Current AI is placeholder... they are planning to some sort of real AI out with Arena's which are supposed to be some of the first of the PVE things to be released(I'm pretty sure I read that).
I think the starter trials are a really good idea. You get very nice cards from them, if you are a new player just starting out with no more than the starter packs.
On a side note, if you are planning to use the -1/-1 to blocker blood gem, don't! It's bugged and doesn't work (cost me a couple draft games)
There's also a bug likely to come up in the orc trial where using the one orc that makes someone unable to block causes the AI to hard lock.
I got around this by just not using that card. The AI is dumb enough that you can forego a chunk of your deck's strategy and still beat it easily.
Edit: Apparently there's also a bug where if you modify the starter deck much from what the AI expects, it'll just stop trying to win and refuse to do anything but play resources.
There's also a bug likely to come up in the orc trial where using the one orc that makes someone unable to block causes the AI to hard lock.
I got around this by just not using that card. The AI is dumb enough that you can forego a chunk of your deck's strategy and still beat it easily.
Edit: Apparently there's also a bug where if you modify the starter deck much from what the AI expects, it'll just stop trying to win and refuse to do anything but play resources.
The starter deck challenges are a really neat concept with great rewards that make starter decks totally worth buying for a new player. Their only downfall is the still ABYSMALLY stupid AI, which does stuff like tap your creatures during its own turn, or giant growth its creatures when it's not attacking.
Yeah, I really hope they are working on the AI - I was playing Magic 2014 during the free weekend and the difference between their AI and HEX's was huge. Of course they can make PvE challenging with crap AI by just giving the opponent ridiculously overpowered stuff but I hope they are not going that way.
Even if they do that, they still need to improve the AI's approach to timing. AI burns everything it can on its turn, often in a way that completely defeats the strategy of the deck the AI is piloting.
It's easy to state the general rule for when to do something - as late as possible without rendering it irrelevant. So anything instant speed should be performed at the end of your opponent's turn or in response to something (generally one of the steps of combat or an opponent's spell). All sorcery speed actions that will not affect combat should be played during your second main phase. Land should be dropped immediately because resources up makes the opponent have to account for more risks (unless you're holding one or two back to inflate your hand and bluff threats, but that's well past the minimum level of intelligence expected from AI).
I think for this to work effectively, you'd need to flag each instant with what it can be used for (e.g. protection, removal, counter, combat trick, etc.) and then all spells and effects with a category flag (similar types), and then draw up a chart of what responds to what (and a chart of its own for combat tricks). Then anytime the player acts, consult the charts, see if you have anything to respond with, and act accordingly. This still wouldn't get into the area of holding back options (like not throwing hard kills at a 1/1, but that would be coverable in end of turn logic).
Of course, programming this would still be a pain, and doubly so to make it efficient.
It would also have the effect of making a lot of players think twice about their self-assessed skill level.
EmberquickMaster of DungeonsDeep UndergroundRegistered Userregular
edited July 2014
So according to the new update, they are simplifying mercenaries (no leveling) and making them bind to account after use. You can sub in a merc for your champion once or twice per dungeon until you beat that dungeon--then you can use mercs throughout that dungeon on subsequent playthroughs.
Naturally, some folks on the Hex boards are mighty upset about it--mostly because they can't trade/sell mercs after trying them out. After thinking it through, I'm okay with it. You can still trade or sell extras you get, and it makes mercs a little more special if you commit to owning them.
Dungeons, mercenaries . . . I'm having a good time drafting right now, but man I can't wait for PvE to get here!
Mercenaries were supposed to be the "character" part of the MMORPG in the game. That's a pretty substantial scope reduction.
Edit: Completing my thought, I'd thought that Champions were just the balanced-for-pvp flavor of Mercenaries for the pvp game type. Whereas mercs were your everything in PvE. Now they're just limited use buffs?
No, we're going to have actual Champions that represent our characters. Mercenaries were always meant to be a substitute.
Exactly, Mercenaries were always supposed to be a side thing in the PvE aspect. They were something you could use instead of your main character that you set up if you wanted. It makes more sense for them to be a bit more limited to be honest. I was wondering what would differentiate the two originally when they announced them being able to gain levels and such. This makes much more sense.
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Also, for anyone Jonesing for some MMOCCG while you wait on Hex, Infinity Wars is F2P on Steam and has been scratching the itch nicely for me. The campaigns are fairly short, I ran through all of them in a weekend, but it's decent.
They announced a free constructed tournament this last weekend, assumedly as a stress test. I hopped on to join in, and boy did we stress the servers.
Starting at about 250 people in the tournament queue the server slowed to a crawl. By 350 it was at its breaking limit. Most folks never got into a match. I'm glad we tested the servers, but I'd figure being beyond 400 concurrent users would be feasibly by now. It's freaking amateur hour as fuck in Hex.
They announced a free constructed tournament this last weekend, assumedly as a stress test. I hopped on to join in, and boy did we stress the servers.
Starting at about 250 people in the tournament queue the server slowed to a crawl. By 350 it was at its breaking limit. Most folks never got into a match. I'm glad we tested the servers, but I'd figure being beyond 400 concurrent users would be feasibly by now. It's freaking amateur hour as fuck in Hex.
Was going to ask if anybody took part in this. Was busy on Saturday, so couldn't log on to help test. That's too bad that things slowed to a crawl with a relatively small amount of users. Hopefully they got some good data out of it, at least.
Yeah nobody actually got into a match I think. Tournament servers were overloaded for a while even after they had said the test was over but the Proving Grounds were still working fine. They are going to give everyone that was logged on during it something so it's all good. Closed Beta is the time to work through these types of issues though.
Yeah nobody actually got into a match I think. Tournament servers were overloaded for a while even after they had said the test was over but the Proving Grounds were still working fine. They are going to give everyone that was logged on during it something so it's all good. Closed Beta is the time to work through these types of issues though.
I definitely agree and wasn't heartbroken that I didn't get to play. I was just kind of surprised that they couldn't handle the small number of players that were on. I was assuming we'd be past that point and not breaking the servers till at least 1000 people or something.
Alright, since Crypto isn't moving too quickly, it's time to create some content for ourselves.
Do we have 8 people who want to do a constructed tournament? We could run it across a week with matches assigned to two day blocks and just have an internal PA tourney.
I'd prefer to just make it open to any cards you have, but we can do a pauper format or something too. At this point, though, someone who has bought in will do better at pauper as well since there's no trading yet.
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EmberquickMaster of DungeonsDeep UndergroundRegistered Userregular
I'd be down for a PA constructed tournament.
The 48-hour Hex Twitch charity stream for Child's Play is about halfway done--it's been pretty entertaining so far, and they have raised over TEN GRAND for CP!
This sort of raises a real concern I have. The base of customers are waiting for Hex to be real/released/whatever. I'm sure we have 8 people who play on the forums, but we're so burned out on the dragged out release process that we can't round up 8 people to play.
Well, so far the lack of PvE, the lack of good AI, and the lack of stable servers is making this feel like I made a bad bet on Kickstarter here.
That they monetized this early makes me worried that they're trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Especially with the foul taste of set 2 cards while the game is still in Beta.
This sort of raises a real concern I have. The base of customers are waiting for Hex to be real/released/whatever. I'm sure we have 8 people who play on the forums, but we're so burned out on the dragged out release process that we can't round up 8 people to play.
Yeah, pretty much. It's hard to get all that worked up over a half-working early access thing.
By the time folks waiting start playing, we'll be on set 3. I imagine kickstarter backers waiting on "launch" will not be happy to find out their product they kickstarted for is close to out of date when they roll in.
WotC has responded to Crypto's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Primarily, they just adjusted some details/added some info to prevent getting tossed on technicalities identified by Crypto. No real update other than it's unlikely the suit just gets tossed.
Wasn't Cryptozoic being sued by Wizards because the latter feels they own card games or something?
Did anything come out of that?
As of 2 posts above yours it seems they are still pursuing it and going through the motions:
WotC has responded to Crypto's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Primarily, they just adjusted some details/added some info to prevent getting tossed on technicalities identified by Crypto. No real update other than it's unlikely the suit just gets tossed.
So no real idea on any sort of outcome just yet it seems
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Wasn't Cryptozoic being sued by Wizards because the latter feels they own card games or something?
Did anything come out of that?
Still in pre-trial motions it seems. Honestly, that patent being used will hopefully be struck down, since game rules have no business being patented, they can't possibly satisfy the "useful" requirement.
The patent has expired, but the money from the kickstarter was collected before then and therefore would be subject to a decision there. (Which is actually one of the more interesting questions the case may impact. Wizards is saying that the kickstarter money was sales to Hex and fully recoverable as lost sales to them. A decision in that direction might undermine the claim that kickstarter would like to make that nothing taking place on kickstarter is actually a sale, it's donations.)
Additionally, there's still the non patent claims like trade dress.
Got a chance to play around with the new UI and engine at GenCon, and it's a lot nicer and smoother. You can actually scroll through your card list in the manager with minimal lag for waiting for images.
The new in-game UI was nice as well, although it's weird to see resources on the right side instead of the left. I think it works better, though. Supposedly will be pushed out in around a month or so.
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Tried to play a draft today. Sat in the draft lobby for about 30 minute before giving up. There's only one draft lobby at a time when waiting to launch, so for a full 30 minutes there were seriously no new drafts launched.
Yeah I noticed queues being pretty empty but I did still have a draft last night that fired quickly and managed to have a constructed fire today after a wait. I think that a decent number of regular drafters were at Gencon as well as people might be just waiting for the Set 2 drafts to be released.
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On a side note, if you are planning to use the -1/-1 to blocker blood gem, don't! It's bugged and doesn't work (cost me a couple draft games)
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I got around this by just not using that card. The AI is dumb enough that you can forego a chunk of your deck's strategy and still beat it easily.
Edit: Apparently there's also a bug where if you modify the starter deck much from what the AI expects, it'll just stop trying to win and refuse to do anything but play resources.
Actually, it'll stop playing resources too.
It would also have the effect of making a lot of players think twice about their self-assessed skill level.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Naturally, some folks on the Hex boards are mighty upset about it--mostly because they can't trade/sell mercs after trying them out. After thinking it through, I'm okay with it. You can still trade or sell extras you get, and it makes mercs a little more special if you commit to owning them.
Dungeons, mercenaries . . . I'm having a good time drafting right now, but man I can't wait for PvE to get here!
Mercenaries were supposed to be the "character" part of the MMORPG in the game. That's a pretty substantial scope reduction.
Edit: Completing my thought, I'd thought that Champions were just the balanced-for-pvp flavor of Mercenaries for the pvp game type. Whereas mercs were your everything in PvE. Now they're just limited use buffs?
Exactly, Mercenaries were always supposed to be a side thing in the PvE aspect. They were something you could use instead of your main character that you set up if you wanted. It makes more sense for them to be a bit more limited to be honest. I was wondering what would differentiate the two originally when they announced them being able to gain levels and such. This makes much more sense.
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Also, for anyone Jonesing for some MMOCCG while you wait on Hex, Infinity Wars is F2P on Steam and has been scratching the itch nicely for me. The campaigns are fairly short, I ran through all of them in a weekend, but it's decent.
I need PvE!
Starting at about 250 people in the tournament queue the server slowed to a crawl. By 350 it was at its breaking limit. Most folks never got into a match. I'm glad we tested the servers, but I'd figure being beyond 400 concurrent users would be feasibly by now. It's freaking amateur hour as fuck in Hex.
Was going to ask if anybody took part in this. Was busy on Saturday, so couldn't log on to help test. That's too bad that things slowed to a crawl with a relatively small amount of users. Hopefully they got some good data out of it, at least.
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
I definitely agree and wasn't heartbroken that I didn't get to play. I was just kind of surprised that they couldn't handle the small number of players that were on. I was assuming we'd be past that point and not breaking the servers till at least 1000 people or something.
That's the "Bro?" use of "Hail Hydra?" I'm empathizing with you about your crummy situation.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Too many buttons for posts.
http://forums.cryptozoic.com/showthread.php?t=37255&p=396245&viewfull=1#post396245
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
Do we have 8 people who want to do a constructed tournament? We could run it across a week with matches assigned to two day blocks and just have an internal PA tourney.
I'd prefer to just make it open to any cards you have, but we can do a pauper format or something too. At this point, though, someone who has bought in will do better at pauper as well since there's no trading yet.
The 48-hour Hex Twitch charity stream for Child's Play is about halfway done--it's been pretty entertaining so far, and they have raised over TEN GRAND for CP!
That they monetized this early makes me worried that they're trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Especially with the foul taste of set 2 cards while the game is still in Beta.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Yeah, pretty much. It's hard to get all that worked up over a half-working early access thing.
Nintendo ID: Incindium
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Did anything come out of that?
As of 2 posts above yours it seems they are still pursuing it and going through the motions:
So no real idea on any sort of outcome just yet it seems
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Still in pre-trial motions it seems. Honestly, that patent being used will hopefully be struck down, since game rules have no business being patented, they can't possibly satisfy the "useful" requirement.
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That does look pretty sweet. I hope it sees the light of day.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
The patent has expired, but the money from the kickstarter was collected before then and therefore would be subject to a decision there. (Which is actually one of the more interesting questions the case may impact. Wizards is saying that the kickstarter money was sales to Hex and fully recoverable as lost sales to them. A decision in that direction might undermine the claim that kickstarter would like to make that nothing taking place on kickstarter is actually a sale, it's donations.)
Additionally, there's still the non patent claims like trade dress.
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I'll also be at GenCon tomorrow and have tickets to two of the Set 2 Drafts so hopefully will be able to source some new Set 2 spoilers myself.
Nintendo ID: Incindium
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The new in-game UI was nice as well, although it's weird to see resources on the right side instead of the left. I think it works better, though. Supposedly will be pushed out in around a month or so.
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