Frustrated with Elements? 10 Common Frustrations, and What to Do About Them.

[Astrocyte]

Updated by Chapuz

Frustrated with EtG? I feel you. No really, I do. You are talking to the Charlie Brown of this community. I've made probably every mistake you could possibly make, plus some you can't even try to make. I've spent and lost fortunes on frankly stupid decks. At one point I had 12000 score, 155 cards, and 9 . I've lost dozens of easy, sure-fire, can't-possibly-lose fights because I changed my deck and forgot to change my mark. I've had such bad luck that I once spent 5 hours playing Silver League without getting a single bonus spin, and had a week where I used one of the forum's best-reviewed False God decks and averaged winning 1 card every 7 hours. I've lost in the first round of every tournament I've ever entered. I'm even the "winner" of the forum's very first PvP Parasite.

So I'm well qualified to talk about being frustrated with EtG
I know what you're going through and I'm writing this to acknowledge your frustrations, explain the frustrating parts of the game, and outline my mistakes so that you might avoid them (at least some of them ). The good news is that if you made it here to the forums, you're already on the right track.

Without further ado, here are 10 frustrating things about getting started with EtG, and how to deal with them. If you see something that's frustrating you, here you will see the solutions.

1. Elements is very, very, very, VERY grindy.
In the game's current form, this is a fact that simply has to be accepted -- there's no getting around it. If you don't like grinding (that is, doing the same thing over and over, moving in tiny increments toward a goal), or if you're not willing to put up with hours of grinding to get to an eventual "fun part," you're probably going to hate this game. Try fitting PvP in your fun list to go away from the rutine! (If you're the "hate is a strong word" type of person, let me rephrase: It's going to be an intensely rigorous exercise in self-discipline.)

2. You might already need to restart.
If you've lost so much money that you cannot afford to play Level 3, and you couldn't build a better deck even if you sold all the non-rare cards you own, it might be best to start over with a new account. If you don't have any rares, or only have 1 or 2, it's definitely best to start over. You can either make a completely new account from scratch, or log into the game and click the "Reset Account" button at the top of the window.
Do not be ashamed if you decide you need to restart. I have done this twice. Many of the game's veterans and rising stars have done it at least once. Or seven.

3. No matter which element you picked, the starter deck is a lousy deck.
Just like starter decks you buy at stores IRL! The good news is that they're all easy to turn into viable decks. All of them improve just by taking out a few cards, and it doesn't take much to make good basic decks from them either. Check out our Starter deck tutorial

4. Deckbuilding is everything, but you can't afford to experiment with deckbuilding outside of the trainer.
It's an old story: You build a deck. You like the deck. Now you have to play it lots of times to find out if it's a good deck, but you find out it's not a good deck by losing until you're bankrupt. I  myself ragequit the game once already over this very thing. For testing decks, it's best to use the trainer.
What's the Trainer, you ask? It's a parallel setup of the "real" game where you can have all the cards and money you want, even rares and upgrades. You can use all this to build a deck and then play any of the AI Levels (or even program a specific Level 3 or Level 6 deck), consequence-free.

5. In the early and mid-game, the only efficient thing to do is to build a specific deck for a specific goal, and stick with that deck until your goal is achieved.
You CAN just play around however you feel like, but if you want to get more cards and more money as fast as possible, your first job is to get a deck that consistently beats Level 3 or Level 4 (once again, use the trainer, and/or get ideas from the tutorials, the wiki, or the Elder and Half Blood Community Recommended Decks. Once you have it, you need to choose what kind of deck you want next (a different AI3 deck? a False God deck? an Arena farming deck?) and use the deck you have to build that. Once you have that second deck... and so on. It'll take some time to have enough cards for multiple decks. You'll be helped along a little by winning cards from spins, but don't depend on this for building up your card library.
Not sure what to do next? Pop into the trainer and play with different decks until you find one you like.

6. You need money.
The cost of new cards adds up fast, and it takes a whopping 1500 to upgrade just one card! What to do?
There are a few accepted paths to fast money pretty fast, and in early-mid game there is only one; False Gods (Level 5, you unlock it after the 500 score quest). False Gods give upgraded cards in the spins, which can be sold for at least 1100  each. The bad part is that they are pretty hard to beat; these are well designed decks and have 200 HP, 3x mark and 2x draw.
Luckily, we have Community Recommended Decks for False Gods where you can find successful non-upgraded decks to beat them.

7. You need rares.
You'll get one rare weapon as a prize from the quests. After that, there's two main ways to get rares.
(1) Play the Arena, particularly Bronze League. After a certain number of consecutive wins in one league in the arena, you get a chance to spin for a rare card. You need 5 wins in a row to get the special spin in Bronze League, the easiest of the leagues.
(2) Play AI3 a whole, whole bunch. AI3 has a set of fixed decks, all of which contain several copies of one rare. This way, you can (eventually) win all the rares except nymphs, Shards, and (weirdly) the rare weapons Trident and Eternity.

8. You need an upgraded deck.
Really, this is a rehash of #5 above, but it's worth emphasizing that you can really only get so far with unupped decks. Almost nothing in EtG game gets "easy" until you have at least one fully upped deck. For high win rates and/or frequent EMs, you need an upped deck, period. Pick one you like (if you can't decide, I'd say you should start with a Gold League farming deck) and get it made. Then use it to get money for another one.

9. You need to take advantage of the Oracle's False God predictions as soon as you can.
Once per day, you can click on the Oracle button to get a fortune, some money, a pet (a free creature) for the next few fights, and maybe a free card. The Oracle also tells you which False God you'll fight the next time you click the False God button.* You probably won't be able to do anything with this in the beginning, but as you start to accumulate cards, you'll be able to take that prediction, build a deck specifically for countering that False God, then fight them and win (and hopefully win a card). In many cases, the Oracle will basically be handing you a free False God win, which will occasionally turn into a free upgraded card. Don't miss out on this!
The denizens of the Elements forum have put a lot of time and thought into decks and strategies to use against each False God. You can see the fruits of their labors at the PvE section of the Wiki and in the Strategy topic ]False God Strategy section[/url] of the forum. READ THE ENTIRE WIKI ENTRY AND/OR FORUM THREAD before buying or building any deck. Some posted decks worked in a previous version of the game and don't work anymore, and some of them are simply bad decks.
* Note that the False God order resets if you reload or close the game, so the prediction won't be valid anymore.

10. The real fun part is on the forums, not in the game.
Let's face it... EtG alone can get boring fast. The solution: Don't play alone. Getting involved here on the forums brings you:
- A chance to get help and advice from the whole international EtG community
- Weekly weekly PvP Tournaments for in-game cash and prizes (and 3/4 of tournaments are strictly unupped)
- Longer PvP Events that put new twists on the game
- A running PvP League, also for in-game cash and prizes
- War, the forum-wide PvP event
- If those are still scary or you fancy yourself more of an "ideas" person, try out one of the Competitions for artwork, writing, card creation, and more
- A very active Card Ideas & Art section -- your creation might well make it into the game for real!
- A fun off-topic section
- A chat room full of cool, welcoming people
- The first place to get news about the game's development

The best part about EtG really is the community -- we came for the game, we stayed because we have fun together.


Now, if you've gone through all this and it still sounds like a raw deal -- maybe the game just isn't for you. We of the Elements forum obviously love the game, but if you gave it a shot and you don't love it, so be it. But if there's anything you like about the game, wait a while and come back and check us out again. EtG's a free game and the dev "team" is one guy with a day job, so we can't claim to have new cards or new features every month, but the game does grow and change.

And if you've decided to stay -- get over here and introduce yourself already! 

[Acsabi44]

^ this. Very nice, sire.

I would just change the name of the topic if I were you, since at first glance it looks like a common rage topic.

[Rastafla]

Excellent post. Even though it was a wall o text I found it easy to read and I agree with many of the points. Elements require reading if you intend to stay with it or move ahead. Theres nothing getting past that. The forum and wiki + trainer is 100% required, if the new player doesnt he/she will run into problems at once with game difficulty, card mechanics and no economy which will result in frustration. I played purely for the FGs and their massive coin reward via upgraded cards.

Now I have nothing except the daily Oracle FG. And weekly tournaments.

[Astrocyte]

Is it better / easier to read like this (with the explanations and advice for each item in spoiler tags)? I don't wanna scare people away with walls of text, but I also don't want to scare them away with a full-force list of annoying things. I can't decide which is better.

Also, changed the title.

Original post:

Frustrated with EtG? I feel you. No really, I do. You are talking to the Charlie Brown of this community. I've made probably every mistake you could possibly make, plus some you can't even try to make. I've spent and lost fortunes on frankly stupid decks. At one point I had 12000 score, 155 cards, and 9 . I've lost dozens of easy, sure-fire, can't-possibly-lose fights because I changed my deck and forgot to change my mark. I've had such bad luck that I once spent 5 hours playing Silver League without getting a single bonus spin, and had a week where I used one of the forum's best-reviewed False God decks and averaged winning 1 card every 7 hours. I've lost in the first round of every tournament I've ever entered. I'm even the "winner" of the forum's very first PvP Parasite. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,27529.0.html)

So I'm well qualified to talk about being frustrated with EtG
I know what you're going through and I'm writing this to acknowledge your frustrations, explain the frustrating parts of the game, and outline my mistakes so that you might avoid them (at least some of them ). The good news is that if you made it here to the forums, you're already on the right track.

Without further ado, here are 10 frustrating things about getting started with EtG, and how to deal with them. If you see something that's frustrating you, click the spoiler tag to see solutions.

1. Elements is very, very, very, VERY grindy.
In the game's current form, this is a fact that simply has to be accepted -- there's no getting around it. If you don't like grinding (that is, doing the same thing over and over, moving in tiny increments toward a goal), or if you're not willing to put up with hours of grinding to get to an eventual "fun part," you're probably going to hate this game. (If you're the "hate is a strong word" type of person, let me rephrase: It's going to be an intensely rigorous exercise in self-discipline.)


2. You might already need to restart.
If you're in negative score, or you've lost so much money that you cannot afford to play Level 3, and you couldn't build a better deck even if you sold all the non-rare cards you own, it might be best to start over with a new account. If you don't have any rares, or only have 1 or 2, it's definitely best to start over. You can either make a completely new account from scratch, or log into the game and click the "Reset Account" button at the top of the window.
Do not be ashamed if you decide you need to restart. I have done this twice. Many of the game's veterans and rising stars have done it at least once.


3. No matter which element you picked, the starter deck is a lousy deck.
Just like starter decks you buy at stores IRL! The good news is that they're all easy to turn into viable decks. All of them improve just by taking out a few cards, and it doesn't take much to make good basic decks from them either. Check out  the Tutorials section (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,366.0.html), the  wiki (http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/), and the Mono Decks area (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,2.0.html) for ideas and how-tos.


4. Deckbuilding is everything, but you can't afford to experiment with deckbuilding outside of the trainer.
It's an old story: You build a deck. You like the deck. Now you have to play it lots of times to find out if it's a good deck, but you find out it's not a good deck by losing until you're bankrupt. I  myself ragequit the game once already over this very thing. For testing decks, it's best to use the trainer.
What's the trainer, you ask? It's a parallel setup of the "real" game where you can have all the cards and money you want, even rares and upgrades. You can use all this to build a deck and then play any of the AI Levels (or even program a specific Level 3 or Level 6 deck), consequence-free. Why it's not on the main game page is beyond me, but you can click here to go to it: http://elementsthegame.com/trainer


5. In the early and mid-game, the only efficient thing to do is to build a specific deck for a specific goal, and stick with that deck until your goal is achieved.
You CAN just play around however you feel like, but if you want to get more cards and more money as fast as possible, your first job is to get a deck that consistently beats Level 3 (once again, use the trainer, and/or get ideas from the tutorials, the wiki, or the Elder decks forum (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,14.0.html)). Once you have it, you need to choose what kind of deck you want next (a different AI3 deck? a False God deck? an Arena farming deck?) and use the deck you have to build that. Once you have that second deck... and so on. It'll take some time to have enough cards for multiple decks. You'll be helped along a little by winning cards from spins, but don't depend on this for building up your card library.
Not sure what to do next? Pop into the trainer and play with different decks until you find one you like.


6. You need money.
The cost of new cards adds up fast, and it takes a whopping 1500 to upgrade just one card! What to do?
There are a few accepted paths to fast money. Whichever one you take -- once again, make your own deck in the trainer, or look around the wiki and the forums to find one you like.
(1) Build a deck that's designed to beat Level 3 as quickly as possible, and grind AI3. If you like to glue yourself to the screen and click nonstop, this is for you.
(2) Build a deck that's designed to get Elemental Mastery (that is, beating the other guy when you have full HP) in Level 3, and grind AI3.
(3) Build a deck for farming Silver League or Gold League in the Arena, and grind there. A win in Silver League pays 40-60 , and a win in Gold League pays over 100 . Decks that can regularly beat Gold League are often mostly or fully upgraded (or "upped"), but once you have such a deck, your money problems are basically solved forever. In the meantime, as long as you can keep at least a 2:1 win-loss ratio, Silver League is a good moneymaker. There's no unupped deck that always beats Silver, but you can get pretty good win rates with partially upped decks.
(4) Build a deck for speed-farming False Gods and save up ~1000 besides. The point here is to play as fast as you can (forfeiting to False Gods your deck can't beat, playing the ones your deck can beat) in hopes of winning an upgraded card from the spins. You can then either keep the card, or sell it for over 1000 . I personally prefer the Arena (some of those fortunes I mentioned losing in the first paragraph were lost to False God farming), but some people still do this.


7. You need rares.
You'll get one rare weapon as a prize from the quests. After that, there's two main ways to get rares.
(1) Play the Arena, particularly Bronze League. After a certain number of consecutive wins in one league in the arena, you get a chance to spin for a rare card. You need 6 wins in a row to get the special spin in Bronze League, the easiest of the leagues.
(2) Play AI3 a whole, whole bunch. AI3 has a set of fixed decks, all of which contain several copies of one rare. This way, you can (eventually) win all the rares except nymphs, Shards, and (weirdly) the weapon Eternity.


8. You need an upgraded deck.
Really, this is a rehash of #5 above, but it's worth emphasizing that you can really only get so far with unupped decks. Almost nothing in EtG game gets "easy" until you have at least one fully upped deck. For high win rates and/or frequent EMs, you need an upped deck, period. Pick one you like (if you can't decide, I'd say you should start with a Gold League farming deck) and get it made. Then use it to get money for another one.


9. You need to take advantage of the Oracle's False God predictions as soon as you can.
Once per day, you can click on the Oracle button to get a fortune, some money, a pet (a free creature) for the next few fights, and maybe a free card. The Oracle also tells you which False God you'll fight the next time you click the False God button.* You probably won't be able to do anything with this in the beginning, but as you start to accumulate cards, you'll be able to take that prediction, build a deck specifically for countering that False God, then fight them and win (and hopefully win a card). In many cases, the Oracle will basically be handing you a free False God win, which will occasionally turn into a free upgraded card. Don't miss out on this!
The denizens of the Elements forum have put a lot of time and thought into decks and strategies to use against each False God. You can see the fruits of their labors at the PvE section (http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/pve/) of the Wiki and in the False God Strategy section (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,88.0.html) of the forum. READ THE ENTIRE WIKI ENTRY AND/OR FORUM THREAD before buying or building any deck. Some posted decks worked in a previous version of the game and don't work anymore, and some of them are simply bad decks.
* Note that the False God order resets if you reload or close the game, so the prediction won't be valid anymore.


10. The real fun part is on the forums, not in the game.
Let's face it... EtG alone can get boring fast. The solution: Don't play alone. Getting involved here on the forums brings you:
- A chance to get help and advice from the whole international EtG community
- Weekly one-shot themed PvP Tournaments (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,77.0.html) for in-game cash and prizes (and 3/4 of tournaments are strictly unupped)
- Longer PvP Events (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,190.0.html) that put new twists on the game
- A running PvP League (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,78.0.html), also for in-game cash and prizes
- War (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,142.0.html), the forum-wide PvP event
- If those are still scary or you fancy yourself more of an "ideas" person, try out one of the Competitions (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,186.0.html) for artwork, writing, card creation, and more
- A very active Card Ideas & Art section (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,6.0.html) -- your creation might well make it into the game for real (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6851.0.html)
- World of Elements (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,176.0.html), the EtG-based RPG
- A fun off-topic section (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,5.0.html)
- A chat room (http://elementscommunity.org/chat/) full of cool, welcoming people
- The first place to get news about the game's development (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,49.0.html)

The best part about EtG really is the community -- we came for the game, we stayed because we have fun together.


Now, if you've gone through all this and it still sounds like a raw deal -- maybe the game just isn't for you. We of the Elements forum obviously love the game, but if you gave it a shot and you don't love it, so be it. But if there's anything you like about the game, wait a while and come back and check us out again. EtG's a free game and the dev "team" is one guy with a day job, so we can't claim to have new cards or new features every month, but the game does grow and change (and can change in a big way -- the Arena is only a few months old as I write this in September 2011).

And if you've decided to stay -- get over here and introduce yourself already! (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,367.0.html) 

[Xenocidius]

This should probably be moved to the Tutorials section (although it's not really a tutorial).

Very nice.

[atomiton]

Great advice. I hope the noobs read it as soon as they start playing. Lord know I needed it a few months ago.

[Marinara]

Why would having a negative score cause you to reset your account? Is there a benefit to having a higher score? I just came back after about 6 months, from grinding fg's with an unupped deck, and my score's somewhere around -3k.

[Astrocyte]

Why would having a negative score cause you to reset your account? Is there a benefit to having a higher score? I just came back after about 6 months, from grinding fg's with an unupped deck, and my score's somewhere around -3k.

Good point, I guess the only benefit is marketing yourself in forum events, and even the only one of those where score is crucial is Masters trials (since it's one of the criteria used to choose the four challengers if more than four people apply for one element). I'll take that part out.

[TheForbiddenOracle]

For #7 no Elder has Trident either... really nice guide though.

[teffy]

Why would having a negative score cause you to reset your account? Is there a benefit to having a higher score?

Forum events as mentioned above, and Arena level. Rewards per win are a bit higher in higher leagues.

Some comments to this interesting topic:

2. You might already need to restart.

I see no reasons to do this. Even with negative score.

[3. No matter which element you picked, the starter deck is a lousy deck.]

This was explained in the very old FAQ, written by zanz. It still exists. Look here:
Source: www.elementsthegame.com/faq.
You see:
Q. Couldn't you just give beginners a better deck and give them more coins to start with:
A. I believe one of the most exciting things to do with this game is to customize and improve your deck, find new strategies and try them on the battlefield. A starter deck with some random cards gives the player some room for quick improvements and customization.

4. Deckbuilding is everything, but you can't afford to experiment with deckbuilding outside of the trainer.

Depends on your account. I test decks with my real account. Advantage: you can keep the rewards.

7. You need rares.[...]

AI3 doesn´t have all rares. Trident and Eternity are missing

[RootRanger]

I stopped reading after #1.
If you feel that grinding is what you need to do in Elements, you're doing it wrong.
The only real fun is competitive PvP, and most of that is unupped, which hardly needs grinding.
Now please remove the first frustration before potentially decent players are scared away.

[Marinara]

I stopped reading after #1.
If you feel that grinding is what you need to do in Elements, you're doing it wrong.
The only real fun is competitive PvP, and most of that is unupped, which hardly needs grinding.
Now please remove the first frustration before potentially decent players are scared away.

If you stop listening to what someone has to say after hearing a single point that you don't agree with, you're not going to be hearing much.