My thoughts and tips on Steem Monsters Season 3

As we eagerly awaited Steem Monsters Season 3, there was a lot of chatter about how good it was and how people were going to love it, but is it really that good?

Well, I guess that depends on if you're a noob or experienced Steem Monsters player.

Let me explain.

Interface

The interface looks great and is definitely an improvement on last season. Steem Monsters is getting the design polish it deserves, so congrats to the designer.

But with the new gameplay it's getting really hard to deselect a card once selected, especially on a small screen.

You see to deselect a monster you have to hover over a very, very small 'x' which is only a few pixels wide. And when you're time poor it's easy to lose a few seconds getting it right.

And the issue is compounded when using an 11" laptop and trackpad or even worse a mobile phone. OMG!

The solution is to make deselecting a card easy by clicking on the card to the right side of the interface, just as you did to select it.

Click on - Click off. Simples.

This would certainly be a great UI improvement.

Gameplay

Noob Experience

The game experience has definitely improved, but for noobs it's a steeper learning curve.

Having to build teams on the fly, makes it harder for noobs to get their first win and a good game should make that as easy as possible.

You'll see most successful games almost walk the player through the first level to get them into the game. Perhaps in a future release, a guided tutorial for the very first game of a season could be warranted.
(Maybe the dwarf animation @flauwy made would work well in this instance)

And as most Noobs only have a starter deck, after the first 3-5 wins you kinda get thrown into the deep end as you move up to the next level.

Note: The matchmaker should always try to match you with a team that uses the same level summoner as you first, before looking for players that are actually in your league.

Level-1 to Level-2 might not seem like a huge jump to many but, suddenly you're playing against Level-3 commons which can get some cool abilities and extra attack or health points. Ouch!

Noob Tip: After you win your first match, hit the surrender for your second as you don't want to get consecutive wins and the double win bonus, and you'll want to stay in the Novice League as long as you can.

Win-Surrender-Win Surrender-Win-Surrender etc. At least until you get a feel for the game.

Experienced Player

The Experienced Steem Monsters player will actually enjoy the new changes as it has more of a strategy feel to it now.

Players can see what their opposition has played and counter accordingly.

But when players are simply trying to complete a quest, it's frustrating to let your opponent know you'll keep playing the same splinter over and over again.

And I've certainly jumped into a battle or two not realizing the splinter I'm playing for my quest is banned. Doh!

At this point, the interface really needs a surrender button in the team building screen so you don't need to waste peoples time.

Tip: If you're questing, use the surrender button plenty to ensure you stay in the league that matches your card levels. As being at the top of one league is much easier than questing from the bottom of the next one.

Overall, Season 3 is definately an improvement on Season 2 and it's going to be a lot harder to grind yourself into a position to get 30 free packs now (and so it should be).

My advice is to quest for the first 10 days, then aim to grind to the start of the champion league before seasons end. That way you'll still get 30 packs for the season and won't have to grind for days to make small gains on the leaderboard.

Of course, if you have maxed cards then your game experience is always going to be a lot easier and you'll always be playing with the best cards per league.

But at the top, it really does come down to your skill level.

Good Luck and have Fun!