Elements. Fantasy cards game

[ggabriel]

But what's even better is that you use an example of a deck that EQ improves to show that it doesn't make all decks better!

Since you apparently disapprove of reading, I'll keep it short this time.

You're retarded.

Thanks for the response!

(Although, try as I might for brevity, I have a hard time not pointing out the absurdity of you suggesting that I am fearful of not being able to rely on earthquake after I posted about one of the main decks I use which explicitly does not use earthquake.)

[Blue Ray]

Ok, this is driving me nuts
what level does AI use a lobotomizer, spent 3 hours going through lvl 1 and 2 and none of them plays lobo, spent like ages on lvl 3 and I'm sure that doesn't have it. lvl 4 is too unreliable now with aether only decks destroyed.

anyone know which level gives lobo, not counting pvp.

[Garruk]

A lot of the upgraded cards are very unfair to beginning players. I suggest limiting the number of upgraded cards that can be in a deck. I highly suggest making it so the max number of a certain upgraded card that can be in a deck be 2. There should be a higher limit for pillars. Probably 5.

Also, since I like thinking up cards, here is an idea
Briar Garden 6 earth
permanent
summon 5 briars that deal 3 damage to an attacker.
3 life: Put 2 briars on this.

The briars are one use, like bone shields from bone wall, and they only effect one creature each. Also, they don't effect creatures with momentum. Upgraded version gets more briars or they deal 4 damage.

[marauder68]

That's a far cry from the OMGEARTHQUAKESUXXORSYOUGOTTANERFITORIQUIT attitude which you and six keep trying to paint me as having.

Followed by...

Regardless, I won't be playing any more unless it's nerfed.

[Homer9191]

Well then, it's done it's job. I don't want to use my mono deck any more, and since all I want to play with is my mono deck, I won't be playing any more.

Personally, I can't see why Zanz would want a card that discourages people from playing his game, so I have a hard time believing that this was the point of EQ. But, que sera sera.

Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

[Homer9191]

A lot of the upgraded cards are very unfair to beginning players. I suggest limiting the number of upgraded cards that can be in a deck. I highly suggest making it so the max number of a certain upgraded card that can be in a deck be 2. There should be a higher limit for pillars. Probably 5.

Also, since I like thinking up cards, here is an idea
Briar Garden 6 earth
permanent
summon 5 briars that deal 3 damage to an attacker.
3 life: Put 2 briars on this.

The briars are one use, like bone shields from bone wall, and they only effect one creature each. Also, they don't effect creatures with momentum. Upgraded version gets more briars or they deal 4 damage.

Im sorry, but why are you playing against upgraded cards as a beginning player? There is a reason that level 1,2 and 3 were invented. I reset an account of mine and in 135 games I have 2 upgrades and am well on my way to a 3rd. The idea is to get some upgrades of your own, BEFORE playing against fully upgraded decks, but you come here and b-i-t-c-h and moan about upgrades, stop your whining. I have a card idea also.

Whiny b-i-t-c-h 3 darkness
permanent
sits in a dark corner of his bedroom and summons 3 tears

[bigdread]

First of all, what a great game !
I'm really looking forward for more cards to collect/upgrade in future patches.

Now for the bugs i found so far, forgive me if they were mentioned before, 80+ pages is too much to read...

Nightfall/Eclipse: As was mentioned before they should not stack, however sometimes the life bonus (not attack) does stack, depending in what order cards are played (couldn't figure it out more precisely so far).

Stealing shields: Sometimes shields can't be stolen and I'm not talking about 'non targetable'. One time I tried to steal "Dimensional Shield" and could not, the next one my opponent played I could steal. There was no "Enchant Artifact" played I'm sure. Same thing happened with other shields as well.

One thing about the limiting of upgraded cards:
I think upgrading the whole deck is one of the main incentives to keep playing this game, so I would prefer to optimize the matchmaking process over any limits. If only high level players are playing each other the frustration for new players is eliminated efficiently enough imho.

Btw if you need somebody to write a manual, I'd be glad to help (english & german), just drop me a mail.

post scriptum: Did I mention how much I like this game ?

[DanTheTimid]

Really enjoyed the game so far overall, glad my friend told me about it. Haven't read through all of these threads but what little I went over scares me (seems like a VERY unfriendly community, so many posts attacking other members for their opinions and it seems like a lot of the more hospitable posts are the ones from players quitting the game and being attacked for it by those hanging around). Still bad first impressions of the community aside (here's hoping thats all it is, a bad first impression), the game itself is pretty amazing, especially for a free game. That said, in any game theres always room for improvement so here's my thoughts on what I feel could improve it after having admittedly only played the game for about a week but played it a heck of a lot.

More Others elementless cards, particularly in the area of shield removal. Say a card "Shield Shatter: Cost 4 colorless - Shatter Target Shield". Right now it seems like 90% of the top decks I run into include dark or fire and either steal or conflag, and understandably so, certain shields in this game can flat out win the game on their own and most of the elements just don't have a way to deal with shields. Dark seems to be the most common, perhaps since it doesn't just shatter, but out right steals those crazy shields. If your going to make shields as powerful as they are in this game (and honestly perhaps a better option would be just to tweak the power level of certain shields) then it really seems like every element NEEDS to have access to some sort of shield removal, I think a weak (compared to conflag/steal) and more expensive but still useful generic removal like I suggested could allow this with out forcing people to splash dark or fire in nearly every deck they make.

Earthquake seems a bit much too me, I'm relatively new to this game so I don't know how long its been around, don't know if its been in the game for months or even years now and proven to been fine, but after a week of playing it really does seem overly strong for its cost. I suggest either having it only destroy 2 pillars, or upping the cost from 3 to 5. As it is now its just too mindlessly easy to play for absurd advantage, and not even all that hard to splash, at least that's my impression of it so far. I really feel that even with the nerfs I suggested the card would still be extremely strong and powerful with out be quite as obnoxiously strong.

Finally, while I can live with upgraded cards as they are now, I admit I really wish they were balanced with non upgraded cards. I'd still want to upgrade many of my cards even if in doing so they got additional costs to compensate for the increased stats/superior effects. For instance I'd upgrade to have a 10/6 jade dragon that cost 13 instead of a 8/6 phase dragon that costs 11. Having the cards flat out better as they are now just feels, I don't know, pointless. Like if the games balanced around all cards being upgraded, why have the non-upgraded cards at all? I guess this comes from the fact I'm a long time card game player and this concept feels more like an MMORPG concept (a genre I've never cared for), where lots and lots of boring grinding allows a player to gain unfair advantages over those with less free time or desire to go through so much grinding for what is supposed to be a fun past time.

If you want to give the computer AI cards unfairly over powered cards, thats perfectly fine with me, thats just an extra challenge, but in pvp, having cards obsolete others is really not something I enjoy or agree with. I'm willing to live with it to be sure, but just thought I'd share my two cents about it.

Anyway again, overall really liking the game, just some initial impressions from a week of play, impressions may change as I play more, but figured I'd share them and say thanks for creating this awesome game and thanks to those donating allowing the game to continue.

[skyimp]

Stealing shields: Sometimes shields can't be stolen and I'm not talking about 'non targetable'. One time I tried to steal "Dimensional Shield" and could not, the next one my opponent played I could steal. There was no "Enchant Artifact" played I'm sure. Same thing happened with other shields as well.

This has happened to me before. Only I was using pulverizer to try to destroy the shield and not the the steal card. I could only destroy every other dim shield that the opponent played.

Secondly, mostly in response to CapAp, earthquake is not overpowered. I play a rainbow deck based on earthquake. Half the time I don't even draw EQ until 5 or more turns in, and by then it's pretty much pointless. That could be b/c I use 60 cards though....I just think it's more fun that way. I probably could optimize my deck better; I just don't want to take anything out. My win/loss ratio is 3:2. There are several different types of decks that I lose to consistently. I could easily complain about immolation if I wanted to, but I realize that it's really powerful against my deck, and not everyone else's.

It makes 95% of decks better.

This is false. Unless you are earthmark or have only earth pillars, EQ is going to be useless in your deck. It is only good played in the first few turns. And for that reason alone I would say it's not overpowered, considering all the luck of the draw in this game.

Also where are you guys finding these EQ decks? I fought only one other deck with EQs in the past few days. Must be in Top50 b/c I don't usually play there. I play PVP. Most earthmarks I fight now are lava golem decks with fire pillars. And before the lava golem came out the only other earth decks I ever saw were earth/darkness. Let's face it, earth does not have a lot going for it.

If earthquake gets nerfed, I will probably just switch elements and try a new strategy, b/c earthquake will no longer be worth it. Which at this point is fine with me because I wouldn't mind trying something new, but you might as well just take the EQ card out of the game if you're going to nerf it.

[ggabriel]

Haven't read through all of these threads but what little I went over scares me (seems like a VERY unfriendly community, so many posts attacking other members for their opinions and it seems like a lot of the more hospitable posts are the ones from players quitting the game and being attacked for it by those hanging around).

Well, for my part I apologize for my last outburst. I tend to get extremely annoyed when I find an apparently hospitable and reasonably bright player and attempt to engage him in a serious discussion of strategy, only to be rebuffed out of hand with "you're wrong and I'm right, go play some more until you figure out I'm right because I'm not going to bother supporting any of my claims myself even though you've taken the time to do so at length."

-Shield removal: Well, there are some crazy powerful shields in the game, but while some of them can shut down certain strategies none of them are universally effective (dimensional shield comes closest, but since it's temporary it's vulnerable to being outstalled by healing/defensive decks), so I'm not altogether sure this represents a bad thing. The idea that there probably exists hard counters for any given strategy I pick is something that I'm pretty comfortable living with; giving every deck a way to painlessly remove a major counter (particularly since the good shields themselves are quite expensive both in terms of casting cost and deck space, and tend to get destroyed/stolen anyway) seems a little cheesy.

There's probably still some room for balancing, and I wouldn't mind seeing a few more elements getting a way through shields, particularly lesser-used ones (also note gravity has ways to deal with shields too, including bonewalls that can sometimes even give fire/dark trouble).


-On earthquake: well, I don't think it's overpowered, but I'm not 100% sure myself. I've been taking note of PvP battles I've taken part in to try to determine 1) how often I lose because of earthquake and 2) how often I lose because I don't have earthquake (I already run novas, so theoretically the quantum supply is there); I haven't actually found enough earthquake users to test #1, and while I've found one or two situations that could theoretically have been salvaged by earthquake per #2, they also could have been salvaged by several other cards that would be easier for me to get into the game. So I still don't know, but so far I'm not really seeing it.


-Yeah, I'm not big on the RPG-style upgrades either. In a few cases strict upgrades make otherwise non-competitive cards worth using more often, but then this raises the question of why the base card doesn't just get rebalanced.

[CapAp]

Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Don't let having nothing to say stop you from posting.

[CapAp]

Followed by...

And irony is lost on yet another 18-year-old who grew up on Family Guy.

[Pilchard123]

lol first of all i don't believe you

I'm sorry, but it appears that you have fallen into a sarCHASM. This is the gap between someone making a sarcastic comment, and you picking up the sarcasm. Good luck getting out of it.

and 2ndly if you put it that way, rainbow is the counter to all colors so it is not really a direct counter to anything

Wrong. It is a counter to NOTHING! If you get the wrong draws, then you may as well give up. It cannot be called a counter because it often DOESN'T COUNTER.

Have you noticed how rainbow is not used by everyone? If it was the 'counter to all colours', then everyone would use it. This is not the case.

In conclusion, you lose. QED.

Sorry to dig this up again.

[Pilchard123]

When will we get a dedicated forum so we can track things like this?

Zanzarino specifically said that he didn't want one, because this one was good publicity. However - that was a long time ago. If people want one, I'll make one and post the address here. But be prepared for it to be shut down if zanz asks it to be.

[rob77dp]

Zanzarino specifically said that he didn't want one, because this one was good publicity. However - that was a long time ago. If people want one, I'll make one and post the address here. But be prepared for it to be shut down if zanz asks it to be.

I think the desire by those of us using and wishing to use the Elements forum is for more than just one long ridiculous length thread. You know - one for deck talk, one for card talk, one for metagame stuff, etc - that kind of thing... I would use any forum like that over this one.


--rob77dp

[CapAp]

I think the desire by those of us using and wishing to use the Elements forum is for more than just one long ridiculous length thread. You know - one for deck talk, one for card talk, one for metagame stuff, etc - that kind of thing... I would use any forum like that over this one.


--rob77dp

I agree. People who just want to discuss the game shouldn't be subjected to my complaints about balance, or someone's card ideas that will never be used, or a flamewar between two users over which element pwns. But with a single long thread, you have to look at everything.

I think a dedicated forum would be great, and I would definitely use it!

[Pilchard123]

I agree. People who just want to discuss the game shouldn't be subjected to my complaints about balance, or someone's card ideas that will never be used, or a flamewar between two users over which element pwns. But with a single long thread, you have to look at everything.

I think a dedicated forum would be great, and I would definitely use it!

Well, your wish is my command!

www.elementstheforum.smfforfree3.com

Logins are barred for my initial builds right now, but it will probably open a week or two. Suggestions for boards would be appreciated, but please, no stupid "WOW PUT IN A BOARD FOR DECKS AND BUGS AND ANY NUMBER OF OBVIOUS THINGS THAT YOU'LL PROBABLY PUT IN ANY WAY!!!!!

Thanks in advance, P123

[Homer9191]

I agree. People who just want to discuss the game shouldn't be subjected to my complaints about balance, or someone's card ideas that will never be used, or a flamewar between two users over which element pwns. But with a single long thread, you have to look at everything.

I think a dedicated forum would be great, and I would definitely use it!

I thought you quit

[elementaldude]

I just tried to login with my old (and not very much used) account on version 1.1, but all it said was wrong password. i tried to login on the same account on version 0.3 and it worked, so how is it that i can't use my oltd account on v. 1.1?? please help me out.

[Disaru]

Really enjoyed the game so far overall, glad my friend told me about it. Haven't read through all of these threads but what little I went over scares me (seems like a VERY unfriendly community, so many posts attacking other members for their opinions and it seems like a lot of the more hospitable posts are the ones from players quitting the game and being attacked for it by those hanging around).

It's true, some people need to chill the **** ****** **** out Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but lets not shove it down each other's throats lmao

As for the long-winded EQ debate. Bringing up that your rainbow deck doesn't get beat by EQ doesn't bring up any new points, since rainbow is one of the very few exceptions to denial decks. EQ isn't OP to some decks (rainbow), but it completely shuts down others. You don't see the other 90% of people playing mono-fire, mono-aether, mono-entropy, mono-etc saying their deck doesn't get beat.

As for the upgrades, upgrades aren't too strong that you NEED them to beat others. So I don't think there should be any cap/limit on upgrades or rares.

Suggestion:
-Devourers can choose to target which element quanta to take from (0 cost ability)

-Devourers cannot burrow (solve that eclipse problem entirely by just removing burrow ability and replacing it with the quanta-choosing ability)

Devourers increased to 3 darkness quanta cost- it should have an increased cost since it acts as a pillar (generate 1 darkness) and a deflag (nullifies opponent's pillar)

-the quanta-choosing ability has no effect on mono-decks (since theres only 1 quanta type to choose from) but increased devourer cost prevents opponent to put out 3-4 devourers in the first turns and shut out your deck
-quanta-choosing ability has more strategy, i.e. choosing life quanta for FFQ queens, choosing quanta for opponent's creature's abilities
-quanta-choosing ability instead of burrowing ability makes devourers more strategic throughout the game, instead of lluck-of-the-draw spam at the start of the game
-random quanta denial is not strategic
-getting rid of burrowed devourers prevents them from being permanent pillars/deflags for the whole game, and darkness isnt completely vulnerable (use drain life on otyughs, steal owl eyes, etc.) so its not like devourers are mince meat