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Scrolls Beta Thread: On my Beard ! Not the Elder ones

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Totakeke

Member
Never used Speed, and I discard Blessing of Haste (?) half of the time. But you can definitely structure your Order deck around both of the cards more. I don't think it's vital, but it's also a matter of how you want to play your cards.

The other main decision for Order is whether to use Summons + Mangonel. They make you better against other Order decks, but much weaker against Energy decks. Against Growth it's kinda neutral I think.
 

Dreavus

Member
Never used Speed, and I discard Blessing of Haste (?) half of the time. But you can definitely structure your Order deck around both of the cards more. I don't think it's vital, but it's also a matter of how you want to play your cards.

The other main decision for Order is whether to use Summons + Mangonel. They make you better against other Order decks, but much weaker against Energy decks. Against Growth it's kinda neutral I think.

The uses I'm seeing with it is accelerating either an Honorable General or one of those attack boosting guys to match up with the rest of your army. Maybe haste is good enough to do that job on it's own (Speed is pretty expensive gold-wise, from what I've seen).

In practice maybe it's not as amazing as I'm imagining. D:
 
How often do they go about releasing new cards/updating old ones. Have they mentioned what they plan to do in the future for releasing new cards? Will it be similar to magic or less probably?
 
From what I've heard, they're working on finishing the Decay faction and hope to have it out soon, no release date atm. After that's out, they're gunna start putting out new cards for each faction but I don't think they've said how they plan to do it yet. I've heard people talking about a "Set 2" for each faction, dunno details though.

I hope the two women characters in the front of the Energy deck art get cards soon, they look groovy. I was disappointed to learn they don't exist yet in game.
 

Card Boy

Banned
How often do they go about releasing new cards/updating old ones. Have they mentioned what they plan to do in the future for releasing new cards? Will it be similar to magic or less probably?

Not sure in regards to the first question since i have only seen 1 patch since i got the game.

I can't remember where i read it or where it was confirmed but i think a new color deck and cards are coming out?
 

Totakeke

Member
From what I've heard, they're working on finishing the Decay faction and hope to have it out soon, no release date atm. After that's out, they're gunna start putting out new cards for each faction but I don't think they've said how they plan to do it yet. I've heard people talking about a "Set 2" for each faction, dunno details though.

.

There's a new faction coming? That's cool.
 
Quite the father's day indeed! :)

P0G25NY.jpg


LOVING what I've played of Card Hunter thus far. I got destroyed in my first Scrolls game vs easy AI (as I thought I would). Much to learn and build with Scrolls. Hopefully I can earn enough gold to actually build a decent deck over time. Good Stuff!
 

Boken

Banned
Quite the father's day indeed! :)

P0G25NY.jpg


LOVING what I've played of Card Hunter thus far. I got destroyed in my first Scrolls game vs easy AI (as I thought I would). Much to learn and build with Scrolls. Hopefully I can earn enough gold to actually build a decent deck over time. Good Stuff!

I played the trials instead to learn the game

they start off a lot easier than easy ai i believe

-
whats card hunter?
 
Game is great but requires some heavy balancing. As of right now Mono-Growth is by far the strongest you can make a deck. Almost all of the rares are EXTREMELY good (valuing at 1000g for trades). My non-optimal growth deck has me at a 80% win rate currently having played 80 matches (probably 50~ ranked).
 

alstein

Member
Game is great but requires some heavy balancing. As of right now Mono-Growth is by far the strongest you can make a deck. Almost all of the rares are EXTREMELY good (valuing at 1000g for trades). My non-optimal growth deck has me at a 80% win rate currently having played 80 matches (probably 50~ ranked).

I don't think Growth is as strong as folks make it out to be- most decks have hard counters to it, but some don't bother putting it in their decks. Growth lacks versatility, which is good in that they don't need hard counters, but bad in that they are vulnerable to it.

The rares are flat-out OP, common cards should be buffed some.
 
I don't think Growth is as strong as folks make it out to be- most decks have hard counters to it, but some don't bother putting it in their decks. Growth lacks versatility, which is good in that they don't need hard counters, but bad in that they are vulnerable to it.

The rares are flat-out OP, common cards should be buffed some.

Not to mention that haste is a pretty broken mechanic as it turns a creature scroll into a direct damage and creature scroll. It puts you at a huge advantage early game and lets you steamroll into the late game. The only way an opponent can win is by culling your early game and completely preventing you from ramping up. Hard to do though since once you hit 5 mana you start pumping out 3/2/4's with haste and then end up in the same position.
 

garath

Member
Quite the father's day indeed! :)

P0G25NY.jpg


LOVING what I've played of Card Hunter thus far. I got destroyed in my first Scrolls game vs easy AI (as I thought I would). Much to learn and build with Scrolls. Hopefully I can earn enough gold to actually build a decent deck over time. Good Stuff!

Nice!!!

Still waiting to get into card hunter beta :( Looks freakin cool and I've heard so many good things about it.
 

alstein

Member
Not to mention that haste is a pretty broken mechanic as it turns a creature scroll into a direct damage and creature scroll. It puts you at a huge advantage early game and lets you steamroll into the late game. The only way an opponent can win is by culling your early game and completely preventing you from ramping up. Hard to do though since once you hit 5 mana you start pumping out 3/2/4's with haste and then end up in the same position.

The only counters growth has is haste+ buffing, or jarls/wolf spam.
Growth I think gets its OP reputation because of how it wins, if it can't win that way it's the worst deck, and it really depends on luck of the draw as well.

That said you have stuff like dryadic power/illthorn seed which turns creatures into creatures+walls. Good synergy with brother of the wolf+dryadic power+great wolf+mangy wolf cards.
 

Blizzard

Banned
There are probably balance issues with factions, balance issues with rare cards, and with a fourth faction and even more cards after that, probably even more balance issues.

But I still think that given all the variables currently in the equation, things are surprisingly balanced. I'm pretty sure I've seen someone complain energy is the most powerful, seen someone earlier in the thread talk about how order is the most powerful, and just now someone is mentioning how growth is the most powerful. :p

What do people think of the memorials? I feel like they aren't really worth the tradeoff of having the card in your deck. You could get say, an order mana by sacrificing a different card instead of playing it a 1-shot building, and you could potentially have a valuable card instead of the memorial card.

I also feel like the cards to buff your team based on your number of structures (potentially destroying structures to buff your team) do not seem super useful, since it may be pretty difficult to get a ton of structures up without the enemy team becoming large.
 

Boken

Banned
memorials suck

multi colour is way too hard to pull off viably atm

I think they should copy the hex system with threshold and pure mana costs as to open up more diversity
 

atrossity

Banned
So, the first few days of beta were a blast for me, but not so much anymore. It seems that now the game has been out a few days that everyone has refined their cards to only 2 strategies: wolf spam with kinfolk and speed cards or imperial unit spam. I see the same cards over and over and over and its killed my enjoyment of the game .. I guess once I get some wolves and such it will be fun again.

Is it better to trade for growth or order cards or buy the booster packs ? I started as energy.
 

Boken

Banned
So, the first few days of beta were a blast for me, but not so much anymore. It seems that now the game has been out a few days that everyone has refined their cards to only 2 strategies: wolf spam with kinfolk and speed cards or imperial unit spam. I see the same cards over and over and over and its killed my enjoyment of the game .. I guess once I get some wolves and such it will be fun again.

Is it better to trade for growth or order cards or buy the booster packs ? I started as energy.

yeah there is a lack of viable strats atm

i think making multicolour splashing easier will open up a lot of decks as it allows people to counter the metagame a lot more

itll also give the game more longeviety as it it would be more competitive to have a deeper card list. right now its all about mono colour. whats the point of pulling any energy cards at all?
 
I played the trials instead to learn the game

they start off a lot easier than easy ai i believe

-
whats card hunter?

Excellent tip. Thank You! I'll hit up the trials next then to try to get some experience under my belt. There are some refinements I would like to see and I love that you can accidentally put a debuff on of your own characters. All games should allow you to cripple your own army if you do something stupid. I do think 3 colors is too few, and even 4 may be a little low as well, but I've already seen some interesting cards that lead me to think there can be a nice multicolor specialized deck build for it. Grimlock I want to say? Being early in Beta, I can only hope that more keeps being added over time.

Card Hunter is an enjoyable game that's going to be F2P (with some premium choices I don't like too much, but they gotta pay the bills) that's a mix of RPG, Board and Card game mechanics. There's some discussion here as well. The game is quite fun though, and gives you quite a lot for nothing. It's all about the joy, but sometimes, seeing something you can't get without paying for it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I'm glad Scrolls isn't heading in that direction.
 

alstein

Member
A grimlock deck can be nasty, but it requires some memorial cards (which might need to be buffed- maybe allow them to add 1 of each resource?)
 

Boken

Banned
I think its a serious mistake to require memorials for viable multicolours

its nearly impossible to splash colours because each card is bascially 3RR card in mtg that costs RRRRR in scrolls. and you wouldnt want to run a memorial just for splashing 6 energy cards. memorials slow you down so much and youd rarely discard the card for mana or draw because its your only way of playing your splashes. your splashes also punish you because you cant use them for mana to activate your main cards and so you only have the choice to discard for draw :/. No matter how good memorials are, the game basically requires you to have a decent split of both colours and slows you down incredibly as you become mana choked because everything requires pure costs to cast

----
MTG solution
they should just introduce colourless requirements

eg

great wolf instead of GGGGG cost, 3GG or 2GGG

HEX solution
threshold requirement:

e.g.
great wolf requires you to have 3 Growth to play and costs 5 mana. All mana can cast any card as long as you fulfull the cost requirement.
eg. you have GGGEEE - and you cast a rugged wolf this turn (G to play, 1 mana) you can still play the great wolf (3G to play, 5 mana) because you have 5 mana left and you fulfill the "threshold" requirement.

- basically, the HEX solution is more multicolour liberal and the MTG solution is less so. Depends which philosophy the developers want to take. But right now, multicolour is prohibitive, and splashing is nearly impossible. Being unable to multicolour or splash really restricts the metagame because each deck is better off being monocolour and in reach colour there is a clear strongest strategy. This means that each faction is defined by a single strategy and their interactions are linear and have no other way to respond to the most popular deck in the metagame.

-lets say growth is the dominant metagame - nothing happens. Growth v Growth is just a fight of constantly bashing your heads together because Growth has no other way of interacting with a mass of creatures. Now lets say you can splash - you would splash board damage cards from energy to allow your growth deck to beat other growth decks. this means that growth decks will start to splash order to buff their cards to counter the burn. This slows down growth and gives order decks that splash kin enough time to establish board control. Then Energy decks that splash order to give them a defensive backbone beats order-growth splashes because they can range and splash their formations. Then Growth decks beat this slow form of energy. And lo and behold you have an evolving metagame.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I just started playing the game, and I'm finding the game impossible.

I'm playing against AI, and I never seem to get creature cards. I've gone 5-6 rounds with nothing but enchantments, and my AI opponent just builds up their entire side with creatures, and it becomes impossible to win after round 15 or so. And this is on easy.

I've been playing CCGs for years now, and I've never found AI so stacked in my life. Is this a symptom of Growth or what?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but so far, I'm having zero success with a Growth deck, mostly because I end up with a hand full of enchantments, and then I end the game with a single card to play each round until I either give up or die.
 

Boken

Banned
I just started playing the game, and I'm finding the game impossible.

I'm playing against AI, and I never seem to get creature cards. I've gone 5-6 rounds with nothing but enchantments, and my AI opponent just builds up their entire side with creatures, and it becomes impossible to win after round 15 or so. And this is on easy.

I've been playing CCGs for years now, and I've never found AI so stacked in my life. Is this a symptom of Growth or what?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but so far, I'm having zero success with a Growth deck, mostly because I end up with a hand full of enchantments, and then I end the game with a single card to play each round until I either give up or die.

have you tried the trial levels? theyre a lot easier

the growth deck is pretty good imo. its the only one ive played though, but ive stomped up to hard trials, and i can do the hard ai with a few extra cards ive gained

I think the positional requirements are making it tougher? does sound like some bad draws though, the growth deck is 50% creatures
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
have you tried the trial levels? theyre a lot easier

the growth deck is pretty good imo. its the only one ive played though, but ive stomped up to hard trials, and i can do the hard ai with a few extra cards ive gained

I think the positional requirements are making it tougher? does sound like some bad draws though, the growth deck is 50% creatures

I can't complete the first one. :(

I got two idols down, and then maybe got 2 creatures in 6 rounds, while the opponent got 2 every round.

I'm actually remaking my deck by hand right now, because I seem to have way too many enchantments and not enough creatures.
 

hausaffe

Banned
I can't complete the first one. :(

I got two idols down, and then maybe got 2 creatures in 6 rounds, while the opponent got 2 every round.

I'm actually remaking my deck by hand right now, because I seem to have way too many enchantments and not enough creatures.

start taking down the mid totem first. the mid totem is the most important. then focus on one side. dont try to defend all your totems. hold three and you are fine. dont care that much about low tier monsters. try to buff the kinfolk brave or any relentless creature. growth goes a long way with pushing your creatures. and spamming them. if you get 8+ "mana" you're good to win. you are better of with more than one card on the hand. sacrifice low tier creature to protect high level ones. let the peasents die first.
 

Boken

Banned
I can't complete the first one. :(

I got two idols down, and then maybe got 2 creatures in 6 rounds, while the opponent got 2 every round.

I'm actually remaking my deck by hand right now, because I seem to have way too many enchantments and not enough creatures.

are you abusing positioning?
easy ai is very bad at moving their units which allows you to keep your units in a safe position and then move them into the lane you wish to attack on their attack turn

its also important to know that sometimes, your units are a lot more valuable than some damage on the idols

id rather take 6 damage on an idol than let a brave die because the brave can just kill the unit later anyway

of course, the middle most lanes are the most important

you have to manage your draw discards too. i find at 4-5 mana, youll want to draw, depending on what you already have.

- i used the precon until medium difficulty at least
 

hausaffe

Banned
- i used the precon until medium difficulty at least

me too. and yes 4-5 mana is ok if you have a whitewolf or another great creature, but if you have low tie ones i would go with more mana. and yes positioning, dont forget to do move the units.
i see a lot people move them one round to late.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Remade my deck, and beat the first trial with ease. I was actually getting creatures this time, which made it easier.

Don't know what is up with the precon, but I was getting hands and hands of enchantments with no creatures to speak of.
 
Multicolor decks might not be viable but I'm tryin to make one work anyways. I'm going for a Gravehawk/lock deck that's heavy on draw: Sister of the Wolf, Eye of the Eagle, Burn, Clock Library, & Fertile Soil. All the growth cards are 2 or less except for Fertile Soil, highest cost Energy cards at 6.

I dunno if it'll work at all but I enjoy experimenting even with failures.
 

Boken

Banned
Remade my deck, and beat the first trial with ease. I was actually getting creatures this time, which made it easier.

Don't know what is up with the precon, but I was getting hands and hands of enchantments with no creatures to speak of.

confirmation bias + bad draws


PS scrolls devs

please, please, please make multicolour splashing easier. otherwise there will be no competitive metagame to speak of, as shown in my post above
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
confirmation bias + bad draws


PS scrolls devs

please, please, please make multicolour splashing easier. otherwise there will be no competitive metagame to speak of, as shown in my post above

Confirmation bias be damned! (no, you're probably right)

That said, I was getting nothing but bad draws before I remade the deck. The RNG on buying scrolls is irritating beyond belief, too. I haven't gotten a single scroll from individual card buying that I didn't already own. Not sure why I bother.

Sold a bunch of order cards I had in my library, bought some individual growth scrolls. What did I get? Ancestral totem and 3 copies of Rallying. Thanks game.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I think there was at least one Scrolls dev posting in this thread, so I suppose there's a chance they'll see feedback like the multicolor mana issue. :) Though of course they have to filter through their own forums with league-of-legends-esque anger about certain decks or cards.

I keep watching the concurrent player numbers. It started out about the same as Cobalt, 30000 people or so, and now seems to be about 60000 each day. It's possible but difficult to buy the beta as a gift (you have to make a new account and give that to someone), but if they do keep up the support with updates every few weeks, I could see this becoming pretty popular down the road.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Just played a few more matches. Looks like it was indeed bad draws starting out. Getting a better handle of how Growth works. Going through the easy trials pretty quickly.
 

alstein

Member
Just played a few more matches. Looks like it was indeed bad draws starting out. Getting a better handle of how Growth works. Going through the easy trials pretty quickly.

Draw luck seems to be a huge driving factor right now- which forces a 50-55 card deck unless you're versatile. What helps is different for each deck.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Draw luck seems to be a huge driving factor right now- which forces a 50-55 card deck unless you're versatile. What helps is different for each deck.

Draw luck KILLED me in early battles. It was insanely frustrating.
 

JackDT

Member
Whatever you might think about balance in terms of power my playing experience is that the colors are way out of whack in popularity.

Playing ranked, about 1500-1600 rating, I encounter:

60% Growth.
30% Order.
10% Energy.

+ a few oddball multicolor and one admirable player trying to make a tri color deck work. I gave that guy some kudos in chat, it was so fun to play against a new deck for once!

And even in that 60%, almost every growth deck is same and uses the same tactics.

It's not true that if growth can't win early it's done. Growth also has the biggest catch-up potential of any deck with Quake. No other color can clear the board like that. And God Hand lets you drive it come the second you get some new creatures out.
 

garath

Member
Whatever you might think about balance in terms of power my playing experience is that the colors are way out of whack in popularity.

Playing ranked, about 1500-1600 rating, I encounter:

60% Growth.
30% Order.
10% Energy.

+ a few oddball multicolor and one admirable player trying to make a tri color deck work. I gave that guy some kudos in chat, it was so fun to play against a new deck for once!

And even in that 60%, almost every growth deck is same and uses the same tactics.

It's not true that if growth can't win early it's done. Growth also has the biggest catch-up potential of any deck with Quake. No other color can clear the board like that. And God Hand lets you drive it come the second you get some new creatures out.

Pretty much matches my experience. Growth is so strong right now :(

I struggle a little with energy. I've had the best luck with energy + ~12 growth cards.
 

ZZMitch

Member
I actually really like Energy. I haven't played too many Ranked matches yet, but I am winning most of the quick matches I play.

I usually turtle on three idols with Hellspitter Mortars/Useless Contraptions protecting them, enchanted with Plating or Potion of Resistance if need be. Ether Pumps and Charge Coils are really nice as well as they whittle down my opponent's creatures trying to break down my walls. A few Destroyers are in there for board control if my defenses begin to weaken and I need to dish out some quick damage. Hellspitter Mortar is, in my opinion, an amazing card. It has great health and can protect an idol for many turns if buffed with a Plating or Potion of Resistance. And if I have two or three out at a time in the late game it almost always gets a hit (and therefore a kill with it's strong attack + damage dealt by an Ether Pump/Charge Coil) against enemy creature swarms.

Creature wise most of them are ranged units. Copper Automaton provides some good pressure in the early game and can really do some damage in the midgame if enchanted with Magma Pack (<3). I like Gun Automaton and Scattergunna as strong midrange units that can stay behind my walls and do serious damage if used with Bombard or Concentrate Fire. I usually win in the late game when I have one or two Cannon Automatons (which one hit idols with Concentrate Fire!). I have one Iron Orge in there if I need some more meat to kill creature stacks.

My spells and enchantments in include some Burns/Sparks/Ember Bonds to destroy units. Magma Pack is great and can be used to buff one of my creatures for a turn before it dies (usually Copper Automaton) or kill an enemy creature that is already going against a structure with plating or something like that. Love the double use of that card!

I usually win if I can get three idols protected with structures in the front and a few Ether Pumps Charge Coils in the back/Hellspitter Mortars constantly whittleing down the heath of/ killing enemy units. My opponent can kill two of my idos relatively quickly but usually will not be able to keep any creatures alive long enough to break though my defenses and destroy a third idol. Once I have my middle line filled up with Cannon Automatons/Iron Golem/Scattergunners it is over since I will be putting up huge amounts of damage towards the opponent from a well protected position.

I usually lose if I don't draw enough structures since my units cannot protect my idols by themselves. I also have some issues with flexibility in scroll playing since most of my early sacrifices go towards resources to make sure I can get my Cannon Automatons out as soon as possible. I will regularly only have one scroll in my hand at the mid to late game. I looked into Clock Libraries/Overdrive to get some more scrolls but too unreliable and takes up too much valuable space in my 50 card deck.
 

Totakeke

Member
I think the colors are fairly balanced. I met one guy with 1750+ rating that uses an Energy deck that wins on turn 30 on average and I'd say his deck was pretty devastating.

As for strategies, there isn't a lot you can do because there's only so few cards. It makes no sense to really gimp yourself by not putting in staple cards.

One of the primary goals of TCGs is always to minimize your luck. That's why it's never a good idea to make a deck larger than the minimum size. Scrolls already minimizes the luck factor quite significantly because any card can become a resource, and also a card can be discarded for another two cards. You pretty much always want to do one of the two every turn.
 

atrossity

Banned
Good to know people feel the same way I do.

My suggestions for balance for energy:

Shock should do 3 damage.
Violent removal should cost 5 energy.
The aoe spells should have one damage added to them.

Suggestions for growth :

Haste should allow unit to attack on next turn, not current one.
Brother of the wolf should have one added to cooldown.

Suggestions for order:

General should reduce cooldown by one, not drop it to zero.

What do you guys think ?
 

Boken

Banned
I fear its too radical a change for them but I think they need to facilitate splashes and I think given the mana/draw mechanics, it'd be a mistake to bake them into extra cards

that way the players can balance the meta themselves with better deck creation

and mojang can keep their design philosophies of each faction intact

like srsly this isnt starcraft, why is everybody just one faction
 

Totakeke

Member
Brother of the wolf should have one added to cooldown.

You mean after using its ability, or just increase its default countdown?



But I disagree on all of those suggestions.

Growth is popular for the same reason G/R is popular with newer players. It's more straightforward to understand and play to its potential.
 

depths20XX

Member
Tried to buy this game last night but won't accept my credit card because I guess it's an international purchase. Kind of a pain in the ass, guess I need to call my bank.
 

atrossity

Banned
You mean after using its ability, or just increase its default countdown?



But I disagree on all of those suggestions.

Growth is popular for the same reason G/R is popular with newer players. It's more straightforward to understand and play to its potential.

you play growth dont you?
 

Ferrio

Banned
So bought the game yesterday. Is it viable to mix card types in a deck and have a multi "color" deck? Seems like the game would be a lot harder to build a multicolor deck as compared to MTG.
 

Boken

Banned
So bought the game yesterday. Is it viable to mix card types in a deck and have a multi "color" deck? Seems like the game would be a lot harder to build a multicolor deck as compared to MTG.
you should see my rants

the short answer though is no way in hell

long answer is sure you can do it for fun

but its not competitive purely by mechanics. which is an oversight that id like to help you guys fix hire me pls
 

Ferrio

Banned
you should see my rants

the short answer though is no way in hell

long answer is sure you can do it for fun

but its not competitive purely by mechanics. which is an oversight that id like to help you guys fix hire me pls

Damn that's really stupid :(


Also getting my ass kicked by Medium AI using the prebuilt Order deck.
 

Boken

Banned
Damn that's really stupid :(


Also getting my ass kicked by Medium AI using the prebuilt Order deck.

start with easy trials

no need to get cocky. there are nuances to the position based combat that arent obvious when you start out
 

Ferrio

Banned
Also is spiky as useless as I think it is?

I've never been fond of mechanics that require you to get hit to do damage. But seeing how there's tons ways your opponent can get around it.... ugh.
 
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