MArcomage

I propose a short mode:

Starting tower/wall at 15/10;
bricks, gems, recruits at 7/2/5 (8/3/6 for second player)
quarry, magic, dungeon at 3/3/3
MAX tower/wall at 50/120

Why a short mode? To catch more players. I think a new user wants to play something fast (like 5 minutes) to understand if he likes the game or not. If a noob's first game lasts one hour he will think that the game is boring.
So, I suggest also that, after the tutorial a game automatically starts, a short mode game against a weak deck used by the A.I. . player'deck should be average. The idea is: let's them win the first game in few minutes. It this way they will have a good impression of arcomage, better than losing a long game. let's welcome them in a soft way.
After some short games against the AI they should want to try normal and long mode against human players.
It could be a good idea to unlock the possibility to play against a human only at level 1 or 2. and normal mode could be unlocked at level 4, long mode at level 6, hidden mode at level 8. In this way they'll look at game modes as rewards making them worthy to play (yay! I finally unlocked long mode, let's try it!)

You have some good points - it is a problem when new player is overwhelmed by game features. We also should figure out a way to modify the deck editor for new players. If thy see 600+ cards they may want to give up the game right there.

Well, I don't think that how fast a game goes has anything to do with tower or wall height. Not even with how much rounds a game lasts. I've had games lasting 100 rounds finished in 10 minutes or so, and I've had 15-round games taking a couple of days and more....

I think the worst thing about this game is that it allows the player to play as slowly as he wants. This seems user-friendly at first but IMO it's being abused alot here, leading to a totally boring and unsatisfying game... There are players that enter a game and don't play a single turn! They play a turn after 6 hours or so and then they again go away or idle... Most of the people who come here, will tolerate this for 2-3 games and then they simply won't bother again and go on with their lives.

If we want fast-paced games, a mode with time limited rounds is the only viable solution.

However, I find the unlocking mechanism, a very good idea! I once proposed unlocking whole cardsets but it was considered that it would be unfair.

One other idea is to have a mode where both players play with the same deck, choosed from a pre-defined set of decks. IMO, deck building is half of the game, if not more, and the difference between an experienced and a new player, is mainly the experience in deck building. Taking away this ability from the experienced player, will make the game more "equal" and give the new player some more chances to win. These pre-defined decks should not be too advanced though (no hardcore Undead deck for example), but rather simpler, kind of a rush decks maybe without lots of keywords and synergies.

I think if we made AI games more prominent (or maybe mandatory) for newer users, they could not only play against "cookie-cutter" decks, but at their own pace.

We would also be able to ramp up the AI decks as the newer user plays them. For instance, they would play against their same deck at first, then maybe on the 3rd game, play against a keyword deck such as burning so they would understand it better.

Mojko wrote:
You have some good points - it is a problem when new player is overwhelmed by game features. We also should figure out a way to modify the deck editor for new players. If thy see 600+ cards they may want to give up the game right there.

I think the filtering mechanism might be made a little simpler and beautified a little. Here are some recommendations:

- Have two kinds of filtering mechanism: simple(default) and advanced.
- Simple filtering only searches cards by keyword and rarity (and maybe cost type)
- Advanced filtering are all the rest options.
- By default the simple filtering mechanism is shown and a button or link "Show advanced" would bring the advanced options.
- For keyword searching, instead of those techie select boxes use some kind of button-like image/icons along with text maybe (Horde, Alliance etc etc.) The keyword icons are already existent so use them maybe.
- By default only keywordless common cards should be shown instead of all common cards.

dimitris wrote:
I think the filtering mechanism might be made a little simpler and beautified a little. Here are some recommendations:

- Have two kinds of filtering mechanism: simple(default) and advanced.
- Simple filtering only searches cards by keyword and rarity (and maybe cost type)
- Advanced filtering are all the rest options.
- By default the simple filtering mechanism is shown and a button or link "Show advanced" would bring the advanced options.
- For keyword searching, instead of those techie select boxes use some kind of button-like image/icons along with text maybe (Horde, Alliance etc etc.) The keyword icons are already existent so use them maybe.
- By default only keywordless common cards should be shown instead of all common cards.

I agree with these suggestions. I would also suggest that it automatically sorts lowest-to-highest rarity when you're looking at a bunch of cards across the various rarities.

I would also like to be able to sort by "Facility" along with "Facilities" for cards like Merchant ship.

Additionally, I think it would be good feature for the Search box to search within the card text as well instead of just the title - I find it worthless currently - since that would, I think, solve a lot of the problems.

I have a suggestion about cards' unlock: for every level up the player can choose a deck from a pool of ten preconstructed decks. In this way the player will see something like 400 cards little by little. Only at level 10 the deck editor will be unlocked (and also the possibility to use the gold they've gained so far)

i dont think we should put restrictions on newer players, if we add anything it must be optinal and not in by default

Noak wrote:
i dont think we should put restrictions on newer players, if we add anything it must be optinal and not in by default

It's already all optional and it's not working, the list of 0/0/0 players is incredibly long.
Either I don't like to put restrictions but maybe this will change something. perdonally I like playing games levelling up the game experience.
Now Marcomage is like an rpg with characters already at 99 level, in the endgame phase. It's still interesting to play the endgame but I like the levelling up more . Just my opinion.

I like agree with suggestions about unlocking predefined sets of cards each level (which goes real fast) and better card editor search.

Although, I don't like hiding content, I think it's the only way how to make it work. I can add level requirement for cards to be shown in deck builder. We need to figure out the level requirements for all cards. Cards that are easier to use, should have lower level requirement and we need to determine number of new cards per level (doesn't have to be the same number). We should add proper levelup screen (some popup window showing new cards that are available).

I can also hide parts of the interface based on level, for example some setting or even whole sections such as replays, novels, statistics, forum, concepts, cards... everything that is not essential for playing.

How about a game mode , possibly mandatory for newcomers, where your deck is half smaller. 8 commons 8 uncoomns and 8 rares instead of 15?

About hiding other content - we should make it still seen somehow, like greyed out or "lvl X to unlock" overlay

I disagree, I think the effect will take place only when content is hidden. I think I'll also hide the 'view deck' button in game.

Damalycus wrote:

About hiding other content - we should make it still seen somehow, like greyed out or "lvl X to unlock" overlay

I like this.
About what to unlock I won't use card's complessity. I think it's better finding one, two or few complex cards in every unlock. I suggest to create themed unlocks using keywords. So we can explain them.
My idea is:

You Have reached level x, congratulation!
Now you can choose to unlock on of these card's set's (three sets randomly choosed):
Everlasting fire (many burning cards+ some useful cards like walls, facility...)
Warlords (many barbarian card+ some useful cards...)
Ancient craft (many runic cards+...)


Ok, you have choosed Warlords (follows barbarian's lore and barbarian keyword's explanation, or this could be shown before to help in the choice)

Noobs can already buy new deck slots but their number is limited by player's level. at level N you can have only N+1 decks. After all unlocks this limit will be removed.

The topic is totally off-topic, what about my short mode idea?

Other ideas:
in "hosted games" there should be showned player's level so noobs can choose opponent's at their level (with the unlock feature this is quite important)

As already said we should give more importance to AI games, it's a good way for noobs to understand the game at their own pace. The thing I don't like of AI games is that I have to click a button to make the opponent moves, it should be automatic after my move. this could be problematic, the game will be chaotic since there will be 2 cards played at same time. I got a solution (non implementable, I already know but I'm talking about stuff after an ipotetical total restyle):
animations. I play a card and it moves in the centre, after that starts ai's card animation.
It's possible with Flash that doesn't needs browswer refreshing but brings ton of other problems, I know. Like the impossibility to jump from a game to another.

We have to avoid Flash because there isn't a Flash programmer among us. HTML5 canvas is an alternative, but I would really like to keep MArcomage as a simple html webgame.

Regarding cards unlocking, I don't think giving the player a choice is a good thing in this situation. I think we should divide all cards into logical packages and assign them to level. It should not be divided only by keyword, but more importantly by card complexity.

Actually there is, but html5 would be better, cause supported by all modern browsers and is "backwards compatible"

Don't bother with Flash.. it's obsolete already :D
Besides, anything that can be done with Actionscript, can be also done with Javascript right? There are a ton of javasript animation libraries out there now.

Important question! What level should the player be when he completes the tutorial and has everything unlocked? My first thought would be 20.

Here's a rough suggestion:

- first 3 levels: play only against AI with starter decks
- level 4: deck builder is unlocked
- level 7: play against other players is unlocked.
- levels 7-15: unlock additional cardset every 2 levels (5 cardsets). I think unlocking cardsets should have gradually decreased number of cards, for example first cardset 20 cards, second cardset 15, third 9 etc.

One issue is what's going to happen with updates and new cards being added. Should they be all locked? Should some of them be locked? Should they be locked for new and old players alike?