Cards Unbound, Game Uninstalled

Every player likes card customization. Thus, the first thing to go is meaningful card customization. Bravo.

Implementing this five-points per card, twenty-five-points per loadout system, aside from causing hilariously broken and unbalanced cards that allows characters to deal around 23k burst damage when the maximum possible effective champion health is 5500 demolishes any meaningful customization. Now, just select the highest-leveled cards you have and you’re set for the next round. And once every card you own (or just those you cared about) is level 5, or you’re playing Ranked where every card is level 3, card customization is now almost as shallow as Overwatch’s hero customization options compared to the old system. Do you even understand the value of the 12-point system? It allows you to better fine-tune your loadout, and actually giving you more choice as you can choose which part of your loadout to emphasize on. I spent two-thirds of my time building a loadout just for point allocation, trying to decide whether my offensive Ying loadout should be tankier, or sacrifice some of my own bulk to get bulkier clones so that they have a better chance of reaching my enemies and blowing up right in their faces. And in the same damn video you are talking about how players enjoy loadout building you decide to gut out the whole card system and fill the torn and tattered skin with trash?

No to mention, did you just say that the 25-point system actually allows for more customization? Are you out of your minds? When everyone can just max out their cards instead of having to decide how to allocate points to build an optimal deck, how is that allowing for more customization? And you get the duplicates to level up your cards through RNG lootboxes! Why not just replace the card loadout system with a slot machine since that’s what your system is now? You need to use your highest-leveled cards to gain the most advantage over your enemies, and you can’t even choose which card to level up first!

Also, if you want to reduce the chances of getting what you don’t want, you can buy special keys with premium currency so that you only get the items for the particular class of champions you like to play as. What next, Hi-Rez? Special keys for a particular champion’s items? Special keys for a particular card category for a champion? Special keys for one single specific card that you want that costs USD4.99 worth of Crystals? Or maybe that last one is way too good of a deal and it should be just 50% chance of getting the card you want for five bucks worth of Crystals?

How is it that Valve can create a game that lasts for more than ten years and you can’t even get a game out of beta without it being two inches from death already? How did you almost managed to beat EA at their own damn game? How is it that Overwatch could possibly turn into the poor man’s Paladins?  At this rate, now that you have declared your commitment to this system, your game is in a death spiral that not even the whole cast of SMITE can save. And at OB63 Paladins stands to replace SMITE as your top game. It could’ve already done so for all we know. How is it that you’ve killed more of your own games by yourself than most studios have ever produced in their lifetimes?

I recommend you bury Paladins in a matchbox, Hi-Rez. The playerbase will be small enough to fit in one when OB64 goes live anyway.