I'm a rather long time SE player, started before the first set was complete (back before Death Mage Thaddeus was released and Plasma Behemoth was 'the' shadow fatty) and have played SE on and off since then, didn't play a lot last years (played some other games, like Hearthstone) but got back in the last months and have been playing like 3-4 matches a day for some months now, got back to >300 like I used to always be and would call myself an decent player (certainly not good, but avarage)... BUT I have been noticing some stuff that concerns me a lot... and wanted to give some feedback from a 'veteran', starting with:
A lot less players / player contribution
Back when I used to play this game a lot the community was very active, we had tournaments dailly, we had very active forums, with hundred of players online, it was impossible to find your game in the list after it was open because we had new games starting every 3-5 seconds, basicly, the player base was A LOT bigger. Right now I only see the same couple of hundred of players all the time, they play a lot, it's a loyal playerbase, but not really a big player base. This is just a general concern and I think it's sad because of all the (digital) CCG's/TCG's (or however you want to call it) that I played, SE is still probably the best one out there.
Now, that was just a general concern, now here go some of the reasons that I think are the reason behind this:
1. Bad UI
Seriously, I have played some other digital card games and SE is just miles behind in UI/gameplay experience, it feels sluggish, a lot of pointless clicks, unnecessary delays, etc.. It just feels anoying to play sometimes compared to what is out there...
Some examples: Why do I need to select my weapon and then press to target it with Gwen? 2 useless clicks since it ALWAYS targets the weapon you are currently using.. Why can't I access the leaderboard from multiplayer view? I always need to go back to campain to click there, same for the other buttons on the bottom of the screen of the campain mode. If you guys want more, I can make an entire list, but I'm quite sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. (why can't I drag to use ability on friendly allies with an Aeon, just because his drag is ONLY to attack?)
2. The 'no banned cards policy'
This is actualy a double problem, first:
Because SE has a 'not removing old cards' policy, it's kind of overwhelming for newcommers, the amount of cards you need to learn (with a bad UI, where you can't even read cards on enemy turn) make it hard to understand whats going on and hard to start to combine the right cards and actualy have some fun in multiplayer. If SE would have the method of making older sets 'depricated' in newer versions it would be less overwhelming imho.
Second:
New cards design is very slow because of the balance issue with older cards.. A LOT of new cards just can't be created because they would break the game because of some old cards which were created when the game was still simpler. Some cards over time are just becoming too strong because of how they work with new cards, making it exponentially harder to create new cards with each set.. Imho this is the reason that the releasing of new sets takes SO FREAKINGLY long (combined with an every time less engaged/active playerbase, making feedback on forums less common, making it harder to balance.. in the past we had pages and pages of comments about every single new card announced, now it's maybe a couple of comments on an entire list of cards anounced..). Imho this policy needs to be broken, some cards NEED to be banned from the game in order to make new cards viable..
3. Last but not least
Mill decks.... This is exactly what drove me away from SE in the past, NOT because they are overpowered or anything, but I (And i believe a lot of the casual players) play this game when for example on a train, waiting for a bus, or a quick match before dinner or whatever... It's a mainly mobile game, which on avarage people like to play at most 20-25 minutes a day (and this is higher then the casual players avarage because of the people that play an unusual long time), a game against a mill deck takes often >30 minutes... So that is more time that I want to be spending on the game... Honestly, I'm often just in the mood if insta leaving a game vs a mill deck, not because I can't win, but because I know it will take too long and I don't have or don't want to spend that time. I know that the diehard players will scream at me because they want more options/different playstyles in the game and I understand that, but is it really worth it if this scares away players? At least I would be scared away if I was a new player and had to sit for 30 minutes in a match where I feel like i'm not even playing (because that is how mill works, they make it feel like it's 2 people playing solo), 0 excitement, just at some point someone wins and that is it...
No idea if this will help in any way, but my hope is that it will at least start some usefull discussion on how to maybe save this amazing, but dying game. (lets be honest, it IS dying...)
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