Okay, I've read the entire thread and I completely agree with Scaredgirl on her views of grinding, however, considering the game is developed by a single person, it will probably take a while to be able to implement enough new content to get rid of it.
@Everyone who thinks upgrade prices should be higher/thinks there should be more grinding in general: I think you may be forgetting that while you guys enjoy the grind (or think you enjoy it? I don't understand how you can possibly enjoy grinding), there are more new players coming to this game, who have fun at first, but lose interest quickly when they figure out that they can't progress without hours of their time dedicated to an incredibly boring time sink into a single aspect of the game. Increasing the cost of upgrading cards will just ward off even more new players. Now, would you quit playing Elements if the grind is taken out? No, of course you wouldn't. The game would suddenly become more enjoyable for everyone. The problem here isn't with the cost of upgrading cards, it's with the lack of content in the game. While the game has fun aspects about it even with the grind, no one can deny that the game would be better with less grind and more content. If there were more things to do, the developer wouldn't need the grind in there to keep people playing. In the mean time though, lowering the cost of upgrading cards would not hurt the user base at all. You guys would still play, and newer players would be able to build up their decks quicker allowing them to also enjoy the game.
Changing topics slightly, I used to play World of Warcraft. That game has a horrible tendency for grinding. The only reason I played it as long as I did, was that I was hoping it would get better. I quit multiple times, I'd say upwards of four times, and always ended up returning to it, with hopes that it would be less grindy grindy and more fun fun. It never happened, and to this day it remains a ridiculous grind fest. My point is that there are so many players out there who will allow these companies to rip them off and continue to play games they're not even enjoying, but there is absolutely NO incentive to reduce the grind in many of these games. If the players continue to pay their monthly fee, and developers don't see dwindling numbers in their subscribers, they will only add as much content as they see necessary to keep their user base. Thus, the grind continues. I guess the difference is that Elements has a smaller, more dedicated crowd that realizes the game does not have the resources it needs in order to become fun for everyone, whereas with MMO games the developers just simply refuse to add content at a quicker pace because the players allow themselves to be ripped off regardless of how much content is in the game.
