Comments on: Alteil

By: Otonashi

Otonashi — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:12:39 +0000

It’s not like you can expect to excel against pros in any other CCG or TCG buy just buying a starter deck, so I have to wonder why people hold this expectation of Alteil. That said, there are a few notable people who actually DO beat the pros with starter files, plus a few lucky card lottery pulls, so that’s proof that skill can be a replacement for money. Just don’t walk into the main arena thinking you’re hot stuff just because you splashed a few people in the kiddie pool.

The main arena matchmaking does need work, but nobody seemed to mention that there is an alternate arena where you can play against anybody you want as long as they come and join your game. And the chat applet seems to have been ignored too. :( I think there’s a lot of features this article missed.

By: yamas11

yamas11 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:51:39 +0000

Meant to say unbalanced in the first part. It could be tweaked a bit more overall for a better balance, but things haven’t changed and it’s easy to see the horrible imbalances once you play.

By: yamas11

yamas11 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:54:12 +0000

Alteil is a horribly balanced game and the odd thing is that the GM’s have the ability to errata cards in order to fix this balance, yet, they’re too lazy to do it.

If anyone wants to play Alteil, I suggest staying as a free player. If you decide to spend any money into the game, you’re just wasting your cash unless you spend $200+ into it. You’re not guaranteed to get good cards if you spend though, since the cards you get are completely random and you aren’t even guaranteed to get a rare card in each booster pack like in real life TCGs. It is possible to buy a booster pack and get nothing but common cards.

So Alteil is really just a gambling game that’s disguised as a TCG. You can spend and hope to get the required good cards that will get you far, or you might end up with crap that won’t take you anywhere, depending on your luck. Take caution if you decide to spend.

By: Keran

Keran — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:52:05 +0000

Point Cards aren’t that good of a means to get good cards. I’ve been playing for 6 months or so and I still don’t even have 30 of them (the amount needed to get a 3-star rarity card, rarity ranging from 1 to 5). The only means to get good cards is money. That’s the business plan. If you don’t pay, don’t expect to stand a chance against paying players.

By: KT Chong

KT Chong — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:04:35 +0000

I started playing Alteil last week. There have been a few changes since this review came out.

Currently, new players are thrown into Folrart Arena (i.e., the “everything goes” battleground) at level 14 instead of 10. Newbies who have just “graduated” into Folrart Arena are still being mismatched to and plummeted by extremely high-level players. So Folrart Arena frequently matches a level-14 player and his measly starter deck to some level-20+, 50+, or even 90+ players who has ridiculously powerful deck. Most new players become frustrated at the matching system (as they should be) and quit at this point.

The good news is that Alteil added a mini-game called “Mirage Master”. Mirage Master is just flipping over and matching cards. It lets a player earn free Grans every *day*. Realistically, a player can earn 10 Grans a day from playing just a couple minutes of Mirage Master. 10 Grans are just enough to get one free card from the Card Lottery. So, a player who is starting out can get one free card a day. However, expect to get mostly one-star (common) cards from the Lottery. (The Japanese Alteil has another two mini-games that let players earn daily free Grans; hopefully, the English version will introduce them soon.)

Also, now you can earn “Point Cards” and exchange a number of Point Cards for a *specific* card. The rarer a card is, the more Point Cards are needed to trade for it. It is really a three-stage process: First, you earn Fighting Points by fighting in an Arena. Then, you exchange Fighting Points for a Point Card. Finally, you exchange Point Cards for a play card. It should take about a few days to a week to earn enough Point Cards to trade for a common card, and up to a few weeks to a few months to earn enough Point Cards to trade for an extremely rare card.

By: moritheil

moritheil — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:24:05 +0000

@Phenoca – Thanks for sharing your experiences.

@Kruvy – I’m glad to hear you recently had a good experience. I haven’t kept up, so I couldn’t say if the community is now the same or not.

By: Kruvy

Kruvy — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:02:00 +0000

The community, mainly the higher level players have been very helpful to me and I would have to say the idea of having to pay to be decent is not true. It just takes a lot more skill to get good without paying.

By: Phenoca

Phenoca — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:42:36 +0000

9/10 on this review.
I’m not rating the game, but it is pretty unbalanced past level 9.

20% win-rate here, and now that I am using cards to my advantage (without donating for them), people start flaming me. So yeah – 1/10 on the Community.

By: moritheil

moritheil — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:46:55 +0000

rollchan – It does, in the sense that all CCGs that rely on resource allocation can’t really escape being somewhat reminiscent of it. In fact WOTC submitted a patent on the concept of collectible card gaming, which I linked in the article, though I personally think that’s kind of like saying you want to patent the concept of games played with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor – too broad.

Glad you enjoyed it!

By: rollchan

rollchan — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:28:53 +0000

wow. I might as well try this one out. oh yeah, this actually reminds me of my days playing Magic. kind of, in such a way. :) thanks for the review!