Handicap System for the arena

[Vendanna]

Give my thanks to Shard of gratitude, also note that increase in HP actually favor more the mid-range/stalling strategies more than the aggresive ones, since they have time to put its game and locking you out.

Also, I don't think that what the thread opener suggest with actually affect anything. if mostly because the people that put these decks doesn't even care on how many electrum will gain or the "score" penalty of the deck if what they check is number of win-loss. (and face it rogue decks featuring awesome cards as that earth armor will probably loose more than win)

Also about human nature, people prefer to go with "what wins" rather than consume energy thinking a deck that is uncertain it will be any good. (if not look at how creative are people outhere on other card games)

[pervepic]

I like it, because it gives different tasks every time when circumstances change.

[SnoWeb]

Would this be hard to code or create alot more traffic on the servers somehow? I'm no expert but I could imagine the development team not having enough time/resources to implement this. (edit: just saw Pika said the exact same!)

To record the number of time a card is played, the development Team (which is not big) could either use the already existing statistics (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20533.0.html) which are sadly not focussed on the arena. They could also create a new database centred on the arena by simply using the deck-codes one submit to the arena.
Concerning the attribution of the different handicap values, I have no idea how hard it is to code. I however believe it would be similar to what is already used to attribute the rating value and electrum rewards in the various leagues. Concerning the server resources, I suppose that such things would be only a tinny bit of the access required to submit a deck but I might be wrong.
The only way to have a clear answer here is to ask Zanzarino or another coding professional.

Also, I don't think that what the thread opener suggest with actually affect anything. if mostly because the people that put these decks doesn't even care on how many electrum will gain or the "score" penalty of the deck if what they check is number of win-loss. (and face it rogue decks featuring awesome cards as that earth armor will probably loose more than win)

Be carefull, the rating of a deck is different from your personal score. Your personal score affect the level (0 < level < 80 - 69 on the picture below) and the league (bronze, silver, gold or platinum - platinum on the picture below) of the AI decks you submit. The individual rating (97 on the picture below) of an AI deck affects the rank of said deck in the leaderboard (100 in the picture below) and indirectly the chance you have to play against it. The handicap system would not affect your score but only the rating of the deck. It means that with a higher handicap a deck would probably have a lower rating and therefore a lower chance to be played against or a higher chance to be kicked out ... No need that the players decide to change their deck for the effect of the system to be visible (You don't need to sell your stock options from them to worth less) ... Their deck will win as much as before but they'll have a lower rating ...

Also about human nature, people prefer to go with "what wins" rather than consume energy thinking a deck that is uncertain it will be any good. (if not look at how creative are people outhere on other card games)

I don't know why so many people go to casinos then. Some people are players. If  playing a heavy armor/otyough deck (which btw can be scary), you can win 10 times more electrum than playing a firestall you might still give a try (specially if you win only 4 times less).

[Vendanna]

I don't know why so many people go to casinos then. Some people are players. If  playing a heavy armor/otyough deck (which btw can be scary), you can win 10 times more electrum than playing a firestall you might still give a try (specially if you win only 4 times less).

Ludopaty mostly is the reason people go to casinos, also while heavy armor/otyugh seems scary in reality you either have dealed with the otyough with some form of creature control, or it got poisoned or in the end for being so defensive you cannot kill the opponent before you deck out. tought that's mostly a problem with heavy armor being rather on the weak side.

And while you can gain 10 times more electrum... look with a win you gain 5 electrum (at least myself without EM), and with your purposed change you get 50 electrum... guess what? I don't care about that small electrum gain, at all. Since by actual playing you get more. Not to say that in gold (where I'm placing my decks atm) if you start with 2 losses or so your deck would be inactive which made my "original creation" a total waste of time compared to a handicapped firestall 30-2

imho atm I have submitted a paraoh deck that has no Shards of gratitude and still amazed me with 4-1 Oo

[SnoWeb]

And while you can gain 10 times more electrum ... look with a win you gain 5 electrum (at least myself without EM), and with your purposed change you get 50 electrum... guess what? I don't care about that small electrum gain, at all. Since by actual playing you get more. Not to say that in gold (where I'm placing my decks atm) if you start with 2 losses or so your deck would be inactive which made my "original creation" a total waste of time compared to a handicapped firestall 30-2

The following example is made with dummy numbers - just to explain the principle ...

In platinum at the moment a win gives you +10 points rating and a loss -45.
If you play a deck with a high handicap (let say a fire rush with a H value of 0.5) each win will give you +10x0.5=5 and each loss -45x(1/0.5)=-90. You (with a 30|2 ratio) will end up with 30x5 + 2x(-90) = -30 rating (instead of 30x10 + 2x(-45) = 210 right now). Each win will give you 10x0.5 = 5 electrum x30 = 150 electrum (instead of 300).
On the other end, a mutation deck with a low handicap (let say H = 1.7) will have +10x1.7=17 rating points for each win and -45x(1/1.7)=-26. If the deck ends up with a 18|12 ratio ( (30/2)/(18/12)=15/1.5=10 times less than the fire rush above), it will have 18x17 + 12x(-26) = -6 rating (instead of 18x10 + 12x(-45) = -360 right now) which is higher than the fire rush. Each win will give you 10x1.7 = 17 electrum x18 = 306 electrum (instead of 170) which is also higher than the fire rush.

Finally, if you play a medium efficient not in vogue mutation deck you will earn more than with a widely used super efficient fire rush. Obviously if you play a trash deck (which looses more than it wins) you will end up below the 2 others (but nobody wants the contrary). Also this works only if you use cards which are not widely used ...

I like it, because it gives different tasks every time when circumstances change.

True, this is another advantage. As the handicapped cards will change the low handicapped decks will change at every update. The challenge will be different every day ...

[PlayerOa]

SnoWeb, you're a genious.

I'm actually started to become bored of Arena because of the numberless firestalls and speedbows. With this arena can be a more fun challenge.

[TheManuz]

I like this system! I hope Zanzarino see this thread and think about it! 

[Rutarete]

I like this system! I hope Zanzarino see this thread and think about it! 

^ + rep

[Bootsza]

Nice idea SnoWeb!  I love it but I fear for how much coding would be involved...  the good news is I remember seeing a list from Zanz of the most used cards in the game back in the day of T50...

[DrunkDestroyer]

I am not a very big fan of polls. I'd rather see people explain why they like (or dislike) this idea. If I put a poll up, I fear that most reader will stop at the OP, vote and go away. I'd rather see some constructive feedback here. Also Zanzarino said he didn't really paid attention to the polls. I tend to agree. If all the post are positive, it means most people like the idea. However, if the majority think I should put up a poll, I will.

I vote no to the poll.

Best thread/suggestion on here for a while.


Now, off to test my silence/fractal/wings/damseldragon killa!

[Xenocidius]

Put up a poll so we can vote on whether or not a poll should be put up.

Would this be hard to code or create alot more traffic on the servers somehow? I'm no expert but I could imagine the development team not having enough time/resources to implement this. (edit: just saw Pika said the exact same!)

The "development team" ... you mean Zanzarino?

[suxerz]

As what others have mentioned, this is indeed a good idea! Just some quick thoughts that I have about the system:

• I think the oracle card shouldn't be counted towards the deck's H value because this is simply not fair as you have no control over these cards and we shouldn't discourage new decks to be submitted. Though I have a feeling you already thought of this.
  
  
  
• Since the value of each cards is dynamic, it would be great if there is a some sort of card "leaderboard" to show the highest and lowest value. Though we may have a general idea which cards are more common than others (e.g. cards in firestall, discord/BH, death rush, GotP/nightmare), it could help some extreme players that create decks to win in arena. I'm not quite sure how the full stats (all 222 cards) will be, but I imagine a summary of 50 of the highest and lowest would be just fine. Probably even omitting the negligible cards such as marks and nymphs. On the other hand, I can imagine that majority will probably still use these usual decks anyway. Thus, this might not be really necessary.
  
  
  
• I assume that for this to work, we need a different set of statistic just for the arena to calculate the H value. My concern is that this is quite a small sampling size (around ~2,500 decks throughout the arena?) when compared to the whole game. But to use the current stats (the whole game) doesn't seem logical either.
  
  Honestly, I'm not that good with stats/math/estimating stuff, so the following statement might just be a bunch of BS. :|
  
  Due to the relatively small sampling size, I think the dynamic value of each cards might have greater impact than intended. And these values changes every time a new deck been submitted. - in other words; wouldn't it be too dynamic to follow?
  
  Probably a simple solution is to have each league has its own card values. Err.. I don't know how to explain this but basically when a PSN deck goes rampant in gold league, it will not affect bronze,silver or platinum league. This would mean bronze will be more dynamic than platinum due to more population there. Maybe I'm thinking about this too much, but I imagine this could also minimize the "punishment" towards the new players since more decks submitted in bronze means more variety.
  
  On the other hand, by limiting the values within leagues also means a lot smaller sampling size; which leads to even bigger impact for the card values. Hmm.. I guess I just stop here before I go nuts.  >.<

Bottom line is I really like the basic principle of this idea and I would support it all the way, but I feel more thoughts need to be put in. Probably a more definite calculations would help especially on two parts - the values of each card and the "H value" of a deck. From there we could try to estimate how this would impact the arena decks especially the supposedly unconventional decks. i.e. would an unconventional deck such as a PSN hope-bow with luci and some PC still have good "H value"?