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[theory]

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donnyrides wrote:
* cards becoming long worded with multiple abilities

The number of cards you can make for a game is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game, and the amount of space you use for card text.

Dominion is a very simple game, so it's all down to the card text. There are only so many simple things cards can do - the most basic ways to change data in the game, without "program flow." A lot of the simple things you can do, you can't do, because there's no good cost for the card given the simple cards already published, or because it's just too redundant given other simple cards. I did a bunch of simple cards right away, when simplicity was especially important, and spread out the rest of the ones I had among all of the expansions.

In the long run, the only way not to have the cards get more complex is to add components which the cards can refer to - Monument is a new simple card. That's kind of a trick though - the complexity is still there, it's just in the rulebook rather than on the card. And in general those kinds of components tend to lead to cards that vary in value based on how many of them are out. People didn't like this in Alchemy (though I strove to make those cards playable individually), so it's really only appropriate for a spin-off game, where you can just always have plenty of whatever it is.

And overall this is therefore a reason to stop making Dominion expansions (and switch to spin-offs, though I can't guarantee that will happen). I am currently "only" planning eight (Cornucopia is #5).

As it happens I disagree with you here about Magic. It's true that in the long run Magic will have this same problem - doing new things will entail making the cards more complex or adding rules/components (making the game more complex). However Magic started out with a mix of simple cards and incredibly complex cards; then they scaled back complexity; then they got nostalgic and wallowed in complexity again briefly; now they are trying to keep expansions simpler than ever.

donnyrides wrote:
* More powerful cards since the base release almost to the point of making other cards obsolete.

Well the most powerful card in Dominion, relative to its (actual) cost, is in the base set. Prosperity has powerful cards because they're expensive. The Cornucopia Prizes are powerful but hard to get.

In general it is true that later sets have fewer weak cards. Also the main set has a few cards that are the simplest version of concepts which inevitably seem better when they do more, like Workshop vs. Ironworks.

It's hard to make a Dominion card obsolete though. If Workshop is in this game and Ironworks isn't, it doesn't matter how much better Ironworks is, it's not an option. If you want to gain cards costing up to $4, you'll have to settle for Workshop. It only matters if both Workshop and Ironworks are in the same game, and well, even then, you may end up with both cards. I have certainly seen people open Workshop / Ironworks. Ironworks costs $4 and Workshop costs $3 and sometimes you really want to be doing a lot of Ironworkshopping. And of course lots of pairs of cards exist such that if one's out maybe you don't want the other, despite them not being similar cards at all.

In Magic, the most powerful cards ever are in the base set - Sol Ring, Black Lotus, the Moxes, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, Timetwister, the dual lands, Swords to Plowshares, Armageddon, Balance. What you can actually point at is how they've made creatures more powerful over the years. They wanted to make the game focus more on creatures and that's what it took.

donnyrides wrote:
* cards that cost 5 in base, if released in recent sets would cost 3 or 4. Similar to how old MTG rares are commons now

I think there's only one card in the main set for $5 that you can argue should cost $4. The others are clearly $5's, they would be $5's today, no question. That other card, I would have to test it, it might just be stuck being a weaker $5, or it might be okay at $4.

In Magic it's generally the opposite phenomenon that people complain about - effects that used to be on commons and uncommons showing up on rares. There are old rares that show up now as commons, but those are rares that never deserved to be rare, that really made no sense at rare.

So I disagree with you completely about Magic, and on two out of three issues on Dominion. It's true that Dominion cards are more complex now though. I fight it as much as I can. The October expansion is noticeably simpler than Cornucopia, though it still has some complex cards.