How long has it been since you tried for early access till now getting the code?
Eh part of me wants to try cb early access but I’ve already got other games taking up my time, I’d say do keep the code for yourself. You’ve waited awhile, enjoy it and play it/test it
Since the option to sign up in the discord appeared way back then…
Also I just found out that I get two keys apparently, one for myself and one for a friend! Although idk how to get the second key, I can give two out for anyone that wants to play!!
edit: It was around august when i signed up
Wow that was a long time for early access keys to be given, if you have a spare and wouldn’t mind giving it to others, might I have the spare then? That is if you figure out how to get it lol
So thanks to Rise I’m able to try the early access and it’s quite an iffy impression so far. Gameplay is the aspect I’m most happy with but there’s still gripes in there that are very oof like visuals being too hard to decipher what’s passable and what’s a wall. Out of gameplay stuff is just ugh. I can say a lot on it but these are all things that could change.
I dunno if anyone here is interested in this game much anymore to even really want to hear about these out of game stuff lol. If so I can write out that experience but just wanna ask before I ramble on for too long lol.
I’m more interested in design and gameplay decisions than I am in actually playing the game, tbh – it’s not really the sort of game I’d play very long, I don’t think, but I’d be willing to give it a try when it’s generally available, I suppose.
Good game design is very difficult, and the original SEMC team did amazing work with Vainglory in its early years. However, poor design choices can ruin the overall experience, leading to the failure of a new game or the demise of an existing one, as we saw with VG as well. So I’d certainly be interested in hearing what choices CB’s designers have made that you think are good or bad.
So I’ll just cut this up into bits cuz I really couldn’t shorten how I talk about the currencies.
Ok so first I’ll just talk about some in game/map stuff, it’s a good top down shooter with visually nice maps but there are things that just really seem as tho they wouldn’t be obstacles but they are like a just this small log, gets me everytime. Then there’s these fallen over pillars that I’m at times unclear if I can shoot over them or not cuz some I can some I can’t. The maps are also vibrant that the aim line you have either blends in at times or is not bright enough to be seen really.
Gameplay is fun, especially if I’m using items I like. There’s 3 permanent mode types that are easy to learn and with the drop in drop out ability of going into matches it’s fun. There’s an event mode I haven’t played much just cuz the first timeI played it it’s clear it’s a long match time mode, it’s got a lot more players on both teams than all the other modes and it doesn’t have an initial tutorial like the rest but that’s just cuz it’s new most likely.
There is also controller support that does work pretty well with this sort of gameplay
Your build or as it’s called in game loadout is interesting, you’ve got the mask which determines the big beast you can turn into, then there’s two slots for the mask in which you can change for some other ability/passive of said mask, these other abilities/passives seem premium locked so far but I may be wrong in this.
Then there’s your primary gun that is of course the main weapon you’ll be using, a heavy gun that requires special ammo to use, an ability slot so an instant heal or a blink or a shield and so on and lastly a trinket which is a passive.
Each of these besides the mask choice slot can be equipped with their own mod that can add various different effects, these mods do come in different rarity’s.
There is also a thing called banner on the items not affiliated with mask that are essentially a set bonus thing, more of the same banner the better set bonus.
I like the amount of variation you have to build to your liking just money issues make building and getting those right items very slow.
Currency, there’s 4 types: the normal ones to buy stuff in stores with is called Quint. The premium is called Marks. There’s a currency you get from scrapping mods (these added customisations that is equiped onto your items, each item in your build has independent and different mods) which is called shards. And the last currency is called dust which is used to upgrade your items faster than just playing matches.
I’ll start with quint, these are gained only from the 3 quests you have: 2 daily and 1 weekly and they don’t give much per quest. 5 quint from 1 daily and a weapon that isn’t one of the starter items that you can buy in their beginner section of the store is like 300 quint, don’t get why this isn’t given from matches like exp is. 4 item slots in your build are items bought through quint but you can only get like 1 every 2-3 weeks.
Premium currency/marks can be traded for quint but marks are also used to seemingly be the only way to buy masks other abilities, so far seemingly locking mask customisation behind premium. Marks can also be used to buy chests (yes chests again) which give can give dust, mods and either a mask or other items. Boosts also make a comeback with the good ole basic currency/quint boost for 30 days, xp boost for 30 and a mod boost for 30 days.
Shards are just purely mods purchasing, recycle mods you don’t want for shards and pay shards for a random mod.
Dust is a pay for advantage type currency, get it through chest, boosts enabling it in end of match results on max level gear and quests. You use it to go up a level on your items for them better stats.
I dislike the ability to fasten xp and item levels, especially since paying can yield more dust. Quint ugh just so slow to get when it’s only available in dailies and slows down that want and ability to customise your build to you. I don’t get why quint isn’t given in end of match rewards at all.
The grind in playing is mostly to level up items and get the occasional a mod from end rewards but if you don’t even have items you like at the beginning it makes it less fun to play and just about playing to get to the good stuff while maybe not having that much fun along the way
Also just an odd thing with selecting your character appearance, it’s just tap the character in your build menu till you get what you want, then do it again before each match cuz it just becomes random again. Why, I don’t get that?
Original VG team is long gone and no more. I am not sure any of the people working on VG is still in SEMC besides few of the original founders. Even if some do, I am sure I can count them on my single hand and yeah… 
Reasons why i also believe the game will flop (just my opinion and pure speculation):
VG was actually a really good game and a fluke, CB is probably gonna be pretty good game too but nowhere near as good as VG and probably won’t meet the expectations of the vast majority of the VG fan base.
Semc is carrying the momentum left from the downfall of VG, most people that made the game great have left semc and its just not the same company anymore.
While they’re 2 different game genres i believe WR is gonna get all the attention of the mobile gaming industry leaving any other new game in the dark. Personally i don’t plan on even trying CB unless i hear really good things about it cause i am giving my full attention to WR.
Semc was never good at advertising we all know that, they were pretty lucky VG went this far.
I’d have to agree tbh. The game is pretty good from early access and has the same level of polish VG did, but even giving them the benefit of the doubt that they actually learned how to better manage the game than VG in it’s later years, I don’t think that it’ll come close to reaching the same amount of popularity as VG in it’s peak at all. I feel like it’ll probably have a hard time building up an audience of new players after the actual launch considering how SEMC was never really that good at advertising and the game itself doesn’t exactly seem the most unique at first glance. WR is definitely gonna be the most difficult for the game to deal with though. I fully expect WR to take over the mobile scene for the foreseeable future after it fully launches and given the League name alone, I severely doubt any new mobile game is gonna be able to compete with it for a while.
Kinda off topic, but WR is really deserving full attention. It’s that good. You can easily sink a lot of time there + for everyone fearing that coming from touch controls you will lose the precision. Nope, it’s really close to touch control precision wise. You can really control what you are targeting/where you put your skillshots, but more importantly - do it without being a hassle or slow. It’s naturally integrated, precise and fast to target/switch targets fast if you want to do so. It’s so much better vs ML and the other joystick MOBAs. Actually even the auto targeting of WR is sooo much better than ML, so even for new-starters that just press skills/attack - it will be better experience. There you mostly learn how to “target” via positioning, not that great precision. In WR you can actually target what you want easily and fast. Yeah, from those who never played joystick MOBA it will still take the tutorial to get used to them (great tutorial, btw!). That’s not that much at all time wise + you can also customise the controls as you want really - button positions, size and whatnot. There is even an option that you can turn on so when you click on the map it will not go there, it will put your hero to move towards that location while holding is to go there cam wise. So you can click like on VG and check builds etc while your hero is moving. You can also change location of player in the score board so it’s easier for you to track your gold/items vs your direct lane competitor one. Those small quality of life changes are all there.
So yeah, I would strongly recommend anyone who played VG to give WR a shot, it’s not ML at all. It’s basically PC league in a lot of ways if not all the ways. Just tuned to be faster games and played with touch controls/gamepads.
Not everyone is into MOBAs + some plays few games at a time, but yeah. Also as you/we all mention, VG was in a unique place. First - it looked so good for it’s time, it was levels ahead from anything else and a lot of players tried it/get hooked because of the graphics and to test their new phones. Sound design was also awesome - from the sound effects, hero quotes, music. Also there were not that much mobile MOBAs back then and VG 3vs3 was superior in all the ways really (heroes complexity, variations, graphics, fast game times, fast que, action packed gameplay, great use of screen space/horizontal map = easy to target + screen size back then was at max around 5 inch, premium out of game experience, tournaments with big price money and high skill cap, easy to unlock basically anything for free - you buy currency mostly to support the devs, API for stats and so on). VG 3vs3 was also unique type of MOBA with a single lane and a single jungle, defo great for mobile.
Nowdays there are tons of really great looking games on mobile. There are tons of complex games too. There are PC ports like xcom 2 WOTC… mobile hardware really is becoming powerful enough to see ports of recent PC games with great visuals and new titles that fully exploits that speed to have great graphics. Just by going “good graphics” it’s not enough + their engine is not that impressive anymore in the current day and time, was back then when they released VG. Still looks good, but I can objectively say WR looks better and have more details on everything (subjectively we can talk about style, but that’s personal preference and not relevant in this discussion). So yeah, can’t see CB really getting the traction that VG had.
I really feel that not using the momentum of VG and exploit your leading position regarding MOBAs/mobile gaming - that is one of the biggest fails I ever saw. In reality it was not that hard to grow the game and get really really big with the right moves that I feel any decent marketing company can help you with. This goes for monetisation too - was not hard to switch from what VG started with to PC league type of monetisation. Instead they changed to the cheap free games lootbox type of monetisation that was actually HARDER to do and more unnatural to your player base than going league type of monetisation that still gives quite a lot of free stuff to recognise and say thanks to those who play the game, while having a lot of high quality stuff that is straight forward for sale. No cheap experience, no lootbox scams.
Sadly they pull off the impossible and instead of growing the idea that came up to be really good (gameplay/technology wise), they actually did a wrong decision after wrong decision, switched to cheap mobile tactics for money and in the end let VG die. 5vs5 was also a really missed opportunity. They had the change to do something unique with it, something never seen, 5vs5 idea mixed with the ideas put into the 3vs3. Instead they did the most boring way and on top of that slap 3vs3 heroes designed for… surprise 3vs3, different map layout and even different touch controls type of play (horizontal map). Killing 3vs3 in the process, making it times less fun to play with absurd balance and heroes feel. Still kinda sad how this all turned out… so much potential to grow and become really big by now, all wasted with wrong leadership and direction.
This is pretty much spot-on, in my opinion.