I think this is where I'm at. Shame. Was looking forward to it.
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Artifact Closed Public ßeta, November 18-28 |OT| An out of season October 2018 Fool's Joke
- Thread starter Deleted member 2802
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I was more amicable to the P2P aspect of the game with the assumption that the modes available would be free. There not being a free way to play draft really puts a damper on things for me.
I'm actually a bit concerned about the player population for something like keeper draft as well. You're splitting the playerbase between those willing to pay for draft and not with the event tickets, and now you're splitting them again between people willing to pay for event tickets to play your mode and willing to pay an additional 10 bucks on top of that for your "for keeps" mode.
I'm actually a bit concerned about the player population for something like keeper draft as well. You're splitting the playerbase between those willing to pay for draft and not with the event tickets, and now you're splitting them again between people willing to pay for event tickets to play your mode and willing to pay an additional 10 bucks on top of that for your "for keeps" mode.
Do we know that the matchmaking pool for Keeper is separate from phantom?
I had already come to grips with the monetization ages ago. It's stupid that there is no way to just play the game for free in a competitive way but whatever. Game still looks fun.
My plan is to just open my 10 packs and sell whatever I get to fund phantom draft runs. And whatever packs I win off those runs I sell the contents of them for more event tickets. I don't have a ton of time to play the game so one run might last a week for me, provided I don't get a visit from the 0-2 police. I can hopefully get by with only having to buy ticket bundles once a month or so.
My plan is to just open my 10 packs and sell whatever I get to fund phantom draft runs. And whatever packs I win off those runs I sell the contents of them for more event tickets. I don't have a ton of time to play the game so one run might last a week for me, provided I don't get a visit from the 0-2 police. I can hopefully get by with only having to buy ticket bundles once a month or so.
I've not heard anything about that actually, it's a good question.
Yeah, this is where I am at as well. Shouldn't be too expensive to draft as often as I want to.
It won't change now, because the starter deck is all that is available "A Call To Arms".
When the next deck arrives, I imagine they may balance it by having newcommers only get the 10x packs of this new deck. After a few months, perhaps prices on the market will then swing around as the "A Call To Arms" deck will be more rare
Yep good question - there is no information on whether there is matchmaking for each of the "Expert" modes, whether all pool using the same metric or not..
Let's go
Context:
https://clips.twitch.tv/CrackyCooperativeChimpanzeeDancingBanana
I've been watching streams today and I think the game finally clicked for me. Looks super fun.
Man it's really a shame to see the monetisation model this game adopted. I feel like Valve kind of painted themselves into a corner on this one by not making it F2P. I don't don't completely get if the starter decks (not packs) are considered "basic cards" that everyone has like Hearthstone, and are un-marketable. Charging for draft play in a game you have to buy into seems extremely counter-intuitive to me.
It's a shame because the gameplay itself looks excellent! I just feel like the monetization is going to ruin this one potentially. I will still be playing though.
It's a shame because the gameplay itself looks excellent! I just feel like the monetization is going to ruin this one potentially. I will still be playing though.
The worst part about the monetization is that it makes nerfs extremely problematic.
Nerfs are so important. And they can't really do it.
Nerfs are so important. And they can't really do it.
Nerfs almost never happen in TCGs though, that's what expansions are for
I don't follow MtG or other physical CCGs much, but aren't balance issues usually just addressed though new card set releases? I would guess that might be what happens here. They seem to want to treat it like a physical CCG, but that in itself is quite problematic for a digital CCG. If there's anything to take from Hearthstone, it's that it's monetization model was good, especially since it was a F2P game. It was just lacking in the gameplay department.
I actually don't think HS monetization was good, the F2P trappings were too strong.
Ideally, it's a NetRunner model - that's still the gold standard IMO.
I knew there was going to be some outrage over the game's economy but I am surprised by the sheer amount of outrage. Phantom draft is actually cheap as hell. The math works out to something like 10-20 cents per draft if you're around 50% win rate. I suspect people are reluctant to put any money in and Valve should have anticipated that. I think there is a good chance some major economy changes are made last minute before release.
Definitely agree. Was hoping Artifact could finally be the game I can really get into, and it easily still could. I just need to know a bit more and see how things progress in the next few weeks
The problem is that it's DOTA themed, so you have that crowd sort of fueling the gamer rage. If it was coming from a different angle (TCG players first vs DOTA players), I think people would be very happy with the model.
Yeah, I'm optimistic. If I pay $1 a week for a draft that's still so much cheaper than MtG Draft Night.
All the streams I've been watching all chat and some of the streamers talk about is then monetization of the game.
I believe that the only basic cards in the game are the 5 basic heroes and 7 basic items. These are available to everyone to put into their decks in all modes and do not come in packs. The starter decks are made up of some of these uncollectible basic cards and the rest are collectible commons.
I think the thing that took it over the edge was the fact that we get those heroes from the starter decks in the boosters.
And it seems to happen a lot.
What the fuck are we going to do with those? At least let us trade them in for tickets or something.
And it seems to happen a lot.
What the fuck are we going to do with those? At least let us trade them in for tickets or something.
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I'm not seeing a functional difference between cards literally everybody receives and basic cards.
Yeah that's something they absolutely need to address. I feel like surely they will and maybe either give out more free packs without the dupes, or retroactively re-roll the dupe cards if they haven't been marketed already. In Dota if there were cases with chests where the chance of getting a certain cosmetic wasn't working right, Valve retroactively gave out the cosmetics they should have gotten.
Well it is important, but I don't think there is a lot of thought going into discussion a lot of the time. Valve is the big problem, because they simply haven't communicated much of anything, so people lose it till there is eventual clarification. Rightfully people are annoyed because Draft prior to yesterday was still a possibility of being available and no cost, now it's gone. Still entry is very competitive vs other TCGs, and potentially you could find ways to role in perpetuity. I wonder how much of an "expert" you need to be to even compete in draft realistically.
The starter card "Call to Arms" issues seems a lot like a communication issue, where people are assuming this is a unique basic deck, and people buy packs and find the same thing in there - when this is the same deck. This is resolved real easy if the next deck is what will also become the starter deck for new purchasers, as that will balance out a few months later when the market finds the "Call to Arms" deck is more rare. You always have the risk of pulling a card you already have from these packs just as any TCG if you haven't taken a pack from that deck before
Exactly how I am seeing constructed playing out and developing. I too would like to know timelines for future expansions. Was this ever detailed? This is as critical as everything else. As well as how they're going to approach balancing cards.
More and more I'm in the boat of just buying the game, and sitting on the starter decks and the Call to Arms event and waiting to see how it all pans out.
We know that it's been in some stage of development since at least PAX where around then Garfield said he was working on cards for the first expansion. Nothing more than that so far.
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Just finished the basics #1-8
Very digestible in small 2 minute chunks with a bigger 10+ minute chunks
I kind of wish they did comparisons with Hearthstone or other card games and did a lot more hand holding.
Sunsfan just kind of assumes you are a Dota player.
I'm officially "ready for action"
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Savjz latest tweets have all been deleted
https://old.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/9y5wbg/savjz_shares_our_concerns/e9zcb4r/
@ralopd
That's pretty scary calling a game mode DOA and then presumably Volver asking him to retract
OK, so you can't even run private drafts with friends/community groups? I'm so confused about all of this now.
Something huge is missing from all of this chatter about cost: The ability to go into the Card Collection menu and individually buy cards, and see what the prices are there. When you go through Card Collection and pick the "unowned" filter, then pick through the cards there, you can select "search on marketplace" for any card you don't own, and just buy it outright. "That's the card I want, let's see how many are on sale." (Or, at least, that's how it'll work in the final version.)
That's the part of the "fluid economy" equation that is missing from this opening conversation, and likely for good reason. There wouldn't be many sellers at the preview-player outset, and prices would probably look out of whack at this very limited time.
But if it turns out that you can go in as a $20 base pack buyer, then pick up a bunch of other pack openers' "dupe" cards on the Marketplace for only 15-20 cents a pop, you can likely construct a totally solid starting few decks for $25. Me, I already have five copies of a cool, uncommon piece of equipment:
(That's taken from my Ars article, linked in OP.)
Any deck you construct can only have a max of three of the same card type, so five copies is overkill. (You can see a little "5" on that image.) Once the Marketplace portion goes live, I'm immediately gonna dump my extra 2 Ring of Tarresque cards, and I imagine those'll sell for 15 cents a pop. They came as part of a $2 pack for 10 cards (20 cents each). So I lose 5-10 cents. But more importantly, I am helping someone else snag a totally solid equipment card, and hopefully, other people will do the same with their solid uncommon dupes.
Once that major part of Artifact is live, then we can circle back and ask ourselves: is a $25-ish starter pack, including a dive into the Marketplace to pick up low-priced dupes, a reasonable cost to enter into the Artifact card-battling universe? With the expectation that we can dip our toes into future card seasons in a cheap manner, as well?
Clearly, the starter hero dupes are an embarrassment. Those shouldn't be in the general "I wanna get new cards" pool, tho I can forgive them popping up in Keeper Draft mode ("you got a dupe, sorry, but you need the hero for this separate mode"). But I'm not ready to cry and moan about $20-30 for an opening cost to a card game *IF* its economy turns out reasonably. And Valve has a messaging problem here: they put a beta out with a game that revolves so heavily around economy, then put a lock on the biggest piece of economical punctuation. They honestly should lock up the ability to buy more packs of cards in the short term and just give beta players an additional 5 packs, because this whole "I'm gonna buy 100 packs" stuff looks TERRIBLE and may not be indicative of how you'll actually grow your deck as an average consumer. (Whether you get addicted to hoping for your particular rare drop, and thus buy zillions of random-draw packs instead of overpaying for them in Marketplace, is another matter.)
Ultimately, Valve has been screaming all along that this is not a free-to-play game. Not free-to-play. And Internet rabble-rousing is not the same as sitting with $25 of cards and seeing what you can make out of them. I like the gameplay system here, and I suggest anybody who wants a decent CCG should cool their heels. Not like you can't just go play Hearthstone or Gwent or a bunch of other CCGs—and thus vote with your time, activity, and wallet elsewhere.
That's the part of the "fluid economy" equation that is missing from this opening conversation, and likely for good reason. There wouldn't be many sellers at the preview-player outset, and prices would probably look out of whack at this very limited time.
But if it turns out that you can go in as a $20 base pack buyer, then pick up a bunch of other pack openers' "dupe" cards on the Marketplace for only 15-20 cents a pop, you can likely construct a totally solid starting few decks for $25. Me, I already have five copies of a cool, uncommon piece of equipment:
(That's taken from my Ars article, linked in OP.)
Any deck you construct can only have a max of three of the same card type, so five copies is overkill. (You can see a little "5" on that image.) Once the Marketplace portion goes live, I'm immediately gonna dump my extra 2 Ring of Tarresque cards, and I imagine those'll sell for 15 cents a pop. They came as part of a $2 pack for 10 cards (20 cents each). So I lose 5-10 cents. But more importantly, I am helping someone else snag a totally solid equipment card, and hopefully, other people will do the same with their solid uncommon dupes.
Once that major part of Artifact is live, then we can circle back and ask ourselves: is a $25-ish starter pack, including a dive into the Marketplace to pick up low-priced dupes, a reasonable cost to enter into the Artifact card-battling universe? With the expectation that we can dip our toes into future card seasons in a cheap manner, as well?
Clearly, the starter hero dupes are an embarrassment. Those shouldn't be in the general "I wanna get new cards" pool, tho I can forgive them popping up in Keeper Draft mode ("you got a dupe, sorry, but you need the hero for this separate mode"). But I'm not ready to cry and moan about $20-30 for an opening cost to a card game *IF* its economy turns out reasonably. And Valve has a messaging problem here: they put a beta out with a game that revolves so heavily around economy, then put a lock on the biggest piece of economical punctuation. They honestly should lock up the ability to buy more packs of cards in the short term and just give beta players an additional 5 packs, because this whole "I'm gonna buy 100 packs" stuff looks TERRIBLE and may not be indicative of how you'll actually grow your deck as an average consumer. (Whether you get addicted to hoping for your particular rare drop, and thus buy zillions of random-draw packs instead of overpaying for them in Marketplace, is another matter.)
Ultimately, Valve has been screaming all along that this is not a free-to-play game. Not free-to-play. And Internet rabble-rousing is not the same as sitting with $25 of cards and seeing what you can make out of them. I like the gameplay system here, and I suggest anybody who wants a decent CCG should cool their heels. Not like you can't just go play Hearthstone or Gwent or a bunch of other CCGs—and thus vote with your time, activity, and wallet elsewhere.
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A lot of people on era do not like any sort of RNG-style lootbox
Valve kind of takes the loot out by selling them on the market, but the removal of the draft tournaments seems very odd
Draft seems extremely popular and there is currently no way to know if spending $500-1000 will net you an advantage compared to $20-40
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300 bucks. Couldn't build the deck he wanted to.
Not spending a dime on packs. What a shitshow.
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Those packs are fucked up RNG
Beta with no steam market is going to be rough af
I refunded my pre-order. I thought about keeping it but as someone who has complained about HS in the past, that game is looking like a charity compared to this. I'll wait and see how they respond to the criticisms but if they hold firm and I still have a chance of getting starter deck cards in the packs and have to pay to play constructed I'll certainly be skipping it.
They can make the heroes be available in keeper draft and not be in regular packs, yes it sucks for people who only want to play keeper draft but based on how many people play constructed vs draft in other games, constructed is more important to more people.
You need people hooked at the start to keep playing in a few months when the first expansion hits, if you make them mad now they aren't going to be playing months from now.
Lmao, rookie mistake if they ever played yugioh or magic in real life. Should know by now to never buy packs if youre chasing a specfic deck, always buy singles
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