Game Review: Battleforge

System:PC

Submitted by: Brandon (VG. Dept Head)

Genre: MMORTSCCG (Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy Collectable Card Game)

Battleforge is a free to play game that attempts to blend the genres of Real Time Strategy (RTS), Collectable Card Games (CCG) with a little Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) thrown in. This combination of the strategic aspects found in RTS games with the flexibility and high-levels of customization allowed in CCGs blend together quite well, resulting in a game that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Overview

In Battleforge, you have the ability to summon and control an army of powerful creatures to do battle with. The twist is that these creatures are summoned not from buildings, like in most other RTS games, but from cards in your deck. As a result, you do not have a base to operate out of. Instead you can spawn your units anywhere on the field; this means that Battleforge is more about strategy and tactics rather than memorizing a particular sequence to build your base.

There are two forms of resources in Battleforge, Power and Monuments. These Power wells and Monuments are scattered at fixed positions on the map, and the main focus of the player should be capturing these locations to build up their armies quicker.

Power is needed to summon your creatures, cast spells and create defensive structures. To ensure a healthy supply of power, you need to journey around the map capturing and building Power Wells to keep your army up and crushing.

Monuments on the other hand, give you more Elemental Orbs, allowing you to build stronger units. You start the game with 1 Orb (meaning you can only build Level 1 creatures) and capturing your first Monument gives you another orb, allowing you to build level 2 creatures and so on up till a maximum of 4 Orbs.

Cards

There are a total of 200 cards you can choose from to fill out your 20 card deck. You can pick from 4 element types; Fire, Nature, Frost and Shadow. You are not limited to having only 1 element in your deck, you have the freedom to mix up and customize your deck with all 4 elements if you wish.

[Above] An example of a card with special abilities

Much like you’d expect from a real life CCG, each card in Battleforge has its own stats, special abilities and quirks to be considered, meaning that there is no one best card, but rather there are cards that are better suited for different play styles. For example, most Shadow creatures have the ability to do large amounts of damage at the cost of their health. A person with a focus on attacking power would be well suited to using a Shadow deck, where as Frost would be better suited for a more defensive play style.

[Above] Spell cards from each of the elements.

Aside from creature cards, there are also spell and building cards. Spells function much like you’d expect them to; they either deal direct damage to enemies or have healing/ power enhancing properties to your units. Building cards are also quite straight forward; Buildings are either defensive or supportive in nature. Buildings are especially useful to defend your captured Power wells and Monuments as well as providing your army a place to fall-back to when under heavy attack.

Economics

Like in real life, cards in Battleforge are obtained by buying booster packs. Unfortunately, just like in Real life, you need real money to buy these booster packs. Booster packs are bought using BattleForge Points (BFP). A single booster pack costs 250BFP and a Tome of 6 packs is 1250BFP. Currently, the rate for BFP is $20 for 1000BFP and $40 for 2250BFP (prices in Singapore Dollars… ouch).

[Above] A Screenshot of the Auction House. You can buy/ sell specific cards here.

Fear not! There is also an in-game Auction house where players can buy and sell cards for BFP, allowing for some flexibility in obtaining cards rather than buying pack after pack in hopes of getting a specific card. Furthermore, you can auction off your unwanted cards for more BFP to buy more booster packs :).

Aside from BFP, Gold is also used as a currency in-game. Gold can be obtained from doing missions and by finding chests in-game. Gold is used to pay for card upgrades, sending mail and for putting cards up for auction. The cost to put a card up for auction depends on the rarity of the card and the duration that you want to put it up for sale.

PVE and PVP

Games in Battleforge are divided into 2 categories, PVE (Player Vs Environment) and PVP (Player Vs Player). PVE games are held against computer opponents, where as PVP games are against other human opponents.

PVE games can be played against computer generated scenarios with anywhere from 1 -12 players, depending on which map is being played. The unique thing in Battleforge is that at the end of the game, aside from Gold and Experience points, players receive “Loot” in the form of card upgrades as well. These upgrades can then be used to boost the power of your existing cards and granting them new abilities. As the loot received is randomly distributed amongst all players, there is no guarantee that you’ll be getting the upgrade you’re after; this leads players to do repeated “runs” or plays of the same maps for these upgrades. The difficulty level of the map also affects the gold, Experience and upgrades players receive.

[Above] The Card Upgrade screen. The top row shows the effect the upgrade will have on the card and the bottom row increases the number of times the card can be used before recharging.

There are 2 types of PVP games, Collection deck and Tome deck games. As the name implies, a Collection deck game allows players to use any cards that they have in their collection. This allows them access to their most powerful cards and upgrades. While this sounds like fun, players who haven’t invested the time and money to get the best cards and upgrade them fully are at a disadvantage against players that have, making the games more about the cards rather than skill of the players.

In contrast to a Collection deck, a Tome deck is a sealed deck made up of 56 random cards which are kept separate from your main collection. While there is still an element of luck involved in what cards you get, the cards in tome decks are un-upgraded, meaning that matches are centered more on skill and tactics rather than card power. As playing with Tome decks requires more skill, the rewards received are correspondingly higher as well.

Complaints

Battleforge is a purely online experience, gamers with spotty internet connections beware. All missions, whether single player or otherwise, are played online. The obvious drawback to this system is that even though you are playing against AI (computer) opponents, you still can experience lag! There have also been times when I was disconnected from the game due to the server timing out. Additionally, as all missions take place online, you cannot pause the game!

[Above] A Screenshot of the website where you pay real money for BFP :(

Also, having to pay real money for virtual cards is a real kick in the pants. While I understand that the game is Free to play and these micro-transactions are the only way the developers make money, $20 for 1000BFP is too much! 1000BFP translates to 4 booster packs. At 8 cards a pack, that means you are paying 62.5 Cents per virtual card! Yes, Virtual. Virtual meaning that you can’t keep the cards in a nice album to show your kids 20 years down the road how stupid you were to spend so much money on cards. Heck, you can’t even enjoy the nice new card smell either. You know why? Because the cards aren’t real!

Closing Comments

Despite the complaints I have about the game, I feel that Battleforge is really quite a good game. It is innovative, well balanced and allows for a deep level of strategy and customization.

Overall, I’d recommend BattleForge to anyone with an interest in RTS games like Warcraft 3 or CCGs like Magic: The Gathering.

It is free to play and you do not have to buy additional cards to enjoy most of what the game has to offer. If you have tried the game and are considering buying some Battleforge points (BFP), I recommend picking up a physical copy from a game shop. The game retails for around $45 and comes with 3000BFP, which is a bargain considering that they charge $40 for 2250BFP online.

To Download the game head to the Official Battleforge Website here.

To read up more on the game, head over to the Battleforge Wiki here.