Random Loot is a Horrible Motivator

Leaderboards are open, you can always check
And noone ever has to play with only rare or lower items. Everyone has access to Randimar's and sometimes epic and legendaries drop too, one can't simply wish for a specific epic/legendary.

 

Yes I Can! Hasn't worked yet but hey what can you do?

 

My highest was like 1470 with the account, but I managed to beat two people at 1700 Elo with it. I'm at like 1410 right now, but I barely play on it. I know I can easily break 1500 and maybe get to 1600 with more practice.

I'll probably do a brief write up once I get to 1500. But basically I wanted to see how high I could get with the following restrictions:

• Rare or lower quality items (save for the Epics found in the Tezkal Elves starter party: Whiteglow Flail, Colossal Hammer, Staff Of The Fire God)
• No Whirlwind or Whirlwind Enemies
• One of each class
• Not all Dwarves

Granted, you're still limited a bit on luck on what you can get out of Randimar's for Rares (I'm still looking for an Excellent Rapier and a few other minor things), but I'm pretty satisfied with the build so far.

So you can see even with heavy restrictions like that you can do very well. You might not get into the top 10, but should a Magic: The Gathering player who buys a pre-constructed deck and a few boosters able to make it in the finals of a world tournament simply on skill alone?

 

Also, I think randomness is good, but the variance of the randomness is bad. Some Legendaries are just beyond horrible. If they were more leveled and interesting (like Legendaries had weird card combinations as opposed to generally just being "better") then it wouldn't be so problematic.

The randomness keeps me coming back because the last few items I need are clearly just waiting in the next chest I open!

 

That's the discussion theme. Magic is a "pay to win" game: you pay for the cards and get a Tier 1 deck in a moment. WoW is a "grind to win" game, though I guess the best equipment requires a lot of money too. Cardhunter is... what? Get luck to win? Wait to death to win? There are no ways to get the items you want in any reasonable time. I guess it's something like "grind and get luck to win" which is probably even worse than just "grind to win".

 

The thing is that MtG isn't pay-to-win... it is pay-to-have-the-possibility-of-winning... which is similar to what Card Hunter is (although much lesser due to the fact all items can be acquired with enough time). If MtG was pay-to-win then anyone who had all the cards would do well, which isn't the case. There's a ton of strategy in building a deck and tactics in how to play it. Also similar to Card Hunter.

You can in theory buy a ton of Card Hunter chests and get awesome items (and crappy items), but that's the same as any CCG. I do wish the chests were cheaper, but I'm sure people would complain that it would make it more "pay-to-win" (even though it really wouldn't any more than MtG).

People just all have different ideas of what Card Hunter should be... from a deep strategy game to a collectible card / miniature game. I think it is fine the way it is, although I'd definitely shift some things around by making chests more economical for those who don't have the time to invest and rebalancing a lot of items and cards.

 

Or be friendly to borrow the cards you need for your very own deck. In MtG I was a deck builder, I always played a deck of mine and never one of the moment and could always borrow the cards I needed. I used proxies for testing purpose though.The only money I invested once I started doing tournaments, was only the fees of those tournaments. My speciality was mostly the T3, only notable perf I did in constructed was to fail to qualify for the Worlds by one game. But in T3 I did a PT and several day 2 of GPs and peeked over 1900 of their elo system.

And to continue on your following sentences, you said on the Randimar thread that you had never seen someone saying that he was buying any L he didn't allready owned. I said on another thread that I had starting doing that instead of wasting time by gambling with the chests. And I don't do that caus I am a collector, I do that caus I like the have the choice in my buildings. Everything may have a use eventuallty. Like imagine if they come with a tournamant (they're crazy, it's possible and we like them for that) where you can only use FLAXATIVE warriors. Each warrior must be equiped by one item starting with a F, one by a L, 2 by an A and so on. In conditions like these, you like to have more choices thanks of those unplayable L in regular MP. And more choices is more fun.

Anyway all that to say that I agree and a solution to the "issue" maybe trading if you can find one that would work, but personaly I can't imagine anything that wouldn't be abusable.

 

Trading would be interesting, but the system would ultimately be abusable due to the nature of the game (free). If every item cost money (like in MtG) then it would make it a lot more feasible.

I like having choice in my builds as well. That's the reason I'm still playing and searching for a few last things. That keeps me playing -- if the game just had all content unlocked then what would be the point in playing once you feel you've made the perfect strategy and gotten to #1?

 

"Flaxative" warriors?

 

I think I know the next event that will be happening.

 

Hey guys, I am new but wanted to chime in. Basically, you have progression loot and random loot. But random loot goes with between player trading basically always - WoW, MODO, and all of those. In fact Wizards greatly supports cards dealers (both on modo and real life) and this is perhaps one of the biggest reasons magic is still around and doing better than ever.

 

The difference about MtG though is it is physical things that cost money. If every chest cost money to open and had a physical component I could see trading being viable. However, the fact it is free and digital means trading most likely wouldn't work. People would probably farm accounts out to get good loot or something. It might work but I think the system would have to be overhauled and that's a lot of work when other things could be done in the time.

 

MODO is magic online, completely digital with cards easily going for hundreds of dollars. very few people have this type of antiquated view of digital property.

anyhow, there are a few types F2P - p2w, g2w(grind) and probably the worst - s2w(stay)... see, in this game grinding and paying can't really help you since specific items go on sale once a week so if you have 1 in 10 chance to get a legendary from the 150 pizza chest(i am just guessing) and there are 37 legendaries you need to basically buy 370 chests which is about 1500$. so you can't do that. grinding this same amount of chest is also not really doable as you have to literally play probably a few thousand hours. so your only realistic option is buying them slowly as they come up on randy's house. and with all the randomness and whatnot you kind a have to consistently buy the items every week for about an year and you will only end up with 1 of each at best.

and this is why s2w games are very bad for new players once the game has been going for a while. p2w is bad in the begining when the paying players will get advantage over the ones that are not but eventually things level off. grind2win is also not too bad because with a certain dedication you can catch up.

like i am a new players, i have money, and i have time to grind but cardhunter is just a problem since i am just getting destroyed and there is nothing i can do since i just cannot get the items that will make me at least bit competitive or at least allow me to build strategically. right now i just put whatever i have good for each item type and it is a mess and half my items are worthless. so yea, worst kind a wall because i can't grind or pay thru it.,

 

MODO still costs money to get cards. Imagine if every time you beat a level you had to pay $1 to open the chest. If that was the case I'd agree that it would be equivalent.

Also, you don't need the best items. Maybe to be the best of the best players, but with fairly average items, the Tekal Elves start party, and a few days buying Commons / Uncommons in the shops you can easily get to 1500 to 1600 Elo.

I'm doing a test run with no Legendary, no Epic (outside of Tezkal Elves) and have beaten 1700 Elo players multiple times with the team.

 

that was precisely my point, altough it does cost money it is still quite popular and getting more and more people on.

amd i am not suggesting that chests cost money to open. only that there is trading between players and more avenues for paying/grinding players.

and yes what you are doing is RDW if not precisely then in spirit and i hate it.

i dislike losing, i dislike being limited while the competition is not, and i like variety and expression. now, while possible to win with tezkal elves (up to a level) i won't be able to generally win against someone with equal skill or slightly lower skill if they have been playing for an year and have just about full sets of everything. currently it is kind a like bringing a standard deck to like a legacy tournament in magic, maybe even vintage.

so in essence my only real option is to grind SP every day for at least 6 months and buy as much stuff from randy as possible... and for a competitive player like me that is unacceptable.

i mean there is a reason why such a great game is not more popular and has very little new players coming in.

p.s. and imagine if the only thing you will get to play for the next 6-12 months is your test party of tezkal elfes with slight variations etc. but not being able to really play a different archetype, or to experiment with different strategies. like hey, i want to try forst stuff, or i want to try 3 paladins build, or whatever. i mean this is one of the most basic things about this type of game.

 

They are quite popular because they have a huge advertising budget, massive fans from the physical game, and tons of other things that aren't feasible for a super, super small studio of 2 or 3 employees. MtG isn't comparable to CH in terms of trading. Heck, if Hearthstone, which is infinitely more like MtG and has a huge company behind it, doesn't have trading -- how do you think CH would do it well?

Everyone dislikes losing. But being "limited in variety" due to being new is simply fact for any game. MtG or HS you're going to have less cards than other players.

You can easily try alternative builds -- frost stuff, paladins, any other weird niche builds. They don't really require a ton of Epic or Legendary items save for Firestorm or a decent Vampire team. Nearly every other build can be done with lesser cards. It might not be optimal, but if you want to draw analogies to MtG, do you think someone who just started playing in an open format would have a chance to compete with people who have been playing since Alpha block?

 

hearthstone has disenchanting as an alternative to trading i'd say that the cardhunter equivalent is randimars which just doesnt cut it i could go craft any 4 legendaries in HS right now with the dust i have spare, imagine if you could say that in cardhunter lol. another good thing about hearthstone is the treasure hunt equivalent (naxx) is available without spending real money.

 

And even then you might not have the right stuff for the fotm.
So new players like you see the situation of a dwindling playerbase and don´t want to invest into a dying game because if the game stays this way you might have a good collection in six months but where is the point competing with the last fanboys before the server gets closed.
On the other hand a trading system would make it necessary to change the whole game so nobody could abuse it and it might scare away the long time players. And if the new system would not be able to get more new players than the ones who are leaving we are back into the doom scenario.

 

trading isn't an option tbh.

 

Uhm, Naxx is free only for the first branch and only for the first month (akin to how the first mission of AotA is free). Then it will cost gold (or real money) to unlock the rest. I'm sure if Jon had the player base that Hearthstone has he could get away with charging gold knowing that a fair share of people would pay money, but Card Hunter has relatively no players in comparison.

The problem is about some bad design features in Card Hunter (progression, balancing) and poor marketing (basically none at all). Trading isn't a factor in the success or failure of Card Hunter if you look at other successful online games without trading like Duel of Champions.