Wall of text incoming. I tried Card Hunter back in about April last year and really enjoyed my initial experience playing PVE. PVP was quite frustrating as I seemed to be on a semi-permanent losing streak, but would only lose a few points of rating per loss and so would never seem to get matched against any easier opponents, while a single win would raise my ranking enormously. But that was fine, I generally prefer PVE games anyway. I made fair progress in the campaign until the second Demon Portal where I came unstuck and had to ask for advice. After a few attempts, I made it through and continued to progress more and more slowly as the modules got harder. Then, when I got to Cliffs of the Wyverns, I got stuck again. Thoroughly. I asked for advice in chat and either got advice that was useless ('use these epic and legendary items you don't have'), or advice that just didn't seem to help. I tried, tried and tried again. And I failed. I tried farming lower levels for better equipment, then tried again. After repeated failure, I did what any sensible human being would do and gave up completely. A couple of weeks ago, I came back and discovered that there was an option to play Co-op. So I tried that. Cliffs of the Wyverns beaten on the first try. Wow. And that was with me making dumb mistakes, too. And friendly people, too gently reminding me that I really should have passed that time. In no time at all, the base campaign is finished, lots of entertainment is being had, the loot fairy is once again a daily fixture, but I have also learnt so much about tactics, mechanics and deckbuilding. Then I tried The Troll Tyrant in Co-op. And we failed. And I tried again with another group later. And we failed again. And then a third time. And we failed. And the best thing? I feel only a very small degree of frustration. When you fail alone you either brood by yourself, or you walk away from the game and do something else with other people. When you fail together with good people, you laugh, you joke and you commiserate; it takes so much of the sting out of the failure. Tldr: Co-op removes much of the frustration of failure, teaches the game faster and makes it more fun generally. Best feature of the game, ever! As an aside, if anyone'd care to help me through The Troll Tyrant and the other high level adventures, I'd really appreciate it!
This. This. This. And just for history's sake, this was on the dev roadmap as far back as 2012 (http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/co-operative-co-op-ideas.240/). So yay !
I will admit that the game was getting a bit stagnant for those of us who had completed the campaign. With Co-op it allows us to help those who are in need of it which was an option older players never had. It is a blessing and a curse: Any XP gained by the person using co-op will be for that one character only and not a team, so over-reliance on co-op in the early game will be a detriment for them.
It's only a shame it took so long to get implemented. Oh, yay. I'm actually sitting on the fourth level of the Troll Tyrant right now, but it's not going too well for us. Well, I certainly appreciate the assistance, though I'm not *really* a low-level player. As long as players are happy to go back and use the things they've learned, the loot they've acquired, and maybe their higher-level character to replay earlier boards, it's still a good thing.
