Mysterious Stranger Change (Worst nerf in history)

This is the worst nerf I’ve ever seen. Encourage people towards more engaging gameplay ? What an absolute JOKE, everyone will just move on to the next fastest way to farm the tasks and repeat it over and over again just like we did with the Air Elemental. It’ll take longer, sure, but it won’t encourage people towards more ‘‘engaging’’ gameplay.

So it would appear the new fastest way to get tasks is to farm the Heroic Level 29 Felwood Lord Banehollow bounty. Retire the bounty until you have a 2 fights path to the mystery stranger and repeat. Such AMAZING engaging gameplay blizzard, thank you!

61 Likes

When I saw trump’s video on how to use the stranger to grind bounties, I figured it was going to get nerfed soon enough

4 Likes

It does depends a bit on how they made the change.

If they just nerfed the rate that Strangers appear in low level bounties, then, yes, it’s really bad. Especially for players who aren’t paying and thus rely on grinding out 18 tasks per mercenary to get the free packs.

On the other hand, if they increased the appearance rate of Strangers the closer you get to level-appropriate bounties, then it might end up being a neutral change, or at least a less negative one.

1 Like

i think theyre making it do you need mercs of the right level to get it, not that i need it since im not playing the mode

I edited my OP to quote blizzard instead.

So basically if you have a high level merc in your party, it is almost impossible to receive a mysterious stranger from the low level bounties, which makes farming them exponentially longer and a lot more frustrating when you miss.

6 Likes

I saw complaints here about having to farm mindless bounties. Be careful what you wish for.

5 Likes

The issue here is that nothing changes at all.

We’re gonna have to do the exact same except it’s going to take longer.

15 Likes

i seen this coming,
mysterious stranger keep being nerfed since day 1 release of mercenaries from server side.

the odds they show up, etc, adding other outcome to that spot.

hot potato and blue portal doesn’t even exist day 1.

3 Likes

They removed the least-bad way of farming upgrades. They’re not fixing the problem, they’re removing the workaround for the intended slog.

8 Likes

They should honestly award Tasks from completing level 30 heroic bounties.

That way players don’t rely on stupid RNG to farm tasks and this truly encourages ‘‘more engaging gameplay’’

13 Likes

i like this idea.
it should have same time requirement to get a single task considering mysterious coin have RNG involved.

3 Likes

Level 30 heroic bounties are endgame content. Offering upgrades after you’re already strong enough to defeat the hardest PvE content in the game isn’t as useful.

2 Likes

it could be optional you know.
you can still run normal bounty at level 30 to get mysterious stranger.

having both option always better.
hence why i liked the idea.

they doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive where one existence will negate the other.

Encourage engaging gameplay, like buying coin packs from the store and giving Acti-Blizz money.

2 Likes

You’re going to have to actually play the game, though. That should be better.

1 Like

I’m amazed that apparantly enough players still play Mercenaries for them to justify making a change that will drive off some players.

9 Likes

I mean it was beyond broken. I would have done it if so inclined, but actually if they’re stopping it I would rather they reduce what people had already gotten from it. If someone even remotely thought that was intentional he or she’d have to be delusional and clearly just trying to justify what was borderline an exploit.

Like, why did they solely punish the players while they could do something else?

If they wanted us to play higher levels then they should motivate us with better rewards, NOT penalizing the players grinding heroic 1-2

People kept playing 1-2 since they had no better choice in the first place, so if the devs don’t want that they should propose superior alternatives

7 Likes

they don’t want you to play the game.
less player = more profit in term of server handling because they will spent less.
but at the same time, they want people to buy their stuff.

if they can annoy the whale and dedicated paying player without making them leaving the game,
they would also do it willingly because they know people who are annoyed will play the game less, but not annoying enough to make them leave the game.

it should be obvious from business stand point and very logical.

Original Script:

This move is to encourage people to buy packs with real money instead of playing the game for free.

So they use the word "engaging’’. Even though, doing the same level multiple times itself is actually not engaging. However, they do not find another word for that, so, yes, they use “engaging” word…