Feedback about Shadow Era, the Card Game?

[Skurai]

if we talk about the physical version

i think the cards look nice, specially the foils.
the game itself is a pain in the ass to play (keep track of everything) but i dont mind that as a hardcore tcg player. (i like handling cards and shuffling etc)
is not ver portable, or the type of game you could play in a flash in your lunch break with friends.
but overall i like it, slightly better and more promising than his 'father' WoW tcg

[ahmet476]

The reason I started this game mainly because it is freemium. Otherwise, I wouldn't. Later I spent some cash too because I enjoyed the game a lot and wanted to get the cards faster or to get them at all. I don't care for physical game for several reasons. Btw, this is the first digital card game I spent money on and I think it will stay that way. I appreciated the art, the balance and the active community in this forum when I came here. It was easy getting better at the game because of the community. It also catered for my not-too-competitve nature as a game. It's a game that I can play once in while to relax and have fun. I agree with Irell's 3rd point as well. I like the game soundtrack . It is well done. Still to this day, I think it's been two years I started to play it, I listen to soundtrack when I'm playing against friends or on QM. The most annoying part for me was/is the long time unfixed important bugs. I'm happy to see some progress is being made even if it's not perfect.

[Bayushi]

I like that it doesn't cost much to be competitive in this game. You can actually win tournaments without having to shell out any money. Matchups have improved due to the release of DP and heroes are getting answers to certain weak spots slowly.

Also, as previously mentioned, card designs are great and the lore behind it, although still not fully disclosed, is exciting.

Lastly, the community is great and supportive even with trolls.

[Riccardo]

I started play SE 3 years ago.
I think this game is great.
Mechanics of the game are perfect. I love the "sacrifice" philosophy, in order to have something you have to give something too, everything has a price which deeply conditions the duel. This element forces player to make carefully his choices, we are talking about strategy, forecast and calculation of the events. Anyway at the moment i think the game is still predictable and every class hero usually use the same "core cards". I think increasing number of heroes and number of cards will spread differences among decks and combinations. Cards at the moment are pretty balanced, wulven staff has to be carefull to preserve this level of balancing. Well i appreciate if some new classes will come in near future.
Thank you and sorry for my bad english.

[nMer]

I'd like to point out one particular issue that totally prevents me from giving the "ideal" Shadow era 5 out of 5.
IMO the current card, class and faction balance is too much dependent on numbers.
You generally win by calculating maximum possible damage as effectively as possible and distributing it among enemy targets better than your opponent. You generally don't win by combining and applying the varoius qualities of your deck, but by accumulating the quantity of damage. Non-standard abilities usually have "swiss army knife"-type counters. So in the end it's just damage versus damage.
Maybe it's just me, but every strong deck should consist of cards that are amazing, not of cards that are just better than others. In Shadow era, the latter is usually the case.
Hope that I managed to make my thoughts clear

[Gondorian]

I'd like to point out one particular issue that totally prevents me from giving the "ideal" Shadow era 5 out of 5.
IMO the current card, class and faction balance is too much dependent on numbers.
You generally win by calculating maximum possible damage as effectively as possible and distributing it among enemy targets better than your opponent. You generally don't win by combining and applying the varoius qualities of your deck, but by accumulating the quantity of damage. Non-standard abilities usually have "swiss army knife"-type counters. So in the end it's just damage versus damage.
Maybe it's just me, but every strong deck should consist of cards that are amazing, not of cards that are just better than others. In Shadow era, the latter is usually the case.
Hope that I managed to make my thoughts clear

What are the qualities you have in mind?

[Demnchi]

I personally like the card game quite a bit (but that's not going to surprise anyone :P).

I think there are a few reasons why I like it even above MtG. One, combat feels better imo. Everyone doesn't magically heal all their wounds after each turn for no reason and they don't stupidly hit each other at the same time. Two, sacrificing prevents "Mana screw/starved". Although, I do like to play Resource cards like Lands and Energy (from pokemon), I think this system works better and has just as much potential to flesh out gameplay in the future. Lastely, and the biggest one (which some TCG players will think I'm stupid or crazy here) there are NO INSTANCES. This is one of the gameplay mechanics from Magic that I despise and am happy not to see here. I know people like the mind games and the ability to just counter another player by playing around his cards, but I can't stand that they are allowed to just pay 1 measly cost and make everything I have useless. They basically ruin the fun of the game for me personally.

I'll write up more when I have a bit more time.

[pyrogene]

The game itself is actually pretty good. The greatest issue for me is the lack of variation which ultimately is an issue because of the small card pool. But that's already been covered so moving on.

In DP/CotC there's still the issue of FTA which could be improved. Granted, there are cards you can use to alleviate it but they usually force you to compromise on match-ups where you go first and result in possibly lower win-rate. First-strike is a contributor to that so there needs to be conscious effort to alleviate FTA.

Balance-wise, there are still some heroes that are relatively underpowered but balancing 20 heroes is rather difficult so the current state tbh is not too bad at all.

Art is very good. I think one of the few things where there are close to no complaints.

Also judging by some posts in the rulings section, there are some card descriptions which are a little unclear and mechanics which are not very intuitive. E.g. Consuming Fear activating before an attack but after an ability.

Gameplay-wise I feel like using land vs sacrificing or having auto haste like YGO are just differences and no specific style is superior. Just simply a set of rules to follow so indifferent here.

[Osobear215]

I would like to preface this by saying I'm relatively new to the genre, I used to mess around with yugioh long long time ago and thats about it. Also, ive only been playing SE for a few weeks so take my feedback for what it is.

1) Sacrificing is a brilliant mechanic that adds greatly to the depth of strategy. Even though I was put off by the concept at the very beginning, I realized its definitely a positive.

2) I enjoy very diverse games that allow for a plethora of different strategies. SE seems like it wants to be that type of game (and it probably will be with the addition of more cards) but right now it isnt. In the very short time ive been playing (quick matches around rating 240 if that makes a difference) I see a lot of the same deck builds and strategy. I play Jericho just to add a bit of variety lol.

3) The art, effects, and music are great.

Overall I really enjoy playing and thinking about the strategies of the game. Im definitely going to be sticking around.

[plo]

Qualities:
1) Matches are short.
2) Many viable decks with very different play styles, so the game doesn't get repetitive.
3) Except for the Legendaries you have access to every card.
4) Strategy depht.
5) Insanely beautyful art.
6) Very clever lore. The story is believable, you don't have for example people living in another continent with the same religion and language.
7) There are weaker cards, but not completely useless like you have in some tcgs.

Some defects:
1) Jericho feels like a weaker version of Zhanna and is not very unique in his play style, the same is true for Nishave in relation to Eladwen.
2) Some matches up are auto losses. An example is Serena against Elementalis.
3) Traps are very predictable, what they are not supposed to be.
4) For me being easy to learn and easy to play are defects, I prefer challenges.

Some advices:
1) Don't make the cards progressively strong, if you do the cards from earlier set will become underpowered.
2) Ignore the people when they complain "expansions are taking too long". Remenber the phrase "Quality is our top-priority" and take the time you need to polish the set as much as possible.