Great start to things, but I have a few suggestions to improve the game or make it less frustrating for certain things
The round map should not rotate when the character moves. Set the map to North and fix it, so that only the character's icon changes direction when they move on the screen. I find that navigating is difficult because of the rotation in the mini-map of the U.I. If it were fixed, I'd be able to catch my bearings much quicker when loading between warp-points
Update the consignment broker to only show available items, both for sale and for purchase. It currently shows all items and you have to hover over them for a few seconds to see what you have, what you can sell etc... Overall the consignment broker is very difficult to navigate and understand.
Allow players to obtain additional consignment broker tokens by either completing ordeals or missions of some kind. The daily item limit feels very restrictive and makes the game feel more like a "Log-in-daily" to advance mobile app rather than a fleshed out quality PC game.
Please implement a graphics option that allows players to turn off other player's summoned creatures and spell effects. There have been multiple instances where the other players summoned creatures or spell effects have overwhelmed my graphics processor into crashing. It's also extremely difficult to find the enemy monsters with so many creatures and effects.
The warp-points on the map for Benalia and Shiv feel very far from events. I do not enjoy doing world events on either of those worlds, just based on the placement of the warp-points, because there is a lot of extra running around in order to get to various events. I'd suggest making those points more feasible for quicker travel. Nothing more frustrating than trying to run to a skirmish or tower event and it's already complete.
Ordeal Queing should be connected so that a player can pull up ca complete list of current ordeal queues that players are queued for (which also show the respective difficulty levels). I never seem to find groups for the ordeals that I queue up for publicly and I would be willing to join others, but I don't know which ordeals people are trying to queue up for. It's very frustrating.
I recommend implementing "greater mana regeneration" for players upon entering their "My Realm" so that they can test their spells on the test-dummies on the lower level and be able to cycle through spells. At present, you can use your spells on them, but you don't regenerate mana, so you can't really test builds.
Also feel like enchantments should be more like a permanent aura, rather than a few seconds. They run out and due to the nature of cycling spells, it's not always possible to take advantage of their effects. All in all, I don't use enchantments because they just don't help. If enchantments are too powerful to be run permanently, then scale back their effects, but they would be more like the real enchantments of the MtG card game if they stayed active until dissolved or otherwise.
I certainly disagree on this because if enchantments were permanent they would only resemble another layer of equipment/artifacts and would on the spot lose their role as a combo enabler/engine.
The spell Systems from magic legends and magic are very different so that argueing that enchantments are permanent in mtg doesn't work because unlike in mtg there is no enchantment removal in magic legends and I do not see how a plausible enchantment-destruction mechanic would look like.
In my build enchantments play a key role and as long as you have at least some carddraw and some levels on your enchantment spells you won't feel ever the need for enchantments to be permanent because they more or less are.
However it is obviously critical to time enchantments right and not just use them as they enter your spell hand right away.
Nerfing the effects of enchantments is currently not at all the way to go in my opinion since they hardly have a better position in the metagame than creatures (not solid therefore).
Just want to say I really enjoyed the Summoner's Draw mechanic where creature cards would not show up if that creature was currently already summoned. I'd love to see this as a permanent or accessible mechanic. Thanks.
Can we have some kind of filter/sorting option to gear? It'd be helpful to be able to sort by rarity, or name, load-lvl, etc...
Allow skip scene option for initial story cut-scenes in new games. Even if a player should be required to watch it fully through 1 time, then allow skip scene option after that. It's a minor thing, but cuts down on monotony for players who are starting several new characters and don't want to watch the full scenes over again.
Remove "kneeling" animation from white mage utility spell and allow them to keep running while they cast it. I love the white mage's class abilities; however, I find myself frustrated with having limited mobility based on the utility limitations. After playing blue mage or red mage, it's incredibly difficult to want to play white mage when not only can I not quickly get out of dangerous situations if I'm using my utility, but if I use it, the limited healing power compared to my movement restriction just doesn't feel beneficial enough. If running a white mage as support in a group were more common, then it wouldn't be such a big deal, but I find that 90% of my gameplay is solo, or in random groups while running world events, so I can't rely on support builds to keep me out of the fray. (God forbid, I'm a white mage and fighting a mythic encounter that drops entangling roots as I hit my utility skill... pretty much guarantees death in higher difficulties since I can't move out of the DoT snare affected area).
In World-Maps: I'd love to see the warp-points "unlock" for use when you get in proximity to them, like the initial story mode of a new game or in story instances. Having to right click on them to unlock them for future use is unnecessary and also not explained to the player once they are freed up to explore the open world. Since the game starts out in a story-based instance where warp-points unlock when you get close to them, it sets the expectation that all warp-points will do the same... yet they don't.
I'd love to see a different icon for the world map for Minor or Major Skirmishes & special Skirmishes. They are quite difficult to identify without hovering over them all. Maybe make them different colors or sizes rather than all looking the exact same.
Console cursor movement on the blind eternities map & planar map feels very slow.
Bugs:
There is a bugged active story quest marker "Chasing Answers (Story)" that remains on the world map of Benalia even after the quest is completed.
Sometimes after logging into the world, the first map I try to go to is "Your Realm" and when I try, it tells me that I need to "Continue your adventure to unlock this feature." I have to warp to another world, then it allows me to warp in to my realm after that, or if I just close that message and open another world map, then back out and try "your realm" again, it will allow me to warp there.
When upgrading artifacts, sometimes it lets you upgrade 2 or 3 times, but then it stops allowing upgrades, even when you have all the necessary components. Players have to back-out of the menu and re-open it, then it will allow you to continue upgrading.
Summoner's draw idea from someone who hates it, but understands why some love it.
how about you make this an toggle able feature earned through mystical study?
reasoning:
developers wouldn't have to devote as much time refactoring original intended synergies that were based on the original draw algorithm.
it would be adding another play style customization layer.
it would be adding another resource sink.
it would be adding another feature to the game rather than 'nerfing' different play styles.
it would be adding another character 'upgrade' for players to take pride in earning.
everyone gets the draw style they prefer. player base happier, less rants and flames. huzzas all around.
please and thanks for the consideration.
posted something similar to in a general discussion thread, but just found the 'official' feedback thread so figured i'd polish the turnd and post it here as well.
I really like the changes to the upgrade costs and the new class. That said, I would appreciate it if there could be some sort of refund of mana equal to the difference in cost between the old upgrade costs and the new ones. A lot of people, like myself, who have played through the entire early beta, have farmed a great deal of mana to upgrade our realm, and the sudden drop in costs without a refund just feels like it punishes the players who started early.
It's absolutely no punishment at all if you have farmed mana prior because you'd be sitting with excess mana and nothing to do with it, although I am aware that they have brought some ways to use up excess mana now, I still don't think it is very detrimental to you and I still think even if you use the mana option to enhance your world enchantments then you should still be getting more than you need if you are aetheric core level 10.
In my opinion, the moment we play a open beta game we should be aware that they will be plenty of major changes that make the game better. So, of course, early players will have it worse than newer players, we are the ones helping improving the game and we will have to suffer through the worst parts before they are improved.
I just had spent tons of planar mana upgrading my realm right before the update, but what I felt was just "I should had waited for a day". I am really happy of the changes, and I don't feel punished by them, it's great to know that they are listening to us. We are in open beta, all our decisions should be made knowing that everything can change (plenty of times because we have asked for it). So as long as they hadn't stated that something was not going to change or give missleading information, I don't believe we should demand any kind of compensation just because if we had known the change would come, we would have done differently.
I believe there is still too much work to do, so I would prefer the people behind the game to focus on improving the game and addresing critical issues, rather than spending their time in compensating all of us for every change they do.
My perception on that changes based on how they as a company treats a beta phase. I know a lot of other companies open their game up and call it beta still 3-4 years into development. Using it as a window to do anything they like pretty much is only really legitimate if it is really short in nature. Like if you google how long does a beta go for some say 2-12 weeks, some answers say 6 months. So we should observe the way the company operates and make judgement later (but very soon we should know). My assumption is that it will be a long beta and there will be many more things to fix/balance. I do feel a bit like the beta was premature, as in you want to have enough content so that your beta players don't finish your game in 15 hours, some will decide that the content is not really replay able, swap games and never come back. Then as a game/company they may increase the content, give more purpose to the game, but if it is early or premature, you will lose the people who play your beta to other games and I don't believe that many people come back to games after they have quit them.
I also believe it will be a long beta, there are still too many bugs and issues and even if there is steady improvement I haven't seen yet the number of issues still to address decreasing. What I don't undestand is people complaining endlessly in a destructive way about a free game that does not force you to pay if you don't want. Give constructive feedback and opinion so that developers can improve the game. But don't go "the devs know nothing" "this is stupid" "you must do this assap".. "the game is dead"... If you don't like the game or how it is handdled by the company that runs it just state your opinion and go play another game, And if you spent money before major changes taking place... You knew it was a beta and changes could happen. I don't imagine anybody asking for a refund after buying food just because it looked better on the advertising, or because there are now better options to choose from so if I had known I would have not spend my money that way... I believe this forum needs more constructive feedback and less "I will use it to pour all my anger and frustration".
Well it's because the pay model is very fragile more so than you think. The most valuable thing a game can have is players, that has been proven time and time again, people will play bad games even if the population is there to support it. So by opening it to f2p players, to some level they have a few expectations generally, firstly that the game won't be too much of a grind (though some 1% love it, 99% hate it), they expect that if you have a PvP system that they are not at a huge disadvantage to participate or sometimes same goes for PvE content but people tend to care less in that regard. That conflicts a little bit with people who want their money to have some perceived value as there aren't so many things you can offer without offending your f2p community. So where this game went wrong is they basically open things for sale then they give it to free or change it for everyone so where you spent money last week someone else has it for free. Then it also hasn't shown to be incredibly f2p friendly either because it's been shown that the p2w builds have been quite a bit more powerful than anything you can do with f2p items, take for instance bloodsoaked alter prenerf and now dimir assassin annihilate build. So finding the balance for this company is proving to be very difficult.
I love magic in general because its very strategic, but magic legends is not. In Legends the combat is to fast and hectic, it is just button smashing. i have no time to think about some combos, strategic use of spells or even the see the what is happening around me. Right now, it didnt feel like magic, it feel like a bad clone of some other games.
The best experience would be a turn based combat system, but i guess, that is not possible.
Therefore it would be great, if the combat will be more strategic and "slower" in future, to create a real magic the gathtering combat feeling. Less creatutes, reduced attack and movement speed and more time to plan and execute your spells and combos would be nice. Less creatures could mean, that the creatures can be more challenging and the its necessary to plan and execute the right combos.
This is, sadly, a mostly negative review. There are several things I enjoy about this game, but most of that wore off after the first couple of hours of gameplay.
Basic boons - Very true to Magic lore, and the core gameplay mechanics are fun.
Basic gripes - The maps are too large and unfocused, and there is no real sense of progression.
In this I will be using the term Zone to refer to locations like Tolaria, Shiv, and Galvony, and the term Area to mean the different locations within each Zone. For example, Hexenrast is an Area within the Zone of Galvony.
I will also be referring to Diablo 2, as it is very similar in presentation and mechanics to Magic: Legends.
The first few hours of gameplay are entertaining. From learning new spells and balancing your deck, to upgrading your sanctuary, there are a lot of things to do that feel important... at first. But fairly quickly it turns into just pumping up numbers to meet certain requirements.
While your map layout is similar to Diablo 2, the different areas aren't clearly defined, meaning I run into the exact same enemies no matter where I am on the map, and the various quest locations seem to be randomly sprinkled around rather than having any kind of plan to them. The first zone, Tazeem, seems to be the best as far as quest giver locations, but Galvony suffers the worst of this. Running back and forth across the map for one quest is a way to pad gameplay, but it's not a good one, and having the teleportation pads nullifies that benefit.
Diablo 2 had each separate location be unique, with new monsters, new quests, various things to do and accomplish that could only happen in that specific area, and there was a definite feeling of progress moving from one area to the next. Generally you would need to complete the quests in one area before moving on to the next, and you would need to complete the zone's entire arc before moving to the next zone. Enemies in the second area were harder than the first, while the spike between zones was even more pronounced. Magic: Legends would very much benefit from the sections of each map having a set difficulty range. Don't stop players from going to where they want, but make the enemy difficulty ramp up so if a level 1 player tries to run straight from the starting area to the fourth area in a zone, they will get smooshed because they can't survive, don't just stick a "Your level is too low to proceed" wall. A game that allows you to make stupid decisions is significantly more immersive.
That brings me to the feeling of progression. Magic: Legends is completely lacking in that regard. Enemies don't seem to decrease in difficulty as you level past them, so there doesn't seem to be a point to leveling. An enemy you kill in five hits at level 1 still takes four and a half hits at level 30, so while the spells you use change, the actual impact doesn't. This ties into my earlier gripe concerning the maps. Having linear progression in the game isn't bad as long as it doesn't feel forced. Level specific doesn't have to mean level restricted.
Now to be honest, I haven't played the higher difficulty settings, but if there are only four effective tiers of play, rather than 30 levels worth of progressively more difficult enemies, why have 30 player levels? And if the tiers of difficulty are tied to your loadout score rather than your player level, why have player levels at all? Unless there is an actual feeling of progression beyond "hey look, the number went up" then the game ends up being very unsatisfying, and you'll have trouble keeping players beyond a month or two.
As far as fixes go, I think having each Zone have a questline for each color would be absolutely amazing. Once a player unlock a character class of a specific color you unlock the matching questlines. It'll be a lot more writing, but it'll also help prevent the game from becoming stale. It gives players options on how to level up, and it would allow the zones to be demarking increasing difficulty rather than just be a different location of equivalent difficulty.
Also, I think it would be absolutely amazing if Garth One-Eye was in charge of the PvP arena. Just my thoughts on the matter.
-edit-
I've run into a couple of minor issues as I continue playing.
First, a technical issue. It happens fairly frequently that I have my cursor over an enemy, and the enemy is highlighted and well within range of my primary attack, yet when I attack I don't swing in the proper direction and fail to hit the target. I'm playing a necromancer, so I'm not sure if this is just an issue with the primary attack of the necromancer or if this is more widespread, but it happens consistently enough to be irritating.
Second, a mission objective issue. During several of the story arcs, specifically in Tolaria's "Like Minds" story mission, there is no explanation of what to do in certain parts of the mission. I'll have a point to run to, and I go there, and there's nothing to interact with or any reason it's an important plot point. It invariably becomes "kill the waves until you can move on" but it's not in the quest tip or anything. Maybe some kind of dialogue or something to explain why you have to stand and wait for the enemies to finish spawning would make it feel more natural, but for the moment it's very VERY immersion breaking.
I'll probably be expanding on this as I continue playing. I would love for this game to succeed, but I feel this was released as playable (and monetized) far too early. It's got decent mechanics, but a complete and total lack of story. The missions seem more like a way to introduce the repeatable content instead of actual plot, which is disappointing.
Visually, landscapes and creatures are nice and match what can be seen on Magic cards.
Being able to rotate the camera is nice.
A base class related to a color associated with a deck is a good idea.
The new timers of structures in the Realm are a good change.
User eXperience (UX Design)
In my opinion, one of the biggest flaw of the game. Many informations are absent or not placed where they are relevant, and some functionalities are absent or feels clumsy.
The equipment give stats, a summary (caracter sheet ?) would be welcome.
The Artifacts screen should show the quantity of Relic Fragments I have.
Equipments and artifacts lists are not sorted.
The Class screen should allow to look at the Overview and Level Info of locked classes.
Manipulating the filters in the Library produce a weird sorting of the cards.
The Prophetic Quill screen should have a view of the World Enchantment inventory.
No UI options.
"Daily" must means the same thing throughout the game. As an example, daily quests reset at an hour while the daily event reset at another.
"Weekly" must means the same thing throughout the game and be synchronized with daily reset once a week.
A visual countdown timer for daily and weekly resets would be welcome.
When using Fast Travel, a player can choose where to go or the difficulty level, but not both.
When the overlay map is active, the north isn't indicated.
No gameplay options.
And many more ...
Content and ressources caps
After few hours of playing my planeswalker through the campaigns, what's left to do ? upgrading my realm, finding and upgrading new equipments, artifacts and cards. How do I do that ? by playing the same skirmishes, missions and ordeals days after days, weeks after weeks, again and again and again ... to the point it's no more fun but the only way to do it. The worst is that at some point I reach the ressources cap, then I can either continue to farm for almost no gain, or stop playing for several days and come back next week.
I think the goal of this game, like many free to play, is me spending time to play and buying things in the store, and this clearly is NOT the right method. Personnally I'll never spend money in a game that forces me to play a certain way and punishes me for spending too much time playing it, but rather in a game that's fun, pleasant and entertaining enough for me WANTING to continue playing it.
Summoner's Draw
This is what I would call "desining with an axe". Yes, drawing a creature card while the creature is still alive can be unwanted, but there's many situations where you want to have creature cards in hand.
- to reset the creature's life.
- to use "On Summon" abilities (examples : Chainwarden, Water Elemental, Enormous Baloth ...)
- to summon creatures upon entering a boss arena since creatures don't follow you there.
- to summon creatures rapidly after using Annihilation.
- to trigger enchantments like Thought Cadence or Show of Dominance, or artifacts like Thornbite Altar ...
There's an ability on some Magic cards called "cycling", which allows you to discard the card to draw another. Creature cards in ML could all have something like "Cycling 0" (activate with shift+card's key (keyboard) / hold card's key then LT (gamepad)). Can turn auto-cycling on/off in options.
Comments
Great start to things, but I have a few suggestions to improve the game or make it less frustrating for certain things
Also feel like enchantments should be more like a permanent aura, rather than a few seconds. They run out and due to the nature of cycling spells, it's not always possible to take advantage of their effects. All in all, I don't use enchantments because they just don't help. If enchantments are too powerful to be run permanently, then scale back their effects, but they would be more like the real enchantments of the MtG card game if they stayed active until dissolved or otherwise.
I certainly disagree on this because if enchantments were permanent they would only resemble another layer of equipment/artifacts and would on the spot lose their role as a combo enabler/engine.
The spell Systems from magic legends and magic are very different so that argueing that enchantments are permanent in mtg doesn't work because unlike in mtg there is no enchantment removal in magic legends and I do not see how a plausible enchantment-destruction mechanic would look like.
In my build enchantments play a key role and as long as you have at least some carddraw and some levels on your enchantment spells you won't feel ever the need for enchantments to be permanent because they more or less are.
However it is obviously critical to time enchantments right and not just use them as they enter your spell hand right away.
Nerfing the effects of enchantments is currently not at all the way to go in my opinion since they hardly have a better position in the metagame than creatures (not solid therefore).
Just want to say I really enjoyed the Summoner's Draw mechanic where creature cards would not show up if that creature was currently already summoned. I'd love to see this as a permanent or accessible mechanic. Thanks.
Level 20 artifact or class ability? Maybe an enchantment.
Few more ideas:
Bugs:
Summoner's draw idea from someone who hates it, but understands why some love it.
how about you make this an toggle able feature earned through mystical study?
reasoning:
developers wouldn't have to devote as much time refactoring original intended synergies that were based on the original draw algorithm.
it would be adding another play style customization layer.
it would be adding another resource sink.
it would be adding another feature to the game rather than 'nerfing' different play styles.
it would be adding another character 'upgrade' for players to take pride in earning.
everyone gets the draw style they prefer. player base happier, less rants and flames. huzzas all around.
please and thanks for the consideration.
posted something similar to in a general discussion thread, but just found the 'official' feedback thread so figured i'd polish the turnd and post it here as well.
~b
I really like the changes to the upgrade costs and the new class. That said, I would appreciate it if there could be some sort of refund of mana equal to the difference in cost between the old upgrade costs and the new ones. A lot of people, like myself, who have played through the entire early beta, have farmed a great deal of mana to upgrade our realm, and the sudden drop in costs without a refund just feels like it punishes the players who started early.
It's absolutely no punishment at all if you have farmed mana prior because you'd be sitting with excess mana and nothing to do with it, although I am aware that they have brought some ways to use up excess mana now, I still don't think it is very detrimental to you and I still think even if you use the mana option to enhance your world enchantments then you should still be getting more than you need if you are aetheric core level 10.
i'm still wanting a zen reimbursement for the loadout slots i bought before they were made free.
i asked, was told "they'd get back to me" still nothing. kinda surprised, but probably shouldn't be.
In my opinion, the moment we play a open beta game we should be aware that they will be plenty of major changes that make the game better. So, of course, early players will have it worse than newer players, we are the ones helping improving the game and we will have to suffer through the worst parts before they are improved.
I just had spent tons of planar mana upgrading my realm right before the update, but what I felt was just "I should had waited for a day". I am really happy of the changes, and I don't feel punished by them, it's great to know that they are listening to us. We are in open beta, all our decisions should be made knowing that everything can change (plenty of times because we have asked for it). So as long as they hadn't stated that something was not going to change or give missleading information, I don't believe we should demand any kind of compensation just because if we had known the change would come, we would have done differently.
I believe there is still too much work to do, so I would prefer the people behind the game to focus on improving the game and addresing critical issues, rather than spending their time in compensating all of us for every change they do.
My perception on that changes based on how they as a company treats a beta phase. I know a lot of other companies open their game up and call it beta still 3-4 years into development. Using it as a window to do anything they like pretty much is only really legitimate if it is really short in nature. Like if you google how long does a beta go for some say 2-12 weeks, some answers say 6 months. So we should observe the way the company operates and make judgement later (but very soon we should know). My assumption is that it will be a long beta and there will be many more things to fix/balance. I do feel a bit like the beta was premature, as in you want to have enough content so that your beta players don't finish your game in 15 hours, some will decide that the content is not really replay able, swap games and never come back. Then as a game/company they may increase the content, give more purpose to the game, but if it is early or premature, you will lose the people who play your beta to other games and I don't believe that many people come back to games after they have quit them.
I also believe it will be a long beta, there are still too many bugs and issues and even if there is steady improvement I haven't seen yet the number of issues still to address decreasing. What I don't undestand is people complaining endlessly in a destructive way about a free game that does not force you to pay if you don't want. Give constructive feedback and opinion so that developers can improve the game. But don't go "the devs know nothing" "this is stupid" "you must do this assap".. "the game is dead"... If you don't like the game or how it is handdled by the company that runs it just state your opinion and go play another game, And if you spent money before major changes taking place... You knew it was a beta and changes could happen. I don't imagine anybody asking for a refund after buying food just because it looked better on the advertising, or because there are now better options to choose from so if I had known I would have not spend my money that way... I believe this forum needs more constructive feedback and less "I will use it to pour all my anger and frustration".
Well it's because the pay model is very fragile more so than you think. The most valuable thing a game can have is players, that has been proven time and time again, people will play bad games even if the population is there to support it. So by opening it to f2p players, to some level they have a few expectations generally, firstly that the game won't be too much of a grind (though some 1% love it, 99% hate it), they expect that if you have a PvP system that they are not at a huge disadvantage to participate or sometimes same goes for PvE content but people tend to care less in that regard. That conflicts a little bit with people who want their money to have some perceived value as there aren't so many things you can offer without offending your f2p community. So where this game went wrong is they basically open things for sale then they give it to free or change it for everyone so where you spent money last week someone else has it for free. Then it also hasn't shown to be incredibly f2p friendly either because it's been shown that the p2w builds have been quite a bit more powerful than anything you can do with f2p items, take for instance bloodsoaked alter prenerf and now dimir assassin annihilate build. So finding the balance for this company is proving to be very difficult.
Some Feedback from a long-term magic fan:
I love magic in general because its very strategic, but magic legends is not. In Legends the combat is to fast and hectic, it is just button smashing. i have no time to think about some combos, strategic use of spells or even the see the what is happening around me. Right now, it didnt feel like magic, it feel like a bad clone of some other games.
The best experience would be a turn based combat system, but i guess, that is not possible.
Therefore it would be great, if the combat will be more strategic and "slower" in future, to create a real magic the gathtering combat feeling. Less creatutes, reduced attack and movement speed and more time to plan and execute your spells and combos would be nice. Less creatures could mean, that the creatures can be more challenging and the its necessary to plan and execute the right combos.
I wanted a MtG themed Everquest.
This is, sadly, a mostly negative review. There are several things I enjoy about this game, but most of that wore off after the first couple of hours of gameplay.
Basic boons - Very true to Magic lore, and the core gameplay mechanics are fun.
Basic gripes - The maps are too large and unfocused, and there is no real sense of progression.
In this I will be using the term Zone to refer to locations like Tolaria, Shiv, and Galvony, and the term Area to mean the different locations within each Zone. For example, Hexenrast is an Area within the Zone of Galvony.
I will also be referring to Diablo 2, as it is very similar in presentation and mechanics to Magic: Legends.
The first few hours of gameplay are entertaining. From learning new spells and balancing your deck, to upgrading your sanctuary, there are a lot of things to do that feel important... at first. But fairly quickly it turns into just pumping up numbers to meet certain requirements.
While your map layout is similar to Diablo 2, the different areas aren't clearly defined, meaning I run into the exact same enemies no matter where I am on the map, and the various quest locations seem to be randomly sprinkled around rather than having any kind of plan to them. The first zone, Tazeem, seems to be the best as far as quest giver locations, but Galvony suffers the worst of this. Running back and forth across the map for one quest is a way to pad gameplay, but it's not a good one, and having the teleportation pads nullifies that benefit.
Diablo 2 had each separate location be unique, with new monsters, new quests, various things to do and accomplish that could only happen in that specific area, and there was a definite feeling of progress moving from one area to the next. Generally you would need to complete the quests in one area before moving on to the next, and you would need to complete the zone's entire arc before moving to the next zone. Enemies in the second area were harder than the first, while the spike between zones was even more pronounced. Magic: Legends would very much benefit from the sections of each map having a set difficulty range. Don't stop players from going to where they want, but make the enemy difficulty ramp up so if a level 1 player tries to run straight from the starting area to the fourth area in a zone, they will get smooshed because they can't survive, don't just stick a "Your level is too low to proceed" wall. A game that allows you to make stupid decisions is significantly more immersive.
That brings me to the feeling of progression. Magic: Legends is completely lacking in that regard. Enemies don't seem to decrease in difficulty as you level past them, so there doesn't seem to be a point to leveling. An enemy you kill in five hits at level 1 still takes four and a half hits at level 30, so while the spells you use change, the actual impact doesn't. This ties into my earlier gripe concerning the maps. Having linear progression in the game isn't bad as long as it doesn't feel forced. Level specific doesn't have to mean level restricted.
Now to be honest, I haven't played the higher difficulty settings, but if there are only four effective tiers of play, rather than 30 levels worth of progressively more difficult enemies, why have 30 player levels? And if the tiers of difficulty are tied to your loadout score rather than your player level, why have player levels at all? Unless there is an actual feeling of progression beyond "hey look, the number went up" then the game ends up being very unsatisfying, and you'll have trouble keeping players beyond a month or two.
As far as fixes go, I think having each Zone have a questline for each color would be absolutely amazing. Once a player unlock a character class of a specific color you unlock the matching questlines. It'll be a lot more writing, but it'll also help prevent the game from becoming stale. It gives players options on how to level up, and it would allow the zones to be demarking increasing difficulty rather than just be a different location of equivalent difficulty.
Also, I think it would be absolutely amazing if Garth One-Eye was in charge of the PvP arena. Just my thoughts on the matter.
-edit-
I've run into a couple of minor issues as I continue playing.
First, a technical issue. It happens fairly frequently that I have my cursor over an enemy, and the enemy is highlighted and well within range of my primary attack, yet when I attack I don't swing in the proper direction and fail to hit the target. I'm playing a necromancer, so I'm not sure if this is just an issue with the primary attack of the necromancer or if this is more widespread, but it happens consistently enough to be irritating.
Second, a mission objective issue. During several of the story arcs, specifically in Tolaria's "Like Minds" story mission, there is no explanation of what to do in certain parts of the mission. I'll have a point to run to, and I go there, and there's nothing to interact with or any reason it's an important plot point. It invariably becomes "kill the waves until you can move on" but it's not in the quest tip or anything. Maybe some kind of dialogue or something to explain why you have to stand and wait for the enemies to finish spawning would make it feel more natural, but for the moment it's very VERY immersion breaking.
I'll probably be expanding on this as I continue playing. I would love for this game to succeed, but I feel this was released as playable (and monetized) far too early. It's got decent mechanics, but a complete and total lack of story. The missions seem more like a way to introduce the repeatable content instead of actual plot, which is disappointing.
A little feedback after several weeks of playing.
Some good things
Visually, landscapes and creatures are nice and match what can be seen on Magic cards.
Being able to rotate the camera is nice.
A base class related to a color associated with a deck is a good idea.
The new timers of structures in the Realm are a good change.
User eXperience (UX Design)
In my opinion, one of the biggest flaw of the game. Many informations are absent or not placed where they are relevant, and some functionalities are absent or feels clumsy.
The equipment give stats, a summary (caracter sheet ?) would be welcome.
The Artifacts screen should show the quantity of Relic Fragments I have.
Equipments and artifacts lists are not sorted.
The Class screen should allow to look at the Overview and Level Info of locked classes.
Manipulating the filters in the Library produce a weird sorting of the cards.
The Prophetic Quill screen should have a view of the World Enchantment inventory.
No UI options.
"Daily" must means the same thing throughout the game. As an example, daily quests reset at an hour while the daily event reset at another.
"Weekly" must means the same thing throughout the game and be synchronized with daily reset once a week.
A visual countdown timer for daily and weekly resets would be welcome.
When using Fast Travel, a player can choose where to go or the difficulty level, but not both.
When the overlay map is active, the north isn't indicated.
No gameplay options.
And many more ...
Content and ressources caps
After few hours of playing my planeswalker through the campaigns, what's left to do ? upgrading my realm, finding and upgrading new equipments, artifacts and cards. How do I do that ? by playing the same skirmishes, missions and ordeals days after days, weeks after weeks, again and again and again ... to the point it's no more fun but the only way to do it. The worst is that at some point I reach the ressources cap, then I can either continue to farm for almost no gain, or stop playing for several days and come back next week.
I think the goal of this game, like many free to play, is me spending time to play and buying things in the store, and this clearly is NOT the right method. Personnally I'll never spend money in a game that forces me to play a certain way and punishes me for spending too much time playing it, but rather in a game that's fun, pleasant and entertaining enough for me WANTING to continue playing it.
Summoner's Draw
This is what I would call "desining with an axe". Yes, drawing a creature card while the creature is still alive can be unwanted, but there's many situations where you want to have creature cards in hand.
- to reset the creature's life.
- to use "On Summon" abilities (examples : Chainwarden, Water Elemental, Enormous Baloth ...)
- to summon creatures upon entering a boss arena since creatures don't follow you there.
- to summon creatures rapidly after using Annihilation.
- to trigger enchantments like Thought Cadence or Show of Dominance, or artifacts like Thornbite Altar ...
There's an ability on some Magic cards called "cycling", which allows you to discard the card to draw another. Creature cards in ML could all have something like "Cycling 0" (activate with shift+card's key (keyboard) / hold card's key then LT (gamepad)). Can turn auto-cycling on/off in options.