Final review of the game
arNero
Posts: 358 Mover and Shaker
I had just posted a review for this game in Google Play, and I'm making this thread to elaborate because Google Play review doesn't allow for much writing space.
So, I guess I don't need to sugarcoat anything: This thread is basically a "this game sucks" thread, and here's why.
1) The game's RNG is an absolute disaster.
I have completely lost count on how many, many times the AI keeps getting perfect matches and cascades and end up with 6 full-mana cards in a single turn when I'm left with just one match that's not going to save me from the oncoming onslaught. And also the many, many times I cast a Nissa's Renewal or Rishkar's Expertise, only for the game to give me no match, and perfect board state for the AI to get infinite cascades again? And I filled my deck with at least three removals; where the [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] tinykitty are they?
(PS: In case some of you want to nitpick, hey, I should have gotten a few infinite cascades too, the RNG can't be that unfair, honestly, yes, I sometimes get such infinite cascades.... by playing Rishkar's Expertise + Nissa's Renewal + Seasons Past +Prism Array combo, the kind of combo that is specifically designed to utterly destroy the [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] tinykitty board; the AI gets such infinites regularly without those busted stuffs)
There's also the issue with pack opening. How is it that the packs are geared more towards giving us dupes over and over again? The Legacy and Standard special booster packs we get from leveling up do help a bit, but at this stage, sadly to say, it's too little, too late.
2) The client is very, very unstable.
This game is essentially a single-player, non-real time game but lacking save state. So when we are in the middle of a match (especially important matches like Coalition events), and the game decides to force-close/crash because we put the phone on standby, or because we have to answer a phone call... well, what the hell?
And this is before factoring in the numerous in-game bugs that stops the game cold and forcing us to forfeit a match because the game just bugs out on us. Look, Hearthstone is a PvP game with real time matches, and even it doesn't instantly DQ us from a disconnection, merely giving us about a minute grace period to reopen the game and resume match, even if in that case we may have lost some advantages. Why can't you even consider some kind of safety net from being forced to lose a game due to client problem??!
3) Game balance is almost nonexistent.
This, I believe the threads in the forum should have given you more than enough info. Blue Sun's Zenith (which is still quite busted despite its nerf). Naru Meha. Omniscience. Razia. I don't know what else to say; this game has been loaded with too many cards that basically is [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] [Redacted] (Razia is a good example of that sentence). No card is safe. Every creature must die on the turn they show up. Every support must be blown up as soon as they land on the board. And you still consider this game a strategy game? What strategy?
(If you again want to nitpick, okay, I admit many card games have fallen to this exact same problem: The strategy is no longer "play carefully, analyze threats and deal with only the most dangerous ones", but instead "destroy absolutely everything on the other side of the board".)
And especially in cases like Naru Meha, instead of acknowledging that the card is busted, instead of keeping the fix you gave it some time ago, you instead reverted it back to its broken state. I mean... what?
4) It takes the entire waking hours to get the game's daily rewards, in particular its nonrenewable resources such as crystals and pinkies.
Training Grounds require playing 4 games to get 10 crystals, each. Trials of the Planes require 8 to get 20 pinkies at the cost of 30 crystals. Ravnica daily events require about 5-6 games to get 25 pinkies and 10 crystals. Weekday and Coalition events often require playing upwards to 15 games per day to get the progression rewards.
Now, if each battle in this game lasts at most 1 minute, these many games required to play won't be a major problem. Thing is, 5 minutes of play time per game is considered average, and if you run into some decks that easily stalls the game all the way into an entire hour, well, there goes your family time.
5) Loading screen everywhere.
To start with, this game takes at least 2 full minutes to load into its home screen. No other game I know takes that much time to load, not Hearthstone, not Tokyo Afterschool Summoners, not Sdorica, not Plants vs Zombies, nothing. And then whenever we start and end a match, there's more loading.
Also, this factors in to point #2 above: Buggy client. Compared to most games I know, this game can not take the slightest network delay/stutter during loading. With so much time wasted on loading, if your network connection gets slightly interrupted when starting a game, Something Went Wrong, there goes your match.
6) Bloated app size due to too many cards.
Okay, this game is indeed based on Magic the Gathering, which is a card game with tons and tons of cards, most of which are less than useless, sometimes even in limited. But paper MTG has some formats where these worthless vanillas and commons are still at least usable: Limited, pauper, Highlander etc.
PQ does not have these extra modes where these worthless cards are of any value, so what's the deal of printing vanillas in late sets such as WAR? And this is not getting into the fact that like most card games, common cards are obviously weaker than rarer cards, giving us less incentive to play them but they still clog up our collection, and most importantly, our phone; those cards couldn't have possiblyh cost a measly 1 KB of storage a piece, hello.
And that's before getting into the masterpieces. Even more cards to cram into the game for no reason other than because. Oh sure, Magic has those supplementary sets like Commander and Masters, but those, frankly, are not needed here (especially since in Paper MTG, those supplementary sets are often not standard legal anyway).
Whew.
I will admit that I may not necessarily say goodbye to this game permanently, but in light of all of this game's unforgiveable shortcomings, it's time to move on.
[MOD NOTE: Numerous edits to remove profanity and all caps. Forum rules 6 and 15. User was warned. https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/4/forum-rules-please-read-before-posting#latest BK//]
So, I guess I don't need to sugarcoat anything: This thread is basically a "this game sucks" thread, and here's why.
1) The game's RNG is an absolute disaster.
I have completely lost count on how many, many times the AI keeps getting perfect matches and cascades and end up with 6 full-mana cards in a single turn when I'm left with just one match that's not going to save me from the oncoming onslaught. And also the many, many times I cast a Nissa's Renewal or Rishkar's Expertise, only for the game to give me no match, and perfect board state for the AI to get infinite cascades again? And I filled my deck with at least three removals; where the [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] tinykitty are they?
(PS: In case some of you want to nitpick, hey, I should have gotten a few infinite cascades too, the RNG can't be that unfair, honestly, yes, I sometimes get such infinite cascades.... by playing Rishkar's Expertise + Nissa's Renewal + Seasons Past +Prism Array combo, the kind of combo that is specifically designed to utterly destroy the [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] tinykitty board; the AI gets such infinites regularly without those busted stuffs)
There's also the issue with pack opening. How is it that the packs are geared more towards giving us dupes over and over again? The Legacy and Standard special booster packs we get from leveling up do help a bit, but at this stage, sadly to say, it's too little, too late.
2) The client is very, very unstable.
This game is essentially a single-player, non-real time game but lacking save state. So when we are in the middle of a match (especially important matches like Coalition events), and the game decides to force-close/crash because we put the phone on standby, or because we have to answer a phone call... well, what the hell?
And this is before factoring in the numerous in-game bugs that stops the game cold and forcing us to forfeit a match because the game just bugs out on us. Look, Hearthstone is a PvP game with real time matches, and even it doesn't instantly DQ us from a disconnection, merely giving us about a minute grace period to reopen the game and resume match, even if in that case we may have lost some advantages. Why can't you even consider some kind of safety net from being forced to lose a game due to client problem??!
3) Game balance is almost nonexistent.
This, I believe the threads in the forum should have given you more than enough info. Blue Sun's Zenith (which is still quite busted despite its nerf). Naru Meha. Omniscience. Razia. I don't know what else to say; this game has been loaded with too many cards that basically is [Mod note: edited to remove profanity bk] [Redacted] (Razia is a good example of that sentence). No card is safe. Every creature must die on the turn they show up. Every support must be blown up as soon as they land on the board. And you still consider this game a strategy game? What strategy?
(If you again want to nitpick, okay, I admit many card games have fallen to this exact same problem: The strategy is no longer "play carefully, analyze threats and deal with only the most dangerous ones", but instead "destroy absolutely everything on the other side of the board".)
And especially in cases like Naru Meha, instead of acknowledging that the card is busted, instead of keeping the fix you gave it some time ago, you instead reverted it back to its broken state. I mean... what?
4) It takes the entire waking hours to get the game's daily rewards, in particular its nonrenewable resources such as crystals and pinkies.
Training Grounds require playing 4 games to get 10 crystals, each. Trials of the Planes require 8 to get 20 pinkies at the cost of 30 crystals. Ravnica daily events require about 5-6 games to get 25 pinkies and 10 crystals. Weekday and Coalition events often require playing upwards to 15 games per day to get the progression rewards.
Now, if each battle in this game lasts at most 1 minute, these many games required to play won't be a major problem. Thing is, 5 minutes of play time per game is considered average, and if you run into some decks that easily stalls the game all the way into an entire hour, well, there goes your family time.
5) Loading screen everywhere.
To start with, this game takes at least 2 full minutes to load into its home screen. No other game I know takes that much time to load, not Hearthstone, not Tokyo Afterschool Summoners, not Sdorica, not Plants vs Zombies, nothing. And then whenever we start and end a match, there's more loading.
Also, this factors in to point #2 above: Buggy client. Compared to most games I know, this game can not take the slightest network delay/stutter during loading. With so much time wasted on loading, if your network connection gets slightly interrupted when starting a game, Something Went Wrong, there goes your match.
6) Bloated app size due to too many cards.
Okay, this game is indeed based on Magic the Gathering, which is a card game with tons and tons of cards, most of which are less than useless, sometimes even in limited. But paper MTG has some formats where these worthless vanillas and commons are still at least usable: Limited, pauper, Highlander etc.
PQ does not have these extra modes where these worthless cards are of any value, so what's the deal of printing vanillas in late sets such as WAR? And this is not getting into the fact that like most card games, common cards are obviously weaker than rarer cards, giving us less incentive to play them but they still clog up our collection, and most importantly, our phone; those cards couldn't have possiblyh cost a measly 1 KB of storage a piece, hello.
And that's before getting into the masterpieces. Even more cards to cram into the game for no reason other than because. Oh sure, Magic has those supplementary sets like Commander and Masters, but those, frankly, are not needed here (especially since in Paper MTG, those supplementary sets are often not standard legal anyway).
Whew.
I will admit that I may not necessarily say goodbye to this game permanently, but in light of all of this game's unforgiveable shortcomings, it's time to move on.
[MOD NOTE: Numerous edits to remove profanity and all caps. Forum rules 6 and 15. User was warned. https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/4/forum-rules-please-read-before-posting#latest BK//]
2
Comments
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2 full minutes of loading time you say? What Warp Speed is your phone using? I clock my loading speed at 4 to 6 minutes average0
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Very well said0
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I agree with the concerns of points 2 and 6, but the rest of that doesn't apply to me.
1) The only place I have questioned the randomness of the game is in opening packs. Specifically, this has hit me and many others on pink vanguard purchases. They defy statistical probability.
3) No. That's not my experience at all, and sounds like a bunch of hyperbole. I am sick of lazy players and their Naru combos though.
4) Completing everything everyday is not a requirement. Also, if it were quick the complaint would go the other way. I like that there is more than enough to do. It allows me to play as much as I want each day and it still be worthwhile.
5) My load time is 33 seconds. I recently upgraded my iPhone 6s to an iPhone Xr, but it was about the same on the 6s.
My two cents.0 -
Theophilus said:
5) My load time is 33 seconds. I recently upgraded my iPhone 6s to an iPhone Xr, but it was about the same on the 6s.
.
https://youtu.be/eT-6jvumjtc
Confirmed (For science)0 -
After re-reading the OP I was going to edit my post above regarding point 6. While I agree that the sheer number of cards is causing a very bloated and unwieldy app, I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning.
Honestly, I wonder if it's time to drop a lot of the legacy sets from the game. Either that, or it may be time for a new app. At some point this is inevitable.0 -
Having considered my post, I decided if I'm going to attach "For science", I should include the Android perspective as well.bken1234 said:
https://youtu.be/eT-6jvumjtcTheophilus said:
5) My load time is 33 seconds. I recently upgraded my iPhone 6s to an iPhone Xr, but it was about the same on the 6s.
.
Confirmed (For science)
https://youtu.be/sC4rJtoddHU
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I have a Android Moto Z Play and it took about 45 seconds to load0
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Not sure I agree with removing whole sets, but definitely a lot of cards that are redundant.Theophilus said:After re-reading the OP I was going to edit my post above regarding point 6. While I agree that the sheer number of cards is causing a very bloated and unwieldy app, I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning.
Honestly, I wonder if it's time to drop a lot of the legacy sets from the game. Either that, or it may be time for a new app. At some point this is inevitable.
On iOS the app uses 175 Mb and have allocated 1.44 Gb of storage. But that seems to be the maximum amount of needed space, because I just loaded the pictures of 500 cards without the app allocated more space (according to the iOS storage report).
1.5 Gb is acceptable on most modern devices (it is a waste of resources, but frankly that is an industry issue and not exclusive to Oktagon). However, assuming there are 3500 objects in the game that requires a picture (I assume that is the item which requires most storage), I get a picture size of 400+ Kb per picture including other card relevant data, like text and functionality code. I wonder if that can be improved without reducing the quality of the picture, considering the screens are so small.
(BTW - I arrive at 3500 picture items by adding
2800 cards
60 walkers
300 story mode
340 misc. pictures needed for events and the like.)
Perhaps some of the redundant cards could be removed, there are several +x/+x cards that are very similar and most legacy cards are made redundant by the +4/+4 colourless card for 4 mana (Hashep Oasis) OR who plays with a 2/2 black creature for 18 mana (zulaport cutthroat) OR remove a mechanic like Cycling or ally as an example.
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@FindingHeart8 perhaps you should submit a bug report for your loading time. It seems on both platforms, this is not the norm. I’ve now tested this on an iPad, a 4 year old Android phone and a brand new Android phone. None of them took more than a minute.
0 -
My loading time varies with my internet connection. At best I get about the same as above, roughly 30s. Thats when I'm on my home wifi, no latency, low ping and no packet losses.
W
on mobile data or public wifi with less stable connections, the load time goes way up.
At work where our wifi is sketchy and you get decent 3G at best, load times for starting the app goes way up to between 4-7 minutes.
And it's always at the same point it takes longer, "Loading Data".0 -
Nice idea for a calculation - it actually comes out at 400+ KB per picture (not MB), which is a lot more reasonable.Tremayne said:1.5 Gb is acceptable on most modern devices (it is a waste of resources, but frankly that is an industry issue and not exclusive to Oktagon). However, assuming there are 3500 objects in the game that requires a picture (I assume that is the item which requires most storage), I get a picture size of 400+ Mb per picture including other card relevant data.0 -
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You just made my Gideon, Ally of Zendikar very unhappy. I recently got General Tazri and Hero of Goma Fada and I'm having a lot of fun using these cards with G2.Tremayne said:<snip>
Perhaps some of the redundant cards could be removed, there are several +x/+x cards that are very similar and most legacy cards are made redundant by the +4/+4 colourless card for 4 mana (Hashep Oasis) OR who plays with a 2/2 black creature for 18 mana (zulaport cutthroat) OR remove a mechanic like Cycling or ally as an example.
I don't like removing any cards from the card pool. We spent ingame resources to get those cards and time to master them and some of the players may still use them in events (like me).1 -
@Machine - Sorry to hear that, because I actually quite like the ally cards. I think that it is a good mechanic with a lot of potential, but since MTGPQ do not have a lot of mechanic specific events (there might have been one for ally which was lost in translation when Oktagon took over), then it might be worth considering to streamline the code.
Personally, I would rather see cycling go and keep ally. Others have been disgruntled by Fabricate or Energize, but I do not know what will be best to remove based upon usage. That is for Oktagon to determine.
removing cards will present new issues, so I’m not sure it is easy to do, but it is an idea.0 -
Yeah, I don't think removing cards from the game is the way to go, unless it is absolutely necessary.
Rally/Allies is one of my favorite mechanics and I'm very attached to my Zendikar Gideon deck, so lets definitely not drop that one. Cycling I could get behind, but I don't see the point.
I do like the idea of removing some redundant cards, though. I mean, how many Artifact Spells that cost 5 and read "target creature gets +2/+2" do we really need?1 -
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