When Mercenaries was released I had an alternate account with a significant amount of gold saved up. I spent over 10k gold testing out the new mode, while giving what I thought was valuable feedback with an urgent message that changes needed to occur “ lightning quick” to give the mode a chance to thrive.
Changes did not come quickly and as I predicted I was burned out on the mode by December. At the end of the experience, I regretted that I had spent any time and resources testing out Mercenaries.
My early comments included:
1). The PVE sucked and much could be done to improve dungeon runs to make PVE much more fun.
2). The mode was way way too grindy.
3). Pack values were horrible, since they lacked duplicate protection and included cosmetics. Mercenaries packs provided the worst pack opening value and experience that I have ever encountered in a game.
4). PVP, like most of Hearthstone, suffered from major balance issues, which doomed PVP to feel very repetitive.
5). A build up of huge surpluses of unusable coins for maxed out mercenaries felt bad.
6). Mercenaries did not seem ready for release, which made it feel like players were duped into paying to alpha-test a new mode.
In summary, rushing a mode that was too rawly designed (and with very greedy marketing strategies) to market without being able implement improvements quickly has doomed Mercenaries into being a niche mode that feels more dead than alive.
I cannot imagine any way that Hearthstone could entice me to spend more time on the mode.