A hotfix was just released that rebalances the Mysterious Stranger encounter in Mercenaries. In case you aren’t aware, it’s one of the random encounters in “Mystery node” that gives you an extra Task for one of the Mercenaries in your party. Players have been using some low level bounties (mostly Heroic Level 8 – Air Elemental) to farm Tasks. They ran a high level party, crushing 1-2 early fights to (hopefully) roll the Mysterious Stranger, get an extra task and complete many more than the 4 daily ones.
However, it seems like Blizzard didn’t intend it to be that way. They’re rebalancing it to take the level of the strongest Mercenary in your party vs the level of Bounty into account. If you take high level Mercenaries on low level bounty farming, Mysterious Stranger will appear much less often – you will need to run actual more challenging Bounties where Mystery node is a much further encounter, so it will take way more time than it did right now (when farming Heroic Level 8, it usually took as little as 2-3 minutes to get to the node). Previously, Mysterious Stranger seemed to appear roughly 50% of the time – we don’t yet know how often it will be after the hotfix (and how often he will appear in higher level bounties).
It’s a pretty major design rebalance, and many players have already farmed hundreds of tasks that way – the grind was already very long, and it seems like it will only get longer now. I hope that they will rethink the system and make Task grinding a bit easier, while not being as mundane as farming low level bounties.
The patch also fixes a few more task-related issues, mostly later ones.
10/22 Update: We are currently in the process of rolling out a hotfix that makes the following adjustments to Mercenaries:
• We are adjusting the appearance rate of Mysterious Stangers to be based on the relative level of the strongest Mercenary in your party compared to the suggested level of the Bounty. This move is to encourage people towards more engaging gameplay instead of repeatedly taking on low-level Heroic Bounties with highly over-leveled Parties.
• We are fixing issues that prevented the following Tasks from being completed as written: Sylvanas’s Task 17, Scabbs’s Task 14, War Master Voone’s Task 14, Grommash’s Task 12, Baron Geddon’s Task 14, and Mutanus’s Task 9.We will continue to monitor, investigate, and heal-up the remaining issues. We will continue to share updates in this post.
“Oh no you can’t grind that stage anymore so now you have to grind that OTHER stage”….grinding is grinding so get over it.
There’s always options (like TWD telltale, pick one choice and see where your adventure takes you)
1: play the game mode and enjoy your self
2: don’t play the game mode and go play fortnite or among us or whatever turns you on
3: waste your time bitching about the game mode that you clearly don’t care about
4: …. (look at the flowers)
Merc is a new game mode and needs more time for it to flourish, if you’re a true fan of the mode then have patience.
I think people need to stop complaining about something that is free. If you don’t like it don’t play it.
I think you misinterpret free and difficult.
Before this nerf, people still actually need to spent time to ‘farm’ it, and it’s okay, because it feels easy and rewarding enough.
In it’s current state, they make it so difficult to get that you need to be very lucky to even get one. And sometime it’s a waste of time, playing that long and not getting rewarded.
I think you misunderstand – the “entitled” are not entitled to anything.
If you aren’t having fun in Mercenaries, or for that matter, any other HS activity, DON’T PLAY. It’s that simple.
Crying like a baby might work wonders with your parents, but when you grow up, you will find the real world works differently.
Then I guess. We’re just gonna shut up and play the game, and give them money like all the Blizzard slaves. Every opinion doesn’t matter.
Sure thing buddy. Keep licking their boots clean.
And you know, throwing childish insults like that clearly paints a better picture of who you are.
Plus, it seems you’re good at it, so keep it up.
“And you know, throwing childish insults like that clearly paints a better picture of who you are.”
Pot, meet kettle.
That’s a ludicrous position to take. And plenty of people spent real $ on Mercs and other parts of Hearthstone.
It’s not a coincidence. Of course legendary coins are more rare from a pack perspective but also the bounties offer specific coins and those legendary’s coins are all in Blackrock.
If you’re running level 8 heroic you’ll have a lot of Cariel, Corni and Rok coins but none of these.
Please delete this – reposted as a reply below.
Don’t worry about the nerf guys, just access that stage 2 times and retire, and the 3rd time is going to be the Mysterious Stranger encounter… Oh shit, now they now too, welp if it does not work is because a blizzard employee is a rat that saw my comment.
What a joke… Abandoning this failed game Mode righr now R. I. P.
Blizzard had a video on their launcher saying this was the way to grind, and now they nerf it without buffing the later level change for a Stranger. The potato should ONLY appear in sub level 30 Bounties and increase the Stranger chance to fill the gap.
Regardless, there was no reason to due this nerf, especially on a Friday before they head of and hope the discontent has died down over the weakened, Blizz has no good will banked and they keep making bad decisions like this.
Nerd the only thing that has people still playing this mode, seems 5 head . . . Do they think this will see people Pay more? Lol. It’s gonna crash and burn. The grind is boring AF but it at least has a goal to keep people interested, without it new players esoedially will be so far behind they just won’t ever commit
Nerf, obviously, but it is nerdy lol
“Rebalanced” really not fit here. The better term was “nerfed”. And it sucks now. Lucky I didn’t spend any more effort into this game.
I’ve used “rebalanced” because I don’t know the exact new rates. If it’s lower at low level bounties, but e.g. 90% at higher level then it’s more like a rebalance than a straight up nerf.
Although it’s very possibly a straight up nerf (reducing them in low level bounties, while not increasing in higher level), I’m waiting for people to gather some data about that.
They’ve said online it was a nerf and they are “mulling the response data over the weekend” to see if they need to make changes on Monday.
Oh these motherfkers… it’s so annoying to see that they care only about the money(which again, for a business i understand) but they do exactly the opposite. With these kind of changes, they make people invest less time in their game, implicitly giving them less money. Bunch of monkeys, i hope someone from blizzard sees this. I’m 24 years old and i know more about marketing than those white collar trashes.
Also is there just a coincidence that i miss like 7 mercenaries (didn’t preorder) and the lowest amount of coin i have for diablo then lich king then sylvanas? Kinda sus.
Probably just bad luck.
And btw, please don’t spend any money towards the game if you really think they screwed you or you just gonna sounds like a hypocrite (no offense), because you support them doing these in the first place.
Please don’t.
It’s not a coincidence. Of course legendary coins are more rare from a pack perspective but also the bounties offer specific coins and those legendary’s coins are all in Blackrock.
If you’re running level 8 heroic you’ll have a lot of Cariel, Corni and Rok coins but none of these.
While it does suck that we lose pretty much the best way to farm tasks and coins, I’m honestly kinda glad that grinding will now feel a bit more dynamic than just running the same bounty back and retiring at the mystery node. Hope they implement more ways to earn packs then from tasks though, now that tasks are harder to farm.
Within 24 hours there will be a new “easy” bounty that everyone runs. It will just take longer,
My choice for lvl. 30 heroes: Felwood Normal lvl. 25 Xaraband 😀
I just crafted Malfurion from grinding on level 23/28H in Felwood. Hoping I can finally beat Rag – Nature Style since I don’t have Jaina.
Already gave up on the mode. The endless grind turned me away.
I have more fun playing battlegrounds than this, and this doesn’t add any progression to the main mode that other modes can’t and indeed takes away. This should have been a single player add on to an expansion, Pass.