Patch notes 3.280.1

"I don't get how this is an improvement." That's my first thought. On second thought, I can see how someone would answer that it levels (pardon the pun) the playing field. EDIT: Ah, right, updates and improvements. You already noted that not all updates are improvements; my overstep there.

But now, what's the point of Renown? I loved the early RPG decisions of "should I spend the extra gold for this amazing item now, or wait until later when the shopkeep'll give me more of a discount because Cardhuntria knows more of my heroics?" (And, in a couple cases, I determined that the extra price was absolutely worth the improvement the item would grant my deck.)

Not rhetoric. Real question. What's the point of Renown now? $:^ `
(Just an empty pat on the back, or ~ ?)

Regards,

 

Flax has said on the discord that they have something better to tie to Renown in the future. We just don't know what they are planning yet.

 

Yeah, I've been reading through the Discord server for the last hour or so, and I just came across this:

Good. Grief. People were really, seriously looking at the renown/price relationship as a real money thing instead of a just play the game and level up thing?! ~exhale~ I'm having a really hard time not ranting at length about people's intelligence and critical thinking skills right now. Just gonna submit the post to end the temptation. Oh. Wow.

EDIT: Also, I'd forgotten that renown unlocked some bits of content here and there. That answers my question.

 

There are definitely people who see something they want, and rather than playing the game more to get it, will spend money to buy it. This way, that urge isn't artificially strengthened, and, even if they do still buy the items they want, they won't be spending such absurd amounts.

I won't argue about that it isn't smart, but it does happen.

 

Unfortunately it's true. People look at the gold costs, look at the pizza to gold conversion rate, see $100 legendaries, and complain. Which is like... fair, in a way. Jon and I never expected anyone to pay $100 for an item. We never wanted anyone to pay $100 for an item. That wasn't the point of the renown system, as I'm sure you agree, but it affects the appearance of the game ^_^;

 

I consider this a clear improvement. When I started, I took notes on every item I saw, and it drove me nuts that the prices kept changing. Pointless Renown is better than something that can actively harm new players.

Also, one of this game's biggest problems in attracting new players is that there are several things that make it look P2W (renown pricing, pizza chests, pushing hard on the club memberships and treasure hunts). Really, the game needs to hammer home the fact that players can get every card and item for free just by playing a lot.

Also, I've seen people already complain that the weighted loot drops aren't enough. But I don't think they realize that making it possible to pursue a specific item absolutely will make this game P2W.

 

I'm totally with PKB here! I don't follow the Discord-discussions, so I might have missed something here - but if you don't bother with posting such info in this forum, too, I don't care if I ask questions that got already answered - and the announcement that there will be something new tied to the Renown surely lowers my disappointment about this change a bit. But seriously, are you changing this because of the opinion of ranting teens that only see "money, money, money" and "what is my tool to screw over my opponent?" ?? If you bother with those types of players you're literally dealing with gambling-addicted individuals and despite the fact that it is easiest to make money out of those (in contrast to players who think before they act (or yell)) I'm convinced that they won't help at all towards keeping this community non-toxic. But you do you.

To just present another perspective: to me those higher prices were a clear indicator that I shouldn't even bother with those items at that specific point. Sure, some of the major-power-token items are very shiny and blinky, but a level 3 character can't equip them. So, what's the point in lowering the prices? My argument here would be: Why not hide those items in these early stages all together (at least in the campaign mode)? Next, you change the item sell value to the buy price because the same individuals complain why they lose money on buying and selling (what appears to them as) unusable trash???

@Kalin: As with every game (or any software in general), information might not reach everyone. The information that the prices fall with your Renown might be hidden a bit / you might be able to overlook this text box (by accident). So, you could address this with more and better hints. (I don't have anything specific in mind, I just mean, there is always room for improvements.) I really can't remember anymore, why this never made me wonder. I might have seen other YouTubers play this game before I started and learnt it that way or I just read each text box obsessively.

 

Unfortunately, bad reviews can scare good players away, especially when such reviews are filled with erroneous info making it sound like the reviewer actually knows what one's talking about. I understand TKoU's mentality re: that, disappointing as it may be. I prefer to judge things on my own (e.g. I recently learned (via having the time to watch it finally) that The Green Lantern is not the hot garbage everyone has bemoaned for the last decade), but many years of experience tells me I'm in a tiny minority.

 

@Flaxative: If you ask for comments on your dev blog then please make sure that fans can actually comment there I just tried and got an error message:

Spoiler: Error message

url: https://www.cardhunter.com/wp-comments-post.php
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Spoiler: my original comment for the blog

As the current maintainer of the "card hunter utils" (for those not aware, although related to the game, they are a community-made fan project, check the forum for details) and back then as a new player I always made heavy use of information that were presented in this blog. There are definitely things that I only found here. And I was able to help other players on the forum or in world chat with some details that only the blog really described. Based on this - and the fact that I always enjoy those inside perspectives - I would really like to see this blog being revived and re-established as a some-what regular thing.

On topic now: You said yourself that the percentage of weighted drops is set to 20% "for now" suggesting that you might adjust this percentage how you see fit. Now, I don't have the insights that you have, but 20% seems pretty low, especially if you use this as a basis to - at some point - introduce completely new classes or races. By then, these new installments will (probably) have a relatively small item base at first (I guess you won't start a new race with 50 - 100 skills and a new class with 400+ new pieces of equipment). So, we will again run into problem #1 because the remaining 80% drive most of the loot.
On the other hand, if you start to lower the number of (arcane/divine) items compared to say boots and skills but my wizards/priests will still have more item slots than skill slots I will again run into problem #1 because I will - relatively - get way too many item drops compared to skill drops if I look for some specific pair of boots or so (because the size of the bucket to draw from isn't in relation to the chance of drawing from this bucket anymore). To put in some numbers: if there are currently ~250 arcane items and ~50 dwarf skills but I approximately need 5 times more arcane items (and they drop 5 times as often), the probability for every single arcane item equals the probability of every single dwarf skill. If you stop creating arcane items but output dwarf skills (because you are now free to do so with this change), the probability for specific dwarf skill will become lower than the one for a specific arcane item and even a specific looting party won't change much here.

That said, I'm sure you will or already had this in mind. I'm absolutely sure that this change will make the situation better than it is today. It's just my (bad) habit to desire the perfect system. And I welcome this change as I already imagined something very similar literally years ago, but never had asked for. If I had, we might have gotten this earlier. But that's the past now.

As always, thanks for keeping this awesome game alive and always evolving further.

I hope that isn't totally out of place here...

 

I always thought renown pricing in shops was a minor impediment, and a bit unrealistic. Should a shop owner feel free to jack up prices for anyone considered a rustic rube who wanders in? I guess if you're the only shop in the world you can get away with it, but there should always be an enterprising Skarl who will trade in a more reasonable manner. After all, he will only retain up to 3 used items, and even those will mysteriously disappear after a while.
They must be going somewhere.

 

Congrats and Thank you!

I have long since strongly suggested that overpriced items, inflated by Renown, be capped
at 2500, (maybe lower for other rarities,) and this finally does it! It was terrible when
popular Streamers tried Cardhunter for the first time, saw $76 or whatever for Legendaries
(marked "Not usable by your class" rather than "More expensive due to your renown"
because they had the wrong class or race selected) and then reviewed Cardhunter as
a game looking to suck $76 or whatever per item from its players!

On the other hand, I do think the Renown system had some merits and I think Renown did
improve the game except for those few huge-misundertstandings, so I would have preferred
a more measured response, but the $76 legendaries were such as terrible thing that I'm really
glad that it got changed, optimally or otherwise!

Hey... btw... next on my list was taking the horrible "AI" video down from being the 2nd video
visible on the Steam Store page. It's just completely out of context when viewed by people
first deciding to play Cardhunter or not and is likely hurting sales while giving little to
nothing in return. (It seems to imply Cardhunter wants to suck their money - "Give
us 70 - 80% of it" - and otherwise seems to insult them.) Honestly, I didn't understand
the AI humor until after I bought the expansion and played it repeatedly. (And some
demographics claim that I'm much more capable of getting "subtle jokes" than most
Americans.)

As far as "being out of context", note that at the end of the video, it say "also available
on Steam" which is the big hint that even though Blue Manchu had (made the mistake
of) posting it there on Steam, it clearly was meant for a Cardhunter webpage were it
could viewed in context of an expansion, and viewed (for the most part) only by people
who are looking at the expansion and not trying to decide if they want to install
Cardhunter for the first time.

P.S. The Cyber-video was made for Steam, and I think that one's fine.

 

Hm, I was kind of wondering we weren't getting comments XD
@Sir Civil , might be worth checking in with our web team?

And more generally, we're definitely listening to all the feedback here.