Saturday, September 14, 2013

Forging a place in Solforge...Part 1

Last week I started playing Solforge. In all honesty I partly started playing as I was really having the desire to play some sort of card game but was not on the Beta for Hearthstone and did not want to pay the $20 for Scrolls. So I decided to give Solforge a try.....and boy am I glad. To the point that I don't even care about the other games anymore.

It is hard to describe when some game just hits that perfect spot for you. In Solforge you play a deck composed of 30 cards formed from 1-2 Factions out of a possible 4 to choose from. Simple enough you say? Yeah...and that hits on two of the things I really like. First of all I really like the feel and look of the factions. You have your typical nature based faction in the Uterra's. The futuristic technology faction in the Alloyin and the elemental fire faction in the Tempys. Last and not least the Nekrium which of course are the harbingers of death with zombies, skeletons and evil at every turn.


The other thing even though it may sound silly is I actually like that the deck size is 30. Although that may be a bit misleading as every card has 3 versions as they actually upgrade as you play! However...I like the idea of initially only having to organize 30 card versus the typical 60-70 of most other games. This allows you to make a bit more focused deck that is more predictable then most other games. Also since there is no resource mechanic like "Mana" you can play any card you get in your hand are never hosed because of not drawing enough resources early in the game.

I don't want this to go on to long as it was not meant to be a review or anything but I did want to point out some things I really do like about my time with Solforge thus far. I love the artwork. I like the fact the upfront learning curve is simple yet the underlying strategy and tactics are quite deep once you start to get into the game and see the different combinations and mechanics that can be used in your favor.



I do wish the game was a bit further along in its development. Things like no matchmaking, no trading or auction house, no persistent payouts other then a login daily and two match wins and no full screen setting are all troublesome. However all of these things are in the works and a few are very close according to devs (within a week or two as I understand).

The way I look at it is now is the time to get into Solforge. Its early in the life of the game so you can get in and learn and build your collection before there are rankings, tournaments and the like. Not that it will help my ranking at all...but at least I may be able to get at least one or two wins off those late to the party.

Solforge is fun and has great potential. I am looking forward to seeing if the developers can keep it on the right track. In the meantime I will continue to make updates on my travels through learning the game for those interested. I intend to forge my place in the game...even if its losing in the first round. =)

2 comments:

  1. Alrighty, Captain T...
    Youtube channel subscriber #2016 or thereabouts.
    You want to try out this bloggy thingy, I'll follow you. :)
    I mostly agree with you on Solforge. I looked at it very briefly a while back, but have given it a good look after your review. It's well done and has many interesting gameplay elements and mechanics. The focused deck and card leveling mechanics in particular are fun to play with.
    I guess my biggest issue with the game now is with their balance on the f2p vs. b2w model. I appreciate what they've tried to do with the in-game currency and the log-in/first few wins packs; making it theoretically possible to get all the cards without paying real cash for them. However, over the past week or so, it's been my experience that the really powerful cards (heroic or legendary) come few and far between as a non-cash player. I'm able to gold my own against decks of equal strength, but if my random opponent drops down a couple of heroic/legendary level cards off the bat, I know I'm toast.
    You've advised us to start playing now, early, before they implement a ranking system to build up our decks. Honestly, though, until they incorporate some sort of ranking system into the matchmaking (as a proxy for deck strength) to equalize things, one's winning or losing of any particular game seems to have more to do with how long one's played (or how much real money one's invested).
    The game IS a lot of fun, but it does get a little depressing feeling like roadkill when your mostly common card deck runs into a powercard deck buzzsaw. :)

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  2. Ahh thanks for the comment....the FIRST on my new blog/site!!! Yeah I see your point. I did watch the main dev interview 2 days ago on Twitch and he said there is a patch coming very soon (think days or weeks at most not months) with several updates including a matchmaking update to match people with similar skills/card collections etc. We will see.

    On acquiring the cards...you may be right. For now Im holding off on spending money and just getting my free cards every day. I know there is some new cards coming soon with an update as well (like 15-20 I think I read).

    Im going to do another quick video with some more random thoughts here soon.

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