Development to Nowhere
Minion Masters is a game which came at the right and time and place. However, shortly after its success, development of the product went nowhere. It only introduced bloat to the game, balance became questionable and features got removed from the game rather than improved. Over time, its competition outmatched this game in every way.
📉Wasted years of development📉
After game got popular and pretty, its development stagnated. Developers were spending resources in features which they removed like PvE. A lot of effort was spent in things which doesn’t produce return to the gamers. Gameplay only got worse, its systems only degraded with time. Big tickets items like portability of a game took ages and it is still not here. Minion Masters is a perfect example of what happens to successful games when developers have no vision, passion or dedication to work hard towards their project anymore. They got successful after working hard and then they got complacent. A game with a decade long development has a PvE system which seems like a bad joke. It had far better PvE back in a day which got removed. Then years after years we were receiving more and more cards, but game never seemingly got finished. Its store got downgraded. Now it seems like a prototype. Its release on other platforms was very painful. It took ages to get released on Android. Game is still not available on Iphones and forget about steam deck or other platforms. Worse, it was downgraded during transition.
Different game modes also were never worked on or expanded. 2 vs 2 is as basic as it had started. No separate balance to ban some problematic cards there. No different rules. It is just one arena and one giant bloodbath. Draft however is in far worse position as you can just reroll cards which you get. This results in decks where players get perfectly constructed decks with which they steamroll draft. There is no that chaos, improvization which draft should give you. Game mode misses the entire point and is unattractive to players.
🕹️PvE🕹️
Game has laughable PvE system at the moment which seemingly was done overnight. You are fighting bots with random icons and thematic decks with ever increasingly ridiculous multipliers. In the end, you get overwhelmed through spawn. Rewards are also laughable. There is no context. Just pay for the content which was seemingly done overnight.Developers had a lot better and more fun PvE mode. Sure, it needed more work and wasn’t really all that good. However, it tied nicely to the primary gameplay loop. You play PvP and get resources. Then you get tired, you go to PvE meta progression mode and get more rewards and take a break from stressful PvP experience. Why it got removed is beyond me. Through all this time Rumble got developed and now there is a game which offers far superior PvE experience.
📋Inferior Gameplay📋
Through the years developers kept adding stuff to the game. New cards, new factions. On its own it was fine. Back then problems were slowly accumulating like balance issues and getting too much free value from too much card text. However, developers seemingly never done anything to address game’s balance and at this moment, it is ridiculous. Opponents can easily get 25+ mana pushes out in one burst. Cards have like dozen effects on them. On the field, everyone is glowing with myriad of particle effects. Minions freezing up randomly or are shining in various colours. I was completely lost to all of what and even as a game’s veteran who now spent over a dozen of hours playing this game, I just scratched the surface of how many ridiculous cards there is.All of this creates a terrible experience for an average player. He is getting constantly beaten by BS combos. He doesn’t feel that game is fair. This then results in people thinking that game is pay to win. A desire not to play PvP and try 2 vs 2 or Draft. Game matchmaking system is as basic as it gets, it matches you with people several leagues above or below you. Otherwise it keeps giving you bots. So, the experience for remaining players is bad.
📈 Reward System📈
One of a key problems which this game has is that it fails to reward players in a satisfying manner. Prices are often high. Rewards are feeble. However, you are getting them through your nose everywhere. This creates a situation where developers do indeed give generous amount of content to players, but it is difficult to appreciate it. There is a little bit through achievements, through store, through quests, through levels, through season pass, though grinding, through PvP ranks through PvE and maybe somewhere else. Game does give you scraps, but it fails to make you feel good about receiving it.Minion Masters had failed utterly on having its own progression identity. It rewards you everywhere, but rewards are heavily skewed towards people who win often thus making rich, richer. It is also not clear what a player has to do in order to progress. He is not being motivated to engage with a content and rewards are a mess. They are spread everywhere and there isn’t a consistent source of income for an average player to log in and progress towards something. Heck, you don’t get season pass progress for losing or even quest progress if you don’t play in a specific way which you might not like doing.
🦀Everything is unfinished🦀
After ten years of development, this game feels thoroughly unfinished. That is an impressive achievement on its own. All of its systems seems like being the first working prototype for internal development. Even in game screens have some informational codes for developers… Lets start from the shop. Nice icon on the arena got removed and instead we got a row of stuff which refreshed each day. You cannot even take a closer look at a lot of items which they want you to purchase. Then it is presented in an awkard line, wasting most of the screen’s space and making you to scroll through button presses. Or how this game rewards cards. Previously it had awesome spinning mechanic. Sure, it got predictable after a while, but it was still enjoyable. Now you just get your reward immediately. Like, why remove such a great feature? Clash Royale makes a big deal how you open chests. Rumble has a separate screen to show minions leveling up, gathering stars. It is all the part of overall package and here are these developers who choose to actively make their game worse…
A road to nowhere
Where is this ship heading? I already know the answer. This project is heading nowhere. There wasn’t a firm hand with vision and a whip which would force developers to work. They got lazy and distracted. They are focused on their new game. They wasted years on this game and used it as their piggy bank. Now as they finally ran down it for all its worth, they are scrambling to make a next source of income. I do wish to see more great games from them in the future, but after seeing what they did to this old classic and in that sorry state is their next game, I do have my reservations.
Lets tip our hats to this once great game. It is still playable and enjoyable, but it is nowhere as good as it once were. Its competition had surpassed it. Clash Royale has a better PvP balance. Rumble has far superior PvE content. Play those games instead as this one offers just inferior version of those experiences.
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