My Feedback #2

Feedback and Suggestions
#1

P2W issues / idea.

I know that deck-creating is part of the genre since before PCs - that’s why I didn’t immediately reject the P2W-ness.
But IMHO it’s clearly still very strongly P2W. I’m winning far more with rares and legends, and I usually get defeated by them.

You may be wondering why I’m still sticking around, then. Well, I asked myself this and I find the answer is that I really, really like the idea (and execution) of building the map itself. That scores so many points for me.

So, I wonder what the community thinks about the P2W.
Is collecting via paying something you put up with, or do you enjoy buying cards?

I’m just thinking of an alternate mechanism - one that wouldn’t destroy the current community, but would keep money flowing in.

Allow people to optionally purchase the game for say $30.

Cards in collections have 5 levels.

  1. Unavailable.
  2. Basic.
  3. Mild aesthetic upgrade. (mythic)
  4. Medium aesthetic upgrade. (eldritch)
  5. Major aesthetic upgrade. (faerian)

The level affects both the card and any associated art effects (firestorm etc). It also enhances the sounds for placement and attacks.
So, a free firestorm might just make the sky glow and shoot some red arrows at the enemies, while an upgraded one might show ground flames, scorch the land, set unit cards on fire, etc. Both players should see the upgraded effect.

For free players, cards they currently have become basic, and mythics become mild aesthetic.
For paid players, all available cards are at least basic. Owned cards become mild aesthetic, and mythics become medium aesthetic.
You can upgrade any card with gems or gold.
When new cards are added, there will be a small cost for paid players to get the basic level of all the new cards.

Of course, this requires paying content developers to improve the aesthetics.

You could also let people pay to get a physical copy of their current collection printed and sent.

Mythic Cards

I don’t really get these, for a number of reasons.

  • IMHO they actually look worse than regular cards - they’re cluttered and the border color looks out of place.

  • They’re annoying in collections & decks (although this could be mitigated by UI changes).

    • Hiding mythics means not seeing some cards that could be useful, but showing them adds clutter.
    • You can have 6 of any card, but can only use 3.
    • On deck lists you get double entries if you use mythic and non-mythic, which is harder to parse.

  • They add nothing.

Art-wise, the quickest improvement I can think of is to replace the yellow base color with a per-“color” color, chosen to look good. That might just be a simple image-layer HLS adjustment.
(I actually prefer this art I found http://faeria.gamersorigin.com/news/4615-un-tournoi-top-dieux-recompenses-et-objectifs-pour-pandore).

As for giving them an actual purpose, I can think of:

  • Decks require at least X (say 3) mythic cards. (Unfortunately more P2W).

  • For the P2W replacement idea above, mythics could just have the best art.

  • Emote-energy:
    You get a small amount of emote-energy per turn.
    Emotes require energy, and special ones require more.
    Mythic cards give you more emote-energy when you draw them for your turn.
    Add more emotes (like confused, gg (so that well played has meaning), random idle chat).

  • Your orb is aesthetically upgraded whenever you draw a mythic card (up to say 5). Eg:

    • Adds a fish to swim round your orb.
    • Adds a flower (magda).
    • Adds a LED (Bom-R).

Bugs & Issues moved here.

My bugs #2 (moved from feedback post)
#2

It’s interesting that you mentioned allowing people to pay $30 for the game because when the game was pitched on Kickstarter that was actually the original intention.

The idea was going to be that you buy the game and the ONLY way to get cards was to play, no paying for packs however I guess at some point they found that wasn’t viable (for whatever reason, maybe financially it didn’t work or people just didn’t like it?)

#3

I bought this game for 10€ + 10€ boost and didn’t throw money at them since. Mostly because the mythic chests are such a bad deal, not because I didn’t want to!

And I’m able to build a lot of silly decks and are stuck on too much money and memoria I have nothing to do with (since I don’t craft cards I don’t need). I would not call that a P2W.

I would back off and leave the game as soon as it would be charging for graphical updates though. Artists would probably too, since they would be forced to do 5x the amount of art. And if you skimped on the art, then even more people would leave since you would be charging money for low-class, little-impact effect improvements, which would be shite.

All in all it would be pointing fingers at free players and making them feel bad for being poor. And laughing, with a bit of showering in money. I mean come on, that’s such a dick move!

I’m sorry, but I don’t think your idea is well thought out. At all. Me, I would make a 180 turn as soon as it would see the day of light.

#4

I don’t think this game is p2w at all. Obviously initially in the first month or two without a good collection of cards, winning is more difficult but after the first month playing daily, most players should be able to craft one or both of the top decks. Both Blue Jump and Yellow Events are cheap in memoria, only 1 legend and may be one more epic in each deck?

I think it’s a bit like other games, you need to pay if you want it now. If you can wait, then you can get it for cheaper. In Faeria, you can play completely free, just takes longer that’s all. Shouldn’t be too difficult winning some casual games. Mid green decks are pretty cheap too.

I have spent about $15 so far. Don’t think I need to spend again this year.

I agree the mythic cards are underwhelming, especially when they cost so much. The problem is they only added a fancy border to the cards and it doesn’t really fit perfectly. I think they should just come up with a completely different design for mythic cards, not trying to add to the standard design. Different graphics for each level of rarity of mythic cards would be nice, more incentive to collect them. At the moment, the mythic cards all look the same, what’s the point anyway.

1 Like
#5

This model works very well for many games - Path of Exile is a great example.

I think you’ll find many more people are put off by having to either pay or spend ages in order to get competitive. I doubt many others would leave because they couldn’t get the art. This game isn’t about art. It’s a board/card game. It’s 2D. It doesn’t have creature models, it uses the card picture. The effects are very basic. You would need to take the pulse of the community, though.

If you’re more put off by having to pay for the best art rather than by paying to improve your chances then (after observing this debate in at least 6 games) you’re likely in the minority. I’m sure the revenue calculations are a bit more complex though - often the spending curve (money paid vs percent of users) is very steep with only a tiny fraction contributing the bulk of the money. So you need to have ways for people to spend big - which does mean a lot of content.

[quote=“Galileus, post:3, topic:6286”]
Artists would probably too, since they would be forced to do 5x the amount of art.
[/quote]Done right the effort for the cosmetic alterations I’m imagining is a tiny fraction of the effort of making the original artwork. But you need to be able to do this right - especially as there’s far less scope for art in a 2D game like this.

Of course, in the distant future they might switch to a 3D engine and models rather than cards. But that’s only if they do so well that it makes sense financially.

[quote=“Galileus, post:3, topic:6286”]
All in all it would be pointing fingers at free players and making them feel bad for being poor. And laughing, with a bit of showering in money. I mean come on, that’s such a dick move!
[/quote]I’ve never seen any finger pointing anywhere for free players. In fact it’s usually the opposite - they’re thanked for boosting the community. They increase the player pool, help with marketing, and often eventually open their wallets. Nobody feels bad. They get everything that matters, and they understand that the company needs to make money.

And as long as there’s no competitive advantage, finger pointing doesn’t go the other way either.

The devs do need to avoid nagging for money though, as that puts more people off than it wins over.

[quote=“xploring, post:4, topic:6286”]
I don’t think this game is p2w at all. Obviously initially in the first month or two without a good collection of cards, winning is more difficult

[emphasis added]
[/quote]Unless you pay and get a good collection instantly, right? So, isn’t that textbook P2W?

Of course it’s no different in many other similar card games (physical or computer).

Anyway, I’m not complaining - I knew what it was when I tried it - I’m just throwing out a suggestion.

1 Like
#6

I’m sorry, but compering a CCG’s art to H&S’s cosmetic equipment is stretching it A LOT. Unless PoE - while I was not looking - made ALL equipped items for free players look like sticks and rags. And I’m yet to see ANY game use such model.

And no, they will not switch to 3D engine. They might make another game in 3D, maybe a sequel too. But they will never ever switch to a 3D engine.

#7

The suggestion isn’t to make standard cards look worse, it’s to make Mythic cards look better. I agree, while I like the border, I think it’s underwhelming to have the Mythic cards only have a different border that’s basically shared between all Mythics (with a colour swap). It feels kind of like an early-access placeholder and it would be really nice if it were redesigned with more uniqueness for individual Mythic cards. The idea behind shiny cards is that you want to see what the card would look like shiny. With a simple static border switch that applies exactly the same to all cards, it’s not really interesting or exciting when you see a Mythic card.

That said, it would be a huge time investment for the artists; probably the same as upgrading from the placeholder art. I’d much prefer to see that time go toward making art for new cards (for which I imagine it is the bottleneck), which will have a bigger effect on the appeal of the game itself, since the perception that the card pool is small and limited is likely to deter more new players from sticking with the game than the fact that the Mythic cards are a bit lacklustre.

I really like the orb upgrade idea, but I feel like making 30 for each orb would be overkill and it would feel less good if your Mythics had an effect, but only the first arbitrary number of them. I guess if having your deck fully Mythic gave some ultra-impressive custom effects (like fish around the orb!), that would be a big incentive to get a large number of specific Mythic cards.

As far as the P2W model, I feel like as P2W goes, it’s a very well thought out and “generous” model. As a player, I’m happy with it, but I do recognise that a sizeable minority of gamers outright do not play P2W games as a matter of principle. It would be great to get those players on-board, but whether it’s financially viable to redesign the game economy in order to do so would depend on the revenue being generated by players buying standard Battle Chests. I suspect that it would be a net loss.

#8

Thing is, Faeria isn’t pay 2 win. Its just not. You don’t need to pay to get any cards. Faeria is the most skill testing card game I’ve ever seen. Better players will win regardless of their collection size. Its preciely because of this fact that a player like Cappuccino can create a brand new account, spend $0 on packs, and climb from rank 25 to god #18 in under 15 hours, playing only 54 matches. A player with the smallest collection reasonably possible was able to go 51 and 3. Whats more, Cappuccino actually achieved a higher elo on this account than he currently has on either of his accounts with full collections implying that a larger collection actually negatively impacts win rate.

It’s true that spending money will increase your collection size, and I’ll grant (contrary to evidence above) that a larger collection size will let you make more decks that are better than they otherwise would be, but claiming that the game is Pay2Win seems totally unfounded. Players absolutely don’t need to spend money in order to win. They don’t even need to grind. They just need to be skilled. As a rule, a better player with a worse deck will beat a worse player.

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#9

Different expectations I guess, can’t have everything for free without some tradeoffs. You would like all the cards available to newbies I think? The game can only make money on cosmetics and pandora then. Sounds great but I am not sure if the game can survive on this business model. I guess they can put ads in game… :sweat_smile:

It’s free enough for me. Play for a month, then can win against top players if skilled. That’s good enough for me. Need time to learn the game anyway. Not everyone is an expert ccg player before playing Faeria.

#10

Even if they were, so many of their habits and so much of their theory just doesn’t transfer that it would still take them time to become skilled at the game.

#11

The definition of P2W is that you can pay money to improve your outcomes. Nobody argues you can’t pay money to get more cards in your collection, and very few would argue that that doesn’t, on average, improve your outcomes. It’s not a subjective thing, it’s a hard definition. Being able to grind to eventually achieve the same result doesn’t affect the definition.

I understand there are financial reasons to justify why this is used, but that’s irrelevant to whether it meets the definition. Again, it’s not a complaint.

[quote=“Galileus, post:6, topic:6286”]
I’m sorry, but compering a CCG’s art to H&S’s cosmetic equipment is stretching it A LOT. Unless PoE - while I was not looking - made ALL equipped items for free players look like sticks and rags. And I’m yet to see ANY game use such model.
[/quote]I’m guessing H&S = Hack & Slash?

Anyway, the basic gear is simple & functional. Plain vests, etc. Ordinary fireballs etc. You can add glows & effects to weapons & armor, change some models, alter skill effects, get cosmetic pets, etc. People appreciate this and they make good money from it - albeit most of it from a small subset of players.

[quote=“Galileus, post:6, topic:6286”]
And no, they will not switch to 3D engine. They might make another game in 3D, maybe a sequel too. But they will never ever switch to a 3D engine.
[/quote]Probably not, the art requirements are huge and very different - and performance will be poor for mobile devices. But that does mean they’ll look worse (to most people) than the ones that do (eg, the one that Steam’s pushing on me now is Shardbound).

One possible option would be to ensure the core game engine is very modular so that they can attach different renderers. Then they could simply license an existing 3D game’s rendering engine and 3D art - you could separately buy the alternate renderer and they would split the money between them. That’s likely still a ton of work, but far less than doing it themselves.

I think I will put the bugs in a separate post so they’re not skipped by devs.

#12

I don’t like repeating myself, but here goes.

Comparing a PvP CCG to a H&S PvE where you can get all fancy gear and don’t get it thrown in yer face that you didn’t pay to get better VFX for everything is a stretch. A lot. Yes, people get cosmetics because they are optional and do not affect most of the game. Your proposition affects all of the game’s visuals and is not worth the money. People do not appreciate overblown, overpriced and scummy models. And since you promote cutting art, thus giving non-premium consumers a cut of the experience, it’s a scummy model. You don’t offer improvements, you offer baseline for money.

Art doesn’t scale. There is a good look for that firestorm VFX, and you want to cut it into pieces and sell them separately. Either low levels will be underwhelming, or the high ones will be overblown. Because you put pressure on artists to make it graded.

And no, they will never go full 3D. Outsourcing art is all great and all, but it’s a dead end if you want to consider expansions. And no, you don’t buy an renderer, and you don’t even need to pay for engine. And yet, it’s insane amounts of work and money to throw at something. It’s a day 0 kind of decision, it’s too late, no, they will not switch to a 3D engine.

#13

As far as I know, Faeria is built in Unity, which is a 3D game engine.

In my opinion, games with nice 2D art don’t grow old visually, whereas games with up to date 3D art tend to be painful to look at within about 5 years, however great they might look to begin with.

I don’t think there should be any quality difference between free and premium content, but it’s not a huge issue for me as long as the free content is excellent. On that topic, the first (and thus far only) animated card back was $$$ only, but I don’t think it’s even close to the best card back. :slight_smile:

A veteran's view on Faeria and Incentives
#14

That is one definition, but it isn’t a particularly interesting one. The more interesting P2W claim is that people who pay get a significant advantage over those who don’t. This claim is simply false. Better players have an advantage over worse players. Their collection size is basically irrelevant. In fact, I’ve offered evidence in this very thread to suggest that players with a small collection actually have an advantage over players with larger collections.

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#15

The game is not P2W in fact. BUT has bad matchmaking. So beginners find it difficult to compete in stable meta. We force have top decks in ranked or get bad winrate.
AND the chance of getting epic cards from boosters is terrible.

#16

A couple weeks ago, I’ve spent half my gems on buying some battle chests in the store. I now regret my decision. Shortly before that, I took care to craft, or otherwise obtain, full sets of all Commons in the game, and as battle chests contain 4 Commons each, I had to disenchant most of them, for 1 memoria per card. From then on, I only bought the chests with gold, averaging one chest per day, and getting 4 memoria and one card from each. Suits me very well!

As I couldn’t care less for Mythics, and prefer to actually See the cosmetics I’m buying, I will save up my gems for Goki and individual cash shop cosmetics. If this isn’t the Exact Opposite of P2W, I don’t know what is :slight_smile:

#17

It’s true that the mythic cards could be a lot cooler, and maybe something for the future is the mythic cards could have special effects for when you play them or attack with them, but in the mean time i’ll just cash them in for memoria. Faeria is clearly a F2P model not F2W. I’ve never felt like I couldn’t climb the ladder if I wanted too, I just generally prefer playing solo. I have yet to spend a single dollar on this game, and I almost have a full set. Although, my one regret is that I will never get the cool Bom-R cosmetic set. but that’s an entirely different topic.
My point is that Faeria does a lot of things right, and misses a lot of the pitfalls that other F2P games fail to avoid (such as becoming P2W or ads or a shop that bleeds you dry for the tiniest of changes). I’m actually honestly considering getting the adventure pouch so that I can have all the new solo content as soon as it comes out. Me! the stingiest Free-2-Player I personally know am considering spending money on this genuinely fantastic game! I think it says a lot for the quality of a game when Free-2-Players want to spend money on it when they don’t have to.

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#18

I can only sign underneath that, since I’m in the same boat. I rarely pay for cosmetics and am stingy when it comes to that… unless I think they are good price/quality ratio. Then I will drop money for silly stuff I don’t need (or sometimes want, really). And Faeria is one of these games.

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#19

[quote=“Galileus, post:12, topic:6286”]
Comparing a PvP CCG to a H&S PvE where you can get all fancy gear and don’t get it thrown in yer face that you didn’t pay to get better VFX for everything is a stretch. A lot.[/quote]I don’t get why - on both those counts.

Why does the genre (CCG vs H&S) make a difference? The biggest one I can see is that it takes a lot more work to create the H&S bonus content. But the rationale is the same - the core game mechanics are exposed in a visually decent way that lets you play to your full potential, and if you want extra eye candy from your actions then you can pay. What makes you think the genre matters here?

Who is throwing it in your face? the opponent or the game? If you really get annoyed by your opponent’s actions looking better than yours then I believe (from being in countless discussions on these issues (including a IRL workshop)) you’re in the minority. Think of your opponent as funding the game you’re playing.

I’m not sure what you mean by “cutting art”. I’m not suggesting free customers get worse than what we’ve got now - or that new content should be made at a worse level than what it is now.

[quote=“Amaznazaz, post:13, topic:6286”]
In my opinion, games with nice 2D art don’t grow old visually, whereas games with up to date 3D art tend to be painful to look at within about 5 years, however great they might look to begin with.
[/quote]Hmm, for me it’s the opposite. All those pixel-graphics games look terrible now at high resolutions. And 3D games are often built to scale so your 5 years later GPU will be able to run everything maxed at ultra-high res at a perfectly smooth framerate.

There needs to be a compromise somewhere. Either everyone pays, free players get worse cosmetics, or (like now) free players get worse game-affecting stuff.

[quote=“Ramora, post:14, topic:6286”]
That is one definition, but it isn’t a particularly interesting one. The more interesting P2W claim is that people who pay get a significant advantage over those who don’t.[/quote]Apart from “significant”, what’s the difference in those definitions?

[quote=“Ramora, post:14, topic:6286”]This claim is simply false. Better players have an advantage over worse players. Their collection size is basically irrelevant. In fact, I’ve offered evidence in this very thread to suggest that players with a small collection actually have an advantage over players with larger collections.[/quote]You gave one name, which is not much evidence. And then you said:

[quote=“Ramora, post:8, topic:6286”]
It’s true that spending money will increase your collection size, and I’ll grant (contrary to evidence above) that a larger collection size will let you make more decks that are better than they otherwise would be
[/quote]Which is exactly what I’m saying.

I think the issue is more apparent for certain play-styles. Rush games can do fairly well with basic units but long games is where the fancy rare cards start to shine. AoE is all epic/legendary. The cross-color epics are late-game and extremely cheap relative to similar units.

[quote=“Ramora, post:8, topic:6286”]
As a rule, a better player with a worse deck will beat a worse player.
[/quote]A slightly worse player with a far better deck will usually beat the better player IMHO. That’s been my experience and it has to be true at some level. I have got so much better results after adding Frogifies, Garudan, Aurora, and all 9 wishes.

#20

I’m sorry, but I ain’t going to point out differences in custom premium equipment in PvE game and premium WHOLE VFX OF THE GAME. As well as I will not respond to “art scales just as RPGs do!”, “my personal experience said you’re not important!”, or any other such nonsense.

This is stretching it way too far. At this point I cannot believe you are honest in this discussion, and as such, I have no interest in it’s continuation.

Do enjoy your bubble.