Cocofang

Really looking forward to a detailed price history. If you are looking for a bit of inspiration, you can check out the PoE version: https://poe.ninja/

Yeah, makes sense as long as the community isn't getting split. Grats on the smooth launch btw.

Hm, well. Guess you just have to deal with the fact that this is not a Pay2Win game to whale it out anymore. The "slowly building up a collection" part isn't going anywhere, that's for sure. I am actually surprised the test server is even freely accessible anymore.

Because collecting is a fundamental and integral part of this collectible card game. How did you even get into this game back then in the first place if you don't like slowly building up your collection? Did you just drop a 1000 bucks to buy everything?

Yeah, so the 120 decks could be pushed back a month to give the people that held off on playing until now for that reason a nice welcome and still enable the help long-term. Are you saying that playing exclusively PvP and unlocking everything you want that way is impossible or unfeasible without this iteration of the free PvP decks? Why is PvE constantly getting brought up? What am I missing here? Isn't the current progression system agnostic to PvP and PvE? I am assuming you mean a new player would have to lose his way into the PvP mode, which would be a bad experience and turn people off. That is true but is the current iteration the best solution? Is this extent of the "crutch" necessary? I too am of the opinion that a more accessible entry level to PvP is good for the long term health of the mode. But I am questioning whether this exact iteration is ideal and if the game needs it right now when everyone just started from scratch anyway.

Please try to put yourself into a perspective where reward and grind are connected. Understanding the opposing point of an argument is essential for a healthy discussion and resolution. Precisely what you are wondering here is a good portion of what this is about.

Don't argue with the other extreme. I am not arguing against free PvP decks. I am saying that the current implementation completely ignores people that enjoy the "collecting and slowly building up a PvP deck" part of the game. There is barely any compromise, the free 120 decks swing very heavily away from their position while a compromise and adjustment is very much possible. I am a pure PvE player but I understand where the PvP players that are against the current free 120 PvP deck implementation are coming from. Do you? They are not getting a good deal and something they were looking forward to is diminished heavily while better compromises would be possible. You are mostly arguing from a "no free decks at all VS the current implementation" point of view. Why? Adjustments can be made. The current system shouldn't be set in stone. It would be hubris to assume that the things right now, on day 1 of exposing the project to a bigger player base, are as good as they can be. Maybe U3 is not necessary? Maybe full charges are too much? Maybe the amount of decks is too big? Maybe there are too many different cards? Maybe access to the decks needs some sort of boundary like a fee? Maybe the decks should be implemented at a later date, like a month from now? Maybe the free decks should be exclusive to certain PvP modes? There are plenty of ways to tweak it. It seems that the misunderstanding and disconnect here is that the "just skip directly" part is what people take issue with.

That's a disingenuous point. Yeah, you CAN still grind. But the 120 decks are free and people use them. So if you decide against is, you are massively behind. Every time you face someone with the free U3 cards you must fight an uphill battle that the opponent didn't earn. That argument also ignores the psychological aspect. How bad it feels to work towards something when it's essentially worthless because it's already provided for free. It distorts the sense of value. Which is obviously something that drew some people towards this game. An advantage is not necessary when everyone starts from 0. It just removes the start-up phase entirely. Now, when the game has already been running for a month or two it's a different story. Someone joining at that point or later would need a bit of a helping hand to get into PvP. Also, how big does the advantage have to be? The current implementation goes for straight up perfect U3 cards. Is that necessary? If the cards were U2 then U3 versions that you own and can use in PvP would hold more value as they can only be accessed by investing resources.

I mean, collecting cards is the entire point of the game. The difference is you can't throw money at progression anymore. They have to dissect the pay2win aspect somehow and replace it with progression. It's literally the first day, I don't think any arguments about slow progression hold much weight right now. Give it a week or two, you can buy a booster a day and safe BFP on the side too.

They get automatically turned to gold if you already have those upgrades. So if you want to grind for gold pick a map and play it repeatedly until you have all its upgrades, then you get exclusively gold.

It depends on what you consider the bigger issue. PvP being virtually locked for you until you have upgraded cards (especially true if you join later down the line) and can even begin to compete on a raw power level? Or the economical impact of providing a set of cards for free and undermining of the collection aspect? You also have to consider that originally all these things were baked into the monetization model. Want more charges? Easiest way was to pay up. That means that wanting to be more competitive in PvP was an incentive to spend money. That's not the case anymore, you can't just buy progress. So they have to somehow try to dissect these methods out of the game design. This is the official statement regarding these decks. In short, they think long-term the free decks will keep the PvP community healthier. The opportunity cost is effectively eliminating the need to chase after a lot of cards for PvP players and making the use of 120 decks mandatory if you want to be competitive power-wise. Maybe they could've waited a month to release the 120 decks to give everyone the chaotic start-up times, while still offering latecomers a faster start. Making the cards U2 would've been an option as well. Or having a fee to rent the decks. Personally, I think the collectible part is essential to the game, it's what it was entirely built around. So that's a pretty big intrusion. Also very unfortunate that not all opinions could be considered because a lot of people didn't involve themselves in conversations like this before release as they waited. Maybe if enough people speak up against the 120 decks they change something? The original thread was mostly positive about it. I have my doubts that they would remove it entirely though.

Glasses? If you want the solution to be a bit more high-tech then you could search for a screen magnifier.

Yo, fuck Cyberpunk, THIS is what I am waiting for.

His artworks gave this project its own unique flair, distinct from the original. Hope they will continue to see good use in the launcher, in-game and everywhere else.

There is no contract. It's just a verbal "go ahead" with some boundaries. They can retract that for any reason at any time. It doesn't even have to do anything with EA specifically, this wouldn't be the first fan project about some IP that got verbal permission first but then ends up getting Cease and Desist-ed anyway.

Yes, and among many reasons I think the most important one is: The dev team said so. Fostering trust and showing consistency is very important for the long term health of the project. Many people waited for the rested to get into the game again. @shroomion Dude, EA could change its mind on a whim and Cease and Desist nuke this entire project tomorrow for absolutely no reason other than somebody over there woke up and felt like it. Would be a good idea to not give them any cue at all to rear their heads. This is built on sand as it is, better to not get smart with them, dancing around boundaries.

Well, like I said it will also depend heavily on what these specific quests will be. At least it seems you can justify the dev time but the tricky part will be the balance because if one pool is significantly worse or better than the others people will get dissatisfied for the reasons I stated.

Are quest rewards final or what's the plan there? In regards to the "specific PvE" quests, I can see some people using it because they like getting arbitrary challenges. But overall I see it as a small niche. Guess it's up to you if you think the additional development workload for a feature that will be used by very few people is justifiable. If it's easy to build, I don't see a reason why not. But keep in mind people will optimize their quests. So if you offer more options (different pools), some people will go for the optimal one. If it turns out some specific PvE quests are notably faster than generic PvE quests, people will feel penalized for picking generic PvE. Similarly if it's the other way around. Same goes for PvP quests, by the way. If it turns out you can churn through your quest log much faster in one quest-mode over the other, people will be incentivized to pick it even if they don't necessarily enjoy it. The crux of game design is trying to make the most optimal approach also the most enjoyable one. Because otherwise you will end up in a situation where people that optimize their gameplay end up hating it while people that don't end up feeling left behind.

I'd assume it wasn't CEO Andrew Wilson himself that gave the green light but someone us lowly plebeians can actually get a response from and as such it could easily be revoked. I doubt it went way up the ladder. This wouldn't be the first fan project that gets shut down even after explicit permission. The wrong person getting wind of this and it's gone. Or not even that, someone changing their minds does the trick as well. You can't stop people entirely from calling it "Battle Forge" since that's what it is but at least from content creators a total rebrand to "Skylords" would be a little bit safer, I'd say.

Well, it most certainly spearheaded the lootbox as a central piece to design a game around. The first and last game where my younger, more inexperienced and naive self would fall victim to the exploitative monetization model. Especially after it got shut down and all the money I spent was gone with nothing to show for. It was a good teacher. As to this iteration, Skylords, I am a bit worried that the wrong people catch wind of this project. Meaning someone at EA that has the power to shut it down and all of a sudden we will be greeted with a "EA issued a Cease and Desist, it was a good run!" banner at the top of this forum. So at the very least I would be mindful of referring to this game as Skylords, never Battle Forge. And always stress that it is strictly non-profit, all free.

Are you suggesting the people that disagree with you are new accounts paid off with virtual gaming cards? What are you even talking about? How does that ... what? It doesn't make any sense, I can't. >I will tell you later why. Please don't. >Donuld This has to be a troll account, please. For my sanity, please be a troll account.

Those are the most incoherently rambling posts that I have ever read, no joke. So many completely irrelevant if not downright cringe remarks. Actually this song in written form. Okay, so let's take this seriously for a moment. No doubt some people that were previously banned for multi accounting would actually embrace a new chance after release and never do it again. But for others it would just be an additional incentive because now any progress they make by farming BFP on multiple accounts would be permanent. People squeezing the most amount of BFP they can out of one account is one thing. But imagine what it would do to the crucial early days after release if you invited people back in again that massively inflate BFP amounts on the server by grinding multiple accounts, even if only for a few days. There will definitely be a surge of multi accounting after release, why give chances to previous multi accounters too? It's just more workload for the moderation to ban most of them again. If anything, somewhere down the line, a few months after release after the economy got more stable, the team could lift pre-1.0 multi account bans to give them that chance. But they are busy enough at launch as it is. No need to also invite known offenders back in, a lot of them will try either way.

I mean, the amount of players is certainly a factor that we can think about but it's pretty speculative, we don't know how the playerbase will develop. At least I think it's pretty safe to say the playerbase will be noticeably bigger than it is now. However we are talking about a weekly fee. Over the course of a week you should be able to play enough to get a taste, no? I would at least assume. If you are only ever online during the absolute off-hours (if you are shift working for example or something) then it wouldn't matter anyway how you get decks, you'll always have less people to play against. But I get what you are saying, a commitment without payout (in this case the fee and then not being able to play the games) does feel bad and could drive people away. But I think that's an issue to consider after launch. Necessary adjustments that entirely depend on the size of the playerbase. For now I think we could assume a healthy but small playerbase. Randomly getting one deck and then being able to rent additional decks is another possibility but I wonder if it wouldn't be too volatile. It would certainly mix things up but there are a whole lot of additional factors at play then. PvP decks bricking because you got assigned another deck, then having to pay the fee to play them again. People possibly skipping PvP for a week because they dislike the deck they were assigned and with a free deck being the expectation, the condition that you have to pay a fee not being the established norm, they might just sit it out until they get another one they like.

Can't wait to finally start collecting again! Thank you so much for doing this. Quite a few people waiting around here to sink their teeth in again. Hoping for a smooth launch.

You are right, it would be a small barrier that could make some new players consider if they really want to dump 100BFP (or whatever the fee would be) to take the chance. It would be a bit of a commitment but that could also be a positive as well. Like a player thinking to themselves that if they already paid the fee, they might as well get the most out of it and play more PvP, possibly getting hooked, as if the commitment is non-existent with the cards being free. It would be additional legwork from a development standpoint but everyone could get a one-time voucher for their first unlock being free to circumvent this entirely. When it comes to the amount of BFP, I think most people would agree that a weekly fee of 100BFP is incredibly low for the amount of value you get out of it. The conversation just seems a bit skewed because it started from the point of this crazy value being free. Not only are there some powerful and valuable cards in these decks, they are also fully upgraded. I don't think anyone could seriously argue that a weekly 100BFP for that would be expensive at all.