Extra Creditz episodes pertinent to Alteil

[Pikeru]

The good games are the ones designed for those who play to win. A game designed for scrubs by scrubs will fail. Every single time.

That statement is two-fold and you left out the second half. Those people who play to win do so to profit. There is no profit in this game save for slightly more in-game content. This is the exactly reason VS. went under, but so does everything else Upperdeck ever gets their hands on. No matter what you say, this is a casual game meant for casual players, so they should be the running the show. Without giant tournaments with large prizes, they're the only ones who'll make up the majority of the playerbase.

In addition, calling people scrubs just because they don't agree with your narrow-minded views will just showcase arrogance.

[Ropey]

Why not place penalties on certain cards? If a player has a file full of returns and Ransom SSs. Then they get considerably less FM and Exp. Instead of having UD which is problematic atm. Have a list of cards that when included in a file greatly boost FM and Exp. The more you use from the list the greater the boost. This way players could tailor files to their needs in terms of Exp and FM. You would also have less need to buff/nurf. Punish lazy play encourage imaginative.

And take the Star badges away or hide them. This also encourages cruel meta.

The giving away of set 11 hurt the game in that lots of the lower levels now use the still powerful cards from that set to great effect. I don't blame them, and a lot of the files I see them use are very imaginative cos they lack cards from other sets.

[Peralisc9001]

[quote="DeeGee"]The good games are the ones designed for those who play to win.[/quote

Sims 1, 2, 3 ...

Played by an awful lot of people. Not based on play to win. Basically there are no scrubs since it's just about relaxing and enjoying some sims fun play.

[hexagram]

ropey I think limiting the copies of certain cards may be a good idea to try out e.g. 1/2 copies

[Ropey]

Imaginative play needs to be rewarded far more than lazy oped play, and it needs to do it all the time not just for UD. This works fine in Urban Rivals, but they have a far larger player base, and are able to provide more arenas because of this. So you can still play meta and oped stuff, but expect to face others using the same things. This keeps both types of player happier, and allows you to switch arenas depending on your mood or card pool.

Also they don't nurf of buff cards. Cards are taken out of circulation so they become truly rare and hard to get. With the Auction house on the horizon this is something Alteil could do. In fact this game should and could learn a lot from URs. Then maybe they would get 1000 players online at a time and not 20! Coming in line with competitors should mean that players make the switch between games cos they are familiar with certain features. Lots of card gamers would not give Alteil a look cos it is to different in it's set up and they can be better treated by playing the same game or choosing another which has similar features.

[DeeGee]

The good games are the ones designed for those who play to win. A game designed for scrubs by scrubs will fail. Every single time.

That statement is two-fold and you left out the second half. Those people who play to win do so to profit. There is no profit in this game save for slightly more in-game content. This is the exactly reason VS. went under, but so does everything else Upperdeck ever gets their hands on. No matter what you say, this is a casual game meant for casual players, so they should be the running the show. Without giant tournaments with large prizes, they're the only ones who'll make up the majority of the playerbase.

In addition, calling people scrubs just because they don't agree with your narrow-minded views will just showcase arrogance.

Narrow-minded? The term scrub has a very set-in-stone definition. It's someone who puts up artificial barriers and creates rules outside the bounds of the game and decries whenever someone doesn't play by his (or her) made up rules. EG "returns are cheap!" is a scrub statement. In fact, read this:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

This is where the term "scrub" comes from. It's not "you suck, therefore you are a scrub", or "you disagree with me, therefore you are a scrub". It has a very objective definition I go by. Just because you're ignorant of it doesn't suddenly make the term a bad one.

As for playing to win for profit, not necessarily. Playing to win is a state of mind and a style of play. And if people weren't out to win, who'd be purchasing the cards ?=]

As for imaginative play, what defines imaginative? Using deliberately bad cards? I disagree that we should reward playing deliberately bad strategies.

[Ropey]

Someone had to create the meta you use. You didn't. You even have a post in sanctum that asks what is the new meta so you can exploit it . Is that because of your lack of imagination? What have you given back to the players that help with the files you use? Sure you may add your own twist to them, but why insult and advocate a frustrating environment that does nothing to help create new meta? That you could end up benefiting from. You may have a very good understanding of the games mechanics and such, but you struggle to understand that there can be no true balance in this game, it's to far gone for that to ever happen. Also I'm not sure if you yourself comprehend what makes a game enjoyable for the masses.

[DeeGee]

Someone had to create the meta you use. You didn't. You even have a post in sanctum that asks what is the new meta so you can exploit it . Is that because of your lack of imagination? What have you given back to the players that help with the files you use? Sure you may add your own twist to them, but why insult and advocate a frustrating environment that does nothing to help create new meta? That you could end up benefiting from. You may have a very good understanding of the games mechanics and such, but you struggle to understand that there can be no true balance in this game, it's to far gone for that to ever happen. Also I'm not sure if you yourself comprehend what makes a game enjoyable for the masses.

Oh I realize it's a rock-paper-scissors fest. It's why I think the game would be far better if we had 36 card files so that we could add a bunch of tech options out the wazoo, instead of spending 25 cards just to get some basic file going.

As for "someone had to create the meta", in a good game, that's a minor footnote as to who was the first to discover it. It doesn't matter who was the first. It matters who can play it the best. As for "creating new meta", because if you have too much variety, you have randomness. In order for a strategy game to be good, players need to be able to keep track of what their opponents can do in order for skills such as prediction and meta understanding to be tested.

There are already plenty of matches that are just completely one-sided. We don't need randomness creating more of them.

[shadowsketch]

Just a nitpick.

This game has no meta.

It has dominant files, but meta is about popularity -- what people are using the most is the meta. Since people have no way of picking out specific cards for their files, people are more likely to build with what they have. This is what happened with Set 11 -- since the set was released for free, players flocked to Mid Refess and Augments since those files are the easiest to build with the cards and perform well.

[DeeGee]

Just a nitpick.

This game has no meta.

It has dominant files, but meta is about popularity -- what people are using the most is the meta. Since people have no way of picking out specific cards for their files, people are more likely to build with what they have. This is what happened with Set 11 -- since the set was released for free, players flocked to Mid Refess and Augments since those files are the easiest to build with the cards and perform well.

I think people are using the term meta to mean dominant, SS, but yeah, you're right. Accessibility has always been a factor.