This week’s reportedly buggy revamp of the Elder Scrolls Legends online card game has not gone over well with the game’s active community.
Some backstory: Bethsoft announced in May that it was replacing the game’s original studio Dire Wolf Digital with Sparkypants to heavily reboot the game from the ground-up, with a graphics overhaul, “all-new code,” and console port tacked on for flavor. Everything from the UI and animations to frames and tutorials saw serious revision. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t touched was the gameplay; the card mechanics stayed the same, and nobody lost any progress.
The rollout happened earlier this week, but ESL’s subreddit is in uproar and rife with rumors and suspicion about the studio switch-up and the buggy client. The general sentiment is that the revision looks too cutesy, too much like, well, Hearthstone.
Sparkypants addressed the dust-up on Reddit this morning, saying its “teams are actively listening, monitoring, and tracking all feedback, issues, and bugs, including missing sounds from cards, choppy animations, card interactions, bugged daily quests, incorrect art, and more” as development on the game’s first big patch is already underway. There’s no ETA, but sounds like in the next few weeks is likely.
“In terms of the look and feel of the game, this refresh is by no means complete. It was never our intention to roll out Sparkypants’ new client and call it a day. We’re committed to making Legends a game you – and we – are proud of. This is the first step of a larger plan to improve the player experience, iterate more quickly, and deliver more content, fixes, and balance updates at a faster cadence than ever before. In the meantime, we will continue to address issues like the overall feel of the game, card mechanics, and UI flow. So please keep sending us your feedback and comments – we are listening!”
Wondering what all the fuss is about? MOP’s MJ Guthrie played the new version of the game earlier this week after the rollout and didn’t hate it, though she says she liked the “old scroll” feel of the old UI and can’t see the need for what the new studio changed.
