Pillar deck in TOP50

[plastiqe]

The idea of the T50 was to have a set of well designed decks that change every week. For a little while T50 decks have been the highest level in elements (months ago).

Players however decided to use it to create "farm decks" and distribute the rare cards as much as possible. I do understand the intent of being helpful and generous, but at the same time this practice actually eliminated "rare" cards from elements.

I know most players sound frustrated when cards are rare, they want them and they ask everyone how to get those, ending up writing in the forum about "how impossible" is to have a certain card (does not happen anymore, it did a few months ago). But I do believe all the frustration is worth the moment when you finally get a rare card that almost nobody else have... also called "wow effect".

Right now winning a rare card is mostly a "finally, was waiting for it" then a "wow". I am aware of that and I intend to change it. I knew about this problem and I have been working on a solution for a while (even before this post appeared)

I soon will be adding new cards that have a new (higher) level of rarity and cannot be a reward from T50 decks. The new water alchemy card (Nymph's tears) is probably going to be one of those and it will replace the "arctic octopus" as the water rare card; the octopus is going to be for sale at the bazaar.

I am still thinking for a name for those cards: maybe "legendary".

Winning a legendary card is going to be purely luck-based, they will randomly appear in the slots, even for lvl1, in very rare occasions, something like a "jackpot". It has to be luck-based because I want it to be unexpected, not something you "farm", it has to have a "wow-effect" and only a very few players will have those cards. Legendary cards do not add new game mechanics that would be available to a few elected, they will make common game mechanics available in a different way.

If a card is extremely rare, a predefined deck configuration (find deck on the forum, buy cards, farm rares, done) is not possible and a more varied deck population is possible.

No need to guess at zanzarino's intentions.  He could easily have just removed the spins from T50 if he wanted to stop rare farms but he didn't, instead we got stuff like the oracle with Nymphs, and Mark cards from tournaments.

The problem with making the weapons super rare is that they are necissary if you wanna progress in elements.

[Ashebrethafe]

Hitting a button that says "enter" doesn't mean there is a rule that you can enter.. that doesn't make any sense. A rule is somethin stated or generally understood by the affected group. Words do have meaning, and hitting T50 means that you're going to play a game against the last deck that a player in the top 50 scores was playing with. That doesn't mean that the deck has to be a super-deck or a false god farming deck, it just means that the player used it.

I agree with gutsyDuck that the difficulty of T50 is implied -- and not just by the words "top 50." T50 is also the "level 4" AI. When I click that button, I don't necessarily expect a super deck, but I expect it to be harder to beat than level 3 -- which is why I suggested restricting it to decks that have beaten level 3 at least once.

so what is the difference between all card accessible in bazaar and pillar deck in T50 ? The first one is more equal for everybody.

Difference is that if you put all the cards in the bazaar then you have no rare cards. Rare cards make the game fun. Obtaining rares gives a sense of accomplishment. With the T50 you still need to find the farms and work for getting them and it's "fun/enjoyable" winning them.

Yes, giving players another way of getting rare cards would decrease their rarity -- but I still think the combined effect of both my suggestions would be an increase in the rarity of rare cards.

Farms essentially give the top 50 players the ability to give away an infinite number of whatever "rare" cards we ask for, at no cost to themselves. As plastiqe shows, zanz doesn't want this to happen. (Removing the spins from T50 doesn't really make sense, either -- most T50 decks aren't farms, and players who beat them shouldn't get less of a reward than they would for beating a level-3 opponent.) I'm suggesting that instead, players should be able to sell each other their rare cards -- and even their "legendary" cards, but only to those who put as many "legendary" cards up for sale themselves.

[Svenningen]

The 'rare' cards are no longer rare. Its not something i personally think, its become more of a fact. But they are still not in sale at the bazar, meaning that u still need to do SOME work to get them, and that i like, a LITTLE challenge, for cards that are absolutely needed. I'd say that the "rare's" such as weapons,pharaoh,miracle,squid and shards, i wont call them rares, but rather "uncommon" wich i think is a more fitting name. Whereas the nymphs are the rares and the marks are looked on as legendary =) This tho is just my entripetration (MISSPELLED, please correct me).

And then again about the t50 farms, I do absolutely approve of them, but what i think should be added, is a bigger scoreloss of backing out to the menu. What lots of people do is, they find a farmlist, and they back out to the menu when they are not facing gods, thus getting more losses and loosing more score. But i think the scoreloosage should be doubled or something, so people would refrain from backing out. but that creates another problem, man this is hard.

How about adding 2 weekly quests, from quest nr1 wich the goal should be 1500score+ and u can choose 1rare. the second should be 3k score(?) and u can choose another one. That way dedicated players can get 2rares a week, and less dedicated can still manage 1.

EDIT: after re-reading this, i think new weekly quests is the best option, and thus removing farms.

[plastiqe]

Repeating weekly quests would be super, not to sure about in the details you suggest but a great idea none the less.  You should start a new thread about it Sven.

Oh, and **interpretation.  : )

[bojengles77]

How about adding 2 weekly quests, from quest nr1 wich the goal should be 1500score+ and u can choose 1rare. the second should be 3k score(?) and u can choose another one. That way dedicated players can get 2rares a week, and less dedicated can still manage 1.

EDIT: after re-reading this, i think new weekly quests is the best option, and thus removing farms.

This idea reminds me of "dailies" from World of Warcraft. The concept is that you can gain great benefits by putting some time into the game - in WoW it was money, in Elements it can be rares. I would be all in favor of this idea.

[Svenningen]

How about adding 2 weekly quests, from quest nr1 wich the goal should be 1500score+ and u can choose 1rare. the second should be 3k score(?) and u can choose another one. That way dedicated players can get 2rares a week, and less dedicated can still manage 1.

EDIT: after re-reading this, i think new weekly quests is the best option, and thus removing farms.

This idea reminds me of "dailies" from World of Warcraft. The concept is that you can gain great benefits by putting some time into the game - in WoW it was money, in Elements it can be rares. I would be all in favor of this idea.

Aye, thus were i developed the idea from. Im not sure myself as of what the quests should be, but ill think of something and make a suggestion =)

[Kurohami]

Warning, long post! Don't read it if it makes your head hurt.
First time ever I saw someone complaining about the fact that there are farm decks....... Farm deck really added a warm humility to this game, you feel you are surrounded by friendly comrades who wants to help you instead of just beating the crap out of each other. If you are looking for a challenge, then top50 is certainly not the place to go, I'm sure you can still find some challenge there, but many of those decks are not AI friendly even if it's not a farm. Well, if you have a problem with farm decks then don't play top50, there really isn't much in top50 other than farms that you can't find elsewhere. It does not break the system in anyway and it helped promote the game greatly, if you can't get those rares then you can't make many effective decks while some other "lucky" guy did and they started god farming and get rich while you keep trying to slot out a rare. Would that be fair? Luck is never fair, so why give it so much power? Putting it in the bazaar would completely destroy the point of rarity while top50 do not. It's not really that easy to get the rare you want in the top50 in case you don't know, I spent massive amount of time grinding and was not able to get a pulverizer until a month ago. What better ways, other than friendly members of the top50 can you think of that would let people get rares with a decent chance while not destroying the rarity element altogether? I am ever thankful to those farm setters and I'm sure most people feel the same way.

I like to lecture, don't I?

[smuglapse]

Bottom line:  The developers are aware of it and if they don't want it, it will either be hard-coded out or a rule will be added.  If you want to do more to "earn" your rares, play AI3 or 6.

[jmizzle7]

First things first - zanz doesn't like rare farms. He only allows the current rare farm situation to continue because he couldn't stop it previously without: 1) completely denying new players the chances that other players had before them to get rares, or 2) doing a global account wipe, which would make a ton of players rage quit Elements. The problem got too big for zanz to deal with it, and as a result, he left it alone and tried to find a way to deal with it when he developed a new batch of cards. We now have the Oracle because of all of his hard work.

The Oracle and PvP tournaments are zanzarino's solution to the rare problem. Nobody complains about this system. Why? Because it works! Rares are distributed randomly and as rewards for winning tournaments. This system is in accordance with his vision for Elements: the Game, which is to have 100% of the game's content available to all players.

[MaxMilen]

Personally, the rare farms do little good for me; I already have (almost) all of the (farmable) rares I could want, and I also have a high score (as I write this, it's almost 45,000) and plenty of electrum.

Nevertheless, while I can think of a relatively simple way to stop rare farms from working from here on out, I'm not going to say it. Why? Because I don't really think they should be gotten rid of. If I do need another copy of a certain rare, there's a good chance I can get it. Plus, there's the less advanced players to think of, the ones who don't have the resources I do. To be able to compete well in the high AI levels or in PVP, they need those cards, and while they CAN be gotten from AI's, it's hard to do, because the player has to luck into facing the right AI deck, beat it, and get lucky in the slots.

With the farms, that's easier. You still have to luck into facing the right deck, but winning isn't as difficult (to put it mildly), and the odds on the slots are higher. So, it's easier to get the rare you need, but not so easy as to completely defeat the purpose of the cards being rare.

Also, there is another benefit for us players who don't actually need the rares -- the "goldfish test". The term refers to testing a deck against an opponent that does nothing; it's a way to see how well your deck works without having to worry about the interaction with the opponent. This can often be informative, such as to help figure out what kind of hands you'll tend to get, how long you need to set up, and so on.