General Improvement Suggestions

[MasterN]

yo, how're you guys doing?


it's been a while since i played ElementsTheGame(EtG) the last time... over 2 years in fact.
i'll be using the "common feature request"(CFR) topic for guidance on this post, although there's not much in it that would collide with my suggestions.
some of the stuff i'll be proposing can be quite difficult to implement, but i think it'll be well worth the efford.

some people may notice, that a couple of my suggestions base on a different, popular source. a game i stopped playing well over 10 years ago, and having even seen the recent stuff they did with it, i stand by my decision. imho the originality takes second place, after the question of "is the game fun to play?". if you do not share this view, then don't bother reading ahead. it will just waste your time and mine ^^


0.) Engine:
basically the most important thing. if it's presently not the case, then please change the game's entire engine to be as modifiable as possible.
in the long run it will greatly improve your prospect of prosperity by needing less effort to change stuff if necessary.


1.) Game Rules:
if the topic of modifiablility is dealt with, one might ask the question of what to do with it. the above mentioned game, for those of you who don't know it, is magic the gathering. as a paper oriented card game it has many difficulties with the modification of already present cards. has ban lists for different formats and so on. this problem is one of the main reasons for me quitting (MtG has online games, but they're all not worth mentioning). EtG on the other hand is not bothered by such problems. you have almost limitless possibilitys, and it would be quite a waste not to make use of them.
one of the basic ideas taken is the following: for each rule in the game, there's a card, that nullifies it. that means that whatever thing there is, there can be a card to temper with it. be it the maximum hand size, be it a card that allows you to survive with 0 lives or 0 deck cards. it doesn't matter what it is you modify for as long as it is balanced by it's cost.
you've already made it work with some cards like mindgate, shards and others, that didn't exist the last time i was here, modifying max life + and -, extra card draws... there's no reason to leave it at that.


2.) MORE CARDS, more concepts:
the reason why i stopped playing EtG two and a bit years ago was that after waiting quite some time for some new content, the stuff that arrived were the nymphs, which weren't even broadly available to the common player (and still aren't btw^^ ... but after 2 years, there are at least some other cards to compensate...). one argument may be, that one has to balance 12 colors... well, one made the decision to have 12 colors (and 6 arrows to each of his knees ) but the balancing must not necessarily take place for one(or few) card(s) at a time thanks to modifiability. beside the text content there might be problems with the artwork (in other words paying for the artwork) but with the existence of several sources of copyright free content for non profit projects (many users of deviantart.com for example) one may claim that it's more or less not existent (unless you want a profesional artist of a high calibre, but current artwork doesn't suggest that... to belittle the artists is not my intention).
what about multicolored cards? there are already several cards overreaching the boundaries of the attributes of their respectable element, like poison dealing creatures in life, water and time element, which is originally death's domain. what color to paint them in? well if you start out with cards having two colors, have a simple split background with a soft border between them. i will not list all the benefits it has to implement such a thing, they should be apparent. where to put them? into any element they share a color with.
some people may say, that increasing content without vigorous balancing is a bad idea, but look at it this way; you have a lot more to do than simple farming. if a tactic works exeptionally well it may be nerved the next time around, and with lots and lots of stuff to play with, at least from the point of variability, it won't become boring any time soon (for those who are quickly bored with farming...).

trouble having ideas for cards?
[ unupped(upped) ]
permanent: 11(10) : randomly adjusts the power of your mark between 1 and 3 each turn, your opponents between 1 and 2. clears all your quanta.
creature: 6(7) : Dam/HP:8/8. gets -2/-2(-1/-1) each turn.
permanent: 3(4) : All gravity and earth creatures recieve +0/+2(+0/+4)
creature: 3(2) : Dam/HP:0/1. 2 : grow<or evolve> into "(Elder) Tree of life"[next card]
creature: 7(7) : Dam/HP:0/4. Heals your life by amount of it's HP(+1) at eot. Dam can't be raised above 0.
spell 10(9) : All your creatures are sacrificed<no phoenix to ash> deals 2 damage to each opponent's creatures for each creature sacrificed.
creature: 4(3) : Dam/HP:5/3. This creature can only recieve damage from effects<like poison or aflatoxin>.
creature: 3(5) : Dam/HP:3(6)/3(6). Autoheal 3HP @ eot.
creature 5(7) :  Dam/HP:3(5)/3. Damage is dealt randomly to opponent's creatures. flying.
creature 5(5) : Dam/HP:4(5)/4(5). switches @ eot to Dam/HP:5(6)/5(6) and back again next turn. status effects are removed
permanent: 4(5) : changes opponents max handsize to 4(3)+1 cards.
creature 6(7) : Dam/HP:7(8 )/4(5) Immortal during your turn.

imbalanced? i have no idea. just some ideas on ability possibilities.
the community has lots of great and interesting suggestions for cards. don't waste it!


3.) Deck building and Deck management
while a lower card limit is perfectly reasonable, i can't really see a reason why the max limit exists. if one so choses, he won't deck out, at the price of a lower chance of finding key cards. i think that this is a point worth discussing. if space is a problem (which it presently would be), we go back the the modifiability aspect and simply add a sliding bar, and stack cards in the deck view (i seriously don't understand why all the cards need to be "one by one" in the deck view, the total amount of cards is displayed on the left side anyway... edit: problem adressed, solution already in progress. but as it seems only for LQ... why? srsly...) and in addition, viewing all cards at once may be more convenient as well this way.
one aspect that comes to mind when considering balancing is the limitiation to less than 6 cards of one card type. with an overpowered card it may be possible to restrict the maximal amount to whatever is necessary instead of removing it entirely. ok, so this will definetly require some changes, but in turn improves the efficiency in the balancing process.
Bazaar: have the upper window display only the cards you want to sell without actually selling them until hitting a sell-button. display rare warning while the big card image is shown and not across the entire screen for 10 seconds...


4.) Common, Rare and Wasted
i personally have no trouble with temproarily restricting content, but beside playing, i also have my collecting part aching up if something's missing. The only cards in this position right now, and for the last couple of years, are the nymphs. may have been asked a million times already but just for annoyance once more: what makes them so special? not op, just sort of out there. shouldn't try to immitate dark orbit


x.) sidenotes...
if you make a card like "relic", at least give it a synergy with reverse time or something....


that's about all for now. will edit further stuff in if necessary.
have a nice day and game.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Hey there! You seem to have a lot of ideas, so I'll break down my post a bit :

0.) Engine:
basically the most important thing. if it's presently not the case, then please change the game's entire engine to be as modifiable as possible.
in the long run it will greatly improve your prospect of prosperity by needing less effort to change stuff if necessary.

A good suggestion, IMHO. From what we know ATM the game code is rather messy and thus makes it harder to edit in new features and cards.

1.) Game Rules:
if the topic of modifiablility is dealt with, one might ask the question of what to do with it. the above mentioned game, for those of you who don't know it, is magic the gathering. as a paper oriented card game it has many difficulties with the modification of already present cards. has ban lists for different formats and so on. this problem is one of the main reasons for me quitting (MtG has online games, but they're all not worth mentioning). EtG on the other hand is not bothered by such problems. you have almost limitless possibilitys, and it would be quite a waste not to make use of them.
one of the basic ideas taken is the following: for each rule in the game, there's a card, that nullifies it. that means that whatever thing there is, there can be a card to temper with it. be it the maximum hand size, be it a card that allows you to survive with 0 lives or 0 deck cards. it doesn't matter what it is you modify for as long as it is balanced by it's cost.
you've already made it work with some cards like mindgate, shards and others, that didn't exist the last time i was here, modifying max life + and -, extra card draws... there's no reason to leave it at that.

2.) MORE CARDS, more concepts:
the reason why i stopped playing EtG two and a bit years ago was that after waiting quite some time for some new content, the stuff that arrived were the nymphs, which weren't even broadly available to the common player (and still aren't btw^^ ... but after 2 years, there are at least some other cards to compensate...). one argument may be, that one has to balance 12 colors... well, one made the decision to have 12 colors (and 6 arrows to each of his knees ) but the balancing must not necessarily take place for one(or few) card(s) at a time thanks to modifiability. beside the text content there might be problems with the artwork (in other words paying for the artwork) but with the existence of several sources of copyright free content for non profit projects (many users of deviantart.com for example) one may claim that it's more or less not existent (unless you want a profesional artist of a high calibre, but current artwork doesn't suggest that... to belittle the artists is not my intention).

To be fair, ETG is a free game that is only run by 1 developer , so new features take a while to come by and a bit of patience is required. Zanz is human as well, so new features do flop (e.g. see negative reaction to some of the newer shards). New features/cards of any kind would be great, but it's ultimately the dev's call here and not ours.

As for artists, we have quite a few talented contributors here working to replace the spore art currently used - vrt and pepokish have contributed a lot to this game's art, which you can see on cards like upgraded Leaf Dragon, upgraded Otyugh, Firefly Queen, and Sapphire Charger.

what about multicolored cards? there are already several cards overreaching the boundaries of the attributes of their respectable element, like poison dealing creatures in life, water and time element, which is originally death's domain. what color to paint them in? well if you start out with cards having two colors, have a simple split background with a soft border between them. i will not list all the benefits it has to implement such a thing, they should be apparent. where to put them? into any element they share a color with.
some people may say, that increasing content without vigorous balancing is a bad idea, but look at it this way; you have a lot more to do than simple farming. if a tactic works exeptionally well it may be nerved the next time around, and with lots and lots of stuff to play with, at least from the point of variability, it won't become boring any time soon (for those who are quickly bored with farming...).

One of the major pioneers in that trend. (I've made a lot of suggestions similar to yours, too) Good to see fresh enthusiasm.

Anyway, the major issue with multiquanta cards is that the game engine (Specifically Quanta pools and AI Behavior) would have to undergo major edits to accommodate such as system (EtG is currently coded to handle only 2 quanta types, single cost and random cost). This ties in with suggestion #0, so I'll leave it at that.

If you have ideas for multiquanta cards though, don't hesistate to post in the Card Ideas and Art section.

trouble having ideas for cards?
[ unupped(upped) ]
permanent: 11(10) : randomly adjusts the power of your mark between 1 and 3 each turn, your opponents between 1 and 2. clears all your quanta.
creature: 6(7) : Dam/HP:8/8. gets -2/-2(-1/-1) each turn.
permanent: 3(4) : All gravity and earth creatures recieve +0/+2(+0/+4)
creature: 3(2) : Dam/HP:0/1. 2 : grow<or evolve> into "(Elder) Tree of life"[next card]
creature: 7(7) : Dam/HP:0/4. Heals your life by amount of it's HP(+1) at eot. Dam can't be raised above 0.
spell 10(9) : All your creatures are sacrificed<no phoenix to ash> deals 2 damage to each opponent's creatures for each creature sacrificed.
creature: 4(3) : Dam/HP:5/3. This creature can only recieve damage from effects<like poison or aflatoxin>.
creature: 3(5) : Dam/HP:3(6)/3(6). Autoheal 3HP @ eot.
creature 5(7) :  Dam/HP:3(5)/3. Damage is dealt randomly to opponent's creatures. flying.
creature 5(5) : Dam/HP:4(5)/4(5). switches @ eot to Dam/HP:5(6)/5(6) and back again next turn. status effects are removed
permanent: 4(5) : changes opponents max handsize to 4(3)+1 cards.
creature 6(7) : Dam/HP:7(8 )/4(5) Immortal during your turn.

imbalanced? i have no idea. just some ideas on ability possibilities.
the community has lots of great and interesting suggestions for cards. don't waste it!

As I mentioned above, the Card Ideas and Art section is a great place to post new ideas. We've got endless amount of suggestions but only a few high-quality ideas have made it ingame. I'd suggest developing your ideas further and posting them there as well.

3.) Deck building and Deck management
while a lower card limit is perfectly reasonable, i can't really see a reason why the max limit exists. if one so choses, he won't deck out, at the price of a lower chance of finding key cards. i think that this is a point worth discussing. if space is a problem (which it presently would be), we go back the the modifiability aspect and simply add a sliding bar, and stack cards in the deck view (i seriously don't understand why all the cards need to be "one by one" in the deck view, the total amount of cards is displayed on the left side anyway...

60-card limit exists to balance the potential of 'gigadecks' that could focus on deckout and leave rush decks at a disadvantage.
Sliding bar sounds nice for convience but seems negligible since it's only a few seconds difference to click betwen between filtering tabs.

edit: problem adressed, solution already in progress. but as it seems only for LQ... why? srsly...) and in addition, viewing all cards at once may be more convenient as well this way.
one aspect that comes to mind when considering balancing is the limitiation to less than 6 cards of one card type. with an overpowered card it may be possible to restrict the maximal amount to whatever is necessary instead of removing it entirely. ok, so this will definetly require some changes, but in turn improves the efficiency in the balancing process.

It's possible, but this becomes an issue with cards that intentionally break the card limit as a mechanic, such as Fractal and Mitosis. Intentionally limiting the number of cards in a deck tends to be viewed as a rather restrictive measure of balance (similar to legendary - both concepts are generally not useful because they limit the usability of the card in the deck, when most decks in ETG will fully utilize every card and avoid dead/hard-to-get draws as much as possible), with the general opinion being that cards are better balanced by other drawbacks that do not create dead/harder-to-get draws.

Bazaar: have the upper window display only the cards you want to sell without actually selling them until hitting a sell-button. display rare warning while the big card image is shown and not across the entire screen for 10 seconds...

The 'selling rare sign' has various opinions, but it's also rather minor.
A bazaar section for cards you want to sell would be nice thought, especially when you want to bulk sell cards you no longer need.

4.) Common, Rare and Wasted
i personally have no trouble with temproarily restricting content, but beside playing, i also have my collecting part aching up if something's missing. The only cards in this position right now, and for the last couple of years, are the nymphs. may have been asked a million times already but just for annoyance once more: what makes them so special? not op, just sort of out there. shouldn't try to immitate dark orbit

It's possible, but the card pool is too small at the moment to have more rares. EtG is much more deserving of commons that can boost deck strategies and variety on a wide scale than rares that do the same thing, especially in certain PvP events where the game's nature gets compared to an RPS-like game at times since all players should have more ways to play than the general stall/otk/rush.

x.) sidenotes...
if you make a card like "relic", at least give it a synergy with reverse time or something....

There have been a few suggestions on making relic a useful card ingame, but IMHO coding a new effect for relic would be better spent on coding a new card.

Hope my feedback helps.

[MasterN]

To be fair, ETG is a free game that is only run by 1 developer , so new features take a while to come by and a bit of patience is required. Zanz is human as well, so new features do flop (e.g. see negative reaction to some of the newer shards).

ETG being a free game is not really an argument, but there only being one Dev certainly is.
had i known, then my list would have been led by:
0.) find a couple of buddys to help you out^^

given that i also took up the idea of programming a card game (which is why i could specify the importance of some of my mentioned points) i can acknowledge Zanz skill and determination to get ETG to where it is today.
given the current situation i need to shift the questions into a different direction. is ETG Zanz's source of living? if so, i don't expect, that he'll become rich from it (at least not yet), and if there was any mentionable surplus, that a team would already exist. (btw, these are rethorical questions, since it's personal stuff)

the point i'm getting at is the following (and it's one, that Zanz must answer by and to himself): where do you want this to go?
simple question, many problems answering it. since something like a roadmap is more like a wishlist at this stage, i don't really need to be pointed to one.
progress needs change. Zblader, you said one needs a bit of patience, the difference i have seen is shy of erosion (and please, for the love of whatever gods you worship, please don't take this the wrong way. the progress is still a magnificent effort for one Dev). almost any technical problem is solvable. in ETG's case, with a great community base, i'd not be foolish to say that any problem is solvable. of course depending on how one choses to deal with them. in the core community, those who have been here for a long time, there are enough people with great interest, motivation and enthusiasm, among which one may certainly find one or two who are willing and able to carry a small bit of the burden ETG holds onto Zanz. going further into detail, i'd have to write a book. i hope, that it's obvious where i'm getting at.

New features/cards of any kind would be great, but it's ultimately the dev's call here and not ours.

since it always is, this is called suggestions and not "todo"^^ i can presently only offer my thoughts on the situation, in the hope that they're not going to be considered useless or impossible to implement.

[Chapuz]

EtG is kinda Zanz's hobby. I have heard that some people offered to help him in coding new game stuff and he just ignored them. If you wanna make a try, I think there is Zanz's e-mail somewhere.

[MasterN]

EtG is kinda Zanz's hobby.

that would at least lead me to believe that he's allright^^
opens possibilities on one side, and closes others on the other.

I have heard that some people offered to help him in coding new game stuff and he just ignored them. If you wanna make a try, I think there is Zanz's e-mail somewhere.

i would most likely do the same. some unknown people asking to tinker within ones hard work is not really a pleasant thought. and if it's uninvited, even more so. He'd have to ask by himself, otherwise i wouldn't bother to bother him with e-mails or other messages.
that is the reason why i said, that he had to answer one question himself. most likely he did already. the answer to that question determines where this game's future lies.
ultimately that answer is only of interest to me, to quickly determine whether i should continue investing time in the game or not. over time the answer becomes apparent by itself (as it already did, once), but if there is time to be saved, i would prefer to hear the answer^^

[MasterN]

A good suggestion, IMHO. From what we know ATM the game code is rather messy and thus makes it harder to edit in new features and cards.

i overlooked this the first time round....
what language is EtG actually written in?

btw, i've never occupied myself with flash applications before, so i've really got no idea.

[ZephyrPhantom]

A good suggestion, IMHO. From what we know ATM the game code is rather messy and thus makes it harder to edit in new features and cards.

i overlooked this the first time round....
what language is EtG actually written in?

btw, i've never occupied myself with flash applications before, so i've really got no idea.

I believe it's ActionScript2.

[MasterN]

i'm sorry Zblader... an answer like "rtfm" | "google" | "wikipedia" would also have sufficed. as it turnes out, flash isn't as complex as i expected it to be.

having that said, there's one thing i don't get. ActionScript having similaritys in syntax with C and java, and being object oriented (with many of the benifits that includes) leads me to believe, that one would have to spend energy to make the code messy.

with a class oriented system, the messiness is already restricted.
you create a class for every object in existence, and with proper documentation there is basically no way that changing stuff and finding the  neccessary dependencies will seriously break your legs.

[Xenocidius]

The game code isn't -that- messy, but is all over the place. It revolves around different frames in different MovieClips (objects), each frame encompassing a different subprocedure. You essentially end up with code in literally thousands of places, and 'method' calls that look like object.gotoAndPlay(2). Also, the eval function is used way, way too much. There is also the issue of massive code duplication. I'm not sure if Zanz has documented the code, but if he hasn't, I can imagine the game being a nightmare to develop.

So yes, the game engine should definitely be rewritten, but I'm not sure if Zanz has enough time on his hands to do that. With a game this big, it would take a large amount of time to modify the engine in a significant way. Ultimately though, it's his choice, and he can develop it however he wants while he's a single developer.

x.) sidenotes...
if you make a card like "relic", at least give it a synergy with reverse time or something....

Relic is meant to be sold, and giving it a function now would enrage players who followed the card text and sold it under the promise that it would never gain a useful purpose.

[MasterN]

The game code isn't -that- messy, but is all over the place.

that's what i'd call messy^^

So yes, the game engine should definitely be rewritten, but I'm not sure if Zanz has enough time on his hands to do that. With a game this big, it would take a large amount of time to modify the engine in a significant way. Ultimately though, it's his choice, and he can develop it however he wants while he's a single developer.

it isn't a matter of time, it's a matter of efficiency. nobody, and i do think that that would include Zanz, likes to stem a burden 5 times, if he could be done with stemming it twice (arbitrary numbers). if the development can be accelerated by having the foundation of the game being more efficient, it is win/win for everybody. Zanz would have more time at hand at the current rate of development, or the  development would be faster.
...but i can ramble on about efficiency all day.

a key question now is: has Zanz been made aware of this matter (wheter in the past or more recently)?
it's nice talking at length about listing the pros and the cons, talking about how it's somebody else's choice, ...
i don't really like doing that, but presently i don't see myself in a position, where i can just go an write Zanz a mail, saying: "yo, it's me, the new guy. i opened a very interesting topic in the forums, telling you how to do things. do you mind having a look at it?"
it's just going to go on the /ignore pile.

[Xenocidius]

I don't believe he's ever been made aware of the matter, no. And it's not as if we can just say, "Hey, Zanz, your code really sucks. I suggest spending an insurmountable amount of time rewriting the code of this free game to make it more efficient."

And, really, REALLY, is it any of our business? Why should we have any say in what goes on behind the scenes in the development of a free online game?

Anyway, who knows? Maybe he finds it to be efficient for him. Maybe he's planning to rewrite it. Maybe the code is actually virtual gold and Flash decompilers just mess it up terribly.

[MasterN]

I don't believe he's ever been made aware of the matter, no. And it's not as if we can just say, "Hey, Zanz, your code really sucks. I suggest spending an insurmountable amount of time rewriting the code of this free game to make it more efficient."

i don't see myself in a position, where i can just go an write Zanz a mail, saying: "yo, it's me, the new guy. i opened a very interesting topic in the forums, telling you how to do things. do you mind having a look at it?"

i think we agree on that^^

And, really, REALLY, is it any of our business? Why should we have any say in what goes on behind the scenes in the development of a free online game?

making decisions is none of our business, but is the entire froum section of "Game Suggestions and Feedback" a worthless waste of time? i'm doing nothing else, than present suggestions, that i think will help him, the players and the game itself. please do not interpret my words as an attempt to dictate policy. i don't know anything about Zanz. it would answer a lot of my questions, for example, if i'd know if he was a trained programmer or not.  if he is, then the "messy code" will indeed be a product of improper decompilation. if he learned it by himself, he might just not know. there are some other factors, that may lead to my words sounding improper, and if that's the case, then i'm sorry.

and again with the "free".
a game that surpasses all expectations will draw in by far more people than a game that lives up to general understanding of "free", which is: "if you didn't pay anything for it, it can't be good"
i don't like interpreting other peoples words (especially if its written text), but by saying it the way you just did, it sounds, to me, exactly like the excuse: "it has its faults, but since it's free, you've got no right to complain." if that were the case, then why would there be a suggestions subforum?

Anyway, who knows? Maybe he finds it to be efficient for him. Maybe he's planning to rewrite it. Maybe the code is actually virtual gold and Flash decompilers just mess it up terribly.

many maybes... the engine optimization topic was the smalles one in my original post, albeit the most important. there was the possibility that somebody beside the developer(s as i belived there were more than one) knows about it. the reason why i'm kind of hung up on it is, that there isn't anybody beside Zanz who knows the exact code (as it seems).