Arena Change?

[ElementalDearWatson]

I find it incredibly annoying to find myself fighting the same old unimaginative Arena decks over and over again.  This is my suggestion for how to combat this, taken from the Patch 1.31 thread:

When you click on a league, or maybe even just before you click on Gold or Platinum, you get to see the entire deck your opponent has put up.  You can then decide not to participate in the match without penalty, or with only a minor penalty - less than the 20 you'd lose by participating in the match and losing.

That way people who post the same old same old Ghostmares and Oraclebows would find that doing so would just mean that their decks don't get played and so earn them nothing.  This would mean that there'd be more variety in the Arena, and therefore less frustration and tedium.

You can follow the rest of the conversation from near the bottom of the page over the next couple of pages here: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,39146.120.html

Comments?

[Fayceless]

The problem here is that when you can see the deck before-hand and choose not to face it, you can simply skip those decks that are likely to give yours trouble.  Everybody's arena deck would win fewer games because people could pick and choose which to play.  Then rare-spins become too common, nobody wins any gold from their arena deck, gold from arena wins plummets, and the whole thing becomes a joke.  While encouraging clever deck-building is fine, I think the rating system takes care of that, somewhat, by keeping boring decks low-rated and more likely to drop out.  Thumbs-up those decks that are interesting and beat you, thumbs down those that are boring.  (maybe thumbs up/down should extend to those you beat as well, to a lesser extent?)

[RRQJ]

Gold/platinum were intended to be comparable/harder than false gods.  In order to have challenges, they will involve aspects that result in frustration.  In a game where in the end it's all about wins/losses, very rarely can you make something challenging and yet not cause some amounts of frustration.

There would still be frustration with my suggestion.  Just not mostly frustration and drudging tedium as you encounter the same deck over and over and over and over again.  I don't see where the frustration would be, especially if deck creators lose the motivation to build good decks.

The first is that I don't see it doing much of anything.  People in gold/platinum care about arena deck wins because it determines the deck rank, which is what they care about.  The electrum gain is negligible.  Your solution would make it so that the "annoying" decks don't get played, but those decks will likely still have a better ranking because the decks that do get played are likely to be defeated more often than not.

So make it that not getting played also moves a deck down in rank.And how do you plan to distinguish between new decks and decks that are not being played?

*and yes, nobody/very few will play tough decks even if they were "interesting."

If that were true then people would just not play Platinum at all, given all the advantages Platinum has over the player.  Even the best anti-Platinum decks have around a 50% chance of winning.  I guess I wasn't clear.  What I meant was that given a more attractive alternative (preserve streaks, lose less electrum, waste less time), people will skip rather than play a difficult deck.

Most people want to win, and they will choose to skip any deck, boring or interesting, that they feel they don't have a good chance of winning.

This is why you have a penalty for skipping.  I believe you said the penalty was less than if you outright lose, yes?  Then I'll take the penalty over the large risk of wasting time, streaks, and losing more electrum.  There will be times where I'll probably lose a little more than if I had not skipped as many, but I'm positive that in the long run I would get ahead.

I'm not married to my idea, but the truth is that the Arena has a serious problem - it's often not at all fun to play due to seeing the same decks over and over and over again.  It's boring at best, and off-putting at worst.  It can actively make you not want to play Elements at all, simply because doing so is tedious.  As I've said before, I think the primary purpose of a game should be that it's enjoyable to play.  Something should happen to address the fact that it's often not at all enjoyable.  This is my suggestion.  I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why it isn't better than what we currently have, but I'm open to such arguments, and I'm open to hearing better suggestions.

If it's not fun for you to play gold/platinum, then play silver/bronze/false gods/etc.  Nowhere does it state that you must play gold/platinum.  If you're trying to farm for rares, play bronze.  I never set foot in bronze until just a few days back, and I regret not doing so earlier.  It would have saved me a lot of time.

I guess the real question is what you want to achieve by changing gold/platinum.  If it's too difficult, then don't play it.  If you need rares, there's bronze for that.  If it's just the principle of having more deck "variety," unfortunately the arena was not designed to handle that well.  The arena promotes competition between people, with displaying rank, wins/losses, etc.  On the other hand, "more variety" usually translates to "put in weaker decks," and that runs counter to competing.  You basically have this Nash equilibrium kind of situation.  If everyone agrees to make unique decks, then everyone's happy.  The problem is someone will put up an annoying deck and always rank high.  Others see this, and their competitive spirit causes them to make similar decks.  With so many people playing, the only way you can promote "variety" would be to curb the competitiveness (would reduce back to the old T50), balance out cards so that all different decks are of similar power (impossible), or reduce difficulty by adjusting the system (the only viable option - zanz has added in some AI nerfs as an example; however, if you reduce difficulty to much then there's no point, you may as well be playing silver or something).

[ElementalDearWatson]

Then rare-spins become too common, nobody wins any gold from their arena deck, gold from arena wins plummets, and the whole thing becomes a joke.

Why would people skipping decks cause rare spins to become more common? You need to win several matches in a row to get a rare spin.

While encouraging clever deck-building is fine, I think the rating system takes care of that, somewhat, by keeping boring decks low-rated and more likely to drop out.

It doesn't, though, because most people automatically thumbs down a deck if it's just beat them, regardless of how it's constructed.  And it evidently doesn't have that much influence on ranking, because the decks at #1 are rarely anything other than dull copies of the same old same old.

(maybe thumbs up/down should extend to those you beat as well, to a lesser extent?)

I think this is a good idea, but I don't think it'd have much effect, as win/loss is by far the more important when it comes to ranking.

[ElementalDearWatson]

I don't see where the frustration would be, especially if deck creators lose the motivation to build good decks.

Why would people lose motivation to build good decks?

And how do you plan to distinguish between new decks and decks that are not being played?

By having a script which takes note of each time someone chooses to skip a deck.  I don't think such a thing would be difficult to programme.

I guess I wasn't clear.  What I meant was that given a more attractive alternative (preserve streaks, lose less electrum, waste less time), people will skip rather than play a difficult deck.[/color]

You wouldn't preserve your streak if you skipped a deck.

I believe you said the penalty was less than if you outright lose, yes?  Then I'll take the penalty over the large risk of wasting time, streaks, and losing more electrum.  There will be times where I'll probably lose a little more than if I had not skipped as many, but I'm positive that in the long run I would get ahead.

Again, you wouldn't preserve your streak.

If it's not fun for you to play gold/platinum, then play silver/bronze/false gods/etc.  Nowhere does it state that you must play gold/platinum.

No, but nowhere does it say that playing a game should be tedious, either.  Once more, shouldn't it actually be fun to play?

If it's just the principle of having more deck "variety," unfortunately the arena was not designed to handle that well.

Which is why I'm suggesting a change.

With so many people playing, the only way you can promote "variety" would be to curb the competitiveness (would reduce back to the old T50), balance out cards so that all different decks are of similar power (impossible), or reduce difficulty by adjusting the system (the only viable option - zanz has added in some AI nerfs as an example; however, if you reduce difficulty to much then there's no point, you may as well be playing silver or something).

It wouldn't curb the competitiveness, it would just shift the emphasis of the competitiveness off copy and pasting the same decks as everyone else and on to doing something a bit different.

[RRQJ]

Competitiveness is precisely why people copy paste decks.  Doing something different almost always means creating an inferior deck.  If you could do something different and not create an inferior deck, then chances are, such a deck wouldn't be "something different" or soon won't be.

People will lose motivation to build good decks because they have to build a mediocre deck (one that will lose more often than win) or their deck won't be played.  I saw your last post in the other topic, and I applaud you for willing to play any deck, easy or difficult, as long as it's different.  However, most people will not be like that.  You give them the ability to see the entire deck, and they'll skip the ones they don't think they have a good chance of beating, whether those decks are interesting or not.  And like Jenkar (I believe it was him) said in the other topic, people will bring in a particular deck that is strong against a certain segment of arena decks, skip decks that aren't part of the segment and/or would be difficult for their particular deck, and just play the ones they counter. (e.g. someone brings an amber nymph/black hole deck, they'll skip all but the rainbow decks).  Basically, people will have to spend extra effort to make a deck that they think people will play, only to see it accumulate mostly losses.  Eventually what will probably happen is that people will give up trying for the arena, and arena becomes a joke, just like how T50 was.

[ElementalDearWatson]

Competitiveness is precisely why people copy paste decks.  Doing something different almost always means creating an inferior deck.  If you could do something different and not create an inferior deck, then chances are, such a deck wouldn't be "something different" or soon won't be.

So people would have to keep posting decks as trends in the Arena evolved quickly.  Since the ideal is posting one deck every day I don't see the problem.

And like Jenkar (I believe it was him) said in the other topic, people will bring in a particular deck that is strong against a certain segment of arena decks, skip decks that aren't part of the segment and/or would be difficult for their particular deck, and just play the ones they counter. (e.g. someone brings an amber nymph/black hole deck, they'll skip all but the rainbow decks).

And, as I pointed out, doing that would either gain you around 11:electrum per minute or lose you around 12:electrum every minute, and both would lose you all chances at a rare spin.  You'd be much better off grinding AI3 if that were your tactic.  You'd probably make more grinding AI2, in fact.

I think it's safe to say that people wouldn't use a tactic against Platinum that gets them less score, and cards than grinding AI2 would.

[RRQJ]

Jenkar assumed a super conservative 10/500 decks that your deck would counter.  People will definitely bring decks that have higher levels of coverage.  I already gave an example: black hole decks.  Do you really think there would only be ~10 rainbow decks?

Also, you're assuming everyone would think rationally.  Unfortunately, that isn't the case, since you can see how ineffective the thumbs up/down worked.  They're not going to think, "oh, this isn't very efficient getting electrum."  They're going to think, "this deck's annoying, I'm skipping. No win count for you, hah!"

[EvaRia]

From my understanding, you basically want the game to spoon feed you the exactly when to skip matches?
And then, you want the game to reward you for skipping by letting you leave with less penalty?
And then, you want to punish decks that you skip against?

I'm sorry, I know you feel you have a good argument, and I DO understand that it pains you, but these requests are somewhat self centred.


There is ALREADY the option to surrender before entering the game.
If you don't surrender, and you actually enter the game, even if you click back to menu before anybody plays anything, you can still rate the deck after you skip and gain back 5 .
If you know the decks/metagame well enough, it should be a piece of cake to identify what kind of deck you are facing by oracle card, mark, and the first couple of pillars.
Just quit then. It takes maybe a few extra seconds and you get more or less what you are asking for.
If you happen to not recognize the deck right away (it's using a strange arrangement of pillars/mark, the oracle card is unique or something), just play it. If you don't recognize the deck then it's obviously unique and not the standard decks you don't like playing against.

You already have more or less what you're asking for, so long as you gain the insight to predict deck archetypes based on quanta distribution. It's a practice that might take time, but as you get familiar with the decks it will become easier and easier.

As for decks getting PUNISHED for you skipping them...
Even if it's async, this is still PvP. If you make an opponent ragequit than that's a win for you.
Even metagames like Champion's league are somewhat limiting. There's only a few really good deck archetypes that let you win reliably. But it's still competitive, as is the Arena.
You can't just say "Your deck is boring, you deserve to lose because of it."

Anyways, I don't see this change as necessary. Feel free to dispute me, but I think that you just want to vent, really.

[ElementalDearWatson]

Jenkar assumed a super conservative 10/500 decks that your deck would counter.  People will definitely bring decks that have higher levels of coverage.  I already gave an example: black hole decks.  Do you really think there would only be ~10 rainbow decks?

If creating a rainbow deck is no longer a winning strategy, then I would imagine that there would be fewer rainbow decks.

Also, you're assuming everyone would think rationally.  Unfortunately, that isn't the case, since you can see how ineffective the thumbs up/down worked.  They're not going to think, "oh, this isn't very efficient getting electrum."  They're going to think, "this deck's annoying, I'm skipping. No win count for you, hah!"

Which would be their loss, wouldn't it?

[furballdn]

There is ALREADY the option to surrender before entering the game.
If you don't surrender, and you actually enter the game, even if you click back to menu before anybody plays anything, you can still rate the deck after you skip and gain back 5 .
If you know the decks/metagame well enough, it should be a piece of cake to identify what kind of deck you are facing by oracle card, mark, and the first couple of pillars.
Just quit then. It takes maybe a few extra seconds and you get more or less what you are asking for.
If you happen to not recognize the deck right away (it's using a strange arrangement of pillars/mark, the oracle card is unique or something), just play it. If you don't recognize the deck then it's obviously unique and not the standard decks you don't like playing against.

The surrender option is quite stupid really. All it does is count as a loss, ruin your streak, and takes money away. I complain about it in a thread here.

[ElementalDearWatson]

From my understanding, you basically want the game to spoon feed you the exactly when to skip matches?
And then, you want the game to reward you for skipping by letting you leave with less penalty?
And then, you want to punish decks that you skip against?

I'm sorry, I know you feel you have a good argument, and I DO understand that it pains you, but these requests are somewhat self centred.

No, you don't understand.  I'd rather not skip any matches.  What I want, win or lose, is to enjoy the match.  I think there's an over-abundance of copy and paste identical decks in the Arena and I would rather that a bit of thought and imagination went in to creating them.  To discourage people from posting cut and paste decks.  The best way I can think of to do this is to create a way that people can skip boring decks.  I'm open to other suggestions, if anyone has any.

I mean, really, if what you're going to face in the Arena is the same few decks over and over again, then what's the point of the Arena?  zanz might as well just scrap it and create AI6 with special spins.

People keep talking about what the point of the Arena is.  Well, when you get the same card from the Oracle 2 days in a row you can't create a new deck with it.  zanz has explicitly said that this is because he doesn't want people putting up the same decks and getting rewards from that.  So, really, how is putting up an Oraclebow in the spirit of the Arena?