Observations 2

• Note these are based off of my game play, and as noted in a previous post I can be quite unlucky when it comes to equipment drops. I am currently lvl 10 for my mage (elf), Priest (human) and level 9 for my Dwarf Orange Road Cone [O.R.C] a.k.a warrior. All below observations are anecdotal and should not be construed as scientific (as I have no way of making it so). Be forewarned hardcore gamers, I am not one. I represent those who enjoy wasting a few hours playing a game. So if you are a hardcore gamer read my post with caution.

1) CONS:

Power creep for the baddies. Currently the minions in the levels around LVL 10 have HP parity or even exceed 2 of my “heroes” aside from my O.R.C. For the most part they hit harder as well. This may be a case of the equipment I use but it would seem my equipment has not stayed up with what I am expected to fight.
Ex. The weapon I have that does the most damage is a LVL 4 Mace of the Angry Novice with a 10 point card Violent Swing. Both my O.R.C and my Healer each have a few 5 attack cards as well. My O.R.C biggest HP card is Strong Stab at 6, which comes from a LVL 4 weapon heirloom Assegai (Zulu Weapons!). The Festering Zombies in Return to Woodholme enjoy a tasty snack of my hero’s when I visit them.

2)Uneven loot progression: In conjunction with the above example there seems to be a rather heavy tilt towards mages. My mage has had more loot than anyone else and for the most part is sitting quite pretty. With 4 hot spot cards (terrain, 10 hp) I purposely outfitted her to be mobile long range fire support and it works out. She doesn’t hit that hard (4’s and 2’s mostly) but the average is 6 squares or more away and an excessive amount of burning cards. The Avg level of gear on my mage is 8 while on my healer and O.R.C it’s a 5.2 and 6.3 respectively.
Ex. The highest lvl weapon I have is an Epic 7 Woodhome’s Wound. All of its attacks are penetrating (neat) but they are all lower output (AVG 3.6) and has no reach. Useful in certain lvls but nothing to write home about.

PPROS:

1)Game design: Simple and easily understandable and addictive. I am far from a computer gamer. As the game dev that knows me in the real world would say I love football and crossfit (as well as My wife, Artillery, the color red, and Shiner Bach) too much but for whatever reason I cannot take a break from the game. I simply enjoy it. Its easy to learn and when every I get stuck I can go back and think “this time I have it, I simply need a better turn of the cards” or whatever I tell myself to go back and play. It easy to pick up game play and after a few levels you have the basic skills needed for a few hours of enjoyable game play.

2)Artistry: Its simple but it has a lot to do with the above but heck this is my post. The cards, the maps the characters are simple but it adds to the game. I feel the artwork is simple, elegant and enjoyable.

3)Level Variation: At first when I learned there were “boards” for each level I was anticipating getting bored (ha I jest) with what I thought was going to be a repetitive slog through a dungeon atmosphere. Whichever one of you (or 5) laid out your dungeon board did a good job of keeping them interesting.

Overall: I enjoy the game as evident by the amount of time I play it. I think working out loot progression and working towards making sure the other classes get some updated equipment would go a long way to helping people out who are not hardcore gamers.
V

 

Sorry if this sounds like a jerk (between me not being in beta for a bit of I'm Jelly and also lacking in knowledge of said adventures), but both of your 'cons' seem appropriate for the situation to me.

1. You have characters who's equipping items 5 levels below the challenge, on an equal-level challenge, and having trouble...what do you expect? Or do you think 5 levels isn't enough gap to give you trouble, which would implies if you have any better equipments it'd be a walk in the park.
If anything your anecdote of your mage (with the 'best' gear of the group) doing ok seem to point that the other two are simply TOO undergear.

2. I have 3 possible explanations to this, all speculations.
-Random loo: your mage got lucky, the others not as much (and you got a lv 7 epic weapon for warrior)
-Selective memory: You're just remembering the bad moments and overwriting the good ones, try visiting the keep and confirm you REALLY have nothing for warrior/priest in that lv 5-9 area. (that lv 7 weapon seem to say otherwise)
-Blue Manchu IS making loots for wizards more likely to roll: Why? They only just added it, good time to have people find them and test it out in case something is bugged. It's Beta so you can expect such thing to be possible, once the actual release come this sort of hidden factors for the sake of testing probably won't happen (unless they're testing something else)

 

Cat,
All your answers are quite possible, I’m not what most people would call a hardcore gamer so as far as great “game” combinations go I’m probably lacking. For the last 3 days I did keep a log on the gear I got and the mage earned about higher level and more useful gear about 20% of the time. I would not say this is scientific as I am one man on a server. Its just observations.
What it amounts to is the usefulness of the weapons. My dwarf orange road cone (O.R.C) a.k.a warrior uses mostly weapons with reach to account for his lack of speed. While the epic weapons sounds great its damage would actually be less compared to the lower level weapons used on non-armored targets, mostly minions. When facing “boss” style characters, for instance the brass golem or the goblin hulks, you simply cannot slug it out with them. In one average turn of the cards they will destroy my O.R.C with hits that do around 11-14 damage. It is best to just avoid them and do hit and run attacks. Minions usually don’t have as much armor so its safer to get stuck in.
I have not debated that I have picked up plenty of gear, for instance I have two Long Axe’s of Retribution in my armory (LVL 7). I can understand if they are testing a branch of gear that makes sense on why I have seen more drops in regards to the wizard. What I’m arguing is that there is uneven progression. My lower level gear is currently more useful, thus it stays equipped. A lvl 8 set of armor for instance would have given my O.R.C two cards of 4 armor on a 5+ and a set of armor of 2 on a 3+. The set I currently employ has less armor but saves more, which in the long run works out as more armor and its lvl 6. Something to fix this would be to make lower lvl armor have a reduced save and a lowered armor amount. That way there is a perceived progression of the armor.
I make my living doing long range planning and finding potential kinks in the plan. My comments should not be meant to be seen as negative but as a way of looking at it from ones mans perspective in the hopes of contributing to make a better product

 

Ok, before I go into my answer, a bit of tip using this forum.
At the top of text box there's various buttons you can use to edit the text (well, you use italize for the item's name so you probably know of these buttons)
The set of 3 right most buttons will mark the text for card/item/entry in the wiki respectively, if you can mark these up it'll make checking for said items/cards much easier (although when I linked the lv 7 epic weapon I did use hotlink button)
Just highlight the text, click the button, and done.

for example, Fireball

20% more items in general can probably be contributed to luck .- . sadly without large enough (like, 1000+) samples it'll be hard to gauge whether there's weighted drop at the moment.

Your argument on weapons being situational is reasonable, because that's how it is. They don't want the highest level, legendary weapon to be end-all be-all option, they want variety. Such that the advantage of sacrificing the higher level can sometimes be outweighed by the gain from specific cards in the lower one's suites.
One thing I noticed is that, similar to how some RPG have a certain common 'magic property', the equipments can sorta be split into 'groups'. Such as weapon with focus on penetration vs chop vs bash, etc. And I wouldn't be surprise if there's a pool of equipments based on adventures too (so for example, you won't find "Kobold Killer" in areas that you don't kill Kobold)
So with that said, you probably didn't get the drops on those higher level weapon that fit what you wanted (like them Chops for crowds) so you might want to consider going back to find them (I don't think the wiki list what weapons drop where yet, so can't help you there)
Example of 'gear progression' I believe you were thinking of:
Hatchet
Cleaver
vs gear variety
Warrior's Axe
Enormous Cleaver
Nimble Hatchet

The two armor you got might belong to two different group as well (reliable type vs strong but unreliable) and they fill out different role.
Unlike WoW where raid boss can take several minutes of constant attacks to bring down, and as such the total amount of attacks make averaging the benefit of buffs considered the norm. In Card Hunter, a single strong attack + All Out Attack to kill an enemy in one turn can result in better situation than using 2 different attack to efficiently bring the target down in 2 turns. In similar vein, sometimes a single block that prevent 4 damage can ends up being better than block 2 damage twice.
So using 'averages' in this game isn't exactly a good idea (it can work depending on the decks, but using that number as a final value will just put you into...certain mindset)

Given more items, your idea of making deck with 'reliable' setups will be available for sure, but during this stage of adventuring, where each new loot is always welcomed and you don't have the luxury of gears to play how you please, you will have to face the 2 options when things don't work out:
1. Go back and find a gear that fit your idea AND is of appropriate level.
2. Adjust your strategy based on the gear that you DO have.

But hey, at least in Card Hunter, at least there's no permanent death or days of waiting for researches, so you don't have to worry about losing your squad permanently or having to wait while your enemy wreck havoc that might possibly result in irrecoverable damage because you didn't plan things out 20 turns ago.

 

Thread moved.

 

Hey there! It would not surprise me if you're noticing a glut of wizard items recently. That's because I'm in the middle of a massive item-creation marathon, and due to the vast array of rules and restrictions involved, it's much, much easier for me to go through slot by slot. The only slot I've substantially finished at this point is Arcane Items, so they'll be over-represented for a while. And due to various boring internal factors, the slot I'm working on now is Robes, so wizards will be getting even more love soon. But if all goes well, I'll do some priest and warrior slots next to even things out. In the meantime, you can sell off some of that excess wizard inventory and buy priest and warrior gear at the stores!

Sorry for any inconvenience.

 

Yeah, I can attest it seems a bit tricky finding weapons that deal good damage.
I'm currently at level 12 and I still haven't found better weapons for my fighter than a pair of Hefty Stout Clubs (a level 2 rare weapon with an 8 damage Strong Bludgeon plus Trained Bludgeons and Able Bludgeons).
For most of the game I also used Thick Club which is a level 1 uncommon with Trained Bludgeons and Able Bludgeons.

Actually I think I've seen a couple clearly better ones in the shop but they required a bronze talent which I don't have yet.
Most of the weapons I have gotten only have those various stabs and cuts which don't do much in the way of damage.
Or they had Chops but also had weaker attacks that made them not that useful on average.

For my priestess the weapons I've used for most of the game are two Club Of Wraths which are level 4 epics with two Violent Overswings.

Amusingly my priestess was also the one to find the first clearly better weapon: Big Stick (level 10 rare requiring two clear talents and includes a 11 damage Powerful Bludgeon)

On the other hand I've also found a whole pile of arcane items with Hot Spot and Wall Of Fire. This has made my wizardess the main damage dealer in many fights.

Checking the wiki it isn't that surprising though as there are currently 340 arcane items listed but only 135 weapons. Don't know how complete the listings are currently and I've also haven't had time to read through the wiki to check how many good weapons there are that I just haven't happened to find.

EDIT: Heh, ninja'd by Dorian.
Great to hear that there'll be more items coming in other categories as well!

 

On a similar bent: I've noticed that I have lots of good Weapons and Divine Weapons for all amounts of talents EXCEPT the 1-clear-talent level. That is: no talents, 2 clear talents, 1 clear and 1 bronze, or 2 bronze. Do I simply need to play more of the relevant adventures, or is there a dearth of awesome kill-you devices for 1 clear talent?

 

I just wanted to chime in, since I'm about the same level and it seems like we're on similar wavelengths regarding our parties. I too found myself generally under-geared, especially with regards to my Armor (see my Spear/Trog post for specifics). One thing that really helped me was to take a step back and look at the broad strokes of what I wanted my party doing, and make some minor adjustments based on that. For example, my Priest was trying to do too much, so I cut a lot of her attacks and focused on healing/drawing.

For dealing damage, my experience with Warriors is that you need to adjust your weapons/skills based on the adventure/battle. Warriors just don't work as generalists. Also, properly buffing your Warrior is critical; Frenzy and Traits (Penetrating/Impaler, etc) go a long way toward making up the difference. Unholy Frenzy is probably my favorite - one point of damage (if not blocked by armor) shouldn't make a difference in the long term.

For mitigating damage, I found that once I focused on a particular defensive strategy I started doing much better. In my case, I made an Elven Warrior specifically for the mobility, but I wasn't taking full advantage of it. After a couple of adjustments I found her doing much better in practice, even if it seemed on paper she was weaker. The key is not to try and do everything.

First off, I think Hot Spot is probably one of the best cards in the low-level game. I'm sure there are better control cards out there, but dang. Even if you can't kill an enemy, often you can use Hot Spot to make enemies move off the square - great for defensive control. That said, I think Wizards in general should be doing more damage; they have relatively terrible defensive options compared to the Warrior and Priest. Use one of the skills that boosts electrical damage to boost the long range attacks (and a soft counter to Blocks).

For Woodhome's Wound, again, you'll want to properly buff your Warrior. Impaler and Frenzy on top of WW will make short work of most armored enemies. Of course, if you're not fighting armored enemies, you'll probably want to go with a good club or spear instead. Again, for Warriors it's all about adjusting your equipment to the situation at hand.

 

Oh right, the question of "relative damage." If it helps, I tried to address that concern once before. Strategy, as LightPhoenix describes, is indeed the best bet.

 

Hotspot is insanely good early and when i played through the game before level 10 ish there was no attack doing over 5 damage for wizard and that was at range 2

 

At one clear talent, my warrior picks up Crummy Short Sword or Silver Rapier and I recently found a Piercing Pick that is already proving useful. But I don't have anything at that level for crushing damage that doesn't use Bash and drawbacks. (I feel Bash is overvalued, at least in regard to PvE, though I can understand its utility in moving people helps in PvP.) My priest likes Initiate's Glaive which is pretty nice with effectively six attacks -- I would equip two if I didn't also have Vigun's Blessed Blade. Still, it's not a very wide variety.

With regard to wizard/non-wizard parity, I just finished taking a party of warriors straight from level 1 to level 10 (for the Human Warriors challenge on Viscous Tombs). I was surprised by how easy it was most of the time, even facing enemies at an equal level who had baffled my earlier party of plus-level adventurers. Obviously drawing on my pool of items helped (yay Parrying Buckler), so keep looting and your chances improve. But better gear alone doesn't explain cutting down Strench without electrical resistance, or frost imps without long range magic, or any of the other situations where wizard abilities are "best." You learn as you play. Once I have a feel for what cards a given enemy carries and how Gary likes to roleplay them, it isn't too hard to outplan the AI. Not always easy because some plans also need the right cards to come up, but not too hard.

 

Interesting clear-talent advice. As to Bash: I've done a bunch of thinking about the "attack cards boosting other attack cards" thing, and it seems Chop and Bash are treated very differently. For Chop, you have to wait until you get Strong Chop to boost anything; not so with Bash, where the boost is available really quickly. Bash boosts 2 damage; Strong Chop only 1. Further, if you look at Martial Skills, Bruiser also boosts 2 damage, while Slicer only boosts 1.

When you consider that Impaler boosts 2 damage for Penetrating attacks, being a special kind of card that tends to be rather weak if you don't have the right circumstances (i.e., if you're not fighting armored targets), it looks like Blue Manchu knows Penetrating and Bash cards are more "specialty," and is giving you extra damage boosts to make up for it.

But getting back to talents: ugh, I just spent a lot of time doing quests at the appropriate levels (around 8 or 9) to get single-clear-talent items, and I've exhausted almost all of them without getting much of use. This is the adventure range where the things only have 3 quests, not 4, so it's even harder than usual to earn good cards! This bothers me.

 

I would say that penetrating attacks are in fact... truly mysterious to me - they outclass the damage of any other warrior 'category' on average - as long as you have at least 2 Impaler cards in your deck. However I'll try to cover this topic in much greater details later on, in a specific thread.

Edit: Bash 'category' attacks - they on another hand serve truly different purpose in my opinion.