My opinion about rarity tiers is that the variation is small. I played a bunch so far, and was lucky enough to find some Epic-tier loots in chests, and besides the joy of getting something rare, I don't feel empowered at all. The items felt similar, so I am suggesting a few things. 1. The card tier could be organized better. Example, conuming touch is a rare, while invig touch is a common. There could be better tier organization of cards. Example: Weak Strike (common) -> simple strike (uncommon) -> Power Strike (rare) -> Expert Strike (legendary) Lunging Strike (common) -> Dancing Strike (uncommon) -> Nimble Strike (rare) -> Charging Strike (legendary) This Enables a good ramp-up type of formula for card skills. It is easier for players to understand (and remember), and it makes it much easier to make items for the game. It is also a formula used for (basically all) loot-based games out there, such as Diablo. Loot = fun. Now this can enable randomized slots. Example, a weapon have 6 possible slots. For lower level weapons, you can have 3 dead slots (something like paper strike, 1 dmg/1 range), and 3 random slots of common/uncommon skills. Then as the level and rarity of weapon increase, the slots open up, and rarity obtained in the slot open up as well. When it comes to rare/legendary/epic and up, what you can do is guarantee a slot of a really good card, have one random slot of rare or better, one slot of uncommon or better etc. Random loot adds a lot of fun to the PvE portion of the game, because let's face it, if randomization isn't fun, then casinos would never make money. Is there a plan for more randomized loot? 2. A special card should go on the Epic tier at least, if not also on legendary. I am thinking about a taunt, as a 7th card. This is more about the "BLING" rather than power. The Taunt is a card that allow you to use it, and then you draw a new card. You can choose not to use it, basically discard it and draw a card. What it does is it drops letters on top of the game board at the beginning of a match, it would stay for ~3 secs, then disappear. Give the epic loot some bling please, bling is fun to have and greatly improves player experience. I don't even care if you monatize this, I prolly pay for a taunt card be added to my epic weapon.
Uh, yeah... good points, but what kind of items have you seen in game? There are very high # damage attacks and I think you might be jumping to the wrong conclusions based on low(er) level items? Rarity of a card is not equal to power in this game rather than usally a sign of being more complex cards. Rarity of items, are more based on in it's card setup (more copies of the same card makes item rarer et c). http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/index.php?search=bludgeon&go=Go&title=Special:Search. Check out the bludgeon progression, the highest one - 20 damage, is currently not on any item ingame however. Also, an old dev diary about how CH uses rarity and power.
The first point is more or less about inventing a system to allow cards to be randomized on weapons. This promotes more uniqueness when it comes to loot, and players will be able to obtain not hundreds of different kinds of loot, but thousands, if not tens of thousands.
Sorry, random would not work within the design of the game. Every item rarity is based on what cards it contains, so while a good idea for other games - it won't work for CH. Just imagine the MP balance with random weapons... (and some people have issues with rng for loot as is, without randomly generated items)
The solution is actually simple. If you read it through, you will understand it fits very well with rarity, as well as making it a more easily understood system. As of right now, people are going to go by rare vs uncommon vs common, no one actually understand that the color of the card actually represent how powerful the card is. Also, for multiplayer, just follow a guildwars guideline, which is excellent. It allow you to customize exactly what you want to bring to the battlefield, so that when a player wins or loses, the player knows they lost because they planned the cards wrong. The rewards you obtain in multi-player can go towards more and more bling-bling rather than a chest with better item drops. I think it is excellent fun when you get random loots, but it should be in a PvE environment, while the PvP environment should be restricted to careful planning. Then you can have Casual (custom) Matches where you are allowed to bring in super rare PvE items. This way you satisfy the loot-hunters, the hardcore PvP players, AND the ones who wants to show-off the rare PvE loots. It also provides good oppotunity to monatize the game, and for people like me, who likes to support game devs, to support them.
