So if I were to sign up for this not-really-open-beta, what can I do? With no PvE yet, it kinda looks to me like all I could do is get my ass kicked by people with more cards, and look longingly at drafts that cost money. Maybe I’m reading it wrong?
There’s an AI practice feature, but as far as I can tell most people are playing drafts.
Whereas it’s the Kickstarter game I’ve easily gotten the most value out of so far. I like Hearthstone, but eventually drifted away after too many games kept playing out in very similar ways without many interesting non-obvious decision points popping up. And while I like Magic, it’s by turns inconvenient and expensive, clunky/ugly and expensive, or crippled and locked down, for the paper, online, and DotP versions respectively. But I just completed draft #50 in Hex, and am continuing to enjoy each one and look forward to the new set and the single-player stuff (though I’m certainly annoyed at the slow pace of progress on them).
Out of curiosity, are you just regretting it because of the delays, or have you given up on it ever living up to your expectations? I backed primarily for drafting with everything else as nice bonuses, so I’ve been satisfied, but I can definitely see how anyone with other priorities would be disappointed so far.
Good point. There’s not a whole lot to do for free players at this point. There are starter trials (series of matches against AI decks that gradually unlock new cards for your starter), or if you ask in chat to play against other starter decks there’s a good chance someone will oblige. But really, the main thing to do is draft, which works out to around $1 per hour of entertainment on average. If that’s out of the question, you’re probably better off waiting for the PvE stuff to arrive. If you do decide to check it out, though, send me a friend request and I’ll spot you the three packs for your first draft.
Personally I regret it to a degree because I dropped a huge amount of money and there is a real possibility that although I personally find WOTC’s lawsuit frivolous and without merit, the courts might disagree with me and put me out that money, perhaps even before they implement the PvE that was my main interest. Also I haven’t really been playing, even to do my free drafts. But assuming Cryptozoic wins the legal dispute, which in my entirely non-lawyer-y opinion they should, and PvE turns up, I’ll be glad to have done it.
Thanks for the info, guys. Think I’ll wait until they do some sort of freely accessible PvE, or make it possible for free players to draft (i.e. like gold entry for Hearthstone arena). I’m not averse to spending some money on a game, especially if I can try it out first, but I’ve drawn a line for myself at games that want you to keep paying to keep playing. I find it’s better to not even start those…learned that with Infinity Wars, which I really enjoyed until I ran out their point-things and couldn’t get more without paying (or I suppose way more grinding than I was willing to put up with).
Wow, if they are going to open this thing up to a lot of new players, they probably should have made sure their tutorial still works. I mean, it doesn’t crash or anything, but it goes off-script… and a lot of the prompts are wrong and misleading (presumably due to UI changes since anybody looked at the tutorial).
Also, it doesn’t support 1920x1200? Why wouldn’t it do that?
Yeah, I think that’s one of the reasons for the “we’re opening the beta so people who have been waiting to get in can do so, but we’re not ready to call it Open Beta or make a big awareness push just yet” approach.
Also, I’ll go ahead and expand my offer. Three free packs each for the first draft entry of up to five established qt3ers who want to try out the game.
That’s generous, and I’m tempted to take you up on it, but the reason I stopped doing drafts in MTGO is that I never have 3 hours at a stretch to sit in front of my computer anymore. I assume the same problem would exist here (and that’s also one of the main reasons I didn’t back the Hex kickstarter in the first place).
I pretty much stopped playing after timing out too much playing draft. I know it happened because I’m unfamiliar with the cards, but losing due to timing out in a game is still such a terrible feeling I rather just play something else (like Hearthstone which has turn timers).
Yeah, that’s definitely an issue. There is an asynchronous sealed mode along the lines of Hearthstone’s Arena planned for Decemberthat should help with it. The first PvE content is supposedly planned for December as well.
Also mentioned in that link is a “Rock League” you can start playing in now that limits deckbuilding to all commons except for up to four uncommons. That should make for a much more approachable constructed format without the need to track down rares for decks.
Though it could be argued that even the Rock League has already discovered the best decks to use.
If you ignore the bestest deck it can be a lot of fun to try.
Yeah, this is my biggest problem. With all play focused on tournaments, there’s very little to do unless you’ve got a long block to sit in front of it. I’m pretty pleased with the game itself, though, and excited for the PvE and asynch options. Assuming that those modes aren’t disasters, I think i’m going to at least have been very happy with my pledge (and at most end up spending way too much money on this).
Set 2, Shattered Destiny launched today along with another round of UI polish, and the launch seems to have gone surprisingly smoothly. The servers went down on schedule and came up on schedule, and have appeared to be completely stable since then. The queues are firing constantly, and I was able to play a full draft with no apparent problems, bugs, or lag (went 3-0 with a scary bunny horde using the new champion Warmaster Fuzzuko).
Anyone who’s held off on trying the game because you didn’t want to come in as brand new to an environment where everyone had been playing with the cards for months, now is the time. 2/3 of everyone’s cards in draft (or 3/3 this weekend for the release celebration) will come from the new set and be new to everyone. And the first batch of single-player content is scheduled for later this month, too.
And my offer of donating a few packs to any Qt3er who wants to try it out still stands.
I was a kickstarter and actually received 15 Shattered Destiny boosters (which came as a surprise), and two primal packs!
The tunneling ability looks interesting.
Nice! That’s a really lucky ratio. I got one as well, though I’ll probably just sell it since I’m mainly focused on draft.
And yeah, tunneling is pretty cool. I used a half-dozen of those cards in my bunny deck, and they worked really well. You have to accept a bit of a delay, but can wind up with a big troop for two resources, and it can attack right away.
PVE finally rears its head on March 10th.
On Tuesday, March 10th we’re releasing our first PVE feature. This battle arena will pit you in 20 battles against gladiators and bosses with gold, equipment, and PVE reward cards to be won. With a lineup of 27 gladiator opponents and 7 bosses available to Hogarth, each Arena run will be a new challenge for you to overcome.
If you want a taste before the arena launches formally and have test server access, it’s up on there. I dipped my toe in and was pretty happy with the little I saw. The UI’s pretty dramatically improved over the last time I played (months ago), there was some nice flavor, and the match I had had a pretty clever (and rough!) gimmick that I nonetheless managed to defeat with a very hungry Mushwocky.
Will I enjoy this game if I like Hearthstone, Star Realms, and Solforge (to an extent, too many OP cards)?
Probably. The best comparison is Magic. Hex is very, very close to Magic, to the point where Wizards of the Coast is taking legal action.
It’s more complex than any of those games, and yes, is probably closest to Magic, although I would argue that it’s not actually all that similar in play.