Nymph Metamorphosis

[Sir Valimont]

Let's all just be clear on one point: rarity =/= power.

Nymphs are not uber. Nymphs are not game breakers. Yes they can be strong. But they are subject to CC just like any other creature. Most of the sentiment against making them more fluid is that people will make some uber deck that no one can beat if they don't the have nymphs to counter them. That is not true simply because the game is balanced enough to be able to counter any new deck theme that comes from being able to shift nymphs.

Yes, some people have multiple nypmhs of the same element. Any one here actually fear those people as a direct result of their nymphs? No. It's because those nymphs are not as powerful as many are making them out to be. I agree, nymphs have power. But are they so uber that having multiple of one in a deck makes that deck too powerful? No.

I honestly don't see what is so wrong about allowing shifting of nymphs. It would only open up the metagame and that is only going to lead to better things. There was mention of longevity for the game. By allowing more deck choices you allow for longevity as a result. Anyone with CCG experience knows that the more choices in deck construction people have the more likely those people are to stick around.

I always hear about grinding and how it sucks. The pinnacle of grinding in this game isn't Elder or False Gods. It's logging in every morning to see if you're lucky enough to merit a nymph. I promise you it is easier to grind 2,000,000 score than it is to get 20% of the nymphs.

Again, I'll say it. the nymphs are not so uber that they can't be beaten. Not once has anyone in this thread said there should be more nymphs, only that people that have actually won one should be able to change their nymphs to something they can use. Thus their rarity stays intact, but their useful increases. I see nothing wrong with this in any way shape or form and I hope people opposed to this idea, or similar, see the positive aspects this can bring to the game.

You're missing the point of what I'm saying.

You are completely right that nymphs are not uber -- and that's the whole point. There is no reason to make it easier for people to get nymphs. The only reason people want the metamorphosis is because gamers always crave the next most powerful or the next most rare thing they don't have. There is no justifiable argument that somehow it's "unfair" that some players (very few) have a usable amount of nymphs. As you said, they are not uber, so it's not like those players have an unfair advantage of any significance.

The way nymphs are now, any single nymph any person ever gets is a real bonus. It's a really awesome, desirable, cool thing. When games have really awesome, desirable, cool things in them, two things happen: First of all, the game is more awesome, desirable and cool in general. Second of all, players start wanting those awesome, desirable, cool things and start asking game designers to have them. The problem is that giving those awesome, desirable, cool things to people suddenly makes them much less awesome, desirable and cool ... and that's bad for the game.

Just as an example, think about how this change will negatively affect PvP tournaments. I guarantee you that at least half of the participants will be less interested in tournaments (nymphs are prizes) because most of them will have 6 nymphs of the color they want. There is relatively WAAAAAAYY less incentive to get a 7th, 8th, 9th nymph in different colors then there is to get the first 6 for building a player's favorite deck.

[Kuross]

The way nymphs are now, any single nymph any person ever gets is a real bonus. It's a really awesome, desirable, cool thing. When games have really awesome, desirable, cool things in them, two things happen: First of all, the game is more awesome, desirable and cool in general. Second of all, players start wanting those awesome, desirable, cool things and start asking game designers to have them. The problem is that giving those awesome, desirable, cool things to people suddenly makes them much less awesome, desirable and cool ... and that's bad for the game.

With regard to the underlined- how? What exactly is the bonus if they are not uber or epically powerful?

If it's a matter of collecting for the sake of collecting, then put something in game that is completely mundane and innocuous and give nymphs some shifting ability. That way people can actually utilize a playable card in the game without having to grow white hair trying to get ones they can or want to use.

The sentiment here isn't "they're so rare that I gotta collect them all" but one of people saying "I got this nymph and because it's not one I can use it's completely worthless to me at the moment."
If nymphs were meant to be used for collecting-only purposes, then making them playable would not have been part of their creation.

I believe Zanz meant for these nymphs to add flavor to the game while giving people something to work to get by logging in every day. A reward so to speak for the time to actually log in and keep playing and those that have logged in more have had a greater chance to get one of these cool cards. However, I think people feel more punished than rewared when they get a nymph they don't want or can't use for whatever reason and I believe giving those players a chance to shift their nymphs is totally acceptable. It won't disrupt their rarity and it won't disrupt gameplay. It will only enhance everyone's gameplay experience.

[teffy]

However, I think people feel more punished than rewared when they get a nymph they don't want or can't use for whatever reason

Euh what ?
I say "yeah, a nymph! ".No matter which one I get. Of course, I´m more happy, when I get a nymph I like.
Maybe I ´ll find a deck for a "bad" nymph.  Maybe zanz makes a cool card I can use with it.

And the oracle can´t punish you. Are you punished, when you get a bike for christmas, but your neighbour gets a car ?


I begin to believe, that the question ,if we should have nymph metamorphosis is the same as the question, if you should exchange christmas presents ,you don´t like, for presents you like.

Here in the game, I say "No". It´s against the meaning of "oracle". The oracle has wisdom. It always gives you the right nymph. I´ve never heard of an oracle, which lets you choose your present.
If it wanted you to have another nymph, it would give it to you.

[Kuross]

I say "yeah, a nymph! .No matter which one I get". Of course, I´m more happy, when I get a nymph I like.
Maybe I ´ll find a deck for it.  Maybe zanz makes a cool card I can use with my nymph.

I agree with you that nymphs should be kept and I hold on to all mine in the hopes I can use them usefully one day.

However, I spend an enormous time talking people out of selling their nymphs because they neither see the use of them or they they just don't care. Granted most of them are newer players, but that begs the question- if these are really nice Christmas presents from Santa Oracle, then why is it an almost knee-jerk response for new players to sell them when they get them? It's either because they are not powerful enough to warrant use or they hold on to them with the hopes of making a deck with one someday, but never really do due to their lack of playability. Everyone I chat with about nymphs tend to agree that if they had more of one or another they'd use them more often. But since most people who have multiple nymphs usually span the elements they can't use them and they just sit on the shelf collecting dust.

Perhaps the problem is that nymphs are not powerful enough in general. If we're going to have a creature that takes months and months to get it should be uber enough to use. Otherwise, most nymph's only purpose is bragging rights on the chat. For this reason I say either make nymphs more uber or make them more playable. Since I feel most people would be more opposed to making them uber, then making more playable is the next logical choice. Otherwise most nymphs will just be epic collectors of dust in a player's library.

By the way, anyone ever just get something horrid for Christmas and feel totally ripped off? I love getting a really ugly Christmas sweater instead of that toy you spent months begging your mom and dad to get you for Christmas

[Fallower]

People only want metamorphosis so that they can have a larger variety of cards in-game.
I think nymphs are good as they are.

[catalyzeme]

I am against having any way to change your Nymphs, but if it were to implemented, hypothetically, all the suggestions in this thread have been basically free. Cheaper than an upgrade to change a Nymph? That basically makes it pointless to have more than a couple Nymphs. Maybe 4 or 5, some crazy decks with 6, but you could basically play for a couple months and have enough Nymphs to use any combination at almost no cost. The way they are now, it's pretty cool to get one right up until you complete your collection of 6 (or 12) of each, which is 72/144 Nymphs. Or a very long time. If you can change them at will, they probably would stop being interesting at about your 7th or 8th Nymph.

If there was some system to change Nymphs, I think it would have to be on the order of 15,000 - 50,000 electrum per metamorphosis. If they cost the same as 10 or 20 upgrades, any frequent player could easily save up to do it, but you can't just go crazy changing your Nymphs from day-to-day however you please. An upgraded deck right now costs 45000 - 90,000, just for the upgrades. Making a deck cost 30-100% more to include any Nymph you want seems pretty reasonable to me.

I would still be against it, but the way the suggestions are now, they might as well be suggesting that the Oracle give you 1 of each element every time you win a Nymph. You can just go over to the War Auction and see that even relatively new players could easily give up rares and trivial amounts of electrum without even noticing it. You could maintain the emphasis on rarity (which is clearly important since they can't be won on spins) much more effectively if you make the metamorphosis prohibitively expensive.

[SnoWeb]

Essentially with this system, once you have won 1 nymph you have won them all.  So that actually gives you a quantity of "specialness" changed--nymphs will be 12 times less special than they were before.

I completely agree!

I have  nymphs. I can't do much with this. It's cool and could help sometime but not crazy good. With this tool and a bit of grinding I could easily arrive to 4  nymphs. Ouch ... If I can do that, what could the more experience player do? I don't want to spend a PvP session fighting decks containing 6 nymphs one after the other!

It's a very attractive idea but IMHO it's a bad idea.

[genraenera]

Well, this is quite the polarizing issue isn't it?  From reading the post over these first three pages I see two basic camps, with two, well reasoned arguments.

Anti-metamorphosis:  This idea will hurt the game because nymphs are intended to be extremely rare; allowing people to change a nymph from one element to another decreases their inherent rarity.

Pro-metamorphosis:  This idea will help the game because it allows greater freedom for people to experiment with new deck concepts, while not creating "overpowered" nymph decks, and while also not decreasing the rareness factor of nymphs.



In essence, where one stands on this issue seems to lean on weather or not one believes the ability to change a nymph from one element to another does indeed decrease the rarity and specialty of nymphs.

Anti-metamorphosis view:  The rarity of nymphs is decreased because with this mechanic one nymph would equal all twelve nymphs, the restriction being that you only can use one at any given time.

Pro-metamorphosis view:  The rarity of nymphs is unharmed because metamorphosis would be expensive enough to discourage (or even disallow) frequent metamorphosis, but players who have always wanted "that one nymph" get their prized nymph.


I personally agree more with the Pro-metamorphosis view, but its good to see those poll results.  Interpret from this thread what you will, and lets try to stay civil 

[Hyroen]

Lovely idea but no. Nymph Metamorphosis would not affect the rarity of nymphs. The chances of receiving a nymph I assume are constant.

Nymphs should be given to you by fate and the elemental order in which you order is particular and special to each different account, something which encourages creative deckbuilding and makes your account what it is. Anyone can buy a photon, but not everyone can say I first got a Black Nymph, then a Nymph Queen and then another Black Nymph.

I would personally hate it if people were given the chance to change their nymphs, think about all the specialized decks out there, and getting 6 different nymphs is no impossible feat either. Getting different nymphs discourages easy builds of Nymphs + Armagio or Nymphs in Ray of Hope decks.

But then again, to each their own...

[Korugar]

Well, I wouldn't be opposed to someone being able to change an extra nymph into another element(once you have 13 from one), but nothing more.

[catalyzeme]

Pro-metamorphosis view:  The rarity of nymphs is unharmed because metamorphosis would be expensive enough to discourage (or even disallow) frequent metamorphosis, but players who have always wanted "that one nymph" get their prized nymph.

I just reread the whole thread to make sure (and I apologize if I missed something), but it looks to me like everyone that is pro-metamorphosis wants it to be cheap, not expensive. The pro-metamorphosis suggestions have been on the scale of 100-3000 electrum. I am by no means wealthy, but that is pretty trivial in the context of this game. You can win 1000-3000 from a single False God victory. An hour of T50 or AI3 will probably get you that, too.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

Pro-metamorphosis view:  The rarity of nymphs is unharmed because metamorphosis would be expensive enough to discourage (or even disallow) frequent metamorphosis, but players who have always wanted "that one nymph" get their prized nymph.

I just reread the whole thread to make sure (and I apologize if I missed something), but it looks to me like everyone that is pro-metamorphosis wants it to be cheap, not expensive. The pro-metamorphosis suggestions have been on the scale of 100-3000 electrum. I am by no means wealthy, but that is pretty trivial in the context of this game. You can win 1000-3000 from a single False God victory. An hour of T50 or AI3 will probably get you that, too.

I'm pro metamorphosis, but would even make use of it if it cost a whopping 30000 electrum. Electrum you can get with ease, different nymphs you can't (without nymph metamorphosis that is). Though I agree there would probably be quite some people that would not use it if it were that expensive.