I’ll start by saying how impressed I am with the quality and the feel of this game. In all honesty I tried this game because I had internet issues and my god am I glad that I did. The visuals are gorgeous, the animations are impactful and satisfying, the game play is uniquely tactical, the tutorials are also a brilliant idea, you have a great community, and there are great insentives in place to help new players.
However, I do have some critisisms, I’ve only been playing a couple of days but I figured initial impressions are something you value since you’re trying to bring in new players. Please let me know if im miss judging or you’ve already discussed these thoughts.
Firstly, I feel pretty useless with the starter decks. Even with all the chests I’ve had thrown at me, even using Kripps promotional codes, completing as many of the solo battles/puzzles that i could (including using my gold to buy 2). And I still dont have enough to build a deck I feel is usable (even trawling through your deck hub). I’ve heard other people have a different experience but i spent some of my memoria on blue cards which I can’t really use, which may be entirely my fault. However, you could have given some direction in terms of early investment. Maybe I’m supposed to focus on Pandora for now but there is a limit to how often I can play it, especially when, without game knowledge it is likely for you to lose. Also, forcing you to play online in order to be able to afford more tutorial missions doesnt make all that much sense.
To fix this you could make more of the solo missions free, maybe giving you some better cards, or one or two competative decks, but more realisticaly make a bigger focus on youtube content. Bare in mind I have read through most of the academy, there is a limit it is impossible to pass of how much you can learn from reading about any game. Something a little closer to the champion spotlight with league and smite. Maybe a deck spotlight.
Secondly, and my biggest gripe is that it really feels like you are attempting to follow Hearthstone in order to draw from their audience, mildly in visuals (I’ve seen some earlier builds for the HUD and it looks more unique, visually appealing and more user friendly), and more obviously with your marketing:
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Implimenting more RNG; RNG is a great hook and it works BRILLIANTLY in Hearthstone with a pretty simplistic game mechanics wise, they can create very entertaining combos and decks (unstable portal for example) but in a game like yours which is more deep and complex, you have so much room to be strategic and competative, i realise you cant avoid it in a card game but you can avoid adding to it. Obviously Hearthstone has its competative scene but RNG will always deduct from the competative experience, even when that RNG can be manipulated.
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The shop - apears almost identical just with chests instead of packs, when you open a pack it does the flashing lights and explosions animation (which is cool, they did a good job of that) but you could do so much more. Having colour based packs for example (what the hell happened to that!? it worked so well), Goki is a great example of something unique. Atleast do something that under cuts Hearthstone, thats how marketing outside of the entertainment industry works: ‘you get an extra 10 packs when you buy a 50 pack bundle’ for an under researched example.
My point is that what Blizzard has, with all there money and experience is a perfect harmony between marketing and gameplay. Which is something you do not have, so dont copy, it wouldnt fly with gameplay and it simply doesnt work with marketing. You have something unique and very special here, treat it as such, in every aspect.
Hearthstone players don’t want a hearthstone alternative. Non-hearthstone players want a hearthstone alternative.
