Death of a Game: Duelyst

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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duelyst
www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...
www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/reve...
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
/ broken_promises_and_lo...
www.pcgamer.com/gorgeous-tact...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/duel...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/duel...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/duel...
www.polygon.com/features/2015...
www.businesswire.com/news/hom...
www.businesswire.com/news/hom...
www.polygon.com/features/2015...
www.metacritic.com/game/pc/du...
www.gamespot.com/reviews/duel...
web.archive.org/web/201708040...
www.pcgamer.com/duelyst-is-my...
www.gameinformer.com/games/du...
www.pcgamer.com/duelysts-firs...
www.pcgamer.com/duelysts-next...
www.pcgamer.com/duelysts-four...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/duel...
steamcharts.com/app/291410#All
www.mmorpg.com/news/steam-lau...
store.steampowered.com/app/29...
/ psa_you_can_play_duely...
/ playduelyst
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_M....
• A New Duelyst is being...
• Duelyst Revival Projec...
/ @playduelyst
• 9 Takeaways from Duely...
www.forbes.com/sites/paultass...

[@Twelvecarpileup]

Me watching all the other death of a game: "How did those people not see it coming?" Me watching one of my favorite games on death of a game: "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

[@Marinealver]

I'm still waiting for Planetside to feature in DoaG. Yeah we had planetside 2 but we also had Planetside Arena and that was a disaster.

[@shadow50011]

@@Marinealver Planetside 2 was a failure too. Every planetside game has been a commercial failure because they’re just “What if Battlefield, but bigger and 1v1v1?” and the devs completely disregard actually preventing the only strategy of bringing more dudes.

[@teratoma.]

@@shadow50011 agreed and also p2w

[@Tortferngatr]

Honestly, if Dawngate ever features I honestly just want to see the closure. Game was very fun at its best but flaws in things like monetization; progression, and overall game flow just got more and more apparent while League copied any of its innovations that worked.

[@amourdior8444]

999th

[@SAKronikle]

Hi, I'm one of those former junior developers of Duelyst who came from the community early on and stuck around for about 80% of the game's life cycle. I started in QA and then moved to improving the AI's ability to play cards, then to be the lead developer for boss battles, and then finally to creating new cards for expansions. I can actually see myself in the background from your footage at the Duelyst booth at PAX West early on in the video! Anyway, I watched this video expecting to find a lot of faults with the reasons why the game died but as someone from the inside, I can reasonably say you (mostly) accurately covered most of the reasons the game died. A couple other things to note: - Keith Lee, while a talented and very creative developer in his own right, had some huge leadership issues. He was kind of a disaster from a PR perspective as he would repeatedly enflame the community whenever he'd talk but more importantly, he could be extremely nasty to the people working under him. One developer in particular would vent to me regularly about how verbally abusive Keith was to him, getting insulted and cursed out frequently. One time I offered some constructive criticism to a piece of lore he was writing only to have him send me several emails in a row about how accomplished he was as a creative writer and how my input was not valid because he knew better than me. Most people learned quickly to stay quiet around him to avoid his wrath. -The second in charge of CPG, Emil, while exceptionally talented at what he did, was incredibly "by the numbers". Features that the community loved were regularly axed if they didn't move the needle enough in terms of player retention/sales. By far the most egregious example of this was the mobile version which, by all accounts, had been complete for years. It never saw the light of day because he didn't want to release it without a simultaneous huge marketing push to attract new players (which I can sort of understand) but by this point the game was dying and he didn't think it was worth investing the money into that marketing push. It was incredibly frustrating to hear the community chime in week after week about how much they wanted the mobile port when we literally had it done but Emil refused to release it. Even if we released it to no marketing push it would have at least appeased the fans we still had playing the game, many of whom were quitting precisely because they couldn't play on mobile. -The developers, like myself, who were brought in from the community were not really an issue when it came to the eventual death of the game. The core engine was complete and most new technically demanding mechanics and features were done by senior developers. Most of the team members brought in from the community were for game design, community management, producing, or QA and they grew to be incredibly competent in their roles. The ones that weren't making it were fired but either way, they didn't have any huge decisions to make that would impact the game's future.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Thanks for sharing your perspective!

[@Odisher7]

Hi just wanted to say duelyst was one of the most beautiful games i've ever seen, I had a lot of fun playing with a friend, my first and only steam profile pic i've ever had is a big cool lizard from the game and I went out of my way to download every single profile pic just in case. Thanks a lot for the good memories!

[@nateno5112]

I'm one of the rare fans that kinda hated the pixel art. I wasn't a fan and always imagined how cool the game could look with high quality 3d graphics. But I absolutely loved the game play, the deck design and the competitive ladder. Just FYI, if you decided to make a duelyst 2 (maybe with some spiffy 3d graphics?) I would be more hyped for it than any game in the past half a decade and I'll plop down a few hundred. Keep that in mind is all I'm saying. I loved the game so much I'm willing to throw hundreds at the potential of a new idea turning into a product I can play.

[@SAKronikle]

@@nateno5112 Trust me, you weren't rare in hating pixel art. Even though the pixel art was very high quality, there were a ton of people who just flat out didn't like pixel art styles. Upper management even considered having artists recreate the pixel art assets to be redone in a different style so it would appeal to more people, especially in China.

[@bongoshalongo6478]

@@SAKronikle The pixel art in Duelyst is the best I’ve ever seen, I’m sad I never got a chance to play it

[@bumberton7958]

Ah, so this is what it feels like to have a favorite show up on this channel. Pain.

[@pocketheart1450]

*pat pat* I know this feeling well.

[@someonewhocommentsonyoutub3779]

Now you know how I felt when Marvel Heroes showed up in one of these videos :(

[@GatorRay]

That's me when he covered Toontown

[@LtChachee]

City of Heroes for me

[@Quoxz]

I miss the Wildstar universe every time I play an MMO, or KeyForge.

[@Movie_Games]

This one is going to hurt :-(

[@youtube-kit9450]

So glad I near-exclusively play non-online singleplayer games so I'll never have to fear a game coming onto this series.

[@Marinealver]

@@youtube-kit9450 Online only, avoid wholly

[@Spore9996]

I used to watch Scarzig play this all the time :(

[@kyotheman69]

i never heard of it

[@Gweivyth]

Fucking aye. Duelyst was fantastic. Such a sad one to lose.

[@TheGreatMoonFrog]

This one hurt to watch, I don't know how many hours I sunk into Duelyst. The art style is actually what drew me in, I love pixel art and they did a fantastic job with it. The unique game mechanics is what kept me in. No other game has ever scratched the itch Duelyst did. RIP.

[@raputha1148]

i have like 500hours on steam on it. i miss it so so much

[@edwinnegron5822]

@Clean Living Please serious response; I have played MTG, Yugioh, Pokemon, Vanguard, Dragon Ball, Eternal Card Game, and now I'm playing Legends of Runeterra. Would you say Netrunner would bring me entertainment like the aforementioned games?

[@teratoma.]

yeah the dev has no idea what hes talking about not only it's not an off putting style to vast majority of people, many people absolutely loved the slick pixel artstyle i bet it had nothing to do with its downfall

[@dnegron8]

An incredible game that still hasn't been replaced. It really felt unique and worthwhile to invest time into. Even when the service were slowing down and the game started drying out I still had plenty of fun

[@YouRSmalltime]

Pour one out for my boy Duelyst and the devs that made it. This ones for you 🍻

[@zackymas2000]

Duelyst 2 open beta began officially yesterday! Let's hope they learned from CPGs mistakes, I'm so excited to play again

[@emilias12]

How is it turning out for you?

[@amourdior8444]

This is great

[@Robinson_Crusoe]

When talking about drawing 2 cards, you didn't mention an equally important point: you can replace any one card in your hand by drawing a new one from the deck, once per turn. That was my favorite version of duelyst, as it made the game very consistent.

[@bluehacker122]

Exactly!! i lost the intrest in the game once they changed this system!

[@Mezmorizorz]

It was an untenable system though. I don't know how many times I just threw out a card that dies to tempest on the tempest turn because the alternative was only drawing 1 card next turn. 95% of the time it just died the next turn, but it was still correct to do for that 5% of the time which is just awkward and bad game design.

[@radioactiveowl95]

I played a lot of Duelyst about 3 years ago, it was a great game. Probably not a good sign that's in this series though...

[@ryanli5803]

Yeah servers are down :(

[@dramasells8192]

"death of a game" cause it already die you doofus, there's no sign the funeral was already held

[@Pixelpopped]

The game is coming back full swing to steam with a new team!

[@insanelol]

Future proofing myself for Death of a Game: Godfall

[@TheAxeliono]

We don’t speak of that....thing

[@amiablereaper]

That one was Dead On Arrival

[@The-Opium-Den]

I'm surprised nobody has made any "Godawfall" jokes.

[@arforafro5523]

You know your game is bad when Warframe players out of all things say its tedious.

[@GoodEevee]

isint godfall gitting a dlc road map?

[@ShadMuffin]

"From Diablo" YESSSSS "3" Oh... alright

[@notatrollll]

I had a blast with diablo 3 but i get the problems it had

[@michaeljudge5063]

LOL i thought same thing, Diablo 3 was by far the worse one in its genre

[@Aliens1337]

@@michaeljudge5063 D3 is just too arcady without the aRPG depth. It’s fun to play but ultimately shallow and watered-down. Blizzard went the route of WoW and just made everything in D3 a bigger multiplier instead of items/skills synergies. Endgame chase items, instead of being unique, powerful and build defining, are literally just bigger stat sticks of existing items (ancients and primal ancients). Then they made 6-piece-set bonuses so damn broken with something like 10,000% multipliers, that you’re forced into playing specific playstyles the devs pre-built for you through the set bonuses. Every season there’s like 1 or 2 sets per class that completely out perform every other build. If you wanna feel powerful (who doesn’t?) but hate that specific set bonus’s playstyle, then you gotta choose between playing meta stuff that you don’t enjoy, or playing another set that’s more fun but is sub optimal. Feels bad either way as a player. Build diversity is non existent in D3.

[@BoroMirraCz]

Diablo is not that bad after the expansion. Better than most of the competitors. It may not be as good as Diablo 2, but the gameplay is so good.Much better than PoE anyway...

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

For me, card games always need a casual format. These hardcore ranked modes quickly devolves into a small three or four deck meta that everyone plays and other decks don't really get a chance to stand out. It is even worse if you end up with a rock-paper-scissor style where one deck is almost guaranteed to crush the other. Combine that with the inevitable power creep that comes with these games and you are left with decks that feel unplayable. One of the reasons I stopped playing Yugioh and Standard Magic the Gathering is because of this power creep where you now have turn 0 plays.

[@el_mr6439]

Yes, also to get one of this meta decks you need to play with a "normal deck", making your grinding painful

[@LesPixad]

Standard magic doesn't have 0 turn play. It's inherently limited by the mana system. And recent cards are way weaker than older cards. Modern, Legacy and Commander are the crazy format, not standard at all. So you're wrong for that one. But for ygo, yes. Most game last for one or two turn, since there's no mana and the game is heavily combo centric.

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

​@@LesPixad Look up they Leyline subtype. If you had them at the beginning of the game, you could play them without paying any mana. I think Leyline of the Void was the big one that year.

[@robbybevard8034]

It was extra bad in Deulyst because in the last expansion they introduced deck bosses. Which were, in theory, really hard to use and had a cost of losing draw but with an eventual big payoff around the ninth or tenth turn. Except in practice people broke them almost instantly and designed their decks in such a way they were getting those effects by the second or third round and if you didn't have your own out by then, the game was over. These are all the sorts of things a competent balance team would have nerfed within days after seeing how broken they actually were (or never let them out in such condition in the first place) but they'd stopped any balancing by then... so these horrible game breaking meta forcing monsters just sat there ruining the game the entire last year, and you had no choice but to build them... or lose on round three every time. But even before those deckamsters broke the game entirely, power creep had been creating cards that could attack anywhere on the board and instant kill things, which wrecked the entire strategy and positioning aspect of it all. I loved the game and put a fair bit of money into it but I didn't play it at all in the final year.

[@MrZer093]

Casual formats are also good for the meta players too. Even they get bored of only playing with and against the best decks. It’s also an opportunity to test more experimental ideas to see if they work without worrying about your record before taking them to ranked matches.

[@sjrnr]

I loved this game and it's pixel art...

[@gamer3000sc]

I'm still using the are for my desktop wallpaper

[@huanquocmanh416]

@@gamer3000sc err the character design is waaaaaay to similar to WoW And thats bad. Very bad

[@daviddobarganes9115]

Glauber Kotaki I think God tier

[@JudojugsVtuber]

@@huanquocmanh416 i dont see it tbh.

[@Cainenghis]

*its

[@Verisi1]

One of the other major reasons for Duelyst dying was that it betrayed its initial audience, which had a ton of players who didn't like Hearthstone's ever-ramping RNG and enjoyed Duelyst as the chess-like card game. Killing 2-draw and lowering board importance were two major factors of this, but the addition of extremely random/swingy card effects (notably Meltdown, the Ragnaros of Duelyst) also contributed a lot. Additionally, they had a ton of horrible PR fiascos, such as: • The noted changes from the Kickstarter model • An unnoted drastic decrease in provided card rarity per pack • The Steam release players being just beyond the cutoff dates for a "starter bundle" on Humble Bundle a month later (thereby causing the new Steam players to have way less cards than players starting a month later) • John Treviranus (one of the Duelyst designers) saying that his "goal with new cards is often to frustrate players" in a Kotaku article; an abysmal take on design They can cite people hating the art style all they want, but I feel the company's terrible choices were what killed it. RIP Duelyst.

[@alvarochambicampos1004]

Started watching and got hyped watching the art and the concept of the game, then I remembered that I was watching something called death of a game. Great video btw 👍

[@thacool101]

Same I never heard of this game and it's right up my alley

[@csapomate7372]

the game was great and i just re downloaded and i didnt know why i couldnt log in then i saw the steam page

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

it was fucking awesome, this game will be sorely missed.

[@Pixelpopped]

the game is coming back now. in testing atm but fans got the source code and rights from the devs

[@delirium4651]

Oh, this one is gonna hurt a lot. I supported this game since crowdfunding, played it almost every day and climbed top 100 every rank reset. It was so fun and I was so sad to see it slowly drift away to servers closing

[@philipp5756]

This game looks so awesome... I wish I knew it when it was alive. Pumped for the revival though

[@Brandon11746]

@@philipp5756 Any news on that revival?

[@snowcrow8784]

@@Brandon11746it’s out

[@Brandon11746]

@@snowcrow8784 on Steam? or what?

[@striderk-jin5387]

It pissed me off that this game was shutting down. It was a really good addictive game. I loved the hell out of it. This is a game I’ll definitely miss dearly......

[@eduardoserpa1682]

Oof. This one is going to be hard to watch, I loved Duelyst. We still haven't seen another attempt at the genre apart from Hi-Rez's half-assed Smite spin-off.

[@revolution4189]

Smite spinoff was dead by launch

[@nono9543]

There's a Smite spinoff?

[@revolution4189]

@@nono9543 no worries is dead hands of god was the name

[@Ner0tika]

i say, "I miss duelyst" out loud approximately once a month --- Great fkn game

[@altimagobrrr3838]

Hand of the Gods was ALMOST cool. I enjoyed the hell out of it for like.... 3 days lol. Yea dead on launch basically

[@reikolupus136]

Damn, I loved Duelyst, and when it closed it broke my heart. Hearing that there is a Revival Project brings me true peace of mind, and I'll be checking that XD.

[@MasterNochi]

NS has gained so much knowledge from all the research he has done doing these that game devs need to hire you in order to keep their games floating.

[@Bleech606]

There is a streamer called Hsuku. He streamed Duelyst every day for years. He mostly played gauntlet but would do things like getting a F2P account to top ranks every month/deck doctor etc. This guy streamed every single day, even when his frigging house burned down. He created a place for the community to hangout. He had numerous Twitch front page streams and used them to promote Duelyst even as it was dying instead of switching to a new game like LOR or MTG and using them to promote himself. This guy singlehandedly kept the game alive in it's final year. He did more for Duelyst than Bandai fucking Namco. Really miss those streams. It was a lot of fun.

[@letmetellyouabouttheconsti139]

Hurts watching this when you're playing Duelyst for 1 year

[@qkey01]

When you mentioned that they are developing godfall, I went from "aw no" to "*oh no*"

[@PsychShrew]

I'm actually gonna cry. God, I miss this game.

[@agentlemanknight411]

Man...I still love the Vetruvian lore and design in Duelyst. I never got that invested in this game but I always thought it was great and worthy of respect, it's too bad how things turned out.

[@spofet]

I joined Duelist in the moment when people were first starting to get tired of hearthstone and were looking for something else. It was nice but I left during the first post launch expansion. And OMG TAO!!! that brings back some school memories and the first time I was finally able to get the rating to join a guild was amazing.

[@Pottsdie]

Duelyst was too good for this world.

[@franciscoteixeira174]

I didn't even knew this game existed and its looks so dope

[@Astral0muffiN]

It was fun while it lasted!

[@judsonhester1407]

You should check out the revival project, or if it's still too early, check back in a few months on the progress!

[@Habertod]

the balance was horrible

[@chukyuniqul]

@@Habertod nah, it was fine. I could reliably make it R10 with a self-made deck and I'm very much a "get big mpb hit foe ook ook" player, just spammed grow to victory. Sometimes I stomped, sometimes I got stomped. Unless you're gonna tell me the big creatures were op for once in my card game playing life.

[@Habertod]

@@chukyuniqul i see. how many times did you get top 100 players with that. and when did you play?

[@DridriKon]

"Its uniqueness is one of the reasons it died" - man this hurts to hear. "Gamers" : but it's not like X, I'm not gonna play it. Also "Gamers" : but it's just like X, so why would I play it, I already have X. Sigh. I remember having seen a bit of gameplay, liked the twist very much, but CCG aren't my type of games (because I'm competitive and the rampant P2W just draw me away). I'd be up for an "offline" version though, with a story or something and card unlocks progression. Would like to see the game running and diving myself into its lore.

[@TheBackwardsLegsMan]

It's a delicate balance. You need to make sure your new IP is familiar enough that people don't feel like they're learning a new game from scratch, but different enough from the competition that people have a reason to play you game instead. Realistically you aren't going to be able to copy an established AAA giant and beat them on execution (see the graveyard of WoW clones), so you've got to find that balance on innovation vs familiarity.

[@JanusIIV]

Pour one out for Duelyst. God, this game was so fun and so interesting. I remember starting off with one of the scrubby starter decks and just learning how to play by abusing weird positioning gimmicks, Songhai and teleports, and flanking. It got a little more RNG-heavy which made me slowly lose interest, but it was genuinely fun and new. The Hearthstone curse claims another.

[@Brandon11746]

same. Hopefully someday we will see a new game similar to Duelyst, but who knows. On the same token, I don't think it's likely.

[@Mezmorizorz]

I strongly disagree with the hearthstone curse you mentioned. The weird positioning things you're talking about became solved after you put in ~50 hours. It's just busy work you do to play your cards. Imagine hearthstone or magic except you have to solve a simple system of equations before you end your turn and you lose the game if you don't solve it correctly. That's roughly what it was like. Once you get rid of the positioning aspect of the game, what you end up with is a mediocre CCG. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. Which is why it failed. There was plenty of marketing and hype behind it. It even came on the scene at the ideal time. Plenty of notable hearthstone streamers were looking for an exit ramp at the time and like the video mentioned, Firebat and Kibler even played it a lot. The problem is that it didn't have much replayability. You learn the gimmick and then it's just meh.

[@Sonserf369]

9:07 - The simple way of thinking about this is that because you were drawing two card per turn, cheap cards were more valuable since the typical card advantage cost of spamming a bunch of cheap stuff in one turn is mitigated when you draw twice as much ever turn. As such, pretty much anything that costes more than 4 mana was borderline unplayable, which limited design space severely. 12:23 - Another point when it comes to pixel art is that they insisted on using polished art pieces for all marketing materials, almost none of which were present in the actual game. It was so bad that even established players like me weren't even able to tell that a certain art piece was supposed to represent a specific in-game unit.

[@HasekuraIsuna]

Certainly there was a problem with decks being 50% 2 mana cards before the death of double draw, but I think that was more a problem of 2 mana cards being to strong. I mean, most 2 mana cards weren't nerfed when the draw was limited! So having 2 mana cards designed for a draw-1-game in a draw-2-game was imbalanced, who would have thunk it?

[@navyseagull5635]

"As such, pretty much anything that costes more than 4 mana was borderline unplayable [in 2 draw], which limited design space severely." This is very obviously false to anyone who takes the time to look at what cards and decks were popular prior during 2 draw. I don't know why people keep repeating it.

[@oldnorean]

My goodness do I want to echo your 2nd point. I wished for the cards to have an artstyle that portrays a unit in detail THEN a pixel sprite to represent them on the board. The thing is, the portraits of the 3rd generals of each factions are so different in style than the previous 2 that I don't think consistency for the hundreds of cards could be done

[@Mezmorizorz]

@@HasekuraIsuna Sure, I don't think anybody is arguing that it's *impossible* to make a balanced game where you draw 2 cards a game with the traditional mana system...but why. It doesn't add anything to the game. It just means 2 cards are now worth roughly one card, and you're going to have trouble actually achieving that state because all of the card game balance lessons from the past were done in mtg which is a 1 card draw game with a mana system.

[@Mezmorizorz]

@@navyseagull5635 It's admittingly been a while, but I remember the decks being played were Vetruvium because Star's Fury was so busted that you had to make yourself weak to everything else to not lose on the spot to it, Control Magmar because reborn was a busted mechanic and Magmar had so many strong tools outside of it as well, and Backstab Songhai because it forced you to make weak positioning moves. Control Magmar's finisher was a 7 cost and Magmar had one of the strongest cards in the game at 6, but otherwise all those decks curved out at 5 or below. Even control Magmar only used those two cards above 5, and they were truly busted. The 6 drop instantly put you ahead on tempo and the 7 drop required you to have a tempo and positional advantage while having hard removal in your hand to not lose on the spot.

[@darknessvamp]

Ah so that’s what this game was called, I saw some footage years ago but never saw Deulyst mentioned or anything said about it afterwards. I’m surprised it was released. And the devs went on to work on Godfall? Ouch that’s some bad luck right there. “Lead producer of Diablo 3” Oh.

[@gregn1491]

One thing not touched on in my opinion - the matches were pretty mentally draining. Not only are you playing a card game, but also a tactical game at the same. So you'd be playing a fairly complex card game while also factoring in the position and movement of your units across a game board. It was quite a bit of pure mental work and I think players would get fatigued over time. There wasn't really a break in the mental pace during the course of the game.

[@Brandon11746]

That's so true. I think it did fatigue me, but i still loved that it was complex because the challenge of it also made it fun, and not too similar to other tcg games like Hearthstone. I still play Hs, but not as hardcore often as i used to.

[@hamza9829]

OMG THIS COMMENT IS THE ONE absolutely adored duelyst and all its quirks and uniqueness but god damn playing the game was so mentally fatiguing and when you combine the fact that i was going uni and had other constraints it just led to me playing it less and less, though i was playing less in general when i did play i wouldn't choose duelyst however that complexity is also why i loved the game and would always come back, hurts that its kinda gone

[@thelonelyduck7267]

Nah that was it's selling point. The game never got boring because of her complex it was. And the art style and music kept it fresh and enjoyable.

[@Mezmorizorz]

@@thelonelyduck7267 It did get boring though. Vetruvium and Sonhai's special card/mechanic is scarier than frenzy so you position around that when you're facing them. You position around frenzy otherwise. Congratulations, that is 99% of what the positioning layer of the game was at S-rank. Basically all of that 1% deviation is from your opening move.

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

this was a major positive for it imo, having an actually ENGAGING match

[@JanusIIV]

Tactics Arena Online! I yelled in my chair when you mentioned that! I used to love that game so much, and I completely forgot it existed until now. Holy crap, what a nostalgia trip. I have so many emotions seeing these two games in the same video.

[@iTzTiMeToJuMp]

I KNOW WHEN HE PULLED THE IMAGE UP THE HAIRS ON MY NECK RAISED!!! I completely forgot about it and I loved that games style.

[@The-Opium-Den]

I was an on and off player of Tactics Arena Online as a kid, too. I went by the username India, lol. Sad they shut the game down in 2014. I wish they kept it going or at the very least scrapped their stupid policy of deleting inactive accounts. Had to remake my account several times, too.

[@YESSEN]

Lo mismo por aquí amaba ese juego.

[@ultimatemacchia]

29:39 "Teemo caused chaos" I cannot hear anything else

[@Entropy047]

TFT or maybe LOL dominion?

[@haven4304]

@@Entropy047 TFT is still running today, and Dominion isn't really a 'game', more a gamemode

[@ultimatemacchia]

maybe it will be about how LoL killed the MOBA genre lmao Jokes aside the sound effect at the end reminded me of Hi-rez games for some reasons

[@SkarmoryThePG]

Bleeding Edge I think

[@dalec5200]

"Team up cause chaos" If you Google it it's the tagline of a game called Bleeding edge.

[@nikelas6]

NS cracking so many cases he's losing hair

[@Casdrop_Cacan]

This was always my favorite ccg, I remember playing it on a hotel overseas after getting locked out of it post-namco 😂 Thanks for covering this, it's brought back some nice memories

[@StopTheMoment1]

My favorite part of the game was the art style. I did not really understand why it was a problem to monetize it though, perhaps I need to rewatch since I am background listening at work right now. I had not played since the first open beta and shortly after release though, but its sad to see it did not succeed even with a small dedicated audience. I think it was a unique idea and I liked playing it, even though I really dislike TCG games.

[@Mezmorizorz]

Animated pixel art is just much more expensive to produce than a single landscape like most card games use.

[@kabalan20]

I miss playing Lyonar and just covering the board with Provoke units. I hardly ever won with this strat but it was really fun.

[@HasekuraIsuna]

I only played Lyonar and I loved it. That 5 mana 3/10 Provoke Airdrop was so cool!

[@Habertod]

@@HasekuraIsuna i hated it lol. holy frustration was such an unfair and unbalanced card. 0 counterplay too

[@Jamslijamsl]

I fucking loved this game, the artstyle was beautiful, the music amazing, Its so sad that it has faded.

[@ajwaddanwarr3409]

Now this is a death of a game I have been looking forward to for a while.

[@matuphon]

When nerd Slayer Studios unearths a game, ill cry but with a smile on the end.

[@heliodorespecht6083]

I really hope duelyst gets a spiritual successor one day...

[@nefariousnz]

It's back, Duelyst 2.

[@McFatson]

Hey man, thanks for the deep dive. Duelyst was an audiovisual delight. The pixel art made me fall in love, and I still listen to the soundtrack on the regular. Here's to Duelyst. You were there when Hearthstone let me down. Hope to see you again.

[@NinjaGinge23]

Man this one hurts. There's a couple things missing though. The mobile client being absent thing was an issue, but they doubled down on the problem by keeping it as a carrot on a stick for the community for YEARS. One thing I think was actually missing from the vid was the details regarding their switch to a rotating set expansion model. With the release of their last expansion, the devs decided it was time for a rotating set model to keep ranked healthy. For any ccg whos collection keeps growing this is a necessity to keep power creep in line and keep the game fresh. This is also when they implemented the casual que along side the already existing ranked que. Outside of the people who were unhappy about the design choice there were huge problems right off the bat. The deck creator did not have an indicator for which cards in your deck were not standard legal, and cards lacked a visual indicator from what set they were from. New and sometimes even veteran players would happily build a deck, only to find out they couldnt join the ranked que and had to comb the deck to decipher what card(s) in their deck were from an old set. This problem was exasperated by the fact that the deck creator was set to "wild" mode by default, so if you wanted to avoid this trap you had to go into the deck filter and select standard legal sets manually. For new players this was a nightmare and we saw tons of confused/frustrated posts about it on the forums/subreddit. It absolutely murdered any chance of growth the game had during that time period. THEN IT GOT WORSE. After seeing how badly they shit the bed, they UNDID THE CHANGE. Competitive players who were focused on standard ranked had SOLD THEIR OLD SET CARDS in order to build their collection of new standard legal cards. So now that the old cards were legal again these players were left without core tools and would have to build up that aspect of their collection again. At this point it became clear that whoever was making decisions and whoevers job it was to actually implement those decisions in client had no fucking idea what they were doing. Super super sad to see an incredible game die due to mismanagement and poor implementation

[@KnowThatIDontKnowYou]

Was playing the game when it released on steam, was really thinking that it would boom on mobile, but it never released there...

[@NinjaGinge23]

@@KnowThatIDontKnowYou Yeah, and the community learned pretty recently that the mobile version was pretty much totally done and they just withheld it....

[@schrisu7252]

Now you can make video: death of anthem next. It will be literally a 1 minute long lol

[@fappydabear1774]

Game was bad. Game stayed bad. Game shut down. The end. Lol

[@tristans.7120]

He already did one. That was 40 minutes :)

[@jorge15266]

@@tristans.7120 Not Anthem. Anthen *Next*.

[@tristans.7120]

@@jorge15266 My bad

[@AdamIsUrqed]

"BioWare magic lost to Covid science and developer ineptitude. The End"

[@nono9543]

It's a shame. I remember getting introduced to this game back in my sophomore year of college. Shame it died down the way it did.

[@Rom3Moonl1gth]

I played Duelyst almost 600h and i´m happy to see a video from one my favorite game of 2017-2018, RIP Duelyst :´3

[@imie-nazwisko]

Thanks for making this video man. I thought everyone forgot about it.

[@jeanrushmer8192]

Rip Duelyst, a great game, with an eventually massive power creep. Art was my fav part

[@jackawaka]

I can still hear the announcer to this day VERTRUVIAN, Versus, MAGMAR

[@skillo6399]

Your videos are one of the very few that make me stop whathever I'm doing, just to watch them. Good job mate!

[@judsonhester1407]

This was really hard to watch, but I'm so glad it exists now. Thank you for making this little piece of gaming history more widely available to those who never got to learn about this gem of a game. As a hardcore fan of the game since the first year, it was so sad to see it go, but it made me incredibly happy to see you mention the revival project. Maybe people from this video will see it and check it out. I'm glad that after all this time, as a fan of the game, I can finally have some closure on the death of Duelyst. Thank you.

[@rSlash]

The art direction in this game was utterly incoherent The heroes looked like anime characters The units looked pixelated and retro The cards looked sci-fi futuristic The backgrounds looked classic hand-painted fantasy

[@ultracapitalistutopia3550]

I have a similar concern for Triangle (Octopath) Strategy, I honestly don't like the idea of intentionally employing pixelated sprite especially for a 3D grid-based chess game. Not to mention that Final Fantasy Tactics handles the sprites modularly and locks the camera at intercardinal/ordinal angles, these are not the case with Triangle Strategy. So I scratch my head when people scream FFT when they see Triangle Strategy.

[@huanquocmanh416]

Character design is very WoW like. Bad

[@F14thunderhawk]

@@huanquocmanh416 WoW has very good character design though. It only fails when you literally hold it against what it was 17 years ago because not even Blizzard can justify the investiture into remastering all the old content. Duelyst had no design at all, and it shows. just look at the clips NS took from across the community. None of these characters look like theyre related to eachother. the Heros look like theyre from a Korean browser Grind MMO, the mooks look like theyre from the NES. the design of the interface and cards looks like someone made a Star Wars TCG, and the marketting and backgrounds are from Bright fantasy. i had enough issue with Skyforge, and that MMO is primarily Greek meets Neomodernism.

[@WhoMightThis1Be]

Haven't played the game but from that it looks like they used whatever artist they have to design a game that would have looked almost as bland and ugly as something like Brawlhalla, then they gave their character desig to some hired pixelartist who di a decent job at it, but they didn't really concider how to put it in, so the characters are so small that you can't tellat all there is pixel art behind the post processing on anything smaller than fullscreen.

[@pancakepop680]

The pixel art is gorgeous. Extremely well done. The only things that don't fit are the character art. It would've been fine if it was just animated in adverts, but the promo art and in game art for the leaders was too.

[@gamerlovesitaly4585]

Seeing this makes me ask: will you consider "Might and Magic: Duel of Champions"? you should gave a look to its history

[@eduardoserpa1682]

I had completely forgotten that one by now. It was pretty good, though.

[@gamerlovesitaly4585]

@@eduardoserpa1682 it actually was my favorite card game of all time ( it may be nostalgia talking but oh well ). Some things have to end I guess

[@scarocci7333]

it was incredibly good

[@Oncus2]

I played a ton of the game. In card games I usually reach the top 10-20% but really sucked at that game. Still I was hooked and loved the direction (new basic cards, that got rid of OP cards such as fireball) until the day they killed it. Man, that game had very creative, but frustratingly broken combos (like the Prison deck). Still the lane mechanic was awesome. Definitely worth investigating as the game had reach history before it vanished.

[@eduardoserpa1682]

Yeah, the cards interacted with the lane mechanic in very unique ways. Gwent is probably the one that's closest to that, but it's nowhere near as open as Duel of Champions used to be.

[@zukrath1247]

29:39 as soon as I heard it, I literally yelled “I fucking knew Bleeding Edge was coming” lol sucks because I really do like that game and hoped it would stay that way but... my god the state of it now..

[@anothervocalist1944]

The second I heard the announcement I had been waiting for that game to get a "death of a game" segment.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Head to keeps.com/nerdslayer to get 50% off your first order of hair loss treatment. Thanks to Keeps for Sponsoring this video :). Hope you guys enjoy, and good luck to the detectives on the case for the next DOAG! Thank you for all the help players/developers alike. Also "Counterplay Games" CPG, not Counterpoint Games LOL. And if you are interested in testing the Duelyst Revival project, check this out discord.com/invite/duelyst - N.S.

[@Kigoli]

Not sure if you'll see this, but I feel like you're too locked in to Hearthstone in this video. @11:50, you say that a standard, non-ranked mode is often called 'Wild' in card game circles, but that is almost exclusively a Hearthstone term. No one from the Eternal, ShadowVerse, or Legends of Runeterra communities use the term Wild. It's such a minor thing, but as someone who loves any and all card games, I try to avoid painting any 1 as the definitive game, and respect the terminology of each game.

[@BrokenorderGames]

Now if only I wasn't bald at 18 years old....

[@notabene9804]

Bleeding Edge? That games only like a year old. Rip, damn.

[@aaronbasham6554]

....why did they sell to Bandai Namco? Almlst every collectible game of theirs fails, sometimes within 2 years, cause they literally seem incapable of managing anything competitive. Jesus Christ, they make Konami look perfect at their job

[@erinwright3397]

25:31 holy sh*t I felt like that dude from ratatoille

[@leomar8577]

I was having a good day and now I'm in tears! Is this what you want NerdSlayer? Is it!? -phew- This was a great video!

[@VinceDick]

0:23 you say "Counterpoint Games" while the graphic shows "Counterplay Games". Just FYI.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

I hate myself lmao.

[@danieelmanso]

I can't explain how much I love your channel. Doing a Duelyst video it's just a way to seal my love

[@NavikvonBathory]

This came up in a Reddit thread. Apparently Duelyst 2 is releasing in a couple days from my comment. Pixel stuff rarely interests me (I'm not a fan of those pixel variants in Marvel Snap), however for some reason the aesthetic of this game appealed to me. I played for a short bit before I ended up moving on. Don't recall the reason for leaving.

[@DarkCulex]

his name is NAZOTH not EN-ZOTH

[@foji-video]

wow, I had been "building" (at least, the concept) basically this game (not in digital though, with pnp) for a few years now. Just now I discover it already existed lol

[@Biouke]

Game Design, step #1 : Do your research ;)

[@foji-video]

@@Biouke yeah, I did when I started, and there was nothing (CCG where board control is quintessential), and I started before there was any annoucment on this game. I should have proably kept researching every now and then

[@Biouke]

@@foji-video Things go fast and there's so much games coming out it can be hard to keep track, I know :) You should have a look at Chaos Reborn and PoxNora which are the same mix between CCG and turn-based tactics, if that's what you're aiming at. See what works and what doesn't in similar games :) Good luck with your own design ! :D

[@foji-video]

@@Biouke thanks

[@MrZer093]

Do be careful though. There’s a reason these sorts of games are digital. It should be a game easy enough to bring with you and pop down to start a match at the drop of a hat whenever meet up with another player if you are going with a physical game.

[@irkalla100]

One thing that always stuck with me was the artstyle of this game. So gorgeous!! Even the cursor was gorgeous.

[@Highmastet]

I've been really waiting for this episode! Man did I love that game. I really don't know why I didn't stay longer because it was so good

[@Shadow_Dragon55]

I've played it for a while but, I would eventually take a break. Just because things where a little stale, and when I was new obtaining cards where hard. I came back near it's death and streamed it on twitch. People came by surprising, there where few streaming it in general. I also got drops enabled letting people come by and get card packs. We would have up to about 40 people every stream roughly, and they would be active which was really nice. I also had done custom sprites for my favorite faction to spice things up, because that was a thing you could do. You just couldn't go over the original pixel count. And that last time with the game was the best I've had, the issues I had with the game didn't matter much for me at that point and I really enjoyed it, especially with the welcoming and passionate fans of the game coming by having a chat, some laughs and learning new things.

[@themightycaptainfrost]

Duelyst 2 is on its way!

[@petelinux8387]

I loved Duelyst. I played it all throughout high school in the Browser on my run-down Chromebook. I had so much fun playing and building decks. I remember one time me and my friend were in the auditorium for some kind of event, and we just sat in the back playing this game for the entire event, man good times. This game has so much nostalgia for me, and I miss it so much, rip to an amazing game. Hope the revival project goes well.

[@TheRefinedOtaku]

As always, thank you for making these videos! They're always fascinating to watch and incredibly educational :) You should look into doing videos about Heroes of Newerth, Strife and MXM!

[@Roge9]

This was a solid and unique card game I played a bit of. Shame it died. Edit: Oh there's a revival project approved by the developers huh? I kinda wish there were more projects that revived dead games approved by the devs themselves.

[@Brandon11746]

is there a way i can play the game, or what? I installed Duelyst but i couldn't sign up/make my account at all.

[@Saberblade152]

Fucking finally, I've been trying to remember Tactics Arena Online for months, I used to play it a ton as a kid but I forgot where I used to go to actually play it. Also after watching this Death of a Game, I kinda wanna see one on another card game I really liked called Battleforge since that game sadly died out and has a revival project being worked on if I remember right.

[@The-Opium-Den]

Also used to play Tactics Arena Online, too. I used to play it from Mofunzone or on the official site itself. A darn shame the game and official site no longer exist now.

[@warpotato8700]

Duelyst was favorite deck building game. It was my baby. I stopped playing for a while and after a few months I remember Duelyst and was like “oh! I loved that game, I wonder what’s it up to” Then I learned the game was dead, and I involuntarily went “Oh noooooo.” The pixel art is what drew me in, and the backgrounds in the main menu were stunning to me. Vetruvian Imperium are my boys

[@wolflance64]

I miss this game immensely, it inspired me to get into more competitive environments when I realized I was genuinely decent at it, my first rogue deck I built was diamond golem with lyonar bond buff, actually solidified my love for the game with how creative it got.

[@albertoroche9831]

Just when I wanted to look back at some gameplay, this video gets released lol

[@Abyssri]

I'm super early to the crime scene detective

[@Estirvana]

Oh my god, you're literally the only other person I have heard mentioning Tactics Online Arena- no joke. Another fan! I didn't understand what I was doing, but I really enjoyed it.

[@Kyotosomo]

I remember playing this game back when it came out, it was so much fun, it's a shame it died out.

[@TheHeartThatRunsCold]

The question of "Why don't developers try innovating", screams SO LOUDLY with Duelyst that is almost hurts.

[@user-qd8pb2xq7j]

Always sad to see another card game die. There aren't that many of those around. But I'm from Russia so this game died for me sooner than for other "allowed" regions' players anyways.

[@smartyben101]

hey just awhile ago I had duelyst in my steam library and noticed that it said the game servers would shut down really soon. nice that you made a video about it because im really curious!

[@vladimirsagalov7945]

Played Duelyst for 3 years, ranking around Diamond1. This game was gorgeous and fun. Loved it so much that at one moment I've even started preparations for Argeon Highmane cosplay (still have that ginger wig and half finished armor set somewhere). Such a bitter sweet memories...

[@Tazdingo01]

You can finish the costume now. Duelyst is coming back!

[@Eclip5eMusic]

Jokes on you we got Duelyst 2 haha

[@phoenixking62]

Hey uhhh, the games back? Just an FYI if you see this. Look up Duelyst II.

[@Paladinbaroque]

Hearing there's fans and devs keeping it alive is lovely to find out though, thank you bub

[@narogsilva2156]

the one card draw change was so mind blowing, the games have been in development for years and changing the amount of card you draw per turn changes everything , many people say that they are not gonna play the game anymore , you cant even play wiht the same neck anymore .

[@carlospitteri3146]

wow i didnt know duelyst art was that divisive, i for one loved duelyst art style while whenever i look at hearthstone it makes me want to look away. mybe i just didnt inject enought money to get cards with good animations in hearthstone tho......

[@Brandon11746]

yeah

[@m73858]

THE GAME IS ALIVE AGAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@sr.3161]

I’d love to see you do a DOA on Fusionfall, one of the mmos that got me into mmos as a kid. I’ve been binging all your DOA videos all week and they’re very well written and informative, reminded me why I loved mmos

[@arsToMars]

Oh man, I really think your videos deserve more views! Sending love, keep goin!

[@diegojose4173]

Trion Worlds has announced that Defiance and it's enhanced version are shutting down. When Death of a Game: Defiance?

[@GatorRay]

I remember watching AngryJoe's review of that game. Such ashame to see it go.

[@nobodyherepal3292]

Damn, another one...

[@trietle3026]

i remember playing this game, but totally forgot it existed until this video, great video!

[@Leo-64DC27]

Glad you made this Review when i ask you during the Podcast xd👍

[@Meitti]

Shame about the game, the art style was really nice.

[@XxxXxx-dp8js]

Is anyone else here because of Duelyst 2 ?

[@Tazdingo01]

Me!

[@trevorstillson8126]

This one hits home. I used to absolutely love playing this

[@mastamitche]

@nerdSlayer am a game dev, love your content. Keep up the great work, really useful info and fantastic investigation into financials which are difficult to get a hold of.

[@miirico5398]

You just know that when a game goes F2P it usually means its dying...really sad though I enjoyed this game and played it a lot and I can honestly say this game has a lot of potential...

[@aheahe7943]

it depends entirely on the game and it's current lifespan. Other MMOs going F2P after being B2P for years can definitely signal the end of the game. However Duelyst went F2P before ever even launching. Before the general public ever spent a dime on it, the only people affected by the F2P model were the Kickstarter Backers. CPG realized that a B2P tactics game wasn't going to sell millions of copies, and for it to be something that they planned on releasing expansions and supporting for years, it wasn't going to make them any money. Case in point, Artifact, the long dead card game by Valve, which had beyond triple A levels of polish and glamor. It was B2P, the only B2P online card game in-fact; directly competing with Heartstone which has always been F2P.

[@Nas0630]

This hurt to watch. 😭 I loved this game and played it for as long as it was on steam. The fact you mentions Tatics Arena Online too kinda made me realize how much I enjoyed the genre before I knew I was playing it. Thank you for sharing that there is a revival project going on. I will definitely have to look into it.

[@Ashley-uz2gw]

I loved this game a lot! Was sad to see it go, but I could see it happening for a while. At least I get to look back and appreciate the innovation of the CCG, as well as the amazing artwork.

[@Ryygor]

It's 2022 and I still miss this game, loved it ever since it came out. I'm just hoping that the remake that the community is making will be just as good.