Remove gold cost of matches

[ikinone]

Let's say you die on hard mode. Do you have to play through the beginning of hard mode again? Yeah.

If you lose a match, you have to play the match from the beginning again? Yeah.

Everything would be so much better if nothing happened when you die.

Exactly.

But then there would be no incentive for survival, you would just max out DPS and grind until you can one-hit whatever you're going to face. As you can see, in a game like Diablo II, something akin to "removing gold cost of matches" would make it more casual, aka easier, but wouldn't improve the playing experience at all.

Sorry that is plain wrong. People do not build survival decks to avoid losing gold. They build different decks for different ways to win. Some people find a more defensive deck is more successful, some people find a more aggressive deck is more successful. As has been mentioned, saving gold is really not an issue for experienced players. This is something that only affects how new players play the game. It would affect how long all players spend grinding of course, but experienced players could play just as they did before. It would certainly improve the game experience for new players. Perhaps it would not for you, but that is your opinion. I am sorry to say not everyone shares your opinion (though it seems most people on these forums do, because I suspect most people here are experienced players, and they balk at the thought of newer players having it easier than they did).

If you want to build decks, use the trainer (http://elementsthegame.com/trainer).
If you want to use decks, however, spend time on the game. Since you said "it doesn't take experience to know how to play a deck" (which isn't true, since so many noobs fail with CCYB, Shak'ars, and LSAM), then being able to build decks should be fun enough for all these poor, pitiful "casual players", even if they can't use the decks they make, right?
Now, maybe you want them to be able to PvP with the decks, too. Making a deck isn't as fun as playing with the deck? That is saying that you want everyone to reach the end-game as quickly as possible.
This is a strategy card game, not a collectible card game. You only need all the rares and all the upgrades if you want all the rares and all the upgrades. The people who want to reach the end-game will reach the end-game, the people who don't want to reach the end-game won't. Imagine if Blizzard flattened the EXP curve so that everyone could reach the level cap in a day. They would have all the benefits possible, what's wrong with that? They shouldn't have to waste time to be able to PvP competitively with people of higher levels.

You are way off track. It is more like ''Imagine if Blizzard changed it so players lost levels when they died''. Some MMOs have that feature. Guess what, WoW (the most popular MMO, especially for casuals) does not.

You asked us for reasoning, but your request was redundant. Opportune cost exists, we don't need to prove it exists because it exists. Saying things like that is like saying "prove that the sky is blue" or "prove that the grass is green." No pain, no gain. This is a rule ingrained in our very society, you can't just dismiss it as a premise by saying, "You didn't prove it yet."

I am not debating the existence of opportune cost. I am debating what you apply it to and why.

None of us are exaggerating. You're underestimating. This game's interface of losing money if you lose isn't the problem, the problem is in the fact that newbies cannot get the information that allows them to make the highest profit in the long-term. Without the electrum cost, you would be able to upgrade 30 cards each hour, farming with the right un-upgraded deck. You say that maybe the decks need balancing, but the thing is that if the FGs were so powerful that no two FGs could be countered by the same deck, then is there really any point to farming FGs at all? Unless the FGs are uber-buffed, you would need to re-balance every card in the game so that no one deck can beat more than one type of opponent. This is the inevitable outcome your suggestion, either the game becomes too easy, or the game becomes stupid.

You are making very obscure claims here. You could easily farm enough gold to farm the FGs for an hour, and if you truly earned enough money to upgrade 30 cards (45000 ) then you would be able to exponentially increase your funds.  You seem to be saying that electrum is pointless anyway, yet at the same time you are telling me it is essential.

[jippy99]

Im going back to what Zblader said awhile back.  Doing this is like investing in a stock and always getting a positive outcome.  I get that this is a fantasy game, but you have to be somewhat realistic.  And can you do one thing for me?  Give me 2 more reasons why this would be a good idea other than it would make the game more fun, easier, and more attracting to the new and causal players.  And btw, this line from your last post: People do not build survival decks to avoid losing gold. They build different decks for different ways to win.  It means the same thing.  Building a deck to win is building a deck that can avoid losing which means losing gold.

[Pineapple]

You are making very obscure claims here. You could easily farm enough gold to farm the FGs for an hour, and if you truly earned enough money to upgrade 30 cards (45000 ) then you would be able to exponentially increase your funds.  You seem to be saying that electrum is pointless anyway, yet at the same time you are telling me it is essential.

You're the one trying to save electrum by removing the cost of gold matches. Electrum, being so easy to gain once you start the game, is pointless. I never said it was essential at all.

[ikinone]

Im going back to what Zblader said awhile back.  Doing this is like investing in a stock and always getting a positive outcome.  I get that this is a fantasy game, but you have to be somewhat realistic.  And can you do one thing for me?  Give me 2 more reasons why this would be a good idea other than it would make the game more fun, easier, and more attracting to the new and causal players.

I will give you two reasons:
1. It makes the game less of an intimidating grindfest.
2. It does not force players to return to moron level AI.

And btw, this line from your last post: People do not build survival decks to avoid losing gold. They build different decks for different ways to win.  It means the same thing.  Building a deck to win is building a deck that can avoid losing which means losing gold.

No, this is different. As long as a deck is built to win, be it agressive or defensive, both aim to avoid losing gold (by winning). They are just different ways of winning.

[Malignant]

[jippy99]

The game will always be a grindfest, and not an intimidating one.  Want proof of that?  After 6 games against the AI2 or lower, I was able to build an effective AI3 farmer on a new account.  If you don't believe me, I'll do it again and screenie everything.  So all those complaints about the game being too hard to make enough electrum in the beginning are invalid.

[Jenkar]

People thinking  that seriously need to meet roguelikes.

[Pineapple]

You never, ever, ever have to play "moronic AI" if you don't want to. The only time when you would is when you have 29 or less electrum or go to PvP1 and then lose. So why should zanz imbalance the game by removing the entrance fee for every single AI level just because some people aren't smart enough to keep an AI3 grinder (that you can build 10min into starting the game) to fall back on when they get under 29 electrum?

Seriously, if anything, the gold cost of matches should be increased. Right now, if you have at least a 50% win-rate against any level, you're more than likely to make a profit. The lowest amount of electrum you can win is 100% the cost. So if you start with 10 electrum, play AI3, and win with 1HP, you're going to end up with 20 electrum without spinning. If you EM AI3, you'll end up with 30, and if you get all three spins, you'll get +15 for bonus electrum from spinning and 60 electrum worth of cards. And if you're facing FGs, then it costs 60 electrum to play 2 matches, but if you win them both, you have a chance of winning a 1200+ electrum card.

Because of how low gold costs are when compared to rewards, we play the fastest decks possible and focus on speed rather than win-rate. This is the reason why we notice games not as strategic duels full of turning points and lip-biting but as one of the many in a batch until you get enough for that one upgrade. The reason why the grinding is so boring is because the gold cost is already so low. Decreasing the gold cost would only make this worse.

[RagingAlien]

Here, as a general flash gamer, i have some more reasons:

1)Why would you ever like a game which you can become like god in about two hours, become boring, and not even be a funny game, as most games like that are?
1.2)Sure, two hours seems a lot, right? But think of the most popular Flash games around: it takes AT LEAST a damn good 5 hours of casual play to complete them, and then you WANT TO PLAY THEM AGAIN.

2) Kongregate. Currently more than half the players of Elements are kongregate players, and with this simple change we'd have most of them leaving, since now the game isn't any fun other than for getting the few badges and maybe try out a couple of decks.


Simply put, this will lower the amount of players by almost half and the game will get boring after two hours of play.

[maverixk]

You can't really take away the long grind without making the game substantially easier, which then means that even if you have every card, a lot of score, etc. It's really not that impressive because it's easy to get. If you don't want to grind, go to Trainer.
Btw, if this ever came into being, would you not lose score if you lost? because it only makes sense. If there's no electrum loss then no score loss makes sense too, right? But then all we've got is trainer.

[oblivion1212]

LOL!! 

People thinking  that seriously need to meet roguelikes.

roguelikes? what are they? 

on the topic, i kinda disagree on this..
the game gives a gamble-casino-stuff feel, you play your best, hope for a lucky draw, either lose or win, spin on win.. say "damn i lost" upon losing...
but i think that's why there are gamble addicts.. (gambits?? XD)
most of the time, people like taking risks more than playing safe..

for example, in diablo II, most people going PvE wouldn't make a PURE tank build, they'd go more like berserk/frenzy build for a paladin (and by berserk, i mean hitter/DPS/zealot)..

just my two cents 

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[Jenkar]

People thinking  that seriously need to meet roguelikes.

roguelikes? what are they? 

Derivates from rogue : you've got only one life, huge replay value, RPGs.