As a long time D&D, MMO, and Magic player I am super super excited about this game. I have always dreamed about a game that brought D&D style tactical, turn-based combat to the PC. Frankly, I'm shocked it has not been done before. I am also souped that collectible card gaming has been incorporated, and the art direction looks phenomenal. Classic, classic stuff. This looks like a game that is shaping up to be an old school fantasy gamer's dream. I do have one concern. One thing about MMOs, D&D, and Magic that draws players to it and keeps them coming back is a sense of progression. Be it your character leveling or building a card collection, there is a tangible sense of growing stronger the longer you play. Card Hunter looks fantastic, and I think it has a chance to break a lot of ground that fantasy gamers like myself have been waiting for a long time to see tapped. However, I hope that that sense of progression is not lost. I want to feel a bond with my characters/party. I want them to grow, and when I use them online I want to feel relatively powerful the longer I play. Please don't sacrifice that sense of progression and attachment if at all possible.
Your heroes, in Card Hunter, actually do gain experience, as they complete adventures! When they level up, they gain new slots for equipment and abilities. They can also equip higher-level equipment. (And there may be a few other perks, too, that the designers can comment on, if they would like.) So, there is absolutely progression, in addition to building up your cache of fine gear (and the cards that go with it).
I think equipment levels were scrapped actually, better gear just requires higher slot ranks. Gold gears > silver gear > bronze gear > unranked gear. You get better slot ranks to put gear in the higher level you are.
Well played, Kaerius! Yes, you can find out more about the talent system, here: http://www.cardhunter.com/2012/03/borgo-the-talented/ In our current demo build from Pax, we still have a "Level" listed in the tooltips for gear, so I completely forgot that we have a much cooler system we're using now! In practice, the new talent system still absolutely addresses Time4Pizza's concern about character progression. It just provides much more expressive and interesting choices for the players than you would otherwise get from a straight-up equipment-level system.
Yes, it a nice way of maintaining that whole "everything about your character is cards" philosophy. Though I'm not completely clear how "bronze, silver" is any different from saying "level 2, level 3," when the both of you are trying to say "oh no, we don't have equipment levels in this game." Is there some other "equipment level" system to which I could compare it?
What makes it different from just straight-up equipment levels is that instead of asking, "Am I high enough level to equip this?" you are asking, "Do I have what I need in my talent pool for this item?" Based on how you prioritize your talent point usage, some of your slots will ultimately have more powerful gear than other slots. This way, there is still a value to keeping some of your lower-level gear around, and you will see much greater variety in character/deck builds coming to the table.
Oooooooh, I seeeeee. So, in other words, an "equipment level system" is literally "your equipment has minimum level requirements." Which I've always found weird and/or boring. In such games, you either have achieved your required level before you get the item, or you have not. Therefore, the "system" either has zero effect on gameplay (You're above the requirement! The "system" might as well not exist!), or it's an arbitrary wall that is hard to explain in-world (unlike, say, minimum strength requirements, where "strength" has a real meaning). So Card Hunter is better for not doing that.
Well I looked at the items and skill beads and such and I can say that it has really allayed my concerns quite a bit. I love how your team seems to be so in tune with what old school table top RPGers want to see in a tactical game like this. The leveling system looks very well done, and that means a whole heck of a lot. I want my toons to grow to the point they can solo one of those red dragons! Well, maybe not solo, but put up a solid fight. I also read the skill page, and I liked what I read at first. Again, spot on that gamers will want to see some differentiation between classes and races. But then that system was kind of scrapped, and now it looks like there are about ten slots, but only one for race and one for class? That is enough I suppose, but then again can a wizard equip all the same items a warrior can? I mean, if the items are what differentiate characters, what is to stop my wizard from equipping heavy armor and a war axe? So I guess now I am thinking about class distinction. If only one slot is devoted to class distinctions won't decks for different classes look very similar? It would be lame if each character's deck was 30 "vanilla" cards that everyone can use and only 6 cool class distinctive cards, like heals and fireballs. Perhaps a wizard COULD access heavy armor cards, but doesn't for synergy reasons?
I believe most equipment is specific to just one of the classes (probably things like boots are common to all). So only warriors equip things like swords, only mages equip things like arcane talismans. I think what you're focusing on is the slot labelled specifically for a class skill, that is, an ability that wouldn't easily be represented by physical item. If you think about it, Borgo's also got three weapon slots because that's part of his defining specialty. (Each of which gives double the normal cards, weapons are half his deck!) So far I haven't seen any good screens for the other classes; I've often wondered whether a brainy wizard-type might have an extra skill slot or two in place of the heavy armor and gauntlets. I had hoped that racial identities would have a larger portion, but it looks like I'm out of luck there.
The system you outline would be great. I personally would prefer some sort of class restriction on items, though I can certainly see others disagreeing. Some may want their wizard in plate mail. However, I would worry that if all classes can use all gear you'll see certain items, and by extension cards and abilities, used by all classes. That would ruin the joy of creating the perfect party composition. But even if all classes can use all items perhaps there would be compelling reasons not to equip the heaviest armor, such as an increase in spell damage provided by a robe or cloth gloves that provided an invisibility spell or some such. In other words, soft reasons not to equip heavy armor/weapons vs. hard restrictions. I think one slot for racial skills is pretty good. Again, just my opinion, but I do believe current MMOs have it correct in that racial bonuses cannot be game changing. I like them as a complement, not a defining feature of a character. Then again, say that three racial cards you get are real game changers. In that case, those three cards could be very significant, so there is a flexibility there in how important you want to make race.
I'm having a terrible time finding quotes right now, but I think you might be mistaken. Could you provide a quote in support of what you're describing? Because over in the skills diary, I see no "scrapping." Instead, "skills come in two flavours: class-based and race-based. So there are arcane skills (wizards), martial skills (warriors), divine skills (priests) as well as Dwarf skills, Elf skills and Human skills." These are equipable card suites just like equipment items, and basically all equipable things follow the same rules. Then, as shown over in the talents diary, skills and items are attached to your character using the talent system. You can attach stuff up to your limit of slots and talents. Importantly, all of those CHANGE. Again, I'm having a rough time with quotes, but just look here: Note how different the arrays are for equipping between level 2 and level 30. Assuming that these are even final arrays! I'm sure they're refining the sequence along with everything else.
Hey Sir Knight. So in the skills diary there is a sentence that reads, "Anyway, after much contemplation, we decided to cut this system and just treat skills like regular items. That is, you find them when adventuring and you can equip and move them around from character to character, just like you can with equipment items" (sorry, haven't yet figured out how you do the fancy cutting and pasting). I read this to mean that at one point there were skills for particular classes/races, and those skills were unique to your class/race. I could be wrong on that, but let's look at the current system cause that is what counts. So on Borgo we have 9 equipment slots, with three of those being weapons. Since weapons get 6 cards each that is 18 cards for weapons, 18 cards for all the other slots. We have a 36 card deck now. The potential issue I see is that only 3 of those 36 cards are tied to your class abilities? That wouldn't make much sense. I would think that a minimum of about 1/3 of your deck should be tied to class abilities, such as a cleric's heal or a wizard's fireball or a warrior's crushing strike. The vast majority of your deck is populated by items. There must be some limitation on the items to keep each class within their assigned role. Say I filled all seven of my item slots on my wizard with heavy swords and plate mail, well, now I don't really have a wizard at all; all of my abilities would be that of a heavy plate-wearing axe-wielding beast. What keeps a cleric being a cleric or a wizard being a wizard if the items are not in some way class restricted?
There may very well be class restrictions, and again I'm failing to find good quotes, but I CAN identify corrections to your post that I think make things more clear. The quote you gave is ABOVE the quote I gave, thus both quotes are true are neither is "cut." They explained how skills are treated as regular items (for EQUIPPING purposes), and then said that skills are unique for particular classes and races. I think you're assuming that all characters have the same listing of slots. That's what I tried to counter by showing the level progression, but let me be explicit here: slots also vary between classes. A wizard will not have as many weapon slots as a warrior, very likely won't have that "heavy armor" slot you see on Borgo, will have a "staff" slot or somesuch, and other variations. So when you say that exactly one slot is for race and one slot is for class, you're missing something: the ENTIRE spread of slots changes based on your character. It's just that Borgo here has one slot CALLED "dwarf." (Also, minor point: it's not true that "weapons get 6 cards each." Card suites can vary.)
Have you gotten back to the Classes Diary yet? I think that pretty well answers your question. When you're looking at Borgo's character sheet and you see three slots named "Weapon," that doesn't mean the other classes also have three Weapon slots. In fact, my understanding is that only Warriors equip "Weapons" at all; a Mage would have a slot(s) called "Staff" instead. So equipment items as well as skills are very much restricted by class in this manner.
Sir Knight, I have to call you out on that one. Jon wrote in the Talents diary: I suppose it is conceivable that some item somewhere has its talent cost balanced by the fact that it gives fewer cards, but the template is definitely three cards for one bead. It's part of the design to regulate deck size.
Ah, no I did not see the class diary yet. That explains it perfectly. So specific slots are for specific types of items, thus fulfilling class roles through the types of items that can be equipped. I was unaware that item slots had designations. By cut and paste I simply meant cut and paste the fancy pictures the way you do. EDIT: Wow, that class diary page nails it. Super glad they are making the classes distinct in such a way. The class page also mentions possibly adding a rogue class on top of warrior, priest, and wizard. That would be clutch, then all four archetypes would be covered, along with the three archetype races.
Then I am WRONG. WRONG. And I was talking about a different type of "cut," as in "eliminate from the game." But if you want to post images, you can use the "Insert/edit image" button at the top, or use "img" tags. For instance: Code: [img]http://www.cardhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Attack-of-the-War-monkeys-cover-490x270.jpg[/img] . . . Grants you a nice picture of war monkeys:
I am curious about lower level characters having fewer slots. That also means lower level characters have smaller decks. Making their draws more predictable, but also less powerful (since they have limited talent orbs). As you get higher levels and more powerful items, your deck grows. But, that in turn makes it harder to draw any specific card. The example using the dwarven warrior shows a mechanic where even if you haven't equipped an item, you automatically get a very low level item in that slot, thus filling his deck with low level cards. Competitive Magic decks are all about limiting probability issues by keeping your deck to 60 cards, using 4 copies of must draw cards and agressively using mulligans. Having the size of the deck grow on you makes it hard to plan around any specific cards, and I haven't seen any tutoring effects yet. Card draw can help you dig threw your deck, but it's not quite the same. Their developer diary talking about their internal tournament hinted at this too. When trying to build a combo type deck it only worked when they drew the card they needed, which didn't happen enough to be viable.
I dunno. I'm looking for discussions with "deck size," and can't find much. Except for a quote from Jon back in the comments on this diary, referring to the overall size across three characters. To whit: "Here’s one way of looking at though: you are building 3 characters with, let’s say, 12 slots each. That means you are making 36 choices of equipment items for your deck, which is as many choices as you are making when you are building a 36 card deck (slightly more than half the size of a Magic deck)." That's equipment items, of course, which is then multiplied by cards in each suite. So they're balancing for a situation that is already weird relative to Magic. Three decks under your control? Egad! Then the basic existence of card suites makes balancing the individual decks even wonkier. We have to hope that they are taking this into account in game design; and, on our side, we have to understand it will never play the same as Magic. In the end, I think like this. Suppose you get a new weapon slot and are concerned that it makes your old weapons less likely to get drawn. What if you equip an exact duplicate in that new slot? Hey hey, statistics swing in your favor again, problem solved! Except . . . then the weapons are more likely to be drawn relative to all OTHER cards in your deck. It's almost like they are ENFORCING a change in play as you change in level! Oh. Maybe they are, and that's the definition of the game. We can manage it as we wish by using duplicate items, but we can also see it as an evolving game and plan for the level changes in advance. Some day, we'll get to see how it goes in practical play.
