We've got several new items in the Hearthstone shop with todays 22.0 patch that prepares Hearthstone for Alterac Valley. Here are all the details alongside links if the content can be purchased on Battle.net's web shop. Prices below are in USD.
- $9.99 - Battlegrounds Board - Arena of Champions (BNet)
- $19.99 - Battlegrounds Bundle - Mechastorm (BNet)
- $19.99 - Mercenaries Emerge from the Shadows Bundle (BNet)
- $9.99 - Mercenaries Legendary Coin Purse Bundle (BNet)
Also, we previously didn't mention this content on the site:
- $19.99 - Battlegrounds Bundle - Ride of Die (BNet)
Now, let's look at them in more depth! Images in this post may not be the best quality to get this out quicker.
Battlegrounds Board - Arena of Champions
A brand new cosmetic for Battlegrounds, Boards are now available with the first board introduced being the Arena of Champions.
Arena of Champions is $9.99 and is available through January 18, 2022.
Battlegrounds Bundle - Mechastorm
Bartendotron makes a return as an actual bartender! Alongside him are eight mech-themed hero skins.
Mechastorm Bundle is $19.99 and is available through January 31, 2022.
Mercenaries Emerge from the Shadows Bundle
Valeera has entered Hearthstone Mercenaries and has received her own bundle featuring:
- Valeera Legendary Mercenary Card
- 10 Mercenary Card Packs
- 150 Valeera Coins
The bundle costs $19.99 and is available for the next week, through December 6, 2021. Pick it up quick if you want it!
Mercenaries Legendary Coin Purse Bundle
This bundle brings 300 Mercenary Coins for each of three random Legendary Mercenaries.
It costs $9.99 and like the Valeera bundle is only available for the next week, through December 6, 2021.
Comments
'Focusing on Battlegrounds and Mercenaries content' yeah, I think I'll pass. Everything that's not ranked or arena is irrelevant.
I love the robo-Ragnaros Battlegrounds skin, and I like some of the others too, but...I've won with most of them. That means I'm less likely to play them again lel
I just can't belive that they haven't find a fix for excess coins.
I just opened 47 packs to get Valeera.
46 packs of useless coins and some skins, it feels HORRIBLE.
How is it that you can't see this as something that immediately turns people away from your mode and needs to be fixed yesterday?
Most people already left Mercs and they are not coming back, yet they keep "thinking on a fix".
The Valeera bundle is definitely overpriced. Twenty minutes before the patch went live, I bought the "ten Mercs packs and a random Legendary" for $10, and waited to log on after the patch was active. Since Valeera is the only Legendary I'm missing, I got her. So it's literally double the price for an additional 150 Valeera coins.
Because of the way Mercenaries packs work (this video by Old Guardian is a good summary), once you have a nearly complete collection, you're better off holding on to extra packs until new mercenaries are offered, because you'll then have a higher chance of getting the new mercs in them.
Otherwise, the best way to communicate your opinion on the pricing strategy for Mercenaries is to only buy deals if they are worth it to you -- in other words, "vote with your wallet".
I've been playing Mercs at a pretty relaxed pace since launch week, so I only have a few Rare mercs maxed out. Most of the coins are useful to me, so I've still been opening my packs. But for sure, once I have about half my mercs maxed, I'll stop opening them until new content drops. Hopefully they'll have announced what they plan to do about excess coins by then.
Basically all of MErc's offers are overpriced atm (outside of the welcome bundle). I have an offer in my shop for a SINGLE Alexstrasza portrait (a random one btw) for 15€.
15
for a single cosmetic portrait.
I don't know who they expect to sell this to
My assumption is they are still working out the price point that works for the the sweet spot of total purchases vs total revenue.
If they are getting buys now, and they are happy with the numbers, they might always be expensive. I fully expect fatigue to settle in though and we'll see a reduction in prices if this is indeed the case.
10 money for a game board? And the Mercs content is oveeprized as ususl....
Nothing of value for me.
I think $10 for a board is pretty good value and here's why!
$10 is the second lowest price point for cosmetics, with $5 being an even easier sell to people. $10 keeps the board a bit more unique since not everyone will buy it so it'll feel more special. But that's not the real reason I think it's good value. The real reason is because at $10, it ends up being a cosmetic that I can use for eternity. Hero Portraits in constructed are $10 (being forced to buy the card back or packs alongside kinda sucks) and I can only use that when I'm playing that class whereas the Battleground board will always be there for me no matter who I'm playing with. Of course, we've seen some much cheaper hero portraits so that's not the best comparison, but that's thanks to just crazy numbers of them being released now so the only way to realistically get someone to buy more of them is to reduce the cost and make bundles.
The only thing that sucks about it is you know there will eventually be a better board that speaks to you. Relatively speaking, this one is a bit plain and I fully expect to see boards focusing on the big tribe themes in Battlegrounds which will be so much cooler to equip which means I'm now in for a couple of purchased boards.
It will be interesting to see how they deal with equipping them once there are several that someone could own. I'd love to see pairing boards with heroes but I'd also love the ability to swap my board mid-game when I figure out my composition so it could match. The dream.
Mercs prices are shit full stop
These prices are... not a good sign. The direction Hearthstone is taking with these offers is more than mildly disturbing.
I know it's been like that for quite a while but jesus these prices are just an insult.
The fact that they're pushing so much monetization into cosmetics is GREAT news. It means that Battlegrounds might stay free-to-play, and pack prices won't go up. This is exactly the behavior we want to see. Why is it at all concerning to you?
«Do you guys not have a wallet?»
then just don't buy and eventually the prices will go down. Of course they're gonna start out high to try and figure out how much the community is willing to fork over. They can always lower it later if it doesn't pan out.
Meanwhile, if they released it too cheap early they have no way of actually increasing the price later without pissing off the entire playerbase.
It's cosmetics. This is literally the stuff we'd want to be overpriced.