Upgrading Pillars

[davidy22]

It's also prohibitive to new players who can't access upgraded without grinding. And what do you mean "work" for upgrades? I spend 6 hours a day doing real work programing, sometimes more if a deadline is due. I HAVE been playing this game for years, but have very few upgraded cards because I have REAL WORK to do. I like elements because it's a good game; There are other options like Xonotic and Wesnoth, but I come back to elements because I enjoy CCGs, and elements is the best free CCG there is. I don't have to grind Xonotic to get access to the best guns, I just have to be good at the game and know where they are on the map. Grinding does not take skill, it is pushing a button and getting a pellet in return. If getting cards is your goal in elements, fine, but my goal is to play good players and be able to beat them on merits of my own skill. I am effectively blocked from a portion of the metagame because the upgrade costs are so frustratingly high.

I read a great text called "Playing to Win" by a person called David Sirlin. He does work on game balance, and holds the opinion that in competitive play, all assets should be readily available for equal play, with no restriction. Admittedly, the "no restriction" clause applies to actions that people commonly label as "cheap", but he still makes the point that if ability to compete is determined by the attributes of your avatar and not the attributes of the player, the game cannot be called "competitive"

[ralouf]

To be moar serious I just agree with parasite99.

I don't see why the uppgrades should be cheaper for anything. That is what I really like in this game : it is very hard and long to have all the upped cards in *6 and 12 pillars/pends (even if I'm close to that now ).
So yes new players can't afford fully upped deck and ?
I gonna tell you my story : I had been hacked and thought that I won't see my account again so I started from scratch. The first day I build a crappy fire rush to farm AI3 to complete all the quest. Second day I build a grabbix and grind t50 to get some rare and money. then THe third day I farmed various things (t50/Halfbloods) for money and every day I built the oracle deck and won 2 upped cards.
Then I sold all I have to make a RoL/hope mostly unupped. The 4th day it was fully upped and at the end of the week I was at 20k points and ~60 upped cards.

So as a conclusion : If you take some time to collect cards and do it the good way you can have it very quickly.
Okay the days I played I wasn't busy and was able to play 8/10h per days.

For my part farming is an interessant moment in the game and now the arena make this not boring at all.

I think there is two way to see the game :

1) you are a casual player you ran unupped decks you can make tournaments pvp1 t50 and you can kill FG qiute easy with the oracle prediction and slowly get some upped cards/deck.

2) you have more time for the game and you involve yourself a lot in the game : you'll have all the upped cards you need quickly, trust me. (obv if you farm AI1/2 it is boring and it takes time to win cards). For farmers my advice is : change deck frequently (for FG I alternated between different version of RoL/hope and CCYB). Atm farming gold/plat league is a good way to get lot of money too.


Finally I don't mind that anything should cheaper.. And if you want to try a deck and have no money the trainer is here for that..

I hope this post help to understand my view and seems constructive for our discussion .

[davidy22]

To be moar serious I just agree with parasite99.

I don't see why the uppgrades should be cheaper for anything. That is what I really like in this game : it is very hard and long to have all the upped cards in *6 and 12 pillars/pends (even if I'm close to that now ).
So yes new players can't afford fully upped deck and ?
I gonna tell you my story : I had been hacked and thought that I won't see my account again so I started from scratch. The first day I build a crappy fire rush to farm AI3 to complete all the quest. Second day I build a grabbix and grind t50 to get some rare and money. then THe third day I farmed various things (t50/Halfbloods) for money and every day I built the oracle deck and won 2 upped cards.
Then I sold all I have to make a RoL/hope mostly unupped. The 4th day it was fully upped and at the end of the week I was at 20k points and ~60 upped cards.

So as a conclusion : If you take some time to collect cards and do it the good way you can have it very quickly.
Okay the days I played I wasn't busy and was able to play 8/10h per days.

For my part farming is an interessant moment in the game and now the arena make this not boring at all.

I think there is two way to see the game :

1) you are a casual player you ran unupped decks you can make tournaments pvp1 t50 and you can kill FG qiute easy with the oracle prediction and slowly get some upped cards/deck.

2) you have more time for the game and you involve yourself a lot in the game : you'll have all the upped cards you need quickly, trust me. (obv if you farm AI1/2 it is boring and it takes time to win cards). For farmers my advice is : change deck frequently (for FG I alternated between different version of RoL/hope and CCYB). Atm farming gold/plat league is a good way to get lot of money too.


Finally I don't mind that anything should cheaper.. And if you want to try a deck and have no money the trainer is here for that..

I hope this post help to understand my view and seems constructive for our discussion .

It tells me that you are either unemployed or too young to get a job. 8-10 hours a day? Enjoy your youth while you still can.

How is a new user going to know what the grabbix deck is? Judging by the number of complaints that level 3 is too hard, not many. And I don't think you can play other people with the trainer, which I kind of want to do.

I did try changing decks to cut the monotony, but some of my ideas sucked and purchasing new cards is costly. Again, new players have trouble building good decks.

You are good at the game, and have sunk plenty of time into it. Can you say that for the working population though? If your parents wanted to play elements, and they had to grind as long as you, you wouldn't have a home to live in.

Coming back to your first point, some upgraded cards are vastly better than their vanilla counterparts. If a new player were to challenge a long-time player, the old guard would win hands down, no matter how fast the newbie picked up the game  or how good they were. The competitive league would be limited to the few players with the time to upgrade, and new strategies and ideas would emerge more slowly. The elite would be dictated not by how good you are, but by how much free time you have, and that detracts from the competitive aspect of the game. I'm ok with losing, so long as I know I had the same resources as my opponent and that my opponent was genuinely better than I was.

[ralouf]

First of all I'm at work atm I just had a little 2 weeks break and the rest of the time I'm in an ingeneer school IE 8/10 H lessons per day and lot of homework but I still find time to play. However I admit that nobody will play 8/10 hours per day (except willng3 obv). But what I did in one week you can do it one month (IE if you play ~2hours per day) or even 2 months (1H/day).

I don't think you can play pvp in the trainer yeah.. Dunno I never tried it .

For the decks you wanna try you can go here though and try it vs AI3. And for player that think that AI3 is too hard... Wow you joking ? Any deck with a little sense can beat them 80% of the time (I yalk for unupped deck and I can build 3 unupped decks which beat AI3 in less than 1 min for each.. So I just think that those guys who claim AI3 is so hard that they just have to think a little more about their decks..

And I think that what you said perfectly fit with my first post : If you don't have that much time for elements you can play only when you have time, play unupped deck vs low Ai (no FG) and arena and try to slowly uppgrade your collection and kill FG when the oracle tells you who is the next. Btw I know some player who have a few uppgrade and who are one the best pvper in this game (Tstar for example).

[davidy22]

I play elements for the PVP. I don't play it for grinding against the CPU. I play it for playing against other people. I do play in my free time, but I don't like playing against the CPU because it's predictable and will never do anything different. I could try half-bloods, but they suck most of the time. I play for the challenge of other players, and when upgrading costs so much, I can't play against the long- time players and hope to stand a chance. The arena makes for nice variety, but nothing beats a real person.

[ralouf]

Hmm yeah I understand you but anyway you can play pvp1 and I don't think it need that much CPU kills to make a good deck.

However as you told arena is a really nice place to farm while having fun and to meet a lot of various decks.

[davidy22]

Hmm yeah I understand you but anyway you can play pvp1 and I don't think it need that much CPU kills to make a good deck.

However as you told arena is a really nice place to farm while having fun and to meet a lot of various decks.

True, it doesn't. But I do want to have a choice in which mode I want to play in, although PVP1 IS still a fun little sandbox.

And the arena is nice, but the AI can be retarded and the oracle's five cards mean many people are running similar decks. Any challenge I meet is self-imposed.

[ralouf]

Yeah so you can play pvp1/arena & kill FG with the oracle prediction in order to have enough cards to biuld upped pvp deck at least one. i don't think that it take THAT much time, even if you don't have a lot of free time huh ?

[three]

I think that if upgrades were to be made more easily obtainable that the cost for them wouldn't be reduced, but that you could earn 1,500 electrum more quickly.

[davidy22]

I think that if upgrades were to be made more easily obtainable that the cost for them wouldn't be reduced, but that you could earn 1,500 electrum more quickly.

Also an excellent solution.

The upgrade cost is really high. I get time to kill a few guys, but not enough to upgrade a full deck.

[parasite99]

davidy I also have a REAL WORK and probably I am more busy than you during the day.
I am an Industrial Engineer and work 10h per day and also am engaged (which takes some time of the day also ).
What I want to say is that it's not only the time you spent but the way you spent your time.

If you read the forums and know what to do to get cards faster there is no way you need years to be competitive.
Upgrade cards in the right order, make 2-3 farmer decks by selling all the first cards you get. Focus on that. Then just farm FGs with a decent deck.
I don't play more than 2-3h a day...(maybe a little more on weekends like 5-6h)
People make the mistake that they just want to play and not read. That's wrong cause you will probably make a lot of mistakes. Get as many information you can through forums and chat and then start upgrading. Farming doesn't need all day. Just make some decks that are efficient (fast and with good win rate). Good luck to you and any new player reading this I hope we helped.

@rastafla
I almost did the same when I started. I found the game a Friday evening and picked fire (thought that as MtG it would be rushy and thats what you need to grind fast). I had some experience in similar games so before reading any guides I knew I had to make my deck mono so I sold all water cards and bought some fire cards. Also knew that it must stay as small as posiible (30 cards) like "burn" decks in magic - they used to be 40 cards when I started on MtG, nice times-.
Saturday morning I found out about wiki and forums. I started reading everything I could and focused on False Gods strategy and decks. I made the fully unupped fire/aether fire bolt FG deck and started upgrading it. Then I found out about better decks and made voodoo panic and CCYB.
Now, after 2 months, I have many FG grinders (Rol/Hope, Fire Lance, CCYB, Voodoo Panic, I 've GotP time) and also vNG, TadaBow and some decks I made myself for PvP. At the moment I never sell upgraded cards I win and money flows so if I want to make a full deck I can upgraded it at any point. Though now there is room for doing stupid things to have some fun...I upgraded 16 cards 3 days ago just to make a good deck to submit in Arena (10 pillars and 6 cards).
At least it's going wel hehe

[ralouf]

I just agree with almost every thing parasite told again

-> if you focuses yourself on farming you will get lot of upp quite quickly that's it. It looks like parasite has a more busy life than you (davidy) but in 2 months he managed to have 100/200 upped cards..

Selling upped cards is a bad things cuz you lost ~400 electrum each time you do this so do it only when you start (to build a decent Fg farmer) or when you have more than 6 times the same cards (like me when you farm FG a lot ^^)
For my part I use money to uppgrade cards regardless if they are or not in any FG deck. When I need a card to try a deck I just spend money (I have 240k electrum so that doesn't matter).

But you lie : 40 cards deck never existed in constructed in MtG, it was only in limited format