[Updated on December 3]
A pre-expansion patch setting the groundwork for the biggest Hearthstone set to date had every right to be somewhat messy. But so far, the 25.0 update doesn't seem to have ended in a greater amount of outstanding issues - in fact, there are fewer reported game-breaking problems or anything of the kind than most of the major patches happening this year have made us accustomed to. At least for the time being, as the players only had so much time to try to find everything that isn't quite functioning as well as it should be.
We also had our first hotfix patch by now:
Of course, the true launch for March of the Lich King is still ahead of us, so perhaps it's just the calm before the storm until such a time comes on December 6. Team 5 has even detailed a few of the known issues they expect to persist once the Death Knights are allowed to join the game. While also trying to prevent the usual confusion that often happens as a result of Hearthstone's peculiar patching process and gated content unlocks:
Quote From Blizzard Patch 25.0 is now available […]. The patch will include a new expansion, a new class, a new minion type, dual-type minions and more! We’ll be using this post to track any issues that pop up during the 25.0 patch period.
As a reminder, March of the Lich King and the Death Knight Prologue unlock on December 6. It is not a bug that they are not available on patch day.
But that's something to worry about in the near future. For now, there are only a handful of things - both persisting bugs and recent fixes - to take note of. Most of them have been listed in the established Known Issues forum thread and within the 25.0 Patch Notes blog post.
[Partially Resolved] Fireside Gatherings Not Working, Re-roll Feature Too?
Update: Initially, Pre-Release Fireside Gatherings for March of the Lich King did not work as intended. Blizzard communicated about the ongoing issues and eventually managed to fix them via a dedicated hotfix. You should be able to open your packs early now and play the special Tavern Brawl!
Quote From Blizzard We’ve corrected an issue that prevented pre-release weekend Fireside Gatherings from functioning earlier today. […] If you have an active Fireside Gathering still live when the update hits your server, it should pick you up from there. If your Fireside Gathering period has already ended, create a new Fireside Gathering event to re-access the interface and start your Pre-Release festivities!
Quote From DeckTech Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding about this. Thanks also to the devs who put together a quick fix for this issue and were able to turnaround this patch late on a Friday. Good luck on your pack openings, everyone!
Need detailed advice on how to create your own Private Fireside Gathering? We got you.
Further Update: There might be some underlying issues with the new re-roll feature.
Quote From Celestalon We're investigating an issue where the Reroll feature may not work during pre-release. Will update when we know more, sorry about that!
[Resolved] Mobile Issues - Android Clients
Update: While the patch itself became available very quickly on some of the mobile devices, the following experiences haven't been nearly as smooth for a number of users. To the extent that the regular in-game client update had to be halted for over a day (but it was still possible to update manually - as in, directly from the storefront). These problems should now be fixed:
Quote From Blizzard
This afternoon, we released a client hotfix patch to address the disconnect issues seen by Android devices.
If this still sounds rather confusing, the simplest explanation is that mobile updates tend to roll out in two phases: the 'voluntary' one, where it's possible to update from the store level (but you can also disable auto-updates and ignore that option for a while to keep playing on an older patch version), and the 'mandatory' one, which is when the game itself prompts the user to head over to the store for a client update every time they try to log in, and won't allow anyone to proceed without. These two categories are usually spaced several hours apart, but this time we were looking at more than 24 hours.
It would seem that certain Android users (the problem listed above didn't seem to affect everyone) who updated their game clients as soon as possible might have had plenty of reasons to initially regret this.
Repetitive Achievements
This one isn't particularly new, as it's already happened a couple of times in the past. Best shrug it off and move on. Some of these achievements seem to have a particularly short memory.
Quote From Blizzard
On your first login in 25.0, some previously completed achievements will show up and be claimable again. These are the achievements that relate to the golden cards you earned in the last rewards track. You can’t have additional copies of these cards and they can’t be disenchanted or crafted, so this bug does not affect gameplay. The team is working on addressing this issue for upcoming patches.
What's Up, Sire Denathrius?
Something that was rather quickly picked up on by the community (Old Guardian's video, followed by Twitter and Reddit chatter) also has to do with achievements: namely the transitory phase where they lose their XP bonus and start giving (Golden) Uncraftable copies instead in very specific instances - that is, for the cards featured on any given expansion's Rewards Track. It's all handled this way just so players who never had the chance to play during a particular time period are still able to receive these cards in the future.
Now, there is one card from Murder at Castle Nathria whose regular copy was non-craftable to begin with as the initial free Legendary from the Rewards Track (Golden version remains craftable) - and that's the infamous Sire Denathrius, possibly the most talked about card from that whole set. It would appear that Team 5 might have accidentally locked it behind a rather puzzling requirement.
Quote From Blizzard
- The team is aware that the achievement to earn Sire Denathrius (for people who did not earn him during the Patch 24.0 cycle) requires you to play Sire Denathrius, making him harder than intended to be earned. The team is looking into alternative options.
This isn't a problem for anyone just yet; it would only start being an issue for players joining after March of the Lich King goes live on December 6. As long as it's fixed before that date, there won't be any reason to sound the alarm. Amusingly befitting of Sire's ego, in any case: deal a ton of damage with Denathrius in order to be able to earn Denathrius in the first place... yep, everything checks out. Never one to miss the spotlight opportunity.
Other - Coins and Signature Artists
We did talk about the four new/old Cosmetic Coins in greater detail here, but it's also on the list of acknowledged issues. Along with artists' card credits.
Quote From Blizzard
- Some Collectible Coins for old expansions (Engineer’s Coin, Naxxramas Coin, Gallant Coin, Explorer’s Coin), are incorrectly visible in the Collection Manager. They’re still in-development and can’t be earned right now. They will be earnable once they are ready. The team is investigating a solution to their early appearance.
Artist credits on cards that have Signature versions are showing the artist of the Signature version on all versions. The team is investigating the issue and will make sure that all artists get their correct credit soon.
Hearthstone Duels & Mercenaries
We've been seeing reports of deck codes for Duels not working properly - copy-pasting or saving the string in one's clipboard provided no desired results. There have already been previous issues with this feature not functioning fully as intended, and it would seem things have only gotten worse.
Update: This might've already been resolved.
Quote From Blizzard
[Resolved 11/30] Fixed an issue where Duels deck codes were not copying.
What currently remains in the grey area is the issue of Duels Buckets behaving in rather peculiar ways ever since the recent system revamp (triple Snowflipper Penguin cutesy, anyone?). You might've seen us talk about it already.
There might be also something off with Heroic run rewards as well, but we don't yet have enough information on the matter.
Quote From Matt London We're monitoring a few issues related to our recent bucket update. Thank you everyone for your patience.
Update: The recent hotfix might've adjusted a few things for the better!
As for Mercenaries, no such good news:
Quote From Blizzard
- [Mercenaries] Fixed a bug where completing a Heroic Bounty would not count for Tasks requiring a Normal Bounty completion.
Well, consider this not really fixed. Many players have confirmed by now that they are still not getting any credit (on Heroic) for Tasks that specifically ask for Normal Bounty completion. And if it's in some way intended that players are forced to run Normal Bounties over Heroic just for some of these Tasks... that's not a very smart choice either.
Nope, No Death Knights for Dungeon Run
Kripparrian has been really hopeful and enthusiastic about it for a brief moment there. That's too bad!
Quote From Blizzard
- [Added 12/2] Death Knight shows as a playable class in Dungeon Run solo content. This is a visual bug; the class will not be able to be selected for that content. This will be addressed in the next major patch (Patch 25.2).
Future March of the Lich King Issues
Curiously enough, there are some known issues related to the upcoming expansion that have been listed ahead of time. They have little bearing on anything happening this week, so this is something we'll get back to once it's actually relevant.
Quote From Blizzard
Death Knight cards, like those you will get from packs or the Path of Arthas, can’t be used in the Hearthstone mode until you unlock the class. Under certain circumstances, players may be able to queue a Hearthstone mode game as a Death Knight before they unlock the class. This will result in an error and the game will not start. Complete the Death Knight Prologue (available on December 6) first to unlock the class, then you will be able to play with it on ladder.
Under certain circumstances, players may be able to complete the Death Knight Prologue prior to getting the special Event Quest to finish the Prologue. The Event Quest can be completed if you go back and redo the final fight of the Prologue after the Event Quest is offered to you.
Anachronos can cause disconnects when moving Dormant minions through time. If you get lost in time, restart your client to reconnect to the game. The team is working on a hotfix to address this issue.
In Mercenaries, Chromie’s Change the Timeline visual effect does not appear as intended on mobile. This will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
If you're wondering why they choose to list such issues well in advance rather than spend the current week working on the fixes, there's apparently a reason:
Quote From DeckTech Yeah, when patches ship with known issues it’s from internal testing. The cutoff for patches is a while before they go live, so sometimes bugs are found after the patch is ready to go, or the bug is found earlier but the fix can’t get in in time so they get scheduled to be fixed after launch.
Patch 25.0 - Other Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
All of the following changes have been included in the published 25.0 Patch Notes. We already did focus on the bug fixes for Battlegrounds and Mercenaries separately, but the general list also has a few notable entries that are worth bringing up. Starting with:
Rewards Track Hero Skins & Max Level Quests
There are players who have been waiting nearly an entire month (or longer) specifically for these two solutions:
Quote From Blizzard
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where the level 100 Rewards Track Hero Skin could not be selected.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where players who reached the level 400 Rewards Track cap would no longer receive quests.
We have been able to confirm that the current Rewards Track Hero Skin reward is indeed claimable once again. Even if somebody were to miss choosing theirs before Murder at Castle Nathria concludes, the game should auto pick one option for them upon logging into March of the Lich King.
Hopefully this also means that players who maxed out the existing Rewards Track will be able to save up some quests for the upcoming new one.
Deck Auto Complete and Shop
A word of warning - the auto-complete feature appears to have been only partially fixed. It should work from the Play screen, but not from the Collection Manager itself.
Quote From Blizzard
- [Collection] Fixed a bug where the “Complete My Deck” feature did not work with Prince Renathal decks.
- [Shop] Fixed a bug where the “Back” button’s selection space was too small and placed where players could sometimes accidentally click into a product when they meant to go back.
General
Mainly Constructed Hearthstone and relevant game modes:
Quote From Blizzard
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Countered Secrets would not be revealed when Countered.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Immolate would not destroy cards that were Infused after being Immolated.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Afterlife Attendant would not progress a Huntsman Altimor’s Infuse form if the Infuse counter went to 0 while Altimor was in the deck.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Soul Seeker could result in an invisible card being summoned in certain circumstances.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Disarming Elemental’s Battlecry would not trigger if the person playing Disarming Elemental had an empty deck.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Silas Darkmoon’s rotation effect would kill Doomsayer.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Akama Prime was not stealthy enough and would lose Stealth when attacking.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Lotus Assassin was too stealthy and wouldn’t lose Stealth after Flare was played.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a visual bug where certain visuals would remain on the board if the card causing them was Countered.
- Misc. other improvements and bug fixes.
This list will probably grow over the coming days as new bugs come up, and then ideally shrink once relevant hotfixes start getting deployed. As always, we'll keep you posted! Check back for updates at a later date, and let us know in case you've stumbled upon any other issues with Patch 25.0.
Comments
Update that as of December 2nd, 9:00 EST, Fireside Gatherings now work for early pack opening.
Update #1: Android issues and Duels deck codes should have been resolved by now. The mandatory mobile update seems to be present upon logging in.
Update #2: Fireside Gatherings inaccessible for the time being, more on Duels Buckets & Mercenaries Bounties. No Death Knights for Dungeon Run, unfortunately (just a visual bug).
Update #3: Fireside Gatherings should be once again working as intended (but the re-roll feature might not be), Duels Buckets improved, and Rattlegore Event is back in town.
Hooray. I finally got to choose my Level 100 hero. I've been idly trying for the past two weeks, so I chose the wrong one by accident, heh. But, well, only two more to go.
Theoretically, a fair amount of players will have no level 100 heroes left to choose after the next expansion cycle - part of me doubts Blizzard will cook up a replacement, but it'd be neat if they did.
They can buy a little more time with a Death Knight hero, bringing the total to 11. Are we really on the 9th rewards track right now?
Good point! I hope that you're right. That would stretch it out another expansion cycle.
Shouldn't they let us unlock the DK via the prologue before the expansion starts itself? I mean, didn't they did this with dhunter? So on 6 Dec itself we'll all be scrambling to play the prologue instead of any new decks. Its not like we have tons to do before the expansion starts anyway.
They did it with DH, and decided against it this time:
Many peope aren't particularly happy about it, of course. The strange nature of HS patching process strikes again.
Id imagine all the problems are coming from their end, because it makes perfect sense for us to unlock the class before the expansion starts.
Or alternatively, just make it available from the start without having to go through a prologue, its all fluff anyway. I havent went back or even last thought about the dhunter prologue since the first time I finished it.
The way Celestalon's comment read to me was that the players were confused, not T5. The deck slot meme is relevant here.
I cant see how to be honest.
The idea was that you'd unlock the demon hunter initiate set by playing the prologue but would not be able to play them until AoO launches. From a player perspective its perfectly clear. But from backend, perhaps the coding is too complicated, causing internal problems. I cannot imagine this to be a player problem, rather than a coding problem.
I mean, at the end of the day I don't know anything about coding so I don't have a dog in this discussion... but I was active on r/Hearthstone when the prologue was released. Maybe the average HS player wouldn't get confused, but I can guarantee you a good 2/3 of Redditors were.
I believe there were indeed a lot of players who expected to be able to play with Demon Hunter as soon as they unlocked it via Prologue (that's only logical from their perspective, isn't it), with in-game UI sort of supporting this expectation as well. Rather than for some weird reason having to wait until that's become possible later.
Do they even test these sort of things? Blizzards spaghetti code.
Would be better to have AIs simulate every possible scenario than hire QA
Every patch there’s some bozo who makes this exact same comment.
Why would you defend a multi million dolar company? Dont you want the best for the game and gamers? You are the clown, if you think the other way, quite frankly.
I’m not defending the company, I’m sticking up for the devs that work hard but have unfair deadlines placed on them
Yeah, you are right regarding developers and their crunch time. I'm just tired of the gaming industry in general for releasing half assed and uncompleted games or major expansion.