Overwatch 2 and the pve mode started out extremely ambitious ("we want to redefine what a sequel is"), maybe even too ambitious as it turns out.

This highlights a harsh reality in game development: You can't plan fun. They clearly tried out a lot to make it happen, as seen during the Blizzconline 2021, but if you try to make something happen for 4 years, and you still have no clue how to do it, then maybe it's best to let it go. Especially when you wanted to maintain a live service game in addition to the pve development that has no end in sight.

This is actually kinda similar to the development of Hearthstone's Mercenaries if you think about it. This mode was also in development hell for a long time, got delayed almost an entire year (first teased on the darkmoon roadmap), while never being able to deliver a experience that was entertaining for the majority of the playerbase. The difference is that instead of deciding to scrap it, they instead tried to tie all the loose ends they had together and atleast decided to release something, even it was  dissapointing for a big part of the playerbase.

In the end I'm still somewhat optimistic about Overwatch's pve missions. Sounds like with Season 6 they finally begin to tell the Story they wanted to tell through regular, although smaller, pve mission releases. I remember how cool it was to play the retribution event for the first time, and to think about getting something like it every 9 weeks makes me excited enough.

I guess this whole thing is the peak of the development shift that happened early last year. No more are they holding everything they have back for years and years and years, to then finally release everything they have at all once in a huge bombastic release. Instead they release as it gets finished to ensure a constant stream of fresh content. The defintion of a live service game.

Turns out releasing a new hearthstone expansion and a new Overwatch season at the same time is too much for the shop servers to handle.

Normally I'm not the guy who shows off the stuff he made, however I belive that I'm not the only one that thinks a Mercenaries fangame would be cool, so I made one and am sharing it here.

I really missed these card reveal streams. When was the last time they did one, during the Barrens?

Is there anything stopping you from playing "Wild" and just continue as you used to?

That's kinda underwhelming for a HS year announcement. Don't get me wrong, the core-set changes look cool, but that was a expected announcement. After they canceled the Blizzcon the new HS year announcements became the only time in the year that created big hype moments.

Just think about the big Year of the pheonix announcement stream. Bam! first ever new class. Bam! new expansion. Bam! Full duplicate protection. Bam! free deck for new and returning players. Bam! Priest classic set rework. Bam! Rank rework. And here is 15 minutes of new gameplay while we are at it. Also don't forget the new mode that's coming in the next expansion, aswell as the progression rework and Achivements in the 3. Expansion. And just wait until you find out what the spell locked things for the 2. and 3. Phase are.

Meanwhile here everything they said was essentially "We are going to change the core-set and there will be a big Battlegrounds update each expansion. Oh, and there will also be some wild changes sometime this year". Sure, there are some unannounced things on the Roadmap (that they didn't even show in the video), but it's hard to get excited over something that we don't know anything about.

That's supposed to come with the widescreen UI

Remember the day 1 datamined and forever unreleased ETC Mercenary? I remember.

Kang sounds like the objectively strongest card in the game, atleast in theory. Mainly because of 2 confirmed interactions:

• Kang resets any snaps, meaning that you can bluff your opponent without any risks
• Kang resets your draws. So while you don't get Kang again, he essentially allows you to run a 11 card deck without any downsides

Quote From Author

At least, I don't think tribe entirely determines Horde/Alliance

As of right now it actually does. And yes, this does lead to some canonnically horde characters to get aliance buffs.

Atleast they quickly (as in 1 month after launch...) made Horde/Alliance keywords. So when you hover over thse treasures you can see which tribes get these bonuses.

Atleast the boss rush should keep me entertained for a bit with random bosses and random modifiers. Personally I wished it would also include less agency in which mercs you have in your team. Maybe like only starting with 3 mercs and you discover a new merc for your team after every boss. I always had the most fun when not playing with optimal comps. Oh well, I guess it's too late now.

You mean the game that won the 2022 Game Awards for best mobile game, even surpassing giants like Genshin Impact?

Nerfs, or atleast the Patchnotes, are coming this Thursday and the mini-set release is roughly 3 weeks away from now. The rule of thumb is:

Week 0: Expansion release

Week 4: Battlegrounds Season

Week 8: Mini-set + big Mercs Update

Week 12: Announcement of the next Expansion.

Works as intented, though that intention is going to change in a future update if I remember correctly. Right now the shop first rolls the series (including Ultimate variants) and then offers a random card from that series that wasn't offered before, until everything was offered once, which then resets the list for that series. You just rolled series 4 a bunch of times recently, which is why it offers you the cards more often than usual.

Definetely my favorite one from this Season as a Ultron fan and since I make over 6k tokens a month (because I completed Series 3) it would be a no-brainer for me to buy this as soon as possible. However the next season update was datamined to be Antman themed and some of the speculated Season 5 cards are one of the most interesting I've seen yet across all of the datamined ones. So I'm probably waiting for the next Season announcement before I get her.

Most notably because of Kang the Conqueror (5/0: On reveal look at what your opponent did and restart the turn without Kang) and the living Tribunal (at the end of the game split your total power evenly among all locations).

He does have one.

For the last couple years the patch order was:

X Expansion launch

X.2 Battlegrounds update

X.4 Mini-set

X.6 Preperation for the next expansion

X.4 patches were announced as "Mercs time to shine" in the year of the hydra announcement post. In practice it meant that the patch will get announced as the "mini-set patch" and all of the mercs stuff will only be part of the patchnotes. However, unless plans have changed, the pve endgame system (which is confirmed to also use the renown currency) is still supposed to launch during this HS year, so patch 25.4 would be the last big opportunity to release it. Maybe Mercs even gets a teeny tiny bit of spotlight, because of it.

That's fine, I guess. I only really play BG every now and then, but the big new features like Darkmoon Prices, Quests and especially buddies are what hold my interest of the mode for atleast a month or so. More dedicated players are probably more excited about a new BG tribe than I am, but more of the same (as in: no gamechanging new mechanic across all games) probably doesn't cut it for me anymore.