Battle Quests/BC changes

[mellaka]

So is anyone else doing the new Battle Quests? You get a few SP, a cheap item and XP for the pet that completes the quest. I think they are a good addition to the site, and they seem to favor the easy challengers, so are possible for most people to do.

They also changed the way drops work, added tokens as possible prizes for both regular and quest battles and opened a new battle shop for redeeming tokens.

I've been battling more in the past few days than I have since the last revamp of the BC. I know this is kind of old news now, but I was just wondering what people here thought about it and didn't see a topic yet.

[AngharadTy]

I think it's silly that we can't trade up, in the battle token shop. 1 higher token equals 3 lesser tokens, and I think that's good. But there should also be a way to trade up: a much steeper rate, like 10 lesser tokens > 1 higher token, so people can't just shuffle them around equally.

The only thing I really want the BC to address is how boring it is. Click click click click. Wait. Click click click click. Yawn. At the very least, it'd be nice if the previous round's weapons/spells were highlighted by default (but clicking any other item wipes that and selects the new item as if nothing had been selected). Just to lessen the sheer boring amount of clicking.

The improvements so far are good, I think (I'm still pleased at the armory so I don't have to de-equip and re-equip just to use another battling pet!), but it's still one of the most boring things to do. I went through and got exp for Mezz again--I guess that's the third time I've been able to do so? It's great for raising stats. I was able to raise two stats from 990-ish to 1000. That was satisfying. But getting there--killing everything she could kill ten times over--was so boring I kept almost falling asleep. I have to go through with my other battlers still, but man, it's hard to dredge up the energy for it.

[mellaka]

I also like the armory. I only wish they would do something like that for scrolls - have all your scrolls in one place, be able to set a default for your pet, but also be able to select the default or a different combo for lesser-AP pets. I hate moving my scrolls around, especially since I have a few rare/expensive ones.

[Foghawk]

I don't really battle, because like Ty said, it's astoundingly boring. But as a German speaker, it did give me some amusement to see that the great horned brute who gives the quests is called 'Little Rice'.

[Goldenchaos]

Is it supposed to give me things I cant kill?

[AngharadTy]

I think it just picks one opponent at random. It kept asking me to fight Nightshade the first couple days--had to refresh for hours to get him back (the first battle revamp made me lose him).

[Huggles]

So, I've just now noticed that the 24 hour training option is also available using sp instead of csc, which is very nice. However, I have a few questions. Does it cost more than manually training your pet each hour? Does it only train one stat at a time, or all of them evenly? Do you still randomly get stat training bonuses? Does it override the manual time limit? I.E. my highest leveled pets are at an hour for manual training, but is that the most time you will ever have to wait? Does a pet with stats in the thousands have to wait 2 hours, and therefore reduce their training time by half using auto train?

[AngharadTy]

Doesn't it take CSC and sP?

I'm afraid I'll accidentally use it on Deschain (who has a pretty number of stats and I don't want to change them), but I can't adblock the buttons. Incidentally, did those buttons get uglier recently or is that just my brain?

[Iggy]

Ty is right, there is no sP option.

[Kamil]

You're right, Ty, the buttons are uglier now, much, much uglier. I suppose it was to make them more noticeable, so people couldn't click the wrong one accidentally. But since the auto-trainer also has a "are you sure" button you have to click past as well, it seems to me they could go back to the prettier ones.

Now would be nice. x.x

I love this feature. Like, whole great-big bunches. I'm using it with Hollyn to catch her up to the rest of my normal pets, all of whom are in the 250-350 range. I was worried she'd never be able to catch them, since they all train every day as well, but with this she'll be caught up in no time.

I'm also using it on Maigrey and Leftwing, my two seriously trained pets. Maigrey will finally get six full classes a day, no matter what my sleep or work schedule looks like, and Leftwing will finally get his full schedule as well.

I'm buying the csc with sp, and it's only 75 cents a day at that, so for that price. yes, please. Loving this addition.

Also, for anyone who is curious, it will definitely continue training past the normal 2.5 ceiling, if your pet is close to that when you put them in. Using Hollyn again as an example -- she's on her fourth day of auto-training, and check out her cracktastic stats:
Level: 15
Strength: 69
Defense: 70
Health: 70/70
Speed: 34

[Jessi]

Ty, don't worry about accidentally clicking it. It makes you confirm before it goes into effect.

I also love this feature, am using it right now to give Psione a pretty good boost to make up for all the times I forget about it, haha.

[Huggles]

Well, okay then. Dur. Why even make someone pay sp if they're already paying cash? And how do you even go about buying csc for sp? I probably won't be using it now, but anyone know the answers to the other stuff? Does it only train 24 hours of strength/hp/etc., or does it cycle through all the stats? Are bonuses still being given?

[Kamil]

Well, okay then. Dur. Why even make someone pay sp if they're already paying cash? And how do you even go about buying csc for sp? I probably won't be using it now, but anyone know the answers to the other stuff? Does it only train 24 hours of strength/hp/etc., or does it cycle through all the stats? Are bonuses still being given?

To buy csc for sp, you buy things called Credit Gift Cards. They come in 100, 250, 500, and 1000 point totals, and give you one dollar, two fifty, and so on. So, for example, '250 Credit Gift Card', would be the item you'd need on the shop search. CSC holds pretty steady at 1.7- 2 million, per 100 points.

I'm certainly not in a position to know what staff is thinking, but I'd imagine that if you could avoid paying with sp by paying with cash instead, there would be a huge outcry from the people who already think it's unfair that you can train 'round the clock by tossing your cash at the site.

Besides, money sinks are usually always of the good. =D

It will train a full 24 hours of whatever stat you start it on. If that means going past the 2.5 limit, so be it. It trained my level 15 pet all the way to 70.

And yes, bonuses are still being given out. ^^

[Jessi]

I believe the logic behind it is the SP you pay (mine's around 90k for the 24 hour session since Psione isn't trained THAT much, haha) would be what you would pay to literally put your pet in training every x-amount of minutes (every.. 76 I think for me. Or 72?). the 25 CSC is the 'service cost' to have automated training for 24 hours, and is not part of the 'training cost' then. Basically, the 25 cents is just making it so you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to pay 6k and put your pet back in training ;)

[Wingsrising]

Unrelated question: it never occurred to me that you could buy/sell the gift cards with sP. Silly me. Are they easy to sell? I usually have gone for 1 month GAs when I want to use RL money to buy virtual money, but this seems like a nice alternative.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.