Solforge Catch-All

New cards coming up again!
Darkforge Uprising: Factions United

Few spoilers:
IMAGE(http://sites.cdn.stoneblade.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/infernal-ritual.png)
Yup, it says YOU indeed...so the effect is lasting.

IMAGE(http://sites.cdn.stoneblade.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/nekpatron.png)

Bit of an odd release schedule:

Each faction will be getting its own release week. The first of which, will be Thursday August 13th when will be releasing a pair of new Nekrium cards.

Each of the following weeks, another faction will be released…

Here is the Schedule:
Thursday August 13th: Nekrium Release
Thursday August 20th: Alloyin Release
Thursday August 27th: Uttera Release
Thursday September 3rd: Tempys Release

Looking forward to it

I can get behind a cycle of Overload cards with lasting effects. A shame they're legendary though

Like pretty much every mini-expansion, looks like this is just a new Legendary and Heroic card for each faction...

Didn't even think of that yet, it being legendary etc. It is a shame.
Probably to push sales more than anything. As it is hard to get them all.
As it is, I cannot get one deck together that is up to par with the meta.
Close, but not close enough. Not spending more money on it either.

Still love the game though

I don't think it's necessarily to push sales. More likely is they want to reserve a few types of powers for specific rarties. If I'm recalling correctly, in Magic they wanted card draw and tutor cards to be harder to acquire because they're really powerful abilities on their own. So those cards were generally found at the highest rarity, unlike Netrunner's CCG incarnation where they wanted/needed the Runner faction to be able to draw into its essential cards so card draw and tutoring cards could be found at the lowest rarities.

I can easily see cards with lasting effects being kept strictly in the Legendary pool. We might see some less powerful versions in Heroic at some point, but I don't think they'll ever filter down to common or uncommon. I think due to the power of the mechanic in general and the fact it feels like an advanced mechanic I don't think it's something they want to expose newer players to on a regular basis.

That said, while I'm not all that enthusiastic about cards that tweak the side lanes or give regen, being able to drop up to 3 of these in Level 1 seems like a pretty big deal. Alloyin is likely to get a similar card that gives armor in the center lane which would be very useful for them (and potentially the best card in the cycle). I have no idea what they'd do with Uterra or Tempys here. Also, these allow you to get an effect for the entirety of the game without needing to level unlike the Echoes cycle from two sets ago.

Good point on the rarity part.

Going to guess Uterra will get +2/+2 and Tempys Aggresive or Move . Aggressive might be too much of a big bonus. I wonder if they stack.

I am taking a break from Solforge for quite a while. Did love the game with it mechanics etc. And really watched many live streams on Twitch. But the rng is just taking out all the fun for me.
Just all too often I am way ahead, draw really badly and lose the game. Or just don't get the cards I need at all. Some times it just can't be helped and it's all part of the game. But lately it is getting ridiculous and makes it no more fun for me. Time to move on.

Sounds like that's a universal feeling of Solforge players. I still don't play except against the AI (random time sink) or with you guys.

I've been out of the loop too. Really just logging in when I remember to collect my daily pack and biding my time until the new client arrives

Kyekye wrote:

Sounds like that's a universal feeling of Solforge players. I still don't play except against the AI (random time sink) or with you guys.

Solforge, but also Hearthstone now. Which I don't play. Not sure how they can fix this.

shoptroll wrote:

I've been out of the loop too. Really just logging in when I remember to collect my daily pack and biding my time until the new client arrives :(

Make an alt account for quick 3 wins and get your tickets as well for free

Sorry to hijack here. I may start a thread for it but there's a new ish ccg that could probably use more traction. Makes very smart improvements to Magic and has rng mitigation built into its core rule set.

It's called Spelleeaver. Worth a look!

Will give it a try. For others, here is a link https://spellweaver-tcg.com/

/end of hijack it was kinda quiet anyway.

Thanks for the info Maclintok!

The thread is alive.

Okay that's enough derailing out of me.

Nothing against SolForge! I backed it on Kickstarter and loved it for all of 2013. The two early GWJ tournaments I particpated in was great fun.

Like with so many games that require persistent engagement, I eventually drifted away but then found it hard to get back in after the expansions started to roll out. I have gone through the same with Magic and Hearthstone.

For anyone still following this, there's a new patch going out later this week (11/25) which rebalances a lot of the game. Here's the blog post explaining the changes at a high level and full patch notes are coming tomorrow.

NOTE: This isn't the new client patch.

The tl;dr:
- Too many games are ending before Level 3, most changes are to prevent blowouts in Level 2
- All rarities are getting buffed rather than nerfing the biggest problem cards
- Attempting to increase deck diversity by buffing certain archetypes (poison, upgrade, mobility, etc.)
- Will consider a second round of rebalancing before full launch based on feedback
- There seems to be a new keyword "Forge", although this might just be new shorthand/templating for "when this card enters play"

Interesting update for sure.
First they tried to make it a fast paced game, now a bit slower again.
Which is better I think. It was just waiting for the one big blow out and that was that.
Installing the game again to have a peek at the update tomorrow.

Sparhawk wrote:

Interesting update for sure.
First they tried to make it a fast paced game, now a bit slower again.
Which is better I think. It was just waiting for the one big blow out and that was that.
Installing the game again to have a peek at the update tomorrow. :)

I'm really hoping they reset the draft algorithm with the patch as this should be a major shakeup to the meta. I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to take a look at the changes immediately since I'll be traveling and the last time I tried the client was getting sluggish on my 3rd gen iPad.

Interesting. I might dip my toe back into the draft game. I have oodles of coins and probably over 100 packs. I never got into constructed play. I still log in almost every day and get my event ticket for beating the AI though.

If we've had enough of a break, maybe we could do another GWJ tournament.

Patch notes are up

Lots of new keywords that replace a lot of boilerplate text. Very nice change! Forge mechanic in particular is probably a bigger change than it looks since it enforces "from your hand". Reddit seems to think this will have very big implications for Nekrium.

Some pretty good changes across the board I think. In general a lot of creatures got buffed so they're more resilient at the lower levels (which should close some of the power gap between PL1 and PL2 and make a hand of L1 cards at PL3 somewhat less sucky). There's also some attempts at fixing some of the more OP cards that dominated past metas (Reddit has a list of all the nerfs).

Definitely interested in drafting again over the holiday.

Yeah, that is a pretty expansive update. I really like that they buffed the power of level 1 cards. Some of those nerfs to the legendaries look like they'll have a significant impact as well.

Draft report:

I went 2-2 with the rebalanced set. The games definitely felt longer and it wasn't until my last game where there was a feeling of just being blown out. Turns out Blood Boon is really good. My first two games my deck played out well with some of the synergies really clicking and being fun. The third game my opponent had Xerxes in levels 1, 2 and 3. I was behind the entire game but didn't lose it until level 5. I might've had a chance but I just drew a lot of spells that game for some reason (is 8 too many?). The final game I just got blown out by Blood Boon. He got a level 1 hydra to 15/16 in level two and then a level 2 ghoul to 20/21 with regen 5 in level 3. I drew a removal but it was too late. He had drew some other level 3 cards and put it away.

So only 1 blowout in 4 games. That's a better track record than I was having when I stopped drafting last winter/spring. How'd you all fair?

I only played one draft last weekend. I went 2-2 as well with an UT deck. Definitely felt better but that was mostly due to the increased bodies of most level 1 cards. There's a lot more options for underdrops now.

Was pleased that I managed to pull off a win by stalling the game and killing off the opponent with a L3 Seal of Kadras at PL5

Overall, I'm happy with the changes but I really need to get more drafts in before I can make a full judgement. My understanding based on reading a lot of other reactions is that there's still some really weird tweaks that affect constructed more than draft. So with luck there will probably be another rebalance patch to address some of those concerns.

I think general draft advice is no more than 6 spells in your deck. That's mostly due to most spells not really helping board position nearly as much as creatures.

Arise thread!

After almost a year of waiting, it looks like they're about ready to unleash the new Unity-based client on the world alongside a new card set and a raft of changes. Main changes so far since the last time this thread was active (Ghox's Socks has a complete list):

All in all, everything looks really good on paper. It's very clear they're effectively trying to relaunch the game and ride in on Hearthstone's coat-tails with the (much needed) economy changes. If other people are interested in returning to this, I'd love to get some games going again once the client is out.

I'd be into to doing another GWJ tournament. I've still been logging in for the dailys, but that's about all. The 120 life change is nice. It gives the game a bit more time to develop, without necessarily feeling longer.

Kyekye wrote:

I'd be into to doing another GWJ tournament. I've still been logging in for the dailys, but that's about all. The 120 life change is nice. It gives the game a bit more time to develop, without necessarily feeling longer.

I'd be in for it.

At the moment any draft is bit of a bore. First one popping out a Death Current kinda wins.
The new UI. Not a big fan at all. Will know once I've played around with it.

New UI, not impressed, big step backwards both in overall feel and usability. Removed features I used commonly include (so far):

* selecting a Random deck when playing a match against the AI. Now I am forced to manually select my deck from my list of saved decks, and manually select the deck for the AI. I had it set to random, for both choices, previously, but now I can't find any way to do this.

* Working with my Collection, previously you had the option of listing by Icon (i.e. the card art, otherwise known as wasting a lot of screen space) or just a text listing (much greater usability IMNSHO).

* Working with my Collection, I could sort the filtered list by name, or number owned, or rarity. Not any more. Want to know how many heroic cards you only own one of, so you can forge a second copy? Grab a pencil, or start dumping screencaps into Notepad.

***

Ugh, opened a booster pack, and had to manually flip over each and every card in the pack. Imagine doing this with 20 packs... Lots of extra and unneeded wasted clicks and animations and pauses.

Same here. Feels like a big step backwards.
I like the play field to be visible all the time. Now all kind of animations and text in front of it.
There are some nice tweaks, but overall I am feeling a big disconnect.

Played an online game. And it's all so sluggish. I am done for now with Solforge.
Will try again after another update.

ps LtWarhound. There is a button on the bottom of those cards to show all. But it sometimes disappears. Just hover over it in that area...should show a hand cursor and then click on it.
Also highly annoying is that the pictures are blurry, when you opened a pack. Mouse-over only will sharpen. And back to blurry when not on it. Ugh.

At least you guys were able to get online. Every time I tried the servers were down. Apparently they're having server issues which is partially to blame for the sluggishness?

Also, the changes to the tournament structure sound really good on paper. While I'm sad to see the casual draft queue go, I'm sure the player base isn't large enough currently to support two queues.

LtWarhound wrote:

Ugh, opened a booster pack, and had to manually flip over each and every card in the pack. Imagine doing this with 20 packs... Lots of extra and unneeded wasted clicks and animations and pauses.

I'm not enamoured with the new client/UI myself, but this particular point it's worth noting is only applicable when you have a low number of packs unopened (maybe only when you have just the 1?) I cashed in a bunch of silver for 11 packs and for the first 9 or so at least there was a "reveal" button at the bottom that would flip all the cards at once.

shoptroll wrote:

At least you guys were able to get online. Every time I tried the servers were down. Apparently they're having server issues which is partially to blame for the sluggishness?

Also, the changes to the tournament structure sound really good on paper. While I'm sad to see the casual draft queue go, I'm sure the player base isn't large enough currently to support two queues.

The ranked games are a very smart move for sure. Tournaments became tickets only though. And I was a sucker for playing lots of draft games, paying mostly with silver. Now that that is out of the window.
Also heard there are no tickets for daily rewards anymore? I am not sure about that one, if someone could confirm this either way.

Tickets are still daily rewards, you get one for every 3 online wins. Which works kinda nicely with the new tournament structure where a 5+ win streak in draft will pay for the next day's entry fee. And a 4 win streak only needs two more online wins to pull the 4th ticket.

Also, latest update on the server issues. Sounds like they've run into some scalability issues so they're putting the game into a "free" (not quite free but everything is like 1 gold) mode and they'll do a rollback once the issues are fixed. Not a bad approach but I feel like they should've waited a week or two more before removing the beta designation from the game since the community is effectively stress testing the new server code at this point.

juv3nal wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:

Ugh, opened a booster pack, and had to manually flip over each and every card in the pack. Imagine doing this with 20 packs... Lots of extra and unneeded wasted clicks and animations and pauses.

I'm not enamoured with the new client/UI myself, but this particular point it's worth noting is only applicable when you have a low number of packs unopened (maybe only when you have just the 1?) I cashed in a bunch of silver for 11 packs and for the first 9 or so at least there was a "reveal" button at the bottom that would flip all the cards at once.

I don't remember exactly how it worked in Hearthstone but there's plenty of Hearthstone inspired changes in the latest patch (both client and metagame/business model). Wouldn't be surprised if this is another one. Solforge isn't alone in this regard either.

Thanks for the ticket info. Someone at the forum claimed it was taken out, and that would be an odd decision.

Totally agree on the waiting part. So many things that went wrong on different levels. Which is fine in beta, but not on a big relaunch of the game.

Must admit, I miss playing the game. I hope they fix lots soon.