Artifact - a Valve card game based on DotA

[Frusciante]

Haven't played it yet but the game does look pretty cool to me. I'm not into hearthstone at all, just too simplistic. The different lanes add some very interesting tactical depth in my view. No way that this is going to be more popular than hearthstone though, way to complicated for the casuals for that.

 

[you know what time it is]

It's way too hard to follow as a viewer alas and I don't mean mechanics n such. But if you tune in halfway through the match it takes a minute to figure out the board state and even then you have no way of knowing what happened prior (no graveyard or move history) + there are 3 lanes and as a viewer you are only limited to one most of the time, even if they come up with an overlay thingy like they did for MTG it still won't fix most of the issues.

Observing need some serious work.

Couple that with pretty complicated mechanics and retarded payment model (pay for the game and then pay for everything else as well) with no free drafts in custom lobbies (can't practice against friends, can't make community tournaments etc.) and it's a really tough sell for most people. I was gifted a copy and still I'm contemplating going for a refund. It's sad that such a fun idea is buried under so many issues on the surface level.

 

[Jenkem]

Q. What game modes are available at launch?
We've organized game modes into three categories: Social, Casual, and Expert.

Social Play includes user-organized tournaments, private lobbies, and the ability for open play. Open play enables you to create a freestanding invitation for players within a Steam community or your friends list to challenge you. Players will be notified that you're available for a game. Open play enables players to easily find matches within their own communities.

Casual Play includes bot-matches, global matchmaking, and the casual constructed Gauntlet. Bots own all cards, so you can make a deck for the bot using any card released for Artifact, not just the cards you own, making them great for practice and learning. Global matchmaking lets you quickly find a constructed match against another player. The casual constructed gauntlet gives you a way to play a deck against a series of increasingly challenging opponents. There will be other casual Gauntlets in the future.

Expert Play are a series of Gauntlets that offer prizes and greater risk vs reward.

We are also running a Call to Arms launch event where you will attempt to build the longest win streak you can with one of six powerful preconstructed decks.

Q. What is Constructed?
In constructed you play a deck built with cards you personally own. Constructed formats can have various conditions like "commons only." The typical constructed format allows for no duplicate heroes, a maximum of 3 copies of a card, a minimum of 9 item cards, and a minimum of 40 other cards. In a private lobby you can borrow a deck from your opponent that is made up of cards you do not own.

Sometimes a mode will be preconstructed meaning that you must pick from a set of decks specifically designed for that event.

Q. What is Draft?
In draft play you build a deck by picking your cards from a series of packs. You pick 60 cards and then build a deck from that limited pool. Draft tests your ability to properly evaluate card strength in a rapidly changing environment.

https://playartifact.com/news/1721959164054855755

 

[you know what time it is]

Why fake news tho.



There are no free drafts (custom lobby or otherwise) in the game atm and they were updating the FAQ on daily basis while avoiding this question for the past week.

 

[Frusciante]

Why fake news tho.



There are no free drafts (custom lobby or otherwise) in the game atm and they were updating the FAQ on daily basis while avoiding this question for the past week.

Yes I think you're right, also saw it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVkzXFx0V0. That kind of sucks. The other options for playing seem quite cool, especially the casual tournaments you can join and set-up.

This video by the way gives some good arguments against free draft mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8rw3cN9y8. Apparently people massively abandoned games when the draft was bad and then just started over with new draft.

Paid draft for me won't be a dealbreaker for me, but for people not wanting to spend it's not ideal.The game in this link is also pretty nice in showing the game off by the way.

Edit, the two things I'm not convinced about yet:
- no ladder. I like the sense of progression that comes with a ladder so I'm afraid I will miss that.
- the degree of RNG. It seems ok but need to play to see how much it really affects the game.

All in all I will dive into this head first. Cannot help it but I'm pretty stoked about the game.

 

[whydoibother]

I'm on the ropes here. I've played Hearthstone a bunch, and play MTG: Arena now from time to time, but I certainly don't want to spread myself over multiple card games that all demand long term play to build up a collection.
Is there any benefit to joining early, before a consensus is reached about the game's quality and features? Am I getting anything if I risk getting it and spending a bit today, rather than in a couple of months?

 

[Frusciante]

I'm on the ropes here. I've played Hearthstone a bunch, and play MTG: Arena now from time to time, but I certainly don't want to spread myself over multiple card games that all demand long term play to build up a collection.
Is there any benefit to joining early, before a consensus is reached about the game's quality and features? Am I getting anything if I risk getting it and spending a bit today, rather than in a couple of months?

I believe I read that they designed it to be latecomer friendly. One of the ways is I think because you cannot normally get all the cards just by playing 1000s of hours, packs cost money. Their idea is that people will end up with one or two decks that they will stick to and then use the marketplace to change to other decks if they want to.

In other words, as a newcomer you would normally only have to do the same kind of initial investment as the long time players and not be at a big advantage (card wise) just because they have played much more. People that do really well in the draft mode etc still may have built up a card advantage though.

I think the marketplace also plays a role here, if you want to get just one competitive deck to start of with then you can probably better just buy the exact cards you need on the marketplace and be done with it.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Is there any benefit to joining early, before a consensus is reached about the game's quality and features? Am I getting anything if I risk getting it and spending a bit today, rather than in a couple of months?

What's your poison, mate?

Cards & packs are bound to suffer heavy, heavy deflation. Meaning that the later you get into it, the more affordable constructed will get. And, at the very same time, the less profitable drafts will be. So if you wish to draft a lot - hop in right now, especially as the skill ceiling seems to be shit-tier even amongst the privileged streamers. Otherwise - wait.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Ok I've watched a bunch of explanation videos and people playing the game and I've gotta say this game doesn't seem fun. The cards seem largely uninteresting, mostly just stat buffing (+1 attack/health types or proxy stat by summoning a few creeps). The heroes all seem boring in the same sense, in that they don't really do much besides being numbers.. Also each game is lasting over a half hour and the players are never having fun, they just look like zombies all the time. It's probably because the cards aren't really interesting combined with the complexity of having 3 fucking boards with 10+ cards down on each, there's just too much going on and it's all really boring

Also a huge problem I have is that the art and 'lore' surrounding it is really uninspired. If you compare the art on these cards to cards from magic or hearthstone the style is just bland..

Spoiler

compare that to magic where literally every card looks REALLY cool

Spoiler

or hearthstone which has an equally great, but more light-hearted aesthetic

Spoiler

Artifact cards just aren't nice to look at...

Then you've got their monetization policy which is problematic for me. People are reporting getting lots of duplicates, including important cards such as heroes but duplicates of heroes that are included in the starter decks that you get when you buy the game. The problem is that in a few weeks the market is going to be so saturated with common cards that you'll be able to buy them for like $.03 each but the more rare cards will probably either: not go on the market b/c people want to keep, or cost hundreds of dollars so you end up with this problem where it's not worth buying packs because 100% of the time its value will be less than what you could get just buying the common crap on the market but if you want the more rare cards you'll need to fork out a bunch of cash.

The real problem with this is that most people won't be buying any packs at all and will just be buying the reasonably priced cards off of the market and everyone will have the same decks as a result. Games that don't have these markets end up being more interesting because most people buy like 20 packs of an expansion and are forced to make decks out of the limited set that they have, so deck variety is huge in mtga/hearthstone.

I like that they're trying something different, the 3 board thing could be cool if implemented properly but the way the game plays seems so damn boring

 

[Sentinel]

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

11/18 Beta Update
18 NOVEMBER - BRANDONR

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.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

So your $20 price to get the game itself will get you unlimited casual draft play, either with a casual matchmaker or doing private drafts with bros. And they've mentioned how the AI can play decks you build even with cards you don't own, so can you play decks with cards you don't own in casual constructed modes?

Is Artifact an expensive piece of shit that's almost on the level (Arguably worse) of paper card games if you want to play MLG 420 noscope official tourneys, but is a magical $20 box of fun with unlimited drafts and the full card pool for casual? I'm confused. If it's the latter though I'll probably pick it up, since I'm not against spending $20 if it lets me play with all the cards and do drafts and I'm just not a pro player.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

well it's only $20 but I'd watch some vids or streams if I were you because it's totally different from the usual card games. For example if you're expecting it to be anything like magic you'll be in for a surprise

 

[Jenkem]

this steam wide 'play with me' seem cool. Too bad I lack friends

the way it is worded it seems you don't necessarily have to have steam friends to play with others, you can have an open invitation to a group (so, the RPGCODEX steam group, for example) and anyone who is also in that can join..

 

[you know what time it is]

Good on Valve for listening, it's hilarious though that whining on reddit is the only way to get feedback across in 2018.

Also, I wrote to Gaben, so I take all the credit.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Valve listening, that's a first.

 

[you know what time it is]

So your $20 price to get the game itself will get you unlimited casual draft play, either with a casual matchmaker or doing private drafts with bros. And they've mentioned how the AI can play decks you build even with cards you don't own, so can you play decks with cards you don't own in casual constructed modes?

Is Artifact an expensive piece of shit that's almost on the level (Arguably worse) of paper card games if you want to play MLG 420 noscope official tourneys, but is a magical $20 box of fun with unlimited drafts and the full card pool for casual? I'm confused. If it's the latter though I'll probably pick it up, since I'm not against spending $20 if it lets me play with all the cards and do drafts and I'm just not a pro player.

20$ gets you a bunch of packs, some starter decks and event tickets (for gauntlets with prizes). So if constructed is your poison you will have to put more money into the game, but vast majority of cards will be dirt cheap on the steam market, so getting like 80-90% of em will not cost you much. If you are into drafting though, you can draft as much as you want, besides most tournaments are likely going to be draft oriented, so yeah. With today's changes Artifact lookin really good if you are into drafts and janky brews (which makes me really happy since I love that shit).

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Yeah after the new draft announcement I'm more optimistic about this, I'll probably drop at least the $20 on it. I've watched a few more games and I really like that they're trying something different here at least. The attack/defend mechanics are interesting and the idea of respawning heroes is pretty cool..

Still think that the card effects are largely dull and I don't like the art style at all. BUT $20 for access to unlimited casual drafting seems like a good deal. I think I'll be staying the hell away from constructed decks though, the pack mechanics and market thing sounds like a nightmare.

 

[Frusciante]

Is no one here in the beta? Seems like they made it pretty selective..

 

[Sentinel]

but vast majority of cards will be dirt cheap on the steam marke

This might've been true until yesterday, but with the announcement that common cards can be recycled for event tickets, you can expect the prices on commons to increase a fair bit.

 

[you know what time it is]

but vast majority of cards will be dirt cheap on the steam marke

This might've been true until yesterday, but with the announcement that common cards can be recycled for event tickets, you can expect the prices on commons to increase a fair bit.

It depends on the ratio, besides it might work out like a feedback loop of sorts. People melt the commons -> grab tickets -> win some packs -> more cards hit the market -> rinse and repeat. You are right though, the price will go up, but not by much I think.

 

[Frusciante]

but vast majority of cards will be dirt cheap on the steam marke

This might've been true until yesterday, but with the announcement that common cards can be recycled for event tickets, you can expect the prices on commons to increase a fair bit.

It depends on the ratio, besides it might work out like a feedback loop of sorts. People melt the commons -> grab tickets -> win some packs -> more cards hit the market -> rinse and repeat. You are right though, the price will go up, but not by much I think.

Maybe also depends on how much cards you need to burn to get one event ticket. It might be some insane number.

 

[you know what time it is]

Maybe also depends on how much cards you need to burn to get one event ticket. It might be some insane number.

Yep, that's what I meant by ratio.

 

[Jenkem]

This might've been true until yesterday, but with the announcement that common cards can be recycled for event tickets, you can expect the prices on commons to increase a fair bit.

depends on how common they are, how many people open packs and choose to put it on the market, etc. and the way the steam market works for other things (csgo/tf2 crates, pubg crates, trading cards, etc.) the prices will eventually either bottom out or level out after about a week. the new shit will always have an upsurge because it is new, just wait for prices to stabilize before buying (you can always put in a buy order for the price you feel is appropriate and just wait for it to be fulfilled)

also prices in the market will always be cheaper than prices of items in-game (see tf2 and csgo case keys) and don't forget that there will people who will flood the market with common cards, etc. around the time of steam sales to get extra cash for the sale, if you look at the market graphs you often see a dip during steam sales as people undersell for quick quick steamcash to buy gamez

 

[MajorMace]

The hype is real. The double condition of victory, the synergy between heroes, the item deck constructed beforehand. Finally some incline in card games. Praise GabeN.
Only element of disgust for me : The amount of RNG (attack targets, items available, creep deployment...) seems to heavily outweight the tools to manage it (I can already see the little "swap-someone" raccoon card being present in pretty much every deck of the correspondant colour). Teleportation scrolls will also be in pretty much every decks.
On the plus side, the double condition of victory makes room for some mindgame. It reminds me of WH40k Conquest a lot, where deploying on the right or wrong planet could decide of the fate of the game.
In this regard, artifact follows some unwritten golden rule of dota : mistakes should matter, and the more they matter, the better the game. Which is p.cool !