18 February 2015 -combat opinion
Hearthstone, It seems that she finally closed the theme of digital card games. Blizzard made a niche genre in a niche genre, and now all the others seem to not exist. And how do these others are going on – Scrolls, Duel of Champions, Faeria, Hex?..
In fact, not at all bad. The trick is that while all attention is paid to the side Hearthstone – Simple, funny and so affordable – news related to the rest of the KKI, beyond their communities, almost no heard.
Similarly with Infinity Wars. She was unlucky to go out almost simultaneously with Hearthstone, and for the broad masses she was actually lost. True, she hardly needs the very widest masses: the developers asked for only five thousand dollars on Kickstarter, and collected a little more than seventeen. This game is clearly not for everyone. The creators of Infinity Wars deliberately went against fashion and made not a simple kKI, but a difficult. Like the ancestor Magic: The Gathering.
One way or another, a couple of days ago Infinity Wars Started in Russian. We decided that this is a good reason to return to her.
► developers are not shy about developing the game in unexpected directions. So, with one of the modules there were sets of maps based on Star Trek. Of course, they do not interfere in the main game-this is an independent expansion, something like Unigned for Magic: The Gathering.
In infinity and back
Infinity Wars In any way, it is in any way with the same series of Marvel comics, as well as with the "endless crisis" of the DC universe. Here its own universe is either technogenic fantasy, or cyberpunk, or post -apocalypse where corporations do their corporate affairs, broken nanobots turn people into zombies, the cultists practice the features know what magic and the heavily armed angels in the plagsus are rolled in the name of the moon. A little Warhammer 40 000 , Something from Shadowrun , from " Equilibrium "Or some" Steel alchemist ". There are many things.
In general, both the picture of the world and the mechanics, the developers approached with some manic scrupulousness. Hearthstone prefers to get rid of excess mechanics, and Infinity Wars , on the contrary, it turns everything and more.
Take, say, the structure of the game field: in Hearthstone You can simply put the monster card on the table, but here you and the enemy have four zones at once, where the cards played are folded. In the attack zone, there are cards of creatures that, which, is logical, should attack, in the protection zone – creatures that will take a blow. Those monsters are put in the support zone who should still refrain from active actions, and the heroes and monsters occupy the command zone, which you decided to use for passive effects.
In the decks, you can mix cards of any of the seven fractions, but whether you can use them, is entirely determined by the composition of the command area. If the creatures in it in total give enough purity points of a particular fraction, the card can be played.
► playing field. Accustomed to asceticism of the most popular digital TCG, it is easy to get confused in it, but understanding of mechanics comes quite quickly.
There is still familiar for Magic: The Gathering a cemetery where all the defeated monsters are sent (not counting the cases when the creation is displayed from the game for good or, say, sleeping Avarah lift the unfortunate in the form of a zombie), and together with the cemetery and the possibility of different manipulations with the deceased. There are cards that change the appearance of the battlefield and bring new conditions to the party. There is a second scale of health (it is a scale of “morality”, that is, a fighting spirit), the indicator of which falls when you lose monsters. Having relyed it, the enemy wins the same as if he had left you without health, and this does not allow you to easily hide behind the legions of cheap meat.
There are a lot of nuances. Monsters can be freely moved between the zones (except for the cemetery, of course) at almost any time, but there is one specific subtlety: both players walk simultaneously. You and your opponent are planning a move, press a button and see how your decisions will affect each other. In this regard Infinity Wars Reminds multiplayer Laser Squad Nemesis (or Frozen Synapse), only with cards instead of ordinary combat units. In fact, this works great and makes you think in a completely different plane.
In relation to the balance Infinity Wars much closer to cold and multidimensional Magic: The Gathering , than for the festive Hearthstone. Or, if such an analogy is nicer for you, this Dota from https://winomania-gb-casino.co.uk/ the world of KKI: here everyone is capable of such that in a more restrained Hearthstone completely broke the rules. In one move, you can carry out a non -whaled combination that, in the laboratory conditions, would not have left the trace of the enemy, but in a real battle the opponent’s response will probably break this combination. The intersection of your plans will not give the result that you both expected. And this should be calculated ahead.
► All cards are animated. Some look excellent, others are a little worse, but this is no wonder: in the end, their score goes on hundreds.
To learn how to play well in Infinite Wars , several hundred parties will be required. As well as a lot of cards and time (or money) to get them.
With the help of rare cards, you can carry out incredibly destructive combinations in one move – however, they still need to be obtained. Fortunately, Infinity Wars unexpectedly reverently refers to the sacred first “K” from the abbreviation of KKI – this is a collectible card game. Cards can be exchanged with other players, and it is very relevant in itself: the game is quite generously divided in packs with random cards, but if it purposefully caroling resources for specific legendary specimens, this can take a lot of time. Therefore, take everything unnecessary – and exchange.
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From the threshold include in Infinity Wars Pretty difficult. After a set of simple (although vast and moderately instructive) campaigns you will have something about seven hundred cards and a pack of basic decks-and this is still not enough to play at a serious level. At times, the matchmaking match puts you against players of much more skillful, famously trampling an inexperienced opponent in the ground. But, on the other hand, even such skirmishes may turn out to be at least instructive.
There is very little element of randomness and a lot of cold calculation and planning. This is the exact opposite Hearthstone : not so elegant and dynamic, but much deeper. Probably what you still miss.