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Magic Duels |OT| Magic The Hearthstonening [Update Support Ending]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
I'm reading about people having all sorts of graphical issues with the game, and I'm just sitting here with shitty Intel HD integrated graphics and the game works perfectly for me. Heh.
Honestly though, I like it. As a lapsed Magic player who's been playing off and on since 1996, it scratches the Magic itch well enough. Some of the limitations are a bit weird, yeah, but it's still enjoyable.
Honestly though, I like it. As a lapsed Magic player who's been playing off and on since 1996, it scratches the Magic itch well enough. Some of the limitations are a bit weird, yeah, but it's still enjoyable.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
I like the game until you screw up using the UI and lose the game cause of it.
charlequin
Banned
I think it's kinda silly to be all salty about the card limits. Formats with rarity-based limits, either organic (like limited) or imposed (like pauper) have been a part of MTG from the beginning, and there's nothing about them that makes them "not really Magic"; they're just a different experience from cutthroat Standard.
This is the same way. If your goal is to create a format where there's an element of rarity and improving your decks, but it's plausible for regular players to fill out their collection while playing for free and for people with smaller collections to compete against other randos online, something like this is the way to go.
This is the same way. If your goal is to create a format where there's an element of rarity and improving your decks, but it's plausible for regular players to fill out their collection while playing for free and for people with smaller collections to compete against other randos online, something like this is the way to go.
Imperfected
Member
I feel like it's more of a problem because the card collection itself is so limited. If/when there's a more robust selection of cards, the rarity limit becomes a lot less, well, limiting.
That said, rarity limits don't necessarily promote a better balance between hardcore and casual players. I would worry that, if anything, it will cause a lot of casual players to glut their decks with a bunch of questionable-value mythic rares when they could have been cleaning up using basic removal (un)commons, a mistake hardcore players generally won't make despite having access to plenty of rare cards.
Depends how used you are to deck building. Plus the really limited pool you get when you start. I don't really feel like the difficulty for AI ever really matters except they gate the next one which has more coins. Even on Easy the AI has decks using the complete card pool or close to it vs. you with like a rinky-dink amount from the starter box they give you. Also both of you are subject to RNG like crazy anyway. Sometimes an Easy AI will fuck you over and sometimes you will just steamroll a mana-screwed hard AI like nothing.Beat the first campaign and made my first deck.
Got my ass handed to me by the cpu on easy.
Yeah personally I think I've gotten over it now; they want to capture the spirit of the game in DOTP more anyway, so if that makes smoothing out power levels amongst card sets and how constructed works, I'm okay with that. Like you said, there are formats that pretty much still play fine without the need for 4 OF EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY MY MYTHIC RARES.
Iced_Eagle
Member
Gave this a shot last night and a bit today. My thoughts on it...
I always think the idea of releasing this as a service is what it should have always been. Constantly update it and add new content to the existing game, and always have the player base with you instead of consistently fragmenting between versions. I can now truly have a library of Magic cards, and it will be awesome instead of needing to start over.
It was disappointing that the Windows version didn't contain native touch controls, and only relied on Windows interpreting touch as mouse controls. Sure, most things were clickable so I could use touch, but it surely isn't as smooth as the iPad version. For example, for every action you take, you always need to double tap. Once to move the mouse cursor there, and a second to "click". It should be smarter than that. Granted, I do realize that the number of M/KB users for Windows is greater than touch, but this is a game which would play great on my Surface if they would put in a little bit more work to polish the input to make it feel first-class.
The entire presentation to the game is just so... bland. Maybe you unlock different tables or something later on, but honestly, comparing this to the excellent presentation in Hearthstone is just night and day. Not to mention that the game hitches at times, occasionally stutters, etc and the animations don't even feel like they're running at 60 Hz. My machine is certainly no slouch (4770k, 780ti), so I hope they continue to optimize.
I only looked at the quests, and it seemed about what you would expect. Maybe I didn't unlock them, but I hope they have different tiers of quests. Maybe a small daily for winning a game against another player in Versus and a larger one for winning 5 games with a B/G deck or whatever.
The Deck Wizard was pretty cool as I'm someone who never really made their own decks. I have no idea if they were good decks, but I do like how it explained some things in how you structure the deck.
Sound design is okay. I really wish they had some more varied background music (maybe even make it dynamic to the current situation in the game). Sounds pretty much the same from other Duels games.
The UI was alright. As with all Duels games, the UI has quirks. I also wish I could disable more of the animations so the UI doesn't feel sluggish. I want instant damage updates, instant tooltip pop-ups, etc. At times it feels like some UI designer went nuts with effects because it looks better, but in my opinion, it does not necessarily mean it plays better. I don't care if they are there, as long as I can disable them.
Getting into a MP game was very quick. Surprisingly quick. Considering it's sort of a pain to find on Steam for some reason, I was expecting some longer match queues, but nope, it's damn near instant. Not sure on how the matchmaking works in terms of skill. I did rank up, so I assume it tries to match you with someone of similar rank? Hopefully so.
One thing which did bug me, and I hope is discouraged, is I had an opponent who DC'ed after he mulligan'ed twice and didn't like the hands he was given. I know that feeling, and it sucks, but sometimes you just need to play to the fiddle of the RNGesus. The AI did take over and I ended up winning, but it's just not the same feeling as knowing you beat a human on the other end. I wish they would have separate Rank and Casual play modes, where Ranked has larger penalties for early disconnects, with no AI takeover, and Casual with smaller penalties and allowing AI takeovers.
Of course, this has been beaten to death, but it can't be said enough. If Wizard really wants this to take off more, they NEED a unified account system, cross play, etc. Yeah, it's a shit-ton of work, but it's something they need to solve if they really want to be competitive in my opinion. Part of me hopes this is in the plans and needs more time to bake. If that were the case even, I wish Wizards would be more communicative and let us know some high-level plans, assuming they would want to commit to them.
Overall, the game is not great, but it's not terrible. Disappointing is how I feel about it mostly. If you're a truly hardcore Magic player, then I'm sure you'll be able to look past many of these flaws because of the great gameplay that Magic has. As a casual Magic user, I was certainly not grabbed. However, the great thing is that if Wizards is really serious about this, they will continue to update the game and hopefully start working on some of the bigger problems (unified account system!) as well as polish the presentation. However, if Wizards is only planning on doing yearly updates (essentially replacing the yearly standalone Duels games) and only bug fixes in between, then I fail to see how this will capture more than the hardcore Magic players.
I always think the idea of releasing this as a service is what it should have always been. Constantly update it and add new content to the existing game, and always have the player base with you instead of consistently fragmenting between versions. I can now truly have a library of Magic cards, and it will be awesome instead of needing to start over.
It was disappointing that the Windows version didn't contain native touch controls, and only relied on Windows interpreting touch as mouse controls. Sure, most things were clickable so I could use touch, but it surely isn't as smooth as the iPad version. For example, for every action you take, you always need to double tap. Once to move the mouse cursor there, and a second to "click". It should be smarter than that. Granted, I do realize that the number of M/KB users for Windows is greater than touch, but this is a game which would play great on my Surface if they would put in a little bit more work to polish the input to make it feel first-class.
The entire presentation to the game is just so... bland. Maybe you unlock different tables or something later on, but honestly, comparing this to the excellent presentation in Hearthstone is just night and day. Not to mention that the game hitches at times, occasionally stutters, etc and the animations don't even feel like they're running at 60 Hz. My machine is certainly no slouch (4770k, 780ti), so I hope they continue to optimize.
I only looked at the quests, and it seemed about what you would expect. Maybe I didn't unlock them, but I hope they have different tiers of quests. Maybe a small daily for winning a game against another player in Versus and a larger one for winning 5 games with a B/G deck or whatever.
The Deck Wizard was pretty cool as I'm someone who never really made their own decks. I have no idea if they were good decks, but I do like how it explained some things in how you structure the deck.
Sound design is okay. I really wish they had some more varied background music (maybe even make it dynamic to the current situation in the game). Sounds pretty much the same from other Duels games.
The UI was alright. As with all Duels games, the UI has quirks. I also wish I could disable more of the animations so the UI doesn't feel sluggish. I want instant damage updates, instant tooltip pop-ups, etc. At times it feels like some UI designer went nuts with effects because it looks better, but in my opinion, it does not necessarily mean it plays better. I don't care if they are there, as long as I can disable them.
Getting into a MP game was very quick. Surprisingly quick. Considering it's sort of a pain to find on Steam for some reason, I was expecting some longer match queues, but nope, it's damn near instant. Not sure on how the matchmaking works in terms of skill. I did rank up, so I assume it tries to match you with someone of similar rank? Hopefully so.
One thing which did bug me, and I hope is discouraged, is I had an opponent who DC'ed after he mulligan'ed twice and didn't like the hands he was given. I know that feeling, and it sucks, but sometimes you just need to play to the fiddle of the RNGesus. The AI did take over and I ended up winning, but it's just not the same feeling as knowing you beat a human on the other end. I wish they would have separate Rank and Casual play modes, where Ranked has larger penalties for early disconnects, with no AI takeover, and Casual with smaller penalties and allowing AI takeovers.
Of course, this has been beaten to death, but it can't be said enough. If Wizard really wants this to take off more, they NEED a unified account system, cross play, etc. Yeah, it's a shit-ton of work, but it's something they need to solve if they really want to be competitive in my opinion. Part of me hopes this is in the plans and needs more time to bake. If that were the case even, I wish Wizards would be more communicative and let us know some high-level plans, assuming they would want to commit to them.
Overall, the game is not great, but it's not terrible. Disappointing is how I feel about it mostly. If you're a truly hardcore Magic player, then I'm sure you'll be able to look past many of these flaws because of the great gameplay that Magic has. As a casual Magic user, I was certainly not grabbed. However, the great thing is that if Wizards is really serious about this, they will continue to update the game and hopefully start working on some of the bigger problems (unified account system!) as well as polish the presentation. However, if Wizards is only planning on doing yearly updates (essentially replacing the yearly standalone Duels games) and only bug fixes in between, then I fail to see how this will capture more than the hardcore Magic players.
Well, that and the fact that learners won't be able to learn deck building if they learn this 4, 3, 2, 1 limit of rarity.
I'm curious the way Wizard's would've gone with this if they DIDN'T introduce Mythic Rares after... what... post Planescape/Invasion Block? I honestly can't remember when they introduced Mythic Rares but I know it wasn't part of the game in the early 00's.
You have to use the deck in an online duel, AFAIK. I used mine (Island/Forests, IIRC) but it didn't count my single-player/versus battle with the AI despite the fact it was part of the quest requirements.
It DOES count the permanent removal if you do the single-player "Planeswalker Spark" campaign, meanwhile. I had 4 removals counted under Lilliana's campaign.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Whether you happen to like the change, I think it's entirely fair to say it fundamentally changes a key aspect of the game that has existed more since the first major rules overhaul in the game. It's not a rule in "cutthroat" Standard (the most played format by a wide margin) it doesn't exist in Modern, Legacy or Vintage.
It also makes people get a poor view of what the game is. Check for instance all the people above who continue to conflate mythic rarity with power. That's not how it works, but a reasonable person could assume that by how Duels and 2015 are set up. It's important to note that these are the only duels game that had these restrictions, sot it's also not fair to say "this is just how Duels works."
It also drastically changes how much luck influences the game, at least at this stage. If - and I think this is a big if considering their digital track record - they manage to fill out roles with updates with enough commons and uncommons, this could be mitigated somewhat. But there is no getting around the fact that rares and mythic rares often have no direct comparisons in common and uncommon territory.
I also disagree with your supposition that this is a good move in a F2P model. I think it's exactly the opposite. It severely restricts the amount of cards you can open, thereby driving down any tangible reward for continuing to play. It's free to earn coins, so any player regular or...I dunno, are we really going with hardcore here?... can earn the cards in the same exact way.
Imperfected
Member
I did a (very limited) test, and found that my Black/Blue deck did not count for purposes of the quest, but after using the "Wizard" to build a deck that one did. Not sure if that's a thing, but maybe "custom" decks aren't/have trouble being recognized because the game hasn't been "told" they're built off the archetypal template?
That, or maybe there's some qualification in card quantities/types necessary to count as an "archetypal" deck when you build a Custom one.
zerokoolpsx
Member
Completed Gideon's campaign and created a deck. So glad you can build a deck from scratch. This will definitely scratch my magic itch for the time being.
I've played online today and yesterday with the right colors and still didn't get any points for the quests. I just tested it against the AI and it doesn't work either
ah thanks, I'll try this out
e: I can confirm that the Wizard-built deck gives me quest points, and it works against the AI
Yeah, I think the "archetype" dailies require that you use the deck wizard.
I played a bunch of this today, and my earlier impressions hold up. It's not a very pretty game and the UI is very bad in places - I just conceded a versus match earlier when my guy that destroys an enchantment when he hits the board destroyed the good enchantment on another of my guys rather than the debilitating one my opponent had cast on it. Online play actually works surprisingly well, though. I was a little afraid that games would take forever, but things move along about as quickly as vs the AI, though maybe there will be more trolls later.
Something that struck me about the game itself, as someone who's only seriously played Hearthstone as far as collectible card games go, is that lots of matches are dominated by random chance. Like, you always hear these complaints about Hearthstone with people holding up Magic as not having the same issues, but while individual cards in Magic don't do random things the selection of cards available to you at any given time is ridiculously inconsistent. It starts with the mulligan, where you get two chances at a good hand before you have to start sacrificing card advantage (and card advantage is a huge deal). You want some lands here, but not too many. So maybe you start with 2 lands in your hand, but then in a good portion of games you just don't draw more lands for 5 turns. Or you start with 3 or 4 lands in your hand and then every draw is a land. God help you if you're using more than one color - I felt bad for some people using three color decks who clearly just had nothing they could play for several turns. Lots of strategies are going to depend on particular key cards but if they're rare or mythic you're just not going to see them in a lot of games. Hearthstone drastically reduces randomness relative to this by essentially giving each player one land per turn, by letting players mulligan individual cards, and by allowing players to draw through a full third of their decks by turn 5 without even trying. I'm told by particularly nerdy moderators that regular Magic has some mechanisms for solving these problems, but they don't seem to be in this.
But I'm having fun with it. I put together a white/green deck with elves, the hexproof boar, and some enchants, mostly aimed at building up a strong board that they can't use spells on while maybe getting out my white planeswalker, who's a ton of fun when he works. Creature trading feels very mind-gamey, although I've noticed that you can't actually bluff in some cases because the game will autopass phases if you can't take actions.
I played a bunch of this today, and my earlier impressions hold up. It's not a very pretty game and the UI is very bad in places - I just conceded a versus match earlier when my guy that destroys an enchantment when he hits the board destroyed the good enchantment on another of my guys rather than the debilitating one my opponent had cast on it. Online play actually works surprisingly well, though. I was a little afraid that games would take forever, but things move along about as quickly as vs the AI, though maybe there will be more trolls later.
Something that struck me about the game itself, as someone who's only seriously played Hearthstone as far as collectible card games go, is that lots of matches are dominated by random chance. Like, you always hear these complaints about Hearthstone with people holding up Magic as not having the same issues, but while individual cards in Magic don't do random things the selection of cards available to you at any given time is ridiculously inconsistent. It starts with the mulligan, where you get two chances at a good hand before you have to start sacrificing card advantage (and card advantage is a huge deal). You want some lands here, but not too many. So maybe you start with 2 lands in your hand, but then in a good portion of games you just don't draw more lands for 5 turns. Or you start with 3 or 4 lands in your hand and then every draw is a land. God help you if you're using more than one color - I felt bad for some people using three color decks who clearly just had nothing they could play for several turns. Lots of strategies are going to depend on particular key cards but if they're rare or mythic you're just not going to see them in a lot of games. Hearthstone drastically reduces randomness relative to this by essentially giving each player one land per turn, by letting players mulligan individual cards, and by allowing players to draw through a full third of their decks by turn 5 without even trying. I'm told by particularly nerdy moderators that regular Magic has some mechanisms for solving these problems, but they don't seem to be in this.
But I'm having fun with it. I put together a white/green deck with elves, the hexproof boar, and some enchants, mostly aimed at building up a strong board that they can't use spells on while maybe getting out my white planeswalker, who's a ton of fun when he works. Creature trading feels very mind-gamey, although I've noticed that you can't actually bluff in some cases because the game will autopass phases if you can't take actions.
Yeah it's a bug or something I think that only the deck you build with the wizard can count towards quests.
Also if it's that big a deal DOTP2014 was modded pretty heavily, people adding in tons more cards. The only thing is their version of Planeswalkers has to be approximated (since none of those mechanics for PWs existed until this year's Duels).
Also if it's that big a deal DOTP2014 was modded pretty heavily, people adding in tons more cards. The only thing is their version of Planeswalkers has to be approximated (since none of those mechanics for PWs existed until this year's Duels).
opened kytheon, archangel of tithes, and hixus in my campaign packs, so i've been playing around with white lists. having some success with wr auras - the cheap red removal like twin bolt and fiery impulse is great against everyone's aggro decks, which aren't really equipped to handle a little dude going over the top with nimbus wings. heliod's pilgrim is great because it can either tutor an answer (suppression bonds) or more tools for the beatdown.
i'd get eaten alive by a decent control deck but i haven't run into one yet.
i'd get eaten alive by a decent control deck but i haven't run into one yet.
archnemesis
Member
I don't believe it's a bug. The game does a horrible job explaining it, but the general idea of using the deck wizard to build "archetype decks" is a good way to get beginners to build balanced decks with the right amount of lands and a decent mana curve.
There are also separate quests for "custom decks".
Edit: Quest synchronization between iPhone and iPad is broken and I also noticed that the tithe angel stopped working. Perhaps it is an issue that only appears on iPhone devices.
There are also separate quests for "custom decks".
Edit: Quest synchronization between iPhone and iPad is broken and I also noticed that the tithe angel stopped working. Perhaps it is an issue that only appears on iPhone devices.
You don't miss much stuff though lol
Its amazing how this game is so ugly. Last year wasn't so bad. They really used the mobile port didn't they?
Cymbal Head
Banned
A thought re: rarity limits. Duels is really in a double bind here.
With no way to trade or to disenchant/craft a la Hearthstone, they took the player-friendly route of removing cards from your booster pool once you've collected a playset. Because of this, if it was possible to collect 4 of everything, once players got to a certain point they'd just start cracking packs of nothing but mythic rares, which would take away from the impression of specialness those cards are supposed to convey, especially among new players.
So, in a Duels with 4-ofs for every card, either you load your players up with (very literally) useless extra copies of commons/uncommons, or you devalue rares and mythic rares. Neither of these is a good option in a gateway game. Hearthstone's crafting system was a great solution to this problem.
With no way to trade or to disenchant/craft a la Hearthstone, they took the player-friendly route of removing cards from your booster pool once you've collected a playset. Because of this, if it was possible to collect 4 of everything, once players got to a certain point they'd just start cracking packs of nothing but mythic rares, which would take away from the impression of specialness those cards are supposed to convey, especially among new players.
So, in a Duels with 4-ofs for every card, either you load your players up with (very literally) useless extra copies of commons/uncommons, or you devalue rares and mythic rares. Neither of these is a good option in a gateway game. Hearthstone's crafting system was a great solution to this problem.
archnemesis
Member
Yep, I really miss the possibility of having 4 of each card. Many fun combos rely on crappy rares.
Yep, I really miss the possible of having 4 of each card. Many fun combos rely on crappy rares.
Warp World wouldn't be in Duels Origins anyway, because one of the main advantages they can leverage is not having to spend a shitload of resources programming niche cards that very few people play and that have no competitive or limited value at all.
I agree with the rarity limits, but the deck size limit should be brought down to like 50 or 45 accordingly. 60 card decks with a 4x limit go hand in hand, and it makes no sense to ditch one but not the other.
Imperfected
Member
This actually goes back to the rarity limits thing. A "normal" Magic deck runs mostly "4-of", as in four of every card it intends to use, save a couple (Planeswalkers and other "Legendary" cards tend to be "2-of"). Then, on top of that, many decks will run some sort of cycling/filler cards, such as relatively cheap cards with a "draw a card" effect that basically has the effect of reducing the number of cards in the deck.
To some extent, if they want to keep their current rarity limit they might want to switch to 40 card decks rather than 60. The 60 card deck is really built around the "4-of" assumption in deck building; 40 is standard for most formats where players are unlikely to have tons of card copies, because it makes for a more consistent deck with such a heavy mix of cards.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
That's a damn good point.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I don't usually notice the music much in this sort of game, but damn, MDO has a great soundtrack. Love the Nissa campaign theme, especially.
Cymbal Head
Banned
The AI playing the mono-black deck on level 3 of Jace's story has the most consistent mana base ever. I keep trying to deck him using Sphinx's Tutelage, and I've only seen it go off for more than 2 cards once in 3 matches.
And I never draw a Cancel until after he has a Nightmare out. It's ridiculous.
Edit: finally won when I was able to get a second tutelage out.
And I never draw a Cancel until after he has a Nightmare out. It's ridiculous.
Edit: finally won when I was able to get a second tutelage out.
SigmasonicX
Member
The difference in complaints is largely due to player perception of randomness. Random card draw is accepted as part of the game, but a card that says "random" on it is much more harshly received.
Concerning the mana system in general, Mark Rosewater (head designer) wrote this article in defense of it. He was also one of the creators of Duel Masters, which uses a system where any card can be used as a resource once per turn, but felt that was a weaker system. You can disagree with his premise that having each game with the same decks feel different from the last is better for the game than consistency, but I feel he does make some good points. That said, because of this, I do feel that having online matches be determined by one game, instead of at least being best of 3, is a mistake, but one that must be made in order to not take up too much time.
archnemesis
Member
I just lost my entire collection. I'm done with this crap.
Nikodemos
Member
How?
archnemesis
Member
I suppose it was caused by a sync error between the cloud and my two iDevices. A competent developer would have kept the larger card collection and discarded all others, if a discrepancy appeared.
Nikodemos
Member
I suspect they may be afraid of hackers. In MtG, powerful cards are quite powerful.
Though they definitely need to improve their netcode. Or increase server capacity. Right now it's bloody pitiful.
SigmasonicX
Member
You should probably try to contact Wizards about this. For MTGO, they've been known to reimburse lost drafts, so they may do something here. Even if you plan on leaving the game, it'd be good for them to know about this; it might just get them to do something if they know they lost a customer.
Nikodemos
Member
Definitely this. An extremely unhappy customer this early will light a fire under their arses.
Prototype Viktor
Member
Magic
Archnemesis, I wouldn't tell or help them as they clearly only sorta care whoever is doing thier programming
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
The saddest part of this all, is that I would gladly pay the criminal MTGO prices if only they would make an appealing, modern interface. Instead we get more of the same.
From the screen where you put cards into the deck, click the bottom mana curve symbol, then you can click a gear-looking thing to pick a name/face/background for the deck.
You can edit cards from wizard-built decks by clicking them to put them back. Still doesn't give you complete freedom.
And you can edit the avatar/background of custom decks. It was under a certain submenu when selecting the Deck (something like Deck Info?).
---
I'm a relatively new Magic player. I'm the type of person who knew the basic rules growing up, but for some reason or another never really got into playing. Until a couple months ago, I probably hadn't played more than 3 games of Magic in my life.
I tried Hearthstone for a couple months a year and a half ago and dropped it when I got bored of what felt like vanilla cards and unengaging strategy. I was pretty excited when I heard that Magic was taking on the FTP format, but I set my expectations accordingly with everything I've heard about MTG:O.
My impressions:
+ The AI is uncannily good. Despite the complex rules of Magic, they rarely do stupid things. They excel at Magic's non-trivial attacker/defender problems (or, at least, they're much better than I am), and I've seen them pull off enough non-trivial combos and crafty moves that it clearly isn't just luck. Compared to the Hearthstone AI, it's a masterpiece.
+ Related to the above, but the single player mode is substantial. At least more substantial than what Hearthstone shipped with, and not locked behind gold sinks. There's definitely room to expand, but it's great to have a solid amount of challenging single player content through which to learn the game.
+ The monetization is exceedingly generous. Rumor has it that you can't get duplicate cards once you hit the cap, which makes gathering a complete set massively cheaper than Hearthstone. If that weren't enough, you can choose which cards to upgrade to foil at much cheaper cost than Hearthstone's "Golden" system.
+ The controller support is fantastic. My right click has been broken lately, so I've been playing the game with a gamepad. Targetting cards is easy and the face buttons make everything effortless and smooth. The tutorials are even have updated voices for the controllers. Honestly, check it out if you haven't. it feels great.
+ Most importantly, the card game is awesome. It doesn't have all of the complexity of paper magic (yet), but it blows Hearthstone out of the water. The 10 deck wizard templates have more personality and variety than anything I saw when I was playing Hearthstone.
+ The 2D art is beautiful. Seriously, I want some of those deck background for my desktop wallpaper. Magic's known for its beautiful art, and the awesome avatars+background+2D animations do a great job of showing it off.
- The UI is dull. Mainly because of all the gray surrounding the playing field, imo.
- The 3D cutscenes are hideous. In an endearing way.
- Tech issues. Most online games have day 1 server issues, so I can let those slide. But the inability to do archetype quests with custom built decks is pretty annoying. Thankfully, they've been doing a good job communicating with the community, so I'm hopeful that they'll be fixed soon.
- No draft mode! Hopefully it'll come eventually. At least there's 2v2.
Honestly? I really like it. It's rough around the edges, but the entire point of this game is that it can be expanded and improved upon. Magic as a game does a much better job of holding my interest than Hearthstone, so I hope that Wizards builds a platform worthy of supporting it. It isn't perfect, but it isn't a bad first step either, and I'm excited to see where it goes in the future.
It really is. I was trying to work this out yesterday and I think it only takes about a month and a half of daily-but-casual playing to get every card without paying money (about 120 gold/day, 50ish from daily quests and 70ish from winning 3-4 matches). I'm told to expect new cards in 3 months, so at this rate people who keep playing more-or-less regularly are going to be able to instantly own every card in each new set as it comes out. It would strike me as pretty poorly thought-out for a standalone product but I guess if the idea is to try to introduce people to the game and hope they buy real cards it might make sense.
That said, paying 5 coins to make your cards ugly still does not seem like a bargain.
Werewolf Jones
Member
IDK when this dropped but I just played it today, my first real experience with magic but the UI is a tad clunky and slow compared to the PTCGO. Hope it speeds up a bit or gets some fixes.
Ain't that the truth. They could make a fortune off of me by adding random foil cards to boosters and then charging to get them de-foiled..
Cymbal Head
Banned
Honest question: Is there a virtual TCG that does premium cards well?
shawnoftheshred
Member
Agreed - I went through the Deck Wizard to build a B/U grave archetype deck for my daily challenge. It walked me through Gravediggers/Rise From The Graves etc. But at the end, when I realized that I could use some simple non-synergistic cards to up the overall power and fix my curve, I was surprised to find out that you couldn't just go in and edit card-for-card (unless I'm missing something).
All around, based on the disastrous impressions, I'm actually pretty happy with it as is. Finished 2 of the Planeswalker story modes so far and am looking forward to opening a few more packs to see what kind of decks can be crafted.
Dreamland Boy
Neo Member
I really like the Alternate Arts of HEX for the most part. And there are lots of Hearthstone streamers really into the golden cards. I personally wouldn't mind if they were removed from Hearthstone but from what I've heard and seen, I am in the minority with that opinion.
Yeah, afaik you can't do any sort of "free editing" on a deck built through the Wizard. You can edit it further through the Wizard, but you can't do unrestricted card swaps.
It wouldn't really be a big deal if you could complete quests with custom decks. Hopefully that fix comes in soon!
Got this error message earlier:
No info on which save contains the most amount of decks or was last updated or whatever. Ended up picking the wrong choice. Luckily, I only had one deck saved before so not a big deal for me but this would be a huge bummer once you've got a number of decks saved.
On a different note, there's now a joint "Community" quest among my quests. That's pretty cool! Is that their own invention or does Hearthstone have it already?
("Saved decks do not match the server save data. Which do you want to keep (the other will be deleted)?")
No info on which save contains the most amount of decks or was last updated or whatever. Ended up picking the wrong choice. Luckily, I only had one deck saved before so not a big deal for me but this would be a huge bummer once you've got a number of decks saved.
On a different note, there's now a joint "Community" quest among my quests. That's pretty cool! Is that their own invention or does Hearthstone have it already?