I haven't played it, but have watched a few reviews. Apparently anything interesting like the card deck-based combat is overshadowed by framerate issues, camera issues, balance issues, and a...
I haven't played it, but have watched a few reviews. Apparently anything interesting like the card deck-based combat is overshadowed by framerate issues, camera issues, balance issues, and a predatory business model.
I'm rather tired of the freemium/lootbox/gacha games. Even the ones with good gameplay tend to run into grind walls. I still play a lot of the fire emblem mobile game because I like the core gameplay loop - but thats the only one I've managed to continue playing. Its really hard to keep trying freemium games when there are going to be much better options out there.
Predatory business model? In a Magic The Gathering game? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked. I agree with you about Freemium games. As someone who likes to spend money on video games, I feel like...
Predatory business model? In a Magic The Gathering game? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked.
I agree with you about Freemium games. As someone who likes to spend money on video games, I feel like "free" titles generally offer the worst value per dollar spent. Last year I bought Doom Eternal on release. For the price of just a few skins in most "free" games, I got an entire AAA quality game with a lengthy campaign and a decent multiplayer mode. For an extra $30, I got two campaign expansions. Freemium games make the looming prospect of $70 AAA titles feel generous.
For an F2P title to get any attention from me, it needs to be substantially better than the paid games it is competing with. And even then, the absurdly high mtx prices usually result in me not feeling like opening my wallet and just sticking with the free options.
I haven't played this, but I was curious and just watched some streamer on Twitch playing it for a few minutes. I don't really understand the inventory or skill systems yet, but the bit of combat...
I haven't played this, but I was curious and just watched some streamer on Twitch playing it for a few minutes. I don't really understand the inventory or skill systems yet, but the bit of combat I saw looked hilariously easy -- enough to turn me off of trying it. (As if only being on Arc or EGS wasn't reason enough not to bother)
I'll admit, I did get a bit excited when I read the headline. I still try to install the old Microprose MTG game (Shandalar) every decade or so, and to me that's basically the ideal of what I think a MTG MMO should try to accomplish. As soon as I saw (from the article):
What kinds of microtransactions do Magic: Legends have?
Magic: Legends is free-to-play, but we offer an optional in-game store to purchase items such as cosmetics, card packs, boosts, etc. However, these are not necessary to play the game.
Seeing "card packs" being sold tells me this is probably going to be grindy. Maybe I'm just being cynical, I'd like for this to be good. But I'll probably just reinstall Path of Exile to scratch that itch.
I'm watching streams of this since there's no Mac client and it looks really bleh. It's a beta so I forgive the technical issues, but the gameplay loop itself just seems. . . not fun? It's just...
I'm watching streams of this since there's no Mac client and it looks really bleh. It's a beta so I forgive the technical issues, but the gameplay loop itself just seems. . . not fun? It's just very straightforward like avoid the thing, spam the buttons. I don't see much in the way of builds that meaningfully differentiate playstyles. Nothing in terms of achieving interesting synergies.
But the largest issue was that they just... don't seem to understand the genre of game they're making and what players are going to want out of it.
Even beyond this game I think WOTC has completely lost the plot on the appeal of MtG. Even the trading card game has been getting lame. They've had to ban more cards in the past year than in the entire history of the game thus far. They're just too focused on cards that are overpowered, provide value immediately and offer no meaningful counterplay. And each block just seems to pigeonhole you into a handful of deck archetypes of mechanics. There just is not any of the same spirit of improvisational play that I think most of us loved about it when we were young. The gameplay mechanics as a game are fine, but it just doesn't provide the feeling of slinging spells anymore.
They've even lost the appeal of the game itself from a flavor perspective. The conceit of Magic was that YOU were a wizard and your deck was all the spells you learned in your adventures, allies you made, experiences you had. Your mana base was all the places you had been and established a connection to. What of that comes through in card art these days? What of that comes through in modern card art? Cards rarely even have flavor text anymore. It all feels too "engineered" and doesn't have any heart anymore.
Like I stopped playing Arena after Zendikar because I felt like "Oh I guess I'm just gonna play around Dimir Rogues all day every day." I can do it. It's not fun though. What's the point?
Balance wise yea I think they missed the mark horribly in last year's standard. This year has been great though. Post Omnath ban standard has been quite good with lots of meaningful meta-shifts...
Even beyond this game I think WOTC has completely lost the plot on the appeal of MtG. Even the trading card game has been getting lame. They've had to ban more cards in the past year than in the entire history of the game thus far. They're just too focused on cards that are overpowered, provide value immediately and offer no meaningful counterplay. And each block just seems to pigeonhole you into a handful of deck archetypes of mechanics. There just is not any of the same spirit of improvisational play that I think most of us loved about it when we were young. The gameplay mechanics as a game are fine, but it just doesn't provide the feeling of slinging spells anymore.
Balance wise yea I think they missed the mark horribly in last year's standard. This year has been great though. Post Omnath ban standard has been quite good with lots of meaningful meta-shifts and no real consolidation. Kaldheim has been equally good and I seriously hope that WotC has realized that pushing cards to obscene levels to sell packs and then banning them is just not a good method to incentivize people buying cards.
They've even lost the appeal of the game itself from a flavor perspective. The conceit of Magic was that YOU were a wizard and your deck was all the spells you learned in your adventures, allies you made, experiences you had. Your mana base was all the places you had been and established a connection to. What of that comes through in card art these days? What of that comes through in modern card art? Cards rarely even have flavor text anymore. It all feels too "engineered" and doesn't have any heart anymore.
I guess I have to agree to disagree with you there. I felt Zendikar Rising absolutely killed it in the art department in terms of evoking emotion. I do wish that Kaldheim was a bit grittier, and Strixhaven looks somewhat "cartoonish" to me as well so far but there is also Innistrad and Phyrexia on the horizon so plenty of darker vibes to come.
Like I stopped playing Arena after Zendikar because I felt like "Oh I guess I'm just gonna play around Dimir Rogues all day every day." I can do it. It's not fun though. What's the point?
I think part of this is just virtue of playing on Arena. It rewards people for winning so they play their best decks to get their wins faster and you end up playing the meta a lot, even in the play queue. Part of it is just playing against aggro-control decks in general, from Lorwyn fairies to Dominaria mono blue tempo -- they are in standard from time to time and can be challenging to play with and against.
Luckily even on Arena I find there is still ample room to brew fun stuff to play though, particularly in historic which is even more open than standard. Recently I've been jamming aetherflux storm, temur storm and an indomitable combo deck in historic to pretty good effect and people are constantly reading my cards haha.
I'll agree the art is better than ever. But I mean more in terms of selling you on the feeling of being a wizard and these are your spells and you're expressing your personality and style through...
I guess I have to agree to disagree with you there. I felt Zendikar Rising absolutely killed it in the art department in terms of evoking emotion. I do wish that Kaldheim was a bit grittier, and Strixhaven looks somewhat "cartoonish" to me as well so far but there is also Innistrad and Phyrexia on the horizon so plenty of darker vibes to come.
I'll agree the art is better than ever. But I mean more in terms of selling you on the feeling of being a wizard and these are your spells and you're expressing your personality and style through your deck. It fells much more top-down and there's just not as much scope to color outside the lines as there used to be. The last set where I felt more immersed in the world was Ixalan actually. Unfortunately that was one of the weakest blocks mechanically haha.
This was kind of big for me as a young nerd who never really saw myself represented in media. I loved Magic because I was de facto represented because the conceit of the game is that I'm IN the world. And there were lots of diverse and wondrous things in the game that I'm collecting as me. And when I play I'm using these adventures that I had to duel someone else. I miss that feeling of my deck being mine and reflective of me somehow.
Commander, nowadays, does a much better job of this. But Commander has gone downhill since WOTC actually started paying attention to and designing for it. Now it's rapidly accruing a lot of the same problems as Standard.
Ok I definitely feel you there. Back when we (I'm guessing we're in a similar age bracket) started playing Magic you played with whatever was in your meager collection and every card meant...
Ok I definitely feel you there.
Back when we (I'm guessing we're in a similar age bracket) started playing Magic you played with whatever was in your meager collection and every card meant something. You'd pit your terrible janky deck against your friends' terrible janky and never know any better.
Now no one opens packs because they buy singles instead or play digital so everyone has all the best cards and everyone knows all the best decks and how to sideboard against them etc etc. Which is great if you love competitive magic and not so great if you don't. It's probably why Commander has taken off the way it has -- there's still room for janky decks that are your own creation.
You're right that as Wizards prints more cards for Commander and adds more "staples" the decks start to look more and more similar to each other. Which is luckily another strength of Commander, your playgroup can just ban them if you find them problematic.
Hey! My janky deck from the Weatherlight saga is still viable. Mostly because it’s basically all counterspells and hand recursion. Bwahahahaha! Even in limited, though, I don’t feel a lot of...
Hey! My janky deck from the Weatherlight saga is still viable. Mostly because it’s basically all counterspells and hand recursion. Bwahahahaha!
Even in limited, though, I don’t feel a lot of creativity in deck building. I often feel like each block has some key words or mechanics and deck building is just throw together all the strongest cards with that mechanic or keyword with a few supporting cards. Zendikar felt the worst at this.
I played it for an hour or two last night. I was really hoping to like it because I think it's a great concept and setting, but it doesn't seem to be in good shape at all. There were a lot of...
I played it for an hour or two last night. I was really hoping to like it because I think it's a great concept and setting, but it doesn't seem to be in good shape at all.
There were a lot of visual problems and slowdowns, even though my PC is quite good and the graphics aren't impressive. A lot of things seem much too buggy/incomplete for this to be the "soft launch" they're referring to it as. One of my abilities' visual effects weren't working at all, so I'd use it and enemies would just kind of fall over a second later for no apparent reason. A bunch of things seem to clearly be placeholders, like other players show up on the map as too-large, bright green circles (not an icon, just a basic circle). There are almost no options for customizing anything at all.
But the largest issue was that they just... don't seem to understand the genre of game they're making and what players are going to want out of it. There was no loot. At all, as far as I could tell. Absolutely nothing dropped the whole time I played. Rewards from quests seemed to mostly be tiny amounts of progress towards leveling up cards (abilities), but it was unexplained and I'm not even sure that's what it was. My character and abilities didn't make any noticeable progress, and I didn't get any items. I don't think there was even a traditional inventory. Combat just didn't feel good, and it was difficult to tell where enemies were. It was hard to distinguish which were enemies and which were my own creatures. It wasn't clear if I was taking a lot of damage, I died once without even realizing I was in trouble at all. A friend and I started at the same time and were intending to play together, but the game wouldn't let us, it said we hadn't progressed far enough to create a party. Some people in the game's chat were already through to Act 2 and said they still weren't allowed to play together.
Also, the game's chat was completely spammed by people saying "!claimfreepack" constantly, even though that doesn't actually do anything. Everyone just kept seeing everyone else doing it and copying them. And there was no way to hide the chat or leave a channel that I could find, so there was just a constant flood of "!claimfreepack" down the side of the screen the whole time.
I might give it a little more time at some point to see if it gets better somehow, but I'm not excited about going back to it.
I haven't played it, but have watched a few reviews. Apparently anything interesting like the card deck-based combat is overshadowed by framerate issues, camera issues, balance issues, and a predatory business model.
I'm rather tired of the freemium/lootbox/gacha games. Even the ones with good gameplay tend to run into grind walls. I still play a lot of the fire emblem mobile game because I like the core gameplay loop - but thats the only one I've managed to continue playing. Its really hard to keep trying freemium games when there are going to be much better options out there.
Predatory business model? In a Magic The Gathering game? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked.
I agree with you about Freemium games. As someone who likes to spend money on video games, I feel like "free" titles generally offer the worst value per dollar spent. Last year I bought Doom Eternal on release. For the price of just a few skins in most "free" games, I got an entire AAA quality game with a lengthy campaign and a decent multiplayer mode. For an extra $30, I got two campaign expansions. Freemium games make the looming prospect of $70 AAA titles feel generous.
For an F2P title to get any attention from me, it needs to be substantially better than the paid games it is competing with. And even then, the absurdly high mtx prices usually result in me not feeling like opening my wallet and just sticking with the free options.
I haven't played this, but I was curious and just watched some streamer on Twitch playing it for a few minutes. I don't really understand the inventory or skill systems yet, but the bit of combat I saw looked hilariously easy -- enough to turn me off of trying it. (As if only being on Arc or EGS wasn't reason enough not to bother)
I'll admit, I did get a bit excited when I read the headline. I still try to install the old Microprose MTG game (Shandalar) every decade or so, and to me that's basically the ideal of what I think a MTG MMO should try to accomplish. As soon as I saw (from the article):
Seeing "card packs" being sold tells me this is probably going to be grindy. Maybe I'm just being cynical, I'd like for this to be good. But I'll probably just reinstall Path of Exile to scratch that itch.
That game was awesome. It's still possible to play it today AFAIK, I know Gaby Spartz used to stream it a few years ago.
I'm watching streams of this since there's no Mac client and it looks really bleh. It's a beta so I forgive the technical issues, but the gameplay loop itself just seems. . . not fun? It's just very straightforward like avoid the thing, spam the buttons. I don't see much in the way of builds that meaningfully differentiate playstyles. Nothing in terms of achieving interesting synergies.
And addressing one of @Deimos' points
Even beyond this game I think WOTC has completely lost the plot on the appeal of MtG. Even the trading card game has been getting lame. They've had to ban more cards in the past year than in the entire history of the game thus far. They're just too focused on cards that are overpowered, provide value immediately and offer no meaningful counterplay. And each block just seems to pigeonhole you into a handful of deck archetypes of mechanics. There just is not any of the same spirit of improvisational play that I think most of us loved about it when we were young. The gameplay mechanics as a game are fine, but it just doesn't provide the feeling of slinging spells anymore.
They've even lost the appeal of the game itself from a flavor perspective. The conceit of Magic was that YOU were a wizard and your deck was all the spells you learned in your adventures, allies you made, experiences you had. Your mana base was all the places you had been and established a connection to. What of that comes through in card art these days? What of that comes through in modern card art? Cards rarely even have flavor text anymore. It all feels too "engineered" and doesn't have any heart anymore.
Like I stopped playing Arena after Zendikar because I felt like "Oh I guess I'm just gonna play around Dimir Rogues all day every day." I can do it. It's not fun though. What's the point?
Balance wise yea I think they missed the mark horribly in last year's standard. This year has been great though. Post Omnath ban standard has been quite good with lots of meaningful meta-shifts and no real consolidation. Kaldheim has been equally good and I seriously hope that WotC has realized that pushing cards to obscene levels to sell packs and then banning them is just not a good method to incentivize people buying cards.
I guess I have to agree to disagree with you there. I felt Zendikar Rising absolutely killed it in the art department in terms of evoking emotion. I do wish that Kaldheim was a bit grittier, and Strixhaven looks somewhat "cartoonish" to me as well so far but there is also Innistrad and Phyrexia on the horizon so plenty of darker vibes to come.
I think part of this is just virtue of playing on Arena. It rewards people for winning so they play their best decks to get their wins faster and you end up playing the meta a lot, even in the play queue. Part of it is just playing against aggro-control decks in general, from Lorwyn fairies to Dominaria mono blue tempo -- they are in standard from time to time and can be challenging to play with and against.
Luckily even on Arena I find there is still ample room to brew fun stuff to play though, particularly in historic which is even more open than standard. Recently I've been jamming aetherflux storm, temur storm and an indomitable combo deck in historic to pretty good effect and people are constantly reading my cards haha.
I'll agree the art is better than ever. But I mean more in terms of selling you on the feeling of being a wizard and these are your spells and you're expressing your personality and style through your deck. It fells much more top-down and there's just not as much scope to color outside the lines as there used to be. The last set where I felt more immersed in the world was Ixalan actually. Unfortunately that was one of the weakest blocks mechanically haha.
This was kind of big for me as a young nerd who never really saw myself represented in media. I loved Magic because I was de facto represented because the conceit of the game is that I'm IN the world. And there were lots of diverse and wondrous things in the game that I'm collecting as me. And when I play I'm using these adventures that I had to duel someone else. I miss that feeling of my deck being mine and reflective of me somehow.
Commander, nowadays, does a much better job of this. But Commander has gone downhill since WOTC actually started paying attention to and designing for it. Now it's rapidly accruing a lot of the same problems as Standard.
Ok I definitely feel you there.
Back when we (I'm guessing we're in a similar age bracket) started playing Magic you played with whatever was in your meager collection and every card meant something. You'd pit your terrible janky deck against your friends' terrible janky and never know any better.
Now no one opens packs because they buy singles instead or play digital so everyone has all the best cards and everyone knows all the best decks and how to sideboard against them etc etc. Which is great if you love competitive magic and not so great if you don't. It's probably why Commander has taken off the way it has -- there's still room for janky decks that are your own creation.
You're right that as Wizards prints more cards for Commander and adds more "staples" the decks start to look more and more similar to each other. Which is luckily another strength of Commander, your playgroup can just ban them if you find them problematic.
Hey! My janky deck from the Weatherlight saga is still viable. Mostly because it’s basically all counterspells and hand recursion. Bwahahahaha!
Even in limited, though, I don’t feel a lot of creativity in deck building. I often feel like each block has some key words or mechanics and deck building is just throw together all the strongest cards with that mechanic or keyword with a few supporting cards. Zendikar felt the worst at this.
Anyone played it so far? Is it any good?
I played it for an hour or two last night. I was really hoping to like it because I think it's a great concept and setting, but it doesn't seem to be in good shape at all.
There were a lot of visual problems and slowdowns, even though my PC is quite good and the graphics aren't impressive. A lot of things seem much too buggy/incomplete for this to be the "soft launch" they're referring to it as. One of my abilities' visual effects weren't working at all, so I'd use it and enemies would just kind of fall over a second later for no apparent reason. A bunch of things seem to clearly be placeholders, like other players show up on the map as too-large, bright green circles (not an icon, just a basic circle). There are almost no options for customizing anything at all.
But the largest issue was that they just... don't seem to understand the genre of game they're making and what players are going to want out of it. There was no loot. At all, as far as I could tell. Absolutely nothing dropped the whole time I played. Rewards from quests seemed to mostly be tiny amounts of progress towards leveling up cards (abilities), but it was unexplained and I'm not even sure that's what it was. My character and abilities didn't make any noticeable progress, and I didn't get any items. I don't think there was even a traditional inventory. Combat just didn't feel good, and it was difficult to tell where enemies were. It was hard to distinguish which were enemies and which were my own creatures. It wasn't clear if I was taking a lot of damage, I died once without even realizing I was in trouble at all. A friend and I started at the same time and were intending to play together, but the game wouldn't let us, it said we hadn't progressed far enough to create a party. Some people in the game's chat were already through to Act 2 and said they still weren't allowed to play together.
Also, the game's chat was completely spammed by people saying "!claimfreepack" constantly, even though that doesn't actually do anything. Everyone just kept seeing everyone else doing it and copying them. And there was no way to hide the chat or leave a channel that I could find, so there was just a constant flood of "!claimfreepack" down the side of the screen the whole time.
I might give it a little more time at some point to see if it gets better somehow, but I'm not excited about going back to it.
Ouch. Thanks for sharing your experience with it. I think I'll give it 5 years and see if it's still around.