Guest posts by Ashebrethafe

25

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Suggestion

« on: May 16, 2011, 05:08:34 am »

Reply #5? That's what I thought I was responding to already. OldTrees explained why having two ways to buy cards (a trading system and the bazaar) wouldn't work -- so I suggested modifying the bazaar (by having it adjust prices based on demand), rather than adding a second system.
(Yellow text shows my interpretation)

Trading for Common cards:
Either it costs less, the same or more than the bazaar.
Less: You can make Infinite by repeatedly trading X electrum for a card the bazaar will pay Y electrum for, where X<Y
Same: Waste of Code since you can trade with the bazaar
More: Waste of since the bazaar sells the card for less

...which is why I'm suggesting a modification of the bazaar, rather than an alternative. Zanz has adjusted card prices before, on both a large scale (changing the rank of a card) and a small scale (changing the quantum cost of the card). For example, a rank-3 card with a quantum cost of 2 can be bought for 56 and sold for 38; changing it to rank 2, cost 2 would reduce these prices to 26 buy/18 sell, while making it rank 3, cost 4 would increase them to 58 buy/40 sell.

I'm saying that the bazaar should periodically load card acquisition and sale statistics from a database (possibly the same database that collects the card usage statistics), which it would use to adjust the price of each card (and then reset that part of the database, so that it doesn't make the same changes again unless similar deficits and surpluses occur at the new prices.) The "buy at the trading post, sell at the bazaar" loophole doesn't exist if the bazaar is the trading post.

Trading for Rare cards: [Rare cards exist for a reason.]
If Nymphs can be traded for then they would not be rare due to the oracle spin.
If Weapons can be traded for then they would not be rare due to the 500 score reward.
Arctic Squid, Pharaoh, Miracle and Shards would still be scarce but much less rare even considering the Farms in T50 that currently exist.

I'm not saying there should be any new way to acquire rares -- in fact, my previous post even says my idea "wouldn't make nymphs grindable." Actually, it would probably make rares even rarer -- a high number of copies of a rare being acquired (and not sold) would lead to a higher sell price for that rare, which would lead to more copies being sold. (Exception: Relics would become more common, as not everyone would sell them immediately. Those who waited until Relics were more common would get more electrum for their Relic.)

Conclusion: Trading either is exploitable in a terrible way or is useless.

The only exploit I can see is creating many alt accounts with cards you want to sell on your main account, so that the main can get more electrum from selling those cards -- but I think this could be deterred by not gathering stats from low-score players. At the moment an account crossed the score threshold (100?), all the cards in that account would be considered to have just been acquired. (It would still be possible, but not as efficient -- and nobody will do it if it's less efficient than simply grinding on the main account!)

[Exception: An almost worthless version of trading would only accept Arctic Squid, Pharaoh, Miracle and Shards and cost dearly to buy. But if that was beneficial to the game then those cards could be added at that price to the bazaar.]

If making them buyable would be beneficial, then it can be done. The prices are already listed in the trainer: Squid and Pharaoh are rank 8, so they cost 384  (and sell for 256) plus their quantum cost; Miracle is rank 6 with a cost of 15 quanta, so it costs 231 (and sells for 159); and (unupped) shards are rank 1 with a cost of 1 quantum, so they cost 7 (and sell for 5). Under my system, if they stayed at these prices, it would be because the players thought they were worth that much -- or at least, worth somewhere between the buy and sell prices.

26

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Reduce Nymphs' Sale Value

« on: May 15, 2011, 04:32:17 pm »

I agree with DD and Rastafla -- the sell price of nymphs should reflect their rarity. If everyone (or almost everyone) who sells a nymph ends up regretting it, that indicates that all those players (and all the players who got nymphs and didn't sell them) think their nymphs are/were worth more than 909 , and so the sell price should be increased.

In fact, I think the bazaar should automatically adjust the price of every card (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25239.msg356998.html#new) based on the number of copies that are acquired and not sold -- which would also give players a reason to hang onto Relics. I've said before that if there is no reason not to sell Relics, then the slots should just give electrum instead of a card (which they clearly can do, since they give electrum for matching the first two reels).

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Suggestion

« on: May 14, 2011, 08:23:10 pm »

As I said in the "5 things Elements needs" thread, my own vote for trading was a vote for something closer to auctions, but it's not really auctions I want either. Trading and auctions fill the same niche -- if I received a Purple Nymph as AshebrethafeG, either system would allow me to get what I thought was a fair exchange for it, instead of being forced to choose between accepting 909 (because I have no expectation that the bazaar will be willing to pay more at a later date) or buying other cards in order to add the nymph to my mono-gravity deck.

If the problem is that the trade system would either be useless or make the bazaar useless, then why couldn't the bazaar itself serve this purpose? The current price of each card is 6 (buy) or 4 (sell) times a rank assigned by Zanzarino, plus the number of quanta the card costs to play. I want the price to change in response to copies of the card being bought and sold.

Since we have card usage statistics, I assume that we could also have card acquisition and disposal statistics; then the price of those cards for which acquisition minus disposal was highest could increase, and the price of those for which it was lowest could decrease. Under this system, AshebrethafeG could keep the Purple Nymph until there were enough Purple Nymphs in players' collections that the bazaar was offering what I think one is worth. (It wouldn't make nymphs grindable, either -- I still wouldn't have any way to give the nymph to AshebrethafeN, who has a mono-entropy deck.)

So, how could this system be exploited?

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Give Relic an in-game use

« on: March 14, 2011, 03:01:40 am »

I still see no reason for the game to have the card currently known as Relic, whose only purpose is to be exchanged for a fixed amount of electrum. (This amount used to be 101 ep, and has now been reduced to 65.) I can see three possible ways of fixing this:

• Give Relic an in-game use. I suggested in the other thread turning it into a "dare" card (i.e., if you win despite running and casting this otherwise useless/harmful-to-you spell, you get extra electrum), so that its purpose would still be to give the player electrum -- just not a fixed amount.
• Allow the price of Relic to change -- based on what fraction of all unsold cards are Relics, if it's possible to compile such statistics (in the same way as the card usage statistics). In fact, I've suggested having all card prices change in this way, as an alternative to the much-wanted-but-too-easily-exploitable trading system (it's another way that the players can decide for themselves what each card is worth, rather than having Zanz impose a value on it). The buy price of the cards could still be higher than the sell price, so that the bazaar serves its purpose as an electrum sink (the current markup is 50% for the zero-quantum cards, but the others have the quantum cost of the card added to both prices).
• Remove Relic from the game. Any unsold Relics would disappear, and their owners would get electrum as if they'd sold the Relics (this could be explained in-game, like the change to Metamorphosis was). The unwinnable cards could then be replaced in the slots with an image of coins (possibly an enlargement of the electrum logo from the main menu), and when three of these came up, the player's electrum award would increase by some large amount (not necessarily 65 or 101, as it no longer has to be a square plus a quantum cost) -- the same way the reward increases by 5 ep each time the first two reels match. Or maybe the unwinnable cards don't need to be replaced at all -- the slots could just modify their images to make them look faded, and players who spun three matching, faded images would get electrum, as if they'd won and immediately sold that card.

29

Buff This Card! / Re: Shards (unupgraded), Relic | Relic (combined topic)

« on: March 10, 2011, 03:47:21 am »

Calling the artifacts "shards" seems to suggest they're a piece of something. Maybe they could be 1-quantum spells that do nothing on their own -- but playing enough shards in one turn (four?) would have the same effect as playing the upgraded version of one of those shards (either picked at random, or whichever type most of them were).

It probably isn't possible to do anything like that with the relics -- it seems they don't remember what card they replaced in the slots. Maybe they could provide another way of earning "a few coins" -- playing one would have a negative effect (although that could just be the loss of some quanta, and the fact that you could have drawn a useful card instead), but if you managed to play it and still win, you'd get a bigger electrum reward.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Ranking system: Scores/number of games played & Games won/Games

« on: March 08, 2011, 04:05:21 pm »

I was also leaning toward average score per game, after comparing the six ratios. (Plus, it's the least connected to the win/loss record, as it doesn't count either one.) I might want to change how I'm ranking my elemental accounts now -- I've been comparing how many games each one loses on the way to reaching 500 score. (And one or two times, they've actually reached 1500 ep first!)

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Ranking system: Scores/number of games played & Games won/Games

« on: March 08, 2011, 04:47:08 am »

Ranking based on games played or won rewards grinding AI0 (it loses the fastest). The current system, based on score, rewards grinding the AI with the highest expected return per minute (and usually skipping the spins -- but maybe not, if you expect the cards you'll win to help you significantly improve your rate of return). Ranking based on games lost punishes grinding, and is the only single-total ranking of the four that puts player A ahead of player B. However, ranking based on the ratio of any two of these four totals also puts player A ahead, by a factor of 20/9 (2.222) to 125/3 (41.667):
Score: B's score is 6/5 (1.2 times) A's score (A 10,000 vs. B 12,000).
Wins: B has won 6 times as many games (A 500 vs. B 3,000).
Games: B has played 40/3 (13.333 times) as many games (A 600 vs. B 8,000).
Losses: B has lost 50 times as many games (A 100 vs. B 5,000).

Wins/games: A is 20/9 (2.222 times) as good (A 0.833 vs. B 0.375).
Games/losses: A is 15/4 (3.75 times) as good (A 6 vs. B 1.6).
Score/wins: A is 5 times as good (A 20 vs. B 4).
Wins/losses: A is 25/3 (8.333 times) as good (A 5 vs. B 0.6).
Score/games: A is 100/9 (11.111 times) as good (A 16.667 vs. B 1.5).
Score/losses: A is 125/3 (41.667 times) as good (A 100 vs. B 2.4).

32

Buff This Card! / Re: Make Chimera Airborne

« on: January 08, 2011, 09:45:22 pm »

If you look at the art, it is clearly balanced precariously on one tentacle.
Not.  Airborne.

It's not really that clear.

I was going to say that if that tentacle was touching the ground, it would be end-to-end with its shadow (as the humanoid figure in the art is), and instead the shadow is lower down. Then I noticed that the chimera's shadow falls behind it (from the camera's point of view), even though the sun is also behind the chimera. ??? (Or if that glow isn't the sun, the art still has the chimera's and humanoid's shadows falling in opposite directions.)

I haven't played with Chimera, so I can't say if it needs a buff, but I agree that the art isn't a reason to give it one -- especially in an online-only game like Elements, where the art can be changed instead. I'd also say that Vampire has the opposite problem: it's airborne but appears to be walking on four legs, two of which are visibly end-to-end with their shadows.

In fact, MtG has a card with this same issue. The art of Whippoorwill (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1781) shows a bird in flight, which often causes players to mistakenly believe it has flying when they see it in play. However, the card is old enough that it's only legal in eternal formats, which allow almost all of the more than 11,000 cards ever released. (The Dark was the only set that included the card, so there was no opportunity to change the art.)

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Add A Mark of Rainbow

« on: January 01, 2011, 10:57:11 pm »

A previous discussion (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5636.msg76947#msg76947) of non-elemental marks ran from April 21 through May 16, 2010. I still feel that the idea of the player being an elemental doesn't fit the rules of the game -- not just because the starter decks aren't mono, as I said then, but because the game doesn't treat a player's mark as their element. (Although so far, there's only one card that both cares about the target's element and can target players: Holy Light | Holy Flash says "If the target's element is death or darkness, damage is dealt instead," but the card still heals players with death or darkness marks.)

I first pointed out, in the old thread, that a "mark of quanta" probably wouldn't generate 3 random quanta per turn (it would generate fewer quanta, to compensate for being untargetable); but I thought a mark that triggered novas on certain turns would be a better fit for the "jack-of-all-trades" flavor that BluePriest was looking for. Or if increasing the total number of quanta at all would be OP, then a "mark of balance" that converted quanta from one type to another -- a sort of self-Discord effect, possibly with more of a tendency to drain large quantum pools and/or fill small ones.

Maybe a combination of those two would be the best non-elemental mark -- one that equalizes the number of quanta generated for each element. A player with such a mark would put counters on it instead of gaining quanta; then when the mark had enough counters (12 - # of turns since it last triggered, so that total quanta generation is the same as with an elemental mark?), it would lose that many counters and generate 1 quantum of each element.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Survival mode!!

« on: December 23, 2010, 07:49:39 pm »

Similar ideas have been discussed here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5721.0.html) and here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6751.0.html).

My own proposal for such a mode:

• After beating an opponent, your total electrum reward would be increased by the reward for that fight, multiplied by 1.1 for every previous fight in the match. Choosing to quit would yield that reward and 1/3 of the spins for your wins (rounded up), and the deck used by the slot machine would be the most expensive one that could be made from the cards in your opponents' decks.
• If you continued, you could "rewind" any number of cards with different names from your side of the board in order to start with a seven-card hand. The rest of your cards would be destroyed, and you would heal 1 HP for each one; your quanta would be drained your maximum HP reset to 100, and all your destroyed cards returned to your deck; and you would always go second in the new fight.
• If you lost, your rewards (both quanta and spins) would be decreased by the ratio of the opponent's remaining HP to its maximum HP.

For example, you might beat the first AI3 with 100/100 HP, the second with 140/150, and the third with 60/100, and then the fourth would beat you with 40/120. You would win (40 + 1.1(24) + 1.21(16)) * (1 - 40/120) = 57.17, rounded up to 58 electrum, and 3 * (1 - 40/120) = 2 spins. If you chose not to fight the fourth AI3, or it beat you with 1 out of at least 113 HP, you would get the full 86 electrum and 3 spins.

35

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: some suggestions...

« on: December 16, 2010, 12:35:00 am »

Will not work. This + Enchant Artifact + Enough quanta source = you win the game (you can´t lose= who will lose ?). Devourer decks excluded (e.g. like Decay)
Infinite game possible, if both players have this. Infinite games are bad.
I never had an infinite game with Eternity.

P.S. I think, you thought about Platinum Angel (MtG).

Sounds like dissipation field to me...

Dissipation Field only stops creature attacks; the user can still lose from spell damage, poison, or failure to draw a card. I think crystalmakwer's idea sounds more like a potential time card, which could be fixed by requiring the entire cost to be paid upfront -- something like "All remaining time quanta is consumed when this comes into play. You can't lose the game for 1 turn per X consumed quanta."

As for "a card like a wall, that no attack and permit to block 1 enemy creature," it doesn't sound like Bone Wall to me (a played Bone Wall blocks the next 7+2x attacks, where x is the number of creatures that die). If I were trying to approximate a Wall (from MtG) in Elements, I'd make it a creature with the passive ability "inert" that kept it from attacking (as if it were always affected by a Sundial), and the skill "Defend: The target creature is inert for 1 turn" (which would cost nothing, like the White Nymph's skill). In other words, it could stop one enemy creature from attacking, permanently -- or at least until an enemy with more attack power or venom showed up, and then it could stop that creature instead.

36

Patch Notes and Development News / Re: Zanzarino (Lead Developer) speaks about new features - updated 2010-12-09

« on: December 10, 2010, 10:43:48 pm »

I think getting rid of rare farms is a good idea -- not just because they make rares so common, but because their losses as "top 50" decks could make newbs overestimate their own decks' power. (In fact, I was once newbish enough to build a deck with 11 different types of pillars, which then EM'd a T50 deck and won me a green shard. And I wondered why a T50 deck included an unplayable card, as I hadn't yet heard of farms -- or the automatic downgrading of spun cards.)

The way I see it, T500-deck creators would get a deck screen with 5 copies of the Oracle's chosen card already included (and unremovable), then would complete the deck with cards from their own collection. Each new deck would start out with a 250th-place score and would win or lose points, from fights with players and score decay over time, while its creator won or lost electrum from its fights. (Although I'm not sure what would happen if a T500 deck and its creator lost fights at the same time. Could the creator end up with negative electrum, and have to win AI1 matches to get back to zero? And could players who both create and fight T500 decks get matched against their own creations -- and improve those decks' standing by surrendering?)

On a completely different note, I'll now switch from an air deck to a time deck, at least until "air blitz" is added. (Zanz hasn't said anything about new time cards, has he?)