"NEXT, you say "If tanking isn't suppose to be such a big part of the game then the devs wouldn't keep releasing new 'saders that do well in or add value to a tank formation." which is, regardless of how desperately you try to cover your butt, directly saying that you believe tanking *IS* a viable, efficient gameplay method and that the dev's choice of crusaders to create allegedly "proves" that they consider tanking a major, common part of the game. You even created a (faulty) list of 60 crusaders that work well with tanks to prove that tanking is the dev-intended build."

Wow, talk about purposely misinterpreting something. I was clearly saying that tanking is an intended part of game play, there is nothing there that suggests that I thought it was efficient. That statement and subsequent list I made was in direct response to when you said "The right way to play a game is the way the game was intended to be played." Notice you said intended, not efficient, but at the same time you were saying tanking wasn't an intended part of play. A clear contradiction. Which I pointed out by listing some of the many features, talents, and abilities that only come into play when a player stops being efficient and starts to tank. This also served the purpose of showing that plenty of the current programing already centers around tanking. Not sure how you managed to twist it into "Tanking is viable and efficient, proven by the devs"

" "If tanking isn't suppose to be such a big part of the game..." is a prologue to an argument in favor of tanking being a big part of the game."
Umm... obviously. Now you seem like you are getting it.

"Once one side has shut down so completely that they can't even understand what they, themselves, are saying, then how can they possibly be expected to understand anything anyone else says?"
"there is no excuse for being so unaware of the words you choose to use."
I understood exactly what I said and I said exactly what I meant to say. You however seem to have failed to understand what words actually mean when they are put together.

Nice to see this game has so many passionate players.

I started playing right before the 2016 Halloween event and have nearly 200k idols, so I guess I'm no longer "new" exactly, but nowhere near the million idol mark.

One of the things I like about this game is that aside from the regular and event objectives, there is some ability to set your own goals on particular runs. For me at least, this usually comes when I'm getting close to a particular level, and decide to push through. So I tanked my way (the first time) to level 200, 300, 400, etc. I don't push it on every run of course.

As already mentioned there are some objectives that are most efficiently accomplished with a tank formation. At least for someone without millions of idols.

I agree with the OP.

why do you care what the troll thinks?

"something that you use at most 0.1% of the time (as you should) can hardly be called "major"..."
Let's just look at a single day played. Let's say a typical day is a run while sleeping, a run while at work, and a run in the evening.

Now for the first two runs I would do a quick set up, 10-15 minutes, and then let my auto clicker tend to the game while I'm afk. This results in a couple hours of dead time where the game is grinding. Before reset I'd spend 15-20 minutes tanking, which is then made up during the 'dead' time.

For the third run I'd be doing other things things while the game is running, but just come back to the game to periodically for a second to hit the level all, upgrade all, and formation buttons. And of 'course we'll add the 15-20 minutes of tanking at the end of the run.

Now let's pretend to make two pie charts of time spent. There are three fields: instakilling, tanking, and grinding.

Chart one is for a 24 hour period(run time), on this one tanking is the smallest part(1% or less), grinding is the second largest, and instakilling is the largest.

Chart two is time spent on the game(play time), it doesn't take into account time spent away from the game so grinding is the smallest part on this graph. The rest of the graph is split between instakilling and tanking. In the typical day played scenario above tanking would be the larger half or at least only slightly smaller.

When I think of game play time I always think of chart two. Making it a major part from my perspective.

This conversation is just going in a loop now...

My apologies for the tardy reply, everyone. Took a weekend-long trip. Hope you didn't miss me too much.

"Please feel free to offer up any 'evidence' you may find of me switching sides". Refer to my post on Wednesday, May 3rd, at 3:17pm. I believe the timestamps are static based on CNE's headquarters, not changed to fit each person's time zone.

"important" - Nobody has argued that it is unimportant, only that it's importance is limited to uncommon circumstances.

"effective" - (See above)

"intended" - .....What? Of course it is intended. How does someone ACCIDENTALLY code an entire mechanic into a game? This was a redundant adjective to use.

"major" - You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (Credit to the ever-glorious Princess Bride)

"integral" - Yes, but barely. Excessively barely. As has been said plenty of times before, it's usefulness is uncommon. It is VERY useful and integral to those parts, but those parts take up a great minority of the game.

Your entire "graph" situation makes no sense outside of your own head. Yeah, "time actually spent in the game" is different than "time spent away while the game plays itself", but two major (using that word correctly here) factors are being skewed.

1) Auto-clickers. The devs know people use them, and that is fine, but you're making an argument about gameplay while using a factor that isn't even part of the game. You're skewing the results by using out-of-game influence in your in-game analysis.

2) More importantly, you're using your own experiences as a basis for the analysis without realizing that you are playing inefficiently. 15-20 minutes of tanking at the end of a run before resetting? For what? 10 areas? Even for people with minimal idols, that is a waste of time. Those 10 levels might amount to more 25-sets of levels to push slightly further, but the time invested into this process is better-used just starting a new run. 20 minutes for MAYBE 10 areas, or reset and use those 20 minutes to get through the first 20-ish areas? And you have at least decent gear on Billy with Mindy mimicking him, so you'd get even farther than that within 20 minutes. You are intentionally wasting your time and using that as your "rational argument" in favor of tanking not being a waste of time.