First impressions thread

Uh, sorry about the experience, but what "Sonic beast" do you mean? I've complained about sounds too, but you really need to be specific. When you mention an "ugly ambient loop," what come to mind are bunches of chirping birds (which you can quiet by sliders).

 

Oh I am really sorry. I tried to be funny but ended up just unclear. The main problem for me was the volume of ambient sounds. I tried to lower it down but I did not succeed.
Oh and do not be sorry about the experience .. I still consider it very much pleasant really.

Eh I did not tried to restart it . As soon as I noticed, that those sliders did not have immediate effect, I thought it was a bug .. shame on me here. But still it is a beta so do not judge me too harsh please . And I want to emphasize that it was not THAT bad experience. I probably did not express myself so well, English is not my native language so I am honestly sorry about that.

 

Just got into the beta today. I've cleared the first adventure which was mostly a tutorial, but I really like the game. The graphics are simple but feel very smooth for a browser game. The little details in the animation of the pieces on the board along with the sound effects do a good job of providing satisfying feedback for a turn based board game. I find the controls pretty solid, and the tutorial is pretty clear and easy to understand. It feels really polished for a beta, so clearly a lot of work has already gone into the presentation and mechanics of the game. Overall the game has been a great experience so far, and there's a ton of personality in the writing as well. Great job.

So far there isn't much negative stuff I can think of to suggest any changes, so that's probably a good thing. It's a great first impression for a browser based beta. One thing I could mention though, is that the game loads pretty quickly for me, and so the tool tips which pop up during transitions are gone before I can even read them. If this is the case with most users, it might be better to place tool tips somewhere else, since instantly vanishing tool tips don't help anyone and they would only cause minor anxiety for players who are afraid they could have missed something useful because it disappeared too fast.

 

I would imagine most people like the fact that it loads fast, and slowing it down artificially with an extra click might not be the best solution. I think ideally if the game simply loads that fast for everyone, you might consider placing the tool tips after a load instead of during one. As long as there's an option to toggle them off, it would definitely be more helpful if people can actually read them when they appear.

New players would definitely benefit from learning more about the game's functions if a tool tip appeared say, at the start of a battle and when you return to the world map after completing a mission. Dunno, just throwing stuff out there.

 

This game feels so clean, and easy to play. Most of the rules are easy to pick up, but I get the feeling that it will take me a while to work everything out. Started the tutorial and the next thing I knew a hour had past by. Can't wait till I have more time to play.

 

I love tactics games and deckbuilding games, so I've been excited about this game ever since I saw the YouTube video. I got my beta key recently, and tried the campaign and then the ladder.

About the battle system:

It's a neat idea and fun to play. I think it has a lot of potential.

About the campaign:

Not bad, although some of the missions feel a bit too hard (like, when you're outnumbered 3 to 1 and surrounded on difficult terrain), and some feel too easy (some of the bosses were complete pushovers and after a very frustrating intro fight felt anticlimatic).

Also, the item shop prices are ridiculous. I got a high level rare treasure which only sold for 2-5 gold, and there are items that cost thousands to buy.

About the ladder:

Extremely frustrating, to the point of making me feel like quitting. If this weren't still the beta phase, I would literally have stopped playing and never given it a second look.

We need to be able to choose our starting squares within a certain area (say, 1/3 of the board). The opening positions make a big difference in giving one side an advantage over the other. Usually, this takes the form of putting characters on one team behind awkward terrain obstacles while giving characters on the other a clear path to the victory square(s), but also on one occasion, my elf wizard started out isolated from my priest and warrior and surrounded by the enemy team. She died in the first round, and there was nothing I could do to save her.

Also, the matchmaking system feels cruel and abusive to new players. It's a big advantage to having acquired a lot of rare loot, both in terms of having more options to create card synergies and in terms of having obscenely overpowered cards (like a single melee attack that does as much raw damage as an elf wizard's max life...). To make matters worse, the only way to close that gap without paying to win is to win a 20 games in an 18 hour period where each win launches you further into the realm of veteran players to the point that it feels like the only way to reach the goal is to pull an all-nighter and try to time your games to fit in 5-minute windows between veteran players appearing so you can get matched against the computer. This combination of factors makes it feel like a pay-to-win game, and nobody likes those except for rich, narcissistic people.

Oh, yeah... and ladder chests shouldn't contain treasures if they can't be sold for a chance to get other items. They literally have no use except to sell, so it's cheap to "reward" players with them.

About the game interfaces:

During battle, sometimes an expanded card view will persist and block part of the map (and, in one case, the scroll bar on the chat log). I've seen this most consistently with Emergency Teleport, but it's happened with other cards as well (in one case, an enemy's black trait that I clicked on to view the details as it was being played).

Also, this is a minor thing, but in the loot screen, it would be nice to know that you don't need to drag the new items out of the chest into your stash, e.g. by moving them out of the chest into a shining rectangle or something.

 

Hi Anrita,

Have you considered playing quests in the single player campaign? These drop rare items or better. This is a good way to build your single player and multiplayer deck and of course it's free.

 

The game is great.I can´t stop playing it.

 

The biggest problem is that currently the game pushes you towards trying multiplayer very early in the game (level 6 or something like that) and at that point you can't really earn high level equipment from the campaign side...

 

I've been excited about this game since I first heard about it. I just started the Beta last night and here are my initial thoughts:

* I love the backdrop of the game. The game within a game is great and adds quite of bit of charm
* Mechanics are easy to pick up and have great visual cues
* Tooltips on cards are great, although some underlined text didn't seem to have an associated tooltip
* I was always surprised when I had to discard cards from my hand. I didn't see a hand size limit anywhere, so it was hard to figure out how many cards I had to play to not discard
* I didn't see a place where I could look up common terms and rules (like some basic help menu)
* Each of the character classes feels unique, but seem to have aspects which pay off each other too! Makes for rewarding play

I think that's about all of my first thoughts. I finished the tutorial levels and I'm looking forward to diving into the meat of the game.

 

First impressions:
I like the idea with cards attached to items to define them,
however I do NOT like there are classes, would be much
better without, though looking at some itens I can see why
why the choice to make classes seemed necessary, or you
could indeed make some quite OP characters.

When getting heroes I would like the option for a male or female,
unless I somehow missed this feature, if it's there.

When it comes to choosing a hero race ...ehm, I would like it
to have some different impact, rather than the option it has now.
(I even got ideas/concepts, but I don't think they fit in this thread)

...all in all, I will give the game 4 of 5 stars, because:
The game is overall very good, from what I have tried this far,
though it falls short in trying to implement classes, which I feel
is very bad, considering the game concept it's build around.
Choosing a character seems as well something that was added
because it was exspected, though very poorly implemented.

 

First Impressions (After playing the two intro Greenfang battles):

• UI is slick and minimalist
• The artwork/theme is wonderful
• This is proper tactical combat right from the start. Awesome
• No "energy" mechanic in sight. Phew.
• I must email my old DnD buddies and tell them to try this

My only real concern so far is regarding pizza. I'm happy to spend money on content (Classes, Races, Campaigns, Tilesets, Monsters, Higher Level Unlocks) or cosmetics, but I won't spend money on loot, energy, healing, buffs etc (basically anything that feels like a "cheat"). It might be that I can just enjoy the game for free without buying that stuff, but this game is right in my wheelhouse, so I want to support the game with my money, without buying advantages. I'd even be happy to buy "decks" of new loot that just get mixed in with the existing stuff, but I still have to earn it by playing.

I'm fairly militant about Free-To-Play though, so I might not be the target market. If you make most of your money from loot advantages, and you're happy for me to enjoy the game for free, well thats fine just do whatever makes the most financial sense.

 

DragonMind, might you go ahead and create a thread for that? The classes and races are tied pretty tightly into game design, so if you feel there's something wrong with them then it could use specifics. As of now, I don't know what your complaint is (with a system that I find downright clever), so I can't provide any commentary.

And other people have pushed for gender selection in the game, but it's not in there right now. The best you can do is use your free "pizza" to get an alternate character model. We're hoping that this is a placeholder and there will be many more options in the future.

 

Yeah by going through the threads in here, I can see later on,
maybe too late there will be racial cards, or is it only in multiplayer?

Haven't played multiplayer yet, and I only got a party to lvl3 or 4 campaign,
thus it is indeed an early first impressions, though I still say it could be done
better, and maybe even without classes, but because I am pretty sure it would
need quite some re-design of the code, I will not post my suggestion even if
it should turn out to be solid popular system, among the fan base.
(...since I doubt very much, they would go through such a change at.this.m in their development phase)

 

There are items with unique cards for each race....

 

Ehh, might I encourage you otherwise? Posting a "feedback" thread to say "I think your fundamental system is wrong but I won't tell you why" may sound rude.

I can try to guess where you're going with it. There MAY be any of a number of threads to show you: during development we've debated every single design decision. The threads where we hypothesize about different item slot arrangements, or even allowing people to choose their item slots from the beginning, sound like they might be relevant.

You also MAY be basing your argument on incomplete information: you're talking about items, but you haven't said anything about hit points or default Move cards.

And yet it's hard to be sure you mean any of those, since you speak of needing "quite some re-design of the code" when those are trivial coding: the big challenge is in implementing a game of such a design and in fully exploring the possibilities.

Thus, again, your concerns could be addressed in an instant, but you kinda have to give "feedback" for anyone to know whether the fault lies with the game or not.