Elements. Fantasy cards game

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Originally Posted by jtravisp

I've posted on this before. The current system does not resemble a chess rating system. The only part that does is the way a score change is calculated. If you have a low score and beat someone with a high score, you get a big score boost. If you have a much higher score that your opponent and you win, you won't change much.

The critical difference is that in Elements, you have a cumulative score, not a rating. A rating reflects skill. A score reflects raw number of wins. In Chess, no one has a rating of 50,000. It's not possible.

This article is good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

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That is why I used the word "similar" not "exactly" when describing how Elements' system relates to the chess system. I have read that Wiki page and it is what sold me several weeks ago on recommending Zanazarino use something similar in Elements.

Would a good fix be to make score based solely on PVP games? Remove the AI opponents' component completely - of course, coin would still be the motivating factor, along with strategy honing and practice, for challenging AI still.


--rob77dp

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

I personally think your statements above are EXACTLY what makes games like this fun. Changes make strategy adjustment necessary, requiring thought, some time, and effort to then become successful. This is not having it handed to you by the game, which is what I think some people would prefer Elements to lean towards. I know I enjoy it more winning 60% and having to think than winning 80%+ and just going bam bam bam. Just being able to play for 3 days or even just 2 weeks and then afford all sorts of upgraded cards would shorten the life of Elements as a playable game very drastically. Upgraded cards, having been out now for approx. 4 days, I don't get all the complaining about cost and not affording upgrades yet. I have a high score, lots of games played, plenty of matches won, and 0 upgrades with only enough coin to buy 1 at the moment, but still like the idea of it being a difficult, but fun, road ahead.

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Man, almost nobody's disagreeing with you. ggabriel isn't, anyway. Yeah, there's a couple "Boohoo, DS nerf" and "Wah, I want my upgrades now" posts, but ignore those.

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As several have added lately, a Level 4 being added b/t lvl 3 and Top 50, such as a Top 50 sans-upgraded cards, would be a great stepping stone to allow somewhat quicker coin (and therefore upgraded cards) acquisition for those quickly becoming weary with adjusting/thinking/grinding.

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Don't be condescending. Nobody's wearied by adjusting and thinking. Adjusting and thinking is the entire game. The problem is that prices are preventing adjusting and thinking, and are thus diminishing the fun of the game. And wearying grinding is the only way to deal with the prices.

Anyway, let's have new Lvl 4!

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Originally Posted by gorgonzola

Don't be condescending. Nobody's wearied by adjusting and thinking. Adjusting and thinking is the entire game. The problem is that prices are preventing adjusting and thinking, and are thus diminishing the fun of the game. And wearying grinding is the only way to deal with the prices.

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The weary of adjusting/thinking/grinding does come off a bit condescending, having re-read my post (I did not intend it that way). I was meaning to relate to my own experience some. I farm the Top 50 for my coin, which is a continually changing set of decks, so thinking is required for farming it and at times the top 50 changes and it takes me a bit to figure out. Sometimes I lose a bunch in a row and give up for the day to get away and come back fresh as the thinking needed for beating top 50 with upgrades, for example, can be frustrating/tiring - but in the end, FUN! :-D

Hopefully, zanzarino reads these last posts and finds a way to add a "Level 4"!!! :-P


--rob77dp

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

I personally think your statements above are EXACTLY what makes games like this fun. Changes make strategy adjustment necessary, requiring thought, some time, and effort to then become successful. This is not having it handed to you by the game, which is what I think some people would prefer Elements to lean towards. I know I enjoy it more winning 60% and having to think than winning 80%+ and just going bam bam bam. Just being able to play for 3 days or even just 2 weeks and then afford all sorts of upgraded cards would shorten the life of Elements as a playable game very drastically.

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Well, ultimately we just have fundamentally different preconceptions of what investment in a game really entails. I'd rather stay into a game because it has genuine depth, not because its length is inflated by making it take unnecessarily long to get anywhere. Yeah, with only ten or twelve cards per color the game's pretty limited at present, but presumably the card list isn't going to stay that small forever. Gradual updates alone would keep me coming back more persistently than making progress a chore--and while yeah, creating new content is a bit manpower-intensive and I don't expect anyone to slave away indefinitely on a free game, well-planned expansions to the card list would exponentially increase the game's depth and longevity and make it worth long-term exploration on its own merit without placing arbitrary barriers at any level.

I don't enjoy grinding the top 50 now that I'm winning 60%ish of the time and I didn't enjoy it when I was winning 85% of the time either. Grinding sucks, period, but it was noticeably less time-intensive before (even just in terms of buying new cards to try them out, let alone actually affording upgrades). It meant that I could make money at a decent enough pace that I could actually afford to indulge in plenty of PvP even after it became less profitable (since my score was going up and I was facing more and more lower-score players that gave very small reward). It was a very useful split: top 50 fights gave me consistent money to actually progress in the game at a decent pace, PvP fights were slow and less reliably profitable but were fun and provide leaps and bounds more adjusting and thinking than AI-controlled top 50 fights ever did or ever will. Trying to alternate between top 50/PvP fights after the update has just felt like treading water.

So, yeah, philosophy of game design notwithstanding, mostly I just miss old top 50.

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Originally Posted by Rubber Rodger

3 sapphire towers equals 6 water quanta on the turn they were played.

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You misunderstood me. I don't mean he played 3 sapphire towers on turn one and then an abyss crawler (costs 5 water quanta) on turn 2. I wrote that he played 3 sapphire towers on turn 1, and then put down an abyss crawler on turn 1 also, when he should have had only 3 water quanta from the sapphire towers to work with. And then at the beginning of my first turn (he went first), he had 3 water quanta and 3 death quanta left over, plus the abyss crawler.

@ggabriel

The suggested level 4 with non-upgraded top 50 decks would be suitable to you too? Just wondering what the opinion is on it...


--rob77dp

So basically, Elements has inflated prices, and we're in a recession :D lmao. So Zanz should add an economy jumpstart, like lv4 or selling upgrades back for 100% or 90% what you bought it for (buying the wrong upgrade sucks, especially if you've worked so hard for 1500)

But honestly, everyone complaining about ranking, I don't see a solution. I don't think Zanz is going to abolish the current score system, and no top ranked player is going to PVP to lose to new players using aether. I just think there should be separate rankings, like a PVP ranking and a all-time score ranking.

... are we absolutely certain that the random number generator is entirely random?
or that the deck-shuffling algorithm works correctly?

i have 3 empathic bonds in my deck of 60
i have been getting 2-3 with the initial deal, and the last one (if it was missing) within the first couple of draws for the last 5(!) games, seems to be a bit overkill to be explained by plain randomness.

I think you should win the card you spin, whether it's upgraded or not. That way when you do finally beat the fully upgraded darkness deck (bleh) you at least a chance to win one of the cards that's been owning you... and not just the cheap plastic version... :) And maybe have a bigger gold reward for killing a fake god?

I think randomness is more random than you give it credit. I have noticed that sometimes it almost seems like when I lose a battle and immediately re-enter a fight I end up with uncannily similar draws (and against AI opponents I seem to face the same AI with the same draws), but that's probably just coincidence. If I was using decks that were more diverse and still having it happen, then I might think something was actually up.

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

@ggabriel

The suggested level 4 with non-upgraded top 50 decks would be suitable to you too? Just wondering what the opinion is on it...

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Having a grind-heavy game is never what I would call ideal, hence all the words I've been spewing, but having access to a decent grinding option again (that doesn't have the steep entry requirements taking down gods does) would certainly be a big improvement.

My deck has been changed!!
Why did it happened?

my accountname: mr

Thanks

You guys are silly, the rating system is fine. Playing 100s of games vs AI does make you better, you have more money, more cards, and more strategy.

Alright first off - It took me forever how to find out to register on this site.

Most of the people posting I don't think understand exactly how to upgrade quickly.
This is my second day playing and I have already upgraded 9 cards (2 on one account, 7 on the other). At the rate I am going I should have 30 total in a day or two.

How am I doing this? I am beating gods/AI 6. Now obviously I don't beat them 50:50. I beat them about 1:10. But I have won about 18 cards now and it seems to have about a 50% chance of winning a card worth 800-900 from the spinning wheel [50% chance I win a card per win, not 50% per spin]. (One game I won 3/3 :O )

Also, incase you guys havn't noticed - since you want another AI in between 2 different levels of difficulty, look at the AI difficulties:

Level 0
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Top 50 (Equiv of level 4/5?)
Level 6

Incase you havn't noticed.. there is a pretty big gap there, the designer MAY HAVE meant that pvp is supposed to be a difficulty level? I'm not sure if he meant for it to be a level, or if he intends on going back and adding in a level once he creates new cards.

Oh also, I have beaten atleast one of the level 6 AI with 3 different decks.

Fire/Earthquake
Mono-Aether
Gravity/Light stall

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Originally Posted by sixones

How am I doing this? I am beating gods/AI 6. Now obviously I don't beat them 50:50. I beat them about 1:10. But I have won about 18 cards now and it seems to have about a 50% chance of winning a card worth 800-900 from the spinning wheel [50% chance I win a card per win, not 50% per spin]. (One game I won 3/3 :O )

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Please elaborate. How are you gaining money from this? Wouldn't you be losing more gold than you would be winning?

re: money

for those of you who played MTG, what was the fun bit?
1) building your deck,
2) actually battling, or
3) spending money on booster packs?

admittedly, for 3 there was a chance of getting something rare and awesome, but let's ignore that for now.

problems with elements as it stands now:
cards are relatively expensive (you need to win ~10 level 2 battles to buy ONE dragon, assuming 100% wins)
upgrades are VERY expensive
so you end up grinding for a long time before you see any returns

possible solutions:
1) abolish the losing cost (you lost real-life time, that's enough of a penalty)
2) remove the bazaar
3) remove the one-eyed-bandit
4) remove or massively cheapify upgrades
5) allow players to buy *random* cards - so you pay your 25 or however many gold and get a card (you can have several random decks, so basic is 25 each, elite is 200 each, and so on)

bonuses:
1) all-rare-decks no longer feed specific rares into the economy
2) the grind is significantly reduced
3) the strategy is somewhat increased - instead of building that uber aether deck after 10 wins, you have to figure out what to do with the cards you have now.
4) you can safely experiment - e.g. fighting vs level 6 a few dozen times to see what he does without bankrupting yourself
5) you have a fixed chance of getting a good card per card bought (1% or whatever), rather than the current system (where your chance of getting a good card only exists if the opponent has one)

penalties:
1) building the deck you actually want becomes a bit more painful (which may be a good thing)
2) need to verify that WotC doesn't have booster cards copyrighted ;)

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Originally Posted by r3h0ld3r

Please elaborate. How are you gaining money from this? Wouldn't you be losing more gold than you would be winning?

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Alright well first, I havn't really been keeping track of how often I win against the AI and how often I have been winning a card after I beat them so maybe the numbers I put down aren't as high as the actual amount that I've been making.. but I can tell you I AM upgrading cards at a decent rate doing this..

I'm winning roughly 1:8, 1:9, or 1:10 of the games that I have been playing. But for the math I'll go with 1:10

Now I have been winning atleast one card every other game.

So I have been winning atleast one card (That is worth ~870 coins) for every 600 coins that I put into winning. On top of the 270 coin profit from the card, if I those 2/20 games then I would also make another 100 coins on that.

This way I am up to a 370 coin gain from every 20 games minimum it seems.
(Obviously those less lucky may not get any cards)

Now early this morning I happened to win 3 cards from one game. That is 2400 coins, from a 30 coin entry. I then take the coins I previously had, which was 1300, and I have 2 upgrades worth of money.

Next, I take those 2 upgrades, and I use them to help me win even more than my un-upgraded deck had been winning (which really isn't that much more, but everything helps)

And at a decent rate I am upgrading my cards.

I might have missed something important.. idk..

Two games after I wrote that last paragraph..
(The first was scorpio and I said screw it and left before my 1st turn)

Won 2 out of 2 against Hermes both times..
Profit: 1600 from 2 fire lances.

Well you've convinced me. I'll give the lvl six strategy a try with a mono aether and see what happens

Just posting to let you know that I keep reading the forum and to answer to a few comments:

Elo rating system:
The way score rewards are calculated for a pvp match is similar to elo rating system; the entire elo rating system can not be applied to elements because, well, elements and chess are not the same game.

Playing chess implies starting with the same board configuration for both players, elements does not, even separating the score in a skill based "rating" and a "score like it is right now" would not work (at all) because that system does not consider the advantage of having better cards.

In fact, a rating system would be heavily unfair for new players, example:

I am a new player, rating zero, I decide to start my first pvp match, and I get to play against "Pveguy", a player that loves to play against fake gods and today decided to try pvp as well, it is his first pvp game too, so his rating too is zero. Game starts, he has all updated cards, I have an almost-starter deck. He wins after 5 turns, the elo system kicks in, heavily drains on my ranking and heavily reward "pveguy". I am pissed, I think it was unfair that "Pveguy" had the same rating I had, I am going to send an email to zanzarino telling him that "pveguy" is a cheater and found a way to keep his ranking at zero to suck coins out of newbies and I am going to quit elements.



Top 50:
Problem 1: I can not win upgraded cards... and you never will, aka "I can put 30 bone towers in my top 50 deck and anyone that fight against my deck will get rewarded with about 2400 coins". Everyone is rich, happy and has easy access to upgraded cards, regular cards are seen only in starter decks and might as well be deleted from the game.

Example: printing $100 bills and distributing them equally to the world population does not make anyone rich, it's just unfair for the hard workers.

Problem 2: It takes a week to grind and get a single upgraded card... but upgraded cards do not unlock any new strategy (true for about 98% of the cards). In fact, you do not "need" upgraded cards to win pvp fights or even to win a match against a fake god (I tried it and won against both, rarely, but I did), it is just much harder because you have an handicap. So, if you do not like grinding... don't. Just accept the fact that someone has better cards than you, fight against him and when you manage to win against them in spite of your handicap: lyao... twice the fun.

Problem 3: Playing Top50 is now harder. True.
New cards, new levels and new strategies will come.



I am not saying that everything that was done is anywhere close to perfect or it is never going to change, in fact, it will. Just trying to explain why I made certain decisions, since I know it is often frustrating to see something in a game and wonder "Why the hell did they do it this stupid way". Now you got the answer. Have fun, do not grind, carpal tunnel might be behind the corner.