New to Live. Feedback, Wishlist, and Bugs.
As someone who hasn't played since a couple of weeks after the Brilliant Stars release, I completely missed the fact that the Live Beta was opened up to Australia.
For the last couple of days, I have spent almost all of my free time in the client, giving it a look, and seeing what I think.
I migrated my collection across (for better or worse), as I believe that the change is coming, and it is better to embrace it, and adapt.
I have a few thoughts for the @TPCi_CursedSoup and the Dev team, and as I missed the survey, I figured I would write them down here. I also want to say that the intention of this post is to be fair and even handed, not just dogpile on the Dev team, and to give constructive feedback, and praise where it is warranted. If I have a criticism, I will attempt to offer a solution or at least a suggestion, and I would hope that anyone posting here would do the same.
The Feedback:
The gameplay feels nice and responsive - PTCGO felt clunky and dated. Live feels fresh and new. Animations playout cleanly, and I don't feel like I am "fighting" the game at times to perform actions.
Visually, for the most part, Live is an improvement on it's predecessor. My initial thoughts on the battlefield have been made somewhat moot with the announcement that it is being overhauled, and I will have to wait to use it myself before I can say if it is an improvement or not. As it stands now, the battlefield feels lifeless, dull, and bland.
I, personally, have strong feelings against the new orientation of the cards my opponent have in play - I dislike that it deviates from the rules of the game. While I can understand the change from a purely visual standpoint, the change only seems to be made for presentation. If the full card of each pokemon in play was large enough to be read without mousing over it, then I would say it was a good choice, but given I still have to click on each card to see what they do, this visual change on how the board state is presented doesn't have any practical purpose for gameplay.
The rate of crystal acquisition feels slow. Granted I have limited experience with the client thus far, I already feel like I am going to be squeezed for crystals in the long term. I strongly feel that a premium Battle Pass should (between the free pass and the premium pass) offer back enough currency to be able to purchase the next "season" pass - if you complete enough of the current one. Spending 1000 crystals to unlock the premium pass, while only returning 800 crystals (as an example - I know this is probably not what the cost and return is currently), is going to squeeze players.
The Wishlist:
Spectator Mode - This is a feature that I believe should be standard in games like Live. The ability to sit and watch friends play should not be underestimated. A spectator feature would also allow more online tournament's to be streamed at a grassroots level, as the resource requirement to be able to host, and stream events would be greatly reduced. If there is one thing the dev team takes away from reading this, I would rate this as my most important request/wish.
Tournament/Tournament Support - The addition of in-client tournaments, like those on PTCGO, and/or the ability for players and communities to make and host tournaments in client would be huge. For all the things that Artifact got wrong, the one massive thing that Valve and the team working on it got right, was the ability for the community to organise, host, and hold tournaments natively in the Artifact client. This might be something that isn't feasible in the Live client, but if it hasn't been discussed, I would love for someone to champion the idea.
The Bugs:
Battle Pass access - After playing a match, be it against a real person, or the AI when testing your deck, the ability to open the battle pass seems to be bugged. A message stating that it is unavailable at this time pops up, and it requires a restart of the client to be able to open it again.
Comfey - On more than one occasion, I have encountered a bug when using Flower Selecting. The client refuses to allow me to select one of the cards. This issue is not just isolated to Comfey's Flower Selecting ability - I have experienced it when attempting to use Ultra Ball as well.
Conclusion:
I could sit here and add more, and at some point, I will probably think of something I missed, and will add it to this thread, or a different one if it is relevant.
At the end of the day, I am enjoying Live. I was of the opinion that PTCGO was getting too old and creaky for a long time, and am happy to see something new come along. I am not blind to Live's issues, and I won't stay silent if I think they can be fixed and improved. However, I am excited for the potential and the future of this client. As I said in the beginning, I hope that anyone who responds here can do so from a point of calm and in good faith. Attacking the Dev's doesn't help anyone, and only makes things harder when we want to have our voices heard. The flip side of course, is that we, the players, need to hear more/more often from the Dev team - so I do hope they can open up a dialogue with us. Either here in this thread, or in any of the others.
Peace everyone.