Guest posts by Silkenfist

25

General Discussion / Re: False God's Genders?

« on: February 16, 2010, 06:29:57 pm »

I'm not quite sur for what this could be needed, but:

Male (Quicker, Single-Focussed, Few self-protection, focus on quantity-based reproduction)
Dark Matter
Divine Glory
Ferox
Gemini
Graviton
Hermes
Incarnate
Paradox
Scorpio

Female (Slower, More Versatile, Defensive, focus on evolving and quality-based procreation)
Chaos Lord
Destiny
Elidnis
Fire Queen
Miracle
Morte
Obliterator
Rainbow
Seism

26

General Discussion / Re: Elements Statistics

« on: February 16, 2010, 03:11:28 pm »

Actually, you just delivered the best argument why the win rates should be averaged. After all, we aren't really interested in the previous performance of the decks but the performance we can expect from the decks when we use them in the future. And in your example, the matchup against Paradox would weigh in less than the matchup against  Morte although in future matches the chances to play against them are equal.

Make the matchup against each Element count exactly the same - or weigh them according to their presence on the wheel. Everything else might have greater statistical purity but doesn't help at all when evaluating the potential of a deck.

27

Forum Game Archive / Re: The book game!

« on: February 16, 2010, 02:17:59 pm »

'WOULD YOU TRY ME WITH RIDDLES FROM YOUR BOOK? OUR TIME TOGETHER GROWS SHORT.'

Can you guess the title? If you know the book, you might have a good chance.

For the unsavvy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0451210875/sr=8-1/qid=1266329960/ref=dp_otherviews_0?ie=UTF8&s=books&img=0&qid=1266329960&sr=8-1  (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0451210875/sr=8-1/qid=1266329960/ref=dp_otherviews_0?ie=UTF8&s=books&img=0&qid=1266329960&sr=8-1)

28

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Randomization issues

« on: February 16, 2010, 11:59:54 am »

And the method known as Mana Weaving in competitive Magic is no longer allowed without sufficient shuffling afterwards (Thus removing the reason to weave).

Wrong - It isn't allowed at all. Mana Weaving is an attempt to cheat (stack the deck in a favorable order) and as such should be treated as a full graded disqualification. The only reason it is not implemented that harshly is AFAIK because too many amateur players don't know the rule.

Curiously, most online gaming platforms for MTG (I know it for Apprentice and Magic Workstation) used "real" shuffling and went back to "flawed" randomness because too many players complained about a broken shuffler

In Elements, however, I am entirely in favor of true randomization. You can build 30-card decks with your key cards being every fifth card in it. There really is not much for chance to botch up. If you calculate your pillar supply sloppily and leave no room for fluctuation, it is your fault entirely.

29

Rainbow Decks / Re: PuppyChow's FG Rainbow

« on: February 16, 2010, 08:50:09 am »

Well... if you want to have Eternity work for you indefinitely, you need 12 Quantum Towers. This will make your deck too big, though. The Supernovas are quite an important part and if they are spread among 40+ cards, you'll lose a LOT of matches quickly.

No Enchant Artifact might be remedied, though. Have you tried replacing the Steal with it? As soon as I am done with my gauntlet, testing the deck in PuppyChows configuration, I'm going to give that one a try.

30

Competitions / Re: Competition: Design a New Quest

« on: February 16, 2010, 08:35:42 am »

frankly, i started grinding gods BEFORE i had 5 upped cards

Was this before or after the Sundial nerf?

31

Forum Archive / Re: playing against top 50 to make the transtion to False Gods

« on: February 15, 2010, 05:11:51 pm »

Have you tried the Anti-Rainbow approach? Most Top50 players have some kind of Rainbow and can be easily defeated by a good Dark Matter-based denial deck.

That said, ask yourself what exactly you are trying to farm:
- For rare cards. Top50 is the better place
- For gold, the AI5 are way better. They occassionally drop you upgraded cards (read: 1160 electrum) and they are quite easy to beat once you get a decent deck together.

32

General Discussion / Re: Miracle

« on: February 15, 2010, 01:33:10 pm »

As a rule of thumb: Never sell a rare card unless you have 12 of them already. They don't come around often and you never know how good they might get with one of the later versions (The only possible exception may be the Vampiric Stiletto but even that one I'd keep. Maybe it will get revamped entirely).

33

Competitions / Re: Competition: Design a New Quest

« on: February 15, 2010, 12:02:32 pm »

----------
Quest 08: Strength of the Peasants
----------

In the battle against the False Gods, most Elementals resort to improved spells and elite creatures. With a good strategy, however, it is possible to overcome them without any upgrade to the deck.

Objective: Defeat a False God using unupgraded cards only.

Reward: Choose one of the cards in the winning deck and have it upgraded.

34

League Archive / Re: Elements the League: Questions, Suggestions & Chat

« on: February 14, 2010, 01:30:40 pm »

My suggestion:
Since win -> +1 score
loss -> +- 0 score
only benefits the mass players, and doesnt represent player skill at all, I'd change it as following:
win -> +1 OR +2 (I'd chose +1)
loss -> -1

Since the new season is about to start:

I think, this scoring system will lead to massive problems:
- It doesn't encourage honesty about the games. After an unfortunate desync, you are much more likely to blame your opponent if you know that losing a match would be harmful to them.
- Players will only cherry-pick the weakest players to play against and get high league scores. The players who are actually the strongest ones, might have problems to find any opponent at all.

The only advantage of that scoring system is, that it avoids rewarding the player with the most games but the one with the best performance. However, this is already achieved by limiting the number of games allowed against each other player (we can further limit the number if 10 is too high. I'd suggest 3-5, even). Far more important would be to reward losing honestly and encouraging to play a lot. So I'd suggest:
3 Points for a Win
1 Point for a Loss

If you want to have a measure of the performance, read: relative number of wins, we could implement the ELO ratings for league players. They should be farily easy to use if we calculate and actualize them every two weeks.

35

Elements Radio / Re: 12 elements, 12 music genres.. what do you think they should be?

« on: February 13, 2010, 05:03:24 am »

 : Techno, naturally
 : Drum n' Base!
 : Gothic and Darkwave would fit perfectly.
 : Punk and Hardcore
 : Rock, obviously
 : Jazz, Experimental, Avant-Garde and Post Metal
 : Latin
 : Hymns, Chants and Power Ballads
 : Folk and Filk
 : Pop and Soul
 : Oldies and Evergreens
 : Ska, Reggea

36

Rainbow Decks / Re: PuppyChow's FG Rainbow

« on: February 12, 2010, 08:57:18 am »

How much sense would it make to expand this deck to 40 cards in your opinion?

I wonder if the supernovas + entropy-mark would still be the way to go then or if they just got watered down to the point of being mad to not draw those SNs all the time.

I'm currently testing (read: shamelessly copying) the deck. My sample size is not that big yet but from what I've experienced, decking out or "running out of answers" is less of a danger than not having the Oty/Quintessence setup soon enough - not to mention that the Supernovas are a vital part of the deck.