Welcome back for another HEX Friday Update. We have a couple of nice things for you today, including a sneak peak at our Season 3 sleeves, a fun HEX quiz, the first part of our AskHEX answers, and more!
Adventure Packs in Store Now
We are offering “Adventure Pack 1” for sale in the in-game store. These packs are purchasable for gold and grant 2x common cards, 2x pieces of equipment or Stardust, and 1x campaign card.
Purchasing Adventure Pack 1 from the store also carries a chance at one of the racial exclusive rares normally reserved for running the first part of the campaign. We want you playing your favorite race and class combination whenever you dive into Entrath.
Season 2 is Coming to a Close
Season 2 will be ending November 1, 2016! This is your last chance to get Season 2 AAs, sleeves, and to secure your place in this season's Cosmic Crown Showdown.
If you would like a sneak peak at Season 3's sleeves, visit our Season 3 announcement here.
Our Haunted Harvest celebration is in full swing this week. Make sure you play some campaign to get your hands on some copies of Stingy Jack before he gets his claws on you... not to mention some of the other fine treats we have to offer this Harvest season:
Stop by our Haunted Harvest announcement for full details on where to grab all the goodies this year.
Hex Quiz
Speaking of tricky treats, we have a HEX trivia game that you can play to win some extra packs. Here's how it works:
Click here to visit the quiz page. You will need to sign into the quiz using your in-game name and your email address of choice so we can contact you if you win. You will get 20 questions of varying difficulty (easy, normal, hard). You will have 15 seconds to answer each question, so time is of the essence. Pick the right answer and you can choose whether you want to get a harder question or try another at your current difficulty. Pick the wrong answer and you'll automatically get assigned an easier one.
Speed & difficulty decide your score:
- Easy: 5 points + time left
- Medium: 15 points + time left
- Hard: 30 points + time left
We will reward the top 20 contestants with booster packs. The amount of packs will be determined by the number of unique contestants, so the more the merrier! Please note that each person is limited to 1 competitive entry. Your account is only eligible for prizes based on your first recorded score. Additionally, there is a small block system that works to prevent multiple entries. Please enjoy this quiz within the boundaries of the rules.
Finally, this quiz will run from October 21st to October 28th. You have one week to study up and get your Entrathian edification on. Show everyone you're in the know when it comes to HEX!
AskHEX - Part 1
And while we are on the theme of answering questions, you may recall we introduced a new series a while back. Our take on an AMA, AskHEX was an opportunity for you guys to delve a little deeper into the minds behind this game. I am pleased to announce that we are going to start answering some of those questions now. This will be a multi-part series since there were just too many good questions to try and get through in one sitting. Make sure to stay tuned for more AskHEX answers in the weeks to come!
Q: What's it like working at HXE/CZE?
A: It’s great! Other than working with a bunch of nerds….
Seriously though, as with any other job, we have deadlines, meetings and have a lot to get done. I’ve certainly lost sleep for this game, worked weekends, and have a few more gray hairs than I did two years ago. I think that’s true of everyone here. For example, I just watched one of our designers freak out for two days on what to rename a single button.
But, for however stressed I get, I can step back and look at what I work on and it makes me so happy. This is my dream job, and there’s a reason I lose sleep and work weekends for this game. I love my job, this game, this company, and this community.
TLDR: It’s a job. It’s the BEST job, but it’s a job. –Ryan Sutherland
Q: Evo Gauntlet was a big and welcome surprise for most people. Do you have more such surprises in the works or do we more or less know what’s coming down the pipeline?
A: Evo Gauntlet was much better received than I could have imagined when designing the format. It was something I spent a fair amount of time on, interacting with different members of production and R&D to get feedback, and I’m so pleased with the reception from players.
As for the future, we’re always working on new things. We’re hoping to get out another fun project that I personally have been working on for years. It took some convincing of some people that this was the best way to implement the system, but I’m really excited that they’re on board now. I’m hopeful that this will go out soon, and I really hope that players will love it as much as they have Evo Gauntlet. –Corey Burkhart
Q: As I recall from the Kickstarter, the original plan was for every card to have equipment. We're now up to Set 5, and half of the card still don't have equipment. Will we finally see the rest of the equipment with AZ2 or have you changed your minds and decided not to give every card equipment? Also, speaking of equipment and Kickstarter plans, are the set bonus cards still going to be a thing?
A: Yes and no. We still plan on releasing 2 pieces for most cards (I’ll get into that in a moment), but there are only so many we can release with each batch of content. We will try to continue pushing these out the door. AZs will always have equipment for cards from older sets as we try to fill in those gaps. For the most part, I try to go through and look for what still doesn’t have equipment. Cards that see a lot of play or are fan favorites are good targets for filling out equipment.
In regards to the “no” portion of my answer, the design philosophy on equipment has changed since what was originally announced during the Kickstarter. Common cards will typically only have one piece of equipment and some uncommons will only have a single piece as well. Set bonuses also haven’t been looked at in a while. It is still something that we like, it just requires some design work and is a great deal less important than our other priorities at the moment. –Dan Clark
Q: What are Matt Dunn's 5 favorite snacks?
A: Spam and more spam. –Dan Clark
Q: Escalation cards are Set 1 only. Inspire is a Set 1-2 mechanic. Empower is a Set 4 mechanic. Prophecy is a Set 3-4 mechanic. Will older mechanics be revisited or will they remain in their blocks? If they make another appearance, will it be a whole Set dedicated to them, again, or just some cards here and there?
A: I imagine one day we will see most, if not all, of our older powers return. It depends on how popular and deep the mechanic is.
To rate the specific powers you listed, I think Escalation has the highest likelihood to return since we only saw five cards with the mechanic and it was well received. However just as before, I don’t believe you’ll ever see Escalation in high volumes in a set.
Inspire was mined pretty deeply the first time around, so I’d be surprised if we see it back too soon. (Most Diamond, Ruby and Sapphire keywords were used already.) I also think it’s a mechanic that needs a certain density so you feel like you’re living the Inspire dream of curving several Inspire troops in a row.
Empower is a surprisingly difficult mechanic to find a bunch of interesting numbers, but I’d be happy to bring it back at some point in the future, probably at smaller amounts though.
Prophecy will certainly be back. It’s one of my personal favorite abilities from HEX and does randomness in a very fun way. One thing to note is that the next time we see Prophecy it may show up under a different guise. The idea of keying off of the next X in your deck has a lot of play and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than one mechanic living inside of the Prophecy shell.
TLDR: Yep, we’ll certainly see keywords return once we’ve spread our wings for a bit longer. Each mechanic dictates how much of the set needs to be dedicated to the mechanic. –Ryan Sutherland
Q: What card from any set is your favorite and least favorite?
A: Favorite was [card]Lady Shimmer[/card] for sure. I love unbounded effects, and getting 6 or 7 of her to march out is epic. I think my least favorite was [champ]Zared Venomscorn[/champ], of all things. I like limited a lot, and I felt like he made a lot of builds impossible when mixed with that cardpool (there were a lot of interesting X/1's in Shards and Destiny.). –Chris Woods
Q: Do you have a set contact for community events? For example if you wanted to ask for prize support, a shoutout on the hex website, or twitter etc?
A: All requests should be sent to your friendly, neighborhood Dinotropia. Feel free to contact me either through a direct message on our forums or at [email protected] –Nathan Revere
That’s all for this week. Please leave any questions or comments in the forums, and don’t forget to Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitch.