Well this is my first post on the board, after playing for about a month. You might want to take into account that I am an old-timer who has played at least 30 CCG/TCG, and quite a few of the online ones too. The biggest problem with the online games is that they are too simple. Someone defended Faeria above by saying a child can learn it in a few minutes. Well, that is not a good thing. We already have plenty of slapdash MTG clones and simple card battles.
What I would like is a more complicated game, designed for adults, that rewards creativity. I am not sure that will happen with Faeria because even in the short time Iāve been here I have seen it become simpler. And certainly reading the descriptions of how it has changed makes this obvious.
Streamlining interface I understand. Though the screenshot above is a lot more handsome than the current design, which seems targetted at 8-year-olds.
There are several inherent problems that Faeria may never overcome. First is the lack of instants or interrupts. You cannot respond to an opponentās actions or play anything on their turn. Now, this makes the underlying game code a lot easier to write. It makes it easier for players to understand in the first five minutes. But it also removes tons of play possibilities.
Another issue is the RNG. Cards with random effect should not exist. Itās that simple. If I wanted to roll dice Iād be playing craps. Winning or losing based on such luck is not fun at all. There is enough randomness in the card draw, which is what a card game should be about. This also applies to Pandora, which is usually a matter of winning whenever Pandora goes off. Itās too big a swing.
OK, so some people like randomnessā¦ well, there are already games for you.
A third problem is in the area of flavour. Faeria gives us yet another generic fantasy game with the usual colours and traits we have come to expect. Red is hordes and burn, Green is big critters and buffs, Blue is control (well, sorta), and Yellowā¦ well, Yellow is the Haste from red with the weenies from white. Being based on deserts it has the most distinction. But any day now I expect an expansion with a Black faction that is all zombies.
Faeria steals less from Magic than other games (which are simply copies) but still relies too much on that template. I am sure it is down to a simple fact: the designers have never played the wide variety of games that were different from MTGā¦ and ended up being better for it. Shadowfist, On the Edge, Lord of the Rings, Legend of the Five Rings, Netrunner, Star Trek (Decipher), Mythos, and even Pokemon (before it went all power card mad) were games with their own distinctive flavour and mechanics.
(Jumping back to 2017, Hex and Infinity Wars are worth a look.)
OK I am now rambling and focusing too much on the negative. But hey, thatās what these threads are about. On the plus side Faeria is balanced, fun (for now), and very generous in terms of cost. Duelyst is the perfect example of where Faeria could go if not careful.
