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Hex: Shards of Fate MMOTCG - Closed Beta Thread
- Thread starter ultron87
- Start date
Minsc
Gold Member
Actually you can get gold now, you're awarded gold for playing tournaments. You can use the gold you get from doing tournaments to upgrade your chests to rarer ones with better prizes; even though they can't be opened, they can still be upgraded. Eventually when PVE is added, you probably won't be awarded gold from tournaments.
So I guess there's not much here for f2p players until PvE has been implemented?
Edit: just read Minsc's post above, but tournaments aren't free are they?
Tourneys cost $1. The only thing you can right now without spending any money is play a free starter deck against the AI or other players.
Minsc
Gold Member
Well there's constructed, sealed and draft tournaments.
I imagine they all cost money, because you are awarded either 2 or 5 booster packs for winning, or 5,000 gold (generally the gold for placing 5th-8th, boosters 1st-4th).
It says to have 3 hours free for a tournament, so I haven't tried one yet.
I did notice the draft section was way more popular than the other two. At this point in the day it looks like a sealed or constructed tournament might take 3 hours to start, lol.
So that's not bad then, $1 for a constructed tournament, and the prize is booster packs or 5,000 gold, no matter where you place? I bet people almost want to place 4th - 8th to get the 5,000 gold, that's 4 chests you can upgrade.
I imagine a draft tournament costs boosters too? I couldn't find that actual prices of entry for the various tournaments.
Minsc
Gold Member
So reading a little more, this makes it looks like the three choices of tournaments are:
Constructed really only costs $1 (100 platinum) and awards out $10 of booster packs for 1st place (and $4+ for 2nd-4th, and 5,000 gold for the rest)? Or did I get the math wrong?
Sealed must cost 6 booster packs to play, and Draft must cost 3 in addition to the 100 platinum.
Constructed really only costs $1 (100 platinum) and awards out $10 of booster packs for 1st place (and $4+ for 2nd-4th, and 5,000 gold for the rest)? Or did I get the math wrong?
Sealed must cost 6 booster packs to play, and Draft must cost 3 in addition to the 100 platinum.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Loot drops via PVE, chest rolls after opening each pack, even packs themselves can be earned free. In general, gold itself is generally earned through PVE quests. Chests are given with each pack, so they are a *bonus* to something that's typically paid for. Also, you can sell chests and packs on the auction house for either gold, plat, or just for trade.
The loot drops, chest rolls, and chests can get you gold, alternate art cards, deck sleeves, packs, even tournament entry tickets, etc. A lot of free stuff to get.
Note: loot drops probably won't get you PVP stuff like packs and tournament entry tickets. That stuff is most likely reserved for the chests and chest rolls.
Minsc
Gold Member
So it sounds like in Hex it may be pretty difficult to play the PVE as a free player, and also enjoy the PVP competitively for free.
Certainly getting free drafts sounds like a difficult thing to do, not at the pace of 1 free draft every 2 days, like in HS.
I'm pretty sure if I entered a constructed tournament right now, with one of those pre-made decks, I would be embarrassed so bad it wouldn't even be funny, and I have the ~800 cards or so you get without opening packs as a King backer (though I guess 1/2 or more of those are land cards).
The whole fact that they have two currencies, and a F2P player just gets one of them, while the PVP stuff is mostly locked behind the other, would seem to make it pretty unfriendly towards people who don't want to spend any money at all.
As you run out of the AI and other milestone gold rewards, getting that free draft takes much longer and is far more grueling if you are not spending any money in hearthstone. Not a fair statement at all.
Edit: looking at the last page of the Hearthstone OT and seeing complaints of quests taking much longer to complete and playing against people who "pay2win" echo this.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
The PVE aspect alone is gonna be huge and is actually the thing that Cory Jones is most excited for -- he also expects it to be the biggest part of Hex. As for the PVP gameplay - players who want to play absolutely free have the option to do so via trading PVE stuff in the auction house for PVP stuff. Regardless, I doubt there will be many players who play absolutely free anyway and it's not like the things that actually do cost money are expensive. Also, one single pack gives you a chest and one of the possible rewards of that chest is another pack with another chest which could theoretically give you another chest with another pack, etc. That's the type of value that comes with just a single pack potentially. Also, the auction house specifically is gonna be a pretty great way for people who don't want to spend any or much money to get things that would otherwise cost money and that's something you can't do at all in Hearthstone. Granted, and in fairness, you can get anything in Hearthstone with a time investment, however large it may be.
That's the other thing -- anytime money can be used to get around the time investment of a F2P game will always make people think there's a pay2win option. That's actually why I think it's pretty clever of CZE to separate PVE and PVP gameplay into two categories: completely free and (without trading, at least) a paywall. People have the expectation that PVP will require some type of paywall, even if there is a way around it.
Minsc
Gold Member
I pretty much know HS inside and out, you can ~90% guarantee yourself 80g a day (60g quest + 6 wins = 80g), and a draft / arena is 150g. So every other day. And that's if you get no gold at all in your arena, which is unlikely if you're decent.
The people complaining are people who don't know how to play / flip the quests properly.
I'm just skeptical PVE stuff will trade at all evenly towards PVP stuff, since the free PVE stuff will be gotten by basically all the players, while the PVP stuff will not be too accessible by the F2P players.
Whenever you release a F2P game, people will complain that when they lose to people who spent money / have better cards, it is P2W.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
It really depends on two factors: how rare the PVE stuff is to get (the really rare, legendary stuff) and how popular the PVE ultimately is. Also, I'm pretty sure that even if PVP cards don't trade too well with PVE stuff, the packs, chests, and entry fee tickets will. The question will be whether or not PVP players want to trade for really good PVE stuff that requires a whole lot of time and luck to get.
That was my point (well, Ryuukan's point first =P) - with that said, I'm not saying that it's (always) a valid complaint (I think Hearthstone, for all intents and purposes, does F2P really well). The only time anything F2P doesn't make people complain is when the only things that are able to be purchased are cosmetic items. I just think CZE kinda saw this and tried to remove that complaint by separating the two completely (that way when people do lose in PVP, they won't feel "cheated").
Minsc
Gold Member
Yeah, I see what you're saying... and I think that's what I was saying too. Hex is more setup so that a F2P / PVE player can't really compete against the better PVP decks without spending money, in PVP. Where in Hearthstone, people take F2P accounts with free decks to the top of the PVP ladder (just this season a deck with only commons and uncommons, no expensive epic or legendary cards became one of the strongest).
As to your first point, "The question will be whether or not PVP players want to trade for really good PVE stuff that requires a whole lot of time and luck to get," it doesn't sound like there's much point for a PVP player to trade for really good PVE stuff, since you don't get to use PVE stuff in the PVP modes, right?
Being unable to use PVE cards that you buy with free gold (not the paid currency, platinum) / earn for free, in the PVP mode is the main reason why F2P will be unable to compete in PVP modes. But I think it will be more like you say, F2P players will see PVP as a pay-to-play mode, not a free-to-play or pay-to-win mode.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I don't doubt that people can play Hearthstone and play completely free, but I seriously doubt the majority of players play HS without paying any money at all. It's why I don't think the PVP/PVE separation is gonna matter much. Nothing in Hex is expensive, so the money sink isn't that much. I think we are saying the same thing, but I don't believe F2P games are mostly played completely free by the majority of players. Otherwise, no company would want to make one.
There's gonna be an unrestricted PVP mode where all cards are allowed, so in that circumstance PVP players may want some PVE cards for that mode. I don't think rewards are gonna be in that mode though, but I could be wrong. It's mainly because that mode will be really unfair due to PVE cards having the potential to be really overpowered. Also, we shouldn't assume that PVP players won't play PVE. If anyone is interested in playing PVE at all, then they may want to trade PVP stuff (especially if it's stuff that they don't need) for PVE stuff. Also, there's other cosmetic things available in PVE that PVP players may want. Blizzard has shown that players are willing to spend money for completely cosmetic items, so I think people who play PVP will be completely willing to trade PVP stuff for PVE stuff. Another thing to keep in mind is the (current) guild system - that's strictly a PVE thing with a PVP team option where a guild can create multiple teams within a guild that compete for the guild in PVP. Major guild functions are PVE focused, however. That mix of PVE/PVP along with chest rolls requiring gold will help keep the two player bases together.
NOTE: That guild system could change. It may have already. That's the latest information I have heard about it as far as the way it was probably going.
I think this is a fair assessment. My point is that I don't think Hex is gonna have two completely separate player bases. I think the majority of players will play both.
SpiceMelange
Member
Call me negative Nancy, but I'm kind of disappointed of the progress of Hex, not in term of design but in term of stability, fluidity, game pace, features and general performance. Games still feel laggy, with sync hangs (why is there even a need for a sync step, Magic Online does fine without) 6 months since I've first tried the game. I can't help but feel like they have the same weakness the guys from Magic Online have; cool ideas, bad implementation (are their programmers too green?).
And whenever I boot the game on my Macbook (and such Macbook proceed to blast full speed his fans) or to browse the laggy card manager, I can't help but wonder if such a huge framework like Unity was really needed for a card game. In my opinion a HTML5/JS node/webkit desktop app would have made so much more sense (like Popcorn Time on github). The program would have been way lighter, wouldn't eat so much ressources for a card game (while easily be as attractive visually as it is right now). More importantly, it would have been easy to then port it to a web version and tablets versions would have been trivial too.
And whenever I boot the game on my Macbook (and such Macbook proceed to blast full speed his fans) or to browse the laggy card manager, I can't help but wonder if such a huge framework like Unity was really needed for a card game. In my opinion a HTML5/JS node/webkit desktop app would have made so much more sense (like Popcorn Time on github). The program would have been way lighter, wouldn't eat so much ressources for a card game (while easily be as attractive visually as it is right now). More importantly, it would have been easy to then port it to a web version and tablets versions would have been trivial too.
AbundantChoice
Member
Just completed a draft tournament... looks like tournaments are working again.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I wouldn't really worry about stability/performance until open beta. Backers weren't originally supposed to get into the alpha at all (originally we were promised a week, but CZE let us in because it got delayed). Closed beta is a major step, but it still doesn't mean that the game is gonna be stable. Open beta is where we should start seeing more stability and better performance. Games get delayed. It happens to the best of developers, so I fully expected it to happen to CZE. Now that we're in closed beta though, we are gonna see a lot more features being put in as well. I think CZE wants to do a major update every week/2 weeks that'll include something substantial. The first update, last I heard, is supposedly the auction house.
AbundantChoice
Member
Strike that last "drafts are working again" statement, got halfway through a new one and everything crashed.
I'm going to be doing A LOT of giveaways on my stream when the tournament servers re-launch (will be drafting), please check out my stream for further info:
www.twitch.tv/hexedhavoc
I will be giving away games on Steam/Origin, an Alternate-Art Ozawa card, and much more.
Appreciate all the follows! Cheers <3
HAVOC
www.twitch.tv/hexedhavoc
I will be giving away games on Steam/Origin, an Alternate-Art Ozawa card, and much more.
Appreciate all the follows! Cheers <3
HAVOC
JustProgress
Member
Tourneys are up!?
nope, they're bugged again
yes but they are pretty bugged right now
JustProgress
Member
Bah, damn. Forums are down too lol
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I'm just testing decks and playing AI tournaments for the time being -- it's awesome building decks with a limited collection as opposed to having all the cards available. It's gonna help me become better at the game as a result. Also, dat victory screen.
It really does help expose you to the other cards in the game when you don't have 4x every great card. Have to be much more creative.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Spiritreaver
Member
It does! I had no intentions of making an inspire deck, but so many of my primal pulls were things that worked well with inspire. So I threw something together and so far it works out alright, lol.
Loving the Buccaneer. No reason to not put him in a Blue deck even if he doesn't fit in thematically (like with my Dwarf/Robot deck)
Same with Sapper's Charge. IMO every deck can use a cheap burn.
I really love the now card layout
What sucks is the lack of proper matchmaking. Hopefully that's a future feature...
Since I've got 18 boosters left I was going to try out sealed and draft, but unfortunately Buy Platinum doesn't work for me (does nothing when I click it). Oh, well.
Matchmaking works fine for me? Unless you mean skill-based matchmaking but it's unrealistic to expect them to have that in place by now.
Clicking "Buy Platinum" should open a window in your webbrowser. So take a look there if you haven't yet.
Yeah, by "proper" I meant skillbased. Matched against a random is for a newbie like me more often than not the very definition of anti-fun.
No window in my browser is opened. I checked the forums and others have the same issue. May be a Windows 8 problem...
This is the deck I'm using right now:
http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/#!/deck=6006
..and the combination of evasion, removal, bouncing and card drop is pissing my opponents off to no end (which is always a plus in my book).
That Vampire King is also hilariously OP.
http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/#!/deck=6006
..and the combination of evasion, removal, bouncing and card drop is pissing my opponents off to no end (which is always a plus in my book).
That Vampire King is also hilariously OP.
charlequin
Banned
Definitely. The equivalent card in Magic, without the cost boost, has been a staple playable in numerous formats for years. Obviously the cost equation on a lot of things is a bit different in Hex but this kind of tempo is still great.
JustProgress
Member
This is the deck I'm using right now:
http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/#!/deck=6006
..and the combination of evasion, removal, bouncing and card drop is pissing my opponents off to no end (which is always a plus in my book).
That Vampire King is also hilariously OP.
How you have 3 of them already?
Got 90 boosters with my KS pledge and got a little lucky I guess.
JustProgress
Member
Damn, that's awesome. Haven't gotten any of the super-OPs yet in my pulls.
Spiritreaver
Member
Jelly, I have one, and really want to make a deck with him, but one is not enough.
Jelly, I have one, and really want to make a deck with him, but one is not enough.
If it's any consolation, I pulled exactly one Volcannon (an UNCOMMON) which is vital in my Dwarf/Robot deck.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I can't can't believe I only pulled one ancestor chosen and 0 eldritch dreamers :l
Yeah, I heard it's in the next major update which is scheduled within the next two weeks.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Yeah I have 4 angel of dawns and 2 of the blood legendary dragon to dump off.
But I rather trade directly than put stuff up on the AH when it comes to legendaries and rares.
Angel of Dawn is obviously stronger in a set so just throwing them up 1 at a time on the AH would suck. Doubly so when the game is just starting and the cards dont have a stable value yet. Then again maybe I can get extra that way.
JustProgress
Member
Anyone have any of their KS codes they want to sell? Backed at King, wish I had backed more now.