Welcome to the Second Snouthide Stegadon Solforge Survey! A big thank-you to everyone who took the time to fill it out. We had 497 participants this time, nearly equal to the first survey.

I’ll present the findings and share my musings on the results. It’s important to remember that those who participated are not just Solforge players, but players who are relatively active in the online community. Unless a friend sent you the link, you wouldn’t have seen the survey if you didn’t visit one of the more popular Solforge sites. For those who want to see it, the raw survey data is available here. If you happen to do some fancy statistical analysis on it, I would be happy to host your findings on the site.

1. How old are you?

Most of us are in our 20s or 30s. The age range shifted upwards from the last survey. Did you all get older?

2. What is your gender?

Solforge is still a sausage fest.

3. Where you at?

This question bombed at the last minute. I had hoped to have much better options to choose from, sadly the input mechanism on Google Forms is terrible and I am lazy. Also, I left out Central America (and Antarctica). Sorry to everyone who got marginalized, I’ll dream up something better next time. But yeah, Solforge – big in North America and Europe

4. When did you start playing Solforge?

Interesting how back-heavy this result was. Conclusion: those who like Solforge like it a lot. This also underlines why SBE’s efforts to retain new players is so important.

5. What platforms do you play Solforge on?

Not a surprising result, the graph could also mirror stability and performance on each platform. Compared to the last survey, iOS grew slightly, while Android and PC lost ground.

6. Did you participate in the first Snouthide Stegadon Survey?

I thought this would be a curious gauge of community retention. Of the 500 original participants, only 31% took it a 2nd time. Perhaps the survey was so bad they didn’t want to go through that nonsense a 2nd time.

7. Did you kickstart Solforge?

The ratio is roughly unchanged since the summer. Kickstarters be kickin’

8. What types of games are you currently playing?

Random Timed and Keep-yer-cards Draft are fan favorites. A bit disappointed to see the lack of love for the ladder, as it has so much to offer and asks so little. If you weren’t aware of the ladder, be sure to check it out

9. How many World Championship Qualifiers have you entered (including Jan 10th)?

Pretty much what I expected, playing in the WCQ takes time and skill. Was mostly interested to see the difference in how many people played the one time for the experience, compared to those grinding it out multiple times.

10. What Weekend Warriors have you played in?

MS Excel sure is stupid. The fourth default colour should clearly be Alloyin Grey. Anyways, in general, drafts are more popular, which isn’t a shock due to the even footing and the (sometimes) ability to keep cards. Guaranteed Legendary Draft is champion, as it should be, it’s like finding money in your cake. Here’s hoping that format is run often. Also, it was noted that there was no clear answer for new players who weren’t around when an event was held, so that will be addressed next time.

11. Did you play in the Constructed Elite Tournament?

Decent numbers here, nice to see that there is a good population of players who can enjoy an event like this.

12. Of all the Digital Collectable Card Games you play, do you play Solforge the most?

84% of us have our priorities straight.

13. How much real money have you spent on Solforge?

Good stuff here. More money means more game. Spend that money, people.

14. New card purchase habits

While there are other ways to buy cards (COTD, Chests), these are the most efficient ways to get new stuff right away, especially now that sharing is live. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the pre-cons are more popular because you know the legendaries you will be getting. The pre-order, while great for filling up on a new set, uses chests and lucky pack upgrades for random legends.

15. Have you played in any of the paid-entry tournaments hosted by Armada Games?

These tournaments have some real nice prize payouts. And as you can see, there are not a lot of people playing in them. So if you have some skill and some coin in your pocket, why not head over, stomp some fellow players, and reap the rewards?

16. Has the ability to share cards lead to you spending more real money?

I think sharing was my favorite thing to be added since the summer. That frenzy of wild deals when it dropped was a hoot. It also doubles your value every time you drop real money, and a decent chunk of us are taking advantage of that.

17. Have you used the Recruitment Program?

Was real curious to see this result. Surprised to see 6 of you got a chest, good job popular people. I think I should have had “I didn’t know this existed” as a 5th answer.

18. Feelings on potential new features?

People want things! Campaign, a new UI, and Ladder were fan favorites (and as luck would have it, our pal Mr. Gary just announced that Campaign is coming Soontm). Also, I’ll venture that 212 of us don’t have unlimited internet. Most hated goes to True Chat, which isn’t shocking as there are some terrible people out there who wish to say terrible things to you.

19. Did you get scammed sharing cards?

Good stuff. I did a lot of trades, and while a few people messed up and promised cards they didn’t have, each and every one of them bent over backwards to make things right. Other than a handfull of notorious scammers, just about everyone has been real decent when it comes to being honest.

20. How often do you get timed out under suspicious circumstances?

Someone pointed out that I mixed the occurrence of timeouts with how a player feels about timeouts into the same question. My bad. So interpret this as you will, but safe to say that time-out-scummers are still a thing.

21. How has the change to tournament costs and payouts affected your play?

This was one of the more controversial changes in the recent past. The overall shift in play habits is negative, but I can’t say I’m surprised. The original payouts were so unsustainably good (unlimited gold cards for those with skillz) that any change towards a sustainable model would hurt. It will be interesting to see how this current model is tweaked going forward.

22. Turn Timer opinions

Ahh, Turn Timer. That cranky, crusty old bastard who has stirred up forum debates since the dawn of the queues. Keeping things as-is has a significant amount of support compared to other options. A short turn timer has the most resistance. While I encourage the debate to rage on, I hope this graph will at least curb some of the hyperbole bandied about.

23. Set 5 Bees?

Well well well. Bee Hype was really strong in the late summer of 2014, but after two Bee-less sets (well, Nanoswarm is sort-of-Bees), the love is starting to fade. Will there be Bees at all? Will the first Bee spoiler revive the collective demand for all things Bees? Time will tell.

Prize Party

I was thrilled at the number of people who offered to share their hard-earned gold cards as prizes for the survey. Thank you thank you thank you! The winners are:

Elegance has won 20 legendaries(!!!) generously donated by urzaantilles

mestizia has won a preconstructed deck of their choice, generously donated by the forgeborn musicians at volterock.com. Be sure to give their site a gander.

Consumptus has won 2 legendaries generously donated by vide0gamer

FierceDeity, Joekster, paint152, Skullfudgery, and Lotus have each won a legendary chest, generously donated by ValiantlyCorded

nukerx has won 8 heroics (two from each set) generously donated by Shoria

Raptorvomit has won a Soulscourge Garmgunt and a Portal Shade, the last two sharables from my stash. May they bring you much glory, Raptorvomit

Prizes will be delivered shortly, be patient!

Thank You and Good Day

So there it is. I hope you found the results interesting and will use this to instantly win many arguments on the forums. Of course, a huge thank-you to the fine people at Stoneblade for continuing to make the game better. A lot of cool stuff was added in the last six months, can’t wait to see what’s next.

Thanks for reading, and hope you will participate again in the next survey (sometime in the summer perhaps). I go by snouty, and will see you in the queues!