My Argument to Improve Alteil

[howling]

I think you guys have it wrong...there really is a simpler answer. Being someone who can only spend $5 per week and has just made it into Folart I can tell you my experience and an easy way to keep me around. The big problem is the level distribution of the arenas. The game was fun for me till I went into Folart. Once in Folart I am meeting too many people with so many more cards than I have that I do not stand a chance. In Crest and below I was more than fine. If I had the time to build more cards and sets in the other arenas while still having fun than that would be fine.

It should be 1-10, 11-30 and than 31 and above. By the time I reach Level 31 I would have plenty of cards and have built a good game. With so many cards out there, there is no way I could have anything good enough by level 15 to play a person who has been around since the early sets. Otherwise the player just has to bite the bullet and lay down a few hundred dollars when they reach Folart to be competitive. If that is the model of the game than fine but to sell it as free and small purchases of $5 per week to have fun, it is not.

-howling

Now if I was lucky enough to have been around since set 1 and was playing during that time my chance of having 3 of a kind of some cards would be so high with little investments. But now with 5 sets since I have been playing I have only been able to get 2 other cards of 3 copies of. It is just impossible as I just have to be ready to just be fodder for most other players.

Wasn't sure what to call the thread, so feel free to change the title if you wish and I apologize in advance if it is not to your liking.
-Romdeau

[Multi]

I think you guys have it wrong...there really is a simpler answer. Being someone who can only spend $5 per week and has just made it into Folart I can tell you my experience and an easy way to keep me around. The big problem is the level distribution of the arenas. The game was fun for me till I went into Folart. Once in Folart I am meeting too many people with so many more cards than I have that I do not stand a chance. In Crest and below I was more than fine. If I had the time to build more cards and sets in the other arenas while still having fun than that would be fine.

It should be 1-10, 11-30 and than 31 and above. By the time I reach Level 31 I would have plenty of cards and have built a good game. With so many cards out there, there is no way I could have anything good enough by level 15 to play a person who has been around since the early sets. Otherwise the player just has to bite the bullet and lay down a few hundred dollars when they reach Folart to be competitive. If that is the model of the game than fine but to sell it as free and small purchases of $5 per week to have fun, it is not.

-howling

Now if I was lucky enough to have been around since set 1 and was playing during that time my chance of having 3 of a kind of some cards would be so high with little investments. But now with 5 sets since I have been playing I have only been able to get 2 other cards of 3 copies of. It is just impossible as I just have to be ready to just be fodder for most other players.

The flaw with this argument, which has been brought up before is that, depending on how they distribute the levels, the new arenas could have very few players within them. We already barely have 20-30 people in folrart at any given time, and that's all levels 15+. Whether that's because people just quit or make new accounts so they can start back in the low arenas again or what, I don't know, but I do know that the crest and lower arenas have more people in them than folrart usually. That means that somehow there are more people sub lvl 14 playing than from 15-100+. Either way, it would be a problem if an arena would end up only having 10 or fewer people at any given time, and even less on non peak hours.

Saying that you spend 5 dollars a week, and it's not fair because other players who have been around longer have more cards, and that if you had been around as long you would have as many cards, so the only choice a new player has is to drop a ton of money is kinda misleading. If you kept on spending 5 dollars a week, and you had been playing since set 2 or 3, that'd be like since a year ago, so spending 5 dollars a week x 52 = $260 dollars. So throwing down 260 dollars all at once, or over a long period of time is the only difference, sure it makes spending it easier, but you're not spending less per say. I don't think most of the spending players throw down more than 50-100 dollars per set anyways. Actually waiting until now to spend your money is to your advantage because set 5 is stronger than ever, with many of the best cards being in the 1* and 2* range.

[Jonathan]

Actually waiting until now to spend your money is to your advantage because set 5 is stronger than ever, with many of the best cards being in the 1* and 2* range.

Which makes me wonder on why they don't try to buff some of the older cards. TCG's will always have power creep and there's nothing that can be done with cards of the past, but Alteil has the ability to edit data with no hassle at all. It would probably require a huge amount of time to playtest those buff's though, so I guess that playtesting time is something that the GM's just don't have.

Also about the arena things, my friends did stop playing due to getting destroyed constantly after they reached level 15 and dueled in Folrart, never being able to win and just feeling frustrated from fighting some top files constantly. It just brings a sudden thought of "I'm never going to be able to compete unless I spend months on Mirage Master or spend some cash". Whether that idea is true or not, that's what my friends told me on why they decided to quit.

[howling]

The flaw with this argument, which has been brought up before is that, depending on how they distribute the levels, the new arenas could have very few players within them. We already barely have 20-30 people in folrart at any given time, and that's all levels 15+. Whether that's because people just quit or make new accounts so they can start back in the low arenas again or what, I don't know, but I do know that the crest and lower arenas have more people in them than folrart usually. That means that somehow there are more people sub lvl 14 playing than from 15-100+. Either way, it would be a problem if an arena would end up only having 10 or fewer people at any given time, and even less on non peak hours.

Saying that you spend 5 dollars a week, and it's not fair because other players who have been around longer have more cards, and that if you had been around as long you would have as many cards, so the only choice a new player has is to drop a ton of money is kinda misleading. If you kept on spending 5 dollars a week, and you had been playing since set 2 or 3, that'd be like since a year ago, so spending 5 dollars a week x 52 = $260 dollars. So throwing down 260 dollars all at once, or over a long period of time is the only difference, sure it makes spending it easier, but you're not spending less per say. I don't think most of the spending players throw down more than 50-100 dollars per set anyways. Actually waiting until now to spend your money is to your advantage because set 5 is stronger than ever, with many of the best cards being in the 1* and 2* range.

Your post basically proves my argument...

1) Why are there always more people in level 14 and below. Well because once we get to Folart we loose interest in the game as we have no chance to win with the cards we have and we would have to lay down quite a bit of money to catch up quickly. It is either lay down alot of money fast or become fodder for the higher level players till we have the cash to catch up. Which is actually fine...the game should just admit that is the model. So do not waste your time unless you got the cash right now.

2) I believe your argument about number of people was true a year ago but now the game has been around for a while and should have enough players at above level 30. Is it really fun to have a level 72 play a level 15 while he has all the cards and wins easily. I think it is boring for both sides.

You folks are having the drop off when you got to Folart. Obviously means these players are not ready for Folart so they need more time. But the argument we need these low level players to be fodder so the high level players have someone to beat is just silly. And the few times a low level guy is able to beat a higher level player does not make up for it so before the next post is about someone who won once, once is not enough to make the game fun. Honestly winning is not everything but needs to atleast be competitive.

-howling

[luckysvn777]

The starters are outdated, that's the problem.


However, raising the "cutoff" to level 30 won't change a thing. People will just continue on to level 30, go to Folrart, and be creamed again. All this accomplishes is less overall people in Folrart and us vet iczers getting bored.

Or, if it does in fact make a big difference, then the new cutoff will be at level 10, when people suddenly have to go up against those "high powered level 20-30 iczers" that have "more cards than them". And they'll leave again.


Also, and most importantly, its once again experience over cards.. even the current outdated starters can hold their own in Folrart when you know how to unlock their few potential.

I even have proof now. Galandros has been messing around with alts on the Gowen and Falkow starters... and I've heard he beat some pretty good files (including that "dreaded" Shrine Knight file). He's certainly winning enough to level quite fast..

Starters aren't really that bad. New players just need to learn what's out there and figure out how their file can indeed counter it.

[Romdeau]

OK if this thread keeps straying from the original post I'm going to lock this thread after splitting off the new current discussion into another thread.

[Multi]

Actually waiting until now to spend your money is to your advantage because set 5 is stronger than ever, with many of the best cards being in the 1* and 2* range.

Which makes me wonder on why they don't try to buff some of the older cards. TCG's will always have power creep and there's nothing that can be done with cards of the past, but Alteil has the ability to edit data with no hassle at all. It would probably require a huge amount of time to playtest those buff's though, so I guess that playtesting time is something that the GM's just don't have.

Also about the arena things, my friends did stop playing due to getting destroyed constantly after they reached level 15 and dueled in Folrart, never being able to win and just feeling frustrated from fighting some top files constantly. It just brings a sudden thought of "I'm never going to be able to compete unless I spend months on Mirage Master or spend some cash". Whether that idea is true or not, that's what my friends told me on why they decided to quit.

I've stated this many times myself, that the greatest benefit of Alteil being an online CCG is that errata can be freely implemented. They don't need to reprint cards or ban cards, they can just change them and magically everybody who has those cards already will have the changes implemented with no cost. This doesn't happen, why? Because balancing stuff is really tricky, but personally I don't even think there's even any effort being put into rebalancing older cards, or if there is, it's minute.

Your friends that stop playing because they're getting destroyed constantly just have a case of the bads. Stop being terrible and you won't lose all the time, or just accept that if someone has a winning ratio over 50%, someone else will probably have a winning ratio of lower than 50%. When I look in the arena, there is still a large range of levels in folrart, so you aren't going to get matched up with some level 50+ person all the time.

However, if you truly feel that the reason you and your friends are unable to compete in folrart is because of the difference in cards, then you should do as this thread says and go on strike. However, I do not believe that the length of time spent playing Alteil directly has much of an influence on # of cards owned. A person spending 50 dollars within the first week will pretty much have the same amount of cards as someone who has been playing MM for 10 gran daily for 16 months or 15gran MM daily for about 11 months, minus like, 15-20 cards gained from level ups / treasure battles. Weekly gran helps too, but unless you're grinding out a fair amount, that just turns that 11-16 months comparison to 50 dollars into like 9-14 months or something.

Your post basically proves my argument...

1) Why are there always more people in level 14 and below. Well because once we get to Folart we loose interest in the game as we have no chance to win with the cards we have and we would have to lay down quite a bit of money to catch up quickly. It is either lay down alot of money fast or become fodder for the higher level players till we have the cash to catch up. Which is actually fine...the game should just admit that is the model. So do not waste your time unless you got the cash right now.

Zzzzzz Wrong. People lose interest because they aren't willing to get better (or they're just flat out foreverbad), or they are unwilling to accept win ratios lower than 50%. Sure there are some players you probably have no chance against because of their cards, but that's going to happen no matter how many cards you have. The major thing going for many higher level players is their experience, and levels themselves don't indicate how strong a player and their file is, rp generally does a better job of that. Paying players and folrart have nothing to do with each other, and there are far more free players than paying players I'm sure. The fact that you're basing your argument around the fact that higher level = many more cards, and already assuming they've spent money (or at the least you have to spend money to catch up) is already flawed. Levels have nothing to do with how many cards a person has, as I've already pointed out above, if a player is completely free, doing MM daily is a slow slow process of gaining cards. It's basically like 3-5 dollars of gran a month. Granted a new player is far less likely to throw down a single cent than someone who's spent some time with the game, but even 5-20 dollars pretty much puts you at 1-6 months worth of daily MM gran. But even taking this into account, having a bunch of cards doesn't necessarily mean you automatically win, you can only have 30 cards with you in each game afterall. Once you pass level 15, you aren't gaining cards every level anymore either. People need to quit complaining about higher leveled people and automatically saying that you have to spend lots of money to be competitive once you get to folrart. At the very least, find a better solution and argue for a free player's arena and a paying player's arena or something.

2) I believe your argument about number of people was true a year ago but now the game has been around for a while and should have enough players at above level 30. Is it really fun to have a level 72 play a level 15 while he has all the cards and wins easily. I think it is boring for both sides.

You folks are having the drop off when you got to Folart. Obviously means these players are not ready for Folart so they need more time. But the argument we need these low level players to be fodder so the high level players have someone to beat is just silly. And the few times a low level guy is able to beat a higher level player does not make up for it so before the next post is about someone who won once, once is not enough to make the game fun. Honestly winning is not everything but needs to atleast be competitive.

-howling

Bzzzt, wrong again. There might be enough players above level 30 to make another arena, but probably not, it'd be some pathetic looking arena of 4-10 people probably at any given time of day. Not everyone at level 30 and above plays at the exact same time. People live in different time zones and have work and school afterall. After a year, I've heard that the number of people playing has barely risen at all anyways, and assuming everyone quit because they couldn't handle folrart is only an assumption. Sometimes people just lose interest in random online game x.

They've already raised the limit from like level 9 to 14 in crest as well. Raising the bar will be neverending, and at some point some level 35 person will complain about having to fight a level 80 or 100 person, afterall, that's still a person with 50-70 levels of difference between them, the imaginary card gap caused by levels you're thinking of would still be quite large for someone at level 30-40 as it would be for someone at level 15-20, so it's pointless to say that kind of thing, because it'll never end. People just need to accept that they're bad. Yes, bad, it's not only about cards, cards do hold importance, and it's likely if you're up against one of the top meta files you stand almost no chance, but that goes for many other files. You could have a ton of cards for instance, but imagine if you were just missing every single one of the 'good' cards in alteil, and you somehow only got all the 'bad' cards nobody uses, yet you still had a collection of over half of all cards in alteil, this still wouldn't put you into winning user status. It's the same on those top players files as well, they probably tend to stick with the same 30 cards over and over when they want to win, but might change it up to another file just because they get bored and tired of using a certain file, or they find that the meta might have be starting to have a file that counters their's becoming more popular.

I didn't even want to bring this up but, while I personally think all the starters are in terrible need of an update, they're still quite capable with a little modification, which can be done with level up cards and MM lotto. It's not even the units really but just some SS modification. Modified gowen starter is still very strong, and I see firegon using a variant of it and owning lots of people using his experience. Falkow starter, modified or not can be quite capable as well, return is a pretty strong mechanic afterall, and utilizing sylphs and such is strong. Lawtia can do well as well, I don't think the units themselves in the starter are fantastic, but the grims can be very good, and the SS in that starter are probably best of the 4. Refess is probably the weakest but if you can get guardian and a magic musician, both 1* cards, you've got yourself a fairly strong file already.

Anyways, getting back to the main point, and back on topic, what exactly is it that is your problem? Is it the CPC? Or is it just the fact that you're QQing over the fact that you can't win the majority of the time against experienced *cough* i mean unfairly advantaged card toting, paying, high leveled players and so you think that everyone else who has the same complaints of believing that winning is impossible in folrart means they need another arena as training wheels? (I'd personally find it funny as hell if such an arena were created but was full of paying players so that the card gap didn't change at all :V) If it's the CPC then by all means, I think you should fight in what you believe in and join in the strike and leave a message stating that you are and why, but if it's just that you find it unfair that you can't beat other players, then that's something you're going to have to deal with, because even if you did spent lots of money to "catch up," things would probably only mildly improve against those same top players. All things considered, I think there are just as many or more below average players in folrart than high leveled, high rp super players anyways, and probably more free players as well. If anything, that could be the next largest difference between folrart and the lower arenas after experience, and that would be that the extra time older players have spent have gotten them fond enough of Alteil to actually spend, unlike someone playing their first week, and is still unsure if they want to make an investment, if ever.

*see, i mentioned CPC and the strike, not off topic! :V

[Peralisc2]

To be competitive you don't need many cards or almost all ... You can be competitive with spending little or even nothing for sure.

But that's not the point. When i started getting competitive guess how many cards i had, [spoiler]FEW[/spoiler] and hardly could build more than VERY VERY FEW competitive decks. But FFS i want more cards and i want them more accesible AND that is the point of the topic.

I simply don't want that the system requires dropping in $$$$$ and NEVER actually get you EVERYTHING for sure. So the point is not extra arenas, how other games work ... it's simply the damn titel and the simple idea of having more cards (again i repeat you can have little and be competitive).

[Eladin]

yeah.... such a great game and so much potential... all being wasted to preserve the "intended model"

intended model being...?

i think editing a ton of the older sets of cards is probably more time consuming than one might assume. easier than actual cards? maybe. but even so...that's not the point (even if, card balance, has somehow become a sub-topic of content for cost)

the original post seems to simply imply that it's just too difficult to obtain all the cards necessary to make up full sets of actually useful cards. or to sum up, just too dang hard to get higher rarity cards, period. the thing is, that even if cards were cheaper, i don't think what you'd be getting would change all that much. not with a change like that anything. you would get more individual chances but not an overall better one at getting higher rarities...well, lol, i know what i'm saying, just not how to say it...

being able to buy 10 lottos at 10% chance to obtain a 5*, doesn't make your chances, say 100%. it's just 10 individual chances to at 10% each. so whether you're able to buy 5 or 10, your odds aren't improved by as much as you might hope. the odds themselves would need to be tweaked to really get the kind of change you're looking for.

did that make any sense?...

lol, Pera makes the point though. as a collector, i would love to be able to have better chances at completing a collection as well.

[Silverrock]

I think the the main point is still the mechanic of needing more than one card to make that card playable. With the lotto, your odds of getting 3 of the same are low, as well as boosters (so I hear, still saving to see). You could get 3 of a kind by buying 3 Reinforcement packs, but that is a one time thing and pretty expensive, ditto for buying the starters except that the 'quality' of the starter packs seems to be held in low esteem (why I don't know as you CAN win with them).

I enjoy the game, but can't see spending unless it was to buy boxes, and even then it would have to be more money than I am comfortable with to get 'usable' cards. I'm sure we have all felt the same with some awesome lotto pull/level up card and then thinking, "Oh, right, it's a monster but it's going to get crushed, let's see what the Soul Skill is..."

Even getting two of a kind is a mixed blessing, as now you can potentially use it but... oh, what do you take out for the chance, CHANCE to play that awesomeness and imagine the guy on the other end yelling at his computer, "Sweet mother of god, what IS that??"

And that's how I feel after only playing for a couple of weeks, I can't imagine how people must feel with one copy of a ***** rating card.

So I agree with the CpC ratio argument because the game mechanics demand it. If you have to randomly hope to get 3 of a kind, the odds are better playing poker...

I find most of the players to be at least friendly if not downright helpful and funny when I'm getting my a$$ handed to me in folrart. And as I'm still new, I like the practice and seeing new cards/metas/what can be done with the game. Just... if you faintly hear someone yelling, "Sweet mother of god, what IS that?"...

That was me.

Silverrock (also known as Silverred, gold and black )