[Feedback] Campaign rewards vs. MP rewards

I am one of the minority of players who doesn't really enjoy multiplayer matches in most games. (Yes, there are some of us out there.) Kudos to the developers for the challenging, entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable campaign and quest options.

However, the balance of rewards between the campaign and the MP aspects of the game make a campaign-only play style very difficult to maintain. A single MP win each day results in a magnificent (yellow) chest, while these appear only on initial completion of a complete campaign adventure (or completion of a quest). Both during the difficult mid-levels (10-14ish) and after completing the main campaign storyline, collecting enough equipment to support variation against opponents is very challenging without entering into the daily MP grind for yellow chests.

It would be nice if players could have the realistic option of supporting a campaign-only style of play. For this to happen, there need to be increased rewards from replaying campaign matches or when re-playing the campaign with new sets of characters. I don't think that this could substantially unbalance MP play, as there is already a daily restriction on scenario replay.

 

This begs the question: if you don't play MP, why do you care if other players are getting good stuff more quickly?

 

He doesn't. He's saying that the campaign alone does not provide enough loot to effectively play the campaign. Also, you don't get any guaranteed rares from the level 10 to 13 modules (I haven't played all the 14s yet, and I wasn't taking notes before level 10).

I also don't like MP (I'm generally bad at MP games), but my first priority every day is getting those first 2 gold chests.

 

Exactly. The reward structure does not support a campaign-only play style... this has nothing to do with who has more stuff, or who got more stuff more quickly.

Kalin, thanks for posting. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion.

 

I finished the whole campaign (minus bonus scenarios) before dipping into mp aside from using the free starter set items. I had to regrind some adventures when I hit the wall of monkeys, but nothing big.

Considering the time investment the mp rewards are really not spectacular. Just redoing an easy and quick lower level quest will net you more useful items per time spent.

 

Let's assume that I'm good enough to win all the time.

The average MP game right now is lasting 4-5 minutes. (Thanks to the new "Results" board for this data!) Winning three matches each day gets me 2 guaranteed rares, 1 guaranteed uncommon, and 7 other items for a total time investment of 12-15 minutes, with items ranging from 1-18. MP games might have some more uncertainty than grinding levels, so let's double this number to 24-30 minutes.

A low-end module will yield greater numbers of items in the same amount of time, but with nothing guaranteed to be better than common (and with item levels on the items restricted to the level of the dungeon, I believe).

A high-end module (like dungeon of the swamp king, level 17) takes me about 20-30 minutes to clear without a loss and on the last run resulted in 6 common and 4 uncommon items. Now, I might get lucky with any of those drops, but that's just as true in MP. Nothing comes close to the guaranteed results of MP wins.

If you disagree, please show me where I can grind in the campaign on a daily basis that results in the same kind of reward under the same set of assumptions.

 

I had another thread with data on campaign rewards you may want to look at. http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/threads/grinding-campaign-for-gear.2719/#post-28326

My experience with MP is that games take longer than your estimate. Between the queue time and play time, I would estimate a typical MP match takes around 10-15 minutes to complete. There are some quick resignations, but there are also some that stretch out longer. If you estimate a 50% win ratio (which can be difficult for new players) that would take 6 matches, or about 1 to 1.5 hours. In that same time I can beat at least 3 campaign levels, and based on my results the rewards are pretty similar (though I agree they favor MP).

Personally I think campaign does offer pretty good rewards, considering this is a free to play game. Essentially free to play games want non-paying players to play MP, that's the model. By playing multiplayer they provide game content, in that they populate the MP queue with real living opponents. Non-paying players playing single player/campaign style games utilize resources (server CPU, network bandwidth, etc) that cost the developers money but aren't directly contributing back to the game (that's not meant to insult anyone, enjoy the game however you prefer).

Cardhunter is actually one of the most generous free-to-play games I've seen for single player.

 

I completely agree with you that campaign rewards are inferior to MP rewards. This seems especially weird since adventures have a 1-day CD on them much like the MP rewards, so it's hard to see the justification for this.

Having said that, I'm not sure a straight-up buff to campaign drops would lead to a more enjoyable play experience. If I play several MP matches each day, those matches will continue to be fun and varied no matter how many times I play, simply due to their multiplayer nature.

However, if some number of adventures have a really good drops/time-spent ratio, I'm going to feel obligated to do those adventures every single day. And every single day those adventures will be exactly the same. It will get old incredibly fast, and while it might be efficient it won't be fun.

A potential solution to this would be to spotlight a random adventure each day, and have that adventure give really good bonus rewards for completion (2 guaranteed rares, perhaps). This way you wouldn't feel obligated to spend a ton of time each day grinding adventures (as you'd only have to do one), you wouldn't get burned out quickly (as it'd be a different adventure each day, so it'd take much much longer before you start seeing repeats).

This solution has a few other benefits as well - it'd give MP players a reason to complete the campaign (as you can only do the daily if you've unlocked that adventure), potentially add additional benefits for people who purchased treasure hunts if they are included in the rotation, as well as give an incentive for non-MP players to log in every day (which is really important for a F2P game - you see almost all of them implement a system to incentivize this, such as first win bonus XP or some sort of daily log-in prize).

 

I am not sure how you arrive at an average mp time of 4-5 minutes. That seems quite frankly impossible for a game that is not a onesided stomp. Currently the results page shows an average time of 8 minutes on the first page and 11 minutes on the second page. Given that you lose 50% of your mp matches once your elo has stabilized, you are looking at a time investment of about an hour for the three chests. And that is not including search times. It may seem very short in the beginning where you just beat on Gary for a minute or two until you collect your chest.

And for a more fair comparison you should play the quick scenarios that only have two maps. You won't get the highest lvl items, but you get those very rarely in mp either.

 

See my post. Most free to play games have incredibly limited single player options, and heavily limit the rewards you can receive due to the cost of providing a free game.

 

Thanks... I saw this, but thought that pointing out the disparity between MP and campaign was still worthwhile. It's great data.

Agreed, which is why I doubled my time estimates for the MP games in my original post. I think it's a fair comparison, but even if you want to increase that time, it's still not anywhere close to the reward level of 2 campaign maps against 3 MP wins.

The rewards for MP are even more skewed if you are a club member, as the club reward is always at least as rare as the rarest item you are guaranteed. That means that 3 MP wins provides 4 guaranteed rare+ items (along with 1 uncommon and 7 common) while grinding any level board on the campaign provides nothing guaranteed above a common.

I'd be happy to pay for a game (and am currently) that can support continued campaign-only play. Perhaps club membership should guarantee a reward that is equivalent to the rarity that you get for originally completing the map even when replayed.

 

Interesting. Well, let me put it to you this way:

For guaranteed rarity, I can't help you.

But the campaign, as you note, has guaranteed level range around the level of the adventure you complete. This is special. Because, of course, you need items from the entire range of power tokens (both "high end" and completely token-free) in order to play, period.

Then see this post where I gush with enthusiasm over the LARGE amount of campaign rewards I receive:

http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/threads/how-are-you-enjoying-card-hunter-today.1757/#post-28459

It's not the best-argued post, of course. But I believe it makes my point: by "shrugging" (spending a minute or less per win) I get a large amount of items; and even if chance means they aren't useful items, they are still a fast source of gold so I may buy "high end" gear. Don't forget that for-gold gear costs depend only on rarity (not level), so gold earned from the start of the game is beneficial at the end. I also enjoy replays on truly easy high-level adventures (which FOR ME includes level 15 gnomes), again taking advantage of level range.

I'd much rather play single-player for rewards because of the amount of control I get over the results (in such an inherently-random game).

Does this help?

 

I think perhaps we have very different perspectives.

I'd guess that you can get around 30 gold a day with your method of running all the low-end modules daily. It sounds remarkably boring to me, and the gold reward is relatively minimal. This isn't going to motivate a campaign player to keep playing.

I do agree that campaign modules give you some control over the level of the items that you get, but having finished the campaign, does anyone really need another 12 hatchets (or any other common item)? What keeps players motivated to replay campaigns or to attempt the quests is the lure of the more rare items.

 

Indeed, perspective. I just plain enjoy this game: why would replaying an adventure be boring?

But the rest is not perspective, it's practicality. Guaranteed minimum rarity says nothing about the maximum, and of course this huge flood of items brings more than just level 1 axe cards. "Having finished the campaign," are you still playing the game or not? Then you still want this zero-token Greasy Tome, Blessed Demon Claw, Red Jon's Boots, Spiked Buckler (my quest for Lunging Bash continues), Burning Bangle (common!), Stookster's Amulet, Bulky Leather Vest, Righteous Tome (common!), and whatever else you personally value, which I have sitting here from playing campaign only (and most of them in the last three days). Or the Blazing Shortsword, Vigun's Blessed Blade, and Booming Ring I'm still trying to replace post-reset. I'm on record as saying that high-rarity items (from no-guaranteed-minimum chests) are TOO common. If I have to convince you that low-level items matter (and thus their adventures), that's a different issue.

However, it sounds somewhat like you don't want to be convinced that the campaign is worthwhile in general. A total of 30 gold per day? We've done calculations before (here's a very old version), and even if a mere 30 gold were true, it's still 30 gold I enjoyed getting. If your one and only criterion is that "guaranteed rarity is fun and nothing else matters," then of course you've decided this conversation is over. Hence I led with the words "For guaranteed rarity, I can't help you" to reframe the discussion.

 

Why do you have to "maintain campaign-only play style"?

Campaign gives you very consistent rewards. Multiplayer might take hour or two for the first chest (or 15 min for three). Just pick what you like the best and feel free to alter your choice if you feel like it.

 

For campaign rewards I also think it's important to remember quests. Quests offer better rewards than normal, and those add up if you spend the time to beat them. I've beaten 50+ quests now, and that's resulted in probably another 100+ rare/epic items.

Plus Farbs posted in another thread that treasure values are being significantly increased, which should allow you to earn (significantly) more gold than Sir Knight's example. That, along with the increase in items in the rare store, should provide more shopping options. This extra money will also help people playing through the campaign for the first time.

It may just be my experience with other free to play games, but I honestly think Card Hunter offers some of the best single player rewards I've seen. As just one example of what I've experienced in other games, Duel of Champions offers almost nothing for playing single player, has an incredibly short campaign (around 4 or 5 levels) and can't be replayed for rewards.

 

I do think it comes down to perspective. If there wasn't a multiplayer format for CH at all, would you still think the game doesn't support Campaign-only play? If not, why does the inclusion of an additional format remove the play style that already existed?

The game already offers campaign-only style of play...just don't play multiplayer. It's a choice and the only issue with it is the psychology behind the idea that you get better chests in multiplayer -- which draws a campaign-only type player into multiplayer. I'd argue the designers are doing EXACTLY what they intended to do, bring campaign players into the multiplayer arena, increasing the multiplayer playerbase at various levels of skill. This is a good thing for the game.

Should you have to play Multiplayer if you don't enjoy it? No, and you don't. Certainly there is a carrot dangling to incentivize you to do so, but there is no need or requirement to not see the game as campaign-only. You aren't losing out on anything by not engaging in Multiplayer, more so because when only considering the campaign the loot other people are getting in of no relation to your experience.

That said, isn't your problem really with the speed at which you can acquire 'more powerful' (through rare minimum chests) loot? Completely ignoring the view of the developer and how getting people to play multiplayer increases the longevity and success of the game and looking strictly from the point of a free to play player, if your problem is the speed at which you get rare or better loot, would you still feel this is a problem if you exclude multiplayer from the game entirely? If so, why?

 

Looking at the last 25 times I've opened the first MP chest and the last 23 times I've opened the third one, every chest had at least one item level 9 or higher.

 

I'm a little surprised by the seeming hostility toward players who want to remain campaign-only. Perhaps I wasn't entirely clear in my motivation for this post. Let's see if I can clear things up.

I think there are currently good rewards that encourage players to continue playing MP on a daily basis. That first and third chest, with their guaranteed rare items, provide a strong incentive to come back every day and keep playing. It's an even better reward if you're a (paying) club member, as you double the number of guaranteed rare or better items that you get. There is a strong incentive to maintain your paid membership. MP rewards continued play and rewards continuing to pay.

There are no good incentives for campaign players to come back on a daily basis or to maintain a club membership. I can replay existing modules once each (but only once each) and end up with little more than a pile of common items. That same set of items (and same chance of items) will be there tomorrow, so there's no reason to draw me back every day. Even as a paying club member, after I've completed the campaign, there is no good reason to keep my club membership. I get a single extra common item from each completed map, which compared to the number of common items that I can get each day provides only a very weak incentive to maintain my paid membership.

I really enjoy the campaign... it's well balanced, has good replay value, and has a CCG-like rarity scale to encourage collecting. I also don't mind paying to play a game that makes my money worthwhile. Right now, card hunter does not... and it should. A small boost in the rarity of campaign items that are guaranteed for paying club members, would be enough to get me to keep up my $10/month membership. I doubt I'm the only one.

(Neofalcon and I both had what I think are good possible solutions posted above, which I won't repeat here. Dev team, please give us a reason to keep handing you money monthly!)

 

IIRC There's around 100 quest that give guaranteed rares after you've finished the campaign.

There's a reason why most f2p games are multiplayer games. After a certain point single player will end. No matter what. It can be extended, but at much higher price than MP. And usually players demand much much faster expansions.

Edit: and ofc, introducing grinding in single player usually doesn't work that well... I wouldn't be against an adventure that would require, let's say, 100 replays of previous adventures before completing. Maybe 400-500 for quests.

I can just imagine the cries