I don't want people to think the card summons minions for your opponent. Some late feedback would be great!
@Lundy: Making a Thalnos card is very ambitious. I can easily picture him in Warlock (a Bloodmage in the blood magic class), but the effect doesn't work out for me yet. Maybe you should focus on that aspect some more. What I imagine definesThalnos as a Bloodmage design-wise is having paid with his life force for the spell damage (low stats) and gaining resources upon death.
@Me0203: Wow, what a great read! I have rarely seen such an elaborate an well verbalized post. I also appreciate it very much that you have given constructive criticism and made suggestions what we could do. If you want to polish up the spoilers, you start out as usual: type your text, mark it, click the "Spoiler" button. Then you add " text="name"" between the first brackets. Here's an example: {spoiler text="Me0203"} I hope this is understandable. Credits to Demonxz95 who taught me this in the first place.
Turn 3 OTK!
lol APM warlock
Super fun to try, two opponents conceded without realizing I was not able to pull out all the combo in time.
I added one Twisting Nether in case opponent has any deathrattle minions. (replacing Maly)
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
There are so many more new things here than you might think from first looking at it!
1. "Expand Your Village:" Seems like a big part of the mode they havn't talked about it. I wonder how it will impact the gameplay
2. Seems like you could share your seed, otherwise the wouldn't show it to you. I can already see how people fight over what code is the hardest
3. It looks like every level will either upgrade your health or attack.
4. Also did you notice the different Icons for the left stat? Seem like there will be atleast two different attack types (I'd guess physical and magical, possibly more) EDIT: Those Icons can be found at the bottom middle of the merc Keyart. I'm 99% sure that there will be 3 attack types
5. The Image on the top left also reveals some new art including Eudora and an WIP Shadow Orc (?). I don't know who he is,I'm not deep into the WoW lore
6. The HP like Icons in the middle seem to be the attacks of a single character of which two are on cooldown. But now I do wonder where you can see the qued up attacks
7. I'm not sure what the numbers above the attacks mean. Like really, no Idea
8. The gameplay background is the same as the one for the map from the looks of it. Maybe there will be a fluid transition between those two, similar to how "Trials of Fire" (a different game, not "Trials by Felfire") handled it.
9. There also seems to be some attacks that can shuffle something into your deck. I wonder how you make this work in a non-deckbuilding gameplay. Maybe an "charge up" attack?
10. Each level seems to impact atleast one stat. Also notice how there will be merc exclusive types like "Dreanai", "Orc" and "Human"
11. One thing that confused me for a while was the "Encounter" bar on the right because that image was nowhere to be seen on the map. Now I'm certain that you can pre-view already won fights and the dev then just scrolled up the map to show how the boss looks like.
All in all this makes me super exited to learn more about the details of the mode. Though I do have to say that I'm a bit dissapointed on the mercs ingame frame. They seem so tiny compared to how important they are. The fact that there will never be more than 3 on the same board size should leave enough room for improvement.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
The questions also provide a lot of context that the screenshots do not, the big one for me being if it being called a gacha game would impact your decision to play the mode. That plus the new description makes it seem like everyone's favorite mobile game ad, Raid: Shadow Legends. Now, without the gacha portion it could be an interesting mode, but I am definitely a bit less excited now.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
If we knew what the questions were, we'd have posted them! I'm also very curious because there is certainly some missing context here that can help explain things more.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
No collections in the mode, just like Battlegrounds. There is also no deckbuilding, this is a new type of gameplay.
We don't know a whole lot about the mode yet, here's everything we know so far:
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/guides/92-everything-you-need-to-know-about-hearthstones-mercenaries-game-mode/
I can't imagine this being a pay to play mode though. Blizzard wants more people in the Hearthstone ecosystem, especially as it becomes more of a platform to play different games and not just the core Hearthstone. After getting people on board for free, then they can start monetizing stuff.
I'm fully expecting animated heroes in Battlegrounds, just as example of why it makes sense to have Battlegrounds free. Maybe Mercenaries will see some sort of pass that will allow you easier access to some new content kinda like BGs as well.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
Oh, they're certainly in-development screenshots, though they are almost certainly weeks or a month old at the point of the survey going out since they prepare these things before they going out to the public. What you pointed out though are fairly minor details - the art positioning looks like its from when they would have used minion frames - though it is kinda weird that they wouldn't fix those couple of problems to just make it look more polished.
Battlefield, I don't know; I think we're missing some extra context. Maybe the battlefield is bare in the earlier stages of your runs or when your mercenaries are still just starting out. If that screenshot is final and representative of the entire end of the product though, I'd hope its just one iteration or as you said, visuals are kinda the last stage of polish.
I'm kinda bummed out that we didn't get to see screenshots of the questions that were being asked. It would have helped so much more in knowing what Blizzard is thinking about with the visuals and descriptions we got to see. Also, its crazy to think we were supposed to get into this mode so long ago.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
Am I the only one who thinks this looks pretty unimpressive as of now? Like, don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of something new and different but so far the battlefield looks pretty stale and doesn't leave much room for all the polish the other modes have. So much of HS' charm is animations and FX and so far this appears like a glorified puzzle mode that may not live up to the hype. Maybe I am just wary considering this is the only mode in HS that doesn't use cards.
I hope my impression is wrong, though. I really want this to be good.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
The million dollar questions would be, is it free like BG?
Can people just jump to it without the need to collect cards?
Is there any level restriction to it like, you need DemonHunter lv.10 etc?
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
Now that I think about it more thorough, I believe it's true. Most people that play multi-region must have a main account where they spent most, while the other account just for something else and F2P. I get it.
I guess the only thing left was for them to actually implement this and not mess it up, it is a huge one nonetheless. Too far too late? or it was impossible back then? I don't really know.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
single-player
competitive
or other players
I do not think these words mean what [Blizzard] thinks they mean!
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
If you look at the 4th screenshot you can see that Xyrella and Cariel's images are miscropped since there's white at the top. There's also a lot that looks off visually. Like the deckholders being pitch black and the battlefield looking exceptionally empty.
Don't get me wrong I think it looks like it'll be sick, but it seems that it's still got a bit to go with visuals and some ui design. Visuals are often done later in the process anyways so I don't think it'll be too crazy long of a wait.
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
I don't think it'll happen, but here's hoping to technicolor murloc Jesus that our collections will be merged. I made an EU account a couple years back with the sole purpose of getting most of the Murlocs golden, and I'm mostly there. Everything else is dusted. Mgrlrgle vibes only!
Also, I should become a logo designer. Take five minutes to choose a 'gamer' font and put a blue dot in the middle. Earn millions!
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
Anything they release will be soured by the wait, so it's good that they're taking their time and doing it well. . . . I guess. My expectations are low, following all the kerfuffle.
I wonder how those monthly new characters will be obtained?
Also, what were the survey questions about?
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
I don't know; I feel like this is pretty close to what I'd consider final, we're just missing a lot of the context for what stage of a battle the battle screenshot is from.
The map seems pretty solid, and experience at the end of the game must be final (frames are awesome btw).
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
Looks pretty unfinished from the screenshots, very curious about when and how it'll end up. Seems super cool and unique.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
Oh wow, thought that was gonna be a nope. Where is everyone lately?
YOU + BiRD + HER
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
I don't have real numbers here, but the number of folks buying packs on multiple servers is likely a tiny amount of the revenue pie. People do play on multiple servers, but we're talking the more hardcore audience of the game which is quite small, and only a subset of that is going to be buying packs.
Out of those people that play on multiple servers, many that I know will play F2P on their "second" account (horribly small sample size here) which means Blizzard ain't getting anything from them. Players who play on all 3 servers? Yeah, that's a crazy niche audience when we are talking about putting actual money toward card packs. The super hardcore.
Not everything is about money. The addition of rarity protection across all rarities certainly proves that. I now spend half the money on card packs since I no longer end up with 6 of the same epic card and 2 of the same legendary after pre-orders.
Blizzard is finally looking to escape the grasp of 1996, and sure, there may be a microscopic monetary loss by doing so, but having the entire community connected is worth more than the potential losses. Honestly, I could see them making more money once everything gets combined.
Look at Overwatch as an example. You and your friends play on PC but there's that one other friend or that guy from work that plays games on consoles. They know you play Overwatch on PC but there's no point in picking it up since you can't play together. Well, with cross-play, you can and that means more sales potential for folks in that situation. It is a little different for Hearthstone since we're talking about regions and not device types (the game has always been "cross-play") but there are definitely still situations where you've got internet friends in another region and maybe you don't play Hearthstone as often since you can't play together.
I can vouch for the massive pain in the ass it is to just get Battlegrounds games going within our staff. Some of us, not to name names, won't play on NA or won't play on EU (tutorials? why would I do those) so if we could all just play regardless of region, that'd be a tremendous boost to playing internally. It might not contribute to more spending for any of us, I know we're all fairly consistent in how we spend money in Hearthstone, but it would definitely increase Blizzard's engagement. Better engagement looks better for shareholders and overall should get more earnings, especially as more cosmetics become a thing across other modes.
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
They'd have to transfer gold over. If you earned it while on a paid Tavern Pass or from paid Arena tickets, that's definitely yours to keep! If they didn't the shit-show might be larger than the tavern pass itself.
But yeah, gaining some progression on other servers for the rewards, if one has the time to do so, is not a bad idea at all.
Sneak Peek at Hearthstone Mercenaries - Screenshots and Descriptions of the New Mode via a Blizzard Survey
I can't wait for this. I'll be playing Mercenaries most of the time once it launches.
Blizzard's New Global Battle.net to Break Down Regional and Cross-Platform Barriers for Games
Except that comment about Wild was more targeted toward China, which won't be a part of Global Battle.net because of the game being run by another provider there. While I don't doubt that effect may trickle out to other Eastern countries, just having more players in the collective pool should help things in the Wild zone.