Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5996974-20130426134845/@comment-1964873-20130426224543

Looking at it objectively, it's a balancing act.

On one hand, you have mobage's desire to please the long-time players who have shown the willingness to play day in and day out over time. These hardcore fans are necessary for the long-term stability of the game.

On the other hand, you have mobage's desire to draw in new players who have new sources of revenue to give to mobage. These new players may or may not be willing to "pay their dues" with low level decks, getting their butts kicked by the people who have been playing since the game came out and have all the power cards.

What's the solution? Make powerful cards available for purchase by everyone. The difficulty is making these cards desireable by both the new and old players. Hence what is known in the gaming industry as "power creep".

Every time you make a Card B that's inherently more powerful than Card A, you set yourself up to need Card C to be even more powerful. The usual solution is to make Card B similar to Card A, but vary the abilities. In Transformers Legends, the character cards don't have any abilities, so where the difference can come from is the weapons - make them where characters differentiate themselves. Have the "Pre-Battle" and "In-Battle" be more varied. You can even use these things to make the game more flavorful - make the Ranged weapons do more damage if they attack a back-row character, have a Infiltration class weapon do more damage if it hits a character it has previously damaged, etc.

Another route to take would be to introduce something to the character cards that will make each one more unique. Since Transformers Legends is a digital game, mobage is not stuck with people that own physical cards that they can't change.