Is TCG live an improvement on the old game?

where is the "yes, because the old game was a terrible experience" option?

Gameplay? Heck no. TCGO was better in that department. Deck building? Yes. They are very generous with cards in Live.

I really really wanted to give it a chance, despite the terrible UI.

I loaded it up on my tablet (which had no issue running PTCGO) and the PTCGL was lagging so badly it was literaly unplayable..

This is the worst step they could make. Nobody was asking for an overhaul. If the reason was a need to switch to different game engine, they could have remade the same game and continue from there. small changes at a time, closely listening to their userbase.

But no, they ignored all the calls, threads, all the uprise against the PTCGL and just pushed further, now finally forcing all users to switch to it against their will.

When people complained that the game effects took too long to play, what did they do ? just increase the play speed at which they played, resulting in a silly grotesque effects , instead of reworking them to a more appropriate length.

They keep pumping more and more useless effects into the game disregarding HW requirements, without giving users option to disable them if they cause issues / lagging.

You cant even save your login details, something so basic, you have to keep entering both username and password every single time.

I can go on and on..

To me it seems that PTCGL is made by people without love for the product, without common sense, with the main focus to make it pay2win.

@digydiglett2011 the whole experience in general felt worse for me in the old client, let me explain.

Keep in mind, I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is the better game, but personally I've been enjoying this game a lot more than the old client.

I played the old game for around 8 months 2 years ago, and I've been playing this game every day since astral radiance released, this is my experience so far:

1) bugs: probably the most important thing to mention. I know this game has a lot of bugs and it's completely unplayable for some people, but personally, i haven't found any bug for a while. The game was a mess when the close beta first released in my country, but at some point, between the release of the set pokemon go and lost origin, every problem i had with the game disappeared. In the last 6 months my only issues with the game are minor bugs that don't interfere with gameplay, i haven't see the game freeze or do something incorrectly in a while. In contrast, a lot of things happened when i was playing in the old client. Random disconnections, locked cards been removed from my collection, the game randomly starting a ladder game while i was trying to modify a deck. Pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong at some point while i was playing ptcgo. To be honest, if i was completely separate from the internet and my only knowledge of the game was only my personal experience, i would think ptcgo is the buggier game.

UI: I'm a bigger fan of thing being plain and easy to use instead of flashy and visually appealing, and so far, ptcgl feels better to me in that aspect. When I'm trying to look for a specific card in someone's discard pile or lost zone, is a lot easier the way ptcgl displays it to you. I really didn't like how in ptcgo if my opponent played 4 different artworks of marnie and I was trying to count if my opponent had marnies left in their deck, i had to check their entire discard pile just to confirm the last marnie wasn't hidden at the bottom. I know people don't like how the game hides their full arts and gold cards by grouping them with the regular arts, but gameplay wise is a QoL improvement.

Another thing i prefer about the UI is attacking pokemon that have a huge selection of moves at the same time (like mewtwo and mew tag team back in 2020 or mew Vmax and regidrago Vstar currently). I prefer the big menu this game gives you to choose your moves, the way ptcgo shows it felt a little easy to miss click.

And speaking of miss clicking, i like the dragging over clicking in this game (although it would be nice if the game had a setting to choose between the 2, for those who prefer clicking), dragging shows a lot clearer what you're doing over clicking.

Economy: if your goal is to build and test every relevant deck in the format, it's way easier in this game. The free decks + crafting helps a lot when you're trying to obtain cards. Grinding tournament always felt awful to me, as it was usually worse games than the ones you find in the ladder, with a 5 to 10 minutes wait in between games, and you had to get a lot of packs because the good cards are usually 30+ packs for 1 copy, and after hours obtaining packs to trade, i had to wait a few minutes for the trade page to load the real trades instead of the scams (since ptcgo always show the trades with lower timer first, scams no one has taken usually show first).

Visuals: I don't have a big opinion on this, I've heard the foil in cards look bad in this game, but i find the more realistic look a little charming. I remember how fake every card in ptcgo looked the day after i returned to locals. I really don't mind how things look most of the time, so I'm not going to defend or criticize this.

What i should criticize instead is the way some cards look in ptcgo. The reason i unistalled the game was because i was annoyed of having to concede every game my opponent played a gold and black card. The way those cards look in that client gave me migraines (I'm not saying they look bad; they seriously triggered me health condition every time.)

I think that's enough to explain why i called ptcgo a "terrible experience".