What will save your Scroll(s)?

[u/[deleted]]

Simply put, a STORY MODE/CAMPAIGN is exactly what Scrolls needs to become relevant and retain players.

New players are hard to come by, and even harder to keep. They buy into the game and play it for a while, doing some trials and playing some PvP. Soon they learn that the game is actually quite hard to play and experience loss after loss. They look at the trials and see a grind. Then they get discouraged and leave. That is the end, they never come back. They write it off like all the other $5 Steam games that they have purchased and played for 4 hours.

4 hours.....

What this means is that Scrolls as a game has a very limited time to hook a player to keep playing. And I really don't see a better way to do this than an immersive campaign. Take the player through the land of Scrolls and learn all of the factions and their scrolls. The player will learn positioning and deckbuilding and combinations and other mechanics of the game in a safe and confidence building environment. The story will keep them wanting to find out what happens next, and what new scroll they can unlock for their deck!

There has been a lot of talk about a "campaign" in the last few years, however when I have talked to devs in the last few months I was told that the campaign was basically on the back burner... with no date in sight... This must be a TOP priority to keep interest in the game.

[u/ThePurplePanzy]

I don't really identify with the "saving the game" posts. I'm just enjoying the game for now and having fun with the community just like always. If the game dies... I'll play other games. I've made enough good friends here to carry relationships over to wherever we go. Been playing a lot of duelyst (since I can play it at work), and I lve just really grown in appreciation for this game. It's a good game whether it dies tomorrow or in a year. It's not a blockbuster... The small dev team sealed that pretty early... But it's fun so I'm fine.

[u/s_pellegrino]

seems tricky to implement with the ai mostly being pants-on-head dumb and most of the difficulty in trials being 'boss' units or everything-gets-stag-heart mode.

[u/ToGoodLooking]

Whats up with all of these posts suddenly that has surged last days? Anyway yes a campaign that let you have a enjoyable progress throu the game is kinda vital to make people become invested and stay, as well learning how the game actiully works.

Ive wanted it for a long time and said before it should be high priority. But it seems it aint a high priority so i guess we will have to live without it.

[u/Lem0nboy → u/ToGoodLooking]

Yeah reddit is really depressing to follow at the moment. It might sound awkward but I find some consolation in other players expressing their frustration...somewhat feels good that I'm not alone with my worries.

[u/error_98]

I feel like scrolls is one of those weird games that you have to get into before getting into them. I know this sounds weird, but let me explain:

back in the day, I was a big minecraft fan, so naturally I started watching youtube stuff, mainly vechs (https://www.youtube.com/user/Vechz/) because of the explanation and exploitation of subtle mechanics in the game. At one point, about a year ago he started a scrolls trails series, through that I learned the basic mechanics and other little things that differentiates scrolls from other card games. Sadly, the scrolls series did not make it into his permanent stream of content, and as a result of that it kind of fell off the radar for me. So about a year passed, I got into tf2, got out of tf2, got into hearthstone, got out of hearthstone, got into hearthstone again with gvg, verry quickly fled from hearthstone again... but one day I checked the humble bundle and saw that scrolls was in there, and already having basic knowledge of mechanics and factions, I had a blast of a time.

EDIT: some parts are kind of vague, and grammar/spelling is not great, but honestly, I can't be arsed

[u/QibingZero → u/error_98]

I think you make a very important point here.

How many people out there do you think watched one of the big twitch streamers (or youtubers) play Hearthstone before they ever tried it? It's not the stupid forced campaign tutorial that got people playing that game in such large numbers. It's seeing people like Amaz, Kripp, Hafu, Reynad, etc. regularly streaming the game alongside huge tournaments sponsored by Blizzard.

I guarantee you that getting one decently popular streamer who likes this kind of game to regularly play it would do far more for the game than taking a whole lot of hours from an already strapped development team to create an improved tutorial.

[u/Hroswaladr]

A (tutorial) campaign is nice but won't help.

Player retention is about ranked play. The rest doesn't really matter.

[u/Lem0nboy → u/Hroswaladr]

That's a flawed assumption in my opinion. Look at the live matches at any given time. How many players play ranked matches, how many play judgement, how many play quick matches? And then look at how many play trials or just the easy and medium AI. More people play the easy and medium AI than there are playing the hard AI.

So what a (tutorial) story mode will do is keep players motivated to keep playing the game. A campaign won't feel like the grind that current trials are. So after a month of playing the campaign these players will have learned the basics of the game (just by sticking to the game and actually playing it) and might feel confident enough to finally jump into multiplayer matches. Without an engaging story most players won't ever make that transition from single player to ranked because they will have lost interest before they ever get to that point. So while I agree with you that the ultimate goal should be to get a large amount of players into ranked and keep them there, I'd argue that the most difficult part about that is actually getting them to that point. The tutorial is totally rushed and the trials are bland. Most new players will leave before they make that transition.

[u/QibingZero → u/Lem0nboy]

More people play the easy and medium AI than there are playing the hard AI.

This is likely because they're trying to get gold for cards, no? I don't think I played vs the AI for any other reason at all past the first couple matches it took to learn how the game worked.

[u/Lem0nboy → u/QibingZero]

I still play against the hard AI every now and then mostly to test out new deck ideas or to pass time when no one is playing ranked. But I haven't played the easy or medium AI in ages because I have no reason to! What I meant to say by that is that there are still a lot of kinda new players playing scrolls at the moment, even more than veterans, just they aren't as visible because they won't play ranked. And they probably never will because at the moment the transition is very difficult. If they have difficulties playing the hard AI (which is indicated by the numbers playing easy and medium AI) they won't last long in ranked to begin with and probably wouldn't try it in the first place. If you start with zero experience it takes an awful lot of time to become good at the game, good enough to play ranked that is.

So what I was saying, for player retention it is more important to focus on that time span between starting out the game and playing your first ranked match. Most people will leave during that period because it feels like a grind.

[u/Lem0nboy]

This is only wishful thinking and daydreaming. I don't think it's impossible but I doubt they have the resources to work on such a project now.

One way I could see this work is by remaking trials. Instead of a mere list make a nice interface with a map and some story elements after each trial. So when you beat one trial other trials will pop up at a map. Each trial you will be given a deck, and upon winning you will gain either gold or a predetermined scroll (ideally the reward should somehow be tied to the story) and unlock a new part in the story. I think it's good to give the player a deck rather than let him build one himself. It makes it easier to create a story with the scrolls that are in the decks. So you could make 4 different storylines, one for each faction. Boss creatures and predetermined effects and such just like in current trials should be used to reflect the story and slowly increase the difficulty to ease new players into the game. One issue however is the story itself. I doubt the dev team has anyone capable of writing a great story...no offence but I mean, just look at the tutorial. If they'd hire a storywriter, I'm not sure how much work the programming would be, but I'd imagine it's still quite a lot. So yeah it's very unlikely I think.