Elements. Fantasy cards game

[ooThe Eternaloo]

Ok, I take back everything I said against Phase dragon and PU. My deck needed some modification and then this happens


elelele.JPG

[gorgonzola]

I figure in another hour or so I can have 500 points, get a lobotomizer and really start to focus on a solid deck. Progress on my main account is pretty slow going, though. I just don't think it's as hard as some people think for a newbie to get started. Just my thoughts.

You're not there yet. Once you get your solid deck, then your choices are
1) Smack down a level 3 element a zillion times. Yawn.
2) Struggle against Top50s, and make money very slowly, if at all.

It used to be you could have a fun, competitive game against a T50, earning 20+ or 60 coins a pop. Now, you've got 80 brain-dead games to get your first upgrade. More if you want to buy cards and experiment a bit.

Maybe this is where your main is at now?

Just tossing out some ideas to make the upgrade system more bearable: ...

These are OK, but I think that the real problem is the gap in difficulty between L3 and L4. We need a level that's as difficult and profitable as the old T50.

[TICio]

I don't really think it's that hard for a newbie to get an established deck. Everyone seems to forget about what they hated about the PVP reward system. There's a huge incentive for newbies to play PVP battles (although I still think this needs to be a separate scoring/ranking system). I started up a new account with an aether deck just to see how 'hard' it was going to be, and after 11 matches, my score is 174, and currently gold is at 320. Most of that I got from PVP battles. I figure in another hour or so I can have 500 points, get a lobotomizer and really start to focus on a solid deck. Progress on my main account is pretty slow going, though. I just don't think it's as hard as some people think for a newbie to get started. Just my thoughts.

Try other color and you will see. Imaterial is op.
Any newbie that picks something that isnt eather will have a hard job to get a good deck/gold.

[martialis]

I just want to say the game is fun but there's way, way too much grind

I'd suggest giving new players all of the starter decks so they can play more than one strategy for many hours, and letting us sell cards for the same amount we buy them for, as we could if we could trade them.

I just got my rare and can get 40 gold consistently from the computer, but I missed the boat on farming rares, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. Any advice?

[ggabriel]

Immaterial is definitely simple and inexpensive, so it's a good "in" for a newbie (if said newbie happens to know that of all the options presented to them this is just about the only one that's going to get them a decent competitive deck in a reasonable timeframe), but it's hardly overpowered. It's right and proper and necessary that there are creatures that get around otyughs and owl's eye and rain of fire and all the other anti-creature cards that shut down creature setup; since aether is so horribly slow it's fairly easy to counter if you're not relying on these things. I've done a fair bit of playing with FFQ and growth decks and rarely have any trouble from mono-aether decks (but these decks of mine tend to get killed by otyughs and firebolt and all those things that immaterial creatures are immune to...)

[CB!]

You're not there yet. Once you get your solid deck, then your choices are
1) Smack down a level 3 element a zillion times. Yawn.
2) Struggle against Top50s, and make money very slowly, if at all.

It used to be you could have a fun, competitive game against a T50, earning 20+ or 60 coins a pop. Now, you've got 80 brain-dead games to get your first upgrade. More if you want to buy cards and experiment a bit.

Maybe this is where your main is at now?

These are OK, but I think that the real problem is the gap in difficulty between L3 and L4. We need a level that's as difficult and profitable as the old T50.

But a newbie can get a competitive deck started. That's my point. Everyone's complaining that a newb can't compete now; that the game is too hard for someone just starting, and I disagree with that. Sure they're not going to have any of the top cards, and they're not going to be able to go up against a T50 deck. But the same thing would happen to a newcomer in ANY kind of a PVP game.

Try other color and you will see. Imaterial is op.
Any newbie that picks something that isnt eather will have a hard job to get a good deck/gold.

OK, what should I try? I'll give gravity a shot and see how it goes.

[turtl3]

I just won two photons in the slots from one win.
What are the chances of that!

[CB!]

Just started a new account with a gravity deck. Same results. After about 30 mins. I'm at 168 score 331 gold with a pretty decent 34 card gravity deck. Now I'm not saying that I can beat a T50 deck or that in 2 days I'll be where my main account is, but it's not really that hard to get started. Just my experience anyway. Maybe I'm just getting extremely lucky....

[zzz123]

I started up a new account with an aether deck just to see how 'hard' it was going to be, and after 11 matches, my score is 174, and currently gold is at 320

ok, now let's try a REAL beginner:

i tried going vs the top-50 with my current deck (multi-color, essentially high-throughput oty rampage. wins against level 3 about 85% of the time, barring pillar suckage, only one upgraded card)

(i'd have done this run with PVP but it's much, MUCH slower - the average game takes 15 minutes or so, i haven't kept accurate statistics. also theoretically computer should be stupid-ish and easier to beat than a real person.)

results:
game 1: loss (-15g) - earthquakes played at game start, pretty much guaranteed loss
game 2: perfect win (+60g)
game 3: loss (-15g) - natural pillar suck
game 4: loss (-15g) - opponent yanked out 7 aether pillars on first turn and a phase dragon on second
game 5: loss (-15g) - earthquakes played at game start, instant loss
game 6: loss (-15g) - 3 turns into the game opponent had 3 immortals and a phase dragon.

so i am at -15 gold after 6 games.
what's more, the average game took 4 minutes 20 seconds (this run took me 26 minutes to complete, timing each game individually)

now assuming i won half and lost half of those 6 games, with no perfect wins, i would be at about +45 gold. in 25 minutes. so a little under 2 gold per minute income.
at this rate, to earn 1,500 to upgrade ONE card, i need to play for 12.5 hours *non-stop*. in a week of playing, with no sleep and no bathroom breaks, i can upgrade just under half of a 30-card deck (although admittedly your win ratio will probably start to rise at some point)

and this of course ignores the fact that you have to actually BUY your initial deck (not a particularly cheap enterprise in itself), experiment, and so forth.


so yes, if you know the perfect strategy you can build up an uber deck quickly.
if you don't, you're hosed.

[Homer9191]

ok, now let's try a REAL beginner:

i tried going vs the top-50 with my current deck (multi-color, essentially high-throughput oty rampage. wins against level 3 about 85% of the time, barring pillar suckage, only one upgraded card)

(i'd have done this run with PVP but it's much, MUCH slower - the average game takes 15 minutes or so, i haven't kept accurate statistics. also theoretically computer should be stupid-ish and easier to beat than a real person.)

results:
game 1: loss (-15g) - earthquakes played at game start, pretty much guaranteed loss
game 2: perfect win (+60g)
game 3: loss (-15g) - natural pillar suck
game 4: loss (-15g) - opponent yanked out 7 aether pillars on first turn and a phase dragon on second
game 5: loss (-15g) - earthquakes played at game start, instant loss
game 6: loss (-15g) - 3 turns into the game opponent had 3 immortals and a phase dragon.

so i am at -15 gold after 6 games.
what's more, the average game took 4 minutes 20 seconds (this run took me 26 minutes to complete, timing each game individually)

now assuming i won half and lost half of those 6 games, with no perfect wins, i would be at about +45 gold. in 25 minutes. so a little under 2 gold per minute income.
at this rate, to earn 1,500 to upgrade ONE card, i need to play for 12.5 hours *non-stop*. in a week of playing, with no sleep and no bathroom breaks, i can upgrade just under half of a 30-card deck (although admittedly your win ratio will probably start to rise at some point)

and this of course ignores the fact that you have to actually BUY your initial deck (not a particularly cheap enterprise in itself), experiment, and so forth.


so yes, if you know the perfect strategy you can build up an uber deck quickly.
if you don't, you're hosed.

The deck you are using most be god awful to have that kind of win ratio, I don't care what decks you are facing.

[marauder68]

Just started a new account with a gravity deck. Same results. After about 30 mins. I'm at 168 score 331 gold with a pretty decent 34 card gravity deck. Now I'm not saying that I can beat a T50 deck or that in 2 days I'll be where my main account is, but it's not really that hard to get started. Just my experience anyway. Maybe I'm just getting extremely lucky....

The problem isnt starting out brand new. The problem is there is no mid-game. Where your at the point PVP is a money & score drain and you cant compete in the top 50 because you have no upgraded cards and it takes about ~200 games to afford to upgrade one card.

I went back to my old fire deck and I can win about 70% of the games, but its boring to sit and kill creatures hitting spacebar turn after turn until I have enough quantums in reserve to firebolt the opponent to death. Not to mention fire got nerfed big time- an upgraded firestorm should do at least 4 damage. Making it cheaper does nothing for it when it can't kill upgraded versions of the creatures it was useful for.

Since fire was a dead end- even if upgraded- I switched to mono aether. Im still getting about the same win rate but most games come down to the wire and I only win 10 coins, lose 15 the next game, then win 12 the next.

I've been tracking, im only earning an average of about 10 coins per game. Actually a tiny bit more with the oddball card win- but that wont really add much since the most common wins (firebolt, devourer, freeze, otyugh) all sell for 30 or less. that means in 3 days of heavy playing I might be able to upgrade 1 card. In a month, I'll maybe have 1/3 of my deck upgraded. I don't think I'll have that much patience since most of what made this game fun to begin with- the ability to try out new decks and strategies every couple days- has been removed.

[ggabriel]

OK, what should I try?

Try forgetting everything you've learned about the game and thinking like a newbie. Go for mono-air. Hey, why not?

Or maybe you're a little bit more savvy and look through the card list for synergy. You could do water/air! That puffer fish in the bazaar looks rad, you should totally build a deck around it. Ooo ooo ooh! Better yet, water/air/aether! Your mind flayer/puffer fish combo is going to rock.

So you go through the tutorial quests, after a while you can take on that big bad level 2 AI. Maybe you take it for a spin in PvP for a while. Let's go out on a limb and say for sake of argument that your water/air/aether deck doesn't work (feel free to try it and tell me if I'm wrong); you've just wasted a couple hours with nothing to show for it.

Back to the drawing board. You can possibly salvage your deck into water/poison, but you're probably better off just starting over. Repeat another time or two, then you start reading up on strategy. Hey, everyone's talking about how overpowered aether is, let's try that! So you start over again and build yourself an aether deck.

Here's the thing, though: suppose after you get your aether deck up and running you realize that it's not actually as overpowered as everyone says it is, and you decide you want to try out something other than mono-aether. Buying a decent deck from scratch is going to typically run you something like 600 gold minimum (+100 metamorphosis if you change color), and that's if you're willing to accept a lot of useless filler that can lose games for you; more realistically for a lot of 30-card decks you should expect to sink 800-1000 gold if you're buying everything new. So here are your options:

1) Grind for 5-10 hours so you can buy an entirely new deck. When you're starting out and have a low score PvP can yield really high rewards, sure, but it tapers off as your score goes up.

2) Burn your bridges and sell off some of your aether cards to buy a new deck, basically draining money permanently from your account.

3) Start over. You can get a new deck up and running without hurting your hard-earned cash, but whatever rewards you gain with the new deck can't be shared with your old deck.

Basically you either grind like hell, or throw away your hard-earned progress by starting over or selling cards at a loss. Worse, suppose your experimental deck doesn't work out so well. You can go back to your boring old aether deck you're already tired of and grind some more--assuming you didn't sell it, although presumably you at least kept enough of it to rebuild it if you sell off your new cards (throwing away more even more money long-term)--but now your score is inflated so PvP no longer offers reasonable rewards.

By way of example: With my FFQ swarm deck I peaked at around 2000 score with about 3:1 W/L (although that includes AI fights, so probably closer to 2:1 for actual PvP), then decided to start experimenting and rapidly drained all my money. When I went back to my FFQ deck I found that the average win was about 40 gold and took maybe 15 minutes. Even if I was still winning 3:1 (and I'm not; upgrades aren't super common yet, but they're common enough that my ratio is slipping, plus I'm finding my FFQ deck countered a little more often than when I was starting out), that would be 100 gold/hour, meaning I'd have to play an entire 8-hour workday straight to buy an entire new deck on my main account. I have a decent amount of disposable income; 8 hours at work earns me enough spare money to buy an entire new game (a cheap or older one, admittedly).

[zzz123]

chaser to my previous post: tried same thing with PVP

game 1: win, +37 gold (35 gold, +2 from rolls, + golden hourglass card which sells for 30)
game 2: loss, -20 gold
game 3: win, +32 gold (0 roll bonuses)
game 4: loss, -20 gold

total: 29 gold (+ card)
time taken: a bit over 30 minutes (8:46 average if ignoring the last game which only took 5:30 or so)

income: 1 gold/minute (or 2 gold/minute if you include the card), so still 12.5 hours for one card upgrade (or 25 hours/upgrade if you don't sell cards, which is more beneficial in the long run)

[zzz123]

The deck you are using most be god awful to have that kind of win ratio, I don't care what decks you are facing.

one with slow development
some of us don't munchkinize to get that perfect fit - if i have 5-10 turns to develop i build a completely impenetrable shield and end the game with full health
but in most cases (vs T50 at least) the opponent floods me with earthquakes and unblockable creatures in the first 2-3 rounds and i simply don't have the time to recover before he wins.

[CB!]

The problem isnt starting out brand new. The problem is there is no mid-game. Where your at the point PVP is a money & score drain and you cant compete in the top 50 because you have no upgraded cards and it takes about ~200 games to afford to upgrade one card.

I agree. My initial argument was about beginners. Right now upgrading flying weapons seems the way to go (I've got one), or maybe a couple of purify. I don't see where the ability to try new strategies has been removed though. Up through level 3 it's the same game with the exception of some of the nerfs.

I would still be willing to bet that you could create a non-upgraded counter deck for most fully upgraded decks out there. A fully upgraded darkness deck is pretty brutal though. I've got a fire deck with a few Fahrenheit and several upgraded cards, and I've never beaten the upgraded darkness T50 deck. I forget who's deck it is, but the vamps need to only recover half the life or something.

But I agree that the mid-game is very slow. There needs to be some more quests or maybe an arena area that applies a random 'rule' like 'no weapons' or 'no abilities' or something. Or maybe some difficulty settings where you can allow the AI to generate twice the quanta in exchange for 25% more gold or an extra spin or something. Or the AI does 10% more damage in exchange for XYZ extra reward.

Just my thoughts.


EDIT: @ggabriel - You post doesn't argue the point that upgraded cards make the game too hard for a newbie to get into. You can still have a lot of fun playing the game through level 3. And nobody with an account in the top 200 even plays PVP because it's not the most efficient way to grind for the next upgraded card. There's always the option of not playing, if the game has become boring.

[ggabriel]

EDIT: @ggabriel - You post doesn't argue the point that upgraded cards make the game too hard for a newbie to get into. You can still have a lot of fun playing the game through level 3. And nobody with an account in the top 200 even plays PVP because it's not the most efficient way to grind for the next upgraded card. There's always the option of not playing, if the game has become boring.

It's already been mentioned what the problem with upgraded cards is: top 50 is vastly harder to grind, which leaves you stuck with level 3 (boring to play, low rewards) or PvP (which my post covered). To recap: while the high initial rewards from PvP can help get a deck going, with the diminishing returns there you can still end up painting yourself into a corner if you deviate from standard decks at all (which new players generally won't have advance knowledge of anyhow), or even just switching from one standard to another.

And the "not playing" option is certainly looking pretty attractive. The fake god lotto is all that's keeping me going right now; it's interesting and so far I'm winning enough to break even with upgraded card sales (I've only gotten crap anyhow), so as long as my luck holds out I'll keep playing. As a side effect it's also tanking my score nicely, so by the time my money bottoms out I might actually be able to get money back from PvP at a reasonable rate.

[zzz123]

i've posted this before, but now it's really hurting...

next-to-last round of battle: opponent summons a weapon, hits me for 7 damage, i go from 100 to 93 (or a creature... anything which does more than 3 damage pretty much)
my army of 10-15 creatures laugh at this as my turn begins. empathic bond powers up...
the first two creatures kill off the opponent, and the round ends. i earn 19 gold instead of 40, because the rest of my creatures didn't have a chance to use the empathy yet and i ended the round with 95-99hp.

this has happened in 5 of the last 20 level 3 battles i've won. is getting annoying.

is it possible to wait for combat to finish before actually terminating the game?

[Disaru]

Ok, so the new problem is that mid-range players can't face TOP50 because they have a DECENT deck, but don't have an upgraded deck, and get squashed by upgraded decks. But level 3 decks are too easy, and too slow of a grind.

My suggestion that will solve almost everything:

Make a level 4 (level 5 would be Top50 decks, level 6 would be False Gods, PVP wouldn't really be a level because it's not AI)

Level 4 would have as abundant rares as level 3, but it would also contain 1-2 upgraded cards, AND it would cost more (if you win: 40 electrum,if you lose: 20 electrum).
So not only are you facing a harder deck than level 3 (more of a challenge), but you're also getting more score/electrum, and your grind isn't as slow. PLUS you have a very very very small chance to win upgraded cards (much much smaller than level 6 because their whole deck is upgraded compared to 1-2 upgraded cards), and I don't think t should be factored in too much, but it would just give in to the gambler's fix. I don't think it should be more than 1-2 upgraded cards, because it would be a bit unfair to win 800-ish electrum in 1 game often if you sell it.

Level 5 should be cost/reward should be upped, because it's basically facing a fully upgraded deck every other turn. and Level 6, people should just stop wasting their time until they have a fully upgraded deck, because even if you succeed in winning, you won't match the electrum you would've won by just grinding an easier level.

What do you think?

[NeverBee]

that means in 3 days of heavy playing I might be able to upgrade 1 card. In a month, I'll maybe have 1/3 of my deck upgraded. I don't think I'll have that much patience since most of what made this game fun to begin with- the ability to try out new decks and strategies every couple days- has been removed.

Exactly my Oppinion. There is no fun in just farming coins to someday upgrade your deck which you are bored of long before you reach the point of getting it upgraded. Make the Upgrades cheaper, give us the Opinion to win MUCH more coins in games or something.

[marauder68]

I don't see where the ability to try new strategies has been removed though. Up through level 3 it's the same game with the exception of some of the nerfs.

I would still be willing to bet that you could create a non-upgraded counter deck for most fully upgraded decks out there. A fully upgraded darkness deck is pretty brutal though. I've got a fire deck with a few Fahrenheit and several upgraded cards, and I've never beaten the upgraded darkness T50 deck. I forget who's deck it is, but the vamps need to only recover half the life or something.

Because any non- optimized, non-upgraded deck won't compete in top 50. And level 3 gets boring quick- there's only like 6 different decks to play against.

And yes- I can make a deck that will beat any specific deck. The problem is a deck tuned to beat a devourer/earthquake will always lose to aether. A deck tuned to beat aether will lose to fire. A deck tuned to beat fire will lose to poison. Etcetera. That was before all those decks in the top 50 became full of upgraded cards. Now it's much more difficult and none of my "fun" decks are even worth playing.

Ok, so the new problem is that mid-range players can't face TOP50 because they have a DECENT deck, but don't have an upgraded deck, and get squashed by upgraded decks. But level 3 decks are too easy, and too slow of a grind.

My suggestion that will solve almost everything:

Make a level 4 (level 5 would be Top50 decks, level 6 would be False Gods, PVP wouldn't really be a level because it's not AI)

Level 4 would have as abundant rares as level 3, but it would also contain 1-2 upgraded cards, AND it would cost more (if you win: 40 electrum,if you lose: 20 electrum).
So not only are you facing a harder deck than level 3 (more of a challenge), but you're also getting more score/electrum, and your grind isn't as slow. PLUS you have a very very very small chance to win upgraded cards (much much smaller than level 6 because their whole deck is upgraded compared to 1-2 upgraded cards), and I don't think t should be factored in too much, but it would just give in to the gambler's fix. I don't think it should be more than 1-2 upgraded cards, because it would be a bit unfair to win 800-ish electrum in 1 game often if you sell it.

Level 5 should be cost/reward should be upped, because it's basically facing a fully upgraded deck every other turn. and Level 6, people should just stop wasting their time until they have a fully upgraded deck, because even if you succeed in winning, you won't match the electrum you would've won by just grinding an easier level.

What do you think?

A better option would be to make level 4 the top 50 with no upgraded cards. That will keep the variety of new and always changing deck types avoiding the current boredom of level 3. I know that will mess with some of them that are tuned for the upgrades, but that will be minor. It would give back the grindable top 50. Then make the current top 50 a level 5 with the real decks and a bigger coin reward.



The current top score is over 1,000,000 BTW.