Its a total diff game, it could have its own tab at battlenet , but they decided to sell it to a player base . While its not bad its way too time consuming , i dont see how someone can play normal hs and that, also feels like its easy to get behind cause it is pay to win. In hs if you dont play for a week you can still get legend , if you dont preorder an expansion you can craft cards and still get legend , In merc not preordering or not playing means you fall back behind and you can never recover unless you pay money . Also i feel it should have more options in animations either close them or make them faster , every dungeon run and every battle feels too long and the xp afterwards feels too little.
In conclusion while i dont think tis a bad game , i dont know why it was us the target group
well made in what sense?
- Controls are clunky
- Mechanics are dull and no novelty, you even have to hover over to see intents
- All recycled material, the main canvas is just random sand with zoom on fight
- Really slow
- Maps are poor and pointless
- Grinding is strong in this one
- It´s clearly to throw some sparks, induce addiction and grab cash
The 50 bucks forced p
I dont like it at all. It is completely different game with practically no link to existing HS cards. Lots of automatic clicking and no thinking. Visual is sh*t. Large board with small characters(max 6) that are barely visible. Icons of abilites are small too. Why? this game only plays with 3 mercs at one time, so why they are so small? Gameplay just does not hits home, it is boring even during tutorial, just automatic clicking abilities, attack, gg thanks next boss… Double damage is not intuitive and does not display correctly, when choosing attacks. This is just feels like another blizzard embarassment after 2 remakes of diablo and warcraft 3. I will not play this failure of design again. But thanks for new battlegrounds, they are better than last season with even more crazy combos.
See, in some instances that is very much true.
However, other times there are situations where the gameplay is not developed independently and instead is developed alongside the people in charge of monetization, which can cause the gameplay to be bogged down. This is especially likely in Free-To-Play game models. It also isn’t helped by the fact that if you give any company an inch when it comes to pushing the lines of acceptability, you’ll find yourself losing a mile.
So when I see microtransactions I am always on guard and almost always quick to push back. They’ve already took so much as is.
Look, I’m an avid supporter of the game, but I don’t approve of Blizzard’s pricing policies for certain things.
For instance, you will never see me buy Battlegrounds cosmetics or those Golden card pack bundles they offer sometimes. I do wish those skins were made earnable through gameplay and in-game currency.
But they’re there for purchase to target certain layers of the fanbase.
It’s just simple marketing.
We do our share of marketing every day too when we advise others which stores to buy from. Big companies are just more aggressive about it.
Anyhow, some people have the resources to spend 40 bucks on a bunch of Golden cards without thinking too much.
Then there are people who also have poor self-control and are quick to spend money on anything they fancy that they’ve come across online.
You can turn any offered deal into something that was meant to scam others.
Are casinos fair to people who can’t stop gambling? It’s up to us to decide on where we set our spending limits.
You are correct about us doing our own share of marketing. And some people do indeed have the resources to spend their money on stuff like golden cards willynilly.
The problems arise when the companies decide that what they make is not enough. They must have more and more to sate that ever-present desire for money. And in that process they start to specialize in making products for the more lucrative sources, leaving the other customers in the situation where they either move on to another product or they dish out the cash and join the rest.
Meanwhile the people who have resources for stuff like golden cards can be told to spend even more money on other things. No skin off their back, right? Their poor self-control is just a metric to be exploited, it’s their fault they are that way, are they not?
Except sometimes it’s not even people who do have the resources that are spending all that money.
Sometimes it’s people who do not have the money and still spend on it.
Sometimes it’s children emptying their parents bank accounts of thousands of dollars (Yes, that has actually happened).
No, they are not. That’s why laws exist. To protect people from those who would take advantage of them - including themselves.
And the law needs to catch up to close the gold mines that are being emptied faster than kegs of beer at a bar on happy hour.
The sad truth is some people cannot be trusted to decide such things, for they would be the first to break those limits. Sometimes they can’t even feasibly meet the limit, yet break it anyway. To the detriment of not only their financial wellbeing but also to their physical and mental health as they lack the money for basic sustenance and a roof over their heads.
I admit this is a rather extreme example but my point should be clear.
About your last point: you’re right.
There are many people who spend their money irresponsibly fueled by bad habits like drug and alcohol use.
Spending limits don’t exist for them; they have to support their addiction.
Which is why you never want to plan your dream trip to Vegas with a compulsive gambler, or recommend a great all-you can eat buffet to an over-eater, or advertise the latest end of season sale to a shopaholic.
When it comes to children, it is the parents’ responsibility to set boundaries and restrictions, and teach them how to spend money responsibly.
Eventually, you can’t really save all people from being slaves to their vices, and while it’s a sad reality, the best you can do is guide them by personal example.
Concerning myself, I like it more than the cards (of which I threw up the meta and the very high monetary investment), I even wonder if I should not have pre-ordered the Arthas pack (seems to me that it is this one) but I preferred to test it before paying anything as the battlefields where I did well not to invest.
First of all I admit that with my 6 month subscription, having the free packages helped me to have a stock of mercenaries.
However, I was satisfied with the starting group by replacing Grommash with Cairne given shortly after the start of the campaign, just to see the viability of the free mode.
I’ve done all the Barrens and it turns out that the starting group is good enough that at level 20 we can do level 18 which was not obvious.
Quite surprisingly.
Three black dots:
- Paid buildings: To be comfortable there are no miracles, you have to buy them. However for my part I was able to compensate with the gold won in the rewards course and I am “only” level 33 with a small starting stock of 600.
What can i say? Hearthstone being very greedy in investment I have not played much despite the ticket offered a month ago.
Finally, this is a black spot that can be compensated for with grind because I bought everything for the Barrens and came back to 600.
That being said I’m afraid I will have to spend more for the heroic mode of the other 3 areas.
-
The inability to change mercenary once landed.
It’s particularly embarrassing when you know that it is based on rock-paper-scissors and that we have mistakenly land a mercenary who we realize that he is going to get screwed because you took the paper with two scissors in front. -
Points for improving the capacities: This is the point that bothers me the most and spoils the experience.
Indeed at the end of the chest I had much more often points for mercenaries that I did not use than for those who did the run but if it was just that …
Because there is much more annoying: The fact of earning points for mercenaries that you do not even have!
It would have been necessary to limit to the pool of mercenaries possessed to be acceptable.
This is going to be very problematic considering that the max level is 30 and I imagine that you have to have characters maximized to death to hope to pass the Woods and Blackrock Mountain.
Additional ideas:
- Increase the diversity of arena settings: For example, variant area for the Barrens with 3 arenas chosen randomly for each fight would not have been luxury.
- Crafting Character Portraits: It surprised me that you couldn’t use Disenchantment Powder from cards to craft character portraits.
Indeed, the alternative portraits can only be obtained in the packages.
I let you imagine the frustration it gives when you want the 3rd or 4th model of Tyrande.
I can’t imagine what bowl it would take for my legendaries.
I have 2000 powder in stock and would have liked to use them for portraits of the mercenaries mode which I like rather than the cards where I completely lost the notion of making any good decks - if i have good cards to begin with.
so so so so bad mode
Erf i missed the part where we can craft the hero, my bad.
its enjoyable untill you played it enough. For free players you got to grind incredible amounts of solo player if you want to unlock a character wich costs about 500 merc coins while you maybe get around 10-20 per run.
So then you start looking at buying packs. I bought quite some with my gold. Wich i regret doing so. I would have been better off buying normal card packs, because you can disenchant ones you wont use and craft cards far more easily with in mind what kind of deck you wich to built.
The mercenary packs give only one guaranteed character and 4 merc coins. But the odds of unboxing a character is watered down with the inclusion of portraits wich i dont care about at all. Every time i unbox a portrait instead of a character i concider the 100 coins for the pack flushed down the toilet.
There are only 4 "campaigns"wich can be done quickly.
So you start looking at the fighting pit for pvp. Wich gives alot more xp for a win as well. So when playing below lvl 30 you can actually have some equal matches and get some wins in. In fact i got quite some wins in with my initial made group. But that creativity of what i got got crushed the moment you enter the fighting pit at lvl 30. Why? because there is simply one meta wich seems to be dominating. Orcs buffing eachother into oblivion and also having way too much speed. so they destroy or come close to destroying 1 character on turn 1 already.
The tl:dr : pve is a grind, pvp is too unbalanced. And packs dont feel like they are worth buying because they dont even guarantee a character because of portaits being in them and a small amount of coins. portaits should be craftable and not replace getting a new character when opening a pack.
Its fun for a short while but its not balanced and designed to give people who pay tons of money to buy packs to get the advantage. It would atleast be nice if there were visitors wich sometimes give a bonus pack or something
mercenaries seems more like a fun minigame wich would fit with the mission table in WoW than it belonging in hearthstone
My opinion is that they need to nerf Samuro.
its not just Samuro, its how there are alot of orcs wich can buff other orcs into oblivion all while having very speedy skills
I don’t like mercenaries, but that’s not even the main issue.
I don’t like mercenaries, I have no interest in mercenaries, I especially hate lore but I’m a bit OCD and I have to do my quests. So I get the quest and go to play one game of mercenaries or whatever and the amount of content I have to sit through that I can’t skip, it’s just too much. I feel violated. To be fair the solo adventures were just as bad.
the solo adventures atleast did not have their own card packs and did not have quests to do in them. Solo adventures atleast were worth the gold you put into it. Once you got it you can play it forever.
But mercenaries is just there to sell you a seperate kind of card packs. And if you didnt put tons of money or gold into buying tons of packs then you are likely to lose against other players because your skills are not as leveled up and you dont got the most op combination possible.
Mercs is far worse than solo adventures
So true… 
It’s called addiction and the gambling one is the worst of all kinds. All the games now made are based on this gambling addictive mentality. From the moment that the game does not have an ending, but unlimited levels / points, you are being stormed with bundles with power ups, resources, or whatever you need to level up faster. This is not marketing, this is pure strategy for profitability.
Blizzard (as every blizzard company) do not address their product to a specific target group. This mindset is old. They have access to millions (potential) customers than they used to. They do not care if the person that buys the golden cards can afford it or is starving to death. No, because the result is the same in both cases: profit for Blizzard.
They create a product that keeps the player engaged (investing in time and money for as long as this is possible). This pattern can lead to addiction, it’s not about individual responsibility. It’s about how the company protects its customers. I believe it’s a matter of time for companies working like that, to update their policy and include a note? similar to the ones you see in those online gambling ads, where small letter pass by at the end, "gambling can lead to addition, here’s our support line in case you are facing any issues. So much care for the customers.
Back to the game, I gave it another round, but I still find it boring.
Mercstone is so boring for me, it made me stop playing the game completely. Just because it is in the client. This should’ve been a completely separate game.
swer down blad blizzard better remove this game mode ASAP or manz gonna quit foreva
How would you know that Blizzard doesn’t care? Do you want them to provide a hotline number for people who are addicted to their products? Is that a form of care? Do you want a legal disclaimer that buying their products may lead to financial problems in case of overindulgence?
Have you ever seen this in any kind of marketing campaign? How does that make sense from a commercial standpoint?
Addiction is a personal and social construct. Much of it is about self-control.
Does the over-eater put the blame on the maker of his favorite cookie brand for his overindulgence to the point of obesity?
Over-eaters eat too much because they experience lack in some other area of their lives, because there is some other need there that isn’t being fed(I’m almost quoting Frasier now-it’s my favorite show)
There is a root cause to all addiction. Why do people get addicted to drugs? Because the substance they’re using alters their brain’s chemistry and creates a dependence, and the need to experience that first drug trip may drive them to harder drugs and bigger doses.
I said no to drugs from the get-go. I never used them and never will.
I’ve been enjoying it so far but the one thing I don’t get is why I would ever spend any money on the mode (out side of “to support the game”). I’m happy enough casually playing it every now and then, slowly building up my characters, so I guess from that sense it’s nice that I don’t feel the need to complete every daily quest like in the main game (I do enjoy doing the dailies but because I do them daily/every other day, it has definitely stopped me from wanting to put in any long sessions anymore).