Elements 1.4

[omegareaper7]

Haven't been posting for a long while. Someone informed me about 1.4, and IMO it's excellent. Making grinding feel more like an RPG would help restoring some of the fun. However...

We need more new cards.....

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,393.0.html

No we don't. Instead, we need to think of (non-buff) ways that old cards will be useful. Well, the Pareto principle has been quite true in a lot of things, especially in elements card usage. My approximation is that 20% of the cards are used 80% of the time. The real figure might be less uneven, but around half of the cards are seldom touched (if at all, see Antlion) and a quarter of them are niche cards. Adding a new card is essentially gambling development time for a chance in 1 extra card in meta. I'm all for elements moving forward, but adding new cards is not the efficient way.

Instead, I would suggest Deckbuilding from (at least partially) Random Cardpools. A new interface could be developed for that. From what I observe, new interfaces are generally very, very successful. Arena changed elements a whole lot. So will this AI grind revamp. Also, cards need to be more fulfilling to get, too. Releasing a card that goes straight to bazaar or have players to grind arena *insert number* times to rarespin it out isn't that fulfilling of an experience. I noticed something in the new interface that says "reputation with this element". In addition to special marks, maybe we could buy special cards with this reputation? That would be a good way to implement new cards, instead of the common/rare/nymph threefold division.

Pardon my organisation. But my main points are:
1. Make grinding fun. RPG-styled grinding feels less tedious than matching up with random AIs.
2. Making new cards isn't all that necessary. But, if you decide to make new cards, make sure there are special ways to obtain them (especially in the new interface), so that in addition to the metagame improvement gamble you can enhance your new interface.
3. New interfaces are good. We should be seeing more and better interfaces. Think about it this way. An interface is where you use the cards. One new interface is a new way to play elements. The improvement it brings is immense.
4. Think of ways to make unused cards useful. Elements has a lot of cards, yet quite a large batch of them are underused placeholders. Mass-buffing is bottomless pit (in fear of powercreep), so I wouldn't suggest it. Making players salvage and build from random cardpools is, on the other hand, a good way to recycle the placeholders into the game.

Hopefully 1.4 will be the AED of elements.

More new cards is important for pvp, and long time players. Players get bored with the same few dozen cards after so long. And not everyone enjoys PvE, some only play pvp.
But yes, balance is important, and i'm pretty sure majofa wouldn't want inbalanced new cards either. But new cards with good balance is far from not needed.

[Keolino]

If there are going to be some new cards, (or some new balance for some cards) maybe it will help to look at that website first: http://www.elementsthegame.com/liststats.php

Unupped most unused pillars: Light Pillar, Sapphire Pillar, Stone Pillar
Unupped most unused pends: Entropy Pendulum, Earth Pendulum

upped most unused pillars: Light Pillar, Stone Pillar, Sapphire Pillar
upped most unused pends: Earth Pendulum, Water Pendulum

So earth and water are, as it is now, the most unused elements in the game (how much they are used in rainbows may be excluded) So it may be a good idea to add one or two usefull non-rare cards for these elements which open up new possible strategies (and of course non-rare, otherwise they won´t change much about how used and "loved" an element will be for the mayority of players (newbies and mid-level-players))

I don´t say that earth or water are weak or something, they are just not as atractive as other elements. (Well Ice stall can get pretty strong with some Arctic Squids (well, they are rare) and earth is a strong rush with some good denial (earth quake and basilsk blood)) They simply aren´t as attractive.



Edit: I made a little mistake, the most unloved element is light (when looking at upped and unupped pillars...)

[Marsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnA3C9Af_oc
"Right, right; I follow you"

More cards will come, have faith.

Oh god, yes. That's all we wanted to hear Zanz, seriously.

@Mathematistic: Uhm... you couldn't be more wrong.

[Blacksmith]

I think mathematic got a point. I will add this in my final feed back post in a few weeks.

[treebeard xiii]

I'm with math yes new cards would be nice a way to force more creative deckbuilding would be a whole lot better at least for me it will bring more enjoyment to the game more than 10 new cards would bring. New cards unless they were powerful would be just some other niche card and the normal decks used day to day would not change maybe for a couple of weeks until people decide the old cards are better. There are more deckbuilding options available than people realise what about the forever forgotten parasite, antlion to name a couple they could do with some love rather than some new cards to push them further out of mind. If you must have new cards i would rather they were ones to work with current less used cards rather than ones that would boost the strength of the already highly used cards.

[Higurashi]

1. Make grinding fun. RPG-styled grinding feels less tedious than matching up with random AIs.

I agree this is much more important than new cards. For me and many others who have done everything in this game, the only challenge left is when heavy restrictions are imposed. Imagine a campaign in Elements where you, as an elemental, find yourself in trickier and tricker situations in search of the ultimate power of your Element. Tough conditions manifest in heavy deckbuilding restrictions as you challenge foes on their home field, and as the quest chain advances you gain access to more and more powers, but the foes also get stronger.

Soul Calibur 2 campaign anyone? Kept me playing for hundreds of hours :>

[nerd1]

To balance cards before giving them out to players, possibly some cards become AI only, and only for specific AIs, and they turn into relics/ some other "worth money" card when gotten. Even if they're equivalent to another card and end up not being particularly useful, players won't feel bad about getting more cash.
Anyways, I'm tempted to make a new account to re-play the game from the beginning, honestly.

[treebeard xiii]

1. Make grinding fun. RPG-styled grinding feels less tedious than matching up with random AIs.

I agree this is much more important than new cards. For me and many others who have done everything in this game, the only challenge left is when heavy restrictions are imposed. Imagine a campaign in Elements where you, as an elemental, find yourself in trickier and tricker situations in search of the ultimate power of your Element. Tough conditions manifest in heavy deckbuilding restrictions as you challenge foes on their home field, and as the quest chain advances you gain access to more and more powers, but the foes also get stronger.

Soul Calibur 2 campaign anyone? Kept me playing for hundreds of hours :>

Now that is something i would like to see and it could be something for the newer players as well as older players as the beginning stages i'm guessing will be possible with the starter decks and as you progress you need more and more cards and deck will need further fine tuning to fit in with restrictions or the like, the reason I feel people want more cards is they can't see the potential this whole rpg style map can bring. Either tey don't like rpgsmuch or have very little experienc in the area.

[nerd1]

I have to wonder- will chaos mode be integrated with the real game? I figure that some decks could have it chosen by default, which would be interesting.

[Zso_Zso]

Exactly, Higs! Right on. That's why tournaments and PVP events are so much fun, because of the various restrictions in deck-building. It would be great if the game would have some built-in support system for these, e.g. some RPG-style campaign with restriction system.

[Chapuz]

the "Random Card Pool Deckbuilding" that mathemathistic said in the page before this one sounds fun too

[ColorlessGreen]

the "Random Card Pool Deckbuilding" that mathemathistic said in the page before this one sounds fun too

I would absolutely love some sort of "sealed deck"-style mode added to the actual game.

From a story standpoint for PvE, it could be yet another coliseum/arena type of thing where you pay X electrum to enter the arena/coliseum (as an entrance fee, mostly to discourage people from rerolling the sealed deck until they were dealt ghostmare or whatever) and then face a number of opponents in some kind of AI-controlled "tournament". The entrance fee would essentially be the loss fees for all matches, so if you quit out right away due to not liking your sealed deck, you'd pay the full amount, but if you stuck it out, you'd make back all of the money (and then some) making it a similar level of net profit to just playing a similar number of games against random NPCs.

Alternately, the rerolling problem could be solved by just tying it to oracle spins such that your "sealed deck" is generated when you visit the oracle, which would make it able to be used outside of just one structure (i.e. usable in PvP/community tournaments/general PvE). If it were a generally-available thing, perhaps bonus rewards in PvE for using your "sealed deck" and possibly a new PvP mode that only allowed use of sealed decks.

That would be glorious.