Before I start with my review... I'd like to quickly share my background. Feel free to skip.
Personal Background
I've been a gamer since I'm 4 years old. I've started playing on an ATARI130XE (8-bit computer). I've been a hardcore gamer for many years. I was at one point one of the best Age Of Kings players in Canada. I was ranked Diamond 1 in Starcraft 2 when there were no higher ranks to achieve. I've played a lot of MMORPGs and card games. Reached quite a few top ranks, including #1 in Scrolls.
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and I'm a hobbyist game developer; mostly using Unity and coding in C#.
I'm mostly a PC gamer, but I like to have at least 1 mobile game I can turn to when I have a few minutes to spare.
I've been playing Clash Royale for the past 3 years. For the past year or so, I've tested out an incredible amount of 1v1 mobile games in the hopes that one would replace it as my go-to mobile game. When I realize that they won't, I like to offer my feedback in the form of a small review. This is one of those.
What I am not is a writer. Also, English is my second language. So... sorry about that.
Graphics
The first thing that caught my eye was the card art. In as few words as possible: it's absolutely stunning. Someone in this sub referred to the style as "minimalist low poly 2d vector art". Well, I'm a fucking fan.
Subjectively, I love low poly, I love vector art (I draw in Animate CC myself) and love minimalist art. So... like many others, I absolutely love it.
Looking for an objective stance on the matter, I've asked the opinion of a few artists that I know (I can draw, but I'm not an artist) and they were unanimous. It's a small sample size, but the evidence seems pretty solid to me. Great art!
However, I do think the 3D is a bit lackluster. It somewhat clashes with the card art (because it's so damn nice!), but it still looks good. More importantly, it works well for what it wants to achieve.
2D: 10/10
3D: 7/10
Gameplay
It reminds me a lot of a dumbed-down version of Scrolls, which I referred to earlier. It was a niche game by Mojang, for those who don't know. It was also a turned-base positional CCG and remains to this day one of my favorite games ever.
Please note that when I say it's a dumbed-down version of Scrolls, it's not a critique. It's probably a good thing.
Needless to say that my first impressions were immensely positive. The gameplay is intuitive, straightforward and easy to understand. At first, however, I was slightly put-off by the lack of depth. After playing for a couple of days, I realized that the game was much deeper that I initially thought.
The card designs are pretty fun, too. That's subjective, of course, but they hit the spot for me and I applaud this.
I will not get too much into the gameplay elements. There are certain issues with the gameplay and card design, but any developer that can create a complex game with rich strategic depth while using simple rules is usually hitting a homerun. Stormbound's core gameplay is no exception and a homerun to me.
Gameplay 8.5/10
Progression and monetization
This is where it goes downhill, and quick. But before I hit the nail in the coffin, please realize that Clash Royale (again, a game I've played for 3 years) has the worst kind of monetization. I HATE it. But that's very subjective. Objectively, it's incredible. Using such a parasitic business model works for them and gets them billions in yearly revenues. So, regardless of my personal preference, they picked the right model.
Now, there's no way for me to know how profitable copying this business model is for an indie(ish) company like Paladin. However, I can't help but feel that it's incredibly pretentious that they can get away with it while, at the same time, offering an incredibly lackluster progression system.
And the pricetags on these deals... It's a major WTF. 140$ for a trash offer? I mean, come on. There's nothing reasonable about these prices.
I understand I'm starting to have an emotional reaction, cognitive biases are slowly creeping in and that would unfortunately lead to many logical fallacies.. From here, I'll try (to the best of my limited abilities) to use rational arguments.
The business model is a pay to progress model. Some say pay to win, but that's incorrect. You don't win or lose more by pulling out the credit card, you simply progress quicker.
The determining factor for player retention, when choosing such a model, is when, where and how the players are hit by a paywall. A paywall exists when progression becomes so slow that, in order to progress, one must have an incredible amount of patience (which most people don't have) or have available fund in their wallets to keep the progression alive.
In the first 2 years of Clash Royale, the paywall took about a year to hit (more or less). A free to play player would never be able to compete at the top of the ladder, but his progression would also never truly halt. The changes they made in the last year actually made it possible for a free to play player to compete on the ladder in less than a year without spending a single cent.
That is a good progression system, despite my dislike for their business model.
I've hit a paywall in Stormbound within a few days. It's not exactly a total halt, but it sure feels like it. The progression is so slow that it seems pointless to grind it out the victories to keep progressing. My deck is never, truly, noticeably better.
Therefore, the incentives to play are greatly diminished. You probably want to finish the quests (don't get me started on those, they are complete trash) and win at least 1 game a day for the 50g bonus. On average, I found that about 50% (could be less, but I don't want to calculate this) of the top 2 quests can't be completed without accumulating losses (forcing you to play cards you have not leveled up), so one of the two will be skipped. It's about 150g on average. Every day, on average, I'll get about 250g. (~150g for quests, 60g for first win, and a few more gold for wins while questing). That's about 10 random cards. If you want extra cards, it's an incredible grind and a lot of ad watching.
Now... I wouldn't mind grinding if the games actually were fun. But they are not. Mostly because of card balance, card levels and the horrendous matchmaking system.
Progression system: 0/10 - trash.
Card Balance
As far as I understand it, the balance at level 1 is designed in a way that 1 mana equals to 1 STRs. Situational cards gain are usually worse in a vacuum, but much better in certain favorable situations. For instance, a 5 mana unit is equal to 5 str vanila, 4 str 1 speed or 3 str 2 speed. (Speed is better only in certain situations).
Affinity and synergy is similar in that regard, where you get very little from a card unless it's placement gives a big bonus. That seems like pretty solid design to me.
But there are 2 issues. The first one is easily fixed by balance patches: some situational cards are extremely easy to use efficiently, which ruins the basic balance design because they almost always offer much more value for their mana, and rarely less. That is NOT good design.
The other issue is tied to the progression system where leveling cards get a major boost in power. So much so that a single card that's 1 level higher has such an impact on the game, it can ruin the whole experience.
This ultimately leads to a matchmaking system that's impossible to manage unless you have millions of players. This matchmaking system is by far the worse feature of the game and it completely ruins my experience as a competitive player.
Balance: 6/10
Matchmaking
It's the worse system I've ever seen in competitive gaming. I HAVE read the patch notes, and I'm sorry to announce that it will not solve the problem. It'll still suck. The only difference is that you will feel like you are progressing rank-wise. This is essentially what the patch will address. It takes the carebear player's hand and says: "It's OK, you'll see, we are all winners in the end."
The player experience is quite simple: a large majority of the matches have a predetermined outcome. Please read this sentence again, because it's extremely important. While the changes they are making is evidence that they acknowledge there is a matchmaking problem, it will not change the core of the issue: playing matches are not fun.
For a competitive pvp game, predetermined outcomes is the worst mistake a developer can make.
So not only am I discouraged from playing the game because of a poorly designed progression system, most of the matches I do play are not fun because I know the outcome of most matches within a few seconds of play.
I understand that each league's matchmaking must certainly be a different experience. But in this case, I think my personal experience playing the game is relevant because I'm the newbie player that you will not retain even though I love the core gameplay. These are exactly the type of players you try to retain. I love the game, let me have fun with it!
I'm currently in Bronze league 1 and really struggling to reach silver. My deck is almost full of level 2, with a couple level 1's. I am not really close to a level 3 card. I face a ton of players 2-3 HP above me and tons of decks that have many level 3s and even level 4s. I obviously get absolutely blown out, unless I find a very badly constructed deck or a very bad player, in which case I have a tiny chance at winning.
After getting blown out twice, I'll face a bot for a free win. That's 3 fucking boring ass games in a row with predetermined outcomes.
And then I might get a good match up that's incredibly fun and reminds me why I play the game in the first place.
Therefore, 25% pure awesomeness, 75% trash.
I'm getting sick of the trash part.
I quit.
No, you can't have my stuff.
Submitted March 09, 2019 at 10:17PM by kehmesis https://ift.tt/2EQXlmP
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