Elements 1.4

[Naii_the_Baf]

I've been testing(I mean, playing in) Elements 1.4 and I don't like the look of the permanent cards. I don't like the look of Golden Hourglass/Electrum Hourglass, and pendulum's upper marks: the mark above the big/center mark DOES NOT CHANGE. Please, could you restore the permanent card looks like it was in Elements 1.326? The permanent card looks quite do look better.

[Keolino]

I've been testing(I mean, playing in) Elements 1.4 and I don't like the look of the permanent cards. I don't like the look of Golden Hourglass/Electrum Hourglass, and pendulum's upper marks: the mark above the big/center mark DOES NOT CHANGE. Please, could you restore the permanent card looks like it was in Elements 1.326? The permanent card looks quite do look better.

About the pendulums: This is intended. Your mark shows one of the elements, and the upper "mark" in the pendulum shows the other element which this card will produce each turn. And the biggest one in the middle shows which quanta you get the next time that this card activates. Nothing wrong here...

And about the new look of the permanents, I really like that. It makes the cards look more complex and more interesting when they are derping around on the field, which I think is a nice change.

[iancudorinmarian]

I've been testing(I mean, playing in) Elements 1.4 and I don't like the look of the permanent cards. I don't like the look of Golden Hourglass/Electrum Hourglass, and pendulum's upper marks: the mark above the big/center mark DOES NOT CHANGE. Please, could you restore the permanent card looks like it was in Elements 1.326? The permanent card looks quite do look better.

About the pendulums: This is intended. Your mark shows one of the elements, and the upper "mark" in the pendulum shows the other element which this card will produce each turn. And the biggest one in the middle shows which quanta you get the next time that this card activates. Nothing wrong here...

And about the new look of the permanents, I really like that. It makes the cards look more complex and more interesting when they are derping around on the field, which I think is a nice change.

I agree with Keolino, it's nicier to see the whole card.

[OdinVanguard]

Spoiler for *snip*:

I just had an awesome idea for how to make use of the 900 hp cap for a cool rare NPC encounter... and a Kong badge to go with it:

NPC name: Overloaded Phase Dragons
Stats:
hp = 900
mark multiplier = 1
draw multiplier = x2

Spoiler for Deck:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 74f 7do 7n1 7n7 808 808 808 80a 80f 8pi

Spoiler for Story:

You spot two phase dragons off in the distance heading your way. They are known for their wisdom . Perhaps you can reason with them... As the close, you realize something is wrong, chaotic energies crackle along their skin. They speak in a paniced voice: "Run mortal, we can't hold the rift any..." Their appearance suddenly turns feral, the arcing lightening building stronger.The energy is too strong to contain...You must either run or ride out the storm... They're gonna blow!

Kong Badge: "Riders on the Storm"
(for those who don't know the song reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_on_the_Storm)
To earn the badge, you have to: "Find and take down the 'Overloaded Phase Dragons' before the deck runs out."

Its deck size is 10 cards, which bumps to 20 after the multiplier, so to beat the NPC you only have to survive for about (20-7)/2 = 6 turns... Having tested it out, thats not really too hard as long as you put out some creatures to absorb all the damage spells.
Taking down that many hp before its deck runs out, however, should be a fun challenge (likely requiring some clever deck building).

What about shard of wisdom too? It gives moar lightning effects for the dragon.

I tried testing it with that and found out that it will outright shred any deck not using some fairly heavy duty healing or a mirror shield... Kinda mean to make it both nigh unkillable AND highly lethal.
Right now, its only moderately lethal... but then again, I only tested it out against the premade decks available in the bestiary... so maybe its not so bad.


On an unrelated note, since there are NPCs with  marks, will players also be able to choose  as a mark in v1.4?

[Keeps]

He hasn't said that is the plan.  Last he was doing with reputation was increasing health.

Honestly, I think something like

7 Reputation from early quests are applied to all marks
from there beating a false god with a given mark gives 1 reputation for the first kill of that god (26 reputation)
5 challenge levels in each tower 1 reputation for each level completed in a given tower (5 reputation), in these areas beating the highest difficulty, you get a chance to win one of 12 new mark cards for the respective element.
clearing an area of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 areas one time each give 1 reputation per mark (5 reputation)
7 special story quests, completion with a given mark (7 reptuation)

for a total of 50 reputation per mark

then

a couple side notes, was zanz said we shouldn't be surprised seeing our arena decks bleed over to the board.  I would have those deck attack players that is if you go into an area, and one of the decks is spawned, you are automatically battling the deck.  I would have it populate 12 of the squares a random pull of 3 of the top 20 decks from each area of the arena.

so

10 reputation in an element, you can use upped cards of the same element.
20 reputation in an element, you can use the special mark cards in your deck
30 reputation in an element, using that mark, you no longer have to battle arena decks automatically, you can use upped versions of the special mark
40 reputation in an element, using that mark, you can play as a quarter blood (125 HP).
50 reputation in an element, using that mark, allows you to play as a HB on the board if you are using that mark. (150 HP).
50 reputation in every element grants you the chromatic mark in both PVP and on the Board.


Special Marks can not be auto selected, but come in cards,
Playing the Mark replaces the current Mark
None of the special Marks produce quanta, instead they have thematic field effects.
Pendulums no longer produce quanta if on the mark swing
Marks are indestructible, stackable.

Effects would be things like.
Mark of Shadow -> Your opponent loses 1 quanta at the end of their turn all darkness creatures get +0/+1 absorbs 
Mark of Plague -> At the end of a player's turn, All creatures lose 1 health, to a maximum of 50% of their max health rounded up. absorbs   
Mark of Dawn -> Your opponent loses 1  quanta at the end of their turn all light creatures get +0/+1 aborbs 
Mark of Chaos -> One random spell effect occurs to one random target at the end of your turn, if the effect can not target the target choosen nothing happens absorbs 
Mark of Grounding -> The next X creature attacking with flying loses flying where X is the number of Marks of Grounding in play.  absorbs
Mark of Consumption -> each creature gets +1/-1 when attacking. absorbs
Mark of Roots -> Each  permanent has a 15% chance of coming back into play if destroyed. absorbs
Mark of Flight -> The next X creature attacking without flying gains flying where X is the number of Marks of Flightin play.  absorbs :
Mark of Hardness-> You gain 3 max HP at the end of your turn. absorbs 
Mark of Leaking -> Draw 1 additional card if you can during your draw phases, discard a card if you have a card in your hand at the end of your turn. 
Mark of Stopping -> Both players can hold 1 less card in their hands.  absorbs 

Anyways thats what I would like to see, along with another 100 cards, 

But that's all wishful thinking.

 

[Naii_the_Baf]

He hasn't said that is the plan.  Last he was doing with reputation was increasing health.

Honestly, I think something like

7 Reputation from early quests are applied to all marks
from there beating a false god with a given mark gives 1 reputation for the first kill of that god (26 reputation)
5 challenge levels in each tower 1 reputation for each level completed in a given tower (5 reputation), in these areas beating the highest difficulty, you get a chance to win one of 12 new mark cards for the respective element.
clearing an area of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 areas one time each give 1 reputation per mark (5 reputation)
7 special story quests, completion with a given mark (7 reptuation)

for a total of 50 reputation per mark

then

a couple side notes, was zanz said we shouldn't be surprised seeing our arena decks bleed over to the board.  I would have those deck attack players that is if you go into an area, and one of the decks is spawned, you are automatically battling the deck.  I would have it populate 12 of the squares a random pull of 3 of the top 20 decks from each area of the arena.

so

10 reputation in an element, you can use upped cards of the same element.
20 reputation in an element, you can use the special mark cards in your deck
30 reputation in an element, using that mark, you no longer have to battle arena decks automatically, you can use upped versions of the special mark
40 reputation in an element, using that mark, you can play as a quarter blood (125 HP).
50 reputation in an element, using that mark, allows you to play as a HB on the board if you are using that mark. (150 HP).
50 reputation in every element grants you the chromatic mark in both PVP and on the Board.


Special Marks can not be auto selected, but come in cards,
Playing the Mark replaces the current Mark
None of the special Marks produce quanta, instead they have thematic field effects.
Pendulums no longer produce quanta if on the mark swing
Marks are indestructible, stackable.

Effects would be things like.
Mark of Shadow -> Your opponent loses 1 quanta at the end of their turn all darkness creatures get +0/+1 absorbs 
Mark of Plague -> At the end of a player's turn, All creatures lose 1 health, to a maximum of 50% of their max health rounded up. absorbs   
Mark of Dawn -> Your opponent loses 1  quanta at the end of their turn all light creatures get +0/+1 aborbs 
Mark of Chaos -> One random spell effect occurs to one random target at the end of your turn, if the effect can not target the target choosen nothing happens absorbs 
Mark of Grounding -> The next X creature attacking with flying loses flying where X is the number of Marks of Grounding in play.  absorbs
Mark of Consumption -> each creature gets +1/-1 when attacking. absorbs
Mark of Roots -> Each  permanent has a 15% chance of coming back into play if destroyed. absorbs
Mark of Flight -> The next X creature attacking without flying gains flying where X is the number of Marks of Flightin play.  absorbs :
Mark of Hardness-> You gain 3 max HP at the end of your turn. absorbs 
Mark of Leaking -> Draw 1 additional card if you can during your draw phases, discard a card if you have a card in your hand at the end of your turn. 
Mark of Stopping -> Both players can hold 1 less card in their hands.  absorbs 

Anyways thats what I would like to see, along with another 100 cards, 

But that's all wishful thinking.

Honestly, I like a lot your Special Marks idea. It's a great thing to have in Elements 1.4, and it'll make tricky challenges in it. Hope Zanzarino adds it!
Also: You forgot the Aether Special Mark. My idea:
Mark of Electricity: The next X creature loses random HP from 1 to 5 where X is the number of Marks of Electricity in play. Every 2 Marks of Electricity max random damage increases by 1.Example: Creature #7 got the hit. 3 Marks of Electricity in play: Next creature to get hit is creature #10. If there were only 9 creatures, then the next one is #1. And it continues like that.  absorbs 

[furballdn]

Late reply, but I think it needs to be said. Thank you Zanzarino, for all the tireless work you put into elements for the community. You might not believe it, but I always felt Elements would feel a lot better with some kind of overworld map, but the way you implemented it just completely blew me away. It seems you've given the game a very dynamic change, and it feels very fresh and invigorating. I don't have all the time and passion I used to, but I can say that this update certainly piqued my interest.

[iancudorinmarian]

Late reply, but I think it needs to be said. Thank you Zanzarino, for all the tireless work you put into elements for the community. You might not believe it, but I always felt Elements would feel a lot better with some kind of overworld map, but the way you implemented it just completely blew me away. It seems you've given the game a very dynamic change, and it feels very fresh and invigorating. I don't have all the time and passion I used to, but I can say that this update certainly piqued my interest.

I agree with you. I almost lost my interest, then BAM, super-mega-ultra update coming. Now I play every day for at least 2 hours

[eaglgenes101]

Any ETA for this new update?

And just an idea that came off the top of my head, what if evolutionary algorithms were worked into 1.4x? Might be interesting to see NPC's change over time and overcome bad design...

[Zawadx]

While I'm thrilled about this new development, I have a slight issue:

In general I would like to keep:
AI0 like deck in level 0-10 areas
AI1 like deck in level 10-20 areas
AI2 like deck in level 20-30 areas
AI3 like deck in level 30-40 areas
AI4 like deck in level 40-50 areas
FG like decks in level 50-70 areas
Higher level areas will come as well.

If all the levels are roughly equivalent (e.g. Once you reach level X, you need to kill 10 enemies of level X before you can advance to the next level), then the users will not be having fun in level 0 to 30. Starter decks are approx. level 15, which means a person will spend his first 15 level grinding decks which his own can easily beat. There's no fun in that, and not many newbies will stay long enough to go beyond that. Of course, you could venture into higher level areas to have a bit fun, but most newbies might be overwhelmed by that.

in the current game, players play AI0 and AI1 a couple of times before moving on. AI2 poses a challenge if you aren't experienced with strategy, but once you know the basics even they become boring. And once you start optimizing decks to the fullest, AI3 also becomes boring. Therefore the levels should reflect this:

AI0 and AI1 like decks in level 0-4 areas (forming a tutorial of sorts)
AI2 like decks in level 5-9 areas
AI3 like decks in level 10-24 areas
AI4 like decks in level 25-39 areas

This layout make it similar to Arena as it is now. I think NPCs more powerful than AI4 would encompass levels 40-59, and False Gods would come in after level 60 (meaning they need an upgrade). But this means that the number of levels would need to be reduced to 80 or so.

Another suggestion is that we could have a PvP mode, where instead of NPCs, Player tokens are shown roaming about. This would allow us to wander and challenge other players. Alternatively, players could send a Wandering Minion out each day, which would be like arena, only more RPGy. 

[ColorlessGreen]

I do not believe that that means you are required to fight against things of your level. To the best of my understanding, you should be able to go basically anywhere on the map (and fight opponents of any level) any time you feel like. The comment you quoted was him explaining the approximate strengths of the various NPC levels at various locations on the map, not the opponents you will be required to face when you are at those levels.

[andretimpa]

Yeah, you can beat some of the level 50-ish AIs with ease just by modding your starter deck (and more importantly, knowing what you are doing )