First, I’d like to say that I really love this game and that it’s pretty amazing that iOS now has something like this. Secondly I want to say that I’m a casual player and that I did not play DIB, so these thoughts and impressions are coming from someone who is fresh to the franchise and development team. I’m gonna make this a numerated list so that it’s easier to read.
Eggs. The difficulty of getting something decent in the eggs is perfectly alright with me. They shouldn’t be insta-gimmes for the rarest Arkadions in the game. Having said that, however, I think the roulette wheel should be slowed down ever so slightly so people who haven’t been playing either HI or DIB for a while are able to actually manage to time selections with some effort. Right now, I can barely even see individual creatures (maybe my eyes are going bad, I did just turn 23 lol).
Dungeons. Dungeons could be made a LOT more interesting and fun. It’d be great if they were more extensive/varied and contained things like level/grade boosters, eggs and ocarinas and such, would make exploring much more fun. Also, perhaps placing rare or rarer Arkadions at the bottom of a deep dungeon that are catchable would also give incentive for people to work their way through entirely.
Escaping. Please scale the battle escape system. I’m assuming the chance of escape is currently set around 50%, but it’s pretty darn frustrating and rather silly when a team of fully evolved dragons can’t escape in EIGHT tries from a small squirrel or marooned sea urchin…However, being unable to escape from a 6-9 Arkadion team of well leveled monsters makes far more sense. This would making farming a LOT less frustrating.
Farming. While I agree that obtaining hatchlings and starters should be hard and a lot of work, I think if it can’t be fun then at the very least it shouldn’t make one miserable. While I think that the chance of encounters for some of the rarer monsters (.5-2%) is relatively fair, I think the system should be structured so that the odds are increased ever so slightly for those who have made MANY attempts at a single spot, possibly having odds be slightly cumulative or algorithmic. So perhaps say someone like me, who has entered probably 500+ battles and seen 700+ foes at the spot Snorkling spawns, would maybe get a slight break and have their odds boosted by .5% so they don’t actually begin to resent the game based on a lack of luck. This wouldn’t make the game any more or less “challenging,” it would simply make it more enjoyable and user friendly.
Gold. I absolutely agree with the mods and admins that gold should be scarce and spent accordingly. However, I, like many others, was not aware of its eventual scarcity in the beginning and spent it wantonly. Now I am nearing the end (nearly done with the tournaments, story, and have been working my way through the PvP battles), and beginning to understand that the gold in this game, at least now, is rather finite. But I want to keep playing this game! I want to keep playing online missions, opening golden eggs, and having a 100% chance at capturing rare beasts! I understand that developers need to make money, but I think a much better option would be to simply include a way to earn gold indefinitely, and if I had to pay a flat sum of $5, give or take, I would happily. However, $3 for 300 gold is NOT a good deal and not something I’m inclined to buy. Perhaps a system where a very large amount of silver (100,000 silver for 100 gold?) could buy precious gold would be fair and keep people grinding/playing. Or if more gold bearing missions were constantly being added! Basically gold, and the acquiring of ever rarer monsters is what will keep people playing, and if those things run out, people will stop.
Additions. I would love to see some new content, new areas and new creatures in the next update! I would happily pay for this. Anything to keep a great game fresh and replayable.
Unique Movesets. I think movesets could be more diverse to a degree, possibly with new, unique moves learned at certain levels. Also, perhaps several more attack animations could be added to keep visual interest from waning during battles.
Opponent moves. Sometimes, especially when facing 3 foes or if stunned, opponent attack animations can take FOREVER to get through. I often just set my phone down for a while. If there was an option to speed up this process that’d be wonderful.
Battle/menu interface. Buttons could be a little larger and slightly more responsive!
Non-city map. This should be easy to implement! I want to know where I’m going without having to teleport back to a city!
Bonus Actions. I get that to make things fair for when someone is fighting 1 boss with 30+ Arkadions, the boss needs more moves. But watching them decimate your team with an attack+4 bonus actions is boring and irritating and especially not fun if you’re new to the game and don’t understand how to avoid such an event. Perhaps make the boss have much lower TUs for it’s abilities or give it multiple forms to balance it? There are definitely other ways to balance than making players sit through a minute of getting absolutely annihilated.
More strategy. Currently the main competitive strategies revolve around stun abilities, elemental weaknesses and things like haste/no guard. I would appreciate other possible approaches, or approaches that would limit the effectiveness of some dominant strategies (say, Arkadions with abilities that prevent them from being stunned). Also, the addition of more elemental types (2-4) could make things more exciting, varied and complex.
I’ve seen a number of mods and admins responding somewhat defensively to criticisms in the past on the forum (though to their credit, the people they were responding to didn’t go about their critiques in the right way at all), but I think it’s essential for a game like this to to have devs who listen earnestly to the critiques and advice offered by players, especially if multiple people are voicing the same concern.
Once again, thank you so much for this amazing game and I hope that someone finds something of value in my wall of text!
I think the speed is fine. The first egg was actually pretty slow.
I like this. But no grade boosters, and if there are, they have to be very hard to get.
Totally agree.
In the suggestions section, there is an alternative to farming for hatchlings. Take a look if you haven’t already? ^^
Silver to gold is very hackable. If you spent it all when you were still unaware of it, make a new savefile. I’m aware this resets your progress but it still gives you the same amount of gold (excluding bazaar).
I agree. They are planning this, most likely, as it seems HI launch was a success.
Yes, I agree. This has been suggested before and I love it, but it would take a lot of coding most likely.
Yes!
It’s fine to me.
Can you please elaborate?
This has been discussed many times, but generally I’m OK with your suggestion.
Yes, I agree, though there are some arkadions with special moves and passives that are not released yet. ;>
I respond defensively because it’s indeed my own opinion and for the good of the game. For example, I would like a silver to gold thing, but it probably won’t be too good for the game. So I had to think: should I value my opinions over the well being of the game?
Didn’t realize silver to gold was hackable, perhaps there’s a way to code it so it’s protected? I don’t know much about technology/development, admittedly.
Also good to hear they’re planning on adding some of the new content I suggested! I figured they had some future plans.
And as for the map, I’m basically talking about what you get when you click on a town portal, but one that is zoomable and accessible when you’re walking around in between towns.
Yea, basically a world map, but one that you can zoom in on current location and see where exactly you’re heading. Especially if the world is expanded. Should be a pretty easy/painless addition I’d imagine
I, personally, think eggs should be very difficult to time. If it’s easy like on Dragon Island, then soon everyone is getting all of the best stuff too easily. If you make it much more easy than it already is, it’s going to be too easy for people.
Agree. There are a whole lot of things that could be added to make these more interesting.
I’m sort of indifferent. Either way is fine with me. I haven’t had many issues with the escaping system. Logically, though, it could be improved.
I don’t agree with improving capture chance. Instead, I agree with adding a whole new system that makes it challenging to get good monsters but also makes you work hard. But there is a system in place that guarantees you get the monster after enough tries have passed in place.
No silver for gold, that won’t work. To be quite honest, you don’t really need gold for much in this game. You can get everything without it. But I do think gold should be obtainable in an unlimited (but heavily controlled) supply. I don’t think too many customers would be lost. In fact, I think it would motivate other people to play more and actually buy more gold for the developers.
It’s in the plans for the future.
We’ve talked to the developers about customizing Arkadions with specific abilities. We wanted it to be fairly controlled, but we discussed a few different ways this could be implemented (with multiple types of move-sets, for example, that a monster has by default, and being able to switch between them).
The ability to turn off animations completely would be nice, at least in single player, for those who want things to move along. I’m not sure how that would work out in PvP.
Haven’t had issues.
There is a map, though you can’t see where you are on it.
Read other discussions on this.
I think there’s a great deal of strategy in the game as it is, and with new monsters coming, there are new types of abilities that will add more strategy. But the more the better!
“I’ve seen a number of mods and admins responding somewhat defensively to criticisms in the past on the forum (though to their credit, the people they were responding to didn’t go about their critiques in the right way at all), but I think it’s essential for a game like this to to have devs who listen earnestly to the critiques and advice offered by players, especially if multiple people are voicing the same concern.”
I do listen carefully to criticism. I don’t argue against it just for the sake of defending the game. I only argue against criticism if I have logical reason to. Of course, it’s great to have many people discussing the game and pointing out flaws.
“Didn’t realize silver to gold was hackable, perhaps there’s a way to code it so it’s protected? I don’t know much about technology/development, admittedly.”
Making it server-sided. But they’re trying to limit server-sided functionality as much as possible. One thing I suggested is making the silver shop server-sided so that you contact a server to purchase. That way if silver were being hacked, the shop could be taken down from the server immediately so that nothing could be bought with the hacked silver. Then the issue could be taken care of and the shop could go back online.
“Yea, basically a world map, but one that you can zoom in on current location and see where exactly you’re heading. Especially if the world is expanded. Should be a pretty easy/painless addition I’d imagine”
I spoke with Ryan (developer) about being able to see your location on the world map. It’s planned in an update, as far as I am aware. But it had caused issues and had to be delayed.
Thanks for your response ashley. I’m certainly not advocating eggs be EASY by any stretch, just ever so slightly slowed down.
And I’m being very picky about the interface/touch response, I’m honestly talking about that split second where you hit a menu to move on that’s just loaded, and it takes a second click. Or missing tiny menu buttons because they’re so tiny/close to others. Would be a very minor adjustment
And I like the idea of smaller daily quests and challenges! Maybe not gold egg rewards but something!
I agree with it being too fast, but I kinda accept that; alongside it being difficult to get what you want. It’s a spin, the whole concept of it is that you test your luck, hit the screen and hope you get something good. It should be luck not a supermarket for powerful Arkadions.
A good idea which I’m fairly certain will happen
Definitely agree. The idea of a Bluechick physically stopping an OmegaWyrm from escaping is both confusing and amusing
Apparently the odds are already accumulative. I would find the thread where this is mentioned but I can’t remember where it was.
If they were to make an infinite supply it would have to be small and set far enough apart that players couldn’t just rack up gold whenever they wanted. Gold holds the key to better Arkadion and I would rather people properly earnt it
This should be a given. You need to expand in order to entertain the post storyline players.
I’m half/half on this. Whilst I would love to see Arkadions actually getting new moves, at the same time I find it’s the entire bases for searching and aquiring certain Arkadion for their set moves. Having Arkadions learn new moves would cause players to become even more picky than they already are.
It is a little slow…but iv never really found it a problem
Same as above, never really had a problem
This exists…to an extent. If you go into your encyclopaedia menu whilst in the field, you can select a map that shows you where you are and the entire world (movable) But I would rather see a map that’s constantly onscreen/one that can be accessed directly from the field screen
Surprise surprise this was mentioned. We all know where I stand on this
Yes! I was going to mention this in point 7 but it’s more appropriate here. Introducing new moves and counters to certain abilities would make PvP a whole lot more interesting. I find there’s a massive lack in any good passive abilities and status changing moves, it’s mostly firepower that gets people through.
New Elements I would like to see, maybe not as many as 4.
I’ve seen a number of mods and admins responding somewhat defensively to criticisms in the past on the forum (though to their credit, the people they were responding to didn’t go about their critiques in the right way at all), but I think it’s essential for a game like this to to have devs who listen earnestly to the critiques and advice offered by players, especially if multiple people are voicing the same concern.
There are so many ways I would want to respond to this, but I’d rather not be known as the person who has a thing against mods and devs. All ill say is that you’ve summed up my criticism adequately
Except for the Paranthesis part. Players aside from myself have voiced their opinions as they see fit. And I agree with the way they’ve presented them. Sometimes you do have to be repetitive, clearly frustrated and loud; especially when you’re trying to get a brick wall to understand your problems
But don’t think that because we are mods we have the final say in everything. Y’all’s opinions are just as important as ours.
I said before that I respond defensively because I believe it would either hurt the game/players in the long run or is my own opinion. Personally, I think that’s what everyone should do - think of the ways it affects others, the game itself, and then go back to their own opinions. Of course if you already did that and still disagree, that is perfectly OK. This community is diverse and it will be unfair to not consider all the suggestions that are made.
Basically I’m saying don’t be afraid to speak up if you have something to say. We won’t ban you unless you are breaking the rules. If you have any complaints, you can also PM me your complaints as well.
Glad to see this has been kept a pleasant, respectable discourse and not a shouting match! Good to see others are in agreement with about 2/3 of what I’ve proposed.
And I understand the tendency for some beta testers/designers to be defensive. They’ve put a lot of effort into playing and finetuning this game, and loud unwarranted criticisms are obnoxious. But hopefully we can all work together to create a great user experience!