Solo Quests

At the beginning when i was questing i got only few characters so from time to time it was easier to run a solo or a duo adventure then to train up another hero. I have found that doing adventures with one or two characters is surprisingly interesting. The whole dynamic of the battle often changed and new type of challenges start to emerge.

Recently i have tried to check how is it...and it is great fun . I recommend it to everyone. I wont give you any spoilers but it is entirely possible to finish all basic and additional adventures at least up to level 9 (AoA included). Haven't tried 10 or above yet. The best thing is that although i run the same character over all the adventures i had to change build a lot to exploit weakness of opponents.

The level of difficulty varies from adventure to adventure but overall such challenge is usually easier then doing 1hp.

Let me know what was your experience if you will try it.

Cheers

 

Yes haing done this myself aswell, I think its a great way to add a reason to replay the SP campaign, as you say the whole dynamic is changed which is great for replay value. I find most missions can be done with a party less than 3.

Personally I'd like to see these solo or reduced party quests added as official quests in addition to the quests already available, as it would be fun if the prize was a gold chest on top of just replay value. I'm always in favor of anything that adds to SP replayability

 

That would be awesome! I am leaning toward solo quests but i imagine that at higher levels it is not possible. Still i am having fun now doing it with single priest... I've just smashed through all 11 lvl adventures! I am wondering when and where i will hit the wall it must be soon. Up to now loot is enough to pay for replays but ofc they are much cheaper then in normal quest mode.

 

I've done many adventures solo, but I never tried this one.

 

LOL. Nice job for Neocat. Because of the 2nd map and volcano effect the wizard is most obvious choice here... if not the only one possible . Still it is very impressive.

Do you remember what was the toughest one you have accomplished in solo mode? I've got few problems with early lizardmen and few on arena maps with my priest. Also few obstacles at Lord's Stafford adventure... nothing really major. I hope that i can run priest till Astral Guardians... there it might get difficult. Hydra is already dead although map 1 lizardmen spam was more difficult then the rest of the adventure.

 

I stopped before I finished Temple of Scales. (I hate those darters.) Ran out of patience, and the Randimar change/Daily Deal was announced at the same time. I decided to stop throwing gold away on self-inflicted teeth-grinding frustration.

 

Yes please. Add three more quests to each adventure, solo warrior, solo priest, solo mage. Unlock when you complete all other quests for that adventure.

That should hold up the completionists for a few weeks.

 

Nice idea. But that should be posted in the suggestions section i presume . Here i was more about your experience with soloquesting. I have seen that in one thread already someone propose this as one of many other suggestions for questing. Maybe we should gather and make it one and easily visible request? I am new here and have little respect on the forum. Maybe somebody with more experience should make a nice and simple post to be liked by others?

Yes. The Temple of scales, first battle was tricky for a priest. You need to attack one wing of the enemy line strongly and burst through. Then it is doable. But yesterday i fought High Mountain Pass with priest only and that was a challenge for me. Really tough battle 3. Surprisingly difficult was also 2nd map of Tomb of Trevicus, the one with 3 skeletons in a tight room. Not much space to operate. Turquoise Boots and Salubrious Mobility is nice combo . The best is that in soloquesting i am using items that i have almost never used before. Now i am ready for other two lvl 13 adventures. Astral guardians scary me.

 

Just to update my progress. All lvl 14 adventures finished with single priest. I have misjudged difficulty of Astral guardians, in fact both Demon Portal and Lord Bafford were more tricky .

 

I wonder why these weren't made into actual quests. This seems far more fun than just slapping the 1HP challenge onto every adventure no matter how poorly it fits. Personally, I'd like to see two types of challenges. One where you fight with a party of two that have three card draws, and one where you use a solo character who gets four. Granted, this wouldn't mesh well for every adventure (Sky Citadel immediately comes to mind with the 3v3 map which I suppose you could circumvent with teleports but I digress), but I imagine this could be a relatively simple and fun addition to the game.

 

Ohh Man. 4 card draw that would be a butchery

I have just finished lvl 15 gnomes adventures with my lone priest. This was a superb fun. The last battle of the Riddle and both on the Secret you need to really think a strategy. I was not able to smash through and have to chose items very carefully. I am really surprised that it is still doable.

Also lvl 16 adventures are down. Monkeys are tricky especially where victory squares are counting, others are ok. Treemen went quite nice, for Wyverns patience is needed.

Lvl 17 is also doable, quite nice tactical riddles here and there.

Ok and Trolls also can be done with single priest... but the first map is very difficult to complete. For sure the S.O.T.E.M will be almost impossible due to victory points factor. Also i have finished two adventures from the cosmic campaigning.

Wrapping this up... i think that almost all or maybe all adventures can be done with single priest so it is quite reasonable to expand quest list. At the beginning difficulty level is not very high although it is higher then no party deaths or handicap quests. Most of the solo quests with priest are easier then 1hp ones. There are exceptions where difficulty is similar.

 

Just an update.

Yesterday i have finished the Expedition to the Sky Citadel with a single priest. Funny thing is that the adventures i thought to be difficult were not and others were surprisingly challenging. The nest ones were tough, especially the one with swarm of flies, quite a challange. Mutants and other cyberenemies tend to kill themselves with handicap cards so even large group of them is not that bad. You need to outnimbus them and it is not that difficult with all those gold power tokens. It is a pleasure to watch how they melt and laser zap themselves down.

It is good fun to figure how to beat the first map of the Sanctum having just one character and no volcano. The Capitan is also bit tricky. Against mutant boss the Mimetic Armour is an excellent choice. If he holds Retaliatory Mutation he can be sparked down as a spark will go there and forth. Especially with any frenzy card on your priest.

Maybe at some point i will do a list of items that i have been using with the solo priest adventures (if somebody is interesting with). The list is not that long and do not contain many legendary items.

Overall only two adventures have left for me. The Secrets and The Black Plume. I have seen The Black Plume done with a single wizard but have any one beat it with a priest? Or have anyone beat the Secrets while soloquesting?

 

Awesome!

Wow, I hadn't even considered that one. I can see a possibility that involves teleporting via boots, and killing 2 enemies fairly quickly so you don't lose on points. The unlimited free retries for first maps would definitely help.

Neither, as far as I know.

 

Yes, that was the idea. I do not know if there is any other choice. But the balancing of the deck is another story. It has to be very well mixed between defensive and offensive cards of different types. Also it must be prepared for all three opponents as ultimately you have to deal with all of them to finish it.

Yesterday i have figured out how to beat map one and two of the Black Plume with a priest but run out of gold (damn Bulks) so I will have to go back to farming before trying the Dragon. Overall i have spent like 2k soloquesting but during the process i have found at least 3 nice legendary items .

 

I'd like to see a +1 draw, +1 card retained at end of turn addition to solo play, just to make it feel distinct [in a single-player RPG heroic archetype sense].

Of course, it's a niche playstyle, so really not worth Jon's time to implement such a thing, unfortunately :X

Certainly a nice challenge as-is, but I personally find it rather bland to play, perhaps because I get so few actions to take per round [and in many PvE maps, there's a lot of enemies to wait on to finish their actions.. ].

 

The whole idea of the soloquesting is either having a lots of cards that allow you to draw after use or create a tactical advantage on one side of the map to equal your chances with mobs. I have not got that feel for most of the maps that you are describing. Most of the cases soloquesting is very engaging. Also the priest has a lots of ways to draw 3 cards or even more per round.

I have learned how to beat the maps 1 and 2 of the Black Plume with a single priest but the dragon is probably too much. I have tried three different approaches and were even able to kill the hammer several times but then sooner or latter the dragon get me. Maybe i lack of really god items or miss a strategy or don't have enough luck.

Recently i got an idea that maybe duo and solo questing should be added not as a standard quests but rather as a Nightmare and Hell mode, same as in old Diablo. So when you finish a normal storymode then Nightmare should open where only two characters are allowed and then Hell mode (solo). All the normal quest should be available. Drops should be slightly better but not much. Taking into account number of adventures and number of the challenges in such case the story mode would have really nice replayability.

 

Well, seeing as I already clarified it was a 'nice challenge as-is', and clarified why I found it un-fun, I can only presume you're referring to that part.
In which case: No, I do not find being constricted to a specific draw-spam build particularly fun.
But then, I tried to clarify from the start that this was my subjective reason for disliking the current setup

That's right up there with only ever running firestorm or vampire builds in PvE. Yes, it makes it cake- but as we all know, too much cake makes you sick [unfortunately].

While I'm not opposed to the inclusion of new modes or challenges, restricting new modes solely to the limitation of party size is, again, nothing more but pidgeonholing you to specific builds.
Furthermore, that concept restricts the playstyles you can engage in, limits co-op options, discourages co-op play, etc-
And worst of all, it isn't even that challenging for most maps, since you've less to protect, and with the right build, could easily beat your enemies;
While other maps would be quite a bit more challenging because of it.


I've already got the new Manticore and the early Manticores, if I want to deal with those kind of frustrations, thank you

Again, not arguing with your overall concept of added modes and challenges, and certainly not disagreeing with your sentiments;
But what you're describing would cause me to be inclined to play less, not more.

 

Thanks for the reply . I am really sorry if i offend you. That was not my intention. Of course it was only my subjective opinion. I am keeping this thread only to encourage players that might have similar need for difficult (or almost impossible) tasks to keep playing CH and try soloquesting if they finish all quests and all adventures.

Personally i am not planing to play any multiplayer or coop games in the CH. Nonetheless i have nothing against expanding the game to encourage such activity! I have no obligation to participate in the whole CH . So i am wondering why exactly adding more and more difficult (and optional) challenges would discourage you? Shouldn't we encourage people to develop the game in all possible directions to attract or keep different type of players?

When i started soloquesting with a priest i had to use more builds then in 'normal' parties. I have used more items and more specific cards against specific enemies, not less. Soloquesting makes you to get back to low level items and low level builds even more then quests. It expand the game in my humble opinion. It took lots of time to finish almost all adventures (except BPM and SOTEM) and still i have solo warrior and solowizard to play .

The Card Hunter is very entertaining game but after a while i have found it to easy so i am looking for new challenges in PvE. Soloquesting is the only thing in the current CH that can provide challenge worth of playing. Manticores are well below the expected level of difficulty although the last one is quite nice due to opportunity to play cards that are not available.

 

I rewrote my last post several times to try and try and make sure it sound not-offended, I apologize if I didn't fully succeed :X

The rest of your last reply seems to have confused my comments entirely, though :X
As I said from the start, I'm a major fan of adding new challenges and content. I was just pointing out the specific example you provided had some major flaws- from limiting how you as a player could play the game, pidgeonholing you into specific builds, discouraging people from playing multi-player, to being far too erratic in difficulty, with most affected modules not being noticably harder at all from the 'challenge'.

So no- I'm a big fan of any PvE additions, solo OR co-op.
And if you instead ask for solo-only modules, designed with solo in mind, as a sort of challenge area, that would be good fun (definitely better than solo-unit Manticores, which tend to be WAY too randomized on deck consistency).
But the specific idea you had, of including imbalanced solo-play to existing modules, I just can't support :X

As far as my points made- you just agreed that more specific cards are needed. I'm saying, that's not fun, for me
Part of what makes Card Hunter amazing, is that you can figure out complex, personalized ways of approaching problems, without having to rely on cookie-cutter builds.
If I want to take a sundering-crushing build against oozes, well, I bloody well can, and noone can say "no, that's madness, stop that".
Well, I mean, they can, but I can do it regardless.

But, the real issue isn't even the cramming-you-into-less-versatile-build-possibilities:
It's that with the right builds, most modules are extremely easy to solo; and the rest are extremely difficult, and if you're not using an ideal build, in frustrating ways.

Meaning the main flaws of your idea are:
You only allow players who have specific gear to play. Anyone who can't build right has to wait to have a good shot. This could discourage newer players.
Your 'challenge' isn't much of a challenge at all, since most modules aren't noticably harder to solo.
Your challenge goes to frustrating levels on the subset of modules that aren't easier- if people don't like to play Troll Tyrant, which has a HANDFUL of possible approaches to make it easy, how will they feel about even more frustrating circumstances, with fewer available approaches?

So no, I'm not arguing that solo play can't be fun, or that more PvE content shouldn't be added.
I'm just arguing that carelessly adding a new challenge to existing modules, isn't necessarily the way to go. :X

 

While I see the point you are making as regards the pigeon-holing (something that sort of occurs at the moment with some harder 1 hp maps), I don't think adding more quests would discourage newer players: They aren't under any obligation to play the quests. Most levels aren't harder to solo with a priest, true, but they can be significantly harder with the other two classes on their own. You can beat adventures solo with a variety of builds, just maybe not the harder ones.

This is true of the majority of quests (class/race, no death restrictions etc.), most are pretty easy up until you get into the modules that are actually somewhat difficult.

Personally, I don't see any problem with haphazardly adding new quests to existing modules, more quests (whatever shape or form they come in) is better in my opinion, but maybe that's just me. It could be daunting looking through a long list, I suppose, and a chore for completionists. I'd like to see the current quests filled out for all the adventures myself, and there are other quests which may appeal to more people (QD, item rarity restrictions, etc.) but any extra quests are good.

At any rate, this is probably all in the realms of the hypothetical, I can't see any new quests being added soon.