My goal with these blog posts was to talk about work that’s in progress, why we made certain creative decisions and to expose some of the behind the scenes elements that go into making a game.
Since the end of 2017 I’ve posted almost every week, alongside the hobby blogs (showcasing which hobby activities the Well Played team have been up to) and developer updates (what’s just been added to or changed in the game), and I’ve really enjoyed sharing a lot of information with you guys. As I’ve mentioned before, one of my objectives is to ensure that even if you don’t agree with a decision we’ve made, you at least understand why we made it.
Cadence
This next bit is going to sound like a digression, but bear with me. One of the logical but annoying things about working in the industry is the number of times you can’t talk about something you’re working on. I mention this because that’s my situation right now and why these blog posts will slow down from their current more or less weekly cadence.
Two things to spell out:
- This doesn’t mean we’ve stopped working on Combat Cards or anything like that. In fact, the team is busier than ever and we have some super-cool updates and another balance pass coming along nicely.
- This also doesn’t imply that I’m off of the Combat Cards team or working on another project or anything like that. Simply that what I’m working on isn’t something that we can discuss right now, and as I’m the person that writes these blog posts they’re inevitably going to be affected.
Challenges
So what this means is I’ll be continuing to post, just less regularly. Rather than talking about upcoming work while it’s still a way out, I’ll wait until each feature is nearly ready for release and then discuss any design challenges that came up or other areas of interest (leaving full details of exactly how the feature works to the developer updates).
Hopefully that all makes sense and reassures people that while these blog posts will slow down, work on Combat Cards definitely hasn’t. It will also hopefully alleviate some of the times when I discuss ongoing work because it’s thrown up some interesting decision questions, but then that feature hasn’t appeared in the game for a while (clans and battle pass for example).
I’ll be back to talk about cool stuff soon, but in the meantime feel free to ask questions or send feedback. You can get in touch by leaving a comment below, through our Facebook page or by mailing [email protected]. Also, if you’d like to follow our posts through RSS you can use this link: https://www.combatcards.com/feed/
Thanks,
Stu
Good stuff Stu. Thanks in advance for any communication you can give.
Don’t suppose you could comment on Initiative at all (sorry if you’ve done that already, it’s sort of hard to go through all of these). For example, many ork units ( Infantry + 5), space marines (Infantry + 6) and T’au recon drones ( Infantry + 7) all have an initiative value of 43. If “infantry” type or plan isn’t a fixed variable in initiative calcs, these formulas don’t make sense. Also, it seems a little unfair that traditionally quick and stealth units such as lictors and Ghosar are stuck with a Bulky type and low initiative. Just small things I’ve noticed but it’s a little unintuitive for someone trying to figure out how things work.
Hi, thanks for the question. Initiative is an area that we’d like to improve but it’s currently quite low priority on a long list so is unlikely to change for a while.
As it stands, a card’s initiative is a simple average of their body type (Walker, Monster, Bulky, Infantry, Fast – from slowest to quickest) and their movement value. This isn’t very nuanced and as it rounds up there’s no difference between movement values like 5 and 6, so it’s definitely an area we’d like to look at at some point.
Hey, what about the two cards that you guys made a post on Facebook a few months ago to be added to the game (the generic space marine and the chaplain). Do you still plan on introducing them to the game, how and when (at least a bit of information would be useful).
Thanks
Hi, thanks for checking. Yes we’re still planning to release those two cards (and pretty soon). We have more player votes we’d like to run but don’t want to do that until these first two cards are in the game, so hopefully it won’t be too long!
Hello,
First of all it is hard to believe that any “team” or even one person is fully working on this project. Last changes in cards were made in January (end of month im not sure). We are in middle of May now soon and until thia day you have manage change 2x animations, add few stats (max 1 day of work), redesign shop and few new cards and try ONCE new approach to campaign and riun matchmaking last season.
Do you think it is enough work for almost 4 months?
You say and only say you work but don’t deliver anything. For what you guys mention something if you can’t Do it?
You have made in game forum which is totally ignored by team. Lack of communication and even introduction team to players. But I understand you guys are afraid of criticism even if it is really good prepared, gathered evidence and ideas which could make this product better.
For 4 seasons we meet same cards over and over because better ignore problem than try adjust cards values. Your teams supposedly have people responsible for data analysis. Why they don’t deliver which cards were mostly used and what win/lose ratio and start balancing it. If you play this game you would be sick of facing same cards and even same opponents over and over, like it had place last season.
HOW many players need quit until you start work?
When will we see the missing card from the previous campaign?
Hi, I assume you’re referring to the Necron that we showed in our social media images but then got removed from the prizes at the last minute. In which case I’m not sure if we will see it for a bit, because while we can just add it to our next Campaign featuring Necrons it’s also possible we’ll want to wait for the huge Necron push that’s coming with the launch of 9th edition Warhammer 40,000.
We don’t have any more information than you on when that might be, but as it looks to include a whole new range of Necrons it’s likely we’ll have a big push on expanding their faction in Combat Cards at the same time (and therefore might not feature many Necron Campaigns in the run up to that release).
Bit long winded but hopefully that answers your question!
It does thanks, though I have another.
As another campaign comes to an end, what is being looked at to freshen things up a bit?
I realise the game is still ‘young’ but already I’m seeing a lot of comments on social media about the repetitive and tedious nature of most campaigns being largely the same. Mega health monsters gets a bit boring after a while
That’s a fair question. For a while now we’ve been working on a behind the scenes rework of the system that runs out battles and that work is in final testing. Once it rolls out it will fix a lot of issues with traits and special rules, but also allow us to begin adding new Warlords and traits, plus new gameplay tweaks. So while I can’t reveal any of these yet, I can assure you that the team is working on a range of ideas to shake things up.