First impressions thread

You know, lots of people are posting "first impressions" over in the "beta feedback" forum. Might this thread belong over there, not here in "beta chat"?

 

Been playing for two days or so now and am completely loving the game with a few minor gripes and quibles, many of which can be attributed to "this is beta."

The big issue I am running into is after pushing up to level 12 in mostly one night and then a little more the next day by kiting and working really hard to make my meager gear work against some of these harder modules. Decided to go back and redo a few lower levels the second day to see if I could find any new gear that may help me out only to find you get leveled down. I feel like I could somewhat understand this but it is horribly annoying to have to rework my equipment for each different old level because they offer different talent points.

Go ahead and delevel us, lower our HP, but could we please at least keep our talent points? Yes it would make greatly lower missions trivial... but the rewards are also trivial so what's wrong with that? It's nice to go back and be able to mow things down every once in a while to take a break from the kiting and praying for the right cards to make the more difficult levels work.

Either way still love the game, plan to keep playing either way just feel like it would increase the replay value in my mind, as it is I've given up on doing old missions now.

 

What about up-scaling the monsters, instead of levelling down players, to fit higher level players doing lower level stuff?

 

So as I've been asked in e-mail, I'm posting my first impression here.
And I want to apologise in advance for any mistakes in this post - english is not my native language, but I'll do my best

So... I've completed the tutorial campaing (the one with kobolts) and I'm pretty much love what I've seen so far. The game feels amazing. The idea of combining a tactic strategy with a CCG were intriguing from the begining, and after playing it myself I have only one thing in my mind right now - "I want MOAR!"
As far as I understand, there is 3 character classes right now. It would be great to see more later (for example rogue, ranger, necromancer, etc... I'm sure I'm not the only one who suggests that). And I wonder if there any plans on making a stand-alone game client? The game works fine in browser, but still it would be nice.
I'm not a huge fan of buying gold for real money though. It's not that it will give an unfair advantage as far as I understand the game mechanics... But it still bothers me every time I see it in a f2p game. Well, to be fair I prefer pay to play games much more.

For a conclusion I want to wish a success to this game and to the developers! Now, I think I'm gonna go back to Card Hunter...

 

Ah ha, if they're so trivial, why are you after them???

Joking aside, yes, you've seen how very valuable your gear can be at different power levels, but there's another issue here: all loot at all levels is worth the same amount in gold. A Legendary from level 4 is not only awesome because it has zero token requirements, but also because it sells for the same price as a Legendary from level 17. They did this on purpose, giving you a reason to replay all adventures.

Edit: Also, yes, changes in power tokens can be frustrating. Me, I'd like to be able to save a "main build," an "anti-Troglodyte build," and an "Ommlet build," swapping between them as I play different things. "Ommlet," of course, so I can scrounge up easy Treasure or whatever; "Troglodyte" so I can get valuable zero-or-only-one-minor-token items at the level 7 adventures. I play those a heck of a lot to get valuable low-requirement gear.

 

Theoretically monsters cards get better and maybe some HP as well,
and that's how you up-scale a monster/enemy.

 

Not sure you they programmed it, but something like I suggested with up-scaling monsters
would be easy to do, and very re-usable code ...again depending on how they program stuff

 

Just got into beta this morning ang I am loving it
The game meets every expectation I had.
Only downside: I started with an all-elf group and I dont see any light against Slub Gut. But I guess thats my own fault, since I am new to the game!
Will start the game over tomorrow with an mixed group, hopefully I will get along better! Multiplayer is a lot of fun, too!
I know, not a very helpful first impression, but I am just overwhelmed

 

Hi All, here some first & second impressions

First impressions: Great game. Played it for hours straight until I got to level 6. Good onboarding, nice progression, great and fluid interface. Nice graphics. Everything. One of my first thoughts was after playing card hunter for over an hour was "This will be one of the games of the year".

And then I stopped playing. I didn't really know why at first.
So here are some second impressions:

I probably stopped playing at "the gap" where the difficulty spiked around level 6-7. The other thing that happened there was that suddenly there were a lot less quests to do.
-The game suddenly required grinding. E.g. Redoing quests I had already done. That was not fun. Perhaps this can be solved by either making more quests or by allowing players to make quests (which then can be graded by players so you can always select a good quest to do). The game format lends itself very well for this. If you can only do each player-developed-quest once that helps a lot against quests just being made for experience points/loot.
-Due to the difficulty spike some design flaws became apparent. Mainly the too high factor of randomness which makes the player feel out of control sometimes. With the randomness being too high I mean the cards that you draw are too varied and unpredictable. I had one game where for 3 turns in a row none of my characters drew any attack cards - they got slaughtered. This is very frustrating as a player as it leaves you completely powerless. Other times you have only one walk card while you need two, etc. I experience a lack of control, but perhaps that's just me . I like to be able to plan ahead in tactical games. This problem could be solved easily by such things as: allowing players to keep 3 or 4 cards in their hands at the end of the turn instead of just two, with the limitation that you always need to keep two cards in your hand (so you cannot play the last two cards in your hand). This opens up more strategic decisions and planning. It also makes it more important to carefully choose which card to play and when (like in many other card games where players are resource limited like MTG) since you cannot play them all anymore in one turn.

Just my two cents. I just want to repeat: All in all, an amazing game!

Cheers

 

Follow up.

Somewhere around level 9 I couldn't make it through a module and decided I needed more options so I tried to level up another warrior and wizard with my priest playing helper. The replay was actually fun and made me try new strategies and item combos (fire vs electrical - chop vs penetrating - heal vs damage). This ended up making me a better player. I was a bit bummed to see that my priest wasn't getting xp on the lower level modules but I grew to like the mechanic. Why should you get xp from something you aren't learning from? Soon the wizard and warrior were at the same level as the cleric. Not long after I unlocked the next tavern where I could recruit level 10 characters and though - crap if I had only made it here I wouldn't have had to spend all that time leveling! It's funny I've never changed the party after leveling the new guys I just got better and made it through where I was stuck. I still play with those 3 and am up to level 15 and the wizard has more xp than the priest now.

I don't spend gold on much besides reviving the party or buying older cheap items if I find I want to switch stuff around and don't have boots or a shield that don't need a token in my inventory. Since I first had to do that I now only sell doubles and treasure and my inventory is crazy full.

I wish Card Hunter Club did something more. Maybe I just take that extra item for granted and\or haven't really gotten anything special out of it yet.

I still dislike Gary although whenever the bouncing animation of him comes up I think fap-fap-fap-fap and that amuses me. It's the fapping Gary animation now.

The Mom's feet were a nice touch.

-Andy

 

Got in the beta last Sunday and I've been playing rabidly since then. My overall first impression: holy crap, this game is awesome...you guys definitely have a long-term pizza buyer in me.

CH is kind of right in my wheelhouse because some of my favorite games over my long life as a gamer have been 1st edition AD&D, Magic The Gathering, and table-top tactical games like Battletech & Heroquest. Clearly this game pays direct tribute to both those games and the time period in which those games were in vogue. What I wasn't expecting was how deep and rewarding the "deck-building" / "loot-gathering" part of the game would be, and how seamless the integration between the tactical game on the board and the card game would be. Most CCGs I've ever played & lost have left me feeling simply like a victim of bad luck...I have *never* felt that way in a lost battle on CH so far, and in fact I've never felt the urge to resign a battle even when the odds aren't going in my favor, simply because I feel like the game rewards good tactics, smart teamwork, and wise deck-building.

Without giving away spoilers, the final battle in one of the campaign adventures has to go down in history as the first time a Flash game has ever made me cheer out loud. I got my butt handed to me twice in very closely fought battles before finally getting "the Boss" down to about 5 health. All I needed to do was kill him & I would win, but I was down a wizard, and the next turn I got no combat cards whatsoever. So I fled both my characters out of range of his nasty magical attacks, and next turn, through an amazing combination of cards, I managed to get my elf warrior to dash half-way across the field, get bumped once by my cleric, and put him in range of a lunging strike followed by a penetrating stab, which was just enough to ice him. Game over, gimme the epic loot. It was like throwing a Hail Mary pass to win the game.

Negatives? Not many. My first play sessions were over an unreliable wi-fi connection that frequently disconnected me in mid-game, causing me to restart. So I spent a lot of time on that 1st tutorial battle, and let me say I got confused a lot pressing the "Pass" button with the intent of making Gary go away, when in fact "Pass" ends your turn with no action. In general I think there ought to be an icon in & around the Gary portrait that terminates the banter if you so desire. Don't get me wrong, the banter is great. Just not so great having to read it on repeat visits...

Not sure I fully understand why the decision was made to separate the campaign characters from the multiplayer characters. Part of the satisfaction of the campaign part of the game is making your team the best they can be given their resources and their particular strengths/weaknesses. It would be all the more fulfilling if you could pit this same party against other players' parties. I understand why it's easier to force all characters involved in a battle to the same level so as to not put a potential player in a position where they have no chance against higher level opponents, but surely that could be avoided in the matching & ranking process. Incidentally, I have played several ranked matches already and have never been matched with a human opponent...Gary's MP AI leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall, let me say I absolutely love this game and I'm really optimistic about what is yet to come. It's brilliant as-is, but I can see the potential for it to be humongous.

 

Hi. Just played the Beta today. I am quite the fan. The feel of the game is great. It definitely takes me back to the days of AD&D that I used to play.

At this point, I have only a few annoyances:

• I don't always know what class the treasure is for. As a new player, I got a little confused on this issue. I couldn't find a quick and easy way to determine class requirements.
• Another problem I had was I tried to cast the cleric spell to increase melee damage on my wizard. My wizard has a staff but can't be the recipient of that spell. That needs to be better documented in the spell description.

Otherwise, I can't think of anything but good stuff to say, and that would be a novel size post, so I'll just say that everything else is awesome. Oh, and I loved the tutorial. The text was quite cool and made me feel even more like I was reliving RPG glory days.

 

That's what I meant. The slots. Took me a bit to get used to it. Maybe cover it in the tutorial a little?

I'll have to check his weapon. I only had the cleric and wizard left, and it said no target. It threw me off my game.

 

Oh here's the thread . MY impressions/thoughts from my first night:

First comment - login screen. I was a little confused if I was supposed to enter my character name or my email account in that first window. Figured it out quickly though!

Cards were easy to understand. Tooltips are clear and very handy.
The dice roll mechanic is a little confusing. I understand some rolls are success and some are not. A quick explanation? I'm a rules guy and I don't mind a little reading when I'm learning a new game.

The style of this game is very fun! I like a storytelling experience.

What is the point of the stars that drop when the monsters die? I keep wanting to click on them. The stars don't seem to have a point.

Is there any way to look at the card details for an item without equipping it? (Or buying it from the armory)

That was a very enjoyable first play. I got all 3 characters to level 3 and equipped a few items on them. I seem to be drawing more armor/movement cards on my warrior than I would like. I still need to figure out how to better adjust the draws for my characters.

Thanks!

(Edit)
Further reflections: I chose all elves for my first party (elf bias!). The elf warrior feels a bit weak at this point because of his lowered HP (not a problem, just how it feels.) I think his job is to mix it up and get close to the enemies, but he melts after a few rounds. I think he has died consecutively for the last 3 battles now. The paladin feels slightly useful, but I would consider switching him out for another sorcerer at this point. My elf socerer is super fun with her ranged attacks and high movement each round.

I visited the treasure chest shop as part of the campaign and the narrator (DM) gives you a few pizza so you can buy a chest. Most of the items in the chest were unusable by my characters ebcause they were lvl10+ items with requirements that I don't understand. I found that a little confusing. I think I would have been more excited about that feature if it awarded items that were only slightly better (and usable!) than what I was using on my party. Is the lvl range on those chests too great? (1-18?)

I really liked having boss-type monsters and minion type monsters to fight against. The variety of enemies has been really good so far! I'm interested to see what other kind of creatures I will encounter.