piratepwnsninja
Member
Cool.
However, I know this is going to turn into what they said it wouldn't, meaning instead of new waves being based solely on server stability, they're going to wait for new bugs to get fixed too before more waves go out.
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Hex: Shards of Fate MMOTCG - Closed Beta Thread
- Thread starter ultron87
- Start date
Cool.
However, I know this is going to turn into what they said it wouldn't, meaning instead of new waves being based solely on server stability, they're going to wait for new bugs to get fixed too before more waves go out.
JustProgress
Member
Streaming once again 
www.twitch.tv/hexedhavoc
www.twitch.tv/hexedhavoc
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I think they saw us discussing it haha
This is probably going to be the case in some respect. It's probably going to deal more with bugs that prevent people playing and actually testing gameplay/card bugs than it will be with regard to actual card and gameplay bugs. Hopefully we'll get a clearer answer on that tomorrow.
piratepwnsninja
Member
But you're talking max numbers, here. That's not the case. I've seen some streams where the selection of opponents for the streamer is under 10. Maybe that's a bug that isn't showing opponents or something, but just because 1000 people got alpha invites doesn't mean 1000 people are playing.
Streaming once again
I can't watch live streams here at work, so I usually just go through your archives and watch stuff. Time to see how your U/G deck is coming...
Holy carp, 10 hours?!
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I've been playing solforge (while waiting for hearthstone invite which my bro got today but not me). Kinda getting sick of solforge's OP and well overused deck comps (savants)... and this game looks like it is pretty slick. I like the art on the cards. It also looks more complex than both hearthstone and solforge, which almost don't even feel like card games to me (mainly solforge since I have actually played that).
I'll give it a try certainly when it is open beta or perhaps full release.
I'll give it a try certainly when it is open beta or perhaps full release.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
From what I could tell with SolForge, it seems like a true buy to win game. I was never a fan of the different packs based on price or the fact that all the best cards are the rare ones.
Yeah, I feel the same way about SolForge. I want to like it, but it just feels like it's missing something. I guess it feels more like a demo, which is fair since it's still in the beta. It lacks a good hook.
Hearthstone looks like it'll be a great casual game - maybe TCG junk food. Hex has the potential to be a full-blown card game that'll go as deep as you want to take it. Development is behind schedule and I'm pretty skeptical that they'll reach open beta by the end of the year. They're struggling just to get the alpha working, I'll be really surprised if they get the remaining 70 or so cards in plus slots / equipment working in the next 2 - 3 months.
I just seen this card and I think I'm in love.
You can make Princess decks? Aw yiss.
I can't believe she's not unique. Weird.
Having 4 of her in your hand would be kind of OP, I say.
JustProgress
Member
I really like the in-game UI but yeah the log-in screens and deck editor have their fair share of jank.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
And A LOT of that stuff improves visually over time. Just look at the placeholder victory screen before alpha to what the victory screen is now - that just right there is an immeasurable improvement. The game itself is pretty much guaranteed to look so much better come release.
I also really love the fact that the victory/defeat screen will include stats including card MVP and even a wacky stat.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I'm not sure of why they chose bunnies in particular, but CZE purposely made a cute race part of the bad guys. Typically, a lot of factions are split between cute and ugly raves and the ugly races are usually in the evil faction - to combat this, CZE made sure to include cute and ugly races in both factions.
fair enough, but there has to be a more coherent way to do it
i mean look at this
which is basically a regular fantasy paint brush style look
then we go to
ugh
piratepwnsninja
Member
Different artists, different styles. Magic, for instance, doesn't tend to have super strict style guides, apart from theme for a given block. You get the same wildly different quality/style there, too. Not saying it makes the art good, mind you, just stating that it's fairly common.
Yeah.
Honestly, I think this has the possibility to change the further they get into the game. Art is so subjective, but they have a lot of flexibility in terms of where to take the story / art direction.
To be fair, I think they're trying to do some new things with the fantasy genre and distance themselves from other ccgs (read WoW and Magic.) I'm not sure how many people actually care about story (I liked the implied story found in Magic before Rosewater jumped in), but they have a good opportunity to make something great with the addition of PvE content.
Personally, I think Magic and some of the newer social games out there have great art. Hex is not bad, but it still has a ways to go before it really finds its own identity.
This is true, and one man's trash is another man's treasure, but I think the overall quality of Magic's art has improved since the early days. I mean, you had cards like Unholy Strength, Ivory Star, and Hasran Ogress among others. :/
I'll give Hex props for trying new races like Shin'hare, Coyotyl, and the Spider / Orcs doods, but the more you stray off the path, the more polarizing player feedback will get.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I can see where you're coming from but for me it's not that big of a deal. The idea was that each race has its own style to it and CZE is planning to get many artists to put their own artistic spin on the races and cards. Hex will likely not have terribly cohesive art, but that doesn't necessarily make the art bad. I'm sure in time, Hex will have its own style, but I kinda like the artistic interpretations of the different artists. It makes collecting cards with favorite artists a possibility.
charlequin
Banned
And thank God for that. The Mimic illustration there could be from any B-list magic knockoff, but the Shin'hare are pretty unique.
I still regret the loss of many of the diverse styles that were present early on (especially from some really talented artists like Quinton Hoover, Phil Foglio, Anson Maddocks, Drew Tucker, etc.) but overall the art is far, far better now than it was when the game began.
ideally they should make the whole game closer to the shin'hare art style
I just seen this card and I think I'm in love.
You can make Princess decks? Aw yiss.
Every CCG needs their Serra Angel.
You made this post a while back, but ever since reading it I can't read it any other way.
God damnit. Why you gotta do this to me.
Oh man, talk about nostalgia. I still have a few cards signed by Hoover and a ton signed by Hoover and Kaja Foglio.
I remember Drew Tucker art being really edgy at the time. He had a lot of stuff in the Vampire: The Masquerade game that I liked as well.
I agree that modern Magic has lost a lot of its artistic charm, but some of the newer artists are so talented.
Just as an example, I like this piece here and how the artist tried to give us a look from the eyes of the victim. It just stood out as being really creative and new.
At least it didn't make you think of Farts of Shade or something like that. I saw "Sharts" and all I could think of was "Farts."
... You do realize what a Shart is, right? :lol
The_Player
Member
I doubt that's knowledge one may be proud of.
He said "at least it doesn't make you think of Farts", when I'd argue Sharts is much, much worse in terms of mis-reading the title :lol
Having played a lot of SolForge lately, I can tell you that you couldn't be more wrong.
The rarities in SF are common, rare, heroic and legendary, and currently the best cards (shapers) are rare (second most common rarity). And after that, you'll find your workhorses in heroic. Most legendaries are mainly cute and only really work if you synergize them with other lower ranked cards. This is why you find tournaments (run by the community) winners usually only having a handful of legendaries in their decks.
What paying for packs gives you, on the other hand, is more options. But that's not pay-to-win at all. Or if you believe it is, then a game like Hex would pretty much fall under the same definition.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Having played a lot of SolForge lately, I can tell you that you couldn't be more wrong.
The rarities in SF are common, rare, heroic and legendary, and currently the best cards (shapers) are rare (second most common rarity). And after that, you'll find your workhorses in heroic. Most legendaries are mainly cute and only really work if you synergize them with other lower ranked cards. This is why you find tournaments (run by the community) winners usually only having a handful of legendaries in their decks.
What paying for packs gives you, on the other hand, is more options. But that's not pay-to-win at all. Or if you believe it is, then a game like Hex would pretty much fall under the same definition.
The problem with the p2w nature atm is that you cannot earn heroics or legendaries except by blind luck. If you could save up for a normal booster pack it would be a lot fairer. It is true that a lot of successful decks aren't stacked with legendaries, but on the other hand they are stacked with powerful heroics which are in some ways consistently stronger than legendaries.
I've been playing for over a month now and still need epidemics and dreadbolts, pretty much cornerstone spells for a nekrium deck. I have 3+ of every single common/rare and have few in heroics still. But if I wanted to drop 15 more bucks into the game I could fix my epidemic situation as well as pick up a few other legendaries and rares that would fill out my decks. I am waiting for balancing and crafting before I spend more though.
Now, I don't know much about Hex. However, if it is about the same between the two games, then it is p2w but it is a very acceptable p2w standard as compared to some other games' p2w which have advantages locked behind a paywall.
Oh boy, time to check google...or maybe I should just jump straight into google images. :/
Minsc
Gold Member
Hex will be far more pay-to-win than SolForge is. SolForge gives out around 5-10 free booster packs a week (50/50 real booster packs vs the cheap 3-card ones), a ton of free silver, and a ton of individual cards (you get 3 prizes each day). Like was mentioned, you could make competitive decks in around a month of casual play (and you don't have to play real people to win the rewards, just AI is fine).
I don't use savant decks, and win over 75% of my online matches with SolForge (maybe closer to 90% lately, I can't remember my last loss, except to Nirolak, haha).
How do you think f2p players are going to fair against Grand Kings and the sort that get the free gardens, and have 500 booster packs worth of cards?
I don't use savant decks, and win over 75% of my online matches with SolForge (maybe closer to 90% lately, I can't remember my last loss, except to Nirolak, haha).
How do you think f2p players are going to fair against Grand Kings and the sort that get the free gardens, and have 500 booster packs worth of cards?
I wouldn't call it blind luck as it's just statistics. Every week, on average, you'll earn (if you spend your silver on basic packs):
Common = 96.9 cards
Rare = 46.4 cards
Heroic = 9.9 cards
Legendary = 1.4 cards
You mentioned you missed some cards to build the deck you want, but that's again lack of options. And, yes, money will buy you options (e.g. buying a nekrium starter deck will give you, among others, 2 epidemics).
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Relying on statistics is blind luck. No guarantee that you'll get even close to what you need. That is what I meant at least. Playing against good decks without the necessary cards to complete your deck is something you'll run into when you play solforge.
Minsc
Gold Member
You say this like it's not something you'll run in to just as much (I personally think more) in Hex though. Since SolForge is out, we know they provide an extremely generous method of acquiring free cards for a minimal amount of effort. So much so, the SolForge community is against how much is given out for free, and they worry about it being unbalanced. I'm skeptical Hex will match/surpass it from a f2p player's PoV.
Someone who doesn't spend any money on Hex will be just as likely to get slaughtered by the people who own all the cards, this is not something unique to SolForge.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Probably true. I don't know much about Hex's reward system.
I'd say solforge's rewards are really generous towards commons and rares, less so towards heroics and legendary cards. Once they have crafting, that could change.
I don't know why the solforge community would be against the reward system since it is really necessary to grow a good player base imo and sustain one. The tournament tickets/keys and drafts, etc., plus the opportunity to trade paid for cards should generate good cash flow for them. I am basically waiting for that stuff to happen before I spend more money.
If Hex's rewards turn out as generous as solforge's, I think that'll be good. One thing I noticed, and you could correct me if I am wrong, is that they do have card restrictions (saw unique restriction said only 1 of this card could be out on the field at any time). So it doesn't seem like you can get with a very predictable consistently strong deck of uniques, at the very least. The card cost could also be a big difference between solforge and hex, at least in terms of card strength.
Crypto has said that PVP card can only earned from pack, draft or from the auction House. I dont think you can earn PVP card from the PVE side of the game.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
So PVP decks and PVE decks draw from separate card libraries? Seems... icky.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Gardens can't be used in PVP and backers will only have a pack advantage at best in set 1. In fact, all the exclusive KS cards besides the AA cards from Collector tier are PVE only for a reason.
in addition to the above post, you're ignoring the entire limited format where everyone is on equal ground and is really the biggest draw of tcgs
Minsc
Gold Member
PVE is all inclusive (more or less) and PVP is a subset of cards balanced for PVP.
Yes, the main point was the guy with 500 Hex starter packs is going to have a huge advantage over the F2P user who earned some currency by trading cards to get a minimalist deck of commons/uncommon and some rare cards. But even in PVE, the big spender with all the Lotus cards and exclusive PVE cards and exclusive health/card enhancing bonuses will bring a lot more to the table than the f2p player with a dozen hours to their account.
Btw, have they decided on the reward system for Hex (PvE and PvP) and, if so, is there a description of it somewhere?
Minsc
Gold Member
Also, one of the things that makes me a little suspicious about how much a grind the PVE will have is the double back feature, and I'm sure this is a not an extreme example either, but looking the card they feature:
None if it sounds terribly bad, until you get to the fine print at the bottom, dealing 1500 damage with the card to level it up. It's not horrible since you can abuse the creatures abilities to gain +1/+1 and just sit there waiting to attack until you have 100 or so summoned, but I'm not sure other cards will be as simple.
It's a nice system though, for people who want things to do, and like having a deck full of shiny foil cards to show off, I'm not knocking it for that, and it does bring opportunities for adding gameplay challenges with minimal effort on the developer's part, so that's nice, it just makes me worry a little about how big a gap there will be between the new f2p players and the veterans that have foils of every card released, etc.
Edit: Looking at it again, I do really like the detailed stats kept for individual cards (damage dealt/received/etc), that's a very neat aspect I don't think is present in MtG or SolForge or many other TCGs for that matter.
None if it sounds terribly bad, until you get to the fine print at the bottom, dealing 1500 damage with the card to level it up. It's not horrible since you can abuse the creatures abilities to gain +1/+1 and just sit there waiting to attack until you have 100 or so summoned, but I'm not sure other cards will be as simple.
It's a nice system though, for people who want things to do, and like having a deck full of shiny foil cards to show off, I'm not knocking it for that, and it does bring opportunities for adding gameplay challenges with minimal effort on the developer's part, so that's nice, it just makes me worry a little about how big a gap there will be between the new f2p players and the veterans that have foils of every card released, etc.
Edit: Looking at it again, I do really like the detailed stats kept for individual cards (damage dealt/received/etc), that's a very neat aspect I don't think is present in MtG or SolForge or many other TCGs for that matter.
Lots of people keep playing MTG even though "big spenders" have lots of cards from early sets. I don't see this as something to worry about at all.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
This is something a lot of card games struggle with. MtG has absolutely spoiled me for both art design and thematic mechanical design.
I'm still following this really eagerly though.
I agree, MTG has a high bar set now, but as stated before, early MTG art had equal parts amazing and horrible
Demonic Hordes and Force of Nature being two rares I remember with really bad art
SpiceMelange
Member
Some cards' art are fine, but I find most of them... amateur/deviant art-ish. Now I don't know if it's Magic that put me on a too high standard or not. I really love Magic's art, one of the reason I love the game so much. I hope the game takes off so they can afford top tier artists.