Artifact - The DOTA Card Game

Delly

Delly

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There is several shoddy and short videos of gameplay from a few months ago.

Also, I guess its cool you guys don't want to play it or have any interest in TCGs? Riveting conversation. I think a lot of people are looking for a less strict Hearthstone which is why TCG fans are excited.

 
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Gravel

Gravel

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5 heroes, 9 items, and 40 others?

Fuck that. Gonna end up with 5 branches or some dumb shit.

No clue what other will consist of. Skills?
 
Delly

Delly

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Deathwing said:
A less strict hearthstone? I don't know what these words mean.
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Some competitive players have said Hearthstone deck building is not exciting and that playing some of the competitive decks are fairly color by numbers. Plus RNG whining.. which will always be there but it can be annoying. Artifact is toting no max card deck limits, less RNG, and more variety. The devs mentioned they've had a game with 100s or 1000s (I can't remember anymore since I heard this 3 months ago) of units in a lane before. While it would probably not be common, having those possibilities, similar to what MtG used to provide is what attracts players. On the downside it also is less casual.

Artifact news has been pretty quiet since May so any news is good news for those of us interested.
 
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Delly

Delly

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Gravel said:
5 heroes, 9 items, and 40 others?

Fuck that. Gonna end up with 5 branches or some dumb shit.

No clue what other will consist of. Skills?
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Yeah I believe each hero is required to have 3-5 skills I think, but I'm not sure if that is part of the packs or just included with the hero. From what I remember is once you pick a hero you have to use some of their skills in the deck. Though my memory could be rusty since the last big news release was from May.

Here is the complied Reddit post with a lot of the main things that have been annouced.

Gameplay Information
Boards
  • There are three boards, called "lane 1" (left lane), "lane 2" (middle lane), "lane 3" (right lane).
  • You can zoom into each lane individually, or view the entire map at once.
  • Each lane has it’s own tower and mana pool (3/ +1 per turn), but you only draw cards once.
  • After combat in all three lanes, you move to the shopping phase to purchase items.
  • There is no limit to the number of summons or units you can have at one time on a lane.
Minimap
  • The game has a minimap in the top-left corner.
  • The minimap keeps track of important informations in each lane.
  • The minimap shows where heroes are placed.
  • The minimap shows if a hero will die in the next fight.
  • The minimap shows when heroes will respawn.
  • The minimap shows the health of each tower
  • The highlighted side on the minimap is the current lane.
  • An arrow between towers shows who will be the first player to play for the next lane.
Resources
  • There are three resources: cards, gold, and mana.
  • Gold is gained globally by killing creep (1 gold) or heroes (5 gold).
  • Mana is increased by 1 per turn (similar to Hearthstone).
Course of a game
  • The game is played in turns (unofficial name).
  • A turn is composed of a round, a shopping phase, a hero deployment.
  • A round is composed of 3 different phases : pre-action phase, action phase, combat phase.
  • A round progress in this order : pre-action phase, action-phase on the lane 1, combat phase on the lane 1, action phase on the lane 2, combat phase on the lane 2, action phase on the lane 3, combat phase on the lane 3.
  • At the end of a round, each lane's manapool is augmented by 1.
  • The pre-action phase is different for the 1st round.
  • Pre-action phase (1st round) : 1 hero is randomly placed on each lane and 3 creeps are randomly placed among the 3 lanes. Each player draw 5 cards.
  • Pre-action phase (not the 1st round) : Each player draw 2 cards.
  • Action phase : During this phase, players can play cards. A round has 3 action phases, one for each lane. Playing a card give the initiative for the next action phase to the opponent.
  • Combat phase : Each unit on the lane fight its target.
  • Shopping phase : Each player can buy items with gold. 3 cards are available : a secret shop item (random item in all the item pool), a deck item (item from the item deck of the player), a consumable (item from the consumables pool)
  • Hero deployment : 2 creeps are randomly placed among the 3 lanes. Each player can deploy available heroes among the 3 lanes. Targets for the combat phases are randomly assigned.
  • Radiant always plays first, but it could be only on the demo.
Cards
  • 280 cards (44 of which, are hero cards), of varying rarities.
  • Hero Cards: Five heroes per deck.
  • Item Cards: Can be purchased with Gold and equipped to heroes.
  • Improvement Cards: Allow you to cast a buff on one of the three lanes for a defined (or indefinite) number of turns (like Barracks, which spawn more creep per turn).
  • Summoning Cards: Summon a specific creep on the lane.
  • Spell Cards: Cast a spell on the lane.
  • There are four card types: blue (mage and late game), green (support and summons), red (bruisers), black (assassin and cross-board abilities).
  • Cards can be purchased through the Steam Marketplace.
  • Card overlays contain information about status effects.
Heroes
  • Your first three heroes start in one of the three lanes, randomly (one hero per lane).
  • Hero 4 and 5 are deployed before round two and three, respectively.
  • Have three stats, Attack, Armor, and Health, all of which can be buffed by items and abilities.
  • Heroes can have passive or active abilities.
  • When a hero dies, they take one turn to respawn and can then be redeployed on the board in a lane of your choice.
Creep
  • 2 creeps are randomly played on the board each turn.
  • They are removed from the board when they die.
Items
  • Items can be purchased with gold during the shopping phase.
  • Three item slots per hero (one buffing attack, armor, and health, respectively).
  • Each specific slot can be recognized by a specific icon : Weapon slot, Shield slot, Heart slot.
  • A specific icon exist also for Consumables items
  • Consumables, like salves can be purchased.
  • Some items have active and passive abilities.
  • Similar to DOTA2, more expensive items have more powerful abilities or natural power. For example, the Short Sword costs 3 gold and gives +2 attack, whereas the Keenfolk Musket costs 7 gold and also has an active ability.
Improvement Cards
  • Are visually displayed as icons next to towers.
  • An example of an improvement card is the siege creep.
  • Can be destroyed by items and cards.
Deck
  • Made up of five hero cards, abilities, and summons, totaling at least 40 cards (with no maximum limit).
  • You may have up to three copies of the same card.
  • Each hero add 3 copies of a signature card necessarily included.
  • Signature cards are a part of the 40 cards, leading to 15/40 mandatory cards, depending of the heroes.
Hand
  • Draw two cards each turn, to your hand, before the start of the left lane.
  • There is no limit to the number of cards you can hold in your hand.
  • There is no penalty for running out of cards to draw.
Combat
  • Initiated once both players pass in succession.
  • Each unit will attack the unit in front of it.
  • Cards and blocker arrows can change the direction a card is attacking, it is not always straight.
  • If no unit is present, you will attack the tower.
  • If the tower is down, you will attack the Ancient.
Victory
  • Destroy two of three enemy towers (40 HP each) . OR
  • Kill one enemy tower and then their ancient (80 HP).
New Heroes
  • Rix, a wolf-man hybrid.
  • Sorla Khan, the Oglodi who replaced Axe at the head of the Red Mist.
  • Kanna, possibly a female demon that Juggernaut is worried about.
Lore in game
  • The game will be filled with more expansive lore, likely from flavor text and hero voice lines.
  • There will be a "lore viewer" where every hero card will deliver a monologue.
  • Part of the lore will be developped with responses of heroes on the battlefield while playing.
Lore
  • The lore takes place in the DOTA2 universe.
  • Three sides are fighting in a great conflict.
  • The Bronze Legion is lead by the Legion Commander, Tresdin.
  • The Red Mist is lead by Sorla Khan.
  • The Vhouls are lead by Rix.
  • At the beginning, the fight takes place in the Vhouls city, occupied by the Bronze Legion.
  • Tresdin and Rix are old friends.
  • Something makes the Vhouls rebels against the Bronze Legion.
Miscellaneous
  • Announced on August 8th, 2017.
  • Release on PC/Mac/Linux scheduled for the end of 2018.
  • Release on iOS/Android scheduled for the end of 2018.
  • Will not be free-to-play or pay-to-win.
  • New heroes will be released that will make it into DOTA2.
  • No single-player specific game mode, but you can play against AI.
  • There will be a compendium with goals for a professional scene, similar to DOTA2.
  • Artifact is not one of Valve's three VR-related titles.
  • Is based on the Source 2 Engine.
Marketplace
  • Will be used to buy and sell cards.
Esports
  • Q1 2019 will have a $1 million tournament.
  • There will be automated tournaments (like Warcraft III).
 
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wat

wat

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Wait so as I understand it all cards are purchased real money. No ingame currency, no card packs as rewards for doing quests or missions or anything like that. You either buy a pack or a specific card from the marketplace. You pay your 20 bucks and get a starter deck, then if you ever want something else you pay some more. It's essentially a real life card game but with digital cards that you can't resell for real world money.

Or am I just getting bad information from Reddit.
 
Mahes

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This game is a TCG. Its method of operation for cards is more inline with Hex than Hearthstone or Magic Arena. The TCG aspect is one of the reasons I am excited about this game and one main reason I was turned off from Magic the Arena. Since I already play Hearthstone, I was not interested in throwing money into another non-tcg. The cards will hold value in that you can sell them or trade them to build other decks. You get no more value from cards in Hearthstone or Magic the Arena, than the playability of the card.

As far as the game itself is concerned, I like what I have seen enough to have no problem putting down $20.00 to see how it plays and judge from there. If it is fun, then I will throw another 100.00 at it. I hope that they add in super rare items that are for show rather than power alone. A good example would be getting a prize that changes the dragon avatar into another creature. Make these tradeable and the game has even more potential value.

Unless this game gets horrid reviews, I am pretty sure it will get a good try from me.
 
jooka

jooka

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I'm interested in giving it a go but the price point seems pretty high. 280+ cards to collect at getting lucky via packs/decks or the market which could get out of control, especially if exploits/hacks are around in the beginning
 
Dandai

Dandai

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Warrik said:
Another CCG is something I had absolutely zero desire for and I cant wait to not buy this game. When they are done fucking around, HL Episode 3, HL3 or LFD3 would move the needle.
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With the series writer’s “how I would’ve done it” open letter to fans a few months ago, I think it’s safe to assume HL Episode 3 will never happen. We might get a HL3 some day, but it will almost certainly be a reboot or lore reset. It’s been 15 years. Episode 3 could be as genre defining as DOOM, Rogue, and Diablo and still fail to meet everyone’s hyped up expectations. At this point, I don’t blame them for not releasing it... but it’d be nice to get a HL3 :(
 
wat

wat

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Mahes said:
This game is a TCG. Its method of operation for cards is more inline with Hex than Hearthstone or Magic Arena. The TCG aspect is one of the reasons I am excited about this game and one main reason I was turned off from Magic the Arena. Since I already play Hearthstone, I was not interested in throwing money into another non-tcg. The cards will hold value in that you can sell them or trade them to build other decks. You get no more value from cards in Hearthstone or Magic the Arena, than the playability of the card.

As far as the game itself is concerned, I like what I have seen enough to have no problem putting down $20.00 to see how it plays and judge from there. If it is fun, then I will throw another 100.00 at it. I hope that they add in super rare items that are for show rather than power alone. A good example would be getting a prize that changes the dragon avatar into another creature. Make these tradeable and the game has even more potential value.

Unless this game gets horrid reviews, I am pretty sure it will get a good try from me.
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From what I understand there is no trading, only buying and selling on the marketplace. So essentially instead of disenchanting cards to dust you trade them for steam credit. It just seems like this game is going to struggle unless they immediately nail the card economy. It's a TCG without trading, the physical collection aspect, and the ability to cash out for real world money. Other games seem to get around not having those aspects by throwing free content and cards at you. It will be interesting to see how this game does it.
 
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elidib

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Game is also extremely hard as fuck to follow for a spectator. I had no idea what the hell was going on or who was winning in that video posted above.

This, combined with the extremely pay-heavy pricing scheme will ensure the game remains a niche game with only a cult following, like Hex, shadowverse, gwent, elder scrolls, and magic online. No way will it ever see hearthstone numbers.

I was interested in trying it out until i watched that video and saw how needlessly complicated it is, and that its completely pay to win (fuck whoever above said it isnt).
 
Pyros

Pyros

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elidib said:
Game is also extremely hard as fuck to follow for a spectator. I had no idea what the hell was going on or who was winning in that video posted above.

This, combined with the extremely pay-heavy pricing scheme will ensure the game remains a niche game with only a cult following, like Hex, shadowverse, gwent, elder scrolls, and magic online. No way will it ever see hearthstone numbers.

I was interested in trying it out until i watched that video and saw how needlessly complicated it is, and that its completely pay to win (fuck whoever above said it isnt).
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Pay to win definition varies from people to people based on how much of an advantage you get, and how much you have to pay. For many people, HS is pay to win because you sure can't get all the legendaries you need to make most of the meta decks and have a good shot without paying some money or playing arena a fucking long time, while being good at it. For others it isn't because you can play the arena, or just do the daillies and eventually buy shit slowly until you get that one deck and while you can't play all the other decks, it's fine, or they play the cheapest available deck in the current meta instead(although the old zoo decks that used to cost jackshit aren't nearly as strong atm so not sure what they play).

Fact is, you have to pay to even play at all in this, so to an extent, you'll always have to pay to win. You could in theory sell all your shit you don't need, then buy all the shit you need with the money and play the deck. Works like dusts in HS, but if the economy isn't fucked, at a much more advantageous rate(sell an epic card, buy an epic card at roughly the same price, so 1:1, minus the steam tax, while HS is like, 4:1 or 8:1 I forgot). But you'll probably have to put in some money to start with for a decent base of cards to sell to buy the shit you want, so yeah. But starting HS fresh nowadays sounds like fucking shit too, you'd be better off playing one of the other card games that are a lot better about giving free shit(Eternal and Shadowverse iirc are the 2 decent ones).

As for the spectator thing, I don't know, it's just something to get used to? I mean the popularity of the game will determine if it makes a good game to watch. It didn't seem that complicated for the basics, 3boards, bunch of hp, take the hp down to 0 by playing cards. The actual details are going to be arcane to anyone who hasn't played the game, because that's the nature of watching games. If you watch HS without knowing the cards, you don't know what the fuck is going on half the time because people spend like 1min doing nothing, then play 1-5cards in a row quickly as they're roping, and a bunch of shit happens at once. The only thing you can really tell if you don't know the cards is how many cards are on the board/in their hands and how much hp they have, and any insight the casters might give.

Ultimately, I'm not feeling like this'll be any good, but I'll keep an open mind for now. Need to see a few people play this shit before I say never.
 
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elidib

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Pyros said:
but if the economy isn't fucked, at a much more advantageous rate(sell an epic card, buy an epic card at roughly the same price, so 1:1, minus the steam tax,
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The cards will never be able to hold their value. Which do you think is going to go for a higher price: your old epic card that was used in the deck that's now old news (possibly even completely obsolete), or the new hotness epic that just got released in the expansion?

You'll always need to pour money into the game if you want to remain competitive, that's just how the business model works.
 
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Pyros

Pyros

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elidib said:
The cards will never be able to hold their value. Which do you think is going to go for a higher price: your old epic card that was used in the deck that's now old news (possibly even completely obsolete), or the new hotness epic that just got released in the expansion?

You'll always need to pour money into the game if you want to remain competitive, that's just how the business model works.
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That's not necessarily true. The value of a card is still going to be a product of its power, even if it's an old card it could still be as good as the new one, keeping a decent value. I agree in the very first days of a new expansion the new shit will most likely be more expensive, but I'd expect the prices to stabilize once enough cards flood the market. To take an HS example, shit like Leeroy would still maintain a solid value in most expansions. Shit like Ragnaros might go up and down based on the meta. So yeah maybe you'll need 2 of the old cards to buy the brand new one right away if it's strong, but that's not necessarily a problem.

You're still gonna have to buy shit in the end though, that's for sure. You won't be able to make the most competitive decks with just the value of the 20bucks starting cards, especially as time goes on. On the other hand, I wonder how many HS players were truly F2P players the whole time. I'd assume they're banking on most people being ok dropping 20-30bucks a month on the game they're playing, which is a fair idea. I'm not willing to spend nearly that much myself when I could buy 2-3games for that price instead but I think a lot of people do.

Edit: And one thing to consider about rarity/price. While it is possible they'll have individual rarity within a rarity category, I'm not sure that'll be the case. Basically like if HS had some legendaries that are more rare than others, based on their powers or not. I don't think they'll do that. If they don't, you have to consider that the rarest cards are still 1 per pack guaranteed. You get 10 of them from the initial 10packs. Granted, there's probably going to be more of them than HS legendaries, probably legendary+epic combined, but still you're guaranteed one per pack. So the values shouldn't be too too high.
 
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Ravishing

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Man... as a consistent Hearthstone player I wouldn't mind some legit competition but holy shit is this pricing model bullshit.

For a digital card game, having a marketplace just seems like a terrible idea. It means constructing decks will likely cost a LOT. Making accessibility lower and deck variance lower.
Hearthstone is pretty expensive for players that want to try EVERYTHING already, but this game sounds like it's taking it up a notch.
OR the marketplace is just going to have most cards be worth nothing. Because if HS teaches us anything, about 90% of cards are going to prove to be useless shit.
Also the fact its a digital game without printing restrictions, means overtime cards will consistently lose value.
Only way to hold value is by making cards have an extremely low % chance.
If this is the case then fuck you Valve. It's literally the definition of Pay to Win... unlike games that only do this with cosmetics.

And the fact there is a box price on top of it is even more insulting.
Hearthstone proves you don't need to charge a premium to rake in millions.

The concept looks kinda okay with the 3 lanes but meh... seems like they're trying too hard.
And there are already other card game alternatives to HS... some with much better ideas on how to mix up the genre then what I'm seeing here.
 
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Delly

Delly

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Clearly the market and prices for Artifact are all speculative, but its not like Hearthstone is doing it much better. You're already guaranteed to spend a ton of time, money, or both to remain competitive. We have no idea how the Steam marketplace will impact card prices. MtG prices are the way they are because of physical cards and limits to how many people can get their hands on a card quickly to be competitive. If the Steam marketplace is updating in real time with millions of people playing then who knows how card prices will be.

Ravishing Ravishing , how can you complain about a box price with a bunch of cards/packs when Hearthstone does the same thing every expansion. "Heres a bunch of packs and a card back for slightly cheaper prices!"

You just sound Hearthstone fanboy-ish when you say 3 lanes sounds like they're trying too hard. Richard Garfield (supposedly) came up with the game idea before Valve was ever involved which means the 3 lanes either was thought up before Dota involvement or was introduced after, but regardless its been said that this game is not the DOTA card game, its a card game with the Dota skin.

Lastly, since I am a fan of Hearthstone and TCGs in general, I would think we want this to do well. Competition is good and right now Hearthstone has almost zero unless GWENT's revival is a success. There is no way HS dies off due to another TCG, but if another TCG gets big then Blizzard may be motivated to get off their asses and introduce more features that the community has been wanting for years.
 
Ravishing

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Delly said:
Ravishing Ravishing , how can you complain about a box price with a bunch of cards/packs when Hearthstone does the same thing every expansion. "Heres a bunch of packs and a card back for slightly cheaper prices!"
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Because to play HS you don't need to purchase anything... I'm not seeing that here. At least let me try the game first, if its good enough then sure, I'll dump money into some cards. I also don't see anything about crafting cards, I only get the impression you'll need to purchase them. Of course this could be completely wrong. Only other thing I've seen mentioned is they'll offer "other modes", like Sealed deck, for players without large collections... and that a key component of the game is to "bargain hunt" the marketplace.

How can you even compare these statements to HS which allows complete FTP if you desire?

Delly said:
You just sound Hearthstone fanboy-ish when you say 3 lanes sounds like they're trying too hard. Richard Garfield (supposedly) came up with the game idea before Valve was ever involved which means the 3 lanes either was thought up before Dota involvement or was introduced after, but regardless its been said that this game is not the DOTA card game, its a card game with the Dota skin.

Lastly, since I am a fan of Hearthstone and TCGs in general, I would think we want this to do well. Competition is good and right now Hearthstone has almost zero unless GWENT's revival is a success. There is no way HS dies off due to another TCG, but if another TCG gets big then Blizzard may be motivated to get off their asses and introduce more features that the community has been wanting for years.
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How is saying "3 lanes trying too hard" fanboyish? LOL... I like some ideas presented by other games, even if implementation has been poor. Gwent with the frontline/backline stuff. Reynad's theoretical game focusing on economy... But, 3 Lanes just looks and sounds bad. I get the idea your strategy now involves lane mechanics; ie: starving 1 lane to feed another, etc etc.. great. Is it the core gameplay of a Card game? Are the card effects & synergies actually going to be fun? Or are you going to be spreading resources and unable to have good synergy/combos with the cards. Sounds like you really don't even need the cards. Idk man, just sounds very bland & unfun to me. If I'm playing a card game I'd think the main focus would be the cards.



And yes, I'd love an alternative that I can play on a mobile device... really only reason I play HS is cause of mobile. But I'm not going to give it a try with this pricing model.
 
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Delly

Delly

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Hearthstone is FTP but not really. Even at the ladder reset people are running top tier decks nowadays. You'd have to grind hours upon hours to make it worthwhile. I see the argument about wanting to try Artifact for free which I agree would be nice. For any type of real fun or winning to be had in HS you have to pay to play or dedicate a large chunk of your time to it.

I just think the statement "trying too hard" is kind of silly. We as a society tell people to give 110% so why is 3 lanes trying too hard? Is 2 lanes just right? Its just silly to me which is why I said it sounded fanboyish. Richard Garfield has made a fuckload of games which some are amazing and some have flopped. I'm sure some of the mechanics have been off the wall but that doesn't mean he was trying too hard.

Like I said we know too little about the market, the market values, and a large chunk of gameplay to even know if the gameplay will be fun or the cards being worth it. I just don't wanna shit on the game before we know and I think we know too little to say either way right now. I will say I'm cautiously optimistic because I want another good TCG but not knowing all the information doesn't work for me either.
 
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Araxen

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Steam does have a return policy. Two hours of playtime and a two week window and you can get a refund. You should be able to tell if the 3-lane play will be for you or not in that time. Even with that said, the game may pay for itself eventually since they are using the marketplace.

Hearthstone is F2P, but if you want to play the game on a competitive level you are going to have to buy card packs. I feel Hearthstone is very expensive to get into nowadays and I don't know how people keep giving them money. I hope Artifact succeeds because the genre really needs some form of competition to Hearthstone.
 
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