Serious Feedback around Game Development

[Preybird]

I have an idea.

Everyone wants Shattered Fates and wants it now right? Well, we all know that’s not going to happen. But I have a proposition, and it’s a serious one.

Split the set into 3 and release it piecemeal.

Now before everyone chimes in and says “But we want to release whole sets” I think we can all agree that the current situation demands a radical change in strategy. The game is growing very stale and a lot of people have left, with a lot more threatening to. I love the game but even I find myself playing once every few days, as opposed to multiple times daily.

Now there are multiple benefits to my proposal:

1: We get an update!
2: We get three new metas as opposed to one. The game stays fresher for longer. You can also plan which cards to release to (hopefully) prevent any broken strategies.
3: Art procurement is less of a bottleneck (and it obviously is) as you only have to focus on 65 odd cards instead of 200 at a time.
4: Development has less of an impact (Design, APG, PFG, Beta), should you continue this practice into the future. You design whole sets but release them piecemeal, which still allows balancing over the whole set but gives us precious updates during the development process for the next set (in theory).
5: Less pressure on devs to keep producing content at a pace they obviously cannot maintain (no offense guys but its true).
6: More constant profits as opposed to the peak/trough situation that releasing only once a year will undoubtedly cause.

I would really appreciate this being given some serious consideration. I love this game and want to see it succeed and I’ve done all I can to try and help it along, but I have very real fears for the future.

Best regards,

Shawn (PB)

P.S: I'm not usually one to complain like this, but I think we're hitting the point of no return.

[Jo3yb0i]

I think we all know Wulven needs to step it up when the veteran players who stuck with SE are threatening to leave.

I am fairly close but luckily for me I have my guild to actually help me cling on. Other than that, I can see how a person picks up the game and within a month just leaves it.

[plo]

I do not agree. I would like to have SF released right now, and would appreciate if the developers were faster, however releasing 3 sets separately will only complicate things.

> We will have 3 metas, which means more work to balance the cards, and I would rather play only with DP if I just have a balanced meta.
> It means that besides working on finshing the set, they will also have to plan for those 3 broken sets, which means more work to be done, delaying even more the Full Release.

It is painful but I can endure the waiting because I know that when they released it, the set will be the best as it can be. We will not be disappointed, that`s for sure.

[Pat Jay]

For me, I would rather see the league system introduced first in DP as it allows time poor casual gamers something to strive for

Even something as simple as daily rewards could get people playing more regularly

I also think SF should be released as a set and not in stages ... as painful as the wait might be... balance is the key to an enjoyable game

Mind you... I like the idea of realising 50 odd cards at a time... so maybe in future we should release smaller sets or expansions as the 200 odd ones take to long to develop

What I don't get is ... with so few people playing on the test server... why have we not opened the beta?

Without more feedback from the test server... that will only hinder the progress to the final release of SF

[Preybird]

Wishing that the dev team was faster is all well and good but it is pretty apparent that they cannot handle the workload of generating a 200 card set in a timely manner. The Beta has been live for two months and we have had 2 minor updates and only one batch of art. There has been plenty of feedback that has gone unanswered. Is there any surprise people are not playing?

I think as opposed to encouraging the devs to work harder it's time to encourage them to work smarter. My suggestion will help as it breaks the workload into manageable chunks and can be a stop gap measure or an ongoing thing. It also allows the money and players to keep rolling in to allow the development to continue.

[Peithoson]

This splitting of the set seems like a good idea. Depends on how they split the set up but pitting tribes against each other should work (Templars vs. Undead is an example). We'll see what happens though.

[WrathOfCroft]

I am torn, Preybird. Half of me wants to wait for everything. Half of me wants something now. Luckily, I had a little break in my amount of play last fall, so I dont feel as drained as some of the players out there. So now, all these DP Tournaments and SF Beta tournaments are keeping me busy. I can definitely see how others might not feel the same. But those who havent taken a slight break might be, like you said, at the point of no return.

Honestly, the fact that no new art or updates have happened on TS for awhile now has me more worried than pissed off. I hope its not an ill omen for the game that we all love. I just hope that what Demnchi said in another thread about SF beta hitting live server, is coming soon...and not *soon.

[Gondorian]

Wasn't the $90K stretch goal meant to be "FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!" ?

I don't know what the dev hold-up is and wish it would move more quickly.

I believe the whole thing is going live in a beta capacity (with current bugs and missing artwork), so splitting the set up into 3 will not be necessary. People will only be able to play on the live beta if they own the cards.

[WrathOfCroft]

Yeah but will it be Beta becuase the cards will be in flux of development and tweaking? Or will it be "Beta" because there is no new art? Which i think will kill the game.

[Peithoson]

Yeah but will it be Beta becuase the cards will be in flux of development and tweaking? Or will it be "Beta" because there is no new art? Which i think will kill the game.

Let's just call it what it is... Alpha...