Having never played Artifact but a lot of Dota 2, I find it fascinating that both players choose from the same pool of cards during pick phase. It sort of mimics the way Dota does it, except the...
Having never played Artifact but a lot of Dota 2, I find it fascinating that both players choose from the same pool of cards during pick phase. It sort of mimics the way Dota does it, except the pool here is extremely limited (perhaps to allow some degree of focus and randomness to spice things up? that may be good for Dota too). You play with the same cards (literally, in this instance) as your opponent, and it's your initial choice that largely determines how successful you are.
(Also, this reminds me of Glyph, a fan-made tabletop card game based on Dota 2. See overview.)
The soundtrack is pretty cool. Sound design has generally been of high quality to all Dota-related games from Valve, Dota itself in particular. (You can tell what spell's being used, and estimate where it is, and react on that alone instead of looking at the minimap or with your camera.)
Oh yeah, the river as the divider of the playing field. Nice touch. (River divides the Dota 2 map almost entirely in half.)
Coup de Grace has a very nice effect – and a voice line! It's satisfying in its own way, much like the Dota 2 proc of the same ability.
Ah yeah, the shared pool is because they're playing the "Hero Draft" mode. That's not really the "normal" way to play the game (though maybe it will be more prominent in the new version), but it...
Ah yeah, the shared pool is because they're playing the "Hero Draft" mode. That's not really the "normal" way to play the game (though maybe it will be more prominent in the new version), but it seems like a neat way to do a kind of drafting with only two players.
All of the presentational aspects (interface, sound, etc.) are definitely all very polished. There's a lot of rough stuff in this beta version, like (as they mention) the whole playfield basically being temp art while they're still figuring everything out. The original version of the game had really great presentation, just a lot of issues with gameplay/progression/etc. that turned people off. There's definitely potential if they can figure out ways to make Artifact more enjoyable to play, but it's not going to be easy. It will probably be difficult to get everyone to give it another chance too, there's a very negative sentiment towards the game out there now, and it'll be hard to overcome that.
It does not appear to me Valve's giving up because of the sentiment. Could've scrapped the idea entirely, given how it was "the biggest disparity between design and result" (paraphrasing one of...
and it'll be hard to overcome that.
It does not appear to me Valve's giving up because of the sentiment. Could've scrapped the idea entirely, given how it was "the biggest disparity between design and result" (paraphrasing one of the lead designers). Hell, they're still working on Dota. I wouldn't work on Dota if my game's community was this awful consistently. But here we are.
From what I'm hearing, I'm sure the game's gonna see at least a wave of new interest once it's out of beta. If it's good, we'll find out soon enough – which, as far as I'm aware, is the best Valve could possibly expect, given their unconventional work ethic.
Most recent news post about Beta 2.0, including some more info about who's getting invites to it: https://playartifact.com/news/3761014098381948888
Having never played Artifact but a lot of Dota 2, I find it fascinating that both players choose from the same pool of cards during pick phase. It sort of mimics the way Dota does it, except the pool here is extremely limited (perhaps to allow some degree of focus and randomness to spice things up? that may be good for Dota too). You play with the same cards (literally, in this instance) as your opponent, and it's your initial choice that largely determines how successful you are.
(Also, this reminds me of Glyph, a fan-made tabletop card game based on Dota 2. See overview.)
The soundtrack is pretty cool. Sound design has generally been of high quality to all Dota-related games from Valve, Dota itself in particular. (You can tell what spell's being used, and estimate where it is, and react on that alone instead of looking at the minimap or with your camera.)
Oh yeah, the river as the divider of the playing field. Nice touch. (River divides the Dota 2 map almost entirely in half.)
Coup de Grace has a very nice effect – and a voice line! It's satisfying in its own way, much like the Dota 2 proc of the same ability.
Ah yeah, the shared pool is because they're playing the "Hero Draft" mode. That's not really the "normal" way to play the game (though maybe it will be more prominent in the new version), but it seems like a neat way to do a kind of drafting with only two players.
All of the presentational aspects (interface, sound, etc.) are definitely all very polished. There's a lot of rough stuff in this beta version, like (as they mention) the whole playfield basically being temp art while they're still figuring everything out. The original version of the game had really great presentation, just a lot of issues with gameplay/progression/etc. that turned people off. There's definitely potential if they can figure out ways to make Artifact more enjoyable to play, but it's not going to be easy. It will probably be difficult to get everyone to give it another chance too, there's a very negative sentiment towards the game out there now, and it'll be hard to overcome that.
It does not appear to me Valve's giving up because of the sentiment. Could've scrapped the idea entirely, given how it was "the biggest disparity between design and result" (paraphrasing one of the lead designers). Hell, they're still working on Dota. I wouldn't work on Dota if my game's community was this awful consistently. But here we are.
From what I'm hearing, I'm sure the game's gonna see at least a wave of new interest once it's out of beta. If it's good, we'll find out soon enough – which, as far as I'm aware, is the best Valve could possibly expect, given their unconventional work ethic.