I left it very open because I am available for a large range of questions. I am expecting questions about Balancing a mechanic, detailing an aspect of the game (Grand strategy through coding), questions about themes (mechanics, name, element, art), describing the CIA community and card suggestion process and more.
I have a couple Ideas, like Bio Shift (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9897.0.html),that I think are very solid, and have had good responses to from the communuty, however, the momentum died down. The idea is solid, and simple, just doesnt have that "awe" factor that say "this has to get into the game" to. What would you suggest doing to reignite interest in the card without fundamentally changing it?
People are drawn to and get enthusiastic about the new. This means enthusiasm for a card will decrease with time and the introduction of newer competition. To reinvigorate this enthusiasm you can do a few things.
1) You can reintroduce the idea to people that had forgotten about it.
2) You can tie it to something more recent like the Arena or the Metagame discussions. Perhaps by discussing how it would work in an arena deck or discuss how it would (if it would) help fix perceived problems with the Metagame.
3) You can introduce it to people that never noticed it.
4) You could change minor details. The author knows which details are minor. I would suspect the Art and the Name could be changed if better options were known.
5) Sometimes it pays to refine the idea again and resubmit it. This is less applicable for suggestions in the Forge.
To what extent should the environment of a card be considered in its balance? Obviously some context is required, that's inherent to the idea of balance. But I noticed that in the Buff/Nerf subforums, moderators have said, multiple times, not to balance a card based on the element its in.
What's your opinion on this?
Everything that contributes or detracts from a card's power or cost will effect the card's balance. We, as humans, cannot evaluate all the web of interactions.
Until recently there were only 3 cards that referenced a card's element (Flooding, Nightfall, Holy Light). Shard of Patience, (the new) Shard of Readiness and Shard of Serendipity are new additions. It is uncommon for one of these cards to act in a way significantly noticeably different from a variant that does not reference a card's element. Nightfall acts like "Your creatures gain +1|+1" except in the uncommon case that the opponent has a death/dark creature or you have a creature that is not from death/darkness. As such the color of the background of the card has had very little impact on balance yet. As such it is usually ignored. The element based effect of SoR and SoSe might be significant during balancing.
A division that has larger effects is the quanta types involved in the costs of the cards. Dune Scorpion costs
. Before Shard of Patience, Dune Scorpion required the user to obtain a non
quanta source. The same is true of Anubis but obviously not with Deja Vu. The more quanta types needed the less stable the quanta source. Hence Dune Scorpion would have a lower total cost if there was a creature attack booster that only required
by having a more stable quanta source.
In conclusion: The cards available to be cast using
is more useful during balancing than the cards with red backgrounds however exceptions to this guideline will exists.
