(This was posted on the OT forum earlier accidentally. Sorry for the confusion).
Contents:
- Bugs.
- Interface Ideas.
- Gameplay Ideas.
- Card/Unit Ideas.
(Almost) no balance feedback cos I’m a newb sorry.
Bugs:
- Some message boxes seem to be very long lived. Eg, the “player didn’t respond in time” stayed on top of the screen for around 10s (guess) even while moving to different interface pages.
- Cards displayed when hovering over units sometimes don’t disappear. They then obscure other cards.
- Sometimes the wrong cards are shown when hovering over units or recent play history items on the left - the best example is this.
- When net connection is lost, there’s no way to cancel reconnecting. (Either that or it semi-crashed while reconnecting).
Minor:
- On the pandora main “lobby”, on the color weight vials, the water icon obscures the bottom of the blue vial.
- Unsure: Should the fortune hunter always get 1st dibs on a mote of faeria when two units can take it? I’ve seen it go both ways. Is there a consistent rule for this?
- When a battle chest mythic card says “You own X of this card” it ignores your non-mythic count. Probably vice-versa too. Perhaps intentional, but it would be nice to mention both in both cases.
System Details:
- OS: Linux (Xubuntu 16.10, 4.10 kernel)
- GFX: Radeon RX 480. Mesa 17.1.
- Monitors: 2. LHS=1920x1080. RHS=2560x1440. Using RHS to play.
- Installed via Steam client.
Interface Ideas:
- In-game:
- Give players an option to be black (on their client).
- Give players an option to play from the top.
- Add a turn indicator.
- For the white fuzz that shows a unit can move, use a different color (eg red) if they can attack but [cannot move or have already moved].
- Somehow indicate why a card can’t be played. Eg, slighly grey out the cost orb if it’s too expensive. Same for land requirements. Add some generic way to indicate that any requirement isn’t met.
- Scrollbar on the recent play history would be nice.
- Change the borders on the recent play history to show player plus item category (unit card, building card, +1).
- A slight tint on some part of the unit to show what color it is would be nice, as long as it doesn’t make it hard to see what side it’s on.
- Extend the duration of the disintegrated card graphic (when hand is full) to give more time to read what card was lost.
- Non in-game:
- Show 3 decimal places for a deck’s average cost - maybe a smaller digit at the end.
- Show your own and your opponent’s average card “rarity” - if that’s tracked.
- When building decks, IMHO there should be an indication (glowing border?) around cards that have already been selected. Perhaps even vary the indication (border intensity?) depending on the selected quantity.
- It’s odd having the exit button behind the gear icon, which is usually only for settings.
- Is there a reason for only allowing a limited number of decks (12)? IMHO 100 would be a reasonable number, since the per-deck data will be tiny. Also, perhaps add a message as to why you can’t create more decks.
Art (personal preference):
- Building art doesn’t feel very building-ish. Crenellations (old-style castle/tower wall gaps) would look way better IMHO (on the cards and the units).
- Somehow increase the distinction between black and white units. It’s not too bad, but could still be clearer IMHO.
- Perhaps the unit image could be darkened for black, say by 10%?
- Perhaps the damage flame and health heart art could be modified to make them darker - maybe darken the numbers too?
- Perhaps a white/black ground tint around the base?
- The desert tile looks odd sitting on lush grass. Perhaps the whole tile could be made yellower/more barren. Similar but less so with the mountain (which could just be rockier/greyer).
Gameplay Ideas:
- Needs optional alternate map/board shapes (eg, one extra row, with the two middle tiles removed). Not necessarily for tournament games. (Is the graphics engine capable of scaling only the board).
- Custom game quantities, for solo and friendly games - such as:
- Hand/Deck:
- Max size (1 to 30, don’t just use “large/small”, use numbers).
- Max deck size.
- Cards per turn.
- Initial cards.
- Possibly allow building larger decks (eg, for epic battles on larger boards). You could have a tickbox you need to uncheck in order to go over 30, which prohibits use in regular games.
- Orb:
- Initial health.
- Max health for healing (can be lower than initial).
- Penalty for empty deck (constant).
- Penalty for empty deck (extra per time).
- Faeria:
- Per turn.
- Collected per node.
- Initial.
- From +1 button.
- Map variant (above).
- Turn time.
- Hand/Deck:
- Replays.
- It should be very easy to save replays - creating a replay interface will be the bulk of the work.
- People could watch tournaments via replays.
- IMHO, a good format would be text - one line per action, human readable (like chess notation). Use strings for card names etc.
- While saving the shuffle order at the start might be easier, it might be better to just name the cards as they are added to your hand. Save the initial unshuffled decks, though.
- Solo campaign DLC.
- Something like the Cannon Brawl campaign (it has a meta-map, plus side-puzzles and a difficult mode).
- Has its own set of cards (with an option to let you use your regular one).
- Gives those of us who are put off by P2W something to buy.
- Pay 1 faeria to get 30 more seconds to play - once per turn (perhaps).
Card/Unit Ideas:
(Some of these might exist already)
(BTW, never played a game like this, computer or IRL)
- General:
- Unit(Combat): Reduces the damage of the target and enemies adjacent to it by X.
- Unit(Combat): Gains protection for itself if it kills its target. (Say on a 3/6 unit).
- Mobility: Allow unit to either move twice then attack, or move then attack twice.
- Event Card: Every Xth point of faeria used on this turn, after playing this card, is taken from the enemy if it’s available. (Say every 5th point, event card costs 6 faeria).
- Event Card: Orb cannot go below 1 health next turn. (Say 8 faeria).
- Unit(Combat): Prevents target attacking next turn. (Say on a 1/5 unit).
- Unit: Steal faeria from a node during enemy turn, if adjacent. Prevents enemy harvesting from same node. Doesn’t harvest faeria during regular turn.
- Deck/hand manipulators:
- Event Card: See enemy’s hand. (Say 5 faeria).
- Event Card: Shuffle hand into deck then take the same number of cards as you had (after removing the card with this skill). Perhaps don’t shuffle the old hand in until after the new one is taken or the old deck is empty. (Say 4 faeria).
- Event Card: Destroy X cards in enemy deck. (Say 3 cards for 6 faeria).
- Event Card: Remove the oldest card from enemy’s hand and put into deck. (Say 2 faeria).
- Event Card: Shuffle X “harm cards” into enemy deck. Harm cards cost Y faeria and deal Z damage when played, plus wasting hand space and losing valid pickups. (Say X=3 cards, Y=1 faeria, Z=1 damage, event card costs 7 faeria).
- Terrain manipulators:
- Unit(Last words): Capture Territory (Terrain under unit becomes owned by player (or perhaps it always changes ownership)).
- Unit(Gift): Turn X unoccupied plains tiles into water. (Say 2 tiles)
- Event Card: Turn X special tiles into plains. (Say 3 tiles for 8 faeria).
- Unit(Gift): Freeze a water tile. Permanently prevents changing the tile. No unit can’t move on it. In the extremely unlikely case that this completely walls off a player, empty-deck damage will eventually kill someone.
- Unit(Gift): Scorch a plains tile. Same as above.
It also seems like there’s more strategy to come if attack (ie, combat during your turn) and defend (during enemy’s turn) are sometimes separate (like with Master Swordsman).
I wonder if you could standardize this somehow so that if a unit has different attack & defend, the yellow damage flame indicator is split in two: Say a yellow flame (attack) burning on a grey shield (defence) below.
Eg, Master Swordsman would be (4/2)/3.
If you want more ideas I’m happy to think up some more.
Edit: Some more ideas.
IMHO there could be more variety in buffs, and perhaps another few status effects.
- Event Card: “Pacify” (status effect - unit can’t attack next turn - but will still defend). (Say 3 faeria, 3 green tiles).
- Event Card: Remove X attack power from enemy. (Say 3 attack power for 2 faeria, 2 blue tiles).
- Event Card: Convert all attack power into life. (Say 4 faeria & 2 blue + 2 green tiles).
- Unit(Combat): Heal orb X points. (Say X=1 point on a 2/3 green unit).
- Event Card: “Quicksand” (status effect - unit can’t move next turn - but can attack). (Say 2 faeria, 3 desert tiles).
Balance:
(I’m still pretty newb, so the following is probably dumb).
IMHO soul eaters are ridiculous 
I once lost cos my opponent was spamming 22/22 units for 5 faeria each. I usually see them get to around 16/16. Perhaps they shouldn’t get their +1s while they’re still in the deck? instead perhaps give them 3/3 base stats?
Ruunin’s crazy OP too. Had her spawning at 18/18 once. I think she should return to the deck instead of the hand.
(Yes, I like drawing out long games).
Ok, done for now 
Thanks for reading.
(Decabyte posted a reply on the OT version of this post).
