Done with Card Hunter for now -- Here's some feedback

You still seem to be laboring under the misconception that PVE grinding/time was used to evaluate and balance the rewards. It wasn't. Average PVE play times for running adventures (start to finish) was used, and compared to the time for average PVP players to win matches. I haven't played hundreds of bouts of 4 hour blocks of each to determine how well they're actually balanced. I have played a few such bouts, and the balance slightly favored PVP. However, I played them on the test server with AI PVP opponents, which are easier and faster to beat, and should be expected to skew the numbers.
Playing complete adventures is already much more rewarding on average than grinding. Spending a lot of time per day playing SP will soon exhaust the adventures, so it really comes down to grinding or not playing. On days when I grind (for something to do) while waiting for the Loot Fairy to move, I usually get more and better rewards in an hour of hunting than 2 hours of grinding.
It's all random, and even 2 item common chests will sometimes yield legendary items, but for me it averages less than one per 1000 drops. End of adventure chests are much better, and yield more rares and epics.
We don't have the actual loot drop tables to run a statistical analysis and prediction (which is what BM did), so the only other real option for data analysis is massive data collection. I've done serious real-world versions of this for too many years to be impressed by single instance observations. I'm no longer hyped enough about the game to do more than small samples. (About 40 hours worth.) The difference I've found isn't enough to induce me to play PVP.
I suspect the real reason most players quit is the difficulty curve, and the fact that CH fares quite poorly with those seeking instant (or even relatively quick) gratification.

 

Grinding. What grinding. Like Veza already said, the MP/SP reward balancing was done on the basis of average SP adventure completion times. You can't get more balanced than that. On average, the rewards are equal. In single cases they can be whatever. That's not how balancing works or even possibly can work. For you MP produced more rewards. That does not mean it does so for everyone. Do you imagine you were an average player?

Those, like all the rest of your ideas you have presented during your whole time here are your personal feelings and impressions based on selected random stuff you have encountered. My impressions are the devs want players to be able to enjoy the form of gameplay the players are naturally inclined to enjoy. They don't drive anyone towards any particular mode.

Also, you're confusing Flaxative's personal feelings with the professional feelings of Flax, Jon and others. Flax is a part-time employee, there are others from time to time, Jon is the only full time one and the owner and the one calling the shots. He's never revealed any particular inclination as far as I remember. Also, I've seen enough of their work to trust they are easily able to separate their personal feelings from their professional work. Unfortunately, you have presented no evidence whatsoever of the same in your posts here (in your argumentation, I hasten to add).

Many of the veterans taking part in these conversations are SP-only or SP-centered players. There is broad representation from both MP and SP viewpoints. New posters pop up all the time here and give their views. Of course, many regulars are old hands, such is the nature of communities on forums and in games. The MP angle has never been dominant in the conversation here. The SP players are willing and able to take care of that.

This imaginary tactic sure isn't working as the huge majority of players steadfastly remains SP only. Also, the tactic is imaginary. It's not practised by Blue Manchu.

Jon hasn't been serving any particular group in his development strategy. The squeaky wheel does not get the grease around these parts. He's mature enough to come to his own conclusions about what needs doing. Witness the continued lack of a "sell excess" button, perhaps the most requested feature on the forum. Vocality has nothing to do with what gets implemented here.

 

Hey Pengw1n, just wanted to update you on this. We improved MP incentives in order to keep primarily-MP players in MP, as SP rewards were way better than MP rewards and primarily-MP players felt forced to play SP instead of MP in order to loot chase effectively. We never wanted to push SP-only players into MP, and for the most part I think we're not doing that.

Hey Jarmo, good point. I hope I've been clear in distinguishing between my feelings as a player and my feelings as a dev, not to mention the feelings of the rest of the staff. I try not to represent the rest of the team except when I'm very clear on our official stances, and I tend to use "I" to refer to myself as opposed to "we" for the team, etc.. Anyway let me know if you think I need to be clearer on this stuff in the future. I understand that my participation in some debates can be seen to blur some lines because I have multiple points of investment in many of these topics.

 

MP is harder than SP. So your drop rates have to be better in MP than in SP to get people to play MP.

That's what you have and it works. People play MP. I don't know why people want to insist the rewards are even when they are so clearly not, but it's neither here nor there. If they were even, people would play SP and not MP. True in this game and most games I've played.

Personally I think you should make unique rewards for MP and resolve the issue that way. Also what most games do.

p.s.
To be clear I think it's totally normal to have MP rewards be more than SP rewards and I think it's working for you, getting people to play MP. I just don't personally enjoy MP in this game because I find it too RNG related (using the AI's strategy errors against itself with a handicap, i.e. quests, is more interesting than playing a human using the same tactics and winning with a better dieroll).

 

In the willingness to assume the best in people, I wonder if we're not talking past each other here.

Just to clarify - when people say SP and MP rewards are equal they are referencing that the average loot gained in relation to time spent is equal. This was statistically calculated by the devs based on the accumulated stats of the entire player base. So unless you think the devs are lying about this fact it is in fact the case.

Also, what I suspect @Sir Valimont is saying is that the loot gained for a single victory whether in MP or SP is heavily weighted to MP. This is, well, obvious. But again the balance for accumulating loot was designed based on time spent, not the number of victories.

I suspect this is what both sides are saying - feel free to clarify if I understand incorrectly - hopefully this will help get everyone on the same page.

 

Well, yes. I tried to make it clear that I was talking about "casual PvE" ... in other words, playing PvE to enjoy it at a normal pace. It takes me as long to play through a map (usually 3 levels) if not slightly longer than to win 1 PvP match, but the rewards for the PvP match are hugely more than the PvE. I don't want to have to blaze through a PvE match just for the sake of the loot ... I want to enjoy it because that's the most enjoyable part of the game. But the rate at which I would have to play to get anything worthwhile is very un-fun and what I would call grinding. (Not that grinding can't be fun for some people, but the goals and the gameplay are different, of course. And I don't think CH is built to maximize fun in that mode).

I also think that I'm like most people in that I don't have enough time to play tons of levels. Just a few here and there, when I log on. I don't see why the first few levels of PvE can't be worth more, therefore, as I've been saying a lot (albeit in other threads since it's off-topic here) so that casual PvE is validated like it should be. It wouldn't hurt the overall bottom line of how you gain items in PvE versus PvP -- it would be the same between the two.

Part of the issue is that the rewards are front-loaded in PvP so that the first victory gets you the most stuff and takes the least time. For anyone with a normal amount of time to spend gaming, this means PvP is better to play for rewards than PvE as well. Again why I keep referring to people who play tons of PvE as grinders / grinding.

 

But the rate for SP isn't calculated for grinders - they're included in the calculations since it's the entire player base - but it's not targeted at them. The equal loot based on time is based on the average of all players and all speeds (hence "average"). So when you say "casual PvE" do you mean slower than average play for the average player?

 

I don't know ... it's probably 3 levels of PvE or so per PvP fight in terms of time spent. Fewer than 3 levels if it's a hard map.

 

Most players only win around 50% of the time in PvP. A "casual PvP" player that doesn't choose to play the best builds available to him or her would have a handicap similar to a casual PvE player.

 

Ahhh, I think I understand now. When you say PvE and PvP rewards are not equal you're saying they're not equal for you personally. Note: This is perfectly fine to say! It is your experience and you of course are welcome to play the game at any pace or style you wish. But if that's what you're saying (and again if I'm wrong please correct me - I'm just trying to get people to define their terms so everyone's on the same page), may I offer the recommendation that you're careful not to phrase that in a way that might be taken as a universal declaration comparing the two for all players or even average players as while it may indeed be the case for you, statistically it is not the case on average.

 

As the MP and SP rewards are currently balanced (over the whole player base, each player playing at the speed they enjoy) increasing the value of the first few daily SP chests would take us back to the situation where MP players would feel they must play SP even though they'd rather not. If you can get a few very good rewards from SP daily it is most efficient to do that every day as you can do that much quicker than you can get MP wins.

Surely, if the thing a player enjoys most is playing SP at a leisurely pace, that enjoyable experience itself (combined with the lesser than average item rewards) is enough to compensate for the lesser than average item rewards. If they are not, if the item rewards hold so much larger sway over the decisions of that player, it would seem to me they didn't really enjoy the leisurely pace that much in the first place.

Also, it's essential to keep in mind that the issue isn't an actual problem for Blue Manchu as proven by the player behaviour data they have. Statistically, no one is not trying or playing Card Hunter because you can't get as many items as average players if you play slower than average.

 

Not to worry, you have. One would have to be very inattentive or self-blinkered to be confused in this.