Hello guys !
In the recent AMA, you have stated your will to shorten games, and thus to give a push to rush.
In the same way, the current Pandora is pretty much designed for casuals.
This time I’m not going to criticise, but to analyse the situation (from my own point of view, of course).
-
First, this game is very different from other card games on the market. It looks different from others because of the presence of an evolving board, but the real difference is that there is no concept of “faeria curve”, like there is “mana curve” in many others.
-
Second, the game was advertised until now like a complex game : the state it was before EA, during the beginning of EA, and that’s the view people had of the game if they watched GO clash tournament : long games, with lots of strategic decisions.
-
Third, people that have backed up this game until now have backed up a complex strategic game, not a casual one. By turning casual, you turn your back on those people.
-
Fourth, casual players may not find Faeria in the already full market which contains an enormous actor, HearthStone, and dozens of games that wish as well to attract its playerbase.
All of these statements may be part of the result we all can see now : shortage of players. You try to appeal more to casual players, which may not even know the game and your decisions about it (if they know it, there are chances that they still think it’s not aimed at them); in the same breath, you repeal those who followed it until now.
If that’s your strategy, fine. I may have an inaccurate look on this situation, but that’s how it appears to me. And it appears as a bad decision, an already lost battle for a playerbase which will ignore you. Anyway, I don’t know if a deep strategic game is a viable design as well (after all, I’m not an expert myself), but at least, you would keep the playerbase you used to have, which is still more than what you have now. Or maybe is it too late and your game is doomed, but I certainly don’t hope this. Faeria weekend may prove me wrong, too.
As a last word, I would ask a question to the devs : is this game, like Duelyst before, going to follow that casualisation path up to the release so I can now stop worrying about it, or can I still hope that you will go back to the kind of strategic game you attracted us with and we paid for ?
