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(+2)

Hi, I've been trying out this for a couple hours and overall it works really nicely. The Studio makes managing the content much more convenient than plugin parameters would. 

I have a few questions and some feedback about the asset. All of my testing was done on a fresh project with no other plugins installed. I have a Windows 11 PC with hardware that can run modern games smoothly.

The Card Studio works well and quickly at first, but the more cards I add, the longer it takes each time to save the project or to create a new card. This delay also applies to creating any other sort of data, like creating a new deck or a new duelist profile, for example. On a fresh file it's almost instant. At around 10 cards it took a second or two, and at only around 20 cards, it takes around 4 to 6 seconds each time where it displays the loading screen before I can start editing the card. Restarting the Studio doesn't change this, only creating a new project. I'm wondering if it's related to the loading of the resources in the background, could it be the more card artworks are added, the longer it takes for the app to add new data entries? That's just speculation on my part, though, as the Studio app is kind of a black box to me.

The graphical editor for card designs can be very fiddly. Even if I lock a component and try to select and move/scale a different component that is only somewhat close, the app will only let me select the wrong component instead if there's even a tiny bit of overlap between the two. Even when fully zoomed in, this means certain components are almost impossible to select. It wouldn't be as troublesome as it is if the editor had an undo/redo functionality, which it doesn't seem to have from what I can tell. 

When playtesting and doing duels, the game lags during certain actions, usually when an animation is about to be displayed. It's not severe lag, more of a bit of a brief stutter. It would be nice to have this addressed as it makes the visuals feel pretty choppy a lot of the time.

A small visual issue happens if you activate a trap card, depending on where the camera is pointed, the trap card will appear horizontally mirrored.

Also in the Studio app, if you try to preview an existing card in a custom design template, it will always show the first created card instead of the one you chose as the preview card. This works for the default designs that come with the app, but it doesn't work for any design I edited.

Lastly I have a couple questions about current and future functionality.

Firstly, will there be a way to customize or at least properly rename the Star Guide system's terms? I know that it can be customized a little via UI-related plugin parameters, but for a future version of the asset it would be awesome if it was possible to customize it more. Similar to the types of Monsters, it would be neat if I was able to actually rename and add more Star Guides. Being able to rename ATK and DEF stats would also be nice.

Second question: Is it planned to have Monster abilities/effects? In Yu-Gi-Oh a Monster can have an effect, and it would be nice to be able to add effects to Monsters like you can choose effects for Spell and Trap cards.

Also, I noticed that there's placeholder text tokens for the UI params, would it be possible to have similar tokens available for card text? For example, having a placeholder for the value of a game variable or at least being able to define custom (static) replacement values in the Studio app. Come to think of it, I guess I could try doing something like this via the card design templates, but it would of course still be nice to have a text replacement functionality in the card texts themself.

And finally, I noticed that it's possible to define a portrait for a duelist, but is there any way to display this portrait in game?

Cheers, looking forward to your reply!

(+2)

Hello! Thank you very much for your comment and feedback! ^^

We are very happy that you liked it, and we truly appreciate you taking the time to share these suggestions with us.

I’ll try to respond to each point:

1- Regarding Card Duel Studio performance, you are right that the program’s performance may have been affected as the project continued to grow. We have updated the Studio to version 1.3.0, which should improve performance and provide a smoother experience. We invite you to try it and let us know whether this new version works better for you! :)

2- We are constantly making improvements to the Card Designer, and we hope to add those features in the future while also fixing the issues you mentioned. We apologize for any inconvenience or complications that may occur for the time being.

3- During gameplay, I understand that there may be occasional stutters or moments of lag. This happens because the RPG Maker MZ engine is not primarily optimized for loading resources and 3D graphics so quickly and intensively. Even so, we are constantly working on optimizations to improve performance and make the gameplay experience as smooth and consistent as possible.

4- Regarding the Trap Card animations, we will try to investigate and identify the situations in which this issue occurs so that we can fix it in the future.

5- Regarding the possibility of renaming ATK and DEF Points, we will consider implementing this in the future.

As for adding new mechanics to the Star Guide system, we will see whether we can introduce something more advanced in the future. We decided to use a Rock-Paper-Scissors system because it is simple to understand and easy to use.

6- We have considered allowing monsters to have effects. However, we do not want the game to lose the essence of the original title that inspired the system, where this mechanic did not exist, and we also do not want the game to feel like a direct copy of the current franchise.
We will see whether we can introduce something related to this in the future, but for now, this idea is currently on hold.

7- The possibility of having dynamic fields that use in-game values is something we had already considered. It is very possible that we will be able to add something like this in the future.

8- Regarding the Duelist portraits, this is something we have considered for a feature that we plan to introduce in a future version.
For now, they do not have any additional function beyond helping you quickly identify the Duelist’s design inside the Studio.

I hope I was able to answer all your points!

Thank you very much for your support and trust in the project! ^^

(+1)

Thank you for your reply! It makes sense that RPG Maker's performance for 3D content is limited by its engine, thank you for looking into optimizations nevertheless. I gave the new version of the Card Studio a try and it does run a lot more smoothly and doesn't have the long loading times anymore. The update appears to be a big improvement in that aspect. Looking forward to future updates to the plugin and app!