Hex 2 and PVE

    • Hex 2 and PVE

      So with this Hex 2 'suggested announcement' effectively what it is... Cory mentions "Focus on PVE" and even worryingly "Even if we have to change the core gaming system." Not sure what is meant by that but why couldn't Hex keep the magic the gathering inspired mechanics? Also that... Issue was settled and Hex managed to keep their rules and just change a keyword and all champion's health. But I hope to see PVE create more pve exclusive cards and focus on unique talents and powers. With Warlock and Rogue being only things left not sure how they'd work also "We can't afford PVE cuz everyone beats it faster then it takes to make them." I'm not sure that 90% of PVErs when game was more active beaten the core plot of each AZ on day 1 or 7 after release... I certainly couldn't... I have a few ideas but Warlock seems all over the place not sure how it can be 'unified' maybe each Warlock summons a unique type of undead? Maybe Humans Orcs and Coyotles summon spirits, Elves plants, Shin'hare and necrotic zombies and Vennen and Dwarves don't summon but instead siphon life? For Rogue I wouldn't have a very good ideas...
      Lore Hound: Self Proclaimed Expert to Hex Lore (and right 80% of time with theories)

      The post was edited 1 time, last by OzawaWanderer ().

    • I hope Cory gets to read this.

      In my opinion, if you want some truly renewable content in the style of HEX' PvE, you have to turn to roguelike gameplay mechanisms. The closest thing I can liken it to is Slay the Spire: If you bring your starting deck up against the final boss, you get utterly slaughtered with no hope of anything. That's why the journey to the final boss, with all of its randomised twists and turns, becomes such an important part.

      I think I outlined this gameplay idea before, but adventures like that might work for replayability of content. Simply set the player up with a series of unfair challenges, but allow them to accumulate equally unfair power for themselves by winning battles. For example, have a boss that starts with 5 resources, has 200 HP, and has three minions already in play. Then, in the lead-up to it, allow the player to accumulate buffs of their own. The first fight they face gives the player +1 starting resource. The second summons a unique minion at the start of the fight. Another increases starting HP. A third increases the defense of all units in the player's deck by 1.

      By stacking these kinds of effects, it can throw off the balance in a horrifying way, but that's part of the appeal. Roguelikes appeal to me personally (Can't say how they tick for other players) because every run is another chance to go completely overboard. The right set-up, the right convalescence of randomly occurring things can make a run utterly phenomenal.

      Take Slay the Spire. If you're playing as the Ironclad and you manage to get both the Corruption card and the Dead Branch relic, you can get an almost infinite loop in your turn which allows you to steamroll anything in your path. If you're playing the Silent, you get a couple of cards that create Shivs and then get the wristblade or accuracy, which boost the damage of shivs, that gets to be a ton of fun as well. The Defect is all about playing powers (Their version of Constants) so getting the Mummified Hand, which makes one of the cards in your hand free to play whenever you play a power, renders that run an instant success.

      Things like that could make a renewable, infinitely playable gamemode for HEX, too, especially with some of the game mechanisms that shoved the game into our hearts in the first place.

    • I dont think mechanics will change at all, they shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The slay the spire reference is a good one and that type of dungeon was originally planned.

      I think the biggest change will be how we collect cards if there is a pve focus. Right now playing pvp is a major way to get the really nice cards and that will need to change.

    • Only change the game mechanics needs IMHO is some kind of fixing for mana-screwing. But something simpler like a one-shot discard a card -> create an ice (the one that fateweaves) of one of the colors of the card. Mana screw ruins games on early turns and most of the other CCGs are doing things to avoid this (using a different system). I would also add a fateweave when you mulligan if WOTC allows us to do so :P

      If Cory and company thinks this game failed because of the mechanics and the actual gameplay they got it all wrong. There're things to improve, sure, but the gameplay itself is the best TCG experience I had. To just throw minions and smash them against the other player I would just play HS or Mythgard (which I don't like).

      Playing again Hex after playing MTGA feels awkward in some ways, but totally great on other ways: the card design in Hex is far superior than MTG in terms of variety. You can do a lot of things to keep the game fresh and original.
      Twitter: @Plotynus

    • AceBladewing wrote:

      Big fat disagree on the roguelike ideas. While I love games like slay the spire, that is not what I want from a TCG or CCG. I want to have a collection I own and decks I build with my collection. I also don't want a deckbuilder game, those have no sense of collecting.
      I'm not talking about the deck acquisition system, I'm talking about the relic system.

    • I would suggest giving users the tools to create PVE areas. Think Roblox, but for Hex. That way there would be a nearly unending supply of fresh PVE experiences for the user.

      This doesn't even seem like that hard of an ask to me from a programming side. (relatively speaking) Give a hundred stock maps, let creators have a sandbox to create text boxes, set up battle rules, set up opposing bosses/cards/starting states, etc... Create some sort of economy where user created dungeons that are popular generate gold for the creator. Charge gold to enter dungeons. YOu've suddenly hired a ton of talent content creators.

    • JazzfanTwentySev wrote:

      I would suggest giving users the tools to create PVE areas. Think Roblox, but for Hex. That way there would be a nearly unending supply of fresh PVE experiences for the user.

      This doesn't even seem like that hard of an ask to me from a programming side. (relatively speaking) Give a hundred stock maps, let creators have a sandbox to create text boxes, set up battle rules, set up opposing bosses/cards/starting states, etc... Create some sort of economy where user created dungeons that are popular generate gold for the creator. Charge gold to enter dungeons. YOu've suddenly hired a ton of talent content creators.
      Yeah, this is pretty much what I expected Siege to be. Just have players make mini-dungeons that are free to enter which give gold and goodies in roughly the same amount as the campaign gives. Add a rating/review system to bump up cool dungeons and weed out trolly stuff and we'd have infinite user-generated content.

    • Hello, long time backer of this game. I was thinking what "if" Hex went the way of blockchain technology? much like Gods Unchained. Where you truly own your collection. Of course, the core game can still stay the same, or completely change the game play much like Legends of Runeterra. Just move the cards to a token system that can be traded, it will give players true ownership of their cards that can be traded.

    • They could invest a (relatively) small portion of time creating resources and a systematic way of implementing those resources in random and increasing difficulty to form new dungeons on the fly, with characters from the story hindering/helping you - give us even one choice between games and it branches out enormously. Basically the FRA but endless. But don't replace the FRA having more content is better. Upon defeat you could opt to post a bounty - siege like bet that someone couldn't get further than you in that seed - maybe they take different paths that lead to an easier experience, maybe they get rekt.

      Give us more siege options - it's a great concept 7/10 implementation but that last 30% is worth the effort, Hex isn't a C- game. I want to have even a generic looking dungeon layout to place my siege decks in, put up a starter deck, give the opponent who beats it a choice of 2 decks to beat, then the final boss - if a player loses to the siege the deck they lost to gets pushed back and one of the others replaces it (to sort of automatically rank them in difficulty the longer it stands).

      Just because we clear the content quickly doesn't mean the content is worthless, we grind, I don't even have close to an AZ2 playset some of those drops are really hard to grind out - the experience of running through the entire campaign with a new character is amazing even in the current state of things, if there was more incentive to I'd speed run it - when Hex bounces back I'll be streaming any and all PvE content we get as often as I can. Even when we do complete sets of things and get our own copies getting multiples for giveaways or trades is super worthwhile - I never feel bad dropping a Clattercrank or Brewed Ambrosia, heck even Xocoy is pretty exciting these days even after being hit hard multiple times with changes.

      All of these things get more complex as sets come out - easier sure - but the diversity of what we can do in Hex is a good thing. I don't know what they mean by "change the core gaming system" but I hope it's tournaments and set releases kind of thing not the threshold system or deck building / card rules or game phases. Maybe there's a better version of those things - almost certainly given how influential even a small change can be. If so is it because it's too resource intensive server side?

      I'd also suggest stop nerfing cards, I get it that sometimes it feels like a mistake making something as good as it is, especially when it's scarce - people loved that PVP cards wouldn't get that treatment and stood by the "We'd rather see it banned than ruined" mentality. Would having a deck that could in theory run reasonably well with no shards be so bad? Who cares if we're trivializing the current campaign content - that's early game content in the grand scheme isn't it? I'd hope the campaign eventually got the point where a silly combo that does 42 damage on turn 3 most of the time wasn't a reliable way to quickly clear things.

      One thing that you have to remember, is no matter how much time you put into thinking about how things should go, developing strong decks for the computer to use, teaching it to play a ridiculously complex game - quickly - and for a huge number of players simultaneously, we're going to outsmart you - we're going to build stronger decks - we'll have more experience in a week of that content than any company could reasonably put into playtesting, we're the players and we are legion and that's ok. Don't cheapen the game with any more of those auto-lose hard counter arena shenanigans, don't feel bad when we clear it day 1, most of us won't - some of us will - some of us will even be bored afterwards - but not everyone and punishing everyone isn't a reasonable response.

      Give us Wild West Constructed even casually in direct challenges, we want to use our pve cards against each other, and equipment, yeah it'll be broken and ridiculous and you better believe it fun, and not everyone will go for it. But not allowing it is removing fun for no reason.

      Multiplayer. Figure it out, if it's not fun to you and you can't figure out why maybe you just don't like multiplayer, had some sort of it working years ago and we never got to touch it. Yeah it'll be a bit slower, but it makes slower formats like EDH fairer, more complex, more interesting, and we want it.

      You want the content you put up to not be cleared day 1? Give us raids, make them Unreasonably difficult, force us to combine forces to stand a chance, and make them worth it.

      TLDR; Quality of life, don't spend resources to make the game less fun when we have bigger fish to fry, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here unless you haven't told us something important. Hex was a community and now it's a game, make the game better in the right ways and we'll be a community again - we won't have everyone either by force of will or unfortunate circumstances but that ship sailed and I just want to be proud enough of my favorite game again to invite my friends to play with me. Maybe it'll take years to get there but I'm on board let's go on a magical freaking journey - together.

    • Artifaction wrote:

      They could invest a (relatively) small portion of time creating resources and a systematic way of implementing those resources in random and increasing difficulty to form new dungeons on the fly, with characters from the story hindering/helping you - give us even one choice between games and it branches out enormously. Basically the FRA but endless. But don't replace the FRA having more content is better. Upon defeat you could opt to post a bounty - siege like bet that someone couldn't get further than you in that seed - maybe they take different paths that lead to an easier experience, maybe they get rekt.
      I suggested something like this a while ago. Roguelike gameplay coupled with procedural generation can create incredibly long-lasting content, and is the basis for entire games.

      My suggestion was to have a procedurally generated dungeon where the final boss is an incredibly unfair battle, BUT, along the way, every victory achieved awards the player some kind of boon that enhances their deck in subsequent fights. From small things like "You start with a battle hopper in play" to big things like "When you play a resource, draw a card". With a sufficiently heavy list of these kinds of modifiers, you can recreate what makes roguelikes attractive: Fishing for that perfect run.

      Imagine running a Rowdy deck, mercenary Sugarpuss, and you get a boon for starting with the rowdy troop that refills your resources. That'd send him spiralling out of control -so fast-!

      Fishing for a run where you just completely break the game is a lot of fun. Similar to the thrill of wiping out the chained goliath before he unchains.

      EDIT: Also, we still need the Rogue and Warlock. Those would refresh campaign content.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Firellius ().

    • Firellius wrote:

      Artifaction wrote:

      They could invest a (relatively) small portion of time creating resources and a systematic way of implementing those resources in random and increasing difficulty to form new dungeons on the fly, with characters from the story hindering/helping you - give us even one choice between games and it branches out enormously. Basically the FRA but endless. But don't replace the FRA having more content is better. Upon defeat you could opt to post a bounty - siege like bet that someone couldn't get further than you in that seed - maybe they take different paths that lead to an easier experience, maybe they get rekt.
      I suggested something like this a while ago. Roguelike gameplay coupled with procedural generation can create incredibly long-lasting content, and is the basis for entire games.
      My suggestion was to have a procedurally generated dungeon where the final boss is an incredibly unfair battle, BUT, along the way, every victory achieved awards the player some kind of boon that enhances their deck in subsequent fights. From small things like "You start with a battle hopper in play" to big things like "When you play a resource, draw a card". With a sufficiently heavy list of these kinds of modifiers, you can recreate what makes roguelikes attractive: Fishing for that perfect run.

      Imagine running a Rowdy deck, mercenary Sugarpuss, and you get a boon for starting with the rowdy troop that refills your resources. That'd send him spiralling out of control -so fast-!

      Fishing for a run where you just completely break the game is a lot of fun. Similar to the thrill of wiping out the chained goliath before he unchains.

      EDIT: Also, we still need the Rogue and Warlock. Those would refresh campaign content.
      Oh yeah there's a ridiculous room for things you could do to modify and add more content to an endless dungeon or dungeon generator to make it more entertaining and give it the lifespan they need to develop more flushed out story aspects of PVE. Keep us happy and busy while they create the world they wanted to all along. While I would really love to see single player content with ridiculously difficult or even unfair bosses for single player I'd rather have the journey contribute more towards the rewards than all or nothing boss fight at the end which would be super tempting for the devs to implement in this type of an experience. In the procedural PVE I want the more casual PVErs to be able to get value for their time invested as well, maybe each win gives you cards and gold (maybe a merc or three in the loot table) that increases with each win and has some diminishing returns. (Every 15 wins - don't have to be consecutive - earns you a pack - some combination of pvp commons pve commons uniques rares legendaries and equipment - with a chance of a Primal pack and the first PvE chests is what I'd do, and 100 150 200 250 etc gold per win capping at 500 and resetting upon loss).

      If they wanted to put it in campaign - and I'd suggest they did, it'd have a generic dungeon layout that populated itself with opponents and a hint of what made them difficult, then if they had a boss or not throw in a stair/portal to the next area behind everything - lots of room for flavor there maybe it goes down forever or you're climbing a tower.

      Letting players do the arena with campaign decks would also be pretty fun, saw someone mention recently that the FRA update didn't really count as a PvE update because of this disconnect, there's some sweet campaign decks I'd love to run into Uruunaz haha

    • What they dont make pve content anymore because we beat it faster then they make it ?

      I Ivested in the kickstarter because i was promised a TCG MMO, and a butload of cool features, all i got is 2 single player campaigns and PVP with to long ques to be botherd with. i probably spend a few thousand dolars on this game al in the good faith they where stil working on itand now they wont even bothered anymore with making the content they promised to us , the content they got the money for that made this game even possible. I was Disapointed before but christ. they can keep my money . i will avoid everything these ppl even remotely have anything to with like the plageu. mismanagement of funds , lack of transparency. Lack of respect for the fans that got them where they are now. i should sew them for false advertisement and misleading marketing but i cant be bothered, Till never again Hex entertainment

    • Lamiascale wrote:

      What they dont make pve content anymore because we beat it faster then they make it ?

      I Ivested in the kickstarter because i was promised a TCG MMO, and a butload of cool features, all i got is 2 single player campaigns and PVP with to long ques to be botherd with. i probably spend a few thousand dolars on this game al in the good faith they where stil working on itand now they wont even bothered anymore with making the content they promised to us , the content they got the money for that made this game even possible. I was Disapointed before but christ. they can keep my money . i will avoid everything these ppl even remotely have anything to with like the plageu. mismanagement of funds , lack of transparency. Lack of respect for the fans that got them where they are now. i should sew them for false advertisement and misleading marketing but i cant be bothered, Till never again Hex entertainment
      Really? While I agree the communication aspect has been quite poor ( Want some updates on the state of the game), I don't think it's a reason to swear off the game as a whole. Coming from someone has has spent more than a thousand dollars on the game I still find it enjoyable despite the lack of new content.

    • NightmareHitomi wrote:

      I don't think it's a reason to swear off the game
      He didn't. He swore off HXE.
      Which I agree with, to be honest. I wouldn't play HEX 2 if it was the exact same people working on it. I'd like them to keep the card/set designers because that was the best part. The PvE team needs a few changes, probably some people with better writting skills, but unfortunately they are very dependent on the programming team. The programmers need the biggest overhaul, or at least they need to hire people with more knowledge. It felt like it was 1 actual programmer and 1-2 hobbyists.

      And the head management team needs to get replaced entirely, because their decisions caused the need for "Hex 2".

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Vroengard ().

    • I think that you could save the game even now.

      Just have to do 4 things:

      1. Daily rewards with free packs, so that f2p players can get all cards without spending money. (e.g.: play 5 games and get 1 pack per day or so)

      2. Recycle System for cards and create new cards with these recycled cards (only from the same set). For example: recycle one rare card and get x rare shards. Create a random card with 10 shards or a specific card for 100 shards.

      3. If you want to play new PVE content let them pay for it, e.g. 4,99 Dollar or so. (same as other games)

      4. Free Tournament without paying but also no rewards or Combine f2p and paid tournaments (f2p=no rewards or small rewards // paid=normal rewards). Maybe 1 entry ticket for a "normal" tournament each week. (Weekly reward for playing the game pve or/and pvp)

      Just to get daily games and tournaments running and increase the player base.
      Its hard to play Hex without spending money and the grind is really difficult for a good deck.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by Necrotic ().

    • Necrotic wrote:

      I think that you could save the game even now.

      Just have to do 4 things:

      1. Daily rewards with free packs, so that f2p players can get all cards without spending money. (e.g.: play 5 games and get 1 pack per day or so)

      2. Recycle System for cards and create new cards with these recycled cards (only from the same set). For example: recycle one rare card and get x rare shards. Create a random card with 10 shards or a specific card for 100 shards.

      3. If you want to play new PVE content let them pay for it, e.g. 4,99 Dollar or so. (same as other games)

      4. Free Tournament without paying but also no rewards or Combine f2p and paid tournaments (f2p=no rewards or small rewards // paid=normal rewards). Maybe 1 entry ticket for a "normal" tournament each week. (Weekly reward for playing the game pve or/and pvp)

      Just to get daily games and tournaments running and increase the player base.
      Its hard to play Hex without spending money and the grind is really difficult for a good deck.
      I feel like the account level system was meant to cover point 1, maybe it didn't do it to what you wanted or maybe it just needed to be expanded upon like they had planned to, I felt it was great value and it got me hopping on to play games daily for months.

      Recycle System would be amazing.

      I really like that all of the PvE content is free, but I would absolutely pay to unlock character slots, to a lesser extent aesthetic options sleeves/coins/battleboards, or make an AA dust that can convert a card to it's alternate art version (or functional equivalent system that doesn't conflict with promotional items and associated value). Having the ability to purchase a secondary account would be awesome, even if it was a limited account that didn't allow trading like a self found cards only, everything account bound, and only cards opened from packs, drafted/evo/sealed, and rewards from campaign/siege/cosmic coins/kismet packs/arena would be added.

      There are plenty of free tournaments with great prize support, some of them fire some don't, don't think they really need to add more in that regard just need butts in seats. The Merry Melee really fills the void between casual players and old timers with vast collections (some more than others, the constructed ones are a bit iffy for a lot of players and hard to get going some days, or odd times when I get to play - could just be my experience).

      We need to sort out some major bugs to get the game back on track, COD issues especially when the few players playing have been around so long the only things they're really looking for are rare or expensive or both, not having a reliable way to safely trade is kind of a big deal. A re-release as Hex 2, could potentially be what the devs need in order to be legally allowed to talk about things going on their end with us, switching hands between companies back and forth, international privacy laws, Sony and their Ps4 deal for updates and ensuring new features work there and on PC is kind of a nightmare logistically, and what they are or aren't allowed to say, or promise, or apologize for from a legal stand point could leave them hands tied and us frustrated with them. It's unfortunate but until we get real communication we may never know the whole story and it's really easy to judge from our end, maybe Hex 2 being it's own game would allow that all to change, removing limitations like that and getting the game to more people.