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Duels of Champions is Fantastic

RollieJoeRollieJoe Member UncommonPosts: 451

I stumbled across this gem of a game called Might and Magic: Duels of Champions completely by accident so I thought I'd take a few minutes to share in case, like me, you haven't ever heard of this game.

 

First here's the website: http://www.duelofchampions.com/en/index.aspx

 

The game is a free-to-play, turn-based, collectible card game in some ways similar to Magic: The Gathering.  You select a Hero which determines which cards (creatures and spells, along with events and fortunes) you can use, build a deck, and then battle your deck VS other players.

 

New cards are purchasable for in-game currency which you earn from PvE and PvP and also with IRL money.  Card trading is not enabled or allowed, although you can destroy cards you don't want for extra currency to buy new cards with.  There is a very large variety of cards, including 6 factions, 6 schools, 3 sets, and dozens of heroes, I think about 1000 different cards in total at the moment, with regular expansions.

 

Gameplay options include PvE, practice matches, ranked matches, and tournaments.  Ranked matches and daily rotating tournaments are the focus of the game.  The ranked matches give you a persistent ELO score (like LoL or WoW arena) and global ranking, while tournaments vary and might be bracket-based or ladder-based and reset each day.

 

The game is polished, looks and plays well, is a small download (200 MB), and is free.  Any fan of turn based games or card games would do well to check it out.

Bonus: Here's a link to get a bunch of free cards and currency when you start the game - http://www.penny-arcade.com/static/duelofchampions

 

Mini-FAQ:

1) Is this an MMO? 

- It isn't a traditional MMO, but it does have progression, PvE (limited) and PvP (extensive).  Think of it more like a lobby-based game (World of Tanks, MechWarrior Online) rather than a traditional MMO like Everquest or WoW.

2) Free-to-play.....or pay-to-win?!

- Paying players and free players have access to the same things, but paying players can get them significantly faster.  There is a "grind" of sorts for free players to collect enough currency to unlock cards, but it isn't a traditional grind of "kill 10,000 rats" or "run this dungeon 4000 times" - rather it is more like leveling up and unlocking runes and things in League of Legends.  In other words, if you enjoy the gameplay then the "grind" here is actually fun.  And if you don't enjoy this type of game, then even if there was no grind or levels it still wouldn't be fun.

3) PvE?

- There is PvE in the game but it consists of about 20 missions basically to teach you the game.  It is a PvP focused game for sure.

 

4) Easy to learn?

- If you have experience playing other similar games like Magic the Gathering it will help.  The basics of the game are quite easy to learn and the tutorial does a great job introducing them step by step.  More advanced tactics, and especially good deck-building might take some time if you are new to the genre.  So yes, it is easy to learn, but as the saying goes, hard to master.

 

If anyone has any questions about the game, or would like some help getting started, feel free to leave a reply.

Comments

  • SuperPanekiSuperPaneki Member Posts: 62
    Thanks for sharing! I will give it a tryout. I recommend you to try out the new Mojang's game, Scrolls, which is giving me an amazing summer time! Although, Scrolls costs 20 bucks, but it's worth it.
  • BanquettoBanquetto Member UncommonPosts: 1,037
    I also thought it was fantastic.. for a few days. Got boring VERY quickly though.
  • RollieJoeRollieJoe Member UncommonPosts: 451

    Originally posted by SuperPaneki
    Thanks for sharing! I will give it a tryout. I recommend you to try out the new Mojang's game, Scrolls, which is giving me an amazing summer time! Although, Scrolls costs 20 bucks, but it's worth it.

    Originally posted by Banquetto
    I also thought it was fantastic.. for a few days. Got boring VERY quickly though.

    @SuperPaneki - Yes I wanted to check out Scrolls as well.  The only things that turned me off are 1) no demo, have to pay $20 to try the game and 2) I heard that at the moment there are few "cards" in the game, only about 40 per faction.  Is that true?  If so I'll probably wait until they add in a few expansions.

     

    @Banquetto - It depends mostly on your preferred style of play.  DoC is very competitive PvP focused.  Players who like to strive to reach high rankings or win tournaments I think will love it.  Those who prefer PvE, Questing, or Cooperative play will likely get bored after finishing the introductory missions.

  • taus01taus01 Member Posts: 1,352
    No trading of cards? That's a bit silly and completely goes against any kind of CCG standards. I will give it a try because i am proper bored right now.

    "Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"

    image
  • RollieJoeRollieJoe Member UncommonPosts: 451
    Originally posted by taus01
    No trading of cards? That's a bit silly and completely goes against any kind of CCG standards. I will give it a try because i am proper bored right now.

    I think the main reason for no card trading is because they give new players a chance to get a very large amount of good cards early on.  Completing the intro quests which takes 1-2 hours and using the code I linked will give a new player 300+ assorted cards, among those many uncommon and rare cards.

     

    Under these circumstances, if trading were possible, most players would make a dozen alt accounts, collect the thousands of free cards, then trade them to their main account.

     

    In other words, because they let new players start out with a nice selection of good cards, they had to disable trading to prevent exploiting.  I also like trading, but I think this setup is preferable to keeping new players away by either forcing them to pay, or only giving them a weak "starter" set of cards.

  • SuperPanekiSuperPaneki Member Posts: 62

    Thank you very much! This game is even better than Scrolls! It has a few things to point out too! When the cards aren't zoomed up, they don't have text, so your eyes don't get tired. As a person who suffers from eye fatigue, I can really appreciate the detail. The zooming is even greater than Scrolls', which I really appreciate it as well. Choosing a hero is awesome, and having a so rich background helps you out to get into its universe. I've always enjoyed the Might and Magic series, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!

     

    I recommend this game to everyone that love card games or strategic games in general!

  • LauraFrostLauraFrost Member Posts: 95

     

    The game is good until you realize there's no trading which means chasing some cards is going to be TOO expensive for what it offers.  It's not balanced and the meta game is boring.

     

    If I were you I'd wait for Hex: Shards of Fate.

     

  • RollieJoeRollieJoe Member UncommonPosts: 451

    @Superpanaki - Glad you are enjoying it!  Feel free to add me to your friend list in game if you'd like to play a friendly match or just have any questions.   My name is "ubidrmsucks3" (account was created when I was trying to install another Ubi game long ago haha).  I'd recommend using your gold to purchase hero packs, and your seals to purchase "the box" to get the most bang for your currency btw.

     

    @Laura - See my post above to understand why trading wouldn't work in this game.  Also, as this game is completely free, nothing is "expensive" here.  What ELO did you reach?  My guess is that you did not actually get to see any of the "meta-game" or how things are balanced.  With this type of game unfortunately its easy for some players to get discouraged early on, if they don't understand some mechanics or strategies, and quit because they lose lots of games before understanding the finer points of play. 

     

     Not trying to be an elitist mind you, its just having played other competitive games such as LoL, I've seen first hand how new and inexperienced players overlook important points of gameplay and as a result get the impression that this or that isn't "balanced."  (Just refer to the hundreds of posts on their official forums by players at Bronze ELO's calling for nerfs or buffs.)

     

    If I'm mistaken by all means add me in game where we can view ELO and I'll correct myself.  Otherwise, I am also looking forward to Hex: Shards of Fate but enjoying this game now, since Hex isn't available.

     

     

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099
    Originally posted by taus01
    No trading of cards? That's a bit silly and completely goes against any kind of CCG standards.

    Two reasons I can see:

    (1) Online trading is too efficient.  It messes up the perceived progression through different rarities of cards - it makes the lower tiers faster and faster to progress through, making the leap to rarer cards seem steeper (thus putting players off spending money)

    (2) Security.  If accounts (or the game's main database itself) can be hacked or stolen credit cards used and the cards obtained this way are dispersed into the tading economy, it's just a nightmare to clean up.  By removing trading, you limit the damage of a hijacked or tainted account to just that account.

    ( personally, I find CCGs have a very low entertainment value for the price and an uncomfortable slot-machine-like feel to them )

  • JyiigaJyiiga Member UncommonPosts: 1,187

    Lawl.. can't even get past signup. Tells me my gmail email is invalid - which it is not.

     

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