First impressions thread

I'm a new beta tester (grabbed a beta key yesterday) and here's my feedback/first impressions so far (It's worth noting that I encountered a bug with the tutorial and had to skip it, so it's possible that affected my thoughts/experiences):

First of all, I'm incredibly impressed with the game. It's visually stunning, the sound effects are great, the gameplay is challenging and rewarding, and the game's performance is great - which is impressive seeing as it's a flash game. So far, the hardest two adventures I've encountered are Lair of the Trog Wizard and Rescue from Shieldhaven. The Trog one was really difficult for that early in the game - the enemies can all attack from a range of two, and on the first map all the enemies are the same type, meaning they all move at once, making it really hard to get any of them in melee range. I did eventually beat it, so I'm not sure I think it's unbalanced - just hard. On Shieldhaven, however, I tried the adventure 3 times, and each time wiped 3 times on the third battle with the all the dogs in the open courtyard. I've posted some more thoughts on this encounter in the thread discussing it, as I think it's probably overtuned.

I have 2 minor UI annoyances. The first is that the character cutouts can overlap important stats on cards, making it hard to tell at glance what that card does without inspecting it. This could be easily resolved by making the cards appear on top of the character, or by putting more space between the leftmost card and the character. My second minor annoyance is that health counters on characters/enemies are not always visible - they can be blocked by other pieces on the board. I know that I can still view the health by hovering over the piece (or looking at a party member's hand to check theirs), but having to manually check the health for each enemy in a tactics game instead of having it immediately visible what every unit's health is just by looking at the board is a bit obnoxious (even if this doesn't happen too often). I'm not really sure how this could be easily fixed - perhaps a toggle that shows the health of every unit above their head, bound to a key?

The animations on cards being played is REALLY fast. This isn't a bad thing - in fact for the most part this is really good thing - I usually spend turn-based games hating how slow the animations are, even after turning all the settings up so they move as fast as possible. Having said that, there are times when it seems TOO fast - even though it pauses on new cards, sometimes I forget what a card does and want to read it in detail before it resolves. I don't want to just slow down the animation speed in general, because the majority of the time the speed is perfect. Perhaps this could be fixed by adding a key you can hit (perhaps spacebar) that pauses the game on that card, giving you time to read it before continuing.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with auto-targeting. It really speeds up the game the majority of the time (leading to me keeping it on), however, there's been countless times when I used an attack on a different target than I intended since I didn't realize the one I wanted to target was out of range/LOS, meaning there was only one valid target in range. I don't really know if this is something that should/could be fixed, or if I just need to learn to pay more attention. It could be changed slightly so it checks a few conditions beyond there only being one possible target - for instance, not automatically targeting a full-health character with a heal card, or using a frenzy card on a character without melee cards (you could still do this things, if for some reason you wanted to, it would just ask you to manually select a target).

I decided to spend some pizza on a starter pack so I could try out multiplayer a bit. This led to two unexpected disappointments. First of all, I didn't realize the items I got from the pack would be usable in single-player, from the description on the packs I figured these items would be multiplayer-only, or that they'd at least have level requirements so they didn't trivialize the single-player content. It wasn't my intention to skip single-player progression, and while I'm not sure I dislike that that's an option (this is a free-to-play game after all), I'm not entirely sure I like that this is the implementation of it (wouldn't it simply be better to make those items multiplayer-only, and add an option to pay pizza to open the chests at chest shops?). I've resolved to simply not use any of those items in single-player for now, to preserve the game's difficulty curve, for my own personal enjoyment and to give better beta feedback.

The second disappointment was that at the time I did this I didn't know about the existence of "treasure hunts", and buying this multiplayer starter pack didn't leave me with enough pizzas to do this mission. I'm not sure if you guys are already accepting money, or if this 50 starting pizzas is beta-only, or how any of that is going to work out, so I can't really comment on this beyond the fact that I want to play this adventure, but can't. If these pizzas are only for testing purposes, perhaps give us more so we can test more stuff? (If you were accepting money already and simply giving the pizzas back after the final wipe, I'd probably just buy some, except that in my hurry to enter a beta key yesterday I stupidly thought the "Name" portion was asking for my name and not for a username, which now can't be changed, meaning I'll probably have to make a new account before launch).

The last bit of feedback I have is some commentary on the adventure exhaustion/loot mechanics. Overall, I think having adventures become exhausted after clearing them is a great mechanic, making it so you can't simply grind lower level content to trivialize new content, and giving the player a reason to come back and play each day. However, it's a bit unclear how LONG you have to wait before playing again - there should probably be a timer somewhere that says (Exhausted dungeons reset in X hours XX minutes). Also, it seems like this mechanic is undermined by the fact that you get chests after the interim battles, and can restart the adventure at any time before completing it. What's to stop players from simply resigning 3 times at the final battle and restarting the adventure so they can farm the interim treasure chests for loot/gold? This is especially problematic since loot of all levels is worth the same amount, meaning you could use this to grind long, low-level adventures even at high levels, and sell the loot you get to buy high-level chests and items from shops. Since I imagine one of the main reasons for the exhaustion mechanic is to extend how long progression takes players, and to prevent them from getting the best items in the game in a matter of days through grinding, this is probably a pretty big problem. Fortunately, this could be easily fixed by tracking which battles the player has beaten each day, and only letting them open a chest the first time they beat a battle each day.

 

Hey, that was a pretty thorough write-up. Welcome aboard!

I know you say you don't want to just slow it down, but have you noticed that you do have the option (in the options menu)? I have mine at speed 2.

Also, of course, you can check out cards again by looking at the log in the top left. And also, of course, that isn't what you said you wanted either.

Perhaps a key to hit that goes back in time and brings back the last card the player saw? You know, the bottom card in the log? Perhaps a "cycle through the most recent cards" press-by-press?

Did you notice the talent requirements? You can't use the talent-bespeckled cards from those packs early in the game. In fact, thanks to things like how racial skills have to be unlocked too, you can't use quite a lot. So, fortunately, you can't spoil your experience even if you tried.

And then you get the perk I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread: when you finally unlock those in single-player (slowly, one by one by one), you understand enough of the game to really appreciate it.

(All this goes out the window if you tell me you found a pack with no talent requirements.)

 

The feeling when you get your first talent stone damn so good and then you find your first double talent item and sigh at all the godly cards so close but so far away

 

No, actually, I did not! This does invalidate a lot of what I said, however, there ARE some cards from the pack that don't have talent requirements (my pack had an arcane skill, martial skill, dwarf skill, and boots without talent requirements). However, these are all relatively low level (5-7), so it probably wouldn't trivialize the content at all to use.

And yeah, I noticed the animation speed slider and combat log, but those aren't really what I want (these are minor complaints, I know, and certainly aren't in any way ruining the experience, but I thought they were worth mentioning).

 

So overall I really like how this game is going, but there are a couple of things I find frustrating. First, it should not be possible to not loot a chest, something I foolishly managed to do once. Second, there is no way to build up a new adventurer's levels until the next day if you decide that you want to have a new race/class combination and have already done the early adventures. When I get to a new level, I want to be able to implement the plan I have for beating that level, and that won't work too well with a level 1 character, no matter what loot he may have. We can grind loot, why can't we have a way to grind xp for new characters?

 

Please consider that players will make a team of characters to start and may not like it right away. They will then attempt to fix it by using different characters, but don't usually delete these first ones. They are not trying to cheat the system, but they could easily have 5 characters made in the first 15 mintues of the game. If the first 3 are the only free characters, how are they going to enjoy their experience if they can't roll something to change it without being forced to delete the first ones? Also, what happens if someone sold everything they had to buy a new weapon in the shop and all the dungeons are on timer for that team? Will they be able to make new characters while they wait for the timers despite having 0 gold left?

 

I'm 99% sure timers are account based and not team based.

 

You can also monetize on this aspect by restricting it to character slots, and allowing you to purchase additional slots.

EDIT: Oh, the original quote had that idea already. Nevermind.

Also, I would like to be able to see timers on dungeons/stores refreshing as well as pay Pizza to instantly refresh them.

 

Alright, so I'm finally here with my first impressions, though I haven't been able to play much this entire weekend... maybe three to four hours total since Thursday when I got the key. I've only beaten two of the non-tutorial adventures so far.

It certainly hasn't felt like I've played the game any length of time. When recording my unboxing video I didn't realize until I was done that I had played for an entire hour. That's definitely a sign of enjoyment.

One thing that's stuck out in my mind due to the frequency is the amount of times I've had hands in which I can do little to nothing with. I think this is more an unbalance in the card ratio as I level up, since I don't have all the slots yet. I don't really think it will be an issue once I get a full allotment of slots, but during the introductory levels it can be frustrating. I've noticed it most often with my Cleric, since she's a bit lower level.

I think that for the introduction, there should be a male and female option for each gender. Not a big thing, but if we're planning to stick with these characters a while, I'd like to be able to choose gender at least. Also, I think the random phonemes could use some work. Many of the options I got were nigh on unintelligible.

Troglodytes are crazy. It was labelled as a 2nd level adventure, so naturally I did it after I completed the tutorial. Big mistake. I wiped a couple of times before moving on to another adventure (the mage tower one) which I handled just fine. The main issue for me was their extreme mobility coupled with their extended melee range. They definitely need another balancing pass, or possibly a level bump to the adventure.

Right now, Wizards to me feel much more useful than Warriors or Clerics. I think this is because range is such a huge advantage when you have limited movement ability. For example, during the troglodyte battles my Wizard was the one handling most of the damage, with my Warrior and Cleric basically acting as meat shields. Again, this may be something that changes further into the game.

I don't mean to be overly negative. By and large I absolutely love the game, and I've been eagerly awaiting the time when I can actually sit down and play a little more.

 

Yeah, I usually use the random generator for inspiration if not for my actual names, but this one gives me very little to work with.

 

Currently in my "lower tier" of adventurers, I have Wizards named Lancaster and Falspel; Priests named Divina and Alholy; and Warriors named Hackenzie and Thudric. You can guess that I named them myself.

 

I ended up getting frustrated with the randomness when I got my Priest and ended up naming her Astra.

 

Does the fact that I did a presentation on Markov processes in grad school impress you, or make you nervous?

And the fact that I did so because I was inspired by The Illuminatus! Trilogy; what of that?

 

This is some feedback of my first impressions from the Beta. I've copied it from where I originally posted it on the reddit cardhunter forum (http://www.reddit.com/r/cardhunter) where we have a small competition to win one of three beta keys, for anyone who is looking for one...

Because I was posting to a group of non-beta playing fans, this is part impressions and part review.

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First impression: SLICK. The game just oozes smoothness and grace. From the first time you click on your little cardboard figure and move it across the landscape you'll feel that. There's incredible attention to detail and there really is a strong feeling of moving around real cardboard figures.

The graphics are very nice. You don't expect much from cardboard cutout figures, admittedly, but they look exactly as if they were cut out of a magazine and glued onto a base. Dice and pencils are littered around the "playing table" (although you can't interact with them) and you can even see the fold in the world map etc. It's very pretty and unique.

Sound is a bit repetitive, and there isn't any form of soundtrack, so it's mostly just the noises of attacks landing and Gary saying "Woop!". That's fine for me, I tend to play games in bed on my laptop and turn the sound off so as not to wake up my partner anyway, but if a full audio companion experience is important to you then you may notice this. However, it's a beta and this may well change.

The game is very easy in the tutorial, and then quickly ramps up to be quite difficult. Obviously, they're still balancing things, so I would expect this to change for the full release, but it's worth noting that if you're expecting an easy game you will get a shock. One thing that factors into this of course is the randomness of loot - if you are lucky enough to get really good equipment then you will find battles become progressively easier. If you get poor equipment then you will have to grind a little to get past harder battles. Which leads me to:

Every dungeon can be done once a day, and then it is exhausted. You can play it again the following day but not before. This does mean that grinding is tricky if you get to a part of the game you just can't get past. Early on last night, I got to an adventure I couldn't win, but all of the earlier adventures were still locked because I had already completed them, so I had no way to replay adventures to try to find better gear. Luckily, a little while later, they all unlocked. I don't know what the criteria was, it was late evening NZ time, maybe it had just gone midnight in the US? Anyway, I was then able to repeat all of the early adventures, which got me some extra gold and equipment, and I kitted myself up and got past the bit I had been stuck on, which was awesome, but if it had happened early in the day, I would have been stuck for longer and unable to play. Presumably, the higher level you are, the more adventures "behind you" there will be, so it's only likely to be a problem at low levels.

When you fail an adventure, you get to re-try it twice. If you fail the three times, it's locked until the next day, unless you pay to unlock it early - see below.

When you create your account, you get 50 pizza slices, and you can buy more. The exchange rate is $44 for 100 slices (you can buy fewer, but they're individually more expensive that way - $11 for 20 slices for example). I don't know what currency it is in - does it know I'm in NZ so they're New Zealand dollars? Or are they Aussie dollars because BM is an Aussie company? Or are they USD? I suspect USD, but it doesn't tell you. Also, the only option seems to be paypal, so if you don't have/like paypal, you may be in trouble. Pizza slices are the microtransaction currency - you spend them in lots of 10 (as far as I have spotted so far). You can buy additional characters for 10 slices (so, $4.40) each (you get the first 3, one of each class, for free). Similarly, 10 slices will give you another shot at a dungeon that you have locked by failing it too many times. Other uses apparently involve buying additional avatars and access into premium dungeons, but I have not come across those uses yet. Like all microtransaction systems, it's very cheap but you could easily spend a lot of money if that's your thing. I can certainly see myself blowing a lot on this game (which is fair, since it's free to play).

Each character combination (Elf Warrior, Dwarf Cleric, etc) has a single, set avatar (the cardboard piece). You cannot change it, or even pick it's sex. I understand that there will be additional avatars for sale at a later point, at a cost in pizza slices. I don't know how much that will cost or how many options there will be.

There's a quirky humour in the game, and "Gary" (the GM leading you through the adventures) is pretty cool, but after the tutorial he's almost never mentioned again. However, this is a beta, and apparently there will be a full narrative joining everything together later on, and Gary will presumably be more prominent.

I found bosses to be easier than mobs. Bosses get their own hand of cards, but mobs share a hand. When a mob member uses an attack card, only one gets to attack, but when they use a move card, they all move. This can make it very tricky to actually hit them, because as soon as you move a character up to them, the entire mob will move away before you get a chance to attack. The troglodites are especially nasty at this in some of the early adventures, because you only have 1 square range weapons, but they have powerful 4-point attacks with 2 squares range, so they move just out of reach of your weapons but can attack you. Nasty!

Don't neglect special cards - I kept ignoring a card one of my characters had which forced an opponent to discard his "oldest" card, but then I twigged that it's actually very powerful - taking away one of their cards, especially against mobs, is totally worth it. At times, using this tactically literally made the difference between winning and losing a fight.

Cardhunter is, of course, an always-online game. If you have flaky or unreliable internet, it's not going to be the game for you. Any loss of internet results in your game being reset, and when you log in again you will be at the start of the dungeon you were in when you lost connection.

The game requires flash, which is fine for PC's, but means it will not work on an iPad until BM bring out an iPad app client. I don't know if Android supports flash. Note that it does not appear to work in IE10 (the Windows 8 version of IE) so you will not be able to play it on Win 8 unless you download another browser (I used Chrome, and it's fine). I was exceedingly pleased to find that it DOES work fine on my Win8 Pro tablet (because I installed Chrome and Flash) but it wont work on a Surface. Also, your tablet needs a mouse. Although you can do most things with touch, you can't right-click to view cards with touch. My tablet has a wacom pen with a right-click button on the side, and that worked perfectly. I am a happy camper.

The game is polished, slick, and a lot of fun. I can see myself sinking a lot of time into it, although there were a few issues that I hope will be sorted out post beta.

Finally, I would just like to say once again that BU needs to talk to Rich from The Order of the Stick because I really really want to be able to buy OOTS characters as avatars for my CardHunter characters!

 

I don't think that Blue Manchu would want the word "review" attached to anything at this point, since it is still a beta.