Blizzard has just updated one of their Mercenaries blog posts by adding a Q&A section. People were (rightfully so) not sold on the game mode yet after a pretty convoluted presentation and a big focus on selling pack pre-orders, so those answers should at least partially alleviate players’ doubts.
You can find full Q&A below, but here are the new things we’ve learned from it:
- Every Mercenary can be unlocked for free by playing the game. Players get 8 of them after completing tutorial and 51 in total will be available at launch.
- Each Mercenary you own will give you a series of Campfire Tasks (Quests), with each Chain rewarding 3 Mercenaries Packs + 1500 Mercenaries Coins in total. It means that technically you could earn 153 Packs + over 75k Coins from those Quests. While you need to unlock all mercenaries to get every Task, even the free + Rare + most of the Epic Mercs (which will be pretty easy to get) should give you around 2/3 of that.
- Mercenaries shop will update dynamically to offer you things that you’re missing/need most.
- Crafting Mercenaries costs 100 Coins (Rare), 300 Coins (Epic), or 500 Coins (Legendary). To be honest, I expected more than that – even Legendaries will be quite easy to craft and unlock (but you will still need much more Coins to upgrade their abilities).
- Coins can be obtained from many different sources – Packs, Tasks, Bounties (PvE missions), Fighting Pit (PvP). Each bounty has a pool of Coins that it awards more regularly, so if you want to “farm” a specific Mercenary, you can repeat that Bounty multiple times.
- Playing Mercenaries will give you XP towards the regular rewards track too (sadly we don’t know the rate yet).
- Golden/Diamond Mercenaries portraits are purely cosmetic, they don’t give you any advantage. However, if you open a portrait in a pack before you open a given Mercenary, you can play that Mercenary with alternate portrait (and then opening actual Mercenary will give you the base portrait).
- Mercenaries will be capped at level 30 at launch. If you stick with your starter Mercenaries, it would take you around 10 hours to level them up to 30. Later, you will be able to run a high level Bounty with your best Mercenaries + a couple of weaker ones, leave the low level ones on the bench while your main team beast encounters and let them farm XP that way (“power-leveling”). Heroic Bounties offer 50% extra XP, while PvP is also a good way to level your Mercs apparently.
- You can friendly challenge people to Mercenaries PvP duels, like with other game modes.
- Mercenaries PvP MMR is similar to Standard/Wild and rating resets happen once per month.
- The new game mode will be added to the regular development cycle, so we should expect common updates – and depending on how popular the mode will be and its reception, they can re-adjust plans and change priorities.
- Balance changes won’t be a major part of Mercenaries. It’s mostly PvE so it doesn’t matter if players find some strong strategy to beat AI, while PvP fights will be not only MMR, but also power level based, so they should dynamically balance themselves. However, they might step in if something unintended or game-breaking happens.
Read full Q&A here:
With an entirely new way to play, it’s understandable that you might have questions about how everything will work when Mercenaries launches on October 12. We’ve listened to community feedback and have prepared some answers to your most common questions:
Q: How much does Hearthstone Mercenaries cost?
A: Mercenaries is completely free to play! Each Mercenary Card and Mercenary Portrait can be unlocked through regular play. You get eight free Mercenaries for completing the introductory missions, which is more than enough to form a Party powerful enough to complete all Mercenaries Bounties! You’ll also earn Mercenaries, Mercenary Packs, and Mercenary Coins as you play through the mode to unlock many more characters for your roster. For instance, each Mercenary you own will give you a series of Campfire tasks over time. The rewards for completing each Mercenary’s Campfire task chain include 3 packs and over 1500 total Mercenary Coins split between your mercs and random mercs you don’t yet own! There will be 51 Mercenaries at launch, so that amounts to 153 Mercenary Packs and over 76,500 Mercenary Coins just for completing all the Campfire tasks.
For players who want to invest in their Mercenaries experience, the Mercenaries Shop will also dynamically update over time to offer items based on how you play and what you like to buy. Whether you plan to collect all the different Mercenary Cards you can, hunt Mercenary Portraits, or just focus on a few favorite mercs, you can check back often to see what the shop has for you.
Q: Is Hearthstone Mercenaries part of the Book of Mercenaries?
A: No, Hearthstone Mercenaries is a new mode that combines RPG and roguelike elements, while Book of Mercenaries is solo-content within Hearthstone’s traditional gameplay. The two modes have different gameplay and you do not need to play one before you play the other. That said, all your favorite Mercenary characters from Book of Mercenaries do appear in Hearthstone Mercenaries, alongside over 40 other iconic characters from the Warcraft universe!
Q: How many Mercenary Coins does it cost to craft a Mercenary you don’t own?
(UPDATED) A: Mercenary Coins are specific to each Mercenary. Those Mercenary Coins can be used to upgrade a Mercenary’s Abilities and Equipment, or to craft the Mercenary if you do not already own it. The cost to craft a Mercenary depends on the Mercenary’s rarity: 100 Coins for Rares, 300 Coins for Epics, and
600500 Coins for Legendary Mercenaries.Q: How do we get these Mercenary Coins?
A: You can get Mercenary Coins a number of ways, including from purchases, Mercenary Packs, Campfire tasks, Fighting Pit rewards, and Bounties. Each Bounty has a pool of Mercenary Coins that it pulls from more regularly, so returning to a Bounty that you’ve already beaten can be a good way to work towards a particular Mercenary you want.
Q: What’s in a Mercenaries Pack?
A: A Mercenaries Pack can be purchased for 100 Gold, like current Hearthstone packs. A Mercenaries Pack includes 5 Mercenaries items, which can include new Mercenary Cards, Mercenary Coins, or Mercenary Portraits. You are guaranteed one new Mercenary Card in each Mercenaries Pack until you have all Mercenaries of a rarity tier. The rates for Legendary and Epic Mercenary Cards are equivalent to the rates for Legendary and Epic cards in traditional Hearthstone packs. You can learn more details about Mercenaries Packs here.
Playing in Mercenaries will give you XP towards your rewards track, so you can earn Gold for your packs from playing.
Q: What are Mercenary Portraits?
A: Mercenary Portraits are alternative art options for a Mercenary, each reflecting a different stage of that character’s personal journey. Just like Golden and Diamond frames, there is no gameplay difference between different Portraits for the same Mercenary—they just let you customize how your squad represents you! Usually, when you first obtain a Mercenary, you will get their default Portrait. On rare occasions, you might get an alternate Portrait before you have received the default Portrait. When that happens, that Mercenary will become unlocked and playable with that Portrait, just like if it was the default.
Q: How long will it take to max my Mercenary’s level?
A: It depends on how you play. At launch, each Mercenary will be capped at level 30. Whenever you get a new Mercenary Card, that Mercenary will start at level 1. If you just stick with your starting team and play through Bounties as they unlock, we expect it to take less than 10 hours of gameplay to max level your starting Mercenaries. The Fighting Pit is also a pretty good source of experience, and can fully level a Party slightly quicker than playing through those first Bounties.
Later on, you’ll be able to stick new Mercenaries on the Bench and have them watch your more powerful Mercenaries take on tougher Bounties. Remember, all members of a Party get the same experience from fights, even if they don’t participate. Power-levelling like that could cut the leveling time drastically. Heroic Bounties offer 50% more experience than the normal versions, so things can get even quicker in late-game Mercenaries!
Q: Can players challenge each other to Mercenaries fights?
A: Yes! The Fighting Pits are open for friendly challenge like in Standard, Wild, and Battlegrounds. You’ll also be able to spectate your friends playing Mercenaries!
Q: What will the Mercenaries Leaderboard look like?
A: The leaderboard will show the top 200 Fighting Pit players, by their numerical ranks, based on their internal MMR, like the Standard and Wild leaderboards. Rating resets will happen once per month, while MMR will adjust over time, similar to the Standard and Wild internal MMR calculations.
Q: How often should we expect updates to Mercenaries?
A: We plan to make Mercenaries content part of our regular development cycle, with regular updates in most patches and at least one large update per expansion cycle, like Battlegrounds. We are really excited about what avenues this mode can open up to us for entirely new features down the line, too. Depending on how the mode and playerbase develop, we may adjust and re-prioritize our plans to best serve the overall Hearthstone community, just like we do with all the other modes.
Q: What is the balance adjustment philosophy for Mercenaries?
A: Mercenaries has a large PVE component and we don’t mind it if players find a way to beat up on the A.I. Even in the Fighting Pits, any power outliers can be smoothed out by our dynamic matchmaking that takes things like team power into account. For those reasons, we don’t anticipate balance changes being a major part of the Mercenaries development cycle. But, of course, if there are game-breaking or unintended interactions, we will make any changes necessary to correct them.
Again with the usual late after the deafening silence. It rather seems that Blizzard can’t pay enough people to do announcement job better.
I guess enough rant for today. I’m just gonna playing Death Stranding.
(Offtopic) I got a PS5 recently* and I’m waiting for Director’s Cut to come out before I try Death Stranding out. I’ve heard very mixed opinions, either praising the game or saying that it’s very boring. But I definitely want to try it out myself.
*It’s actually my first console ever, I’ve gamed on PC my whole life, but my GPU is close to dying, I can’t get a new one at a normal price, so I settled for a console to play through all the PS exclusives before (hopefully) GPU market will be back to normal in a year or two. So far I don’t regret, I’ve missed so many great exclusives.
If you care to read my review, here goes.
There goes a moment when you realize that Kojima can actually make a decent game. And this one is actually far beyond decent. Game world aspect is so beautifully polished, plot like always, mysteriously explained and you will understand by the end of the game (almost cried at the end, because it is a sad story). Game Mechanic is unique, and balanced in it’s on way. And Game music is 10/10, so correctly adjusted to the feeling you get while traversing the country.
So, after about 60 hours gametime, I could summarize.
PROS
– The game is about connecting people and help each other, although you won’t meet any other player, just their signs and trace.
– Boundaries within the game, like building roads, mapping Zip-Line, or crossing brutal terrain is easily overcome with extra help from online aspect. You could also do it in Offline mode, albeit very slow and time consuming.
– There’s answer to every problem, just need to progress further in story to unlock more tech to help you easier. Such as, killing ghost (BT), or subduing bandit MULE.
CONS
– Game world so big but also doesn’t really have anything in it. Imagine a big aquarium with several colorful stones and that’s it. Most of the time, you feel so boring travelling at one point.
First several hours probably had the best feeling you have.
– There’s not much to do in game besides delivering stuffs. You really spent 75% times just delivering stuffs. and that’s it. The rest of the game is fighting BT and miniboss.
– Scenes are very lengthy, and a lot. There will be time where you want to just press ESC and skip the slow take. but I suggest you don’t skip the end scenes with Mads Mikkelsen & BB because his story is by far the most emotional.
Any chance we can get rid of the Back at it again at Krispee Kreme ad? Its super annoying on mobile and it says “recommended videos” but its literally only ever that video