[SUGGESTION/QUESTION] Co-op loot

New player here -- two friends of mine and I started playing this game together, and we're enjoying it so much that we all bought the basic edition to support the devs. The only thing that's putting a damper on our fun is the fact that it's hard to equip a character through just co-op, and trading is impossible. Are there any plans to address that? If general trading is iffy due to the competitive aspect (which none of us are interested in), maybe at least allow people in a co-op party to see each other's drops after each mission and trade those items around so they can go to whoever can actally use them?

 

Welcome Korva! Limited trading in co-op would be pretty nice, but could still be abusable, so I doubt it will happen. Not my call, just an opinion.
Each player in normal co-op adventures gets the same amount of loot as a party of three, and the drops are improved for the Loot Fairy and Hidden Bandit. So the good news is you're getting 3 times the loot by playing co-op! The bad news is that the RNG tends to be unreasonably parsimonious and cruel for an unreasoning automaton. If the disparity between the items you get and the characters you play gets too bad, swapping race and/or class with a teammate is always an option.

 

Thanks for the welcome.

I think it's always regrettable when fears of abuse hobbles gameplay for the people who truly want to play together. Being more or less expected to keep a solo team levelled on par with the co-op character in order to switch classes around when the loot gets too heavily skewed against one's original character makes co-op significantly less viable. It's also kind of arse-backwards and goes against the "spirit" of normal co-op play, IMO. Plus, a part of Card Hunter's appeal is that most series of missions are quite short and don't require a huge investment of time. You can play for hours on end, but you don't have to, half an hour before bed is enough to feel that you made some progress. Basically, it's a fantastic game for busy people who want to connect with friends by playing together for a bit ... except for the frustrating inability to give items to whomever actually has a use for them.

We all do enjoy the game, and I've already played quite a bit by myself as well. This is just one issue that when addressed would make it even better.

 

I struggle to see how the loot in coop is a problem. Say your playing a wiz and all that drops is warrior items, even if you were playing solo you would still have the same problems and your wiz could also not get gear drop. If you let the people in co op decide who gets the loot what is stopping an experienced player passing all the good loot to a newer player. The thing that makes the game good is it is very hard to get gear. We all struggle regardless of the way we play

 

I will never agree with statements like this one. Though the rest of what you said is correct.

 

If I got all the gear I wanted in the 1st year of playing I don't know if I would have the motivation to play hard in the 2nd year

 

Two things, as has already been stated, the loot drops for Co-op are *never* worse than for solo, and for both the loot fairy and the hidden bandit, they're better. I'd also say you're lucky to have good, reliable co-op partners.

The other thing is that you're probably going to need to be flexible in your team makeup sooner or later. Some adventures are much easier with different party compositions; two wizards and a priest, two warriors and a priest, triple wizards and so forth. Thus, it's very much in the interests of your group to have as wide a selection of gear and levelled characters as possible. The earlier adventures can be replayed with alternate characters for loot and exp, and you can get a degree of satisfaction from seeing how you've improved your tactics, teamwork and equipment since you first played.

 

No, I don't have the same problems in solo play because no matter what drops, I have a character that can (potentially) use it. In co-op, roughly two out of three drops are useless in the context of the co-op experience. Can't equip them, can't give them to the person who could equip them. Even selling them once that option is unlocked barely gives any gold in return. That is frustrating, even though I'm a player who isn't motivated by loot at all -- I am, however, motviated by genuine teamplay, and to me sharing what someone else has a better use for is a logical part of any co-op experience. It's sincerely annoying to sit on an item that I know would be great for another player, especially if they've been struggling to get useful equipment.

For you, certainly. But different people play for different reasons, and I don't consider one more valid than the other. So what if someone else wants to give all their loot away? No skin off my nose whatsoever. It makes the giver happy, and the receiver, and the whole group gets a smoother experience. Everyone benefits.

I'm lucky to call them friends, but we got the game specifically for the co-op experience, so luck has nothing to do with that. Even if I was playing with strangers, I'd feel the same. And the loot certainly feels worse than in solo play due to the "can't use it, can't trade it" issue. When the warrior gets all priest gear, the wizard gets all warrior gear, and the priest gets a mix of stuff for the other two classes, we kind of sit there and facepalm.

As long as "easier" doesn't equal "necessary", it's unlikely we'll switch around. Trying to beat a challenge with the group we have is part of the fun, provided it's not too heavily skewed against us. As I said before: this looks like an awesome game that you can use to connect with two buddies even when you don't have a whole lot of time. I think it does take some of the wind out of its sails if you're not "supposed" to experience it like that.

 

The way the game is designed, the single player, Co-op, casual multiplayer and competitive multiplayer are all seamlessly linked. Loot you acquire in one context is usable anywhere else where you use your own characters, which excludes Mauve Manticore, custom games, and some leagues. The point is that competitive multiplayer bit: decoupling the competitive multiplayer from the rest of the game would likely be a massive blow to the game. Allowing item swaps in Co-op and then allowing that into competitive multiplayer would introduce a strong temptation for players to make arrangements for their primary team to get all the Good Stuff.

I don't play ranked multiplayer, so it wouldn't be any skin off my nose if limited trading was implemented, but those players help pay the bills, so I very much doubt any change will be implemented that is likely to cause trouble in that area.

I'm pretty sure there's no designed adventure (not including the CoC levels in this one) that's genuinely unwinnable with any single combination of race/class types, but equally, I do consider certain character types dead weight in certain modules. People with more experience (and better item collections) would probably refute every single example I might give, so I won't bother trying to give examples. Besides, half the fun is for you to find out yourselves, right?
One of the nice things about Co-op is that if you do try a module and fail repeatedly, it's a much less frustrating experience than failing repeatedly in solo play.

 

I'm not going to comment on the trading part, however just to clarify that as it stands currently that co-op does not do worse as regards usable loot for a team towards solo (even if more items go unused):

Suppose you have a team containing all races and all classes (in some shape or another). (If you duplicate anything, it will favour co-op loot over solo loot a bit more)

Ignore any equipment you're not able to use yet for simplicity as regards reward drops. Suppose that all equipment types are equally likely to drop (Pretty sure this isn't true, but it doesn't matter).

Let m = number of items collected after so many adventures. For co-op, this is for each character, whereas for solo, it is for all of them.

The number of usable items for solo party is m, as all the items are usable.
The number of usable items for co-op party is m+a small bit, as each character can use, roughly, 1/3 of the items they collect. Actually, they can use a bit more, on average, than 1/3, as there are some items which are common to more than one class/race (boots, shields). So, (1/3 + a bit)*m*3 = m + a bit.

The same argument holds for guaranteed rarity drops from chests (gold chests = rare, etc.)

So overall, the co-op party will come out (at least) a small bit ahead as regards usable loot towards the solo party. They'll have a lot more stuff unused, true, but they'll be able to use it on other characters if they decide to change. There is also greater variability as to whether they will be able to use the equipment or not, but not, I think, so much more that you need to keep a different character on hand to stay on par with solo if you are unlucky.

 

If i decide to play solo with 3 warriors can i have loot that only drops for warriors No matter what you run loot will always drop for other classes. The only fix to this problem is play the game more. Over time you will get the gear you need, That wasted item now is a gem later when you realize that you can use it, No single toon that you make will ever be viable for the whole game, you need options. The game is a puzzle not an adventure, you need to work out what to do. If you still find that your wiz is only getting warrior gear, why not in your co-op team swap roles around. You will need to keep 3 guys at least around the same level in your personal account so changing around to fit the gear that you have found could be an advantage, yes you might have to redo the same old adventures, but hey this is cardhunter, thats all we do anyway. PS been enjoying this topic, never heard anyone complain about something that I did not think was complainable like this before and had the topic last more than 1 post

 

The problem, as I understand it, is not about having the items you want, rather the impossibility to share the items you found and still call it coop.
Maybe something could be done so you can lend your items to other players when playing coop with them. Still, sharing one's whole collection would be problematic, so maybe it should only concern items you found while you were in this party? With that would come the need to save a party so you can still share those items the next time you play.
That would be a lot of work for the dev so I would not exept something such to happen anytime soon.

 

As a person who's played Diablo 3 heavily, I can understand frustration of not sharing loot (On pc, each person gets own loot, practically everything "l"binds to account" so no trading) and it's a game built on Co op. I haven't considered CH as a Co op game, but that may be because I don't have friends who are willing to stick with a game, which is exactly what you have to do with this game.
Wish there was a way to help out your problem that wouldn't be exploited by others.

 

I think it isn't just about having enough items to get by. It's about your priest dropping strongarms, your warrior dropping lavastaves, and your wizard dropping Bleneth's legendary items.
It would be nice if accounts could be flagged as "PvE Only", and only be allowed to play SP. (And ideally play non-constructed leagues, and be able to sign up for any league and not play.)
If this was implemented, having a "Give to <teammate>" button that only worked with newly found treasure in co-op would be ideal for Korva's situation.
Sharing a Sharl's Seconds in co-op might be easier to do. I've dropped hundreds of excess legendaries, and I've often wanted a way to get them to players who could really use them. This would upset the loot chase aspect of the game, however, so it's probably a non-starter.

 

I like the idea of somehow limiting trading to just co-op (like the lending or PvE-Only ideas), but just to toss in another perspective: I never changed my Campaign party when I played from start to finish. Human Warrior, Dwarf Wizard, Human Priest. Also, I role-played my priest to never use any Unholy cards. Therefore, for the longest time, any big huge awesome Elf Skill or Priest-only-item-with-Unholy was a mild disappointment which got sent to Skarl's. (Eventually, I joined Multiplayer and found use for these things -- like the Hand of Melvelous and Cautious Mobility -- and bought them back!) Note, though, it was mild because I knew if I had some other party make-up, I could find use for those things, too -- yet at least (so far as it went at the time) I could sell them to buy other things from the shops.

Nevertheless, for me, Co-op was just a new novel add-on that came later. I do figure it's an entirely different expectation when playing Co-op like that with friends from the very beginning to the very end. That, I expect, would feel more like a real role-playing group coming together with Gary GMing you. $E^ b Man. In that case, it would be nice to be able to flag something -- if not a whole account then any arbitrary party in the beginning of an adventure? -- as strictly non-PvP, (with a text banner-or-something on every Campaign party-building screen reminding whether it's PvP-compatible or not,) and all collected items from thenceforth receiving a special flag for when they can be used by whom, etc. Clearly, this would add a huge layer of complexity for one Mr. Jon to make the game keep straight, but I could see it adding to the Campaign experience greatly. (And, come to think of it, isn't the Campaign where most of the playerbase stays anyway? Hmmmm.)

I began this post with the plan to disagree with Korva, but it looks like I essayed myself into the opposite direction. $E^ D

 

Good to know it doesn't just happen to me. I think it can be caused by thinking something through.

 

Well, I walked uphill both ways through the Acid Pools and I'm not going to let someone change my mind with "perspective" and "reasoned debate."

In all seriousness, co-op loot lending/drop-giving sounds fun. I doubt many players would try the triple account hack, and even then the number of items is still vast and the returns on new loot keep diminishing. But it may just not be worth the dev time. My sister keeps showing up to 2-person co-op with an underleveled elf wizard (while I'm severely limiting my item collection) and we're still winning just enough to have fun.

 

It's a game, so fun is very important, but never underestimate the power of psychological addiction.

It probably won't be considered worth the time and effort, but might make the wish list. If the devs ever start adding flags to enable Peasant Mode constructed leagues and such, it might be as simple as adding another flag or two to include this.

 

I like the idea that if an item is traded in co-op that it stays a co op use only item.