I just wanted to say that I’m a fan of the PC client. I had thought a client was needed for a long time, and it was the only reason I started playing again. All of my play is done through it.
That being said, I’ve run into a few annoyances. The amount of screens/prompts/hangups necessary to bypass is frustrating:
- Since a lot of folks need to run in Admin, you have the initial UAC prompt
- The launcher then runs (and fails for me about a third of the time)
- Windows ‘Open File’ security warning (not your fault, but still another step)
- The Configuration screen (could this be integrated in the launcher? I don’t see much reason to launch this every time the game runs.
- ‘Play’ screen with the backdrop (seems unnecessary)
- Latest News (Duplicate information that was on the launcher). Here is easily my biggest issue.
The Initializing seriously fails about 60% of the time for me. The only way I can successfully try again is to close the entire game, and start from scratch. I can deal with clicking through screens, but the failure to initialize several times in a row means I just give up. I might have to try 3-4 times before it passes this stage. I have tried many configurations (resolution, windowed mode, etc.) The problem still occurs. (Windows 7 x64, fully patched)
- The ad that sometimes appears
I realize these are not insurmountable obstacles, and are largely annoyances that aren’t encountered more than a few times a day – but all of them are barriers to people accessing your game. It sometimes takes me upwards of 5-10 minutes to get a successful login from the above.
After that, my next major complaint would be how long it takes to load cards. I have let the game build its cache. I have cleared the cache and let it run again. I have tried the repair option, let it re-cache… but cards still take a crazy amount of time to load. Many times while playing in a match, the opponents played cards won’t load until I have about 5 seconds left in my turn. I have misplayed several times because I thought an item was a trap (because all I see is a card back). To me this is a game-breaker.
The client also needs to reload the cards if you run any filters in the deck builder. Sometimes taking an extra minute or more. I have resorted to not even using the filters to avoid this issue.
I have a reliable 60 Mb connection with decent latency, so I can only assume these to be client/server related issues.
TLDR; If you were to fix these two issues (Initializing forever and card loading) you would make me a happy PC user.
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