False God Realms

[Kuross]

*still a big fan of the idea and wants to see implemented* 

My only issue is that I don't think this option should be available from the get go. You should be able to complete some sort of 'quest' before getting the option as an elemental to actually TRAVEL to these specific dimensions to face certain FG's. I assume that elementals don't just 'head over' to some realm in order to fight Rainbow or Scorpio; I imagine Level 6 being an accidental 'run-in' with an elemental being who claims to be a God.

Just a suggestion on this idea above:

- Quest #7, "In order to freely pass from one realm to another, one must be found worthy and defeat each individual FG first." In other words, beat every FG once, then unlock the ability to choose which realm to go to at will from that point on.

*adding $.02 to the pile*

[tinkady]

yeah definitely something to keep people using all 4 realms...either a random shuffling or something better. such as having to fight all the gods before you can go back to a certain realm or somethin'.  oooorr you could just give decreasing rewards for if you use a certain realm too often? wouldnt be too hard to code...like it keeps a tally of how many times youve won in each realm and somehow converts that into a multiplier for your chance of winning a card that it displays in the corner somewhere when you go into a realm

[Malduk]

My main issue is not that FGs will become too easy, but that people would effectively reduce the amount of FGs they fight against. People will simply play realm that gives them best win percentage all the time.
And it would be impossible for Zanz to rebalance gods all the time to make them, and keep them, at same difficulty level.
However, if they are randomly shuffled every week, you dont have that issue. Instead you'll have easier and harder weeks, but at least you wont render 18 gods useless.

This is what I talked about earlier. Shutting down an idea because of assuming that everything else stays the same. These problems you mention about are easy to fix.

Example:
When you fight a specific Realm, and have managed to kill all the FG's there, that realm becomes "locked". Once you lock all 4 Realms, the ultimate "Realm of Power" gets unlocked. Realm of Power has the level 7 endgame opponents with 300 HP and crazy cards. When you beat Realm of Power, everything gets unlocked again. Rinse and repeat.


Throwing all FG's in a hat and picking one randomly is an easy solution, but it's also a bit lame. Having some kind of "worlds" or "realms" would help with immersion and make Elements have much more depth.

I wasnt shutting down the idea at all; never once I said no to this. As a matter of fact, I'd embrace any system that allows me to divide gods to fight smaller amounts of them at the time.
What I was doing is pointing out "problems" with the idea and suggested possible alternative. Ideas are not developed by everyone nodding their heads, but by pointing possible flaws and trying to work out the solution. At least that is my approach. I can as well stay out of the discussion if you dont like it.

As for random being lame, you could as well produce some mega cool story behind any system. Gods are not divided by realms, they "rule" the world of elements together, and group as they see fit to prevent us from overtaking their power. They can as well put fire, water, life and death together if they think that is the combination that would win the battle for them. But the real reason why I think random is actually more interesting than predetermined set of gods is that random encourages active deckbuilding week after a week (or whatever timeframe). After all, deckbuilding is the most interesting part of the game; grinding is simply grinding.

[Marvaddin]

When you click the "Level 6" button, you will be taken into a "Realm Page"

This is the single part of the idea that I dislike. All buttons could be side-by-side, so no another screen is needed.

I also think that people would be farming just the realm with better win rate.

Example:
When you fight a specific Realm, and have managed to kill all the FG's there, that realm becomes "locked". Once you lock all 4 Realms, the ultimate "Realm of Power" gets unlocked. Realm of Power has the level 7 endgame opponents with 300 HP and crazy cards. When you beat Realm of Power, everything gets unlocked again. Rinse and repeat.

This wouldnt help. People could just skip the FG their deck has worst win rate. Adding a reward to defeat all Realms is good, but it should be reachable. What would this AI7 be? Rainbow (the FG called Rainbow, I mean) with 300 life and drawing 3 cards per turn? (OMG) To get what? Spins wouldnt do it. Normal or rare cards also arent enough, maybe nymphs and marks. In fact, there is some sense in Rainbow being in no realm. We could get another FG to his place in the realm.

Some ideas.
1) Realm like a gauntlet.  So, lets say realm has: Divine Glory, Elidnis, Ferox, Miracle, Neptune, Scorpio. I enter and defeat Ferox. Wont face him again, next is one of other 5. I defeat Neptune. Next is one of the other 4. Some things to discuss: should be allowed chance decks between fights? And if I lose, all FG are up again, and I need defeat all... or just the ones I didnt defeat yet? If I lose and FG ressurect, people can still use strategic losses to keep fighting easy FG. If not, lets say, I defeated all but Divine Glory, and I can change decks, now I will use a deck that will crush him. Things would be easier anyway. Lets say I use Rainbow deck, defeat all easy FG, now I can have a deck more oriented to the remaining ones. To consider realm as like a quest, the more difficult scenario is no changing allowed and FG ressurect, but this would allow people farming easy FG anyway. (Important: as this would block easy FG if they dont ressurect, another way to battle them could be possible, even if its the random actual way.)

2) Random realms. What if every day (or week) we can fight a random realm? 2 possible ways. A realm to all players... of course people would visit the forum and know whats the realm for today. Or... a different realm to each player (dunno if its possible to code, considering people can log out and log in again), and the Oracle saying you which one it is.

Anyway, the random 6 per week would also work. There would be those epicly difficult weeks no one would play, lol... and those epicly easy everyone would farm as theres no tomorrow... but its interesting

In fact, I would love both systems at same time. 6 random FG per week, and FG realms designed as quests to a bigger (and possible to get, I mean, not really impossible) reward.

[SickPillow]

My main issue is not that FGs will become too easy, but that people would effectively reduce the amount of FGs they fight against. People will simply play realm that gives them best win percentage all the time.
And it would be impossible for Zanz to rebalance gods all the time to make them, and keep them, at same difficulty level.
However, if they are randomly shuffled every week, you dont have that issue. Instead you'll have easier and harder weeks, but at least you wont render 18 gods useless.

This is what I talked about earlier. Shutting down an idea because of assuming that everything else stays the same. These problems you mention about are easy to fix.

Example:
When you fight a specific Realm, and have managed to kill all the FG's there, that realm becomes "locked". Once you lock all 4 Realms, the ultimate "Realm of Power" gets unlocked. Realm of Power has the level 7 endgame opponents with 300 HP and crazy cards. When you beat Realm of Power, everything gets unlocked again. Rinse and repeat.


Throwing all FG's in a hat and picking one randomly is an easy solution, but it's also a bit lame. Having some kind of "worlds" or "realms" would help with immersion and make Elements have much more depth.

It is true that realms would provide the most immersion, but the idea of random weekly gods would allow for the most deckbuilding and innovation.  Having 4 realms with static bosses will mean that only a few new decks are created.  Those decks will immediately be posted and compared by win percentage... basically you will get 4 top realm decks in a matter of weeks.  I'm not saying this wouldn't be way better than it is now... i'm just saying some randomness would provide more lasting fun.

It is totally possible to combine the two ideas.  I don't see why you can't have 6 realms with 4 random gods that change every week.  And the lock-out feature could still be added to make you play all of the realms before you repeat.... or just bring separate rewards to each realm. 
Adding randomness to the realms would be less immersive, the realms would no longer be separated by the style of false gods.  Yet you would gain deckbuilding that would change week to week... which would be very fun. 
 

[Toimu13]

Maybe you could choose an option to fight ANY False God for a slightly higher reward as well.

I like this idea!  Nothing large, maybe just a 4th spin or something smaller.  Don't want rich people just starting/leaving (like we do now) until we get a FG we can kill.

[Glitch]

I would agree with everything about this concept except it make the false gods easier to farm.

Which I think is the wrong way of going at things.

For more details, see: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11658.msg153407#msg153407

The fact of the matter is, no one ever said FGs were MEANT to be farmed.  And if you divide them into realms, decks like RoL/hope (which are quite bipolar difficulty wise) would suddenly become extremely overpowered.

The only thing that is preventing a 100% rate against the gods is their variety.  What you really want is an AI that's slightly easier to farm than false gods.  That is SUPPOSED to be the half bloods.  So instead of nerfing the gods, buff AI5's difficulty and reward.

[Hodari]

Realm of Atmosphere (better name wanted) :     

Astral realm?

[Cancerplus]

I def think this would foster more creative FG decks...

I'd really like to see this implemented.

[manaboy100]

I would grind the Realm of Creation all the day long

[Sengiratolom]

An adition to the realm selection could be a  "random realm" button (kinda like FGs are now) which allows you to alter 1 card in a slot to a card of choice if you defeat the FG, this would make the "spin" button be usefull oposed to the  "spin all" as you could change 1 card (in total) per random FG defeat.

This is ment as in: spin results in 2 times card X and a random 3rd card, you then select the random 3rd card and can pick a card from the FGs deck to replace the slot with= you win that card X, can only be done on one of the 3 spins per random FG defeat.

[Seravy]

I was just about to suggest something similar :
-Add the ability to select a specific false god to fight for a higher cost.

However, the Realms idea is much better if it is executed correctly.
Before I start to explain how it should be done, a bit about the "why" part.

False gods have a huge amount of advantage. Drawing, quanta, life, deck quality, deck size, you name it, they have it.
I've spent hours and hours trying to build an anti-FG deck of acceptable level, but I keep running in circles, failing.
To make a deck that works against all false gods well (Definition of "works well" : at least 80-90% chance to win if you play without mistakes, and your deck is fine tuned to the maximum, the rest will be losses to bad draws, exceptionally good draws for the god. Obviously, playing mistakes, or a few improper cards in your deck would reduce that back to the usual 40-50%, so only the best players who deserve it would be able to take advantage of this win rate. No need to worry about making it "too easy" while the gods have those advantages...)
so, to make a deck that works well against all false gods as defined above, you'd need all of the following :

-A deck as small as possible as larger decks have greater chances for bad draws, and if you really need to play those 45-60 cards to win, the deck is too slow to be usable for grinding. In addition as cards are limited to 6 of a kind and some cards are of key importance, adding too many cards makes them inefficient (SoG works very well in a 30 card deck and not-so-well in a 60 card one, because you won't draw enough of them that way.)

-Deal with creatures and damage in general, if possible in a reusable manner as the god has more resources than you (Entropy, Water, Gravity and Time can do this well. Aether only works partially : Phase Shields have a limited duration and are vulnerable to permanent control too much.).

Without this, you'd lose to most gods, except maybe to Decay and Dream Catcher as those two don't play large creatures, so this one is a MUST. If your deck doesn't include one of those elements, it wouldn't be able to do well against gods in general.
This is the most important part.

-Deal with permanents. (Pulverizer which is two different elements, and Butterfly effect which needs an otherwise unusable creature to function are the only two good options here.)

This one is probably the least important, but often still necessary. If your creature control don't kill creatures, only prevents/heals back damage, which is about half the possible options, the feral bonds, phase and other shields can be a major trouble. No need to say how Obliterator's Pulverizer is also something that is an auto-loss for you if you can't deal with it.

-Deal out a massive amount of damage very quickly. (No standalone element can do this, but combinations can. At least this means +1-2 additional elements you need to include, whichever you choose, as CC elements don't have good damage in their combinations.)

If you don't have this, you'll deck out against Miracle, Ferox, FFQ, Paradox, Dark Matter, Divine Glory, Rainbow, and maybe Morte as well (I don't remember if he has Miracles or not, but probably does). If you rely on fractal for damage, you deck out against Neptune. If you don't rely on fractal, with a small deck, if your damage sources are near the bottom, you'll still deck out, so you need to include at least 3 copies of each, which increases the chances for bad draws too much.
Eternity can prevent decking out, but if you really need to play that long to win, the deck is too slow for grinding anyway, so that is not the best option.
Dealing damage is also possible using a huge amount of bolt spells and going mono-element, however, no element has even half the cards necessary for a deck, and to amass that much quanta in a reasonable amount of time, you'd need to stay mono. This strategy is also defeated by Jade and Mirror Shield both used by some gods, so it is not good.

-Protect your creatures (Aether only, Quintessence)

Needless to say, if your creatures die, you'll lose. Gods with creature control have more of it than you have creatures in your deck, so you need those quintessences, at least as many as you need to win+2, otherwise if they are near the bottom, you still deck out because you can't do enough damage in time.

-Without Quintessence you'll lose against all gods that have strong creature control, and that means about 50% of all gods.

-Protect your permanents or draw enough to replace them when they are removed (Earth only, Protect Artifact, or Time only : Hourglass)
Again, this is important, more than it looks like at first sight.
Without shards you can't survive against many gods who can bypass creature control with damage, so if they are destroyed, you lose. It's also important against Seism. Unless your deck absolutely doesn't need permanents to survive, either Hourglass or Protect Artifacts need to be included.

If you don't have them, you'll lose against : Divine Glory, Rainbow, Hermes, Chaos Lord, Obliterator, Dream Catcher, Seism

-Heal yourself (mainly SoG)
You'll need these until you get your main creature control working, and it is a must against sources of damage you can't deal with otherwise (spells, posion etc)

Without them, you'll lose against : Morte, Scorpio, Hermes, FFQ (fire lance), Decay (drain life), Octane (Gases).

-Keep the number of different elements used at 3 or less
Currently, we have no stable, reliable way of producing quanta of many elements at an acceptable speed, and at 5 or more elements, Quantum towers are already superior. However, Quantum towers are very slow at producing quanta : with 4 of them in play, on average, you get 1 of each element per turn, so you'd need to wait 7 turns to play a card that costs 7 on average (and much longer with bad luck), and that is far too slow. It works if you use all 12 elements equally, but even then, you'd play nothing but shards for the first 5-6 turns or more, which is just too slow. Rainbow generally solve this with either Supernova (small deck), or Sundials (large deck), but if you don't draw these, or have bad luck with the generated quanta types, you can still lose a lot of games.
Overall, as each card needs many quanta of the same element, the more elements you have, the more turns you'd need to wait before starting to play your cards, and that isn't something you can afford against a false god.

-Resistance to quantum denial
There are no cards currently that provide you this, except for hourglass (drawing more towers than the opponent can destroy/drain).
Without this, you'll lost against Decay, Dark Matter, and if you don't have protect artifacts, against Seism, Obliterator, Dream Catcher. On lucky draws, Rainbow, Eternal Phoenix, Hermes and Divine Glory can also destroy all of your pillars using explosions.

To sum it up, for a good anti FG deck currently, you'd need

-A 30-45 card deck, that includes 6x SoG, about 4x Quentessences (Aether), some creatures that can grow or otherwise improve their damage quickly (two more elements and at least 6-8 cards), a significant amount of creature control (one-two elements, and at least 8-12 cards), Drawing and/or permanent protection (3-4 cards and one more element t least), and enough pillars/pendulums to support all of this, while not going over two-three different elements in your deck and the 40-45 cards.
That is obviously impossible so making proper anti FG decks isn't possible currently.


Conclusion :
You need to pack too many different cards from too many different elements currently as gods have way too different strength and weaknesses.

So, a grouping based on strengths and weaknesses would be optimal :

Group I - Heavenly
Fast swarms of creatures, massive healing, but absolutely no permanent control, and creature control.

These gods can be beaten with decks that have decent creature control/healing, and good damage output from creatures. Protection against control is unnecessary.

Ferox,Paradox, Miracle, Gemini, Elidnis, Divine Glory (remove explosions and fire towers, add 6x Shard of Divinity...he is called Divine for a reason, and it's a great combo with his Miracles) belong to this group. (6 gods)

Group II - Infernal
These gods focus on killing creatures and/or permanents or denying quanta, but they are very slow at dealing damage, can't heal and don't use shields.

Protection against denial, and destruction works well against these gods, as does including more than the average number of pillars.

Neptune (remove dragons and permafrost, add trident and earth quanta), Seism (remove healing and diamond shield, remove dragons. Add more pulverizers. Change mark to earth, and replace all stone towers with gravity and time pendulums), Decay, Octane, Dark Matter(remove miracle), Dream Catcher belong to this group. (6 gods)

Group III - Warriors/Destroyers
These gods focus on killing creatures and playing their own or deal damage otherwise primarily. They don't have any form of permanent control, or healing.

These can be beaten using protected creatures, and creature control in form of mostly permanents or alternatively protected creatures. You'll need lots of healing, especially against the poison gods.

Hermes (remove explosions),  Graviton (Remove explosions), Obliterator (Remove pulverizers), Incarnate, Morte, Scorpio belong here (6 gods)

Group IV - Mages/Creators
Gods that focus on improving their own resources (fractal, drawing, token generation). They have no access to healing, but have no other weaknesses.

Eternal Phoenix (Remove Firestorm), Rainbow (remove miracles), Chaos Lord (Remove discord, that belongs to quanta denial), Destiny, Osiris, Fire Queen (the remaining 6 gods)
Reduce their deck sizes to no more than 70 cards each for the ones that have more. (35 card*2 copies)

This is a much stronger group, but if the suggested changes are made, they can be defeated by good indestructible shields+indestructible perm control+some healing. The main strategy would be to deck them out.

With this grouping, if the suggested changes are also made, all four groups have a theme, a common strength they use, and a common weakness that can be built around to have a good win rate even against the unfair advantages of gods, so decks that have a high win % can be made for all of the groups. In addition, no matter how much the AI is improved, they'd still remain beatable at a good chance with the proper deck.

With this grouping and these changes, you'd only need to include these against the various groups :

Quints : For group 3 mainly,  in some cases for group 2.
Protect Artifacts : For group 2 and 4.
Massive damage output : For group 1 only.
Average damage output : Against 2 and 3.
Creature control : Against groups 1, 3 and 4.
Healing : still useful against all of them, but not really necessary against some. A must against group 3 only.
Small deck : primarily against 2 and 3.
Larger deck : primarily against 4, and maybe against 1.
Permanent control : necessary against group 4 only.

The changes suggested to the gods are very important, and a key part of grouping : without those, the gods would remain to be able to do way too much things, and players would still need to have everything in their decks (which is impossible) for whichever group(s) those gods would end up in.

In one sentence : Make the grouping, and adjustments to FG decks in a way that gives each group a distinct, unique deck building strategy that is effective against them. If they are just grouped by element without changes to their decks, each group would still require most stuff so good decks would still be impossible : The only change would be that we'd skip 1 or 2 out of 6 gods, instead of 4-12 out of 24, and stick to playing the only group where the fewest number of gods need to be skipped.
The grouping must be in a way so that NO gods need to be ever skipped with a proper deck, as each and every god in the said group results in a ~80-90% win rate with flawless play.

If all of the above gets implemented, it'd increase the playability of many cards and strategies, and we'd finally see an environment where everyone can build their own favorite anti-FG deck instead of ending up with the same Rol or Rainbow deck after hours of attempt to figure out something better only to realize there is no such thing at all.

The fact of the matter is, no one ever said FGs were MEANT to be farmed.

The price of upgrading a card says they are meant to be farmed. There is no other way of making 4500+ electum per hour and if you think about it, even that is very slow...3 cards per hour when a deck consist of 30 means 10 hours of farming for a single deck, and that is way too much. This game is supposed to be about having fun, and deckbuilding, not about farming. This ain't an MMORPG you know, this is a card game. It should be about deckbuilding skills not about being able to play 12 hours every day to have the cards.

(All cards*necessary number of copies = way over 1000 upgrades, maybe even 2000 now with the new cards...how much is that, 1000-2000 hours of playing if you don't do FGs? That's like 3-6 hours of playing every day for a year...and by then, the amount of cards would be double. Come on, it's easier to get a full playset in real life card games than this, even if you have to work for money and buy it for cash. )