Stonekeep's Comments
Hearthstone Mercenaries Ultimate Guide - Everything You Need To Know About New Game Mode!
Yeah, that’s something I wanted to mention too – if things get too bad, Blizzard has shown that they’re willing to change it. I’ve personally talked with Ben Lee a couple of times and he’s really not a “bad guy”, he genuinely cares for the game and wants to make it as good as possible. But they don’t seem to be as good at communicating those intents + I’m sure they got pushed by the marketing to monetize it a bit more from the get-go, because Battlegrounds was a huge “lost opportunity” when it comes to the early sales (popularity exploded, but there were no ways to take advantage of that for Blizzard). I hope that if it’s too much, they will back down a bit and change it.
However, before any of that happens, we need to actually play the mode. People are too quick to call it P2W gacha without even getting their hands on it.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Ultimate Guide - Everything You Need To Know About New Game Mode!
I mean, roguelike is a really vast genre and it doesn’t really have a consistent definition anyway. If people call games like StS or Darkest Dungeon (it reminds me most of those two) “roguelike”, then this should also fall in that category. I think that it has some roguelike elements – the dungeon crawling, procedurally generated maps, not keeping any rewards (other than XP) if you die mid run – the last one is not the same as perma-death, but I didn’t expect that one anyway. That’s also why I’m calling it “roguelite” not “roguelike”, haha.
As for your main point, though. Blizzard has already said clearly that they plan Hearthstone client to be a “base” for different “modes”, which will often feel like different games. It’s something they’re doing on purpose, they clearly want to branch out from just a card game. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with it – I think that having Hearthstone as a central “hub” for different modes that different people like and play would be nice.
But the thing is, each of those modes should be F2P-friendly if they want to keep players’ attention. Battlegrounds very much is – all you need to spend Gold on are perks, but you can easily grind more than you need. Now the problem with Mercenaries is that you seem to have to spend a lot of Gold on it, but you don’t GAIN it back. Or at least they haven’t said anything about it – all the treasures, Quests from Campfire etc. seem to give you Mercenaries-only resources and not Gold. I bet that you will gain some XP for rewards track while playing it, but that doesn’t seem enough.
And I agree that BG should get some rewards track / F2P rewards. I think that will actually happen too. Iksar talked about it in one if his latest Q&A’s – it’s something they’re working on and plan to release next year. How exactly will it look like? Hard to say, but I agree that it’s necessary.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Ultimate Guide - Everything You Need To Know About New Game Mode!
Sadly yes, it’s the same Gold resource shared between regular HS and Mercenaries. So you should probably save some if you don’t want to spend real money.
Sadly we don’t know how much buildings / upgrading your Village will cost yet :/
Hearthstone Mercenaries Ultimate Guide - Everything You Need To Know About New Game Mode!
I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the way they showcased it. It was too much info packed into a pretty short stream (only ~30 minutes), with little to no actual gameplay shown. I think there were better ways to do the showcase (I’ve mentioned it already on Twitter, but IMO they should have invited some popular community figure and let them experience it for the first time, they would be a good “proxy” for an average player). But after processing all the info and looking up some actual gameplay, the mode looks really fun.
My only concern right now is whether it won’t be overly monetized. The biggest problems is that it shares resources with the regular game. You use Gold to upgrade your Village and you use Gold to purchase Mercenaries Packs. It might be hard to keep up unless you spend real money, and that’s the polar opposite of basically F2P Battlegrounds. $130 worth of pre-purchases before the mode is even out is also a bit excessive. It was a big PR mistake in my opinion, people have mostly focused on that instead on the mode itself.
We’ll have to see how it works out in practice before I can judge it. Maybe despite all of that it will still be F2P-friendly. I’m well aware that they have to monetize the mode somewhere, but if they go too far it might push away the players.
I know that my comment might sound a bit negative, but don’t get me wrong – I was excited for the mode and I still am. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I just have some concerns about the monetization, but it might turn alright for all we know.
21.2 Patch Notes - Nerfs to Stealer of Souls & Flesh Giant, Battlegrounds Revamp, Mercenaries Pre-Purchase, Book of Mercenaries Tamsin
It is dominating in Wild… but the problem is that those nerfs did nothing for it in Wild, haha. So yeah, I have to say that they have been pretty pointless.
Big Battlegrounds Rework Coming Tomorrow (August 31)! 37 New Minions, Two New Heroes, New Keyword (Avenge) And More!
No limit according to devs. It would be pretty weak if it could only activate once, to be honest.
Masters Tour Silvermoon Top 8 - Deck Lists, Stats & Results!
Oooh, that’s really cool, congratulations! And sorry, I should have phrased it better, I meant qualified for the finals. Or quaterfinals? Honestly, I don’t even know how to phrase it better, haha.
I always post decks and stats from Top 8 simply because it’s already quite a lot of decks, and adding full Top 16 for every event would be a bit too much work.
Battlegrounds Rating Will Be Reset Early Next Week, The Big Minion Rework Is Finally Coming
I really like Battlegrounds, but honestly – mine too. I’ve been excited for Mercenaries ever since they first announced the mode. Slay the Spire is one of my favorite games ever and I hope for something along those lines.
Masters Tour Silvermoon Starts Today! Viewers Guide + YouTube Drops Information
It definitely shouldn’t count as a part of Grandmasters, it should be a separate pack pool. I watched enough to get 1 pack yesterday and it already arrived. If I were you, I’d wait a bit longer and contact the support if they still won’t arrive.
Two Warlock Balance Changes Coming Next Week (August 31), Potentially More Later in September
Well yeah, Face Hunter is one of the deck’s worst matchups, that’s why ๐
Two Warlock Balance Changes Coming Next Week (August 31), Potentially More Later in September
I’m very well aware, but I still think that Stealer might get hit. Sometimes balancing is done based on feelings, not data and people HATE the Stealer version way more than the Giants version. Not because it’s stronger, but because the games when they lose to it on Turn 5 are stuck in their minds and feel terrible.
Muzzy Retires From Competitive Hearthstone, This Will Be His Final Grandmasters Season
Sadly there’s no way to tell. We could add all of his official tournament winnings and that would total to around $200k. Which is not much all things considered – especially since it’s over 6 years.
But the thing is – all teams have sponsorship deals and pay their players. Many pro players also stream as another source of revenue. But those deals aren’t disclosed and we have no idea how much he got from those. Players participating in Grandmasters also get paid for their matches weekly, so that would also add up.
I’m nearly sure that he made more from sponsorship deals etc. than from actual winnings – at least that was the case with other pro players I know and have personally talked with.
Golden Standard Pack Will Be Awarded For Completing All Book of Heroes Chapters, Error Will Get Fixed In This Week's Patch (Update: "At A Later Date")
I updated the post, it looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer :/
Patch 21.0.3 Is Now Out! Constructed, Arena & Battlegrounds Balance Changes + Bug Fixes
It looks like they’re still working on that, they updated patch notes saying that they will come “at a later date”. It’s already fixed for people who finish everything now, but those who are already done will have to wait a bit longer I’m afraid.
No Balance Patch This Week, Changes Targeted For Early Next Week
Well, if the patch would drop this week, it would probably be around the time they announced that it’s getting “delayed” to next week.
Sadly GMs are always interfering with balance updates. GMs have to submit decks each Tuesday, by 11 PM PDT if I remember correctly. So if a patch releases on Tuesday at 10 AM PDT (and it’s the usual time), they only have 13 hours to do so. There’s no way to get enough testing in that time – and well, at least NA players can get 13h of testing during “normal” times, but players from APAC and EU have to test throughout weird hours to get all of that time (e.g. in EU that’s 7 PM to 9 AM).
It sucks, but what can you do. Even if they released balance updates on Monday, GMs still wouldn’t have THAT much time to prepare (meta never really settles after a day), but at least it would be slightly better.
Top 10 Best Standard Decks From First Week of United in Stormwind
Good to knows, thanks. The comment wasn’t there yet when I was posting it (I specifically looked for some data). That’s actually good – Top 1% is much more representative of what’s actually strong than looking at 100% of the players.
We still don’t know e.g. whether the data filters out bad builds that were only played during the first days. For example, first Questline Zoo Warlock builds have really poor WR according to HSReplay, but the new ones created a few days after launch are one of the best decks in the game. Not sure how the original data counts those.
The data is still very useful, but all I’m saying is that we would need a bit more info on how it’s gathered to really interpret it correctly ๐
Best Hearthstone Decks - Standard Meta Tier List - The Great Dark Beyond (December 2024)
I’ll post descriptions when the meta stabilizes a bit. It takes quite a while to do a write-up about every single deck and it’s kind of a wasted effort if they e.g. announce a balance update tomorrow and whole meta changes.
I’m focusing on more important stuff like budget decks for now and then I’ll look into deck descriptions when I update it in 1-2 weeks ๐
Blizzard President J. Allen Brack Announced That He's Stepping Down, New Leadership at The Company
I’m really swamped with new expansion coverage now, but I’ll definitely read through it tomorrow!
United in Stormwind Early Meta Decks - Hearthstone Pro & Streamer Legend Deck Lists, Deck Ideas, Decks for All Classes!
Yeah, Questlines are way successful on Day 1 than I suspected. But we’ll see how good they are a week from now, when everyone optimizes their builds.
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.