A few details about T500

[Qwandri]

So, having read through the thread, let me pose a question that may or may not be completely off-base, depending on if I missed a post or not:

Let's say that I've got a really good deck with great score that's making me good money in t500, but i want to use the oracle. Would it in fact be necessary for me to make a new deck, or could i just let the one i have stand?

[YoungSot]

It will be something we have to see, due to the fact that fg decks dont  "drop out" after beaten, and since there is a large amount of players that will be playing it, the hard decks will eventually get beaten. Besides, not everyone will know how to make an insanely powerful "FG Deck"

Not everyone knows how to make threatening decks, but we're mostly talking about gold or especially platinum leagues, which will be populated by more experienced players.

Also, the more difficult it is, the less likely that there will actually be a "large amount of players" attempting to beat them.

[BluePriest]

It will be something we have to see, due to the fact that fg decks dont  "drop out" after beaten, and since there is a large amount of players that will be playing it, the hard decks will eventually get beaten. Besides, not everyone will know how to make an insanely powerful "FG Deck"

Not everyone knows how to make threatening decks, but we're mostly talking about gold or especially platinum leagues, which will be populated by more experienced players.

or just people with no life that do nothing but grind ai3 all day... veteran /=/ experienced.

[YoungSot]

or just people with no life that do nothing but grind ai3 all day... veteran /=/ experienced.

Sure. But in general someone who's spent that much time on the game either is a good player, or at least knows how to copy/paste the decks of others, which is all it takes to turn platinum league into AI6-with-nothing-but-Hermes-and-Rainbow.

Anyway, there are various ways to solve this potential problem. Giving abilities like 3x mark is a nice solution in that it both lowers the difficulty to a more enjoyable level and also gives ppl a reason to fight t500 over other AI levels, because of the fun factor of playing with extra abilities. You wouldn't even have to give out large electrum rewards or chances for upped spins (thus leaving good reasons to still play other AI levels too).

[Essence]

or just people with no life that do nothing but grind ai3 all day... veteran /=/ experienced.

I knew you had it out for me, BluePriest! 

[The_Mormegil]

Oh, there's no doubt that Platinum League and even Gold League will probably be tougher fights than FGs -- I'm just saying so long as we make the rewards commensurate with the risks, that's a GOOD THING.

*shakes head*

Imagine for a moment that T500 has been here for a while, and the veterans (mostly Platinum level people) had the time to get used to it. Imagine that T500 Platinum League rewards are VERY intresting (i.e. all cards upped, five spins, every three fights you win an automatic rare card, which is quite possible). So, you want to farm T500 Platinum League.

What will you expect in there? Fully upped decks with a powerful strategy, many hp, fully functional for the AI to play, fast versatile and deadly. I'm expecting a mix of rainbow rushes, poison stalls and destroyer rushes, possibly some other intresting decks once in a while. No matter the 5 cards rule, you can almost always create one of those archetypes.
What would you bring? A control heavy deck with purifies. You need fast control, otherwise destroyer rushes will kill you; but you also need repeatable control, otherwise rainbow rushes will kill you. You need to go rainbow, otherwise you haven't got enough options, and you need an implacable assault (like neurotoxin) otherwise you're losing to control decks.
The problem is that rainbow rushes can pack any kind of card to answer to your strategy, and are a whole lot faster than you'd like them to be. You try poison, they have purifies; you try rushing they have 200hp and miracles, you try controlling, they have massive PC, you try Black Hole they have more quanta, SNovas and Sanctuary.
Destroyer Rushes can quite probably get 4 turns wins reliably. If you try to control them, you'll probably end up losing to their double draw alone: you can't keep up.
Poison stalls will be the easier sort... except that they can be REALLY fast. Try going against an FG-level Speed Poison: you'll end up having more than 30 poison in about 6 turns. Also, they will pack defenses that almost eliminate your chances of victory. A False God with 12 Shards of Gratitude? Come on!

You end up with the following conclusion: trying to outstall them is quite frankly impossible, so you have to rush them. Your win rate will be very low, but at least you'll win against bad draws. Da Fastest Speedbow Eva can kill FGs on a good hand, and I'm sure it can be tweaked. Except that when Platinum people manage to figure this out they will add counter cards in their decks: heavy CC, BHs, 12 rewinds... there are endless possibilities. They will sacrifice speed for that, so that I will be able to outstall them, you say? No. They will just switch around a couple cards, since in a 60 cards deck it is rarely a problem.

Really, Platinum will have the lowest win rate EVER. No matter how much the rewards are, you're just going to lose too many duels, forcing you to speed farm for it to be worth it, making it really easy to be hard countered. How fun is playing Octane with RoL Hope? 90% of the times you're going to end up with that kind of duel...

[Xenocidius]

An idea I had to possibly fix this: What if your level not only determined the deck you can submit but also your options when you go fight against the T500. So you might fight against triple mark decks but at least you have a triple mark of your own. This seems quite exciting as it would really add another dimension to PvE deckbuilding.

That would be incredibly awesome.

Platinum league players using Rainbow's deck? No problem. Let's see how they enjoy facing my Dark Matter deck (mono gravity DM ftw)!

[The_Mormegil]

An idea I had to possibly fix this: What if your level not only determined the deck you can submit but also your options when you go fight against the T500. So you might fight against triple mark decks but at least you have a triple mark of your own. This seems quite exciting as it would really add another dimension to PvE deckbuilding.

That would be incredible awesome.

Platinum league players using Rainbow's deck? No problem. Let's see how they enjoy facing my DARK MATTER deck (mono gravity DM ftw)!

Actually... SN + Sanctuary?

[Jangoo]

Imagine for a moment that T500 has been here for a while, and the veterans (mostly Platinum level people) had the time to get used to it. Imagine that T500 Platinum League rewards are VERY intresting (i.e. all cards upped, five spins, every three fights you win an automatic rare card, which is quite possible). So, you want to farm T500 Platinum League.

What will you expect in there? Fully upped decks with a powerful strategy, many hp, fully functional for the AI to play, fast versatile and deadly. I'm expecting a mix of rainbow rushes, poison stalls and destroyer rushes, possibly some other intresting decks once in a while. No matter the 5 cards rule, you can almost always create one of those archetypes.  [...]

I see three possible outcomes for T500-Platinum and Gold perhaps.
Probably all three will we in place at the same time:


1. Decks aren't as good as you expect them to be because:

- AI screws up a lot ... I mean, creating a viable FG is a matter of rebalancing until the AI gets it right for quite a long time.
Why would creating a random other deck with the same rules be any easier?
- You have 5 predetermined cards ... Of course, those decks which had to be made with 5 skeletons etc. will probably just fall out of the ranking
pretty soon and only those that got lucky to be built with 5 destroyers etc. will remain up there.
Still, it's really not like you have all the freedom you would want when doing your deck ... most of them are going to suck.


2. People will just use their FG-decks to farm T500 ... end of story

And why wouldn't they? The pandemonium of FGs is very, very varied by now so there is really nothing a 50%-winrate
CCYB or Rol/Hope cannot cope with ... T500 as the FG-league of players and we have a new FG-boom.


3. Farmdecks

Yes, they will drop out rather fast and yes it does seem a bit disreputable in a system like this but:
You will get the chance to submit a deck once a day ... for how long will you be motivated to come up with something
real and challenging every day? T50, on the surface, seems like you would want to be competitive and a whole
culture of farmdecks has emerged ... Here's guessing that at least 20% of all decks will be farms or total jokes meant
to get you cash. And even if they drop out ... there are some 100 farms more to come every day.

[EmeraldTiger]

I want to keep tabs on this topic.
Also anyone have idea when to expect this to be released?

[The_Mormegil]

I see three possible outcomes for T500-Platinum and Gold perhaps.
1. Decks aren't as good as you expect them to be because:

- AI screws up a lot ... I mean, creating a viable FG is a matter of rebalancing until the AI gets it right for quite a long time.
Why would creating a random other deck with the same rules be any easier?

AI is not as bad as it seems. The only major weakness I see in the AI right now is its failure to recognize Phoenix as a proper Immolation target (which is, in fact, a rather big flaw). However, my testing with the trainer AI shows that most decks are properly used by the AI.

- You have 5 predetermined cards ... Of course, those decks which had to be made with 5 skeletons etc. will probably just fall out of the ranking
pretty soon and only those that got lucky to be built with 5 destroyers etc. will remain up there.
Still, it's really not like you have all the freedom you would want when doing your deck ... most of them are going to suck.

I created a deck for about half of the cards right now, and let me say that it's rather easy to create a practically unbeatable deck with every card out there. Dagger and some shields prove difficult, but it's still possible to be deadly with some thought.

2. People will just use their FG-decks to farm T500 ... end of story

How many FG decks are capable of beating Rainbow and Hermes reliably? The decks in Platinum will be far, far worse than those. Rainbow and Hermes have rather big, slow and inefficient decks right now. Also, it's easy to add counters to those main strategies. For instance, if people start using I've GotP Time massively against T500 Platinum League you're going to get decks with a lot of PC (possibly Pulverizer), fast offense and anti-quint shields (Fire Buckler, Permafrost...).

And why wouldn't they? The pandemonium of FGs is very, very varied by now so there is really nothing a 50%-winrate
CCYB or Rol/Hope cannot cope with ... T500 as the FG-league of players and we have a new FG-boom.

If T500 kicks in, I'll show you a couple decks that FG farmers just cannot cope with.

3. Farmdecks

Yes, they will drop out rather fast and yes it does seem a bit disreputable in a system like this but:
You will get the chance to submit a deck once a day ... for how long will you be motivated to come up with something
real and challenging every day? T50, on the surface, seems like you would want to be competitive and a whole
culture of farmdecks has emerged ... Here's guessing that at least 20% of all decks will be farms or total jokes meant
to get you cash. And even if they drop out ... there are some 100 farms more to come every day.

I expect this to not be really true, as you're gaining / losing score and electrum with the deck you're submitting...

[phaedrus]

An interesting thing to think about for me, is that if platinum players all build decks that are virtually impossible to beat, then no one will play platinum. If this turns out to be the case, I think it would maybe be logical for platinum players to agree to nerf their own decks so that more people will play and  therefore they will get more wins despite the decks being less powerful. Then its this balancing act between the strength of the new deck you're putting in and the overall strength of the league. You want your deck to be more powerful than the league average but if there is too much of an arms race and everyone wants to be the most powerful then the league will be too powerful and no one will play it.