Online vs. Physical Play

PumpedAaron

PumpedAaron

S Type Armor
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I've recently taken a strong liking to the official Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, and I haven't attended physical League in several weeks, perhaps months. What do you folks think of that?
There is a Tournament Mode currently locked, which implies that the dev team hopes to incorporate tournaments in the future.
Has anybody else extensively compared the game feel to online play and physical play? Assume there were no connection or game glitches, how do you feel about this?
 
I feel as if it is not the same at all. It is very different to playing with physical cards. One of the main focuses of Pokemon is to meet and make friends with people at events such as league. Also the market online is so different to the one in real life. Its OK if its different for you but its a personal thing.
 
I've always preferred the ability to play physically because of the instant feedback I can get. If I play mistake, I'll have 3 or 4 friends surrounding me who can point it out either during or after the match so I can learn, whereas online It's just me and my opponent (who's probably only focused on winning.) I'm also a muscle memory kind of person, so going through the motions with the cards as opposed to clicking a mouse is always better for me. I find that when I take breaks from TCG for school or whatever, playing in person helps me re-learn everything at a much quicker rate whereas playing online doesn't produce the same results. This might just be me because of my specific learning style, but that's the feel I've always gotten from playing in person as opposed to online.
 
I don't really see the benefit of Online Play unless If it's exclusively for playtesting purposes only but If you have non-existant LGS's in your area then it's understandable. If you are lucky enough to have one or more LGS's in your community then by all means stick with Physical Play cause in my personal opinion you don't get the same experience playing Online like you do in Physical Play. Why pay microtransactions for digital cards when it's better to own and play them physically? I can make the same argument about video games as well especially on a collector's standpoint of view.

This is also one of the things I currently hate about this supposed shift towards Digital CCG's like Hearthstone cause apparently the World of Warcraft TCG wasn't good enough for us where we had the best of both worlds with Paper and Digital. Just about every popular TCG/CCG in today's Secondary Market has both a Physical and Digital counterpart to them and that's great. The only popular TCG/CCG that springs to mind that doesn't have an official Digital counterpart to it would be Cardfight!! Vanguard which is a shame. As for me I'd rather stick to Physical Play than Online Play when it comes to TCG/CCG's.
 
Physical play. You lose a lot in playing online, as has been mentioned: no physical reinforcement of playstyle, no immediate feedback for mistakes, no true social interaction at all.

You also lose out on a lot of your opponent's psychology. There's no quiet slup of the shoulders when a bad draw happens, no brightening of the face when you pull that needed card from your prizes. A lot of the subtlety of Pokemon, and TCG/CCGs in general, is lost online. That's REALLY key to playing. I just recently started playing again after a couple of years, and I've been crushing the competitive Masters at my League recently because they've been playing online. They have no edge, no idea of how to react when something unexpected happens. In PTCGO it's fairly easy to get some of the better cards, unlike physically, where people have to make replacements or techs due to any number of reasons. The only reason you shouldn't have the card in PTCGO is because you haven't clicked your mouse enough times to unlock them. In real life, there's money, theft (yes, it happens), natural disasters, the United States Postal Service... any number of reasons you don't have that last card you need. And when that little wrench gets thrown into a PC player's machine, well... it's a breakdown.
 
Physical, it's much more appealing to me, as it suits my play style and something about having the cards in front of you in the flesh is really nice.
 
Hmm, those are some pretty convincing arguments. Still I do like that I can play the game more fully, without concerning myself with psychological warfare, theft, not getting cards, etc.


 
I hate playing online, and the only reason I do it is because I have no other easy access to playtesting since nobody plays in my area. The worst part about online is that it doesn't even fully simulate a real game; you can check what your prizes are in a matter of seconds and most people tend to not abide by a time limit. I'd prefer playing with real cards 100%.
 
PumpedAaron said:
Hmm, those are some pretty convincing arguments. Still I do like that I can play the game more fully, without concerning myself with psychological warfare, theft, not getting cards, etc.
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o.o The psychological part is one of the primary reasons I much PREFER playing IRL. It adds a lot more depth to the game.

I don't necessarily dislike online play, but I don't find it anywhere near as engaging, and stuff like lag and glitches can detract from the experience also.
 
Ohhh!

Well, maybe I'm just not so good at the psychological aspect of it. I'd rather just win or lose based on my interaction with the metagame, not just because Joe looked at me spitefully or whatever...

As long as you focus on the metagame, you probably don't have time to pay attention to that psyche mumbo-jumbo, though, right?

I'm also trying to argue assuming there were no glitches.
 
Tsukeo said:
I have to play online, because there are no leagues in my area. :((
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While I understand where you're coming from with that, my area only has 2 Pokemon Leagues (used to be a 3rd one by my house) one that's about a half an hour from where I live and the other about 2 hours away. I don't have a driver's license to get to the one that's 2 hours away cause I get distracted behind the wheel too easily plus my parents usually take me to those places whenever I'm off work usually on Friday nights and Saturdays while I mainly sleep in on Sundays after spending most of my money on the TCG/CCG's I play cause I have a $100 budget to spend on TCG/CCG's every weekend when I'm off work.
 
When I first begun playing I preferred online. Then once I felt comfortable with my skills I went out to leagues and participated. Slowly after that I realized that league was only good for casual games and good practice for basic mechanics like shuffling and cutting. Now I prefer playing online. I find TCGO as an excellent resource of facing a variety of different decks and I can learn from a number of different playing styles. Not only that, but with TCGO I'm often paired up against "famous" talented players in the community so it feels good to be playing against them.

Playing online gives me the ability to say and act however I want out loud. Recently when I attended a league challenge and City championship (Both which I got 1st place btw :p) I found myself in good and bad situations but I was able to mask away my emotions very well by just acting as if I were on TCGO. That included pretty much being all happy/hyper while playing and cracking cheesy jokes every now and then. I'm not used to going all "Darnit bad hand" or getting frustrated out loud online I usually handle it differently so I don't feel the need to reveal that emotion IRL. The only time I really let my emotions get to me is when I know I misplayed badly. That's when I can't help but shake my head cause I'm just really disappointed then.

But yeah, I feel like the online game is an excellent tool for me when it comes to serious playing and testing out decks. League just doesn't cut it for me with the happy atmosphere. Besides, the "top players" in my area are mostly those who play online anyways so I'm not missing much imo.
 
I prefer Physical play, but due to me not living near anyone else who plays the game around my way, I stick with online play (PlayTCG) that way, I can use my IRL Deck in it and still practice for any Tourneys coming up (though I do WISH that PlayTCG would add the Promo Keldeo and Full Art RC Mew EX cards)
 
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