So, I'm just posting a big list of things that I've come across, from myself or from others, that could make the game more interesting. I'm not going to mention stuff that I already know is coming (more campaigns, Idol spending); I'm trying to just stick with new ideas that help add interest to the game. These may be good or bad, depending on perspective (strategy versus game versus idle), so I'm just throwing them out there.

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First, let's start with what sets this game apart from the rest: Formation Suggestions. Right now, we are limited to the 10-man bowling pin triangle formation. We also have several abilities that interact with the formation: Jim, Sasha, Khouri, and Artaxes's DPS buffs, Emo and Hermit's limiters, Bush Whacker's Swordplay, Kaine's Gold buff, etc. All of these have to deal with two things: Columns, and adjacent spaces.

So with that in mind, any NEW formations would have to take those two elements into consideration. I've thought up of several workable formations that may be interesting. The one I like most is a 10-man hollow 3x4 rectangle or 12-man hollow 4x4 square. These would add new depth to the column logic, and make it easier to utilize Emo and Hermit. It would also remove the mass-buff effect of stacking Jim, Sasha, Artaxes, and Khouri, since the hollow center would not allow them to function the same.

Other ideas included a 10-man diamond shape (4-slot middle line, 3-slot triangles on each side), a 9- or 10-man H shape (two 4-slot columns), or for real challenges, reduce the number of slots down to 5-8, and use any shape therein, even a straight line. I'm certain there are plenty of designs that can work.

On top of the actual shape, we have how the formation slots are being used. Right now, there's only one gimmick in the game with the slots: the statue in the final campaign that takes up one slot. This can be built upon even better with dummy Crusaders, or even DPS/Gold-draining Crusaders that diminish your efforts as you go.

But how about buff/debuff spots on the slots themselves? In our triangle shape now, how different would it be if you put a 300% DPS buff on the front space, and on the three-man column, put 50% debuffs on each space? Or how about a shuffling lock that, for every stage, would reduce a single spot (or Crusader!)'s DPS to 0? Or even locking a Crusader to a specific spot, like forcing Bush Whacker to sit in the middle? All of these gimmicks would force us to rework our current dominant strategy.

So we have quite a bit of potential in new formations and formation gimmicks. How would they be used? Well, it would be difficult to just buy and/or interchange them. If one of them was worse than another, no one would ever use it. So instead, I think the best way to implement these is in new campaigns that require us to utilize them. It would add replayability to the repetition we have now, for one. You could also offer Rubies or other rewards for completing them, so players would definitely branch out.

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Speaking of new campaigns, there's also some potential in adjusting the difficulty of the game. I'm not just talking about scaling, although that could work. But what about a sort of challenge-rush mode, where you are limited in Gold or unlockable crusaders? Say your goal is to beat stage 100, but you have to do it without Nate and Merci. Or all normal enemies drop 5% gold, but bosses drop 500% on the first kill? Limiting abilities, adjusting the DPS:Click Damage ratio... You could even add in time trials with these limitations, and give us unique rewards as something to push toward.

The goal of new difficulty challenges would be to change the way we look at the game. Right now, the rinse, reset, repeat method is fairly monotonous. I start over, unlock Crusaders as I go, level them up to 100 around stage 60, level Nate up to 100 at stage 80, and grind to a reset at 92. This doesn't change no matter how strong I get. It would be nice to see something different, and be rewarded for continuing to play it.

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The last major part of the game is treasures and equips. These are... frustrating, for players who have reached the reset-pattern I described above. I've already talked about how to improve them elsewhere, but I want to go into development suggestions instead of just asking for more.

So, as has been stated, there are 240+16 unique pieces of gear to find, 3 for each of 20 Crusaders of 4 varying rarities. However, only the Common and Uncommon rarities are "easy finds," and even then at a certain point you're more likely to get duplicates. Jeweled Chests promise rare and above, but that may only be for one piece of rare gear or a handful of buffs instead. Basically what I draw from this is that no player will ever have every epic in the game.

That's not inherently a bad thing, but it becomes one when no player has more than 2 epics from 4-6 Jeweled Chests across MANY reset runs. On top of that, the players that have the epics note huge differences in their formations. There should be some way to make up this difference. I remain adamant that no idle game should use LUCK to hinder your progress.

Because of that, how about this: Enchantments and Idols both give diminishing returns after a while. Why not be able to spend them on more Jeweled Chests, or a new type of chest like "Magic Chests" or something? And in those, adjust the drop rates of gear, so that we no longer get uncommon gear or at the very least, our chances of getting epic GEAR are much higher, way higher than buffs. Failing that, let us spend something on our Jeweled Chests to allow for a redraw, or even to limit it with a No Buffs spell or something. Anything to help our chances, because right now they are virtually none.

I would understand if you wanted epics to be the core of your game's longevity, but players don't look at them that way. They look at epics like something they deserve, especially after resetting 50 times and still hitting a wall so huge they need either a single epic or 20 more resets to get over it. When your epics give such a strong boost, it truly does make the game more about luck. It makes those who can't even get chests to drop, much less jeweled chests with epic gear, feel like they are falling behind and will never catch up. And that's just no good.

If you really want longevity after that, add in a new class of gear: Legendary/Exotic/Unique, that can only be gotten by fulfilling requirements of some sort. Three requirements, and each one offers a piece of awesome gear. The first of which can be, get all three epics on that Crusader! That removes the luck value, and gives the control back to the players.

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I think I've addressed all the elements of the game that aren't currently being worked on. I assume more achievements are coming, I assume balancing and ability tweaking is coming, and I assume you've played with the idea of more Crusaders on the team. So the last thing I want to talk about is connectivity.

I don't know how open y'all are to this, because right now this game lacks all forms of connectivity. You don't even need to create an account name or anything - you just load up your flash site and start playing. However, many in my chat would like a way to help influence their friends - for free of course, not money-grubbing like every facebook game out there. So if you were to add in a friendship or guild system, that would be nice.

There's literally limitless potential here, so I won't go into much. But looping back to my suggestions already: You could mail your friends a chest or buff a day, you could use the guild to facilitate more chests, or send your duplicate equips to. You could have guild campaigns, where each player contributes Idols to increase the DPS and Gold totals in order to pass certain stages or something. You could have "borrowed Crusaders" where you send a high-level Crusader to your friend in the form of a buff, and upon activating it, they would gain that Crusader's DPS for 5 minutes or so. I could go on and on, but I hope you see how much there is to this.

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WHEW. That was a lot. I'm sure there are typos galore in there. I won't be making a thread like this again, so I apologize for the massive wall. If you read this, devs, I thank you for your time, and even if you ignore all of it just knowing you saw it is appreciation enough. If anyone else wants to comment on anything, feel free, although I might not respond personally - these were just unrefined ideas I came up with on the fly. And maybe it's all useless - maybe the devs just want advertising revenue from a relaxed, easy-to-play idle game. But I had fun thinking of these, so I figured, why the heck not post em. :D

Hi Lloyd,

Thanks for the suggestions. They're quite interesting. I wonder what you take on the new campaign and missions are, in regards to difficulty/different formations you mention above?

Erika