Fairtravel Battle News

This update has a special focus on making the game and user experience nicer for everyone, and introduces a new logo and default card back!



[h3]New Card Back and logo[/h3]



We have a new card back, which I think makes the game a whole lot more professional! It was designed by The Pixel Buster, who has been adding new art for the game since august last year, and he has already made over 90 card arts!

[h3]New Hint System[/h3]



There's a new hint system to help players both old and new understand why they can't perform certain actions!

[h3]New Mana Drop UI[/h3]



The mana drop UI was quite clunky and not very accessible, so a new UI shows up now so you can more easily choose what you want!

[h3]Improved card rules[/h3]





An important aspect of the game, the card rules text, has been slightly improved to be clearer and less heavy on players.

Some more complex cards have also had some keyword reminders removed, to focus on the main keywords, and some cards no longer prioritize their associated cards (like tokens) where it's important for new players to understand the card.

Additionally, some other rule terms have been changed:

• Rest is now Exhaust, and the Rest icon no longer is used (instead the Exhaust term is used explicitly). The reason for this is that Rest was an awkward term and the more standard term would be Exhaust, and I want the game to be understandable for most players.
  
• References that specify health now use the health symbol instead. This makes the rules nicer and also shorter to read.
  
• Some keyword reminders were rewritten to be clearer.
  
• Once per turn effects have been rewritten to use the "word -> effect" format, to more clearly indicate those effects being once per turn
  
• The Set Zone was renamed to the Support Zone. This was done because although the name kinda works in english, it becomes a bit confusing to translate to other languages and to explain to other players.
  

[h3]Changed rules on card stats when a card is removed[/h3]

Fairtravel Battle is meant to be both a physical and digital game, and as a result it has to adapt to be a bit of both.

In a lot of card games, damage is physical, and doesn't get changed automatically. However, a lot of similar digital games tend to adjust a character's damage/health when a card buffing it gets destroyed. To reduce "bad feels" situations in FTB, this behaviour was changed to be slightly similar to other games.

Now, after one or more cards have been destroyed, if another card would have been destroyed as part of state checks, it instead gets its health set to 1 if applicable. This behaviour is new and the coding might not be perfect, so expect hotfixes in case some edge cases are found!

This generally avoids bad feelings when a single targeted removal could wipe an entire player or team board due to a buff being removed and causing other cards to now have 0 or less health, which can be devastating and quite unfun.

• Added Strain card art
  
• Grove Arms now always summons tokens when attacked
  
• Staff of the Wilds now has 2 attack (up from 1)
  
• Draconic Shift no longer causes a debuff to opponents
  
• Added a visual indicator to revealed cards in hand
  
• Several UI/UX fixes
  
• Removed timed glow from Support and Quest zones to avoid confusion when a card actually activates
  
• Changed health calculations when stat buffs are removed to keep cards that just became eligible from being destroyed by state checks
  
• Updated rules text with simplified terms, icons, and layout
  
• Added support for summon sickness custom game mode parameter
  
• Simplified rules text of the Core card cycle
  
• Added missing keyword reminders from some cards and removed some from more complex cards
  
• Fixed deck customization not appearing
  
• Added Hint system
  
• Added new logo and card back
  
• Added support for clicking on a label that is part of a checkbox to trigger the checkbox
  
• Player hands now move when zooming out on 3-4 player battles so you can more easily see each hero's health
  
• CPU players should act more
  
• Added retargeting to single target prompts (so you don't need to re-select the target to change to another target)
  
• Fixed avatar picker to work on both home and rewards screen
  
• Redesigned control guardians trial deck list
  
• Rewrote the home tutorial to more clearly explain the game
  
• Updated Master of Undeath's trigger visual effect
  
• Improved performance and memory usage of the collection screen and in-game
  
• Increased UI size on the shop screen
  

This update brings an updated game economy to improve the pacing of the game experience, as well as several user experience (UX) improvements that overall improve the game quite a bit.



One of the big challenges of game development is figuring out how to reward players. Giving too many rewards can make players lose interest, and that's something that was happening with Fairtravel Battle.

Before this update, you could collect 4 copies of the entire card collection in less a couple weeks, which is not ideal: You don't really get to experiment all that much in such a small amount of time, and when you get all the cards, it can mean the end of the journey for a lot of players.

There's many kinds of players, and as such I have to consider the best experience for everyone. I believe these changes should improve the pacing considerably, and make the game more fun even if you get less rewards.

To be clear, there's absolutely no micro-transactions involved in card booster packs, so there's no monetary goal here. These changes are also not final, and will likely be tweaked over time.

The overall changes are as follows:

• Booster Packs now have 5 commons, 3 uncommons, and 2 rare and up cards (meaning rare, epic, or legendary), for a total of 10 cards. This is a considerable reduction from the previous setup (8 commons, 5 uncommons, 4 rare and up, for a total of 17 cards).
  
• Daily quests have a reduced value of 60 gold (down from 75)
  
• Gold per win has been increased to 25 (up from 20, based on the survivor index, which means even if you lose you get rewards based on how many players were defeated before you. If 2 players were defeated before you, you gain 50 gold now)
  
• Removed new profile default quests that would give 5 packs each (you still get 3 quests each day and when creating a new profile)
  
• Removed new profile pack inventory (you no longer get 5 packs by default)
  

Booster Packs had very high value for each pack, with each pack having the potential to be able to craft the highest rarity in the game (Legendary) and have leftover renown, if you destroyed each card in that pack (destroying cards refunds you for half their value)

These changes overall might seem like too much but please keep in mind this is not set in stone and if needed they will be changed. They need to be playtested to see how it feels, which requires your feedback.

Thank you for your patience, and I would love to hear from you regarding these changes!

• Added support for duplicating decks
  
• Added reminders to card rules text with small amount of rules
  
• Added missing in-game reminders to a few cards
  
• Adjusted User Experience (UX) for lobbies
  
• Reordered the game mode categories so it's easier for new players to orient themselves to the main modes
  
• Attacking during battles with 3 or more players moving the mouse to the slide buttons will cause the camera to move to the other side (so you no longer need to zoom out to attack)
  
• Added support for modding background music
  
• Changed Hero Attack/Armor indicators to only appear when relevant
  
• Added hide/show button when a game zone prompt shows up (such as during Necromancer's effect)
  
• New Game Profiles created in the profile list will keep the volume settings as the current profile (so if the game is silent in your preferences it won't suddenly have music and sound)
  
• Fixed an issue with CPU targeting cards where it would target the first card rather than the best card
  

While debugging strange behaviour for the game as of the latest update, I realized that I accidentally created new code with the same name as an existing code, which was somehow compatible, and was being used without warning, causing several issues.

This hotfix fixes that and also adds a small improvement to the pack open experience.

• Fixed accidental code issue involving removed card events using the wrong code
  
• Mass Open card packs has received an improved experience that should be clearer and more user friendly
  

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Some players reported some critical issues with the latest update, which have been hopefully fixed in this update.

This update also adds a small amount of new content

• Added Darkness Crossbow and Upgradable Servant card art
  
• Added Quick Draft Mode, where you pick exactly 30 cards instead of the typical 58
  
• Added Simple Draft Mode, where you pick among 3 cards until you have exactly 30 cards
  
• Added support for customizing draft rules
  
• Fixed tutorials not starting
  
• Fixed several other bugs