Elements 1.17

[icybraker]

Simply not true. Immortal creatures have one huge fault that almost all other creatures lack - they don't have Momentum.

Immortal creatures getting you down? Place down a Bonewall and start munching on your own fireflies. They can't get through. So what if they can't kill you? They can't touch you, either. Alternatively, a Diamond Shield, Phase Shield, Sundial, or anything else can stop immortal creatures in their tracks. The immortal creatures weren't super-overpowered before the nerf, and the domination of Rainbow control decks over Mono-Aether decks clearly exemplifies this.

[Delreich]

Naturally immaterial critters, sure. Nothing stops you from playing unstoppable before quintessence though. Likewise, a shield doesn't help much against an otyugh (until now at least).

[hellkaiser]

Naturally immaterial critters, sure. Nothing stops you from playing unstoppable before quintessence though. Likewise, a shield doesn't help much against an otyugh (until now at least).

while i get the original point i can foresee bone shield taking a bit of a nerf hammer beating in a while due to abusable combo's in rainbow and such

if they can't get through fair enough but i've since stopped using elite queen simply due to the fact that she's becoming obsolete with the new AI boosts

to me the three most important cards in aether are it's shield, quintessence and of course twin universe although i'm struggling to find it as useful post changes so again removed it in favor of quintessence which can solidify your field presence indefinitely for a low cost otyugh+quintessence = ridiculous field presence all the time and a constant threat to yours

and yes nothing is there to stop you using adrenaline/epinaphrene before quint and then laughing while your poison fish starts to rack up silly amounts of poisons every turn unopposed

[Cisco]

If I remember right your fish does not rack up those poisens with arenalin it was exempted

[hellkaiser]

hmm i'm sorry but i have to agree with the op of this thread

the ai is now dangerously hard and shutting down perfectly viable strategies through just insane advantage AND smarter moves

before there was a 80% winrate against FG's

it was unfortunate that they got sussed and beaten in such a way but let's look at what happened then

as well as their initial advantages they have

better ai

new cards

and sundial was nerfed (this was THE god killing card)

it may be that some are gettin over 50% rates with them still and i tip my virtual hat to you but really they have gotten TOO MUCH of a boost with nothing to offset this

if the AI get's lucky then it's goodnight and a waste of time which many complain about and i do agree even though i'm a hardcore grinder

new inclusions in the trainer like precognition are however some steps towards really seeing just how insane their hands are EVERY draw now

i ended up with 0 pillars and 0 monsters and 0 permanents shortly thereafter with rainbow now just tell me who in their right mind would consider that to be normal and balanced?

his first hand consisted of 3 quantum pillars 2 improved steals etc and he drew into at least 4 explosions 4 hourglasses elite graboids and then hilariously so "an owls eye"

what on EARTH!?

so not only did he take EVERY sundial i played he destroyed all my pillars made sure unless i drew godlike luck and got quintessence and an oty and some supernovas i had literally 0 chance of winning and that's EXACTLY what happened

before rainbow was a tough one and on the list of one's that weren't easily beaten NOW he's insane drawing into almost EXACTLY what he needs to reduce your chances far from 50% to lower than 10% and that's just one example of how he can tear you into shreds outdraw you from the get go then just inanely field control and annihilate ALL your permanents

really was all this improvement necessary when all we've gotten are a few cards extra to use on them and vice versa?

[jmizzle7]

I really don't understand your logic, hellkaiser. You seem to understand why the AI was improved, yet you complain about it. But then you complain about the draws that false gods get (especially Rainbow) even though they are the same draws the false gods have always had. The reason the false gods are difficult now has nothing to do with the cards they draw, but how they play those cards. Rainbow is one of the most well-built decks of the false gods, which is why it has always been the hardest false god. So instead of ranting about how hard they are, try to find a way to beat them. That's the challenge the false gods should present to us in order to win those prized upped cards.

[Tigerente]

Immortality is no problem on the creatures that are designed for it from the beginning (i.e. Phase Dragon). I consider them quite balanced. It is a problem with the quintessenced Otyugh/Druid/... . Now if the game would remember which status effects are additional to the innate abilities of the creature a card as the Dispel described here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,2039.0.html) would be possible and provide a solution.
It probably would mean a redesign with the card handling and fix some of the bugs that come from multiple status effects on each card.

[hellkaiser]

I really don't understand your logic, hellkaiser. You seem to understand why the AI was improved, yet you complain about it. But then you complain about the draws that false gods get (especially Rainbow) even though they are the same draws the false gods have always had. The reason the false gods are difficult now has nothing to do with the cards they draw, but how they play those cards. Rainbow is one of the most well-built decks of the false gods, which is why it has always been the hardest false god. So instead of ranting about how hard they are, try to find a way to beat them. That's the challenge the false gods should present to us in order to win those prized upped cards.

before the gods were basically the equivalent of playing someone for fun who knew little about the game so you gave them a silly advantage and still could win but it was kept fair and in check

now they've not only received boosts to their decks but are also a lot faster and smarter about shutting us down

even the new cards added can't even the odd's against these ridiculous monsters and by increasing the gap THIS far in their natural advantage all the while both increasing their intelligence in targetting and playing and simultanously reducing the effectiveness of the one card that could get around just some of the strategies of steamrolling they employed with their silly advantages

i'm not saying it was wrong to improve them what i'm saying is it was too much too soon and too fast as well as too extreme and it's left a huge gap to overcome and i'm not even a total newbie at the game either so i can only imagine how frustrating it must be for any newcomer to the game

i mean even on the trainer and with the new cards none of them really stand out as something that can be used efficiently and effectively against the gods

black hole is fairly useful but they get stacks of quant per turn due to a glitch unless that's been corrected

their advantages now are not as needed as before is what i'm saying

if they're gonna be harder so be it but to suddenly drastically boost them THIS much to the point where they're no longer even cost effective to beat simply baffles me and then simultaneously remove the stalling power that made them "manageable" we still lost against false gods but we could at least stand a good chance of beating them before

NOW they're absolutely ridiculous

i'll continue to try and find a deck that's consistent against them but so far rainbow seem's to be faring absolutely atrociously against them and it's all i've played for a while now so i'm well familiar with how to us it and abuse it to it's potential and yet anything else i've ventured into fares WORSE

sundials are needed to hold them off but they're nowhere near as powerful and were nerfed in the wrong area imho

they're smashing everything instantly as soon as it hits the board so even if it was a 2 turn stall it wouldn't be anywhere NEAR as good as before

a lot more of them are now aether users and as anyone who's got half a brain knows aether is already a bit on the op side already

you can't drain or deny them

there's no hand control currently

field control is not something you're gonna get every time but it's very needed vs FG's or they overrun you

healing is either kept between feral bonds and swarming both of which are MUCH harder to perform now or risky if you go the whole aflatoxin route or is just too expensive with the now much faster gods who play what they need on what you need a lot more often also i don't have shards to get that nice regen so instantly i'm at a loss again cos of this whole "oh it's a rare/legendary/chocolate fudge coated once in a blue moon appearing card

new cards added to the trainer or either too slow not effective enough or only really there for pvp rather than a god for example i love precognition but knowing what's in a gods hand is pointless in many way's

sure you can plan a tiny bit better and it's a tiny cost and self replacing but still against some gods who now have more miracles than you can shake a stick at and the quant to spam them you'll probably only deck yourself out or they're dead draws and a dead draw against a FG is usually pointless and loses you the game

and after all this....

you have a CHANCE to win a upped card....

mostly by time you win one and then get one in the slots you've lost more than you've spent so it just aint cost effective at all

i like improvements and think the games getting better but some of the changes just baffle me

i'll look around for some ideas on the forum and congrats on it as well as it looks great

but the FG changes are really starting to frustrate me rather than "challenge" me so i honestly don't think anyone can blame me for being a little frustrated and annoyed at just how much the difficulty was ramped up and how i can already see it being IGNORED by those that it affects LEAST

already others have voiced their concerns and i'm just saying i don't blame them in the least

i'm open to counter arguments against it but i'm afraid it would have to be a lot more in depth than just

"it's supposed to be hard"

or

"it's supposed to challenge us to come up with new deck's to beat them"

etc etc etc so forth and so forth

that's just lip service and nothing really solid to go on

has this not been noted before?

has no one else seen how it's become a lot more stupidly unfair and biased toward the false gods to the point where skill goes right out the window as their advantage becomes so large it's a gap you can only across with extreme luck?

[Daxx]

There are False God decks out there which appear to have a better than 50% win ratio. I really don't think the challenge is as insurmountable as you're making out. But that's missing the point.

The point of endgame content is to be challenging for the people who are at the endgame (fully upgraded decks). If you aren't at that place, and want something that's easier to beat, then you should be playing against AI3, the t50, or AI5 - not the False Gods.

[Cisco]

50% is setting it low although that imo be enough to make it worth playing them. Right now there are decks 60-70% easily . Also with the new cards comming out I ´m pretty sure  we will reach 80%and higher without problems. Of course adding these new cards to the FG imo could actually make it a lot harder thene now.

[jmizzle7]

Even at a 50% win rate you are already looking at a winning proposition. As most wins against false gods are by elemental mastery and one win with mastery makes up for four losses, you stand to gain electrum more than you lose it. Add the chance to win upped cards for loads of electrum, and it's an even easier decision. It's like if somebody offered to pay you 3.5-to-1 on a coin flip and gave you 50-to-1 on every third successful coin flip.

[hellkaiser]

Even at a 50% win rate you are already looking at a winning proposition. As most wins against false gods are by elemental mastery and one win with mastery makes up for four losses, you stand to gain electrum more than you lose it. Add the chance to win upped cards for loads of electrum, and it's an even easier decision. It's like if somebody offered to pay you 3.5-to-1 on a coin flip and gave you 50-to-1 on every third successful coin flip.

ya i get that but then by the same reasoning wouldn't that just make the AI5 more or less better as you may not win the upped cards and more than quadriple your gain but at least you aren't bleeding coins out your ass?

what i mean is as i've said i do in SOME way's like how some of the changes have affected them

for example i now find that although they play their advantage ridiculously fast they're also prone to more of the common mistakes that human players have such as dead draws when i play the now seriously underrated protect artifact on a permanent or the godly quintessence on a monster

my problem is that while they've not only gotten a brain boost they also got a rework of their card lineup which plugged up some of the holes in their strategy

of course some still have them for example miracle doesn't have creature control and fire queen lacks permanent control but some new changes like hermes are plain amazingly overpowered

he get's a ridiculous field VERY fast and then has the option to fire lance you til the cow's come home

rainbow has control of all types meaning without protection you're dead in the water and it's needed EARLY as opposed to late

and then there's the issue with cards like quicksand which are one cost upped and destroy three pillars further weakening not only rainbow but any mono deck in general which is unfair imho but that's a balance issue which will be changed soon enough

i've adapted my deck now and do a little better against the FG's but still.... they've gotten way too much way too fast and with little to offset it for the players

SOG's are now gonna become a lot more important and i can see it on the horizon which will create a bit of a problem as in my time playing i only managed to grab ONE shard of DIVINITY and even then i sold it as i found it surpluss to my requirements

we can't donate to get it either so it remains a very rare card in single let alone multiple

and let's face it the NEW cards on the trainer aren't exactly whoppingly great vs the FG's either

black hole is reasonably good vs rainbow or chaos lord and may see some small measure of splash play but nothing really special imho and usually a situationally bad draw where gravity is well needed for oty's

precognition is good for a pvp match and is a great thinner or null card as it's self replacing which is ok when there's a lack of searchers in the game currently but still not really gonna help

the nymphs are too high a cost and not meant for rainbow play even nymph's tears isn't gonna save it from relegation as the whole random nymph thing can leave you with a terrible nymph you either can't pay for, won't pull your ass out of the fire or just won't have enough impact on the game with it's effect anyways

i will ask though HAS the quantum gain for the AI been corrected cos i haven't paid enough attention to notice XD

also there seems to be a lot of bugs with seemingly invisible gravity pulls when it comes to graviton or rainbow literally just out of nowhere he seems to be able to target creatures