What is the Game Turning Into?

[SnoWeb]

PvP balancing > Easy access to FG decks for the Beginners : All the non-new players can agree with this statement. However several critical point have to be solved in order to have every oen enjoy the game.

1- SoG : SoG could be just forbidden in PvP. I'm sure that coding an automatic downgrade of SoG in PvP is not very complicated. It would allow everybody to use it against FGs and re-establish the superior healing ability of life and light in PvP.

2 - Getting started : Increase the number of quest would allow the beguinners to start faster (specially if the several first rewards are interesting enough). I have heard that Zanzarino is already working on that one.

3 - Farming : Here again experienced players and newcomers are opposed on the subject. Everybody has heard about the end of T50. This would also become the end of the T50-farms. I think it is a good thing because then new rares will be introduced. The newcomers and the veterans will have the same difficulties to obtain them and it will then increase the interrest of both categories.

I know Avatar, the last Airbender, one of the reasons I play this game, I know all 3 books.
The other side of Fire is completely neglected in Elements, Fire also means warmth and life.
But I don´t know good card ideas for this. Without card ideas, no warmth with fire.

What you forget is that in avatar only 4 elements are present. A lot of aspects are to be shared in 4 then. In elements-the-game, the very same aspects are shared in 12. It is then logical than the original four elements are a bit depleted. Don't you think?

[jmizzle7]

1- SoG : SoG could be just forbidden in PvP. I'm sure that coding an automatic downgrade of SoG in PvP is not very complicated. It would allow everybody to use it against FGs and re-establish the superior healing ability of life and light in PvP.

2 - Getting started : Increase the number of quest would allow the beguinners to start faster (specially if the several first rewards are interesting enough). I have heard that Zanzarino is already working on that one.

1) SoG already is banned in 99% of all PvP events and tournaments, and has been for over a year.
2) Yes, Zanz has mentioned the possibility of more quests.

[Tea is good]

Zanz has already noted that he wouldn't make FGs easier. I heard him say it in chat, but I'm sure there are others who heard it and/or recorded it.

[LongDono]

One solution would be to make cards that can only be used against the AI. They can be strong too and you wont have to worry about PvP. If you want a better challenge don't use them.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

Personally, I like the idea of more quests
and I also think one of the quest requires you to go to a link, the link to either the forums, or the newbie tutorials
When I first started, I was a noob, and I had no idea how to get rich, at one point, I almost quit the game (after I completed all the quest, and played an FG game, lost horribly, and then saw that each upgrade was 1500 ...), but later, I found the forums, and the tutorials helped me a lot, and now look at where I am, the forums are actually a large part of the game

[YawnChainHow]

Let's face it, no games are perfect... Elements isn't either... It's my favorite free Internet game atm, but here is a reason to hate it.
...
...but rather than focusing on balancing PvP, we should focus on maintaining PvP.

It seems, to me, that you intend to discuss the community itself, rather as the game as the thread title implies.

I think the game is doing wonderfully. PvP and AI-smashing environments both. The only things to dislike are the bugs, but those are being handled accordingly, so there is nothing for me to be displeased about.

I also think that the community is fine. Certainly, there are disagreements between people, but most of these are the result of discussion. If it was the other way around, I would have reason to frown, but that is not so. The birth of factions is not a problem either. You are going to have groups of people that yearn for certain nerfs in every game. This is one of the best communities I've been a part of.

I'll leave PvP discussion to the people that actually play it regularly.

...but if you look at PvP, what do we see?
BL for example, nova graboid bow everywhere...
CL? SN bows, PSN bows, cremate rushes...
so, why are we so intent on nerfing things like SoGs, when we should nerf graboids, SN, and so on?
Like I said, I agree that the game should be balanced based on PvP, but do we really have a PvP if we don't have the "P" part of it? I have seen a ton of people quitting the instant they found out that each upgrade costs 1500 , and I have seen ppl who stick around and farmed up beginner FG decks, and those FG decks depend on SoG, fractal, and such cards we want nerfed because it's "OP" in PvP, when SN rushes and cremate rushes are the most used?

When I look at PvP, I see players. A lot of players. That's good.

Trends are inevitable. People trying to solve problems that are overdramatized is also inevitable. The former displeases you, the latter displeases me. And what we both do is: deal with it.

Keep in mind that farming allows old players to stick around as they try to build more upgraded decks. Many players would quit without the high upgrade cost.

This is one of the better points that I've seen made in a long time.

I know Avatar, the last Airbender, one of the reasons I play this game, I know all 3 books.
The other side of Fire is completely neglected in Elements, Fire also means warmth and life.
But I don´t know good card ideas for this. Without card ideas, no warmth with fire.

You can see the "life" aspect of Fire in Phoenix, and in an awkward way, "warmth" in Fahrenheit. Zanz has everything covered 

[BluePriest]

Making cards just for AI would be horrible. People need to realize the great thing about this is that although some cards may have debate about being OP, there isnt a single card that is undoubtedly that way. Which is one of the reasons I think its stupid to ban SoG from almost all pvp tournies. I think this community (no offense) is filled with wimps who would rather try to ignore cards they dont like instead of learning to counter them. There is a reason Rushes rule the metagame. Because Stalls have 1 of their most important cards banned in pvp. If shards were enabled in pvp then I believe the metagame of the pvp would change greatly. Stalls would be more viable. However, without a way to heal, whats the point of stalling just a little longer? To make the death slower? Cause without decent healing, it is still going to happen.


hmmmm... perhaps the thread title should be changed to "Should pvp have as many restrictions as it does?"

[jmizzle7]

Making cards just for AI would be horrible. People need to realize the great thing about this is that although some cards may have debate about being OP, there isnt a single card that is undoubtedly that way. Which is one of the reasons I think its stupid to ban SoG from almost all pvp tournies. I think this community (no offense) is filled with wimps who would rather try to ignore cards they dont like instead of learning to counter them. There is a reason Rushes rule the metagame. Because Stalls have 1 of their most important cards banned in pvp. If shards were enabled in pvp then I believe the metagame of the pvp would change greatly. Stalls would be more viable. However, without a way to heal, whats the point of stalling just a little longer? To make the death slower? Cause without decent healing, it is still going to happen.


hmmmm... perhaps the thread title should be changed to "Should pvp have as many restrictions as it does?"

It seems your only complaint is that SoG is banned in PvP. Do you even know why it's banned in PvP? I witnessed firsthand how SoG completely dominated and defined multiple formats, completely denying the competitiveness of non-stall decks. In the first weekly PvP tournament, every deck used by the top four included six copies of SoG. Every single one. This was during a time when veterans were few and new players were just starting to be included in the scene. True, access to rares has become obscenely universal, but the fact that a single card can completely shape an environment due to its easy accessibility makes it a prime candidate to get the axe.

This is FAR off-topic, however, as there have been so many discussions on SoG already that this is simply noisy chatter.

[BluePriest]

It seems your only complaint is that SoG is banned in PvP. Do you even know why it's banned in PvP? I witnessed firsthand how SoG completely dominated and defined multiple formats, completely denying the competitiveness of non-stall decks. In the first weekly PvP tournament, every deck used by the top four included six copies of SoG. Every single one. This was during a time when veterans were few and new players were just starting to be included in the scene. True, access to rares has become obscenely universal, but the fact that a single card can completely shape an environment due to its easy accessibility makes it a prime candidate to get the axe.

This is FAR off-topic, however, as there have been so many discussions on SoG already that this is simply noisy chatter.

SoG has since been nerfed and there is a much larger card DB since then If Im not mistaken. All sorts of balancing has taken place. Aside from that, Rush decks have been spotlighted to the point where I wouldnt be surprised if the fastest deck possible with the current cards has already been discovered.

This is my sentiments as far as healing goes

5 Healing is too much. Other shouldnt be that good at healing!

Zanz adds a new healing  card

4 healing is too much, Light shouldnt be that good at healing!

Moral of the story. People just dont like healing if is actually worth being used. They will find a reason to bash it one way or the other, so its best to just ignore them all and do it anyway

That will be my final piece ont he subject though, and will henceforth steer away from SoG period in this discussion

[TheIdioticIdiot]

my view on healing: come on guys, do we really want elements turning into a rushing battle, where you pit rushes against rushes and see which rush wins?

boring....
SoG and such help promote more stall deck usage, and most people complaining about SoGs (to my knowledge) use rush decks almost all the time, and thus hate it when SoGs delay them, or even cause them to lose.
It seems that all the nerfing are more to have faster and better rushes

from the first page of "Nerf This Card!":
dusk mantle
EQ
silence
discord
SoG
antimatter
panda
PA
BH
gravity shield
fog
dimentional shield
hope
miracle

(I know graboid, immolation, and SN are there too, but look at the sheer number of stall cards that ppl want nerfed)

[OldTrees]

People are more likely to judge stall cards to be OP based on intuition. Rush cards are deemed OP only by mathematical comparisons or by vast discrepancies.

SoG is probably OP. (I say this because I think that Sanctuary hit the right balance 4 healing for 3 |2 [with quanta protection being an additional +1 |+1 ])
In the past this was demonstrated through the pvp winners. SoG has since been nerfed slightly. I think that SoG is a valuable resource to stall decks and (as much as I hate saying this due to thematic reasons) probably is necessary in some form to reduce the rush advantage.

So we have a card that was OP, probably still is OP but would be a tremendous asset to the pvp field when balanced.
Conclusion: Balance it.
Options:
Verify if and how much it is still OPed.
Determine if a nerfed version would be balanced. (like players that use it must forfeit if their life drops below the sum of the number of turns per SoG used. This would test regeneration 4 instead of 5)
Play with it in pvp tournaments and try to find viable counters to it.

SoG is a problem. So balance it pvpers. Find solutions in the metagame or identify what alternative version would be balanced. Perhaps use sanctuary as a test run considering it costs more(3 vs 3 ) than SoG and heals less.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

I don't consider SoG to be OP, main reason being that a good rush will still beat it
not to mention what I said before, SoG is the main stall card of the game, even with it, stalls are less common than rushes, imagine the meta game without it...