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Skurge -> The Curious Case of AE's Card Game (12/28/2018 7:44:07)
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With the possibility of OverSoul ever seeing the light of day again, I think it's important to address a few issues with how the game was designed, balanced, flavor and the direction it was trying to take. First and foremost, we must come to the very basic conclusion that OverSoul is not a card game. The mere presence of cards themselves does not qualify the game as a card game. At it's current state, OverSoul is a strange mix between Pokemon and a PvP-centric MMO. These two genres are very difficult to properly mix since one aims to push the grindy nature of a single player collection-style RPG and the other tries to be a competitive and thought provoking card game. If OverSoul is going to be rebooted, there needs to be a major overhaul in the collection, card design, progression and ultimately the entire flavor of the game.
The Goal:
From what I can understand, AE wanted to create a mature PvP card game, but instead of having the traditional deckbuilding and hero design (i.e: Hearthstone, Gwent, ShadowVerse etc.) they opted out for collectible heroes with prebuilt decks and custom loadouts. If AE wishes to continue with this format - it is imperative to focus less on PvP and more on character design and how the card loadouts works. As it stands, there is a very clear distinction between blatantly overpowered characters (i.e: Queen Aegea, Monk, Seraphim etc.) and useless filler ones (i.e: literally everything else). There is nothing inherently wrong with having some characters stronger than others, but, if that is to be the case then there needs to be focus on balancing the PvP or focusing on PvE content that pushes players to using their other loadouts too.
The PvE:
On one end of the spectrum we have the Pokemon-style collection RPG that is a key part of OverSoul's identity. Being able to grind for characters and catch them in your Pokeball only to fail and spend $$$ was a bittersweet feeling that a lot of people probably enjoyed. OverSoul focused on this aspect of the game a lot with the presence of so many collectible heroes, a supposed "element" chart, evolutions, random encounters etc. Like mentioned previously, if this pseudo-Pokemon style game is the direction AE wants this game to take, then there must be a focus on evolving the game mechanics themselves rather than spitting out a new character every few weeks.
The PvP:
Alternatively, there is the PvP side of OverSoul which was supposed to be the main aspect of the game. I cannot say much about this since I'm not a game developer, but the PvP in OverSoul has always felt like the player was on auto-pilot and the match was dictated entirely over who went first and whether or not they were using a premium character. Frankly it is insane that a card game involving mana did not have a proper method to compensate for the player who goes second. On another note, a funny memory came to me when I remembered how we would wait in a Skype group to find out whether or not Sage would include a freeze card for an Ice character - essentially deciding whether or not it would be viable. To have a single card dictate the viability of a class is horribly indicative of how unbalanced the game is at its current state.
The Fix:
Depending on whether or not AE wants to delve more into the PvP card game genre (which I believe is the right direction), there are a number of fixes and tweaks one can introduce to make the game feel more in control and offer more thought provoking gameplay. I'm going to go ahead and list a few of the much needed changes that OverSoul must have if their game is going to survive longer.
1) Incrementally decrease the number of cards that come prepackaged with a character and increase the quality of the cards as they evolve. I personally think that there should be a much larger focus on creating custom loadouts that synergize with your character, rather than having overpowered characters with no real amount of customization. As evolutions happen with your characters, it should introduce interesting cards with unique synergies and allow the player to customize around that and offer much more satisfying game play.
2) Fix the custom loadouts. This goes hand in hand with reducing the amount of prepackaged cards with characters. It was a step in the right direction with introducing a new card here and there with each set, but this should be the main focus on the game. Not secondary.
3) Introduce more dynamic PvE content. It's not doubt that the Tauren maze and aimlessly moving around your spectre on the world map was incredibly uninteresting. I do not know necessarily how to fix this, but the PvE lacked a lot of content in how you obtained your characters. It was boring and unintuitive to farm a single spot for hours and hours and eventually be forced to use a soul gem to capture it.
I'm not really sure if there's much more to be said, but I'm sure the community is eager to see the possibilities that lie in store for OverSoul's future. I'd really love to hear what a lot of you guys think about the direction and feel of the game at its current point. Do you agree with some of these proposed changes? Why or why not?
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