State of Game: March 2014

A few of my friends (and I imagine many Hex backers) have been passive in their involvement in the Alpha.  The game has been updated on a weekly basis, and it is sometimes difficult to keep up with everything.  So I'm going to give everyone who has been watching from the sidelines an idea of where the state of the game is as of now.

How often do we get updates?

The two main venues of information HEX fans have come from Cory Jones's blog (which updates roughly every Wednesday) and from the main site which patches every Thursday/Friday.  Links to Cory's Blog and HEX main page provided here.

Should I invest into Slacker Backer?

If you haven't backed Hex and you want Alpha/Closed-Beta access, then the simple answer is yes.  Slacker Backer will be going away on April 1st, and Alpha/Beta will be one of your only opportunities to play with four copies of every card in the first set.  If you plan on getting into PvP and want to test out some decks, now is a decent time to back since nearly every card from Set 1 is in the game.  Though many bugs still exist, it's worthwhile testing if you plan on getting into PvP.  If you plan on foregoing PvP and just playing PvE, I would not recommend investing in the Slacker Backer for reasons I will state later in the article.

How is Constructed PvP?

Alternate art cards like Hex Engine will
be available in Treasure Chests,
which are acquired with boosters.

Decent, but buggy.  The first set has almost been fully implemented in the Alpha (a little over thirty cards remain if everything from the initial set list stays).  One of the difficulties is that though every patch releases a handful of cards, the coding often breaks a portion of the game that causes a handful of already released cards to not work properly.  Zombie Plague was released functional in Patch 824, but after last week's patch it no longer functions.  Other cards like Spirit Dance hasn't worked properly in several patches.  PVP seems to be what Cryptozoic is focused on as far as moving from Alpha to Closed Beta and eventually a monetized Open Beta.

How is Limited PvP?

There isn't draft yet, but there are Sealed tournaments available once a queue reaches eight people.  Once a card is patched into the game, it's immediately available for Sealed, even if it's bugged.  This may seem discouraging, but many cards will be much more effective in limited, so it's good to see them in their "natural habitat."  The tournaments themselves are somewhat hit or miss.  I've tried a Sealed tournament about once a week and have yet to complete one.  It's difficult to justify spending the time waiting in queue for a tournament that will likely not finish if you are looking for the tournament experience, but even without playing every game, you do get the chance to test your deckbuilding skills, which again is free until the game goes Open Beta.

How is PvE?

Non-existent, and there's a growing chance that when the game enters Open Beta and the collections are wiped that there will be limited PvE content, if any.  Cryptozoic's basic argument for moving ahead without it is that if the monetized version can support drafts and sealed and PvP, then there is no reason to withhold those from the people that just want to do that.  This makes sense from a business standpoint, since most of the reason for buying in game currency will be for tournaments, specifically limited.  PvE content also requires that the core gameplay to function as it should, so a standard PvP mode acts as a prerequisite.

The main problem is that a lot of people want to play HEX specifically for the PvE content.  It's what sets it apart from Hearthstone and MTGO (the pricepoint also sets it apart from the latter).  If the PvP is released in full before any dungeon is released, it will seem as if the PvE portion of the game is superfluous. 

Any other major features implemented?

The inclusion of deck sleeves and the card layout change have been the major changes since February.  The new layout in particular have suggested the Doubleback/Modification features of individual cards will be available soon, along with the extended-artwork versions of cards.  What's encouraging is that most of these additions are very recent, and have not effected the number of card additions patched in each week.