[Artifact] Call to Arms set released. Give mid or feed!

BSoB

It will shake out one of two ways.

1. People who have a full collection and are winning in draft/constructed will dump cards to try to recoup their tickets from when they lose fast(no one can win 100% of the time). So it will often just be cheaper to just buy the deck you're trying to build than to buy packs and hope to get it. People who get tired of the game and are selling of their collection will add to this.
2. There will be a set of 'people' that buy up chase rares and keep them expensive like people who used to 'play the auction house' in WoW and Diablo 3.

EDIT:
This is assuming that the game takes off. There is a problem of trying to take people from a game that can be totally F2P, with only cosmetic stuff like DOTA 2 and make them the player base for a game that has basically no FTP components at all.

Peewi

PMAvers wrote: »

Honestly, I could see Valve being a little gunshy about allowing trading after the whole skin gambling thing their other games had. I do hold out hope that it’ll be in there eventually.

It's not something I've kept up to date on, but I was under the impression that those sites had been shut down. Or at least I haven't seen ads for any in a while.

Not being able to trade with friends directly sucks.

Yilias

I think there will be too many players to make the second hand market more expensive than buying packs once the whole thing has stabilized in a few months. You'll probably be able to put together a deck of virtually anything for just a couple bucks somewhere down the line. It isn't like Magic where you have to go to the effort of packaging and mailing individual cards/playsets, you can just post and walk away, so a much larger chunk of the playerbase will be wanting to resell their duplicates.

Dracil

To an extent. Expensive cards on MTGO was still expensive

fRAWRst

I think the thing thats irking me the most; no way to grind out packs.

HS allows for it, although they limit it, and MTGA allows most players to get decent budget to mid value decks with pretty generous daily/weekly rewards. I also really dig MTGA wild card system

correct me if im wrong, but this needs an initial purchase (no big deal tbh), and then x (1-2? cdn) everytime i want to play a mode that can generate packs. I can also just straight up buy packs but i try to go budget f2p for these cards games until im sure i want to invest

that on top of the card marketplace in steam being actually horrible (flashbacks to pubgs skirts being 300 usd.. which valve takes a cut out of) makes me feel a bit unsure if i even want to dip my toes in

and for some reason i have a feeling the 20 dollar entry price will be dropped similar to tf2 eventually. but maybe by that time ill be so behind on cards

Dracil

https://steamcommunity.com/games/583950/announcements/detail/2535985526495756390

The Artifact public beta is starting later today. All attendees from this year's International and everyone who redeemed a beta key will find the game activated in their Steam account.

Since lifting the NDA on the private beta yesterday, there's been an overwhelming amount of feedback on all parts of the game. Much of that feedback has been a clear signal that we underestimated how much interest and excitement the community has around certain features that weren't available in the initial beta build.

We want to take a few minutes to talk about some of those missing features now:
There was no way to do a draft event with friends. We didn't prioritize this play mode, and had planned to enable it sometime after release. We've heard your feedback: drafting with friends is a core part of what you want to spend your time doing in Artifact. In the next Artifact beta build, you can select Call To Arms Phantom Draft in any user-created tournament.

There was no way to practice the draft modes without spending an event ticket. Drafting is incredibly fun, but can also be very intimidating. We agree that it's important to have a way to practice before venturing into a more competitive mode. In the next Artifact beta build, everyone who has claimed their starting content will find a Casual Phantom Draft gauntlet available in the Casual Play section.

There was nothing to do with duplicate starter heroes. We're adding a system that allows extra, unwanted cards to be recycled into event tickets. This feature will ship before the end of the beta period.
The first two changes will be live for everyone when the public beta activates later today. We'll ship the recycling system, as well as other improvements to the beta, over the next week and a half.

Please enjoy the beta, and keep sending us your feedback.

While everyone has been raging about the first two points, the 3rd point I feel is also super important in stabilizing the economy. It's a way to get rid of cards from the supply, especially for drafters who don't want to play Constructed, as if cards become too cheap they can always convert their cards into event tickets instead.

Lucedes

recycling is an excellent way to set a floor on card prices. i like it!

it's kind of a good move to prop up their secondary market, while reducing the bad feels from opening totally useless cards.

Yilias

It's available for install now if you have a beta key. Time to see if this plays better than it watches.

Yilias

Just finished the tutorial. The art design, music, UI feel, etc. are all excellent. The tutorial gameplay seemed fun, lots of options at any point in the game and often doing nothing is a good play to maintain initiative.
Main menu has an event until mid December with 6 precon decks so you can test what you'd like to play, I'll probably start with UB.

Here's our universal starter cards:


We also get 10 packs to start with, I didn't get anything notable but hey luck is luck. E: When you open packs you get a voice clip for one which has some top tier voice acting and world building. If nothing else this game is a flavor mine.

Spawnbroker

I'm so jelly you got a key, I get to wait 10 days

Yilias

It took me 50 minutes to play 2 games. The game does play as slowly as it looks but while playing there's a lot to think about that doesn't come across while watching.

The UB precon is all tower improvements and eventually you hit a point where you're generating too much value for your opponent to keep up. Both of my games were against BG which seems to be built around efficient removal with a Chain Frost curve topper to attempt to out tempo the early and midgame.

Incindium

Using your packs for keeper drafts instead of opening them generates more value and probably the better move unless you really like gambling.

Dracil

It's definitely debatable. Everyone is likely drafting for cards right now too so you're unlikely to be passed good stuff. I've gotten 2-3 rares in a pack too so if you open that in a draft it kinda sucks.

SniperGuy

Dracil wrote: »

It's definitely debatable. Everyone is likely drafting for cards right now too so you're unlikely to be passed good stuff. I've gotten 2-3 rares in a pack too so if you open that in a draft it kinda sucks.

You can get multiple rares in a pack?

Artifact is sounding weirder and weirder.

I needed anime to post.

SniperGuy wrote: »

Dracil wrote: »

It's definitely debatable. Everyone is likely drafting for cards right now too so you're unlikely to be passed good stuff. I've gotten 2-3 rares in a pack too so if you open that in a draft it kinda sucks.

You can get multiple rares in a pack?

Artifact is sounding weirder and weirder.

There are dedicated slots for Hero and Item cards, so they roll rarity independent of the rest of the pack.

Dracil

Yeah it's the Hearthstone way of card pack opening. If you hear some anvil sound when opening the pack and some shininess around the cards, that means they got their rarity upgraded.

Spawnbroker

I wonder what the ratios for card milling will be. I wouldn't expect it to be too generous, it's already pretty generous that they're implementing a system to get event tickets from your extras that won't be worth anything on the market.

KoopahTroopah

A disenchant or recycle method to make event tickets is really my favorite way to go about this... I mean other than just removing the starter cards from the packs? That seems like the easier option, but I'll gladly take more ways to clean up my collection.

Yilias

There are some pretty tremendous rng swings in this game.

Like start of game deployment. If an Axe is blocking the hero instead of the creep, Axe probably kills the hero, which is 5g and either no turn 2 play for the opponent in that lane or a forced deployment there. That's a huge change in game state based on something neither player controls.
Later deployments are also random but you can opt not to take risky plays in that case.

There's also a green tower improvement that gives a 50% chance to have a unit not die if there's a green hero in the lane. Winning or losing that coinflip can often be game deciding.

Dracil

You actually have some control on that. It's fairly important to not have your first 3 heroes be so weak that they will die immediately to a red hero. Especially Bristleback. And this is decided during deck building.

Spawnbroker

Multiple pros have come out and said that the initial Artifact experience feels very bad, and they specifically cited flop RNG as one thing that feels bad to new players.

They also said that flop RNG is not as bad as you think, there are both ways to mitigate it and a hero dying isn't as big of a loss as it seems at first.

Yilias

That's fair, I've been doing the precon queue so I can't edit anything though.

milski

The RNG definitely feels bad from my limited experience. In every match I've played so far I've identified multiple game critical dice rolls, including on the very last turn. Luna ult not hitting the right thing, Meepo poof not killing another Meepo, unit deployment, etc. were all pretty feel bad.

Dracil

It's a very board game style RNG. I think people who've played board games tend to get used to it. i.e. You know the kinda RNG that's coming up, and a lot of how you win is how well you mitigate the RNG and work it into your favor.

I'm glad this is such a short week though. More time to play!

Spawnbroker

I haven't seen any examples of bad RNG, I think Cheating Death is the closest I've seen. There are still ways to mitigate it, like forcibly moving the green hero out of lane. Or run a way to destroy improvements..

Good randomness is predictable and applies to both players. Examples of good randomness: the lane arrows, units deploying to random spots. You know before you make the decision what will happen and what your odds are. "When attacking, roll a die and you hit on a 5 or 6" type of randomness.

Example of bad randomness: Summon a random unit when this card is played. Nobody can play around that, neither player knows what will happen. Neither player can predict the outcome outside of knowing a unit will pop out.

Yilias

I have no issue with how midgame deployments out, you can take risks or play conservatively there. I've seen people complain about secret shop items but in general they should be worse options than whatever you're running in your deck.

My problem is with the literal 50/50s that largely decide how sections of the game will play out.

milski

The thing that's bugged me is there is just so much RNG. You get random potential upgrades, random deployments, random draw, many powerful spells have random effects, etc. And these are done in an order that enhances the randomness, like deploying before drawing for the turn so you take a double or triple gamble on lane placement and have some truly absurd plays to your outs, like "put Ogre in lane 1 to hope to draw Luna's ult to hope to get a good swing to kill lane 1 and to hope to get it doubled to hope to blow up lane 2 to survive the turn", which I did and it felt dirty as hell

Spawnbroker

Yeah I'll have to play it before I make a decision about whether it's too much, but I've been watching a lot of gameplay. Very rarely do I see someone who has been playing for a while make a play like "guess I have to take this 50% here or I lose" unless they are really about to lose and they have to do it.

milski

The GB deck feels very... clunky. It's 3 green heroes, but it's more than 50% black cards, and all of your green cards seem relatively do-nothing or random. Retval convoy is great but you need to get BIG TRACKS to make it threatening.

milski

Hmm. My opponent played 4 of the "swap a unit and draw a card" cards in one turn, because every time he proc'd Ogre. So he moved his Ogre 4 spaces to avoid danger and got two turns worth of draw.

E: Running tally is now 5 extra draw spells, and 3 extra copies of meepo.

PMAvers

Oh hey I should check Twitter before I head in and clock in for work...

https://twitter.com/PlayArtifact/status/1064684321162723328?s=20

GODDAMNIT WHY IS MY WORK NIGHT NOT OVER YET

KoopahTroopah

Uh not to beg, anyone have a friends and family key? I'd like to play this and figure out if I should refund my gifted pre-order or not.

Edit - Misread the tweet, I thought they were separate keys, not the Valve Friends and Family program.

Yilias

Played my first casual draft, went 5-0! https://www.playartifact.com/d/ADCJTEAIH26uwEIElh4XX7dAYkICYEVKgEOAQcEAhcJEhlPgTkBHE5F

I'm not a very good Magic/HS drafter and it didn't feel like a particularly strong deck so I'd chalk it up to opponents just not knowing how to play.

ManetherenWolf

I actually have one of the Friends and Family keys (so my Artifact says purchased in 2015, lol) I honestly had forgotten about the damn thing since Valve never releases anything.

Got in and played the 2 tutorial games (1 with each deck), and opened my packs. (Got a 2 rare pack too!)

Im liking it so far. Its definitely A LOT more to consider since you are effectively playing 3 games at once.

I will likely play the casual mock drafts a lot. those sound fun.

Spawnbroker

I won a game by surviving with a tower at 1 health last night using the blue-black deck against the all red hero aggro deck.

My opponent probably could have won, he never used Tidehunter's ravage at any point.

lazegamer

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Uh not to beg, anyone have a friends and family key? I'd like to play this and figure out if I should refund my gifted pre-order or not.

These friends and family keys are pretty valuable. Grant all future valve games for free as far as I can tell.

KoopahTroopah

lazegamer wrote: »

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Uh not to beg, anyone have a friends and family key? I'd like to play this and figure out if I should refund my gifted pre-order or not.

These friends and family keys are pretty valuable. Grant all future valve games for free as far as I can tell.

So just this last one then? :snap: :hydra: :bzz: :bigfrown:

I totally misread that tweet, I thought it was Friends and Family keys for the Artifact beta, not the official Valve Friends & Family program. Yeah, those are actually valuable. Forget I asked dudes/duddettes!

Spawnbroker

I wonder what the best/cheapest method for building a collection will be?

I'm planning on doing Keeper Drafts as much as possible until I run out of packs and then do Phantom Drafts until I get enough packs to do keeper again.

Speaking of, I didn't get any packs or tickets with my beta key, anyone else having that problem? Guess I'll contact support.

Dracil

Cheapest is probably just buy cards from the market.

No packs/tickets is a bug people have reported. Definitely contact support.

Had a game last night in casual constructed where we were both playing some form of R/G ramp. I had a turn where I gambled by sticking all 5 heroes in the mid-lane and then Time of Triumphed all of them. Opponent then primal roars 2 of my heroes to a different lane. I really wish I could have thanked him right then and there for saving me some town portal scrolls. I eventually had heroes with ridiculous stats like 21/10/20 or something like that. Opponent conceded about a turn later as he was basically taking lethal damage on each lane.

Spawnbroker

Yeah, you can get a lot of free wins if you just abandon the enemy's two most powerful heroes in a lane together and push the other two lanes. Baiting opponents into overcommitting in one lane and then leaving that lane for the rest of the game seems like a critical skill.

Edit: This is also why killing your opponent's heroes isn't a good thing. Sure, you get a short-term benefit in the gold plus they can't cast spells there this turn. The downside being you just gave your opponent more opportunities to juke into other lanes. Mobility is huge in this game, it's why Blink Dagger is by far the most useful item.