Greetings Elements members.
I am fairly new around here -- meaning the forums -- although I actually found this game about 6 months ago and have been playing with some regularity. (I have 60K points, about 300 upgraded cards, 7 nymphs, just to give you an idea of how much I've played).
Two of my hobbies actually include BOTH Flash game design and board/card game design ... so a Flash card game is right up my alley. In fact I have been putting together my own Flash-based card game for the last year or so and will be launching the project in 3-4 months (this timing based on my day job). Searching for similar products, to get an idea of the market, is how I found Elements in the first place.
I thought I'd just give some background on me, and hope to get to know the community here a bit better. Seems like a good group of people. And the game itself is great too of course!
I wanted to put up a post on PvP tournaments. My impression is that they are going to get more and more popular as people realize they are the most reliable source for nymphs, and once there is better linkage from the game itself, etc.
A lot of folks are reticent to take advice from a newcomer and I understand that ... but there are some issues that it would improve the PvP experience to address. One issue in particular:
DESYNC-ing.
A desync is basically a result of a bad connection in a PvP game, where one player's computer has a spotty connection and the game goes offline. It can be majorly disruptive when a player has this happen frequently. It's not surprising that this is happening given that lots of folks are playing on weak connections and that lots of games are happening across oceans! (One nice thing about Elements is the international community of players).
Whether they like to admit it or not there are some USUAL SUSPECTS for desyncing. And that makes sense. Most people have a connection that doesn't cause a desync. Some people have bad connections. That is nothing against them, but they need to take RESPONSIBILITY for their own bad connections.
The current policy in PvP tournaments is that a desync should just result in a replayed game (unless someone is completely dominating and almost won). There are several problems with this policy; not the least of which is that it opens the door to cheating.
Earlier today, for example, I was in a PvP tournament in a best-of-1 preliminary round. My opponent had a bad draw, I had a good draw, and he desynced. After at least ten minutes of annoyance waiting around and trying to get things to work properly, we played again, only this time he had a perfect draw and mine was terrible. He ended up winning only because of that.
The fact is that this is completely unfair. I don't suspect this opponent of cheating necessarily, but it should not be the case that HIS bad connection causes me a loss.
The policy in tournaments -- and really in any form of competition between players online -- should be one that is as fair as possible, and which DOES NOT RELY on people's honesty. This is not because most people are cheaters -- it is simply because it is not fair to force players to play in a system where they HAVE to rely on the honesty of someone else.
I have never cheated at anything in my life. But it DISTURBS me that with the current PvP rules I could cheat to my great advantage very easily. I could easily force a desync every time I had a bad draw and get several chances to draw well. In turn this would enable me to build a deck that relies on good draws -- making it even harder to beat me. In the time it took my opponent to re-connect he also could have altered his deck slightly since he saw exactly what cards I had in the desynced game. Being able to customize your deck to beat your opponent WITHOUT HAVING EVEN PLAYED ONE GAME is not fair. Fixing up your deck after a game is much more fair.
My suggestion is that the rules be changed. Desyncing should be the responsibility of the player who desyncs. Yes in general something can go wrong and it should be forgiven once in a while -- but there are players out there who desync CONSTANTLY and they should either not be allowed to play in tournaments at all or they should have to forfeit when they desync. It is just not fair to everyone else to do things any other way -- EVEN IF 99% of players who desync are honest.
Perhaps the best policy would be that if you desync your opponent has the option to force a forfeit. Or perhaps they have the right to keep playing, only against AI -- and if they win, they win. Tell me what you think about this.
Please leave your comments below!
Cheers,
Sir Valimont