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[Elder Scrolls: Legends] Open beta, go download!
Echo
ski-bapba-dapModerator mod
ski-bapba-dapModerator mod
So Bethesda is working on a Hearthstone-style online CCG. I wasn't expecting anything other than an Elder Scrolls-themed cash grab, but this actually looks pretty good!
Here's a video to get you started while I work on a proper OP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21QoZd_dfss
Attributes and Classes
There are five attributes in ES:L.
You combine two attributes, which form your Class for a deck, limiting you to cards for that attribute, plus neutral cards.
Lanes
ES:L has two lanes, each with its own special effect, of which there are several. Typically the left lane does nothing special, while the right lane gets Cover, meaning creatures played there are hidden for the first turn.
Once a creature is played in a lane, it's stuck there unless you have some cards or other effects that move it. There's also a keyword, Pilfer, that makes a creature switch lane if it deals damage to the opponent.
Some other lane types I've seen in videos:
Keywords
Of course, there's a bunch of keywords for cards.
Prophecy
Prophecy is a bit special. You and your opponent each have five runes. For every five damage you take, a rune breaks. When a rune breaks, you get to draw a card. If that card is a Prophecy card, you get to play it for free.
Here's a video to get you started while I work on a proper OP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21QoZd_dfssAttributes and Classes
There are five attributes in ES:L.
- Strength: Strength seeks victory through might. You want to attack the enemy head-on, cutting them down before they can use their fancy tricks. Strength actions are ideal for smashing enemies and clearing the way for bruisers.
- Intelligence: When you use Intelligence, you rely on trickery and magic to defeat your foes. The physical strength of Intelligence creatures is almost beside the point – you can always cast a spell, equip a weapon, or conjure an Atronach to even the odds. Intelligence actions are ideal for raining destruction on the battlefield and sculpting long-term plans.
- Willpower: When you use Willpower, you rely on unity and force of spirit to overcome your foes. Willpower is adept at amassing large armies, erecting strong defenses, and bolstering its forces with magic. Its actions are the best at destroying enemy creatures or bending them to your will.
- Agility: Agility creatures prefer to avoid fair fights, using poison and precision to take down larger foes or cover and movement abilities to sneak past them entirely.
- Endurance: Endurance will overwhelm your enemy with sheer indomitability. It boasts the biggest creatures in Tamriel with everything from relentless hordes of undead to massive giants and trolls. And with strong guards, potent healing actions, and the ability to increase its Magicka, Endurance has the tools to ensure its monsters come out to play.
You combine two attributes, which form your Class for a deck, limiting you to cards for that attribute, plus neutral cards.
- Archer (strength/agility)
- Assassin (agility/intelligence)
- Battlemage (strength/intelligence)
- Crusader (willpower/strength)
- Mage (intelligence/willpower)
- Monk (agility/willpower)
- Scout (endurance/agility)
- Sorcerer (endurance/intelligence)
- Spellsword (endurance/willpower)
- Warrior (strength/endurance)
Lanes
ES:L has two lanes, each with its own special effect, of which there are several. Typically the left lane does nothing special, while the right lane gets Cover, meaning creatures played there are hidden for the first turn.
Once a creature is played in a lane, it's stuck there unless you have some cards or other effects that move it. There's also a keyword, Pilfer, that makes a creature switch lane if it deals damage to the opponent.
Some other lane types I've seen in videos:
- Barracks: draw a card if you play a 4+ power creature
- Arena: the first creature that attacks that turn gets to attack twice
Keywords
Of course, there's a bunch of keywords for cards.
- Lethal - a lethal creature instantly kills what it attacks
- Shackle - a shackled creature can't attack for one turn
- Ward - a ward absorbs one attack (like Divine Shield in Hearthstone)
- Prophecy - free to cast if you draw them when a rune breaks
- Guard - a creature with Guard must be attacked first, blocking the path in that lane.
- Pilfer - triggers its effect when you deal damage to the opponent
Prophecy
Prophecy is a bit special. You and your opponent each have five runes. For every five damage you take, a rune breaks. When a rune breaks, you get to draw a card. If that card is a Prophecy card, you get to play it for free.
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Welp, that took like three days. Sign up here.
Seems abit weird though that the armor design for the Aldmeri Dominion seems to be directly taken from ESO's 2000 year old era rather than the newer ones in Skyrim.
Not a big deal, just kind of went "eh?" abit at that.
EDIT - I installed it almost in immediate responce to the latest Blizzard reveals.
Aethetically, its definitely louder than HS. I'm amused by trades in which two cards crash into each other and shatter, but I'm concerned about mobile play and whether or not it happens. I stopped as soon as I unlocked deck-building. Wow, 50 to 70 card decks: which means 50 cards.
Isn't there some kind of solo arena stuff too? I think I read that somewhere (MMORPG.com most likely).
ESL has gathered some good mentions, people seem to like that it is more complex than Hearthstone (but this is with everything Blizzard does, game dev equivalent of summer blockbuster movie makers).
I think that I might even pick this up, tried Hearthstone but disliked it. Don't like the Warcraft universe at all. ES lore on the other hand... And frankly the gameplay looks more fun in this one.
This is in Beta, I'm in no hurry.
Mobile play will make or break my interest though. I primarily play HS on my phone, but its balance is hot garbage.
Hearthstone - Webber #1330
3DS: 0920-3235-4071
...That you never go over the minimum deck size has been known for decades at this point (with rare exceptions like Battle of Wits).
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yes and the solo arena is fun but it costs 150g to enter and there's no way to get that 150g except RL money or pvp. I enjoyed the campaign and the one free solo arena you get but that's it since I don't enjoy pvp even in card games. I do recommend trying this out though, had fun with it for the few hours I spent with it.
Hearthstone - Webber #1330
3DS: 0920-3235-4071
I need to netdeck the shit out of the last boss.
Last boss of the campaign? I lost once, then won easily with one of the crappy pre-made decks you get.
And yeah, you get over 150g for finishing the story but I wasted 100g of that on a booster so that's that. Even if I hadn't there's not much difference in having one or two arena tickets in the long run, it's still not sustainable by pve. Which makes me a bit sad since I liked the mechanics but it is a lot easier to just make people play against each other than spend a lot of development time to craft more pve content so that's what card games tend to do.
I lost a few times before I won with the aggressive Imperial Soldiers deck -- if you get a good curve and keep his meaner tricks a little bit in mind, you can stomp him down before things get too silly.
Really digging this game, personally! Feels like a satisfying midpoint between Hearthstone and Magic DotP.
I got him!
What basic unlocks am I missing? I never got that Spider deck or Elf Waifu Assassin deck from the campaign. Those were pretty cool.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/elder-scrolls-legends-android-release-date-card-game-brings-addicting-gameplay-pc-and-450369
I believe a smartphone edition is doable, they just have to tone the effects down.
I had a game I just finished where I had the opponent down to 4 hitpoints at the end of turn 6 and then lost three turns later. Because I literally had no cards left to play. (My deck still had plenty! It's just the "draw one" rule is killing me.)
i just lost to a monogreen deck that kept flipping dudes between lanes, i ain't even mad
This leans harder towards MtG than Hearthstone. There are larger decks and the Attributes are pretty much the MtG color wheel.
The pre-alpha was basically just a re-skinned Hearthstone clone, and my very, very, VERY lengthy comments on it basically amounted to, "Make it more Elder Scrolls, do something interesting with the colors beyond 'idk kinda magic-y?'"
And it really really looks like they listened there. The game still owes a lot mechanically to Hearthstone, but things like Runes and Prophecy add a lot more strategy. The way that colors are "attributes" and you basically build "classes" with them is cool and feels, well, like The Elder Scrolls.
Not related to that, but I'm finding that I... actually LIKE the story mode? Usually when I'm playing story mode in games like this I'm just like "ugh okay hurry up so I can get my loot & cash so I can get to ranked play" but instead I'm finding that I actually care about these characters and what happens next in the story. I've actually taken some cards that I'm like "well this card is better for my deck BUT NO MY FLUFFY KHAJIIT WOULDN'T LET HER FRIEND DIE!!!"
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Well I hope it's everything they dreamed of because Bethesda is only announcing tablet versions of the game because you can't squeeze all that grimdark flare on a phone!
I played the story mode here in about 4 hours and actually found it kind of fun. And once it was done, I jumped right in to Versus mode and cruised up to rank 9 where I'm currently stuck. (Mostly due to me being a lousy player.)
I REALLY like the Elder Scrolls "feel" of the game. (I never played WoW, so the 'theme' of Hearthstone was mostly annoying to me.)
This is the only digital CCG that has presentation matching Hearthstone's, and the gameplay is really very similar but with some cool tweaks. I.E. its the only potential competition market-wise so far. Grind rewards are a bit more generous than HS but nothing earth shattering.
You can get a good amount of money/cards early on with a few solo arena runs if you can figure out how to draft.
HS also did not release on phone, they spent nearly a year creating a UI that actually worked on the format. The same needs to be done here if its ever getting to phones, shrinking down the current UI is not going to be readable even on phablets.
*edit* Meaning, how to build a good deck, not "where's the deck editor," I know where THAT is. I'm talking about figuring out what card synergies are good, how to balance card cost, that sort of deal.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
First off, don't ever have more than than the minimum deck size, because while running out of cards is a condition for losing, your deck needs tight focus or you won't live long enough to reach that point. This rule is as old as MtG itself.
This game's five Attributes are equivalent to the MtG Color Wheel. One deck can have up to two, and there is nothing stopping you from only using one color as a beginner. Don't be afraid to netdeck (copy decks on the internets.) Only assholes say its the devil, because it helps people play better and make better decks. This is the first netdecking site for this game I've seen. You can filter out decks based on attributes.
Bethesda themselves have spelled out the most classic card game archetypes that you can (and should) imitate. Random shit in a deck doesn't win games. You can't think "how do I win?" Instead you have to think "how do I want to win? What method of winning is most fun for me?"
If you just want to pound your opponent's life to zero in a short amount of time, you want to make an Aggro deck (HS players also call this a Face deck). If you want to speed up your Magicka growth rate so you can plant down apocalyptic fat creatures, that's a Ramp deck. If you want to exhaust your opponent by freezing, killing, and stealing their cards, that's a Control deck. A Midrange deck is balanced, wearing down your opponent in a tug-of-war of having more stuff on the board. If the game is designed right, there should be no right answer, because in Hearthstone, Face is the Place. Most beginners like Aggro and Midrange decks.
I wouldn't worry about Tribes as a beginner. Tribes are cards that have a theme. Dragon cards, elf cards, Kajits, Nords, whatever. But consider using only those cards in a test deck. Don't they work well together? If so, you could consider making a deck themed around them. The Campaign does this a lot, pitting themed decks against you. You could use it for inspiration.
EDIT - Oh yeah, and as you play, you will find people playing stuff that makes you angry. Perhaps you don't like playing against Aggro, Control, etc. Use caution against putting too many countermeasures against it, because then you're not shaping your deck to win: you're shaping your deck to not lose.
In M:tG, my current jam is a Thopter Tribes deck, that's mostly Aggro but with a wee bit of very obnoxious control, so I guess I'll go for something like that.
*e* Thus far in Story Mode, I've been enjoying the trick of putting Lethal on Guard creatures via creature abilities or weapons. It is very fun to watch the AI kill themselves against those. Probably not a viable strat against actual humans tho.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
(I lost the race.)
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If anybody wants 2 fite me / be friends, my username here is TealDeer.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
50-70 card decks
Magicka (mana) automatically increases by 1 each turn, stopping at 12. There are no mana cards but the Endurance Attribute cards (purple) promote growth.
5 Attribtues equivalent to the MtG Color Wheel. A deck can have up to two attributes plus neutral cards.
Changing battlefields. Sometimes a battlefield may be split in two hemispheres, called lanes. Sometimes a lane will give creatures one turn of stealth when played upon it, sometimes they'll have "wind" in which they bounce between lanes.
Max 10 hand size
30 HP. When your health hits 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 thresholds ones, you draw a card, symbolized by permanently losing a rune. If you draw a card with the Prophecy status during any of these times, you have the option to play it immediately for free. This is swinging as hell. But if your hand is fat, taking a pounding could mill you a bit.
I guess it just slows down games too much to have Magic's block declaration type mechanics, but I guess I have Hex for when I want to scratch that itch.