Speculative replacement rarity terms: Common: perfect as is Uncommon: perfect as is Rare: perfect as is Epic: Exceptional, Extraordinary, Very Rare, Special Legendary: Singular, Unique, Ultrarare, Freak
For Diablo III, while the best rares can be better than unique / legendaries, unique / legendaries were in general better than the rares (that said I've only spent a few weeks on the game before I gave up due to the auction house issues). A legendary drop in D3 was still something to look forward to. Similarly for M:tG, the power 9 (moxes, black lotus etc) were for example leaps and bounds better than other cards. It's true that the principle was watered down in subsequent expansions but the basic concept, that rare cards were something to look forward to, remains. With cardhunter, it generally means very little what the level or rarity of the card is. As mentioned, I understand the design philosophy behind this but I am not sure how this will help with the development of cardhunter as a commercial enterprise. I have the pizza to get another month of club membership but have not done so because item collection / loot hunting isn't compelling right now.
Not even to get items that fit your build(s) better than your current items? Surely there are such items among the rarer drops. I know there are many and more such items to hunt for for me.
Sorry Tryan, but that's not the case. Legendaries in Diablo III are far from being the best items in the game, in an universal sense. Their main feature is to allow for different builds (not necessarily better builds, mind you), or simply to act as a novelty (legendary which spawns a treasure goblin, item which summons a flaming demon, item which makes you fart every now and then. yes, that's not a typo btw). And yes, a few legendary has the potential to be extremely good items, but that's a minority really. With M:tG. I don't think it was the case in the very first few editions either (and btw the power nine are regarded as very OP cards to the point of breaking the game, and even banned from tournaments, so that's kinda bad game design there. but that was a lot of years ago when game designed wasn't as developed a science as it is today). And even then, assuming it's true they watered down the rare cards, don't you think there's valid reason for them to do something like that? It's not like you make rare items suck on purpose only for the sake of pissing your customers off. So, obviously, there must be good reason for them to do that. The thing is, "variety" is as valuable a currency as "power". Especially in a game where being able to go a different build than your opponent's might win you games regardless of who has the stronger deck. Some decks do counter other seemingly ore powerful ones in this game.
Also, for non-PvP purposes there are a few other things to think of. Against a Skeleton, which would you rather have: Bejewled Shortsword or Kobold Killer (regardless of Tokens). While I'm not trying to elevate the Kobold Killer nor lower the Bejewled Shortsword, I'd like to point out that Blue Manchu has done a great job diversifying the game's battles. It's hard to use the same characters and items for every battle. To see what I mean, try beating the first level of the Goblin Tree Forts using only dwarf warriors with no step. The shredders can be dispatched, but it'll take half an eternity to beat down the Wisps. The array of diverse weapons is there to let your warrior actually accomplish something. To use this array of weapons, you have to look beyond the rarity. It's like going to a grocery store and buying the most expensive organic gold-flaked pie because it's $200 when there's a pie that won't break your teeth with gold sitting there for $10.
I do agree that Legendaries in D3 were not the best items in the game but my point was more that a Legendary drop in D3 was always something to look forward to. Yes they may not be the best but were almost always better than average. It has definitely been a while since I played D3 but it was definitely much more of an event to get a Legendary in D3 than it is to get a Legendary in cardhunter (which quite frankly is quite a non-event). On M:tG, my experience with that ended after the 5th edition (studies and all) so again, not one to talk but there was always a thrill to getting a rare in a booster. Yes the power nine are OP and yes it was poor game design but the thing about it was that we all ended up buying booster after booster to get at the rare cards. With cardhunter, there really isn't a similar effect, which is great for those who do not wish to spend any money on the game. I am just not sure that this makes good commercial sense in the long run. M:tG became the game it is partly due to the strength of its design and mechanics but equally also because of the collectible aspect of the game. It is the latter part that drives the commercial success of M:tG and its long term development (nobody's going to spend time and effort improving a game that doesn't make money). Cardhunter's game design runs the risk of making it somewhat like chess. A great game with plenty of replayability, but no one really profits from it.
Did you know that Richard Garfield is a consultant for Cardhunter? I get excited every time a rare drops since I may see an item I've never seen before. That's magnified with Epics and Legendary items. I don't know. Maybe I'm just easy to please.
Not even close. Perhaps they were usually better for their level, but were rarely any good, and Cardhunter HAS no level requirements. A level 9 legendary is probably better than a level 9 epic or rare, but they're all going to be worse than a level 18 of those difficulties. Legendaries are better than rares/epics on the whole. I've got somewhere around 25 legendaries, but several hundred+ rares (should be around 600 of them, based on probability), so it's a no-brainer that I'd have better rares than most of my legendaries.
