User blog:Chad Pattan/Another day, another Elemental Hall event

I like this idea of quarterly updates. There don't seem to be enough positive changes to do otherwise.

I turned my Alliance over to my next powerful member and left. The Vice had long since abandoned the game - this was a guy who logged in more than I did and participated in every ABB - and I was down to 6 active members, of which half were skipping events. It was extremely difficult to recruit people. It wasn't fair to them for me to hold Leader when I simply don't have the energy for it anymore. Really heartbreaking in a way.

With the changes it's clear that MyNet is trying to now encourage event participation in lieu of random drops by making the event cards Abyssal Archwitch boost cards, and trying to encourage ABB participation with the Mirror Shards. I mean I get it, but it's really hard to justify putting in the work when you're basically forced to rank, rather than just having them be random drops that happen or don't. I also don't understand why you can't just buy the Mirror Shards with Rare Medals if you choose to. I don't care if they cost 100,000 - at least give us the option.

Turns out in most regular events, the random drops often do apply in Witch Gate, which I guess makes some sense. I got one Cranky Relena that way (only wanted one, don't like the art of the HUR or alt). I still think it's silly.

 Back when MyNet took over, I put together a wishlist of items I wanted from them that I felt Nubee was blatantly deficient in. They have answered some of my wishes. Here's that list again to see where we're at.

Get Rid of All Caps (Not Done)
Not done.

Bring Back Unlimited Proc UR Cards (Done)
Cards like Saucemeister are a throwback to the good old days of summoning where you could get unlimited procs. This is a step in the right direction and frankly, even though she's unlimited, it's not game breaking due to the power creep that's been happening - but it helps those who might be newer to the game and trying to deal with Elemental Hall.

Allow Access to Old Event Maps (Not Done)
Not done.

Real Strategy, Not Artificial Difficulty (Somewhat Done)
This one's a headache. There's "strategy" but it's embedded in basically nerfing your skills and procs to try and frustrate you into paying for overpowered cards. Reminds me of what Million Arthur eventually devolved into. The idea of a "Super FAW" with obscene ATK and DEF forcing you to max yours out to stop her, yet being subjected to constant nullification, it's enough to frustrate newer players and discourage continuing the game.

Bring Back the Anytime AUB (Not Done)
Not done.

Get Rid of "Fever Time" in AUB (Fixed)
This wasn't done, but they did improve it and addressed a concern I had. First, Fever Time is now exclusive to you, not (ab)usable by the team. Your Fever does not benefit anyone else but you. Why's this good? Because it encourages participation and competition within the Alliance as well. If you take up the Bingo spaces that give stars, you're going to stand out as MVP and thus get bonus rings. You also now get a bonus for being the best defender, which is a complaint I had. Now there's disincentive to just throw a garbage defender team out there.

Bring Back the Anytime Step Up Summon With Items (Not Done)
Not done. What's worse, they're abusing it. Everything is now either a Box or Step Up Summon with very little incentive for either. The other single summons are gone. Bad.

Retire 90% of the Current N Cards and Demote 80% of the Current R Cards to N (Not Done)
Not done. In fact it seems like I'm getting more N cards than ever before.

Make Ultimate Summon a "UR Chance +5% Every" Summon (Not Done, Alternate)
Not done. Actually, Ultimate Summon was rendered useless by the creation of the "Guaranteed UR Summon". I did ask for such a summon, but forcing you to collect an obscene number of Archwitch Cores to do it is a joke. They should have just enhanced Ultimate Summon like I described rather than tying it to witch kills.

Update the Rewards in the Minigames and Add More Minigame Types (Not Done)
Not done.

Add More Building Types and Expansion Areas (Done)
They actually did this! I was shocked. And I don't like the new type for upgrading LR cards, not just because they're prohibitively expensive, but that in order to max those out, you are basically forced to pay gems to upgrade your castle so you can hold more resources - that or build a bunch of Airports which costs gems. Either way, it's a cash grab.

Continue Adding Regular Campaign Maps and Storylines (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Nope, not done.

Get Rid of the Blur Delay When You Click Something (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Nope, not done.

Release the Fabled Soldier Arcana (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Not done. Instead, MyNet just bumped up the soldier counts for new cards. UR Relena has stats like a HUR and LR Wise Oracle is like 2x-4x a GUR.

Fix the Summon Probability (Alternate)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">All they did here is display the probability so you know what you're dealing with, and adding probability multipliers every blue moon. I don't have an issue with this except on the LR summon. x2 per is way too low considering how rare those tickets are and that you can't buy them anyway.

Fix the Drop Rates for FAW/LAW (Crapshoot)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Now, it's like

<p style="font-weight:normal;">(A) forced to RNG to get a ticket and then do an RNG box summon

<p style="font-weight:normal;">(B) forced to go through Witch Gate and cross fingers for a random drop

<p style="font-weight:normal;">(C) forced to rank

<p style="font-weight:normal;">I believe LAW still drops, problem is her encounter rate in regular maps seems to have been nerfed.

Release Past Ranking Reward Cards Into Summon (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Not done. Do you know why I think this is a good idea? Because in the past, rank rewards weren't nearly as good as they have now become. They're more a "trophy" - many useless skills - but the artwork is the key. The game has an artwork collage that many players will never truly be able to fill up because of this gap.

Enable Card Trading (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Nope. Not done. Don't see it happening, unfortunately, especially not with the LR.

Let Us Select What Art We Want to Display (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Nope. Not done. Still not sure why.

The Only Things That Should Go To Presents are Overflow Drops and Ranking Rewards (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Not Done. I actually experienced my first message of expired presents (just a bunch of R cards from the last Elemental Hall garbage).

Exclude Any Slime Cards, Metal Cards and Items From N Card Delete (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Nope, not done.

Add More Alliance Titles With More Variety (Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">This was actually done.

Add a UR To The Worship (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Not only was this not done, it still hasn't been refreshed. I can't even remember the last time it was. Seems like it's been more than a year.

Allow Purchase of the ATK+ and DEF+ Arcana (Not Done)
<p style="font-weight:normal;">Not done.