First impressions thread

Just got my invite and have only played for a couple of hours or so but I LOVE IT. I really like the 'feel' of the graphics and the artwork used for the 'adventure' modules brings me back to the late 70's early 80's and my old school D&D days.

That is all....
Carry on.....

 

Game is great for the first 7-8 levels and then the frustration starts to set in....it gets hard fast. I stuck to it though and now am banging my head against Shrine Of The Astral Guardians and The Jewel Of Alet Zhav (both lvl 13) with no success. Tried many different combinations of character types and equipment but the overwhelming odds are just plain stupid. Don't get me wrong, I like hard and challenging content but losing again and again kinda kills the fun. Great game overall and have mostly enjoyed it up to this point but I don't really have the motivation to continue.

 

I also stopped playing. It was indirectly due to the difficulty I think. The gear management just got to be too much for me to deal with and thinking about trying to create multiple gear compositions for the 3 characters all in the incredible kludgy interface just made me never login again. I really enjoyed playing the actual battles. I also had no problem with needing different configs for my party. I just found myself spending so much time trying to figure out card/deck synergies and little time actually playing.

I love deck building, but a good deck building interface is key to this process. There are very few good digital deck building interfaces available and nothing compares to sitting at a table with boxes of cards spread out and building a deck (which I know is what they are trying to get to in this game... it just doesn't work for me). Anyway, I really love the idea of card hunter, but the interface kills me. It's not unique to this game for me, so I am probably a bad barometer... I honestly cannot point to a single digital deck builder that I have been able to deal with for the long run (I think MtGO was the best of the ones I tried).

 

What's the issues you're having with the interface(s) in particular? I'm sure the Devs would appreciate the feedback.

 

I noticed that since the last time I posted here a discussion thread has been posted about this subject (it's been maybe 2 months since I last played?). I'll post followup there as well but the main thing for me is card (equipment) comparisons. I know how to filter everything, but I cannot set 2 pieces of equipment side by side and compare the cards granted (and read the text on said cards). I imagine that this issue would go away once I knew more of the cards but alas it bugged me so much in the early stages (made it to lvl 9) that I never really got past it.

The random high level cards that I would get from MP battles just served to clutter up the process. I also got overwhelmed seeing a table full of equipment (perhaps I should not have taken Tycho's advice and kept so much lower level stuff around).

 

The interface has changed and there's a "usable" filter that gets rid of some of the clutter, but I agree being able to do a compare would be very useful.

 

With that statement in parentheses, I assume you're aware of the "side-by-side comparison" possible by just hovering one item over another, right? Of course, as you say, you can't read the maximized card text--but the game starts off so simple that you don't need to do that very much. The small versions instantly tell you everything you need, and all you have to do is right-click once on an item to remind yourself "Yes, Weak Strike really is that simple; no, Clumsy Chop isn't, 'cause it's the one with that weird rule."

Absolutely without a doubt keep lower level stuff around. As soon as you have an intuition for the game, as you say, you'll be more comfortable. And then you'll want all your items to be able to make strategic equipment decisions.

 

I was accepted into the beta four days ago, and I haven't been able to put it down. Due to my terrible internet connection right now (in Afghanistan), my experience has been heavily marred by constant disconnects, but barring those unfortunate events, here are my initial thoughts:

The pros:

- In my opinion, the art is spot-on. The animations are attractive and simple, there seems to be a good amount of variation in the bestiary, and the boards are extremely well put together.
- The character development isn't too bad; while it seems a bit obvious at times (our new GM), and the characters can be a bit cliche, it's just enough to help push you along the board and once you're playing, you're in love.
- The itemization is wonderful. I'm seeing new abilities and different card mixes develop into items as my levels (and difficulties) increase, which leads to an ever-evolving strategy development (which I am addicted to).
- The music and sound effects are great. You don't need anything overboard for this game, and it seems like Blue Manchu kept this in mind. Awesome.
- The difficulty. Aaaaah, the difficulty! It's perfect; I don't want something I can burn through in a few days, and although I've ran into one hair-puller, once I really took a look at the fight and the terrain, I was able to overcome it. That's exactly what I'd look for in this genre of game. A few hiccups here and there to keep you on your toes makes a strategy game a strategy game. Let's hope it stays like this for the rest of the campaign.

The cons:

- The Hints could be better written. I can't recall which ones for certain, but I'll start writing them down and add them to the proper forum discussion.
- Maybe I was too excited to notice, but I don't remember being told that you can basically save gear sets when you're back at your Keep. I was about to become annoyed with the fact that it wasn't possible, but then I thought, 'Well, if they did have it implemented, it'd probably be at your Keep.' Ah, cooler heads prevail!
- I know I have a terrible connection here in Afghanistan, but I am able to stream videos and download (albeit extremely slow), so I'm wondering why I get disconnected so much. Nothing is worse than being two turns from victory only to be disconnected and having to start over (or having it happen repeatedly on the fourth mission and therefore have to restart the entire adventure). I'm not sure it's something that can really be dealt with, but it's just one con for me so far.
- My first taste of multiplayer had me begin by playing Gary three times, which seemed simple enough. The next three had me playing people who had obviously been playing through the campaign for a while, since they had great decks built off of high-level gear. I'm not sure how the matchmaking math works, but I'd rather play Gary for minimal amount of rank (in order to get some more gear to assist in PvP) than play players with very low rank who have distinct card advantage. I love the idea of normalizing levels, but the cards are really where it's at. I wonder if a gear-check could be implemented (item level/rarity) to assist lower-ranked players. Probably not, and I'm probably just being a big baby about it. I learned my lesson quickly and I've returned to the campaign until I can bring some competitive decks of my own
- Geomancers. There I said it.

All in all, I am so grateful for the opportunity to play in this beta. I'm absolutely captivated by this game, and I can't wait for the release. Thanks so much for your hard work, and keep it up!

 

I just got into the beta last night and played my first few rounds. My thoughts so far:

• I really enjoy the gameplay. It's a new genre merged from two other types of games I've always loved and that was enough to bring me in. What will keep me playing is as follows
  • I enjoy the difficult level and never felt like I could just go on autopilot during any point of the game and I'm already learning a lot (stupid golems) =) I do not feel like the battles are easy but I also never felt like the game was unfair (except when those stupid golems got the reduce damage roll of 5+ 3 times in a row). I think that's a great place to be in terms of balance. It might be more difficult for a novice, but I'm really enjoying the fine balance so far. It reminds me most of FF: Tactics where, even if I was playing well, I could never autopilot through a series of moves. Every decision was important
  • The tutorial did a good job of getting me up to speed quickly and ensuring that I picked up the lessons quickly.
  • I like the sense of progression for my characters of unlocking slots for new equipment and from searching for that upgrade. Always presents a good reason to come back
  • The "story" reminds me a bit of the meta-narrative of Pen and Paper RPG, which I also enjoyed. It doesn't take itself too seriously and I've chuckled at a few different points. I'm not a big story guy, so I like the light emphasis on story (it's there if you want to pay attention and if you just want to move to the next level, then do so)
  • Nice implementation in Flash (I think it's Flash at l east). I did not know you could overwrite the right-click button on flash. Also, I tend to find inventory management a nightmare in most flash games (I had thought that was a flash limitation, but maybe not). Heck, I never even thought about the fact that I was playing in a browser. Flash is also nice for me as I run a Mac at home, which means I can actually play this game at the same time as my PC counterparts.

Some rough edges (in my opinion)

• I do not like the sell/buy screens. When I sell stuff, it appears on top of the stuff I could buy. I (mistakenly) wrote a bug report and found out this is intended to give the feel of a pile of loot (or something along those lines). If that's true, they why doesn't the stuff coming out of a chest look like a pile (as opposed to being in a nicely aligned set of squares (which I like))? Why complicate the UI with these overlapping graphics. And when I buy something, that is most definitely not a pile of anything and I don't expect it to join my 'pile'. I am buying one thing.. why would it suddenly get throw around like it's a piece of junk
• I now understand (I think) that gold is not awarded straight from a treasure chest; instead you get treasures that you sell. Just having played so many RPGs/adventure games in the past, I am always hesitant to sell items. While the tutorial makes a point of selling the amber for gold, I was unsure if that just applied to precious gems or also to those barrels of whatever they are. It is nice that when I hover over a treasure, it says 'treasure' as opposed to implying it's a usable piece of equipment. But for me, I wish there was a button that made it more clear and just said "sell all treasure' to ensure the user understood that selling all treasure is exactly what they should be doing. That there is no reason to ever hoard treasure in this game
• I know the game is all about tradeoffs and thinking of an overaching strategy but I find many of the choices unappealing. I am specifically thinking about my boots. I can trade off my boots with 3 movement cards for something with 1 movement card. If I make that tradeoff, it means I will have a total of 2 movement cards for my warrior (or any other class), which seems inadequate (maybe it's not.. I'm going to play my newbie card). So I guess my opinion is more that, given how important movement is, I don't feel like boots should be either you can have more than enough movement, or almost none at all. Maybe I just have not seen the variety of boot cards out there, but right now it feels like either/or, not some of each. Not having enough movement cards just reminds me of being mana screwed in MtG (e.g. not drawing enough mana to cast big spells). There is a very fine balance between not enough and too much. Based on my limited experience with this game, I feel like 3-4 movement cards is about right, but I just do not have the option to try 3 right now (maybe I will later?). This is probably more a reflection of my limited time with the game, but it just makes some equipment look like a non-starter to me (especially when you can only get movement from 1 slot (in addition to the default movement card))

 

Part 2:

• I know that I can unlock new equipment slots when gaining levels but I wish I knew when some of those slots unlocked. As an example, I just received armor for completing a level 2 quest (stupid golems), but I have no one that can use said armor. It would be nice to know that I could use that when I hit level 3 (or whatever level it is) and which characters may eventually be able to use it. I certainly hope my warrior can use armor, but if my equipment doesn't seem very warrior focused, and no other class can use the armor, why am I letting it take up an inventory spot (e.g. cluttering my UI)? Plus I feel like that would give me a goal for something to work towards.
• The buying screen is a bit complicated for me as a newbie. As an example, I just acquired the priest (or is it cleric?) and want to buy a weapon. Which purchase screen should I go to to buy a weapon? It turns out that I want to go to divine weapons. When I first saw the term "divine", I had assumed it meant premium content. E.g. spend some pizza and get some "divine" equipment. Until I thought about it and tried some things, it's not a really clear connection to me that priests use divine equipment. I wish the tab just said: priest weapons of priest armor. Maybe some sort of matrix where you have the classes on the x-axis and equipment slots on the y-axis?
• Maybe I missed it, but I wish there was a tab just for weapons (of all types), armor, etc or a tab just for warriors, wizards, and priests. It will also be nice to immediately know from a glance who can use a new piece of loot. I have this thing that looks like a hook (turns out it's an accessory type thing for my priest). The only way I could find that out is by switching character tabs and dragging the item over the various slots (I'm sure I missed an easier way to do this).
• I followed the 'quest' to buy a premium chest for 30 pizza. The result was that I could use none of the equipment I got from there unless I had "power crystals". What are power crystals? And I have to say that it's pretty disappointing that I can't even use the new equipment. I understand what level requirements are and why I shouldn't just be allowed to use the over-powered equipment, but now I'm going to have this stuff this is essentially junk in my inventory until I hit level 13. I understand that if you only buy premium lvl 2 stuff, it's going to be useless rather quickly, but there's got to be some median between buying uber stuff for my level and buying uber stuff of a random level. It just seems like it would annoy everyone (high level equipment is annoying for me right now and I'm sure low level equipment is annoying for high level people).
• I saw one bug on a tutorial level (forget which one or I would have written up a bug report) where a screen was displaying something, but when I clicked, the screen did not disappear, while the dialogue occurred in the background (which I could not see)
• Speaking of dialogue, I sometimes get confused during the narrative on what to click to go to the next screen. Sometimes I need to click on the battle button (twice sometimes, though I'm not sure why), sometimes it's a dialogue box, and sometimes it's a card. I obviously figured it out, but I wish it was a bit more intuitive at the beginning.
• Given that the different races are supposed to be ... different, I was kind of surprised to see that the only differences when choosing a character is the quantity of HP and the # on one movement card. Given that, my experience so far has been that my characters will be more shaped by the equipment I find than the character I chose. While that's certainly true for any game where you collect loot, to give each race a different feel, I wish there was a bit more to distinguish between the races. For example, if the elven wizard is supposed to be frail and battles from a distance, I would have expected to see a long distance attack or two thrown in that the other classes did not have. While the description for each race implies that in the long term, each race will be different, I see no evidence of that now, nor do I see evidence of how that would manifest. Is there race unique equipment or race unique skills (other than that one movement card)? And how would the unique skills manifest themselves (are they default cards like the default movement card)? I certainly cannot tell right now.. All I know is that the dwarf has 2 more hp than the elf and 2 less movement. From what I've seen so far, the dwarf seems like a dumb choice for a wizard
• When going through my level 2 quest to help the wizard kill the golems, it ended up being 4 different levels. I didn't understand that going in (I thought it was 1 level per thing on my overview map), but that wasn't such a big deal. What was annoying was that I was unsure if I could leave the game in the middle of the dungeon and have the game save my status. For example, I wanted to exit the game after finishing two levels in the tower, but I was afraid I would lose my status and have to restart the tower if I left. I might be able to do that, but I just did not want to take the chance and lose that progress.
• Along a similar line, what happens if I die in the middle of a multi-level quest (like the tower)? Do I have to restart the whole tower (e.g. I should be really stressed if I'm near death) or do I just restart a level (e.g. I do not need to be overly stressed)? Just a small thing but it's not something I want to find out by trying (though I'm sure I will before too long) =)
• After you complete a level and get a treasure chest, the button presented is "take all loot and continue". I wish the button worked a bit differently. From what I've seen, the button really represents a readiness to immediately move onto the next level. What I really want to do is 1. take loot, 2. re-equip my characters with my new loot and 3. start my next fight. But I can't tell if the button pauses after #1 or if it's taking me straight to #3. It turns out that it takes me straight to #3. I wish there was a button that just said "Take all loot" and another that said "Ready for battle" as those are very separate actions. This was a bit annoying for me as after level 1 in the tower, I wanted to equip some more penetrating attacks for my wizard. So I clicked the take all button and it turns out I was immediately sent into the next battle with no opportunity to re-equip my characters. Maybe click once on the treasure chest to open and a second time to take all loot. It would be bad if the take all loot button was anywhere close to the ready for battle button as I don't want to accidentally click on the ready for battle button

I've only played for a few hours (2 more hours than I planned to play for) and I can't wait for the kids to go to sleep tonight so I can play again!

 

Glad you generally enjoyed it, and welcome!

Amusingly, the "Take all loot and continue" button was added to be accommodating to players in a different regard: if you DON'T have anything you need to do, it's much faster. Are you aware of how to take loot normally? Just drag it from the treasure chest.

There are . . . a lot of possible answers to your other questions, too. Fortunately, as you note, you already have the answers or you're about to bump into them by playing (e.g., by dying). Hopefully someone else can come by and respond to more.

 

I am aware of the drag & drop option, but it seems like that's just a manual process to take all the loot. Is there ever a situation when someone would not take all loot?

And yeah, I tried to write this entry before I read the rest of the forums. After surfing through the forums, I found answers for many of my comments (I didn't realize the default class movement card would always be included when you draw cards).

 

No, once the loot is awarded it's in your stash. The drag and drop interface allows you to compare and equip the new exciting gear on your characters right then and there however.

 

I enjoy the game,

If there was a physical card set I would probably buy it to make a quick D&D module heh

 

My first impressions are that that game is challenging, but fun, and the animations do tend to slow the play down. It seems like I lose 30 or 40 minutes every time I blink. That's not necessarily bad, it just means it's not a quick pop in and play game if you're chasing through the campaign.

Tracking items.... It's annoying to try to find all the treasure items in my sea of gear to sell off at the shops. I would like to see a fast item or a tab for 'treasure' to make locating them for selling to be simpler.

having an 'oops, I didn't mean to sell that to the shop' recovery or undo would be nice. Lost a nice weapon accidently that way once.

The campaign adventures are generally, with only a few exceptions, appropriately matched to the level of play you should be at when you get to them. I've only had a couple of "gotcha, you don't have exactly the right cards to deal with these monsters so you will hopelessly lose" situations. (apes with serious armor, creatures with armor that nullifies a specific category of damage every time, can't cover enough distance in time before the ai gets enough victory points, etc).

The chat lobby for MP is more or less silent. No one seems to be socializing.

treasure distribution is very nice. I have pretty much never felt "Damn, I'm just getting crap all the time for my efforts"

I like that treasure earned in MP will translate to Campaign and vice versa.

I understand pizza is the pay to play option, or pay to win, but I still feel I could do decently without having to spend a fortune on pizza slices.

Overall? I'm enjoying it. I just feel sometimes that the AI has the cards stacked against me, and as you go up in level, the forced nature of the deck getting larger makes it more and more challenging to get the cards you want.

Are there any items that boost your draw per turn? Not just one shot "draw 1-2" card type one offs?

Having fun, I'm hoping that I will continue to do so.

 

There is an animation speed setting in the options. while you're there you can turn off auto target


err yes, sort of. Bless Martyr Blessing Unholy Energy Inspiring Armor

 

Thank you kindly on the animation speed settings. I did find it very useful to have the pace slower while learning, and now I'm feeling more like I want to move up a bit. thanks!

 

Accelerated Thought is a more direct version, plus Consecrate Ground is another indirect. Also, that's spelled Martyr Blessing, which I mention not to be a nitpicker but because it matters for showing off the link.

This all makes it clear, though, that this game has a lot of variety in card implementation.

Edit:

There is a "Treasure" entry in the drop-down menu. However, there are those of us who enjoy collecting Treasure.

 

Well, you don't necessarily need any movement cards from your equipment as you'll be drawing one race-specific move card every turn anyway. Especially elves can be mobile enough with just that.
It depends on what kind of tactics you use.

There's a race skill slot that will be unlocked at some point, don't remember the exact level.

As long as you don't quit in the middle of a battle, the game status is saved. You can leave the game during the screens between battles and when you login again, you can continue where you left off. (You'll be in the map but all the other adventures are greyed out)