Beta-Feedback-Thread

[Notthevictim]

Weird bug just now. The enemy finished her attack and the camera started going down but it was painfully slow, barely noticed it moving. It took literally 5 minutes to get to the bottom. I had to quit

[-jFk-]

Hi.
First of all I have to say, I've been playing MtG for some years and also a bit MtGOnline.
I'm really pissed about the MtGO, especially because there's a multi-million( even billion?)-dollar-imperium making shitloads of money even with virtual cards and they are not able to hire some decent programmers to create at least a medium quality product and playing experience.
That said I'm really exited about this game and already like the gameplay and the feeling playing it really really much. I mean it plays really smooth, looks good and even has some nice effects (that.. I'm sure about this .. will become much more awsome in the time to come).
Now my suggestions about the beta1:

-I totally agree with the guy, that asked for the feature to remember the login data. Especially as long, as the "play again"-function is not working typing in the login data, after every single round is quite annoying. What also bothers me about the login is that on the one hand you can use "tab" between the username and password field but you can't use "return" to submit your data, which means you have to click every time. This is also a minor problem, but I guess it's very easy to implement and would really be appreciated.

now for the game itself and here first about layout and graphic isssues:
- when the opponent chooses a target - e.g. for "engulfing flames" or "freeze" - the screen waits over the middle of the 'battlefield' (what is it called officially?) until the AI has decided. Then it goes back up to the cards of the opponent while at the same second the played card goes attaching the target. If you miss this second or don't watch closely you might miss where it got played, so I suggest, after the target is chosen there is a (SHORT) animation where the screen centers and maybe zoomes in on the card to be 'enchanted'.

-It's a little bit boring when something goes to 0 health the number just vanishes. I hope there will be some dying animation or for now at least some special symbol like a crux or something.

-I don't know the rules yet, but I guess it's important to know how many cards remain in each players library, so i suggest this information is displayed as well

-What are the rules of the game anyway? By playing the beta so far one can of course guess the most important stuff but what about the details. I would find it very interesting to know at least the basic rules or let's say all rules that are important so far to estimate the balancing and the like.

-Without knowing the rules, I guess the 1 costet 2/2 guy and the 2cost 2/5 (or even 6? don't remember) are a bit overpowered. When they come in the first two turns and they come more allies you are really in the defense and will probably lose without the atomic bomb.
The 4c2/3 that kills a resource on the other hand is quite bad i guess, although not as bad as the hand+1 card. Even with the mages draw 1 card it's still not worth it I guess. But you probably already had some playtesting and balancing so maybe your oppinion about it differs? I guess because you can't draw anymore cards, when handsize is reached, its a great way to lose cards in your hand. Whatever...
I think the "all creatures can attack immediately" is abit to expensive. I would try it for 2 even but maybe that would be a bit overpowered then. In the given deck its really bad because there aren't that many allies in it and you will almost never play two in the same turn.

-Once again about the rules. I think the game structure is more complicated than it has to be:
In the "action"-step you can do everything you want in any order, can attack multiple times and so on. I don't see why you need a unique step just for sacrificing. Why can't I just at somepoint (and only once each turn) during the "action"-step sacrifice one of my cards? Ok then I could sacrifice a card, drawn by an ability but while I don't see any disadvantage of this at all, even if you don't like it, I guess it -by far- outways the large drawback in the complexity of the turn structure.
Also I don't see, why you need a special "target"-step. Of course again I don't know the rules by now and what kind of reaction-and-interaction-system (like the stack in magic) you have in mind but for the cards released right now, it would suffice to just choose the target as part of the action.
That of course would lead (at the moment) to only one step and therefore no real step at all - only a turn, which - i think - is just great for the simplicity of the game.

I'm sorry to run you over with so many (maybe unimportant) notes. I really like this game and want to help to make it as good as possible.

[-jFk-]

Here is some more after I just had to start another game ;D

What does "frozen" do? My guess: "Target can't use abilities."

I agree on that resources should be ready to use imediately. If not at least every Player should start with one resource in play. Otherwise the first turn is really always nothing happening, because there are no cards for cost 0 i guess?

You said yourself that cards like lightning strike (btw. i think that card is a little bit overpowered and should cost at least 4) shouldn't be able to be used on the same target twice. At least from the wording it makes perfect sense to me:
Lightning Strike says: "does 3 damage to two targets" whereas "Arcane Burst does 2 damage to four DIFFERENT targets". So if you want to make it ALWAYS impossible to target the same cards several times, I suggest, you remove the "different" from arcane burst, only to make the wording consistent and as simple as possible (compared to writing "different" on any multi-target card)

EDIT: I just realized that I can't even play Lightning Burst when there aren't two target opponents so you really didn't want it to work like that. Then i still suggest to make the wording consistent on all cards.

[-jFk-]

two more things:
-one should be able to look at cards, that are attached to others like "engulfing flame", to see what they do, by clicking on there name. I'm sure the feature is just not implemented yet.

-What does "defend" mean. Is it possible to block attacks like in MtG? This question will of course also be solved by the revelation of the rules of the game.

EDIT:
to make it three:
-when you can't draw a cards while your hand is full, not starting in the game is a double draw back: you are always half a turn behind AND you have "half a card" less than your opponent (in MtG for example it's either one)

[Notthevictim]

I just lost a battle and it counted as a draw. Possible bug?

Edit: Also, I don't get this. Why does every one of my enemies allies attack me even when he has no resources to use?

Edit 2: Oh, I played another game and figured out that allies can attack without using resources every time! So my last 2 games weren't letting me do that for some reason. Either that or I was oblivious to something!

[drakon]

Here are my suggestions.
- Poison Gas. Cost is too high for use on Allies, too low for use on Hero. If I got this on hero early, it was a game changer.
- Is there a difference between the 4 cost and 3 cost "hold" spells on an Ally? I don't remember the names, like web and freeze I think.
- The AI seems to keep sacrificing beyond whats necessary. I.E. it has 7 or 8 sacrificed cards but only a single card in its hand (which it just drew that turn), whose spell cost isn't higher than 5.
- How about cards that force the enemy to attack it before it can attack the Hero. (Or if its already a card that we can't use yet then good!)

Couple suggestions that have been mentioned before
- Play again doesn't work on Firefox
- Game starts slow. Just sacrificing on the first 2-3 turns.
- AI casts essentially duplicate spells on same Ally (web)

[Shadow Era]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback! For specific card suggestions, please see the new Card Discussion forum.
v1.01 was released which fixed the most annoying critical bugs. A new version will be posted every day, sometime around 10am EST.

[Quacko]

Just played two rounds, I think this will work quite well on a mobile device. Allows you to have a battle that doesn't last too long whenever you like. Provided the deck building and the promise of better cards keeps me coming back time after time. Both times I focused on sacrificing all that I could to get as many allies out as possible, then also got the poison gas and engulf going on the hero. Both times I won easily because computer did not bother summoning allies often. I really like the artwork. I look forward to seeing more.

[revZloco]

Just played my first 4 games and let me say, I am impressed! This is going to be magnificent on the iDevices. Many of my first impressions echo much of what has been said above, but maybe I can add a couple spins. My biggest complaint is the speed — speed of the effects and speed of the game.

It seems to take too long for a modifying spell (such as poison) to land on its target. I want to cast the spell, select the target, (this is the spin) have the camera pan back (to display the entire field) as my spell card zooms over to the target and plant itself there, then quickly zoom back in to show a nifty effect to demonstrate the affliction just applied to the target. I think quick pull backs showing the entire playing field will help people see and understand the big picture of the match.

Speed of the game is another matter, I tend to agree the build-up might be too labored. Here's a thought: By sacrificing a card, could you earn resources equivalent to half (rounded down) the casting cost of the sacrificed card? You could still display the single card in your resource pool, but maybe put a number on it to delineate how many resources it is worth (this would really make the destroy resource ability interesting). You could also specify that all of the the resources of that card must be used all at once and any that is left over hits your hero as a mana burn (i.e. I have two cards in my resource pool, both have a value of 2 each, I decide to cast the lightning spell which costs 3 resources, but by doing so I have tapped 4 resources, so at the end of my turn I would sustain 1 point of damage.) — I would think creating a rule like this would create endless new strategic possibilities as well as speed the games up dramatically.

That's all for now, I'll be back with more.

[Verdeloth]

Hello everyone. Well, i was able to test the game for a while now (4 games so far) and i think it is time to provide my own feedback:

FIRST: I am already imagining this game some months or a year from now and i can see how great it's going to be. Although it currently shows some flaws, and in my opinion, that's the purpose of Beta-Testing, it also shows some nice things.

1) I, for one, own an ipod touch, so i would really like to play this game lying on my bed. =)- That aside, i personally didn't like the fact that the game needed another software (Unity web player or something like that) in order to play it. I like the fact that it was not a flash-based game, but i was kinda hoping for something more...Java/javascript related (although i have nooo idea at all what type of language this Unity is supposed to read.

2) The fact that after the first 3 turns i was understanding some of the game mechanics was also another thing to observe in the future. I have played several TCG games, and i know that mechanics are similar within each other. In this case, i was able to view it as some sort of "mental magic" (a custom game mechanic on the Magic the Gathering game), since you need to use the same spell cards as "mana" cards, or in this case, sacrifice cards. I don't personally like that this sacrifice cards ALSO suffer...Summoning sickness (MtG term for not being able to use the card on the first moment you play it). I know that there is a legal need also regarding not making a copy of another, already famous, TCG, but i don't like using cards as "sacrifice" for others. I understand the concept, but personally, i would prefer using another "source" (mana for MtG) instead.

3) Since your hero is, directly, your HP, i think that allied cards should not be able to attack the hero directly if your opponent controls another creature (unless specifically noted by some rare cards). On this fact i know that some activated abilities are not working at the moment, so i will avoid any further comments regarding those.

4) As noted by other users, some cards needs to be tweaked. It would be nice (i haven't checked if there is one open yet) to open a new Thread regarding card mechanics. Not suggestions on new cards, but actually an attempt to fix the ones we currently see. Regarding card effects, simple but nice animations.

5) Although i liked the animation that goes between each player every turn...i know for a fact that you need to be able to view the whole table when playing these type of games. I personally would not mind trading the animation for a fixed view of the whole gaming area. I know that would probably be a drawback for handheld gaming...but hey, let's try first to focus on getting the web browser game in excellent shape.

6) Mmm please try also to fix the AI. My opponent just played a Fire Snake...and 2 Clinging Webs afterwards, making the Snake the target for BOTH Webs LOL.

7) I don't know if this design was in order to...determine rare cards from common, but Clinging Webs and Freeze do the exact same thing, but the first has 3 as a SC (sacrificing cost) and Freeze has 4. Again...this should be discussed in another different thread.

I probably have more things on this, and i will be posting them as soon as i get to memo the cards and check on mechanics more.
The game DOES have some flaws, but i like it. I think that this flaws can be fixed with patience, gaming and our help. Kyle, if you read this, please try to focus first on browser gaming...and when it is complete (or almost), then jump to other devices.

My 2 cents =)

Verdeloth (from Argentina =) )