General feedback from PC player

Hi, I wanted to leave some feedback about the game that I've had so far.

To begin, I want to say that there are some great improvements from PTCGO that are heading in the right direction, however, there are more issues that make PTCGL feel much less compelling to play. the good and the bad or things that either great additions/subtractions from the game that make it feel either better or worse to play coming from PTCGO. Anything not mentioned is negligible or does not add/take away from the experience.

THE GOOD:

• Ranked ladder

The ranking system is a great improvement from PTCGO. Having a ranked ladder is what I believe any competitive game should have. The ranking system has been preforming exactly how I thought a ranked ladder would look in Pokémon. It doesn't feel like a redone version of PTCGO ladder where it tracks your wins towards a reward, but how your skill compares to another players skill and creates a real ladder experience.

• Crafting Experience

The way crafting cards was done in this game feels very good. I think this was a addition from PTCGO as it removes the barrier to entry for making new cards and focuses the game around the actual playing instead of the not-so-fun mini game of trying to trade for your cards. I do think the numbers for how much extra cards give should be tweaked. I think either V/GX/EX cards are too pricy, or that cards from the pack don't give enough credits by proportion to how much 1 V/GX/EX cost to make compared to how much is given per card.

THE BAD:

There are more parts to PTCGL

• Game Board

I think the actual game board itself is a huge problem for the game right now. Most card games that exist physically that were converted to an online client have done a very good job carrying over the same feelings and proportions from physical to digital. What I mean by this is that the game in person doesn't look all to different from the online game. For whatever reason, PTCGL doesn't feel or look like what real Pokémon TCG looks like. The board doesn't accomplish anything super well or in some cases at all and really takes away from the game. To start, there is a lot of dead space on the screen. For reference, I'm using 1920x1080 resolution on PC. The area's marked in red are area's that don't have any information relevant there and almost serve no purpose. The right middle large rectangle is where the stadium is located, but other than that there is nothing in these red boxes. This is where GX/V STAR Markers would end up on a real board, As well as where prize cards would be spaced out. I think that these spaces should be used much better than they are with either more eye appeal/graphic or things to click on or just an overall better layout for game board and hand that is better to look at and displays more information about the game . For example, the bench doesn't show enough of the cards. I think that the condensed versions of cards is very annoying to look at. There is so much space on the screen that can be taken up, so why are the cards condensed with no information on them and why is the actual space of the bench so small? From there, it feels weird to have the decks and prize cards mirror each other horizontally instead of the opponent's board be a rotated version of the players board. The prize cards also take up very little space for how much space is available on the screen. They are also laid out in a formation that no one ever lays out their cards, so it looks weird coming from physical play.

After a quick 3 minutes in paint, here is a concept image of examples of how the lay out of the battle screen can change. The sizes and perspective aren't perfect, but this is an example of how the spaces can be used better and how it would look like.

• Graphical settings

I assume this is because the game is in beta, but there should me more specific options for video settings.

There should be an option to increase or decrease graphics quality, as well as ways to speed up animations. I think having only resolution and windowed yes/no is extremely limiting.

• Deck list/Deck layout

I believe that the deck list creation layout is incredibly suboptimal. I don't really get why collection of decks/cards outsizes the deck list itself. I believe that the deck list portion is the most important part of this menu. I know usually online card games usually have a small deck list and a large menu for collection of cards, but I think that Pokémon TCG is too big to allow that to happen. More often than not, the player ends up having to search up each card anyways. On top of that, the 60 card deck size doesn't help having a smaller deck list on the screen

Here are the pictures of the menu screens and why I what portion of the screen I think the deck list should take up.

• Friends list

This one is a small one, but I think that the friends list should be somewhere on the menu. Right now you have to go through profile and under friends to add friends. This is very unintuitive as most other games have their friends list displayed under what would be there "player menu". Here's a picture for reference. It should probably be directly above Inbox.

The Missing:

• Spectator Mode

Again, not surprised this isn't in the game as it is only beta, but I really hope that there are plans in the future to add in a spectator mode to see other players games from one perspective. It would make it easier to interact with friends and discuss the game with them. I would also hope that this would get coupled with a replay system to see your past games.

All in all, I have been happy with the improvements list and very unhappy with the problems listed. It feels more like a lateral move from one platform to the other instead of an increase in usability that I was expecting from a new client. I really hope the PTCGL team sees this post and reflects on the constructive criticism I gave. I don't know how much of it is valid or invalid, but this is how I feel as someone who's played the game for many years now and was looking forward to the new client.

Thanks for the read

😀