Yknow that board game Han Solo and Chewbakka have on the Millenium Falcon? It's basically that.
Two players start with their generals (the prime peice, like the king in chess) already spawned on the board, as well as 2 or 3 mana in a power bar of 9 total. Summoning Minions and Casting Spells costs mana.
You pretty much play as your general: each one has a different primary spell (AYknow that board game Han Solo and Chewbakka have on the Millenium Falcon? It's basically that.
Two players start with their generals (the prime peice, like the king in chess) already spawned on the board, as well as 2 or 3 mana in a power bar of 9 total. Summoning Minions and Casting Spells costs mana.
You pretty much play as your general: each one has a different primary spell (A 'Bloodborn Spell') and can cast other spell cards plus equipt items (artifacts) to make them more powerful or cast an effect. As you play you'll notice when you play a card to do anything, your general does a little move to represent it.
As a general, you also spawn 'Minions' which are basically the pawns of the game. They cost mana to summon, usually have 'exhaustion' (meaning they can't move or attack on the same turn as being summoned), and can have various effects which are activated various ways, E.G. :
-Minions with sheilds have 'Provoke' which stops other peices from moving past them until they're destroyed.
-Minions with 'Opening Gambits' cast various effects when you summon them from your hand
-Minions with 'Rush' can move and attack on the same turn as being summoned
-etc
Pros:
-Tutorial
-AI Matches
-Simple and intriguing board gameplay
-Variety of strategy styles, like ranged, tanky, spell stacking, etc. The game has Six factions, each with multiple generals. Each faction has also unique spells, artifacts and minions specific to their play style. Decks are all faction specific, meaning you cannot mix faction cards. However, there are a large amount of "faction nuetral" cards.
Cons:
-Cash shop items:
'Orbs' are how players expand their library of cards. They can be bought with igc (gold) OR good ol' USD. This alone puts the cash shop in the 'con' section, because if it was purely cosmetic it would be a +.
-Daily Challenges:
Daily challenges play differently from PVP or Botmatches:
>The goal is to kill the other general in one move
>Each is a Custom Scenario, your general is chosen for you, you have 9/9 mana and a handful of cards (spells, items and/or minions)
>Both sides have minions already on the board
Basically this turns the game into a puzzle game. You need to figure out how to use everything you're given to defeat the enemy general in one turn. Daily Challenges can be completed for a measly 5 gold. It's not the only way to aquire gold, but it feels a lot like they aren't worth the reward, even if the community has an effort going to tell everyone how to solve them daily.
-Faction Balance:
The biggest aspect and driving mechanic of this game is dealing proxy damage to the enemy general without taking damage to your own
In the game, units next to each other can attack with melee, however the attacked unit also counter attacks. This means that if two generals just slugged it out, they would both die on the same attack and the match would draw.
So, both sides use spells and minions to prevent damage to themselves. However:
SomeFactions natrually excel at this while others just do not
This could easily avoid being a con by rating the factions by playstyle difficulty, however at this point they aren't
This means you'll see less variety in who you battle in PVP, faction wise.
-Cautionary Developers
Apparently, The dev/publisher of this game also has their reputation riding on the line because they made changes to the game that went unannounced:
https://www.reddit.com/r/duelyst/comments/50paxs/an_open_letter_to_counterplay_games/
https://forums.duelyst.com/t/an-open-letter-to-counterplay-games-ardent-dawns-post/3113
From what I understand: An expansion came out that introduced a second type of orb. Players could pre-order the orbs for a discount (as pre-orders tend to go). Then players learned that the drop rates of different rarities of cards were nerfed compared to normal orbs, and are displeased that the different rate wasn't outlined in patch notes. CounterPlay (The Developers) had the opportunity to tell the players about it in a stream but chose to 'leave it discoverable', further displeasing the players.
They really have a chance to make amends as of this writing, they could JUST SIMPLY apologize to the players and never repeat what they did, but only time will tell how their reputation goes.
As someone who doesn't play other 'card games' I gave it a 6/10 on metacritic for it's flaws[/I]… Expand
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