What a disappointing and utterly disrespectful move to flat out remove this game mode. I know it wasn't the most popular choice for players but it was such a break from the norm with so many different ways to play and experience the game. Why does Mercenaries, arguably an even more horrendous flop, get to continue to soak up memory but Duels was removed?
It just feels like a slap in the face to even a part of the loyal player base. I knew this was coming, but in addition to quest requirements being upped by 300% and experience only being doubled, it just seems like they couldn't care less about the player experience, regardless of demographic size. Is the bottom line of profit from this game really suffering that much? Hell, 90% of the assets in Duels were recycled from other parts of the game.
With that out of the way, what do you think? Will you miss Duels? Was their decision to discontinue the game mode just?
"What if they don't want game modes to be successful?" Something like this I heard in a video once and it was quite surprising but it makes a lot of sense. The idea of such game modes might be mostly to have something else to do if someone tired of the main game mode. In fact Battlegrounds might have been a big mistake and now they're just trying to salvage what they can. No idea about Mercenaries though; that one seems to stand out, but I guess this somehow still makes a lot of money because of packs purchases or something. Duels though? I mean it's kinda like normal Constructed but you don't need as much cards. So from that perspective it just takes a lot more resources and they make less money from it. Pretty much the same reason why they don't make single player content anymore: More resources but not only can't they realistically charge more but in fact even less. Like what was it? 20 or so for the entire adventure I think? Compare that to normal pack sales from an expansion for Constructed play... I suspect that many might have played primarily Duels and a lot of other people don't even really use it as "something else to play when you're tired of the main game". That would be my guess as to why this happened. At least that would make a lot of sense for the above reasons.
I personally just hope they add good social features like guilds eventually. I think that would be great for everyone. Obviously for us players but also for them because people find more fun in the game that way and with that are more likely to stick around and buy stuff. It seems strange they haven't done it yet but maybe I'm also overestimating how much impact that would have for them. It would just be awesome for us but if that doesn't translate into more money for them...
At least they continue to make fun cards like Cho'gall (Twilight Chieftain of course, lol). Maybe they will make more cards like that so that like in Duels it doesn't feel like all the same all the time. But I'm not sure how much they could really do. Since you always need that one Start of Game effect minion which is mostly rather lame or at least you don't want your deck full with those cards. Cho'gall is at least pretty nice and not as boring as Renathal.
What I think would be really cool and awesome would be if you could take those Anomalies from Cho'gall directly into your deck but they don't take up a deck slot and they say like "If your opponent also has an anomaly card..." or so. That would be amazing. Or maybe not as much because I don't really come across many people that play the new Whizbang, Cho'gall, and the like. Better social features would really be what I wish for the most.
It was my favourite game mode, so yeah im not happy about it. It was just a nice alternative to ranked for someone who plays HS since the start. Especially now, since they lost control over standard.
Maybe they really removed it to force players into the other game modes.
Player since closed beta and I thought the mode was rather dumb. I never played it past whatever initial engagement they required for some reward . I equate duels with Warcraft rumble ….i played rumble to collect the cardback ,uninstalled it immediately after that and will never touch it again. Mercs is a standalone game that people who don’t know any better still spend money on. It’s zero maintenance and that’s why it’s still around. If you want a completely stagnant duels mode that never changes they could have left it in but it must have been such a waste of space they removed it to keep the file size down. They better do something with Twist or it’s going to end up the same way.
I am trully disappointed. I've been playing duels since the very start and enjoyed every season of it. It was the only mode I've been still playing in HS and I even started dusting copies of every card in game as I didn't need them anymore. I don't understand that... Have they announced anything else? Will it be back one day or changed at some point?
I LOVED playing Duels, much more than regular Hearthstone actually.
To me it also was a way to finish those grindy achievements without dropping in Hearthstone Ranked (I hit Platinum once. I was shocked).
It was a way to get that weekly Quest faster too (the one where you must win 5 [now 15] Brawl, Battlegrounds or Arena [or Duels, in the good old days]).
So without Duels it's possibly harder to get achievements rewards XP and Quest XP. Which means less Gold at the end of the season.
Last expansion has very few achievements as compared to the previous ones (hence less XP to gain hence less Gold to get).
Duels had no paying option: you had to play with regular cards. No avatars or anything to spend real money on. On the contrary, Battlegrounds is all about cosmetics and Battle pass and such, and I can only guess a lot of people do pay to enjoy all that insignificant stuff.
So in my opinion killing Duels is a way to reroute players to Battlegrounds, whether they like it or not, and reward less and less Gold to casual players.
The tripling of the Weekly Quests chores is another example. Such a shitmove can only drive casual players away from the game. How will that help Blizzard to get even more money? I do not know. Most non-hardcore players now have a choice to play for fun and for climbing the ladder OR play to finish those gawddamn Quest chores in time.
My opinion on the survival of Mercenaries is not that they're still making money out of it (on the contrary I guess). But they had players spend millions of hard-earned dollars to buy specific Mercenaries cards packs. They just can't remove the game now after so many people paid for them. (I still own no less than 100 unopened Mercenaries packs that I didn't pay for and do not care about.)
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-- ShrallSeb Casual-yet-daily player
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What a disappointing and utterly disrespectful move to flat out remove this game mode. I know it wasn't the most popular choice for players but it was such a break from the norm with so many different ways to play and experience the game. Why does Mercenaries, arguably an even more horrendous flop, get to continue to soak up memory but Duels was removed?
It just feels like a slap in the face to even a part of the loyal player base. I knew this was coming, but in addition to quest requirements being upped by 300% and experience only being doubled, it just seems like they couldn't care less about the player experience, regardless of demographic size. Is the bottom line of profit from this game really suffering that much? Hell, 90% of the assets in Duels were recycled from other parts of the game.
With that out of the way, what do you think? Will you miss Duels? Was their decision to discontinue the game mode just?
"What if they don't want game modes to be successful?" Something like this I heard in a video once and it was quite surprising but it makes a lot of sense. The idea of such game modes might be mostly to have something else to do if someone tired of the main game mode. In fact Battlegrounds might have been a big mistake and now they're just trying to salvage what they can. No idea about Mercenaries though; that one seems to stand out, but I guess this somehow still makes a lot of money because of packs purchases or something. Duels though? I mean it's kinda like normal Constructed but you don't need as much cards. So from that perspective it just takes a lot more resources and they make less money from it. Pretty much the same reason why they don't make single player content anymore: More resources but not only can't they realistically charge more but in fact even less. Like what was it? 20 or so for the entire adventure I think? Compare that to normal pack sales from an expansion for Constructed play... I suspect that many might have played primarily Duels and a lot of other people don't even really use it as "something else to play when you're tired of the main game". That would be my guess as to why this happened. At least that would make a lot of sense for the above reasons.
I personally just hope they add good social features like guilds eventually. I think that would be great for everyone. Obviously for us players but also for them because people find more fun in the game that way and with that are more likely to stick around and buy stuff. It seems strange they haven't done it yet but maybe I'm also overestimating how much impact that would have for them. It would just be awesome for us but if that doesn't translate into more money for them...
At least they continue to make fun cards like Cho'gall (Twilight Chieftain of course, lol). Maybe they will make more cards like that so that like in Duels it doesn't feel like all the same all the time. But I'm not sure how much they could really do. Since you always need that one Start of Game effect minion which is mostly rather lame or at least you don't want your deck full with those cards. Cho'gall is at least pretty nice and not as boring as Renathal.
What I think would be really cool and awesome would be if you could take those Anomalies from Cho'gall directly into your deck but they don't take up a deck slot and they say like "If your opponent also has an anomaly card..." or so. That would be amazing. Or maybe not as much because I don't really come across many people that play the new Whizbang, Cho'gall, and the like. Better social features would really be what I wish for the most.
It was my favourite game mode, so yeah im not happy about it. It was just a nice alternative to ranked for someone who plays HS since the start. Especially now, since they lost control over standard.
Maybe they really removed it to force players into the other game modes.
Player since closed beta and I thought the mode was rather dumb. I never played it past whatever initial engagement they required for some reward . I equate duels with Warcraft rumble ….i played rumble to collect the cardback ,uninstalled it immediately after that and will never touch it again. Mercs is a standalone game that people who don’t know any better still spend money on. It’s zero maintenance and that’s why it’s still around. If you want a completely stagnant duels mode that never changes they could have left it in but it must have been such a waste of space they removed it to keep the file size down. They better do something with Twist or it’s going to end up the same way.
I am trully disappointed. I've been playing duels since the very start and enjoyed every season of it. It was the only mode I've been still playing in HS and I even started dusting copies of every card in game as I didn't need them anymore. I don't understand that... Have they announced anything else? Will it be back one day or changed at some point?
Hi there,
I LOVED playing Duels, much more than regular Hearthstone actually.
To me it also was a way to finish those grindy achievements without dropping in Hearthstone Ranked (I hit Platinum once. I was shocked).
It was a way to get that weekly Quest faster too (the one where you must win 5 [now 15] Brawl, Battlegrounds or Arena [or Duels, in the good old days]).
So without Duels it's possibly harder to get achievements rewards XP and Quest XP. Which means less Gold at the end of the season.
Last expansion has very few achievements as compared to the previous ones (hence less XP to gain hence less Gold to get).
Duels had no paying option: you had to play with regular cards. No avatars or anything to spend real money on. On the contrary, Battlegrounds is all about cosmetics and Battle pass and such, and I can only guess a lot of people do pay to enjoy all that insignificant stuff.
So in my opinion killing Duels is a way to reroute players to Battlegrounds, whether they like it or not, and reward less and less Gold to casual players.
The tripling of the Weekly Quests chores is another example. Such a shitmove can only drive casual players away from the game. How will that help Blizzard to get even more money? I do not know. Most non-hardcore players now have a choice to play for fun and for climbing the ladder OR play to finish those gawddamn Quest chores in time.
My opinion on the survival of Mercenaries is not that they're still making money out of it (on the contrary I guess). But they had players spend millions of hard-earned dollars to buy specific Mercenaries cards packs. They just can't remove the game now after so many people paid for them. (I still own no less than 100 unopened Mercenaries packs that I didn't pay for and do not care about.)
--
ShrallSeb
Casual-yet-daily player