Artifact Dev Tracker

This week we wanted to talk a bit more about the heroes in Artifact. These have been viewed as one of the strengths in the original game, but also as one of the missed opportunities. The most common concerns we hear are about underwhelming signature cards, lack of abilities, or heroes that fictionally don’t fit with their kit.

Our philosophy this time around is different, so we’d like to go over some of the factors we use when evaluating hero designs.

• All heroes should have at least one ability.
  
• You should be excited to draw a hero’s signature cards.
  
• Signature cards should avoid being situational.
  
• Signature cards should generally be at their best when their corresponding hero uses them.
  
• Bonus if a hero has a small self-synergy.
  
...

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: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/2217403321334436090]here[/url].

This one came in hot so please forgive any gram badder, who would have guessed that doing all this remotely would be so hard? Anyway, let’s get to it!

Initiative
The initiative rules haven't changed much, but the implications are different due to the round being shared across lanes. Players still take turns performing actions until both players pass in a row, and then you go to combat. This sequence continues across rounds, so while you can't control initiative across lanes you can still do so across rounds. There are more rounds per game, although each round is shorter. And "Get Initiative" spells still exist, although they have been renamed to "Quick."

Mana
There is now a single Mana pool that starts at 3 and increases by 1 per turn. Some cards and abilities are crosslane, but in general cards only af... Read more

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/3487417872003751630]here[/url].

I have some good news, some more good news, and some bad news. The good news is that after ... Read more

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/2217402051955024403]here[/url].

When the members of the team decided to reboot Artifact we all did it for different reasons. Some of us loved the original game and wanted to see it thrive. Some of us liked the freeing sense of creativity you can have with a card game. Some of us love trying to figure out how something is broken and see it fixed. There was one unifying reason for all of us - we thought that there was something special in the game, and with hard work we could bring it to light. Thanks for the feedback over the last two weeks, it's been great seeing how many of you share those feelings.

There is one class of concerns raised that we wanted to address specifically. Those from the founding players of Artifact - the people who played extensively and built a collection in the original game. There are some great ideas floating around for things we coul... Read more

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/2096930128295276281]here[/url].

This week we wanted to talk about the Artifact Beta 2.0, what it will include, and when it will happen.

We’ve been focusing on gameplay changes first. The biggest change is zooming out to allow players access to all three lanes at once. The majority of effects still work on individual lanes so they still maintain their identity, but it’s less likely that a player will get shut out in the same way they used to.

We’ve also focused on making the game easier to pick up. We aren’t selling cards, so you won’t face an opponent with a stacked deck. We’ve also added a new draft mode, Hero Draft, that gives you a taste of constructing decks without all the pressure.

The beta will exist as a new executable and access will be granted to individual accounts. When we are ready to send out invites we will let you know the process.
... Read more

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/2102558993190369211]here[/url].

First off, we wanted to say thanks for all of your tweets, emails and posts. The continued interest in Artifact has been encouraging, and we sincerely appreciate all of the feedback!

You might notice some changes soon – we are starting tests on our systems and infrastructure. This shouldn’t impact live Artifact but we wanted to give you a heads up.

Expect more news after the launch of Half-Life: Alyx!

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/583950/announcements/detail/1821083382556531528]here[/url].

When we launched Artifact, we expected it would be the beginning of a long journey, that it would lay the foundation for years to come. Our plan was to immediately dive into our normal strategy of shipping a series of updates driven by the dialogue community members were having with each other and with us.

Obviously, things didn't turn out how we hoped. Artifact represents the largest discrepancy between our expectations for how one of our games would be received and the actual outcome. But we don't think that players misunderstand our game, or that they're playing it wrong. Artifact now represents an opportunity for us to improve our craft and use that knowledge to build better games.

Since launch, we've been looking carefully at how players interact with the game as well as gathering feedback. It has become clear that there a... Read more