Guest posts by dougempty

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Card Ideas and Art / card ideas

« on: February 09, 2011, 03:03:01 am »

i don't know how to put this in card ideas and i don't know if it's already been proposed but i was playing sonny 2 and i got the idea for a couple of elements cards. a card that increases healing and a card that turns damage into healing and healing into damage. a card that increases healing could be a quick boost to healing. a card that turns damage into healing and healing into damage could be used to block damage for a turn and turn that damage into healing or as a way to punish players for thier empathetic bonds or shards of gratitude. but then if you combine the two cards, you could create a new win condition; multiply healing, turn healing into damage, then heal the opponent to death. just an idea. do with it what you will

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 13, 2010, 08:55:39 am »

If it meant more options, then all unupgraded cards should be different from the original.

if even one is different then yes, that means more options.

And you know, we should simply remove unupgraded cards. They're so unpopular and rarely used, why keep them?

i suppose you are refering to this

any cheaper and just throw it all away. only 5% (or whatever) are using upgraded cards. we should just throw them away, too. 

i said that (sarcastically) because you said this

If you make it any easier to get upgraded cards, you could just throw the whole idea of unupgraded cards.

if upgrades costed exactly the same as unupgraded cards, then you could just throw them away. they could get a lot cheaper before that was the case.

Aww, when upgrades were created, all the old players left.

no, i said that 4 out of 5 of my friends who were new players at that time left.

They simply did not like the new cards, they felt that all of them should come free

no, i'm talking about the people with little time to play who feel like their time would be wasted trying to get an upgraded deck at the current pace

then they can just go back to their own CCG after testing all of the cards elements have to offer.

they did and that didn't help the elements community.  -1 karma

I think that douge hit the spot with his post, since everyone would keep playing and playing and playing after they got their first upgraded deck, since they have access to every card in this wonderful game straight away. Since doesn't everyone hate this game because they don't have access to all the cards?

i've said many times now that just the first 20-30 upgrades need to be cheaper to hook casual players better. this would not give you access to every single card in this game straight away. it would give you access to 20-30 of the 600 or 700 potential upgrades in less time than you are currently able but would still be far more time than buying an unupgraded deck.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 13, 2010, 04:45:29 am »

And then they don't touch unupgraded cards ever again, leaving after a short while because they find the game boring. Don't lure them to this game because of upgrades, let them experiment with unupgraded cards themselves. Play with them abit with your unupgraded card decks, and stop hurrying them to get upgraded cards.

you're making way too many assumptions. i didn't try to lure anybody here with upgrades. i got most of the people who i got to try this game to try it before upgrades even came out. and when the upgrades did come out, they quit. now when i tell people about the game, most of them like it until they hear about the upgrades. but i get them to try to play it anyway and it mostly just doesn't stick. now, these are people who play CCGs all the time and should like something like this but most of them complain about the upgrades and just quit.  the game drops off in pace until you get your first upgraded deck where it picks back up. that gap is what is turning the majority of people (or at least of my friends) off.

making it easier (easier not easy) to get just your first upgraded deck doesn't shorten the game as much as it will open it up. more people will actually try to achieve an upgraded deck and maybe those people who would've stopped after one deck would feel less drained and bored by the experience and would keep playing. and making it easier to get just your first upgraded deck still leaves many many cards to upgrade and pvp after you've finished that. upgrading all your cards would still be a long road for the hardcore gamers, players would just get a jump start down that road to get them hooked.

having an upgraded deck doesn't mean never using unupgraded cards again. i keep my sundials unupgraded and i have a friend who keeps his novas unupgraded. having upgraded cards just means more options. but if it did mean never using any unupgraded cards ever again, would that be worse than keeping the game inaccessable and uninteresting to the majority of gamers?

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 13, 2010, 03:45:35 am »

the current system is working fine and dandy.

for some but you gotta look at it from the casual players point of view. sure, it's easy enough to start but it looks like an eternity to get anywhere. and one unupgraded false god farmer is not gonna keep them interested. they wanna play their own strategies.

with pvp mode, the upgrades don't need to be so expensive to keep hardcore players interested. and anyway, only the first 20-30 upgrades need to be cheaper so that the huge gap between your first deck and your first upgraded deck closes up some and stops scaring away all my casual gamer friends.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 13, 2010, 03:17:23 am »

Don't get the wrong impression about what I said ... I'm not calling anyone selfish.

i'm sorry. i must have been confused. but your gonna have to explain this

The majority of comments left by the majority of players on the majority of fansites for the majority of games are just like this. Players always tend to be biased towards what would personally make the game easier for themselves, given the goal of victory, but with only short-term benefits.

it sure doesn't sound like your calling anyone selfish...  it sounds like your calling (almost) everyone selfish

I think that the short-sightedness that comes from being a player rather than a game designer is a completely normal phenomenon

of course you do cause you're a selfless game designer, right? (what have you done by the way that makes you so superior?)

In any event you made some very good points. I guess I'd say that my gut tells me a lot of these issues are going to come down to what kind of a game Elements hopes to be (it might be a question for Zanzarino). If it intends to stay a home-brewed, small-community effort, it makes more sense for costs to be lower like you imply. But if the intention is to massively increase the player base and being a major MMOG, then it makes more sense to follow the long-path-to-success model. I'm definitely not advocating one over the other per se, but it seems to me that the latter path is being chosen (at least in theory for the moment -- it remains to be seen whether the game has the longevity to get there).

major MMOGs are widely popular among a small group of gamers known as hardcore gamers. hardcore gamers play more often but casual gamers are the majority. lower costs would expand the fan base to casual gamers while a high upgrade cost keeps the game only accessable to the hardcore gamers. high upgrade costs keep the community small, not the other way around. but it's not black or white. this game doesn't have to cater to only one group. a game can have something for both groups. if they make just the first upgraded deck cheaper, it would be more likely to hook the casual gamers and all the subsequent upgrades can stay the same price so the game doesn't lose replay value for the hardcore gamers.

because casual gamers want fun and satisfaction from a game sooner rather than later doesn't make them overly selfish or short sighted simply because... it's just a game! if thats how they want to have fun, and it's not hurting anyone, it's fine. but i could probly make a case for people wanting the game to stay accessable only to hardcore gamers as being selfish and short-sighted.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 12, 2010, 02:46:10 pm »

The problem is that the current PVP matches are slow as hell to me, since theres a lot of lag between turns. Coupled with desyncs, I think I prefer the AI instead of PVP... Until the PVP aspect of this game is improved, I think I'll be sticking with upgraded cards costing the same as they currently are. Or maybe at least until Zanz creates a new goal for people who have achieved an upgraded deck.

i agree that pvp needs work. between an already slow computer (like 2-3 frames per sec) and desyncs, i don't play it either but it is there and it is always gonna be a place with a challenge for people with upgraded decks.

But still, I feel that the unupgraded portion of the game is largely ignored in favor of those upgraded decks. People CAN actually form good decks with unupgraded cards, to me the long first half of the game where you dont have any upgraded cards is the time where you get to experiment with unupgraded decks. If you make it any easier to get upgraded cards, you could just throw the whole idea of unupgraded cards.

there it is again. why is 1500 the perfect number? any cheaper and just throw it all away. only 5% (or whatever) are using upgraded cards. we should just throw them away, too. anyway, just the first 20-30 need to be cheaper to close in that massive gap between your first deck and your first upgraded deck that scares all the casual gamers away.

once you get upgraded cards, that doesn't mean your never gonna use unupgraded cards again (just most of the time). and certainly there are interesting decks without upgrades but the question is, would people play more if they had access to more cards? and i think that it should be obvious that they would.

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Deck Help / Re: Try This If You Still Don't Have A Good Deck

« on: September 12, 2010, 12:10:47 pm »

i thought so. but ya, interesting decks. *gives thumbs up*

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Deck Help / Re: My decklist

« on: September 12, 2010, 11:59:28 am »

very nice collection of decks!
some of your farm decks look pretty mean. 
can all these decks be found elsewhere?

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 12, 2010, 11:12:13 am »

In the last few posts we see where the problem is. ''The game is finished when you have nearly all the cards.''

That is a strange assumption. By that logic I have also ''finished chess and checkers,'' because I bought all the pieces, and at once. That is not the idea though. When you have all the pieces, then you can START playing.

lol! exactly! that's what i'm saying!

While the prices don't have to change, I say, give people a goal. Tournaments are very difficult now, but scoring rating in pvp only is not. Yeah I already said that I know. Beating the AI is never the goal of a 1 VS 1 game. Check the game sites around. AI's are ignored.

i agree, the game needs to be geared toward pvp as the final frontier instead of being swept aside but that's not gonna hook the casual players. when they realize how long it takes to get a competitive deck, they quit.

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Deck Help / Re: Try This If You Still Don't Have A Good Deck

« on: September 12, 2010, 10:54:46 am »

i asked because your not gonna be able to power the dissapation shields without entropy pillars

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 12, 2010, 10:48:56 am »

10 games an hour at 50 electrum a game is 500 per hour. i checked jmdt's win time study to see if my ballpark was accurate and the fastest unupgraded deck there, the shieker rush, averaged about 530 per hour. the upgraded shrieker rush averaged 1200. my estimate was low. it's probly closer to 65 hours when you consider that the deck will make more money as it gets upgraded (thats just an estimate. do you wanna do the math? ) and this is best case senario with ideal conditions and nose to the grindstone

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 12, 2010, 10:07:37 am »

at the current price for upgrades, it would take a new player making on average 50 electrum a game, 900 games to completely upgrade one deck (30 cards). at base 500, raising 50 with each upgrade, and then capping off at 1500, it would still take 720 games. that still seems like a lot to me. at 10 games an hour, thats 72 hours. i'd like to see something in the ballpark of 30 hours to upgrade your first deck. i don't know many people who spend more than thirty hours playing any given PS3/ 360 game, let alone a flash game.