War #4 - Feedback

[TheonlyrealBeef]

I just had this rather... weird idea that might promote the entire team getting to play.

Namely to grant players one or two extra upgrades for each consecutive round they haven't played a match, eventually outweighing the amount of even a general. It's bad for those teams that have members go inactive, but, uhm, yeah... Good thing is that it adds another layer of strategy, do we need these upgrades now, or let her/him sit on the couch for one more round to steamroll next round? Not capping round number or have some final tournament is basically a must for that, or you'd simply try having a bunch of people on the sideline all the way until round 10 xP

[bripod]

QFT.

Not quite sure I understand...

[PlayerOa]

As there was only one 24-club member this war, I really think that vault size should increase to 500 cards.

I just had this rather... weird idea that might promote the entire team getting to play.

Namely to grant players one or two extra upgrades for each consecutive round they haven't played a match, eventually outweighing the amount of even a general. It's bad for those teams that have members go inactive, but, uhm, yeah... Good thing is that it adds another layer of strategy, do we need these upgrades now, or let her/him sit on the couch for one more round to steamroll next round? Not capping round number or have some final tournament is basically a must for that, or you'd simply try having a bunch of people on the sideline all the way until round 10 xP

I see this as a good idea. Maybe a small change could be done, but I see potential in this.

[Jenkar]

QFT.

Not quite sure I understand...

Quoted for truth.

[Onizuka]

One of the only things I liked from HPPvP: Increased rewards for wins against more Prefects/HoH (Or in our case, Lt. and Gens).

Something to think about.

[~Napalm]

So a few of us have a suggestion that we'd like to put forth and see what the rest of the community thinks about it. After noticing the huge problem Vault Auditing is for this war, we started discussing ways to streamline it and possibly change the way War is run altogether. The end result was the following idea:

Master start with 500 "Blank" cards. Whatever they don't use on team members makes up the vault.The vault is divided into "Elemental" cards. At least 50% MUST be that teams element.These "Elemental" cards are then used during the rounds, but can be ANY card from the element they represent.*These "Elemental" cards are also used for your pillar/pend count.Limited to 24 copies of any in-element card and 12 copies of any off-element card each round. (Does NOT include pillar/pend)Salvaging, Discarding, and Conversion would be done with "Elemental" cards, not specifics.50% Deckbuilding rule still applies.

*So if Team Fire has 6 "Air" cards, they can use 6 Wings, 4 UG's and 2 Wings, 2 Shockwaves and 2 UG's and 2 Wings, etc. So long as the 50% deckbuilding rule is met

This would ultimately completely change the way war is run in the following ways:

Vault Auditing would be much simpler. A simple check of 13 numbers and 8 decks would be much easier to do than the current system.Much MUCH more freedom in deckbuilding as there is no limit to what cards you can use, just how many from each element.Less restricted to merely knowing the enemy vaults and playing counters and more about surprising or outmaneuvering your enemiesMuch greater emphasis on deckbuilding than vault management.Far more lenient atmosphere that would ultimately make War less of a chore and more of a game.

Note: This is still a very rough idea and would definitely need all the kinks worked out of it before anything even close could be used. UW for example.

So, now for the moment of truth. What are the opinions on this idea. Discuss.
[/i][/b]

Just going to re-post this here. Obviously there are many things to consider here and many of them have already been brought up here. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,23298.msg365170#msg365170) (Read the next few pages)

Basically, I'd just like to know if this is something to consider or not. The basic question is this: Has war become too much of a chore to be much fun? Which lead us to: Would the aforementioned changes make war more fun? Why or why not?

Discuss.

[dragonsdemesne]

QFT.

Not quite sure I understand...

Quoted for truth.

Wow... that's not at ALL what I thought it stood for.  I thought it stood for Quit F....... Trolling :p  Shows what I know, young kids and their newfangled acronyms...

[YoungSot]

Master start with 500 "Blank" cards. Whatever they don't use on team members makes up the vault.The vault is divided into "Elemental" cards. At least 50% MUST be that teams element.These "Elemental" cards are then used during the rounds, but can be ANY card from the element they represent.*These "Elemental" cards are also used for your pillar/pend count.Limited to 24 copies of any in-element card and 12 copies of any off-element card each round. (Does NOT include pillar/pend)Salvaging, Discarding, and Conversion would be done with "Elemental" cards, not specifics.50% Deckbuilding rule still applies.

*So if Team Fire has 6 "Air" cards, they can use 6 Wings, 4 UG's and 2 Wings, 2 Shockwaves and 2 UG's and 2 Wings, etc. So long as the 50% deckbuilding rule is met

This would ultimately completely change the way war is run in the following ways:

Vault Auditing would be much simpler. A simple check of 13 numbers and 8 decks would be much easier to do than the current system.Much MUCH more freedom in deckbuilding as there is no limit to what cards you can use, just how many from each element.Less restricted to merely knowing the enemy vaults and playing counters and more about surprising or outmaneuvering your enemiesMuch greater emphasis on deckbuilding than vault management.Far more lenient atmosphere that would ultimately make War less of a chore and more of a game.

Note: This is still a very rough idea and would definitely need all the kinks worked out of it before anything even close could be used. UW for example.

I'm a big fan of this idea. It means that the late game would be much less stale, with no suicide decks and a greater variety of decks played up until the very end. It places less emphasis on detailed card tracking (both for your own vault and your opponent's) which I personally don't find fun at all. The more malleable vaults makes it easier to have counters available for strong opponents, and it also means that smaller teams could be less prone to giving up, as while they don't have many "hit points" left, their vault won't have lost it's ability to field different decks.

Since this does decrease the relative complexity of War somewhat, perhaps it would be worthwhile to add some card restrictions in other ways? I thought it might be interesting to restructure events so that they apply tourney-style special rules to the different rounds. If nothing else it would ensure that each round was fresh. Just a thought.

This change wouldn't fix ALL the problems with war, but it would be a good start imo. I still don't like the fact that, in an event where the ultimate winner is defined by not-losing games as opposed to winning games, we make the more successful teams play more matches (and thus expose them to more risk of loss than other teams). But I'll complain further about that later. 

[ralouf]

I also like the Napalm idea. I'm not sure if this doesn't have some annoying drawbacks though. I think we need to try it at least once to have a better idea about this.

[bripod]

~naps idea is pretty dang good...  maybe this could be used as a base and build from there...

and I agree 100% that a predetermined number of rounds is a bad idea...

[dragonsdemesne]

Overall, I enjoyed War #4 (the only war I've participated in) and the only real complaint I have about how it was run was, as many have mentioned, the system where not losing was rewarded more than winning.  A team that completely fails the first few rounds, and then has to play less teams, will do better than a team who consistently excels every round.

For example, team Death won war #4, with a W/L record of 29-21, or 58%.  Team time, who had five more wins, and the same number of losses, made it to 3rd/4th.  Team light, who had a 21-20 record, or barely 50%, got 2nd place, though their win percentage would put them at 6th.  Team earth had a 32-20 record, or eleven more wins than team light and the same number of losses and got 3rd/4th place.  Based strictly on win percentage, team time had the highest, with 61.8%, followed by earth at 61.5%.  And while I am definitely biased, having been on team time, I felt those were the two best teams this war.  I think team earth was the best team this war, and team time was runner-up, but the war results don't show that. 

The highest weight went to the games near the end of war, which are also the games that take the least skill to prepare for, since vaults are almost completely known and only one or two decks can be fielded.  Buliding a deck that can win no matter what the opponent brings takes far more skill than 'oh look, we each have one deck left, I guess we'll play that, and oh, we know team A will win before we start'.  One suggestion I had made was to have teams eliminated before it gets that far, so that instead of the elimination threshold being 30 cards, it is higher, say 100 cards.  (and that might require larger starting vaults)  This prevents the 'we both know what the other guy is using so it's predetermined' problem that reduced the last rounds to pure luck on who matched up against who.  There is always going to be an element of luck, of course, and this is fine.  The scoring system, however, shouldn't magnify this to the degree that happened this war.

The other complaint isn't about how war was organized, but how certain teams gave up earlier on by suiciding before it was necessary.  Of course, again, I'm biased because I was on team time, but it just happened that almost all of the (unnecessary, as opposed to strategic) suicides were in matches against death and entropy, two of the top 4 teams (earth and time were the other two), so it hurt us a lot more, and so annoyed me more than it might have some other teams.  If you're going to sign up for something long term like war, at least stick it out; it lessens the fun for those who remain.  If you really don't want to play anymore, and I know it happens, maybe war wasn't as fun as you thought it would be, rather than suiciding, why not have some of those who didn't make the initial bidding take your places instead and give them a shot?  That way, those guys get a chance to play, you guys don't have to play anymore, and those who stay don't have the experience spoiled by those who don't want to play anymore. /end 2 cents

[UTAlan]

Very interesting idea. I actually never had a problem with vault/card tracking. Found it quite interesting and fun, actually. However, suicide decks and being punished for doing well are not fun. I could definitely see this idea going somewhere. I'm very interested in seeing where this discussion goes.

Something we discussed in chat was changing the in/off-element limits for a team based on vault size. Something to the effect of: Vault size >= 250, 24 in-element, 12 off-element limits; Vault size >= 100, 18 in, 9 off; Vault size < 100, 12 in, 6 off.