Etherlords review

At the moment, I’m in the middle of the 3rd world, bought a few gold and elite boosters and my rating is about 150 points. So I will speak about my experience from this point.

Problem 1

Tiles gameplay. I only realized what’s going on accidently and way after the tutorial. According to discussions with my friends and colleagues, it looks like I’m not the only one and everyone just clicks on golden tiles, although this is not the best decision and often it leads to failure. Obviously most players don’t get the idea of the gameplay here, however, it is really fresh and challenging.

Solution: It would be great to explain in detail how to collect lands, force the player to complete one land by following a rigid step-by-step tutorial and then ask him to do it by himself. Highlight in gold only those tile-slots which will lead to progression in a quest if the player place a tile here.

Problem 2

There is no possibility to manage your army outside the fight or quest. It’s an absolutely unreasonable restriction. I want and should be able to manage my deck not only at the same time when I want to fight. There is no reason to force me to start a quest if I just want to upgrade and manage my creatures. And inability to manage your army outside the fight looks even stranger.

Solution: Add deck management shortcut buttons on the every screen. Allow the player to set his party from the deck management screen. Show the battle rating in the deck management screen. Also, add a “sort by rarity” button.

Problem 3

There is no random or creature’s type/domain influence on the damage. It drastically cuts the fights variability and removes the motivation to try to beat the difficult level with a new tactic. In fact, the lack of the random makes the game more hardcore and focused on the player’s skill while a touch of a random can increase newbie’s or low-skill players’ chances to win.

Also, the lack of domains system restricts the deck management’s depth. Why should I keep 2 same creatures which difference is only their domain? While there is no “weak/proof” system — there is no reason why.

Solution: Introduce the feats system, for example, increased damage\vulnerability against the specific domain\class or the classic rock-paper-scissors scheme.

Problem 4

Similar(or even the same) skills have different icons. There is no point behind that, it only confuses the player and interferes with a quick assessment of the creature’s potential.

Solution: Every skill should have its only and unique icon.

Problem 5

It’s impossible to buy additional ether if you have not enough of it to purchase the rune in a fight. It’s the very moment when I was ready to spend another $5 and finally kill this damn Alchemist. But no. You have no ether — your only option is to tap OK and go all over again.

Solution: Allow players to buy ether during a battle.

Problem 6

Creatures do not progress in the battle! Oh boy, this is the most disappointing moment in the whole game. It hurts the idea of the grind so much. If I didn’t become at least a little bit stronger, if I didn’t increase my parameters for a couple of points, what is the point to fight? The only reason to keep fighting is the progress, approach to the goal, step by step.

One more problem here — every time you gain the same loot — 6 units of ether. That’s horribly boring. Why not add some random and give players at least from 4 to 8 units of ether, or even something besides the ether at all?

Solution: Creatures should gain experience in battles. Let’s say only survived creatures, but they must progress. Expand the loot variation: add a delta in the ether drop amount, add some consumables to the loot.

Problem 7

The game cycle tiles-fight is dead-alive. Every time after the same amount of tiles you goes to the fight. No surprise. That’s not thrilling at all.

Solution: It would be nice if the battle starts suddenly like a random encounter when you place the tile. Take a look at the Blood Brothers or the Honorbound as a great “PvE-PvP-Reward” cycle example.

Problem 8

You gain too few ether by selling your creatures. While the price to evolve one creature for 1 level is 200 ether you gain only 8 ether for selling it. It is very cheap.

Solution: Raise the selling price at least to 10% of the evolving price on that level.