#1 - The time-consuming Trooper grind

[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)



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/sh...hlight=raising