ARC Playtest Round 1 : a summary
Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 09:54
Hi folks,
Last Thursday, for the first time in history a game of WTactics ARC was played.
I printed and cut the three decks 'Economics', 'Uneasy Alliance' and 'Gaian Love for Life'. We started sleeving 'Economics' and 'Uneasy Alliance' and thus the first duel went down between the HoN and an alliance of Dark Legion-Red Banner.
It was soon clear that the HoN deck was way more powerful and cards there were not balanced at all,
but that was kind of predicted since it was put together very fast. It was a good lesson though to explain the rules, the card types, the phases, and the layout of the table. My brother (Economics deck) had fun in beating me (Uneasy Alliance) with my own rules. Meanwhile, I was sleeving the defensive Gaian deck and I was set for a revenge
Great thing about playtesting is that you can change the rules whenever you like. In the first match we found that during a turn where you were paying for the city cost to become active, you couldn't do anything else. The cities and tactics phase didn't engage in the gameplay. So we changed the 'building cost' of a city by putting a 6-sided dice on the gold cost. Any turn you had some spare gold, we could pay a part of the cost, that worked better.
Sleeving all done, we set out for the second game, this time I played the Gaian deck, and the balance between the two decks was way way better, we had a lengthy battle indeed. Although the cities were build sooner and more of them became active, still the competition about the disciplines/tactics wasn't there. We tended to put our creatures in the army part and just attack.
Some nice maneuvers came out of the 'Uneasy Alliance' deck:I had this Majestic Griffin in my army, my bro had his 'Shadow in the dark' in one of my cities, and he played 'Abduction' to move my griffin to that city and used his SiTd to finish it off. Damn strategy worked also for my gigantic 'Sequoia Sapplings'.
He also kept my two regeneration cards out of play. (Botanist and Falconer). Meanwhile I got stuck with two 'Early Springs' cards, which I definitely mislabeled 'magic' instead of 'event', so I could only pump up my trees and flowers during my own turn. Since trees and lowers are 'Peaceful' (no attacking), the card was useless.
Some first conclusions:
- cities were underutilized because it takes a long time to get them active, and compete for the advantages
- we were drawn to army combat instead.
- the player/hero card was more confusing then helpful.
- the resource system worked well (after two/three turns of the first game everyone got it)
- table layout worked, there was no confusion about the areas and residents in cities were easily identifiable. The physical area had the same depth as a typical MtG setup, the width was a bit (c.a. 20%) wider, but very doable.
- card draw went much faster and farther then a typical MtG game, reaching about 80% of the deck.
- face down cities are not good, we just marked cities instead.
I'll change some cards and fix some errors on them. And organize a second round playtesting aiming at better involvement of the cities, following options were suggested:
1. Putting creatures in play can only be done in a city (not directly in an army), this would also make the 'entrance phase' redundant. This also means the cities are populated by default
2. Lowering the cost of the cities; or;
3. Pay for the 'building' cost partly (with unused resources during each turn); or;
4. Make the cost time/turn based; or;
5. Select one city to be active at game setup;
All in all, we could play the game (it was not broken), so its a good staring point.
Kind regards,
Nico
Last Thursday, for the first time in history a game of WTactics ARC was played.
I printed and cut the three decks 'Economics', 'Uneasy Alliance' and 'Gaian Love for Life'. We started sleeving 'Economics' and 'Uneasy Alliance' and thus the first duel went down between the HoN and an alliance of Dark Legion-Red Banner.
It was soon clear that the HoN deck was way more powerful and cards there were not balanced at all,
but that was kind of predicted since it was put together very fast. It was a good lesson though to explain the rules, the card types, the phases, and the layout of the table. My brother (Economics deck) had fun in beating me (Uneasy Alliance) with my own rules. Meanwhile, I was sleeving the defensive Gaian deck and I was set for a revenge
Great thing about playtesting is that you can change the rules whenever you like. In the first match we found that during a turn where you were paying for the city cost to become active, you couldn't do anything else. The cities and tactics phase didn't engage in the gameplay. So we changed the 'building cost' of a city by putting a 6-sided dice on the gold cost. Any turn you had some spare gold, we could pay a part of the cost, that worked better.
Sleeving all done, we set out for the second game, this time I played the Gaian deck, and the balance between the two decks was way way better, we had a lengthy battle indeed. Although the cities were build sooner and more of them became active, still the competition about the disciplines/tactics wasn't there. We tended to put our creatures in the army part and just attack.
Some nice maneuvers came out of the 'Uneasy Alliance' deck:I had this Majestic Griffin in my army, my bro had his 'Shadow in the dark' in one of my cities, and he played 'Abduction' to move my griffin to that city and used his SiTd to finish it off. Damn strategy worked also for my gigantic 'Sequoia Sapplings'.
He also kept my two regeneration cards out of play. (Botanist and Falconer). Meanwhile I got stuck with two 'Early Springs' cards, which I definitely mislabeled 'magic' instead of 'event', so I could only pump up my trees and flowers during my own turn. Since trees and lowers are 'Peaceful' (no attacking), the card was useless.
Some first conclusions:
- cities were underutilized because it takes a long time to get them active, and compete for the advantages
- we were drawn to army combat instead.
- the player/hero card was more confusing then helpful.
- the resource system worked well (after two/three turns of the first game everyone got it)
- table layout worked, there was no confusion about the areas and residents in cities were easily identifiable. The physical area had the same depth as a typical MtG setup, the width was a bit (c.a. 20%) wider, but very doable.
- card draw went much faster and farther then a typical MtG game, reaching about 80% of the deck.
- face down cities are not good, we just marked cities instead.
I'll change some cards and fix some errors on them. And organize a second round playtesting aiming at better involvement of the cities, following options were suggested:
1. Putting creatures in play can only be done in a city (not directly in an army), this would also make the 'entrance phase' redundant. This also means the cities are populated by default
2. Lowering the cost of the cities; or;
3. Pay for the 'building' cost partly (with unused resources during each turn); or;
4. Make the cost time/turn based; or;
5. Select one city to be active at game setup;
All in all, we could play the game (it was not broken), so its a good staring point.
Kind regards,
Nico