“Mercenaries Packs” – we’ve probably heard that a few times too many during the recent Mercenaries showcase. Many players have hoped that the new game mode will be more similar to Battlegrounds, in a way that it won’t include gacha mechanics like card packs. However, it doesn’t automatically mean that the new mode will be P2W – if Mercenaries Packs will be easily obtainable and will have solid drop rates, then it should still be okay for F2P players. We didn’t learn THAT much about them during the presentation – details like drop rates were omitted. However, some new info regarding them appeared in a support article. I’ll link the whole thing below, but here’s a summary:
- There are three kinds of items you can get from those packs – Mercenary cards (so playable characters, in one of three rarities – Rare, Epic or Legendary), Mercenary portraits (cosmetic portraits) and Mercenary coins (which let you craft and upgrade the specific Mercenary).
- Each pack will contain five items, like your regular Hearthstone packs.
- Each pack has a 100% chance of containing a Merc of Rare quality or higher. Epics will drop every 5 packs on average while Legendaries every 20 packs on average (with one guaranteed from the first 10).
- In 10 packs, on average you will get 12 Coin drops for Rare Mercs, 10 Coin drops for Epic and 8 for Legendary. Each Coin drop is 35-45 Coins for a random Mercenary from that rarity.
- Mercenary portraits are cosmetics, HOWEVER if you open a portrait before you open an actual Mercenary (e.g. you get Illidan portrait without getting Illidan first), you can still play that Mercenary. After you unlock all portraits, when you open a duplicate you get Coins for that Merc instead – 50 for Rare, 75 for Epic and 100 for Legendary. We don’t know the exact drop rates for portraits.
- Duplicate protection is in place for both Mercenary cards and portraits. Also, once you own all cards from that rarity, you will start getting portraits instead.
And that’s the gist of it. Now let’s do some math. From what I’ve gathered, there will be 52 Mercs available at the start. 8 of them you get for free after prologue (6 Rare, 1 Epic, 1 Legendary), so they don’t count – that’s 44 left. Out of those 44, 12 are Rare, 16 are Epic and 16 are Legendary. Opening all Rares will be very easy – you will get them quickly (you will have every Rare after just 16 Merc packs, possibly even sooner if you can open more than 1 Merc card in your packs). Epics should be relatively quick too – it will take 80 packs to open all of them, but maybe even quicker if you count crafting. Now, the only issue are Legendaries. With guaranteed one in the first 10 packs and then one per 20 on average, it will take an average of 310 packs to get all of them. That’s an awful lot of packs.
Of course, it will take 310 only if you want to UNPACK them all – remember that there’s an alternative way to get your Mercs – you can craft them using Coins. Sadly, we don’t know how many Coins you need to do it at this point. But given that Legendary Coins will drop quite commonly (on average, you will get 32 random Legendary Coins per pack), I think that you will be able to fill all the gaps without buying nearly as many packs. And – of course – you most likely don’t need a full collection to enjoy the mode. Like in regular Hearthstone, you might be able to build a good comp without using many Legendaries, and some of them might not even be that strong so you can ignore them.
Now, let’s say that you want to buy a pre-order. What can you expect from your 50 Mercenaries packs? Will it be enough? On average, you will get 3 Legendaries, 10 Epics and, and of course all 12 Rares. Then, when it comes to the Coins, you will see a total of 2400 Rare Coins, 2000 Epic Coins and 1600 Legendary Coins (all spread randomly between available Mercs). And X portraits – sadly we don’t know the drop rates here. I would imagine that since, on average, 3 of the 5 slots are Coins and 1 is Merc card, the last slot should most likely be a portrait. If that’s the case, you would also see 50 Portraits on average – possibly even more given that after you open all Rare cards, you will start getting Rare portraits. That seems like a lot, but each Merc has 3 alternate Golden portraits, and Legendary Mercs also have an extra Diamond portrait, so there should be over 170 portraits in total. Overall, I think that opening 50 Packs + whatever freebies we get at the start, should be more than enough to give you a nice starting collection.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that crafting is done with Coins, and Coins are also obtained by simply playing the game. Finishing Merc Quests and doing Bounties will also give you Coins, so you technically should be able to craft all the Mercs without spending any Gold or real money on Packs – the only question is how grindy the system will be and how long will it take. Oh, and whether the game will be enjoyable without using too many Legendary Mercs. Because it’s quite easy to get all Rares + most of the Epics, the only “bottleneck” for a full collection will be Legendaries.
All in all, we’ll have to wait and see how many packs and Coins we get for free, but I have to say that it doesn’t look THAT bad unless you want to have a 100% collection (but again, that will likely not be necessary). While the initial reaction to what seemed like an overly monetized mode was negative (I also have my doubts), after thinking more about all of this, I’m cautiously optimistic. I hope that it will be possible to enjoy the mode without spending any real money, at the very least.
Opening a Mercenaries Pack in Hearthstone adds 5 items from the following 3 types to your Mercenaries collection:
- Mercenary Card. A Mercenary Card allows you to play a Mercenary in the Mercenaries Mode with its default portrait.
- Mercenary Portrait. A Mercenary Portrait is a different look for a Mercenary which you can select when playing that Mercenary.
- Mercenary Coins. Mercenary Coins allow you to craft a Mercenary if you do not own them and upgrade their abilities and equipment. Mercenary Coins are unique per Mercenary –for example, Jaina Coins can only be used with the Jaina Mercenary.
Mercenary Cards, Portraits, and Coins can be of three different rarities: Rare, Epic, and Legendary.
There are rules in place to make sure your Mercenaries Pack opening experience is exciting.
Rarity of Mercenaries and Mercenary Card Drop Rates
One item per pack will always be a Mercenary Card and adhere to the rarity guidelines below, and this will always be a Mercenary that you don’t own until you own all Mercenary Cards of that rarity. Once you own all the Mercenary cards of a rarity, you will obtain Mercenary Portraits of that rarity, instead.
The other 4 items can be a Mercenary Card, Coins, or Portraits, from which you may obtain Mercenary Portraits of Mercenaries that you own before owning all Mercenary Cards of the rarity.
- Rare Mercenary Cards: Each Mercenaries Pack contains at least one Rare or better Mercenary Card.
- Epic Mercenary Cards: On average, one Epic Mercenary Card can be obtained every five Mercenaries Packs.
- Legendary Mercenary Cards: One Legendary Mercenary Card is guaranteed within the first 10 packs. Subsequent Legendary Mercenary Cards can be obtained in 20 Mercenaries Packs on average.
Mercenary Coins Drop Rates
A pack can contain one or more drops of Mercenary Coins of any Mercenary, and each drop will be in between 35 and 45 coins.
- Rare Coins: Rare Coins can drop 12 times in 10 Mercenaries Packs on average
- Epic Coins: Epic Coins can drop 10 times in 10 Mercenaries Packs on average
- Legendary Coins: Legendary Coins can drop 8 times in 10 Mercenaries Packs on average
Mercenary Portraits Drop Rates
All Mercenaries have 3 Golden Mercenary Portraits. All Legendary Mercenaries also have a Diamond Mercenary Portrait.
Whenever you obtain a Mercenary Portrait from a pack, the Portrait you receive will be based on the following baseline percentages:
- For Legendary Mercenaries: 30% chance to get each of the 3 Golden Portraits and 10% chance to get the Diamond Portrait
- For Rare and Epic Mercenaries: 33.3% chance to get each of the 3 Golden Portraits
When you obtain a Mercenary Portrait, the drop rate for the remaining Mercenary Portraits is dynamically recalculated, with new proportions based on your individual collection of Portraits for that Mercenary.
You will not obtain the same Mercenary Portrait until you own all the Mercenary Portraits for that Mercenary. Once you own all the Portraits for a Mercenary, you can obtain a second copy of a Mercenary Portrait, which will automatically be converted into Coins of that Mercenary: 50 coins for Rare, 75 coins for Epic, and 100 coins for Legendary Mercenaries.
Occasionally, you may obtain a Mercenary Portrait prior to obtaining its Mercenary Card. When that happens, you will be able to play that Mercenary with the Mercenary Portrait, and you could get the Mercenary Card from packs.
Optimistic here. 🙂 Don’t look bad when you take a time to think about it. Thanks for information Stonekeep, always good material.
I think the real bottleneck will be getting enough coins to upgrade legendary mercenaries. If it’s like Pokemon Masters (only gatcha game I have played) you can get the characters quite easy and upgrade them to be good (lvl 120) is doable f2p, but getting to level 140 perfect has an insane curve. Maxing out a mercenary and all their gear is going to be really expensive, while they will be good and playable for f2p players.
So nothing from the preorder bundles are exclusive or limited then?
Yep, nothing is exclusive, you can get all of that in-game. Although Diamond portraits you’re getting for Diablo/Lich King are very rare.
Where did you get that info from? I haven’t been able to find any official source.
If I upgraded a Merc completely, do I get ‘coin protection’ or can I still get coins for that Mercenary even if I don’t need them anymore?
Im might have overread it. :/
I’ve tried to look it up about that and I don’t think there’s anything official. I’ll try to ask the devs and update the guide, assuming they will want to share the info, haha.
Having dupe protection for Coins would be a pretty big deal. Fully upgrading a Merc and still getting useless Coins for it would suck.
LOL, to think that they need some new way to get more money. The way they push lootboxes into new modes makes me sick.
I’m still fine with the way they shove cosmetics in recent years, even when they done it aggressively. But this time, I had to say that this is beyond greedy.
We didn’t ask for any of this. What we ask for is tournament mode. Social interactions in UI, and yet, they need to make some new way to get money. #facepalm.
LOL. To be offended that a for profit company is trying to make a profit. Clearly they should bend over backwards for special snowflakes like yourself.
When you grow up, you will be shocked at how things work in the real world.
It’s ironic, when you support game franchise to act greedy like this, you support them to actually kill the game. No wonder we can’t have nice game anymore where game developer create games based on creativity and purpose, to have fun, and not to fulfill some corporate needs/greed.
I know they are trying to make a profit. I think there’s a lot of ways to make profit.
And of course there is a lot of stup*d ways to make profit too. This is one of them.
Again, when you grow up, you can create your own game company, and show them how to do it right. With you expertise and winning personality, you will have no problems obtaining corporate financing.
Yeah Blizzard is doing so well right now, surely their business practices are flawless
This must be one of the silliest ways to put down an argument/oppinion. ‘If you can’t do better, you aren’t allow to disagree’. Doesn’t seem very grown up to me. 😉
I was going out to say “Hm, another Blizzard boy”, or “How much you got paid?”
But nope. I’ll try be a child like you said, and ask a grown up for once.
Sure, I may not be a very convincing voice out here. But what about some big name like Brian Kibler? would that be convincing enough?
https://twitter.com/bmkibler/status/1433099301597560834
Maybe try to look everything from 2 sides instead of blindly agreeing to everything. Because to this point, I still can’t find any good with the mode.
If YOU can’t find any good about the mode, don’t play it. Problem solved. If very few people find any good in the mode, it will fail. Bad news for Blizzard, but not an issue for you.
Kibler? LULZ. A very affable fella. A fine player. But speaking of failed games, he designed one that flopped himself. And streamers are compromised. They produce content that pays their bills. And it is often beneficial to cater to the toxic crowd. He is no where the level of POS Zeddy (few are). But I don’t put any weight in what he says.
Kibler always has an issue with HS. Whether it be combo decks or Genn/Baku or whatever, it’s one issue after another.
I play HS because I LOVE it. I don’t give a flying hoot whether you do or not. And that applies to every streamer as well.
no one has the right to complain about cosmetic purchases, because it doesn’t give any advantage over your opponent.
Also, if the mode suck, don’t play it or don’t bother paying for it? we are all here for hearthstone anyway, I don’t play arena or duels, the game looks like a worse and more expensive version of Battlegrounds anyway.
The only thing we can all agree on is the video announcement was MEH.
Unlike your first reply to me, this time you sound reasonable enough to push your own personal opinion instead of supporting them for whatever they are.
And the point I was trying to make from the start is the mode is a fail to me, don’t matter whether I play that or not.
But since you brought that you love HS, sure enough I can say that they could’ve invest more into the mode YOU love instead of that vague expensive mode from the start. They can, but they won’t. Is this a company you would support in the future? Because I’m not.
It doesn’t really add anything really, but it’ll be a much better HS if they do that.
(And about Kibler, that’s on me. I set the bar too low)
I will certainly support Blizzard in the future. I will buy all three Merc bundles. The fact that you won’t is totally irrelevant.
Team 5 has been doing a great job ever since Ben Brode left Blizz; rastakhan’s aftertaste still lingers in my tastebuds. They evolved the game from a failed boring state to something you can play all year long with multiple modes that are seeing success FOR FREE
Battlegrounds qualifies as a standalone game and f2p as well. Also with the new reward tracker u kinda get compensated the 2500 u pay to enjoy the full experience of BGs
Mercenary is, to my understanding of other ppls comments, a gacha game and theyre pretty famous for being holy expensive compared to HS. 7DS for instance is extremely popular and is by far the best I have tried but needs 100$ a month at the bare minimum to keep up with their greedy devs
HS on the other hand requires 240$ a year and gives you tons of golden value, portraits, cosmetics and access to BGs
Mercenaries qualifies as a standalone game imo and requires as much as 0$ for you to “have fun”, if you plan on getting competitive then you should most probably pay a 100$ which once again, imo, isnt that expensive at all
Gl Hf
I really don’t want to start to rant again, but I’ll try to minimize the rant and focus on the point which I think they fail so bad it’s terrible. (yes they did made some good decision, but I think they did it because people spoke out. Remember 1st reward track fiesta?
They spent most of their resources to create new mode, while the game barely holding together. Player spent big amount of money to this, at least they deserve a program that at least function properly, but we still have countless bugs, animation lag, wifi dc every several games, cards mechanic bugs, breaking bugs, and I haven’t touch mobile apps yet. (the lists goes on, and there’s some bugs which has been over 6 months and not getting fixed yet).
New mode is good, but if the platform isn’t stable enough, why not focus on that first? Remember they made millions of profit, and yet they made new mode to get MORE profit. I assume they know they are in a sinking ship, so they’re pushing devs efforts to milk it for everything it’s worth. Fixing bugs doesn’t make money, unless devs intention were long terms and for player satisfaction.
I’m just saying that the least players should get, is what players paid for.
And about the cost of Hearthstone, it is expensive. Period.
Yes, mercenary is free to have fun, but the way they shove expensive bundles in the shop to everyone is a bad move.
In conclusion,
PROS:
– New mode is always good, if the platform is functioning properly.
– Devs are always try making new things apart of traditional HS.
CONS
– Platform still a mess. Not even any updates to what we need. Social mode, etc.
– Countless bugs. You can play any mode and easily find bugs.
– Pushing new mode to get more money while making millions already.
– Limited resources, but they chose to do what they want instead of what players need.
Sorry for a bit long read.