First off, the current model is great. This is not meant as a critique - only a humble suggestion. I suggest a mode of multiplayer where one has access to the same gear. Perhaps sell premade teams that cannot be altered , and allow them to battle others in a special Arena for naught but Glory. I do realise this goes against the whole gearing up part of the game. It's only because I find the game mechanics to be absolutely excellent, but the gear disparity to be pretty prevalent in my experience so far. Some people enjoy competing on a 100% level playing field, but may not have the time or perhaps inclination to grind out an entire arsenal.
Oh, I think lots of folks here like the "preset decks" style of tournaments. You'll find others who share your interest. I just don't have much experience in this regard, so I don't remember the words to suggest for you to go searching for the threads.
While I like the idea, I think with this sort of game it's rather difficult to pull off the sort of balance you're going for. If you have multiple decks that are preset, it's likely a rock-paper-scissors meta then. If you pick the right deck against your opponent, you'll have a huge advantage. If players have the same or similar decks, it then comes down to the random number generator as to who gets decent draws much more so than good play. Of course good play can overcome these issues (except maybe when it comes to me and dice!) and I'd like to see something like this, but want to point out the pitfalls of going this route. Also, you'll be splitting up the active multiplayer playerbase for multiplayer battles which could be bad until there is a large enough community.
From what I've played of the game so far it's clear that not only is the single player and multi-player excellent but also that there are going to be a lot of people playing it on release. One big issue whenever you add an additional multiplayer mode is you risk 'splitting the player base' ruining both modes because not enough people play the same one to build a good community. I think that this will not be an issue however as all evidence indicates a lot of people are going to be playing this game. My hope is that at some point a tournament style mode is released. This tournament mode might only be available for arranged tournaments or it might be a mode anyone can choose at any time. I think rather than having pre-built decks, instead this Tournament mode should have a pre-set card pool which players can choose from to build their decks. The cards available in this mode would be carefully chosen by the developers and continually balanced. The quantity of each card would be limited based upon either rarity, or developer discretion. Not all cards would be available in this mode, in fact there could even be a rotation with new cards being added and old cards being removed every 3-6 months. The goal of this Tournament system would be to design an environment where players can compete on a completely level playing field that still tests the key skills of the game. Both deck construction and match play are key skills for the card hunter experience and both bring much joy. This system would allow both to flourish, while still giving the developers a lot of power to monitor item/card balance issues. It is clear to me that Card hunter has the strategic depth of play to support high level competitive play, so I hope that eventually there will be an option like this that puts people on a equal playing field. As a note another perk of being a part of the club (paid subscriber) could be access to this mode, thus ensuring its economic viability through continual player investment. Also the existing multi-player mode of working on your collection and building decks from those cards should stay as it is, it's great.
Interesting. I was thinking about a MTG style draft where players picked and passed cards, or just got X number of (non treasure populated) chests to stock their deck with. Any way they go with it, I see tournaments with a restricted card list being a lot of fun.
