Psychology in Card Hunter

I'm always kinda surprised people underutilize the psychology aspect, or bluffing, in a partially card game. A small trickery can go a long way, sometimes turn the game around. In order to reliably perform an outplay, understanding of opponent's actions is an important thing in most cases.

I want to start with the most basic stuff here. Namely, what Moving a character tells you.

In lower ranks (0-1,2k), first few moves are... really random. More often than not first few moves of your opponent are made to take the bigger amount of VPs or take one VP faster. Either that, or a bigger move, like Sprint or Sprint, Team! used mostly agressively, tells you that he wants to fight. There's also a possibility of them moving in such a way to be 3 tiles away from his allies but facing you. That can mean Defender's Block is at bay.

Priest move would probably usually focus on being in sight of his allies, so that priest can do his magic. In some cases priest moves in exactly range 3 of his characters. This can mean either Defender's Block, Cause Fumble or Inspiring Presence. A possibility of them using ranged attacks should also be in your mind, however. That should be told by slightly aggressive positioning, one that lets him aim his opponents as well as his allies if needed.

Wizards moving in are possibly trying to get into line of sight of your characters. Either that, or, higher in rank, they can just move to set up having you in line of sight later (moving forward, seemingly closer to VP, just to have you in sight). Mostly, after wizard moving, you can check his LoS (Line of Sight, from now on) to tell what he'll do. In case of him moving to have his allies in sight, he might be trying to do something with them - Telekinesis or Gusts/Winds of War to move them slightly further. Basically, Wizards can do stuff in-between warriors and priests.

Oh, and there's also Volcano. Sometimes signalized by moving less than possible, sometimes signalized by moving a wizard with Hover or Dimentional Traveler on him. So be vary of that.

Okay. Got all that? Good. Now it's time for an advanced version.

Doing that stuff despite not having any of the cards. Ergo, bluffing, tricking you into thinking they have it. Read all the stuff I just wrote and imagine yourself moving while not having anything worth considering, especially when it comes to moving aggressively.

Moving in with a warrior without a Parry might make you think he does have a Parry at bay. Or a Defender's Block depending on other characters' positions, and stuff like that. In other words...

Make your opponents treat the cards that they don't see as something YOU want them to think.

There are some cards that can be used to manipulate them into doing something YOU want them to do. But that requires you to SHOW THEM THAT CARD. For example:
- Duck in your hand would likely cause your opponent to use their weakest attacks first, buying you some time.
- Surestrike Blessing on your warrior would likely cause your opponent to move away from him.
- Bad Luck used on your opponent's character has chances of causing your opponent to back up if they have armor (with exception of armors not rolling) or blocks (if they have high rolls).
- Martyr Blessing, preemptive Impenetrable Nimbus or Force Field on your character should make your opponent think you have nothing to defend yourself with. Can be used to mask Frenzy Aura, Arcane Aura or Horned Plates
- Using a burst attack hitting multiple targets can cause your opponent to split his characters.

That's just some of cards that can make your opponent do what you want. Sometimes little mind games like these can let you outplay your opponent, by making him play your game, effectively throwing a wrench in their plans.

Be sure to suggest more things in this thread or share your thoughts on the matter.

 

1. Moving in linear positions with ref. to your character tells you that he has a Charge.
2. Hiding characters from wizards tell that characters don't have armor this turn or a Frezy Aura that they want to save.
3. If a player keeps on passing then he might be waiting for you to discard your hand as he maybe lacking a lot of moves and he wants to check this first.
4. A priest who stays 3 blocks from his/her warriors means there is either a Defender's Block, Cause Fumble or Inspiring Presence. In either case it is wise to not to commit your warriors in his/her 3x3 unless you have War Cry and/or Scamper.
5. A player who moves his Wiz way up confidently has a Heartripper on him.

 

My favorite thing to do back before I joined the dev team and decided to be a nicer person was, in a blesscano team, play cards like Ember Spray on empty squares, then chat 'oops' =)

(if no one understands why I can explain but volcano players will get it)

 

I always believe my opponent is bluffing. If they are, great. If not, I was likely going to lose anyway.

 

The first figure the opponent chooses to move is often very telling of their plans.

 

Maybe I'm too obvious in that sense but then again I've played some matches against players that in a sense "walked into my spider web"

 

When you move a warrior next to an opposing wizard, they will probably think you have attacks and either control you away or move away. If you have more than one warrior in your team, you can send in a decoy first to check for this before engaging with a heavy hitter.

If the wizard doesn't do anything, they are either have blocks or Toughness or Swarm of Bats, or are calling your bluff, or are bluffing, or are predicting you don't have lethal damage, or can't do anything. (You get the idea)

 

...or are likewise bluffing!! lol $X^ D

 

You can add Swarm Of Bats to that list.

I'm terrible at PvP, so I have to ask: Does bluffing work very often? It seems that between the randomness, complexity, and just plain mistakes that bluffing isn't very useful in Card Hunter. Maybe your opponent didn't recognize what you're pretending to set up, or maybe they are too focused on their own strategy, or maybe they think they have a counter to what you're bluffing, or maybe they are willing to eat the damage anyway, or maybe they clicked Pass by mistake.

 

Bluffing is most effective against the players that overthink their moves, usually that's everyone above 1500 rating. It won't work on players that are not sticking to a strategy.

 

Or are predicting that you do not have lethal damage, but just 12-20 damage in hand and are perfectly fine with tanking it with their still healthy wizard.

 

I always think someone is bluffing. Works more times than you'd think.

 

Or maybe he is unlucky in card draw and does not have the best possible card.

 

I think you're just explaining game knowledge.

 

>When opponent passes without moving then he has more movement cards to play (the basic ones u draw in every round),there is chance that he's buying time probably because he has a bad draw card,or probably he has good cards,but he has also one-two bad ones.
>He is stacking Lucky Charm or Officer's Harness
>He has a good draw,but probably lack of mobility or he misses in some other aspect so he wants to force you move first,revealing ur intentions
>If the enemy has more than one priest,passing without dealing any damage or even using any cards which u got,it's like gifting free hp to the enemy team.
>When enemy casts Bless ,there is 70% chance that probably he won't move any his characters,or at least he is not planing to,expect some cinrtumances come off.
>U can tell from very begining actually what strategy u are gonna use by looking at enemie's formation
Example:You won't throw your one warrior towards to 3 ones of the enemy team,expect if you have some mobility or you are 150% sure he will survive.
>good way to counter enemies with stacked parries is actually "ignoring",which means letting them hit 2-3 times (if u can endure) or if u can't buy time by healing,doing a frenzy or anything similar then just pass.
>warriors tend to keep parries and armors,discarding all their attacks.If they discard 1 gold tier one or more,then prolly that muscleboi has one parry or some kind of annoying armor.There's also the rare chance of saving extra movement.
>Don't forget always to adapt your strategy acording to current cirtumances,in other words,the number of stars you or your enemy posses.
U may win the battle by killing one of the enemies character's,but if u get slowed down enough then u may lost the war.
>Expect always the enemy having powerful draw.Believe me,it's better overstimating someone than understimating him.

 

So gary also pass when my warrior has missile block and is tanking his last warrior helping me to discard bad card easily.

 

my psychology is "if I don't even know what I'm doing, how can my opponent?"

 

And my Psychology is "If i don't want to lose why my opponent should want to lose?" i think my opponent will never charge me with a weak strike in hand since he want to win like me LOL more like he will have a strong hack at least or even a 13 damage attack