I was going to write a long technical list of Sword girls online's flaws such as high grind, boring economy, dungeons and slow gameplay. But, I realized, after writing about it, that it has a deep fundamental design flaw that is irreconcilable, while the others are just merely execution flaws.
Simply put, Sword Girls Online is bad at pandering to players.
Sure, its good at pandering to males, with an all female cast and cute 2D girls on almost every card. (Sentry's testimony, get out). However, it fails to pander to a specific player base.
What player base am I talking about? Why, the four fundamental MUD players!
Heres the link for those of you interested in a deeper insight into MUD text games, but suffice to say its a basic map to how to design an MMO. While the four player archetypes, achiever, explorer, socialiser, and killer aren't mutually exclusive, designing with a focus towards one playstyle can be. First, a quick rundown.
Achiever - your typical PvE player. Fastest leveler, hates PvP.
Socialiser - Guild leader, loves to interact and play in groups.
Explorer - Loves learning about the game and experimenting. Your game glitcher, and easter egg finder.
Killer - PvPer. Commonly a griefer, but can also be the one who fights only those who can fight back.
With this framework, we can easily see the problem Sword Girls has. Who does Sword girls pander to the most? Killers first, then Explorers, Achievers, and Socialiser. If you read the aforementioned link, you'll remember that a game populated with Killers is a very degenerative playerbase, which quickly drives out other players. However, even so, the game doesn't pander to even Killers that well, and even less to other players.
First off, lets look at the most basic of players, the Achiever. He gets to grind cards and look at them, and maybe even play them in his deck. However, his satisfaction is greatly diminished, with hours of grinding required for a deck, after which it takes a great deal of grinding (or money) to improve. Thus, Achievers are quickly burned out of the game, due to the level of grind and the relatively uninteresting PvE. Not to mention, that the Achiever has little to mark his progress by, not even a measly experience bar. Nor can he look to a stronger deck as proof of his progress, as higher advancement in a dungeon can actually provide worse farm.
And if you think about it, the cruel joke of Sword girls is that new dungeons are actually PvP events, which should normally attract Achievers, but also force them into PvP matches, making it actually more of a thinly veiled excuse for Killers. Yet these events are few and far between, making it hardly even a reliable distraction for Killers.
Now let's look at Explorers. While they have a nice playground to explore in, in the end, their ability to explore is hampered by vast amounts of grinding (or money) in order for them to experiement or explore content. The game is not designed through a robust set of rules, so Explorers are not rewarded for figuring out obscure game-breaking combos, or unusual and gimicky decks. Their only solace, is looking at new cards and theory crafting new decks (since experimenting can be quite cost prohibitive). If you were to put cards into a category of "strong", "weak" and "situational", you would find that the majority of Sword Girls cards fall either into "strong", or "weak", with very few in the "situational" category (most "weak" cards could be in the "situational" category, but the utility they provide are generally not strong enough). This is of course by design, in order to create an easy game and simple game, but at the detriment of explorers.
But, Explorers are probably the 2nd most pandered player, which would end up hurting the Killer playerbase, if all of the playerbase wasn't so badly appealed to.
Now onto Socialisers. They get more enjoyment out of sitting in the Sword Girls IRC channel than actually playing the game (Until they realize they could join any other IRC channel instead). 'Nuff said.
And finally Killers, the player this game should've been made for. Yet it even fails at that. Not mentioning that it fails to provide sufficient "prey" for Killers, but the PvP system as a whole, and the game design based around RNG, chance and grinding makes it a terrible environment for even Killers. The RNG makes it so that a less skilled player with a worse deck can sometimes luck out against a Killer. While skill does indeed play a major role in the game, you can see how random the game is when their "fairest" tournament is a ladder.
EDIT: Another important aspect I forgot to mention is that players can't progress their decks purely by "PvP" through "Fight". You need dungeon rewards (or money) to increase your deck power. Forcing Killers to participate more in PvE than PvP. Not to mention that opponents were so hard to find in "Fight" that an AI opponent was selected if it took too long to find an opponent.
What Sword Girls forgets is the basics of creating an MMO. While it's a master of human psychology, utilizing a variety of Skinner box tricks (ala Zynga), it ends up like any other casual clone, a shallow soulless game bereft of any enduring appeal.
I wrote this post so that many of you out there that might be interested in this game can stay away, or if you've already been a victim of this game (like I have) that you can come to terms why this game is bad and you shouldn't play it. It took me quite awhile to understand why I realized the game was bad, and it's hard to put into words until I took some time to think about it. Hopefully I've provided a voice to the frustration of other players.
