I think the operative word is "maybe". It's one thing to play 100 games and only get 80% of the way through a grindy achievement, and quite another to play 100 games and still not manage the single condition needed. In the former case, the achievement is an inevitability (even if it's a frustrating one); in the latter you don't know if you'll ever get there, hence the 'maybe'.
It would be a massive chore to work out the balance though because the amount of damage you actually do to yourself becomes hidden behind the statistics of what 'hurting yourself X times' actually means. Is it as small as X damage? Or is it closer to 3X, or even 5X? So I doubt they'd want to rework it that way.
Better just to change the wording of Crystallizer to convert your health into armour like High Priest Thekal does (with an appropriate mechanical change in the code too). That way Crystallizer doesn't actually deal damage to you, and no longer violates the balance of the card because you actually have to deal 6+7+8-2*3=15 damage to yourself.
Yeah, with Crystallizer and Rapid Fire the completion of the warlock and hunter questlines is almost insultingly trivial.
I also find the whole philosophy of hunter's to be infuriating. For all their faults, I give the warlock and mage questlines a pass there because they at least looked new and interesting on paper, but hunter's is just a copy and paste of Raza-Priest with the task drawing the right cards removed. Maybe I'd be OK with it if Raza-Priest wasn't one of the most powerful decks in Wild, but it was, so why on Earth are we subjected to a better version in a class that can smorc from turn 1, thereby making the effect even stronger?
The biggest problem with their approach to Wild is how contradictory it is. They describe is as "a place where you can play all your favourite decks from the past" and use that as justification for almost never nerfing anything lest it alter a deck from the past. Fine, except that they routinely add cards that make it nigh impossible to actually play those decks.
The truth is there is no way to satisfy the stated aim, so they should just commit to either leaving Wild completely alone, or otherwise give it more attention and take steps to establish something that at least looks close to a balanced meta. Neither choice will please everybody, but they're better than the current approach which pleases nobody.
Gameplay is very pokemon-esque. You have 3 mercs, your opponent has the same amount of mercs, you choose attacks and then all the attacks comes out turn after turn, determined by a single stat, which in this case is the number on the tech chosen. And like pokemon, you collect mercs to be utilized as you see fit, which with its own set of stats.
First impression is fine I guess. It isn't flashy; the graphics is predictably (since its likely built on the hearthstone engine) very close to hearthstone's. The game board or field looks very empty, not helped by the fact that the merc icons are very small, which unfortunately makes it look like six ants fighting on a blank piece of paper. I don't understand why they didn't just fill the field with knick-knacks that react with each attack, to both increase the impact of each attacks and having every end game look like a nuclear holocaust. That would look cool, if nothing else.
Im still confused slightly about how the gameplay progresses outside of battle. Looks to me like there's some sort of 'develop your village' kind of gameplay which will require coins, which is earned through gameplay (presumably). You will likely get a basic set of stuff to start with, and if you grind your arse off on this game, you'll receive the familiar end of month chest which will give you more stuff. Outside of that, its all via gameplay...or off your credit card.
Speaking of monetization, which the video skillfully avoids talking about at length. There's three bundles up on offer currently, each costing a great deal of real life cash. 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. (just a side note: I like how the diablo on offer showcases the classic d2 character, and then the website showcases the d3 character instead.)
Until the game comes out, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The monetization is annoying but not unexpected, and since its a largely single player game I'm willing to overlook the very, very expensive (50 bucks, and thats one of three pre-orders) offering and say that if the gameplay is good and there's no overt pay-to-win bs with the exclusive mercs then blizz can market those stuff for all I care. Im not spending a cent until Im 100% sure the game is legit fun because if the showcase is anything to go by, it doesn't look all that impressive.
I've never so much as finished one of Raid: Shadow Legends' adverts, let alone played it, but I assume it is actually an enjoyable game at its core, just surrounded by the horrid monetisation strategies of modern games. Comparing to Pokemon instead (the triple battles of 5th gen in particular) does a lot of good for distancing gameplay from monetisation. As someone who enjoys the early stages of Pokemon games much more than the post-game/competitive stuff, I expect I will do quite well at treating Mercs as a F2P game without worrying about whether Blizz is just trying to empty my wallet.
I'm also still a bit unclear about some of the gameplay aspects, but I guess that's not too surprising given how much information there was to convey within half an hour. I'm sure we'll pick it up pretty quickly once we can play the tutorial.
Fortunately the pre-order mercs (Diablo, Arthas and Sylvanas) are all obtainable in-game normally, and are not exclusives. That's good, because I'm sure there's a lot of players who'd want Arthas and/or Sylvanas but, like us, are unwilling to part with cash before they can even try the game.
If the basic gameplay is enjoyable, I plan to treat Mercenaries as a very casual mode that I'll take at my own (slow) pace. Too often I lose interest in games once I reach the end-game, so I have no issues with being in a never-ending 'grind' so long as I'm under no pressure to do it more than is fun. Thanks to it having a large single-player component, I don't see why there would be any such pressure, so I'm still reasonably optimistic myself.
Simply because its a heavily single player mode, I'm not worried about balance issues in Mercenaries. I know the gameplay is a long way off, but from what little we know so far it looks like it will have parallels with Pokemon games: a single player experience where you collect and train characters, with an option to pit your team against someone else's. Now, some Pokemon teams are certainly stronger than others, and that matters in competitive battling, but not to the degrees of imbalance we see in Hearthstone, and it is of little to no consequence in the single player content.
The pop divine shield achievement seems to trigger when you draw or have a divine shield minion in hand rather than how it should work, which is played on board and having its divine shield popped. Anyone can confirm this?
If that's the case, its as easy as playing rogue or some high draw class and filling the entire deck with divine shield minion.
I was counting down my last bit of progress on that one, and it definitely happened when the divine shield was lost, not just drawn. To be honest, that achievement completes itself by accident over time so if you really want to save time with it, just forget you need to work on it at all.
The alternative is just to make a paladin deck entirely out of divine shield minions. You'll probably have a pretty solid win rate with it (I always do) because no deck out there is actually built to deal with every minion being that obnoxious.
Anyone uses Lothar in their decks? So far I don't recall seeing any in the players I have encountered, whether in Wild or Standard.
I used Lothar in a Wild big recruit warrior. That had reasonable success, although it was during the experimentation period when the meta hadn't solidified yet. I'm not sure how well it would fare now, but it was quite a lot of fun. Here's the deck (the Blatant Decoys made The Boomship unnecessary, so that can definitely be replaced):
I finally mopped up the last Storwind achievements yesterday (except the Demon Seed one, I refuse to touch that card), and am just shy of level 75. Mostly I'm looking forward to not having to play in ranked anymore; the more I can do to avoid warlocks, the better.
Since you can't lose stars at Bronze ranks, new/returning players really ought to be protected from the meta, especially this far into a month, so I'm not sure where things are failing there. On paper there should be an awful lot in favour of new/returning players now. Off the top of my head, the relevant changes are:
The Core set exists and is completely free for everyone, and is a vast improvement over the the outdated and smaller Basic set.
They are given a choice of reasonably competitive decks to get completely for free.
I thought you only had to be gone for 4 months (= 1 expansion cycle) to get this, but please correct me if I misremembered.
The new ranking system matches players by MMR until they run out of bonus stars, so you should always be against someone reasonably similar in ability.
There are of course caveats. I myself have slipped from a Legend player to only getting enough bonus stars to reach Gold rank in Standard since the Barrens started, because I haven't had much desire to be embedded right in the meta. So I'm really playing against 'worse' players than I really should be, but that does get balanced by me playing far-from-meta decks.
There are a whole 40 ranks (the Apprentice League, see https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Ranked#New_Player_Ranks) only accessible to new players. These not only ensure new players spend a long time before being thrown in with everyone else, but they also offer quite a lot of rewards, way more than I ever got back in 2014.
The Rewards Track is front-loaded with value for small amounts of XP, and thankfully XP doesn't require you to win games. A few daily and weekly quests do, but the vast majority don't and they can all be re-rolled.
I appreciate it is optimal to do the default "Get 5 wins in ranked" quest...
All of those changes happened in the last year or so, so it is clear there have been genuine efforts to improve the new player experience. That isn't a statement on the experience being good, only that it has improved. No one thinks it is perfect, and I expect everyone wants it to improve further, so I guess the question is what would you suggest?
I do the same, or at most wait until Crystallizer turns up and guarantees I have no chance. I don't see much point in trying when 10 (and often more thanks to Raise Dead) of the 21 damage they have to do to themselves is completely free. Add in the rewards from the first 2 parts of the questline and they've effectively only lost 5 health over the whole process! Its rare I'm playing a deck that can deal 25 damage in 6 turns, even in the best case scenario, so it would be a waste of time even bothering
I know the devs design cards for Standard and only really consider Wild insofar as they try to avoid adding more fuel to the decks already at the top, but I wish they accounted for the past more often. The Demon Seed might have been an OK idea early on in the game's lifetime, but things we've had since have made that region of design space too dangerous to use now.
Yeah, sadly very few people seem to be both able to recognise an achievement hunter, and willing to set aside their own agenda to help out. You'd think it wouldn't be much trouble to let the opponent punch you twice, wouldn't you?
I don't know what deck you are using, but there is an Elwynn Boar priest deck in Wild that is actually pretty solid (at least when it draws a boar early), and its player might therefore not be so easily recognised as an achievement hunter. I find there is a negative correlation between the viability of a deck and the willingness of opponents to help out. I.e., if you don't want them to concede as soon as they know they've lost, you practically have to scream "this is not a serious deck, please have pity on me and let me do this" at them. Purposely not attacking the opponent with minion has been the most reliable way for me to do this in the past.
I'm pretty sure there is a fallacy in there since non-Legend ranks are not a zero-sum aspect of the game, so some people getting bonuses won't have a tangible downside for everyone else. The bonus stars would not help you win games, just rank up faster. True, there are some tangible rewards for ranking up, but none of it reduces F2P players' ability to rank up at all. If anything, pushing other players into switching their decks/class will help improve the win rates of those who don't engage with it. Furthermore, if it leads to rank inflation then you'll start encountering players who belong(ed) at lower ranks and who will be easier to beat on average.
So I wouldn't call it a P2W scheme at all. 'Pay to rank up' maybe, but that doesn't harm players with limited class choices and the knock-on effects might benefit them anyway.
Thanks! Is there a similar guide for outof.cards commands too? I know the buttons we have when writing comments ('quote', 'spoiler', 'card' etc.) isn't the complete list of available commands.
"Refund". I definitely won't forget that someday like I do most other standard commands...
On a related note, is there a page on this site that lists all the special commands we can use in the comments? I always forget the specifics of things like golden cards, and wouldn't know where to start with the different versions of the same card HS has across game modes. If it doesn't already exist, a guide that sets all this out would be welcome.
I'm pretty sure it was watching TotalBisuit (R.I.P.) playing closed beta and proclaiming himself lord of the arena. Good times.
I joined in when open beta rolled around, with the first deck I made being a heal warlock using my first epic: Pit Lord. As you'd imagine it didn't do too well, but is the reason I have always had a soft spot for Lightwarden, and I was pleased when the heal-based zoo-lock eventually caught up with my early creativity.
I was planning to stop playing very early on though, until I opened Sylvanas Windrunner as my first legendary and gave me something flashy to do. Naturally she made it into all my decks for a very long time. Next up was Edwin VanCleef, who kicked off my love for the rogue class. After that I opened a golden Tirion Fordring, followed only 1 pack later by Harrison Jones. How could I leave after laughing my head off at Harrison drawing me 8 cards from my opponent's unused Doomhammer?
Truth be told I miss the days when opening packs was that exciting. Now that's a first world, veteran player problem for you!
Well, it'll make a huge difference in any game where dealing 4 damage to it is much easier than dealing 5. That certainly won't be every game, but it only has to happen in a few games in every hundred to have an appreciable impact on win rates.
"limiting the efficiency at which combo decks can assemble the pieces they need to win"
Sorry, but I can`t see how the nerfs will do this at all. Do I miss something?
"Efficiency" is a bit weird to make sense of here. I guess they mean the whole process becomes slower because some key cards are more expensive. Not the card draw itself, true, but the increased mana costs can only have a negative (albeit indirect) impact on it.
They have definitely done a better job with the Book of Mercenaries, yes. By making each individual chapter quite small and forwarding the same series of events as everyone else they have been able to make the whole thing easy to follow. It still assumes some knowledge of the lore (e.g. Tavish and Xyrella bickering with Scabbs about SI:7), but nothing much more than a normal book would mention some things and only explain them fully later.
As for the mercenaries themselves, I think they did a decent job overall. Some of them are a bit too 1-dimensional and stereotypical (e.g. Kurtrus and Tamsin), but others are surprisingly relatable for adventurers in a world of cataclysmic events (especially Xyrella and Bru'kan).
The quest is certainly the problem here, but short of fundamentally changing the quest there should be some tweak to Crystallizer. Probably the best fix is to reword Crytallizer's text to "Convert 5 of your hero's health into armor." That way it wouldn't actually deal damage, just transform health. That would be consistent with High Priest Thekal and not actually alter the card mechanically outside of warlock.
I think the operative word is "maybe". It's one thing to play 100 games and only get 80% of the way through a grindy achievement, and quite another to play 100 games and still not manage the single condition needed. In the former case, the achievement is an inevitability (even if it's a frustrating one); in the latter you don't know if you'll ever get there, hence the 'maybe'.
It would be a massive chore to work out the balance though because the amount of damage you actually do to yourself becomes hidden behind the statistics of what 'hurting yourself X times' actually means. Is it as small as X damage? Or is it closer to 3X, or even 5X? So I doubt they'd want to rework it that way.
Better just to change the wording of Crystallizer to convert your health into armour like High Priest Thekal does (with an appropriate mechanical change in the code too). That way Crystallizer doesn't actually deal damage to you, and no longer violates the balance of the card because you actually have to deal 6+7+8-2*3=15 damage to yourself.
Yeah, with Crystallizer and Rapid Fire the completion of the warlock and hunter questlines is almost insultingly trivial.
I also find the whole philosophy of hunter's to be infuriating. For all their faults, I give the warlock and mage questlines a pass there because they at least looked new and interesting on paper, but hunter's is just a copy and paste of Raza-Priest with the task drawing the right cards removed. Maybe I'd be OK with it if Raza-Priest wasn't one of the most powerful decks in Wild, but it was, so why on Earth are we subjected to a better version in a class that can smorc from turn 1, thereby making the effect even stronger?
The biggest problem with their approach to Wild is how contradictory it is. They describe is as "a place where you can play all your favourite decks from the past" and use that as justification for almost never nerfing anything lest it alter a deck from the past. Fine, except that they routinely add cards that make it nigh impossible to actually play those decks.
The truth is there is no way to satisfy the stated aim, so they should just commit to either leaving Wild completely alone, or otherwise give it more attention and take steps to establish something that at least looks close to a balanced meta. Neither choice will please everybody, but they're better than the current approach which pleases nobody.
I've never so much as finished one of Raid: Shadow Legends' adverts, let alone played it, but I assume it is actually an enjoyable game at its core, just surrounded by the horrid monetisation strategies of modern games. Comparing to Pokemon instead (the triple battles of 5th gen in particular) does a lot of good for distancing gameplay from monetisation. As someone who enjoys the early stages of Pokemon games much more than the post-game/competitive stuff, I expect I will do quite well at treating Mercs as a F2P game without worrying about whether Blizz is just trying to empty my wallet.
I'm also still a bit unclear about some of the gameplay aspects, but I guess that's not too surprising given how much information there was to convey within half an hour. I'm sure we'll pick it up pretty quickly once we can play the tutorial.
Fortunately the pre-order mercs (Diablo, Arthas and Sylvanas) are all obtainable in-game normally, and are not exclusives. That's good, because I'm sure there's a lot of players who'd want Arthas and/or Sylvanas but, like us, are unwilling to part with cash before they can even try the game.
If the basic gameplay is enjoyable, I plan to treat Mercenaries as a very casual mode that I'll take at my own (slow) pace. Too often I lose interest in games once I reach the end-game, so I have no issues with being in a never-ending 'grind' so long as I'm under no pressure to do it more than is fun. Thanks to it having a large single-player component, I don't see why there would be any such pressure, so I'm still reasonably optimistic myself.
Simply because its a heavily single player mode, I'm not worried about balance issues in Mercenaries. I know the gameplay is a long way off, but from what little we know so far it looks like it will have parallels with Pokemon games: a single player experience where you collect and train characters, with an option to pit your team against someone else's. Now, some Pokemon teams are certainly stronger than others, and that matters in competitive battling, but not to the degrees of imbalance we see in Hearthstone, and it is of little to no consequence in the single player content.
I was counting down my last bit of progress on that one, and it definitely happened when the divine shield was lost, not just drawn. To be honest, that achievement completes itself by accident over time so if you really want to save time with it, just forget you need to work on it at all.
The alternative is just to make a paladin deck entirely out of divine shield minions. You'll probably have a pretty solid win rate with it (I always do) because no deck out there is actually built to deal with every minion being that obnoxious.
I used Lothar in a Wild big recruit warrior. That had reasonable success, although it was during the experimentation period when the meta hadn't solidified yet. I'm not sure how well it would fare now, but it was quite a lot of fun. Here's the deck (the Blatant Decoys made The Boomship unnecessary, so that can definitely be replaced):
I finally mopped up the last Storwind achievements yesterday (except the Demon Seed one, I refuse to touch that card), and am just shy of level 75. Mostly I'm looking forward to not having to play in ranked anymore; the more I can do to avoid warlocks, the better.
Since you can't lose stars at Bronze ranks, new/returning players really ought to be protected from the meta, especially this far into a month, so I'm not sure where things are failing there. On paper there should be an awful lot in favour of new/returning players now. Off the top of my head, the relevant changes are:
All of those changes happened in the last year or so, so it is clear there have been genuine efforts to improve the new player experience. That isn't a statement on the experience being good, only that it has improved. No one thinks it is perfect, and I expect everyone wants it to improve further, so I guess the question is what would you suggest?
I do the same, or at most wait until Crystallizer turns up and guarantees I have no chance. I don't see much point in trying when 10 (and often more thanks to Raise Dead) of the 21 damage they have to do to themselves is completely free. Add in the rewards from the first 2 parts of the questline and they've effectively only lost 5 health over the whole process! Its rare I'm playing a deck that can deal 25 damage in 6 turns, even in the best case scenario, so it would be a waste of time even bothering
I know the devs design cards for Standard and only really consider Wild insofar as they try to avoid adding more fuel to the decks already at the top, but I wish they accounted for the past more often. The Demon Seed might have been an OK idea early on in the game's lifetime, but things we've had since have made that region of design space too dangerous to use now.
Yeah, sadly very few people seem to be both able to recognise an achievement hunter, and willing to set aside their own agenda to help out. You'd think it wouldn't be much trouble to let the opponent punch you twice, wouldn't you?
I don't know what deck you are using, but there is an Elwynn Boar priest deck in Wild that is actually pretty solid (at least when it draws a boar early), and its player might therefore not be so easily recognised as an achievement hunter. I find there is a negative correlation between the viability of a deck and the willingness of opponents to help out. I.e., if you don't want them to concede as soon as they know they've lost, you practically have to scream "this is not a serious deck, please have pity on me and let me do this" at them. Purposely not attacking the opponent with minion has been the most reliable way for me to do this in the past.
I'm pretty sure there is a fallacy in there since non-Legend ranks are not a zero-sum aspect of the game, so some people getting bonuses won't have a tangible downside for everyone else. The bonus stars would not help you win games, just rank up faster. True, there are some tangible rewards for ranking up, but none of it reduces F2P players' ability to rank up at all. If anything, pushing other players into switching their decks/class will help improve the win rates of those who don't engage with it. Furthermore, if it leads to rank inflation then you'll start encountering players who belong(ed) at lower ranks and who will be easier to beat on average.
So I wouldn't call it a P2W scheme at all. 'Pay to rank up' maybe, but that doesn't harm players with limited class choices and the knock-on effects might benefit them anyway.
Thanks! Is there a similar guide for outof.cards commands too? I know the buttons we have when writing comments ('quote', 'spoiler', 'card' etc.) isn't the complete list of available commands.
"Refund". I definitely won't forget that someday like I do most other standard commands...
On a related note, is there a page on this site that lists all the special commands we can use in the comments? I always forget the specifics of things like golden cards, and wouldn't know where to start with the different versions of the same card HS has across game modes. If it doesn't already exist, a guide that sets all this out would be welcome.
I'm pretty sure it was watching TotalBisuit (R.I.P.) playing closed beta and proclaiming himself lord of the arena. Good times.
I joined in when open beta rolled around, with the first deck I made being a heal warlock using my first epic: Pit Lord. As you'd imagine it didn't do too well, but is the reason I have always had a soft spot for Lightwarden, and I was pleased when the heal-based zoo-lock eventually caught up with my early creativity.
I was planning to stop playing very early on though, until I opened Sylvanas Windrunner as my first legendary and gave me something flashy to do. Naturally she made it into all my decks for a very long time. Next up was Edwin VanCleef, who kicked off my love for the rogue class. After that I opened a golden Tirion Fordring, followed only 1 pack later by Harrison Jones. How could I leave after laughing my head off at Harrison drawing me 8 cards from my opponent's unused Doomhammer?
Truth be told I miss the days when opening packs was that exciting. Now that's a first world, veteran player problem for you!
Well, it'll make a huge difference in any game where dealing 4 damage to it is much easier than dealing 5. That certainly won't be every game, but it only has to happen in a few games in every hundred to have an appreciable impact on win rates.
"Efficiency" is a bit weird to make sense of here. I guess they mean the whole process becomes slower because some key cards are more expensive. Not the card draw itself, true, but the increased mana costs can only have a negative (albeit indirect) impact on it.
They have definitely done a better job with the Book of Mercenaries, yes. By making each individual chapter quite small and forwarding the same series of events as everyone else they have been able to make the whole thing easy to follow. It still assumes some knowledge of the lore (e.g. Tavish and Xyrella bickering with Scabbs about SI:7), but nothing much more than a normal book would mention some things and only explain them fully later.
As for the mercenaries themselves, I think they did a decent job overall. Some of them are a bit too 1-dimensional and stereotypical (e.g. Kurtrus and Tamsin), but others are surprisingly relatable for adventurers in a world of cataclysmic events (especially Xyrella and Bru'kan).
The quest is certainly the problem here, but short of fundamentally changing the quest there should be some tweak to Crystallizer. Probably the best fix is to reword Crytallizer's text to "Convert 5 of your hero's health into armor." That way it wouldn't actually deal damage, just transform health. That would be consistent with High Priest Thekal and not actually alter the card mechanically outside of warlock.