A theory about the bad reviews

[Anti]

Cute art + high difficulty = mismatched expectations

Wildfrost recently sat at Mixed for a while, even though it's a truly phenomenal title
Souldiers suffered similarly
And now, Dungeon Drafters?

Otherwise I really don't get it. The game is genuinely great and the complaints seem petty. Hopefully the developers won't gut the experience for those who do want a challenge.

[Justice Potato]

Both this and Wildfrost have about a 15% higher score if you filter out Chinese reviews.
Take that as you will.

[null]

Did you read the reviews before crafting theories?

Souldiers had very specific problems. Some issues were almost universally agreed on. Even most positive analytical reviews pointed that some zones as being a slog fest, with tanky enemies and few checkpoints, resulting in very slow methodical playthrough OR lots of re-treading footsteps on death.

This game's deckbuilding UI got criticized. Idk if it's THAT bad, but I have played games which I hated specifically because UI made the game feel bad. Dungeon Keeper had a very similar problem from what I gather. Core gameplay loop has you examine and compare stats/skills across 6 units and choose tactics accordingly. Those stats were hidden in tooltips, so you could only see 1 at a time when you hover your mouse over things.

[Naberius]

I left a bad review : The game bugged out when I tried it with a keyboard and mouse (couldn't select cards) So I switched to controller, which has a poor UI and mapping (directional buttons are both used to move and select cards, but there's no clear indication which you're doing. I've lost AP due to that multiple times.)

Most cards lack explanation on what they do, I've started as a monk and my deck had no damage cards, leading me to basically lose every fight past the tutorial. I've restarted the game, tried it with the mage, which is better balanced but by then the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ control had already worn me out and I refunded the game.

[Mytheos]

@OP

The game's depth and challenge level seem to not be very obvious / well advertised to people looking for a more casual game, I would agree.

I dont think the game had Early Access?

So no discount on launch with no EA says "Hey we made a solid game and released it finished", so people running into week 1 bugs are going to leave snap bad reviews, its not right, just reality.

Would it have been better to run a 1-3 month EA for a game like this?

Well I think people would have been more focused on the game in the reviews and less critical of week 1 bugs. I think the game would have released much more polished and with many bugs and exploits removed.

So while I imagine the game is probably good and will have a chance to recover, its going to have to survive a poor launch and the upset snap reviews from removing exploits and broken builds.

Or I guess leave in a bunch of broken builds that end up being the only thing anyone plays, and the game just ends up a weird game with a ton of depth but only a few things that "work" because they ignore most of the game's mechanics.


In the end, we just want to know, is the "game" good as we can assume they will fix the week 1 bugs...but looks like we wont have a better idea on that for a week or so now.

[Weekend Player]

I have a theory about people who make posts like this; they cant accept other people can have disagreeing valid opinions and they are just bad at a game they like. And they get offended by posts that disagree with them. I'm just messing with you, don't get angry.

On a more serious note, personally I love the difficulty of the game, but aside from some glitches here and there, they game is really lacking in visual clarity and has unintuitive UI. I'm also uninterested in dialogue with 40 town NPCs. I don't even know what am supposed to do, is there a story or I just farm what I want? What do shards do other than change the color of the book?

The game doesn't have a clear direction, even the UI is frustrating (or maybe buggy) since it's hard to find what an effect does or what a monster is gonna do in combat. All of these things result in a frustrating experience for those who don't want to read text or figure out some outdated, albeit endearing, design decisions.

I know a lot of these things are not nuclear science to figure out but people have gotten accustomed to more intuitive design choices rather than looking at 4 different sections of the screen to understand what a single action is gonna be.

The gameplay itself and varied mechanics are superb and outclass every indie tactical card rpg I've played. It's just has too many frustrating parts aside from that. People simply lose interest.

[Inari]

Originally posted by Xelias:

I left a bad review : The game bugged out when I tried it with a keyboard and mouse (couldn't select cards) So I switched to controller, which has a poor UI and mapping (directional buttons are both used to move and select cards, but there's no clear indication which you're doing. I've lost AP due to that multiple times.)

Most cards lack explanation on what they do, I've started as a monk and my deck had no damage cards, leading me to basically lose every fight past the tutorial. I've restarted the game, tried it with the mage, which is better balanced but by then the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ control had already worn me out and I refunded the game.

What do you mean? Literally all the cards say what they do when you hvoe rthem

[Maxx Saigen]

Originally posted by Xelias:

I left a bad review : The game bugged out when I tried it with a keyboard and mouse (couldn't select cards) So I switched to controller, which has a poor UI and mapping (directional buttons are both used to move and select cards, but there's no clear indication which you're doing. I've lost AP due to that multiple times.)

Most cards lack explanation on what they do, I've started as a monk and my deck had no damage cards, leading me to basically lose every fight past the tutorial. I've restarted the game, tried it with the mage, which is better balanced but by then the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ control had already worn me out and I refunded the game.

You do realize you can attack without cards and hover over cards to see what keywords means? It sounds like you were playing the game wrong.

[Papa Pasda' Ⓢ]

Had an absolute blast on both souldiers and wildfrost, and enjoying dungeon drafters even more.

It's an interesting therory, I closely followed the reviews of these titles and yes both chinese negativity and people butthurt by difficulty participated to the bad reviews.

[Papa Pasda' Ⓢ]

Also of people doing negative reviews because they didn't took the time to read/understand some mechanics.

Some negative reviews are about small bugs or QoL stuffs like UI but then why not make a buf report thread and wait for it to be fixed before leaving a review ? I mean it's not like it makes the entire game a bad experience that few stuffs are to tweak.

[Naberius]

Originally posted by Inari:

What do you mean? Literally all the cards say what they do when you hvoe rthem [/quote]


Definitely not what I've experienced. Some keywords are highlighted but a ton of information is missing.

How much HP does a summon spawns with (like the fish lure or the bomb beetle)
What's the casting distance / AOE of any spell?
What's a premonition card?

So many little elements are missing and you need to play them first to understand what's happening.

[Naberius]

Originally posted by Maxx Saigen:

You do realize you can attack without cards and hover over cards to see what keywords means? It sounds like you were playing the game wrong.

Sure you can attack without attack card, and do 1 damage, while being stuck to an enemy. The mage has spell that does 2-3 damages a turn, AOE attacks, a ton of useful spell. With the Monk my entire hand was basically useless