bonus electrum for longer games?

[ratcharmer]

So I've noted that in the current game environment there is a distinct pattern emerging in the buff/nerf requests.

Namely, everyone wants better rush cards for their element (or for no one to touch their rush cards, if they're already a strong rush) and to nerf stall cards.

As an example, compare the community's reaction to suggestions to nerf horned frog/giant frog and suggestions to nerf dusk shield. Then compare how often the two cards are used and relative success rates of decks built around them.

Horned frog is a better card, yet more people want to nerf dusk shield. Why is that?

GRINDING

Simply put, I have come to the conclusion that many people are asking to nerf cards not based on whether or not the card is truly overpowered, but because those cards are slowing down their grinding. In deck discussions right now ttw is given at least as much consideration as win %, if not more.

This destructive to the game environment for several reasons:

it limits deck ideas
There are only so many strategies out there that are fast enough to be considered "good" grinding decks. This means that most people just look up one of the best ones on the forum instead of trying to build their own deck. Consider just how similar many decks look in pvp and t50.

it's frustrating
It isn't unheard of to quit versus certain opponents simply because finishing the match would take to long.  The number of "nerf this card" threads devoted to stall cards is a pretty clear sign people get frustrated with stalling. Heck, one of the most infamous stall decks out there is called "Mr. Sexington's RAGEQUIT" because it's so aggravating to play against.

it dramatically changes the metagame
How many good grinding decks have you seen? I haven't seen many, simply because is not fast enough. Speed poison and toadfish decks can be pretty darn fast, but they still can't match a or deck. Basically it's penalizing people playing certain elements and/or strategies.


As you've probably figured out, I've been building up to suggesting my solution, and here it is:
Give an electrum bonus for matches over a certain number of turns.

Now let me run through the advantages:

it wouldn't affect the balance of existing decks
A speed EM deck would still be a perfectly viable tactic for grinding AI3 if there was a bonus for a long game. In fact it would make pretty much no difference to a speed EM deck whatsoever it this went into effect.

it doesn't increase the max grinding speed, just makes more ways to achieve it
Assuming that the bonus electrum for a long game was balanced with current grinding decks, there wouldn't a sudden spike of people getting fully upped decks overnight, we'd just see more people who are able to grind along at a decent clip.

It'd encourage experimenting with more deck types
As I kinda pointed out earlier, at the moment you see a lot of the same deck archetypes over and over again. By opening new strategic possibilities we might start seeing more variety start appearing.

Yes, I do realize I'm suggesting buffing stall decks to get people to stop complaining about stall cards.

[TimerClock14]

A very cogent argument. I agree with you 100% on this. People in this world are impatient, they want what they want, but the problem is they always want it as soon as possible. I believe I mentioned this somewhere else, but I'll dig up that link some other time. Nobody likes a stall deck because it's too slow, everybody likes a rush deck because they are fast and most importantly because the game gives you more for speed.

The only downside I see to this, is that players would be able to get a lot of in a much shorter time. IMO, this is a downside because then the idea of upgrading cards would be a little less legendary.

[ratcharmer]

The only downside I see to this, is that players would be able to get a lot of  in a much shorter time. IMO, this is a downside because then the idea of upgrading cards would be a little less legendary.

The idea is for the bonus to be just enough to make some "stall grinders" equal to, or at least nearly equal to the current rush grinders.

Since the rush grinders wouldn't really see any benefit from a "long game bonus" this wouldn't really affect the maximum possible grinding speed. What it would mean instead is that you could have your choice of a couple different strategies to get a decent grinding deck, as opposed to, y'know, your choice of a couple different rush decks . . .

[RootRanger]

Cards are buffed and nerfed so they can be balanced in PvP. I don't think any of the cards that are buffed or nerfed are to balance PvE. Take a look at the card changes subforum. What was nerfed? Fractal. What was great for rushes? Fractal. What was buffed? Stone Skin, Empathic Bond, Sundial, Steam Machine, Solar Buckler. All of those are great for slow decks and poor for rushes. This leaves luciferin, light nymph, death nymph, nymph queen, chimera, and colossal dragon. Those aren't exactly rush cards.

Sure, every now and then someone may try to buff lava destroyers and graboids and nerf phase shields and miracles, but in the end the actual buffs and nerfs help stall.

The only possible reason to give bonus electrum for longer games is to make stall grinders viable, but cards should be balanced for performance in PvP opposed to PvE for obvious reasons.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Meh, to be honest all this would do is punish grinders.... so I'm against it. Not because the concept is bad, it's because it's unesscesary.

[ratcharmer]

Cards are buffed and nerfed so they can be balanced in PvP. I don't think any of the cards that are buffed or nerfed are to balance PvE. Take a look at the card changes subforum. What was nerfed? Fractal. What was great for rushes? Fractal. What was buffed? Stone Skin, Empathic Bond, Sundial, Steam Machine, Solar Buckler. All of those are great for slow decks and poor for rushes. This leaves luciferin, light nymph, death nymph, nymph queen, chimera, and colossal dragon. Those aren't exactly rush cards.

Sure, every now and then someone may try to buff lava destroyers and graboids and nerf phase shields and miracles, but in the end the actual buffs and nerfs help stall.

The only possible reason to give bonus electrum for longer games is to make stall grinders viable, but cards should be balanced for performance in PvP opposed to PvE for obvious reasons.

The change I have suggested would not effect PvP card balance in any way, shape or form. What it would do is not penalize so much for playing longer games

Additionally, I'm not talking about what zanz buffs/nerfs, but what the community of players has been asking to buff/nerf. You do bring up something else that's interesting to mention though: zanz just buffed a whole bunch of stall cards. Why did he buff those cards?
because no one was using them

Why was no one using them?
because playing stall decks is bad for

(p.s. bond was not buffed, the change to that card was a trade off, and solar shield actually is pretty darn good in rush decks now since it provides lots of quanta. Fractal decks actually weren't as fast as non-fractal rush decks)

Meh, to be honest all this would do is punish grinders.... so I'm against it. Not because the concept is bad, it's because it's unesscesary

Um . . . what? Can you explain how exactly? The proposed change would not effect the rate of gain at all for rush grinders, except on rare occasions (your opponent stalls for a long time, but you still win), and then it would only help . . .

[RootRanger]

The change I have suggested would not effect PvP card balance in any way, shape or form. What it would do is not penalize so much for playing longer games

Additionally, I'm not talking about what zanz buffs/nerfs, but what the community of players has been asking to buff/nerf. You do bring up something else that's interesting to mention though: zanz just buffed a whole bunch of stall cards. Why did he buff those cards?
because no one was using them

Why was no one using them?
because playing stall decks is bad for

(p.s. bond was not buffed, the change to that card was a trade off, and solar shield actually is pretty darn good in rush decks now since it provides lots of quanta. Fractal decks actually weren't as fast as non-fractal rush decks)

Hm well this is a valid point. I suppose I would be open to some sort of organized system to give a bonus for turns that have passed.

[johannhowitzer]

If it's based on clock time, people would just let an AI6 game with a sealed victory sit there in their browser for a couple hours accumulating coin.

If it's based on turns taken, I can see some people inventing new high-control decks that aim to get the maximum turns out of a game.  Sexington's deck would probably be very popular, especially since it maxes out the player's HP (which gives even more coin).

I don't think we really need to change the grind.  It's not like playing nothing but rush decks when grinding destroys the game.  Zanz doesn't have to obey the people clamoring for nerfs to stall cards, and the PvP game is largely untouched.  Metagaming plays a big part - if everyone runs rush decks, someone's gonna come up with a super-control deck to counter it, and so on.  PvP is what we should really be looking at for card balance.

And actually, when you get down to it, AI3 is for score.  FGs yield better electrum on average when running RoL/Hope or a solid rainbow, due to upped card winnings.

[ratcharmer]

If it's based on clock time, people would just let an AI6 game with a sealed victory sit there in their browser for a couple hours accumulating coin.

If it's based on turns taken, I can see some people inventing new high-control decks that aim to get the maximum turns out of a game.  Sexington's deck would probably be very popular, especially since it maxes out the player's HP (which gives even more coin).

I was thinking something like a flat bonus for games that lasted more than "X" turns. Maybe have another bonus at "X+5" turns.

I was thinking that if the idea gains momentum, we could work out roughly how much the bonus should be at how many turns by having a few volunteers grind for a while with both strong stall decks and strong rush decks, and keep track of time spent, gold earned etc.

[ZephyrPhantom]

If it's based on clock time, people would just let an AI6 game with a sealed victory sit there in their browser for a couple hours accumulating coin.

If it's based on turns taken, I can see some people inventing new high-control decks that aim to get the maximum turns out of a game.  Sexington's deck would probably be very popular, especially since it maxes out the player's HP (which gives even more coin).

My web browser crashed for a bit, so I wasn't able to responed immediatly.  The above quote supports what i was thinking: Doing this would cause a change in the "farming metagame", where people spam stalling as long as possible to get who knows how much quantum.  Twin Eternities anyone?

[ratcharmer]

If it's based on clock time, people would just let an AI6 game with a sealed victory sit there in their browser for a couple hours accumulating coin.

If it's based on turns taken, I can see some people inventing new high-control decks that aim to get the maximum turns out of a game.  Sexington's deck would probably be very popular, especially since it maxes out the player's HP (which gives even more coin).

My web browser crashed for a bit, so I wasn't able to responed immediatly.  The above quote supports what i was thinking: Doing this would cause a change in the "farming metagame", where people spam stalling as long as possible to get who knows how much quantum.  Twin Eternities anyone?

Which is why I was advocating a flat bonus for a given number of turns, which wouldn't work for either of these tactics.

Also I'm not intending for these bonuses to be large. Just enough that a grinding deck doesn't necessarily need to be a rush deck.

[johannhowitzer]

I was thinking something like a flat bonus for games that lasted more than "X" turns. Maybe have another bonus at "X+5" turns

That introduces another layer of complexity altogether - you'll have people running "near-rushes," tossing in a few stall cards just to string things out barely past that X threshold for the extra coin.

The problem with a concept like this isn't that it's bad on paper... it looks great on paper.  But it's like twinking - people optimize things naturally.  We pour the water of our intellect on the clay of available resources, and it fills in all the cracks eventually.  Then some developer comes along and shakes things up, introduces a new limitation or a higher-level set of resources and the process starts again... then ends again.

Implement something like this, and no matter how it's designed, people are eventually going to figure out how to crank the most out of it, and then that's the only kind of deck people will grind with.  The only way to get around this "twinking" process is to pit one human being against another, so they'll adapt their metagame to something fluid: each other.  In a word, PvP.