Saint_Drako
OK card game, bad net game
Wall of text warning! If you don't like reading a lot just skip to the TLDR section for ideas/suggestions
One thing to admit - I'm not a hardcore card gamer, so some what follows might be noobwhining, but hey - should games be made only for maniacs?
So after a day or two I've got to know the game better..and it didn't get better at all. Overally I'm wondering if what we see so far shouldn't be called version alpha, not beta, and what can still change? Cause to change there is a lot
Let's start on the good side - the cards are pretty aren't they? and it's pretty easy to find your way around them and start playing.
That's about it on the good sides. Not so bright on the cons.
The main problem here is what I've seen plenty of people comment about already - what's the point of it being an online game if the only good from that is the game being even more random due to the human factor? Most pvp titles have one thing in common that's missing here - a lobby. As of now we can't choose who to play with, we can't play with friends, geez we can't even chat with anyone! Effectively it's not an online multiplayer game - it's just an online "we didn't bother making ai, so have other people serve as it" random card flinging gallery.
The randomness being problem number two. Ok..so there has to be an element of chance, nothing strange in that, but how much can it be? in a physical trading card game there's something that can be already seen in the name - got cards that are no use to you? try to TRADE them to others for something more to your deck. Oh wait - not here. If you buy a booster, whatever was in it - you're stuck with it. So what if you can't even add any of those cards you pulled out to your deck - you're stuck with it! Got a problem? buy another booster. Foooor...
Problem number 3 - I really hope the prices are just a placeholder. As far as I can understand the ingame gold price, did you notice how to "get more gold"? Well of course it's paying real money. 1000$ to be exact..for an ammount of gold that's not even enough for a large booster. Good joke, good to keep testers away from that option, but if someone forgets to fix that he shouldn't be surprised if the game doesn't provide much income. People may be stupit, but I doubt a sufficient ammount will be THAT dumb. Well at least we can grind the gold..mostly on a ton of lost matches if you got only a starting deck of 2-4 hp creatures versus this nice fellow you're fighting against with his sweet "hit every oppnent creature for 2hp" spells and "damage 5, life drain 3, hitpoints 6, immune to retaliation" critters
Other problems are more a matter of convenience:
We all love typing in our username every single time don't we? Passwords are a matter of security, but hey how hard is it to make an option of remembering who we are?
Can we use more than one tile in a match? no? ok then how about being able to use the same card in various decks without having to toss it between then every single time? after all they're virtual anyway, there shouldn't be any problem of copying a card if it doesn't produce a risk of using both copies at the same time as if they were separate cards.
And can someone explain me how do events work? Seems like I don't get to choose a random pair from my own tile, but that of the opponent? somehow I've had the pleasure of using events I never saw in my deck..somehow my opponent used them too
Frankly there's a whole lot to explain, the tutorial is rather limited, it doesn't even give enough time to learn what your starting cards do. It would be nice to have an ingame compendium to read about the various cards present ingame..or at least those we've encountered. That plus an explanation of game rules to remind yourself after a break or clear out some doubts.
Options? does this game have options? you know, graphic settings, language and so on? oh it does..nice..so how about being able to change them from within the game. I myself perhaps can cope with config files, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're scary for someone else
Big random packs of cards are fun, but how about also adding specialised (and probably thus smaller, though similarly priced) packs suited for specific race decks, or just cards of a single "colour" (hard to really call it a colour if there are symbols that look quite alike - at first I got fooled by the black wave and moon icons, called both of them "darkness"..turned out it's not a fitting name, at least not for both). I don't really need gold cross cards when running a necro deck do I?
TLDR?
long thing short:
-make a lobby to choose who to play with, chat, befriend with some kind of friend list, ignore list for the opposite case and maybe even set additional on-house rules (like turn duration) if the opponent agrees
-have a way of exchanging cards between players
-overally limit the randomness to reasonable ammounts, might make balancing easier
-don't forget to set a reasonable real-money price for ingame gold
-give option to remember last login
-enable sharing cards between different decks - when adding a card to a deck only remove it from the available cards pile for that single deck
-add a (discovered) cards compendium, a manual..anything!
-add an ingame way to change game settings
-record matches and give an option to save the replay to view it again in the future
-add to the shop packs consisting only of cards for specific decks/races or of a specific "colour"
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