It's relatively rare that we are given a heads-up on planned server-side hotfixes (those are the ones not requiring any downloads and game client updates), but that's actually what happened yesterday as Hearthstone team thought it important enough to let us know another minion adjustment for Battlegrounds is in store. It turns out that the most recent balance patch didn't quite halt the ongoing Naga tribe supremacy:
Quote From Blizzard 5/25 Update:We are releasing a server-side hotfix tomorrow that addresses some server-side issues and also includes the following changes to Battlegrounds:
The minion Stormscale Siren will be removed from the minion pool.
The minion Warden of Old will be returned to the minion pool at Tier 3 (now with the Naga minion type).
Dev Comment: The combination of Stormscale Siren and Tidemistress Athissa resulted in Naga warbands that scaled too large, too quickly. We’ll be playtesting changes to Stormscale Siren internally, in hopes that we can find a version that we’d be happy returning to the minion pool in a future patch.
The two minions as referenced above:
You might recall that Stormscale Siren was recently moved from Tier 3 all the way up to Tier 5, but apparently still deemed too problematic with a week's worth of data.
Warden of Old used to be around in the past, yet was quickly forgotten. It's convenient that the minion was already a Naga visually, now just getting a proper tribal tag.
As a reminder, the Naga tribe is no longer guaranteed to be available in every game of Hearthstone Battlegrounds, as it's moved into the normal minion rotation by now. And Queen Azshara can now also be found by players without Battlegrounds Perks.
The above changes might not yet be live, but expect that lever to be pulled at any point today!
Other Recent Hotfixes
While we've been keeping our Known Issues compilation (the link to which you can conveniently locate at the top of the front page) up to date, it's probably not something on most people's minds to be checking regularly. For that reason, we'll also briefly go over some of the minor hotfixes and problems that came up during the past week, but didn't exactly warrant to be treated as separate news items.
Those of you playing on desktop might've noticed a curious client update and a whole 1 GB download a little while ago, something the mobile users never had to worry about. It was all related just to one particular issue with friendly lobbies in Hearthstone Battlegrounds:
Quote From Blizzard
- [Partially Resolved 5/20]: The team is investigating reports that Battlegrounds Ratings are not progressing as expected when playing in a lobby with friends. Update: The team has pushed out an update that will avoid this issue if the party leader for your lobby is playing on desktop. The fix for if the party leader playing on mobile will be included in the next major patch.
Patch 23.2.2 - Bug Fixes and Improvements
Not something we've particularly focused on, as the most recent balance patch was mainly remembered for its 20 Constructed card changes and a slew of Battlegrounds adjustments, but the team did also sneak in a handful of different small updates in there:
Quote From Blizzard
- Improved connectivity surrounding Discover effects.
- Fixed a bug where a temporary Divine Shield from Glowscale could remove a minion’s permanent Divine Shield.
- Fixed a bug where applying a Spellcraft to a magnetic minion in Bob’s tavern then makes that buff permanent.
- Fixed a bug causing Mercenaries Portraits (mostly Rexxar Portraits) to disappear. Players who earned an additional copy of a Portrait while it was temporarily missing will receive a random Portrait from that Merc, instead (or Coins for that Merc if all Portraits are already owned).
- Updated the text in the Upgrade to Golden feature U.I. to better match functionality.
- Fixed an error that caused people who selected the “random” card back to have that function unchecked when they first logged in after Patch 23.2.
It's worth knowing about, if nothing else. Especially if you have previously ran into any issues with the newest game features, between Favorite Card Backs and Upgrade to Golden options. Or perhaps was denied a few Mercenaries Portraits.
What Else Is There?
Not much that we haven't already touched upon over the course of this month, but some of these persisting problems have been giving players their fair share of headaches. If you play on both desktop and mobile - or utilize even more devices, each with its own Hearthstone client - you might've noticed something was occasionally off:
Quote From Blizzard
- [Added 5/17]: The team is aware that the Send Deck Codes in Chat feature does not work on mobile devices. The team is investigating the issue.
- [Added 5/17]: The team is investigating reports of deck codes/decklists not saving or being inconsistent across devices.
Remember the much heralded return of regular Arena balancing? It turns out that one card really, really did not want to go away. It's been reported as still harboring a particular fondness for Mage.
Quote From Blizzard
- Added 5/17]: The team is aware that Frozen Mammoth is still able to be drafted by some Arena classes. The team is investigating the issue.
And last but (unfortunately) not least, we are not quite done hearing reports about forced game disconnects or connection issues, with particular cards or their combinations being the most likely culprit here.
Quote From Blizzard
- [Partially Resolved 5/19]: The team is investigating reports that some cards/effects are still causing disconnects after the patch. Update: The team added a mitigation step with Patch 23.2.2 and is working on a permanent solution.
Good luck keeping stable within the tavern!
What are your thoughts on the power level of the Naga tribe within Hearthstone Battlegrounds, is it a warranted change or rather uncalled for? Have you been fortunate enough not having to deal with any of the issues listed here? Let us know where you stand!
Comments
My brain is empty, my hand is full, I’m forcing nagas omegalul
Have they ever mentioned anything about the Alterac board in constructed causing disconnects? It's a very real, reproducible bug.
So they might be aware in general (just like with Duels Brann's Hero Power), but apparently reluctant to publicly list all potential disconnect causes in case somebody finds a way to abuse that even more.
On a sidenote, they still haven't fix "Acquired Taste" achievements yet. Maybe wanna add that to the list.
Sometimes I feel like with the amount of bugs, Hearthstone just needs a complete overhaul of the game's code from the ground up. I know that's a huge undertaking and very expensive so I doubt we'll ever get that, but still... could be needed for the longevity of the game as it is almost 10 years old now. And when it was coded the game didn't have so many different game modes. Right now, the game even has some cards with multiple versions due to Classic.
Maybe we can still hold out hope that the team is working on something like this already, and maybe by the 10th anniversary of launch will feature a client rework.
I'm gonna say this.
Battleground needs a platform on their own.
Mercenaries also needs a platform on their own.
I really don't wanna have a game where they patch other mode and ends up messing up coding in an entirely different mode. Just like what happened recently. Or better yet, hire more QA tester instead of IDK, fired them off.
EDIT. If they go with it, players can choose a lighter size of apps instead of all of them in 1 big app. Size does matter.
People say this about every live service game. I honestly think compared to any other modern game with consistent updates, HS is in a pretty good place. Bugs get fixed fast and never are somewhat rare to come across in a normal game of HS.
edit: Though if you do wanna see some funny bugs you should check out Hearthtech
The only way we'd ever see that happening is if they just made Hearthstone 2. At this point it's just not feasible to complete rework the code from the ground up unless they took a year off just to allocate all possible ressources there and at that point they'd just lose their entire playerbase.
Right now the game functions well enough for a large overhaul to not be necessary. They won't do it unless they have no other choice and who knows how long Hearthstone even lasts as a game.