A bit about myself. I'm very much a casual player (as I've said before); I don't even play one game every day. It's not that I don't like the game, it's that I just don't have time, or honestly the inclination anymore, to play games for extended periods of time. Also, I don't like playing multi-player in any game, not just Card Hunter. Accordingly, I'm clearly biased against CH's multi-player as well. When I play I usually try to get in at least one MP match so I can pick up the chest. However, I've found most of the time I end up losing badly. Honestly, right now I don't feel that CH offers enough in the Campaign to really hold my attention for overly long. Hopefully BM is working to add more varied content there. Finally, Pizza isn't an option for me right now; I recently completed a cross-country move and my financial situation is strained. So, given all that, what I'm looking for is some advice on how to enjoy MP more. My main concern is that it's just not going to be possible and I'll just have to write it off. Specifically, if the only answer is grind for more items (as I fear it may be) that's just not going to happen. I have limited gaming time and lots of other games to play. Again, not that I don't like CH, but I'm not going to do something I'm not having fun with. A couple of miscellaneous notes: Wall of Fire seems ludicrously potent in MP, especially coupled with Cone of Cold and forced movement cards. In fact, the impression I've gotten is that Cold is basically a requirement to win MP matches. Also, I suspect my rating is artificially high from being in the beta for so long (the AI is pretty easy). I'll probably keep lugging away, trying to win one MP battle, but honestly it's rather discouraging. There seems to me to be a catch-22 at play; you only get items if you win, but you can't win without certain items. Which leads back to the grinding again. Similar to my feelings on SP, I'd love to see more variation in MP matches. Different levels, more complex board layouts, more dynamic scenarios, and so forth.
I think your inflated ranking is likely your issue. Based on your skill and card pool power you should roughly be winning 50% of your MP matches. If you're above where you need to be, it will be hard to win even that one a day. While I don't like gaming the system, you may want to spend a little time killing your ranking by resigning games. In your case I think if you could get your ranking pretty low and then play your one game a day you should be able to get that chest. Note: I recently was testing to see how easy it was to do something like this. Getting below 500 ranking takes a long time (from 1000+)! The rankings seems appropriately sticky. I wouldn't want to encourage you to quit playing, but the game is about time investment (or money) so it might not be the right casual game for you unless you are really drawn to it for some reason and are okay with getting back to the 50% win ratios.
Hopefully the rating being influenced by playing AI opponents is just an artifact of the beta and not going to carry forward into the released game.
I'm much more into MP than SP. I think I win somewhere between 60-80% of the games. Higher than I would normally in an online skill based card game. I get paired up with low ranking players quite often (30% of the time 200 rating difference or more? Just a guesstimate). Since I also play less competitive MP decks now and again (because why not try out a whirlwind deck? Or a dwarven stonewall deck? A ignore the VP's and just cast firestorm from a corner deck?), I'm sometimes glad, because these fun decks usually put me at a slight disadvantage against a lesser skilled player (then I win 25% or so). So for my experiences it's fine. But my experiences are also colored. For lightphoenix I'd like to ask: 1. Did you unlock quests already? Did they add a lot to Singleplayer? 2. Have you considered not playing MP if you don't like it that much? 3. Would you prefer to be able to choose to play against the AI for the chest?
Also, I was able to start winning a lot of MP, only on a starter and 5 missions. Then I grinded a lot of chests in MP (also losing quite a lot). But it wasn't grinding, because it was fun. I wasn't playing solely for the chests. They were more of a byproduct. Also I'm not playing with any cold and although I usually keep one move card on each character in case of firewall, by doing that, I usually nullify all firewall damage except on rare occassions: And then they've spent so many cards that they might as well used damage cards instead. But it might help that I love cleanse and to have at least one, but prefferably at least three dash or faster move cards in any deck. Freeze rarely stops me.
Sorry for the lack of replies; I was away from my computer most of last night and this morning! I wouldn't consider myself a terrible player, but I think this really is my main issue right now. It's also why (to answer some others) I'm actually giving MP a chance instead of writing it off. I recognize that's part of the issue. It would be nice if there were an option to reset my ranking, however I could see where that might lead to some exploitation. I do like the game a lot, so there's that. I'm hoping with the next wipe I'll eventually be put in a more appropriate bracket. Not in the current beta iteration; they were unlocked before though so I had a chance to play around with them. Frankly, I find them relatively boring and uninspired. I would like to see these push the boundaries of board design a little more. The concept of an increased difficulty was brought up in another thread; personally I'd love to see some of the pre-nerf battles make a return here. Most of them were difficult but not impossible and required a lot more tactics/strategy. I'd also like to see more dynamic board design. For example, in cave maps maybe have random cave-ins every turn. In the icy maps, maybe all creatures get Encumber or random chance to Trip. For MP, one idea I'd love to see is a shrinking board; every turn the arena shrinks, forcing people together. I have considered not playing MP, however I do enjoy the game and the CH community isn't terrible. Besides, the SP stuff only lasts so long. I don't think it would be fair to play the AI for the chest; aside from the AI being very easy, the whole point is to provide rewards for playing MP, and thus keeping up an MP community.
Spending a little time getting into and then resigning battles will reduce your rankings and is likely faster than the beta reset.
If that was possible I'd be getting 4-5 bonus chests a day and an epic every weekend because I can beat Gary in my sleep. But right now it's nearly impossible to get an ai match because the matchmaker goes +- 400 or so points. And humans are much, much harder to beat; I've only managed it once (and my opponent was probably a newbie). I'd say the biggest problem is letting victories against the ai affect your ranking.
I'm not struggling with MP, but I'm certainly struggling trying to put together different fun decks that even slightly work the way they are intended. You need a heck of a lot of items to be able to pull that off.
