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Hex: Shards of Fate MMOTCG - Closed Beta Thread

IllumiNate

IllumiNate

Member
I cracked open 250 packs today! I couldn't control myself.
I have about 200 left, which I'll use for drafts. I don't see me playing more then 3 drafts a week. So those packs should last me a good 6 months, even if I scrub out in all of them. (Won't happen)
I may be willing to sell one of my draft for a year codes. What would be a fair price you guys think?
Out of all the packs I've opened I only cracked 1 Angel and 1 Vampire King, I have tons of traders I'll be willing to trade in your favour for either of those cards if anyone's willing.

Also add me in game everyone. Keep name is illuminati
 
Q

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
I'm sitting on 4 angels. so if you can hook me up with some eldritch dreamers and ancestors chosen I'll gladly throw them your way :p
 
I

Izayoi

Banned
IllumiNate said:
I cracked open 250 packs today! I couldn't control myself.
I have about 200 left, which I'll use for drafts. I don't see me playing more then 3 drafts a week. So those packs should last me a good 6 months, even if I scrub out in all of them. (Won't happen)
I may be willing to sell one of my draft for a year codes. What would be a fair price you guys think?
Out of all the packs I've opened I only cracked 1 Angel and 1 Vampire King, I have tons of traders I'll be willing to trade in your favour for either of those cards if anyone's willing.

Also add me in game everyone. Keep name is illuminati
Click to expand...
Just going off the price of the packs alone, it's worth at least $312 USD.
 
Y

Yaari

Member
I hope they will send me my Pro Player codes soon, it got stuck spam filter or something.

I really love how the game is coming along, but the client needs quite some work as some of you suggested earlier. I had 30% of my boosters just bug on me, and the first game I played got stuck.

It's to be expected of a Alpha I guess, but they went Beta too soon IMO. Not that much of an issue with me but I just hope they will throw out a few updates soon.
 
A

Arveene

Neo Member
Yaari said:
I hope they will send me my Pro Player codes soon, it got stuck spam filter or something.

I really love how the game is coming along, but the client needs quite some work as some of you suggested earlier. I had 30% of my boosters just bug on me, and the first game I played got stuck.

It's to be expected of a Alpha I guess, but they went Beta too soon IMO. Not that much of an issue with me but I just hope they will throw out a few updates soon.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty disappointed with the way closed beta has gone so far. Honestly, I feel that once you start taking money and everything is for keepsies, your game is live and needs to be mostly bug free. Even disregarding that, I think they tried to release too much at once. This should have been done this in steps. Move to the new hardware, wipe and do some sort of backer reward redemption stress test. All the problems that are currently happening would have popped up and been handled without the stress of knowing that everything is now permanent. Now they're dealing with the server issues, tons of people trying to change account logins, and actual collections and money is at stake. They moved over to move powerful live hardware without any large amount of user testing and it's totally messed up right now. The servers in their current state are worse than they were towards the end of alpha and that's completely unacceptable. I think the worst part of it is the amount of people defending it because it's "beta". If this was an actual beta, then they shouldn't have started taking money and giving out the backer rewards.

Maybe my rant is uncalled for, but after spending so much time following their official forums I needed to vent a bit. I do like the game, I love it. Their ideas and concepts for using the digital aspect of the game are great. I played MTG for a very long time. Played some MTGO, but felt like I'd rather just play the physical game if I was going to play at all. The lower price of packs is very nice since they're not handcuffed by the cost of a physical game. The client could still use some work, but it's still better than MTGO. I'm hoping that they clear up the server issues early this week and it ends up being fine.

Edit: Do we have a list/google doc of everyone in the beta?
 
R

Ryuukan

Member
I think they took a cue from blizzard because hearthstone was buggy as shit months after they stopped wipes and were taking money.

They definitely jumped the gun on starting the beta but maybe one or two more business days of work will solve the major issues.
 
A

AbundantChoice

Member
Given it's a closed beta, I don't think it's *that* bad. The first two days were really rocky, but most of the issues appear to be server related and solvable. On matches when the servers are working right, it's actually pretty smooth.

I get there's the whole "you're taking real money now, so there's no excuses for screwups", but they had to switch to the "normal" model at some point during the beta anyway, and most of the issues people are having aren't affecting their purchases (the pack-opening animation bug doesn't actually negate or erase your cards, etc). So far the only thing that's "cost me" in the beta was a draft tourney I was in bugged out, so I had to submit a ticket to get my draft entry ticket back, but then I also got a tourney prize of a primal pack, 10,000 gold, and 2 boosters about 30 minutes after the bugged tourney crashed.

I do hope that we don't end up in the "we're in beta... FOREVER!" like Warframe has been, but i'm confident they're going to work out the worst of the kinks pretty fast.
 
M

Mugaaz

Member
I got called a troll for asking how a game that's missing half it's features, with the core of the game being 100% unplayable, while at the same time charging money for platinum can be called a "Beta".

Just give me sealed/draft/constructed tournaments that can be played to completion without game-ending bugs at least most of the time. Is that really too much to ask for in a Beta where they are collecting money? That makes me a troll? Seriously?
 
S

StMeph

Member
Mugaaz said:
I got called a troll for asking how a game that's missing half it's features, with the core of the game being 100% unplayable, while at the same time charging money for platinum can be called a "Beta".

Just give me sealed/draft/constructed tournaments that can be played to completion without game-ending bugs at least most of the time. Is that really too much to ask for in a Beta where they are collecting money? That makes me a troll? Seriously?
Click to expand...

I have to agree.

Game-breaking bugs are acceptable, but game-breaking bugs while launching full monetization is not. Even if they respond quickly and are extremely supportive, it's still a sour experience for everyone involved. But some stuff doesn't even work, and the way they chose to fix it has been less than ideal.

I am not sure why they felt like this was a good time to launch that side of it, as it could still have been Closed Beta without it.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
They turned off the tournaments while there are game-breaking bugs, have they not? I don't know what else they could do.
 
J

JustProgress

Member
Mugaaz said:
I got called a troll for asking how a game that's missing half it's features, with the core of the game being 100% unplayable, while at the same time charging money for platinum can be called a "Beta".

Just give me sealed/draft/constructed tournaments that can be played to completion without game-ending bugs at least most of the time. Is that really too much to ask for in a Beta where they are collecting money? That makes me a troll? Seriously?
Click to expand...

This happen ingame? Definitely don't go on their official forums. Shit load of fanboys ready to shoot down any criticism.
 
S

Shinjica

Member
Mugaaz said:
Kept it in Alpha until it was actually ready for Beta?
Click to expand...

What is an Alpha and what is a Beta?

I believe that was done for testing platinium market and tournament if they're working. Yeah i'ts a pain in the ass that some people get stuck during a draft (myself included) but i'm sure i'll get a refund for that and i'm confident that was done in good faith and not for grab cash.
 
S

Spiritreaver

Member
Every beta game I am playing right now as the exact same complaints and it boggles my mind. Games launch buggy outside of beta, but betas are allowed to be buggy. Hell, the bugs currently in Hex aren't even huge. SWTOR, Wildstar, ESO, FFXIV, POE, I really can't recall a beta that wasn't buggy.

That being said. They shouldn't have invoked the money costs of this game in this condition. People losing money on tournaments because of game breaking bugs is bad and should've been minimized as much as possible.

But there is nothing wrong with a beta being unfinished and buggy.. One not buggy beta doesn't warrant them all to be.

EDIT: Made my post less cranky, lol.
 
J

JustProgress

Member
DarthWufei said:
What the hell is ready for beta? Every beta game I am playing right now as the exact same complaints and it boggles my mind. Games launch buggy outside of beta, but betas are allowed to be buggy. Hell, the bugs currently in Hex aren't even huge. SWTOR, Wildstar, ESO, FFXIV, POE, I really can't recall a beta that wasn't buggy.

That being said. They shouldn't have invoked the money costs of this game in this condition. People losing money on tournaments because of game breaking bugs is bad and should've been minimized as much as possible.

But there is nothing wrong with a beta being unfinished and buggy. You're in the wrong market if you think it shouldn't be. One not buggy beta doesn't warrant them all to be.
Click to expand...

I think what he's trying to say, and what I argue too, is that we've regressed from Alpha. We had a solid, stable Alpha set up for testing things of this sort (tickets and tournies, new hardware), which wasn't utilized fully imo.

On cue: https://twitter.com/HexTCG/status/460843188433866752

Guess that means no tournaments today.
 
B

Brakara

Member
I found out how to buy platinum on Windows 8: the default browser must be Internet Explorer (mine was Chrome). Changed, bought plat and swiftly changed back to Chrome again since IE is such a piece of shit.

Now I just have to wait for swiss draft to be enabled (currently missing in tournaments though).
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
DarthWufei said:
That being said. They shouldn't have invoked the money costs of this game in this condition. People losing money on tournaments because of game breaking bugs is bad and should've been minimized as much as possible.
Click to expand...

As far as I understand, there is nothing wrong with the money aspect, buying and opening packs is working properly, and no one is currently losing money on tournaments, because they are disabled until things are fixed. Again, sounds like they're doing fine to me. I wouldn't expect a closed beta to be bug-free, or to charge money for something that is broken, which they are not doing (tournaments are disabled).
 
S

Spiritreaver

Member
Minsc said:
As far as I understand, there is nothing wrong with the money aspect, buying and opening packs is working properly, and no one is currently losing money on tournaments, because they are disabled until things are fixed. Again, sounds like they're doing fine to me. I wouldn't expect a closed beta to be bug-free, or to charge money for something that is broken, which they are not doing (tournaments are disabled).
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more. The game feels a step above alpha to me, and they brought in a lot of new things in the beta, so bugs are gonna happen.

The same thing is going to happen with PVE, probably on an even bigger scale.
 
A

AbundantChoice

Member
One thing I wish the beta had was, at least until some sort of skill ranking comes in, is some way to at least self-select into a sort of skill or category. Some signal of "i'm just messing around with some cards, I haven't really tested this deck yet yet" versus "I've opened my 500 kickstarter packs and have assembled a lethal killing machine of a deck that leaves nothing but sorrow and destruction in it's wake" versus "i'm just messing around with a starter deck to learn the mechanics" . I can't imagine those people getting matched up having a great time.
 
L

Luigi87

Member
AbundantChoice said:
One thing I wish the beta had was, at least until some sort of skill ranking comes in, is some way to at least self-select into a sort of skill or category. Some signal of "i'm just messing around with some cards, I haven't really tested this deck yet yet" versus "I've opened my 500 kickstarter packs and have assembled a lethal killing machine of a deck that leaves nothing but sorrow and destruction in it's wake" versus "i'm just messing around with a starter deck to learn the mechanics" . I can't imagine those people getting matched up having a great time.
Click to expand...

Aside from a type of elo system, I do sincerely they add lobbies to Proving Grounds.
Really need rooms for "Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced," etc.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Luigi87 said:
Aside from a type of elo system, I do sincerely they add lobbies to Proving Grounds.
Really need rooms for "Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced," etc.
Click to expand...

Ah, a beginner room for all the people with 20 legendaries per deck to go and have fun in.

One of the most common wishes for Hearthstone is that they had areas/rooms where you can find easy matches to win against other people in, instead of being matched by ELO and losing half the time.
 
S

Spiritreaver

Member
Seeing people getting refunds and reimbursements for the bugs, awesome. Gotta hand it to CZE and Cory, they really do what they can to listen to the community.

On another note, I really wish this game was more keyboard friendly. I don't like using the mouse for some things, like viewing a large selection of cards (card manager, pack opening). The card manager can be navigated with a keyboard somewhat, but the store can't.

Like, say I open up 10 packs. I wanna just cycle through them all quickly rather than trying to spot/identify cards by art.
 
Shrennin

Shrennin

Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Minsc said:
Ah, a beginner room for all the people with 20 legendaries per deck to go and have fun in.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is not a good idea. Hopefully Hex will have an ELO system or something like it eventually but closed beta doesn't need or require it right now.

As far as this monetization business -- I agree with Minsc. They have to test this sometime, and it's not exactly like they aren't fixing situations where money may have been list by bugged tournaments. When that happens, they'll refund the player and they lock down tournaments until it's fixed.
 
A

Arveene

Neo Member
Minsc said:
Ah, a beginner room for all the people with 20 legendaries per deck to go and have fun in.

One of the most common wishes for Hearthstone is that they had areas/rooms where you can find easy matches to win against other people in, instead of being matched by ELO and losing half the time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're going to run into assholes like that. That's going to be in any game, but there's plenty of other people (two even on this page) that would love to have some sort of lobby so we're not just smashing people with starter decks using our decks consisting of mostly rares.

Edit: I'm not against an ELO system, I hope they end up with one. I would imagine that it's easy / quick to set up a few lobbies in the meantime.
 
B

Brakara

Member
No ELO system or MMR matchmaking will only discourage players like me (with only starter decks) to play, so I completely disagree with the statement that "it's not needed now".
 
S

Shinjica

Member
Brakara said:
No ELO system or MMR matchmaking will only discourage players like me (with only starter decks) to play, so I completely disagree with the statement that "it's not needed now".
Click to expand...

It's not that "is not needed now" but CZE has other priority right now (Auction house, PVE etc).

Plus, when you can trade card for other card or platinium, player with only starter deck will have the possibility to recieve some card.
 
B

Brakara

Member
Shinjica said:
If you spend money or do some trade you'll get stronger card. Or your desire is using only starter deck?
Click to expand...

No, but as an inexperienced player I'm wary of spending money on a game until I've tried it out more (I currently only bought a small amount of plat to spend on draft with my backer boosters). But there's no good options for me to try it out more (except playing the AI), which means why should I spend any money?

Also, spending money just to still be crushed by more experienced players is also not something I'm going to do.

Basically, I'm not going to spend any money on cards until there's proper matchmaking. Of course, if they're not planning on implementing it in a long time, it just means I'll lose interest in the game. So, for me, matchmaking is super important if I'm going to spend any time and money on this game.

Hope this helps explaining the point of view from an inexperienced player (since I guess you guys are a lot more experienced than me).
 
S

Shinjica

Member
Brakara said:
No, but as an inexperienced player I'm wary of spending money on a game until I've tried it out more (I currently only bought a small amount of plat to spend on draft with my backer boosters). But there's no good options for me to try it out more (except playing the AI), which means why should I spend any money?

Also, spending money just to still be crushed by more experienced players is also not something I'm going to do.

Basically, I'm not going to spend any money on cards until there's proper matchmaking. Of course, if they're not planning on implementing it in a long time, it just means I'll lose interest in the game. So, for me, matchmaking is super important if I'm going to spend any time and money on this game.

Hope this helps explaining the point of view from an inexperienced player (since I guess you guys are a lot more experienced than me).
Click to expand...

My advice for now is to ask in chat to play with people with only starter deck, so you'll have a fair match.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Shinjica said:
If you spend money or do some trade you'll get stronger card. Or your desire is using only starter deck?
Click to expand...

There's definitely an all-in mentality with CCG/TCGs like this. It's been a little while since I played SolForge online, but I have a decent library of cards, however the first expansion was out and I didn't keep up too well. A couple legendaries, but the bulk of my better cards are from the core set. So I go to play two online matches, and I swear, it's just like I see with people complaining about Hearthstone, except I was the one complaining... every damn card both my opponents played was a legendary that way outclassed my average cards. Every. Last. One. Like they'd have 80/80 creature and I'd have 15/15, probably some perfect netdeck list of other cards to compliment it there's no fairness in that for me with my own inexperienced mix of cards.

In my defense I don't think there's any MMR in SolForge, while Hearthstone does at least use one.

Hex will be the same way right now with no MMR. I opened 10 of my ~150+ packs, and what did I get? ~190 commons or something and 10 blue cards, that's it, nothing better. Not a single legendary. Sure, I got some with the primal packs, so I guess if you're going to spend money, I'd say buy those. But to compete against someone with 4 (or 3) copies of every legendary in the game in their deck is annoying.

I guess what I'm saying is you'd probably need to buy like 200+ packs or something to get a decent library if you wanted to play against random people, and that's not practical for everyone.
 
B

Brakara

Member
Minsc said:
In my defense I don't think there's any MMR in SolForge, while Hearthstone does at least use one.
Click to expand...

There actually is, but if your MMR was relative high when you were active it would probably still be pretty high now. So you need to play a few matches to gain your current more relevant MMR, which unfortunately probably means losing more than winning until that happens. And, yeah, the meta has changed considerably since set 1. That being said, you can still make good decks without being dependent on a high number of legendaries, specifically if you try yeti or zombie tribal decks.

But, basically, the same would happen in HS if you stopped playing now and came back sometime during set 2. HS does have the ladder though, which IMHO is brilliant.
 
K

Kosma

Banned
Minsc said:
So I go to play two online matches, and I swear, it's just like I see with people complaining about Hearthstone, except I was the one complaining...
Click to expand...

159.gif
 
S

Shinjica

Member
Minsc said:
There's definitely an all-in mentality with CCG/TCGs like this. It's been a little while since I played SolForge online, but I have a decent library of cards, however the first expansion was out and I didn't keep up too well. A couple legendaries, but the bulk of my better cards are from the core set. So I go to play two online matches, and I swear, it's just like I see with people complaining about Hearthstone, except I was the one complaining... every damn card both my opponents played was a legendary that way outclassed my average cards. Every. Last. One. Like they'd have 80/80 creature and I'd have 15/15, probably some perfect netdeck list of other cards to compliment it there's no fairness in that for me with my own inexperienced mix of cards.

In my defense I don't think there's any MMR in SolForge, while Hearthstone does at least use one.

Hex will be the same way right now with no MMR. I opened 10 of my ~150+ packs, and what did I get? ~190 commons or something and 10 blue cards, that's it, nothing better. Not a single legendary. Sure, I got some with the primal packs, so I guess if you're going to spend money, I'd say buy those. But to compete against someone with 4 (or 3) copies of every legendary in the game in their deck is annoying.

I guess what I'm saying is you'd probably need to buy like 200+ packs or something to get a decent library if you wanted to play against random people, and that's not practical for everyone.
Click to expand...

Well, Hex is a TCG so was pretty clear that if you want to have a decent deck, you have to spend a couple of money into it.

In the future i'm pretty sure they'll add the matchmaking, like I said previously CZE have other priority right now.
 
S

StMeph

Member
Minsc said:
There's definitely an all-in mentality with CCG/TCGs like this.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I think for people who are used to playing TCGs, there is definitely an all-in mentality.

Of course, any game can't have a long future without casual players or people who only dabble in one area or another (Limited-exclusive players vs. Constructed, future formats, etc), but for those who are -- and want to be -- competitive, there's not really any other way than to go all-in, because competitive decks need deep libraries. When a playset requires 4x of a card, that is a pretty high barrier to entry.

It will be easier once there is more netdecking and trading to allow people to only buy decks they want to play, but that's still probably going to carry a higher price than most online-only or F2P players are used to for their games.
 
A

AbundantChoice

Member
Minsc said:
I guess what I'm saying is you'd probably need to buy like 200+ packs or something to get a decent library if you wanted to play against random people, and that's not practical for everyone.
Click to expand...

Yeah, in any sort of CCG you're generally going to get people who dominate Constructed by using online decklists and out-spending everyone else. that's why I love Drafts and Sealed; when I was playing Magic years ago I only messed around in Constructed for about 2 months before going "screw this,", tried out Drafts, and then never looked back. Drafts & Sealed, by their very nature, even the playing field. Of course, that forces you to buy (or use up previously bought) packs to play each time you play, so it's far from money-neutral. Perhaps down the road they might even introduce Cube Draft, which would be a nice low-cost way to play.

I'm also really really curious how PvE might change the environment. I'm actually looking forward to it far, far more than the PvP, I had a friend who used the play the WoW TCG Raid Decks and doing a co-op card game was *fantastic* fun.

It's also way, WAY too early to think about, but i'm curious to see if some sort of EDH (i.e. Highlander) option comes into play down the road (although i'm not sure how the interface would handle it), or if PvE ends up serving a similar purpose. Most of my friends who still do Magic pretty much only play Booster Draft, Sealed, Cube Draft, or EDH. Cube Draft is probably easier to implement than EDH, but Cube Draft would involve you knowing the people you'll be playing againt (unless HEX themselves offers some pre-made Cubes).
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Ryuukan said:
Mac port is still MIA. Expectations for this game are sinking fast
Click to expand...

Why is the Mac port considered MIA? I've installed it fine myself? Granted it crashes too much on the machine I tried to run it on to be usable, but it's still there.
 
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