Let's Vote & Discuss: Single or Multiplayer? Campaign progress?

I'm not sure how I should answer the poll. I like the campaign the most, but I completed it (and treasure hunts) during beta, so since release I've been spending more time on my daily MP chest and actually the most time is spent on the forums. And these last few days I've been working hard on custom maps for the contest, which is one reason none of my SP chars are above level 5 right now.

 

I just recently completed the campaign and tried a few of the extra missions you get after doing it but have only done a half dozen or so multiplayer battles just to try it out and my group is at level 18.

I really should do at least 3 wins a day as the 2 gold chests are really nice but just spent too much time on the campaign.

Need to fool around with the custom stuff one of these days as it also looks very interesting.

 

I'm lvl 14 and haven't touched the MP - yet. I'm really looking forward for the end of the campaign and co-ops (if/when ready), but I'm sure I would try MP after I finish the available content and when I feel I have enough cards to get my own interesting decks together (which might be the main limitation with me jumping to MP). I think I might play the campaign again with a different deck to get more cards and because I went all dwarf on my first playthrough. I'm sure there's tons of stuff that I missed out on (although I definitely learned how to play well with weak movement cards!

 

I loee the campaign and I'm sure there's a lot more coming - Gary foreshadowed that Melvin had a level 50 character in one of the campaign modules, so I hope that at the very least that will be the eventual maximum level cap.

 

This is also supported by the fact that the power token system and the health tables already support levels up to 50:
http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Power_Tokens
http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Warrior

 

So far I've really been enjoying the SP game. Once I get finished with that I wouldn't mind dabbling with the creation tools to see what can be made.

 

Well, I did buy the treasure hunts, both in beta and restart, but while they do provide some nice items, only the Soulstone has been a must-have treasure-hunt epic for me - my wizard carries that pretty much all the time because walls. I'm only L14 in the restart, but in the beta I rarely lost missions until monkeys came. In neither beta nor restart did I get club.

If you didn't pay but repeated a standard mission of the same level as a treasure hunt, every time you missed a treasure hunt, I don't think you'd be far behind.

 

It can happen if the game is popular enough. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 had a ton of great user-created scenarios.

 

Posts like this make me think that it would be better if PvP had no rewards, so people would play because they enjoyed it or want to get a high ranking.

I mean, if you are grinding against the computer and having no fun you are hurting only yourself. But if you are grinding against other human players, and not in a spirit of trying to have enjoyable games, maybe you are hurting them too.

 

Then how would you get the items to remain competitive in MP? You'd have to spend tons of time farming the campaign, which people who play a ton of PvP don't want to do. And then any time you actually spend playing MP would be "wasted time" because it would be at the opportunity cost of farming the campaign so you could get more items.

Really, the MP reward structure is best the way it is. Instead of changing what's already there, I think it could be improved with some sort of sealed-deck type format with an entry fee of some kind where everyone gets items upon conclusion (how well you did determining how many/how rare they are), and some sort of regular (perhaps monthly) reward based on ladder ranking to reward people for playing competitively in constructed and to disincentivize intentionally tanking your rating to make item farming easier.

 

I hate the current PVP but I would play the hell out of a draft/sealed deck style mode. It would also give the devs another balancing point, if certain cards/items are too powerful they can just remove them from the draft or increase their draft rarity without effecting the balance of the other modes.

 

I love the current PvP, but I would love a draft-style mode, even if it was for casual games only

 

You are right of course. I was thinking of a game called Astral Masters I used to play, but in that there is no 'finding' of cards - everyone has access to all of them (they did eventually put in a two-tier system where a one-off payment gave you access to more).

In AM there was no motivation for PvP except to increase your ranking.

They also had a draft mode which was fun (everyone had to pick cards in turn from a random pool for the duration of the competition). BUT! the tournament element, even with only four players, brought about bad behaviour where many people who lost one match would stop playing, and then people who were supposed to play them next round had no game. I stopped playing tournament and played only head-to-head because I got so tired of this. Maybe CH could invent some sort of head-to-head draft option with several rounds to help avoid this. (At least if somebody quits heads-up it's over and you won!)

 

I really enjoy the challenge of the MP, obviously some times it's frustrating but the challenge in SP is minimal.

 

I'm mainly focusing on SP now. I mostly enjoy coop MP so pvp is not really my cup. Having said that, I was an avid magic player for a few years and so I am really looking forward to better items and enjoying the MP aspect of the game. The only down side about the MP, based on my very limited knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong, is that I need SP to get gears for my team going. So I guess I won't be joining MP any time soon...

 

I've almost finished my third campaign playthrough - one standard, one for the no-deaths quests, one for the drawback equipment quests. The single player is certainly my preference. I do the first MP chest every day, and I guess I do all right. Haven't cracked the top 100 yet, but I've been hovering right around there.

Really hate it though, I find the PvP in Card Hunter to be stressful. It's hard to explain that, since I do enjoy it in some other games. Think it might have something to do with the time investment - a single match in Card Hunter takes quite a while. I continue to hope for an alternative method to earn the multiplayer chests in the future.

 

Long story short, the more adventures you complete and lvl up in SP, the more available will be "unlocked" for you. Items have an (hidden) introductory level, meaning some items will never drop for you unless you get further in the campaign. Items you can buy in the npc shops are not influenced by this mechanic at all (but the prices will drop as you level up your SP party though).

The vast majority of the items kind of unlocks at about party lvl 6 to 10, but items which come with pretty advanced/powerful cards only gets "unlocked" as you complete the higher level adventures..

This isn't to say that you have to complete SP first for you to be able to play, compete and have fun in MP. In fact I pretty much played PvP while advancing in the campaign on the side.

But I guess knowing about these few caveats is going to help you better understand how the system works

 

Still playing strictly SP. I have 3 parties that I'm playing. My first is lvl 20, my 2nd is in the early teens and the last is level 8 or 9. My club membership expires today so I'll be concentrating on leveling rather than doing quests until I decide to renew my membership. I'm not going to for now since I'm sure my wife would enjoy it if I wasn't playing CH all evening almost every evening.

 

I'm still a SP fan, I have my third party advancing right now (trying triple Cleric out) and have attacked challenges much less fiercely than the SP campaign that first week I started. Replaying through about 12-16 missions a day and I have noticed a decrease in high quality loot returns compared to when I was dabbling with MP for the gold chests.

Still, I will say that a draft styled MP would be incredibly fun. I have greatly enjoyed sealed drafts in M:tG for years as well as other games and I always found the psychological side of drafting very thrilling.