Guest posts by Wesley Gibson

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False Gods / Re: False Gods Revamped

« on: January 19, 2011, 10:58:03 pm »

Honestly, any deck even attempting to use Dune Scorpion in a FG's hand should just be out.  Dune scorpion requires some prep from a player to field effectively, so they don't become too horrendous.

Being punished for playing cards against a FG is just about the most pointlessly cruel stratagem I can think of off the top of my head.

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False Gods / Re: Remaking the gods

« on: November 23, 2010, 10:41:36 pm »

I am, in no way, the first person to suggest an "AI7" of sorts.  I'm just the first one who realized that's what the false gods could be, while AI5 took the role of the farming for money.

I'm sure that's true, but the persistent lack of an AI7 is (in my opinion) a structural problem that currently has no answer.

The real problem here is that the game you want to make more challenging just doesn't have more room for it.  You could make a few of the weak links like Paradox slightly harder, but that wouldn't really justify significant rewards increases.

You don't seem to want to do that though.  Your first proposal included a 500 HP Miracle who basically can't be Decked out.   I can see that as a desire to create something at the ABSOLUTE limit of each deck concept, and call that the end game.

A randomized pool of decks like that with current FG rules would literally beat any player deck every single time.  A non-random choice, or segregated pool (put all the nature guys together and challenge, "the gods of nature," for example) would just have the most profitable choice getting hit, with all others ignored.

Within the current framework of rules, there just isn't ROOM for the challenge you want without creating something pointlessly mean-spirited/hard that players will ignore.

You say if the decks were harder, there's room to remove some FG advantages like double draw or double life, but this is only addressed in vague hypotheticals, and most FG decks completely collapse without those advantages, so EVERYTHING has to be completely redone.

Enhance the half bloods, make paradox a little harder, and dump the rest of this idea, and you have a workable idea.

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False Gods / Re: Remaking the gods

« on: November 23, 2010, 09:28:29 pm »

I disagree with buffing the FGs.  This would just widen the already large gap between new players and veterans.  I understand that people who already have tons of electrum and upped cards want a challenge, but imagine it from the perspective of a newbie - how long would they have to grind to even consider fighting these buffed FGs?  They likely would just become discouraged and quit.  There are already some brutally hard FGs, having a few easy ones thrown into the mix for balance isn't a bad thing.

In any case, how could any level of AI be "not farmable?"  The average electrum gain per match has to either be positive or negative.  If it's positive, it's farmable.  If it's negative, why bother playing against it?  You'll go bankrupt.

....for the fun?  Did you forget there was more to this game than just randomly gaining money?

Aside from yourself I don't see a lot of people claiming they're interested in a major overhaul, or saying that your suggestion would enhance their enjoyment.  It seems like people want Paradox and Destiny to be more consistently difficult, and maybe Hermes, Rainbow, and Dark Matter to be less unreasonably difficult.

Also, you've basically boiled it down to exactly what the single player game amounts to in the end with that statement.  Randomly gaining money to support the development of new decks, and participation in events and tournaments.

Unless someone wants to develop a BRUTAL end game with single-player-only rewards, that seems to me like the way it will always be.  SP supports MP and provides some laughs and some groans while doing it.

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False Gods / Re: Remaking the gods

« on: November 15, 2010, 07:27:45 pm »

I agree that some consensus is good, but I think we also need to come up with some idea of what we'll DO with that data.  Again, depending on the approach you're playing, these decks can end with wildly different results for you, and even the so called 'easy' decks can just clobber you if they get a good draw, or you get a crappy one.

Does anyone actually want to get chewed up and spit out completely regardless of what the opposition is?  Do we need to make Miracle into a powerhouse that's as hard or harder than Hermes (who we all seem to agree is just completely brutal and punishing to an unreasonable extreme according to the pole)?

Does Ferrox (just from the most recent example) need an overwhelmingly powerful shield in addition to its rush-deck nature combined with benefits like double base HP, triple mark, double card drawing, and the ability to use more Feral bonds than a human player ever possibly could?  I certainly don't think so.

You've probably only got a 50-60% chance against the current version of Ferrox using entropy rainbow, time rainbow is likely to get swarmed under, and RoL likely can't deal the damage to compensate for  like 200 healing a turn or whatever Ferrox's insane max is.

Is it important that we make that deck more difficult because it doesn't beat you 9.5 out of 10 times like eternal phoenix?

What we REALLY need a pole on is this question:
"Is it a problem that we have less difficult (but still very capable of winning) FG decks in a random pile with the ones that leave you abused and bleeding from every orifice after each match?"

I would submit that the answer is no.

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False Gods / Re: Remaking the gods

« on: November 11, 2010, 09:01:51 pm »

I think their situation right now is pretty good.  You have a decent cross-section of challenge, with some who are just horrific balanced by others who are much more beatable but still challenging.

Miracle for example is considered a pushover, but he still occasionally swarms me under on a poor draw, or a good draw on his part, same with most of them.  A really buffed Pegasus on turn 2 can be pretty much unrecoverable.  On a good draw even the "easy" gods can completely hammer you.

Plus easy and hard can be relative to what deck you play, with the most common "easy" ones for some decks being quite difficult for other decks.  I play an Otyugh/Mutant rainbow and consider Neptune quite easy.  Others who play RoL consider him an autoquit.  The random picking aspect really serves to balance out the overall difficulty of the FGs.  I doubt most people routinely achieve more than a 60% win rate against the "easy" gods, and probably either quit against the really awful ones, or suffer an 80 or 90% defeat rate.

Personally I keep getting hammered by Dream Catcher, who others don't apparently have a problem with.

Really, even if you separated them into two pools, and made the electrum and spins higher for the "Hard" gods, who would bother playing them?  If it were a choice between double rewards, and playing nobody but rainbow, dark matter, graviton, scorpio, obliterator and octane, I'd play the crappy ones who still hand out upgraded cards constantly any day of the week.

Also consider that the segregated pool would make it easier to predict who you're going to hit, and re-evaluate deck designs accordingly.  Part of the reason Octane and Scorpio are difficult is that it is not advantageous to stock significant numbers of counters for them.  Extremely control oriented decks that are of low value against some of the "easy" gods like miracle could be played very successfully against a much tighter grouping of the hard ones.

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Forum Archive / Re: Post Unconfirmed Bugs Here!

« on: November 10, 2010, 11:22:05 am »

I would put forth that the fact that it is "negative damage" not healing actually supports my point of view.

If I were going to guess at conceptually what the antimatter spell is supposed to be doing, I'd picture it as transmuting the creature's matter into the opposite of matter.  Antimatter.  I picture it as completely warping said creature into its antimatter equivalent.

For whatever reason, the interpretation of the spell is that is that contact with antimatter that would inflict damage normally inflicts negative damage instead.  Anti-claws cause anti-damage.  Anti-bites cause anti-damage.

In this admittedly goofy conceptual framework, it seems out of place to me that the antimatter equivalent of poison is just poison, not anti-poison.

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Forum Archive / Re: Post Unconfirmed Bugs Here!

« on: November 10, 2010, 08:43:17 am »

I just assumed that because I've apparently converted their harmful matter into healing antimatter, their poison would become an antidote.  Seems to follow in a world of ridiculous magical logic...

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Forum Archive / Re: Post Unconfirmed Bugs Here!

« on: November 09, 2010, 02:01:25 pm »

Using antimatter on a poisonous creature allows it to bypass a shield and applies healing, but also poisons the recipient of said healing.  Not sure what to think here, might not even be a bug.

Personally I think it would be cool if it added purification counters instead.

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False Gods / Re: Dark Matter Nymphs

« on: November 02, 2010, 07:46:41 pm »

Well we do need a rainbow counter deck in the FGs, just like how Decay is the counter to monos.
I think less people run monos than rainbows in FG so more people are whining about DM. Nobody is trying to nerf Decay.

Dream Catcher has nymphs too. Is anyone starting a "Dream Cather Nymphs" thread?

Dreamcatcher is absolutely horrendous as far as I'm concerned, and I routinely quit rather than bother playing against it.  Very likely the only reason it doesn't get talked about much is the fact that a RoL deck can beat it because DC is rather weak at countering RoL. 

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Deck Help / Re: Anti FG rol decks

« on: October 21, 2010, 02:55:37 pm »

I don't prefer the RoL deck personally, but I play with a few modifications that seem to do pretty well when I use it:

I bring Archangels instead of Dragons because I can get them out faster, and they can heal themselves and others.

I also bring a smaller number of Fractals than you'd typically see, and replace them with Improved Blessings, and add Twin Universes (I've got 6 TUs I won from FGs and only 2 upgraded fractals so it made plenty of sense).  Against FG decks with damage based control, a number of 4/4, 7/7, or 10/10 RoLs will hold up much longer and draw a lot fire away from 1/1 Rays unless they have rain of fire or thunder storm.  With the Archangels, you can keep buffed RoL on the board pretty much indefinitely.

I also like to bring an animate weapon, so I can get two of them out, and one can't be stolen/exploded.

Last I bring some SoG for healing, cause... why wouldn't you if you have them?

Rewinders like Destiny and Seism can get annoying for dumping your buffs, but they also get into a lot of trouble just from the power of the Hope shield, so it doesn't actually matter.

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False Gods / Re: Dark Matter Nymphs

« on: October 15, 2010, 10:05:58 pm »

My point is that those 4 cards should be removed from his hand.

They can't be won, so they're a pain in the ass there.

They're too powerful to let a FG play because they completely shut down a huge variety of decks. 

Due to his triple mark and deck composition he can use them unreasonably often.

Taking them out won't change his play very significantly.

Those cards are basically there to rub in the player's face, which is lame.

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False Gods / Re: Dark Matter Nymphs

« on: October 15, 2010, 09:35:40 pm »

Dark Matter is overpowered. Easily one of the hardest FG. The best way to beat him is to use a deck that is designed to counter him, some of which can be found here: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9507.0.html

Basically, mono aether is your best bet (although RoL/Hope also works to some extent), because Dark Matter is usually only good against mono decks early game. Upgraded pillars will give you precious quanta early on which you can use to stall with phase shield (he has no perm control so you will get full protection) and wait until quanta control with BH loses its debilitating effect. Even then, quite a bit of it is luck though, as early grav nymphs will ruin even mono decks.

Early Lobotomizer is also important, because you can remove momentums, and stop grav nymphs from spamming BH.

Yes its a hard deck, and will completely wang most decks that are not mono element (though once of twice my rainbow has managed to beat it on an extremely bad draw).  I don't have a problem with that, I enjoy the difficulty of most FG decks.

My point is this:

1.)  Dark Matter is likely to defeat the majority of rainbow decks so rapidly that the Nymphs don't have much impact on play.  They only serve to guarantee that a rainbow deck will NEVER be able to move against darkmatter when they come out very early.

2.)  They're largely useless against mono-decks, because a large number of towers generate too much quantum every turn for them to handle.

3.) Letting a FG play unwinable and incredibly bothersome cards creates no additional incentive to play against that FG, because the cards with the most potential to abuse you are also forbidden from Spins.

If we accept these points, basically the only thing these cards do is force ragequits.  With 12 black holes, Darkmatter is going to cast enough of them to COMPLETELY hammer an unlucky rainbow deck on basically ever engagement anyway.  That's fine.  That's what he's supposed to do.  He surpresses your power source and takes off to an early lead.

It seems pointlessly cruel to combine all that potential with the limitless BH potential of a nymph, so that even if you manage to make it through 3 or 4 blackholes and begin to mount a defense, he can permanently lock you down.

Why leave in these rage inducing cards that also taunt the player by being no-spin?