So, Mysterious Stranger on Air Elemental was gutted. While it is sad, and while you can argue about the priorities Blizzard have (let's face it, we all know what they are, Bobby "Goblinlord" Kotick needs a new 150M$ bonus check), it doesn't change the fact the Random Event Tile (RET for short) is still very shallow in terms of gameplay. Getting one of 4 options (Potato, Portal, Sabotage and Stranger) is boring and feels cheap. So what can we do about it? Here's my suggestions:
Remove Stranger altogether (I have a different approach for task collecting);
Add a lot of events (both good and bad), allowing for more variety of gameplay throughout the map and, more importantly, allowing for more than one RET on the map.
So, what are the events I'm suggesting?
Keep the Hot Potato. It's a genuinely interesting gimmick, it only falls into sore eyes because we want the Stranger;
Keep the Portal, but add the option to walk into it or not;
Keep the Sabotage, even if it's boring and has almost no gameplay impact [it remains mostly as a placeholder for more interesting detrimental effects, with a smaller chance than other events];
Boons become RETs. You won't know where they are on the map anymore;
Spirit Healer can be found on RETs;
AMBUSH!!! -> You face a team of 6 Mercs all at once who were payed to stop you on your tracks. But it turns out, those mercs were payed partly in advance, and they were payed with up to 25 coins for a random epic/legendary merc (rarity and number of coins depending on the bounty you're in);
Bananas! -> King Mukla passed by here and forgot some bananas. Your team picks them up and eats them, granting a +X/+X buff (again, depending on the bounty);
Sidequest! -> Send one of your mercs alone on a sidequest, removing him temporarily from your team. He promises he'll come back to you before the final boss and he returns with a special treasure (like the ones you gain when you face elite battles), or he finds a new task for him (if you didn't finish all his tasks. If you did, he returns with a couple of merc coins, with a higher chance of those coins being for him) [both the task and the amount of coins he finds also depend on the bounty and you find less coins than the AMBUSH!!! event];
Mud Pit! -> Oh great, now you're all muddy. And look at the dirt on our treasures! We have to clean them up. You won't be able to use your treasures next battle;
Bob! -> "Hey there, friend, glad to see you. Here's a treasure to make sure your travels are safe". You gain a random treasure for a random merc (you don't even choose 1 of 3);
Wrong turn! -> You can only find this in the middle of the map. It changes your pathing, nothing too special [it's also mostly a placeholder, low chance to get it on the event pool].
These are just some ideas, there could easily be more of them, both beneficial and detrimental. These ideas also represent pathings with more than just 1 RET (for example, I could easily see bounties from Heroic Blackrock Mountain with 5 RETs, especially when you consider that Boons would stop showing up as Boons themselves [some tiles would still be Spirit Healers, you just also have a chance of finding them in a RET]).
Now, regarding the Mysterious Stranger, my answer is actually simple. You ALWAYS find one after completing a bounty. However, to avoid abusing early level bounties, the level of your task depends on your bounty.
Barrens -> Up to Task 2 (the first 3 bounties), Task 3 (the next 3 bounties), Task 4 (the last 3 bounties);
Barrens Heroic -> Up to Task 3 (the first 3 bounties), Task 4 (the next 3 bounties), Task 5 (the last 3 bounties);
Felwood -> Up to Task 8 (the first 3 bounties), Task 9 (the last 3 bounties);
Felwood Heroic -> Up to Task 9 (the first 3 bounties), Task 10 (the last 3 bounties);
Winterspring -> Up to Task 14 (the first 3 bounties), Task 15 (the last 3 bounties);
Winterspring Heroic -> Up to Task 15 (the first 3 bounties), Task 16 (the last 3 bounties);
Blackrock Mountain -> Up to Task 17 (the first 3 bounties), Task 18 (the last 3 bounties);
Blackrock Mountain Heroic -> Up to Task 18 (all bounties).
These are my suggestions for events to spice up bounty runs. What do you guys think of them? Guaranteeing Mysterious Stranger as an extra reward severely diminishes frustration with grinding and the increased amount of events makes each bounty more unique and engaging. EDIT: Also, throw in more ideas if you have them, maybe we could actually see some of them in-game.
PS: Turns out it's hard to think of detrimental effects without simply gutting your team. I feel only Mud Pit! really worked as a one and done detrimental effect (Sabotage and Wrong Turn! feel very meh), with the more extreme ones (AMBUSH!!! putting you in a 6vs3 fight and Sidequest! temporarily disabling a merc [maybe you can choose which one, maybe not]) compensating the detrimental effect with a reward. I feel that is a way detrimental effects can be more engaging.
Ah, it's funny because the community found a way to be relatively competitive while being f2p and they've immediately went to the trouble of removing it rather than addressing many of the complaints regarding frustration with coin colecting or the release of what is clearly an unfinished product.
They better make tasks more available or a lot of players will just start ignoring Mercenaries altogether. I know I will if something better isn't introduced.
Just tried it out: Anduin used "Reduce 5 damage do Humans", then took 0 damage from a 5 damage attack from a Green guy. If it were (Ability Damage * Critical Damage) - Damage Reduction = Total Damage, it would have been (5 * 2) - 5 = 5 damage, so it's the 2nd option.
Are you sad that two days into Mercenaries and your Rank 2 Xyrella can't compete with those filthy whales Rank 5 max item one? Well, say no more, because Air Elemental is here to do some fast grinding for you.
How, you ask? Well, let's just use my example. I am fully f2p right now (didn't even buy the 5€ welcome bundle), but I was pretty lucky that my first pack gave me Anduin Wrynn, a pretty good legendary that was one of the cornerstones of my story mode team.
So, naturally, I thought of ways to get more Anduin Wrynn coins to make sure he stays in top shape and the only place that has a "guaranteed" chance of dropping those coins is in Lord Banehollow (and LB Heroic). Now, the quotation marks are there for a reason, I grinded the LB bounty 8 times and in only 3 of them did I get Anduin Wrynn coins (on the other hand, I got like 300 coins for Bru'kan and he became beefy now). Naturally, I was pretty disappointed at how things turned out, I spent a lot of time grinding and I barely got enough scraps for a rank 3 Holy Nova.
But how does Heroic Air Elemental help? Simple. He's the first bounty that guarantees a random event tile (I'm not sure the normal version also has one but just a lvl 30 merc should be enough to beat Heroic). And those random events can get you those sweet tasks that always nail you those sweet Anduin Wrynn coins.
So, let's talk optimization:
You need the Merc you want to grind (in my case, Anduin Wrynn). Make a party with him and 2 (only 2, no more than those) lvl 1 Mercs you want to pump some levels in.
Go to the random event tile. You got Mysterious Stranger? Good! That's why there's only 2 other Mercs on the party, to guarantee you'll get the Anduin Wrynn task.
If you didn't get the Mysterious Stranger, justretire, you're wasting your time finishing the bounty unless you're planning to grind Cariel Roame coins (they're one of the rewards to finish the bounty and Cariel Roame is also top tier).
Now this is the tricky part. If you believe you can finish the Task before you get the chance to get another Mysterious Stranger, then just do it. If you can't (for example, Anduin Wrynn has a task that involves visiting 4 Spirit Healers; naturally, you can't do that in just one run), then add a 4th member to your party, this one being someone that you want to also grind Merc coins on (in my case, Blademaster Samuro and Xyrella; I added Blademaster Samuro first since he's lagging behind a bit in the coin department).
Don't forget to swap those underleveled Mercs once they reach level 30.
In case you're wondering, this is a terrible grind and, quite frankly, a boring experience. But since the game decided to hide your tasks behind the Mysterious Stranger tile, this is the fastest way to find them.
PS: Mercenary Whales, you're not filthy. You're adorable too.
Well, out of the 4 PvP games I played as f2p, I found 3 bots. Really small sample size, but that's really discouraging at least on the PvP side.
The PvE side is fine. When first teased (before the delay), I was overexcited, when the reveal season started, I was underexcited, so yeah... it's better than the expectation I had during reveal season but not the amazing Slay the Spire-esque I wanted during the first tease.
I guess one of the reasons why is the fact that I still believe the biggest incentive behind the game mode was the monetization process rather than the gameplay. This doesn't mean there's no gameplay design, there was just a larger focus on trying to gain money of the game mode, which is fine. However, Battlegrounds was designed with the main focus being gameplay and it became the success it did because of it.
EDIT: Also, could Blizzard please speed up the animation after the dungeon is cleared and we get to the treasure? That animation is so slow it hurts.
How do you know they were bots?
Also, a way they could improve the difficulty of the mode is create "raid" encounters. (unless those exist in some fashion in blackrock mountain, I don't know, I haven't gotten there yet)
Raid encounters would require very specific team setups but would have great or rare rewards. If we are comparing apples to apples, or in this case "gachas to gachas". To cite another source: Galaxy of Heroes. Their raid encounters gave you "rare" shards. (aka coins for Hearthstone) . The raid had a 3 day cooldown or whatever if you successfully completed it, so you couldn't just farm it all the time. But the point was to gain access to newer (aka more powerful) characters to use in PvP modes.
I'm not sure I exactly want to see that. (We don't want PvP being dictated by whomever has the most money or whatever like Galaxy of Heroes essentially did), but the point is they could add alternative fun things that improve the replayability.
My other gripe is that for a "rogue-lite" game, it is missing some integral mechanics.
1) Maps are way too short, bosses are stupid easy as someone who pre ordered Diablo and TLK.
2) There are no "event" hubs on the map. Maybe this changes or Ive just been unlocky but so far the "mysterious event" has always been a stranger (that gives you tasks that help you unlock equipment), or an exploding potato (Which IMO is a double edged event, and seems dumb). Events give you a chance to gain power spikes or power losses (i.e. in other rogue lite games, they can give you equipment, powers, stats, etc) or if you fail the event, they can make it harder on you. It seems Blizz decided to go extremely simple in this area and remove events altogether because they feared the backlash of "negative events". However without risk/reward in the map, it becomes a simple repetitive game mode that doesn't draw you in.
3) The Spirit Healer "event" like other roguelikes, should provide you alternatives to just reviving a single member. If you choose a path with a spirit healer on it, and you have no dead members, it does nothing for you. In other rogue games, if you come across "rest" areas and don't actually need to reset, they usually provide you with an option to improve your plan, improve your party, etc.
Overall the game mode isn't "bad" but it's not as great as I thought it would be. I fear that it will become another Duels mode (popular for a week or two and then really only played by a few hardcore people)
Usually, when you wait for 1~2 minutes and match up with an opponent named "Your Opponent", it means that the matching system couldn't find a "fair opponent" (taking into account hero levels and skill levels on said hero), so the system "makes one up" using Blizzard AI. It's easy to know one after you matched with one, they do their moves immediatly and they do pretty obvious misplays. At least, that's what the Youtube comment section from Trump's newest PvP mercs video told me (so take my own assessment with an unhealthy pinch of salt).
As far as the difficulty concerns, you don't need 2 pre orders to make the PvE insanely easy, I didn't even buy the 5€ one (I'll possibly buy it after clearing BRM). Also, a good part of the game mode is that it's made also taking into account the ability to build more expansions and more content (from heroes to dungeons to even events, for that matter [like the one you described from Galaxy of Heroes, though I'll expect something less like something new every 3 days and more like "Strong monsters invaded Felwood", for example]).
Well, I also got the bomb event a lot and the task event a couple of times, but I've also got a portal to fight the final boss of it a couple of times. There's room for more stuff there, too.
As far as the healer goes, I just avoid those like the plague. I think I only got into it once and it was because Xyrella died. And again, there's room for improvement there.
Well, out of the 4 PvP games I played as f2p, I found 3 bots. Really small sample size, but that's really discouraging at least on the PvP side.
The PvE side is fine. When first teased (before the delay), I was overexcited, when the reveal season started, I was underexcited, so yeah... it's better than the expectation I had during reveal season but not the amazing Slay the Spire-esque I wanted during the first tease.
I guess one of the reasons why is the fact that I still believe the biggest incentive behind the game mode was the monetization process rather than the gameplay. This doesn't mean there's no gameplay design, there was just a larger focus on trying to gain money of the game mode, which is fine. However, Battlegrounds was designed with the main focus being gameplay and it became the success it did because of it.
EDIT: Also, could Blizzard please speed up the animation after the dungeon is cleared and we get to the treasure? That animation is so slow it hurts.
So, I had Augmented Elekk on the board and traded in Persistent Peddler into my deck with only one card. It generated a new one. However, the generated Persistent Peddler, when traded into the deck, doesn't keep generating cards despite it being a card shuffled into the deck, meaning Augmented Elekk's effect, which was still in play, didn't even trigger.
It's bad enough that I have to hunt achievements in Wild ranked instead of casual play despite the fact that HUNTING ACHIEVEMENTS IS THE DEFINITION OF CASUAL PLAY, I can't even do it properly because the game has more spaghetti than all of fucking Italy.
As you can see there's not many ways to do it. You do have a better chance of picking up an Oracle of Elune through the 3-drop pool since it is smaller than the entire minion pool. Crystalsong Portal, however, takes the cake as the card with the highest chance of discovering Oracle of Elune since there around 3/117 chance to get it.
And another thing, and this one is REALLY important: Solar Eclipse! Don't be shy to double those chances. In fact, when I finally got Oracle of Elune, it was on the second discover from a Resizing Pouch.
EDIT: Moderation team, if you want to, feel free to add my post in a spoiler with a title like: "Don't have Oracle of Elune? Here's what you can do to Discover it"
Here's a way to grind out many of the Neutral achievements while providing a way to cheat out the Adorable Aspect as well. Explanations of grinded achievements in the deck page.
While Tiny Toys does curve out perfectly after Boggspine Knuckles, non elemental shamans do have a hard time sticking on the board before the stat swing. I feel Evolve Shaman needs something stickier in that regard.
Zoolock just isn't very good these days and even then, the closest they could be to viable is through Egg shenanigans, not Demons. And while Shady Bartender has the power to make Demon Zoo-lock into a thing again (and his effect is very powerful in a vacuum), there just aren't enough good early game demons right now. I can expect at least one small demon to help this card in this expansion.
Would Handlock even be playable in today's meta? Sure, it's not a bad card at all, but I feel like the days of Warlocks just stacking their hands is kind of long gone.
Indeed. In fact, one of the things that helped Handlocks stabilize was giving those Giants Taunt with both Sunfury Protector and Defender of Argus, of which one of them is gone.
The only reddemable attribute Dark Alley Pact is the fact that it synergizes with Tamsin Roame, but even then, it's a 7 mana combo for just a bunch of stats. I'm sure Warlocks would rather do that through Soulciologist Malicia, because most of the stat dump that way has Rush.
While not amazing, some Secret Paladin weirdoes could just slot this in an extra late game push with the late game equivalent of a Lord Jaraxxus hero power. Let's not forget that, between First Day of School, Invalid Deck ID and all the secrets, you already have enough fuel in some decks for Rise to the Occasion to be workable. In fact, I'd argue the worst thing about this card is the first reward, since it's in conflict with Sword of the Fallen.
Out of all the quests revealed so far, this one is my favourite, not in terms of pure power (which frankly, it doesn't have, Rise to the Occasion is a very balanced card), but in terms of flavour and ability to fit the class it's on.
So, Mysterious Stranger on Air Elemental was gutted. While it is sad, and while you can argue about the priorities Blizzard have (let's face it, we all know what they are, Bobby "Goblinlord" Kotick needs a new 150M$ bonus check), it doesn't change the fact the Random Event Tile (RET for short) is still very shallow in terms of gameplay. Getting one of 4 options (Potato, Portal, Sabotage and Stranger) is boring and feels cheap. So what can we do about it? Here's my suggestions:
So, what are the events I'm suggesting?
These are just some ideas, there could easily be more of them, both beneficial and detrimental. These ideas also represent pathings with more than just 1 RET (for example, I could easily see bounties from Heroic Blackrock Mountain with 5 RETs, especially when you consider that Boons would stop showing up as Boons themselves [some tiles would still be Spirit Healers, you just also have a chance of finding them in a RET]).
Now, regarding the Mysterious Stranger, my answer is actually simple. You ALWAYS find one after completing a bounty. However, to avoid abusing early level bounties, the level of your task depends on your bounty.
These are my suggestions for events to spice up bounty runs. What do you guys think of them? Guaranteeing Mysterious Stranger as an extra reward severely diminishes frustration with grinding and the increased amount of events makes each bounty more unique and engaging. EDIT: Also, throw in more ideas if you have them, maybe we could actually see some of them in-game.
PS: Turns out it's hard to think of detrimental effects without simply gutting your team. I feel only Mud Pit! really worked as a one and done detrimental effect (Sabotage and Wrong Turn! feel very meh), with the more extreme ones (AMBUSH!!! putting you in a 6vs3 fight and Sidequest! temporarily disabling a merc [maybe you can choose which one, maybe not]) compensating the detrimental effect with a reward. I feel that is a way detrimental effects can be more engaging.
Ah, it's funny because the community found a way to be relatively competitive while being f2p and they've immediately went to the trouble of removing it rather than addressing many of the complaints regarding frustration with coin colecting or the release of what is clearly an unfinished product.
They better make tasks more available or a lot of players will just start ignoring Mercenaries altogether. I know I will if something better isn't introduced.
Just tried it out: Anduin used "Reduce 5 damage do Humans", then took 0 damage from a 5 damage attack from a Green guy. If it were (Ability Damage * Critical Damage) - Damage Reduction = Total Damage, it would have been (5 * 2) - 5 = 5 damage, so it's the 2nd option.
What's the time zone?
Are you sad that two days into Mercenaries and your Rank 2 Xyrella can't compete with those filthy whales Rank 5 max item one? Well, say no more, because Air Elemental is here to do some fast grinding for you.
How, you ask? Well, let's just use my example. I am fully f2p right now (didn't even buy the 5€ welcome bundle), but I was pretty lucky that my first pack gave me Anduin Wrynn, a pretty good legendary that was one of the cornerstones of my story mode team.
So, naturally, I thought of ways to get more Anduin Wrynn coins to make sure he stays in top shape and the only place that has a "guaranteed" chance of dropping those coins is in Lord Banehollow (and LB Heroic). Now, the quotation marks are there for a reason, I grinded the LB bounty 8 times and in only 3 of them did I get Anduin Wrynn coins (on the other hand, I got like 300 coins for Bru'kan and he became beefy now). Naturally, I was pretty disappointed at how things turned out, I spent a lot of time grinding and I barely got enough scraps for a rank 3 Holy Nova.
But how does Heroic Air Elemental help? Simple. He's the first bounty that guarantees a random event tile (I'm not sure the normal version also has one but just a lvl 30 merc should be enough to beat Heroic). And those random events can get you those sweet tasks that always nail you those sweet Anduin Wrynn coins.
So, let's talk optimization:
In case you're wondering, this is a terrible grind and, quite frankly, a boring experience. But since the game decided to hide your tasks behind the Mysterious Stranger tile, this is the fastest way to find them.
PS: Mercenary Whales, you're not filthy. You're adorable too.
Usually, when you wait for 1~2 minutes and match up with an opponent named "Your Opponent", it means that the matching system couldn't find a "fair opponent" (taking into account hero levels and skill levels on said hero), so the system "makes one up" using Blizzard AI. It's easy to know one after you matched with one, they do their moves immediatly and they do pretty obvious misplays. At least, that's what the Youtube comment section from Trump's newest PvP mercs video told me (so take my own assessment with an unhealthy pinch of salt).
As far as the difficulty concerns, you don't need 2 pre orders to make the PvE insanely easy, I didn't even buy the 5€ one (I'll possibly buy it after clearing BRM). Also, a good part of the game mode is that it's made also taking into account the ability to build more expansions and more content (from heroes to dungeons to even events, for that matter [like the one you described from Galaxy of Heroes, though I'll expect something less like something new every 3 days and more like "Strong monsters invaded Felwood", for example]).
Well, I also got the bomb event a lot and the task event a couple of times, but I've also got a portal to fight the final boss of it a couple of times. There's room for more stuff there, too.
As far as the healer goes, I just avoid those like the plague. I think I only got into it once and it was because Xyrella died. And again, there's room for improvement there.
Well, out of the 4 PvP games I played as f2p, I found 3 bots. Really small sample size, but that's really discouraging at least on the PvP side.
The PvE side is fine. When first teased (before the delay), I was overexcited, when the reveal season started, I was underexcited, so yeah... it's better than the expectation I had during reveal season but not the amazing Slay the Spire-esque I wanted during the first tease.
I guess one of the reasons why is the fact that I still believe the biggest incentive behind the game mode was the monetization process rather than the gameplay. This doesn't mean there's no gameplay design, there was just a larger focus on trying to gain money of the game mode, which is fine. However, Battlegrounds was designed with the main focus being gameplay and it became the success it did because of it.
EDIT: Also, could Blizzard please speed up the animation after the dungeon is cleared and we get to the treasure? That animation is so slow it hurts.
So, I had Augmented Elekk on the board and traded in Persistent Peddler into my deck with only one card. It generated a new one. However, the generated Persistent Peddler, when traded into the deck, doesn't keep generating cards despite it being a card shuffled into the deck, meaning Augmented Elekk's effect, which was still in play, didn't even trigger.
It's bad enough that I have to hunt achievements in Wild ranked instead of casual play despite the fact that HUNTING ACHIEVEMENTS IS THE DEFINITION OF CASUAL PLAY, I can't even do it properly because the game has more spaghetti than all of fucking Italy.
Wow, Tamsin's a dick.
Ok, so I finally got to discover an Oracle of Elune. There are a couple of ways to do it:
As you can see there's not many ways to do it. You do have a better chance of picking up an Oracle of Elune through the 3-drop pool since it is smaller than the entire minion pool. Crystalsong Portal, however, takes the cake as the card with the highest chance of discovering Oracle of Elune since there around 3/117 chance to get it.
And another thing, and this one is REALLY important: Solar Eclipse! Don't be shy to double those chances. In fact, when I finally got Oracle of Elune, it was on the second discover from a Resizing Pouch.
EDIT: Moderation team, if you want to, feel free to add my post in a spoiler with a title like: "Don't have Oracle of Elune? Here's what you can do to Discover it"
And I have the bonus step of having to discover an Oracle of Elune beforehand.
Battletag: ElSabidon#2943
Region: EU
Trade only? Yes, I'll show my quest, you go first.
EDIT: Please don't ignore me, I don't want to go to hearthpwn to do the trade :(
EDIT2: DONE
Here's a way to grind out many of the Neutral achievements while providing a way to cheat out the Adorable Aspect as well. Explanations of grinded achievements in the deck page.
Battletag: ElSabidon#2943
Region: EU
Trade only? Yes, I'll show my quest, you go first.
DONE
Here's to hoping the deck doesn't have to be competitive, I believe mine won't get that big of a winrate.
I have a feeling non-N'Zoth versions of DR DH will run this card. Tradeable is always a good keyword and the aditional cycle is always appreciated.
N'Zoth versions of DR DH, however, will still run the giga-chad Fishy Flyer.
While Tiny Toys does curve out perfectly after Boggspine Knuckles, non elemental shamans do have a hard time sticking on the board before the stat swing. I feel Evolve Shaman needs something stickier in that regard.
Zoolock just isn't very good these days and even then, the closest they could be to viable is through Egg shenanigans, not Demons. And while Shady Bartender has the power to make Demon Zoo-lock into a thing again (and his effect is very powerful in a vacuum), there just aren't enough good early game demons right now. I can expect at least one small demon to help this card in this expansion.
Indeed. In fact, one of the things that helped Handlocks stabilize was giving those Giants Taunt with both Sunfury Protector and Defender of Argus, of which one of them is gone.
The only reddemable attribute Dark Alley Pact is the fact that it synergizes with Tamsin Roame, but even then, it's a 7 mana combo for just a bunch of stats. I'm sure Warlocks would rather do that through Soulciologist Malicia, because most of the stat dump that way has Rush.
While not amazing, some Secret Paladin weirdoes could just slot this in an extra late game push with the late game equivalent of a Lord Jaraxxus hero power. Let's not forget that, between First Day of School, Invalid Deck ID and all the secrets, you already have enough fuel in some decks for Rise to the Occasion to be workable. In fact, I'd argue the worst thing about this card is the first reward, since it's in conflict with Sword of the Fallen.
Out of all the quests revealed so far, this one is my favourite, not in terms of pure power (which frankly, it doesn't have, Rise to the Occasion is a very balanced card), but in terms of flavour and ability to fit the class it's on.
PS: The Avenge the Fallen art is amazing.