Loot and Legends

I've beaten the Single Player Campaign, which isn't as long as CH's but is largely the same though missing a lot of adventures around the level 14 and beyond point. The story is largely the same except the pacing seems confused at times, though I can't imagine most players care too much about that. There's some more enemy variety in two-parter modules like the two Trogs modules which is a nice contrast to some two-part modules feeling samey in CH. Overall the experience felt easier than CH since I got through &L without having to alter my deck to any match specifically, but I think that's a given since the intended audience for L&L is a lot more casual than CH's. It really starts off pretty slow but once you get some items you get to the meat of what makes L&L different from CH, which is the clearly defined and refined archetypes.

Even though you are stuck with a team of Elf Wizard, Human Priest and Dwarf Warrior, the archetypes do play very distinctly and allow for builds that still manage to feel varied and distinct. A Sword warrior is much more mobile and reliable than a Club warrior but can't do as much damage, while an Axe warrior can pull in and chop up multiple enemies at once. Halfway through the game I switched my wizard from a low-range, high-damage Fire build to a high-range, defense-oriented Ice build and the playstyle was completely different, almost opposite. Priests especially feel much more differentiated, they don't share melee cards with warriors anymore but gain Psychic and Alchemy archetypes, the former focusing on card draw and discard and ranged damage ignoring LoS while the latter focuses on attachments and heavy DoT with restricted range. The items you get largely dictate what build you can use, but it's fun to experiment and mess around with the archetypes once you have amassed a build. There's also a lot of interesting ideas with cards and there's much more variety with what they do, many more cards have conditional bonuses or effects or can attach to the caster upon attacking an enemy, which means you can make builds that synergize more explicitly than CH builds.

There's also way less dice rolling, most blocks and armor cards now trigger 100% of the time if their conditions for triggering are met and armor cards now degrade whenever triggered, dice rolls are now the exception rather than the norm and they mostly appear in the Electric Wizard archetype. It's up to everyone individually whether they prefer this system, but I liked the certainty of knowing I could rely on my blocks to work and my weak attacks to draw out and degrade enemy blocks and armor. You can also now retain up to 3 cards at the end of each round rather than 2 so holding out cards for some great combo is a lot more viable as a strategy here.

My biggest problem with the game is that once you beat the campaign modules there is almost zero reason to replay them, you get trifling amounts of gold and get no chests, so all you can really do is just play in the Arena against a team of 3 often incompetent AI opponents randomized much in the same way as your CoC party is. It's fun for a while, but the game really needs more SP content worth playing and repaying or some MP mode to really be able to compare with CH. And I doubt MP would be anywhere near balanced, since the cards being more varied and often interesting also means they're most likely not balanced at all. There's cards that let wizards draw up to 3 cards and discard ones not belonging to a certain archetype, in decks where >80% of the cards belong to a single archetype, including that card itself.

Playing in the Arena also costs gold, so I found the most efficient way to play the arena was to convert all pizza earned from playing in the arena to gold and maximize the use out of loot club membership earned by playing in the Arena at which point you can complete the weekly Arena in about one sitting and end up with more gold than you started with, but at that point you really don't even have anything left to spend gold on since there's no shop, gold only gets you more Arena matches or random common chests. Just like in CH, L&L's chests are a poor investment gold and pizza-wise.

I'd say that overall L&L is a fun diversion from CH with some interesting and fresh ideas that gives some perspective on what CH could be like if it did things differently, though I agree with the previously posted sentiment that the short campaign and wait-to-play Arena mean it can't be a proper substitute for CH in the long run.

 

Yeah, I really would have liked a mix of L&L's design philosophy (archetypes, less dice rolling, better card synergies) with CH's single player campaigns, economy, and multiplayer. Shame we'll never really get that though without major redesigns to either game.

Thanks for the write up. Interesting to see holding onto 3 cards per turn. Wonder how that would work in CH.

 

I was not interested in playing Loots and Legends since i had a feeling that it was just a less complicated copy of CH, but after reading your post i have second thoughts.
Like Stexe pointed out, the game design and mechanisms seem to be very interesting.

 

Run Forward Thinking and find out. $;^ b

 

Greetings:

Ive played Loot and Legends, and I'm wondering if the Card Hunter team has any machinations to incorporate any of Loot and Legends ideas?
For me, many of them add depth and interest. Such as...

...Clerics have cards that harm opponents or heal an ally, depending on whos targeted.
...Clerics have mind altering attack cards, such as Hypnotize, that after doing damage moves the target.

...Wizards seem even more centered on elements. Right away there were new Cold and Poison cards.
...For example, I like the Ice Javalin that does more damage after a certain distance.
...and the damage over time Poison spells.

...Warriors get access to some fun to use tactical cards, such as...
..."Hook", that pulls the warrior and the target one square closer to each-other.
..."Riposte", that does extra damage if an enemy card is stuck to the Warrior.

Then cards like "Stink Foot" that push all adjacent tokens one square away at end of movement,
and, "Call Out", that adds +1 damage to every attack against the target for one round...
...are all interesting, good ideas that add to the game play.

I think nearly all of the added game mechanics are richer than the standard Card Hunter experience.
They would add intrigue, complexity and build diversity. (In my opinion naturally.)

Its been two years, so I would assume the answer is "No.",
but Im hoping its not an absolute, and that perhaps later down the road some of the ideas could be blended into Card Hunter via new expansions.

Ni|

 

Ni|, interesting ideas, but 1. Poison might be considered too dangerous right now since it skips armor and you're not required to have a priest onboard in CH, and 2. CH priests already have Curse Of Fragility.

 

Oh, no doubt.

I didn't mean my input to be taken as though I assumed direct unmodified transfers were possible.
I was trying to express that some of the underlying concepts that are additional to Loot and Legends have merit to them that Card Hunter could use.

I don't know the relationship between Blue Manchu Pty Ltd and Drop Forge (now WG CELLS).
So I don't understand why so much content was allowed to be changed so significantly, for example, the total absence of dice rolls for Armor.
However, having so many fundamental changes allows for a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the two "methods".
It is my hope that the best of both will slowly find thier way into its twin over time.

Ni|

 

I tried to get some of the L&L changes implemented, but it doesn't look like they will. They games are ultimately very different. Basically the core concept was licensed to DropForge (WG Cells) and they took it and ran from there. L&L is designed as a single player experience only, while CH is both. Some elements wouldn't transfer well, but others could work. I was hoping the latest expansion added some cool new stuff from L&L but alas it was really just focused on a single player campaign around Acquisitions Inc. and Penny Arcade. I know Flax is currently doing some balance changes to the game, so many he'll look at what L&L did to "fix" some problems that currently exist with CH, but I doubt it will ever be similar to L&L in general.

From my own design experience I would have tried to merge the two, as I think both of them do some things really well but are lacking in other areas. But oh well, who knows what it would have been if that path was followed.

 

Is Loot and Legends available on either of the App stores? I played it this weekend on my iPad and told my friends to give it a try. (I had the app that I downloaded a long time ago) When they attempted to download it, it is not showing in the apple store saying that they need to go to the Singapore App store??? I tried finding it on another ipad and could not. I have done searches to try and find out if it was supposed to be gone but everything read said that it should be available on both. Even the links on the websites don't go to an app.

 

I haven't played it, since I don't have any proper device for it. But it seems that others have the same problem for about two weeks now. No response from the devs on Facebook yet: https://www.facebook.com/lootandlegends/

 

"At this time, Loot & Legends is not available to be downloaded for the first time on the App Store. If you have previously downloaded Loot & Legends and would like to redownload it, the following instructions should help you do so: Open the App Store on your device. On an iPhone, first tap Updates, then tap Purchased. On an iPad, you can go directly to Purchased.Here you can scroll down to find Loot & Legends or use the search bar at the top of the list. Once found, tap the download icon (a cloud with a downward arrow) next to it to redownload the game. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Alexis M., WG Cells Support support@wgcells.com"

"Unfortunately at this time I have no additional information about Loot & Legends in the App Store. Any new updates will be posted on our Facebook page so please keep an eye on that for the latest information. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Alexis M., WG Cells Support support@wgcells.com"

Seems really bad on their part to not explain what is happening and why the game isn't on any of the app stores.

 

Having worked on a game for 5th Planet that was closed down due to tough market conditions, this is sad news. But the reality is the F2P mobile device market is over-saturated at the moment. I feel their pain, it's tough for the players but when you have worked for hundreds upon hundreds of hours creating your baby, it's just soul crushing.

 

Yep. I was going to post this when I got home. The "Philly Game Forge" (a place where a group of indie devs in Philly would meet and work) just closed today too. Tons of sad news all around. =(

Really surprised that L&L isn't just coming back with an offline version for a few bucks. It shouldn't be that time consuming to have a standalone version that people can just drop a few bucks to buy and own. The whole F2P model is pretty risky and they didn't monetize it well (I had been saying that from the start). Oh well. Glad they are still around even if they are shutting that down.

 

Now that Loot & Legends is being shut down, are there any plans for a Card Hunter mobile app? I kinda drifted away from Card Hunter in favor of Loot & Legends because most my gaming time is while communing on the train.

 

Looks like the entire WG Cells / DropForge Games department was shut down. Really a shame. I didn't think they'd last due to the expensive location, large staff, and seemingly unsuccessful launch, but thought it would last at least a bit longer. Oh well.

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/wargam...ge-games-shuts-64-person-office-seattle-area/

Didn't realize it until I tried to check on the WG Cells and Loot & Legends Facebook page which both were disabled. =/

Wonder if the mobile rights to Card Hunter revert back to Jon now.

 

Didn't think it would be a success. The over-world map was much better than cardhunter, but the lack of replay-ability of previous maps, the astronomical costs of everything... the changing of cards for the sake of change, and seemingly no other reason.. the inflexible group/race combinations... yeah. won't be sorry to see the game go.

 

I think some of the card changes were neat and worked well. The diversity and strategy they brought was interesting. It also seemed to help the designer since he landed a design job at Riot Games, which is one of the most coveted roles in the industry (seems like he gets every job I wanted).

Either way, I think it was kind of niche for a mobile game and the economy system and overall gameplay design was flawed. Not much of a reason to keep playing it seemed and didn't have enough of an incentive for people to jump in. Plus, them having such a large team for only a few games made them burn out too fast. Shame too since it looked like the direction they were going was good.