The REAL Problem with Shards

[mega plini]

Everything said here can also be said for nymphs:

why are they allowed and shards are not?

no Idea, but I'm going to make a thread/poll to include them in future pvp events

[Tiko]

Nymphs - while their accessibility is all dependant on one's luck - demand quite an investment for their power, contrary to shards, for I'd guess that one of the reasons for the 'dominance' of the latter is their ridicously cheap cost.

To be honest, I actually like some of the shards, even as they are now (and even my imagination is vivid enough to provide a credible background for them..); yet I would've prefered to see a good amount of other additions first: even if those are only some plain vanilla creatures added for simple variety, or the keycards for the next amazing (and unexpected) strategies - Somehow I feel that even if some of these shards can be fitted into the thematics and actual gameplay of Elements, they just keep standing out. I'd expect many more gameplay possibilities and 'alternate (elemental) approaches' for currently existing 'problems' (like PC or spell-protection, whatever) before adding a set of cards this unparalelled in power and impact.

It would also be nice to have a few more clues about the actual setting of Elements, and Rares - in general - are a perfect spot to create something really unique for each element.

[OldTrees]

Everything said here can also be said for nymphs:

why are they allowed and shards are not?

Bad/Lazy Art: Yes nymphs share this flaw
No Flavor: While shards do have flavor, Nymphs (nature spirits) have more famous flavor.
No Mechanical Theme: Whiel shards do have a mechanical theme, Nymphs have one of the strongest mechanical themes in the game. They all have an activated ability to use the Alchemy spell of their element.
Rarity: Yes nymphs are rare however this is an amplifier effect of existing flaws not a flaw in itself
Balance: Nymphs are much better balanced than shards. There is a much lower variance between the strongest and weakest nymphs.

So I think you are wrong. Nymphs do not share all the listed flaws that shards have.

[pulli23]

uh no, nymphs are by definition worse balanced than shards - because the more people use item X the better it can be balanced. Balancing comes from real world experience and experiments  we don't live in the romance where the mind & calculations were considered better than experience. A card can only be considered balanced or not through testing testing testing and more testing. All those calculations people show here are nice, but they can not be used to show if there's a balance issue or not: they can merely show an indication for possible issues.


I find the theme of the shards to be much better they add actually better effects and much more fun... And the "more famous flavor" only comes from the fact nymphs are simply not achievable other than through ridiculously high luck. I do not consider this a good trait at all. Also what the fuck does the art matter if a card is good in tournaments or not - for all people care it is simply text do people really look at the art other than to have icons that quickly show what is what?

[OldTrees]

uh no, nymphs are by definition worse balanced than shards - because the more people use item X the better it can be balanced. Balancing comes from real world experience and experiments  we don't live in the romance where the mind & calculations were considered better than experience. A card can only be considered balanced or not through testing testing testing and more testing. All those calculations people show here are nice, but they can not be used to show if there's a balance issue or not: they can merely show an indication for possible issues.

[Talking to myself]Strange that I keep seeing this same critique despite being one of the biggest proponents of playtesting.[/Talking to myself]
Playtesting is the means with which to fine tune balance. However the amount of playtesting is not the only factor in the process of balancing. Another important factor is how mistaken the initial guess at balance is. As we have seen from playtesting both Nymphs and Shards, Shards started with a much more inaccurate guess at balance than nymphs. So despite the lower volume of playtesting that Nymphs received, they were already had a headstart over shards due to a more accurate initial guess.

However you and I know the value of data over theory. So please provide an example of a Nymph being imbalanced that is equivalent to or worse balance than Shard of Sacrifice (as an example).

I find the theme of the shards to be much better they add actually better effects and much more fun... And the "more famous flavor" only comes from the fact nymphs are simply not achievable other than through ridiculously high luck. I do not consider this a good trait at all. Also what the fuck does the art matter if a card is good in tournaments or not - for all people care it is simply text do people really look at the art other than to have icons that quickly show what is what?

You are not talking about thematics. Based on this quote I can summary theme for you as "All that art stuff that you don't care about". Thematics are valuable because many (but not all) players value it. This is similar to many of the valuable things in EtG since we have a diverse player base.

[pulli23]

Thematic importance:
For cards: yes... For some thematic tournaments: yes.. But for general tournaments (like create a deck with X random cards posted 15 minutes in advance): why the hell is the thematic importance there?


Also I can not prove anything about nymphs, I myself own only 2 nymphs after 2 years.. However I can say/prove that the uncertainty with nymph balance is magnitudes higher than with shards.

[Zso_Zso]

One thing you should not forget about nymph balancing / play-testing: they can be obtained in-game via nymph tears which provides ample testing ground for any player. So in that sense, they are much easier to test than any rare card -- since nymph tears is a common card available to all players from the bazaar.

Furthermore, the effect of nymph actions also well tested since it is the same effect as the alchemy-spell of the same element. therefore, the only question about their balance is the matter of their stats (attack/HP) and costs. OTOH, shards offer unique mechanisms that cannot be achieved by other ways, such as Sacrifice, Readiness, Wisdom, Freedom.

On-topic: IMHO, most of the shards should be changed into individual (possibly rare) cards of their elements keeping the effect -- mostly the ones that offer new mechanics, such as SoR, SoP, SoW. Removing the common thematics and name (shards) and using different (individual) art for them.
Some that are redundant, such as SoG should be just dropped as well as some OP ones, such as SoSac and  SoFo.

[OldTrees]

Also I can not prove anything about nymphs, I myself own only 2 nymphs after 2 years.. However I can say/prove that the uncertainty with nymph balance is magnitudes higher than with shards.

You can playtest in the Trainer.
Uncertainty with balance is an issue of less precise measurement of balance rather than less precise balance. Since we have a large volume of playtesting in general, we usually are able to measure the balance/imbalance within a month of the cards release. The type of rarity of nymphs increased this time to measure to a year. However we have had the time to get the measurement for both Nymphs and Shards. So yes I agree that the measurement with regards to nymphs is more uncertain however playtesting has shown that nymphs are more balanced despite this.

[SnoWeb]

Thanks 10men for this very well constructed post. Concerning the reason which make the shard low quality cards, I agree fully with you.

• Bad/Lazy Art.
• No Flavor.
• No Mechanical Theme.

Do not try to fix them again. It'll suck but I strongly recommend to bite the sour apple and scrap them entirely, replacing them with a new rare cycle.

On this I partially disagree. A lot of work from both Zanz and the community has been invested in the shards and are already mostly saved. Here is what I would do:

Mechanical Theme:

• Create a slot called rare artefact. The rare artefacts would be rare, non- weapon, non-shield, stackable permanents. You would be able to use one type of artefact in the slot only but up to six time. It would not be limited to shards even if now the only cards fitting are the shards. In the future I could see magic rings and jewels which would fit.
• Adapt all shards to make them rare artefacts.
  
  • SoG, SoP, SoV and SoFr are good to go.
  • SoW, SoFo, SoSa are unbalanced in this form and would IMO benefit from a permanent form and their effect could be relatively easy to adapt.
  • SoD, SoR, SoSe and SoB could probably be transformed into non-rare spells. SoI would just have to disappear (not a great loss). New artefacts would have to be created. I have ideas for each but I won't share them here as it is not the topic. Still I bore you with one example: Light could have a prism I guess, converting 1-6 quanta from light to another chosen element. Shard of Tolerance (which is a virtue contrary to Divinity).

Flavour and Art:
You could envision a mythical stained-glass window called for example "the great glass of virtue" and symbolising the peace between the 12 elements. One day the False Gods broke it and the war between the factions started. Piece of the power of the original window are to be found in its relics: the mythical shards of virtue. "Just" draw one epic leaded/stained-glass art containing the 12 faction grouped together and break it. Here you have 12 epic flavoured shard art. You can even use the full art as a logo or background wallpaper.

[OldTrees]

Create a slot

Would you please inform me why creating a slot is in general a good idea? I still am unconvinced special slots should exist beyond the mark. I would like to correct this oversight in my knowledge.

[SnoWeb]

Would you please inform me why creating a slot is in general a good idea? I still am unconvinced special slots should exist beyond the mark. I would like to correct this oversight in my knowledge.

The slot creation is optional only for my suggestion to work. However, it has several effects:
- It limits the number of artefact/weapon/shield to 1 or one type (see bone shield).
- It give a RPG flavour (which I like).
- It obliges the player to make choices.

[laxnut90]

I think it would be more balanced and more thematic if the shards were all permanents that had some element themed effect.  As it is, shards like Shard of Bravery, Shard of Serendipity and Shard of Sacrifice basically act as spells with little to no counters. 

Personally, I do not really care as much about the artwork as I do about the game balance

Suggestions for Shard Effects (all of these are permanents)
  Create 1 spark each turn this shard is on the field
  (effect seems balanced to me.  probably needs a cost increase though)
  Drain 2HP from your opponent each turn.  Acts as Spell Damage.  (Shard of void does not really have any good combos, so its effect should probably be altered)
  Add 1 poison counter to your opponent each turn this is on the field.
  Destroys a random opponents pillar/pendulum each turn.
  Adds a random card to your hand each turn during the draw step
  Deal 3+X damage to your opponent each turn where X is the amount of fire quanta you control divided by 10.  this acts as spell damage
  Destroys a random opposing permanent every other turn
  (effect seems balanced and thematic to me)
  Add 4 to your maximum health each turn.
  Draw an additional card every other turn
  Freeze a random opposing creature every other turn

What do you think of these suggestions?  What do you think of the general idea to make all shards permanents even if you do not like these effects.