How Fun Is Alteil

[Phenoca]

Alteil is not that fun.
People say it's overly-simplistic.
The music is not that great.
The gameplay is repetitive,
and most players don't really talk to you in-game.

But there is one advantage.
Maybe, as this Youtube video will show, there is a second advantage: <uploading> (EDIT: My C:/ drive ran out of disk-space so the video-recorder never converted to the right file-format and I don't know how to fix that) </upload>
Here's another duel, to make you feel better about me not fixing my dumpfile: Phenoca vs worthing

The advantages are:
1) Good graphics
2) I got the mermaid I was looking for, after my 404th game vs. Shadow1978.

Permission to host this video has been granted by Iczer: Shadow1978

It doesn't look like this will upload.

So basically I had a Guardian (buffed with one Blessing) at 2 and a Folrart Dual-Wielding Soldierat 3, a Magic Shade SS, a 40 DMG SS (last), and 1 SP.
Shadow1978 had an Oni at 3, an Eagle Soldier at 4, .

My cards were: Aurora, Pegasus, Snaf, Spell Lancer, Mirror of Light, and a Folrart Dual-Wielding Soldier.
His cards were: Return. He had used all his revives for Oni and Eagle Soldier.
He could take down my Guardian in one hit.

I believe I retreated the Guardian, he hit both my units, I used Aurora, he killed my Dual-Wielding Swordsman, and I used Standby so that he'd need two hits to kill Guardian. I revived my Dual-Wielding Soldier, retreated it behind Guardian, I attacked his Oni with Folrart Guardian (so that the counter would kill it).

I had to attack with Oni so that his Oni had less than 20 HP, then I healed Guardian with Mirror of Light and he was forced to retreat the Oni behind the Eagle Soldier (this turn was intense since I had 1 second on the timer). Then I lost my Swordsman to his Return, and was forced to play something so that he could not Iczer Attack my 40DMG SS. I played Snaf and Pegasus, forgetting that Pegasus buffs Snaf.
The Pegasus-buff forced him to waste his Oni's Action Skill early, enabling me to KO either unit with one hit from my Pegasus (because he had no SP for when Pegasus got set), winning me the game.

This was less risky than using the 40 DMG SS right-away... Because we both got to be incredibly resourceful, we had superior maneouvering around the field, and I think it was a great game because we both played a 'Johnny' strategy from the outset.

This guy's opening was really great. It combines SP-deprivation with early Return grims.

He lasted 4-6 turns on just an Oni, a Return, and an Eagle Soldier. That's heroic, and he could have won.
But by healing Guardian with Mirror of Light, and by using the Dual-Wielding Soldier as cannon fodder enabling me to heal my Folrart Guardian, I was able to employ my grimoires, waste his SP on re-playing Eagle Soldier, and ensure me a win using a 17-HP Guardian.

Yes I know. Folrart Guardian is the cheapest unit ever. Especially with two Blessings (which is the only thing that let me get into the endgame against his x3 Onis).
But it was the only game I ever played where both players needed to outmaneouvre the opponent in order to ensure victory.
Otherwise it would have been a coin-toss to the 40 DMG SS vs. Iczer Attack timing.
Sorry about the lack of *sniff* C:/ drive space.

And I got the only Set 4 card that I really wanted. Sweet.

[DanTheTimid]

The 2 biggest knocks on alteil are its lack of AI opponents and its lack of ELO/RP based match making.

Lack of AI opponents means you have to play real people, when 2 real people play some one HAS to lose (or at least draw), both players can never both win. Losing (and usually drawing) is almost never fun. Thus in almost every game played some one is going to come away not having had much fun.

Lack of ELO and RP based match making means players are matched randomly, not based on comparable skill levels. That often means players of widely differing skill levels are matched up and the result is usually that neither player has fun (though some players on this forum do seem to take pleasure from crushing weaker players based on their posts).

Gameplay wise, the game is getting a little more abusive combo happy then I'd like with more and more borderline ridiculous combos showing up with every set, but as a whole the game is very well designed and has varied and unique gameplay elements that make it one of the best virtual card games I've ever played. To me the gameplay is inheriently fun.

The gameplay graphics aren't anything great, but the card art is very awesome and increases the fun for me.

Music was actually good, but it needs WAY more variation, we're on set 4 now and its the same old tunes I've heard a million times. The game could benefit greatly from some new tunes, especially some with words. Overal I'd say music was fun, but for long term players its lost its zest.

Not sure in what way this game could be consider simplistic, if anything its one of the more complex card games out there. Just because we don't have a stack/chain/whatever doesn't mean the game lacks complexity, nor does the 1 card per turn rule. If anything the fact you have to manage a field with rows and distance mattering makes things a little bit more complex then most games where cards are just sort of in some theoretical location that we have to use are imaginations to understand how they're all interacting with each other.

I chat with people all the time, sure some people don't chat, but play any game online and you'll find people who don't talk. Heck play people in real life in person and you'll still find people who are there only to play the game and nothing else. This isn't a flaw of the game. If you want some one to talk to you during the game you can always buy partners.

[Phenoca]

Music was actually good, but it needs WAY more variation, we're on set 4 now and its the same old tunes I've heard a million times.

Yes.

(though some players on this forum do seem to take pleasure from crushing weaker players based on their posts).

Am I one of them?

I chat with people all the time, sure some people don't chat, but play any game online and you'll find people who don't talk.

That's... Not true!

If anyone knows how to convert a Krut.jar dumpfile into a .avi please tell me. The program won't let me replace its dumpfile while recording. Bad Windows XP. Bad!!

[Peralisc2]

- i dont like the ingame music of most games
- well it is simplistic if only option you have to play your cards is 1v1, no "custom" modes (such as heroes maybe?) nor whatever you can imagine
- and in some cases you are forced to not play certain theme decks, yuni decks for example (or there is some secret combo i cant figure out)
Yes you can say this isnt ment to be equal for every theme deck, but some themes seem to always get the upper hand.
Either there is a very huge imbalance or everyone here is a big noob and can't make a super-strong-competitive monster deck for example! Probably the second one is closer to the truth since many decks start to be abused at least few weeks after the cards are available. In both cases it makes the game get down to few decks.

[MyPixelGirl]

that's becauses when we see a good deck we tend to improve on the idea with a deck of our own, or add the idea towards our own decks. I think all top meta decks were created this evolutionary process.

[Peralisc2]

But not my best file!
____________________

Alteil lacks quite many obvious effects, that probably most TCGs would add right from the start or right after few sets.
For example:
- effects that activate while in graveyard (this seems to have been promised)
- some card similar to cyclone only reversed, that summons unit x,y and z on the field
- some units that get auto summoned on the field! when you have a and b, you get c for free!
- some unit that can change shape, so you summon unit 1 and when you use his skill : turn into a night unit, he switches places with unit 2
- we dont have +1 LP effects
- we dont have have close soul card effects
- we dont have spells that could control enemy units
- we dont have spells that make your oponent draw a random card or none instead of choosing one
- spell immunity (which will be added in future sets)
- we should have even more cards like the yuni&friends and they should buff eachother instead of all buffing one card
- abilities that lower the levels of the cards in your card file so you can summon your units cheaper, you could have a level 10 gowen swordsman and he could be special summoned that way


i just want to say, there is so much space, i could write until tomorrow evening and/or would drop down before i could get to maybe half or even less of the possibilities that could be added

Short version of my post: So much to add ... so very very very very very ... very very much more that could be added, it's crazy!!

[fargone]

But not my best file!
____________________

Alteil lacks quite many obvious effects, that probably most TCGs would add right from the start or right after few sets.
For example:
- effects that activate while in graveyard (this seems to have been promised)
- some card similar to cyclone only reversed, that summons unit x,y and z on the field
- some units that get auto summoned on the field! when you have a and b, you get c for free!
- some unit that can change shape, so you summon unit 1 and when you use his skill : turn into a night unit, he switches places with unit 2
- we dont have +1 LP effects
- we dont have have close soul card effects
- we dont have spells that could control enemy units
- we dont have spells that make your oponent draw a random card or none instead of choosing one
- spell immunity (which will be added in future sets)
- abilities that lower the levels of the cards in your card file so you can summon your units cheaper, you could have a level 10 gowen swordsman and he could be special summoned that way

Wow.

Can you actually imagine the constant stream of complaints that would come from players when a card is released that allows you to create instant field presence (summon extra units or auto summon). If you think Primclone is broken, how can you even consider this an option at all?

+1LP... to me that means that you would need to reactivate an already used SS so it can be triggered again? or does that mean your 3LP no impact on your file SS becomes one with 4 or 5? Either one could potentially destroy all game balance in a single step.

I thought all Soul Cards already were close skills. They activate when the card runs out of LP. I am confused by what you mean? Or are you suggesting that soul cards would have more than one ability when activated, or could be activated twice (so functioning as 2 soul cards and potentially meaning, with the right collection you would have up to 10 SS triggers, not 5).

If we were to have spell (grim?) that controlled enemy units, how would it work? Do you have to move them to your field then attack? If not, can you use a unit in their front row to attack their second but not third row because of range limitations? Would making back rows vulnerable to their own tanks upset the game balance? Could you use their unit to attack your own and so trigger a counterskill/close skill that your opponent has been avoiding?

If we had spells (grims?) that made an opponent "draw a random card" where would he draw it from? Does this mean you would be forced to play a random card from your file? If so, what happens if you don't have enough sp... or it is a buff spell that only effects friendly units, and you have an empty field? Does that then mean you are forced to spend sp on a grim that has no effect, thus robbing of say, 1 turn + 3sp + your holy shield grim (does this sound feasible). Since we don't actually draw cards at all in this game (we start with all of our cards in our hand, except soul cards), how do you stop them from drawing a card? If by this you mean stop them from playing a card, do you mean something like pun hole? Or did you just want to be able to completely disable the opponents ability play a card for a turn?

Immunity to grims... so decks like gowen rush have no or limited end game? does this mean granting total immunity to about 1/3 of the cards in the game or would this just apply to particular units (say.. who have the ability?) Does this also negate sp generating grims, thereby making grims pointless to have at all?

Reducing the sp cost to summon monsters... does that mean we can use the ability more than once to get a field presence of dragons from each sphere while having say... 2-3 levels in each sphere? I wonder at the continued relevance of rush decks or cards below level 3 or 4 would be at this point.

The majority of the suggestions you have made don't really fit into the game mechanics of Alteil and are obviously features of another game (perhaps copied verbatim (we don't have any spells at all.... we have grims - any seasoned player knows this)). The other game has different mechanics and dynamics than this one. I would truly hate to see most of those suggestions put into place here, as most of them work outside the confines of the game mechanics as they stand. If they could be incorporated they would most likely cause more nerf and op rants than we currently have.

I guess we can be grateful knowing that if we do want to play a game with those ideas.. it already exists and is well established.

[Peralisc2]

Can you actually imagine the constant stream of complaints that would come from players when a card is released that allows you to create instant field presence (summon extra units or auto summon). If you think Primclone is broken, how can you even consider this an option at all?

They could be balanced. Think about the current card drainers.

+1LP... to me that means that you would need to reactivate an already used SS

I would like to have +LP and SS reuse or reactivation separated.

As for immunity, well you just dont play grims or use SS on that 1 card, not a big deal.

As for the rest. I am not deeply into details. GMs would work on the skills anyway.

[Tendo]

Alteil lacks quite many obvious effects, that probably most TCGs would add right from the start or right after few sets.
For example:
- effects that activate while in graveyard (this seems to have been promised)
- some card similar to cyclone only reversed, that summons unit x,y and z on the field
- some units that get auto summoned on the field! when you have a and b, you get c for free!
- some unit that can change shape, so you summon unit 1 and when you use his skill : turn into a night unit, he switches places with unit 2
- we dont have +1 LP effects
- we dont have have close soul card effects
- we dont have spells that could control enemy units
- we dont have spells that make your oponent draw a random card or none instead of choosing one
- spell immunity (which will be added in future sets)
- we should have even more cards like the yuni&friends and they should buff eachother instead of all buffing one card
- abilities that lower the levels of the cards in your card file so you can summon your units cheaper, you could have a level 10 gowen swordsman and he could be special summoned that way


i just want to say, there is so much space, i could write until tomorrow evening and/or would drop down before i could get to maybe half or even less of the possibilities that could be added

Short version of my post: So much to add ... so very very very very very ... very very much more that could be added, it's crazy!!

There is only one problem: Alteil is NOT a TGC...

[Peralisc2]

So what does have to do with the fact that it needs more variety?