40enTue, 27 Nov 2012 02:48:45 GMTTue, 27 Nov 2012 02:48:45 GMTTue, 27 Nov 2012 01:58:19 GMT
First the increase in life a while back has made poison and heal into very high life sep abilities.]]>Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:53:11 GMT
Some of the changes have also affected how the market behaves recently this is also trends with some power creep in recent releases

I'm not sure how I feel about some of this yet]]>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 05:30:59 GMT
The elo format is ugly and less funny now, add this to the lack of good prizes some weeks and the time/effort that you need to reach a good score.
Elo: 12 cr's per week (3 to 40 hours/cr)
Dt's: 70 cr's per week (hour/cr every day, max. 2)

Jungo weeks, Freaks weeks, Roots/Sentinel weeks... and with GHEIST always around (if you win all your 50% you can reach the top easily with them), this week people banned Askai and Troompah, meanwhile, other people were saving Bogdan just to play against the Jungo (they were a plague these previous weeks).

Freaks are too good, you can win the game just winning the first round, you must guess it well (from 0 to 10 pillz).
Jungo are too dangerous (to win with Askai or Troompah is half of the work, you just need to win other round).
These are just a few examples.

Is it strategic? sure.
Good players will be always there, they minimize the randomness playing a lot of hours, if you could put any limit about the time that you play the unfair weeks, you would see a lot of new people reaching top 100 (and a ton of presets saying "hey, my first top 100 with mono-Jungo, I'm really good!... change Kreen Cr to Askai&quot
.

Now, I should suggest some ideas to improve it, but I'm a mere player and I will adapt as always, I know this is not my war.

Right now, elo is the easiest way to earn 10 credits every week, we would say thanks to the staff about this fact.]]>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 05:06:10 GMTELO, you get everything.]]>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 04:31:49 GMTELO is the lack of incentive.

Top 100 is almost entirely for bragging rights.

12 CRs are given away within the Top 100 -- that means your odds of winning a CR for a week's worth of work are pretty low... Even if you do a great job. I have seen frustrated players with 7 or 8 or even more Top 100s, and no CR win (and until pretty recently I was one of them! The humanity!!) Unless you can make Top 100 on a very regular basis, you simply do not stand to profit much.

Now that you have a smaller but much more frequent chance to obtain a CR through DT play, combined with being able to win not 1 but 2 credits per hour through DT, it's a no-brainer for anyone who's playing just to expand their collection.

IMO that's all there is to it. ELO's current reward payout is given almost entirely in player pride, rather than tangible benefits.]]>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 02:17:22 GMT There are obviously not enough happy players as only 9880 people participated in elo last week:

Kate, Monday 12/11, 09:02
Hello subclavianHoA,
You took part in the latest ELO tournament. Here are your results:
You finished 293rd out of 9880 players with ELO 1316.
The winner reached ELO 1501 and the Jackpot was 1977253 Clintz.

That is down drastically compared to just 10 months ago:

Kate, Monday 23/01, 09:08
Hello subclavianHoA,
You took part in the latest ELO tournament. Here are your results:
You finished 871st out of 13441 players with ELO 1309.
The winner reached ELO 1504 and the Jackpot was 2967441 Clintz.

Both weeks happened during the school year outside of special holidays, so seasonal variations can't be blamed. And I remember a time (before the 14-life change and exclusion from DT), when elo participation regularly broke 18k and the jackpot reached 3mil+. It's not just old players shouting at clouds, the decline of elo is very real and some sort of change is needed to break the trend.]]>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 02:00:08 GMT the game has become less strategic to some people... their opinion. newer players are in no place to judge other players' perceptions of how the game has changed if they were not around before and after the change.. newer players cannot possibly have the experience needed in order to form a comparative opinion on old elo vs new elo. no idea how someone can disagree with an opinion, especially when one claims there is no wrong or right answer.... AND is not in a position to have an informed opinion on it.

as ive said several times, the veteran players who played elo under the many different elo systems and the current system are the only ones that can really have an opinion that can make comparative comments

bottom line... more games now are decided in the opening rounds (0,1 or 2) that before. this is an increase in the luck factor (bad), this is an increase in deck buildings ideas (bad and good -- good for variety, bad that in that luck of the draw as to what cards are drawn become too important, very very bad IF decks eventually become rock paper scissors).

is the format strategic, sure... im sure it will remain so for a while.
is the current elo fun, sure... fun enough i guess

is it better than before??? well that is a matter of opinion, and i lean towards saying, no it is not.]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 22:31:21 GMTELO a lot, but I seldom see people talking about which aspects of ELO work well. That's human nature; happy people don't complain. But I feel it is important that the other side of the issue is represented. I think many people are quite happy with current ELO.]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:11:33 GMT an increase in games decided in the opening round makes the game less strategic.
the current meta creates a less strategic gameplay (but likely increases deck building options, but then increases the element of luck) due to the cards available

releasing the some of the perma banned ELO cards would be interesting and create an increase in interest (it has been done before)... not sure if that makes things better though. Changing the amount of life would also shift the format a bit. Adjusting clan bonuses could also change things a bit. Whether or not any of these changes would be good or not? who knows, but the only way to know is to implement something and see what players do with it]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 18:17:17 GMT
The questions I'm interested in is whether most of UR feels that ELO is a strategic mode or not... And if it is not strategic enough, what can be done to better it?]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 17:58:27 GMT
todays elo is different. can it be fun, sure. is it as enjoyable as before. in my view, no. do some old players prefer the new one? im sure some do.


edited by wasteroftime Saturday 17/11/2012, 18:58]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 17:29:59 GMT
Any time you make a move, there are only three ways your opponent can respond to it. 1: Your opponent "passes," or 1-pills something. 2: Your opponent tries to read, playing enough pills to beat what he thinks your move was. 3: Your opponent tries to win the round, pilling hard to try to secure a pivotal win. Those are the three options; pass, read, or beat. That is a fundamental part of UR gameplay, and yes, it means that some parts of the game are reduced to guesswork. It is NOT dependent on the meta.

A very good point that has been made is that strong low-star cards allow decks that are stacked with more big nukes. However, has that really contributed to the game being more "unfair?" Was it fair in the past when one player would draw 4 strong cards, and the other would draw 3 strong cards and one "throw-away" card?

I have enjoyed ELO the whole time I've been here, and felt that it has maintained a pretty good balance. There are a couple of strong players with a tactical style of play that I keep in touch with on a regular basis, and they feel the same way. We discuss fine aspects of deck composition, and we run big winning streaks multiple times per week. Obviously we've all had those games where we're defeated by "noob tactics," but that seems to be the exception rather than the norm.]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:20:53 GMT
Perfectly shows what is currently wrong with ELO...it isn't necessarily just the 'big gappers' that are the issue...it's the very strong low star support and backup that goes with it

Easiest example follows....Rescue are all but nullified thanks to Lea/Elvira being banned....they got two of their strongest high stars back yet they are rather underpowered (avid Rescue fans will disagree with me here)

Other examples....Jungo was nowhere near as strong as they are now before Jean's release. Without Sasha/Chiara/Dr Falkenstein or Sandro's help would Greem be as good? Would Muze be as scary without Clover and Lucy?

Obvious NO! answers here....the simple fact is nukes by themselves are controllable, but not when you chuck in super strong backup as well.

Is there a 'fix' for this? Not really...and that's the problem...banning nukes does little as countless bans on Rescue and Sentinel showed...Cliff was banned every other week now he's hardly seen...but on the flipside banning 2 and 3* support really hurts the clan too much....i actually wouldn't mind seeing Lea back in ELO and I hate Lea!!

As Waster has said...seemingly 'good players' are getting tromped by noob tactics and it's really that simple. 6 pilling used to be scoffed at, now it's an actual problematic threat alot of the time...certain clans can't afford to let any poison in...and some draws have lost simply due to 30ld + fury nuke]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:43:13 GMTelo games each week, I can safely say that nowadays, there are only three ways to start a game in elo:

1. double old
2. nuke with your highest-damaged card in the first round
3. 1-pill (to beat old...such a nuanced tactic is only used by skilled pros!)

So doing well in elo comes down to correctly guessing what some 14-yo kid on the other side of the world is thinking ]]>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:14:13 GMT 0 -
1 - 11
2 - 25
3 - 15
undetermined (timeout, disconnect, whatver i couldnt tell) - 2

made a real effort to play conservatively and not go for game deciding moves in round 2 even though opportunities are there but are too high risk

my assessment of the meta is basically this:
there are is an abundance of amazing cards out there that can decide games or more often, pairings of cards that can decide games (ie. Greem or Karrion with some strong DR, high powered nukes with good support). Because of the amount of game changing cards -- playing super risky will actually net you quite a few wins (for the sake of argument lets say about 50% of your matches if you play like a risky maniac with your hand). winning about 50%, or less, of your games is good enough to get to 1300 elo if you play enough.

These hands are extremely dangerous vs good players. In the past, weak players rarely had hands that could threaten more skilled opponents. not the case now... luck of the draw a far bigger factor now

thats my two cents. im sure some of the veteran ELO players that are still active now can make a better assessment than i can]]>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:55:34 GMT they are not projections, gut feelings, etc. zero round wins are unstoppable wins if the player plays it right

games decided in round 0 and round 1 are bad for gameplay in my opinion. deck construction and skill and luck are all factors in this game. games being decided based on the result of round 1 is an increase in the importance of luck.

cards that were round 1 game deciders in the past...
now we have more card combinations that can be round 1 game deciders...

neither are actually conducive to good quality game play in my opinion.]]>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:39:50 GMTELO is at least partially about exploiting the meta. A good deck can stand up to the flavor-of-the week decks, and the decks designed specifically to counter them. With that in mind, IMO you are at a disadvantage this week if you're not running at least a little bit of SoB.]]>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:08:00 GMTFreaks and first round decides most games.

also Freaks vs Freaks is so stupid]]>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:19:45 GMTELO has gone to 14 life and most matches play out all 4 rounds, if you have enough of an early lead in pills and damage due to your opponents' pilling mistake, it's pretty consistent to have a situation where you can put your opponent in a no-win situation turn 3 or even turn 2. Junkz and Sentinels are especially great at this, which is why they are so popular.

Grudj and Baldovino can really, really blow you out of the match. I've had matches where I no pill bluffed with Grudj, and my opponent decided to toss a 2*. So I began round 2 with 14 pills and up 10 life- immediate concession. These characters nullify SOA, SOB and DR, as SOA, SOB and DR only kick in on losing the round. So you have to fight them or concede and hope your opponent has grossly overpilled. And if you choose to counter them with a combat/ combat character, you still can be far behind if it was just a bluff- you've basically wasted both your best fighter and pills. You've given up a severe strategic advantage as your best fighters are most important on turn 3 and least important on turn 1.]]>