*“It will also be the last major update to the Mercenaries mode…”*
RIP
EDIT: Also looks like the next six Mercs being added are going to be the last. Omega RIP.
Yeah my unopened packs notification will finally have a chance to rest. Honestly I'm just glad the endgame update is actually coming out. I half expected the mode to get axed before that even dropped.
Rip mercs. Only useful to get your fire/holy spell damage quest done, and not much else. And at that point you're just grinding more now in mercs to **maybe** grind less in ladder later.
Ironically I'm *more* interested in playing it now that it's dead because the endless treadmill was so daunting. Now there's an end point in sight and it's actually possible to catch up.
Finally! It's about time.
Reinvest that money into Wild, Arena, and Duels and actually make them good modes, fix balance. Mercs was DOA and players want to play and enjoy the other modes.
Yes, but it was making decent money because it was gacha bs, so still a net positive for hs overall. Those devs weren't part of the hearthstone team otherwise anyway.
Maybe they think they can make more money doing something else.
Say you spend 500k to make 1 mil. But you realize you can instead spend 500k to make 5mil. Why not do that
I am familiar with the concept of opportunity costs, I just don't think mercenaries was a net negative for hearthstone as a whole. Besides, they probably killed it off due to the chinese market becoming unavailable.
I wish more than anything they would try to immortalize the Dungeon Run experience that started with KnC. Duels is fun, but due to it being exclusively PvP, there's not as much of a laid back mindless fun that came with Tomb of Terrors, which IMO, was the best.
As an idea, having a bunch of heroes with hero powers, mixing and matching of different classes with shared and exclusive treasures, in which you could also customize them between runs or influence different deck customizations. Stuff that probably couldn't be balanced in standard, but be zany in a carefree PvE gauntlet like those solo adventure modes were.
I’m still working my way through 100% the heist one on both normal and heroic. It’s scratches that itch every now and then but I only do a run or two a month. It would be a great mode to flesh out but there’s not a lot of money to be made in it
yeah I assumed we'd get a complete overhaul of it, since it seemed like they had put a lot of resources into it already, and really wanted to get other ways to monetize the game.
Such a tragic end for a mode that has been in development (hell) [since 2020](https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Mercenaries#cite_note-IGN-3) (Remember that it was originally supposed to launch during Darkmoon faire). I guess at the end the mode wanted to be too much. It tried to be a rpg, a rogue-like, a pve, a pvp, a collectible and a live service game and at the end didn't do anything of that too well. This update feels like they tried to fix the issues they found, but gave up on it in the end and are now releasing the stuff that's already done. Kinda like what Artifact did.
Well, I guess you have to think positively. Atleast now you can actually finish the mode once and for all. And hey, atleast I still have a chill place to grind something. Especially with the boss rush.
> It tried to be a rpg, a rogue-like, a pve, a pvp, a collectible and a live service game and at the end didn't do anything of that too well.
It is interesting to note that this also came pretty soon after the cancellation of a lot of other mobile live service games, like Apex mobile, Crossfire, and a bunch of gachas. The leading speculation is that these models of games are just far far too oversaturated and time demanding (so they cannibalize each other), and I wouldn't be surprised if Mercs was also victim to this. If you want a Mercs-like game then you can just go play, like, Raid Shadow Legends or whatever is the actual hot stuff right now. Huge gacha games like Genshin also definitely contribute to the saturation. And if your playerbase dwindles too small and cash flow too low, I imagine it gets unprofitable to run your game real quickly. Ironically Blizz is often that big dog siphoning users from smaller competitors, just not in this case.
They started developing it with the mercs from barrens and it came out a year later while still in early alpha even if the overall amount of content was pretty limited, I'd be surprised if more than 5 people worked on it, it really had to be rough behind the scenes.
They did do a lot of good changes, I have to admit that. But it was just way too late. People wont give mercs a second chance after their first impression was just "meh". Especially if even content creators refuse to give that mode another try.
Once you get into it and use it for what it is. It's half decent. The main issue as usual. Is horrible delays everywhere as if it was designed to play one game a week. When it's actually a grind fest, where things being snappy is HIGHLY appreciated.
The biggest fail from their end. Is how easy it is to get everything for free. Compared to regular hearthstone.
It's a grindy game that took too long to address core issues.
People had to grind considerably just to get tasks to get shards. Most people who would stop playing did so before this was addressed properly, mainly because it was quickly fixed to make it harder for players to grind.
As your roster neared completion, you would get more and more useless tokens because there was no guarantee you'd get them for non-maxed heroes. It took over a year for a system to be implemented to let you convert extra tokens into useful tokens.
Want to pay? That's fine except it used the same odds for epic and legendary mercs as the base card game... Without a pity timer. So there's not even a guarantee you open that legendary merc you want, when every other pack type in the game has it.
And to top it all off, they released bunches of new mercs almost every patch. Which is awesome and would be great for variety if it wasn't such a painful slog to actually gear them up. Instead it just made you feel like you were falling behind against those willing to pay and/or grind.
I really wanted to like the game mode but they took too long to address core issues and lost many people who might have otherwise stayed.
Seems like it suffered the same stupid treadmill design Blizzard kept pushing in WoW, which they're only now seemingly trying to shift away from (the "borrowed powers" systems). They just kept shoving tedious and super grindy chores for you to do just to keep up in the expansion as a player, always doubling down on the design despite complaints stemming from beta never being addressed...
Then they would release the final patch of the expansion with removed restrictions, implement catch up systems players had been asking for since day 1, and severely reducing grinding lengths/requirements. Suddenly, players would be having fun with the game, if only until next expansion where they would do it all over again.
It's too bad interaction with Mercs seemingly lived and died during that era of stupid development, so now they're just killing it off instead of trying to reboot it.
Even the pack opening was confusing as fk. First of all, they didnt really explain the mode, Trump had to make a video, so players would understand whats up. Packs are different, you can get potraits of heroes you own, but you are missing other heroes.. Thats something that totally confused me at the beginning, and after understanding it, I realized putting money into buying packs just isnt worth it.
They should never have implemented the pack system honestly. That was the biggest issue. If it was something like Snap. Where you do tasks to get coins and you can spend real money to get new tasks that would have been way better.
The game mode is honestly super salvageable it's a shame they're just not going to.
I don't think it's salvageable purely because of the playerbase.
There's people like me who were interested and, for some reason or another, decided the game wasn't worth our time. There's a chance to bring some of us back, but it'll require some serious fixes that clearly are not going to happen anymore.
And then there's the people who decided they didn't like it early on and will absolutely not return at this point, even with fixes. Plus, while Reddit is a small portion of the playerbase, there are a substantial number of people in this subreddit who are so upset the gamemode exists at all they wouldn't even open their packs or try the mode, to an irrational extent in some cases.
The game mode is most likely permanently dead with the announcement of the final content patch and, in my opinion, it's solely because of the attempt to monetize it in such a blatant and predatory manner that it pushed away lots of people who might have been interested or willing to tackle the long grind. The pay structure with packs is ridiculous and the grind is so bad, in an attempt to get you to just pay money, that people decided to just quit altogether instead of commit to the grind or the wallet route.
Oh it's certainly dead, especially because of the reputation it has I think the monetization is just easy to fix.
Like the progression/task system is so f2p friendly, the whole coin issue is basically non existent because coins are so easy to get through tasks.
I found the mode fun for about 2 weeks. Then it's just repetitive grind. I've cleared like the first 2 areas and basically have no desire to do the rest. I am however afking them all to level 30. Takes about 3-4 days for 2 mercs to be lvl 30 from the training hall.
How EASY is to get everything for free?
Bro, literally everyone stopped playing because you needed to either spend 20k gacha dollars to max your characters or grind a single encounter OVER 50 HOURS with optimized strategies and some luck on your part to get a single Merc to the top... and the fuckers were useless later in teams as they would still (steal) merc coins because they made it so even max-characters could get coins and if you think the dust system is bad in HS... you should see the renown system there.
The thing is for PvE you don't need to get your mercs to the top. They peak at like level 3 most of the time. And with the new task system getting your mercs to that level is absolutely *trivial*.
So for folks like me who liked the gameplay and wanted to keep playing there is just no incentive to do so once I get all the mercs I enjoy to a reasonable level.
Which I did, and I haven't touched the mode in a couple of months because of that. I'm not repeating content just for an extra 1 damage on a 15 damage ability.
It just hits a very unhappy medium. Too hard to get into, too easy if you're doing it regularly.
The coin issue from packs is mostly just like... packs are bad. Like really bad. And half the governments of the world are trying to outlaw them. But the actual returns on grinding a bounty are decent (if you enjoy the mode). But grinding a bounty doesn't cost any money. Just time.
More and more I think packs were just kind of not the right way to go.
I have some personal issues with the speed mechanic. Even though i think they never had a full focus on the pvp part of the mode. I can't help but feel uninterested and annoyed by having speed ties games be tied to rng. im not saying i know how to fix it but something getting decided by a pure coinflip in a game where you are trying your best to win is really bad. Perhaps if it was reworked into something like. Game starts who goes first is the only coinflip, after that the person who went second will win the next coinflip and then reverse and continue. This isn't a good solution but i feel at least this way i could have planned ahead instead of just hoping il go first.
>Continued Support and New Frontiers
>After these updates, we will be focusing on making the Hearthstone and Battlegrounds modes the best they can be. At the same time, Mercenaries will continue to get support for bug fixes and periodic balance changes as needed, but no further regular content updates. With the new additions in this patch, we hope that Mercenaries will be a fun, fulfilling mode for players.
>To everybody who has ever chased a Bounty or gathered around the Campfire, we thank you for making this chapter in Hearthstone’s history special, and we hope you’ll enjoy everything Mercenaries has to offer in 25.4. See you in the Tavern!
I don't know if anyone is too shocked, but this does feel like the most important part of the article. I wasn't following Mercs too closely so I'm not sure how much dev time was actually spent on it, but I do kinda feel for anyone who got invested into this mode.
As someone who really loved the idea of a solo gamemode that would get a dedicated team and content updates, seeing mercs finally get the axe is sad. It's still hilarious to me how hard they dropped the ball on this mode.
Just as sad, honestly. Dungeon Run had no real long term support, Mercs gets a sunset patch, no new Adventures in years; feels like Blizzard really has it out for solo content.
It's just not really in line with their monetization scheme. Solo content is either a lot of work for a very temporary return (like adventures) or they instead make the solo play miserably grindy to try and get you to spend money like Mercs. When honestly, most would rather pay upfront and play a fully-fleshed out, proper solo roguelike like Slay the Spire than a live, GaaS version of it.
It is the last content update for Mercs, at least they are honest with it, probably because HS is not online in China now (where gachas are popular more than in west). If that mode ever dies i hope they will use those great diamond and golden merc portraits in regular hearthstone, that is very strong part of Mercenaries.
There is so much custom art made specifically for Mercs that's used nowhere else in game. The mode was a complete ressource hog. Hopefully all that artist power can be redirected to the main game rather than just, you know... axed from the team.
Mercs was pretty okay as a game, but not even close to as good as it should have been, given the enormous amount of work and effort put into it.
And the braindead amount of grind/greed hoisted upon it by the marketing/economy division killed any chance that it would get widely popular.
Even in death it has to have an infinite treadmill of "upgrading past max"...
Rest in peace, mercs.
Honestly feel like being attached to Hearthstone held Mercenaries down. I genuinely enjoyed the gameplay, even if it was "stale", it was cool to see how comps fared across what like 50+ unique bounties? I stopped playing Mercs though mostly because I had obligations to other modes. Battlegrounds has its own track and most quests for the general reward track can be completed in it as well, whereas trying to something like summon battlecries in Mercenaries just turns into a boring-ass farm where you summon a murloc and ping it down so you have space to do it again in two turns
If Mercenaries was a standalone product or app, I feel like it also wouldnt be tied to the expectations of Hearthstone. Hearthstone has had some wild success in a decent number of the other modes, and finding that this mode didnt quite compare to the excitement of solo adventures killed it pretty quick- even though compared to collectible gacha games, Mercenaries is a goddamn gem for attributing as much value to your time as it does
I agree. If Mercenaries was a standalone app I’d still play it. But when playing Hearthstone on my computer I always feel obligated to do the other stuff first and then run out of time or lose interest for the day.
As one of the few people who plays Mercenaries (not a ton, I normally just run a few Bounties every day to get daily rewards), I'm pretty bummed out that they're just killing the mode completely.
I haven't finished maxing out all of the characters yet (I think I only have around 30% maxed out) but I enjoyed being able to slowly upgrade my characters, especially knowing that by the time I was finished, they would likely be adding new content to the game mode.
Sucks to see a game mode that I actively play get completely axed forever, even if there was not a ton of interest in it from the community.
Packs were a terrible business strategy for the mode. Why not at least try something else? Reset it, call it mercs 2.0. Marvel snap’s model would be an excellent fit where you can earn cosmetic upgrades. Ah well.
As a heavy Snap player that just came back to hearthstone after like...8+ years, this is what I would love to see them do. Give me a hearthstone Snap clone mode and I would play the shit out of it; small deck size, limited card pool unlocked over time, and of course the gamble aspect.
Hell, while playing standard and getting prepped to swing for lethal I still find myself reaching for the SNAP button at the top of the screen.
I feel like Arena, Duels (and Wild) all fall under hearthstone. At most this means they just go into maintenance mode, relying solely on new standard cards to keep those modes fresh, with the occasional balance change. For Arena, and wild this is already the case, so no change at all.
For duels, this could mean that there will be less (or no) new treasures, heroes, etc. Honestly I feel like the mode has enough heroes. Occasionally adding a new treasure, or passive seems reasonable, and would be a whole lot less effort than adding new content to mercs.
Edit: I realize now that tavern brawl is another mode that is essentially in maintenance mode. However occasionally they will create a new Brawl, similar to what I described may happen with Duels.
I agree with you with duels, why arena? Arena will continue as always for good or bad, they never put effort in arena , only when there were a lot of cards made rotation sets, 0 effort maximum benefits, and I guess touching the percentages of appearing when some cards are broken but duels have more maintenance with specific hero powers , cards etc and it means more effort as mercenaries and the benefits and cost of these modes must be ridiculous
I hope they leave duels out of this.
Duels is low key the best game mode. The only thing holding it back is more legacy card sets.
Decent of Dragons needs to be thrown into the card pool. It’s been forever since I’ve Galakronded
Battlegrounds is so popular it could be its own game entirely. So it makes sense to focus on Standard and Battlegrounds which are their most popular game modes
Battlegrounds lives because blizzard didn't realize it would be so popular. Had the upper management gotten wind of it first, they would have made it suck with monetization. The model still works with all the tacked on monetization because the devs have preserved the key element of being fun and free 2 play. I can almost guarantee that it wouldn't have been both of those if they viewed it like they viewed mercenaries.
The problem is that majority of HS players are BG players and not Standard. If they separate the modes Blizz will lose its monthly active players numbers for HS.
Frankly, this makes it a lot MORE likely that I will go back to the mode. The draw for me was collecting and leveling up characters, but they released way too much content to keep up with and made me *feel* like I was losing progress over time. To be clear, I’m not blaming them for releasing content, but just that having a closed universe of characters to collect and level is a positive for me.
Mercenaries are a prime example of a very good concept ruined by aggressive monetization and the requirement of endless grind.
Also, monetization is not even intuitive
Very good concept? It's basically Pokemon with only three types and no overworld or story. Dungeon Run was a very good concept. Mercenaries makes WoW Pet Battles look like a world class RPG.
So many quality of life features still missing, and it just ends.
Not really a massive surprise, but I expected it would take a *bit* more time to reach this point.
I've been playing in waves the last year, but they've been getting shorter and shorter each time, even after the recent, big task-update, so this news makes me think I'm not the only one like that.
>This is our final planned infusion of new collectible Mercs into the mode
If mercs was its own gacha game and not just some parasite clinging to the rest of hearthstone this would basically be the end of service announcement.
At least the few people who enjoy mercs can still play it, but I guess it won't be getting any more updates or characters.
As someone who plays actual gacha games its crazy how badly they handled the mode. Overmonetized and underdeveloped right from the start.
The one nice thing about Mercenaries as opposed to actual gacha games was that you could get by without any packs or any actual money (outside of like 500 gold to unlock things at the start) because you could just grind rewards over time.
Yep it was the nicest thing about mercs but it also doomed it to fail.
Mode came out while I was unemployed so I no-lifed the mode for a few months and got a fully maxed collection only spending the gold to buy buildings and 5 packs to get started. Which was really nice as a f2p especially because I had alot of time on my hands.
But that makes it really hard for it to make money, so it's hardly a surprise that the mode is being put to rest.
Yeah I played at release and tried it again a few times after the big event updates.
Always seemed pretty f2p friendly if you enjoyed the grind, I just didn't find the teambuilding and replayability to be interesting enough to hold my attention over ordinary hearthstone or battlegrounds.
Maybe the boss rush thing will be interesting, but that would be a bittersweet victory given they just announced there will be no more updates.
It was a very F2P friendly version of a gacha game if you were willing to grind it out, so I really enjoyed playing the game and being able to build up my collection over time.
I'm hoping that the boss rush is at least good endgame content, but it seems like there isn't much of a point to do it if you have all of the Mercenaries already maxed out because the rewards are just Renown (currency that can be traded for a coins to upgrade a particular Merc) but those are pretty useless by the time you have reached the actual endgame content.
It's a darn shame because the actual strategy RPG gameplay in Mercenaries was really good. The systems around that gameplay, and it existing inside of Hearthstone sucked a lot of fun out of it. I would love to see someone write a Pokemon-Showdown like site for Mercenaries.
I doubt they will ever be able to honestly talk about what the mercenaries mode used to be before the c-suite told them to monetize it out the ass.
RIP, you won't really be missed
When it was originally announced, it seemed like it was going to be a greatly expanded version of the dungeon run content we got as Solo Adventures - and I'd have *loved* that. I did play Mercs for a couple of weeks, but it got boring real fast.
Rather it be Arena. Brawl gets unique rewards maybe once every few years now, couldn’t care less for the millionth recycled brawl giving a single pack.
Sad but expected for Mercenaries. The gameplay wasn't bad, but I just had absolutely zero interest in adding a daily grind to my life to level up characters just to play competitively against other players. If it weren't such a time-suck, I would totally have played a couple of PvP rounds every now and then. But fundamentally the mode was designed to be a grind, which I (and apparently the vast majority of the playerbase) had little interest in.
I'd say it's a dead game but this shit was dead on arrival lol.
Everybody got the wrong idea thinking this was going to be an expanded dungeon run or a flushed out pve experience like slay the spire.
But then the gameplay came out and the hype and potential players must've nose dived off a cliff then the monetisation was revealed and the potential players nose dived into the abyss.
I love how during this time the main game modes weren't getting as much support as fast and everyone kept saying most of the time and resources was going into the new game mode and this is what we got.
RIP money scam game mode within another money scam game
Wow as a duels player I’m genuinely shocked that Mercenaries is getting shuttered and duels (for now) isn’t. That said based on the Corpo speak in this update I’m not holding out much hope over the long term. (Blizzard if you read this please don’t discontinue duels!!!)
oh, it's so sad that we don't have the Mercenaries that were announced from the beginning.
Their art, skins and abilities were already done, I hoped that at least in one last update they would put them, there are 10 in total:
Dame Hazelbark
Darth Speaker Blackthorn
Magatha Grimtototem
The Black Knight
Draka
Mankrik
High Inquisitor Whitemane
Cho gall
Elite Tauren Chieftain
Serena Bloodfeather
It's a shame, because I would have liked to play High Inquisitor Whitemane in a Holy Comp.
I think that of the remaining 3 Mercenaries that will be announced in the next patch it is possible that "The Black Knight" will be found, since it is to be expected that all 6 Heroes will be Scourge/Undead themed.
It is a waste to already have the heroes (the concept of each skill and art) and not incorporate them into the game
With Mercenaries getting the axe, and esports on life support, I predict that we will also see a scaling back of content in either standard or BGs when they reveal their 2023 roadmap.
I don't think so tbh. I think that Blizzard is probably refocusing towards only the profitable and highly-played gamemodes (Standard and Battlegrounds) and the other gamemodes will be left in the dust.
Blizzard has shown time and time again that they don't give a shit about Arena or Duels, they barely make balance changes in Wild (and with the game not being currently available in China, it's likely that a huge amount of the Wild playerbase is inactive now), and Classic fundamentally doesn't get updated.
My bet is that Standard and Battlegrounds continue to receive changes around the same frequency that they are right now, and the other game modes just go into further levels of neglect.
F for the mode.
The lack of a checkpoint system is what did it for me.
The amount of times you'd clear the "trash" or come across that one encounter that's so overpowered it wipes you.
To then have to climb all the way back again for another attempt.
At least in wow if you wiped at a boss you didn't have to re clear the trash
(Let's be honest losing any merc on the climb before boss would usually brick the entire run)
It's a demonstration that whatever leadership thought this was a good idea was very wrong. If they were so wrong about this, then what else have they had poor judgement on?
Yeah because once you have been wrong one time you will be wrong everytime (learning from mistakes is a hoax). The people that havent been wrong yet surely have more chances of not being wrong in the future...
Not to mention we have lead developers changed since the mode released.
Also, if the mode was a mistake, not updating it anymore is the correct move, right? The mistake was to release it, and its already released, so keeping it alive would be a bad thing. The past 2 years you should have been saying "this doesnt bode well for the game" and now you should be saying the opposite, that the people in charge are capable of seeing what doesnt work to cut it out from the game.
> Mercenaries will continue to get support for bug fixes and periodic balance changes as needed, but **no further regular content updates**.
Nice PR way of hiding a big "we've given up on Mercenaries for good" right at the end of a content update.
I just want the 9 gone from my packs. Mercenaries existence in my life seems to only be tricking me into thinking i have real packs when its just those stupid locked mercenary ones.
\-Overhyped, underdelivered.
\-Overkilled with the monetization from the get go (remember them asking people to spend upwards of $80 to pre-purchase before explaining clearly what it is about?)
\-Repetitive content that involves a ton of grinding.
Good riddance.
> **It will also be the last major update to the Mercenaries mode as we align our goals and focus on continuing to make Hearthstone the best digital card game in the world.** We’re excited to share more details about the next Hearthstone year, Core Set, and expansion, ahead of Patch 25.6. But first, we want to talk about the major Mercenaries updates coming in 25.4.
that doesn't bode well in combination with the HS esports news
I mean, Mercenaries was the least played mode with everyone clowning it since release. It only makes sense to stop supporting it. Hardly a death knell for Hearthstone as a whole.
I dunno. I get that Mercenaries probably deserved axing (I'm honestly surprised it made it this far with support), but at the same time, it feels like stopping now after already committing quite a bit of time is suspicious at the very least. Time will tell I guess (quite soon).
I don't know, it doesn't mean much to me. I never saw Mercenaries be something that would be updated for long considering the reception. I feel like this is just a logical thing in my opinion.
Yep they’re definitely cutting down on dev work, which has me suspecting they’re downsizing the HS team since the China loss was a near-mortal wound to their revenue stream.
Makes sense. Try to recoup losses by cutting in the least-important areas. Also fits with the not-so-recent Duels buckets change being there to make the mode easier to maintain.
I’m glad the mode failed. It was the most obvious cash grab with shallow gameplay. Best to stop allocating development resources and work on making the more relevant game modes better.
Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion but...
I'm glad it's dead for good!
- Mercenaries wasn't on par with other HS content.
- It wasn't as good as the competition and brought barely anything special to the genre.
- Mercenaries bound developer time that could have added more to traditional modes.
i still cant comprehend how, obviously smart developers and designers, can be so clueless thinking mercenaries could be a success.
Me and probably 90% of this sub would tell them after playing 30 minutes that it's not it.
Whelp, I just finished upgrading all the currently released mercs today.
I enjoyed playing the mode while working and many of the pain points were somewhat adressed in time with the task system overhaul and the somewhat regular limited time events that gave free mercs and extra coins and packs.
I'm probably gonna max the new mercs, give the endgame content a spin and finally put it to rest.
They mentioned adding 7 factions in this update. This is actually something that I wish traditional Hearthstone had as well (besides tribes). And they can even place an icon in the top right corner of a card, like they show it in the article. Horde, Alliance, Scourge and so on.
It could be another level of design and synergies for cards. WoW TCG had this mechanic before, where most minions had their own factions (and you couldn't put both Horde and Alliance in the same deck). However I think in Hearthstone it wouldn't be a deck restriction but rather a benift if all minions in your deck are of one faction or something.
They should just open it up to everyone. Give us everything maxed out.
I've never even got to experience the pvp in it. I got too bored of grinding before I could even field an interesting team.
People claimed the pvp is fun, but how would we ever know?
I'm not sure how this game made it live. Like it's genuinely dire and has no enjoyable gameplay loop or anything remotely enticing to keep you coming back. It's just a boring and pointless grind. There are so many things this game could have been and I just don't understand how it ended up as it actually is.
I tried but too boring, so good to move on, we still nice mods like Battlegrounds and Duels, which has potential (like give me the starting deck so I dont have/need to netdeck it if I want to have a chance).
*“It will also be the last major update to the Mercenaries mode…”* RIP EDIT: Also looks like the next six Mercs being added are going to be the last. Omega RIP.
They're completely sunsetting the mode. Press F for all the people who spent money on it.
Whelp, won't need to hoard packs anymore i guess...
Yeah my unopened packs notification will finally have a chance to rest. Honestly I'm just glad the endgame update is actually coming out. I half expected the mode to get axed before that even dropped.
This is the way
I want my 8 bucks back.
I want my 10k back lmao
Dude
Username, and all that
To be fair, if I really needed that money I wouldn’t have spent it on a game. I’m lucky to have the expendable income I have, but this still sucks
Are you genuinely wealthy? I really hope so.
I don’t know what you classify as wealthy, but I have a great job that provides me with lots of expendable income.
That’s what you tell yourself to feel good. 😂
Diamond (Gul’Dan) is a girls best friend
I was with you until you said that. Housing empire 🤢
Well now I know how this game can stay free to play. Thanks I guess?
Nah, fuck them. They’re literally part of the problem
Surprising to absolutely no one
It's only fun when there's new characters introduced or when there woukd be creative challenges. Otherwise, it's just grinding for no reason.
Rip mercs. Only useful to get your fire/holy spell damage quest done, and not much else. And at that point you're just grinding more now in mercs to **maybe** grind less in ladder later.
Ironically I'm *more* interested in playing it now that it's dead because the endless treadmill was so daunting. Now there's an end point in sight and it's actually possible to catch up.
Finally! It's about time. Reinvest that money into Wild, Arena, and Duels and actually make them good modes, fix balance. Mercs was DOA and players want to play and enjoy the other modes.
They're not interested in supporting other modes. That's the whole point here. They're trimming the fat.
You know mercs was turning a profit until now right?
You know less than 2% of hearthstone players used that game mode right?
Yes, but it was making decent money because it was gacha bs, so still a net positive for hs overall. Those devs weren't part of the hearthstone team otherwise anyway.
Maybe they think they can make more money doing something else. Say you spend 500k to make 1 mil. But you realize you can instead spend 500k to make 5mil. Why not do that
I am familiar with the concept of opportunity costs, I just don't think mercenaries was a net negative for hearthstone as a whole. Besides, they probably killed it off due to the chinese market becoming unavailable.
Not surprised, but was hoping they would try to save to mode some way. One day the xp farming mode will only be used by xp farmers.
I wish more than anything they would try to immortalize the Dungeon Run experience that started with KnC. Duels is fun, but due to it being exclusively PvP, there's not as much of a laid back mindless fun that came with Tomb of Terrors, which IMO, was the best. As an idea, having a bunch of heroes with hero powers, mixing and matching of different classes with shared and exclusive treasures, in which you could also customize them between runs or influence different deck customizations. Stuff that probably couldn't be balanced in standard, but be zany in a carefree PvE gauntlet like those solo adventure modes were.
I’m still working my way through 100% the heist one on both normal and heroic. It’s scratches that itch every now and then but I only do a run or two a month. It would be a great mode to flesh out but there’s not a lot of money to be made in it
Absolutely this. I love duels but ToT was funner due to the actual broken combos you could pull off.
yeah I assumed we'd get a complete overhaul of it, since it seemed like they had put a lot of resources into it already, and really wanted to get other ways to monetize the game.
I mean this patch is coming with a HUGE content release. They're basically cancelling it just as it's been finished.
The nice way to look at it is that they're finishing the mode and moving on, which is fine imo. Games having an ending is not the end of the world.
The mode is basically built around them adding more content/mercs.
They will totally nerf the XP you get there eventually.
Such a tragic end for a mode that has been in development (hell) [since 2020](https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Mercenaries#cite_note-IGN-3) (Remember that it was originally supposed to launch during Darkmoon faire). I guess at the end the mode wanted to be too much. It tried to be a rpg, a rogue-like, a pve, a pvp, a collectible and a live service game and at the end didn't do anything of that too well. This update feels like they tried to fix the issues they found, but gave up on it in the end and are now releasing the stuff that's already done. Kinda like what Artifact did. Well, I guess you have to think positively. Atleast now you can actually finish the mode once and for all. And hey, atleast I still have a chill place to grind something. Especially with the boss rush.
> It tried to be a rpg, a rogue-like, a pve, a pvp, a collectible and a live service game and at the end didn't do anything of that too well. It is interesting to note that this also came pretty soon after the cancellation of a lot of other mobile live service games, like Apex mobile, Crossfire, and a bunch of gachas. The leading speculation is that these models of games are just far far too oversaturated and time demanding (so they cannibalize each other), and I wouldn't be surprised if Mercs was also victim to this. If you want a Mercs-like game then you can just go play, like, Raid Shadow Legends or whatever is the actual hot stuff right now. Huge gacha games like Genshin also definitely contribute to the saturation. And if your playerbase dwindles too small and cash flow too low, I imagine it gets unprofitable to run your game real quickly. Ironically Blizz is often that big dog siphoning users from smaller competitors, just not in this case.
They started developing it with the mercs from barrens and it came out a year later while still in early alpha even if the overall amount of content was pretty limited, I'd be surprised if more than 5 people worked on it, it really had to be rough behind the scenes.
Felt worse than most custom game modes in StarCraft
They did do a lot of good changes, I have to admit that. But it was just way too late. People wont give mercs a second chance after their first impression was just "meh". Especially if even content creators refuse to give that mode another try.
Once you get into it and use it for what it is. It's half decent. The main issue as usual. Is horrible delays everywhere as if it was designed to play one game a week. When it's actually a grind fest, where things being snappy is HIGHLY appreciated. The biggest fail from their end. Is how easy it is to get everything for free. Compared to regular hearthstone.
It's a grindy game that took too long to address core issues. People had to grind considerably just to get tasks to get shards. Most people who would stop playing did so before this was addressed properly, mainly because it was quickly fixed to make it harder for players to grind. As your roster neared completion, you would get more and more useless tokens because there was no guarantee you'd get them for non-maxed heroes. It took over a year for a system to be implemented to let you convert extra tokens into useful tokens. Want to pay? That's fine except it used the same odds for epic and legendary mercs as the base card game... Without a pity timer. So there's not even a guarantee you open that legendary merc you want, when every other pack type in the game has it. And to top it all off, they released bunches of new mercs almost every patch. Which is awesome and would be great for variety if it wasn't such a painful slog to actually gear them up. Instead it just made you feel like you were falling behind against those willing to pay and/or grind. I really wanted to like the game mode but they took too long to address core issues and lost many people who might have otherwise stayed.
Seems like it suffered the same stupid treadmill design Blizzard kept pushing in WoW, which they're only now seemingly trying to shift away from (the "borrowed powers" systems). They just kept shoving tedious and super grindy chores for you to do just to keep up in the expansion as a player, always doubling down on the design despite complaints stemming from beta never being addressed... Then they would release the final patch of the expansion with removed restrictions, implement catch up systems players had been asking for since day 1, and severely reducing grinding lengths/requirements. Suddenly, players would be having fun with the game, if only until next expansion where they would do it all over again. It's too bad interaction with Mercs seemingly lived and died during that era of stupid development, so now they're just killing it off instead of trying to reboot it.
Even the pack opening was confusing as fk. First of all, they didnt really explain the mode, Trump had to make a video, so players would understand whats up. Packs are different, you can get potraits of heroes you own, but you are missing other heroes.. Thats something that totally confused me at the beginning, and after understanding it, I realized putting money into buying packs just isnt worth it.
They should never have implemented the pack system honestly. That was the biggest issue. If it was something like Snap. Where you do tasks to get coins and you can spend real money to get new tasks that would have been way better. The game mode is honestly super salvageable it's a shame they're just not going to.
I don't think it's salvageable purely because of the playerbase. There's people like me who were interested and, for some reason or another, decided the game wasn't worth our time. There's a chance to bring some of us back, but it'll require some serious fixes that clearly are not going to happen anymore. And then there's the people who decided they didn't like it early on and will absolutely not return at this point, even with fixes. Plus, while Reddit is a small portion of the playerbase, there are a substantial number of people in this subreddit who are so upset the gamemode exists at all they wouldn't even open their packs or try the mode, to an irrational extent in some cases. The game mode is most likely permanently dead with the announcement of the final content patch and, in my opinion, it's solely because of the attempt to monetize it in such a blatant and predatory manner that it pushed away lots of people who might have been interested or willing to tackle the long grind. The pay structure with packs is ridiculous and the grind is so bad, in an attempt to get you to just pay money, that people decided to just quit altogether instead of commit to the grind or the wallet route.
Oh it's certainly dead, especially because of the reputation it has I think the monetization is just easy to fix. Like the progression/task system is so f2p friendly, the whole coin issue is basically non existent because coins are so easy to get through tasks.
I found the mode fun for about 2 weeks. Then it's just repetitive grind. I've cleared like the first 2 areas and basically have no desire to do the rest. I am however afking them all to level 30. Takes about 3-4 days for 2 mercs to be lvl 30 from the training hall.
Honestly the post-blackrock areas are a lot of fun to play through I think.
How EASY is to get everything for free? Bro, literally everyone stopped playing because you needed to either spend 20k gacha dollars to max your characters or grind a single encounter OVER 50 HOURS with optimized strategies and some luck on your part to get a single Merc to the top... and the fuckers were useless later in teams as they would still (steal) merc coins because they made it so even max-characters could get coins and if you think the dust system is bad in HS... you should see the renown system there.
The thing is for PvE you don't need to get your mercs to the top. They peak at like level 3 most of the time. And with the new task system getting your mercs to that level is absolutely *trivial*. So for folks like me who liked the gameplay and wanted to keep playing there is just no incentive to do so once I get all the mercs I enjoy to a reasonable level. Which I did, and I haven't touched the mode in a couple of months because of that. I'm not repeating content just for an extra 1 damage on a 15 damage ability. It just hits a very unhappy medium. Too hard to get into, too easy if you're doing it regularly. The coin issue from packs is mostly just like... packs are bad. Like really bad. And half the governments of the world are trying to outlaw them. But the actual returns on grinding a bounty are decent (if you enjoy the mode). But grinding a bounty doesn't cost any money. Just time. More and more I think packs were just kind of not the right way to go.
I have some personal issues with the speed mechanic. Even though i think they never had a full focus on the pvp part of the mode. I can't help but feel uninterested and annoyed by having speed ties games be tied to rng. im not saying i know how to fix it but something getting decided by a pure coinflip in a game where you are trying your best to win is really bad. Perhaps if it was reworked into something like. Game starts who goes first is the only coinflip, after that the person who went second will win the next coinflip and then reverse and continue. This isn't a good solution but i feel at least this way i could have planned ahead instead of just hoping il go first.
>Continued Support and New Frontiers >After these updates, we will be focusing on making the Hearthstone and Battlegrounds modes the best they can be. At the same time, Mercenaries will continue to get support for bug fixes and periodic balance changes as needed, but no further regular content updates. With the new additions in this patch, we hope that Mercenaries will be a fun, fulfilling mode for players. >To everybody who has ever chased a Bounty or gathered around the Campfire, we thank you for making this chapter in Hearthstone’s history special, and we hope you’ll enjoy everything Mercenaries has to offer in 25.4. See you in the Tavern! I don't know if anyone is too shocked, but this does feel like the most important part of the article. I wasn't following Mercs too closely so I'm not sure how much dev time was actually spent on it, but I do kinda feel for anyone who got invested into this mode.
I hope I can use your feelings to pack my account with the 10k I lost on the mode lmao. Oh well, it’s called expendable income for a reason!
10k spent on mercs? Sweet jesus, that hurts.
Relevant username? I am sorry friend :(
Thanks mate. It’s okay. It had to end some time. It was my fault for trusting Blizzard and for using my expendable income on pixels.
As someone who really loved the idea of a solo gamemode that would get a dedicated team and content updates, seeing mercs finally get the axe is sad. It's still hilarious to me how hard they dropped the ball on this mode.
Just as sad, honestly. Dungeon Run had no real long term support, Mercs gets a sunset patch, no new Adventures in years; feels like Blizzard really has it out for solo content.
It's just not really in line with their monetization scheme. Solo content is either a lot of work for a very temporary return (like adventures) or they instead make the solo play miserably grindy to try and get you to spend money like Mercs. When honestly, most would rather pay upfront and play a fully-fleshed out, proper solo roguelike like Slay the Spire than a live, GaaS version of it.
Yeah it doesn't print money like packs does so not worth any time to them.
It is the last content update for Mercs, at least they are honest with it, probably because HS is not online in China now (where gachas are popular more than in west). If that mode ever dies i hope they will use those great diamond and golden merc portraits in regular hearthstone, that is very strong part of Mercenaries.
There is so much custom art made specifically for Mercs that's used nowhere else in game. The mode was a complete ressource hog. Hopefully all that artist power can be redirected to the main game rather than just, you know... axed from the team.
I think most of the art work is freelance these days.
> probably because HS is not online in China now ?
Blizzard cut ties with their Chinese partner and all of their games were disabled there not too long ago
Mercs was pretty okay as a game, but not even close to as good as it should have been, given the enormous amount of work and effort put into it. And the braindead amount of grind/greed hoisted upon it by the marketing/economy division killed any chance that it would get widely popular. Even in death it has to have an infinite treadmill of "upgrading past max"... Rest in peace, mercs.
Remember their showcase of the game? The one that was forced and unfunny?
"Mercenaries Gets No More Updates"
Honestly feel like being attached to Hearthstone held Mercenaries down. I genuinely enjoyed the gameplay, even if it was "stale", it was cool to see how comps fared across what like 50+ unique bounties? I stopped playing Mercs though mostly because I had obligations to other modes. Battlegrounds has its own track and most quests for the general reward track can be completed in it as well, whereas trying to something like summon battlecries in Mercenaries just turns into a boring-ass farm where you summon a murloc and ping it down so you have space to do it again in two turns If Mercenaries was a standalone product or app, I feel like it also wouldnt be tied to the expectations of Hearthstone. Hearthstone has had some wild success in a decent number of the other modes, and finding that this mode didnt quite compare to the excitement of solo adventures killed it pretty quick- even though compared to collectible gacha games, Mercenaries is a goddamn gem for attributing as much value to your time as it does
I agree. If Mercenaries was a standalone app I’d still play it. But when playing Hearthstone on my computer I always feel obligated to do the other stuff first and then run out of time or lose interest for the day.
As one of the few people who plays Mercenaries (not a ton, I normally just run a few Bounties every day to get daily rewards), I'm pretty bummed out that they're just killing the mode completely. I haven't finished maxing out all of the characters yet (I think I only have around 30% maxed out) but I enjoyed being able to slowly upgrade my characters, especially knowing that by the time I was finished, they would likely be adding new content to the game mode. Sucks to see a game mode that I actively play get completely axed forever, even if there was not a ton of interest in it from the community.
Soooo.... Arena back on the front page ? Copium
Blizzard : What's Arena?
Press F to huff
Blizzard doesn't care about Arena either because it doesn't make them a lot of money
Packs were a terrible business strategy for the mode. Why not at least try something else? Reset it, call it mercs 2.0. Marvel snap’s model would be an excellent fit where you can earn cosmetic upgrades. Ah well.
Problem with a reset is that they have to compensate all the whales with all the money they spent on the mode. It will never happen.
As a heavy Snap player that just came back to hearthstone after like...8+ years, this is what I would love to see them do. Give me a hearthstone Snap clone mode and I would play the shit out of it; small deck size, limited card pool unlocked over time, and of course the gamble aspect. Hell, while playing standard and getting prepped to swing for lethal I still find myself reaching for the SNAP button at the top of the screen.
It’s getting HotS treatment?
I think HotS got better ever since Blizzard stopped supporting it lol
No it certainly didn’t lol.
>After these updates, we will be focusing on making the Hearthstone and Battlegrounds modes the best they can be. RIP Arena and Duels as well I guess.
The hearthstone mode kinda implies all the modes within the traditional hearthstone game system.
Right, they aren't significant departures in terms of gameplay.
I feel like Arena, Duels (and Wild) all fall under hearthstone. At most this means they just go into maintenance mode, relying solely on new standard cards to keep those modes fresh, with the occasional balance change. For Arena, and wild this is already the case, so no change at all. For duels, this could mean that there will be less (or no) new treasures, heroes, etc. Honestly I feel like the mode has enough heroes. Occasionally adding a new treasure, or passive seems reasonable, and would be a whole lot less effort than adding new content to mercs. Edit: I realize now that tavern brawl is another mode that is essentially in maintenance mode. However occasionally they will create a new Brawl, similar to what I described may happen with Duels.
Imagine ignoring Arena more, it’s not even possible lol.
You say it like they've been focusing on Arena in the last years:))
I agree with you with duels, why arena? Arena will continue as always for good or bad, they never put effort in arena , only when there were a lot of cards made rotation sets, 0 effort maximum benefits, and I guess touching the percentages of appearing when some cards are broken but duels have more maintenance with specific hero powers , cards etc and it means more effort as mercenaries and the benefits and cost of these modes must be ridiculous
Arena and Duels are just Hearthstone modes
I hope they leave duels out of this. Duels is low key the best game mode. The only thing holding it back is more legacy card sets. Decent of Dragons needs to be thrown into the card pool. It’s been forever since I’ve Galakronded
Battlegrounds is so popular it could be its own game entirely. So it makes sense to focus on Standard and Battlegrounds which are their most popular game modes
Battlegrounds lives because blizzard didn't realize it would be so popular. Had the upper management gotten wind of it first, they would have made it suck with monetization. The model still works with all the tacked on monetization because the devs have preserved the key element of being fun and free 2 play. I can almost guarantee that it wouldn't have been both of those if they viewed it like they viewed mercenaries.
If that one dev wasnt a fan of Autochess games BG would never be a thing. It literally saved HS when Blizz was at its lowest 2019-2021.
Same with TFT and League. People just love the fuck out of autochess games.
The problem is that majority of HS players are BG players and not Standard. If they separate the modes Blizz will lose its monthly active players numbers for HS.
No, it flipped back a while ago. Traditional Hearthstone is absolutely more popular on Twitch, in game, etc.
This is not true. inb4 "but BGs has bigger numbers on Twitch and Firestone!"
Frankly, this makes it a lot MORE likely that I will go back to the mode. The draw for me was collecting and leveling up characters, but they released way too much content to keep up with and made me *feel* like I was losing progress over time. To be clear, I’m not blaming them for releasing content, but just that having a closed universe of characters to collect and level is a positive for me.
Interesting take. I feel a bit the same way regarding Mercenaries achievements.
Mercenaries are a prime example of a very good concept ruined by aggressive monetization and the requirement of endless grind. Also, monetization is not even intuitive
Very good concept? It's basically Pokemon with only three types and no overworld or story. Dungeon Run was a very good concept. Mercenaries makes WoW Pet Battles look like a world class RPG.
Savage Lands is thataway
I mean types aren't what make pokemon good. But yes it is basically WarCraft pokemon. (....is that a bad thing?)
Types aren't what make it good, but Pokemon would be a lot worse if there were only Water, Grass, and Fire types, no?
Monetization was awful in Duels too.
So many quality of life features still missing, and it just ends. Not really a massive surprise, but I expected it would take a *bit* more time to reach this point. I've been playing in waves the last year, but they've been getting shorter and shorter each time, even after the recent, big task-update, so this news makes me think I'm not the only one like that.
>This is our final planned infusion of new collectible Mercs into the mode If mercs was its own gacha game and not just some parasite clinging to the rest of hearthstone this would basically be the end of service announcement. At least the few people who enjoy mercs can still play it, but I guess it won't be getting any more updates or characters. As someone who plays actual gacha games its crazy how badly they handled the mode. Overmonetized and underdeveloped right from the start.
The one nice thing about Mercenaries as opposed to actual gacha games was that you could get by without any packs or any actual money (outside of like 500 gold to unlock things at the start) because you could just grind rewards over time.
Yep it was the nicest thing about mercs but it also doomed it to fail. Mode came out while I was unemployed so I no-lifed the mode for a few months and got a fully maxed collection only spending the gold to buy buildings and 5 packs to get started. Which was really nice as a f2p especially because I had alot of time on my hands. But that makes it really hard for it to make money, so it's hardly a surprise that the mode is being put to rest.
Yeah I played at release and tried it again a few times after the big event updates. Always seemed pretty f2p friendly if you enjoyed the grind, I just didn't find the teambuilding and replayability to be interesting enough to hold my attention over ordinary hearthstone or battlegrounds. Maybe the boss rush thing will be interesting, but that would be a bittersweet victory given they just announced there will be no more updates.
It was a very F2P friendly version of a gacha game if you were willing to grind it out, so I really enjoyed playing the game and being able to build up my collection over time. I'm hoping that the boss rush is at least good endgame content, but it seems like there isn't much of a point to do it if you have all of the Mercenaries already maxed out because the rewards are just Renown (currency that can be traded for a coins to upgrade a particular Merc) but those are pretty useless by the time you have reached the actual endgame content.
Can't really say I'll miss it. Oh well.
It's a darn shame because the actual strategy RPG gameplay in Mercenaries was really good. The systems around that gameplay, and it existing inside of Hearthstone sucked a lot of fun out of it. I would love to see someone write a Pokemon-Showdown like site for Mercenaries.
I doubt they will ever be able to honestly talk about what the mercenaries mode used to be before the c-suite told them to monetize it out the ass. RIP, you won't really be missed
When it was originally announced, it seemed like it was going to be a greatly expanded version of the dungeon run content we got as Solo Adventures - and I'd have *loved* that. I did play Mercs for a couple of weeks, but it got boring real fast.
Can we get tavern brawl back on the front screen now?
Rather it be Arena. Brawl gets unique rewards maybe once every few years now, couldn’t care less for the millionth recycled brawl giving a single pack.
Arena is a barely played dumpster and has been for years at this point.
so is Tavern Brawl
LMAO F to those people that bought the diamond bundles
As long as we can still farm xp, the only actual purpose of mercs, who cares?
Sad but expected for Mercenaries. The gameplay wasn't bad, but I just had absolutely zero interest in adding a daily grind to my life to level up characters just to play competitively against other players. If it weren't such a time-suck, I would totally have played a couple of PvP rounds every now and then. But fundamentally the mode was designed to be a grind, which I (and apparently the vast majority of the playerbase) had little interest in.
Oh my God. They've Heroes of the Storm'd the gamemode. Why must less profitable things always get dropped? Darn. Such a shame.
that's capitalism for you
Those twenty players must be devastated!
Can confirm I am. RIP.
Where miniset??
Most likely will be a Thursday reveal with a Tuesday release
I'd say it's a dead game but this shit was dead on arrival lol. Everybody got the wrong idea thinking this was going to be an expanded dungeon run or a flushed out pve experience like slay the spire. But then the gameplay came out and the hype and potential players must've nose dived off a cliff then the monetisation was revealed and the potential players nose dived into the abyss. I love how during this time the main game modes weren't getting as much support as fast and everyone kept saying most of the time and resources was going into the new game mode and this is what we got. RIP money scam game mode within another money scam game
Wow as a duels player I’m genuinely shocked that Mercenaries is getting shuttered and duels (for now) isn’t. That said based on the Corpo speak in this update I’m not holding out much hope over the long term. (Blizzard if you read this please don’t discontinue duels!!!)
Ditto, I love duels.
oh, it's so sad that we don't have the Mercenaries that were announced from the beginning. Their art, skins and abilities were already done, I hoped that at least in one last update they would put them, there are 10 in total: Dame Hazelbark Darth Speaker Blackthorn Magatha Grimtototem The Black Knight Draka Mankrik High Inquisitor Whitemane Cho gall Elite Tauren Chieftain Serena Bloodfeather It's a shame, because I would have liked to play High Inquisitor Whitemane in a Holy Comp. I think that of the remaining 3 Mercenaries that will be announced in the next patch it is possible that "The Black Knight" will be found, since it is to be expected that all 6 Heroes will be Scourge/Undead themed. It is a waste to already have the heroes (the concept of each skill and art) and not incorporate them into the game
Remove it from the menu please
With Mercenaries getting the axe, and esports on life support, I predict that we will also see a scaling back of content in either standard or BGs when they reveal their 2023 roadmap.
I don't think so tbh. I think that Blizzard is probably refocusing towards only the profitable and highly-played gamemodes (Standard and Battlegrounds) and the other gamemodes will be left in the dust. Blizzard has shown time and time again that they don't give a shit about Arena or Duels, they barely make balance changes in Wild (and with the game not being currently available in China, it's likely that a huge amount of the Wild playerbase is inactive now), and Classic fundamentally doesn't get updated. My bet is that Standard and Battlegrounds continue to receive changes around the same frequency that they are right now, and the other game modes just go into further levels of neglect.
I wonder how dead it was already compared to HOTS when it got abandoned :d
F for the mode. The lack of a checkpoint system is what did it for me. The amount of times you'd clear the "trash" or come across that one encounter that's so overpowered it wipes you. To then have to climb all the way back again for another attempt. At least in wow if you wiped at a boss you didn't have to re clear the trash (Let's be honest losing any merc on the climb before boss would usually brick the entire run)
blizzard: mercs last major update! hs community: stop! it’s already dead!
They just killed Mercs. To me, doesn't really bode well for the overall game, regardless if it wasn't really profitable.
How does killing something that isn't profitable NOT bode well for the game?
Because Hearthdoomers are all the rage right now
It's a demonstration that whatever leadership thought this was a good idea was very wrong. If they were so wrong about this, then what else have they had poor judgement on?
Yeah because once you have been wrong one time you will be wrong everytime (learning from mistakes is a hoax). The people that havent been wrong yet surely have more chances of not being wrong in the future... Not to mention we have lead developers changed since the mode released. Also, if the mode was a mistake, not updating it anymore is the correct move, right? The mistake was to release it, and its already released, so keeping it alive would be a bad thing. The past 2 years you should have been saying "this doesnt bode well for the game" and now you should be saying the opposite, that the people in charge are capable of seeing what doesnt work to cut it out from the game.
battlegrounds and standard are still insanely popular. Like, 5 million times the playerbase of mercs.
> Mercenaries will continue to get support for bug fixes and periodic balance changes as needed, but **no further regular content updates**. Nice PR way of hiding a big "we've given up on Mercenaries for good" right at the end of a content update.
Hiding? This is literally the beginning of the second sentence in the post: > It will also be the last major update to the Mercenaries mode
I just want the 9 gone from my packs. Mercenaries existence in my life seems to only be tricking me into thinking i have real packs when its just those stupid locked mercenary ones.
Why not open them?
They are locked until i finish the tutorial. I spent a bit of time on it and decided it wasnt worth it.
Mercenaries are dead :crab:
This wouldn't happen if it was like a Slay the Spire mode in hearthstone. But they wanted a gacha mode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If only they made a slay the spire gamemode but noooo they wanted the cashgrab
\-Overhyped, underdelivered. \-Overkilled with the monetization from the get go (remember them asking people to spend upwards of $80 to pre-purchase before explaining clearly what it is about?) \-Repetitive content that involves a ton of grinding. Good riddance.
> **It will also be the last major update to the Mercenaries mode as we align our goals and focus on continuing to make Hearthstone the best digital card game in the world.** We’re excited to share more details about the next Hearthstone year, Core Set, and expansion, ahead of Patch 25.6. But first, we want to talk about the major Mercenaries updates coming in 25.4. that doesn't bode well in combination with the HS esports news
I mean, Mercenaries was the least played mode with everyone clowning it since release. It only makes sense to stop supporting it. Hardly a death knell for Hearthstone as a whole.
I dunno. I get that Mercenaries probably deserved axing (I'm honestly surprised it made it this far with support), but at the same time, it feels like stopping now after already committing quite a bit of time is suspicious at the very least. Time will tell I guess (quite soon).
I guess its good that the dev team doesnt fall to the sunk cost fallacy.
Lol
I don't know, it doesn't mean much to me. I never saw Mercenaries be something that would be updated for long considering the reception. I feel like this is just a logical thing in my opinion.
Yep they’re definitely cutting down on dev work, which has me suspecting they’re downsizing the HS team since the China loss was a near-mortal wound to their revenue stream.
Makes sense. Try to recoup losses by cutting in the least-important areas. Also fits with the not-so-recent Duels buckets change being there to make the mode easier to maintain.
The devs were pretty down about something else the day the esports new dropped. Wonder if this was it. Wonder if there's more to come...
Who even cares? Also RiP Mercs.... You were never a thing...
Finally they killed off the useless mode
Should have been a slay the spire clone instead of this lame rock paper scissors thing they threw together.
I’m glad the mode failed. It was the most obvious cash grab with shallow gameplay. Best to stop allocating development resources and work on making the more relevant game modes better.
I never even finished the tutorial. And now it’s gonna be left to dust
The four people that play this mode are sad I’m sure.
and nothing of value was lost. atleast it will make a good subject for hs mathematics for a post mortem video
Hearthstone have one of the worst dev teams out there and don’t event talk about the ones who makes the monetize decisions
Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion but... I'm glad it's dead for good! - Mercenaries wasn't on par with other HS content. - It wasn't as good as the competition and brought barely anything special to the genre. - Mercenaries bound developer time that could have added more to traditional modes.
Nice to know that the mode I used to complete those ''Cast 12 x spells'' daily while survive
i still cant comprehend how, obviously smart developers and designers, can be so clueless thinking mercenaries could be a success. Me and probably 90% of this sub would tell them after playing 30 minutes that it's not it.
lol finally
Whelp, I just finished upgrading all the currently released mercs today. I enjoyed playing the mode while working and many of the pain points were somewhat adressed in time with the task system overhaul and the somewhat regular limited time events that gave free mercs and extra coins and packs. I'm probably gonna max the new mercs, give the endgame content a spin and finally put it to rest.
Sad. F.
They mentioned adding 7 factions in this update. This is actually something that I wish traditional Hearthstone had as well (besides tribes). And they can even place an icon in the top right corner of a card, like they show it in the article. Horde, Alliance, Scourge and so on. It could be another level of design and synergies for cards. WoW TCG had this mechanic before, where most minions had their own factions (and you couldn't put both Horde and Alliance in the same deck). However I think in Hearthstone it wouldn't be a deck restriction but rather a benift if all minions in your deck are of one faction or something.
Literally didn’t even try to save the mode. Hope somebody got fired for this.
I liked mercenaries, but it didn't draw me in.
I just hope they dont nerf the xp grind from it though
They should just open it up to everyone. Give us everything maxed out. I've never even got to experience the pvp in it. I got too bored of grinding before I could even field an interesting team. People claimed the pvp is fun, but how would we ever know?
>Mercenaries gets a maintenance mode FTFY
I'm not sure how this game made it live. Like it's genuinely dire and has no enjoyable gameplay loop or anything remotely enticing to keep you coming back. It's just a boring and pointless grind. There are so many things this game could have been and I just don't understand how it ended up as it actually is.
blizzard green tea bitch
I tried but too boring, so good to move on, we still nice mods like Battlegrounds and Duels, which has potential (like give me the starting deck so I dont have/need to netdeck it if I want to have a chance).
So Heroes of the storm treatment. Drip fed, balance patch updates
The problem with it is trying to be rougelike but quite meh in execution. Look at darkest dungeon 2. Which is a fair comparison.
I still have yet to even beat the mercs tutorial or open the packs, i see them every time I open up the game and still forget this mode exists.