I really like Cardhunter. It's like an almost perfect combination of chess, poker and MtG. Chess in the sense that your guys have position and there's a 2d map movement etc. Poker because you don't know if someone has one last attack card and you should move your 1hp guy away or they only have an armor card and you're good to unleash an oblit bludgeon. MtG blah blah ccg deckbuilding blah blah. I've been playing an all-elf team in MP for a month or so. There's a few problems. 1) There's too many absurdly powerful cards in the first iteration. Maybe this is similar to early MtG in the sense that there was stuff like Timewalk, Lotus, Demonic Tutor etc. 2) There's effectively only two win conditions: hold victory spots or kill everyone (I doubt that adding mill would be good for the metagame, but maybe) 3) Control is very powerful because of the previous 4) Stuff like firestorm builds are stupid because they remove the chess-like aspect. Avoiding damage by moving out of the way isn't an option. Anything that reduces the importance of movement should be avoided. It would be nice if there was a bit less randomness, but using traits to shrink decks doesn't really address things like whether armor, parry etc work. I think it'd be nice if there were fewer dice rolls. A (bad?) example, armor could just work 100%, but have less keep. So it's a guaranteed way to prevent X damage. Note that being out of range is always a guaranteed way to prevent damage (except doesn't apply to stuff that I've already mentioned as horrible). Stabbing is also extremely powerful because of buffs and the increased range. It's yet another tool that reduces the importance of movement. Impaling Stab with All Out Attack is absurdly good. In MtG the way to beat a control deck is to play a very fast deck. In CH, it's not quite possible (partly due to the current maps) because even if you get within range on turn one (which is extremely unlikely) then it's very hard to kill the average dwarf in one turn especially with toughness, nimbus, winds etc. I don't think the solution is to make 1st turn dwarf slaying easier, but to nerf control somehow, potentially just by nerfing some of the really absurdly strong cards, like Toughness. Suggestions: All Out Attack is too good, but I'm not sure how to nerf it without making it pointless, if keeping it is desirable, maybe make it a duration 1 attachment that also causes the user to discard defensive cards (no armor, block, parry, nimbus etc possible while it's in use), as an attach card, it also makes it no longer a surprise Toughness could be like 8 damage reduction always triggers armor Lifesaving block could allow damage thru, but leave the target at 1 hp Team moves should not ignore encumbrance *** It might be nice if bash was a bit more viable, perhaps having the option to move the target if it connects (like a slide 1, the basher could choose to keep them in the same spot this way) Scamper aura on some Elf racial trait, or some other way to ignore stupid terrain (if Elves could just walk thru difficult terrain all the time I suppose that'd be way too good) Perhaps make the most commonly used traits slightly more painful to take, maybe increase the duration Allow more than 3 attached cards Allow multiple traits to stack Attached cards shouldn't be allowed to push opponent negative cards off To limit their mobility, Dwarves could be limited by capping their movement to X (maybe 5) per turn (stuff like Telekinesis/WoW/WW wouldn't affect this), or make encumbrance affect step moves for Dwarves, or give them a permanent encumber 1 (with bumping their racial move to a Run), or make racial encumber 1 only apply to step moves (so Nimble Strike on a Dwarf only steps 3). *** team move thing, if nothing else, please please implement this, there's almost nothing worse than having the cards and position to kill a guy who can't move due to encumbrance who then moves just out of reach due to a team move. Burn, in the MtG sense, doesn't seem particularly viable here. It'd be nice if there were more mage teams that were designed to just pump out huge direct damage (but the targeted kind, not the "hits everything" kind). Making things more consistent should be more painful. In general things shouldn't be consistent, otherwise the game moves more towards "I drew blowout hand, gg!" (this is funny to say because I basically play a blowout deck). The more consistent decks are, the less the poker (roll the dice!) aspect is eliminated. If it's desirable to make it possible to have consistency, why not just make some items that have fewer than 6 or 3 cards? It'd be easy to test by adding a self-targeted card that has "draw one card." Also, map design is quite tricky, slightly bigger more spacious maps would definitely help elves. There's a lot of random stuff that I think would be cool, but I don't really want to get into those in this giant wall of text. But briefly: * missile weapons, stuff with 3 or 4 range perhaps * insight style cards that let you peek at the top card of an opponent or character's deck * tutor style cards like Pathfinding but more of a "search for X, show opponent, add to hand, shuffle deck" style would be another way to increase consistency without traits, also using this type of card has the drawback that your opponent knows what you got. * possibly different types of armor (though I'm sure this was already considered and discarded) but where chain mail stops slashing it's vulnerable to stabs etc. I don't really have any concrete ideas that I'm super confident would improve things. So, consider this a rant with hopefully a few reasonable ideas. Also I know that I'm super biased based on the deck type that I've been trying to make work so it won't hurt my feelings to say "idiot, play more dwarves/humans/control mages/3 priest/flavor of the week and see how strong/weak it really is."
Several good suggestions, particular regarding Lifesaving Block and Toughness. Impenetrable Nimbus is probably the worst culprit, though. The present rotation of maps is more confined than others have been, but I have a build which abuses Unholy Wellspring to dish out ridiculous long-range damage via Dissolve Armor, Sizzling Bolt, and Frost Jolt. (Ever seen a dwarf warrior go "poof!" in one turn? ) Elves have Slippery, which is an amazing trait, and would probably be completely OP if it were possibly to get more than one into your deck. Just sayin'... several of your suggestions would make control completely unbeatable (which it's pretty close to, already). Team moves are just about the only way to get around encumber.
One thing to consider when thinking about Lifesaving Block, Nimbus etc is that nerfing those would make the 1hp quests a lot harder. Balancing PvP and PvE and questing is pretty tricky, which is why I wish BM would do some work on the underutilized cards next instead of nerfing more cards (though I do agree with the card drawing nerf they did).
The issue is that Dwarves (applies to Humans and Elves too) with a few team moves and some nimble strikes are more mobile than Elves with Elf Mobility. So, maybe buff Elf Mobility, but I don't think that's the real problem. Maybe a neat mechanic would be to allow fire spells to melt ice based encumber. The idea of blasting your own guys with Sizzling Bolt amuses me, but that's the point behind Purge and Holy Presence. Cold could probably stand to do a bit less damage. Freeze, Frost Jolt and Cold Snap at 3 perhaps. At least Lifesaving Block leaving characters at 1 hp would be no different.
Well... nimble strike sure could use a nerf. (<-- says the guy who's only managed to land three nimble strikes in his entire collection, and has to make do with the peasant's Dancing Cut instead...) Otherwise, decks with team moves are still making tradeoffs to fit them in, though you're right that team moves like Team Sprint are a bit much, though.
nimbus could be easily addressed by making Purge a bit more common. It is a paper card that is much harder to fit in a deck than Impenetrable Nimbus. I'd rather have the card bumped up in color, but more available than the current situation, where it does not really "cost" much in term of power token, but with a very low availability. I don't see any problem with Lifesaving Block. Unlike Toughness, it is a card that you would have to discard most of the time, or keep for much later.
Making Purge more common is a great suggestion, definitely seconded. Purge probably shouldn't be paper, it's useful for so many things. Frenzy and Savage Curse? Not anymore! I'm on fire and freezing and bad luck'd? Nope! I suppose Arrogant Armor's effect also completely nullifies cold based encumbrance (and entangling roots as well). Maybe make the radius of Holy Presence 2? I imagine that might be too good. Lifesaving block is just annoying. That definitely speaks more towards the rant portion of my post. Scenario, I've got 3 attack cards in hand. Obliterating bludgeon and two normal 4 damage bludgeons. I hit with the two weak ones to get rid of parry, block, dodge, etc, then obliterating bludgeon is canceled by Lifesaving block. Supremely frustrating. I have tried to work in War Cry, but it's usually useless and very hard to draw when I need it. If it left them at 1hp, there's still a chance for a big upset if they have a nimbus or a big heal or whirlwind or whatever. Conversely, maybe I can fire off a spark to finish the job. It's kinda interesting how there's some cards in the game that are kinda obviously great. Is there any mage armor card that's better than Resistant Hide? It seems even if there's a robe that has 3 good cards, I'd generally rather have robes with one Resistant Hide. It'd be good to have a card that prevents damage from Cold, another that does the same for Fire, etc. Then make robes that only stop damage of one type, but that have other good stuff. Then the deckbuilding choice would be less of a no-brainer. Perhaps if Firestorm and Volcano are extremely popular, then Fire prevention stuff is popular and suddenly a Lightning build becomes viable.
One thing that always amuses me about Resistant Hide is that some day we'll be lvl 50 and fighting Archdukes of Hell who cast Obliterating Firebolts of Doom ... and they will hit the wizard for 0 damage because he is wearing his lvl 1 robes with Resistant Hide. So yeah, agree with this - Grounded Plates are a better design IMO.
