Valve adds player progression to Artifact, will start regularly balancing cards
39 replies, posted
https://steamcommunity.com/games/583950/announcements/detail/1714081669510213123
A common pattern in physical card games is to design around the goal of never changing cards, and to only make card changes or bans in extremely rare cases. Our initial approach to
the game was to follow this type of methodology and keep balancing changes as a last resort, in large part because we thought players valued immutability very highly.
Since the release of Artifact, there have been a lot of discussions surrounding this topic. Input came in many forms, some from online discussions, some from direct feedback with
players, and some through discussions among our own team members. This caused us to take a step back and spend a bunch of time debating the merits of the different arguments
presented.
In the end, we struggled to see the benefits of immutability outweighing the numerous downsides. The average player mainly wants the game quality to be high above all other
considerations. Players who focus a lot on deck building would prefer a more diverse and engaging meta to play around. While some card collectors enjoy having a small number of
really valuable cards, many others are happier in a world where the full set value isn’t overly dominated by one or two cards.
Starting with today's update, we will be taking an incremental approach to balancing, with the primary goal being to improve the gameplay quality over time. New set expansions will
undoubtedly cause bigger meta shifts, but we'll use incremental balancing between sets as a way to make sure that gameplay quality is as good as it can be.
Any player that previously purchased today's changed cards from the marketplace can now visit this link to learn how to sell the cards directly back to us for what their peak selling
price was in the 24 hours prior to this announcement.
New Features
Added Skill Rating. Skill rating is specific to a particular time period and game mode (draft or constructed) and ranges from 1 to 75. Once you've earned a rating, it will not decrease this
season. Every matchmaking game outside of the Call To Arms featured event contributes to skill rating adjustments.
Added account levels and unlocks. Every matchmaking game grants experience that contributes to account level. Increasing account level unlocks portraits and a number of event
tickets and card packs.
They sneakily reduced how many cards you get when you buy the game now that progression's added.
But I thought it was just so crucial that you can't gain cards for free!!!!
Surely Valve didn't lie to make money right?!
Is this an attempt at reviving a dead game?
Why are all of these game companies lately coming out with god-awful decision-making? Not that Valve hasnt been a frontrunner in this regard.
They never said that paid cards was important to game design. They've only said that the game is paid vs. free-to-play to put a price floor on the cards' value.
Let's see if this is enough to get Artifact off of life support.
I'm certain Valve will make heroic efforts not to let their current shiny bauble die, especially given how it prints money.
However I'm not certain that Valve will be able to overcome the ghastly launch-flop, the negative press they've already (rightfully) earned, or the fact that the game is still monetized extremely aggressively.
Before somebody leaps to the fore to indicate that Artifact is "cheaper" than other Card Game Competitors, I'd like to point out that Valve built it's house with games that had phenomenal and unprecedented levels of dollar value. TF2, CSGO, Dota 2, even Left4Dead 1 and 2, were games you could play endlessly after your buy in. You would never be asked to pay for more "game," if you didn't really want to. Even the alternate weapon system in TF2 could ultimately be boiled down to a function of time.
Dota 2, Artifact's spiritual father, literally redefined the MOBA genre with it's business practices and emphasis on delivering a free, high-quality gameplay experience.
Meanwhile it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-200$ (it's bounces between 120$ and 150$ last I checked) to buy a complete set of cards off the Steam market.
That's so disparately at odds with every other game's design philosophy that it's hard to really mend, even with lots of polish on top and a steady march to reforming the design philosophy underneath.
Good luck Artifact!
I doubt Artifact will ever gain popularity, card games were the big thing years ago, but why should I buy into a half-baked card game when theirs plenty of them out there that are much better?
I've seen people (iirc even Valve) saying that Artifact is much cheaper than MTG or other similar trading card games. It doesn't matter, it's not comparable to MTG, no one is going to dump an ancient game for a digital one which you literally have to pay to do everything you want to, if you're looking to progress on the game. You can't even trade cards with your friends!
The thing is, Valve made a mistake thinking this monetization model would be good for the game. Their current model would be better fit for a free-to-play game, but you also need to pay $20 to be able to play the game. It's also digital, as said above, so this TCG monetization model would never be good.
Artifact was released almost a month ago and it was today that they added player progression and free cards/tickets. I wouldn't be surprised if the grind was too big (bigger than Hearthstone's where you can easily get a card pack by completing missions). If they wanted Artifact to be a success, they should've done this from the start.
this is exactly what I said would happen :v
and now they have to deal with a system where the cards people spend the most money on are the ones most likely to get nerfed and lose their value
like, yeah, I can't wait to drop 20 bucks on the best deck only to have valve destroy its viability and make the things I paid for completely worthless
Okay, I looked through the changes. I'll put my opinions on them down here.
Card balancing was a high demand. Valve valued the secondary market more than health of the game and I'm glad that they took a step back. It was much needed. They introduced buyback to cope with affected prices which is an interesting approach, but this is a one-time thing so price fluctuation might get dangerous in the future. I dunno, still feels like a 80-20 win to me.
Getting free packs via progression is quite obvious them caring less about the economy and more about the survival of the game. Cards are going to plummet in price. Obviously as a player I shouldn't complain about getting free stuff, but at this point there is no turning back that they should starting considering getting the game as close to cheap and free as possible. On the other hand, the ladder system they added is somewhat uninspiring.
In summary, good baby steps, not enough to draw in new players. Their economy-centric philosophy is as good as dead.
I still stand by that they should reduce the amount of tax and cut they impose in the game.
May I get more info on this?
VNN was looking at file updates and they changed the number of starter packs from 10 to 5.
It should be free to play
The core game looks interesting to me but the whole debacle around it just made me not wanna even touch it. Maybe i'll consider playing it in the future if I hear positive things..
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/657/2b25d3fe-48e6-4690-bcc2-45500711cfa8/image.png
Biggest update the game has ever gotten, and not even a visible blip.
Should note that this jump was purely for a free to open Xmas crate.
TF2 didn't even get a major update this xmas.
Who would win:
A new game
One craty boy
I bet some Valve people are looking really bamboozled right now.
The game "inside" seems to be quite well designed, but the economy and card framework and the entire lack of player progression was a horrendous decision,
which basically screamed "Only whales allowed" was a pretty terrifying marketing burden that even a good card game couldn't carry.
Still baffles me that Valve as capable game and economy designers made such an obvious blunder,
makes it even more delightful to say: "I told you so".
Because the core playerbase of the game is really happy with this update. It's a bunch of what they've been wanting, and more, too.
The player count has risen to ~10k, according to SteamDB. However, I don't think this will be enough to increase its player base. What "killed" it was the bad decisions they took when the game released. Let's wait and see.
I really don't understand digital card games where you have to pay to open card packs, half the fun of a TCG is having physical cards to hold/play/smell. If I have to buy digital booster packs then I might as well just stick with MTG as it also costs money but gives physical cards instead.
It's still retarded that it's a 1 time buyback.1 of the things hearthstone does so well, if a card is nerfed they offer full dust value back every time. Dust is really valuable and being able to get full dust value back means you can craft a new card of the exact same value.
How the fuck is Valve gonna keep their economy stable with these outcomes:
every card being completely worthless
Every meta defining card being essentially a purchase because you wont make your money back after the nerf
There will be no value return happening, it'll just end up being "buy strong card and wait for it to get nerfed, then buy new strong card until it gets nerfed" and so on without making any money back since nerfed cards will be worthless.
In essence you end up with pay-to-play for any competitive constructed mode.
We'll have to wait and see how it develops. It's possible that a progression system will allow it to keep a more healthy and sustainable playercount, but I doubt it will jump back above 20k.
Also note that the time right now is where Artifact's playercount peaks usually.
Also, every other card game on Steam either has 6-8k peak players daily (Yu-Gi-Oh, Slay the Spire, Shadowverse) or is off the top 100 entirely (Elder Scrolls, Thronebreaker).
Watch it jump to about 20k when payday hits
Will actually never happen. The reason is the lack of rare, "unusual" items.
In games like TF2, CS:GO or DOTA 2, when opening a lootbox you always had a chance of receiving a rare, one-in-a-million kind of item, usually with special effects like flames or sparkles surrounding it. The sheer rarity of these items, be it hats, knives or even taunts, in combination with their visual appeal, is what caused them to gain such incredible value in the first place. That's the only reason keys have any value in these games, and that's the reason why you have items on the steam market that sell for literal hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
In Artifact, all you have is cards, which affect gameplay and hence by design cannot be one-in-a-million. The most expensive card you have is Axe, which goes for roughly 7 dollars on the market. That is absolutely nothing compared to even low-tier unusual items in TF2. In total, there are only 9 cards priced higher than 2$, and only 17 cards priced higher than 1$. The price per-card drops exponentially, and keeps going down over time as more booster packs are opened. So there really is nothing to invest in.
Yeah I do think that buybacks should be there for every balance changes. There might to odd consequences to that... example being buyback cards will be completely out of the circulation which might soften their deflation. Speaking of that, meta cards getting nerfs might increase the demands of other cards. Too much speculation for now, but I suspect the situation might be the same as introduction of new expansions which often throw a wrench at the meta anyways.
Packs are confirmed down to 5 (from 10) and tickets are down to 2 (from 5). That's pretty shitty.
No they didn't
Artifact comes with 5 Card Packs and 2 Event Tickets. Unlock 15 more Card Packs and 15 additional Event Tickets as you play. You'll also receive 2 Starter Decks each with 40 cards and 9 items.
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