Introduction and Description of Problem: Hi, i've been playing for a bit now, and after posting my initial feedback, i have finally had the time to sit down and write a suggestion or two. My first suggestion does target the instance which i would like to call "cardscrewed", a loan from MtGs Manascrewed. I have ended up in situations with my Warrior where i would only get attack cards, but not a single defense card. I am not sure how that turns out once you end up being level 20 something, but at least in the levels below 10, i have had many instances where i wouldn't get any defensive cards (Armor, Movement or Blocks). And while i feel this to be a most glaring problem as fighter, since you do have to be within hitting range to do damage, it can be quite harmful to go up against some of the enemies that already have access to cards like Bash and deliever 10+ damage against your <20 HP Warrior. But i also notice with my Mage i am eshewing the Utility Spells. Going with the Standard Setup of Warrior, Mage and Cleric, i find myself at a point where i avoid cards like Hot Spot, Maze or Shift. I am aware how useful and powerful these Cards can be, but they are very, very situational. In a D&D game they would probably be amongst those spells my Mage would have, as opposed to direct damage spells. Why? Because they are very useful. So now why would i use them in a P&P and not in Cardhunter? Well thats because in most P&Ps i have control of all my spells at all time. I would have shift available to me in the round i need it to be available to me. In Cardhunter, and this goes along the lines of the Problem i encounter as Warrior, there is no guarantee you have your utility spells or end up just with utility spells in a situation where they are uterly useless. Like a big open playing field where its pointless turning just a single terrain field into a hazard, since the enemy will just walk right next to it. While i like to have some utility cards in my deck, i find that the more items i get, the less the chance i have to draw those few utility cards. Proposed Solution to the perceived problem/Suggestion: So because of that, i've been thinking about it a little bit. Cardhunter is a game which bases a lot on luck. Random carddraws decide your fate in battle and of course that is part of its allure. But getting card screwed is no fun. Which is why MtG allows you to redraw your opening hand, just to minimze that danger. Now i don't propose to redraw the opening hand. What i would like to propose would be a class ability, inherent to the classes. Warriors could have the ability, lets call it stance, to trade a single card for another card. Just not any card. Warriors could have the ability to trade once a round one of their offense cards for a defense card. Trade a Chop for a Random Block, Movement (sans racial movement) or Armor Card in their deck, as long as there are no Armor or Block Cards in their hand. The same could work the other way around. Discard a Block or Armor card and Draw a Random Attack card. The reason why i included the ability to draw a Movement card and not include it into the restriction of disabling the ability, is simple. You can use a Movement card to get away from harms way, but having your racial move card shouldn't keep you from doing the swap. Doing something like this, would prevent you from being completely cardscrewed as Warrior. Of course i realize that this would devalue the use of Armor destroying cards a little, but it also means a single draw doesn't render the Warrior entirely useless for a round, either because you cannot risk getting close or can get close but only have defensive cards in your hand. Being unable to choose which card this will get you, keeps the random element. For Mages that ability would be "Meditation". Trade 2 Magic cards for the ability to select one Utility card from your deck. Unlike the Warrior, you get to chose which Utility card you draw, but for that you have to pay two cards. You could trade 2 Zap cards for 1 Telekinsis or a Hot Spot for example. I think it would require a bit more work on the Dev end, as they would have to decide which are utility cards and which ain't, but i feel it would increase the use of cards like Telekinis and Hazard fields immensely. I can definately see them being useful in a setup with 2+ Mages in the party, and it most definately would have to be tested with that synergy in mind as well, but i feel it would increase the use of these highly situational cards. You would be able, for a hefty price, to call a specific utility to your hand. You wouldn't need to rely on drawing that 1 card from the 40+ cards in your deck at the right point in time. Don't get me wrong, but even if you find the means to increase the number of Telekinesis in your deck (lucky loot draws) to 4 cards of 40, its still a 1 in 10 chance, and its likely you will end up with Telekinesis cards when you least need them. (And Telekinesis is a much, much less situational card than a single hazard spot) As alternative, you could call it Spellbook and allow people to place specific cards into that spellbook from their cardstack, before the battle. You'd pay two Magic cards for the ability to draw one of the cards you placed in the Spellbook before the battle. You could increase the Spellbook slots with the Level of the Mage as well. You start off with 1 slot and get 3 or 4 at Max level. For Clerics, well, to be honest, for them i would like to have the ability to trade Holy Magic into Unholy/Attack Magic and back. Trade a Weavering Faith for a Heal or a Healing Presence for an Entangling Roots card. A Misguided Heal for a Heal or the other way around. I'd call this ability Focus. Stance of the Warrior deciding to forgoe offense for defense (or defense for offense), Meditation representing the ability of a Mage to concentrate and instead of preparing two spells that round he conjures up a single spell from the depths of his mind. And Focus of the Cleric would be their ability to focus on either the benevolence or the wrath of their divine power.
That's not the way to use those spells. You use Hot Spot, Wall of Fire and the like right at the very end of the round, after the foes have already used all their movement cards. I've lost count how many fights I've won with those.
Listen to zalminen and also I'm starting to get a tiny bit tired of people wanting the random out of a random game. Its there for a reason in the long run its good for the game as it makes it much more interesting. The fact that you once in a while get screwed is part of the alure because it also mean once in a while you will get the absolutely perfect sequence of cards. If you get screwed too often then you need to fix your deck. If you can't fix your deck then say that tell them you lack the items and the ability to get the items to fix your problem. The solution to screws is not to turn the game upside down and it never has been and the reason that magic allows mulligans is because it uses resources and different costs. But also consider that if things are hitting you for 10 damage and generally drawing 3 cards per turn in case of those mobs then armor isn't the solution as you just barely have over 21 hp at level 10. So its not feasible to take those hits even with armor and blocks almost exclusively come on shields that's 3 out of 36 cards the odds of you having more then one in a turn is fairly low. I don't have anything personally against you so please don't take this as a attack towards you personally. But ideas like these keep cropping up once every few days and its getting annoying for so many reasons.
It should be noted that there ARE cards that let you draw specific cards already in the game - Attack Skill, Armor Practice and several others. Also, packing your deck with traits gives you a better chance to keep drawing the cards you want. You will be able to remove some of the randomness from your deck by using these - it'll be a payoff between potential power and bit better control. Though I appreciate the effort put into your post, I wouldn't feel it'd work with the current flow of the game. I don't consider myself a masterful player in any way, but I usually only have to replay once or twice if have bad luck. And as wozarg says, the rng makes the really good draws even more awesome. And like Zalminen says, using terrain cards is something you generally try to bait the ai to use it's move cards before you pull off.
We did think of and try a lot of ideas like this during development. For example, one early idea I had was that anyone could discard two cards to draw one more - burning cards you don't need to try to get more useful ones. Ultimately, though, we wanted to make sure a large amount of randomness remained in the game. Is it too much or not enough? That's definitely a personal preference and I'm always happy to hear more opinions!
I thank you guys for those captain obvious answers The point remains that they diminish in usefulness on an open field, especially if they have extended durations, compared to those maps where you can use them to block off a passage to your guys. They are also not the only utility spells which are situational and which i don't find all that useful to stack up on in the deck, because of their situational usefulness, and as result tend to be 1 or 2 cards in a 40+ deck. I don't think it defeats the purpose of randomnes to try to prevent situations which are just frustrating and based on a bad draw. Magic the Gathering, back when i used to play it (which was 1st and 2nd edition), they used to have the rule that you could only once redraw your opening hand. If the videogame is any indication however they seem to have even opened it up to the point where you can redraw your opening hand as much as you like, in order to avoid frustrating instances where you'd be card screwed and would be put at a server disadvantage because you didn't draw any lands to actually compete. While i like randomnes, i very much dislike instances where you end up in a situation fighting 2:1 or even less advantageous and ending up drawing in such a manner that one of your Partymembers is completely useless for a round (the worst i have yet encountered was having my warrior pull just armor, movement and block cards for 3 rounds in a row). Not because of some effect, just because you happened to have had a bad draw. There is nothing wrong with Randomnes, as long as it doesn't result in having your character totally be without options for a round.
Yes but after the opening hand you were still swaying in the wind of randomness in addition to one less card.
Well, I do find terrain spells to be very useful and usually use theim with great success - also, I don't have issues with their range? So I guess this is more of centerered on your playstyle, than how useful these cards are .
I don't think there is too much randomness. I find that by making careful equipment choices I can load the dice enough tip the odds in my favor. If I wanted to play chess, I'd play chess.
Out of curiosity, what level are your characters? I found that at lower levels it was a lot harder to control the random aspects because there were less options available. Case in point: you mention the lack of Armor/Block/Move cards for the Warrior. There are plenty of items that give Block and Move instead of "traditional" cards (Armor not as much). However, these don't really start showing up until you've gotten a bit into the game (I noticed it around level six- to eight-ish). Step cards in particular can be great for giving you that extra move. Also in regards to mobility, using an Elf or Human instead of a Dwarf gives you more mobility (at the expense of life). Every class has a set of "roles," if you will. They don't really become apparent until later in the game, which is why I ask what level you are. To call out a specific example you made, Wizards (generally) aren't glass cannons like in D&D. You can pretty effectively snipe with the ranged attacks, but it won't be for a ton of damage. Doing loads of damage is a role for the Warrior. What Wizards can do is snipe, AoE, DPT, debuff (specifically armor), and control (via terrain). Basically they're harassment. Hot Spot is great for late-turn sniping. However, it doesn't really help your other characters; Telekinesis can move enemies away or allies closer, Dissolve Armor helps your Warrior do more damage, and so on. In that light, your solution trods all over that role definition. Card-cycling is generally a role for Priests. Again, that doesn't become overly apparent until late levels when you have more options (Altruism, Inspiring Presence, Inspiration). There are some card-cycling cards for other classes (Attack Skill pulls attacks, for example) and Humans supposedly get some as well (though I have had poor luck with my Human Skills). The solution is already in the game - use your Priest to draw more cards for your Warrior and Wizard. It doesn't shine through at lower levels, but there is a lot of synergy between the classes. Taking advantage of that synergy is key to winning the later adventures, especially with a Warrior/Wizard/Priest character set.
Variance is what makes the game dynamic. Reducing variance means games will just play out very similarly each time. There's little fun in that. Occasionally, you'll draw little or no attack cards for a couple of turns. I don't know about you but in those cases I use all those movement cards I got instead to run the hell away. There's enough powerful cards around to reduce variance just with your deckbuild but if all you want to do is charge the enemy and mindlessly hack away, this game probably isn't for you. This game places a high value on strategy. If you play enough, you'll learn how the AI works as well and be able to better predict how the enemies will play thus improving your strategy. For example, all those huge guys (Ogres, Dragons etc) that have attacks that hit for 10+ are actually the easiest to kill. They're slow, clumsy and have easily identifiable vulnerabilities. Ogres auto-lose to Parry every time. The waste their action point attacking you. Then all your guys come in and unload. Also, being 4 squares large, they definitely lose to Wall of Fire or Hot Spot combined with Enlarge. Carlinian (the level 17 adventure super-boss) auto-loses if you trap him in a certain part of the board where he can't fly away. Load up with Parries and he's easy pickins. Every Wisp auto-loses to Resistant Hide (just run away until you draw one). Any monster with any form of melee attack can be maneuvered into using their movement cards to come to you thus allowing you to unload all your attack cards then run away after. Anyways, I'm rambling... variance can be reduced greatly with smart play.
