#437 - The Angry Chicken: “Mercs Are Here!”

10/11/2021

• Garrett • Jocelyn • Hat

Tracking Link:

https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/

Future Topics / Saved Emails

Intro

Welcome to The Angry Chicken!

We Played Mercenaries!

What do we think?

Thanks to the Patrons over at Patreon.com/TAC

TAC is supported by our epic Patrons. You can become a TAC Patron by going to Patreon.com/tac. Becoming a TAC patron gives you access to the TAC Discord Server, early sign ups for our tournaments, as well as the Deck Code for next week’s strategy section.

• Disc GTI
• HearthBattle
• Eric V for doubling their pledge!

Opening with Interview with Nathan and Joe

Mercenaries First Impressions

PVE

• Accessed via the Bounty Board

• Zone-themed (you’ll start in the Barrens) with multiple bounties in each zone.

• Each Bounty ends with a Boss.

• The encounters leading up to the boss are procedurally-generated.
• The Boss has loot and you can see what is offered in the chest before starting a bounty.

• You get Treasures during bounties much like what we’ve seen in other single-player HS

• A treasure is rewarded after every encounter
• J: Unexpected new synergies, like buff all Alliance characters.
• J: Not sure how you’re supposed to understand this if you don’t play WoW
• You get better treasures from elite encounters
• Not every merc gets a treasure

• Mercs heal between fights, but don’t revive.

• Sometimes there are Spirit Healers on the bounty board allowing resurrections.

• As long as they’re alive, they’re gaining XP, even if you don’t play them on the battlefield, so you can power level new mercs.
• You select 6 mercs to make up your team but only 3 can be deployed at a time.

• Remaining mercs go to the bench (reserve).
• If a merc dies you can select a replacement from your bench of remaining mercs.

• Like deck selection in Hearthstone, you can choose a mission and then craft a party. You don’t have to create your party beforehand
• Boon squares - randomly (?) show up on map, give a boost to a particular type on both sides
• If your initial target is dead by the time your merc gets to attack, they pick another target randomly
• You can hover over your opponent in PVE and see what ability and speed they queued to make better decisions about your own attacks
• We’ll talk more about Heroic mode when we talk economy.

Combat in General

• Each Merc has an ability bar with a maximum of 3 abilities to choose from.
• Attack is an important keyword in Mercenaries.

• If an ability says Attack it means the merc will do physical combat with the enemy. Which means the enemy being attacked will return damage based on their Attack.

• Other Abilities that do not say Attack are basically ranged attacks (or spells) and do not result in exchanged damage.
• Speed Rating

• With up to 6 mercenaries on board, speed rating of abilities determines the order of attack.
• The lower the number, the faster the ability.

• A speed rating of 1 will attack before a speed rating of 2.

• Damage Multipliers

• There are 3 types of mercs: Protectors (red), Fighters (green), & Casters (blue)
• Protectors x2 Fighters, Fighters x2 Casters, Casters x2 Protectors

PVP

• Combat works the same as PVE but you cannot see what abilities your opponents have chosen.
• You can’t see your opponent’s speed either. Just your own.
• Rating is similar to Battlegrounds with one big number (unless you suck then it’s a small number).
• The matchmaking sounds quite involved according to the HS devs.

Economy

• Initial tutorial reward gave a lot of coins because the next step was upgrading abilities, but then the bounty chest hardly rewarded any at all (40 total across 3 characters, randomly chosen from a pool of your party + one of three random characters, so a 6 character pool to roll from)…Higher level bounties give more rewards (level 8 barrens increase random reward box by one) However, the bounty reward included a pack that had a lot more coins (approximately 150 coins and a merc. Did get two mercs in one pack once so it’s possible)

• Heroic is harder but gives more rewards.

• Crafting costs vary. Rexxar is 500 coins, Scabbs is 100. You can’t tell their rarity in the crafting screen. Tyrion costs 300, but his currency is legendary. I’m very confused. Lich King is also 500, but you can buy him… Crafting costs are unclear
• Town Building

• Building the basics of your town is free.
• Upgrading the town unlocks after certain conditions are met. Cost of upgrade is in gold (first upgrade is 200g per building)

• J: Had 9 mercs at the end of the tutorial, with a mission to get Cornelius Roame as the first story mission. Starting mercs felt powerful.
• Bounties on the task board are quests.
• Rewards vary

• Story Quests seem to give a pack (keeps going one quest at a time until complete)
• Task quests give you 50 coins for a specific merc and 25 random (tasks are one per day per visitor slot you have unlocked)
• dailies give 2 x 25 random (only one per day)

Other Notes

Visuals

• Not everyone has a diamond portrait variant, missed opportunity IMHO
• One of my big concerns was the spacing of the playing field but you don’t notice it all that much. Ability selection covers it up anyway, and then it zooms in for combat
• Achievements pop before combat finishes, which is kind of whatever because combat is fairly predictable
• All animations in the collection/in between combat screens are satisfying (leveling up, unlocking abilities, opening packs, spending coins), makes you want to keep going
• There’s no indicator on the tavern that you have upgrades available, but it’s obvious when you open the collection to make a party from either the tavern or the mission select screen

21.4 Patch Notes

Official patch notes hit the main site. Not much to mention other than Mercs hitting and some dope new skins.

Known Launch Day Bugs

• Most Daily and Weekly Quests cannot be completed in Mercenaries. Only quests that require you to win a certain number of games in any mode, or take a number of turns, can be completed at this time. Quests can still be completed normally in the other game modes.
• In Mercenaries, the general rule is that Taunt blocks an Attack, unless the Ability designates a specific target for the Attack (such as “Attack the lowest Health enemy” or “Attack the left-most enemy”). That said, at launch there are a few Treasure Abilities that will incorrectly ignore Taunt when they shouldn’t: Ogre Warmaul, Hysteria, Mass Hysteria, To the Death!, Blinding Rage 3, and The Beast Within 1-5.
• Visual bug with the Diablo Mercenary’s Ability, Apocalypse level 3, combined with the Magma Horn Equipment, showing the wrong damage. The move applies the correct damage.
• Visual bug with the Survival of the Fittest Ability, level 1, not showing the Ability’s Speed. The correct Speed is 9.
• Rexxar’s “Mama Bear’s Claws” Equipment does not buff Mercenaries that are played before Rexxar, or to Rexxar’s left, during the placement phase. This is caused by the effects being read in play order, and from left-to-right. The workaround at this time is to play Rexxar before, and to the left of, any Beast Mercenaries you want him to buff.
• Performance bug when playing Mercenaries for longer periods (around 1.5-2 hours) will cause lag and performance slowdowns, especially in devices with less RAM. The workaround at this time is to restart the client if that begins.

Mercs Questions

Lord Commander

What's your favorite mercenary?

Note: Xyrella’s Blinding Luminance is really cool

Rank 1: Deal 2 damage to an enemy and give it -2 Attack this turn.

Shadow stuff - Natalie and Vol'Jin

Kilmarnok 

Does it feel like you’ll end up playing it daily, weekly, or as often as a tavern brawl?

Outro

Patreon Thanks

TAC is supported by our epic Patrons. You can become a TAC Patron by going to Patreon.com/tac. Becoming a TAC patron gives you access to the TAC Discord as well as other perks!

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, Jeffrey D, & Dustin C! TAC t-shirts are for sale at shirts.amove.tv.

The back catalogue of TAC can be found over on TheAngryChicken.com and Youtube.com/Amove2. Follow the show on Twitter @TACpodcast!

Catch the live show Monday nights at 8:00pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/amovetv. And big thanks to briangriffithmusic.com for our music.

Personal Stuff

Joce where can you be found?

Follow Jocelyn @JocePlays

The Gamers’ Inn

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

Amove.tv: Into the Nexus | Let’s Talk About Star Wars | WoW Killer

Hat stuff

http://twitter.com/RidiculousHat

Coin Concede, Vicious Syndicate