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

I appreciate that you can only give feedback based on your own experience and opinions, and I applaud you for giving constructive criticism. My only point of contention would be regarding:

That assumes that the most important factor to a given player is the rarity of the loot that they acquire. Personally, I find the campaign far more enjoyable than PVP for a number of reasons. While I enjoy getting good loot, the possibility of better loot does not make me devote my limited time each day playing Card Hunter to the format that I enjoy less. I don't feel slighted that my loot is theoretically worse than someone who plays a lot of PVP because...I am not playing against them.

 

That's mistaken thinking for sure. Many pots are won without ever seeing showdown, and since you're free to bet as you see fit the cards in your hand don't affect outcomes nearly as much as most people think. You play the other players (by your betting actions) far more than you play your cards in poker, and that gives a lot of potential for skill in any given situation.

Anyway, sorry to see you go Sir, the discussions have been intriguing.

 

Our life is luck dependant.
All depends on luck.
Caos everywhere.

 

Every TCG in history depends on three factors: deck quality, player skill and luck. Every one of them. Believe me, since I've played almost all of them And all three parts are important.
Deck quality is important since it forces the players to collect better cards and allows the developer to earn some money. Player skill is important since all TCGs are games of intellect, and only the smartest guys should win the large tournaments. This is a necessity for the "professional players" existance: if the result would depend only on money and luck, nobody would spend a lot of money on the game. Each of us overestimates his own intellect
The luck is needed to make the game variable and interesting, plus (important!) it provides some chances even to the worst players with the awful decks. I can easily evaluate the importance of luck in any TCG, and I can assure you that Cardhunter is less luck-dependant than most of them, including Magic. After all, your characters have only 36 cards in their decks (compared to 60 in Magic), and there are no limits on the number of card copies, plus you're drawing two cards per turn instead of one. If you have a lot of bad starting draws, that just means you've built an inconsistent deck. Guess which TCG is the most luck-dependant? Hearthstone. You can have only 2 copies of any card there (per 30 cards), and only 1 legendary. That was done on purpose, to attract the kids and casual players, and that worked.

If you really want to resign, just move your chars forward and write "kill me" to the opponent. This won't take 20 minutes No need to leave the game at all.

 

Besides auto-quitting when you faced a team you didn't enjoy -- what else did you do that would get you banned? Could you clarify on these points at all? If not here then in a private message or something?

 

I mentioned on these forums a while back a bit of history regarding JaGex, the British developer of the MMORPG Runescape, once one of the biggest games on the planet. They had a serious, legitimate issue with gold farming and false credit card payments by gold farmers. Since you could gather resources in that game and trade them freely amongst accounts, gold farmers would create hundreds of fake accounts, use robots to gather resources, and trade those resources away, all before it could be discovered 48 hours later that the credit card info they used to open those accounts was fake or stolen. The accounts would immediately be banned, but the resource itself would have been dispersed into the larger marketplace, often already sold for real money through eBay to legitimate players. Reversing this type of transaction was difficult on many levels. This turned into such a big problem that JaGex, not knowing what else to do, ended up removing free trade from their game entirely. It wasn't a case of cutting their nose to spite their face -- at least not intentionally -- but the end result was that they dually created a reputation for themselves as militant about gold farming and more or less destroyed their own game.

The devs here face a problem which is similar in the sense that it is difficult to find a direct solution, and the one they've found is a band-aid. It doesn't actually solve the problem -- it just reduces the allowed scope of what a player can do. The problem is that the devs want two things: 1) PvP matches are highly rewarding; 2) Players should be prevented from tanking matches on purpose. The only way to enable this system of givens that has been discovered is to instill the concept that resigning early is "bad" and players should report each other for it. Basically to outlaw early resigns and enforce it as game-ethical policy.

Leaving aside the fact that that type of approach doesn't scale (it may not matter in a small community), the "solution" comes at a similar price to the JaGex story. Namely, PvP is not a free playing field -- you're not allowed to resign early. You can argue about resigning early until you're blue in the face but what I've learned from playing so very many CCGs and getting to know their communities and players is that people play differently. As such the most important thing to deliver your playerbase in an interactive game -- either in a game economy or in competitive play -- is freedom of choices. Some people will want to resign a match every single time they don't have the exact starting hand they want. And ideally, that's their prerogative. As soon as you tell people they're not allowed to give up, even a player who never gives up has his freedom reduced, and that does affect him. Even if it's just emotional!

I can't speak for neoncat but I think he probably senses the same restriction that I have laid out here. Certainly it is the reason, ultimately, that I don't enjoy PvP here as much as I otherwise might. Hopefully this feedback is helpful.

 

LOL that sounds like an incredibly bad user experience.

 

There is no trading in CH, so it can't really have this sort of problem.
I've heard there have been cases of players tanking their rating to beat up on on new players, which I see as bad behavior. I don't know how widespread the problem was, but neoncat is definitely not that sort. Other than this, I don't understand BM's position on early resignations. Perhaps they think we all enjoy the same things.
I've been thinking of running a single naked character in MP on my new account. Probably an elf wizard or dwarf priest. Something to get me down and stabilized in Gary's range. If I mustn't resign to human players, so be it. If they can't beat a single naked elf wizard, they need more practice. If needed, I can add an item or two to get a 50% win rate vs. Gary. The objective would be to play MP (almost) strictly against the AI. I'd prefer an unranked PVE option using the PVP boards, but I can understand why this could be considered absurd. However, some of my favorite things in life are absurd. This is just one more on the list.

 

I have an idea to deal with tanking rating, instead of punishing them we give people with higher ratings slightly better loot, like an extra common or better for being silver, or uncommon for gold ranked people, etc.

 

Speaking as a player, sometimes I want to play the game—and if my opponent quits within a minute, well, I just wasted a bunch of time queueing for nothing. I doubt I'm alone in this. Given that my collection is effectively complete (I'm not a completionist, and I have most of the gear I could imagine wanting for actual play), the instantaneous loot chest I 'win' from my opponent throwing the match is a crappy consolation prize for not getting to play the game.

(Note that BM policy is not being built based on my personal preferences as a player. These policies predate my presence on the team, and I have appreciated them since I started playing. They make good sense assuming ranked play is for players who want to play against other players. Sir Veza's desire is effectively a different game mode, I think, and whether or not it should be supported, it probably shouldn't be supported within the wider ranked mode at the cost of policies that otherwise improve the ranked mode.)

 

Good point. I understand the need for wait times in PVE, but I still hate them.

 

I feel a "GM/AI opponents only" mode for MP (with reduced rewards) would be a good solution for needs like Veza's. It also feels like it should be doable with not a lot of resources in its simplest form. Hopefully Blue Manchu will be able to spare the time for developing something like it at some point. It would be a more systemic solution to SP-only players running out of things to do than trying to create new content manually. It would be a lot easier and faster than creating a random dungeon generator.

Flaxative, it would be really useful if Blue Manchu could let the community know your general development strategy for the next six months or so. What do you guys see as the things that need work next? It would help us set our expectations realistically. Would it be possible for Blue Manchu to keep us updated on this kind of stuff? Or is the process too fluid for this to be workable?

 

The process is too unreliable for this to be workable, since there're 3 of us with wildly fluctuating availability and energy. Farbs and I aren't fulltime, and Jon does a lot that isn't always visible. That said, I'd love to give players better expectations. I'll talk to Jon and see what we can do. No promises.

 

Normally I speak up for player rights and freedom, but I'm actually with Flax on this one. If people can just quit the game any old time, at what point does someone actually get to enjoy winning a game? As soon as there's a hint that the game might be won, the other player will bail, robbing the "winner" of the actual experience of the winning. Sure getting out of it early sounds good to you when you're losing, but if you turn it around and people start doing it to you when you win, I guarantee you will not be thrilled. In order for people to enjoy winning, they must also suffer through defeat - otherwise no one ever gets to enjoy their wins, and that's a state most players (and the designers) certainly don't want the game to be in.

 

Thanks Flax! Couldn't ask for more and I understand the inherent limitations in the current workforce setup.

As to the 'quit at the first hint of defeat' question, that shouldn't be encouraged or a design goal. If you play multiplayer, you're expected to actually play it and not use it as some kind of slot machine. How selfish do you even need to be to give no consideration to the experience of the other player? They entered the arena in good faith and should get a decent match no matter what the other player draws. If you can't handle that, you shouldn't be playing multiplayer. It's just basic manners.

I'm sure no one minds if you occasionally need to quit early, just politely explain the situation and quit but if you feel the need to do this a lot or even routinely you should really take a long look at what you're actually doing even playing multiplayer. Why play it if you don't enjoy the play itself, no matter how the match goes? If the only thing that matters to you is winning, play single player, you'll win a lot faster.

Imagine starting a match of badminton and immediately resigning when the first serve didn't go perfectly. The whole idea is absurd, as it should be. Why should your manners be any different when the match is played online? The person in the other end of the line is just as real as if she was standing across from you in the court. Your actions toward them feel just the same as they would on the physical field. Don't be a dick in either.

 

I haven't played MP a lot, and I've only had a few players insta-quit against me. I prefer those who resign over those who disconnect, but neither bothered me. I can see how it would annoy some, but I consider it part of the small stuff I don't sweat.
Does it happen often these days?

 

Yes, I also cannot really understand what's the problem there? Someone resigns a fight, you get a win/chest and go fight another? I mean what's the problem there..

 

Personally, I don't mind people who insta-resign(but I hate those who disconnect instead). It's just free loot,why would I complain? However, I can understand it is annoying to players who have all the items they want and are just looking to battle/test their skills.

 

If you lose a MP battle maybe give a brown chest reward 2 common+ items.
Only if the game is finished , 6 stars or tko. Also maybe a time limit, like the game was over 5 mins.
Quitting will not provided this chest and might stop some premature games.

 

Dislike.
I think the MP rewards are good enough already and the fact that losing gives nothing makes people try harder to win which is only good.