MArcomage

Maybe it's a good idea to provide a basic deck for new registered players? A deck that doesn't require in depth/strong knowledge of the cards yet provide a chance of winning? It's really disappointing for new players when they use a random deck that has little to no chance of winning against more experienced players. Who would want to keep on playing after they lost 10 games right away?(Okay except hardcore card players) Since we don't really have a large pool of players, it's hard for new players to find & play against another new players with equivalent skill & gain game experience that way. With a starter deck new players will have a better chance to enjoy the game & continue to play. I put this here because this is a possible new feature right???

I think this is a great idea. I was fortunate enough to have started playing at the same time as a friend, so we could figure it out together, and play with someone of equal skill and experience - I think if I had started by myself, it would have been pretty frustrating playing against more experienced players with my horrible first deck, and I might have just given up on the game.

I think it would be nice for the biginners, but in this way they all have the same deck and that is quite boring (for the old players challenged but also for two friends who begin to play togheter). maybe it's good to give a choice of 3 or 5 premade decks.
anyway when i'm challenged by a biginner I use a weak deck so they could have a chance to win (maybe they don't need that but in this way i can lose without regretting)

P.S.: if I made some language mistake please tell me, I have to improve my english

Good idea indeed, never thought of it because I'd played the flash game a lot and had a general idea of how it works, but that's definitely a great idea.

I approve of this idea. I was introduced through Arcomage through the standalone PC version where you and your opponent both have one unchanging deck. The first deck I created for MArcomage was my best approximation of that deck, and it got me through my first week of play as I came to learn about and recognize combinations that my opponents were using that I would incorporate into future decks. Having that starting deck from which to branch off made things better for me.

So, what cards should it include? I would consider Basic wall to be essential, as well as a card each to increase the three facilities. It would probably be just to give new players Last hope as well.

i don't think thit is needed.

and thats why - newbie can randomize deck.

and new player can create a good deck only by losing... play 10 games against the best and create your first deck.

Or go to the forum and ask for help to create a good deck

The problem is, those ten games can easily make new players frustrated enough to not be interested in making their own deck, and some new players may wish to toy around the moment they start and not visit the forums, it's about attracting new players, ease of start, no, it's certainly not a "necessity", but it's a good idea, and not hard to start every new account with some pre-constructed decks.

well, if you check the bottom of the player list you will find many players with a score 0-0-0. I think it's because the first thing you have to do is create a deck, but there are so many cards that you become tired and quit even befor the real game had begun. maybe we can put a link to the single player version where the new players could learn quickly the roles of the games without waiting for an opponent move.

This was already discussed once, long ago. See https://netvor.sk/trac/arcomage/ticket/6.
We ran into some technical issues while considering this feature, like which decks to use, or how to actually integrate them as defaults into the system. In the end we chose to add the 'Randomize deck' feature instead, to at least allow players to quickly see how the game system looks like. We get no feedback from first-time players so I don't know whether this was a good enough measure or not...

I don't think "Randomize" is as good as a preconstructed deck or two, just have someone make an example deck, and as to implementing it, if you can't make it 'default' just make a button that selects a random preconstructed deck (or just one, one is enough), and makes it jump into the empty slots, much like the random button, but just specific cards, you could also make a contest for designing the pre-constructed deck /shrug.

Yeah, random decks can be frustrating since there's a good chance you'll get cards with things like "+X where X is the number of burning cards in your hand", and your deck has no burning cards. Also, some cards could be confusing to new players (i.e. ones with a lot of keywords or modes, or complicated effects). It would be nice to have a starting deck that would be somewhat easy to understand for beginners, and without any redundant cards.

I agree that a random deck is not really a good choice. But making some pre-made deck has a problem - balance changes. As the cards are modified, these pre-made decks must be updated. I think it is possible to make a tool for admins and moderators to create and modify these pre-made decks. So these decks wouldn't be just added to the application code, but they would be treaded as normal decks. They would be shered by all admins and moderators (modify) and all players (read only) could use them to play.

The fact that starter deck is weak and balance changes affecting the deck is not a big concern. Most card games have pre-constructed decks and they don't update when they add new cards and affect balances.

The purpose of a starter deck is not to help you to win. It is, as the name suggests, provide an easy and fast way for you to get started, play the game, get familiar with the game etc.

With the experiences gained, you are going to change cards to power up your deck. When there is big balance change, we don't need to update the starter decks of the existing players. We just update them for newcomers.

We are not going to give a powerful pre-constructed deck to beginners since it takes part of the fun away ("deck construction").

Random vs starter. It's because random deck can give mismatched cards, stupid cards. Such a deck doesn't make some sense. For example, we can build an aggressive / balanced / defensive card deck, so a player can experience different play styles. A random deck can't achieve this.

Technical issue. When a new user sign up an account, the system will create 7 empty decks. Isn't it possible we set some commands so it will fill up the first 3 decks automatically? If not, we can have a page to teach new players some tips/tactics of playing this game. Also provide a list of starter decks, so a new player can copy.

Agreed, Mojko, it's not really necessary to rebalance the starter deck to be a better an better deck each time, it's not supposed to be the industry standard that you always win with. It's just supposed to something easy to understand, and something that makes sense without dead cards that are useless with the rest of the cards you have, as you often get in a randomized deck. Once the new players get a hang of it, they'll doubtless make their own deck, we're just talking about giving them a nice little rowboat to learn how to drive with, it doesn't have to be the best speedboat out there, we're just trying to give them something without holes in it that sinks on it's own lol.

It is no problem to set 3 starter decks for new players, that will be directly specified in the application code. So I'm opening a contest for 3 starter decks. See the thread "Starter deck" under contests.

Three starter decks added. From now on new players will start with these three pre-built decks. Changes should be applied soon.