I only play BG every now and then, but I'm totally into Halloween cosmetics for basically any game out there. I usually set myself the rule that for f2p games I get myself one premium skin, and only one premium skin, that's enough for me for the rest of the games lifespan and these cosmetics definetely have the potential for that. Especially with the board being a legendary one and the price being so low (if you don't count the time you need for the 7 wins).

This teaser doesn't look like it's for the next expansion (even though it will surely also get announced in the same stream). Mostly because it doesn't have any kind of theming whatsoever outside of being Hearthstone related.

Though the devs mentioned before Nathria that they aren't going to release a new feature for a couple months, because they are working on a really big one. Maybe this teaser has something to do with that.

Quote From Author

All this is not to say that it wont be eventually fixed and OW2 making good in future (5v5, and removing most if not all of the CC is probably a step in the right direction) but this is not how I imagine OW2 to be like. OW1 was a resounding success that practically defined the hero shooter genre - its sequel is currently looking more like a cheap derivative with no new defining ideas of its own except living off the name of its predecessor.

Yeah, I agree. The problem is not that the OW2 is bad, but rather that it does not meet the expectations of the first one. I think a big reason for this is the game that was announced a couple years ago is not the one that just launched. Originally it was supposed to launch as a full sequel with a huge focus on pve and a bunch of pvp content. But around last year they realized that, mostly because of the pve stuff, it would still take a couple more years until everything is done.

So instead of not releasing more content for a couple more years they decided to finish up and release all of the pvp stuff, which consisted mostly of reworks (5v5, comp 2.0, rework of indivitual heroes and the entire tank category etc.) than actual new content. Which brings me back to the expectation problem. People expected at least 3 years of work and a full fledged sequel, but what they actually released was one year of work and a full rework of the gameplay. And they did a terrible way of communicating this.

When the release date was originally was announced what they released was titled "Overwatch 2 pvp early access". However I don't think the early access part was mentioned by blizzard ever since. Instead what they did was to call Overwatch 2 "a new era of Overwatch" instead of "a sequel" in the trailers, but did the crucial mistake of keeping the "2" uncommented in the game title, which is a problem because the same name was used to announce it 2019 when they wanted to release a different product.

So long story short: I think the problem with OW2 is not the game itself, but the expectations that came from the marketing, which failed to highlight (or even mention at all) what OW2 actually is compared to what was originally announced. With that in mind I'm really curios about what the opinion of the game will be in a couple years when everything of the original OW2 vision was released.

Quote From Author

Overwatch 2 is, from what Ive heard and read, a massive let down, currently problematic in all areas

Really? Because the sentiment that I got is that the only thing people are really complaining about is that it's almost impossible to get hero skins for free. This complain makes sense in the context of OW1 were you used to be able to get almost every skin for free through grinding (after paying 40$ for the game), hower this monetization is fairly standard for a f2p game like OW2.

Other than that the over 25 million players (which is 3 times as much as OW1 had at launch) also seem to really enjoy the core gameplay changes aswell as the new main mode, maps and most importantly looking forward to finally having regular content updates in the form of 9 week long seasons that either introduce a new map or hero. And ofcourse the two big pve modes which was the focus of OW2 before they decided to release the content that they had ready instead of not releasing anything for a couple more years until everything is finished.

Quote From Author

Regarding pricing I'm hoping for an adjustment that mirrors the growing number of cards. With more cards being released we obviously need to open more packs to collect them all so the cool thing for Blizzard to do would be to give us more packs for the same price as in the past, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

They didn't increase the number of cards per expansion when they introduced the DH class and instead just started to print less neutral ones. I see no reason why it would be any different with a 2. post-launch class.

I'm too lazy to look the source up right now, but I'm 100% sure that it was stated by the devs one or a couple years ago that if they are going to release more classes the (at that time) current order would be: Death Knight - Hearthstone Original class - Monk.

There actually hasn't been a classic hallows end event in a while. The last one was in 2019 and Rafaam and Reno mostly stole the show there. 2020 instead had a scholomance masquerade ball and last year there was no Halloween event at all

Do you seriously and unironically think that this small fan forum has any impact at all on the development of a game?

I really don't think it's that bad. The point of completely "random" (actually the cards are split in 3 pre-defined pools. Once you got every card from a pool you move on to the next one, to ensure that you can atleast have access to the base archetypes) card rewards is that everyone is supposed to have a different collection, which encourages experimentation with the tools you have, because you can't just netdeck for the most part.

Though the devs did announce a soft way to get the few cards you really want, without completely destroying this idea.

Another important thing to mention here is that the matchmaking also takes your collection level into account. So you are never going to play against someone who has access to way more cards than you. So I'd say there is no way where paying gets you a advantage over your opponent, besides that higher pool cards aren't better than the lower pool ones and especially the season pass cards have been mostly mediocre at best.

Also as a anecdote: I've been playing for 4 months, without spending a penny, and got every collectible card in the game so far.

It is, but for the Ysera merc.

What's your issue here? The prices are super transparent and you can purchase any of these products without having any leftover Runestones.

Seems like most of the new bounties for old areas (aswell as a couple for Darkmoon) are Karazhan themed. I guess that means that they scraped that zone in development. Especially because the next Story Questline is about Khadgar going to Karazhan (which apparently is located in felwood right now, lol).

Merc Packs got disabled until they fix the bug where you can't open Garona.

Lol, did I accidentally deleted my main comment? For reference: I was upset that they brought Rafaam back, but neither released a skin for him, nor did he become a merc (even though his silhouette was part of the Merc reveal trailer from over a year ago),

• Nemsy
• Neeru
• Garona
• Aranna
• Prince Malchezar
• Tess
• Genn
• Archimonde
• Korag
• Khadgar
• Medivh
• Murloc Holmes (the only one that's related to this expansion)
• Bwonsamdi
• Ysera

That's 14

Her abilities are based on her "boggy", which is a swamp/plant monster.

Add Baine and his Totem Equipment into the mix and we have a deal

Quote From Author

too unfriendly to newcomers

Is it though? From a pure pve standpoint (which is the focus of the mode) new players don't have any disadvantages whatsoever. Their bounties are at most going to be just as hard for their first playthrough as for the old players during their first playthrough. In fact it might even be easier for them, because they have access to improvements like the training grounds, instant task chains and more. Plus they can skip too hard zones once they beat all winterspring bounties.

Quote From Author

Tweak as much as you like, we're still going to use the same moves over and over until someone dies

Or its going to be yet again fire team all the way

Sure, fire is a extremely efficient comp, but by far not the only one that's capable of beating bounties. For example I enjoy comps like Pirates, Orcs or even Holy (with tyrael as a dps) way more, because I actually have to adapt and think about what attacks I use on who or what Treasures I pick. Maybe you should try out something else if you want to have a bit more fun during your bounties.

Quote From Author

Mentions of some visual customization bundle (which could be just special character skins for all we know)

I don't think that these skins are for Mercs. The source is about the patch in general and this information was seperat from the other Mercs news. Also the translation mentioned that it's a "class" bundle, further hinting at that these skins are for constructed. I also don't think that Blizzard dares to further monetize the mode in its current state.

As for the rest the patch seems to have 4 less mercs than last time, even though the devs claimed that that patch was below what they wanted because they just shifted to this "one big update every 4 months" model and only had 2 months for that patch. I hope that the 5 extra bounties are worth it. I'm also confident that the new zone will be Darkmoon themed, because a bunch of bosses have been datamined months ago. Plus it would also fit the current Mercs Story, which last time ended with the LoE taking down Ysharj as the 2. old god and a foreshadowing that there is more to come.

Remember Myra Rotspring? Probably not because the card never saw any real play since its launch. Sure this is a straight up better version of her, but I'm not sure if he's better enough to see real play. Especially because there is still a big variance in his discover pool.