Source
r/stormbound•
Some1Random

This game is very hard to enjoy as a new player

I have been playing this game for about 4 days and I must say the rewards and purchase model for improving your deck is terrible and makes it basically impossible to enjoy and will probably make it hard to grow as a community.

Right now the game is a combination of Hearthstone in regards to rewards, but balance similar to Clash Royale.

The problem with this is that cards come to players in a small trickle of a stream. Every 20 wins you can buy a single pack and every day you can get 2. This is insanely low for a game whose entire balance is around owning vast quantities of cards to upgrade.

I currently want to play the game, I like the game, but am constantly met with people that have full decks of level 2-4 cards while I only have a couple cards at level 2 and basically no way to improve. Even if I end up playing ten games and go 5-5 I end up with not even enough to upgrade a something to level 2 while in other games i am at least making progress.

I really hope they fix the reward system. Clearly we are locked into upgrading cards so realistically Kongregate needs to look at how much they give people for playing the game and more rewards for account level and/or ranks or something. Look at how other games do it because realistically this game will not grow in this state.

Posted Mar 8, 2018, 11:50 PM UTC

1726
Singhilarity•

A few points:

It is extremely important to use the "upgrade" feature and watch an ad to either add 5 coins (essentially double your profits) or add an extra card to a book (every 3rd, you get one free).

Make sure you clear through all the levels of each of the campaigns to score a few bonus cards to start.

Beginning of the season is inevitably more difficult than later on. Everyone resets rank and you'll face a lot of people with higher rank decks.

Having said that, the game is more rewarding than it's ever been. I believe you get an extra book for completing the 4th level of each campaign; that's 4 more, "free", than when I started.

There is a first win of the day bonus that's literally a patch old, and increased from +20 to +50.

The quests all had a gold value increase

& matchmaking has definitely become more lenient in its curve.

It's, admittedly, possible that my decks have improved such that I notice it less - but I also notice a lot more consistency amongst my opponents throughout the season.

Stick with it. You will lose. Learn. There are a number of nuanced strategies (frontline manipulation, targetting, placing units to control spawning, etc.) that you can pick up voa the zendesk site.

It's a fun game. Enjoy your losses where you can, and stick it out. It gets more forgiving.

Good luck!

14
Some1RandomOP•

I did the campaign immediately and the only cards I can still upgrade that I haven't are really bad. The problem is hitting a wall as a good player is frustrating because I can't get higher because skill can only overcome so much raw power.

The only way to stop those walls are to allow people to progress through other ways.

Getting past 22 with level 1-2 cards feels pretty impossible especially when I am ALSO playing with only half the possible cards. The drought is just too real. The campaigns should give a full starter for each faction at least IMO

I guess my main complaint as a legendary player in other card games and someone who has gotten to top levels in other mobile apps I don't see a way forward with this game in it's current state for anything but casual 2-3 games a day which is disappointing.

7
HighVulgarian•

In other words this game isn’t as easy as what you’re used to. You need to put in the time and earn your deck, or drop cash on the game for instant gratification. Stick it out, your deck will improve, you’re only 4 fucking days in.

8
Some1RandomOP•

It's not about being easy it's about seeing 0 returns for my time put in. Even if I watched that stupid final fantasy ad again every time I need to run 10-20 games which take 5-15 minutes each for a single pack which gives another RNG layer of most likely getting nothing worthwhile because I can't disenchant things.

8
HighVulgarian•

You should do some research on delayed discounting

2
Singhilarity•

It should also be pointed out; I've played through four seasons, now - not too seriously - and I've never passed rank 13. I'm sure if I worked my ass off I could hit rank 10... but whatever. I loathe Green Prototypes, and I'm not about to start using them.

Anyways; you know what happens if you stay in low ranks? You keep playing, grinding, upgrading your deck.

You know what happens in high rank? You keep playing, grinding, upgrading your deck.

There is nothing fun about being placed in an "unwinnable" matchup (players with 4th level legendaries, 4 more base HP than you, all cards 2 levels higher) though, as I said above, matchmaking has substantially improved.

But so what? chaulk up another loss. Ideally most of your matches should be a 50/50 chance of that anyways, and on to the next.

I don't know the names of any players in the upper ranks. And I don't care, aside from who is a good sport. There is no whopping prize... just... Enjoy the game?

2
anti-squid•

Hey. I'm also thinking about picking up this game. I don't mind long grinds and slow advancements with card quantity/quality (I played hearthstone for 3+ years and did relatively well being full f2p). So I'm curious if you can realistically expect to be somewhat competitive by staying full f2p or if you want to advance in ranks you will inevitably be expected to spend some money on it?

1
Singhilarity•

I have been fully f2p grinding, with the exception of a one-off $13 purchase; which I made because I like the game enough that I figured I'd support the developers a bit.

All I can tell you about the $13 is that it got me more cards. I don't even remember which ones in particular. It was literally the same as grinding.

1
anti-squid•

And do you have a good enough collection?

How long have you been playing for and how much?

1
Singhilarity•

I have level 3 decks across all factions, and most, but definitely not all, the cards.

One legendary (Klaxi) which I got as a lucky draw from a basic (upgraded) pack, of course she's level one.

I've been playing for about 4 months now, pretty consistently.

1
1234567power•

The game has gotten insanely more forgiving to new players. You're absolutely right, the game sucks for new players. When one of my friends joined, I told him just stick out the first 2-3 weeks and everything gets easier. Now it's more like the first 1-2 weeks. It's a slow start but the power increase is incredible once you find your strategy and get a few level 2 cards. Stick it out and the game will reward you (ps: there's always going to be bullshit games where you lose because you started with a shitty hand. Sucks but it happens)

6
seriousleet•

Just farm dude. Win 1 game, lose one game. If you do it from 30 to 25, you are facing bots most of the time. Use it to slowly grind up gold and upgrade cards. May not be the most fun but after you reach around lvl 2 deck you can start climbing and then continue farming till lvl 3 deck and repeat. By the time you reach a lvl 3 deck you can reach rank 5 already. And it's only 7 dups for a common card, which is by no means a stretch if you can buy at least 1 from the market.

2
mr_toad__•

People who grind are why players at lower level can't enjoy the game: they shut others off with more powerful cards just to get some coins, making the game experience worse for everyone. Instead of exploiting new players and every now and then getting some decent matches with other grinders, why not just climb the ranks, always get good matches with others of your own level, and leave the new players alone? Because then it's too hard to get coins, what a bummer :/

6
seriousleet•

Farming at rank 30 to 25 will alow you not not meet any grinders because of the minimum rank... Back in the days the were grinders too and they grinder at rank 30. It was much worse back then. Not to say its good now, but there's a safe zone for newer players to grind so I don't see why other players are shutting new players out. Of course, new players being new won't know this trick but TIL I guess

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1
Youngrick88•

You can’t expect to be rank 1 within the first month of playing. If you stick with it you will progress and if you are skilled enough you will be able to beat people higher than you

2
hamakiri23•

The best tactic to grind seems to be to just concede like 10-20 games in a row, then play 10 games and repeat. In general concede as soon as you see cards that are 2 levels above your average card level since it is very unlikely that you can win that game.

2
Some1RandomOP•

Yeah that shows that a game is just awful. That is not a workflow that any game should have. I don't have time to waste on a garbage game that requires that. I am just doing my dailies for a bit and waiting to see a patch or two until I decide to just uninstall.

It makes me sad because the gameplay of this game is really solid, I think its a actually a pretty good game. I think it is just poorly managed in regards to rewards and FTP vs pay to win. I had about $22 in google credits from surveys and dropped all of that on this game just to see if it would help, and it provided almost nothing. They need to make a decision on how to monetize because right now it is going to kill the game.

2
hamakiri23•

As a Hearthstone player who got pretty tired of it I also might move away from Stormbound again. If I recall correctly you pay 50 € or $ for 50 packs in HS and on new expansions one special offer 50€/$ for 70 packs (at least for the next, before it was 60). This means you get 5 cards per 1 €. Special offer even less (0.7 € for 5 cards). But there are tons of cards but you can DISENCHANT shitty cards or gold cards. The grind there is also real.

Here you have to pay for 650 rubins around 50€ which makes it (25 for a 10 card pack) 26 packs = 260 cards. Thats similar to hearthstones normal prices. BUT you cannot disenchant. You have to use ingame currency to upgrade them 5 times. The chances to get epics/legendaries in normal packs is lower than HS, since you get at least one after 39 packs in HS. I opened for sure like 100 packs in Stormbound without any legendary. But even if you get one it is probably not that much of a value since upgrading them is probably nearly impossible for like the next 2 years. (if you dont put in a high amount of money)

On the other hand hearthstone has only 1 quest per day with most of them being far below 100 gold. And also you get only 10 gold per 3 wins.

BUT you can play arena without your own deck and if you are good you can usually play a while without ever putting in additional 150 gold and still receiving packs after packs.

TL DR:

Hearthstone has similar, partially more valuable options to use real money and has more options to grind in the beginning without needing a decent deck.

2
Some1RandomOP•

Yes, my problem with it is the trickle of cards is the same as hearthstone, but then you also need another 30ish copies to fully upgrade the card where in hearthstone once you get a single copy of a legendary you are done with it.

They need to either make the rewards similar to clash of clans which has the same upgrading system or lower the copies to upgrade/get rid of upgrades all together like HS. Since it is pretty ingrained I think they just need to increase rewards of packs and playing. This isn't MTG, nobody is spending thousands of dollars to play this game.

1
1_fish_2_fish•

I agree that in some ways it is pay to win. But you have to remember that it's a free app, so I guess you get what you pay for.

1
TaroooSushiii•

I agree. I love this game and it was great but I just quit because I kept getting beat by decks not just because of skill, but all of their cards were three levels above mine, and they had a bunch more cool shit. And I couldn’t get more because I wasn’t winning. It’s a great game I’d love to see the problem fixed because I’m sure a lot more people would enjoy the game.

1
Arkytez•

Play winter as a beginner. I got to rank 20 with it on the fifth day. The freezing combo if done well is a strong one even at lv1.

1
fquatz•

I agree with you. The issue is that as a new player you have to wait a few days for stronger players to go up (unfortunately some people with too much time on their hands will lose on purpose to get more wins at lower levels) and after that you hit a wall quite soon. I have been playing for about three months: after a while it gets better because you gradually rise through the ranks for longer, meaning you will hit the wall after a few days on the first months, after a couple of weeks the one later, and so on. I still think that a whole month before reset is too much for new players, it would be great if under, let’s say, a couple of months of play you could get to choose between monthly reset or 2-week reset.

1