Greetings. Short-term player of Crusaders of the Lost Idols (8 days playtime), long-term player of any incremental game I can get my hands on. Below you will find a list of suggestions. Most come from me, a few come from others in chat discussions while playing along.

Without further ado, let's begin:

1) Free Play Rubies. I mentioned this one to Erika when she joined chat earlier today, but me and several players agree that 'Free Play' is a bit useless, unless you're completely out of Campaigns. My suggestion here is one that further rewards players, and gives a method of getting rubies outside of fulfilling objectives alone (As that means there is a cap, based on the objectives added). What I suggest is that Free Play does grant rubies, but in a very low capacity (~5-10). Doing this means that players have a means of guaranteeing more Jeweled Chests, but it's a long farm for even one (Either 30 or 15 full resets).

2) Boss Rubies. This one isn't from me directly, but mentioned in chat. Having a chance for bosses to drop rubies as well as chests. It should also be in low capacity, 1 ruby if below floor 100, 2 rubies from 100-200, 3 from 200-300, etc. The increase in amount could further give incentive to players for doing deep runs.

3) Formation Loadouts. What we mean by this is having toggles (2 or 3) to immediately change your whole party instantly. This makes it easier to compare the DPS of various formations. Others could have a farming, boss, and gold gain formation readily available, without having to drag and drop individual heroes. Some balancing concerns would be made with switching formations mid-boss fights, so the best method of combating that would be to disallow use of this feature in boss rooms.

4) Varying Formations. At the moment we have a single formation, akin to bowling pins. To increase the flexibility and creativity of formations, I believe it could help to have some that you could switch between. The one we currently have, yet reversed would make a great defensive line (Using Thalia). Another, more middle of the line formation could be 2332, where the number is the amount of open slots. Of course, each of these would need to keep the 10 party size, and there would need to be testing for any balance concerns.

5) "Bench" Options. This is more of a quality of life feature, than anything else. Sometimes, it gets a little annoying scrolling through all the heroes looking for the one you need. I'd simply enjoy if there was a way to change the look of the bench so all heroes are included in a "Small Icon" variant. Perhaps you could click the hero to bring up the normal information (Equips, abilities, enchants, etc).

6) Campaigns - Revisited. Giving a reason to complete campaigns more times than one. This could increase the variation of gameplay, and would have players come up with specific formation for certain campaigns (Like the current rabbit/hand grenade ones). As far as the rewards go, an extra chest at the end of the run could work, but then most players would just run the easiest campaign over and over. Perhaps it would be better to make it a set amount of cards, and the rewards are better rarity/more cards for tougher campaigns.

7) Chest Variance. Various players in the chat have mentioned that the chance for chests is a bit too low, and the chance of receiving buffs is too high. Even if not increasing the chance of chests, it would assist many players if chests guaranteed at least one piece of equipment (With 2 for Jeweled).

8) Balance Concerns. There's been some balance concerns related to formations currently. Mainly, that there are around 3 formations that are mainly utilized: the 2DPS, Werewolf, and Hermit builds. Very few others are able to compete with the effects granted. We're definitely not fishing for nerfs, but believe it could be good for player creativity if some abilities were tweaked to allow other formations to be on par. Other abilities like Werewolf's Lone Wolf would go a long way, and there are some heroes that aren't utilized well (Sarah, Thalia, Jason) which could receive some of the more standout abilities. (i.e. 200% if all females in row, 200% if next to bushwhacker, etc)

9) For the Future. This one isn't intended for implementation any time soon. But a neat feature I've thought of is totems. They would take a spot up in the formation, providing no immediate DPS, but would provide a nice effect based on the XP they receive. For instance, a totem that increases gold gain by 100%/xp. Sure, it has to sit in the field taking away a character slot and doing nothing for the first 5 hours, but it's an investment the player can make and be rewarded for as the game continues. With this, there would definitely need to be more incentives for deep runs for people to migrate to using them, however.

And that's about all I have on my plate at the moment. I realize you guys are currently working on what's hidden behind the upgrade button next to idols, and more Campaigns, and we all think you're doing a great job. Keep up the creativity. Looking forward to things to come.

Justin,

The main issue with chests is that buff slots are severely under-appreciated at the moment, and they come up too often, and players generally aren't bothering with the clicking buffs (Which cover the majority of buff drops). Trinkets, as Elusion already mentioned, are much harder to feel the effects of than new equipment or even an enchant, which can be completely game changing. But yes, the gold and DPS trinkets seem to be such a small effect in comparison with an enchant, that it's often not felt to the player. As such, many players would prefer equipment drops over trinkets as it is currently.

As Elusion mentioned, the Cooldown reduction is perfectly fine, you can see the effects of a single % more easily with those. But perhaps a tweak to the numbers on gold/dps trinkets would help. As far as the DPS trinket goes, the 1% is competing a slot that could be an enchant of 25%. Certainly, the 1% effects the whole party, but it's a lower amount since buffing formations are the meta at the moment. Even then, with 10 heroes, you're looking at 10% (Spread out at smaller portions) vs 25% (Easier to buff to much higher portions).

It's a given that this could be very different at higher levels of play, based upon diminishing returns on gains. I'll share this thread URL in chat with some higher level players and ask them to give some thoughts. Thanks very much for your reply, Justin.

(Also, someone mentioned wanting to replay campaigns for the simple fun of it, which spawned the idea on rewards for that. If you guys decide not to go through on that suggestion, perhaps allowing us to redo past campaigns just for the different playstyle. Admittedly, I'm unsure at this time if you can select a campaign you've already completed, but if not--throwing this out there for consideration of the player who asked me to include it.)