Season Feedback

[Yoreki]

Hey there!

We played all the way back in 2019 and recently came back. Overall we are very impressed that a) the game even still exists, really, and b) it's doing so well!
Seasons, new cards, new maps, balance changes. All very much appreciated. 

We are currently working on the season progress, but gathering points feels like it slowed to a crawl, and i finally figured out why. As context, we joined the party a bit late and only started a couple weeks ago. We since did many of the challenges on expert (even most of the 4 player ones as a duo, since apparently we are too socially awkward to try with randoms lol). So while i wouldnt dare call us great players, we dont exactly suck either. Yet, after all of that, we are barely around 400 points or so. That is without the solo challenges (yet), and some of the easier nightmare stuff, which can net another 200-250 points or so reasonably. So i was wondering.. where are "all" the other points at? And part of the solution was.. a bit disheartening to say the least.

Time-gated repeatable tasks (suck): A huge amount of points can be gained with the repeatable tasks. Which is great, actually - but as it is now, the majority of points here are locked behind time-gating. Play the map of the day every day: 100 points. Play the infection of the week: up to 144 points. Maps of the month: 46 more. That's nearly 300 points of which we have, like, 26 i think. And, sure, nobody has them all yet, but still. It is of course fantastic that consistent players are rewarded, and that should not be changed. But what about those late to the party? Or what about power players who play tons on the weekends, but cant play during the week? Or who wanna have a blast for a month and grind their hearts out, but then take a break and return next season?

These situations / playstyles quickly lead to essentially needing to do every challenge on expert difficulty / fastest time possible, on top of completing at least the grindable repeatables (which are also already not exactly trivial in playtime alone). Is that intended? Intuitively we would expect people to be able to complete the pass, if they complete, say, all challenges on advanced, plus either some on expert, or grind some points through repeatables. But without the time-gated ones or doing mostly everything to max out challenge points (if you can), this feels unrealistic. This makes completing the season essentially a participation reward to some players (close to 600 points from repeatables alone), while it becomes frustrating or even stressfull to try and complete it for other players. IF you want most players to be able to complete the pass, we would suggest that future seasons give players more agency over acquiring points. Allow (not force) to grind more of the points, or to acquire a bigger chunk of them through feats. No category (consistency, grindable, or challenges) needs to singlehandedly complete the pass, but there is nothing wrong with way, way more points being available than is needed to complete the pass either. That is, if you want most people to comfortably complete the pass - but if not, we'd question why nearly 600 points can be gotten as participation reward in the first place. Along the same line of thought, we would not have been big fans of gradually unlocking the challenges (and thus the capability to complete the pass) over time - but as we joined right before the final unlock, that's an afterthought.

All of the above is made slightly worse by some challenges feeling impossible. Now, of course, we know they are not. Not truly impossible. People completed them all. But take the rPvE sub-3 minute challenge as an example. I asked around and apparently the last map of the month allowed for this. Well, the current one does not. So what's left? Start random maps and fish for a good seed? To get one try without knowing the map, likely fail, and try again. My personal record right now is at 4m12s. I did this within a couple runs.. but never managed to get below 4 minutes so far, let alone 3. I fished for new maps douzens of times, which wasnt exactly fun. Sub-4 seems possible with a lot of fishing, sub-3.. i just dont realistically see happening, without knowing the map beforehand. Meaning it's either starting hundreds (if not thousands) of random maps to get "the one", or hoping for another good map of the month. This is simply not good design. It's neither challenging nor fun. Just.. annoying. And unless i did not miss anything big here, it might be semi-impossible unless the RNG gods bless you, or a new map of the month allows for it. We are also not quite sure yet how to beat the community maps in under 15 minutes, but at least those are not random.

Last but not least we'd appreciate allowing more splashing in future seasons. While we enjoyed some pure-fire challenges (neither of us really played fire before) it gets a bit old after weeks on end. Phrasing more challenges and repeatables in a way that allows for "decks containing 10 or more cards with at least one orb of color X" allows for a lot more flexibility. We get that it's supposed to be a themed season, so tweak as deemed fit - but allowing mixed elements and possibly some flex cards would make a world of a difference in reducing repetitiveness and enabling new strategies.

All in all we like the concept of seasons, and the challenges, but feel like it's a bit too restrictive. This is to be expected in the first season, of course.
So the question now is.. is it us, or do others feel the same?

[Majora]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts 🙂

We are going to host a Q&A later this month, where we will discuss seasons as well. 
Please leave any concrete questions in the thread as well: