Elements. Fantasy cards game

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Originally Posted by Moonloop

yes but this uniqueness is a weak point, as it makes the game lacks a lot of strategy during the battles, as you only need to choose few cards each turn.
It's still a nice game because trying to find a balanced deck is fun, but as gameplay it's way worse than Magic, Spectromancer or yes, even yu-gi-oh.
Said that, it was only my pov, the game is still quite fun to play



first, i already posted the game in few forums, second i was not talking about a spam system, only a referral one, for a developer that hasn't the money to make hude ads campaign around a lot of sites is a very good method to make people spread the word, he asked for suggestions about how to publicize it in the first topic, so :shhh: ;)

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Well first off, there ARE cards that can attack other creatures, and ones that can defend from other creatures. So I'm not exactly sure what you are suggesting... that they ALL should?

Secondly, being "rewarded" for showing other people the game is, to an extent, pointless. VERY few people I know even look at their invitations on Facebook and their e-mail to things similar to this. So giving someone free stuff for barely doing anything is extremely stupid in my mind. Even if there was the "spin the wheel for a card" after you won, there would be like 100 cards on that wheel so you would basically never win anything. Even if you did that would only be like 30 coins which is an extremely pointless amount in the big picture.

Thirdly, putting in that extremely pointless feature really should go way in the back of the developer's priorities. There are much bigger issues to be addressed then recruiting 1 person per 100 cards he hands out for referrals. The best way to get someone into a game you are playing would be to show it to them or tell them in person or over the phone/ventrilo like programs. And if you did that you wouldn't even be acknowledged by that "reward system" that you suggested. And there are already 78,000 accounts (I think thats what somebody said previously.) I've also seen this on other sites ( I found this on kongregate.com myself.) So he is getting the game around as it is.


Edit: A referral system IS A spam system. You try to refer as many people at once to get rewards like you suggested. I see it all the time on (I used this example a lot) Facebook app's. Nobody even bothers to LOOK at what app people wanted you to go to. Half the time they don't even want you to join, they just want their reward.

gosh... seems you really have a lot of time to waste, why you feel the need to answers about things that aren't pointed at you? anyway i joined only to make my suggestions to the developer, not to a random dude that has too much time to spend.

I know that referral system are often used to make dumb people spam around the game, but it would be something less intrusive if on the sign up page there's something like "write the nick of your referral" like it is in many forums.

Now please try something better than trying to appear someone cool on a forum with random people you even don't know who they are, you should welcome new people when they join\ask something for the game, not do the arsehole.. now i'll do better to turn off the thing that advise me of replies in my mail, or i'll get spammed by your pointless replies again

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Originally Posted by Moonloop

gosh... seems you really have a lot of time to waste, why you feel the need to answers about things that aren't pointed at you? anyway i joined only to make my suggestions to the developer, not to a random dude that has too much time to spend.

I know that referral system are often used to make dumb people spam around the game, but it would be something less intrusive if on the sign up page there's something like "write the nick of your referral" like it is in many forums.

Now please try something better than trying to appear someone cool on a forum with random people you even don't know who they are, you should welcome new people when they join\ask something for the game, not do the arsehole.. now i'll do better to turn off the thing that advise me of replies in my mail, or i'll get spammed by your pointless replies again

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Its not like I sat down and wrote it all at once, people take too long to finish their turn in PVP on this game.

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

Armagio (creature, Gravity) can directly defend your HP against non-direct attacks. There are others that indirectly defend it by devouring opponent's creatures or freezing them or other effects... There are no creatures that destroy permanents, however.

Good to see another that found and enjoys this game! :-P


--rob77dp

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Not quite true.
Entropy can produce creatures with destroy or steal as skills. Particularly if you have a fallen druid card (fallen elf or mutation will work, but much less often). I haven't seen one with tsunami as a skill yet, but I suppose it is possible.

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Originally Posted by Rubber Rodger

Not quite true.
Entropy can produce creatures with destroy or steal as skills. Particularly if you have a fallen druid card (fallen elf or mutation will work, but much less often). I haven't seen one with tsunami as a skill yet, but I suppose it is possible.

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Quite right - excellent point. I had forgotten that... but to an extent would that be like relying on the slots to get you all the cards you want to put into your deck?

:D


--rob77dp

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

Quite right - excellent point. I had forgotten that... but to an extent would that be like relying on the slots to get you all the cards you want to put into your deck?

:D


--rob77dp

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Or 1500 coins.

I can't play this game any more until Earthquake is fixed. It's making mon-color decks unplayable at this point, and I have no desire to splash Earth in my deck just to be competitive. I'll check back in periodically to see if it gets nerfed.

Have fun folks!

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Originally Posted by CapAp

I can't play this game any more until Earthquake is fixed. It's making mon-color decks unplayable at this point, and I have no desire to splash Earth in my deck just to be competitive. I'll check back in periodically to see if it gets nerfed.

Have fun folks!

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There's a strategy to avoid earthquakes. Don't put down more than 1 pillar first turn. Don't keep up exactly 3 pillars, more or less is ok, but you never want to run dry of them. Also things like nova, supernova, quantom pillars, towers instead of pillars and mixing both, and things like immolate help to counter it.

OH NO STRATEGY IN THIS GAME ! GET RID OF IT OR I QUIT!


But in the end, I agree, NERF EARTHQUAKE IT COUNTERS THINGS LIKE MY MONO-AETHER DECK.

If everyone has to build their deck around a certain strategy to avoid a single card, that card is then offering a negative play experience, and should be modified. As you point out in your own post, all decks have to strategize a way around EQ - namely because you can expect to see it in at least half of the decks you face. Its ubiquity belies its power.

Also, if your strategy to avoid earthquakes is not to play any pillars, I'm interested in how you intend to gain quanta for a mono deck, Novas being worthless and Immolates being worthless unless you're doing mono-fire.

As I said, Earthquake makes playing mono colors no fun. That's why I'm taking a break. If you don't like my reasons, then that sucks for you! Bye now.

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Originally Posted by sixones

There's a strategy to avoid earthquakes. Don't put down more than 1 pillar first turn. Don't keep up exactly 3 pillars, more or less is ok, but you never want to run dry of them. Also things like nova, supernova, quantom pillars, towers instead of pillars and mixing both, and things like immolate help to counter it.

OH NO STRATEGY IN THIS GAME ! GET RID OF IT OR I QUIT!


But in the end, I agree, NERF EARTHQUAKE IT COUNTERS THINGS LIKE MY MONO-AETHER DECK.

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Originally Posted by CapAp

If everyone has to build their deck around a certain strategy to avoid a single card, that card is then offering a negative play experience, and should be modified. As you point out in your own post, all decks have to strategize a way around EQ - namely because you can expect to see it in at least half of the decks you face. Its ubiquity belies its power.

Also, if your strategy to avoid earthquakes is not to play any pillars, I'm interested in how you intend to gain quanta for a mono deck, Novas being worthless and Immolates being worthless unless you're doing mono-fire.

As I said, Earthquake makes playing mono colors no fun. That's why I'm taking a break. If you don't like my reasons, then that sucks for you! Bye now.

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No, not everyone has to build their deck around it. For example, I can beat Seism with a MONO-aether deck 80% the time. He has unlimited earthquakes, and 200 health. If I can do that, you can probably beat a normal player with a mono-color deck as well, you just need the draws.

You win some, you lose some. You don't win them all.

No, its ubiquity does not belie its power. If you are arguing that earthquake is both ubiquitous and overpowered, then its ubiquity would be demonstrating its power. This is not necessarily true, incidentally; in any competitive metagame it frequently happens that players get swept up in a wave of popularity for a given strategy even if it's not actually particularly overpowered. Oftentimes this is a cyclical effect; one strategy gets really popular, so people start switching to a counter-strategy until it becomes really popular, then people move on to a strategy that counters that one, and so on.

In this case, I would note that mono-aether and mono-fire have both enjoyed quite a bit of popularity recently, although they seem to be on the ebb--probably due to the increase in earthquake denial decks. The addition of upgrades a week ago is also probably contributing to earthquake's popularity; while many strategies only saw modest benefits from upgrades to their core cards, upgraded earthquake decks are really brutal against non-upgraded decks (tower upgrades make it much easier to cope with earthquake, though). The popularity and demonstrable effectiveness of these upgraded decks is probably fueling a lot of copycat decks even among players who don't have the money to upgrade their earthquake deck.

So no, the ubiquity of earthquake neither belies nor demonstrates its power. While I can't argue that its prevalence in the metagame is heavily discouraging to mono-color decks... if you're at a rock-paper-scissors tournament and half the players are throwing rock all the time, your best bet is to not use scissors instead of expecting the tournament organizers to somehow nerf rock.

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Originally Posted by ggabriel

if you're at a rock-paper-scissors tournament and half the players are throwing rock all the time, your best bet is to not use scissors instead of expecting the tournament organizers to somehow nerf rock.

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His argument is that anything that "isn't scissors" "isn't fun"

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Originally Posted by sixones

His argument is that anything that "isn't scissors" "isn't fun"

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*Removed text*

However, that is not to say I think one side is right and the other wrong. I go back and forth on the Earthquake-is-overpowered debate every day it seems... some days the top 50 is littered with EQ and other days it seems non-existent. Until the ONLY way to compete with Earthquake is to use Earth, I don't think it will be nerfed. However, I suggest (as I have before) that Earthquake should operate more along the lines of destroying 1/2 pillars in target stack, rounded down with a maximum of 4 pillars destroyed. Or 1/3 or rounded up or max 3 or max 5, but basically along the lines of never destroying ALL the pillars in a stack... It would still be a strong Earth card, but would not be so necessary in any deck using Earth element.


--rob77dp

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Originally Posted by rob77dp

You totally missed his point, which does not lie in taking the rock-paper-scissors analogy literally.

However, that is not to say I think one side is right and the other wrong. I go back and forth on the Earthquake-is-overpowered debate every day it seems... some days the top 50 is littered with EQ and other days it seems non-existent. Until the ONLY way to compete with Earthquake is to use Earth, I don't think it will be nerfed. However, I suggest (as I have before) that Earthquake should operate more along the lines of destroying 1/2 pillars in target stack, rounded down with a maximum of 4 pillars destroyed. Or 1/3 or rounded up or max 3 or max 5, but basically along the lines of never destroying ALL the pillars in a stack... It would still be a strong Earth card, but would not be so necessary in any deck using Earth element.


--rob77dp

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No, I completely understand and agreed with his point, and I disagreed with the guy that was QQing about EQ.

on the subject of upgrade pricing...

an upgraded time pillar gives you 1 extra time once
an upgraded golden hourglass saves you 1 time every round

an upgraded earthquake saves you 1 earth once
an upgraded trident saves you 1 earth every time you use it

an upgraded vulture has +1/+1 over a normal vulture
an upgraded otyugh has +1/+1 over a normal oty but can also eat creatures with 3hp right off the bat, as opposed to the regular 2

and yet all these upgrades cost exactly the same - 1,500g...

re-considering all of the numbers will take quite a while, so this shouldn't be on top of the development stack, but it's something that should be looked at eventually.

There's no denying that not all upgrades are equally useful, but you are overlooking some important factors. Towers might only give you 1 extra quantum, but they give you 1 extra quantum immediately. Sometimes that can be much more important than getting 1 extra quantum a turn later on.

Similarly, an upgraded earthquake can be cast very quickly, making it much easier to shut down an opponent before they get going. Upgraded tridents still require you to get 3 water quanta to get them into play, and then there's another turn before you can activate its ability (a turn in which the opponent has a chance to deflagrate/steal your trident). Not to mention, you can't just go to the bazaar and pick up a couple of tridents like you can earthquake.

Elite Otyughs still start at 0 attack, actually. But yeah, condors are just pretty crappy as far as upgraded creatures go.



I'm not really sure there's much of a need to rebalance upgrades--if you don't think they're worth the cost, don't buy them. I doubt making crappy upgrades cheaper would really help much, as I think in most cases players would be better just buying a better regular deck or saving up for the really useful upgrades. On the other hand, it could make things a bit more interesting if some of the weaker upgraded cards got boosted a liiiiittle bit. Not a big deal, again, but it would be neat if it happened, by and by.

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Originally Posted by ggabriel

I'm not really sure there's much of a need to rebalance upgrades

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there isn't, of course. but it's something that would be nice to have. (there's no real need to balance creatures either, from this point of view, but the game is more fun when they are balanced)

every upgraded card is inherently better than the corresponding non-upgraded card, but if you see that people buying upgrades consistently upgrade cards A, B and C and almost always ignore D through Z, then the balance is not working quite as it should*

reducing the cost is probably the easiest hack.
or, god forbid, raising the cost on the better ones ;)


* note, i only speak for myself. if the dev(s) have some sort of statistics tracking on this, they can just use those statistics to adjust things :) if not, they can add some sort of statistics tracking to help with balancing.

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Originally Posted by zzz123

every upgraded card is inherently better than the corresponding non-upgraded card,

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That's not necessarily true. A couple examples:

*Firefly queen- Produces upgraded fireflies. They make red instead of white mana. There isn't any air/fire synergy that makes this better than the white where you have rustlers which can convert it back to green.

*Chrysora- adding 2 attack makes it vulnerable to fire shields and procrastination.

*Aether Dragon and Immortal- Sure they add a point of attack, but they cost more and Aether creatures are already slow to come out.

Granted- it's all situational but still not all upgrades are inherently better.

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Originally Posted by Moonloop

gosh... seems you really have a lot of time to waste, why you feel the need to answers about things that aren't pointed at you? anyway i joined only to make my suggestions to the developer, not to a random dude that has too much time to spend.

I know that referral system are often used to make dumb people spam around the game, but it would be something less intrusive if on the sign up page there's something like "write the nick of your referral" like it is in many forums.

Now please try something better than trying to appear someone cool on a forum with random people you even don't know who they are, you should welcome new people when they join\ask something for the game, not do the arsehole.. now i'll do better to turn off the thing that advise me of replies in my mail, or i'll get spammed by your pointless replies again

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I'm going to have to agree with Moonloop. Sixones, the more I see your posts, the more I notice all you do is jump to arguing againt each new post or person's opinion! lol. But in all honesty, Moonloop was trying to give new suggestions to make the game better and help Zanz with advertising ideas. All you did was bash his ideas, so either you could contribute too or possibly stfu? :rolleyes:

I actually liked his referral idea. Nothing too drastic, but maybe when a new player is making an account, putting down whoever referred them, and the referrer would receive like 10 coins. Obviously, this could be exploited, but you'd need to make a new email account for each new account (can't be referred if you have the same email as referrer, obvious exploiter) and that takes longer than just playing a level 2 game. I dont know, I think it's a decent idea.

@ Sixones: btw, towers don't prevent being denied using a fire mark for deflag. Devourers can still keep targetting your fire quanta each turn, which makes all your deflags pretty useless if you make only 1 fire quanta per turn and lose it the next turn.

this game has potential but right now, no thanks. Losses are too punishing in terms of coins lost and it takes forever to get enough gold to build the deck you want.