I was never able to recommend HEX to my friends

    • I was never able to recommend HEX to my friends

      Not 100% certain why, probably a mix of the game not being in a very good state, feeling unfinished and of course, missing the key feature I'd invite friends for in the first place: co-op. (hah)

      ...and it goes without saying that the buy in to have a decent deck to play the constructed PvP side of the game was so much I'd never ask them to pay it, not that I was even interested in that side of the game anyway, just sayin'.

      Do I think hex was bad? Not really, I liked it but I also like grand strategy games that I can put a thousand hours in to, which is my cup of tea but understandably, not something I'd go around telling other people they "have to try" because "it's so great".

      There was also the fact that I feel like I'd... have to apologize for the game state, like they would look at the steam page and I'd have to defend it a just to get them to try "haha, yes, they haven't fulfilled that kickstarter promise and no that is not in the game yet, or that and yes that thing happened but..."

      "but hey it's free!, so it doesn't cost anything!"

      Except time of course, the peoples I'd be recommending HEX to are adults, time is something that increases in value the older you get and frankly... I wouldn't want to waste it. I don't see my own time commitment to hex as a waste, mostly anyway, but I don't think I'd ever tell someone "oh yes, free to play, so you can griiiiiind to get what you want so come try it!"

      So yes, I never hyped a game I enjoyed because... reasons.


      Aaaannyway; just throwing that out there, if we ever get a proper postmortem and people start asking "why" I think this might be one of the reasons.

    • A lot of things contributed to the ultimate end of Hex. Gameforge was a pretty bad name to bring in to the mix, but in retrospective, they probably did a lot more good for hex than harm. Cory did always seem to be able to control the monetization and design of the game, so they seemed to act more as an investor than anything else. The big problem with them, though, and it was a big one, was the fact that data was stored on German servers, and that led to many people getting their accounts wiped unintentionally. Who knows how many potentially returning customers were burned giving the game a second shot? And for a game that took its time getting to the PvE elements, there were a LOT of people who set Hex aside to check out again later when more features were added. So, that hurt Hex pretty bad.

      We don't really know how much the lawsuit hurt Hex. It may have sucked what little funding they had available dry, and we don't really know if any other concessions were made behind those doors. But it is pretty safe to say that MtG fans bombed the Hex reviews on Steam pretty hard. There were a lot of people who were angry that Hex was a MtG clone.

      And on a similar note, Hex probably should never have released on Steam. It got nothing but mixed and negative reviews, because it's not a model that steam supports very well, and it wasn't really ready for public attention. Very much an 'early release' state when you consider the whole game plan for PvE. And then we saw a similar push to Playstation, with a similarly crippled launch. It wasn't suited for Playstation (due to the market and trading restrictions), and had no PvE. Of course it wasn't going to do well on a shared server.

      Why all these mistakes, then? Well, it's pretty clear that all the bad decisions were motivated by a need for funding. After the initial kickstarter, they didn't receive the material they expected to receive from their previous production team, and it was a stretch to get where they needed to go. Gameforge was a source of income, Steam was a source of income, Playstation was a source of income, and all the focus on PvP sets was to desperately get the money to continue development. It's a good question to ask why their game couldn't support its own development in the first place, and I'm going to hazard an uneducated guess that the coders were working with a bad base of code, and it just became too slow and difficult to continue development at a profitable pace. It's tempting to blame their minimal marketing attempts back at the original AZ1 launch, but to be honest, until it's out of early development (and it never got there), marketing would backfire just like the Steam release and Playstation launch. It wasn't ready, and it just took too long and too much money to get ready, apparently.

      I'd say it was them giving up on PvE, but it always seemed to be the case that they (felt like they) needed PvP to fund PvE.
      Old username: Aradon | Collector backer | Starting a guild for Newbies -- "The Cerulean Acadamy" -- Taking applications once guilds are implemented

    • It was a combination of bad base code, insufficiently skilled engineers (not bad, just not amazing, either), and WAY too many designers with no programming experience whatsoever. The things they designed would not have BEEN designed that way if more skilled engineers were involved with the project from the outset. But more importantly than all that, was poor marketing. Continually, perpetually bad decisions regarding how to market the game, where to put what money they did have.

      This game always had huge potential, but they absolutely failed to steer its development in the right direction, or push it properly along the way.
      --ossuary

      "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
      - Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

    • I was about to write similar thread. Lately I met some friends who backed Hex, tried it, but never fell for the game. Guess what... they are playing MTGA now and having fun. I had discussion with them and there really is just few points where they think arena is better:
      • Faster gameplay (autophase skip by default does SO MUCH)
      • More casual play (unlimited time to draft, best of 1 formats)
      • Much friendlier new player welcome
      • More generous regular rewards
      They even admit, that probably Hex is overall better game and TCG is much better system, but they just didn't enjoy it that much, which is basically all that matters :(

      If you compare both games now, differences are not striking, but those few details really make such a massive difference...

    • I personally think the biggest issue is that, although there are loads upon loads of really, really, -really- fun and interesting cards in the game, the majority of them are only properly usable in an extremely static environment.

      If Siege had been made a gold gain instead of a gold sink, and had been balanced to be based on getting out more wins than losses, I think that would've pulled HEX out of its nosedive. Or at least it would've had a chance to do so.

    • Firellius wrote:

      I personally think the biggest issue is that, although there are loads upon loads of really, really, -really- fun and interesting cards in the game, the majority of them are only properly usable in an extremely static environment.

      If Siege had been made a gold gain instead of a gold sink, and had been balanced to be based on getting out more wins than losses, I think that would've pulled HEX out of its nosedive. Or at least it would've had a chance to do so.

      Ya, they really dug in their heels over the Siege debacle, I doubt it generated any meaningful revenue, was panned pretty hard by the playerbase and they still refused to implement any meaningful changes, aside from implementing a system to stop the somewhat exploitative grinding method people were using... which in turn stopped those people from continuing to play the mode.

    • tophat wrote:

      Firellius wrote:

      I personally think the biggest issue is that, although there are loads upon loads of really, really, -really- fun and interesting cards in the game, the majority of them are only properly usable in an extremely static environment.

      If Siege had been made a gold gain instead of a gold sink, and had been balanced to be based on getting out more wins than losses, I think that would've pulled HEX out of its nosedive. Or at least it would've had a chance to do so.
      Ya, they really dug in their heels over the Siege debacle, I doubt it generated any meaningful revenue, was panned pretty hard by the playerbase and they still refused to implement any meaningful changes, aside from implementing a system to stop the somewhat exploitative grinding method people were using... which in turn stopped those people from continuing to play the mode.
      The worst part was "siege is in beta", which implied there will be changes and upgrades to the mode. Yet, we seen none. Combined with the horrible AI...

    • on the other side of this argument i referd a friend of mine.
      who then couldnt play becaus the game askd for his 2 factor authenticator without giveing him one making it impossible for him to even make an account ... i have a question how to fix that still open for months... kinda hard to talk him into it if the game refuses to let him make an account

    • belpegor wrote:

      on the other side of this argument i referd a friend of mine.
      who then couldnt play becaus the game askd for his 2 factor authenticator without giveing him one making it impossible for him to even make an account ... i have a question how to fix that still open for months... kinda hard to talk him into it if the game refuses to let him make an account
      You should be able to simply leave it empty, althought it is not explained anywhere.
      HEX forums resident liker.

    • I have recommended it and STILL would.

      But, I only recommend PVE. It's free, it's fun, and there isn't a lot like it out there. I still enjoy playing the campaign long after I probably shouldn't.


      I also think they missed the boat with Siege. Siege is such a great idea. The concept being unlimited PVE where users create the content for you. Sadly, the implementation was bad. Took me about 3 runs to realize that if you didn't have a Tier 1 PVP deck you weren't welcome in Siege. That was silly. Seige should have been for everyone from the top players to the newb that just downloaded the game. It should have had some sort of ... MMR or something to match your opponent to the strength of your deck/library/success.

      I don't even care that it was a gold sink. But, it should have been a fun gold sink for all comers, not just whales.

    • JazzfanTwentySev wrote:

      I have recommended it and STILL would.

      But, I only recommend PVE. It's free, it's fun, and there isn't a lot like it out there. I still enjoy playing the campaign long after I probably shouldn't.


      I also think they missed the boat with Siege. Siege is such a great idea. The concept being unlimited PVE where users create the content for you. Sadly, the implementation was bad. Took me about 3 runs to realize that if you didn't have a Tier 1 PVP deck you weren't welcome in Siege. That was silly. Seige should have been for everyone from the top players to the newb that just downloaded the game. It should have had some sort of ... MMR or something to match your opponent to the strength of your deck/library/success.

      I don't even care that it was a gold sink. But, it should have been a fun gold sink for all comers, not just whales.
      Do you typically recommend early access games to your friends? You do know that the Hex PvE is less than 50% done, right? Also I hope you advise your "recommendees" to not spend any money.

    • Vroengard wrote:

      JazzfanTwentySev wrote:

      I have recommended it and STILL would.

      But, I only recommend PVE. It's free, it's fun, and there isn't a lot like it out there. I still enjoy playing the campaign long after I probably shouldn't.


      I also think they missed the boat with Siege. Siege is such a great idea. The concept being unlimited PVE where users create the content for you. Sadly, the implementation was bad. Took me about 3 runs to realize that if you didn't have a Tier 1 PVP deck you weren't welcome in Siege. That was silly. Seige should have been for everyone from the top players to the newb that just downloaded the game. It should have had some sort of ... MMR or something to match your opponent to the strength of your deck/library/success.

      I don't even care that it was a gold sink. But, it should have been a fun gold sink for all comers, not just whales.
      Do you typically recommend early access games to your friends? You do know that the Hex PvE is less than 50% done, right? Also I hope you advise your "recommendees" to not spend any money.
      I hope people keep their angst with hex not the players. I have noticed certain people here and especially reddit attacking other players because of whatever reason. It would be better if the focus of ire was on hex rather than the playerbase.

    • Pandaemonium wrote:

      Vroengard wrote:

      JazzfanTwentySev wrote:

      I have recommended it and STILL would.

      But, I only recommend PVE. It's free, it's fun, and there isn't a lot like it out there. I still enjoy playing the campaign long after I probably shouldn't.


      I also think they missed the boat with Siege. Siege is such a great idea. The concept being unlimited PVE where users create the content for you. Sadly, the implementation was bad. Took me about 3 runs to realize that if you didn't have a Tier 1 PVP deck you weren't welcome in Siege. That was silly. Seige should have been for everyone from the top players to the newb that just downloaded the game. It should have had some sort of ... MMR or something to match your opponent to the strength of your deck/library/success.

      I don't even care that it was a gold sink. But, it should have been a fun gold sink for all comers, not just whales.
      Do you typically recommend early access games to your friends? You do know that the Hex PvE is less than 50% done, right? Also I hope you advise your "recommendees" to not spend any money.
      I hope people keep their angst with hex not the players. I have noticed certain people here and especially reddit attacking other players because of whatever reason. It would be better if the focus of ire was on hex rather than the playerbase.
      My point was "I hope people don't try to convince other people to pay for unfinished games". It's more of a general policy, not a jab at either Hex or its players.

    • They never gave us any form of social features at all(other than one of the worst chat interfaces around), they didn't add any form of realistically replayable content to the pve, there was never any co-op or the like, and they never really leveraged their pvp crowd in any faesible way other than to try to squeeze money out of them a bit at a time. If they'd built these 'merry melee' modes 2 years earlier and made them free to play for everyone with just a simple 1v1 queue interface, things may have ended differently, for example. Even in terms of tournaments... why was there never anything leveraging the tech from Evo for more than just an entry level queue? Or using Evo/draft for pve... or so many other things.

      I know the answer to that question was either that they were blind to what people would play, or that their engineers were simply not up to the challenge. One of the two.
      Gamer. Streamer. Photographer. Writer. Anime Lover. Possessor of Stuffed Animals.

      Also... I'm terrible at this game.

    • AceBladewing wrote:

      To be fair, there was much of the player base plugging their ears and calling the people warning of this future nasty names in the past. That makes it hard to not focus on them as part of the problem that got us here too.
      True, I was called a bunch of stuff over the years but really alot of it was pretty benign. The fact remains that hex had the true numbers and should have known post 100k tournament that they needed to do drastically different things.

    • Honestly I'm amazed that they didn't do more with siege the potential was endless. The monetization of it was also terrible and could have been implemented with buyable features to make attacking more fun and designing a defence more complex.

      Sell pve champions with their own decks that people can use in siege. This way ps players could join in on defending as well. Charge a small fee in a mix of gold and plat to aquire these champions and decks and make the siege about the experience instead.

      Making the experience a competition was doomed to fail as a baseline, that should be a small subsection of it not the design goal.