When we reported on the last round of hotfixes, the attached notes firmly stated that was the end of it for the current 21.4 patch cycle. But it turns out there were still a couple of pressing issues which warranted further attention from the developers. Thankfully, one of the changes relaxes the overly strict rules initially put in place (this subsequently only made it harder to collect daily coin rewards from the Mercenaries PvP mode). For reference, the flawed original fix: 

Quote From GnomeSayin
10/26 Update 3: We’ve rolled out a server-side hotfix that addresses exploits in the Fighting Pit rewards system that players were abusing through wintrading. Going forward, wins will only count towards Fighting Pit daily rewards if you defeat three or more enemy Mercenaries. This change will not affect how MMR is calculated after a win, regardless of how many enemies were defeated.
 

This particular solution has been hotly contested by the community at large pretty much from the onset - as evidenced by the comments under our previous article and the following vocal expressions of displeasure across various social media (even Kripparrian had some extra salt to add). It was quickly pointed out how this could be even used to grief others on purpose. But it's also not uncommon for your average player to call it quits as soon as they lose somebody on their team and deem their chances for victory close to zero. Taking a stingy loss only to be punished on top of that for wanting to get out of the bad situation quicker was more than just a hassle. So yes... the PvP element in Mercenaries suddenly found itself in a pretty bad place. This was also the second strike against the team in quick succession, if you recall the whole Mysterious Stranger debacle. If we are generous enough not to count any monetization and pack contents woes on the side, that is.  

Which leads us to the good news here - they have listened to the input and reacted without waiting any longer: 

Quote From GnomeSayin
10/28 Update: After watching the data since our October 26 update, we are currently rolling out an update to the Fighting Pit rewards system. Going forward, wins will count towards Fighting Pit daily rewards if you defeat one or more enemy Mercenaries, instead of three. We believe this will continue to curb the unacceptable wintrading behavior while also allowing players to be awarded for legitimate games that are decided early. We will continue to monitor the data to see if any further changes will be needed going forward.
 

This should hopefully solve most of the outstanding problems, be it the widespread wintrading patterns or players genuinely missing out on their daily rewards. Admittedly, it could still happen that somebody chooses to concede as soon as they see an unfavorable team ratio (counter comps, multiple Fighters against a team of mainly Casters, etc.), or don't like how the very early combat interactions were resolved. For the record, the winning player always gains their appropriate rating boost regardless; it's just that the above conditions will have to be met for opening the bonus coin chests. 

While by far the most important, it's not the only correction we saw: 

Quote From GnomeSayin
10/27 Update: We are in the process of deploying a server-side hotfix that:

  • Fixes a bug that prevented players from claiming Mercenaries seasonal rewards if you passed the ranking threshold for that reward from a game where your opponent conceded too quickly. Note: this fix will not retroactively grant the seasonal awards to people who were affected by this bug. The team will manually grant those awards to the affected people at a later time. 

This only concerns a minority of players who were unfortunate enough to find themselves on the receiving end of said bug. If you happen to be one of them, you might have to wait just a little longer for your deserved rewards to come back: 

Quote From Nicholas 'DeckTech' Weiss
Intentionally didn’t put a timetable on the heal-up because the team’s still investigating, but there will be a heal-up for affected players at some point.
 

No further reports should be necessary, at least until we hear more on the topic. 

So Uhm, What Was That Whole Wintrading Problem About? 

This isn't something we had a chance to cover in-depth, as the whole 'movement' seem to have originated on the Chinese servers. Initially obscure, we only started to find out what was going on through reports such as this one. Before such behavior had a chance to take root here (there were early mentions of a few individual cases), Blizzard had already taken firm measures against it. 

It all revolved around those daily rewards chests from the Fighting Pit. A fairly generous system that resets around the clock just like the typical Hearthstone quests do (or the '10 gold for every 3 wins' mechanics used to be like, before we welcomed the revamp of the Rewards Track) - except with no hard limits. Always starting at 0/1 wins, then increasing to 0/2, 0/3, 0/4, and finally 0/5 (at which point the repetitive loop of 'coin rewards only every 5 wins' begins, for the most dedicated PvP grinders). A random selection of coins with a seemingly high chance for epic and legendary ones proved to be a tempting proposition. Especially if one could hit near "infinite" openings without investing long hours and having to fight hard for their victories. 

Somebody came up with a fairly straightforward system: bring 5 Mercenaries of one type and just 1 of another type. So 5 Casters (blue) and 1 Fighter (green). Protectors being red, naturally. The odd color type was meant to serve as a tie-breaker, while the rest followed a conceding scheme apparently based on the Critical Damage vulnerability. So a person queueing with 5 reds into 5 greens would be deemed the victor. In case of 5 reds 1 green vs 5 reds 1 blue, the first party got the upper hand. And so on. Losing and conceding doesn't really matter in the instance where you don't particularly care about your rating. 

Got to admit, very inventive in its simplicity to subvert the established rules. Anybody who wasn't willing to play along (or not in the know) would eventually have their MMR and external rating increased to the point where they weren't meeting the wintraders anymore. I imagine some of them didn't mind the free climbing boost either. 

The idea propagated very quickly, apparently more than half of the Mercenaries PvP playerbase participating at one point (and the Hearthstone population over there is huge). One person reported conceding their way into 9k ratings, another claimed to have crafted all the Mercenaries thanks to this free endless supply of coins. Sounds quite ridiculous really, when you consider how much it might've trivalized the existing systems put in place for the game mode - possibly more than the swift Mysterious Stranger farming strategies trivialized the entire task/equipment acquisition. 

Speaking of said Mysterious Stranger, many people excused their behavior with the anger and disappointment over the Heroic Air Elemental and adjacent changes. Viewing the entire situation as a protest of sorts, and sticking it to the Hearthstone overlords. Although let's face it, most of them would've probably joined in anyway as an alternative method of acquiring loot quickly and efficiently. 


Get out of here, Cornelius. Your coin has got no value for us. 

Some folks even claimed to have bonded over the whole experience, sharing "the fun". And more importantly, all the juicy coin rewards. So far the Mercenaries mode seem to have delivered us a couple of valuable 'social experiments' with peculiar commentary on the wider human behavior; however unintended it all might've been. In a way confirming just how far the players might go to find holes in the system and find ways to optimize their gameplay in the most efficient of manners. Even if it means breaking the rules or violating the so called spirit of competition. 

It's obvious why the Hearthstone team felt compelled to act, if the scale of such wintrading was really this massive. Or was about to become. And it probably would've only expanded as more prevalent around our parts as well. Perhaps that's also why their initial fix has missed the mark so badly, temporarily hurting the entire mode and genuine players in the process. It was more akin to overreacting, trying to come up with anything in a hurried panic, rather than taking the time to go over all possible implications thoughtfully.

Is That The End of It? 

Frankly, we don't know. The most glaring loophole seem to have been patched, albeit not in the smoothest way imaginable. And yes, it takes considerably more time/effort to deploy your Mercenaries at the start of combat, go through all relevant animations, then fight until at least one of them gets knocked out. It might not deter everyone from trying to push the bounds, but it's going to hold as long as it prevents the majority from coming up with any easy workarounds. 

Over the past couple of days people were really upset, but also quick to offer alternative solutions. Starting with preventing players from instantly requeuing after conceding (a forced time-out, if you will), having to last a turn or two in combat before being eligible for any rewards, to issuing far-ranging bans for tracked suspicious play patterns. There is however a clear problem with many such takes, insofar as they might also end up inadvertently punishing anyone just playing the game their own specific way. 

It would be a real shame if anything led to the limitation (or even elimination) of the daily rewards chests. Currently, it's quite a generous alternative to farming the same PvE content for coins; especially if taken slowly in a long-term fashion to grab just a few wins here and there. The diminishing returns encourage playing relatively little yet on a regular basis. You still earn a generous amount of Rewards Track XP for the time spent in combat, making it a very convenient form of double-dipping. If only other game modes rewarded us with anything of the kind...

And that's where we are at. We will have to see what else the future brings. Is it enough to forget, forgive, and return to the Fighting Pit to strive for glory once again? And coins, the real Mercenary never forgets about the coins.