Guest posts by Jeff

1

General Discussion / Re: An Interview With A Former Elements Player

« on: February 09, 2012, 10:01:20 pm »

1) Card advantage vs Cost efficiency
As you were very much aware, Elements operates on the suboptimal Quanta system rather than the Mana system of Magic. The relaxation of the time restriction on energy usage has had many ripples that differentiate the value system of Elements from that of Magic. In magic, you had to use or lose your energy. This promoted a strong incentive on playing cheap cards so they hit the field early. Cheap cards come with the side effect of requiring large numbers to achieve the same field position as fewer more expensive cards. Elements does not have the biasing incentive towards cheap cards so few expensive cards can compete with many cheap cards. Strategies using more expensive cards (relative to expected energy production) gain little to no advantage from drawing because they start with a surplus of cards. Strategies using cheap cards (relative to expected energy production) gain a lot from drawing because they start with a shortage of cards. This results in incentives to balance energy usage during deckbuilding [QI] rather than gain cards during a game. Most of your experience was with your Rainbow Stall. Such a deck is designed to have cheap cards relative to the 3 per tower production and thus found Hourglass to be a very valuable card. Immolation Rush actually sacrifices unneeded card advantage to gain more quanta for its expensive cards relative to the finite source of quanta.

I only said that hourglasses are incredibly strong, perhaps too strong, but not that they eliminate the possibility of decks without hourglasses.  There are plenty of decks that don't rely on drawing lots of cards.  While I would say that those decks are unreliable and are incapable of really adapting to the metagame (a harsh thing in a game where completing a deck can require more than a month or two of grinding), I'm sure that there are plenty who swear by them.  Personal preference.

2) Does Elements have too little removal (in the elements with removal) or does Magic mitigate imbalances with excessively available removal?
From my experience playing and researching Magic, I have often come across the fallacy of "It's not overpowered, it dies to Swords". Yes it does die to Swords. However balance is not measured by objective resilience but rather by power relative to alternate options. "Storm Crow" and "Huntmaster of the Fells" both die to Shock. That does not change the fact that Storm Crow is drastically underpowered compared to newer cards. Well, what effect does abundant removal have on cards that are demonstrably overpowered? It reduces the impact of the overpowered nature on the metagame. The effect of a card is relative to its resilience. The effect of the relative difference in power between two cards is related to the resilience of that card type (2hp in this case). With removal being very common the effect of the imbalance is mitigated. Thus the smaller the imbalance between cards, the less removal is needed to soften the effect of the imbalance on the game. This then leads to the next relevant difference. Magic is structured around gaining an advantage. Elements is structured around building a position. This design shift would be expected to have less abundant removal so creatures and permanents stick around longer. Note the game is still young and the single developer is still adding more removal to the elements that do not have enough. Furthermore, Elements places a higher emphasis on Indirect counters (Shard of Gratitude vs Unstoppable Dune Scorpion).

I would say that the main difference in creature removal in EtG and MTG is that the few creatures in EtG that demand removal don't die to it, while their are many creatures that demand removal in Magic.  So while there actually is plentiful removal in EtG, the most of the creatures that they kill aren't even worth the effort (it's gotten to the point where I don't even bother with point removal anymore).  Most creatures are underpowered, so removal must be underpowered, and as a result, the few creatures that are worth killing don't even die.  I really prefer how it works in most MTG games: most creature decks work by overloading removal through card advantage, and even though they might die, it is generally worth it, as there is no way that the opponent can kill them all.  It makes for a very challenging set of decisions for the player with removal, which does very good things for the game as a whole (obviously, giving players skill-intensive choices to make is good for a competitive game).

In general you had good points hidden in the required oversimplification. Your interview is far from worthless.

Thank you

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General Discussion / Re: An Interview With A Former Elements Player

« on: February 09, 2012, 07:27:37 pm »

Hello, this is "Jeff".  I would like to address certain points that have been raised about me.

Jeff oversimplifies his description of EtG

Naturally.  Take a person who has not played more than a few games over the last year and view him through a lens that has never played the game before.  You should EXPECT oversimplification.

Jeff fails to mention X, Y, or Z, and therefore played at a low level/was lying about the time he played in

False.  The only cards I even talked about were weapons, removal, and pillars.  I should not have to mention every single card type to prove my credibility.  As for pendulums, I was aware that they existed, but at the time I was playing they did not do much to contribute to the viability of duo-colored decks.  Specifically, my complaint was that there were no pillars that could reliably and efficiently produce quanta of 2 different elements, as I found that pendulums overall gave neither the single-minded efficiency of mono nor the versatility of rainbow.  I apologize for the misunderstanding

Jeff claims that removal is both too cheap and nonexistent at the same time.  How can this be?

My claims were that permanent removal was too cheap, and that creature removal inadequately handled the most dangerous threats (not nonexistent).  As Exeneva has had MTG experience, you can imagine how a misunderstanding could have arose (hint: in MTG, permanents includes creatures).  Again, I apologize.

However, my point still stands.  Permanent removal as a whole was too cheap.  Explosion cost R, which was simply not enough.  I noticed that it has since been nerfed to RR, which proves my point.
Creature removal was lacking.  The biggest and most common threats were typically high health (Elite Queen, flying weapons, dragons) or untargetable (Elite Shrieker, Elite Immortal, or anything with Quintessence).  One of the most obnoxious threats, in particular, to a rainbow control player like myself, was a Dune Scorpion with Unstoppable, which could literally hit on the first turn (not that playing it on any other turn would make it any more removable, because of the lack of instants in EtG).  Not entirely coincidentally, I quit not all that long after Dune Scorpion was introduced.

Jeff is a n00b

Proof, please.  Oh wait, you can't, because all you have are things that I attempted to explain to someone who has never played EtG before.

Jeff says weapons are overpowered, but they aren't

Perhaps they aren't, but, in my opinion, the fact that they can shut down entire decks when left unanswered (Eagle's Eye, Eternity, Pulverizer), do not have true answers across all the elements (Life, Light, Time, Water, Air, Aether, Death, Gravity, and Earth, IIRC, did not have weapon removal), is detrimental to the game.

Jeff overestimates the power of Hourglasses

In rainbow vs rainbow, the biggest determining factor in who won and who lost was the number of hourglasses one could keep on the field.  It was nigh impossible to win that matchup if your opponent had 1 and you had 0.  Obviously, Elite Otyugh and Elite Queen and Nymphs are powerful cards, but even they can be easily handled when you are drawing 3-4 cards a turn.  Hourglasses were reason rainbow decks were so strong.  Drawing multiple cards a turn allows rainbow decks to bury mono decks in a matter of turns in a way that would not otherwise be possible, given the ineffectiveness of creature removal.  There are other cards that make the rainbow deck good, but in the end, the only way to answer everything is to play all the answers, and the only way to ensure that you draw the right answers is to draw a lot of cards.  How do you draw a lot of cards in EtG?  You guessed it: Hourglasses.  If you think that the key card of a massive portion of the metagame is not itself incredibly powerful, then I don't know what to say to you.

Jeff thinks that playing with cards that he finds OP is fun, therefore he is a n00b

I guess all vintage players are n00bs, then?  No?  You never get a kick out of playing Ancestral Recall?  Sorry, is enjoying playing with Cockatrices and Graviton Mercanaries your idea of pr0?
Have I made my point sufficiently clear by speaking in questions?

Jeff is inexperienced in card games

I have played MTG for 8 years now.  For at least 4 of those years, I voraciously read every article on SCG and MTG, including all of the articles on game design.  I regularly frequented FNMs and got addicted to MTGO for as long as my wallet held out.  My friends and I playtested competitive decks.  I also had experience with L5R and YuGiOh, although given the expense of MTG cards (and perhaps some MTG elitism), I did not own any of those cards.  I played Elements for around a year.

I love card games.  I study card games.  I go to tournaments to play card games.  When I'm with my friends, I even breathe card games.  Inexperienced?  I don't think so.

Jeff is biased and only goes over the negative elements of Elements, and therefore his opinion is invalid

As I mentioned before, I read quite a bit about game design.  Elements is, in my opinion, (hate incoming) poorly designed as a card game.  The game is heavily geared towards making new players enjoy an online card game.  The simplistic gameplay makes the game quite easy to pick up from the get-go, and the amount of grinding necessary to pay for upgrades and acquire rare cards makes people keep playing.
However, in my opinion, Elements fails to offer a competitive field for experienced players to prove their skill.  Poor game design led the game to a place where the metagame breaks down into essentially, rainbow decks, gimmicky (untargetable creatures, pillar destruction, poison, etc) decks designed to exploit weaknesses in rainbow decks, and aggro decks that prey on gimmicky decks.  Playing gimmicky decks never appealed to me, as they generally lose to anything other than rainbow; aggro generally gets stomped by rainbow decks; and losing to gimmicky decks as rainbow is one of the most infuriating experiences I have ever had in a card game.  It was essentially the same as the metagame revolving around Affinity in MTG (there were only Affinity decks, anti-Affinity decks, and anti-anti-Affinity decks), which drove many people to quit competitive Magic.  That is the main reason why I quit Elements.

So yes, it is quite safe to say that I am biased against Elements.  If I weren't, you would be reading "An Interview with an Elements Player".  I learned that Exeneva was creating his own online card game, and I quite literally jumped at the opportunity to offer advice to him, hoping that he could make a game that could correct the mistakes made in EtG.  That is why I emphasized the weaknesses of Elements.  I want a game I can genuinely enjoy.




I hope that this has properly explained my position.  If anybody here has any further objections to my adequacy as an interview subject, object away, and I will be happy to respond.