How to improve ETG and keep veterans addicted

[ralouf]

So.. I've seen many topics with noobs asking for change after loosing vs a dim shield chain or a ghostmare. I'm not one of them. I'm one of the guy who played this game the most, and I also participated in a lot of event/ involved myself in this community (see posts/score/trophy). If I'm writing this it's because I have a real problem.

I agree that some cards are OP/annoying, I agree that SoFo and SoSac weren't bad idea but my issue is even bigger than that : THE GAME IS ANNOYING. I don't mean that if you play 1000 games you'll get annoyed, it's very addcitive. But for my part I have almost 30 000 games vs AI and a thousand in pvp duel and I'm annoyed now.

Why ? because the decks that works are always THE SAME. lemme explain : every decks are based on whether an OP/good cards (dim for example), whether 2 OP/good cards (nova+graboid), whether a very good synergy (GotP + nightmare). Then the WHOLE deckbuilding is just to put 6 of thoses cards, add a good quanta balance, a few cards that fit well ad you have ONE OF THE BEST deck in the game. I find that pretty sad. When I see decks like that :

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pu

or that  :

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Deck import code : [Select]

6rk 6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 8ps

Beeing considered as good decks.. And those decks had domintated the pvp/farm few times ago.

What's lacking here is diversity. For me a fun and enjoyable to play deck doesn't have more than 4/5 examplar of one card. Sadly everytime I built deck like that I always lost vs deck with 6 examplar of a good card. Hence my suggestion is to lower the number of examplar allowed. to 4 or 5. don't tell me it'll make things too much random, in mtg we use 4 exemplar in 60 cards.

So you'll think that this rule will kill all the rushy decks ? You're right. In the current state of the game there is no mono deck, or very few at least that can build a good rush deck with 4 exemplar of each cards. So where this idea will lead us ? Whether it'll slow the whole game, with rush deck using some PC/CC/draw, whether we can add more creatures in the game. A Lot of elements won't be hurt by the addition of a good mid/semi-high range attacker (I prefer to keep them weaker than dragon though) to allow pure rush to survive. Don't tell me it's so hard to do the CI&A is full of good creatures ideas. I specially like creature with an ability, and even more when this ability is from an other elements, which will make players play more duos.

Finally I think this is a good idea because all the deck based on 6novas/SN will now be slower, annoying deck will have less annoying cards, and finally it'll totally redesign the metagame.

Then a last note : I'm not against the shards, SoSac was OP but I didn't complained on forum because it was still possible to win (lot of healing, no damage, sundial, antimatter etc..) But SoFo is plenty ridiculous, in the unupped metagame a sofo turn 1 can't be killed or almost, then it's awesomely effective vs all type of deck (yes destroying 3 pillars hurt a lot a rush deck, specially with a BH coming right after). This point is still less important than the rest of this post.

Waiting for thoughts/idea/suggestions/ZANZ/haters.

[rosutosefi]

I do agree that the 6-card in 30-card deck is too much. Plus, this will also buff duos and trios, which encourages creativity in the game. One problem is that rainbows will rule the metagame and I think something needs to be done about that.

[Shrink]

You know, this is the stupidest idea I have seen by far in the community. AND ALSO. I hate you ralf! /fake rant

Anyways, I agree that this 6x card slot per card is exploited way too much, and that many of the decks are solely based around the strength of one card (Hence the dims and grabbies above).

Not change to five. Change to four. It will induce new deck building. Everyone would be okay if it was five cards because players would then do an easy swap for the missing slot. With four, players would seriously have to modify decks and strategy.

I have not had as near much experience, but I still know exactly what you're talking about. Despite having played half as many games in either area, I understand how unpleasant it can be to see the same unoriginal decks day in and day out. You've made a pretty decent argument for what you want to happen.

+1

[ralouf]

I do agree that the 6-card in 30-card deck is too much. Plus, this will also buff duos and trios, which encourages creativity in the game. One problem is that rainbows will rule the metagame and I think something needs to be done about that.

Yeah in the current state rainbow deck will dominate I guess( not so much due to beeing slower than what we have now, with only 4 novas), hence my idea of implement more creatures to make mono still playable.

@Shrink : Agreed, it just depend how much we want to change the game, 5 will slightly modify decks, 4 will made us run into a total new metagame.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

It really doesn't solve much once we, like in an ideal world, have a wide card pool to choose from. Instead of 6 copies of one card one could use 4 copies of 2 cards with similar usage: rainbows already massively use this, which is one of the problems with rainbows. Rather than a card copy being restricted I'd rather see copies of card types being restricted. not entirely sure about details, but going duo only to use two cards with similar purpose seems rather silly. EQ Devs is actually quite a good example, neither 6 EQs nor 6 Devs is good enough for a lockdown, but together (or even 4 each) they are. Same with Discord and Black Hole.

Although these decks are currently relatively balanced by their lack of damage coming from so many cards dedicated to denial they are perceived as being annoying. Same with decks that have for example 6 Fire Bolts and 6 Rage Potions for killing creatures, though Fahrenheit ensures a solid damage for those.

[ralouf]

@TorB : I agree, but with less nova/SN rainbow are going to be much slower. Your proposition may be good but we're very likely to see everyone using rush-control deck without having the choice ^^.
Also yes DBH, EQ/pest are annoying, but I'm not against those decks. Also just things about those strategy with only 4 exemplar of the main cards. it'll force player to include more various cards in their decks, which will lead to a less annoying deck. Same for a deck with 4 firebolt 4ragepot will be less annoying.

[Captain Scibra]

4 sounds about good for the max.  Perhaps it could be more of a ratio per deck size.  4 for the first 30 cards, and an additional for each of the remaining pair of 15-card intervals.

[ralouf]

4 sounds about good for the max.  Perhaps it could be more of a ratio per deck size.  4 for the first 30 cards, and an additional for each of the remaining pair of 15-card intervals.

That may be a very good idea, I just hope that it won't make stall too powerfull though

[MasterN]

impressive.
bored after 30k games..... that's some determination.
i think collectively i've got about 3-4k, and i quit once, and i have a thread running to decide whether to do so again or not^^

i kinda have a raging

right now. as thought i went through all of this 2 years ago already...

but anyway...
i sort of hate to "advertise" my threads, but it kinda revolves around and incorporates your sugestion in its entirety (and i'm kind of desperate for immediate attention^^).
and because i don't want to quote: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,40569.0.html

have any thoughts about that?

[ralouf]

Obviously I had seen this thread, they are some good ideas but it's too much general, in this thread I want to focus on this thing because I think it's the most important thing in the game.

[Gandora]

i can understand the problem but i think it's very hard to avoid.

if you look at the tutorials of deck building it says to use synergies and to focus on strategies.
in my opinion the most combinations, even strange/difficult ones have been exploited over the years.
I mean, most card usages are discovered before they're even in trainer.
most players will certainly get inspiration in the forum and many want to win, be it for electrum or to gain new shards.
so it does not surprise that we're going after efficiency.
Same goes with pvp. i don't have much experience there but i guess most
play stuff like pests, rush decks, mono or rainbow?

Except for trainer there's no place where you can actually just play with a strange deck which sometimes works sometimes not.
Of course there's no guarantee for it but I guess most people would try out other decks than the most common ones if they wouldn't mind to lose.

So in my opinion it might help to make people care less of losing or maybe create something like a pvp where you don't lose any money (and don't have to join chat).
Because it would encourage them to play with a deck they think is fun but less efficient/fast and maybe they'd be surprised that they can actually beat plenty of those popular decks.

I also wonder what you'd like to see. The rare times I go pvp i'm happy when i don't encounter a death/grabbi/immo/life rush or rainbow.
It'd be nice to see e.g. a steam deck once in a while. the card is known but not often played. Why's that? Because you probably lose since there are many
other faster decks or that are known as more efficient.
I remember, I once went with a Psion+Blessing+Epi deck in pvp and most people found it nice to encounter something different. However, I had bad luck that day and lost 5 of 7 matches xD

However, I'm personally not too sure about the card limitation... it surely would have a huge impact.

[regen2k9]

By limiting the maximum number of card copies to 4, while this definitely helps trios and rainbows, it kills monos imo.  Don't get me wrong ralouf, I actually love your idea! Being an mtg player myself, I can completely relate to a 4 card copy maximum, 60 card minimum metagame.  The thing is, even in type II standard (mtg tournaments with the last 2 blocks of cards), mtg decks have a minimum of about 800 cards to choose from.  Elements decks don't have that luxury.  So, I like your idea, but I feel like we'd need more cards  before we could enact this change, in order to not kill monos.  That being said, dropping the maximum number of card copies to 5 now might still be viable.