[Feedback] Game difficulty after finishing the campaign

I finished the campaign today, and tried a few quests at the low levels. I do like the general concept of the added quest condition making each adventure more challenging. But if I look back at the last quarter or so of the campaign, I can't help but think: That was already so hard, bordering on unfair, I don't think I'll try quests there. In fact the first half of the game is probably the most enjoyable.

I think currently character power progression slows down too much in the latter game. Health gains per level are negligible. You don't gain power tokens any more with level, just upgrade them to a better sort, so you still need to fill slots with low level items not needing tokens. And while you have to live with the randomness of thick 36-card decks, the enemies have reliable slim decks.

I think the campaign should be made somewhat easier on the first play-through. If people want more challenge, well, that is what the quest system is for.

 

But lots of people joined the game since then. And just because it is a dead horse to you doesn't mean it isn't an essential issue for new players.

Look at it that way: You wouldn't want Cardhunter to be only successfully playable for people who spent a lot of money on pizza. The good idea is to make the game accessible to everybody, and then have some optional stuff for people with lots of money. Difficulty works exactly the same way: The game needs to be accessible to everybody, and then have some optional content (e.g. quests) for people with lots of skill and experience. A game that isn't accessible because it is too hard on normal mode will fail as hard as one that is too expensive on normal mode.

 

"Click through it"? Have you seen all the threads where people complain they are stuck because the game is too hard? If the game was too easy for you, you could always make it harder for you by adding a handicap to yourself. The people for whom the game is too hard have no option but to quit in frustration. That might be all right with you in the short term, but when Blue Manchu shuts down the game because it isn't popular enough, you'll be sorry.

 

The question is not what ONE player likes, but what game balance would be best for the overall game. Whether a game is on Facebook or not doesn't make a difference. Whether it is accessible to the average player certainly does.

 

Edit: Whoa, this got nasty while I was typing. Tobold, please understand my post was supposed to show up earlier, addressing similar points without trying to tread on toes. Here:

Yes, Pengw1n is referring to how the game difficulty has been lowered already. Not to mention how this game isn't dedicated to casual gamers. They are trying to incorporate at least a little of the difficulty that games from this "vintage" time period (supposedly) had. Which will be a breath of fresh air to a large number of gamers, as you may have heard people lamenting how there's hardly anything these days with the "difficulty that games used to have." Blue Manchu stands to attract quite an audience, even if they risk mildly inconveniencing a more casual one (one that has to learn how to play the game once they're done beating the newly-made-easy intro levels).

Aside from that, yes, the first half-dozen adventures are much easier. However, you seem to be referring not to "adventures starting at 6 or 7," but rather "the later ones where you're using bronze talents." I believe this is up to your playstyle. I put together a summary once of adventures that people complained are "unreasonably hard," and it was basically everything except for levels 9 and 15. Every time someone has complained, we've chatted with the person until he or she found the strategic difference necessary to re-assess (and defeat) the challenge. Myself, when it came to "bronze talent" adventures, I jumped at the chance to play quests: you can do so much more as your clear talents turn into bronze ones! Blue Manchu put in a lot of effort making patterns of cards do interesting things as you changed in talent levels (or, now, "power tokens").

However, I do believe they also made some changes to said higher-level adventures, and I need to study more to be sure just how "hard" they are today. If the start of the beta really were "easy," and the end really were "hard" . . . well, that wouldn't be too surprising, given that this is a videogame. I just imagine that such would be temporary, because of course "the end of beta" is not "the end of Card Hunter" if they're seriously intending to extend levels up to 50 sometime.

 

My point is not that I can't beat the adventures or can't find the good tactics. My point is that even with the best possible tactics, and the kind of gear you are likely to have on your first play-through, you have to play certain battles repeatedly and "die your way through" the campaign. The first time you do a battle that can well be because you don't know the monsters yet, and don't have the good tactics and gear you need for it equipped. But even after switching you still die a lot because the winning tactic still depends on you drawing the right cards out of a rather thick 36-card deck. Sometimes winning depends on the boss mob drawing his drawback card. So yes, you beat the yellow dragon on the 6th or 8th attempt, but it feels less like a victory and more like hard slog where your main enemy was Lady Luck. I am sure that dragon is perfectly easy if you are level 20 and spent a lot of time gathering epic+ gear. But that is not the experience a typical player is likely to have on his first play-through.

As much as you might disdain the "casual player", it has to be pointed out that Card Hunter is already a niche game. This isn't Diablo 3 (which by the way isn't an easy game at the highest difficulty level), which attracts millions of fans. Not only are turn-based tactical games not really popular on the PC, Blue Manchu also chose a somewhat unfortunate platform by not going for native iOS / Android support. So you get a few thousand people trying Card Hunter out. Be definition only a minority of them is going to be hardcore players, a lot will be more or less casual players, with fond memories of D&D and Magic the Gathering. If Blue Manchu can hook these people, they probably can make Card Hunter work financially. But if you first drive away players through frustration, and of those who remain only a small percentage ever pays money to play (the reality of Free2Play games), we might well end up with a game that isn't financially viable. And then it shuts down sooner or later, and nobody can play any more.

In the other direction, I can see no real harm to anybody if Card Hunter has different modes for casual AND hardcore players. Look at Diablo 3 again or World of Warcraft: You start easy, then you play the difficult stuff. There is something for everybody. In my opinion that is a lot better than a game for elitists with a big "CASUAL PLAYERS KEEP OUT" sign on the lawn.

 

Now THERE is something we can agree upon.

 

I think there's an underlying point getting in the way:

This isn't true. It certainly isn't now that they've lowered difficulty.

There are plenty of "roguelike" games out there where this is literally the case: I described it as "you learn how to win by losing" once when analyzing game difficulty. (Sidenote: tons of people love "roguelikes.") Card Hunter sure felt like it was approaching that before the changes. But even then, losing 6 or 8 times before winning ANY adventure? Surely you're exaggerating. Is there literally no adventure that you beat the first time?

Because if there is no such adventure, then the answer here is simple: it's just you. If you've followed these forums, you've seen all the threads where people talk about "well, I beat that adventure first try, so here's some advice," or "hey, I beat all the adventures on my first try until I hit adventure X, does anyone have advice on X?"

And even if this weren't true, there's another underlying assumption: "the kind of gear you are likely to have on your first play-through." So, on my play since the reset, I'm replaying lower adventures before advancing because it's fun, and thus developing lots of gear. Is there literally no other gamer that would do so? (Sidenote: I didn't need all this "extra gear" to beat most adventures first try before the reset.)

People have complained that they can't fill their gear slots, which is a concerning situation: we can encourage that player to just plain hunt for more loot, but Blue Manchu may have a legitimate balance issue they need to correct. But surely, assuming that all gamers everywhere are unable to play this game (get the gear, learn the strategies, beat anything in a reasonable amount of time whatsoever) is countered by the fact that Card Hunter has fans at all.

 

Of course I beat the low level adventures on the first go. With the medium level adventures I tended to die when the gear I had equipped from the previous adventure wasn't suitable for the new one, not knowing what to expect. The real slog was from level 14 to 17. And that was after I discovered multiplayer as additional source for gear.

Did you beat the yellow dragon on your first try?

 

I agree with Pengwin. Failing the first time through a dungeon shouldn't be an indicator that the game is off or anything. It means you were ill equipped, or it is just hard so you have to do better.

I see your point a little bit Tobold on doing it a ton of times and having it feel like you finally won from luck of the draw. However, had you changed your deck or strategy around you probably would have found that you easily rolled the dungeon over. That has been my experience so far (only at 17 though, so haven't played last few).

 

I found the difficulty level appropriate. I was challenged, but not frustrated. I had some trouble with the monkeys and had to adjust tactics, and yellow dragon did kill me the first time... but not the second. I think having to think tactically for each scenario is reasonable. A number of people do seem to have found certain levels quite difficult, but I think that usually with specific tactical advice people are going to find them quite a bit easier. I'm sure there will eventually be a campaign walkthrough of sorts to be found on these very forums.

 

It is always difficult to extrapolate from the experience of closed beta players to that of future new players after release. After all, closed beta players are already so engaged with the game because they went through several hoops to just be allowed to play. A typical Free2Play browser game player doesn't have that level of engagement, and presumably also less previous experience with similar games.

My point was that I've seen even among those engaged closed beta players a lot of forum threads complaining about the game being too hard. It isn't too hard for me, but then I've been playing D&D for over 30 years and have a decade of Magic the Gathering deckbuilding experience. If even I find the game somewhat frustrating at points, then how will the typical new player after release feel?

The issue is not any single player, but ultimately the success of the game is based on conversion rates: How many people even try the game out? What is the conversion rate of people trying the game out to people keeping playing? And what is the conversion rate of people playing to people paying? It is easy to sit on a high horse and make snide remarks about people who find the Trog adventures too hard. But after that release that player is probably a lost customer. Worse than that, he will probably have noticed that he would have had an easier time if he had spent money on better equipment, and will tell everybody how Card Hunter is a Pay2Win game.

I am all for Card Hunter having extremely challenging parts (Go and kill that yellow dragon with only 1 health). But I believe that for better conversion rates and thus better financial success Card Hunter needs to be accessible for less expert tacticians. I would like Card Hunter to become a financial success, because I've seen too many games I like go under.

 

I agree that it's a balance, but I'm also afraid of making it too easy. I'll steamroll a game for a while, but if it doesn't start to bite back I lose interest. Different people have different tolerance levels for challenge. I suppose that's why a lot of games have selectable difficulty ratings.

 

My experience, as a new player, has been that the game can be pretty rough. It took me a few trys to get past Melvelous and the Garnet Demon Portal locked me out of the rest of the game. Mind you, I love tactics games and would consider myself decent at them, yet, Garnet Demon Portal destroyed me every time. This was likely due to my character selection (Two Dwarves and an Elf wizard) and lack of decent equipment. I Found after round one I rarely had all three characters due to the encumber cards and all the ranged damage.

I have since started a new party and recently gotten past it. An interesting note that when starting a new party, at level 11, I only had a single item that was banned at a level 4 or lower adventure.

I personally found it somewhat refreshing to run into this roadblock and even going through many (and I mean many) attempts at the Garnet Portal, I decided it wasn't just the randomization that was holding me back and had to rebuild. I'm not sure how the 'typical' player would feel about this but that's all about the dev's target audience.