Guest posts by Wingflier

1

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Lower Fate Egg's Cost

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:32 pm »

Presumably it's in Time because "eggs" have to grow.  This is why you give it a "time" quantum to make it evolve.

Throughout the game you see numerous examples of this.  For example fireflies produce light, graboids take time to evolve but need earth to burrow, can't remember the name but one nature card needs light to "synthesize" nature quantums etc.

 However, I guess it could be entropy and still use a time quantum to evolve.

2

Card Ideas and Art / Balance suggestions

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:30 pm »

Good changes CK, I hope they are implemented.

3

General Discussion / The Major Problem with this game

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:30 pm »

Wtf? Nerfing Hourglass like that would make it one of the worst cards in this game.

Make a mono-time deck with Hourglasses, go test it, and then come back and tell us how "amazing" it is. Then imagine what it would be like if the card cost 5-6 and hasten cost 2.

That's because Time isn't really made to be a mono-deck, most of their cards are supportive or are made to complement other decks; therefore your argument is pretty invalid.  Light is very similar, being an underpowered mono-deck, but having some of the best support cards in the game.

Of course Hourglass would suck in a mono-Time deck, so would all of the Time cards.

On the other side, Time has all the other cards pretty weak, really.

This isn't a question of how powerful the "Time" deck is.  I could care less if the rest of the Time deck (except the Hourglass and Sundial) were the worst cards in the game.  Nobody has to use them, and it certainly wouldn't ruin the game.

4

General Discussion / The Major Problem with this game

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:30 pm »

There's twelve elements in this game. If you go mono, you're picking from just one twelfth of all the available cards. And you're surprised your deck is weak? Duh!

There are 12 elements in the game, so common sense dictates that there should be at least a drawback by being able to use them all at once...

Mono-decks should have their advantages, otherwise everybody would just go rainbow decks (pretty much that's what they do right now) - every respectable card game in existence has the option to go mono, not sure where you're coming from.

Also I like all of CK's balance changes, I hope they add them!

5

General Discussion / The Major Problem with this game

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:30 pm »

I first want to start off before I begin my rant by saying I love Elements, if I didn't I wouldn't waste my time making posts about it.

Having said that, I have noticed a huge problem in the design of the game.  It wouldn't be that hard to fix, but right now it's affecting it in a very negative way.

The problem in short:  Extra Draw cards - which include the Sundial and the Electrum Hourglass.

Now this may not seem like a very big deal at first glance, but it really is.  By having only one element that gets the ability to perform extra draws, you are basically forcing the player to include this element in their deck.  As soon as one player gets an extra draw card, they suddenly have a 2x advantage over their opponent, as they are getting twice as many cards per turn.  Obviously, the more draws you get, the higher this advantage goes up.

The ONLY way to defeat the time or rainbow deck is to play one of the two colors which can destroy permanents with spells:  Fire or Dark, since they can easily remove the extra draw cards from the game, and nullify that advantage.  However, every other mono color deck is royally screwed, because as soon as the game becomes a 2x draw for his opponent, it's pretty much over.

This is why the major Top 50 decks are either rainbow decks, heavily reliant on extra draw cards, or Fire Rush decks, which directly counter the permanents which allow the user to do this.  All of the rest of the decks are really underpowered compared to this.

If you don't believe me go check it out!  I've spent the last 3 hours just running through as many Top 50 matches as I could.  If the opponent's Mark was Entropy or Time, I just cancelled the match, since they would obviously be using extra draw cards.  The only other 2 types of decks you saw were poison and fire.  Poison is a gimmick deck, based more on luck than anything, and fire decks like I said before, directly counter the extra draw deck, but even then they usually lose.

Here's an important point:  If a player could design a deck that could beat an opponent who got 2 draws per turn (naturally), had a 90 card deck full of only elites, and got 3 of his mark per turn (instead of the normal 1), do you think this deck would be very balanced?  Of course it wouldn't, it would be ridiculous.  Welcome to False Gods and the deck I just mentioned.  False Gods should be nearly impossible to beat, it's not a coincidence that the deck that does it consistently is chocked full of extra draw cards.

If you don't agree with me I hope you have a really good argument.  Like I said, go check the Top 50 decks and 75% of the decks you will see are extra draw, the other 25% being mass poison or fire rush.  Should the game really be this narrowly designed?  I feel like the user should have the ability to build a mono color deck out of any color and be at least somewhat successful.  Time cards should NOT have to be included in their decks to win consistently.  (By the way, an easy way to win Top 50 consistently as I inadvertently discovered, is to just cancel every game against an Entropy or Time Mark player and keep going until you hit any other type of Mark.  Use your False God farming deck and gg, free wins.)

Suggestions:  Reduce Sundial Duration to 1 turn.  It would still be an awesome card.

Electrum Hourglass needs to cost a LOT more to bring out and a lot more to use its extra draw effect.  1 time quantum per draw is unacceptable.

6

General Discussion / The Major Problem with this game

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:30 pm »

Haha so I'm not the only one who knows about it ;p

The cat's out of the bag

7

General Discussion / Bugs that need addressed

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:29 pm »

If it could be deflagrated/stolen I doubt it would have quite the same utility.

That's my point, its utility is way too good.  Every other shield in the game has a counter, or if it is immaterial doesn't do that much.

It's not really that insane - it might be quite strong against some decktypes but against others (those with lots of weenies) it's not so good.

Actually its awesome against decks with little weenies, every time you kill a weenie you get 2 bones.  Firestorm + Bonewall = GG wall.  It's just too good in general, blocks full damage from every source and can't be countered with spells.  It needs a counter bad, how about the same counter every other shield has?

8

General Discussion / Bugs that need addressed

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:29 pm »

Maybe only giving it one charge when something dies?

Honestly, I think when you use Explosion or Steal on it, they don't have to steal the whole thing, maybe just 7 charges of it - so its base amount.  In this way, it's not a foolproof way of destroying the defense, but is a lot more practical (not to mention balanced) than stealing just one.

As it is right now, Bone Wall is mandatory in pretty much every deck except maybe for some Fire rush decks or a deck where you attempt to overwhelm your opponent within the first few rounds.  It's part of the reason why Rainbow decks are so over the top right now, well and sundial being so amazing.

edit:  Another solution is to have it only block up to 5 damage from each source.  5 damage is quite a lot, and will block most sources of damage except for heavy hitters.

9

General Discussion / Bugs that need addressed

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:29 pm »

I am sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong forum, I didn't see a "bug" discussion forum, so I thought general was probably the second best place.

I'm only posting major bugs, game ruining ones, so that they can promptly be fixed and no longer abused/exploited.

The main one is that bone walls can not be destroyed or stolen by spell cards.  I'm pretty sure this is just a bug, but when you destroy (say with Deflagration) or steal (with Steal) a bone wall, you only take one bone.  This has to be a bug.  Pretty much the only thing you can use to destroy bone walls are massive amounts of different monsters at once, as any deck that uses one is going to have ways of killing plenty of units to give it charges (yours or their own).

Bone walls should be like any other shield in that Deflagration or Steal complete removes them.  They completely nullify decks with a few powerful monsters and in that way ruin the game for those decks.  Please fix.

Another large bug I've noticed is that when you click on one of your monsters to use an ability that targets something, if you choose to cancel it two bad things happen:  Not only do you lose the element cost to use the skill, but you also lose the ability to CAST the skill even though you didn't even use it!

Please fix these two things.

Thanks.

Wing

10

General Discussion / Bugs that need addressed

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:10:29 pm »

Are you sure the bone wall behavior is intended?  It seems insane.  It's so easily abuseable, benefits rainbow decks to the extreme (like they need it), and really shuns decks with only a few powerful creatures, who will never be able to get past the wall.  I think Deflagration or Steal should deal at least 7 bones worth of damage/steal, it only makes sense.