Rags to Riches - RULES

[Marsu]

Sadly. Would have loved to participate in this. Nothing's cooler than booster packs.

[Shrink]

Warning, this post is long.

I love the sound of all of that. Except for the bit about automated pack buying. As amazing as that sounds and as much as I'd like that, how do you intend on stopping players from buying/selling/buying/selling over and over again in the same round to generate moar moniez / get the cards they want?

Thoughts.
This event wasn't very fun at the beginning. Playing with the equivalent of AI0 decks against each other was boring and frustrating. Later on in the event, once I had a strategy going and PvP finally seemed to become interesting, it was the homework effect that really wore this event down for me. I simply didn't look forward to spending around an hour organizing my cards, selling them, then posting what I was buying/selling.

You've already tackled the homework effect with your planned updates, so kudos. As for the frustrations at the beginning, I can't really think of a way to fix that.

This whole thing about working in the Buy/Sell thread completely degraded the lasting output of this game. As for the playing with AI0 decks, I kinda thought it was interesting to see the development of a card pool. So, for now, I don't think there is any plan to actually -remove- the Rags part of it x).

You mention a better balance of elements; I would like to mention that darkness (The element around which I planned on all my strategies revolving around...Darkness nubs 4evaaa) and death are very difficult to play in this event. In 8 rounds, I never got a full set of devourers, and it took all 8 of those rounds to get just 3 black dragons. All of the trademark darkness cards (Steal, Dusk Mantle, Vamp stilleto) were made rare/ultra rare, and that pretty much made acquiring them impossible early on. Unupped darkness doesn't have many hitters, and with the stalling capability gone... *shrug* As for death..I think I got 2 or 3 bone dragons and 1 mummy. And a bunch of skeletons. No other real hitters. If making a mono dark was difficult, a mono death was impossible. xD

Yeah, there was a gross total of the creatures you mentioned in everyone's card packs each round. I think a implementation of new packs, rather than just rank, will be seen next time.

Speaking of me never completing my set of devourers, I would have killed for a method to trade cards with other players, or to buy individual cards. I would have spent any amount of money, no questions asked, just to get my goddamned 6 devourers. Even till the end of the event, I was very stubbornly buying as many bronze/silver packs as I could in an attempt to get the low level cards I needed.

For now [because I can't think of a any way that would actually work], trading cards is sincerely out of the question. It could instantly lead to plotting between players, which isn't needed. If it comes to see fit in the event, there will probably be a main trading hub thread.

A method to upgrade cards would have also been very lovely, but I'm not certain how that would be balanced. Maybe remove foil cards from packs all together, but add the option to upgrade any given card for a price. Or maybe defeating a PvP opponent also gives you a voucher to upgrade any card you wish.

An upgrade for a price was an initial thought of mine at the start. I shied away from it when I thought of how players will all be upping the same cards, so they wouldn't have a chance to have to work with other upped cards. This also brings thought to how it would actually solve a problem in the event that was: If a player received a certain upped card, it was an automatic sell. I'll devote a little more time to working on a way that could be possible. The defeat on an opponent in battle is supposed to lead to only. I think it would be more interesting to have players wager their prized on something like a slot machine, that could output a foil voucher.

Mark cards should be removed entirely. A PvP event shouldn't be determined by RNG.

I think for the next time this event is run, Mark cards will have no worth. They were an extra card in the packs anyway, increasing the total your card packs should have.

As for NPC battles, I would discard them entirely in favor of another PvP match. The NPC's didn't enjoy being NPC's, and no one really enjoyed searching for one to battle. Discarding them in the last few rounds was a good move on your part.

This isn't going to happen. What will happen is an evolution of the NPC's - a sort of growing process through the rounds. You'll see.. you'll see!

I'd like to see a more strict timeline on rounds, but also making the rounds long enough for everyone to do what they had to do. I think 1 week per round is fair. If someone can't get their games/purchases done in 7 days, that's on them. This last round was supposed to end 5 days ago but didn't due to stragglers (myself included). I was honestly hoping you'd tell me off and move on to round 9.

t will be much easier to not dilly dally next time. With proper docs for all, players will have a much easier time managing their cards and their Buy/Sell Thread.

And to speak on that matter briefly: I believe it would be best to create separate Buy/Sell threads for each of the players and the according Buy/Sell lead (hopefully myself).


I know I sound like I'm complaining a lot, but I generally enjoyed this event, I really did. I liked the idea of being a newbie, buying real life packs of cards and playing against his friends, it was a nice throwback. It just needs some improvements. ^_^

These are no complaints. These are great criticisms! So, thank you.

Thanks to you, maj, and to Shrink and justa as well, and to all of our NPC's putting up with us using them as punching bags, and to my competitors. All of you are awesome sauce.

I'd like to make another suggestion for next time:

Make the starter packs 60 cards (instead of 40) consisting only of 3 elements (instead of 4), so two bronze level packs of 10 from each element. That would give a much better chance to build something reasonable for the first round, thus reducing the initial frustration.

Again, the initial rounds are supposed to be a bit troubling. Hopefully, we can lead toward a better starter pack that yields less frustration, though.

- Easer ways to get pends
Elemental pillar packs that come with 1 pillar and pend of the element you choosed.

- Better starter pack
Zso_Zso sugestions looks good.

- No npcs
Just give the free gold.

- Trade system
Maybe this could work with super rares (dimensional shield, bonewall) only and only one trade per round.

I'm only going to touch on the first note here. New packs will give way to possible mixes of pillars/pends and creatures/perms/spells. Choosing the element for the pend/pillar isn't a terrible idea, yet it produces a counter to the argument that these packs are supposed to luck-based with different levels of card strength.

With this thought though, there ma be a way to work out pillars/pends from packs entirely. Not sure for now, though.

The problem was that most of the junk ended up being pretty useless. It was at least a forced trio with 1 pend of each element at the start, with no guarantee of it getting much better very soon.

this is how r2r works?! plz dont start again this useless discussion... a game where you have to start from rag have to be pain! ^^

Suggestion: pack bought should have at least some stuff from the elements you choose... this way you chosse should have an influence, so buying 10 pillar packs with 1!!! fire pend works baaaad!!!

It will be difficult to create something that entails the use of it for all players with that design, but there could be a better answer to your problems, like pillar/pend packs designed for your element (although it may be more expensive).

Oh Dragoon, your post was full of nothing but beauty.

Things to look forward to next time this event is run:

- Each player will have their own googledoc (similar to WoE/War) where they have a list of their cards. Selling cards will be done with a simple click of a button.

This will be good to help with the tediousness and hopefully to lessen mistakes. I'm sure everyone, myself included, has made mistakes in this event just because of the sheer number of cards and the pain of trying to organize them.

Myself included. The numbers were overwhelming and a scale will be put in place next time.

- Elements will be better balanced: As in, no more everyone playing monoFire.

I do think that the division of cards (common, uncommon, rare, ultra-rare) could be better balanced. It may be better to try to balance the division of cards based on their value rather than trying to make sure there are equal number of cards from each element in each category (i.e. having 3 rares from each element, 5 uncommons from each element, etc.). When you try to distribute the cards evenly by element, people will favor elements which have a higher percentage of good cards since they can get good cards at lower tiers.

Just one example of imbalance is Procrastination Shield and Dusk Mantle. How is it that Dusk is a rare and Procrastination a common? They both on average cause the opponent to do damage only half the time. I realize there are slight differences beyond that, but enough for a 2-grade difference?

I will project a better examination over the card packs because it's definitely something we knew wouldn't be absolutely perfect the first time around. Also, I think we will lead to a more tested system, that outputs more than just the option to play monofire.

- Card packs will be better balanced: Gold packs will give more rares and no Marks from lower level packs.

Yes, Gold packs should definitely be buffed. I still think that their investment-to-return value shouldn't be as good as Bronze and Silver, but you should get something more to help balance the value proposition (more rares, more foils, or something).

As for Marks, what is the purpose of having these? Is it just to make things more random? I think most of us prefer the game not to be decided based on who was lucky enough to get Mark cards regardless of what packs they may be restricted to. If Marks are designed to be a kind of wild bonus to help struggling players, then I think the possibility of getting a Mark should be restricted to the bottom X number of players.

Also, you might want to consider making Quantum Pillars uncommons instead of rares, at least if you plan on giving them in Pillar packs still. Pillar packs were definitely the best way to make money in this event.

Without initial thought, selling cards became the powerhouse, deciding the strength of a players final count. I will see to it that PvP replaces that and player skill is properly rewarded.

As for the comments on Marks, I make reference to them earlier in this post. Not being able to sell marks seems to be a good answer to the problem at hand.

- Better NPC balance.

I don't mind playing NPCs, but if we do use them again, I think that 1) they should increase in difficulty as the event progresses and 2) NPC players should be able to adjust their deck. I think that was the biggest complaint I heard from NPCs: it was just boring to play the same decks over and over. I also wouldn't mind if we tossed out NPCs and did more PvP.

As made note to earlier in this post as well, NPC evolution will hopefully be present next time.

Some other random thoughts and brainstormings:

I liked how the earlier rounds forced us to use some of the lesser used cards like the various element shields, weaker CC cards, and weaker creatures with meh abilities.

Along with that, I like how the meta evolved as people got more cards and better cards. Majofa mentioned that a lot of people used Mono Fire. I agree, it was used a good bit. But I personally thought that starting in Round 6 or 7, Mono Fire started losing it's advantage just as Maxwell's Demon lost it's edge starting in Round 4 or 5. As people started to get bigger card pools with better cards and more copies of cards, they began to be able to field decks that could beat the earlier strong decks.

I liked the choice of choosing more mediocre cards (uncommons) to broaden your card pool or choosing fewer higher-caliber cards (rares, super-rares). Unfortunately, most of these higher-caliber cards weren't useful until you got more of the mediocre cards to broaden your card pool and fill in the meat of a deck. I don't think there were enough rounds to make investing in Gold packs worth it. If it stretched out another 10 rounds, then yeah, maybe it'd make sense to buy Gold packs to help give you an edge.

Of course the next time this event is put in place, there will be a considerable number of reasons you'll really -want- to buy those Gold Packs (or whatever is in its place). As you stated with the meta evolving, it would be nice for it to happen a little faster, as to give proper reason to buy the gold packs and evolve it further.

I think that there should be a bigger difference between the amounts you get for winning and losing. In the beginning, I think that 100 to 50 is good. But I think that difference should increase by 10 to 25 every round. This will make winning matches a bigger deal than just working the system to eke out a net positive from buying and selling.

Great point, as noted before. PvP will be the backbone to a player's build, not working the system with the buy/sell.

What if you took the Pillar, Bronze, Silver, and Gold packs and subdivided them into 3 more kinds: Rainbow, Quad, and Mono. Rainbow packs would give cards from any element or other; they would be the cheapest. Quad packs would give cards from only four elements (these elements can be pre-set or chosen by the player depending on which you think is better); they would be more expensive. And Mono packs would give cards only from 1 element of their choice; they would be the most expensive. So you can choose to get an early advantage by focusing on 1 element, or you can go for a later advantage by building a bigger card pool at the expense of weaker decks in the early rounds.

Spoiler for for example:

Rainbow Pillar pack - 8 random pillars, 4 random pends - 30
Quad Pillar pack - 6 pillars from 4 elements, 3 pends from 4 elements - 40
Mono Pillar pack - 4 pillars from 1 element, 2 pends from 1 element - 60
You would probably need to adjust the ratio and costs. This is just a quick example of what I mean.

It's not a bad idea, and I like how you understand what the cost of the packs should be (There should definitely be an increase as each gets closer to a mono). I think I would only consider this idea for the pillar packs though. Also, choosing the elements for the mono makes sense, but it will be harder to implement that with the quad. Maybe pre-sets of elements that hold each other's hands will be made available for purchase.

I'm not sure what to think about foil cards. I liked them and they added more interest to the event. But by putting one in every pack, it encourages buying as many of the cheapest packs as possible. This also worked out well because a lot of the Uncommon creatures became much better if they were upgraded and you could get the most uncommon creatures by buying the cheapest packs. If you're wanting to encourage more people to consider buying Silver and Gold next time, you'll need to do something about this. Maybe give two foil cards in Gold packs, one in Silver packs, and a 50% chance for a foil in bronze and pillar packs?

I like the idea of "maybe" getting a foil in bronze packs, always getting them in silver, and doubling them in gold, but maybe this thought, as well as upgrade vouchers, could be implemented with one another.

I'm sure there's more I could say, but I think my wall of text is big enough. I'll pass the mic to the next person.

Ha, wall of text my arse

I'll be here to answer any other questions as they come.

[iancudorinmarian]

Would people be interested in this event? I started working on a program for generating packs and keeping track of everything at some point, but gave up shortly due to being busy with uni.

I have more free time now and I'd be interested in hosting this and getting the program done if there's enough interest from people playing, and of course, with majofa's permission.

Let me know what you think

[majofa]

Of course!

Keep me up-to-date with your progress on the program.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Elements draft? Hell yeah im in

[iancudorinmarian]

Spoiler for rarity:

Commons

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4ve 4vi 4vk 4vm 4vo 4vq 52i 52k 52m 52n 52p 52s 52v 55o 55p 55q 55u 560 561 563 58p 58q 58r 58t 58u 592 5bv 5c2 5c3 5c6 5c8 5f1 5f2 5f3 5f5 5f9 5i6 5i7 5i9 5if 5ih 5ii 5l9 5lc 5ld 5le 5lg 5lj 5od 5oe 5oh 5ok 5op

Commons

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5ri 5rj 5rn 5rq 5rr 5rt 5un 5uq 5ut 5uu 5v0 5v2 61p 61s 621 623 624 626

Uncommons

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Deck import code : [Select]

4vd 4vf 4vg 4vh 4vp 52h 52j 52l 52t 52u 55m 55n 55r 55v 562 58s 591 594 595 596 5bt 5bu 5c0 5c1 5c4 5f7 5f8 5fa 5fb 5fe 5i5 5i8 5ia 5id 5ie 5la 5lb 5lf 5lh 5lk 5of 5oi 5oj 5om 5on 5rh 5rl 5rm 5rs 5ru 5ul 5um 5uo 5us 5uv 61r 61u 61v 620 625

Rares

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Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 4vn 52o 52q 55l 55t 590 593 5c5 5c7 5f6 5fc 5ic 5ig 5ll 5lm 5og 5oo 5rk 5rp 5up 5v1 61q 622

Ultra Rares

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Deck import code : [Select]

4vl 52r 55s 58v 5c9 5f4 5ib 5li 5ol 5ro 5ur 61t

Hidden Rares (Shards)

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Deck import code : [Select]

50a 53e 56i 59m 5cq 5fu 5j2 5m6 5pa 5se 5vi 62m

Each player starts by selecting 4 different Starter Packs (i.e. 4 different elements).

Notes referring to starter packs:
- Each starter pack will have cards of only the chosen element.
- There won't be any duplicates in the starter packs.
- You may not "buy" more starter packs after the event started.
- Starter packs also contain a foil (upgraded) card.

Pack Type	Cost	Content	Ultra Rare	Shard
Starter	0	3 commons, 2 uncommons, 4 pillars, 1 pendulum	0%	0%
AI0	30	7 pillars, 3 pendulums	0%	1%
Bronze	40	7 commons, 3 uncommons	0%	5%
Silver	80	5 commons, 4 uncommons, 1 rare	0%	5%
Gold	150	3 commons, 5 uncommons, 2 rares	15%	10%
Platinum	300	2 commons, 5 uncommons, 2 rares, 1 ultra rare	0%	10%

Rarity	Sell
Pillar	2
Pendulum	4
Common	2
Uncommon	5
Rare	20
Ultra Rare	50
Shard	75
Foil (Upgraded)	x2

Each pack contains one upgraded card. If you get an Ultra Rare or Hidden Rare, it may replace any of the other cards in the pack. (The 0% for the Platinum pack for the Ultra Rares might seem weird, but it just means you can't get a second one)

Suggestions are welcome

May I use this as award trophy?

It's not mine, it's plastiqe's http://elementscommunity.org/forum/rags-to-riches/rags-to-riches-rules/msg1004165/#msg1004165

[Spielkind]

I love it so much, totally in when hosted. 

[TheonlyrealBeef]

From OP: Looks fun, since you asked for suggestions (in chat), here's a list of cards that I think might be in the "wrong ranking". Probably just -1 or +1, I'll even suggest a "swap" in between brackets from the same element. Dragons and Nymphs may have been made less common on purpose, but I'm going purely based on how powerful I think they are in general. I may be misjudging some cards in the meta of this event.

Life cards also feel too weak compared to other cards of the same rarity, but considering the amount of cards per rarity, their relative power among Life cards appears acceptable. Immolation decks also deserve a special note, since most cards for it are common or uncommon (Immolation and Lava Golem see little use outside of these specific decks, however). Not sure if this is a problem, but I thought it would be worth mentioning.

Spoiler for Ranking swap suggestions:

+Lycanthrope(-Purple Nymph)

+Graviton Mercenary(-Graviton Fire Eater)
+Gravity Pull(-Otyugh)
+Black Hole(-Amber Nymph)

+Shrieker(-Stone Dragon)
+Earthquake(-Basilisk Blood)

+Emerald Shield(-Heal)

+Seraph(-Crimson Dragon)
+Deflagration(-Red Nymph) -- deserves same tier as Steal.

+Ice Bolt(-Steam Machine)

+Miracle(-Sanctuary) -- based on the idea that Miracles are useful in low numbers, Sanctuary is not.

+Wings(-Firefly Queen) -- a single Wings can turn the tide of a game, FFQ needs a dedicated deck.

+Deja Vu(-Dune Scorpion)
+Sundial(-Pharaoh)

+Devourer(-Black Nymph)
+Nightmare(-Dusk Mantle)
+Drain Life(-Minor Vampire) -- Minor Vampire isn't as useful unupgraded.

+Lightning(-Phase Dragon)

For the latest post:
With Pillars/Pendulums being separated into AI0, does that mean they are not a subset of common?
Gold vs Silver: you're basically paying extra only for a chance at an ultra rare? Seems kinda lame.
Silver vs Bronze: Bronze is kinda expensive in comparison: the sell price of the rare and uncommon you gain extra (at the cost of only 2 commons) is the increase of price from Bronze to Silver. Adding that with Gold vs Silver comparison, I think it's fair to increase the price of Silver packs to 80

[iancudorinmarian]

Re: Gold vs Silver

You're getting an extra rare and an extra uncommon as well. Maybe the percentage should be a little higher? 20% maybe?

Silver pack seems fine at 80, so I'll change that.

I'll take a look at the list and maybe do some changes.

[kaempfer13]

imo rare cards sell price is way too high; shards and ultra rares exist basically only to be sold. Drop the prizes of the rarer packs and sell prize of rare cards significantly (I think having shards sell prize at around 30 would still make the situation very rare where the shard is more useable than 3 random uncommons)

[iancudorinmarian]

Changed some things according to suggestions.

[majofa]

Yes, we had already established that some cards would need to be moved around. It was originally done as 1 ultra rare / 2 rare / 3 uncommons / 'rest' common. This was done evenly for all elements, but it was determined that some elements are just stronger (like fire).

So, let's put our heads together and see what we come up with for the balance.