Mercenaries renown IS TRASH!

[Plorius-1632]

So I converted about 200k extra coins into 44k renown. Spent 625 renown into two task and done, need to wait tomorow to spent more 600 renown into a RANDOM coin, even isnt one I really needed. Trash system, as always they fix something into a worst problem. Now instead of having 200k of nothing to use I have 44k of nothing to use, but less useless

[Bobafett345-1506]

@Plorius-1632

Now instead of having 200k of nothing to use I have 44k of nothing to use, but less useless

I knew their much self-hyped (and endlessly delayed) promised fix for the coin issue would be a giant letdown.

Their entire approach to mercstone is “have you considered putting as little thought into it as we did when we created it, and just giving us more money?”

[Aldrius-1324]

Eh? The new system is infinitely better. The game was never going to reward people for spamming 1-1 heroic.

The task system alone makes it super easy to max out mercs anyway. You don’t need to use your excess coins for it.

[Boreas-1179]

200k???

wow i only have less than 10 maxed out merc and didnt even hit 1k on any of them

if you have 44k of nothing…you have all mercs maxed out ? no idea how that even possible

[SparkyElf-2852]

@Plorius-1632

Trash system, as always they fix something into a worst problem.

That’s what you get for finally having done something.

Admittedly, the exchange rate is not very impressive, although there is some rationale to it: as I said previously, the exchange system should complement the intended farming method, not replace it, in order to incentivise doing diverse bounties.

On the other hand, provided renown can be used in the future, getting those excess coins — especially legendary ones from heroic versions (speaking of which, another possible reason to do these) — from bounties is no longer that frustrating in terms of rewards. We’ll see what they actually implement… hopefully…

@Bobafett345-1506

Their entire approach to mercstone is “have you considered putting as little thought into it as we did when we created it, and just giving us more money?”

Here you go again with this. In fact, I say, ‘Mercstone’ isn’t even that great for ‘whaling’, with diminishing returns for opening packs, as discussed many times, and limited cosmetic offers — in fact, they could have done more: instead of strange ‘coins purses’ (yep, the ones that become excessive eventually) or arbitrary bundles, they could have offered more diamond bundles or such, perhaps in a personalised way, to those who would like to spend on some shinies — why not?

As for thought — I’d say this game mode lacks resources allotted to it, not thought put into its design.

@Aldrius-1324

Eh? The new system is infinitely better.

Mathematically speaking, something is infinitely better than nothing if you take the ratio , so this is actually quite accurate.

However, I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain group of forum participants would continue this kind of angry posting, no matter what the developers do. It’s like certain ‘poor’, ‘oppressed’ and ‘downtrodden’: you give them alms, they retort angrily, ‘So little?’, and start cussing at you.

PS Yeah, below is another prime example.

@Aldrius-1324

The game was never going to reward people for spamming 1-1 heroic.

What do you mean?

@Aldrius-1324

The task system alone makes it super easy to max out mercs anyway.

The tricky part usually comes after tasks are done.

@Boreas-1179

200k???

How about my 400k+?

(Updated, some parts added)

[Selwynn-1560]

I took a look at the conversion rates and … wow.

It was almost better to have useless coins than to pee them all away on the stupid renown.

Like idk how they made it worse… but they did it!

[Bobafett345-1506]

@SparkyElf-2852

Here you go again with this.

The truth hurts, but it is the truth nonetheless.

@SparkyElf-2852

In fact, I say, ‘Mercstone’ isn’t even that great for ‘whaling’, with diminishing returns for opening packs, as discussed many times, and limited cosmetic offers

Tell that to everyone who bought all three preorder bundles, every bundle, offer, and so on that comes up in the shop. There’s nothing limited about this gotcha game.

@SparkyElf-2852

As for thought — I’d say this game mode lacks resources allotted to it, not thought put into its design.

Sure…they just put so much thought into it that it took them this long to finally fix the coin issue ( up to now: “IT’S COMING FOR REAL THIS TIME, HONEST GUISE…SOON!™”) and of course nearly every major patch, especially adding mercstone to real hearthstone made the entire game unstable and caused a whole host of issues.

But yep…the game really just needs more resources!

/sarcasm

@SparkyElf-2852

Mathematically speaking, something is infinitely better than nothing

Not always: zero crappy dev patching is worse than no crappy dev patching.

@Selwynn-1560

Like idk how they made it worse… but they did it!

The other design philosophy of mercstone.

[SparkyElf-2852]

@Bobafett345-1506

The truth hurts, but it is the truth nonetheless.

What ‘truth’? I understand how Battlegrounds is strictly P2W, or Standard has been notorious for requiring large amounts of cash at regular intervals for yet another Shudderwock Theotar exciting new set of cards in order to be competitive and stand some chance, but what is there in Mercenaries that requires to spend like a ‘whale’ on it, especially if you’re not much into PvP and don’t need that particular new legendary merc — conveniently offered via a bundle, yes, there’s that — for it immediately? In fact, in some ways it maybe even more fun F2P, I’d say.

@Bobafett345-1506

Tell that to everyone who bought all three preorder bundles, every bundle, offer, and so on that comes up in the shop. There’s nothing limited about this gotcha game.

Well, if people have problems with an irresistible need for instant gratification, maybe that’s the root cause of their issues?

As for cosmetic bundles, they might or could have done more with better value, nothing wrong with it. Right now, for instance, someone wishing for a diamond Jaina portrait has very few means to get it — unless a bundle shows up in the shop one day. This kind of monetisation could be improved.

@Bobafett345-1506

Sure…they just put so much thought into it that it took them this long to finally fix the coin issue ( up to now: “IT’S COMING FOR REAL THIS TIME, HONEST GUISE…SOON!™”)

Sometimes, when reading topics such as this, I think that even if they did the best job possible, they would still get the same kind of reaction from a certain audience. I suppose it’s become a forum sport of a kind for some.

@Bobafett345-1506

especially adding mercstone to real hearthstone made the entire game unstable and caused a whole host of issues

You’ve got to be kidding.

Incidentally, is bad weather outside also caused by ‘Mercstone’?

[ReyExánime-1724]

You must admit exchange rates are terrible specially for the longtime player, the double conversion is tricky and does not let you see the real numbers. I have to admit that the merc team have outdone themselves; an awesome job for corporate and it is understandable even if I don’t agree whatsoever with the coin issue and how it has been resolved. Now I don’t usually agree on anything on Bobo’s behalf but I think mercenaries(or mercstone as he usually refers to ) should be an opt download, just like bg as Hearthstone always as the main dish, if you like the 3 modes you download all, if not you get what you are interested in; and it is true since mercenaries has been introduced a whole set of known problems since then started, bugs they call it nowdays,resources, people but the inner data we will never know…

[Berserker81-2246]

What did you expect? Mercenaries is trash. As in, the whole game mode.

[Aldrius-1324]

@SparkyElf-2852

The tricky part usually comes after tasks are done.

Tasks get you 75-90% of the way to max. It gets you through the ranks of skills that actually scale (to rank 3/4) It’s pretty easy to farm the last 10-25% if you want or just get them from packs.

The main thing is the stat boost from maxing a merc. Which… I dunno. I think they should just do away with that. It makes a huge difference in PvP.

@Selwynn-1560

Like idk how they made it worse… but they did it!

How could it be worse?

Now every day you get a chance to convert excess coins into coins you can use. Before they did… nothing. That’s not worse.

If anyone thought you were going to be able to freely convert your excess coins into useful ones at a reasonable rate they were… really foolish. People are swimming in excess coins (some people have a million excess rare coins). It’d annihilate the game’s economy.

@SparkyElf-2852

What do you mean?

The reason people have so many excess coins is from farming low-difficulty content, which gives them an excess of basic xyrella/rokara/etc. coins. There’s gonna be excess from other sources too, but that’s the biggest one.

If you can just… convert those coins you get from level 5 content, then it’s gonna be super easy to just max out your whole merc collection. From doing base level content.

But like honestly, maxing out mercs just really requires doing tasks for mercs. Then getting the rest from either farming (and not even needing to farm that much), or packs or the new daily tasks, or trading.

And if you don’t like farming bounties, then… I mean that’s what the game mode is really. PvP is maybe more fun, but you get coins from PvP too. If you don’t like it, you probably just won’t like the game mode.

[Bobafett345-1506]

@SparkyElf-2852

What ‘truth’?

That mercstone was thought up as a cash grab first and as a playable game a distant second. The max coin issue and how long it took them to fix it is one (of many) clear sign of this.

@SparkyElf-2852

their issues

Because if the company created a mode of predatory monetization, and never really flshed out the actual game parts (funny how the whole “what truth” literally falls apart in your second part here), the company’s greed is somehow the customers’ fault.

@SparkyElf-2852

I think that even if they did the best job possible

And in what universe is this even a trillion miles close to “their best job possible?”

@SparkyElf-2852

You’ve got to be kidding.

Projection.

|* DING*

@Aldrius-1324

How could it be worse?

Did you really issue that kind of challenge to team 5?!

Holy Light, you do not want them to open pandora’s box.

@Aldrius-1324

People are swimming in excess coins (some people have a million excess rare coins). It’d annihilate the game’s economy.

And the blame for that would fall on?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

If you said team 5, you won!

Tell them what they won, Johnny!

Well, because this answer is the most correct one for “who screwed up” for hearthstone, they only won the satisfaction of being right. But, that’s worth more than a trillion runestones in the real world!

[Selwynn-1560]

@Aldrius-1324

It’d annihilate the game’s economy.

… only because they failed to appropriately monetize it from the start, which is why there aren’t more players.

Anyone spending money on this mode is foolish. Games like mercs shoudl be actively shunned by players no matter what they think of the gameplay because they are predatory.

[SparkyElf-2852]

@ReyExánime-1724

You must admit exchange rates are terrible specially for the longtime player

I think I’ve stated my opinion about it quite openly already.

@ReyExánime-1724

the double conversion is tricky and does not let you see the real numbers

Yeah, even a most trivial two-step arithmetic problem fit for a primary school (I can almost hear outraged comments how it’s ‘too difficult for poor kids, who shouldn’t be stressed like this’ already — trust me, I know what I’m talking about) is probably considered too hard to comprehend nowadays. Why am I not surprised…

Incidentally, the way they’ve presented the conversion rates is probably optimal, come to think of it, since a player does not convert coins to coins — they convert renown to coins.

@ReyExánime-1724

but I think mercenaries(or mercstone as he usually refers to ) should be an opt download, just like bg as Hearthstone always as the main dish

Ha, while I haven’t seen any official figures on player numbers, from what we know, Battlegrounds is apparently much more popular, and from that point of view, ‘main’ HS should be an ‘optional’ dish.

@ReyExánime-1724

if you like the 3 modes you download all, if not you get what you are interested in

Good for conserving bandwidth, which is an interesting issue, but understandable from a marketing point of view; besides, while product bundling is an issue — for example, the predatory and essentially illegal practice when laptop makers supply their products with an O$ (operating $y$stem) preinstalled only, and the customer has got to pay for it because of monopoly, — it’s much less so in this case, since those ‘extras’ don’t cost anything.

@ReyExánime-1724

and it is true since mercenaries has been introduced a whole set of known problems since then started, bugs they call it nowdays,resources, people but the inner data we will never know…

You don’t know much about the techincal side of such issues in general, do you? And nope, an extra mode is likely not a source of fundamental problems (yes, they are called ‘bugs’) with other modes, but I think it pointless to go into the details of IT-specific questions in general here.

@Aldrius-1324

Tasks get you 75-90% of the way to max.

That’s a very… optimistic estimate. I think Old Guardian has a video with exact details written down, you could even refer to that…

PS See below — I’ve actually provided a link and elaborated on that.

@Aldrius-1324

It gets you through the ranks of skills that actually scale (to rank 3/4)

Ha, while they returned to that model with more recent mercs, some of them (Valeera, for example) have notoriously had a linear — or, in some cases, evene superlinear — scaling.

@Aldrius-1324

It’s pretty easy to farm the last 10-25% if you want

Yeah, tell that to all those players whose Tyrael, for instance, is still not maxed. There have been some other mercs with ‘elusive’ coins (from regular bounties), too…

@Aldrius-1324

How could it be worse?

Now every day you get a chance to convert excess coins into coins you can use. Before they did… nothing. That’s not worse.

You reason with logic. That’s not how it generally works on this forum.

@Aldrius-1324

The reason people have so many excess coins is from farming low-difficulty content, which gives them an excess of basic xyrella/rokara/etc. coins. There’s gonna be excess from other sources too, but that’s the biggest one.

I would urge you to not overgeneralise. Not everyone is into the infamous quilboar-farming.

Sure, in my example, those unusually high numbers for Bru’kan, Anduin or Krush are from those Banehollow runs (when I was doing tasks and fishing for the mysterious stranger at the same time), but nowadays, if you’re actually doing reasonable bounties for merc coins, you tend to get a lot of excess ones from those. In the recent batch, the likes of Archimonde and Bwonsamdi are probably the best examples, while rare mercs are the hardest to max by doing their respective bounties. Previously, some epics were known to be the hardest to max in this fashion.

@Aldrius-1324

If you can just… convert those coins you get from level 5 content, then it’s gonna be super easy to just max out your whole merc collection. From doing base level content.

That’s what I’ve written about, too, so I agree with you here.

@Aldrius-1324

But like honestly, maxing out mercs just really requires doing tasks for mercs.

Once again, that’s an overstatement.

I’ve actually found the video I mentioned with those details (the calculations are trivial, but it’s probably more convenient to have the totals at hand than look at the data for each task):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVcfqJ4rww

As you can see, tasks allow you to max, for examle, a couple of abilities (or an ability and a piece of equipment) with a few coins left. That’s far from what you stated previously.

I don’t have the exact figures on the distribution of equipment starting levels for various mercs at hand, so the total numbers are a bit hard to estimate, but is’s generally less than 50% of the total progress (and about 40% for mercs whose all three pieces of equipment start at level 1) from tasks alone.

@Aldrius-1324

And if you don’t like farming bounties, then… I mean that’s what the game mode is really.

Exactly.

@Bobafett345-1506

That mercstone was thought up as a cash grab first and as a playable game a distant second.

Again you repeat this, but I’d still like to see some solid facts and evidence backing this.

@Bobafett345-1506

Because if the company created a mode of predatory monetization, and never really flshed out the actual game parts (funny how the whole “what truth” literally falls apart in your second part here), the company’s greed is somehow the customers’ fault.

I beg to differ. You referred to a situation which clearly implied an irrational, possibly even compulsive, buying strategy. In this case, I can’t say that a company’s marketing is the root cause of the issue — that would be like blaming electric sockets and their manufacturers for some… alternatively smart person (yeah, political correctness all the way) finding a ‘creative’ way to stick two wires in there with their bare hands and getting zapped… Or blaming coffee producers for someone spilling a cup of hot coffee on their trousers. I wouldn’t be suprised, though, if ardent proponents of even such approaches were to suddenly emerge or even get offended.

@Bobafett345-1506

And in what universe is this even a trillion miles close to “their best job possible?”

At this juncture, I’m convinced that nothing they could possibly do would ever convince the group of dedicated Mercenaries haters on this forum to change their course.

A clear improvement has been done? Yeah, more chance to yell about ‘trash’, no logical argumentation needed!

[Aldrius-1324]

@SparkyElf-2852

Ha, while they returned to that model with more recent mercs, some of them (Valeera, for example) have notoriously had a linear — or, in some cases, evene superlinear — scaling.

Some of the legendaries scale weirdly. In the Alterac era they scaled to 4 for some reason. Which none of the others do. Anyway, I think the tasks get you most of the coins you need for the PvE content. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but you’ll get to reasonable levels. Even skills which scale to 5 are usually good enough by rank 3.

@Selwynn-1560

… only because they failed to appropriately monetize it from the start, which is why there aren’t more players.

Anyone spending money on this mode is foolish. Games like mercs shoudl be actively shunned by players no matter what they think of the gameplay because they are predatory.

I mean it’s not really predatory, other than being absolutely abysmal value. That’s part of the problem with it, it doesn’t incentivize people to spend money. It incentivizes you to grind. The real money purchases aren’t even deceptively bad, they’re just bad, you get almost nothing. They gave us a couple of really good launch bundles in terms of value and then… garbage.

@Bobafett345-1506

And the blame for that would fall on?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

If you said team 5, you won!

Tell them what they won, Johnny!

Well, because this answer is the most correct one for “who screwed up” for hearthstone, they only won the satisfaction of being right. But, that’s worth more than a trillion runestones in the real world!

I mean sure it’s team 5’s fault, but also just giving people a way to swap coins because they had that they’ve uselessly accumulated so many extra coins isn’t… like that isn’t even really a problem. It’s just people getting frustrated by big pointless numbers and not getting the right endorphins.

The bigger problem is not being able to scale your mercs reasonably by playing the game, which I’d argue you absolutely can now. But not in as direct a way as people would like probably, which… I mean that can probably be improved on. Probably something more like, give us 6 options for coins every day and we can pick 2.

Like I don’t really care if team 5 is designing things badly, if it’s bad enough I just don’t play. If the value of purchases is bad, I just don’t buy them.

[SparkyElf-2852]

@Aldrius-1324

Anyway, I think the tasks get you most of the coins you need for the PvE content.

That’s a concession already. Depends on the merc a bit: for some of them you really need one skill and one item (Geddon, for instance, or even Lokholar), others require a bit more. In PvP, however, having not maxed mercs is a liability.

@Aldrius-1324

That’s part of the problem with it, it doesn’t incentivize people to spend money.

Haven’t I said that already… Agreed with you.

If memory serves, they’ve been contemplating personalised offers in the shop and those kinds of things, but they were never really implemented.

On the other hand, it’s quite F2P-friendly, which is my style.

@Aldrius-1324

The bigger problem is not being able to scale your mercs reasonably by playing the game, which I’d argue you absolutely can now.

By the way, for the last two (at least) batches of mercenaries, you get coins for them exlusively in the guaranteed drop pool of the new zones, thus it makes sense to do these newer bounties.

[Bobafett345-1506]

@SparkyElf-2852

I’d still like to see some solid facts and evidence backing this.

Evidently, you haven’t’ played the game, read the mountain of posts regarding the multitude of issues about it, and the lack of devs’ ability and foresight into the very basic issues (again, the coins) since day 1.

@SparkyElf-2852

I beg to differ.

Begging won’t save the company, nor is it a proper defense for their predatory practices. Plus, it’s unseemly.

I can see you in the 50s-80s: “No one forced people to smoke, so why should the tobacco companies have to pay for all this?”

@SparkyElf-2852

At this juncture

repeating the same non answer doesn’t help your argument, or lack thereof.

@SparkyElf-2852

no logical argumentation needed

At least you admit it, which is more than most of those acting as spokespersons or promoters for the company have done.

[ßƐƐ-1741]

@Selwynn-1560

I took a look at the conversion rates and … wow.

It was almost better to have useless coins than to pee them all away on the stupid renown.

Like idk how they made it worse… but they did it!

The worst part is you can only convert renown for a few coins a day.

So 50-100 coins from 1 or 2 random merc, it could take months if not years for someone with lots of coins to use them all.

[SparkyElf-2852]

@Bobafett345-1506

Evidently, you haven’t’ played the game

Except that you wouldn’t see any evidence if it were right under your nose. Just from my posts it’s rather obvious what I’ve played and to what extent.

@Bobafett345-1506

the mountain of posts regarding the multitude of issues about it

Ironically, many of them by those who haven’t even played it — they just dropped by to leave their very important opinion, often with brilliant argumentation (read: none, for those who don’t get irony). In fact, a significant portion of them is by you — repeating the same thing how the evil lurks behind every corner, trying to grab everyone’s money.

How does it feel to be in an echo chamber?

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been very positive towards the Mercenaries community discussing actual problems — less so, however, towards clueless bypassers who think they have an ‘opinion’ and are absolutely compelled to inform eveyone that they’ve essentially got nothing to say on-topic.

@Bobafett345-1506

Begging won’t save the company, nor is it a proper defense for their predatory practices. Plus, it’s unseemly.

You’re not very literate in English, are you, not recognising idioms?

That’s probably as far as I’m willing to go with this ad hominem nonsense.

[Bobafett345-1506]

@SparkyElf-2852

Just from my posts it’s rather obvious what I’ve played and to what extent.

Clearly not, considering if your rose tint was any redder, you would be on the bug forums saying the game was all red.

@SparkyElf-2852

Ironically, many of them by those who haven’t even played it — they just dropped by to leave their very important opinion, often with brilliant argumentation (read: none, for those who don’t get irony).

Wow, most bug reports are by people who don’t play. Tell me how I know you haven’t read them without me knowing you needing to say it.

@SparkyElf-2852

In fact, a significant portion of them is by you — repeating the same thing how the evil lurks behind every corner, trying to grab everyone’s money.

That’s an outright lie, and anyone can prove this by going over there right now.

@SparkyElf-2852

How does it feel to

post outright lies on behalf of the company is what you should be asking.

@SparkyElf-2852

You’re not very literate in English, are you, not recognising idioms?

Not very good at picking up on sarcasm without being told, I see.

Also, racist against ESL much?

That was rhetorical.

@SparkyElf-2852

That’s probably as far as I’m willing to go with this ad hominem nonsense.

It’s clear you’re willing to go a lot farther, posting outright lies and slander against anyone who dares criticize the mode.

But naturally, the mods will allow this, because pro company posters can literally get away with anything, including threats, harassment and hate speech.

Stay classy mods, team 5, actiblizz, and microsoft!