War #5 (proposed rules)

[kev]

majofa: in the future when you ask an Organizer to separate a topic into two threads and he doesn't, consider the possibility he might have a good reason.

[~Napalm]

As I helped think through these rules with majofa, I think I'd like to respond to some of the feedback.

1. I see a bit of distress with the 400 card initial vault thing. Personally, I think this is the BEST way to shorten War. Simply start with fewer cards. The only problem is that with fewer cards, the "cookie cutters" get brought out en masse, so we need to apply limitations. Thus the 18|6 rule, though I'd be perfectly fine with 18|9 which allows for a bit more flexibility without making it easy to pack two of all the standard decks.

2. People seem to have mixed feelings about the free Lt. thing. Personally, I don't think it's necessary. Just have the Lt. you want ban 11 elements and cost you 12 cards. That's still better than a bid war and 24. 50% off in fact! That being said, if we keep the auction rules as they were for War #4, getting 1 free, high value member could be extremely helpful with the 400 card initial vault.

3. The member roles seem to be going over quite well. Aside from minor balancing issues, which I'm sure can be worked out, I'd like to see these in game.

4. I like assigning players to an element, especially in tandem with the idea of member roles affecting outcomes. However, it might be pertinent to discourage changing these roles around if you can simply assign players to their enemies. Alternatively, allow the member roles to be change freely and continue to use the set matchups as in the past and perhaps reuse the event.

5. There is quite a bit of talk about not losing being more important than winning, but no real solutions. I personally like the sideboards because it gives the leaders some options, IF they have the options available.

6. As for how the rounds are weighted, I'm very much against starting right off with nearly entire decks being discarded. I personally think that Round 1 is more dependent on RNG than any other round and if you make the wrong choice right off the bat, it can be very difficult to recover. That being said, starting at only 6 discards might be too few. Assuming the average team loses goes 4-4, you can completely cover your losses with Salvage and Conversion. I would be fine starting at 12, but I wouldn't want to go more than that. As for discarding 24, the problem is that discarding only 24 has a HUGE effect on the length of war. Keeping you key cards every loss allows for better decks later into War and more teams surviving for as long as possible, dragging out war and disproportionately dealing blows to the leaders. I do like the ability to keep key cards, but I think we need to go with 30 card discards for the sake of keeping War as short as possible. Abilities like the Strategist and possibly events might help do both at the same time.

I guess that's all I have for now. I'd still like to try the Elemental Vaults idea, but I don't think that will ever happen.

[bripod]

I've enjoyed seeing this thread grow. I'm not sure if War will ever be "perfect" as it is a rather complex event, but I'm glad to see people contributing their thoughts and ideas to make it the best possible.

So, I'll contribute..

1. 400 cards deck size worked out pretty well last War (but we did have the "UW Bonus Round") so it could have been a bit tight... I guess this really needs to be considered along with #3 & #7

2. The one thing I hated most about the Auction last War was the time it dragged out... I kinda like the Lt thing, but ~Naps also handed an alternative with banning 11 elements, (sorry 10men, no cheap team this year...) but I could go either way. I'm not too sure I like, more or less, forcing someone to bet 12 cards but, meh...

3. "The Vault"... It seems as if their are maybe a bit too many restrictions on the Vault... Hmmm, maybe ~Naps idea about an "Elemental Vault" instead of a "per card vault" could help ease the choke hold on a small vault... and being able to choose from all of an element instead of a few cards can only bring more creativity into the event... just think of some of the sweet decks War has already produced... maybe something to discuss more in depth...

4. This is fricking BRILLIANT! yeah, maybe a few balancing issues but the concept is excellent... One question tho, maybe I need to re-read the OP but can these roles be assigned to different players each round? If so, 

5. Ok, so right now I kinda see 2 things being discussed? Generals assigning players to matches and the WM doing the assignments like last War. If the Member Roles can change from week to week then the old way would be more fun IMO, but if the General can assign Players and Roles then that would be freaking awesome... and more War-like!

6. & 6.5 Yeah, this looks fine...

7. Ah yes, prolly the topic that will last longer than most...
First off, I'd like to go on record of supporting Salvages... I think the mix-up of cards in the later stages of War is where the fun and creativity are. Very War-like to salvage and use the tools of those you've defeated. Lets PLEASE keep this a part of EVERY round. And Please, PLEASE just leave Brittany ALONE!
Discards are the main issue I think. And I believe that we will find a balance between Initial Vault Size, Vault Restrictions and Discards in time... (you like how I slid that in there Boss?) 8) Maybe taking a bit of a conservative approach might be the wiser thing to do... Start out with a comfortable vault, reasonable restrictions and an increasing discard scale. That might prove to be the trick. The increasing scale could also assure that War would not drag out...

Which brings me to this very important item, (well to me at least) Please DO NOT have a predetermined number of rounds in mind... Let it fight out...

Another item that I've seen little/nothing on is the issue of  UW ...

Events cards were fun, but let's try to watch those cards that have HUGE changes associated with them... 

Ok, said my piece... so,

peace

[majofa]

Alright, I guess I'll give some reasons for the proposed changes
(Part 1) General Information
12 Masters = 12 Generals
400 blank cards are given to each
At first, you might see the 400 cards and think, we need to move it back up to 500 cards! Truth is, I didn't like starting with 400 cards in the last War either, mainly because everything else stayed the same. But with some of the other changes proposed, it'll seem more reasonable.

(Part 2) Auction
Before the auction, each General may recruit one Lieutenant of their choosing. This player will join their team at no cost. (Recruit means the player would have to accept the invitation to be the Lieutenant.)
It seems to be split down the middle, whether people like this or not. Although, those for it usually have a reason why, and those opposed don't.. lol
This will fit well with the 400 card starting total.

- Auction House -
Players who want to join War will each start their own War application topic where they include important information about themselves like their score and the number of rare cards they have.
In the Title, the player will include any elements they wishes to ban; the starting bid of this player will be 1+x, where 'x' is the number of elements banned.
Generals may not bid on any player that has banned their element.
Nearly everyone likes this idea. It shouldn't end up being too confusing. If you want to play for a specific team, ban all but one element and a General can pick you up for a flat-rate of 12 cards. While the '24 club' is fun, it really isn't fair to the player/team to have to go for 24 cards and there being no way to stop this.

The rest of the Auction House will remain the same as in the last War.

(Part 3) Vault Building
Vault building rules:
- at least 50% of cards have to be from your element
- maximum of 18 per card from your element (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- maximum of 6 per card from other elements (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- no Shards
Why did we decide to drop the maximum per down to 18/6? Mainly to encourage more variety. With no new cards (or maybe 1 with Seraph) added since the last War, what's to keep the decks from being exactly the same? Now all teams can have EXACTLY 1 nova/graboid deck if they desire, instead of the automatic 2. Additionally, 11 of the teams would have a max of 6 Dimensional Shields each.
With these ratios a team could have: on-element 10x18=180, pillars/pends 120, off-element 120.
(Maybe bumping the off-element maximum up to 9 would work as well.)

(Part 4) Member Roles
General - 6 extra upped cards
Lieutenant - 3 extra upped cards
Strategist - May use a sideboard of up to 6 cards
Mercenary - 33% on-element rule
Scavenger - Salvages 3 extra cards after a win
Bulwark - Discards 3 less cards after a loss
Scout - Sees opponent's deck before match
Assassin - Your opponent discards 3 additional cards if you win
For the first 4 Wars, the roles were needless to say, pointless. General and Lietenant got extra upped cards, but that was it. Why can't everyone contribute in a 'nifty' way? Thus spawned the 'everyone has a cool role' idea. After teams are made, the General will assign each player a role. These roles can play an important role in the outcome of War, while not 'drastically' affecting it.
This also adds another layer of strategy to War... when you drop below 8 players, which roles will you need more? That's for each team to decide. And with the proposed change to the next section, these roles gain even more strategy. Will those extra 3 upped cards help you? .. or perhaps you'd rather the Mercenary fight? Will you need flexibilty in your match? .. then perhaps the Strategist would be a better choice?
The 'amounts' are up for debate, but I feel that something like this definitely needs to be implemented.

(Part 5) Round Matches
Opponents will be determined randomly by Warmasters using an online randomizer, with the constraint that no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible. [[Only Generals will be included, the rest of the spots will be filled with the elements only.]]
In the google doc, each team will input which player will be fighting which element.
This was changed in tandem with the new roles. Being able to choose which ability to play versus which element adds strategy to War like it's never seen before! The Generals don't get to choose where they fight, to prevent an 'all Generals vs the winning team' strategy. There will be a pulldown menu in the googledoc where the team will select each players opponent.

If there are uneven number of players fighting during a round the lowest ranked team that can field more than one deck gets a bye, meaning that one player in that team will skip the round. If that team already had a bye during the previous round, the next lowest ranked team gets a bye instead. No team may have a 2nd bye unless all other active teams have had at least 1 bye.
This one will always be a touchy issue... we actually went back and forth and through a bunch of different ideas, before settling back on how it was in War #4. With the Sideboards, it would probably be too big of an advantage for a higher ranked team.

Sideboards
If you are to play an opponent with fewer players in battle in a given round, you may choose to include a sideboard of cards along with the deck. Your sideboard can contain 2 cards if your team has one more player in battle, plus 1 for each additional player in battle, up to a total of 6 cards. If you lose the match you can chose to discard from your sideboard instead of your deck, but your opponent can NOT salvage from your sideboard.
How can we help the higher ranked teams? .. What advantage can a team have by having a bigger vault? Why not more flexibility? If your team is fielding more players than your opponent's team, then you get a sideboard. The bigger difference there is, the bigger the sideboard.

(Part 6) Decks Played

Decks Played Vault Range Extra Cards 8 286+ 46+ 7 246-285 36-75 6 206-245 26-65 5 166-205 16-55 4 131-165 11-45 3 97-130 7-40 2 64-96 4-36 1 30-63 0-33

This is also debatable. It can be adjusted as needed. I tried to give a decent amount of cards at every level without giving too big of sweetspots.

(Part 6.5) Deckbuilding and Conversion
Deckbuilding rules:
- Any mark
- At least 50% of your cards have to be from your element
- All players may use up to 3 upgraded cards (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- You cannot change your deck until the round is over
- Player Roles may override some of these rules.
Teams can convert a maximum of 24 cards per round.
These rules haven't really changed since the very first War. They are fine as they are, and should stay the same.

(Part 7) Discarding & Salvaging
ROUND 1: discard 6
ROUND 2: discard 12
ROUND 3: discard 18
ROUND 4: discard 24
ROUND 5+: discard 30
Teams may salvage 6 cards from each deck they defeat.
Another touchy topic. The 'always discard 24 cards' rule wasn't well liked. The first round is good for giving a nice feel of War. Low discards means that teams will stay in relatively the same place. Is this a wasted round? Absolutely not. This is one of the most important rounds! You get a good look at your opponents' Vaults, and the salvaging here can make or break you later in War. Teams with good records in the first round of War are usually there in the end.
On the other side of the coin, 30 discards have turned a lot of people off. That's how we had it in Wars #2 & #3 and no one really complained. When it gets down near the end, it should get bloody. There's more at stake and it should feel like it. Knocking out a team's power deck is a good feeling, but knowing they get to keep those Dim Shields everytime they lose is no fun. Besides there are several ways with the proposed changes that cards could be reduced below 30.

Well there you have it.. Our way of keeping War the same, but making it oh so different!

[RavingRabbid]

Part 1: Hm, not much to say.

Part 2: I feel weird "getting at 0 cost" a lieu. I guess it might work, tho.

Part 3: Why the 18 limit on on-element? Don't like it.

Part 4: Roles are quite decent, but they sound a little redundant. Except Mercenary and Strategist. Is it really necessary for everybody to have a role?

Part 5: First thing I don't like is choosing players. Unless generals/lieus are fixed. The sideboard thing is a bit stupid, because it gives a considerable advantage over the other team, putting valuable cards you don't want them to salvage in the sideboard. You should get what you win against.

Part 6: Not much to say here, too.

Part 6.5: Again, please no Strategist/Mercenary.

Part 7: Starting at 12 instead of 6?


Also, further suggestion: Team Sections are becoming more and more lame. What about the teams leaving comments on a round in a topic, even after the duels are made?

[Onizuka]

I dislike the removal of 11 good players that effectively I've had no chance of getting. I can at best attempt to claim one that another wanted, but doing that to each person is just rude and I get nothing out of it besides possibly ticking people off. Instead, I can raise their prices and either get a good teammate or
cost another general a few more cards.

I consider price boosting a valid tool in a general's arsenal as much as propaganda or winning a match is. Unless someone wants to block Entropy, I'd like the ability to be able to bid on them if I please to.

 

[RavingRabbid]

I dislike the removal of 11 good players that effectively I've had no chance of getting. I can at best attempt to claim one that another wanted, but doing that to each person is just rude and I get nothing out of it besides possibly ticking people off. Instead, I can raise their prices and either get a good teammate or cost another general a few more cards.

This. So much this.

[CCCombobreaker]

Why did we decide to drop the maximum per down to 18/6? Mainly to encourage more variety. With no new cards (or maybe 1 with Seraph) added since the last War, what's to keep the decks from being exactly the same? Now all teams can have EXACTLY 1 nova/graboid deck if they desire, instead of the automatic 2. Additionally, 11 of the teams would have a max of 6 Dimensional Shields each.
With these ratios a team could have: on-element 10x18=180, pillars/pends 120, off-element 120.
(Maybe bumping the off-element maximum up to 9 would work as well.)

I think the problem with this is that we can all readily acknowledge that some elements just have better cards than others.  And by limiting "weaker" elements ability to get key synergy cards from off elements you are stifling their potential.   Why shouldn't Life be able to run phase shields in Frogtal and PUGons in the same round?  Why should we stop earth from running the pulvy-bow and their disc-eq or that weird nightmare ghostbow?  That teams could run multiple nova based decks in a round did not LIMIT creativity.  The 18/6 rule heavily favors the few elements that have strong "core" cards.  Entropy can run 3 nova based decks.  So what if they only run grabboids in 1?   They can put steel golems in the second and make the third one a poison bow.  You are still allowing them access to 3 decks that will be significantly faster than what most other elements can bring.  If nova and Phase shield are problems then limit those cards for everyone instead of limiting everything for most teams.

Another touchy topic. The 'always discard 24 cards' rule wasn't well liked. The first round is good for giving a nice feel of War. Low discards means that teams will stay in relatively the same place. Is this a wasted round? Absolutely not. This is one of the most important rounds! You get a good look at your opponents' Vaults, and the salvaging here can make or break you later in War. Teams with good records in the first round of War are usually there in the end.
On the other side of the coin, 30 discards have turned a lot of people off. That's how we had it in Wars #2 & #3 and no one really complained. When it gets down near the end, it should get bloody. There's more at stake and it should feel like it. Knocking out a team's power deck is a good feeling, but knowing they get to keep those Dim Shields everytime they lose is no fun. Besides there are several ways with the proposed changes that cards could be reduced below 30.

30 card discard can still work as long as we don't also bring in "no salvage" because then there was then effectively no substitution penalty.  Like in this case (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,34478.12.html)

[The_Mormegil]

I think the problem with this is that we can all readily acknowledge that some elements just have better cards than others.  And by limiting "weaker" elements ability to get key synergy cards from off elements you are stifling their potential.   Why shouldn't Life be able to run phase shields in Frogtal and PUGons in the same round?  Why should we stop earth from running the pulvy-bow and their disc-eq or that weird nightmare ghostbow?  That teams could run multiple nova based decks in a round did not LIMIT creativity.  The 18/6 rule heavily favors the few elements that have strong "core" cards.  Entropy can run 3 nova based decks.  So what if they only run grabboids in 1?   They can put steel golems in the second and make the third one a poison bow.  You are still allowing them access to 3 decks that will be significantly faster than what most other elements can bring.  If nova and Phase shield are problems then limit those cards for everyone instead of limiting everything for most teams.

Yeah, I agree with this. Some cards are strictly speaking stronger than others in a War metagame. Dimensional Shield, Nova, Fractal, Bone Wall, even Immolation: those cards are better than the whole Life element in War... You are giving a huge advantage to Entropy, Aether, Death, Fire... the strong elements. Elements like Time held their own last War, but they did so by creating interesting decks with lots of cards like Nova.

[xdude]

I like the changes. May I propose one extra thing though? Instead of the 3 upps per member I would suggest each team has a total of 24 points. The distribution of those points determins how many upgraded card each player uses (with bonus for gen/lt). This way, you could have some extra strategy included and dieing teams would lafe more survivability. However, if there is a team winning decisively, they could get ganged upon, but on the other hand other teams might decide to take advantage of that by using upgrades against other teams facilitating their wins, etc. IMO this is something that should be tried, especially now that we seem to go through a lot of change.



Also, as you might or might now know, I am now the Master of Light. If anybody would like to be my Lt, feel free to PM me. (may I post a thread about this in General Discussion?).

Off-topic: sorry for not being able to play you in the Grid Majofa, enjoy free points.

[Shantu]

I like most of this. However, we should return to the 500 starting vault - it's much more comfortable and fun. A lot more options to choose from.

I also like xdude's idea. Avoids the anti-newbness of the '3 ups for everyone' rule while making it possible to do. It also adds deeper strategy, so it's win-win. Not sure if it needs a limit (to avoid superbuffed players), but I'd say no because if you give all upgrades to one person, the rest of the team will be at a disadvantage.

[majofa]

I think most people are against the 'lower' teams having such a big advantage.

24 / 8 = 3 per player
24 / 3 = 8 per player