I have been playing Eredan iTCG for well over half a year now. Starting in late August and playing until now, I have been able to observe and witness the game's most recent development in many important fields, pertaining to the game. This isn't supposed to be a rant thread, or me complaining about some simple issue. This is my personal opinion on how the game is currently degenerating into something I will eventually stop playing and stop dealing with entirely.
I will start off with the biggest problem this game has up to date: extreme lack of content. Sure we get weekly new cards and a new event to spend out time with. But is this really new content? In my opinion, it isn't. It is just an addition to the content already present. New content, how I regard it, should be something new to the game. New forms of playing, such as team match ups, e.g. 2 vs 2, PvE instances, etc..., would be something direly needed in this game. There are many possibilities and I am very sure Feerik devs are creative enough to come up with some unique and interesting new content for the game.
Coding. That is of course a problem with new content. Changing codes and creating something new, instead of just adding already pre-existing codes in a slightly modified form (such as new card releases and trophies). Why not cut back on the weekly releases (way too speedy if you ask me) and actually work on something profoundly awesome that will satisfy all of the players out there?
That is another issue I want to add to my tldr: new cards every week. Sure, it looks great, its impressive to new players, but eventually it gets old and tiresome. I understand that Feerik likes this kind of release, seeing as they net sales every week because people are ALWAYS eager to get the new stuff. Which is understandable. The problem is, in my opinion, how it is executed. Weekly cards are just too fast paced and very bad for casual spenders (the majority of paying players). They cannot keep up with the fast paced flow of cards. Nor should they, in my opinion.
To top it off, the new cards released are all added into the first and the only edition out there. Making it bigger and bigger by the week. Making it more and more difficult to even get the new cards because there is just way too much to pull from the edition that the percentual chance of you pulling the cool new rare is very slim, unless you buy lots of packs (Yes, this is definately part of the weekly sales strategy.).
Instead of adding new cards every week, add an entirely new edition of cards every couple months or so. They don't even have to be huge editions either (60+ cards for a simple extra edition is more than enough). This would also help even out the card rarities and market values, seeing as people wouldn't constantly pull good rares and over saturate the market with what are actually good rares, making them worthless in the process. To net more sales a week, launch promotions for certain editions or packs. There is absolutely no need to release new cards every week, nor is there to toss the cards into the giant pile for people to fish through. Be more fair to your consumers and you will keep them buying too.
I like the weekly events. I really do, I think its a fun and creative way to keep the players busy and to try out other decks at the same time. What I dislike about them is how feable the payout is. Alsohow easy most are (at least of the newer ones. Some older trophy events were and still are utterly painful to do...). What I would like to see in trophy events, is instead of a weekly launched one, a monthly one. One that has several steps (maybe adding information and plot development of the story in those steps) and also reward the players with better rewards than a unique card that is in 90% of the cases hardly useful in any deck.
Tournament adjustments as of late have been going well too. I like the development of restricted tourneys. The only problem here is that this needs to be maintained and monitored often. Changing it frequently (for instance once a week) will keep the players on their toes to keep an eye out for a new weekly meta, instead of grinding the same decks over and over again as it used to be months before in tournaments. Eventually people get used to restrictions and a dominating deck type will make way and lead the rest of the sheep to follow.
Bugs. Bugs. Bugs! There are lots of them and nobody has a clue why. Game companies have playtesters to test the game out for bugs so they can be dealt with and rid of as fast as possible. The problems this game has is that there are still long existing bugs that not only ruin mechanics of cards and either make them more powerful than they should but some also even mess up the mechanic, rendering the card useless. Another advantage of an edition based release in cards, is that Feerik would have plenty of time to test out the new cards and squeeze out the bugs before launched flawed cards out to public and handling the biggest issues first and forgetting the minor ones really fast. Call the exterminator, damnit!
Another issue with bugs, is that, at least from what I can tell in the English speaking part of the game, we hardly have any communication regarding these. We never find out which bugs have been fixed or if they are even being worked on. There is absolutely no dev to consumer communication. This is very sad as it would not only help gather information for Ferrik, but also asure and make the consumers feel more comfortable with the running game. As of late Dantesan has been trying to maintain a list, based on the French part of the forum. Some consoltation in this issue.
But bugs is not only the major lack of communication we have had as of late. There is hardly any form of correspondance between Feerik staff and the English spoken community (I cannot judge for other languages, as I do not frequent there much. Based on from what others tell me, it is not too different in the other languages this game is offered.). We used to have a community manager named Lonak. People loved him or hated him, but he still kept up tabs on the game for us and showed us that Feerik is indeed listening to what we have to say. We did get a new community manager, after Lonak left, but it seems he is not in charge of the English spoken community at all? He never even came in to introduce himself. If it weren't for Dantesan, who has been trying to communicate with us as much as possible, we wouldn't even have any form or type of connection with Feerik staff. This needs to change immediately! It scares off non-French spoken players and thus also ruins potential sales for Feerik.
These are all some of the major problems I see in this game. Seen and witnessed throughout months and months, not only as a player, but also as a forum moderator. I may not post in every thread, but I do read a lot of them (we all like to lurk) and its just getting to a point that the community is declining. The active players are becoming more and more inactive. Heck even the forums are now nearly dead. We used to have large handfuls of new posts a day, some days I can count the amount of new posts on two hands.
Again, so people do not misunderstand this thread and its attention: This thread is there to spark a discussion. These are observations, mixed with some possible solutions, that I have been able to assess over the course of eight months of playing this game. I am just worried about the game and would find it very sad to see it degenerate more and more over time.