How do I stop this happening?

Seriously, this is one of the biggest problems I'm having with the game- uneven distribution of cards.
I'm constantly getting 'runs' of cards, normally moves. It's not uncommon for me to have three or four of my six movement cards per character in my hand, leaving me with no way of dealing damage for a round or two at a time. At high levels, where lines of sight are shut down and mobility is less important, this kills the game.

Why, if half the cards in my deck are attacks, am I constantly short of attacks? And why does it normally seem to happen to 2 or 3 of my party members simultaneously?
I'll get a run of moves and blocks, and as soon as I start getting attacks, suddenly enemies dance out of the way until I cycle my deck again.

I've done Woodholme with a cleric packing multiple overswings and bludgeons, and getting none of these for two rounds at a time while cycling through every movement card I have.

I work 50-60 hours per week so my gaming time is precious. Having to play and replay missions over again simply because of a bad run of 'luck' on my draws wastes my time and functionally reduces the impact of player deckbuilding skill.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my experience has been that I get constant runs of moves, blocks or attacks, functionally crippling my ability to play to the fullest ability of my decks. It's gone beyond occasionally irritating and has moved on to being frequently bloody annoying.

Suggestions, please. I love this game and these same-card runs are just spoiling it for me.

 

No matter what you do it can happen, but its definitely possible to reduce. Some suggestions:
Combo cards - step attacks give movement and attacks so when you drawn them you have both (often combined with big damage attacks work nice).
Deck thinning. - Use traits to reduce the number of less desirable cards and maximize quality cards. Something like traveling curse can be worth having in your deck if it means getting to that big attack faster.
Card draw - put card generating cards on your priest, it makes the priest less able to directly engage in battle, but can let your other characters play a turn with 5-7 cards instead of 2-4.
Learn to save cards strategically - playing against melee opponents in the campaign, they'll come to you, save attacks. Playing against range attackers, save up movement and then chase them when you have enough for them not to get away.
Sometimes a passed turn is a won turn - new players want to use as many of their cards as possible every turn, more experienced players will weigh if playing cards now is more beneficial than waiting for more or new cards next turn. Especially against the AI that passes at random you can often virtually skip a turn if you don't have the right cards.

 

Third round, first battle, The Pools of Slime.
My toons have literally no more than 6 move cards each, and within three turns, two of them have around half their move cards out. I know that there's a guaranteed move card each round, but when you're surrounded by 18HP jellies with a green slime in support nerfing movement, this gets old really fast.

And this isn't an isolated incident either. I did Pools of Slime earlier today and got nuked on the final level three times in a row before I had to go to work. Went stab-heavy for mutual support, burned my moves early and watched as the yellow puddings somehow miraculously stayed out of stab range, despite my stab cards not being revealed.
Had no issues with any but the last level, where 'suddenly and unexpectedly' I was unable to maneuver or do damage due to constantly getting runs of rubbish draws.

The combo cards are an all right idea but their damage output is pus.

But please advise me as to the 'card drawing cards' that Priests can play. Maybe this is a solution. But maybe not, as I no doubt will have hurled my computer out the window in frustration before getting the cards in question.

 

Here's my next attempt at Pools of Slime round 1. Third draw.

My Warrior has drawn four of his five move cards, and not a single one of the fifteen attacks cards he could use (stab x4, strong stab x2, reaching swing x8, chop x1, penetrating stab x3). Amusingly, the only attack card he's drawn is the one single remaining attack card in his deck, which amusingly is the only attack that's amusingly useless against slimes.

My left Cleric has amusingly pulled two of his three (!) movement cards (he's already played the first), and two attacks/abilities amusingly useless against jellies. What he hasn't pulled is any of his effective attacks (vicious thrust x2, consuming spear x3, sapping spear x4, spear of darkness x3, draining touch x1, demonic miasma x1). It got clipped in the image but he's only got three cards played.

My right Cleric has three cards played including a movement card, making three out of five moves pulled. He's at least drawn a card that can deal damage (demonic miasma). He's dedicated support, so only has demonic miasma x2 and vicious stab x4, but he also hasn't drawn righteous frenzy x3, unholy frenzy x2, surestrike blessing x2, inspiration x1, curse of fragility x1. All in all, given that those cards make up just over a third of his deck, it's not outside the realms of possibility that he'd get such a raw deal.

But all three characters? Come on. Someone's having a laugh here, aren't they?

And this sort of [censored] happens almost every battle. As in, probably seven out of eight battles this will happen, normally more than once.

In my experience there are some serious balance issues with this game. I'm having to go in 1-2 levels overleveled to have a chance, and even then all it takes is one cruddy draw and I lose.

Yes, I've had a couple of attacks drawn and used (as can be told by the missing/injured jellies and the battle log) but with over half my team's cards being attacks, why am I only drawing attacks at the rate of about 2 in 5 cards drawn?

Surely I can't be the only one having this happen!

 

And those default moves are 6 of the 8 move cards shown in your second screenshot (2/5 first screenshot, 5/8 third screenshot). You can tell because they are visible to your opponent (that eye flag on them).

Look for boots that have attacks or armor on them, and for racial skills with traits.

 

I'll give this a try, thanks.

 

Same level, third draw.
Dwarf cleric has taken 4HP damage from Demonic Revenge but got Surestrike Blessing onto Warrior. Warrior has played one Reaching Swing and one Stab. Other than that, it's a heal or two and a throwaway crushing attack.

So that's 19 cards drawn out of a pool of 110 (17.27% total of pool).
The pool has 49 attack cards (44.54% of pool is attack cards)
I've drawn 4 attack cards (2 of which are useless). If roughly 45% of my cards are attack cards, why am I drawing them at a rate of around 20% of draw? And why do I constantly and reliably draw the useless cards in preference to the useful ones?

I suspect that the order of draw is not truly random, to preserve the illusion of player agency. Obviously, in the situation above, if I'd drawn two each of Reaching Swings, Vicious Thrusts and Spears of Darkness, there'd be a lot less opposition. Instead, I mostly get given the least useful cards in my decks.

Something is very wrong here.

 

And here's the inevitable flipside, as probability's head detonates in a puff of pink mist.
Finally took care of those damn slimes, now to run the green jelly to ground and OH, WHO'D HAVE GUESSED? Suddenly movement is near impossible, but I have stacks of attacks!

Nice balancing work.

ADDENDUM: I finally beat Pools of Slime. Despite the griping above, the final mission is the one that really sucked. The stupid level of difficulty created by what appears to be blatant draw-tampering on the part of the system has broken my interest in the game as a long-term project.

I understand that there are plenty of hardcore players out there who don't have an issue with grinding twenty or thirty hours a week, playing MP and Loot Fairy hunting to get the best items. But I think pitching the game's difficulty at them is going to drive away the vastly larger potential market of casuals who just want a simple and innovative dungeon crawler.

I think Blue Manchu needs to take a good look at whether they'd prefer a large userbase or a small one. I'm an ex-hardcore gamer (clan leader, Left4Dead and LOTRO) who just doesn't have the time any more, and I find this game to often be ridiculously difficult due to not having the time to grind for gear.

Just my two cents.

 

I know this is hard to believe, but if you use all your attacks in the first two rounds, your hand in the third round will be mostly the default moves that you have left over from earlier rounds.

 

The bad news is, the RNG is truly random. I'd like it better if it was the minimized repetition type used in cryptography.
Note: Slimes and jellies have Amorphous Body armor. They can't be harmed by crushing attacks, including Charge, if the armor is equipped.
Penetrating attacks aren't needed on slime levels, and the damage is way low for the cost.
If you run any humans, consider Advanced Flexibility (Uncommon, , Level 15). If the Goblin Bazaar isn't available yet in SP, you can check the one in multiplayer. This can help a lot if you don't have great items and deck consistency yet. It sometimes helps even if you do.
Movement buffs (Quickness Aura, Energizing Move) can help a lot if you run dwarves, whether for closing or escaping.
If you run two priests, I'd recommend one be a full-up vampire and the other a buff (max frenzy and a little healing) type. If you don't have the gear for a vamp, a buff priest and two warriors would probably work better. This assumes you have good fighter weapons, which isn't always the case.
The better your attacks, the less healing you'll need. This can be difficult to attain in the early stages of the game. If your buff priest can't pack a full load of frenzy, mix in some vampiric attacks to keep him alive.
Max your attacks, both percentage and damage-wise. Even small step attacks can help.

 

If the game's not for you, that's for you to assess. But just to be clear there is no "draw tampering." The nature of a proper RNG is that it's rarely going to give you a perfect distribution of your cards each turn. Nor should it. If that mirrored real life, then I should find it strange any time I rolled a die 6 times and didn't get each number once. The fact is if I roll a die 6 times I will almost never get each number once, and likewise if you shuffle cards and draw you're going to get random groupings of card types.

You're in a stretch of the campaign that is usually difficult for new players, this does not mean the game, nor the devs are "out to get you." What it really means is you're in an area that forces you, if you wish to advance, to not necessarily get better items (though that helps) but to learn to be a more well rounded player. To identify the enemies strengths and weaknesses and build accordingly. To learn good play strategy, and to expand the way you think about the game. Learning the game is huge. For the heck of it I just recently ran a 2nd account through the campaign and beat it buying no new items, using only what dropped. And outside of the Hand of Melvelous which drops for everyone, there wasn't a single epic or legendary item that I used in the process. (And I skipped about a third of the adventures on my way to the top so my item pool was actually smaller than normal for a new player and my characters were under leveled.) Now I'm not saying I expect new players to be able to do that. But what I am saying is grinding for hours to get top level items isn't necessary.

 

I discard moves whenever possible. Plus, have a look in the examples above of the number of cards played in total. If I have 36 cards, 5 of which are moves, and I've pulled 4 or 5 of the moves in the first two to three turns, even allowing for the auto-drawn move, there's something screwy with the probabilities.

I've read the threads concerning the Flash randomizer that Flaxative referred people to. These are pretty much as random as they can be, but even so can get anomalous runs. So be it, so can dice rolls.

I haven't got an issue (much) with the RNG when it comes to rolling saves etc., just the order in which the cards come out. I understand that at least 1 move card per turn is vital to make the game flow, but when you draw move + 2 randoms, if the 2 randoms are also moves, you're gonna have a good time.

I appreciate your advice re items to equip, but in order to get those items, I have to grind, and I just don't have an hour or two a day to do that any more. It all smacks a little bit of Southpark's 'Make Love Not Warcraft' episode, where countless hours of grinding are needed to gain the ability to... play the game.

When I first started playing CH, I enjoyed that I could fire it up and get a module done in 10-20 minutes. Then around level 9 or so, it started taking more and more time, with having to replay after party wipes started becoming more frequent. Now it's starting to represent a bigger time investment than I think I can work with.

If the mix of cards being drawn was more random, it'd go a long way to alleviating the problem. Playing a game where you frequently can't move when you need to and frequently can't hit when you need to, and having both of these being out of your control, is just frustrating.

Meh, I'll keep going. Manchu got my $25, I guess I'll see how far it takes me, but I'm pretty sure that all enthusiasm will be lost once premium expires.

 

I've seen, experienced and documented enough to believe that if there isn't draw tampering to some degree, that I must be the unluckiest SOB in Cardhuntria.

Been playing RPG's for 30 years and tabletop wargames for 25, you don't need to try to teach me about random number distribution. What I'm pointing out is not that I get the occasional crummy draw, it's that I consistently get crummy draws once or twice per character per battle, usually affecting all three characters at once.

Never said they were. Just saying that the frequency with which my party is rendered useless for a couple of turns per battle is extremely mathematically improbable. I can control what goes into my deck; I can't control what gets drawn out of it.

Funnily enough, almost all the advice that gets given round here to players in my situation is "get better gear, try the Steampowered flaming mandolin of Drooblesnatch, it'll fix you right up" etc.. Even the Good Sir Veza (waitaminute... cerveza?) is talking about vamp priests etc.- well, if I had access to the equipment people recommend, I'd be using it already.

I memorized the entire rulebooks of Flames of War and 40K 3rd/4th edition simultaneously, talk not to me of strategy and learning... now ending Melvin mode

But seriously, in the last five years I've played many, many turnbased games both on and offline. This is the only one that's ever gotten me so frustrated as to trigger a migraine (I wish I was joking). As I said above, I can only control what goes into my deck; if what comes out is consistently useless one turn in four, and this is in defiance of probability, then the game has a problem.

Additionally, if I didn't care about the game, I'd happily walk away. But can't, because I love it; I just want it to love me back.

 

I think that there is some misunderstanding. You always get additional racial move (walk/run/dash for dwarfs/humans/elves) EVERY round and that card is NOT a part of your deck which consists of 36 cards from items.

 

Good point. But that still doesn't explain the frequency with which my hand gets clogged with unusable cards, or why this problem really only started around level 9.

 

Sometimes the RNG hates you. I often run 2 wizards with 16 firestorms and 4 traits each, and sometimes don't draw a firestorm from either until round 4.
I've played RPGs since the 70's and CRPG's since the 80's. Most of these used a lot of bell curve (rather than linear) number distributions, which makes a huge difference. This is the first CCG I've ever played, and the only one I've ever had any interest in. It's definitely a different beast.

It started well before level 9 for me, but it's largely due to having more item slots (i.e. a larger deck). At 1st level you have 12 cards. Most of them are crap, but they are mainly attacks (or whatever you fill the weapon and item slots with) and they cycle through pretty quickly. When your deck grows to 36 you usually have more duplicates of different types, and a greater chance of the cards drawn in a round being of the same general type. It's most noticeable when it's a type you don't want. Traits and card draw (cycling traits, cycling blocks, Inspiration, Altruism, Inspiring Presence, Leadership etc.) are often used to combat this. If you don't have them, some are available on commons and uncommons in the regular shops.
What Scarponi says about knowing the game is true. It's partly about knowing the decks of your opponents, but more about learning the weaknesses of the AI. Kind of cheesy, but true.
Good luck, Strongbonium! I hope the RNG takes a liking to you.

 

It is known. Thanks for the advice; I've gotten a few tips here that should hopefully put a different spin on things.

 

Time for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (replies to your situation):

The Bad:

Also, obligatory "That's random!"

The Ugly:

In not-as-friendly terms, play better. You're probably familiar with the idea of action economy, so make your moves to maximize action economy. You are correct in that you can control the cards in your deck, but note that you can also control when and how you play the cards you end up drawing. So maybe think a bit more as to how you play your cards, especially how/where you move your characters. Good positioning goes a long way.

The Good:
All the advice everyone else has already offered (Seriously, it's great advice.)
You can do it! I, like Sir Veza, ran into your perceived problem in earlier levels, when I was acquiring new slots in my deck, but I didn't have enough items to fill those slots. But you've got to adapt and change your strategy and what not! Be flexible. Drawing a lot of moves, while it feels bad because you can't hurt the enemy, means it's easy for you maneuver around the enemies and perhaps avoid taking any damage at all!
Additionally, if SP is frustrating you, take a dive into multiplayer for a change of scenery! You might get some shiny new items, and maybe learn a thing or two from other players, which you can then carry back into SP campaign.

 

And looking at the screenshots, none of them show more than 3 non-default move cards.

Look at your character sheets, mouseover cards you don't want to draw to see which item they're coming from, and see what else you can put in that slot. In particular, you do not want any Crushing attacks in this adventure. And Surestrike Blessing and Penetrating attacks aren't helping you any (Immunity trumps Penetrating).

The first problem is that Pools of Slime is a level 11 adventure (it used to be unlocked by completing the level 11 Goblins in the Woods), so you may have better luck if you play the level 10 adventures first.

Second thing is that wizards are very good against slimes. I hate to tell you this after you've already finished half the campaign, but there's a reason Gary tells you to recruit one char of each class. It's because you gain items very slowly your first time through the campaign, so it's hard to get enough good items for one char of a class, and much harder to equip two chars.

 

My friend, could you tell me what boots and weapons you are running? I have usually never experienced this problem. I always tell players, if they complain about a certain aspect of their build that they feel is lacking, always FOCUS.

Focus as in trait shifitng. Traits are so important to increase the chances of drawing the cards that YOU want. Want the Obliterating Hack more often? Wear some Goat Boots to increase the odds! Seems to me like you are equipping items that aren't suited for hacking slimes. Charge is useless, as well as those crushing attacks. Try some chops and hacks, and maybe switch out that dwarf skill for something without charge.

Good luck!