#1 - The time-consuming Trooper grind

[Mariner-1212]

Todays’ Discussion:
Cutting down the daily Trooper grind.
One of the biggest priorities identified is how long it takes to complete all Troopers for the day. This thread is to discuss potential solutions to this problem (and only this problem).


Proposed Solutions:
(Will be summarized here after the day’s discussion)


General Guidelines:

For all solutions, please keep these things in mind:
1. NF needs to make money.
2. There needs to be a ‘free play’ aspect to whatever solution is proposed; it shouldn’t be something that completely excludes those who don’t pay.
3. It should fit into the current structure of the game as easily as possible to avoid lengthy structure revisions.
4. It needs to maintain the balance between being rewarding, and keeping player motivation




What this is:
An open discussion to arrive at one or several proposed solutions for a single issue.
For my business, we try to tackle one issue at a time and not move on to discussing anything else until we’ve arrived at a solution for that one issue. So in that spirit, this thread is meant to isolate one exact topic and debate solutions for it, which will conclude after one day where the solutions will be summarized in this starting post.

[Mariner-1212]

One proposed solution comes from a hybrid of ideas from Slauki, Zerynx and a couple others.

==> Have an item in the store for $5/month (can be a subscription) that lets you bring 2 troopers into battle with you.

This cuts the grind in half, and eliminates the need to raise SOT. It also generates a consistent stream of income to NF from those players wishing to pay. Those that do not wish to pay can still grind out with one Trooper per run.

It can also be implemented into the exact current structure without the need to add slots. More than two Troopers would mean needing to make 3 slots for non-eddie characters and would require overhauling all current worlds, unfortunately.



==> Another solution comes from Rain88, and that is to allow you to 'instant clear' a level that you've just completed so long as you don't change any of your team (other than an Eddie Trooper).

This solution would eat up the same amount of SOT as a manual run, so you'd run out of it much faster - but the end result would be arrived at in minutes.

How it would work - you'd set up your team and have an Eddie Trooper included but NOT the main Eddie, and you couldn't switch to him during your run. If he was the main Eddie, the next run would be a change of team and therefore require another manual run.
You'd complete your run and be given the option to replay like normal. If no changes to your team, you'll see a "speed play" button next to the play button that would allow you to instant-clear that level. Making any changes to the team would make that option disappear.

This solution would obviously not work with Troopers that are not Eddies, as it would always dictate a change in team.

[kkkreg5]

Another forum member had this idea: 1 click badges sent to all your Troopers. All your Troopers receive their badges, but you must still play the Trooper's character to receive your badges. You are now responsible for your own badges. No guilt over not playing Troopers and letting them down.

[Amarthir]

I've been casually playing Marvel Future Fight and it gave me a generous idea about trooper points and grinding. MFF has "clear tickets" and you use one to instantly clear a mission, using "energy" and also giving you the rewards you would normally get had you played the mission manually. So I imagine that if LotB had something similar, we could pick our trooper, and then use one clear ticket and 4 SoT and the level would instantly be finished and we would still get the same rewards. Clear tickets could be bought with Iron Coins, (Example could be 25 tickets for 100 IC) Which would encourage someone to play PvP more often and spend ironite on refills.
Could be a once a day purchase, so you still need to grind the other 25 troopers.

[MisterEly]

I'm going to build on the idea that kkkreg brought up. I think you should be to pay an amount of Ironite to send badges to all your troopers, and get your 1250 badges for the day. It essentially allows you earn and send all your badges in a few seconds (effectively just playing all of your troopers for you).

Just an idea.

[slauki]

i was a fan of the "skip level option" for a long time, but this would kill the spirit of the game i feel. and for grinding events like this one, it would provide a huge pay to win scenario. imagine someone throws in 500 bucks and he could refill and gain endless 666souls/immortal souls or whatever.

this doesn't feel right to me. so i opt for the two troopers per round option. cuttung the time needed by 50%.

kkkregs idea is also very good.

just one half offtopic comment: time for troopers is one thing, but pvp is another huge time sink. but it would be prolly better, to discuss this in another thread

EDIT: the limited ticket option would work. like you get 5 tickets for free every day and they can add up to 50 for example. so you can play when you have time and burn them fast when you are busy. making them available in store is also a nice idea as long as it is limited in some way.

[Askora]

Not sure, but kkreg5's suggestion sounds similar to something I'd proposed (and possibly others as well).

My idea on how it would work is:
1) Click a button and your badges for all troopers are sent.
2) Play whatever you feel like, knowing your trooper obligations are taken care of.
3) Claiming badges is where you have to work for it. To claim badges from each trooper, you have to actually take their champion into battle (not any different than now).
4) Sending badges gives you happy troopers, but 0 badges. Playing a trooper, but not sending badges gives you 25. Playing a trooper and sending badges gives you 50.

It would make it a lot easier for people taking a break or focusing on PvP (any reason really) to do, without risking the loss of troopers. It also means still having to work for the badges.

Several other good suggestions here as well that I think would work great. Even better might be a combination of some of the ideas.

[kkkreg5]

Not sure, but kkreg5's suggestion sounds similar to something I'd proposed (and possibly others as well).

My idea on how it would work is:
1) Click a button and your badges for all troopers are sent.
2) Play whatever you feel like, knowing your trooper obligations are taken care of.
3) Claiming badges is where you have to work for it. To claim badges from each trooper, you have to actually take their champion into battle (not any different than now).
4) Sending badges gives you happy troopers, but 0 badges. Playing a trooper, but not sending badges gives you 25. Playing a trooper and sending badges gives you 50.

It would make it a lot easier for people taking a break or focusing on PvP (any reason really) to do, without risking the loss of troopers. It also means still having to work for the badges.

Several other good suggestions here as well that I think would work great. Even better might be a combination of some of the ideas.

Please don't mistake me. By no means am I trying to take credit for this idea. I recall Lulero bringing up "1 click" badges in another thread. The question is the amount of programming envolved...

[Ian]

Surely just changing the trooper limit from 1 to 2 (or even 6) per battle, would be easiest to implement? Only make this available to players who have completed the campaign so it doesn't remove the challenge/game balance.

I'd be back to daily play if that was introduced

[Yup]

Just allow multiple trooper eddies.. that's enough. Cuts the time in half or in thirds....

[Sponholz]

Hi all!!!

My 2 cents here:

Facts to take into account:
--------------------------
- Most, but not all, Troopers are Eddies.
- You usually have 3 slots already open, 2 for Eddies and 1 for a non-Eddie character (Keeping your Eddie and a good char to clear the level you want).
- 2:1 Ratio is good, the only possible scenario where this would fail is if your Trooper list have 18 non-Eddies Troopers out of the 53 total. (Very unlikely IMO).

My suggestion:
---------------
Let us bring 3 Troopers at once. How would this work in such manner that don't hurt either players and/or NF? Simple:
- Nothing would be needed to change for group layout, there is already 3 extra slots if you have a 5* Eddie and a 5* non-eddie char, chances are you can easily clear most of the early stages really quickly with this 2 chars alone.
- Charge 4 SoT per extra Trooper used.
- 4 SoT is a balanced cost for either the 4 SoT and 5 SoT stages.
- This would give the option to the player if he wants to farm materials/gold/xp using one Trooper at a time, or speed things up to 3x
- Why don't charge 5 SoT per extra Trooper on 5 SoT stages? Well you will be cutting the rewards for playing the lvl, so in fact you are losing loot while speeding Troopers used.
- Why charge 4 SoT per extra Trooper on 4 SoT stages? Well if you are playing a 4 SoT stage my guess is you don't wan't to farm anything besides maybe gold on Powerslave, and just want to speed things a little, and since a lot of players already run Powerslave for all their Troopers this would be fair to NF as well, in terms of SoT usage.

I am, and always will be in favor of leaving the option to the player.
Do you want to farm for mats? Play one Trooper at a time.
Do you want to send and get all the Troopers badges? Play three instead.


I hope that I made myself clear, sometimes is hard to explain very well and in the most detailed way I can.

Cheers! Ed!

[Amarthir]

I don't know about the idea of only increasing the trooper limit. If they do that, we wouldn't be able to earn as much resources as we normally would. I have a hard enough time stacking up gold, I wouldn't want to earn half as much simply because I'm too lazy to play the game after the troopers are ran.

However, this would be countered if they also introduce a x2 gold option in the store.

[<Keg>]

The idea that Askora and kkkreg5 brought up is good. It would solve the problem of not giving the badges to your troopers (what actually takes a long time) to dedicate the time to grind other stuffs in the game (Brave new World, Arena, etc).
But i like more the idea that Ian mentioneted. I think the same since the beggining of the game. It's easier just allow to use more than one trooper per battle. This could be something unlocked based on the progression of the campaing. At certain progression you unlock on more slot of trooper per battle, bringing up to two troopers, and going on until you reach 100% of the campaing, where you earn the right to use up to 6 troopers per battle. We still need to grind manually, but the process will become a lot of faster.

[Askora]

Please don't mistake me. By no means am I trying to take credit for this idea. I recall Lulero bringing up "1 click" badges in another thread. The question is the amount of programming envolved...

No worries man. Saw you'd posted it was someone else's idea and I'm the same way. Not trying to claim full credit, just suggesting my thoughts on how that kind of system could work.

Cheers!

[Mariner-1212]

Hi all!!!


...lots of good stuff......


I am, and always will be in favor of leaving the option to the player.
Do you want to farm for mats? Play one Trooper at a time.
Do you want to send and get all the Troopers badges? Play three instead.

I hope that I made myself clear, sometimes is hard to explain very well and in the most detailed way I can.

Cheers! Ed!


I really love this point of leaving it up to the player, and I think marrying Ian's point of unlocking it after certain milestones (which Keg perfectly summed up) could provide the best all around scenario.

I think the key here for NF is that by charging the extra 4 SOT per additional Trooper used, they won't be losing anything at all. Trooper farming is sped up, but the option to buy that SOT refill will still be in play, for those of us that wish to knock it all out in one sitting. And it removes the need to add an additional store item like mentioned in my earlier post.

I also like the idea brought forward from kkkreg/askora/et.al regarding the one-click payout to your Troops. The part I struggle with on it is that I want the badges that I earn by playing as well, and it doesn't solve anything for me in terms of cutting down on time. I think I'd get lazy and end up sending the badges everyday and not run mine as much, which means I'm getting only half of what I want. I would rather have a solution that gets us all paid in full, while taking much less time... just because I know how lazy it would make me. On the flip side, completing your Trooper obligation in one click is excellent for when you're just too busy to get into it.

Maybe Amarthir's Ticket concept does exactly this - a full payout to your Troopers for the day, but not to you. Or as MisterEly said, you pay ironite for a wipe for the day that gives all 2500 badges (ironite buys the clear tickets).

All good ideas, on their own and combined.

[Sponholz]

The idea that Askora and kkkreg5 brought up is good. It would solve the problem of not giving the badges to your troopers (what actually takes a long time) to dedicate the time to grind other stuffs in the game (Brave new World, Arena, etc).
But i like more the idea that Ian mentioneted. I think the same since the beggining of the game. It's easier just allow to use more than one trooper per battle. This could be something unlocked based on the progression of the campaing. At certain progression you unlock on more slot of trooper per battle, bringing up to two troopers, and going on until you reach 100% of the campaing, where you earn the right to use up to 6 troopers per battle. We still need to grind manually, but the process will become a lot of faster.

Only reason I don't think something like this would pass is:

Each Trooper used = SoT used. (Revenue for NF must be taked in consideration here. and I imagine that refills takes a big part on that).
If you take the current system into account, 53 Troopers converts to 212 SoT used (4 SoT Stages) and/or 265 SoT used (5 SoT stages).
If you allow for more Troopers to be used free-of-SoT-cost, that would convert in: (lets take the 6 Troopers suggestion).
9 Runs total needed.
36 SoT needed to use all your Troopers on 4 SoT Stages
45 SoT needed to use all your Troopers on 5 SoT Stages

This is a HUGE gap in terms of SoT usage.

This is not considering LoL and BNW in which I believe nothing should change IMO 1 Trooper only.

Hence why I suggested the SoT cost per extra Trooper.

Cheers! Ed.

[Patrice-1201]

My view is that we should keep it simple and balanced.

Allow up to n Troopers per battle for n*SOT and n*rewards but please increase SOT to 100.

[Yup]

I think 100 isn't enough. +20 isn't going to really make any sort of impact. I say merely do a daly refill.... refill SOT and SOW at the daily rollover.. actually you get about 50% SOW through daily achievements.. increase achievement rewards so you also get 50%-100% SOT via the 7 daily achievements rather than 4-10 SOT currently. Or... every 1MIL/500K XP.. refill SOT.

.. and possibly let SOT roll past 80 the way SOW do....

[Dank Brew]

I think 100 isn't enough. +20 isn't going to really make any sort of impact. I say merely do a daly refill.... refill SOT and SOW at the daily rollover.. actually you get about 50% SOW through daily achievements.. increase achievement rewards so you also get 50%-100% SOT via the 7 daily achievements rather than 4-10 SOT currently. Or... every 1MIL/500K XP.. refill SOT.

.. and possibly let SOT roll past 80 the way SOW do....

I think it would be a good idea to just give a full sot Refill for the daily challenges being finished. Of course, if you don't need it don't claim it yet. Or just reset SOT along with the daily reset. I hate when the skull quests appear and i don't have SOT lol

[Sparton_LOTB]

I haven't had a chance to read this whole thread yet, but I'll set aside some time later today to do so.

What I would like to clarify is we definitely view this subject as a priority and are working towards a solution, but I have no problem pivoting direction on the exact solution if something jumps out in this thread as a better plan then what we're currently thinking.

Additionally, these are the major considerations I'd outline for the solution to this problem:


Don't Enable Faster Progression: We want to allow players to be able to get their Trooper Badges quicker/easier, but we do not want players to be able to bring multiple troopers in to carry them through PVE content faster. This is different from the idea of being able to use multiple troopers in levels the player has already proven they've mastered.
Don't Allow for Easier Grinding in Difficult Content: We don't want players who only have 3 star and 4 star characters bringing in multiple troopers to carry them through Lord of Light X, or Garden of Life IX, etc. We've built the game with the expectation that a handful of powerful troopers will help you punch a bit above your weight to get things like your first handful of 3 star Evo Shards for evolving a character to 5 stars a bit quicker than without troopers, but we do not want to substantially shortcut that progression.
This Shouldn't Require Constant Real Money/Ironite Investment: The current expectation for an engaged player is they stay on top of their Skull Quests, spend most of their daily Sands of Time in Cosmos worlds, then spend a bit extra in Lord of Light or Brave New World for their rewards, all without needing to spend Ironite to use all 50 Troopers. Players can spend Ironite to instead grind more in Lord of Light or whatever instead of the Cosmos, but we don't expect players to do that every day. Whatever solution we add, we don't want players to feel the need to be constantly spending real money or Ironite to maintain their social obligation to their troopers; we view improvements in this area to be of self-evident value for our most engaged players and don't want them to have consider anything more than their time.


This is our current thoughts from the dev team on the subject, but as I noted above, we're happy to hear the communities thoughts as well.

[Chaosego888]

My idea is very similar to what Ian suggested and what Keg expanded on. Progression over a long period of time should give you ability to use more troopers per run. Maybe once you reach level 100 you can then take 2, after claiming a certain amount of achievements you can take 3, possibly open 1 more slot when you claim your Grim Reaper Eddie, etc. It just makes sense to only be required to play 10 or 15 runs daily after you have played for a year plus on a daily basis. Some of us are still going to run levels 50-75 times per day gathering materials anyway, It just shouldn't be the obligation that it becomes for some players.

[Amarthir]

[list]
Don't Enable Faster Progression: We want to allow players to be able to get their Trooper Badges quicker/easier, but we do not want players to be able to bring multiple troopers in to carry them through PVE content faster. This is different from the idea of being able to use multiple troopers in levels the player has already proven they've mastered.

So you're saying that you don't want someone who's progressing through PvE content for the first time to be able to do it with all the extra troopers? Fair enough.



Don't Allow for Easier Grinding in Difficult Content: We don't want players who only have 3 star and 4 star characters bringing in multiple troopers to carry them through Lord of Light X, or Garden of Life IX, etc. We've built the game with the expectation that a handful of powerful troopers will help you punch a bit above your weight to get things like your first handful of 3 star Evo Shards for evolving a character to 5 stars a bit quicker than without troopers, but we do not want to substantially shortcut that progression.

What if you're only allowed to use 1 trooper for the first time you play a mission, OR if you want to take multiple troopers, it will count toward your party cost, so that you'll have to be a higher player level to take more than one trooper. That way someone who just started can't take a full team of 5* troopers.



This Shouldn't Require Constant Real Money/Ironite Investment: The current expectation for an engaged player is they stay on top of their Skull Quests, spend most of their daily Sands of Time in Cosmos worlds, then spend a bit extra in Lord of Light or Brave New World for their rewards, all without needing to spend Ironite to use all 50 Troopers. Players can spend Ironite to instead grind more in Lord of Light or whatever instead of the Cosmos, but we don't expect players to do that every day. Whatever solution we add, we don't want players to feel the need to be constantly spending real money or Ironite to maintain their social obligation to their troopers; we view improvements in this area to be of self-evident value for our most engaged players and don't want them to have consider anything more than their time.

I wouldn't want to spend more ironite than I would doing it the old fashioned way, not much else to say.

[Dank Brew]

I haven't had a chance to read this whole thread yet, but I'll set aside some time later today to do so.

What I would like to clarify is we definitely view this subject as a priority and are working towards a solution, but I have no problem pivoting direction on the exact solution if something jumps out in this thread as a better plan then what we're currently thinking.

Additionally, these are the major considerations I'd outline for the solution to this problem:

[list]
Don't Enable Faster Progression: We want to allow players to be able to get their Trooper Badges quicker/easier, but we do not want players to be able to bring multiple troopers in to carry them through PVE content faster. This is different from the idea of being able to use multiple troopers in levels the player has already proven they've mastered.
Don't Allow for Easier Grinding in Difficult Content: We don't want players who only have 3 star and 4 star characters bringing in multiple troopers to carry them through Lord of Light X, or Garden of Life IX, etc. We've built the game with the expectation that a handful of powerful troopers will help you punch a bit above your weight to get things like your first handful of 3 star Evo Shards for evolving a character to 5 stars a bit quicker than without troopers, but we do not want to substantially shortcut that progression.


Thanks for the reply Sparton! I very much agree with what you've posted. I think a good solution would be once you get 3 skulls on a quest it gives you the option to bring a second trooper from then on (For BNW and LOL it would be different... maybe once you clear stage 3 1 becomes available for the 2nd trooper and so on... Sounds like that would be the best way in my opinion. That way new players still progress at the same rate, and end gamers can prioritize their play style wherever instead of the fastest quests possible. I personally like farming BNW for talismans (holy crap this takes forever haha not a complaint though) and I think we all know I cant do all troopers in a day while farming just BNW. But If I could bring two troopers in, I'd at least have a chance!

And let's not forget to mention something that I (and most likely lots of us end gamers) completely forgot about til now... The party cost for a battle. A new player probably can't even bring in 2 maxed 5* characters cause it costs too much. So why would that be an issue? I remember when I started and I got my first 5* character I hardly had enough party points (whatever you call them) to bring him!

[Sponholz]

Here is an example screen with the converted SoT cost. (Trooper #1 with no extra SoT cost and Troopers #2 and #3 costing 4 SoT each)

4191

Taking sparton notes into consideration, some limits must apply. Again, my 2 cents as suggestion is:

Still with 3 extra Troopers in mind.

- BNW & LOL no extra troopers allowed. maintain the actual system.
- Limit to 2 Eddies and 1 Non-Eddie extra Troopers only, since you can only use 1 Eddie of a time, this would prevent super-teams being made entirely of Troopers.
- Only players that have GRE or a certain number of Skulls (or all 711 of then) can unlock extra Troopers.
- Charge extra SoT for extra Troopers used, this will NOT hinder the SoT usage, or compel the players to keep buying SoT in the store, its just a way to keep the same amount of SoT used actually.
- 4 SoT per Trooper seems like a reasonable cost, maybe 1 less SoT of the stage cost which the Trooper would be used. (If the stage cost 4, make extra trooper cost 3).
- The above should balance the gap on natural refills of SoT (5m) and less rewards per stage, so the players would not feel a big difference overall. (Or you could multiply the rewards if extra Troopers are being used and then charge the same amount that the stage would normally cost).

I think something in the lines of whats writen above should make things pretty equally of a normal Trooper usage in terms of SoT. cutting the time needed to finish the daily Troopers.

Maintaining the option to the player on the way he/she wants to use his/her Troopers, and still being fair to NF SoT system.

Cheers! Ed.

[Amarthir]

And let's not forget to mention something that I (and most likely lots of us end gamers) completely forgot about til now... The party cost for a battle. A new player probably can't even bring in 2 maxed 5* characters cause it costs too much. So why would that be an issue? I remember when I started and I got my first 5* character I hardly had enough party points (whatever you call them) to bring him!

Exactly. To someone who's player level is 100, party cost means nothing and taking extra troopers wouldn't hurt us.

To someone who is level 10, they wouldn't be able to bring more than one trooper because, say if you add one trooper, it won't count toward your party cost, but if you add another one, the second one will count as whatever star level they are.

[Yup]

General thoughts....

No faster progression -- Only allow multiple troopers for previously completed 3 skull PVE levels.. No LOL. no BNW. Only full skull completed PVE. So if you don't have that "win with 50% health" skull in a level, you can't use multiple troopers.

No Easier grinding... see above.....

No real money... see above....

For what it's worth I run LOL all day if I need 3 star EVO stones..... I may run cosmos levels a bit to send trooper badges, but really I focus on what I need. I may run BNW all day if I need those rewards. While I really never miss a trooper badge --- For an Eddie trooper.. if you change to a non-Eddie trooper I don't care about your badge and after a week I remove you as a trooper --- they are really not my primary focus.

If I could just run 2 trooper Eddies in Cosmos levels I've completed with all skulls... that means I need to use 125 SOT (5 SOT level) to send all 50 badges (and half the time). Factor in that you generally get roughly 240 SOT in a day through natural refills. That means you get all your trooper badges done in 1.5 SOT refills. Which is all possible through the natural SOT generation. And it allows more than half the daily SOT to use on whatever else you may want to use it on. Definitely better than 250 SOT to send trooper badges one at a time. And doesn't alter natural game progression for those with levels left to complete. As things stand you really can't send all trooper badges with natural SOT refills, you have to at least run a couple extra levels at some point during the day. But requiring all skulls on the level means I'm not really gaining anything other than faster trooper play.

If the SOT were increased to 100 or 125 then it would be even better. But I realize that would increase player progression overall, so more SOT may be a non-starter.

Note none of this takes the NPC troopers into account.


EDIT: And oh yeah.. the party cost.. that's a VERY good point. New players would not have the party costs to use more than 1 high level trooper in most instances.

[Dank Brew]

If the SOT were increased to 100 or 125 then it would be even better. But I realize that would increase player progression overall, so more SOT may be a non-starter.

Note none of this takes the NPC troopers into account.

Unless they implemented it to level 100 only for the extra SOT. If you haven't beaten everything by level 100 that's insane lol

[Yup]

Well I kind of feel like after level 100 you should be getting full SOT refills either once a day with the rollover, or after nXP has been gained again. Basically refill on pseudo levels even though the player doesn't actually level up any more. That's how most games handle it.

[Rain88]

I haven't had a chance to read this whole thread yet, but I'll set aside some time later today to do so.

What I would like to clarify is we definitely view this subject as a priority and are working towards a solution, but I have no problem pivoting direction on the exact solution if something jumps out in this thread as a better plan then what we're currently thinking.

Additionally, these are the major considerations I'd outline for the solution to this problem:


Don't Enable Faster Progression: We want to allow players to be able to get their Trooper Badges quicker/easier, but we do not want players to be able to bring multiple troopers in to carry them through PVE content faster. This is different from the idea of being able to use multiple troopers in levels the player has already proven they've mastered.
Don't Allow for Easier Grinding in Difficult Content: We don't want players who only have 3 star and 4 star characters bringing in multiple troopers to carry them through Lord of Light X, or Garden of Life IX, etc. We've built the game with the expectation that a handful of powerful troopers will help you punch a bit above your weight to get things like your first handful of 3 star Evo Shards for evolving a character to 5 stars a bit quicker than without troopers, but we do not want to substantially shortcut that progression.
This Shouldn't Require Constant Real Money/Ironite Investment: The current expectation for an engaged player is they stay on top of their Skull Quests, spend most of their daily Sands of Time in Cosmos worlds, then spend a bit extra in Lord of Light or Brave New World for their rewards, all without needing to spend Ironite to use all 50 Troopers. Players can spend Ironite to instead grind more in Lord of Light or whatever instead of the Cosmos, but we don't expect players to do that every day. Whatever solution we add, we don't want players to feel the need to be constantly spending real money or Ironite to maintain their social obligation to their troopers; we view improvements in this area to be of self-evident value for our most engaged players and don't want them to have consider anything more than their time.


This is our current thoughts from the dev team on the subject, but as I noted above, we're happy to hear the communities thoughts as well.

None of this will conflict with the instant/sweep feature. If someone have finished a level without using any troopers and without using any ironite, a new option would unlock for him/her to instantly finish the level (using a trooper) without having to waste time on auto-play. This feature won't affect economy (it will still cost the same amount of sand of time) nor what's intended for the usage of sand of time. The ONLY thing that it will affect is time.

[slauki]

i like sponholz idea a lot. so we can chose do we want to fasten up the game and pay for it sot wise or do we prefer the slow road. so noone will loose anything and we would have a choice. awesome idea.

as far as i see it, none of out suggestions conflict with sparton requirements if we take party costs for newbies into account and if we only allow the multiple trooper usage if all three skulls are archieved.

raising sot to 120 would be optimal, i made a thread about it long ago, feel free to reactivate it. there were some ideas behind it, would be cool if we could discuss this again in a seperate thread.
http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/showthread.php?6055-Raising-up-sand-of-time-to-120&highlight=raising

[<Keg>]

Only reason I don't think something like this would pass is:

Each Trooper used = SoT used. (Revenue for NF must be taked in consideration here. and I imagine that refills takes a big part on that).
If you take the current system into account, 53 Troopers converts to 212 SoT used (4 SoT Stages) and/or 265 SoT used (5 SoT stages).
If you allow for more Troopers to be used free-of-SoT-cost, that would convert in: (lets take the 6 Troopers suggestion).
9 Runs total needed.
36 SoT needed to use all your Troopers on 4 SoT Stages
45 SoT needed to use all your Troopers on 5 SoT Stages

This is a HUGE gap in terms of SoT usage.

This is not considering LoL and BNW in which I believe nothing should change IMO 1 Trooper only.

Hence why I suggested the SoT cost per extra Trooper.

Cheers! Ed.



Totally agree Sponholz, but the solution for that is what you suggested. An extra SoT cost (i like the value of 4) for each additional trooper you bring. And this fits with the Sparton's thoughts. It wouldn't allow a faster progression, once you unlock extra troopers according to your progression and wouldn't allow easier grinding in difficult levels for begginers for the same reason. You just unlock extra troopers accordding to progression. The idea that somebody mentioneted to not include extra troopers in LoL and BnW dungeons sounds good too.

[scott-5496]

I think whatever system is decided on it should allow the player the option to choose an approach. Maybe there can be a few different ways to achieve certain things. Personally, I like the idea mentioned by a few that you send all badges to your troopers and then there can be a couple of ways to make sure it works - you could then say that the trooper only receives them after playing a trooper or the sender only gets trooper points once they have played a trooper. This could then be coupled with a speed based approach where you can do two or three troopers at a time. I think choice is the main thing as the way people play and what they want to get from each battle may be different.

I also agree that any changes in the future should be limited to having passed certain key stages in the game. No troopers in BNW or PVP. LOL still makes sense for newer to middle players but only one trooper allowed. If you have received 3 skulls in cosmos then you can take your pick on how many troopers you use.

If this kind of approach cant be done then we could still do with a way to know in the trooper screen who has completed a battle using your trooper over a 24 hour period. I know I don't get all of my badges back - as my reset values for badges never fully add up to the possible 2500 per day - I am usually several hundred short on this and I cant be bothered logging in a out lots to see who is returning badges (though I have done it a few times ever few months to run a check). I cant be bothered so much these days to be honest!

I know my daily play is different to many others on the forum. I am on all day long most days as I work from home. So auto play in the background while I work. The upshot of this is that running through Powerslave or AMOLAD doesn't ever really cost me any sands as I just do it over four or five hours each day and with the rate of sands you get from auto grinding, achievements and the like I very rarely need any SoT refills to do Troopers or any other events. Pretty sure I will be the minority though as most folk maybe cant play all day long.

I would love to see from the devs who is the most logged in player - pretty sure I will be up the top somewhere (for once!) LOL. Bottom line for me is that most proposed changes would not effect the way I play troopers that much. But it may help me out when off on holiday or travelling or that sort of thing and I think that would benefit lots of people if badges could be sent with one click (everyone gets 1250 a day if they have 50 troopers) but the other 1250 have to be earned by running troopers in some speeded up fashion - even a faster game speed would work though playing two troopers at a time might be quicker as it saves a few clicks in game.

ANYWAY FOR ME CHOICE IS A MAJOR CONSIDERATION AS IS KNOWING WHO IS AND IS NOT DOING YOUR BADGES.

[GotN]

Many good ideas here! Also understand what Sparton said, that they don‘t want to run every new player through every level too easy by bringing in several troopers. Imo the game has become much easier for newbies anyway, so that wouldn‘t be fair! I like the idea of sending badges with one push to our troopers and being responsible for our own badges to get full 1.250 (whoever had that idea 😉👍🏼 ).

[Sag7272]

Hi all, sorry if my idea already been suggested, time prevent me from reading it all just now...

My idea would be an unlocked by finishing unlocking last skull quest level so only end game players would access it in first place..

That said level would be a "free pass" one button done for say one troop at a time without rewards (still use SOT) other than half your badges...

This way your troop still have them & if you need to farm materials you'll still have to grind it by yourself but since most end game players out there don't need much of theses they'll have to do it only from time to time when needed.. Having 1k of 2*Evo shards isn't necessary anyway...

[Mariner-1212]

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion, it looks like we've arrived at some great ideas for the devs to consider. No matter what they end up going with, I think we've given solid ideas and the fix for this is definitely coming, which is great.

I'm going to work on separating out the PVP 'Wants" (i.e. better rewards) vs the "New Ideas" - so we can get into more detail about some of the great concepts that have been brought up for that. I am pretty busy today but should be able to get something up for tomorrow.

\m/

[slauki]

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion, it looks like we've arrived at some great ideas for the devs to consider. No matter what they end up going with, I think we've given solid ideas and the fix for this is definitely coming, which is great.

I'm going to work on separating out the PVP 'Wants" (i.e. better rewards) vs the "New Ideas" - so we can get into more detail about some of the great concepts that have been brought up for that. I am pretty busy today but should be able to get something up for tomorrow.

\m/

thanks for the effort mariner, you have proven that the forum isn't dead in an impressive way.

[GotN]

thanks for the effort mariner, you have proven that the forum isn't dead in an impressive way.

Just wanted to say right the same. Thanks mariner, great work \m/

[natasar]

Have to admit that I have not read the thread in full. So, maybe it has already been suggested, but my suggestion would be an additional "inactive trooper slot". In this additional slot (the 7th altogether), you could (only) put a trooper but would not be able to use him during the battle. So, this model would not make it any easier especially for lower level players, as one could still USE only one trooper per battle (and you want to use every single trooper you still would need to do 50 battles). But for all players who really do not need to use the troopers but just carry them along grinding, it would cut the time needed for the trooper grind in half.

[MetalKing]

I find that on my device the screen loads are slow so we have to wait before choosing a trooper character to run through a selected area in lol or cosmos. This means that I end up having to put my device on a charger and come back later to finish my troopers. What I would like to see is the following: pick an area to go through. Pick a trooper character. Have a preassigned set of characters of your own that you would use for any area similar to the arena. (1 team with 1 slot open for a trooper 's eddie, and one team with 1slot open for another character). Click a fight button. Your sot is deducted and rewards assigned immediately. No animations are seen, just results. So make sure your team can reasonably be able to beat the area. (I have a skull quest I can beat on manual, but sometimes lose on auto.). If you want to charge an extra sot for the convenience fine. So powerslave might be 6sot instead of 5 for fast battling. It would free up our time to do arena and other time intensive events without letting down our trooper buddies.

[Reeb99]

I don't understand why it is such a big deal if we let people use more than one trooper at a time to beat something they normally couldn't. It isn't like they can use those troopers to farm high end content a bunch of times. Most people can do everything by the time they reach level 100 anyways, right? Heck I auto all but a few levels, and I don't have a lot of great characters and talisman sets.

At least let us use multiple Eddie troopers at the same time. That would cut down the trooper grind dramatically. I don't think NF understands just how many people they lose because of the monotonous trooper grind.