-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Artifact |OT| Development Stopped
- Thread starter Deleted member 2802
- Start date
I personally find classic much more fun to mess around with.
Played couple games of classic with my decks tweaked & updated, never bothered with market (sold all packs and cards early), game feels so good. Three lanes still rocks. Still sucks that there is no mobile port, because it's where i tend to play card games.
OP
OP
Getting a huge boost in player count
steamcharts.com
Artifact Classic - Steam Charts
An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.
It is pretty clear now that abandoning 1.0 to work on 2.0 was a huge mistake. Yeah, the launch didn't go great and a lot of players left. But there was still a very dedicated player base that loved the core game. The problem was never the gameplay itself, it was everything around it. Had they just continued tinkering with the progession system and gone ahead with the planned expansion, I think the game would have been just fine. As it was, I think a lot of dedicated players dropped the game once the rework was announced. I know I did. It really just killed the game then and there.
Oh well. Now that everything is free, maybe a lot of players will come back. What are the chances the devs can come up with some way for community-developed expansions to be added to the game via mods?
Oh well. Now that everything is free, maybe a lot of players will come back. What are the chances the devs can come up with some way for community-developed expansions to be added to the game via mods?
OP
OP
I think their idea was to tie in the lore with Dota, Artifact, & Underlords with the anime, but it seems like the anime is getting way more interest than Underlords or Artifact could ever generate.
My guess is they just make more animes unless there is a team of devs that are working on it in their spare time.
Yeah, though it would require Valve going back into dev for it, a custom game mode option with user created cards is almost certainly doable.
Getting a huge boost in player count
Artifact Classic - Steam Charts
An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.
Yeah, I've run into quite a few newbie low level players already, which is pretty cool.
The idea of having to "buy in" definitely hurt this game initially. I think an economy of cards would have been fine, but buying in to really access the game to buy more packs was definitely a misfire.
I think this game was salvageable though. It's just Valve didn't want to see it through.
I think this game was salvageable though. It's just Valve didn't want to see it through.
It kind of feels like few at Valve were really into the game. The initial flub with the beta and promotion. The stories of being steamrolled by Garfield because he was famous. The reworking in 2.0 which really removed what was unique. I'm sure there were devs who liked the game, but it doesn't feel like anyone loved the game, and without the cachet of it being HL, or the community-interaction of actual Dota or CS:GO, in hindsight it was always going to be doomed.
It's a shame because 1.0 is a good game; it's all on Valve they squandered a lot of potential.
Wish they went for free-to-play way sooner, a lot of people would have tried it and seen it's quality which might have given them reason to continue development.
Declaring lack of players as a reason to stop support is disingenuous. Why wasn't 2.0 an open beta? I made a good decision by not trying it out.
Wish they went for free-to-play way sooner, a lot of people would have tried it and seen it's quality which might have given them reason to continue development.
Declaring lack of players as a reason to stop support is disingenuous. Why wasn't 2.0 an open beta? I made a good decision by not trying it out.
Except... it didn't have bad gameplay? A broken mechanic (which was probably being lined up to fix in the first expansion), and a bit too much RNG does not make bad gameplay. Honestly, the more I've played the more has opened up in terms of bluffing opponents, creep placement, and initiative strategy.
Artifact 1.0 has some of my favourite gameplay from any card game I've ever played.
The core game was never the issue.
It rallied 50k players on launch, and nosedived within days. People tried it, most quit instantly. It doesn't matter whether you person likes or dislikes the game, the game was abandoned so fast it is evident that people didn't even care to explore it fully before dropping. If you don't think that the gameplay was part of it, then you are really in denial of what happened. Neither business model nor Valve's trademark no-support support caused this drop, it was the game and its rules.
And before you say that wasn't a card-game crowd, both HS and MTGA are making banks on PC. Smaller games like Shadowverse or Runeterrra are also having much better metrics.
Decided to play a phantom draft as a last farewell. God I totally forgot how fun this game was. So many decisions to make and even after make some minor errors I went 5-1 with my deck. Zeus, Luna and Sniper are still OP especially if you have a blink dagger.
Such a shame we never got the second card set they were working on.
Such a shame we never got the second card set they were working on.
I'd again argue that the gameplay wasn't bad, it's just not what a lot of people wanted. Games can be won or lost due to "unfair" RNG, the three lanes required a lot of thinking ahead, and it's hard to get a feel for the game quickly. I'll also adamantly argue that it's equal parts board game and CCG, and that if you've not played a lot of board games, it's probably even harder to get to grips with.
Then again, what do I know? I dropped Hearthstone within 20 minutes because I felt cheated by the game spoon-feeding me cards and mechanics. Rarely have I felt more dispirited by a game than I have with Hearthstone telling to get to level 20 to get a card.
Edit: I think Artifact could easily have carved out a niche for itself if it were handled better. Not "millions of players", but definitely "tens of thousands of players" niche.
99% of paying customers don't immediately drop a game if the gameplay is good. It's nice that you enjoyed the game, but you have to realize you're in the extreme minority. I guess now that the game is completely free-to-play, we'll see what kind of user base it can maintain.
I'm glad we're in the well if the common masses didn't like it that means it's bad phase again.
Transformers is the best movie ever made!
Transformers is the best movie ever made!
Disappointed to see that the PlayArtifact website has been taken down (maybe I missed it in the notes?). My current deck: https://www.playartifact.com/d/ADCJ...YS0JBIwFMQ5FWIQEEAkRQbQGLTWFpbiAtIEI0MS9HMTA_ but it just redirects to the Steam store page. :(
Last edited:
It is dead, we don't need to pretend anymore. Even Valve knows that they made a stinker that was only tolerable by a couple thousand players.
There is no objective way to measure the goodness of gameplay, but we can see how many people bought it and how long they played it... If 99% didn't finish watching the movie, you would assume that has probably something to do with the movie.
Even by this stupid metric of popularity = best, Transformers is nowhere near as popular or profitable as the top movies, so why even use it as example.
OP
OP
I'm very "meh" on the imps...
My wife, on the other hand, will fight you. She thinks they're awesome!
No ladder, pay to play to pay to play 'competitive' modes was the death-knell IMO. A non-starter for the majority of CCG players. Misguided monetization of the whole thing was telling. Free draft wasn't even planned for launch until the beta revealed their underhanded-ness with influencers.
Artifact and Underlords are a weird dark age for Valve. Just out of touch thinking behind a lot of decisions. Underlords literally died when they introduced the playable underlords to a lot of people. Quite at odds to Riot with TFT and LOR. Maybe it's also just company ethic.
Artifact and Underlords are a weird dark age for Valve. Just out of touch thinking behind a lot of decisions. Underlords literally died when they introduced the playable underlords to a lot of people. Quite at odds to Riot with TFT and LOR. Maybe it's also just company ethic.
Last edited:
Yup. Legit sore that "Turn off RNG on arrows/determine arrow direction" wasn't considered for the options screen at any point since release.
OP
OP
RIP the GOAT card game
I put it down to Valve's horrible mishandling of everything outside of gameplay
and of course nobody wanted to play your 2.0 beta full of incomplete assets, most early access games aren't nearly that bad. People would hold off for a more polished product that of course never came
I put it down to Valve's horrible mishandling of everything outside of gameplay
and of course nobody wanted to play your 2.0 beta full of incomplete assets, most early access games aren't nearly that bad. People would hold off for a more polished product that of course never came
pour one out for the longest haul
OP
OP
Watching now, good so far but it's infuriating that the people and editing keep acting like Richard Garfield was a big issue or especially that "priority" as a mechanic was some amazing artifact invention, without throwing any respect on mtg at all
OP
OP