What Other TCG?

[redpipe67]

Hi guys,
I have only ever played one other TCG before and have not touched it since I started playing this.

I have been playing Urban Rivals for a couple of years now, username is xxx SKAAR xxx. It's a pretty cool game but not having played anything else before can not say how it compares.

[Raphael Majere]

Shadow Era is pretty big right now.

[Brontobeuf]

Cabals is cool. But the card pool is very poor and the strategies limited. The community is invisible.

Moonga is original and very deep, but it's more expensive than ACR... The community is getting thiner and thiner. Games are very quick and intense.

Shadow Era is very good, but I feel it has deep core flaws and a card creation politic that I don't like. The community is quite dynamic.

Elementz is very nice too, but the grinding is insane. I played like crazy and I was far away from having everything. It's 100% free and they have a huge community. Really huge. Not for ipad sadly.

There are others but I never played them enough to talk correctly about them.

[Raphael Majere]

I am playing less of SE now.

While the game feel is super, the flaws lies the game design. For example, ALL the games played by ANYONE can be viewed, erasing the line between the 'Pro' players and the 'noobs'.

For example, spent $40 and a full day to 'view' how top players play the game and anyone can be a top player in a few days.

SE has been around for 13 months? and the first core set is not even out. lack of funding, IMO.

Less than 200 cards now. (ACR has 288 and the cards are FAR more versatile) (Many SE cards target a specific target, unlike the general 'counterspells' in ACR)

Many promises has been made - saying that balance will finally be here at end of Jan 2012, when the full set is done.

Also SE has no instants or surprises. ie. cannot cast on your opponent's turn. Which limits the game severely.

SE is like the poor man's MtG. Good for players with low budget.

A highly 'luck' based game, IMO right now - And I don't like that. TCGs are meant to be based on good gameplay, deck-buidling - and all these is spoiled by the 'View and search All Games' function available in-game.

[Brontobeuf]

This.
And I don't like cards in SE. They are just slow, weak, underpowered, self-nerfed etc. There is no sexy cards that you really want to play, and the few that exists are the few that are Unballanced. This leads to a very low number of combos and deck design possibilities... That's what I don't like in SE. And the luck factor is boring too yeah.

[The Rancord]

SE decks all feel the same. Same ally base with a bit splash from class Btw Taddeus is very cool but thats about it. The cards are also not created to feature much synergies.

Shadow era feels like playing limited decks in constructed all the time

[Raphael Majere]

Maybe I like refreshing stuff.

SE is not refreshing me 'fast enough.'

Ver 1.25 was like 1.26.

Ver 1.28 is like 1.29.

And all of u are right, esp the lack of 'sexy' cards (LOL) in SE. By a certain part of the game, you'll know you've lost/won the game, playing on is like trying to eat up what's still on the plate but you are already full.

The opportunities to swing games, turn tides, etc are too limited. Swing cards are good, keeps u on your toes and always alert and anticipating and that's fun.

ACR is much more dynamic in this sense. SE is far too predictable. A VAST increase in card pool would help a LOT, but like i said, the probable lack of funding is probably holding the real potential of SE back.

"Rock, Scissors, Paper" is what I see SE now. just a little more sophisticated. Sometimes the winner of the match can be predicted at the start of the game, ie. Logan will > Amber, Elad will > MoonS, Zhanna will > Elad, Amber will > Zhanna and so the cycle goes.

R, S, P.

Pointless.

Right now, even when I play my best decks on ACR. I do sometimes still lose to Blue weenie noobs decks. Bad hand and even worse mulliganed hand (lol, yeah u know what i Mean!)

That's great, that means any basic well-played deck can still win the top tier ones.

[crazygambit]

Let's not forget production values. SE feels like it was made by a 5 year old compared to ACR. What bothers me most though, is that 1 year in, the UI is still terrible and not suited at all for touch screens. Really? Click on a card and then click on it again to attack or activate its ability? Really? Drag & drop would have been too intuitive. The overall clunkiness lead to games lasting way too long. And during half that time you're not doing anything. Nothing at all.

I have no problem with the expectate feature. I would be nice if ACR had it. It's good if people get better. A big part of CCGs is watching other play and get ideas from them, improve upon them so others can take them further as well. In a tournament everyone can see how you play. In fact I liked the SE feature better when it showed you the player's hand.

Anyways I haven't touched SE since I got into ACR. I might give it a look after the update, but I doubt it'll make much of a difference in the core issues I have with the game.

[Ringel]

I like Shadow Era a lot. It's affordability is a huge plus for me.

It is a multiplatform thing, which explains some of the clunkiness, and I do like how AC runs on the IPad, but I can play SE on other devices, which is nice. Overall I'm happy with both games. AC still feels new and exciting to me, whereas SE is more familiar, but has a lot of sticking power. I don't normally stick with games more than a couple of months.

I played Elementz for awhile, but got bored with the grinding. It is worth a try.