Artifact - Engaging and true depth -- impression on 2.0 from a skeptical long hauler

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Engaging and true depth -- impression on 2.0 from a skeptical long hauler Posted: 02 Sep 2020 07:36 AM PDT I've been giving fairly negative comments on the major changes of 2.0 from day one: I've complained about lane size limit, locked cards, lower value of initiative, common mana pool. Posts in this subreddit confirmed my bias. A few days ago, I got beta invite and I've played a lot these days. After the ten tutorial games, bot games, and a few games in hero draft, A2 still looked "meh" to me, but I kept playing and, surprisingly to me, the more I play, the more I fall in love with this game. The good Hero Draft It feels great to pick heroes against another player, so that your heroes counter theirs. It'd be even better if we could chat meanwhile. Interesting heroes, engaging gameplay Heroes have interesting, often complex, abilities and cards, which fully make up for the limited number of units, in terms of compl. Honestly, the game currently feels at least as complex as A2, if not more complex, while being also more accessible, due to Hero Draft and being less punishing, due to lane unit limit (infinite Redmist Pillagers are replaced with Illusions of Phantom Lancer), bouncing, free town portal scroll, more control, lower initiative value. More control: deployment, movement, attack arrows, bouncing and devouring Much of randomness of A1 is gone and sincerely, we won't miss it. I feel having much more control over heroes and units. Limiting the number of units in lane and choosing the exact spawn locations came with a possibility of bouncing (returning a hero to fountain) or devouring a unit (eating its stats). This gives more possibilities. I'd like to see more cards with devour. The number of interactions While we have now a common mana pool, which in principle should lead to 3x fewer interactions, it feels like there are more interactions per round than before, because of a large number of hero/item abilities. Also, each action feels more meaningful now, because very few cards cost 0 mana (Courier is great, I think the shop could offer an upgraded Courier that allows two free items per round), so each card you play feels meaningful, as well as the order in which you play them. Initiative I expected initiative to not play a significant role with the common mana pool and cross-lane cards, but actually, it's still very important for lane control. Now I'm thinking that initiative was OP in A1, while in A2 is still relevant, but it's much less punishing. It won't cripple you if you miss it, but it's definitely important in high-level play. It feels much better now. Ladder, progression, free cards Initially, I wanted to have all cards available from start, but seeing how complex the heroes and mechanics are, I'm actually very happy with the current progression system. You'll have about 50% of cards after 15h of playing. Aaaand you'll explore new heroes in Hero Draft, either because of your new cards, or because of your opponents cards. It feels just right. Chat The chat is great. I'd like it to be much bigger, taking the whole right side of the screen, and also it'd be great to have it available during the hero draft. The bad Replays are awesome, but i) many players don't even know they exist, ii) and many things aren't explained well. Perhaps the tutorial needs to be extended. It should teach players how to learn the game, how to open replays, how to understand board state. The replay button says "Download replay" in the user profile ("Watch replay" would be more clear). Finally it'd be great that players can test each hero and learn each mechanic outside of regular matches. Card descriptions and bugs. Some people are confused by Cleave. I have an issue with cards that use "Remaining mana", like Summoning Circle. It costs 1 mana, but when I have 1 mana lest I get a 0/1 Horror, but when I cast it with N mana, where N is greater than 1, then I get N/N+1 Horror. I guess this is a bug, but first of all, the card description doesn't explain which of the two will happen. Hero draft is awesome, but we are waiting for a slightly more complex version, which hopefully will become the main competitive mode. Perhaps the game could be balanced around this draft mode. The problem with balancing the game both for constructed and draft is that it's impossible to have good balance in both. I'd be fine with having the draft as the main game mode, and constructed as a secondary mode. A2 is more balanced than A1, but there is still a large room for improvements. See above. Both heroes and items feel like could be more balanced. The ugly Long waiting time for beta access It's hard to be patient while waiting for the invitation. I've seen people being extremely upset about not having access yet, because they paid for A1 and weren't happy with it. I was there. There are pros and cons for opening the access to all A1 owners. I don't really know what's better, but one thing I'm sure is that sooner or later everyone will get an invite. The game can actually surprise you. It did surprise me. Let yourself be surprised once you get to experience it. Summary I wasn't a believer before trying A2, mainly because of reading this subreddit, but after playing A2 for a few days, I feel addicted. Other people have other experiences, but in the end what matters is your own experience. Disclaimer: I didn't plan to write this post, but yesterday's post of u/smthpickboy made me share my experience, since I was also skeptical of 2.0 changes and I also received an invite in the last wave, but my reception of A2 is entirely different than that of u/smthpickboy. submitted by /u/ssstorm [link] [comments]

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