The Equinox team shared details on the ongoing Marketplace and Print-on-Demand Beta Phase 2 as well as insights on game design in the State of the Game AMA March 31. Chief Marketing Officer Eric Dieulangard and Game Designer Charles Wickham fielded questions from players for the hour-long live event while Lokinox provided answers in the video’s chat.

While the big news is definitely focused around the Marketplace and Print-on-Demand services, players asked many questions related to the mid-season patch and game balance.

Marketplace and Print-on-Demand Beta Phase 2

Phase 2 of the beta will start April 1, as outlined in the recent article, with alternating opening and closing periods to stress-test offered services. Fewer than 100 people will be invited to the beta initially, and those have already been chosen. More will be invited as the test goes on, with the end goal of being able to announce the release date of the Marketplace and Print-on-Demand services.

For the time being, the cap for selling cards online is $250 due to legal reasons, said Eric. Though there’s no word as to when it could happen, that should change in the future.

Participating in Phase 2 of the beta does not require a non-disclosure agreement, so players are able to talk freely about the experience as needed.

Mid-season patch insights

In the mid-season patch article, Charles said the meta was in a solid place (our own team had opinions to share on the issue). From the team’s perspective, it’s all right that some heroes, currently Sigismar and Afanas, are better than others. While it would be a goal to have a balanced meta, it’s a challenging target to hit. He said that they’re seeing other decks performing at a high level of play, even if they aren’t showing up at the same rates as the top two right now.

The hero play data included in the mid-season patch article did not include starter decks, meaning that it focused only on custom constructed decks on BGA, according to Lokinox.

Charles hopes the newly updated Haven will help Axiom get more play in the lead-up to Whispers from the Maze.

One particular disappointment for the team is the underperformance of Axiom (the entire faction is currently getting about 11% of play on BGA, compared to Sigismar alone receiving 14%), but Charles hoped the updated release of Haven would make up that difference.

Some heroes, like those that look for a specific type of card like Atsadi or Rin, might struggle now while other heroes have access to a wider pool of cards that make them easier to play naturally, said Eric. As more sets come out, those heroes will have more options to work with.

As the team works on new cards, they try to develop options to support the heroes who shine a bit less so they can perform better in the future, Charles said.

It’s also a question of who you are as a player, whether you focus on the meta or more casual play, Eric said. It’s going to take a while before the game has a big enough pool of cards so that every hero has a lot of options.

While Haven has been benched, Treyst and Subhash have both struggled to find a niche in the meta, and the hope is that they’ll start to get more traction after the mid-season patch, Charles said. They’re also looking to the future for possible cards in upcoming sets.

Afanas and Sigismar are seeing a lot of success in competitive tournaments currently, but there are also many other decks online, Charles said. The team is aware that deck dominance can be a negative experience for players, which can lead to an unhealthy play balance. They’re looking at a creative solution in the future, though Charles did not specifiy what that was. While the current top two decks might seem easy to play to some players, he disagreed that they’re the easiest to approach.

For Afanas, the team thought it would be tougher for players to achieve the balance of getting characters into play and then playing spells to repeatedly make use of his ability, said Charles.

In terms of handling hero balance, Eric said he’s looking forward to reading Charles’ next articles.

Some cards, such as the Foundry Armorer uniques, were caught up in the first mid-season patch because the team could see how TBF cards would interact with them in a problematic way, Charles said. Cards are finished roughly a year in advance, and it was better to handle problem cards before they became an issue.

Errata for Gericht and Foundry Armorer uniques should be coming through at the latest in the next patch (which will be arriving shortly before the release of WFM, according to the previously established milestones). Errata for the Jellyfish uniques is still being worked on, as reported in the TBF mid-season patch notes.

One of the reasons for that timing is that it can be difficult to synchronize the digital changes with the balance team’s schedule to roll out changes, said Eric.

Cards like Small Step, Giant Leap or Grand Endeavor that cause hero/companion progressions outside of dusk can be frustrating to play against when they show up repeatedly in gameplay, Charles said. The team is looking into ways to make those experiences better, hopefully in the next patch.

The reason that Small Step, Giant Leap was added to the watchlist in the recent patch rather than banned is that the team wanted to monitor it, consider whether there was an issue and what type of solution could be provided, said Charles. The watchlist is a tool meant to give players advanced notice that particular cards are being monitored, rather than taking action against them suddenly.

“54 questions left, is that what you said?” questioned Eric Dieulangard, chief marketing officer.
“I think it was 154,” corrected Game Designer Charles Wickham.

Future patch, watchlist and data-sharing strategies

It’s possible that future patches just before a new set’s release will be smaller, as the team hopes for the new cards provided to shake up the meta, Charles said. That would free up the team to see how new strategies and cards are applied, and potentially use the mid-season patch as a larger course correction if needed. While that’s generally a goal going forward, the next few patches might not reflect those methods immediately, as current plans are scheduled out in advance.

Patches are planned not just to affect current gameplay, but with an eye toward cards in future sets, said Eric. Another obstacle is that while the team might be aware of issues related to particular cards, the testing involved might require more time than others. That could make some solutions take additional time before being included in a scheduled patch.

Balance patches are a difficult process, as they affect everyone playing Altered, from casual to competitive players, Charles said. One of the goals is to always give suspended cards back to the community quickly. The team also works to be proactive in solving issues as they come up for both heroes and specific cards, rather than waiting to let them solve themselves. That can sometimes mean waiting until the next set brings more options for players, however. The goal is to go step-by-step to address issues.

The team has a few options to work with if heroes aren’t able to manage to keep up with others, but an errata is a massive step that should be avoided whenever possible because it affects the entire playerbase, Charles said.

Suspended cards will only be updated in patches, as opposed to being released at other points, according to Lokinox. A filter will be coming to the website soon that allows players to find all suspended cards or cards that have received an erratum. There could be some interface updates to the website being planned, but it isn’t the priority for the team currently.

The team monitors multiplayer matches for balance issues as well, and in time, the format may have its own banlists, said Charles. For the time being, the issues between the modes tend to overlap.

When it comes to the watchlist, one criteria that could get a card added is whether every deck in a faction plays the card, Charles said. Being added to the watchlist doesn’t automatically mean that a change will be coming to the card, just that the team is looking more closely at how it’s being played and its impact to the balance of the game.

The game designers check 39cards.com almost every morning as one of their sources for how cards are being used for context in considering balance changes, according to Lokinox.

Winrates for specific heroes and related data will continue to be collected by the team but will likely not be shared, said Charles. That information can be skewed in a lot of ways, such as BGA/in-person only or high-rank/casual players. It’s difficult to share in a way that doesn’t show just one perspective in a bias.

Providing that kind of data introduces noise to the conversation that the community doesn’t need, Eric said. It’s more useful for the game designers who have the additional context to make sense of it. The team will communicate some data from time to time, but only when they are sure the data will help the community.

Future set plans

When it comes to balance, the team is thinking about some global systems or mechanics within the game that would help improve situations, but he could not say more without leaking future plans, said Charles.

The team is mostly happy with the power scale of uniques as they’ve been developed for TBF, where the general aim was to make them slightly better than the rare, Charles said. That’s more where they’d like to see uniques continue to land in future sets. While uniques are likely to always be the “best” or most sought-after cards in the game, some might rotate in and out of decklists to make room for other mechanics or options.

There may be future alternate win conditions similar to Lyra Festival coming in new sets, though neither Charles or Eric could confirm that.

Tumult Championships

While certain decks are taking the lead in current organized play, the Tumult Championships are designed in a way to encourage players to use a variety of factions (best-of-one Swiss rounds, then a top-eight single elimination bracket), and to give chances to a wider range of decks, Charles said. The TC isn’t only about winning (though determining which factions Kuraokami will join is directly tied to which factions win overall globally), but also which factions show up at the competition. Although the meta would seem to be supporting Ordis and Yzmir to win the tournament, other factions have strong chances as well.

Trial by Frost design choices

Decklists since the release of TBF have found a general balance of about 80% cards from BTG and 20% from the new set, a level the team is happy with, Charles said. It means the expansion gave players ways to refresh their decks without completely changing the game.

One TBF surprise for the team was the high usage of Lost in the Woods, one of Muna’s only sources of removal that doesn’t require losing mana.

As players have tested out new decks and strategies, a few of the cards from TBF have surprised the design team. One of the biggest of those would be the Gericht uniques, which are still under suspension after the most recent patch in relation to some uniques’ ability to infinitely combo with themselves. Another that was an interesting surprise is Muna’s Lost in the Woods, which has been heavily played as the faction’s only non-Cloth Cocoon removal that doesn’t either cost a mana orb or give one to the opponent. Akhlut and Jack Frost have also been heavily played. He’d like to see more Santa Claus in decklists.

With the release of TBF, the team hoped to see more of the Icebound landmark cycle getting routine play. The cards are currently being underplayed compared to their expectations, Charles said. He’s still hoping players will use them more often in decks, though they do see some use in limited play. A main goal for each new card is for it to fill at least one role, whether it’s good in multiplayer, single player, limited or constructed, or an exciting card for collection.

One of the TBF cards more maligned by our team, Mana Flare, exists to give Atsadi another tool for mana boosting, said Charles. The current card is changed from a version that was found to be too powerful in testing (Ed. note: I would be interested to know what the original version did!), but they may have scaled its ability back by too much while playing it safe.

Lokinox suggested that there’s a deck type that gets play in the office tournaments that the community hasn’t picked up yet. As is his style, he declined to share information on what that decklist looks like.

Upcoming events and online play

Two events in the United States are coming up quickly in the first two weeks of May. The first one is the Star City Games Convention, held May 2-4 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis. Altered will also be represented at PAX East in Boston, held May 8-11 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston. Both events will have Equinox team members present (Justin Parnell, Equinox sales and marketing director, Americas, will be at SCG Con, while both Justin and Lokinox will be at PAX East), and have tournaments and learn to play sessions planned. The PAX event will also include some fun community events.

Online events connected to the Adventure Pass program partnered through a local game store is another route the team would like to help players stay engaged. They also want to see how stores and communities develop their play around online events.

Online events may be a key part of future plans for the game, with at least one small project planned soon, said Eric. More information should be arriving in the coming weeks.

Format insights

There aren’t current plans to allow for a format that runs 18 rare cards without uniques, Charles said. While that could allow for some versatility, it would also confine how uniques could be designed (players would need uniques to be strictly “better” than the rare version of the card rather than the common), and reduce the excitement around finding and using an interesting unique.

Though no official format focuses on a deck built without uniques, the team recognizes that it might be a format that’s interesting to players as a type of deck that can be more predictable while avoiding the potential for overpowering unique cards, Eric said. They’ll be watching to see how the community develops around it with the ‘No Unique Championships’ already happening online.

Booster changes

There are no plans to add the common/rare upgrades slot back into booster packs, as in the Kickstarter packs. The team is focused on continuing to make things feel interesting when players open boosters, though no changes should be expected in the current setup for sets 3 or 4, said Eric.

The team has considered options like increasing the odds for unique drop rates in boosters, but nothing will change in the short term there, Eric said. Making a change like that would also bring into consideration other questions about how the product is presented as a whole.