from the boardgame design space a term that might help think about this genre of games is "Enginebuilder". You're building an engine that does something.
And with how these games tend to go- I build a sputtering, sloppy jalopy that barely runs, then kamikaze it into the bowels of your engine so that it blows up and hopefully kills you instead of me Then you in turn build an even more murderous armored kamikaze vehicle so that I die in the explosion instead, and once the meta has resolved, we both realize that we’ve reached mutually assured nuclear destruction and are rolling the dice on whose bomb goes off first
Auto-battlers basically took the progression system from RPGs and pointed out that the actual gameplay of a video game isn't strictly necessary. Turns out people really enjoy just building and customising sets of things; getting the perfect equipment and teams.
A PvE Autobatter I've been enjoying a lot recently is "The Last Flame". It has a lot of interesting decisions in how you go about making a build, it has a good variety in different types of challenges to face, giving you reasons to incorporate different tools in your build. Also a cool way of avoiding the "Take forever to make a perfectly optimal build" problem is having optional timers. Have things like achievements for "beating" a run in a certain amount of time, so people who want to be methodical can do so, and people who want to be rewarded for learning to make "good enough" builds quickly can be rewarded for that separate skill.
HAven't played it in a long time, but I basically found it to be the best implementation of TFT-esque autobattler mechanics for a purely pve game. Really well done and interesting in how they didn't directly rip off tft synergy system, in favor of soft synergies and focusing on item management and utilization.
The Last flame is fantastic! I haven't played since they recently dropped their 1.0 launch, but it was a wonderful implementation of a single player auto battler experience.
really resonate with the comment on the bazaar. i'm currently developing a PvE singleplay autobattler game, was encouraging to hear about this being a gap other have seen and thought about too! appreciate your thoughtful and casual chats cheers
Mechabellum is an insanely cool auto battler. The aesthetic resembles RTS's and you have control over basically everything during a turn. Which units to unlock, which units to buy, which units to upgrade, which tech to upgrade, etcetc. You basically just don't move your dudes around other than their starting location. It's not async but there's very very little to read/react to during a round, so you can prepare in advance if the stress of picking stuff under time pressure is a factor for you. Given it's not async, the game is a giant match of multilevel rock paper scissors against your opponent. I can't recommend it enough, it's so so good (I have a review of it if you're interested but what I said above is kind of it lol)
@@tldreview Damn, I have to give Mechabellum a fair shot. I bounced off pretty quickly, so I didn't get to feel as much control as I wanted, but it sounds close to something I'd like if I give it enough time (short of something like Battle Aces).
@tldreview Same, took over my life for awhile. I peaked at top 8 in a weekly. I made a small autobattler game with a similar design philosophy, but once I played mechabellum, I thought they basically made a perfect version of an autobattler championing near-symmetry, open-ended decisions, unit counterplay, simple but crucial economic management, deep positioning, competitive integrity.
Autobattlers are probably my favorite genre. I'm trying to make a game myself and I'm trying to address a number of the potential issues you brought up with async games like Bazaar. It really feels like making 2 games: a piece acquisition game and an engine-scoring auto-game. I feel like autobattlers are fundamentally engine-building games, (something like a subset of them) which is why Balatro, an engine building game that isn't exactly an autobattler, feels so incredibly related/similar to them.
Something cool about the genre that I wish more autobattlers explored is the 'puzzle-box' aspect that happens during 1 on 1s, where both players sorta stop optimizing their build and switch to countering the opponent's team as much as possible.
@@SeaHorseOfTH-cam I agree! It's difficult in an asynchronous game format because only 1 player gets to counter their opponent since the other player already played their run and "submitted" their engine. That being said, I'm trying to come up with some interesting ways to incprorate it into asynchronous gameplay. I think this is one aspect that is basically completely unexplored in async games, and even in games like TFT, it's not emphasized. I think that aspect is interesting enough on its own (positioning/swapping/rearranging to counter an opponent with known options) to be its own game, but definitely an underexplored but interesting aspect of autobattlers. In a head to head live game it can have an aspect of bluffing and simultaneous choice which tends to make for good gameplay.
I’ve started referring to games like backpack battles and vampire survivors as “potato chip” games. It’s a snack, not a full meal. But sometimes you don’t want or don’t have time for a full meal.
@Kyleology He's not even wrong though. More often than not it's mindless fireworks with minimal engagement, it's junkfood gaming. However, like the original comment said, sometimes fast food is the best choice for the situation, and it's okay to like/want fast food sometimes. Sure it's not a full course meal (a massive 100 hour story game with immersive characters/world to invest time in) but it doesn't have to be.
@@somethingsomething9006imo modern games are too bloated and full of bleh, look at Ubisoft formula games or most ‘open world’ titles, and live service grind. I’d rather have smaller discrete experiences. If junk food games make people overweight then those games make people obese.
As someone in the process of designing an auto-battler, it's very cool to see a lot of my ideas mirrored by you guys as well as some new food for thought! Really interesting stuff
I feel like factorio and other automation/factory style games are similar to idle games in a way. There's many added layers, but it has that same "make big, number go up" gameplay to it
I love autobattlers. I thought I’d hate them but hearthstones Tavern Brawl introduced the concept to me and TFT cemented this as a thing for me. definitely gotta check some of these other ones out
The other game I think these games are drawing from is Cookie Clicker and other games in that genre. The core of a game you can pick up and put down as you please where over time you’re developing a more efficient system is similar. Edit: I listened to almost all of the video before commenting but apparently that still wasn’t enough 😅
As a player who found RTSes stressful and could be described as "all macro, no micro" - I really agree with your first point about autobattlers scratching a similar itch without the stress. I've considered them card game-adjacent (perhaps due to the engine/deckbuilding similarities) since the release of the first auto chess and I still believe the two genres share some DNA. Great vid!
I recommend you check out Mechabellum for a different take on autobattlers. It is primarily 1v1 (or 2v2) and there’s no drafting per se- it has more of the original RTS DNA where you can just build most of the units you want and you have to figure out how to build to your endgame while countering the opponent. There is a random drop that both players pick from between rounds to keep things fresh.
Having infinite time to optimize can be an issue, but I think it’s worth the tradeoff for making games like Balatro or The Bazaar so relaxing. Randomness could help the Bazaar alleviate that optimization problem, but I think it’s a pretty good problem to have if the infinite timer keeps the population of the game high.
What I find interesting is how weirdly full circle this is. You mentioned flash games and TCGs, but there was an odd era of flash game TCGs that were effectively autobattlers. Tyrant comes to mind - you build the deck, and a match is just shuffling the deck and it plays itself vs the opponent's self playing deck. The hybrid of the two genres existed over a decade ago and we just didn't have a name for it yet.
@@GlobusTheGreat This is an interesting question. I think that a sort of neutral thing is that because you played with prebuilt decks there wasn't the draft portion so variance in build was never a thing. This resulted in sculpting decks more to counter the meta as opposed to trying to build with what the game offers. So what Tyrant did worse is that because cards become active based on time but also start in a deck is that you could just straight up lose to the shuffler which isn't a thing modern autobattlers have. Typically in modern autobattlers it takes a lot of in fight RNG going wrong to lose when you usually wouldn't. On the flip side of that you had BattleCraft which also had time based mechanics, but played closer to The Bazaar minus the drafting part. There were 2 games called BattleCraft but I mean the one made by Games Hydra. You just built a board out of cards and the board did the thing. This resulted in a meta of hard counters. You'd often see an identical board and lose (game was async, draws were losses). It happened a lot. When you didn't you'd see a board and instantly know the outcome. It essentially took what could have been a complex system and reduced it to rock, paper, scissors. Both games had pretty bad card acquisition models, and they both did the early flash/mobile thing of having energy that restricted play. Interestingly, Tyrant somewhat survived as Tyrant: Unleashed and you can still play it on Kongregate. Though Tyrant Unleashed isn't self playing like original Tyrant. It plays closer to a traditional CCG but still has the bad economy and mobile game energy system for some reason. It just feels really dated. Also, there is a new-ish one called Void Scourge, www.void-scourge.com/ and this one tries to be different by being procedurally generated which makes it so you never face identical boards. In this one you build a board of guys, they attack left to right hitting random targets. So you get the autobattler, the card collecting, and it just feels like the only thing that matters is how good the procedural randomness is to you. However, I would at least give it a try so you can see how weird it feels to have autobattles in a context outside of drafting.
Autobattlers are my favorite genre of video games right now, I'm willing to try pretty much any new autobattler I hear about because I like the synergistic nature of the games, and "building the machine" is a fun concept to me no matter how it's presented. I've experimented with autobattler mechanics in physical card games but thus far I haven't come up with much that's all that replayable. I hope to find something one day, though my next experiments will probably delve more into board game space since there's a lot more freedom to be had there as opposed to limiting myself to just cards.
I think the basic issue you'd run into in auto battlers as a board game is that video games can do all the overhead of synergies for you. In a board game you would need to really hone in on finding something else to make up for the simple (and therefore easy to execute) battle system. For an idea off the top of my head you could (in a 1v1 game which is very risky because you're risking snowballs) you could play cards from a collection in a row for each player (with some kind of restriction on how they can be placed) to make the matchups one card against one card. Then the synergies could just care about the card they are fighting and the cards to their own left and right. Then you just try and win the most of those matchups. I think like each card having a number listing order could work (like give each one a order score of 1-10 then you have to lay your cards out lowest on the left and highest on the right increasing each time. Then disruption cards have the low numbers and value cards have high numbers. Actually maybe a score for each round being how much you won each matchup by would be best 🤔 Going to try and mock build one now thanks for the work distraction 😂
Auto battlers are pretty great for streamers too. because you can take your time and chat during setup in some games. While during the battles nearly all auto battlers are definitely chat accessible.
Designers have started toeing into this space in board games to mixed results. The big two in my estimation are Challengers! and Millennium Blades. Challengers! is pretty divisive as some silly reviewers derisively compare it to the traditional card "game" War, but it's actually really good imo. Snappy and quick with meaningful tactical and strategic choices; exactly what a good auto-battler should be. Millennium Blades is hilarious and an extremely unique experience but is probably overwrought.
people in this comment-thread are probably talking about some fangame but steam also has Automon. it is pve pet-autobattler where up to 4 of your pets fight against 1-4 wild animals or gym pets its essentially parody of pokemon (human characters are mostly parodies of series but monsters are mostly new).. just has less typings, only 1 attack and the catching is always guaranteed (and you can't feint pokemon by accident, on wild battles you attack 1-4 of them and can pick anyone you knocked)
You're totally right about PvE Autobattlers! I can totally see a Pokemon-like Autobattler doing numbers (where they give context to the battles and units through an RPG world and journey) but there hasn't been one released yet.
There does exist a pokemon autobattler online somewhere! I forget the name but it does exist. I'm a big Pokemon fan so I tend to be more willing to try pokemon fangames than other free to play games of similar scope and quality. It's basically an autochess clone which disappointed me since I'm not really an autochess fan, but it's out there!
Automon already exists. It is simplified pokemon parody (the 1st character literally catches the mons with a trash bag!): less elements, less rng (u don't feint mons, you just battle 1-4 of them and can catch one after the battle), only 1 move these mons spam, simplified stats (iirc just speed, defense, attack and hp)... The game you are asking literally already is on steam.
Great video, love the perspective you guys bring to game design. Would you consider making-or perhaps you already have and my search skills failed me-a video on the publishing side of things? Like practical advice for getting your first self-designed or small-team game off the ground and onto screens/shelves?
We haven’t yet, but we would like to. Our audience includes a lot of people who aren’t making games so it would be a limited reach video. It’s still worth doing, but we will have to see where it fits in.
Turn-based gacha with a competitive pvp ladder can operate similar to asynchronous autobattlers, and while it proves that the method can work it can also be very unsatisfying in that there's nothing you can do to stop someone with all the tools to crush you at their leisure once you commit to a defense. That, and gacha ruins everything, so the good competitive asynchronous autobattler remains to be found.
Mechabellum (mecha pvp autobattler) would had been awesome example of bit different autobattler experience: - before 1st round is about the only time both players get different set of starting units and specialist (all the starting units are available for everyone and belong to the 2 cheapest categories, specialists usually have passive bonuses or they might specialize into limited set of units, also this different specialist limit is just for 1v1 modes, 2v2 and 1v1v1v1 i believe allow rng for multiple people to pick same specialist) - only metaprogression there is that you can swap technologies of the units.. you do have full 4 technologies available but some starting technologies aren't optimal, with account levels you get tech-points which allow you to unlock any technology (all of them cost 1 point) and then swap any of the default tech with the new tech (and rarely if ever there are techologies that do the same exact thing but one is strictly better... there is maybe one that is kinda like that but most of the time they have different purposes and functions) - so every game is a blank state.. which means that even if you meet same player the game won't be the same as you guys probably started with different starting units and specialist - after specialist & units are picked all the information is shared to both players and now it becomes just game of prediction and planning ahead - all the units are available from round 1 of the game (except some rare units that i will talk bit more somewhere below) - every round there is a card drop, these are often items, passives for specific units and "spells" (such as dropping napalm, a nuke or what essentially is emp), both players get to see same 4 cards and pick one (both can pick the same one and they only see what the other one picked once they click "ready" button to end their turn and waiting to see the auto-part) - every some rounds (its kinda randomized but once u read rules from somewhere once u know the limitations how this works) instead of those spells/passives/items there is unit drop, both players get 4 mechas to pick from (some cards have them levelled up, some come with multiple units of same type, some are free and some cost a bit) - during most rounds you can only unlock one new unit but with the unit cards i mentioned above give you the unlock AND the unit (or units) with the price of the card and doesn't count as you wasting the 1-unlock per turn limit - so since players don't have their "card decks" or anything similar again even playing same opponent means you both have the same 50-50 odd to win assuming your skill levels are the same (ofc some know the game better, adapt to new meta better, have certain tendencies which either help or hinder them to win games generally or against specific opponents playstyles... but game itself gives fair shot for everyone to win) - it is round based game and a lot of games are just trying to counter your opponents counter (more about this later down in the comment), there are matches that do snowball to one direction but that is most of the time one player being better skilled than the other and rarely is because of starting units, card drops between rounds or units being broken in the meta You guys talked a lot about that pool that sometimes feels unfair and i believe mechabellum nailed the fairness part near-completely. I know some competitive players hate unit drops because many time the game gives free (or cheap) counter and flips the game completely. Personally i see that being fine since firstly when you see that card you know your opponent will pick it and can plan ahead (maybe sell the unit they most probably will target with that counter or maybe buy anti-counter units to counter their counter). Also there is a system where once one opponent has certain unit on field those random cards can't have that unit anymore (except the "tier 1" units aka "free to unlock" tier, these can always pop up in random unit card drops)... and since certain specialists can start with rare units that aren't unlockable with credits during match it can block one opponent out from this specific unit. But that opponent knows that already when turn 1 preparetion is going on when they see which specialist they are playing against. Some people don't like this as that kinda is adding rng or if not rng it is slightly asymmetric gameplay when one opponent has something the other one can't have. But thankfully every unit has their counters so it comes down to planning. The tech systems are pretty deep. Usually specific unit counters specific ones but there are passive boosts that flip the matchup... and then the other guy can tech-up their unit to counter the counter. EMP is pretty good example: emp skills have passive where once they hit enemy unit, if it stays alive it will shut its passive technologies which often makes them sitting target or forces them to move more in open (for example if they had range-tech - with that on they can shoot from far away behind frontline "fodder" and be pretty safe - but once you hit them with EMP they might have to walk closer to enemies in frontline and have to take big hits). But emp has some counters, one of which is "photon". It gives immunity against emp for x seconds (usually it depends which source gives the photon: some units give it to themselves, there is at least one item that grants it as well for the one wielding it but some units have this aura on them at the start of the match and everyone withing that range will get photon for some seconds). Usually it gives immunity against emp for long enough that these units are able to do what you need them to do (whether that is distraction, soaking damage, being single-target DPS, being AOE dps, spamming elements on field [such as spilling oil] or something else or multiple of these things). And what mostly matters in this game is positioning! Its a grid-based level and the units move similarly to RTS games but units pick the closest target (but the targets towards where they are facing can be further away than units at flanks or behind - each unit has their own turning speed so this adds extra layers of importance to positioning & timing - you can have cheap unit distracting opponents single-target DPS so they turn away from your own main DPS which can freely shoot without taking any damage). Each player can buy 1 waypoint so they can move some units towards certain directions (more if they also get waypoint-item randomly from the cards between rounds). It is just awesome game.. so awesome that i, a person who dislikes most autobattler games, i actually am heavily invested into mechabellum. It feels bit like playing chess meets poker because there is bit of bluffing with few tactical options, its not about which cards you have but have you use them and also still has strategy & tactical levels. Edit: oh and the game has weekly tournaments atm, had one "youtuber tournament" altho that was mostly for promo with low-to-medium skilled content creators and dev team is planning irl e-sports tournaments too for this year. I don't see it being huge e-sports game but this is among the only autobattler games that can have legit competitive tournaments because it is so fair, doesn't rely on builds and has low amount of rng.
The other game I think these games are drawing from is Cookie Clicker and other games in that genre. The core of a game you can pick up and put down as you please where over time you’re developing a more efficient system is similar.
I think definitively (ignoring the learning curve) better auto battlers have enough variance that there are more optimal builds for specific situations ie: there might be a "best build" but if you get dealt different options there should be a lot of options that are fairly similar in power. That adds more variety and more things to consider during the majority of the game where you have a partial build
Hearthstone Battlegrounds is still the best implementation of the genre imo. I’ve played The Bazaar since day 1 and I was amazed on how quickly the userbase “solved the meta”.
Ok another recommendation for the discussion at the end of the video (@forrest this is for you). Have you heard of Melvor Idle? Its basically if runescape was an idle game. Theres a lot of bite sized decision making _thats actually impactful_, a looot of intertwined mechanics, some active gameplay in the form of combat and dungeons that are mostly endgame optional content. Its great
I dunno about other people but I am an avid gamer but I am already in my 40s. At my age when I log off from work I wanna destress and play some games but at the same time I dont wanna tire myself out cuz I'm already exhausted from work. Autobattlers fill this niche from me like backpack battles or The Bazaar where I can just enjoy the strategic aspect of the game but the more mundane parts are automated. Its different from Turn based strategy as well cuz with Turn based there a lot of stops in the game play but with autobattlers there's like a spectator feel to it where you see your creation and the opponent just battle it out.
A lot of these games borrow from multiple genres are tend to express themselves with at most 1 or 2 of them. Take something like Loop Hero where the Roguelike elements shine through fairly strongly, but it ostensibly an autobattler with RPG elements, and a base building element when you are in your camp. Games where you spend a medium amount of time (say 15-30 mins) per session, and you learn something each time, or maybe build up your roguelike pregression fit very well into the mobile gaming ecosystem, and modern gaming as a whole. Of course many of these games scratch the gambling itch (I remember very clearly finally getting the 4 Star Storyteller Aurellia a few seasons back in TFT). Another thing that developers could keep in mind when making this type of game is that designing the AI for these games is a lot easier than other PVP analog games due to their simple nature. Any player should be able to guess most of how is going to play out after some time put into the game.
Even if you add randomness, that wouldn't on it's own fix the problem of there being an optimal configuration that can be determined by a tool. It's the combination of randomness and hidden information (playing against an opponent) that makes there not be single optimal solutions that can be number crunched in a simple way in card games. This is something that is probably naturally dealt with by having a pod of 8 players playing against each other, or at least having things have variable utility based on matchup or some other factor that must be abstracted into a heuristic in the player's mind & used to decide their 'backpack' configuration. Or maybe I'm missing your point with adding randomness? I'm just imagining an item that does a random variance of damage for example but perhaps you are thinking of something more complex, such as how in hs battlegrounds the units attack each other, which does involve a direct interaction between you and your opponent (who's information is unknown to you before the actual encounter), which does have the desired result.
I think you're right on the money - you need hidden information, not randomness, to properly conceal the "optimal" layout. Randomness just means you need a more complicated calculator. Which, for practical purposes in many games, is sufficient, since players will opt to use intuition. But to formally solve the issue, hidden information is crucial. I think that's why most asynchronous PvP games do not let you see your opponent's build before battling -- hidden information creates the fundamental uncertainty
The current game it is taking up most of my life is POE2, and it's very interesting on how they keep the game fresh and exciting with their endgame mechanics. Like incorporating roguelike game play with an ARPG twist. They even Incorporated Auto battlers in one of their seasons of their last title and I hope they bring that same creativity to the new game!
The guys that made storybook brawl release a new mobile game called Once Upon a Galaxy, great game so far (still in open beta, full release I think in march). You should give it a try if you havent, it has a lot of the point you make during the video
My problem with a lot of this is that it just feels like doing a job. Check in. Grind the necessary amount for the day. Pay the bills. Repeat. I honestly want to like them more than I do, but without a meaty gameplay loop, it's all meaningless.
It's been cool to see steady micro-innovations in the autobattler space after the initial boom of Dota Autochess and TFT, even as someone who doesn't get it. Coming from RTS, it feels to me like half a game, and it's the half I like the least. The only experiment I've seen of autobattlers that give you some direct control was Spellcraft, and it was cancelled. I hope to see another one.
Autobattler just changes the focus -- compared to RTS, it tends to have deeper raw engine/army building (because that's all you do), but has none of the "execution" barrier that plagues RTS games. Playing SC2, the reality was being decisive and quick in execution was more important than building up the perfect army comp 90% of the time. Check out Mechabellum for a good sc2-as-an-autobattler -- less focus on economy, more focus on tactical positioning, unit counters, and simultaneous decisions giving room for mind-games and opponent prediction (kind of like fog of war). To me, it's hard to say mechabellum is only half of a game, unless directly controlling action is the only part of games that one finds appealing, as opposed to board-game-esque decision making
@@GlobusTheGreat Economy, army control, and map scouting/positioning are precisely the parts of RTS I like the most. Autobattlers are probably just not for me, which is fine.
I got the overall impression that storybook brawl was your guys's favorite or one of your favorite auto battlers prior to its demise. Have you heard of or checked out "Once upon a Galaxy"? In a lot of respects it's a 7-minute version of storybook brawl. Like the bizarre it's using real people to fight from past matches, so you have asynchronous play, but unlike the bazaar you complete a run with the same ghosts so you have aspects of storybook brawls matchmaking in it. You can react to what your opponents are building but you don't get the challenge of them trying to counterplay you. They also have a real-time version of the game for tournament play/playing with friends. I think it's my favorite of the current auto battlers but they removed just a little too much from what made storybook brawl great for me, and so it doesn't work as a full replacement. 7 minutes is too short for an auto Battler to have a satisfying end to me, and I miss the 7 card slots (once upon a galaxy only has 5 card slot).
okay the first minute, I already have a vastly different idea what I understand is an auto-battler. I assume you never played warcraft 3 custom maps, because auto-battlers were big there.
We’re mostly discussing the modern takes on the genre. It seems RTS mods were at the root of the genre with the fork being something like league of legends on one end and auto-chess/ team fight tactics on the other. We brought this up, but neither of us has much history with the genre that early on. We’d love to hear if you have insight from that far back.
I loved the Bazzar when I first got it but as a casual player who gets to play once or twice a week its become impossible to play. What I mean is without knowing the top builds it is nearly impossible to win any rounds in a game unless you stumble into a build that approaches the meta. I wish there was a way to fix it but I suspect the only way to play the bazzar moving forward is to study the game and follow the meta trends.
It's ironic because that was precisely what Reynad wanted to avoid with the game's design. Unfortunately, I think more innovative design ideas are needed to bring that about, whereas the desing of bazaar is probably too defined already to properly address it. They're playing whack-a-mole now and trying drastic balance patches but I think the problem is baked into the game already.
Tft had so much randomness it turned me off to the genre a bit, but that is also due to the competitive feel. I don't inherently mind the random bite size experiences. Love balatro and I love horde survivor games as examples. I can't recall if I've played a pve autobattler, it's hard to imagine not wanting more control but again that's hinging on tft.
12:12 it's similar to GTO poker - There IS a correct answer, however that correct answer is probability based. So 50% of the time you want to take the sword, 40% of time you want to take the Mace, and 10% of the time you want to take the Flower. Human beings are bad at probability so find it hard to achieve this even if they know what the correct probabilities are.
tales and tactics is a straight up pve autobattler, which is more interesting to me personally. it has a similar appeal to sts and other deckbuilders. dont have much of an opinion on it yet ive only played it a couple times
Just my opinion, but having played both Tales and Tactics and The Last Flame, I found The Last Flame to be more polished and deep and enjoyable. Haven't played either for a while, but wanted to put The Last Flame on your radar if you love T&T (edit: They're the exact same genre of game, pve autochess style game)
I genuinely want to see AAA studios try to take a crack at the genre. They could be Sony and Microsoft's versions of Smash Bros. with all their 1st party IPs to leverage(couldn't be worse than chucking multiple hundreds of millions at their already failed live service attempts). It feels odd that the 800 pound gorilla in autobattlers is a company with 1 real notable IP
Gladiator Guild Manager is the best autobattler ever. By far. Especially if you play it on the highest possible difficulty, when every little thing matters. No pvp tho. Just saying.
Autobattler are -Low Floor -Medium ceiling The PROBLEM comes up in PVP and MONETIZACIÓN Gatch is the most that uses this Why? Because it allow medium to High graphic to run in a Phone And then the EXPLOITATION Of POWER CREEP as a monetiization scam Card Battler ARE the SAME Card Booster where the EARLIEST Loot Boxes And look at Yu Gi Ho Now, super power crept for DECADES that people DONT play it anymore
For those that dont get it, because most things are Automatic exist and OBJECTIVE Best play, and then the company uses that to Keep siphoning money from player by rising the Power level
from the boardgame design space a term that might help think about this genre of games is "Enginebuilder". You're building an engine that does something.
And with how these games tend to go- I build a sputtering, sloppy jalopy that barely runs, then kamikaze it into the bowels of your engine so that it blows up and hopefully kills you instead of me
Then you in turn build an even more murderous armored kamikaze vehicle so that I die in the explosion instead, and once the meta has resolved, we both realize that we’ve reached mutually assured nuclear destruction and are rolling the dice on whose bomb goes off first
Auto-battlers basically took the progression system from RPGs and pointed out that the actual gameplay of a video game isn't strictly necessary. Turns out people really enjoy just building and customising sets of things; getting the perfect equipment and teams.
A PvE Autobatter I've been enjoying a lot recently is "The Last Flame". It has a lot of interesting decisions in how you go about making a build, it has a good variety in different types of challenges to face, giving you reasons to incorporate different tools in your build.
Also a cool way of avoiding the "Take forever to make a perfectly optimal build" problem is having optional timers. Have things like achievements for "beating" a run in a certain amount of time, so people who want to be methodical can do so, and people who want to be rewarded for learning to make "good enough" builds quickly can be rewarded for that separate skill.
HAven't played it in a long time, but I basically found it to be the best implementation of TFT-esque autobattler mechanics for a purely pve game. Really well done and interesting in how they didn't directly rip off tft synergy system, in favor of soft synergies and focusing on item management and utilization.
The Last flame is fantastic! I haven't played since they recently dropped their 1.0 launch, but it was a wonderful implementation of a single player auto battler experience.
really resonate with the comment on the bazaar. i'm currently developing a PvE singleplay autobattler game, was encouraging to hear about this being a gap other have seen and thought about too!
appreciate your thoughtful and casual chats cheers
Mechabellum is an insanely cool auto battler. The aesthetic resembles RTS's and you have control over basically everything during a turn. Which units to unlock, which units to buy, which units to upgrade, which tech to upgrade, etcetc. You basically just don't move your dudes around other than their starting location. It's not async but there's very very little to read/react to during a round, so you can prepare in advance if the stress of picking stuff under time pressure is a factor for you.
Given it's not async, the game is a giant match of multilevel rock paper scissors against your opponent. I can't recommend it enough, it's so so good
(I have a review of it if you're interested but what I said above is kind of it lol)
Sounds awesome!
@@distractionmakers it truly is, it kinda took over my life for a period of time
@@tldreview Damn, I have to give Mechabellum a fair shot. I bounced off pretty quickly, so I didn't get to feel as much control as I wanted, but it sounds close to something I'd like if I give it enough time (short of something like Battle Aces).
@@eduardoserpa1682 please don't recommend me stuff similar to Mechabellum, i'd like to keep my job
@tldreview Same, took over my life for awhile. I peaked at top 8 in a weekly. I made a small autobattler game with a similar design philosophy, but once I played mechabellum, I thought they basically made a perfect version of an autobattler championing near-symmetry, open-ended decisions, unit counterplay, simple but crucial economic management, deep positioning, competitive integrity.
Autobattlers are probably my favorite genre. I'm trying to make a game myself and I'm trying to address a number of the potential issues you brought up with async games like Bazaar. It really feels like making 2 games: a piece acquisition game and an engine-scoring auto-game. I feel like autobattlers are fundamentally engine-building games, (something like a subset of them) which is why Balatro, an engine building game that isn't exactly an autobattler, feels so incredibly related/similar to them.
Something cool about the genre that I wish more autobattlers explored is the 'puzzle-box' aspect that happens during 1 on 1s, where both players sorta stop optimizing their build and switch to countering the opponent's team as much as possible.
@@SeaHorseOfTH-cam I agree! It's difficult in an asynchronous game format because only 1 player gets to counter their opponent since the other player already played their run and "submitted" their engine. That being said, I'm trying to come up with some interesting ways to incprorate it into asynchronous gameplay.
I think this is one aspect that is basically completely unexplored in async games, and even in games like TFT, it's not emphasized. I think that aspect is interesting enough on its own (positioning/swapping/rearranging to counter an opponent with known options) to be its own game, but definitely an underexplored but interesting aspect of autobattlers. In a head to head live game it can have an aspect of bluffing and simultaneous choice which tends to make for good gameplay.
@@SeaHorseOfTH-cam Yi Xuan does that 1 on 1 counter thing really well, imo.
I’ve started referring to games like backpack battles and vampire survivors as “potato chip” games. It’s a snack, not a full meal. But sometimes you don’t want or don’t have time for a full meal.
wait...
are you not supposed to have a full bag of chips as a meal? 😬
Wow. What a condescending, pretentious opinion.
@Kyleology He's not even wrong though. More often than not it's mindless fireworks with minimal engagement, it's junkfood gaming. However, like the original comment said, sometimes fast food is the best choice for the situation, and it's okay to like/want fast food sometimes. Sure it's not a full course meal (a massive 100 hour story game with immersive characters/world to invest time in) but it doesn't have to be.
@@somethingsomething9006imo modern games are too bloated and full of bleh, look at Ubisoft formula games or most ‘open world’ titles, and live service grind. I’d rather have smaller discrete experiences. If junk food games make people overweight then those games make people obese.
As someone in the process of designing an auto-battler, it's very cool to see a lot of my ideas mirrored by you guys as well as some new food for thought! Really interesting stuff
I feel like factorio and other automation/factory style games are similar to idle games in a way. There's many added layers, but it has that same "make big, number go up" gameplay to it
There IS a point to idle games if you have ADHD. Besides, it's fun to watch them. There is no "point" to, say, video games, but we still play them.
I love autobattlers. I thought I’d hate them but hearthstones Tavern Brawl introduced the concept to me and TFT cemented this as a thing for me. definitely gotta check some of these other ones out
Loop hero was so so good, nice shoutout!
The other game I think these games are drawing from is Cookie Clicker and other games in that genre. The core of a game you can pick up and put down as you please where over time you’re developing a more efficient system is similar.
Edit: I listened to almost all of the video before commenting but apparently that still wasn’t enough 😅
Haha came up nearly at the end 😆
@@distractionmakers Thought I’d waited long enough but apparently not 😂
As a player who found RTSes stressful and could be described as "all macro, no micro" - I really agree with your first point about autobattlers scratching a similar itch without the stress.
I've considered them card game-adjacent (perhaps due to the engine/deckbuilding similarities) since the release of the first auto chess and I still believe the two genres share some DNA.
Great vid!
I recommend you check out Mechabellum for a different take on autobattlers. It is primarily 1v1 (or 2v2) and there’s no drafting per se- it has more of the original RTS DNA where you can just build most of the units you want and you have to figure out how to build to your endgame while countering the opponent. There is a random drop that both players pick from between rounds to keep things fresh.
Having infinite time to optimize can be an issue, but I think it’s worth the tradeoff for making games like Balatro or The Bazaar so relaxing. Randomness could help the Bazaar alleviate that optimization problem, but I think it’s a pretty good problem to have if the infinite timer keeps the population of the game high.
For sure. A timer would feel much less casual.
What I find interesting is how weirdly full circle this is. You mentioned flash games and TCGs, but there was an odd era of flash game TCGs that were effectively autobattlers. Tyrant comes to mind - you build the deck, and a match is just shuffling the deck and it plays itself vs the opponent's self playing deck. The hybrid of the two genres existed over a decade ago and we just didn't have a name for it yet.
Interesting. Do you remember what games like Tyrant did well/poorly compared to today's autobattler designs?
@@GlobusTheGreat This is an interesting question. I think that a sort of neutral thing is that because you played with prebuilt decks there wasn't the draft portion so variance in build was never a thing. This resulted in sculpting decks more to counter the meta as opposed to trying to build with what the game offers.
So what Tyrant did worse is that because cards become active based on time but also start in a deck is that you could just straight up lose to the shuffler which isn't a thing modern autobattlers have. Typically in modern autobattlers it takes a lot of in fight RNG going wrong to lose when you usually wouldn't.
On the flip side of that you had BattleCraft which also had time based mechanics, but played closer to The Bazaar minus the drafting part. There were 2 games called BattleCraft but I mean the one made by Games Hydra. You just built a board out of cards and the board did the thing. This resulted in a meta of hard counters. You'd often see an identical board and lose (game was async, draws were losses). It happened a lot. When you didn't you'd see a board and instantly know the outcome. It essentially took what could have been a complex system and reduced it to rock, paper, scissors.
Both games had pretty bad card acquisition models, and they both did the early flash/mobile thing of having energy that restricted play. Interestingly, Tyrant somewhat survived as Tyrant: Unleashed and you can still play it on Kongregate. Though Tyrant Unleashed isn't self playing like original Tyrant. It plays closer to a traditional CCG but still has the bad economy and mobile game energy system for some reason. It just feels really dated.
Also, there is a new-ish one called Void Scourge, www.void-scourge.com/ and this one tries to be different by being procedurally generated which makes it so you never face identical boards. In this one you build a board of guys, they attack left to right hitting random targets. So you get the autobattler, the card collecting, and it just feels like the only thing that matters is how good the procedural randomness is to you. However, I would at least give it a try so you can see how weird it feels to have autobattles in a context outside of drafting.
@ Dude, thanks so much. I'm trying to make a deckbuilder-y autobattler drafting game and your insight is helpful.
Autobattlers are my favorite genre of video games right now, I'm willing to try pretty much any new autobattler I hear about because I like the synergistic nature of the games, and "building the machine" is a fun concept to me no matter how it's presented. I've experimented with autobattler mechanics in physical card games but thus far I haven't come up with much that's all that replayable. I hope to find something one day, though my next experiments will probably delve more into board game space since there's a lot more freedom to be had there as opposed to limiting myself to just cards.
Check out “programming” games like robo-rally. That might be something like what you’re looking for. 😄
I think the basic issue you'd run into in auto battlers as a board game is that video games can do all the overhead of synergies for you. In a board game you would need to really hone in on finding something else to make up for the simple (and therefore easy to execute) battle system. For an idea off the top of my head you could (in a 1v1 game which is very risky because you're risking snowballs) you could play cards from a collection in a row for each player (with some kind of restriction on how they can be placed) to make the matchups one card against one card. Then the synergies could just care about the card they are fighting and the cards to their own left and right. Then you just try and win the most of those matchups. I think like each card having a number listing order could work (like give each one a order score of 1-10 then you have to lay your cards out lowest on the left and highest on the right increasing each time. Then disruption cards have the low numbers and value cards have high numbers. Actually maybe a score for each round being how much you won each matchup by would be best 🤔
Going to try and mock build one now thanks for the work distraction 😂
Auto battlers are pretty great for streamers too. because you can take your time and chat during setup in some games. While during the battles nearly all auto battlers are definitely chat accessible.
Designers have started toeing into this space in board games to mixed results. The big two in my estimation are Challengers! and Millennium Blades.
Challengers! is pretty divisive as some silly reviewers derisively compare it to the traditional card "game" War, but it's actually really good imo. Snappy and quick with meaningful tactical and strategic choices; exactly what a good auto-battler should be.
Millennium Blades is hilarious and an extremely unique experience but is probably overwrought.
Actually, now that I think about it, a more popular and older one would probably be Galaxy Trucker, but I fucking hate that game. 😂
@@dramajoe Damn, Galaxy Trucker as an autobattler in essence is such a good catch.
The Pokémon auto battler has been my vice lately 😂
Pokemon crown?
@ google it, it’s not official, so play it while you can.
What's this?
Is this the one where you send out a Pokémon and it fights. Then, if it encounters a shiny, it doesn't engage?
people in this comment-thread are probably talking about some fangame
but steam also has Automon.
it is pve pet-autobattler where up to 4 of your pets fight against 1-4 wild animals or gym pets
its essentially parody of pokemon (human characters are mostly parodies of series but monsters are mostly new).. just has less typings, only 1 attack and the catching is always guaranteed (and you can't feint pokemon by accident, on wild battles you attack 1-4 of them and can pick anyone you knocked)
Storybook Brawl has a spiritual successor, we made Once Upon a Galaxy. It is in early access on mobile, coming to steam soon. People are loving it! :)
You're totally right about PvE Autobattlers! I can totally see a Pokemon-like Autobattler doing numbers (where they give context to the battles and units through an RPG world and journey) but there hasn't been one released yet.
There does exist a pokemon autobattler online somewhere! I forget the name but it does exist. I'm a big Pokemon fan so I tend to be more willing to try pokemon fangames than other free to play games of similar scope and quality. It's basically an autochess clone which disappointed me since I'm not really an autochess fan, but it's out there!
Boy do I have some news for you
As far as my research can tell - the *first* modern day auto battler is called pokemon defense and is a warcraft 3 mod
I think Pokemon Crown has been a pokemon fan project with auto battling. It’s neat.
Automon already exists. It is simplified pokemon parody (the 1st character literally catches the mons with a trash bag!): less elements, less rng (u don't feint mons, you just battle 1-4 of them and can catch one after the battle), only 1 move these mons spam, simplified stats (iirc just speed, defense, attack and hp)...
The game you are asking literally already is on steam.
Isn't that Blue Archive
Great video, love the perspective you guys bring to game design. Would you consider making-or perhaps you already have and my search skills failed me-a video on the publishing side of things? Like practical advice for getting your first self-designed or small-team game off the ground and onto screens/shelves?
We haven’t yet, but we would like to. Our audience includes a lot of people who aren’t making games so it would be a limited reach video. It’s still worth doing, but we will have to see where it fits in.
@@distractionmakers Makes sense, thanks!
Turn-based gacha with a competitive pvp ladder can operate similar to asynchronous autobattlers, and while it proves that the method can work it can also be very unsatisfying in that there's nothing you can do to stop someone with all the tools to crush you at their leisure once you commit to a defense. That, and gacha ruins everything, so the good competitive asynchronous autobattler remains to be found.
Mechabellum (mecha pvp autobattler) would had been awesome example of bit different autobattler experience:
- before 1st round is about the only time both players get different set of starting units and specialist (all the starting units are available for everyone and belong to the 2 cheapest categories, specialists usually have passive bonuses or they might specialize into limited set of units, also this different specialist limit is just for 1v1 modes, 2v2 and 1v1v1v1 i believe allow rng for multiple people to pick same specialist)
- only metaprogression there is that you can swap technologies of the units.. you do have full 4 technologies available but some starting technologies aren't optimal, with account levels you get tech-points which allow you to unlock any technology (all of them cost 1 point) and then swap any of the default tech with the new tech (and rarely if ever there are techologies that do the same exact thing but one is strictly better... there is maybe one that is kinda like that but most of the time they have different purposes and functions)
- so every game is a blank state.. which means that even if you meet same player the game won't be the same as you guys probably started with different starting units and specialist
- after specialist & units are picked all the information is shared to both players and now it becomes just game of prediction and planning ahead
- all the units are available from round 1 of the game (except some rare units that i will talk bit more somewhere below)
- every round there is a card drop, these are often items, passives for specific units and "spells" (such as dropping napalm, a nuke or what essentially is emp), both players get to see same 4 cards and pick one (both can pick the same one and they only see what the other one picked once they click "ready" button to end their turn and waiting to see the auto-part)
- every some rounds (its kinda randomized but once u read rules from somewhere once u know the limitations how this works) instead of those spells/passives/items there is unit drop, both players get 4 mechas to pick from (some cards have them levelled up, some come with multiple units of same type, some are free and some cost a bit)
- during most rounds you can only unlock one new unit but with the unit cards i mentioned above give you the unlock AND the unit (or units) with the price of the card and doesn't count as you wasting the 1-unlock per turn limit
- so since players don't have their "card decks" or anything similar again even playing same opponent means you both have the same 50-50 odd to win assuming your skill levels are the same (ofc some know the game better, adapt to new meta better, have certain tendencies which either help or hinder them to win games generally or against specific opponents playstyles... but game itself gives fair shot for everyone to win)
- it is round based game and a lot of games are just trying to counter your opponents counter (more about this later down in the comment), there are matches that do snowball to one direction but that is most of the time one player being better skilled than the other and rarely is because of starting units, card drops between rounds or units being broken in the meta
You guys talked a lot about that pool that sometimes feels unfair and i believe mechabellum nailed the fairness part near-completely. I know some competitive players hate unit drops because many time the game gives free (or cheap) counter and flips the game completely. Personally i see that being fine since firstly when you see that card you know your opponent will pick it and can plan ahead (maybe sell the unit they most probably will target with that counter or maybe buy anti-counter units to counter their counter).
Also there is a system where once one opponent has certain unit on field those random cards can't have that unit anymore (except the "tier 1" units aka "free to unlock" tier, these can always pop up in random unit card drops)... and since certain specialists can start with rare units that aren't unlockable with credits during match it can block one opponent out from this specific unit. But that opponent knows that already when turn 1 preparetion is going on when they see which specialist they are playing against. Some people don't like this as that kinda is adding rng or if not rng it is slightly asymmetric gameplay when one opponent has something the other one can't have. But thankfully every unit has their counters so it comes down to planning.
The tech systems are pretty deep. Usually specific unit counters specific ones but there are passive boosts that flip the matchup... and then the other guy can tech-up their unit to counter the counter. EMP is pretty good example: emp skills have passive where once they hit enemy unit, if it stays alive it will shut its passive technologies which often makes them sitting target or forces them to move more in open (for example if they had range-tech - with that on they can shoot from far away behind frontline "fodder" and be pretty safe - but once you hit them with EMP they might have to walk closer to enemies in frontline and have to take big hits). But emp has some counters, one of which is "photon". It gives immunity against emp for x seconds (usually it depends which source gives the photon: some units give it to themselves, there is at least one item that grants it as well for the one wielding it but some units have this aura on them at the start of the match and everyone withing that range will get photon for some seconds). Usually it gives immunity against emp for long enough that these units are able to do what you need them to do (whether that is distraction, soaking damage, being single-target DPS, being AOE dps, spamming elements on field [such as spilling oil] or something else or multiple of these things).
And what mostly matters in this game is positioning! Its a grid-based level and the units move similarly to RTS games but units pick the closest target (but the targets towards where they are facing can be further away than units at flanks or behind - each unit has their own turning speed so this adds extra layers of importance to positioning & timing - you can have cheap unit distracting opponents single-target DPS so they turn away from your own main DPS which can freely shoot without taking any damage). Each player can buy 1 waypoint so they can move some units towards certain directions (more if they also get waypoint-item randomly from the cards between rounds).
It is just awesome game.. so awesome that i, a person who dislikes most autobattler games, i actually am heavily invested into mechabellum. It feels bit like playing chess meets poker because there is bit of bluffing with few tactical options, its not about which cards you have but have you use them and also still has strategy & tactical levels.
Edit: oh and the game has weekly tournaments atm, had one "youtuber tournament" altho that was mostly for promo with low-to-medium skilled content creators and dev team is planning irl e-sports tournaments too for this year. I don't see it being huge e-sports game but this is among the only autobattler games that can have legit competitive tournaments because it is so fair, doesn't rely on builds and has low amount of rng.
PVE sugestions, The Last Flame and Heretic's Fork( this one might be considered Tower defence but it's definitely an engine builder)
The other game I think these games are drawing from is Cookie Clicker and other games in that genre. The core of a game you can pick up and put down as you please where over time you’re developing a more efficient system is similar.
And yet people will say metas ruin games, when Autobattlers demonstrate people would rather play metas.
I think definitively (ignoring the learning curve) better auto battlers have enough variance that there are more optimal builds for specific situations ie: there might be a "best build" but if you get dealt different options there should be a lot of options that are fairly similar in power. That adds more variety and more things to consider during the majority of the game where you have a partial build
Hearthstone Battlegrounds is still the best implementation of the genre imo. I’ve played The Bazaar since day 1 and I was amazed on how quickly the userbase “solved the meta”.
Ok another recommendation for the discussion at the end of the video (@forrest this is for you). Have you heard of Melvor Idle? Its basically if runescape was an idle game. Theres a lot of bite sized decision making _thats actually impactful_, a looot of intertwined mechanics, some active gameplay in the form of combat and dungeons that are mostly endgame optional content. Its great
Sounds awesome!
I dunno about other people but I am an avid gamer but I am already in my 40s. At my age when I log off from work I wanna destress and play some games but at the same time I dont wanna tire myself out cuz I'm already exhausted from work.
Autobattlers fill this niche from me like backpack battles or The Bazaar where I can just enjoy the strategic aspect of the game but the more mundane parts are automated. Its different from Turn based strategy as well cuz with Turn based there a lot of stops in the game play but with autobattlers there's like a spectator feel to it where you see your creation and the opponent just battle it out.
A lot of these games borrow from multiple genres are tend to express themselves with at most 1 or 2 of them.
Take something like Loop Hero where the Roguelike elements shine through fairly strongly, but it ostensibly an autobattler with RPG elements, and a base building element when you are in your camp.
Games where you spend a medium amount of time (say 15-30 mins) per session, and you learn something each time, or maybe build up your roguelike pregression fit very well into the mobile gaming ecosystem, and modern gaming as a whole.
Of course many of these games scratch the gambling itch (I remember very clearly finally getting the 4 Star Storyteller Aurellia a few seasons back in TFT).
Another thing that developers could keep in mind when making this type of game is that designing the AI for these games is a lot easier than other PVP analog games due to their simple nature. Any player should be able to guess most of how is going to play out after some time put into the game.
I think the bazaar sold themselves as a "hero builder". You have a champion and built his equipment. Like backpack battles.
Even if you add randomness, that wouldn't on it's own fix the problem of there being an optimal configuration that can be determined by a tool. It's the combination of randomness and hidden information (playing against an opponent) that makes there not be single optimal solutions that can be number crunched in a simple way in card games. This is something that is probably naturally dealt with by having a pod of 8 players playing against each other, or at least having things have variable utility based on matchup or some other factor that must be abstracted into a heuristic in the player's mind & used to decide their 'backpack' configuration.
Or maybe I'm missing your point with adding randomness? I'm just imagining an item that does a random variance of damage for example but perhaps you are thinking of something more complex, such as how in hs battlegrounds the units attack each other, which does involve a direct interaction between you and your opponent (who's information is unknown to you before the actual encounter), which does have the desired result.
I think you're right on the money - you need hidden information, not randomness, to properly conceal the "optimal" layout. Randomness just means you need a more complicated calculator. Which, for practical purposes in many games, is sufficient, since players will opt to use intuition. But to formally solve the issue, hidden information is crucial. I think that's why most asynchronous PvP games do not let you see your opponent's build before battling -- hidden information creates the fundamental uncertainty
Hearthstone Battlegrounds is another big one in the genre btw, and a inspiration for Storybook Brawl (RIP) .
The current game it is taking up most of my life is POE2, and it's very interesting on how they keep the game fresh and exciting with their endgame mechanics. Like incorporating roguelike game play with an ARPG twist. They even Incorporated Auto battlers in one of their seasons of their last title and I hope they bring that same creativity to the new game!
omg Super Auto Pets mentioned 😆
the OG... that apparently ripped off bazaar's devlogs to innovate on asynchronous gameplay lol
I like hearthstone battlegrounds
TFT has been testing out a PVE singleplayer mode with infinite time. It's currently not in the game but is coming back
Awesome! We’ll have to check it out.
The guys that made storybook brawl release a new mobile game called Once Upon a Galaxy, great game so far (still in open beta, full release I think in march). You should give it a try if you havent, it has a lot of the point you make during the video
I love playing REDACTED, it’s my favorite autobattler
My problem with a lot of this is that it just feels like doing a job.
Check in. Grind the necessary amount for the day. Pay the bills. Repeat.
I honestly want to like them more than I do, but without a meaty gameplay loop, it's all meaningless.
It's been cool to see steady micro-innovations in the autobattler space after the initial boom of Dota Autochess and TFT, even as someone who doesn't get it. Coming from RTS, it feels to me like half a game, and it's the half I like the least.
The only experiment I've seen of autobattlers that give you some direct control was Spellcraft, and it was cancelled. I hope to see another one.
Autobattler just changes the focus -- compared to RTS, it tends to have deeper raw engine/army building (because that's all you do), but has none of the "execution" barrier that plagues RTS games. Playing SC2, the reality was being decisive and quick in execution was more important than building up the perfect army comp 90% of the time. Check out Mechabellum for a good sc2-as-an-autobattler -- less focus on economy, more focus on tactical positioning, unit counters, and simultaneous decisions giving room for mind-games and opponent prediction (kind of like fog of war). To me, it's hard to say mechabellum is only half of a game, unless directly controlling action is the only part of games that one finds appealing, as opposed to board-game-esque decision making
@@GlobusTheGreat Economy, army control, and map scouting/positioning are precisely the parts of RTS I like the most. Autobattlers are probably just not for me, which is fine.
@@eduardoserpa1682 Fair enough, it's definitely true that those are basically missing in Autobattlers
UGH Storybook Brawl was so fun. So sad it had to hitch it's horse to FTX , and subsequently go down with that ship.
Once upon a galaxy is from the makers of Storybook brawl and is great!
I got the overall impression that storybook brawl was your guys's favorite or one of your favorite auto battlers prior to its demise. Have you heard of or checked out "Once upon a Galaxy"? In a lot of respects it's a 7-minute version of storybook brawl. Like the bizarre it's using real people to fight from past matches, so you have asynchronous play, but unlike the bazaar you complete a run with the same ghosts so you have aspects of storybook brawls matchmaking in it. You can react to what your opponents are building but you don't get the challenge of them trying to counterplay you. They also have a real-time version of the game for tournament play/playing with friends. I think it's my favorite of the current auto battlers but they removed just a little too much from what made storybook brawl great for me, and so it doesn't work as a full replacement. 7 minutes is too short for an auto Battler to have a satisfying end to me, and I miss the 7 card slots (once upon a galaxy only has 5 card slot).
you guys on Bsky?
Nice Movie Madness shirt. Are y'all based in Portland?
Battle Cry by berserk studios was peak auto battler
okay the first minute, I already have a vastly different idea what I understand is an auto-battler. I assume you never played warcraft 3 custom maps, because auto-battlers were big there.
We’re mostly discussing the modern takes on the genre. It seems RTS mods were at the root of the genre with the fork being something like league of legends on one end and auto-chess/ team fight tactics on the other. We brought this up, but neither of us has much history with the genre that early on. We’d love to hear if you have insight from that far back.
I loved the Bazzar when I first got it but as a casual player who gets to play once or twice a week its become impossible to play. What I mean is without knowing the top builds it is nearly impossible to win any rounds in a game unless you stumble into a build that approaches the meta. I wish there was a way to fix it but I suspect the only way to play the bazzar moving forward is to study the game and follow the meta trends.
It's ironic because that was precisely what Reynad wanted to avoid with the game's design. Unfortunately, I think more innovative design ideas are needed to bring that about, whereas the desing of bazaar is probably too defined already to properly address it. They're playing whack-a-mole now and trying drastic balance patches but I think the problem is baked into the game already.
Tft had so much randomness it turned me off to the genre a bit, but that is also due to the competitive feel. I don't inherently mind the random bite size experiences. Love balatro and I love horde survivor games as examples. I can't recall if I've played a pve autobattler, it's hard to imagine not wanting more control but again that's hinging on tft.
Will auto battlers you're not playing the game. It plays itself.
havent sports management games been doing this for yearssss? auto battlers are just fantasy sports management. aka fantasy football ;)
For sure! There is a clear connection to management games.
Decades
12:12 it's similar to GTO poker -
There IS a correct answer, however that correct answer is probability based. So 50% of the time you want to take the sword, 40% of time you want to take the Mace, and 10% of the time you want to take the Flower.
Human beings are bad at probability so find it hard to achieve this even if they know what the correct probabilities are.
Do we?
kinda miss cartoon orbitz. that was a pretty good one back in the 2000s
tales and tactics is a straight up pve autobattler, which is more interesting to me personally. it has a similar appeal to sts and other deckbuilders. dont have much of an opinion on it yet ive only played it a couple times
Hadn’t heard of it. We’ll check it out!
Just my opinion, but having played both Tales and Tactics and The Last Flame, I found The Last Flame to be more polished and deep and enjoyable.
Haven't played either for a while, but wanted to put The Last Flame on your radar if you love T&T
(edit: They're the exact same genre of game, pve autochess style game)
Are ya'll watching me? I just got back on to TFT to learn it for the first time ever. XD
👀
I genuinely want to see AAA studios try to take a crack at the genre. They could be Sony and Microsoft's versions of Smash Bros. with all their 1st party IPs to leverage(couldn't be worse than chucking multiple hundreds of millions at their already failed live service attempts). It feels odd that the 800 pound gorilla in autobattlers is a company with 1 real notable IP
Riot and Blizzard already have.
@SpecterVonBaren Riot is the 800lb gorilla I was talking about, and I honestly forgot Battlegrounds existed
For the first time in years i've got absolutely addicted to Brotato. Jeesus i've played that stupid game way too much 😂 it's brilliant fun
Bloons td battles was the first autobattler
Super auto pets is the best mobile game ever
I'm kinda tired of autobattlers. I want that playtime stress to help me learn and grow.
I like the innovations to TFT
they have PVE and DoubleUp modes
the person on the right sounds EXACTLY like idyl lol
Gladiator Guild Manager is the best autobattler ever. By far. Especially if you play it on the highest possible difficulty, when every little thing matters. No pvp tho.
Just saying.
We’ll check it out!
They call these autobattlers?? I play ProgressQuest, this is waaay too much actual gameplay for me.
Autobattler are
-Low Floor
-Medium ceiling
The PROBLEM comes up in PVP and MONETIZACIÓN
Gatch is the most that uses this
Why?
Because it allow medium to High graphic to run in a Phone
And then the EXPLOITATION Of POWER CREEP as a monetiization scam
Card Battler ARE the SAME
Card Booster where the EARLIEST Loot Boxes
And look at Yu Gi Ho Now, super power crept for DECADES that people DONT play it anymore
For those that dont get it, because most things are Automatic exist and OBJECTIVE Best play, and then the company uses that to Keep siphoning money from player by rising the Power level
Idk how to tell you this but any auto battler worth playing won't let you buy power
There predecessor to Idle Games . I cant even say why, but I had fun with autobattler and Idle Games.