100 Pizzas and the State of the Game...?

I've been playing for a few hours now with a party of dwarves. We are up to level 4 and just had some fun battles vs the Imps where we huddled together, keeping our HP up using cards like Healing Presence/Holy Presence/Triple Heals, while they kept there distance firing all sorts of magic spells at us. We did win comfortably in the end, corning the last 2 and finishing them off.

This was the battle that started to get me really excited about the game. I started to get a feel of the strategy that can be involved and how important terrain is. A brilliant and unique game. My 7 year old has just started an account. He loves it too.

So I figure, I'll recruit the other 6 remaining figures and level them up so I can build move flexible parties. I noticed that the level 1 adventures had gone (I guess as you progress you lose the lowest adventures) so I thought I could spend the next few days getting my new recruits up to par with my first party on the level 2/3 adventures and not progress the campaign anymore,

Then, I had a look at MP, watched some guy play a match on youtube. It looked loads of fun. Digging further I found these theme decks that you could buy. Traditionally in CCGs theme decks are weak and a bit waste of time but I wondered if this as the case here. I thought that I could buy the basic edition, use 100 pizza to buy a theme deck (which one?) play the campaign with that deck to get used to the cards/strategy and then jump into MP with a competitive deck and a good chance of being successful. Is that a good idea? I don't mind grinding but thought that would be a viable shortcut to get started online.

Which brings me to the last question. What is the 'State of the Game'? It's been going a year now. Is it growing fast? I'm a touch concerned about the number of members here.....only just over 5000 (there's only 19 on here now with 50+ guests). Why didn't the Rogue class make it? Are the developers making enough money to keep the servers going? I'll be happy to throw some of my money their way, but really wonder if this game has enough followers to survive and prosper. This is a truly great game. A unique blend of all that is good in this genre.

Love to hear your thoughts especially from Staff and CH Vets....Cheers DJ

 

The level 1 adventures are the only adventures that disappear (since they're more of a tutorial). You'll retain access to all the other adventures you unlock.

The pre-built teams are decent, and you could probably play them vanilla up to the 1100s or so. They can certainly be a fun way to explore different strategies, and then tweak them to your liking. Also, I think you still get a pizza drop during the campaign (at the point where PvP is introduced) which is enough to buy a pre-built team. Do still throw money at the devs, of course.

A couple points to note here. First, you won't be able to use the MP pre-built party in the adventure (except for level 17-18 adventures) because your characters have to level up through the campaign. You'll have all the items in your inventory, but you won't have the power tokens to equip all of them.

Second, SP is a great way to earn loot and figure out the mechanics of the game, but the AI opponents probably won't prepare you incredibly well for MP. You'll just have to learn by playing against folks.

The forum is actually fairly active, but the membership is quite global, which distributes activity throughout the day. The game itself will typically have 30 or so players in the MP lobby by my count. Been around since closed beta, myself, so I've seen plenty of folks come and go in the community. Always glad to see more players tho! ^_^

At the moment, there are ~1.5 developers maintaining the game, and they do give us quite a bit of support. There was a big content expansion back in May, and there have been a couple of major balance patches, too. However, the state of development seems to be turning more towards maintenance and infrastructure rather than new content for the forseeable future (as best as I can divine). Releases on Kongregate and Steam are in the works, and will hopefully bring in new players.

Well put!

 

Excellent...thanks guys....Zach and I have been playing the game all day...including a venture into MP....highlights for me include a Vigun's blessed blade found in the Wizard's workshop and Zach got a 1000 gp treasure in Highway Robbery...EPIC....

 

Well technically LEGENDARY!

Glad you're both enjoying the game, we're always happy to have good people joining the community! Looks like you've gotten most of your questions answered already, I'll just add a few more thoughts. If you buy any premade parties, the general consensuses is to go either with Tezkel Elves or Vein Drinkers, but obviously take a look at them and see what fits your fancy. The other thing is that from a gameplay stand point if you're only going to buy a few pizza based things, usually the treasure hunts (if you haven't seen them yet you soon will) and the club are considered the top buys. The premade parties don't give you anything you can't eventually get through game play, while the treasure hunts are only accessible through purchase and the club reward can be very profitable for building your bank of items especially early on and if you're playing a lot. That said, if finances allow there's nothing wrong with getting all of the above.

As noted before the development team is small, but they're good guys connected to the community and dedicated to the game, so while growth may be slow, it is consistent over the long haul and the small business model means they care about the game and the community rather than just pumping as much money out of the players as possible. This makes the game strong in so many little ways! Anyway, again, WELCOME!

 

Thanks, I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with the fact that the 'Card Hunter' has not sold out and made this a pure 'pay-to-win' game which I absolutely hate....on the other hand you don't want to under sell yourself either...its such a lovely combination of D&D and MtG.

Yes, pizza 'slices' will be spent on treasure hunts we think. We'll be playing each other online tomorrow...I've said his level 5 party can play vs my level 3 party...perhaps I've underestimated him....

 

Welcome, DJ and Zach! Just a note that in multiplayer all characters are automatically level 18 no matter their SP level and get power tokens accordingly. All characters can be used both in single player and multiplayer but they only level up in single player. If you purchase a premade party in multiplayer its characters start at level 1 in single player. Happy Hunting!

 

Mmmmmmmm Manticore... add a tart cherry compote and a glass of Riesling and wait what was I saying... oh yeah I like to play.