I like the idea of having 3 difficulty modes, but most of them are not much different. You just throw some starting creatures there. I think it would be better if you alter the decks for each difficulty, and have smarter AI each difficulty level, instead of violating the rules of the game where they start with 3 creatures on the board and weapons. Currently about half the matches have no affect even with the initial board load, and a select few matches pretty much require a custom deck to beat. There are several missions that require you to draw a 1-resource ally, or you lose by turn 3. Some of the missions are almost impossible now, unless you customize your deck and draw the perfect hand.
For instance,
Jericho's 9th match, against darkclaw, it's extremely hard to even beat normal mode, since it starts with 2 pack wolves, and draws pack wolves every single hand, and also has
What Big Teeth. At turn 4 it puts on speed strike and uses its hero ability, so you're basically looking at 21 damage just on turn 4 alone. It takes a very specific deck to beat that. Once you clear out the initial onslaught of pack wolves, it's no different than easy mode.
Actually in general,
Jericho's campaign is way harder than the other heroes. Look at
Jericho's 2nd mission on hard mode. It starts with an Eastroad Bandit, Winthill Assailer, and Brigand Captain. You cannot use a hero that costs less than 4 resources, or that has less than 5 health, until you deal with all 3 of them. And you're taking potentially 6 damage per turn to your hero, meaning you have basically 5 turns to deal with these 3 + whatever else gets put on the board. Retreat is basically required on turn 2, that reduces the requirement to 4 or less HP required for allies, which is more doable. It still requires some custom deck building, and a lucky draw to deal with. I haven't seen another hero with that deadly of a start so far, and there are 3-4 different missions for
Jericho like this, all on the first map.
I like the idea of leaving the crappy pre-10/18 AI for EASY mode. Normal mode should have no creatures, but the new AI post-10/18. Hard mode should have a well tuned deck or a themed deck. The decks need to be built to go beyond turn 4-5. There are basically no cards that cost more than 3 in the majority of all the decks across every single campaign (outside of what starts on the board). This means once you get a fattie on the board, you win. It would be interesting to play against decks built on milling, or returning creatures from the graveyard. It would get less monotonous.
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