A To-Do List for the Devs, Made with Positive Energy

fruithead

Looking at my post history, i am disappointed by the amount of negative posts i have. i'm generally known in real life as a very positive person, i dont know what it is about my experience here that is causing me to be so harshmellow. In order to correct this, i have decided to try to put positive energy into the community by pulling together all the things it seems like people want the most into a "to-do list" for the devs. My assumption moving forward will be that the developers are hard-working people who are trying their best to make an amazing product.

In the best possible scenario, someone from the dev team could comment here and let the community know that they are aware of and working on all these issues, their progress on said issues, and where they plan on moving forward, and maybe some sort of a timetable. at worst it will jumpstart positive discussion/interaction between community members.

I've seen very positive and very active players on these forums, panda, loroku, leftist, kore, and others too many to listcome to mind. i hope they will do me the honor of weighing in on this thread, which i humbly offer. I'm quite certain i have left things out, so i hope others will point things out that should be added.

I have tried to post things in order of priority and divided the list into three sections. Without further ado:

1) Bug Fixes - while it's unclear this should rank above game improvements, I put it first because when a game has bugs that are not being fixed, it makes it seem like the developers are sloppy. as a long time gamer with a lot of activity on game forums, one thing i consistently see is accusations that devs have abandoned a game or warnings to new players to "not bother" getting involved, all because bugs are not being fixed. i guess it makes sense too - if something is clearly not working right and it's not being fixed, it smacks of housekeeping issues, which reflects badly on the developers. I dont have a list for this because there is a seperate forum for bug reports, but things like embermaw hellion that clearly do not work properly come to mind.

2) Game improvements - Quality of life issues, possibly more important than bugfixing. everyone wants to play a more fun game.

[*]Improve AI - code red critical. the ai needs to start winning more.[/*]
[*]add rune sink - critical[/*]
[*]fix crashing - important (this was greatly improved in the last update, so no longer critical. sadly, extremely difficult to totally eliminate crashing on android games for some reason.)[/*]
[*]add duplicate sink - important[/*]
[*]make PW ability level selectable - eventually (many players dont want to level PW's because of this)
Less important: [/*]
[*]add a way to speed up animations to 2x or 3x their default speed - currently it's painful to play foundry and god forbid when i take out the enemy's hangarback - even with tapping this takes forever. even the drawing animation is annoying, when i play nissa's revelation i want the cards to draw way faster than they do currently.[/*]
[*]add a function to recall last card played. especially for new players when a spell with a lot of text is played, it can be super annoying when it vanishes and you cant recall it.[/*]
[*]add creature types - so you know which cards are affected by "this card does something with creature x type" cards, like all those elf cards.[/*]
[*]"betterize" commons - at the moment there is almost 0 reason to have more than one occasional common in a deck, except for perhaps you dont have the necessary rares and uncommons to build a decent deck. they are all super bad cost-to-effect ratiowise.[/*]
[*]apply nerfs where needed - there are cards where almost everyone posting is pretty much in agreement the nerf hammer is needed. listen to the community, inspire confidence, fandom, and mindless worship! seriously! harbinger of the tides come to mind, but there are others.[/*]
3) Game Additions - extra features we hope to see implemented in the future, less important but still not to be underestimated

[*]more cards - obviously the key to any CCG based game. keep 'em coming![/*]
[*]more worthwhile pve - atm i have abandoned completing pve goals because they are not worthwhile compared to pvp, it seems many players feel the same[/*]
[*]more reliable ways to earn good cards - although it does not have to be easy, there needs to be a feeling amongst players that shiny new uncommons and rares are available to them as a reward for their playtime, without having to outplay the insane nolifers who nolife the leaderboards for 4-8 hours a day, apparently. with the current system, it's easy to give up, which is bad for new players. very bad.[/*]
[*]events - we will continue to wait patiently for these[/*]
[*]special deals with guaranteed rares or mythics - i kind of feel like these would net you some sweet cash.[/*]
[*]live pvp - the ultimate reason to play, to test your wit and skill against a real enemy. i won't elaborate here because a dev was kind enough to respond on my previous thread about this topic, but i certainly would not leave it off this list. even if not one other feature or bug was ever changed, and the ability to play humans was added, i would probably become so addicted to this game it would ruin my life. just like real magic used to do![/*]


so, did i leave anything off? please leave a comment! thanks all. stay positive

Unknown

As the quintessential "new player", I would like to weigh in from my point of view. The absolute, number one thing the game needs, is the thing they just took away - the ability to buy cards with playtime (aka runes). Currently, for a new or newish person, there is absolutely NO reliable way to build your deck in any meaningful way without spending real money. I've put in about 10 hours now, and I already know that without new cards, leveling my heroes is counter productive and not at all enticing. I have a bad, noob deck. The only way I can fix that is buying new cards. But all these runes can be used for is leveling my heroes - which will cause me to play against players with increasingly powerful decks. Why would I do that? Answer - I wont.

So, unfortunately, after a week (about 10ish hours) of playing, I am done with the game. There's no progression for me, as a new player. I can get 6-9 free cards a day, currently. At that rate, my deck will not gain in any power, at a rate that makes me want to keep playing.

I know they are talking about a new rune sink, but unless that rune sink allows you to gain cards, then new players are left in the same boat - buy cards with real money or have a weak, boring to play deck for a long, long time.

loroku

I am honored that you feel that my posts are mostly positive. I will try to do a better job of keeping them that way.

I agree with you that general bug fixes (including clear creature typing), a rune sink, and solving the "higher level abilities are kind of bad" problems are the top issues right now (in order). Card balance, PvE events, and "something to do with duplicates" are also important, but not as high as those first three. Quality of life improvements - like speeding up play - are always welcome. More cards and real money specials with toppers would be cool, but I'm willing to wait on those just to get everything else first.

Unknown

All in all I do agree with most of the points of yours.

I like that you wanna try to be more positive. I personally can't do that... I'm just already too old to change myself

I don't think that commons have to be better. I like that your first cards are not that good. That allows yourself seeing some progress over time. Also, I think the mythics have to be better.

I disagree that harbinger is a good example for an OP card. It was pre 1.3. It is still good but that's fine for a rare. Only really OP card I can think off is mizzium meddler.

Unknown

I disagree with more worthwhile pve because it takes a lot of effort to make themed decks, and the "best" decks of which you already see in PvP.

We already have the challenges which are similar to stuff like the nicol bolas fight in duels, where the opponent has a better starting condition (or in nicol bolas' case, double card draw and banned moxes lol). So we already have stuff like that.

I'd rather they work on events like in MPQ which is what adds replayability value. Perhaps this week is "nissa week" where all her mana bonuses are increased by 1, and there is a set of Nissa centric event battles you can grind/do for either crystals or a mythic/rare chance. Next week might be "support week" where supports cost half as much. That is what pve events should be.

I actually think currently it is too easy to get good cards (well pre 1.3.1). It needs better ways for newbies to get cards (I suggest having each first time storyline mission win to grant between 1-3 free boosters). Right now if I was a new player I would immediately quit because the game would be impossible.

Commons don't need to get better - there are TONS of great commons/uncommons and I use a few in every deck I have. What needs to get better are mythics, many of which are way worse than commons. In my opinion EVERY mythic should be playable, and should provide unique benefits. To balance, maybe add in a special "mythic cap" of 1-2 mythics in a deck. That way you can build your deck around your powerful, amazing mythic that feels really good to get and to play, while making sure those with tons of mythics don't overwhelm those without.

Upstartes

Related to the "Commons should be better" idea:

I believe that no card should completely duplicate a more common card for the same price.

Examples:
1) Harbinger of the Tides and Separatist Voidmage
These have the exact same cost (10) and the same effect (bounce), but the Harbinger is better in TWO ways: the creature is stronger and the cost to replay the bounced card is vastly different. There is absolutely no reason to ever choose the Voidmage instead of the HotT.

2) Exquisite Firecraft and Lightning Javelin
Both cost 6. Both do direct damage. Firecraft does 6 and Javelin does 3. Firecraft is always better.

I understand you might still use both versions so that you have more chances to draw a card that produces that kind of effect. However, having a rare card make a more common card 100% obsolete reduces the complexity of choices in deckbuilding. If the common version were 1 or 2 mana cheaper, then the more rare card could still be a superior, more cost-efficient card, while still allowing for situations where the lesser card might be an interesting choice.

Keegan

I'm definitely on board with the need for a runesink. As pointed out in a previous thread, the ability to get booster packs stimulates your sense of reward in your brain. Currently we're running a three day QB with the only sense of reward being able to grind through to place high enough to make it worthwhile. The one that I'm in has someone at the top with nearly 1 000 rewards. I have all the planeswalkers, I have them leveled where I'd like, I've done the story as far as I'd like, these three days actually kind of suck. It'd be nice to give another rabbit hole in place of purchasing boosters.

I'm sure there will be one, the waiting for features is always the hardest part

The_Leftist

Great constructive criticism! I really like your "recall last card played" idea. There are many times I feel like a bug happened on the last card or I see a trap card and forget what it does if I match it.

Overall, you've got neat and/or reasonable ideas for the most part, and I truly hope you can get some type of response, as most of us have been unable to. Even being the first to respond to their patch notes didn't get me a response.

It's clear that the developers are in fact working on the game, but it's also clear that they need to communicate more! I'll try to be as constructive here as FH......

Devs,

You rarely say anything, and when you do, it's "we can't tell you yet", "it's coming soon", or "we will try to communicate more". I know you are busy, but I would be much happier with you saying you will have to delay something or telling us you were unable to do what you wanted than to feel like you are leading us on, or when you say nothing at all.

Players are frustrated about not being able to buy cards with runes. Tell us if the rune sink holes will let us, or just be honest and admit you are looking for ways to generate more revenue! If you were honest, we could give you ideas as to what you could do to get us to spend money!

People are complaining about the walker powers getting "worse" as they level. Tell us your plans! If you have to change them, or delay changes to work on them, we understand!

Just keep us in the loop and quit giving us vague answers that don't really answer anything we asked!

Brainstormin

All great suggestions!
I would add the ability to drag and move the spell boxes (to see if there are indeed 8 tiles of whatever color) Too many times after a cascade i have no idea what's on the board and i'd love to be able to see. OR have the spells tell you (like how MPQ now tells you your opponent's strongest color)
Ex. "if there are 8 or more black gems on the board, gain 3 mana. (there are currently 4)"

Also YES on a rune sink. All my PWs are level 50 and I have almost every card I could want besides a few terrible mythics.

Who knows when there will be new cards or Planeswalkers. The lack of communication from the devs is not good PR. I have nothing to look forward to in this game. And nothing to play for. My two cents.

-brainstormin