Acquiring specific equipment...

So, one thing I dislike about games is when veterans have an "unfair" advantage over newcomers. I'm relatively new (few weeks I think) and have finally designed a deck that I want to play. Unfortunately, even with the Club membership, it will take a long time to get the cards I want. In fact, even if I went and bought a lot of gold, it would still take a long time.

I understand people not wanting a trading system to prevent bots, etc. Agreed. However, I see no reason not to have a crafting system. There are a multitude of different crafting systems you could implement, but I think I'd recommend one where you can replace a card with another card of the same rarity, quality, and expansion (just a possible combo). Obviously it would cost some gold to do this as well. I call this "erasing and re-writing a card".

Effectively, please enable a way to more quickly get the equipment you want, without having to just hope you get it in a chest or that it goes into a shop. For anyone that is going to scream P2W, this is no more P2W than the current system of letting you buy chests with real money.

And yes, I know you should mostly get fair games with MMR, but it's not just about skill. It's about skill and access to the equipment you need.

You would still be excited when you got a Legendary because you would need that or multiple Legendaries to make the one that you wanted. What I wouldn't suggest is a system where you can convert lots of commons into a Legendary.

 

It's not that simple. Effectively, you either end up making the process of acquiring equipment too trivial, killing one of the most important long-term incentives with playing the game, or you effectively turn the game into the P2W-fest so many other CCG-games already excel at.

You're right, acquiring every item you might possibly want to play with is probably gonna take quite some time. But do not fear, the pool of items which are both unbelievably powerful and extremely rare is actually pretty small, all things considered. Given how the game's itemization work, it just so happens that the vast majority of legendary items are more or less on par with the more common stuff (If not straight out worse, in a surprising number of instances. But shhhhhhhh, don't tell anybody ).

In fact, there's a whole array of builds and strategies which only require a few epic+ items (if any). I.e. from an equipment perspective, you can be very much competitive in relatively little time, and I truly mean it. You just need to be on the lookout for when the good gear is available at the shops, and be ready to snatch it. Some uncommon/rare items are actually very good (we're talking top-in-slot levels of "good", mind you), and those are actually pretty easy to come by, you just need a shopping list. Epics and legendaries might be a tad harder to come by, but with the amount of goods going on sale weekly, you're hardly find yourself with a shortage of goods which are indeed very much worth snatching.

As a matter of fact, these very forums are choke-full of useful info about what the good stuff is and where to look for it. Furthermore, while this might not seem much to you, hunting the Loot Fairy + regularly playing MP and Leagues will guarantee you a steady flow of loot coming into your greedy hands. Most of it will be pretty much useless, especially once your collection starts really growing, but you can convert the junk into gold to be spent at Randi's and the Daily Deal to buy the really shiny stuff.

In short, I think most new players really underestimate how quickly you can build a workable collection, assuming some work is being put into it. Another very common misbelief is that you do need the rarest and bestest items in order to truly be competitive, and that quality of gear is more important than actual skill with the game. It goes without saying, truth is actually quite different.

I've seen several talented individuals rise up to the very top of the ranked boards in a matter of a few months of dedicated gameplay, and those were far from being luckers who simply happened to drop all the right items, I tell you.

Still, the fact remains that you simply don't have a trivial and sure-fire way of acquiring the stuff you want. You do need some very specific gear in order to put a few builds together, that's undeniable. For instance, you can't play the perfect bless-cano, or the perfect Lunginator build w/o acquiring several legendary items (which is likely gonna take quite some time, all things considered). But not every build which is remotely effective can only be put together while owning multiple rare items and, if all you care is being competitive, you do not need to play those very specific builds in order to be successful.

If, otherwise, all you care is playing a specific style of deck, in most cases you can still do so w/o owning all the best stuff. Sure, it won't be as effective as it potentially could, but you might be surprised by how close you can get if you pick your items wisely and are willing to compromise.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you mean exactly by "being competitive". If you're aiming at being the #1 CH player in the whole history of the game, then I'm sorry to inform you that's probably gonna take both incredible skill, and several months of items-hunting. In all honesty, I suspect building the skill and refining your play is actually gonna take as much as time as getting the items. Possibly!

I do not like the use of the word "unfair" when talking about the advantage veterans have over newer players. Clearly, you seem to think people is beating you mainly because they have a larger collection. Obviously, people who's been playing for far longer than you did kinda acquired the right to stand where they are. But that's not even the most important side of things and, although you probably won't take my word for it, I'll stress it again: you can indeed climb-up the ranked ladder even w/o owning all the best stuff, if you do work for it and have the skill. You do not need the ultimate collection in order to be succesfull, whatever you can hunt for yourself within a few months of moderately dedicated in-game activity, I swear!

Somehow, I also feel like there's a valuable real-life lesson to be learnt here: achieving whatever you want to achieve, especially if you want to achieve anything meaningful, is not always easy. Often times, it involves some good dose of hard work and a good deal of perseverance. Both amassing a respectful CH collection and actually getting good (really good) at the game would be among such things. Please take note you do not need to achieve one in order to attain the other, though the two often go hand in hand.

We all know the feeling, when we wished it only took us to put our hands on the right pair of shoes in order to turn yourself into <put your fav athlete's name here>. At the very least, Blue Manchu is not fooling you into thinking that's actually true by giving you a convenient shortcut into their game, and possibly turning that into a very lucrative affair!

Surely enough, Jon could put aside quite a fortune by selling Vibrant Pains (or what have you) five bucks each. I think it works in CH's favor that becoming insanely rich at the game's quality expenses is not among his top priorities.

 

Thanks for the detailed post. I appreciate where you are coming from. but disagree. It may not be as much of an issue now as I make out, but what about a few years down the line? What if new players want to play a niche build and not just a generic mix of equipment?

BTW, this problem magnifies itself a lot in leagues where players use their own cards. This is because from what I can tell MMR is not used to match players. Let's say the game is 60% skill, 20% library, and 30% RNG. That means those with a better library have an advantage. It's that simple.

Also, I don't think the card advantage is huge, but you seem to think I implied that. I simply want to make what decks I've designed. I'm not going to stop playing the game because of this, but I'm pointing it out as something I think is a flaw for the game.

Even if it's just allowed in Casual games, it would still be an addition to the game. A game doesn't necessarily have to cater to all, but it should cater to those that don't have time for lots of farming.

In regard to money, I suspect quite a few people are buying chests to get items that they want. So don't act like they aren't making money off of peoples desires to obtain better equipment.

Some other games solved this through only giving players the cards that they don't already have a max amount of.

 

It's not just you. I'm still convinced the game needs a reliable way of working towards specific items. For instance, I'm slightly sore every time I lose to someone with multiple copies of The Softener equipped because they're very powerful and I simply haven't been lucky enough to find any yet. It's not really a good feeling to lose in ranked play because your opponent has items you'd like to be using yourself and have no way of earning.

 

You can get as many of every item as you like on the test server. You'd need someone else there to play casual matches, but you could probably find someone willing. I've used this in the past to test how well items available in Randi's actually worked for me in-game.

Chests give slot machine odds, and jackpots are extremely rare. If you're looking for something specific, you could blow $1,000 and still not get it. I know some players buy chests to jump start their collection, and they will usually get some nice items, but probably not the exact ones they were hoping for. Some veteran players buy chests too, but it tends to have a better effect on small collections. Pay or not, Jon is consistent about leaving all players to the mercy of a merciless RNG when it comes to items.
In some ways I hate this, because I've been playing excessively for almost two years and still lack two items to complete the basic set. But on the whole, I love the concept.

 

See, that's the sort of thing that frustrates me. A lot of it is in my personality. At work I'm referred to as a purist, because I like things to be perfect. I also have a weird thing with symmetry and numbers. Anyway, not being able to finish a set I've wanted to complete for that length of time would be difficult. For MTG I'm used to just buying whatever I need for the deck that week. I realize paying for things is a separate discussion than this crafting though.

So, make it really hard, but make it possible. What if one crafted Legendary item took 20 Legendary items to create (for example) and maybe some gold on top. The point is that the system should make it so it is not an economical thing to do, but it is still possible.

 

Usually, you can approximate any build that uses epic or legendary items with lower rarity items. There are admittedly, quite a few cases where this is not the case, but it makes eventually getting those items much more satisfying. When I eventually got Boots Of Etzicatl I immediately made a deck built around it, possibly sub-par, but fun. Crafting would mean you would be able to pick something you wanted to build, without having to work around your limited item set (I realise it would take a while). I suppose it just comes down to a matter of preference in the end, somewhere between the extremes of wanting everything available at once or grinding forever to get items; whether you want to make your ideal deck immediately, or mangle your current items into something usable. I personally like the balance it strikes now, though I can understand any frustration at not being able to make the ideal build you want.

If Card Hunter were perfectly balanced, all items of all rarities would be about equal, or else complement other items in an equalish fashion, and your deck composition wouldn't be as important (or at least, the items needed). That is an impossible aim, though it doesn't do an altogether bad job. And if every item were available to every player as is immediately, I suspect the meta(s) would be more dull than it is(they are) now. That is more because there are clearly better strategies for certain rotations of maps towards veterans having superior items; and though there are strategies that require legendaries for best performance, such as Burst/savage builds, there are others, such as Cult of Bejewelled elf warriors, which need only un/common items, which succeed based on the maps.

Also note, those veterans would probably be able to perfect their decks with a crafting system, as they'd have much more gold and many more items to exchange than new players. I suspect the majority of veterans don't have all the best items for their (multiple) builds, and this would let them get that 6th Searing Pain, or whatever.

 

That's a good point. Maybe we should just wipe all the data and start over.

The system I'd actually prefer is that you have to earn cards in the campaign, but you have access to all cards for multiplayer. I think that would open a possible e-sport door for the game.

 

*shrug*

Here's an obvious question: How viable is the gear that a player is guaranteed to have available when he starts MP? And if it has awful deficiencies beyond the fact that it's probably going to be played by an inexperienced player, should they be tweaked so that a new player has a somewhat easier start?

Aside from that, I'd have to side with the notion that it's more interesting working with what you gradually acquire, than it is to consider the universe of all possible builds and then decide that you need specific items because no other builds are worth playing. At least early on, it's probably player error more than anything else that will cause trouble, more than lack of specific items for specific builds. And, likewise, because your opponents likely don't have complete inventories either, it's rather more likely that somebody will make a substitution that you might consider odd but will liven things up a bit by adding unpredictability. Beats watching hordes of people simply clone the builds of high-ranking players that they've spectated, anyway.

 

The starting multiplayer pack actually is pretty good, from what I see it's just got a lot of player error behind it and it's not as mobile as most decks are.

 

The shops are there for this very specific reason. If the RNG was perfectly capable of providing you with the gear you need, than CH wouldn't really need them as much. The ability to convert unwanted items into gold to buy useful stuff with helps you quite a bit with that problem.

Furthermore, the pre-made parties are specifically intended to let newbies jump right into MP, even when their collection would normally be extremely small. While those pre-made parties aren't on par with the top-notch builds, they do come with quite a few very decent items, and you get a starter deck for free too!

Also: ninja'd by @Magic Elves

 

This is a good point. I see this all the time in MTG. However if a build is marginally stronger than other build, that's still an advantage. Not being able to equalize that advantage is the issue I'm talking about. i.e. Assume Skill and RNG are equal, access to better cards would be the decider.

 

Note that this adds up to 110%.

In MtG you can get whatever deck you want for a few hundred dollars (or a few thousand if we're talking legacy, or $20,000+ if you're talking vintage). You have to actually spend time in Cardhunter. As pointed out, this means that your collection and skill tends to grow in parallel.

As mentioned before, the test server is a GREAT way to test those amusing deck ideas you do not currently have the items for. Once you test it and you like it, keep an eye out in Randi's. Between that and the Daily Deal, you see a LOT of items come up and gold is fairly easy to get by just playing.

I feel that possibly integrating a test mode into the live server where you have access to maximum usable of ALL the cards, but doesn't give chest rewards would be a great addition to the game. This way having to use the test server would be unnecessary.

 

I search the page and see no mention of quick draw. So I want to just suggest briefly that:

"play more quick draw if you want fair game, by the time you're bored of it you'll have good items"

that was exactly how I started out.

 

Yep, just like coach said.

 

We've add this kind of conversations before in the past.

I think there's an objective difficulty with conveying the fact that, counter-intuitively, the current system is actually helping newer players fill the gap in collection size from veterans, faster. Maybe things could be a tad better, but they're not that bad either. As a matter of fact, when we had no Daily Deal/Loot Fairy/Leagues, things were much worse.

Inevitably, we end up with statements like "all things equal, more items is an advantage". While I don't wish to deny that fact, I also think that kind of reasoning prevents people from seeing the true state of things.

By the same reasoning, the NBA should probably lower the hoop by several inches. Cause, you know, all other things equal, taller players still have an advantage. Or maybe they should ban the taller players entirely, I don't know.

Most of all, I'm sorry I can't reasonably convince you that you can indeed, as a new player, reach the high-ranks and dance together with the top-guns, all by only using the items you find/buy along the way of a few months of regular in-game activity. Assuming you have the skill or, are actively putting some effort into acquiring it.

If you want to still elaborate on the theoretical unfairness of a relatively inexperienced player supposedly not being able to compete because of a lack of items, than go along I guess.

But I think you're missing the key point here: even if you could just instantly buy your way through building the perfect collection, they don't usually have skill on sale at the local grocery store. Last time I checked, at least.

 

Try the hardware store, they've got it by the looks of things.

 

I blame RNG.

 

While I totally agree with this, because I got to 1600 within the first month.

I have to disagree with this.

And also this. The build that brought me so fast into the high elo region were three stab warriors and the luck to find my third Aegis of Defender within this month. For warriors it is true, that only a few legendaries are needed.
And while it is a fine build, what brought me into the 1700s was a priest, which needs a lot of legendaries to work out and I was able to build only after three month.

And a good wizard needs even more legendaries to work. Unfortunatly, since I would love a break from 2 warriors 1 priest build or 3 warriors builds.

 

Sorry to chime in on this little thing, but this is annoying me:
You have access to nearly every single card (with some possible exceptions such as Bless, Anvil Strike and maybe Volcano and the like) within a few weeks of playing. Items take a lot longer to collect. The two seem to be interchanged at various points throughout this thread, and it's bugging me slightly.

@Obernoob, I did say usually. And while some legendaries might be needed to perfect a deck, you can usually get a good amount of the same cards that you want using lower rarity items. Sure, it mightn't bring you into the 1700s or whatever, but it depends whether you are playing for fun or competitively.

Personally, I think there are only some specific items to mostly blame for equipment disparity older and newer players, such as Blue Destruction, Searing Pain, Mordecai's Staff of Magma, St. Ulrich's Bones etc. (there are plenty more decent ones, but not way overpowered compared to similar more common items) ; as the majority of legendaries are niche items, and not necessarily good.

I think you miss out on a lot of potential builds if you aren't limited by items acquired. This would be considerably fairer, probably, but I think it would lead to dull copy-cat decks after the ideal decks are found. This is already a problem in my opinion, what with Cult of Bejewelled and whatnot, but then we'd have even more irritating savage burst builds and their ilk at all levels. I realise this isn't what you are suggesting in this thread, but it is the extreme example of what happens if crafting were really cheap.