Experience and Characters Advancement

Just for the sake of discussion, I wonder if the developer(s) can tell us something on the characters advancement.

First, there is a character upgrade in traditional rpg form? Something like Level 1...x?
Second, single cards can advance or upgrade?(I played lots of Eredan in the last year and it is a very cool thing, seeing your gear, spells and so on become stronger).

My bests
Umberto

 

I would be interested in this but i don't think they are planning on leveling up cards in Card Hunter. It's not like Eredan or Urban Rivals where you have Colt the Fighter Lv.1 and you grind him up to get him to level 3. It's more like Magic the Gathering where you just keep getting better card, not how you grind exp on the cards so they become better.

This is what i think from what i have seen from the game so far but anyone can object to me. But I really don't think your going to get an Eredan experience in this game.

 

I'm betting character advancement is a increase in maximum cards required in a deck (like starting at a maximum of 40, and then being allowed up to 60-70) and an increase in deck building points for multiplayer. Probably have this tied to 'per character' so having a level five warrior won't let your level one cleric point gorge.

 

I don't think gaining new cards would really count as "character advancement", so I'm going to go ahead and agree that an increase in the number of cards you can hold sounds plausible. Could also be like some people have speculated and that cards will have separate point values, and you can have up to X number of points in your deck. As each character levels up (because it's seemed like it's possible to control more than one), they can hold more higher-value cards. My speculation tends to be wrong, though, so maybe if I think up a number of options, none of them will come true.

 

We haven't seen a points value on a card yet, though there's a hint the silver topped cards are 'not common'. I'm inclined to think of the deck size being an indication of advancement. Quite how this translates to the 'levels 5-8' on the front of "The Jewel of Alet Zhav" is another matter.

 

I honestly don't see a bigger deck size is a very flavorful method of advancement (which means, of course, that's what it will be). I mean, when you level up in an RPG (and I'll admit I don't know how it works in tabletop RPGs), your stats go up, correct? Either they go up by themselves, beyond your control (i.e. Pokemon or Final Fantasy), or you're given points to distribute as you desire between your available stats. Your attack goes up, your HP goes up, your defenses increase so you can more easily handle higher-level enemies (or be on an equal level). What exactly is the threat, both to you and your enemies, if simply you have a bigger deck? Sure, you could be holding more cards, which means more possibilities, but a deck full of weak spells is still a weak deck, unless they have some sort of cool interaction. Also, although nothing's been said about it, I'll imagine there is a limit on how many of a certain card can be in a deck?

While an increase in deck size is certainly possible as an outcome of leveling up, I don't think that's all there is to it. Just being able to hold more cards doesn't really make you tougher.

 

I'm fairly certain that rarity will play a factor in point value. The one concern I have about that is hopefully the point values aren't solely derived from rarity. Crap rares exist, as do power commons ^_^.

 

You have a point there. If they do implement a system that gives point value to rarities and you can only use so many points, then that means you'll have more space for the power commons, though, since you're not using the crap rares. I doubt they'll force you to have so many cards of certain rarities in your deck, so you can just put in what you find most useful. If the cards are common, you'll just have a ton of them.

 

The deck building dev diary says:

• Are a character and their deck defined by more than the gear they use? – Yes.
• Do different characters equip different types of items? – Yes.

The first part leads us into the land of the Great Unknown, where all sorts of character details could "advance." The second, though, gives a possibility: maybe there are classes of items you can only equip as you get stronger.

On the other hand, that doesn't strike me as terribly likely, since it could be displeasing to win some equipment prizes and be unable to use them for a long time. On the other other hand, this happens in RPG's anyway.

 

Nothing says gaming like a bank full of crap you want to use but can't, stuff you used to use that you like, and stuff that sucks but is neat. ^_^

 

Indeed, at least nowadays they threw us a bone and you can break down that bank full of doo'doo to make even more things to fill up the bank!

 

I just really hope the next Developer Diary is about the characters and Experience since that was the 2nd highest on the poll.

 

Ok sure, no problem Jon. Thanks for giving us the heads up. Better to give accurate information than something you would have to revise latter.

 

Lemme just drag in a quote from another thread:

This is, of course, talking about Inspirational Thinking. It gave me an idea that would be exceedingly painful to implement.

"Experience" has always been an abstraction to simplify the complex and ill-defined improvements that come with adventuring. What if one were to define those improvements? Maybe at different points in your adventure, you comprehend Superb Tactics, Multi-Pronged Strategy, When Weak Feign Strength, Master Say: No Be There, and a thousand other things which translate into card suites. It would be a form of character advancement heretofore unknown in gaming.

And it would remain unknown, because the designers would have a heart attack first. But I mention it because I imagine that "mental" origins may yet be "class-based" equipment, and it could be logical to allow them during character advancement.

 

That's not quite so unknown: the "Perks" in the Fallout series are essentially a simpler version of what I think you're describing. The Cliff's Notes for those who haven't played any of the Fallouts: at character creation and on level up, you can pick up various advantages called "Perks". These add various extra flavorful capabilities to your character. As an example, the "Finesse" perk increases your Critical Hit Chance, while the "Swift Learner" perk increases your Experience gain.

Something like that would work here for the characters and would mesh somewhat elegantly with the equipment system. A Human Wizard might start with the "Swift Feet" and "Pyromancer" Perks, which provide card suites that determine a good part of his starting deck: it'd probably include a number of Escaping Run and Fireball cards. As he levels up, he can choose some new Perks to add some additional basic cards to the mix, much like a wizard adding spells to his spellbook in a traditional RPG.

One interesting side thing to consider is how this would interact with deck-building. In order to make a perfect deck, I'd want to be able to choose my character's basic Perks somehow, and have some freedom to swap between them when I want to build a different "deck". Maybe I can go somewhere and "buy" a Human Wizard with the set of Perks that I want? Maybe I can easily respec my Wizard's Perks? Maybe part of the collecting game is finding a Human Wizard as "loot" who has the exact make-up of starting Perks that I like?

Note that there's a few things that probably wouldn't be determined by "Perks", like basic movement card and max health. I won't speculate further on that right now, having hit my daily quota.

 

Not quite. I'm aware of "Virtues and Flaws" systems, and "Feats" (disclaimer: I haven't played any contemporary D&D), and the various other setups where you select a character modification from a list.

I was talking about something like it, yes, but on an almost philosophical level: can you take every single strategic idea in the world and give it a name? Can you reverse the abstraction of "experience"? We have a card here that implies a mental talent; do the developers, then, intend to develop your mental attributes through play?

I ask this not to split hairs, but to make a commentary on one possible system. Suppose that you get a brief list of "Perks" when you level up. Okay, well, this is a card game with combinatorial deck building opportunities; are you going to be satisfied with being handed the same dozen "level-up bonuses" on every play-through? No, that's less versatile and less exciting than buying a booster pack. So my point is that such a system would have to be prohibitively complex in order to address all the things one could learn; in card game terms this would just be reinventing the wheel, and so the developers likely have something else in mind.

I did the very boring thing of bringing up my own idea in order to shoot it down. I hope this does not cause confusion.

 

"budoushi" is a spambot. "She" stole Rising Zan's words from the second post and re-posted them.

Good to get your reply, though.