Elements Updates

[10 men]

The best answers I have to C are:
1) Discussion. Opinions backed with reasoning where the goal is to leave with the correct answer rather than have others leave with your answer.

Hrrmm yes. Obviously this would work theoretically but even though this community is more mature than most, it is still an internet forum...

2) My opinion: Increased player enjoyment is easiest to create by increased desired play time and more players. Increased desired play time and more players both are easily created by more diversity in the options and experience. This is accomplished by growing the metagame. Good design relates to how much it grows the metagame. Cards that add are good. Cards that multiply are great.

Let me present two examples from another big CCG. (apologies for doing this but there simply isn't enough precedence for EtG to make my point)
1. Jund era. "Jund" was an MTG deck that during its high time was ridiculously dominant. At big tournaments it would usually represent around 40% of the field and that figure would usually grow towards the end of a tournament. However, tournament attendance at the time soared, putting up record after record. (compare [1], [2], [3])
2. Time Spiral Limited. The "Time Spiral" set presented the most diverse Limited environment of all time. Basically what they did there was reprint mechanics from all over the history of MtG and mash them together in one epic set. The result? Players hated it, attendance for Limited tournaments plummeted (compare).

[plastiqe]

We have had dictatorships in the past with SG and zanz.  Now don't get me wrong, I am so very thankful for all the work both have done because none of this would be possible otherwise.  That being said, I don't necessarily agree with every decision each has ever made.  Putting all development on the shoulders of one (or three) wise people has the problem of supplying enough wise people.

I would rather have community driven development.  If everyone did their job I think we could handle it.  Card creators create, Veterans debate, curators curate, xeno codes etc.  This way, everyone has a chance to be involved which is the point of having forums and a community in the first place.

[OldTrees]

The best answers I have to C are:
1) Discussion. Opinions backed with reasoning where the goal is to leave with the correct answer rather than have others leave with your answer.

Hrrmm yes. Obviously this would work theoretically but even though this community is more mature than most, it is still an internet forum...

2) My opinion: Increased player enjoyment is easiest to create by increased desired play time and more players. Increased desired play time and more players both are easily created by more diversity in the options and experience. This is accomplished by growing the metagame. Good design relates to how much it grows the metagame. Cards that add are good. Cards that multiply are great.

Let me present two examples from another big CCG. (apologies for doing this but there simply isn't enough precedence for EtG to make my point)
2. Time Spiral Limited. The "Time Spiral" set presented the most diverse Limited environment of all time. Basically what they did there was reprint mechanics from all over the history of MtG and mash them together in one epic set. The result? Players hated it, attendance for Limited tournaments plummeted (compare).

I need to get more background on the Jund era before I can have an opinion about whether their is causation involved.

Buying reprinted cards is not of interest to players that existed when they came out previously. Consider if an EtG update had no new cards. People would be upset. Color shifted cards were more valuable but still might have felt reprinted. The complexity of the set was off-putting to new players. Consider an EtG update with only Kael cards (very complex cards).

[regen2k9]

It could be done if Zanz were willing. I would understand if he were unwilling.

...and this folks, is the crux of the problem.

I wanted to refrain posting in this thread because, hey, any idea of 'community-based development' is cool, right?

The issue with this all ties in directly to zanzarino and him alone; unless he decides to extend his development team beyond himself, the game's progress is dwindling rather than speeding up (for an extensive flash game, which is essentially death). What hurts more is that even if we managed to get the 'optimal solution' to card design (yes, I know we're using Kael's/SG's old system still), the idea of the community having a more active part in developing the game is moot, because without the ability to actually hard-implement or test the concepts in question, card ideas and suggestions (or anything related to game development) feels somewhat fruitless.

As long as he remains unwilling, the public will, in turn, be unwilling to subconsciously continue on.

I completely agree with this.  This is why I wanted us to contact Zanz.  Even if we think he will resist, we should contact him anyway, on off-chance that he might not.  Has anyone done it already?

[10 men]

I need to get more background on the Jund era before I can have an opinion about whether their is causation involved.

There is obviously no causation involved whatsoever, on the contrary! Having one vastly dominant deck in the metagame is bad. The important point to note is that there is a whole ton of other factors which can make a game fun/enjoyable, and the Alara block did a lot of them very well.

Buying reprinted cards is not of interest to players that existed when they came out previously. Consider if an EtG update had no new cards. People would be upset. Color shifted cards were more valuable but still might have felt reprinted. The complexity of the set was off-putting to new players. Consider an EtG update with only Kael cards (very complex cards).

There were not many reprinted cards (at lower rarity), there were just many old mechanics reused (along with quite a few new ones). Also the cards themselves were not the problem, each of them individually would have been completely fine in another set. It was exactly the overdone diversity what made the format so appalling for many players. So the lesson there is that diversity does not scale linearrily (nothing ever does) with enjoyability. There is such a thing as too much.

[OldTrees]

I need to get more background on the Jund era before I can have an opinion about whether their is causation involved.

There is obviously no causation involved whatsoever, on the contrary! Having one vastly dominant deck in the metagame is bad. The important point to note is that there is a whole ton of other factors which can make a game fun/enjoyable, and the Alara block did a lot of them very well.

Buying reprinted cards is not of interest to players that existed when they came out previously. Consider if an EtG update had no new cards. People would be upset. Color shifted cards were more valuable but still might have felt reprinted. The complexity of the set was off-putting to new players. Consider an EtG update with only Kael cards (very complex cards).

There were not many reprinted cards (at lower rarity), there were just many old mechanics reused (along with quite a few new ones). Also the cards themselves were not the problem, each of them individually would have been completely fine in another set. It was exactly the overdone diversity what made the format so appalling for many players. So the lesson there is that diversity does not scale linearrily (nothing ever does) with enjoyability. There is such a thing as too much.

Oh. I thought you were going for stronger claims. I took those two facts as assumed. There are lots of other methods for adding enjoyment besides variety. I consider the variety to the the backbone since it is easiest. Nothing scales linearly indefinitely. As the marginal benefit of versatility declines, it cannot be justified to forsake increasing the originally less efficient means of adding enjoyment. To  be honest variety is not the easiest means of adding enjoyment. The absolute easiest is thematic consistency. However EtG quickly maxed that out.

[10 men]

Oh. I thought you were going for stronger claims. I took those two facts as assumed. There are lots of other methods for adding enjoyment besides variety. I consider the variety to the the backbone since it is easiest.

First of all, using the word "easiest" here is quite misleading. It might be the easiest available but that is highly debatable. It is definitely not "easy" - as my examples show, people who do CCG design for a living can mess up badly there.

The absolute easiest is thematic consistency. However EtG quickly maxed that out.

So let's talk about EtG then.
Right now the biggest problems EtG has are
1) A very stagnant metagame. The problem here is really not the variety in terms of possible deck types, but the variety over time. A new player can't complain that there are too few different decks/deck types for him to play, however an old player might certainly complain that he is still playing basically the same Grabbow/Fire Bolt deck/Dim Shield stall as two years ago. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, generally slow updates and on the other hand, the second big problem which is
2) that the community basically rejected the latest batch of updates (aka the Shards). Why was that? Certainly, some of them are overpowered quite blatantly, but that is no reason to condemn the others as well. Out of the rest there's a few strong ones, some are mediocre and some of course are also just weak. But those are still banned in any competitive Event. Their problem is not variety either, we have actually seen quite a number of creative new decks spawned by them. What the shards are missing is resonance. Put simply, they are not what people expect/want to see in a fantasy card game. (It is what you could mean by thematic consistency, but I'm not sure.) There are actually quite a number of Elemets cards that are lacking in this respect, such as the Dragons, Blue Crawler, Guardian Angel, Black Hole, Thorn Carapace only to name a few.

[OldTrees]

Oh. I thought you were going for stronger claims. I took those two facts as assumed. There are lots of other methods for adding enjoyment besides variety. I consider the variety to the the backbone since it is easiest.

First of all, using the word "easiest" here is quite misleading. It might be the easiest available but that is highly debatable. It is definitely not "easy" - as my examples show, people who do CCG design for a living can mess up badly there.

They do selling CCG products for a living. This warps many of their choices (Rare => Power?!). Plus they get to make the mistakes first for us to learn from. However I do agree that "least difficult" might be a better term.

The absolute easiest is thematic consistency. However EtG quickly maxed that out.

So let's talk about EtG then.
Right now the biggest problems EtG has are
1) A very stagnant metagame. The problem here is really not the variety in terms of possible deck types, but the variety over time. A new player can't complain that there are too few different decks/deck types for him to play, however an old player might certainly complain that he is still playing basically the same Grabbow/Fire Bolt deck/Dim Shield stall as two years ago. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, generally slow updates and on the other hand, the second big problem which is
2) that the community basically rejected the latest batch of updates (aka the Shards). Why was that? Certainly, some of them are overpowered quite blatantly, but that is no reason to condemn the others as well. Out of the rest there's a few strong ones, some are mediocre and some of course are also just weak. But those are still banned in any competitive Event. Their problem is not variety either, we have actually seen quite a number of creative new decks spawned by them. What the shards are missing is resonance. Put simply, they are not what people expect/want to see in a fantasy card game. (It is what you could mean by thematic consistency, but I'm not sure.) There are actually quite a number of Elemets cards that are lacking in this respect, such as the Dragons, Blue Crawler, Guardian Angel, Black Hole, Thorn Carapace only to name a few.

(Prediction: The imbalance of the shards would lead to a lower variety in metagames that allow them.)

What I meant by thematic consistency:
The system obeys the thematic rules it imposes on itself. Steam machine uses both  and  rather than creating steam with one alone. Cards belong or at least fit in the element they were placed in. (For the most part) The current shard design (Other + loyalty to thematic element) is an improvement over the old shard design (Other).

What I meant by maxed:
The system could have even more rigid thematic rules. Every effect could have 1 and only 1 correct element to be in. However I do not think much more enjoyment would be achieved by this and it would severely restrict adding other enjoyment factors.

[Anarook]

Honestly I see a lot of speculating but not much action.
Albeit, I shall speculate myself...

1)ETG has a problem, the problem needs a solution.
1a)Stagnant meta-game
1b)dwindling interest
1c)limited ability to make changes
1d)limited medium to solve the above

2)--because of 1d, it is difficult to find a solution--

Our primary source of change at this time is the implementation and/or changing of cards.

First and foremost I recommend absorbing the suggested changes section into the CIA section, I've long been confused as to why these are separated as they both have large impacts on one another. Separating the two only creates more opportunity for imbalance which is ironic considering the whole point of the suggested changes section is to better balance the game.


Now from my own perspective, I believe we could redesign the way CIA works.
I've personally seen many confusing voting trends which often leave great ideas falling into oblivion while many semi-good and some outright bad ideas get tons of praise.
There are two key points at issue here, the current voting system is ineffective at reflecting what cards would be a good addition and/or modification to the current game; and the community itself which uses this system often seems uninformed.

Because everyone has an equal chance at voting, there lies an issue with people voting based on quick decisions, face value, pretty mechanics, etc. I honestly believe that too few people take their time to break down the card and determine how it would impact the game.
To be perfectly honest, I imagine everyone is guilty of this to some degree, it's hard to avoid.

The other issue as that this same trend that impacts voting impacts card designers as well(grudgingly admitted I'm heavily guilty of this). Too many ideas are spur the moment  and while they may have nice initial appeal they often fall apart after careful consideration(unfortunately this also negatively impacts creative thinking, I personally design cards purely for fun, but it hurts to see nothing good come of it). Unfortunately the current system allows such ideas to pass through un-phased as long as they follow proper formatting.

Rant aside I think the biggest impact we could have currently would be to redesign the way the CIA section works.
1)Some better/stricter regulations need to be placed on cards entering the first level of voting, while it was improved when the number of weekly submissions was limited, I feel it could be improved more.
2)I recommend a two-party voting system. One where anyone in the community may vote and one where a select council votes. Card progression propagates as a culmination of the two.

But more than anything, I fiercely believe we need somewhere to really debate these changes and perhaps design a new system outside of these forums. I recall the card idea round table(i believe that was close to the name) in which a lot was discussed and quite a few ideas brought to light. It was also enlightening to me personally. I thank OT and ZB for personally giving me a very different perspective of the game. I've always treated this game as an aside but they showed me just what it means to really care about the direction this game is growing in.

If someone could set up a similar such board and organize it I believe we could really get down to making something happen(I'd do so myself but my voice is significantly smaller and my knowledge limited in scope).

[ZephyrPhantom]

If someone could set up a similar such board and organize it I believe we could really get down to making something happen(I'd do so myself but my voice is significantly smaller and my knowledge limited in scope).

We do have such boards in the forum of Community Card Design and the Idea Factory. However the Idea Factory's membership requirement is beginning to prove a bit of a hurdle and Community Card Design focuses exclusively on designing one card.

The Round Table EmeraldTiger made was a good idea, though, (and by extension its predecessor, OT's CCC) and certainly worthy of revival.

At this point, I think the general consensus of the forums is that the CI&A section does need a total overhaul.

[OdinVanguard]

Unless there is a revolutionary superior system it would probably reboot only the Crucible and add a new layer. I do expect most ideas would get more fine tuned. (The problem is most of the card creators think their submissions are great)

Revolution is my middle name. : P



Here are the problems as I see them, with solutions:

Spoiler for list of ideas:

Everything gets archived
New rules means everyone starts on equal footing.  I wouldn't want to grandfather cards in the armory that were created under the old system into the game.

Overall level of ideas poor
Limit how many card creations players are allowed to submit each month.  Things like a 1 month wait after you register before you can start.  Amount of card threads you're allowed to submit per month limited by forum rank.  Less flood of ideas hopefully equals more consideration put towards each idea.  No more collections of card creations or ranking the best card creators.  Shift the goal from climbing the polls to creating the best card for the game.

Reusing old ideas
You're allowed to re-make one of your old cards from the archives as your idea for the month.  You can remake someone else's with permission/if they're long gone/give them credit.

Not getting the right ideas
Have more contests like Shard Revolution (bad example, shards suck) where a specific theme that is lacking in the game is explored with card ideas.  CC protection for Life contest, or PC for more elements contest, etc. 

People don't vote for best idea
No card art during card creation, card mechanics are voted on rather than looks.
Once an idea is selected for In Development, have art contests to find the best art.
Blind submission/voting system.  Maybe all card creation ideas are pm'ed to curators, who sort them and post them for voting.  Or we don't use player names on the submissions.  Ideally we'd remove player popularity from the equation.  If several people have the same idea then several people get credit. 

I'm probably quite a few checks and balances away from anything near a perfect system.  It's all just fantasy since I don't think zanz would ever let the players take over.

Edit:
[21:53] <plastiqe> Xeno I'm curious, if zanz would let you, are you capable of doing the programming to add new cards to the game?
[21:54] <!Xenocidius> I am. I'm 95% sure Zanz is in a coma or something at the moment though.

Many of these are pretty good i think.

• For limiting the card submissions, this could work alright. I would note that there is already a flat limit on additions to crucible, so that could be another area to implement it in... i.e. you can submit a bunch of cards to smithy, but the number that are let into crucible gets linked to forum standing.
  • As some have noted, card creation is also something of a hobby and the smithy is a place for people to vent excess creative energy. The crucible is where the weeding out truly starts.
• On the voting for best idea side. There are a couple other things that could work here.
  
  • Extend the polling to allow voters to rate cards based on various criteria. E.g. balance, originality, playability, etc.
  • instead of just having "vote for your favorite(s)" switch to a ranking based system i.e. rate entries from best to worst; or use a 1-5 type scale.
• On limiting artwork during submissions.
  
  • I do agree that voting for artwork should be seperate from card mechanics.
  • Artwork can make members more likely to vote for an otherwise poor card if the artwork is very good. This can definitely be detrimental to producing good quality cards mechanics wise
  • On the other hand, artwork can play an important part of the creative process. There are times where I will be randomly making a piece of 3D scenery or modeling and it will inspire a new card concept. So I don't think we should force submissions to exclude artwork.
  • As I mentioned above, a good solution here is to rework the polling system so members can vote on each relevant area of a cards design rather than just which card is their favorite overall

So in terms of re-structuring idea, my take is:

• Pre-smithy - help on getting an idea ready for work (same as now)
• Smithy - Initial brainstroming and review (same as now)
• Crucible - Weed out obviously bad or defective ideas. Artwork can be handled separately here, and should not be a major focus or barrier yet. Cards are either sent to a refinery or recycle (archive) thread
• Crucible Refinery - area for players to discuss how to improve their submission and get it back to crucible level. Cards that seem good but have some areas that need more work go here
• crucible recycle bin (archive) - place to put ideas that people have given up on and need to be redone from scratch
• Forge - Cards get fleshed out here. Artwork added / refined if needed. Some early playtesting / scenarious played out to get a feel for the card. Cards here get sifted / worked on based on a set of several areas.
  
  • artwork
  • mechanics (does it bring something new to the game and is it doable)
  • elemental thematics (does this fit with the element its in, and is it useful there or would it be better off somewhere else)
  • balance (is it over / underpowered)
  • overall impressions
• Armory - Cards need to get playtested here and the top few will get selected as proposals for new cards. 2-3 area grading system with focus on mechanics, utility, and game balance. Artwork should be polished and finalized if not already
• Show Room / Staging area - Cards that are deemed worthy of being in the game are put here to be added in
• Reliquary - Same as now

If the community is given a go ahead to help add in cards to the game (or at least help handle some of the programming burden), the armory would be where actual coding / debugging would start.

Even if we don't have access to a working trainer to be tinkered with, it would still be worthwile to have a moderator / committee that is familiar with the workings of the game. That way pseudocode could get drafted  so that there would be less for Zanz to worry about when he goes to code a card he likes into the game.