Good Win/Loss ratio for a balanced game

[Demongod]

So you should be forced to go through the torture of getting wrecked by a deck that you know you're going to have no chance against when his Eskatia'd lycans tear out your grims int he first three turns and then he just pounds the living bejeezus out of anything you play and has an entire unkillable field because of the nightfall revive system?

So let's see here...you have a 1/3 chance of hitting Eskatia (assuming she's on the front lines) herself, and otherwise just about anything you play is going to get wrecked.

All the while, the EN player is sitting there thinking "oh look at me, I pwn, I rock, I R T3H L33T H4X0R!"

Honestly, any time I encounter such a player, I'll simply tell him to suck a sweet one and press the give up button so he doesn't get the opportunity to actually take any LP from me, if only to spite him and say "you idiot. You spent all that money and now don't even have the chance to use it! Boo-hoo @ you!". It makes no sense for someone who's been around for a year and spending untold sums roll over someone who's barely been playing a week, and I have every right to express my discontent at both the system and for someone simply buying their way to winning.

Now I'm not sure how it works against more refined files, but IMO, all strategy games have some semblance of cookie cutter openings. In Chess, we have king's or queen's pawns, in Go, we have "place your first piece in the very middle" to the point that because of this, it has actually been found that by simple virtue of going first, the first player has an advantage, all else being equal, and therefore the second player is given an added score value at the end (a sort of spread, if you will). In starcraft, we have 8 pylon regular protoss build, in warcraft 3, we have first wisp altar 4 wisps to gold second wisp out moon well builds.

However, if the game is literally decided in the opening moves simply by virtue of "well he's playing such and such cards, I'm screwed", and on top of that, a matchmaking system (or lack thereof) which would create these matchups, and on top of that, a system which punishes the free players for even trying to earn enough Gran to compete, then what the heck?

So let me get this straight: in order to try and win, you need to have a lot of gran. In order to have a lot of gran, you need to win. In the meantime, you get wrecked by opponents who simply mismatch you by virtue of the fact that they have far better cards than you do. And on top of that, there are known mismatches in the game that if deck A sees deck B, it can just press the give up button?

How is all of this supposed to get new players to stick around?

Will somebody please explain to me how?

[Romdeau]

In the grand scope of the balance of Alteil, yes certain files should lose automatically to other certain files. The problem I can sympathize with for you though is that the Gowen starter probably loses to a lot more files than say Endless Night. Believe it or not, EN does have its counters (Sergis SS, EX Lapierre, Witch, hell even Dub Rido with Cyclone). So I agree to a certain extent, but I believe that there should always be an extremely hard counter to every type of file, no matter what. That's the automatic loss, because if there isn't one-it needs to be nerfed.

[luckysvn777]

Um, i'm not quite sure exactly how running into a type mismatch is the same as "oh noes i got beat by money" as for some reason you're trying to make it out to be. If all the cards were common cards, you'd still lose. Simply due to the fact that its a file-type that you're weak to. I played gowen rush for a file at one point, and EN was the only file I could never beat. Oh well, there are plenty of other files out there, and there are plenty of files that are weak to mine. It all balances out. Stop trying to make an issue out of something that's just not related.

And seriously, I hope someone reports you if you're actually that rude during the matches. If you want to quit a game, quit and don't say anything. But you have absolutely no right to be rude. None whatsoever. Get off your high horse and show some courtesy.

At this point, i'm almost convinced that this game is really not for you. You are being whiny, you are apparently a sore loser, and for some reason you expect the game to hand everything to you so that you can win everything with just a starter. Sorry, but that's not how life works.. please try and work for it like the rest of us, okay? Or at least try for one second to actually not look for ways to whine about the game AND ACTUALLY ENJOY IT. Because its FREE entertainment for you. The game really doesn't owe you anything, just like you don't owe anything to it.

The game is working on ways to increase its free playerbase. And I want it to increase as well. But not if they are all whiny and rude and want everything handed to them like you... if those are the options, i'd rather a small playerbase.

[Demongod]

I disagree completely. I say if there isn't a hard-counter to a card, it needs to be nerfed. But a hard-counter to an entire strategy?

How about this: consider the four colors. Now consider the best possible deck that each color can assemble (EN/EM or SK/Leviathan or WizKingdom/Mercs or BigGowen if I'm not mistaken on all four). Having one hard counter another means that 1 in 4 cases, there will be an automatic loss regardless of experience.

That means that no matter how good, even the best players will lose one fourth of their games.

In other words, there is no reflection of experience or skill in the deck-building so much as trying to recognize who exactly is in the arena, what decks their running, and turning Alteil into a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors.

And you're telling me that that's how you're supposed to retain a player base? Telling them "sorry but no matter how good you are, you're supposed to lose at least X% of the time"?

Imagine if in warcraft 3, probably the second most popular RTS of all time (second only to another game by the same company, Starcraft), had a rock paper scissors. Know how badly that'd affect the game? Right now, in Free For All, such a kind of situation exists. Right now, it exists so badly that when I FFA as Random, when someone asks me "do you lossbot?" (you need to lose in order to find games), I say "sure I do. It's called drawing Undead!" Why? Well the reason is that Orcs utterly crush Undead at basically all stages of the game, and for the Undead player to win, he needs to have vastly more skill than the orc. At the highest level, a talented Orc player simply will not lose to an Undead player.

The results follow quite quickly from there.

Lucky: show some courtesy for what? For spending a ton and then feeling entitled to free wins? No thank you. I'd rather that someone who shelled out realize that there's at least one someone out there who doesn't like that, and has the guts to express it quite blatantly. If you're going to shell out for broken combos, then at least take the downside of that and realize that someone (and quite possibly a lot of someones) can't stand your guts for it.

And as for having it handed to me, I never said that I want everything handed to me. Find me a place where I said "I want to be handed every single card in Alteil now". What I want is a fighting chance. In fact, let me tell you something. I ran into another EN deck, except this time without Eskatia, but with Succubi. Sure it hurt to get my grimoires eaten, but then the game was quite fun from then on, with lots of ups and downs, including me having next to no answer to Dalos when he finally did hit (thank you, Faytis SS!), and thus, was able to win the game by locking down Dalos one last time as we were down to our last LPs and creatures.

That, lucky, is fun. Feeling utterly helpless because someone decided to become king of the sandbox doesn't make for a good sandbox.

Look, if you honestly want to find a way to expand the free player base, three words:

Words are cheap.

So far, I'm seeing single cards that hard-counter entire files, I'm seeing "money talks, experience walks", and "you have our sympathies. Tough luck. Those are your worst matchups."

Worst matchups, lucky, should be 4:6 at worst. That means that for two players of equal skill, that Gowen Rush will beat Guardian/Star Dragon at least 40% of the time. That it will beat EN at least 40% of the time. Not that you're supposed to press the give-up button after you see a pair of cards because from then on, you delay the inevitable.

A game in which there are matchups that are 1:9 or 2:8 is one that needs drastic balancing.

But all in all, while I see words, I see no action. Yes, I haven't been here a long time, and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and will continue to stick around, but honestly, haven't you ever asked yourself "do we really expect freebies to have patience as the vets stomp on them"?

[luckysvn777]

Eh, I hope you don't get into a match with me then. Because I will report you for being rude and discourteous to other players. Its uncalled for, and once again, the only conclusion I come to in that case is that you're a whiny sore loser. Boo hoo hoo. I'll show some respect once you give it. People chose to spend. You chose not to. Respect their decision, its your own fault that you don't want to (not that you even have to). Completely and totally.

A lot of your suggestions pretty much imply that you expect everything (or most of everything) for free. Hence why I said it.

As for the counters.. on the high end of the game, the counters are probably on average 3:7, which is where they should be. For starters, that's perhaps a bit different, since there is the lack of variety to adapt to the meta. Which is exactly why the game needs FM lotto and the free beginner packs to solve that problem. Then, with just a sin SS or a Sergis SS, even your gowen rush (which is your basic rush/beatdown.. simple to play and learn how to play, but thus has more weaknesses because of it) should be at least 3:7 with Guardian and Star Dragon and should have a shot against some EN. I say some because the more skilled players will find a way around it anyway, because they are skilled.

4:6 at worst is stretching it. I get the feeling you expect 5:5. Do realize that those kinds of ratios are pretty darn hard to accomplish in balancing for EVERYTHING, and an average of 3:7 (which, by the way, is assuming things negatively) is pretty darn good in my opinion.


Also, GM's seem to have plans for new stuff coming up. I have a hunch something to do with FM, like FM lotto, is one of those things... For all we know, the solutions may be coming soon. Be patient.. none of us can even comprehend the hassles (since everything has to go through Japan) and the crazy amount of work such a small team has to do to run the game. You certainly seem to have no idea.

[Demongod]

4:6 stretching it may be the case down the line when you have a zillion different strategies.

What I'm talking about is that no starter deck should have anything worse than a 4:6 matchup, modded unmodded (rather, unmodded from the whole card set it came with--clearly the original file can be vastly improved), you name it. Frankly, I have utterly no clue as to why the Gowen Starter came with ridiculous things like 1 copy of Dual Magic Sword Wielder and Revolver Knight (both bad...DMSW because of the constant SP she requires and RK because he's plain bad, period), rather than 2 assassins or salamander soldiers. In fact, if you replaced the lightning archers with salamander soldiers, that would have given more options right out of the gate. When my opponent's first SS was Mayleen, if I had a sala soldier/assassin, I would have simply laughed. But the starters don't come with those neat SSs.

As for "your opponent chose to spend money, you didn't; live with it and lose", is that honestly something you're willing to say to so many potential new players?

Listen, Lucky--tell you what. Stop treating me as one player. Treat me as all of the rest of the potential player base out there. Because I personally am going to stick around. I like the game, and I think it's got a neat concept going, the music and art kick ****, and so on and so forth. But tell me, how are we going to attract new players if the paid player community is going to keep making damn sure that they can't even build a single rare-dependent file? And if you can honestly get through me, odds are, you'll have no problem keeping the rest of the player base.

[luckysvn777]

And if you can honestly get through me, odds are, you'll have no problem keeping the rest of the player base.

Well then I accept your challenge. Eventually we'll come to some sort of middleground solution.

Ah, i can actually answer your first question there. DMSW and Revolver Knight used to be set level up choices (2,3 and i think 6,7?) till about mid-set 4, when they then switched the choices to Dyrad Soldier and Earth Dragon. I don't know why they did, but at any rate, that's why they are there.. it was possible to get full sets of them by level 10. Now they are just pointless I agree. Starters need to be updated!

As for the starters. I do NOT think that they should be 4:6 to everything by themselves. HOWEVER, I do want FM lotto (hello assassin) and beginner packs to be offered so that the starters can easily and freely be modified to the point where they can be at the very least 3:7 against everything. And the starters themselves should be updated as well.

Would doing something like that not be enough variety and options to let you (the collective you if that's how you want to treat it) enough ability to adapt to Folrart and do well enough. Sure, there will be the occasional really really tough file that will frustrate you, but then there should hopefully be enough matches that are fun to make up for it. And eventually, you'd grow enough in experience to be able to draw some more fun out of beating top files. (from the beginning that's how i was against Big Red. Oh i hated it. But i finally beat it one day and it was good. And from the get-go i had a way to deal with EM, and EN wasn't god-awful. This was back in set 3, so the starters weren't as outdated, but still.) Until then, focus on the positives. You said you had a fun match. Focus on that.

Oh, and congrats on beating lycan with succi by the way. Even when I played my gowen rush, that was quite hard for me, even without Eski, so i can sympathize with that.

[Shattered]

How about this: consider the four colors. Now consider the best possible deck that each color can assemble (EN/EM or SK/Leviathan or WizKingdom/Mercs or BigGowen if I'm not mistaken on all four). Having one hard counter another means that 1 in 4 cases, there will be an automatic loss regardless of experience.

Dude, you only list 7 decks types and you left out Gowen rush,the one you play if I recall correctly. And more importantly that is NOT all kinds of decks there are.

By Sphere:

Refress (good/meta):
Shrine Knights (SK)
Eternal Morning(Em)

Refress (so so/unproven):
Tanking (with Ex Lapeirre)
Guardian
Buncle

Lawtia (good/meta):
Eternal Night (EN)
Magic Doll
Mid Lawtia

Lawtia (so so/unproven):
Zu
Crest

Gowen (good/meta):
Big Red
Gowen Rush

Gowen (so so/unproven):
Merc Nation
Martial Artist

Falkow (good/meta)
Wiz Kingdom
Return (can overlap with wiz kingdom so you can count as one)
Levithan
Big Blue

Falkow (so so/unproven)
Mermaid

Mixed (good/meta)
Primclone
Starmander

So there, I list 15 (EDIT:20) different files, not counting all ones I missed or not easily definable. So having one file that almost(read: you can still win) automatically win over yours is pretty much guaranteed when you have so many different files (because one file is going to hit another file's weakness). So just get back out there and realize that your file wins over other people's like that too.

P.S. Vets (lets say Izcers over level 50) if I did not list a file or stuck it in the wrong spot feel free to tell me and I will try to correct, though I don't think matters for my argument.

Edit: Fixed Lucky. Feel free any other vets.

On a side note, maybe someone should make a thread listing the current Metas and list the current files they're generally weak against? that could be insightful to someone like me .

[luckysvn777]

I'd personally put Mermaid in the so/so column myself, but perhaps I'm just not seeing how cool they are yet.

Also, meta Falkow needs Big Blue in there..

And Zu.. i'm not sure if i'd put that in meta or so/so right now.. lotsa stuff really hurts it these days.

Guardian should go up there as well.. i suppose good/meta, though I personally think it should be so/so. Buncle is iffy as well, but should still be on the list.

And for the sake of completeness, Crest should be there as well. I'd say so/so.

[garcia1000]

But tell me, how are we going to attract new players if the paid player community is going to keep making damn sure that they can't even build a single rare-dependent file? And if you can honestly get through me, odds are, you'll have no problem keeping the rest of the player base.

This is a secondary problem; the primary problem is that new players can't even build a commons only file. The only starter deck that you'd even have a remote chance of doing so is Gowen. Surprise, most newbies in Folrart run Gowen decks*, so **** you, Falkow/Lawtia/Refess users!

I can accept that it may be several months before I can build a Fellana deck or a Catherina deck. But is it reasonable to be unable to build a bog wyvern (2-rarity) deck?



*Ok, Lamepierre+guardian, whatever, my point still stands