Online Card Games Thread

[Wingflier]

Holy crap dude, concerning Skyrim (or as Mana said, boredom simulator 2014):

I knew everyone was into this game, and I essentially built a bomb shelter and attempted to avoid the hype, letting it pass over me until it was gone. Unfortunately for me the hype is still going. My brother-in-law plays it (and Fallout 4), and he got my sister playing it.

My dad has had a piece of crap laptop for the last 10 years, and he finally decided to invest in a worthy gaming machine (seriously I had to talk him into it, originally he was going for integrated graphics so that he could have a "rotatable touchscreen" [kill me]). I was very excited about this as it would open up a lot of options for co-op games that we could finally play together that, hitherto his computer was too shit to play.

Unfortunately, my sister introduced him to Skyrim first and now that's all he does. He's literally unemployed and all I see him doing is sitting on Steam playing Skryim. I went to see him on vacation this Christmas so he could show me what was so damn exciting about it. We connected the laptop to the big screen TV to get the ultimate effect, and after about 20 minutes of it, I believe I would have been more content watching paint dry.

I think that in my duration there on vacation, which was about 2 weeks, I must have seen him go through the beginning sequence of the game like 15 times. If you haven't played it, it's this sequence where you literally can't do anything for about 20 minutes, and you're being carted off with a bunch of other prisoners to the chopping block for some unnamed crime. It's essentially a movie, just with much, much shittier graphics and terrible acting.

Well anyway, about 10 seconds before the executioner cuts your head off a dragon shows up (big surprise) and saves you. Except I guess technically it wasn't saving you, that was just an accident. It just happened to attack the moment before your head was separated from your body.

So queue this overdramatic movie sequence of people running around as a badly animated dragon kind of half-assedly breaths fire and walks around smacking people every so often. I guess it's supposed to create tension and suspense, but given that you're invincible during this time, I suppose it was lost on me.

What was this rant even about? Oh well, now you have to read it.

[Misery]

...Seriously, Dark Souls.  I'm so tired of it at this point.

Funny, I don't know of anyone who still plays even Dark Souls 3, aside from myself, because I still haven't finished it. But I'm rarely in Windows these days so it sees very little play.

But I recognize the feeling. Was the same for me when Skyrim was released, and Fallout 3, and Fallout 4...and basically any big, overrated AAA boredom-simulator recently.

Ugh, freaking Fallout.  THat's the OTHER thing everyone I know plays.  Over and over and over.  Yet another "expansive" open world OMG SO MANY THINGS TO DO game.  I swear, for games with so many things to do, it always feels to me that there's next to nothing to do, because it's all so bloody easy/mindless.

And "AAA boredom simulator" is a term I'm now going to make a point of using as much as possible.

Holy crap dude, concerning Skyrim (or as Mana said, boredom simulator 2014):

I knew everyone was into this game, and I essentially built a bomb shelter and attempted to avoid the hype, letting it pass over me until it was gone. Unfortunately for me the hype is still going. My brother-in-law plays it (and Fallout 4), and he got my sister playing it.

My dad has had a piece of crap laptop for the last 10 years, and he finally decided to invest in a worthy gaming machine (seriously I had to talk him into it, originally he was going for integrated graphics so that he could have a "rotatable touchscreen" [kill me]). I was very excited about this as it would open up a lot of options for co-op games that we could finally play together that, hitherto his computer was too shit to play.

Unfortunately, my sister introduced him to Skyrim first and now that's all he does. He's literally unemployed and all I see him doing is sitting on Steam playing Skryim. I went to see him on vacation this Christmas so he could show me what was so damn exciting about it. We connected the laptop to the big screen TV to get the ultimate effect, and after about 20 minutes of it, I believe I would have been more content watching paint dry.

I think that in my duration there on vacation, which was about 2 weeks, I must have seen him go through the beginning sequence of the game like 15 times. If you haven't played it, it's this sequence where you literally can't do anything for about 20 minutes, and you're being carted off with a bunch of other prisoners to the chopping block for some unnamed crime. It's essentially a movie, just with much, much shittier graphics and terrible acting.

Well anyway, about 10 seconds before the executioner cuts your head off a dragon shows up (big surprise) and saves you. Except I guess technically it wasn't saving you, that was just an accident. It just happened to attack the moment before your head was separated from your body.

So queue this overdramatic movie sequence of people running around as a badly animated dragon kind of half-assedly breaths fire and walks around smacking people every so often. I guess it's supposed to create tension and suspense, but given that you're invincible during this time, I suppose it was lost on me.

What was this rant even about? Oh well, now you have to read it.

Ah yes, freaking Skyrim.  I dont understand that any more than I do Fallout.   I have the game, bought it to at least give it a try, I spent a few hours with it to give it a fair go, and.... bleh.   I dont get it any more than you do.

It doesnt help that half the stuff in the game is pointless.  Like, you get all these skills and a millionty different spells, right, but you DONT NEED ANY OF THEM.  Combat is of the totally brainless sort, enemies are dumber than stumps, and it's like alot of JRPGs in that te ONLY times you'll use certain heavier spells is against very specific boss fights, yet even then you dont really need to.  All these extensive stats and items and magic and none of it has a bit of meaning (yet you'll still get people babbling enthusiastically about their amaaaaazing character build, because it's so very very hard, isnt it).  It's just there so that it can be said to be there.  Same with half of the freaking game world.  LOTS of space, not much in it.   And then 8 squillion stupid talky bits.  Every tiny little task must be preceeded with a conversation tree.  And whatever.  Ugh. 


I can understand, to a point, the appeal of an "open world" game.  But the only one I've ever liked was Just Cause 2.  THAT game, I freaking loved.  It didn't bother with "unnecessary" crap, is a huge part of it.  It didn't pretend to have much of a storyline for instance:  Your goal was literally to cause as much chaos as you could on the island to destabilize the local military or... whatever.  It gave you the barest minimum, said "these are the bad guys, telling you so that you recognize them", and then it just lets you go.  Tasks that you do arent prefaced with totally pointless dialogue.  For example one goal is often taking down these various military bases on the island (focal points of challenge for the game, usually also involving a major fight against some large military machine).  You dont have to talk to characters to get the mystical Lump of Destiny to open the door to whatever, you just scale the damn fence when you damn well feel like going for it (or do something like grab a plane, fly over, and parachute down into the center of it, because why shouldnt you be able to do that?).  And then other things are put in very clearly just for fun/challenge like the flying courses, which have *zero* story to them, it's just "Hey, wanna grab this plane and fly through this daredevil course?  Why?  Why not?".  Gameplay elements are clearly made to be just outright FUN and exciting rather than thematic, such as the whole grappling-hook / parachute thing, which is about as realistic as a unicorn but holy freaking crap was it a blast to use, and it allowed for alot of vertical gameplay and creative area design.   Also the game was COLORFUL.  Tropical island, you see.    It was an open world sandbox game that A: actually offered real challenge and excitement (combat was really fun, and you could approach it in all sorts of ways), and B: it didn't pretend to have some big "deep" story or whatever just because "Well that's what AAA games do".   Hell, later in the game it starts throwing ninjas at you.  They teleport.  Why?  Because why the bloody hell not?  Ninjas are fun, so they added some damn ninjas.  THAT is game design I can understand.

Overall it was the direct opposite of ALL other "open world" games I"ve ever seen.  It wasnt this drab, run down world, it didn't have the endless talking, and it didn't have mechanics shoehorned in JUST because "well it fits the theme".  Instead it had things thrown in because the devs thought it'd be A: fun or B: hilarious.  THe game did well, but naturally it didn't get anywhere NEAR stuff like SKyrim or Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs or all of those that people go bonkers over.

As always, it baffles me.  Hell, friends of mine had that response too.  They'll play the boredom festivals of Skyrim and Fallout, but introduce them to something that's very specifically designed to just be exciting and fun, and "oh, but it's not all DEEP with a STORY" seemed to be the response.  So of course I was the only one who played it.   They got to romp verrrrryyyyyyyyy slowly around Skyrim while engaging in super awkward "battle" with braindead foes one at at a time, wheras I got to Batman my way around this awesome place at high speeds (with NO RESTRICTIONS on where I could go, and of course I could grab vehicles if Iwanted to) and do things like have crazy rooftop battles (not because of a scripted reason, its' just where the battle happened to take place), knock dudes off of said rooftop with a giant soundwave gun (hilarious way to end an otherwise difficult battle against a "miniboss" sort of character), or latch an enemy onto a semi and watch it drive away like that.   It was just plain FUN.

Try to explain that to most people these days and it's like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a small poodle.  I'll never understand how something like Skyrim could be considered to be a good time, I really wont.


There, that's my own mini-rant over with. 

[TheVampire100]

My WLan does not work, so I have to type this with my mobile phone. I will keep it short:
There is a reason why these games are popular and why many people play and praise and not all of this is because of hype or stupidity or marketing. I dont like it when people call games call these "Boredom Simulator" because they dont like the genre. I dont go out and call Visual Novels "Picture Book Simulator" because I dont like them. There are simply games that are liked by different people, I would NEVER touch Postal and its many sequels and spin off titles but because of this I wont call the game out as stupid for mindless people. And I even know people that play this.

Also, keep in mind that not every single game has to be a challenge, either for mind or body (reaction time). Sometimes you want something simple, something easy that is still fun. Open World games are for these people. That does not make them or their playerbase stupid, just simple.
These are different words and U would appreciate if you would use them correctly.

[Misery]

This all may be true, but what really gets me is that due to the way it's all handled... and due to things like graphics-obsession in the industry... people usually wont even TRY other things that may, in fact, prove to be quite a bit better.  I mean, hell:  Nobody can deny that Skyrim was STUFFED with issues.  Bethesda's games are bloody legendary for being terribly buggy.  I know that bugs are hard to deal with in development, but the sheer level of it in those is inexcusable.  This is a developer I genuinely see as very lazy.

Yet because of the many trends I complain about all the time, devs like Bethesda are given a free pass.  Games of decidedly low quality are touted as the best, and nobody even TRIES anything else.   Hell, even I'm willing to at least try stuff. 

Feh, I dunno.  Call it an expression of general frustration at the industry overall rather than JUST unpleasantness directed at specific games.  As you've likely noticed,I sound like this all the time, heh.  I hope nobody gets TOO bothered by it. I certainly never mean to offend.

[Mánagarmr]

I dunno. I'd rather watch a movie than "enjoy" Bethesda's failing attempts at making a visual novel. Those facial animations and that voice acting can scare anyone to hell.

There are games that absolutely are not really games, but more an experience. Like Firewatch, for instance. Now I haven't played it myself, but a lot of people have and have said it had a profound effect on them because you actually got to know the characters.

Skyrim is the blandest of bland cardboard cutouts and about as deep as a tiny puddle in a drizzle, topped by amazingly boring mechanics. I guess it appeals to the casual crowd, but for anyone craving any kind of interaction or challenge it's just soul-crushingly boring. Add on top of that the thousands of grating bugs and an interface designed specifically to make you cut your thumbs off and shove them in your eye sockets...well, you get the idea.

[TheVampire100]

I dont agree on that but I dont feel like explaining why I think Skyrim is a great game. In the end, its my experience, not yours.
Also, dont play Firewatch. You will get disappointed.

[TheVampire100]

Finally got my internet back, can now play Duelyst again. They are working for a mobile version anyway, but until then I need my PC to play.
Playing Mabinogi Duel was however very fun, will continue to play it.

The arena system is interesting but one of my main complaints is, that the game has a weird system when it comes to multiple cards of the same type.
One thing to notice is, with new sets being released, all carda are included int hese as well but with a new artwork. While this is nothing new in older TCGs, Magic does this very often because they have so many cards but some of the older cards are still staple, in video games you dont need this because if you want to change the artwork, you can simply change the old card instead of rereleasing it.
I wondered about this some time until I noticed why they do this: There is no card cap like in other card games. Normally you have a cap of 2, 3 or 4 cards at max because thats the max you can put in a deck. You don't need more because you can put the same amount of cards an as many decks as possible.

In real card games this is of course not true, if you have a card in one deck, but want to use it in another, you either need a new copy of it or have to take it from that deck.
Mabinogi Duel tries to simulate this... somehow. Basically, if you havea card in one deck, you still can put it into another deck, but you can use the card only once in arena registered decks. This means if you register a deck with the card "firebolt" (a classic Mabinogi spell, lol) to a arena, but create a new deck with the same card, you cannot register the second deck to arenas. You can use the deck in friendly duels, in AI missions and the story mode but the rewards of these are rather low and they are not considered "ranked". The reason why this is that way is not because they want to simulate real card games but because you can enter multiple decks at once in the same arena (depending on the arena), for example the Rookie PvE arena has space for two decks. Each deck earns individually points and can get individually rewards, so basically you can get twice the same reward if you would use the same deck twice. That way the system ensures you HAVE to ue other cards, so you get a different result. Or you just need two of each card. because of this, trading is even more needed because good players gather important, staple cards for their multiple decks, cards like hunt, surprise attack, trap in the castle and so on. These cards are so valuable, that veteran players have a lot of them. The other, more rare cards, are maybe good but because they are situational for "specific types of decks" you don't need more than one of them.

PvP arena (which lets you directly duel an enemy instead of an AI deck) works a little differently. It still applies the "every card counts once" rule but the points of each deck are count together instead individually. That means you get only one reward but you need more points for better ranks and the rewards are generally better.

It's interesting to note, that PvE can earn you points while being offline because the AI will of course win also duels. If it does so, you get points. The AI itself gets also stronger, the better you have performed in Arena during your matches. It does not get smarter or anything but it gets a boost on its resources at the start of the match. The opponent starts also with less HP, but your Ai will face stronger opponents than, that have defeated already many other enemies. It's a little complicated, if you are interested int he concept (which is really, really interesting), you can read it up here:
http://mabinogiduelwiki.com/index.php/PvE

Also, don't think it's easy to accumuluate points in PvE just because you play against the AI. The AI may be not so smart as real players but it is definetely smarter than AIs in other card games.

If anyone ever gets this game, I'm ready for some trades and helpful tips.

[Toranth]

Finally got my internet back, can now play Duelyst again. They are working for a mobile version anyway, but until then I need my PC to play.

Yeah, Duelyst... I think I may be pretty much done with that game.  It's too fast - most games were 4-5 turns total.  Sometimes, it'd be a guaranteed loss by the end of turn 2.  Combine that with the out-of-hand 20 damage kill decks, and it was 90% RNG and 100% netdecking.
I did every Daily Challenge, and mostly enjoyed them (I loved that part of the original Duelist Magazine), but they've been replaced by "Boss Battles", playable for reward once every two weeks.  Just not enough there to keep my interest.  I'll try for a bit longer, but I think this is the end.

Switched to Eternal, which was being talked up here, and I'm certainly enjoying the longer games.  I'll have a better opinion in a few weeks, though, after I have some experience under my belt.

[Wingflier]

Awesome Toranth, let me know how it goes.

[TheVampire100]

Started to play Eternal, I like the "Casual Magic" approach. It rememebrs me of my old days of "Duel Master". A simpler Magic the Gathering for people that don't want to learn 1000 cards and effects at once. Seriously, nowadays you need a encyclopedia to play this properly. Problem with magic (the real one, not any digital attempts) is, that they stopped to write down what the effects exactly do on cards and just write down the keyword. Logically to save space, so you can hammer more effects down on a single card. But if you don't know every single effect out from your mind, you have to consult a guide for this o just ask your opponent. Who might not be entirely honest to you, to get an advantage.
Anyway, I will enjoy Eternal for the calmer singleplayer sessions. I don't see why I should play ranked at all because singleplayer gives me everythign I need. I get quick matches, I get very decent rewards (seriously, almost for every win you get a card or even a full pack) and what I really love about this game, no stupid deck limit, no faction limit. Build your deck as much as you like, go with 200+ cards in one deck if you want and include all 5 factions. I hate it when card games limit you to "30" cards or similiar bullshit while you know that you just need that one single card to maximize your synergy. However, the lower deck limit is icredibly high, even higehr than in Magic (which is funny because they are literally the same game), so... milling cards are must haves for your decks.

Mabinogi Duel has released a crossover event booster today. It's aviable for five days and costs the normal amount of 30 jewels. Less with tickets. Soem cards are okay, some are aweful but a few cards are really powerful. what makes this booster so different compared to the normal cards is, that some cards have the effect that they negate abilities of creatures. As far as I know, no other card did that before but than again, Mabinogi Duel has already over 1000 cards and I don't know every single one.
Also, "Capture" should be pretty much in every deck from now on. You want to get the cards from your opponent, so you get their effects.

[WolfWhiteFire]

Yeah Eternal is a fairly fun game, some lore would be nice though it is only in a sort of alpha stage right now, leaving room for lots of improvement, I like how it has a mobile app that I sometimes use to play it on the go as well. It is pretty generous at the moment in terms of what cards it gives you. The discord channel has a beginner question section that I have found very useful whenever I have a question. The game is also free, and unlike my experience with magic you don't have to spend a ridiculous sum of money or (not sure if this applies to eternal as well, I haven't played enough yet, but...) copy the meta decks in order to do well. Some lore, which I have been told will eventually be added, would really add a lot to the game in my opinion though. But hey, it is pretty decent even though it is far from complete.

[TheVampire100]

Some lore could be nice, I would be interested in to know more about this fantasy western world. I love this shit. I'm a huge fan of "The Dark Tower" from Stephen King. However, I don't think in card games has to be lore at all. I can just play the card game for the game itself. And this comes from someone who is a fan of good story in video games.
Mabinogi Duel has however a very good story mode, one that I haven't seen so far done in another card game.

Come to think of Mabinogi Duel, I got yesterday a shareable gift from the game. I can share 5 gems with 8 other firends currently until 9th march. If you register to the game and give me your playername, I can give you 5 gems as head start. A small reminder, a normal booster pack costs 30 gems, most of the time less because you have tickets that reduce the price around 10-20%.

[WolfWhiteFire]

I just made an account for the game called WolfFlame, because my regular name for stuff was too long for the game, and I didn't really have any better ideas. What exactly is this event going on by the way? Also thanks.

[TheVampire100]

Send friend request, you just have to accept it, then I will sent the gift to you.
Blaze Blue Cossover event. Characters of Blazeblue (I think this is a fighting game?) are made into cards. Some of them are really terrible, but some are just awesome. You can get them from a booster for a limited time, there will be three different boosters and each one will last five days. The current (first) one is still aviable for two days left. The signature card (card on the front cover of the pack) is"Ragna the Blooddge". I don't know him but I guess he is an important Character in Blaze Blue. Anyway, his effect is really great. His Stats not so much to be honest. He absorbs HP from the nearest oppenent to him at teh end of each turn. At the start of each turn he looses HP but also damages the enemy hero in the process. If left unanswered, he will eventually wear down the enemy or even kill him. For 3 light he is also cheap to play, excellent for the second round to have initial threat to be answered.

The one card however, that really spins out of control, is Tsubaki. Card starts out weak but snowballs hard if you can protect her. Her effect allows her to gather energy (tokens put on the card) each turn and she deals the amount of eenrgy she has as damage to three random enemies (or to the same enemy, if there are less than three). Starts with 1 energy (2 on level 3) but if you can keep her alive, she will kill everything on the very turn your opponents summons a card. Since there don't exist rush cards int he game, all he can do is kill or capture her. Best used with spell counter to protect her from instakills.

There are some other good cards but these two are the ones that stick out the most.


Addiotionally there is an event arena that allows only creatures to be played, no spells. I guess because Blazeblue is a fighting game and they want to match the situation? Anyway, this is an interesting concept for a card game that relies so much on removal spells.

They recently also increased the rewards for arena again after they decreased it soem time ago. I'm happy they stick to the old values again because the newer rewards weren't really helpful. Now you can get 6 jewels in Rookie arena even if you don't get a place at all. With two registered decks this means 12 jewels which is half a booster with a 20% price reduction ticket. All you have to do is play one match per deck and win or loose accordingly. If you play more and reach silver rank, you can get even more jewels.

If you need some help in terms of cards or what to build into a deck, I can help as well. I got soem good knowledge on the game and know, what's good or bad. The game is actually easy to learn and master.

[WolfWhiteFire]

Seems a bit buggy, I have played maybe 5 minutes and there is a message icon even though I checked and have no new messages, and the game crashed while I was deciding whether to accept Cat Merchant's trade offer.