A lack of social features and client stability were my biggest gripes with Magic: Arena‘s 1.0 launch, but it looks like an impending November patch is going to address both of those to some degree.
Bound for a November update, Wizards is doing a “performance check-in,” which will encompass a whole lot of bugs like “gameplay hitches, FPS drops, memory allocation and crashes.” As someone who plays this digital card game on a top-end machine and has seen all of the above, these fixes couldn’t come soon enough.
The other big thing Wizards is toying with soon is adding actual social features to Arena. First up is the friends list, which will allow you to add other people, see who is online, then challenge them directly to friend matches (direct challenges). The development team is calling this the first part of the “social suite,” with more features like deck sharing and messaging to come later.
Another notable bit of their November fireside chat is that Arena is comitting to supporting the new beloved Pioneer format (a different way to play old cards) long term. It’s important to take heed of the wording: “This is a long-term commitment that will eventually lead to additional format support beyond Standard and Historic. Pioneer is one of the formats that we’re working towards, but it’ll be a longer journey before we can talk specifics. As we head towards that goal, we’ll be focusing on delivering the best play experiences that these iconic card sets can offer.”
Emphasis on “longer journey” here, it could be a long while until it arrives. But the fact that Wizards is trying to solve two of the biggest current problems with Arena and bring an actually good legacy format in (sorry, Historic) is good news for the future of the game.
State of the Game – November 2019 [Wizards]
Source: Destructoid Magic: Arena finally has a timeline for bug fixes and best of all: A friends list