World of Elements - General Feedback

[scauduro221095]

Scared Girl im not trying to be rude here or saying that you are not doing your job well enough but we need more than 1 person doing everything. Take day 5-6 for example or when we were in alpha we had a time period where nothing happened for ages. That could all be fixed if you taught 2 or 3 people how to do everything for each day. I am saying this because i would really like WoE to succeed but it cant if days dont come as they are planned and people will lose interest. I would be happy to help - You might have to take a little time to teach me but i believe it would be worth it in the long run - and i also understand if that was the case i would have to drop out of WoE and i am fine with that

[Jappert]

Must.... resist.... losing interest.

Help me out here! I really want this thing to work and I'm still excited about WoE but interest is fading quickly and I'm not alone in this.

[YoungSot]

regarding the proposed randomized discards, I feel that 12 random discards might be too much punishment for losing a duel. 12 discards was more understandable when we had control over which cards we lost, because it's assumed that we'd drop pillars and other cheap cards. With random discards, it seems like losing 1 battle is too crippling (especially early on in the game) because you will have most of your important cards in your deck, so it will potentially be quite difficult to rebuild an effective deck after losing over a third of you previous one.

Assuming that combat is intended to play a fairly large role in the game (as opposed to being a drastic measure only taken when necessary), perhaps we should take a page from other mmorpg type games out there, and make losing a battle less of a setback. I think the best way to approach it would be to decide on a typical number of days that death should set a player back, and adjust the consequences of loss appropriately. Currently, after a lost battle you need to wait in the spirit realm, earn a lot of money to buy your cards back, travel someplace/s you can buy those cards, and then travel back to wherever you were originally. Seems to me that could easily amount to weeks worth of actions just spent recovering from 1 lost battle (depending on how expensive cards are relative to the average player's earning potential, and how difficult it is to acquire specific cards). If so, that would be very frustrating, and discourage players from ever attacking unless they have a large advantage.

[Scaredgirl]

Scared Girl im not trying to be rude here or saying that you are not doing your job well enough but we need more than 1 person doing everything. Take day 5-6 for example or when we were in alpha we had a time period where nothing happened for ages. That could all be fixed if you taught 2 or 3 people how to do everything for each day. I am saying this because i would really like WoE to succeed but it cant if days dont come as they are planned and people will lose interest. I would be happy to help - You might have to take a little time to teach me but i believe it would be worth it in the long run - and i also understand if that was the case i would have to drop out of WoE and i am fine with that

WoE staff positions will be announced later. At this point it's not very productive to "teach 2 or 3 people how to do everything". The whole process is much more complex than you think, because not only would those people have to know all the rules, most of which are not even written down anywhere, they would also need tons of technical knowledge and tools. It would basically mean wasting hours an hours training people, then wasting more hours in fixing errors or answering to questions.

After the event has matured a bit, it's easier to train people to do the organizing. My goal is to find 2-3 people and then just rotate WoE Days so that for example I update one Day, then skip the next 2. This way updating process won't be overbearing and organizers won't rage quit.

What you see as "nothing happening" is actually me working on something. I could post a new Day topic each day at the same time like clockwork, but that would mean less stuff added to the topic. For example today's topic was a bit late because of an issue with the quest. Had I posted the topic on time, there wouldn't have been that quest at all. I think it's better to have slight delays but with more content, then it is to have more frequent updates but without any new content. This problem will luckily go away as the event goes forward and we finalize things.

regarding the proposed randomized discards, I feel that 12 random discards might be too much punishment for losing a duel. 12 discards was more understandable when we had control over which cards we lost, because it's assumed that we'd drop pillars and other cheap cards. With random discards, it seems like losing 1 battle is too crippling (especially early on in the game) because you will have most of your important cards in your deck, so it will potentially be quite difficult to rebuild an effective deck after losing over a third of you previous one.

Assuming that combat is intended to play a fairly large role in the game (as opposed to being a drastic measure only taken when necessary), perhaps we should take a page from other mmorpg type games out there, and make losing a battle less of a setback. I think the best way to approach it would be to decide on a typical number of days that death should set a player back, and adjust the consequences of loss appropriately. Currently, after a lost battle you need to wait in the spirit realm, earn a lot of money to buy your cards back, travel someplace/s you can buy those cards, and then travel back to wherever you were originally. Seems to me that could easily amount to weeks worth of actions just spent recovering from 1 lost battle (depending on how expensive cards are relative to the average player's earning potential, and how difficult it is to acquire specific cards). If so, that would be very frustrating, and discourage players from ever attacking unless they have a large advantage.

I was thinking about the same thing just now. Discarding will definitely be decreased to 6 cards because 12 is way too much, but I was even contemplating on getting rid of discarding altogether. I'll think about it some more tomorrow.

[YoungSot]

I was thinking about the same thing just now. Discarding will definitely be decreased to 6 cards because 12 is way too much, but I was even contemplating on getting rid of discarding altogether. I'll think about it some more tomorrow.

  Glad to hear that. I certainly won't be complaining if discarding gets... discarded, but I think it also works fine with just a very small discard. For example call it "Casualties" and require 3 random discards after a loss. It wouldn't be enough to set a player back much at all, just enough so that they feel a sting of defeat (we don't want death to feel meaningless either). It also adds some strategy, because for example if you are taking tough odds and expecting a loss, you might choose to leave the rares at home and bring a cheaper deck.

[Korugar]

Well, personally, I'm a rather cautious person in these kinds of games. I.E. I don't like to do something terribly risky, in this case fighting. Reducing discard to six is great, I think three wouldn't be too extreme, and from a personal standpoint, I would even like no discarding. But. There are many skills that use discard reduction or increase, which would mean a high amount of skill replacement(multiple elements have these, with light being the most prominent, I think), and even some reworking(Gravity's Reckless Charge would have no drawbacks, among others). I suppose if you also decreased the salvage amounts, my second example could still allow for a balanced skill(maybe), but that's only one situation of many. I'm not totally against it, but do we have enough ideas for replacement skills for this to be feasible?

[Shantu]

6, or maybe even 3, could work. No discard, however, will eliminate all the risk in losing a battle (except for dying, but it's not a biggie I suppose), so you can attack anyone on sight without being afraid of losing your cards. There should be at least a little risk involved in fighting.

[gumbeh]

Losing your turn is a pretty big deal. Barring certain skill usage, you also have to trek back to your previous position if you were doing anything important there.

I would love to see discarding disappear. Enriching your opponent + losing one or more turns + having your economy devastated = pretty rough. The winning player is going to breathe a monstrous sigh of relief and the losing player is going to wish they had ran and hid.

[the dictator]

Actually, I would rather see the salvaging removed/lowered than the discarding, because, as Jappert pointed out: when beating up a gravity player and salvaging three black holes (replace by any player/rare) you can simply buy your own rares, which is not the idea of those rares, as it makes the crafting skills pretty useless.

In my opinion a game like this should constantly challenge you to find the right balance between working on your economy and working on your skills/level. Problem is, right now fighting is the best way to gain both xp AND electrum.

So, I propose the following: Winner salvages 3 random cards, loser discards the same 3 random cards (you can call these PoW )
That way fighting will still be the best way for gaining xp, but other options (like working, trading) will hopefully make for a better economy, meaning you will actually have to chose, instead of doing some mindlessly grinding.

EDIT:
I just got the perfect idea, battling is used for three purposes: to get xp, to get money, to lift a siege/remove players from a certain area.
Right now, you can have all these at once, why not make it so that the winner has to chose?

Example: Players A fight player B and manages to disarm him (wins the game of elements). He doesn't kill him outright, but instead asks for a certain amount of money, and them player B can chose between paying (in electrum or in cards (sell value)) or dying (so basically stand and deliver). For the xp, maybe killing a player gives you 1 extra xp, just for fun.

That way player B loses only time or money, not both, and player A gains or money, or experience (and clears the hex). And if you really want to clear a certain hex (for capturing or lifting a siege), you can always ask for 9001 electrum

[Korugar]

I like Dictator's suggestion a lot. Granted, losing a day is painful, but for those who like the feeling of progress with no setbacks(losing time doesn't count as a setback in the same way), this is perfect. Alternatively, it allows those who can afford it to keep having fun. This seems like a win-win suggestion.

[YoungSot]

Interesting idea. It kinda seems like it adds additional complexity without much benefit though. I'd personally prefer just small random discard + small random salvage. It seems kind of strange from a thematic viewpoint that elementals are all running around beating each other up to demand lunch money, or the idea that the way you kill someone is by demanding a ransom too high for them to pay. Why can't you just kill them?

[UTAlan]

Interesting idea. It kinda seems like it adds additional complexity without much benefit though. I'd personally prefer just small random discard + small random salvage. It seems kind of strange from a thematic viewpoint that elementals are all running around beating each other up to demand lunch money, or the idea that the way you kill someone is by demanding a ransom too high for them to pay. Why can't you just kill them?

Agreed. Besides, we're supposed to be armies, not individuals. A battle between two military forces will/should end in bloodshed, not a paid ransom.