It's been 10 years since the last online multiplayer Yu-Gi-Oh pvp game, Yu-Gi-Oh Online (2004-2012) was the last one. That game allowed players to trade digital cards and it had single elimination tournaments with up to 512 players. One could say that was the golden era of Yu-Gi-Oh. The game shutdown with 4 million players. It was shutdown because it competed with the real life paper card game as people were able to sell digital cards on eBay. Hence, Duel Links was created as a Speed Duel simulator which allowed Konami to profit from both the digital card game and the real life card game.
Now, we are in 2022, Master Duel has been released, but it is not an accurate reflection of the real card game. There are several problems:
1. No side deck - Every game is a best out of 1 (bo1). This is likely due to the fact that the average duration of a duel is about 30 mins. Even if bo3 was added, duels could take over 1 hour which would not be fun nor good for the ranking algorithm.
2. Custom banlist - The banlist used in Master Duel is neither the OCG or the TCG one. The card pool is also different. This is also likely that more banlists divides the playerbase and the queue. Having one queue pools all the players into the ranking. However, by doing it this way, they are not competing with the real life card game.
3. Gameplay speed - While the animations and graphics are up to modern standards, it has severely impacted the game speed. Yu-Gi-Oh is a card game that requires several different cards in sequence to reach a end game state. Fan-made simulators like YGO Omega have been able to balance the animations with the game speed. This is done because summon animations in YGO Omega are async (asynchronous) which mean that there is no delay or pause during the animations. The animations don't pause the timer nor cover the entire screen. In Master Duel, the animations cannot be disabled from Settings. There is one setting for disabling Special Summons, but this only stops a portion of the animation. Then there is just the animation of placing cards on the field itself. Master Duel also has added several confirmation clicks for each card. Normally, a single click is for selection and then a final click to confirm. However, in Master Duel, each individual click on a card requires its own confirmation. This leads to double the clicks. It has reduced misclicks but created a UI where the user may find fighting to use over the long run.
4. Alternate formats - The game is not just missing several cards, but also several formats. In fan-made sims, one can create a game to play any format. This appeals to all players, both casual and competitive. Currently, a player is forced to play competitive only in Master Duel.
There are however many good points:
1. Graphics - The animations for summons and attacks are beautiful.
2. Card crafting - This has surpassed even MTG (Magic the Gathering) Arena's way of acquiring cards. Most players can hop in and finish the solo mode to get sufficient gems to craft any 40-card deck.
3. Music - I think they hired an orchestra for this. It's truly magnificent.
4. Best official simulator for Yu-Gi-Oh - This has single handedly killed most of the other games like Duel Links and even the real life card game. During the pandemic, players now have an official way to play Yu-Gi-Oh online.
5. Solo mode - It's easy for players that are new to Yu-Gi-Oh or returning to use the solo mode to learn the rules. Only Konami could have made a proper tutorial mode with lore.
Overall, this was needed for Yu-Gi-Oh to grow. Games like Hearthstone have been around for a long time and are doing better than Yu-Gi-Oh, which has been around since 1998. The growth of any game requires the number of new incoming players to be higher than the outgoing players. This will bring many players to the game.
It's been 10 years since the last online multiplayer Yu-Gi-Oh pvp game, Yu-Gi-Oh Online (2004-2012) was the last one. That game allowed players to trade digital cards and it had single elimination tournaments with up to 512 players. One could say that was the golden era of Yu-Gi-Oh. The game shutdown with 4 million players. It was shutdown because it competed with the real life paper card game as people were able to sell digital cards on eBay. Hence, Duel Links was created as a Speed Duel simulator which allowed Konami to profit from both the digital card game and the real life card game.
Now, we are in 2022, Master Duel has been released, but it is not an accurate reflection of the real card game. There are several problems:
1. No side deck - Every game is a best out of 1 (bo1). This is likely due to the fact that the average duration of a duel is about 30 mins. Even if bo3 was added, duels could take over 1 hour which would not be fun nor good for the ranking algorithm.
2. Custom banlist - The banlist used in Master Duel is neither the OCG or the TCG one. The card pool is also different. This is also likely that more banlists divides the playerbase and the queue. Having one queue pools all the players into the ranking. However, by doing it this way, they are not competing with the real life card game.
3. Gameplay speed - While the animations and graphics are up to modern standards, it has severely impacted the game speed. Yu-Gi-Oh is a card game that requires several different cards in sequence to reach a end game state. Fan-made simulators like YGO Omega have been able to balance the animations with the game speed. This is done because summon animations in YGO Omega are async (asynchronous) which mean that there is no delay or pause during the animations. The animations don't pause the timer nor cover the entire screen. In Master Duel, the animations cannot be disabled from Settings. There is one setting for disabling Special Summons, but this only stops a portion of the animation. Then there is just the animation of placing cards on the field itself. Master Duel also has added several confirmation clicks for each card. Normally, a single click is for selection and then a final click to confirm. However, in Master Duel, each individual click on a card requires its own confirmation. This leads to double the clicks. It has reduced misclicks but created a UI where the user may find fighting to use over the long run.
4. Alternate formats - The game is not just missing several cards, but also several formats. In fan-made sims, one can create a game to play any format. This appeals to all players, both casual and competitive. Currently, a player is forced to play competitive only in Master Duel.
There are however many good points:
1. Graphics - The animations for summons and attacks are beautiful.
2. Card crafting - This has surpassed even MTG (Magic the Gathering) Arena's way of acquiring cards. Most players can hop in and finish the solo mode to get sufficient gems to craft any 40-card deck.
3. Music - I think they hired an orchestra for this. It's truly magnificent.
4. Best official simulator for Yu-Gi-Oh - This has single handedly killed most of the other games like Duel Links and even the real life card game. During the pandemic, players now have an official way to play Yu-Gi-Oh online.
5. Solo mode - It's easy for players that are new to Yu-Gi-Oh or returning to use the solo mode to learn the rules. Only Konami could have made a proper tutorial mode with lore.
Overall, this was needed for Yu-Gi-Oh to grow. Games like Hearthstone have been around for a long time and are doing better than Yu-Gi-Oh, which has been around since 1998. The growth of any game requires the number of new incoming players to be higher than the outgoing players. This will bring many players to the game.