Guest posts by Lord_Jadem

13

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: AI Confirmations

« on: September 29, 2011, 09:53:17 pm »

I tend to think of the loss due to something like this as a stupidity tax which I have to pay periodically.   The same thing applies to a bad play during a game.  Why did I play Card A when Card B is clearing going to destroy it?  Please enjoy my money.

If you change decks frequently enough that you are talking real money you may just want to keep a spreadsheet/document with your deck codes with the mark included.  I do not feel adding the additional step is worth the large amount of accumulated wasted clicking 'confirm' for the occasional saved loss.  I get so tired of confirmation messages for routine things.  "*sigh*  Yes, please do the thing I just told you to do.  If I hit the wrong button, I will live with the consequences.  Please stop nagging me."

Going the other way, maybe they could add a Deck Nanny - "Do really want to include Sanctuary and Solar Shield together?  You know Sanctuary prevents Solar Shield's gain light quanta ability, right?"  or "You have Butterfly Effect in deck with nothing small enough to use it on.  Choose one: 'Proceed as an idiot' or 'Go back and edit deck with head hung in shame'." 

14

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Separating Permanents from Weapons/Shields to balance Permanent Control

« on: September 29, 2011, 09:26:43 pm »

I am somewhat hesitant to come into this discussion as some of it is frankly beyond me.  And yet...

I believe the existing PC cards should continue to exist in their currrent form except with a higher cost as they does seem to be undervalued.  A card for 1 or 2 quanta (I am looking at you Explosion) negating any one of a large group of cards costing many times that?   Over powered.  Very few cards are as game changing as Steal and Explosion for their price, if any.  While there are other forms of PC, namely Pulverizer, Butterfly Effect, Mutants through Mutation and Mutants through Fallen Druid, Pulverizer require 2 different elemental quanta and cannot be used until second round (which it may not reach), Mutation has only small chance of granting Steal/Destroy, Fallen Druid has issues of both Pulverizer and Mutantion and BE is more expensive since it can be reused, but may not survive long enough to do so.

I think creating a sub-category of Artifact for permanents that are not Tower/pillar/pendulum, weapon or shield would be a great idea.  It will allow additional types of permanent control than currently exist.  More narrowly defined.  There are existing narrow permanent affecting items such as momentum (shields), flying weapon (weapon), icebolt and voodoo doll not to mention pillar only ones.  This would allow greater flexibility in card creation.  There should be some full-perm control items, I think Steal is about the best thing Darkness has going for it for instance, but I don't think that would not necessarily be appropriated to all Elements.  Gravity for instance might have a card that simply makes a weapon or shield too heavy to use, but would make no sense being applied to Empathic Bond for instance.  I believe I have seen a card suggestion for Air (?) that would pierce and shatter a shield, which would be another example of narrow PC. 

I could even see a possible distinction between Artifacts (shards, hourglass, catapult etc) and Active Spell (Enchantment?) (empathic bond, nightfall, flood etc).  Thinking behind this is a spell called Crumble might affect Artifacts while Dispel might remove Enchantments.

As to adding sub-category of Item, it seems to me it would be just as easy to have card affect 'weapon or shield' than create that distinction.  In same vein card could be made to affect 'Artifact or Enchantment'.

If change is made before a lot more cards are created it would not really have to be retro-active, it would just give more options for new cards.  More narrowly-affecting PC cards would should be cheaper than more broadly-affecting, which would allow balance to be more easily acheived without harming the balance of play anymore than when BE was added.

15

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: In game main menu after log in

« on: September 29, 2011, 07:15:20 pm »

Upgrade button in the deckbuilding is better.  There are still new people who start playing that I am sure would like access to existing quests.  No reason to punish them for not having starting playing earlier.

16

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Elements 2.0

« on: September 29, 2011, 06:53:48 pm »

I like the ideas of Card Crafting and Duality Cards, although I am not sure the latter falls in to the design philosophy of Elements either.  Just not really sure about Quantum Forging. 

Personally I like the idea of more rpg elements (no pun intended) like World of Elements and Elemental Dungeons *cough*
(http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,31716.new.html#new).  Arena has added some of that. 

I would like to see a lot more of that.  Maybe a game mode (Arena PVP?) that allows you to build decks with the Arena skills and play synchronous PVP duels would be fun.  Or evena mode to play against AI without getting the normal rewards (score/electrum/spins).  Perhaps reduced rewards- 1/3 quanta/score only 1 spin.  Or alternate awards to be determined later as other things become available in the game.

17

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Elemental Dungeons

« on: September 29, 2011, 06:43:58 pm »

Magic the Gathering was the CCG that we first started doing this with, but I am not familiar with adaptation you mention.  We also played a game of MtG Risk where each attempt to take land was a Duel.  The number of armies on each country affected allowed cards etc in the decks that could used.  I don't have all the rules any more, but small armies meant smaller cost cards, no Uniques/Legends etc.

As to the possibility of implementing this, I know it is a long shot.  I am not anything but the most basic coder so would really have no idea of the complexity of it all, so I am not exactly demanding it.   Just think of it as my Santa list.  I have been a good boy this year...

As to multiplayer, I am sure you are right.  After posting this I have been thinking more along looking into a way to convert to an event type of thing... Can't really do skills, but can have someone run Dungeon Crawls and successes might allow progress on some sort of leaderboard.  Encounter's would be DM dueling players with premade decks.  Skills not possible in this way.  Perhaps Level 1 player would have to build deck with 0 rare/upgraded cards.  Once 30 card deck built, no other cards can be used unless spun for or rolled as loot.  Maybe only 1 element allowed.  More 'character' levels allows additional elements and allows rare cards to be used.  Possible can only use rares rolled as loot.  In this way I suppose can be played just by a group of random players unofficially.  Of course being an event would allow actual prizes to be won.  I will have to read up more about how events work and think more about and to do this without an actually mod to game.

The only difficulty on a non-even/non-mod would be a time to find a time when multiple people willing to spend the time can all be online together.  This is more difficult in a world-wide community than a handful of high school kids getting together after school.   Well, getting people together and hammering out rules and drawing up loot tables, which would not be exceedingly difficult.  I think in Excel format anyway.

Thanks for your feedbacks.

18

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Manual/custom upgrading?

« on: September 29, 2011, 04:33:48 pm »

I think that would require Zanz to triple the number of cards without a very noticable gain.  Look at the import code.  If you have 1 card upgraded 3 different ways you would have to have 3 different versions of it.  8pua 8pub 8puc.  Each would also require a diffent image and coding to make it act properly.  I think that we would all benefit more from additional cards. 

Also the example of the bone pillar ugrade seems way overpowered compared to the current version.  If you have particular cards you think are not worth upgrading the way they are it sounds more like something that may need a buff instead of a complete change of environment.  Personally I cannot think of any card that is not worth upgrading.  There are some I use more often in unupgraded from but would work better upgraded in other types of decks such as boneyard.

19

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Bonus money from spins

« on: September 29, 2011, 04:09:14 pm »

Geez, give some people free money and they just complain about it.

20

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Drop rate

« on: September 29, 2011, 04:06:01 pm »

It also could be karma.  Try being nicer to people and see if that helps. 

I have had days go by 1-2 cards in 20 wins and days where I might get 5 cards out of 10.  It is the nature of randomness.  Try flipping a coin 100 times.  You will get chains of heads or tails 7-8 long while other times it is alternating.  The unexpected is inherent in randomness.  You just tend to notice more when things aren't going your way.

If you start tracking wins it will probably even out.  In a D&D game we had one guy always crying that he was cursed.  So for a couple weeks we tracked every role and his average and mean was on par with everyone else's, and his top 5 and low 5 were near the middle of the pack too.

After saying all that, there are still times I think Zanz hates me.

21

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Suggestion for Arena (and Oracle)

« on: September 29, 2011, 03:57:08 pm »

Um... if the card selected that way is a key card for the element it couple be quite a handicap.  If I drew a Hope card but photon was prohibited for instance I think I would just skip arena for the day.  I don't think FFQ would be worth trying in Arena. I think it might just encourage more rainbow decks.

22

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Ingame Forge (Aka merging two cards)

« on: September 29, 2011, 03:52:35 pm »

I like this idea.  I do not wish to detract from it, but in response to comments about it being too complicated or too easy to obtain recipe's etc,  a possible simpler if not as nifty method would be more of a melting pot than forge.  Open up pot, start selecting cards and when done click merge.  Game would calculate value and rarity of cards and based on that spit out a card.  The more value of cards the better card created.  Occasionaly with enough value of cards it would produce a rare.  You never get to choose the card.  Tossing in a rare or upgraded card would almost gaurantee a rare.

Of the two ideas I defintely prefer the forge idea though.  If the forge is put in play, maybe melting pot could be used to break down cards into materials?

23

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Weekly Deck

« on: September 29, 2011, 03:04:34 pm »

I think it would be a good idea as well.  I don't think it discourages originality, but helps new players to learn different strategies.  Sure there may be people who simply copy and play other decks, but people who do that are probably already doing that.  There happens to be a large part of forum just for those people.  We have a deck archive don't we? 

Something like this may help keep more people who initially play and then quit out of frustration.  Many people first try out on Kongregate for example and may not go to the trouble of looking up forum or wiki.  I certainly didn't until I had been playing for months.  These in game example decks would hopefully inspire and show deck strategies they had not considered and may help keep them around long enough to becoming Elements addicts like the rest of us.  The first taste of deck creation is free...

24

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: [Arena] Showing max hp and deck decay in a duel

« on: September 29, 2011, 02:48:43 pm »

As an alternate suggestion, perhaps a rollover over the life of deck that shows max/current hp just as it has for creatures.  Also, since like Elehean I tend to go through too quickly, a rollover showing decks current ranking as well would be nice.  I generally don't care what level it is until the point where I am about to win.