Solforge Catch-All

Sparhawk wrote:

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.

Yeah and it sucks a lot for them. They haven't really been saying much on the website, but a couple of the emails that were sent out to their mailing list had a serious air of "we really need your money and support right now". The last year of nothing really new happening with the game while they worked with the Labyrinth team on the new client I think really hurt their bottom line (they also skipped PAX East this year which was a big surprise to me). I don't think they can seriously compete with something as big as Hearthstone at this point but I'd love to see the game continue on as a solid alternative with its own niche of players.

Popped on tonight for a few to play around with this now that the servers have stabilized. Didn't do much other than opening packs, but I've got plenty of stuff from the new set for tournament prize support if there's still interest in doing another one in the near future.

UI on the whole feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step backwards in some regards. Deckbuilder could certainly be improved but I like that I can actually see what the art is now on some cards. I believe they've said they're going to be working on restoring features that were lost during the development of the new client so hopefully we'll get a nice Quality of Life patch in the coming months. But the client feels better than before which is important.

I do wish it didn't run at an average 15 fps on my 3rd gen iPad but that's probably more a problem with the hardware and less Unity.

Looking forward to getting back into draft and maybe working on chasing my favorite white dragon deck ideas again

I reinstalled the app on my iPad, to see if it was any better. The servers are definitely on full speed again I think. The playing field is way smaller than the original version. That's a shame. And the UI is till bugging me too much. Also tried it a bit on steam...but ugh....still out for now.

I feel like they tried to make it look/feel like Magic Online 3 and I hated that UI. I wish I could turn off the animations. It looked like there was a slider, but it seems like it only reduces it? Is that right?

My daily logins had been diminishing, but I don't think I'll be keeping up with that if it's going to require an adjustment to the new look.

Kyekye wrote:

I feel like they tried to make it look/feel like Magic Online 3 and I hated that UI. I wish I could turn off the animations. It looked like there was a slider, but it seems like it only reduces it? Is that right?

Interesting, I thought it felt more Hearthstone-ish in some spots. As for the slider, I think that's just for the subtle visual effects not the animations.

Kyekye wrote:

My daily logins had been diminishing, but I don't think I'll be keeping up with that if it's going to require an adjustment to the new look.

I was an avid daily login. I hate the changes. No longer login.

tundra wrote:
Kyekye wrote:

My daily logins had been diminishing, but I don't think I'll be keeping up with that if it's going to require an adjustment to the new look.

I was an avid daily login. I hate the changes. No longer login.

Same here. Tried doing it when they claimed they fixed the daily win rewards for playing against the AI, during the double reward week right after they changed over to the new client. Aaand it was bugged so I never got a reward for that. That was the final straw.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think I'm done as well for the time being. Not due to the client but I think I've come to realize that games like this just really aren't good for me. I like them, but I don't really enjoy games where I have to keep up with an ever-changing meta I have to work to obtain. It's incredibly frustrating to hop into the queue and be on either side of a mismatched experience. I'm increasingly not liking getting ground into the dirt by people who are playing at a higher level or against a significantly tighter deck, and I especially don't like being the one grinding people into the ground if the MMR screws up (either due to bugs or because I'm in the kiddie pool despite having an account that's 2 years old).

The best times I've had with this game were with our tournaments and I just don't see that happening again soon with so many people unhappy with the game. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm effectively bailing on Solforge, Faeria, and Marvel Puzzle Quest but still happy to keep playing Netrunner in real life with people I know.

Not surprised, really. Shame, but once they made the massive sweeping changes June 1st and then consistantly failed to fix outstanding issues, it was no longer worth supporting.

The state of the game a year ago was promising, pity they couldn't have just continued on instead of trying to be the latest incarnation of Hearthstone.

I'm not surprised either. I've been expecting them to hit the skids once the new client released. I still liked that they were trying to do something interesting as a digital CCG by providing a game that couldn't be easily replicated offline. But I don't think they ever found the community they were looking for. With the high degree of randomness I'm not sure increasingly catering to a hardcore competitive scene was really the best idea since that seemed to be where a lot of friction came from.

I also think they, and many other digital CCGs, were completely caught off-guard by the appearance of Hearthstone and its success.

That's too bad. I haven't played in a few years but this, Ascension, and MPQ got me through the birth and early days of being dad to twins.

They made a pretty fun game even if I thought it was a little shallow. I wish them luck with their next thing.

It's too bad. I really did love that game. Until they did the UI overhaul and just couldn't stand it anymore.
Had my fun and money invested was well worth it.

I did enjoy the small community tournaments though. We had quite the diverse array of decks without being hyper-competitive.

And as said above, I really appreciated the attempt to do something unique with a digital platform. The card leveling was so interesting when this was new, but unfortunately they couldn't quite figure it out. But I also really liked the 'you-must-attack-every-turn' feature. It made stalemates impossible which was fantastic.

They just never figured out how to balance it...

Sad news! I stopped playing a few years ago it feels like. They made good on their KS - one of the first ones I supported after Broken Age - and their timing was still as good as you could ask for. Digital CCGs were getting hot and Hearthstone was still a ways off from releasing.

Wish them well.

I really wish the game had taken off like I'd dreamed. It showed a lot of promise at the start, but it doesn't feel like it ever really picked up momentum. I still think I got value out of the $150 I backed the game for so there's that at least.

I've been playing a lot of Eternal DCG in it's stead. Similar appeal, deeper Digital game than Hearthstone. But, now I have similar worries. If it doesn't take off it'll just disappear. I guess I need to get used to the idea that virtual currency games can just up and poof.