Guest posts by ikinone

1

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 17, 2011, 02:12:39 pm »

It adds to the game because losing should mean something. Would it be fun to gamble if you didn't have to lose money if you lost a bet? Then you'd go all in during every round for that chance to win once...which isn't a good thing.

As I already explained; electrum = time.

This simply reduces the cost of a match, it does not remove it. I can only conclude that this does not affect people to whom time is worthless.

Anyway, I have had it trying to convince people to even consider this. Enjoy your grinding, I am off to find a new game. Goodbye and have fun.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 15, 2011, 06:18:35 am »

Oh, you gave a platform. Good.
1. This has hardly any impact on the grindfest.I currently have 1928 losses. About 70% of them are from doing T50 and just quitting if I didnt like the opponent. 70%=578 matched that I just lost due to me actually losing. Id say about 70% of that is FG's, 10%Half Bloods, and 20% AI3. Thats about 23  on average I lost a game. That is 13259:electrum I lost.I have 217 cards that are upped right now. Not counting that In sold about 50 upgraded cards, losing a total of about 4000 .  So out of 217 cards I upped, I lost 9, which is just 4% of my cards that I lost due to the game cost. It wont make a noticeable difference as far as how it is right now.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, if we REMOVE the cost, then FG's will be grinded nonstop, but a good win% wont matter. The only thing that will matter is that it is good against certain Gods. 29 FGs. Get a good win rate with a rush deck against 5 of them, and you will be able to just skip 17% of the games (aka 1/6 approximately) and have a good win rate against the others. You are using a rush deck so you will be able to kill a good amount ina  single hour. It will become WAY too easy to grind.

As already addressed in this thread, the cost of matches does not stop people doing that anyway.

As for point 2...
2. Its the players fault for being moronic enough to get down that low on . Sorry, but thats all there is to it. It is the players fault if they get that low on  .

You are correct, but since it does not add to the game, I do not see the point in it. It is simply a possible negative.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 12, 2011, 12:38:37 pm »

Im going back to what Zblader said awhile back.  Doing this is like investing in a stock and always getting a positive outcome.  I get that this is a fantasy game, but you have to be somewhat realistic.  And can you do one thing for me?  Give me 2 more reasons why this would be a good idea other than it would make the game more fun, easier, and more attracting to the new and causal players.

I will give you two reasons:
1. It makes the game less of an intimidating grindfest.
2. It does not force players to return to moron level AI.

And btw, this line from your last post: People do not build survival decks to avoid losing gold. They build different decks for different ways to win.  It means the same thing.  Building a deck to win is building a deck that can avoid losing which means losing gold.

No, this is different. As long as a deck is built to win, be it agressive or defensive, both aim to avoid losing gold (by winning). They are just different ways of winning.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 12, 2011, 11:27:41 am »

Let's say you die on hard mode. Do you have to play through the beginning of hard mode again? Yeah.

If you lose a match, you have to play the match from the beginning again? Yeah.

Everything would be so much better if nothing happened when you die.

Exactly.

But then there would be no incentive for survival, you would just max out DPS and grind until you can one-hit whatever you're going to face. As you can see, in a game like Diablo II, something akin to "removing gold cost of matches" would make it more casual, aka easier, but wouldn't improve the playing experience at all.

Sorry that is plain wrong. People do not build survival decks to avoid losing gold. They build different decks for different ways to win. Some people find a more defensive deck is more successful, some people find a more aggressive deck is more successful. As has been mentioned, saving gold is really not an issue for experienced players. This is something that only affects how new players play the game. It would affect how long all players spend grinding of course, but experienced players could play just as they did before. It would certainly improve the game experience for new players. Perhaps it would not for you, but that is your opinion. I am sorry to say not everyone shares your opinion (though it seems most people on these forums do, because I suspect most people here are experienced players, and they balk at the thought of newer players having it easier than they did).

If you want to build decks, use the trainer (http://elementsthegame.com/trainer).
If you want to use decks, however, spend time on the game. Since you said "it doesn't take experience to know how to play a deck" (which isn't true, since so many noobs fail with CCYB, Shak'ars, and LSAM), then being able to build decks should be fun enough for all these poor, pitiful "casual players", even if they can't use the decks they make, right?
Now, maybe you want them to be able to PvP with the decks, too. Making a deck isn't as fun as playing with the deck? That is saying that you want everyone to reach the end-game as quickly as possible.
This is a strategy card game, not a collectible card game. You only need all the rares and all the upgrades if you want all the rares and all the upgrades. The people who want to reach the end-game will reach the end-game, the people who don't want to reach the end-game won't. Imagine if Blizzard flattened the EXP curve so that everyone could reach the level cap in a day. They would have all the benefits possible, what's wrong with that? They shouldn't have to waste time to be able to PvP competitively with people of higher levels.

You are way off track. It is more like ''Imagine if Blizzard changed it so players lost levels when they died''. Some MMOs have that feature. Guess what, WoW (the most popular MMO, especially for casuals) does not.

You asked us for reasoning, but your request was redundant. Opportune cost exists, we don't need to prove it exists because it exists. Saying things like that is like saying "prove that the sky is blue" or "prove that the grass is green." No pain, no gain. This is a rule ingrained in our very society, you can't just dismiss it as a premise by saying, "You didn't prove it yet."

I am not debating the existence of opportune cost. I am debating what you apply it to and why.

None of us are exaggerating. You're underestimating. This game's interface of losing money if you lose isn't the problem, the problem is in the fact that newbies cannot get the information that allows them to make the highest profit in the long-term. Without the electrum cost, you would be able to upgrade 30 cards each hour, farming with the right un-upgraded deck. You say that maybe the decks need balancing, but the thing is that if the FGs were so powerful that no two FGs could be countered by the same deck, then is there really any point to farming FGs at all? Unless the FGs are uber-buffed, you would need to re-balance every card in the game so that no one deck can beat more than one type of opponent. This is the inevitable outcome your suggestion, either the game becomes too easy, or the game becomes stupid.

You are making very obscure claims here. You could easily farm enough gold to farm the FGs for an hour, and if you truly earned enough money to upgrade 30 cards (45000 ) then you would be able to exponentially increase your funds.  You seem to be saying that electrum is pointless anyway, yet at the same time you are telling me it is essential.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 12, 2011, 06:17:55 am »

ikinone, you are an idiot. how old are you? i'm betting somewhere around, maybe 10?

Good effort. I am highly insulted. Carry on.

have you ever, EVER heard of opportunity cost? you can't get something without giving something up. you can't just get money without giving something in return. jobs don't pay you unless you work. you can't win money in poker, or betting on a game, if you don't put money into the pot. basically, you are saying that we should just get money. IRL, that's called stealing.

Part of the point of computer games is that they do not have the same boundaries as physical activities.

Look at it this way:

Imagine the majority of computer games that haev various difficulty modes (e.g. Diablo II (normal / nightmare / hell / hardcore)

Most games do not force you back to an easy mode if you die on a hard mode constantly. People would find that absolutely insane. Imagine trying hardcore continually only to be bumped back to normal mode. People would just say "wait, why do I have to go through normal mode again? It's boring and unchallenging." That's exactly what happens with this game.

The electrum cost does reduce the ability to farm the higher end content. However the main restriction to farming high end content (FG etc) is the difficulty of it.

I am making a genuine suggestion to make this game more fun and accessable to new or casual players. Even with no electrum cost, people would not hit endgame any time soon. Probably the only people who coudl manage that are experienced players with the knowledge to create specific decks. As I mentioned earlier anyway, perhaps some decks simply need balancing.

I am absolutely sure there are a lot of old timers here who detest the idea of the game requiring more grinding, mostly because they have spent a lot of time grinding. Sorry but that is the most awful and selfish reason not to improve a game.

1. The game would be too boring without grinding. If people could have access to all the cards within a short period of time, then the sense of progression would be even WORSE than it is now. That's the reason this game is boring: not because it's difficult to get the cards, but because there's no leveling up or playing through a story.

A 'short' period of time is a matter of opinion. Some people think it is okay to invest hundreds or thousands of hours in this game to make various decks. The key point here is I believe it would take less time to make various decks,

There is very little sense of progression right now, because it takes so bloody long to progress. To be honest if you have such a vast amount of spare time, go and buy World of Warcraft. I guarantee you will no longer be twiddling your thumbs. It does a far better job than this game ever will of sucking up your free time. Currently this game seems to want to use the same amount of your time with vastly less content, which is why it sucks. I feel sorry for anyone who has spent so much time grinding this game to play high end stuff.

Quite frankly if the community and developers of this game want it to remain that way, fine. I have better ways to spend my time than grinding all day. I simply beleieve this game could be more fun, but people resist that because they want to spend a lot of time on it, because they simply have nothing better to do. Well, fine. If that is what people want, I cannot sway you in that. Enjoy your grinding and good luck.

2. Look, we're not "just repeating a point as if saying it more proves something." We don't need reasoning, because opportune cost is EVERYWHERE, not just in Elements, not just in MtG tournaments. Have you EVER played a game where potions are free, where you can max your stats or learn all the spells once you start out, or where you can do everything in the game within an hour? Ever played Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Warcraft, DoTA, StarCraft, WoW?

Sorry every debate needs reasoning. Please avoid this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

I am not claiming everything be made free. Stop being so emotional and exaggerating. Even without the  cost, this game would still take a long, long time to consider anywhere near complete.

For the record, I am just a casual player, and I still have fun. Just because I have to play a lot of games to get good, which makes perfect sense, it doesn't make the game less fun. All it does is make me want to keep coming back so I can get better. The electrum cost of games really doesn't affect people that much. Most new players won't try to take on the Ai's or PvP's that are higher level because they can infer by the cost that they're harder.

I agree, the game can be fun as a casual player. However, it does not mean it cannot be improved.

Your point about playing more games to get better however is nonsensical. There is almost no skill in actually playing this game. The skill is in building the deck. If you have a deck and you play 100 games against AI1, you will play just as well as if you play 10000 games. This game consists of making a deck, and grinding till you can make an upgraded deck, that is all there is to it.

I simply want the grinding aspect reduced. Making new decks is fun, but really I wish upgrading did not exist in this game. Upgrading is obviously there as an incentive or goal for people to achieve should they play long enough. Really I detest this kind of goal. The game would be exceptionally better if no upgrading was involved, but as mentioned, it would not have so much lastability.

Instead of grinding for upgaded cards, there would need to be an alternative, the best of which would be vastly, vastly more card options. Longetivity would be inspired by the appeal of trying new deck builds, rather than the anticipation of one day having those upgraded cards. Of course, that would involve a lot more development time, so for now upgraded cards is basically a quick fix to make people play the game more. I really appreciate the work the developers have put in to this game, and I respect that they need some way to get people to play a lot. For now upgrading cards does seem like the best option.

As I cannot imagine upgraded cards being removed, the best option is to simply reduce the grind aspect (hopefully) to the extent where it is more feasible to try various deck builds. Right now the concept of trying different upgraded deck builds is a bit of a joke.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 12, 2011, 03:34:28 am »

You have a win and electrum gain on one end and just loss on the other.  To have one without the other does not make sense for it disrupts the balance of the game.  And Im not going to bother responding to that long post, it will just result in bad things for both of us.

You are not explaining your reasoning at all, just repeating your point as if saying it more proves something.

ANY TIME in real life you enter a game tournament that has the possibility of winning money, YOU HAVE TO PUT MONEY DOWN.Your example, MtG is not a good one. If you were to bet against your opponent, you would have to put money down too. Its a basic rule of life that you have to risk money to earn money. If Im playing mtg for fun then sure, I dont have to pay anything, but Im also not getting anything. Meanwhile, if Im expecting a cash reward, I probably have to risk some money as well.

/topic

Okay, I regret mentioning MtG earlier, because people need to stop making comparisons. The reason money is collected for IRL tournaments is to raise prize money. Since I do not believe elements is meant to be making a real life simulator, but more a fantasy game that simply resembles elements of a real life card game, the developers are not constrained to inconveniences that you would otherwise have to deal with in a card game restricted by our economy and laws against simply making money. Thus, inconveniences that you encounter in real life games can be removed. I am sure if MtG tournaments were allowed to print money, and they had an unlimited venue scale, they would no longer require a fee to join.  And please don't write /topic as if you have made some genius point. I am sure you have a high opinion of yourself, but you need to consider other peoples points of view in a forum like this.

Liquid antimatter with all the skips would become the best FG farmer of all time

Then perhaps the deck build needs fixing, not electrum cost. Then again, one build or another will always be better.

If you're going to remove the cost of playing, which then removes the penalty of losing, then in order to keep the balance of the game you have to remove the electrum gained when you win. Which means you can't buy cards and that means it would be nearly impossible to build a deck you want. Therefore the game would be nearly impossible to play well. You might as well go to trainer if you want no penalty and no gain.

Summary:You can't remove the penalty of losing without removing the bonus from winning.
Metaphor-thing:You can't give a child a pat on the back when they do something good but not punish them when they do something bad.

Okay, there are obviously way too many kids/jobless people with unlimited free time on this forum. Not one of you seems to realise that time and electrum are essentially the same thing. Playing a match costs you electrum and time. You can gain more electrum through spending time on low tier AI. Thus if you remove the electrum cost you are simply reducing time spent on matches. I can understand that many of you feel cheated if you have spent hours/days grinding in this game, then it is made easier. However the fact is that right now the game is very unfriendly to casual players. The concept of even attempting false gods appears to involve tens if not hundreds of hours of game play. I know more than one person who has rejected this game purely on that basis. The grind factor is simply too high in what should be a fun and accessible game. The only possible reason I can imagine there is so much grind involved is to make people spend more time in front of advertisements. No game should ever have grinding if avoidable. I think the only reason anyone here is defending grinding is pure selfishness for reasons mentioned above.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Upgrading Cards

« on: August 12, 2011, 02:21:14 am »

there are many who have just upgraded their first couple of cards that would be really frustrated.

That is a really bad reason to not improve a game

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 11, 2011, 02:25:33 pm »

1. Awards and penalties scale to difficulty. AI1 is easier than PvP1, therefore its reward/penalty should be less than PvP1. You're the one focusing on the penalties, not me.

You can just make the reward higher for more difficult things (as it already is). This is what I am on about when I say carrot rather than stick. Players should not be punished for trying something challenging. It's like you try something hard and the game tells you "No, go back and play against the boring newbie mode."

2. Playing a game takes X seconds. Playing a PvP Duel takes X seconds and 0 electrum. Playing a PvP match takes X seconds and 15 electrum.
You said that this system was nothing like MtG. I say it is.
Playing a friendly game of Magic with your friend takes X minutes. Looking around your neighborhood for people who are also looking around for people to play Magic with takes 15 minutes, and then when you've found your opponent, the game takes the same X minutes to play.

Equating looking round your neighbourhood to an arbitrary electrum cost is scraping the barrel a bit, no? I understand where you are coming from, but look at it this way: if you could play MtG without having to look for someone would that be better? Because if you use your analogy, that is what you should be thinking. You are undermining your own argument here...

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 11, 2011, 09:09:38 am »

1. When you run out of money, why should you be able to PvP? The cost of the games are ordered by difficulty, and PvP1 is definitely not as difficult as AI1.

Why should you not be able to PvP? If you enjoy PvP why should you not be allowed to do it? What is the sense in forcing people to go back and grind AI1? Think carrot rather than stick.

2. When you want to face a random person in MtG, you have to find that person. Asking around your neighborhood looking for someone who has a deck and wants to face you costs time. That time is the fee, which you would agree to since you said so yourself. It's not the time playing the game that's the fee, but the time it takes to find the person. If you already no someone, you can pay the same amount of time to play a game with them without paying the fee for looking around for them, that's PvP Duel.

You lost me here, I don't see what point you are making. You spend time on elements even without the money to play each round.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 11, 2011, 08:29:57 am »

Removing this is saying, here, have unlimited electrum.

How is it anything like that? You are just using hyperbole to argue without real basis. If you had unlimited electrum you could simply upgrade / buy any card you want. You could argue that a player could simply grind low level ai for which there is no entrance fee and it would mean you have unlimited electrum. You are just being absurd / trolling.

You just cant do that in a game like this.

Yes, you can.

It completely disrupts everything.  Go look at any game similar to elements. 

You mean like: Magic, the Gathering? I am pretty damn sure I can play anyone I want without a fee in that game.

They all have costs to play a certain level.

Quote some please.

  Also, doing this completely eliminates any reason to grind,

Oh NO! I am sure everyone >loves< grinding.

and therefore to do anything other than PvP.  If nothing costs to play anymore, why bother to up cards for FGs and such?  It doesn't matter if you lose anymore.  All in all, this is just a horrible idea.

What is wrong with just doing PvP? You points make absolutely no sense. You seem to think that just because you love grinding, and avoiding PvP, everyone else should have to suffer too.

Of course it still matters if you lose. Perhaps you have unlimited free time, but personally I would rather spend 3 hours playing fun games, rather than 3 hours fighting FG before I am ready.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 10, 2011, 05:49:24 am »

maybe you should stick to Ai1s until you can actually conserve some of your money.

Why should you ever be forced to play Ai1s? It is simply more grinding. Can you explain how it is fun to have to occasionally take on an Ai1?

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Remove gold cost of matches

« on: August 10, 2011, 05:41:03 am »

I hate the  requirement for matches...
Its a necessary evil though. Otherwise, farming would be way too easy. Why keep with a match that was free if you think you will lose based just on the opponent. This keeps people from starting a game, then quitting immediately if the matchup is bad. I would farm FG's with a specialized unupped deck if there wasnt a quest fee. Then I would just quit all but one or 2 that my deck is good against.

It still costs time, if you want to try FG with unupped deck, you will be investing either a lot of time or some decent knowledge. Either way you would eventually deserve that win. The is not necessary.

You would probably earn gold faster farming lvl 3 AI than just trying to bang your head on the FG with a low deck, even if  was not required to try.