First impressions thread

Yes. Making messages brighter generally and/or moving "You must play a trait" to the player's side of the screen instead of the enemy's cards would be nice.

 

I think mightymushroom has hit the logic of the Trait problem.

Though I must say I have no difficulty with Gary. The whole screen dims. There is often a sound effect. Also, there is technically a little movement in Gary's portrait already.

 

Yes, I should clarify that I meant the parchmenty/paper background on the standard game messages seems just a smidge too drab. It fits the theme, but I think the banners could be a little brighter or perhaps shaded more yellow so they don't blend as much with the rest of the screen. I don't have difficulties noticing Gary.

 

First brief impressions, without having read any other posts:

Random positive:
* The art direction, art, and animation is polished and super appealing. Many, many kudos to the folks responsible for that side of things. I cannot overstate how aesthetically pleasing the game is.
* I love the basic approach to tactics -- the cards allow for rich and varied interactions, while limiting choices on a round-per-round basis.
* The game has a definite "one more turn" hook to it, thanks to the clarity of interface, ease of interaction, and general challenge level.

* Love the sounds the characters make when they die!


Random negative:
* Wish there was some between-mission decision-making to make me feel more involved in the adventure. Deciding where to go on the overland map is great, but I would love some limited choices between missions within each adventure.
* Don't like the "card attached to item" mechanic for thematic reasons. It just seems weird that a character can have 3 weapons equipped. The mechanic works fine, and I understand the reasoning behind it, but it feels wrong. I would have preferred that each weapon have a set of traits like damage type, base damage amount, etc., and that weapon-specific fighting styles/skills could be bought from trainers.
* Thematically, I feel like "Missile Block" should be called "Dodge" or something similar, since so far I've mainly see Goblins use it.
* It really seemed to me like the Priest buffs I was getting, like Righteous Frenzy and the one that heals adjacent characters at the end of each turn, should be able to be self-cast.
* One of the sound effects for a successful block sounds like a weapon being drawn when I feel like it to sound like a weapon clanging/rebounding.
* Don't like one of the sound effects for "Missile Block" -- reminds me too much of Space Invaders ("pew pew").

 

Heh, I'm amused by "pew pew," but I do feel compelled to respond to this point:

This "theme" is basically the core of Card Hunter, and the single reason why it's different from any other game ever. It is the one never-before-attempted idea that makes me feel the game will be a success. It is, in short, what attracts me to the game (aside from the aesthetics).

If you want to eliminate the card suite mechanic, and replace it with Diablo or Final Fantasy or basically any other game's "this is a weapon, it does damage" system, you will be disappointed. If I'm missing the thrust of your concern, though, and you have more specific suggestions to make, then go for it.

 

This, this, and this! If you want to make "thematic sense" of the card suite mechanic and a character, for instance, having three weapons equipped, you could think of characters being proficient with more and more weapons as they gain levels.

 

I'm not suggesting anything like aping those other game's mechanics. The mechanics in CH are great, and mechanically I wouldn't want to change a thing. I'm just talking about the window dressing for the mechanics. When I mentioned weapons having base stats, I meant more like a base set of cards that would be impacted by skill cards. I'm just talking about what things are called, not how they work.

In any case, it's a moot point. They have settled on this approach, and that's fine. I was just registering some cognitive dissonance in my first impressions of the game.

 

That is an interesting possibility. I can also see how it could be implemented.

Keep it in mind as you play, though, and see whether the current game setup would mesh with it. I believe that the card suites as they are now are really really complicated, with single cards (out of three or six in a suite) changing between some items, multiple cards changing between others, various thematic patterns and "combos" being mixed and matched . . . I believe that Card Hunter is currently more complex than base cards and modification patterns would allow. (In particular, just think about the impact on those dev-selected "combos" on so many items.)

 

I do not mean to suggest that base systems should be altered this late in the development. They have a really solid system here, and it works great. It seems like the focus now should be on balance and polish. I was just really giving my first impressions as to how everything works, and the choice to call things "items" just sat weird with me. I love the game overall, so it's just something I'll have to get used to.

 

I figured, I just got frustrated when my priest was be the only character left, and unable to boost her own attacks. I obviously just need to figure out how to use those abilities more effectively.

And off-topic, heartfelt thanks for your work on System Shock, Thief, and (especially) Freedom Force, Mr. Chey! Your pedigree is what got me to start following Card Hunter's development in the first place.

 

I would like a way to sort out crap items right away when you get them in a chest, so you dont have to look at them several times

 

I like the whole adventure + abilities/cards + customization.
While I like the "in-quest" aspect, I do find the "world map" aspect lacking a bit, i.e. no roads/towns/places to explore (like ruins/dungeons).

Also, there is only one shop/npc, at least in the first few levels, idk maybe having a few more would flesh out the experience.

The only thing I really found confusing in the very beginning was when a button is blacked out because you need to click elsewhere but that's not outlined (and really I'm unsure if that should be changed, players should be able to figure this little much on their own).


see at the very bottom, I first thought it was a bug, it says "click onward", yet the button is blacked out. It was confusing at first.

 

No, I put the herring in my inventory (as I recall) and then was able to click it (I think that's how it went, happened yesterday)

 

Also, is there a way to decrease the in-game volume? (without fiddling with your own computer's settings?)

 

Since I got into the beta (yay), I wanted to share my experience:
Overall I absolutely love the game, it's so addicting: I leveled all my characters to level 18 in 3 days because i just couldn't stop playing. The difficulty curve is exactly right in my eyes (with the exception of one or two adventures): Till level 5, I didn't have to retry a single battle, and till level 9 not a single adventure. After that it became a bit more challenging, but all that can be resolved by adapting gear and strategy.
So here are some random critique points:

• Five fights in an adventure seemed too long (i think it was on of the level 6 ones). It can be frustrating to die in the last battle with your last replay, after having played 8 fights (with 15min each). If you are running the adventure for the first time, you also won't know what to expect in each fight, so replays are the only way to change your equipment, but that's not possible for every battle with 5 fights.

• Maybe it was just random luck with loot, but during level 10-18 a strategy with terrain altering cards seemed to be the far superior strategy.

• Due to the resolution on my 13" laptop at first I couldn't even read card popups in the shop, among other things. Later I realized that i had to drag the screen to see more and got used to it, but I still believe, it would be better for the resolution to adapt to the screen size.

• I'm not sure if I missed it in the tutorial, but it took me a while before I found out, that there is a fullscreen mode. (maybe put it on one of the loading screen tipps you are planning to add )

• I remembered from one of the earlier dev-diaries there being talk about Rudolpho, but aside from some utility in multiplayer deckbuilder it's not implemented. Did you step away from the concept of bringing only a limited amount of items to an adventure, or do you plan on using it as side deck for multiplayer? And if you don't want do add it, I would like to be able to sell items during loot screens (since when you loot the item you usually compair it to your current items and know wether or not you can sell it), otherwise it's such a pain to look through all your items after every adventure again for the ones you can sell. Another option would be to put a little "new" sign on all the items you have found since your last shop visit.

Loot:

• For most items, the ones at max level of a bead requirement a strictly better than at the bottom of said bead, e.g. most lvl 8 or 16 items are better than lvl 1 or 9 versions of them, but still require the same talent cost. I know there must be progression even between these levels, but this leads to two things: When you are farming the lower level dungeons, you will most likely focus on the the top of a tier dungeons (i.e. lvl8 or 16). And also more importantly it leads to a noticeable break in income: While leveling during the bottom of a tier, you will rarely sell items, because the new ones are significant upgrades, due to them using new talents, and you can't sell the ones you had of the lower tier, because they still might be useful for pvp. Whereas at the top levels of a tier you can easily sell the earlier found items, since you get superior upgrades from the adventures. I for instance noticed this shift at level 9, where I couldn't sell hardly anything, while still being used to level 7 and 8, where you can sell most of the early adventure loot.
• One way of countering this, I would really appreciate is to add more junk to the loot tables, so you have a steadier income flow.

• And lastly this my only bigger critique point: I feel like there are too many items. While this may sound like an oxymoron, I'm starting to feel strong about it. After completing the single player, i decided to use the paypal-sandbox to buy some chests: After spending about $400, which felt like playing a slot machine (i thought you weren't going to do boosters ), I was still missing items for certain set ups. I can't even imagine how long it will take to get certain items for a certain build through the singleplayer. I know you're not going to reduce the amount of items in the game, but I would at least suggest to make loot a bit less random: Instead of having all items between level 2-5 in the loot table for an lvl 4 adventure, make it way more specific: e.g only some of the level 4 items for a one lvl 4 dungeon and and the rest for the other, and let challenges be replayable (with increased chances for a certain rarer item pool of the same level). That way, if you know what item you need, you have better chances of getting it in a timely manner (it may still take many many tries, but at least its manageable) .