70 Posts

Just one comment. I prefer the bushes. I'd much rather walk up to the bush when I want to battle, then wander around in the grass forever and ever.

But I agree with you on the energy.

20 Posts

Hi David,

I understand and respect the fact that you guys made the choice for the battle system and that the game is based around that choice. Can I ask why you guys didn't consider or choose a system where you could initiate X battles (and have free reign from within each battle)? Do you consider that to be relatively the same as a heal based system?

The reason I would prefer being charged upfront per battle (over both a heal based or round based system) is because I think it actually adds significantly more gameplay and fun, while not necessarily costing more development resources. I will agree with you that (within the current system) the strategy that nets you the fewest rounds is the best.

But where I disagree with you is that the current system discourages the creation and experimentation of new strategies (which I think is as fun -or more fun- than employing the best strategy once you have figured it out). Knowing when to use abilities like Sunder and Work Up is probably integral to developing strategies to use later in the game...but the current system really penalizes that experimentation because each round costs energy. I _could_ use those abilities to see what they do and how they alter the battle, but like you said, since I already know the best strategy (which by definition uses the least energy, allowing me to play more), what incentive do I have to experiment? You could argue it's so that I can potentially develop better strategies later, but the risk vs reward in that situation is just lacking to me. The risk is spending energy (and limiting play time) to maybe come up with a better strategy. The reward is achieving that strategy, which I may not even fully realize depending on the outcome (i.e. it may take seeing a strategy more than once for me to figure out it is superior to something else).

When you are limited to the number of rounds you can play, experimenting seems like it could be a bad idea. If we were limited to the number of battles we could play, then experimenting seems like it would be encouraged. Ultimately (to me) it seems that either energy system will end up limiting the number of battles a player participates in, and I think the way the current system achieves that is not as fun as another system. Of course, if you are actually trying to limit the length of time a player plays (as opposed to the number of battles), then I can see how you would prefer the current system. And I think, from a player's perspective, that's not as much fun either =)

-Joe

157 Posts

WOW Joe explained it better then I could of but David you make a good point, trying to figure out how much energy it would cost upfront is very difficult, thanks for clearing it up for me :D

21 Posts

I'd like to throw my two unnecesary cents in here and say that if you made fights fixed cost thereby reducing energy usage, you'd run out of content to explore really fast.

I did like bw multiplier system. I remember racking 15k energy off lucky fruit drops (didn't last very long, but still). Is there any chance of something like that? I'm guessing you guys want to break away from bushwhacker but and energy gambling mechanic would be a nice addition.

20 Posts

Hey David,

You made some really good points. I decided to play the game more to have a better feel for the xp/energy system. After playing for a couple weeks more I'd like to throw in my experience.

I think these questions that you raised are the most important (your other questions I think would really just be a preference of how much you wanted/thought players should play):

1: If the cost is based on the number of guardians you are battling what happens if the player loses right away? is all the upfront cost lost?
- After playing for a couple of weeks, it seems to me that this never happens. There are too many gates (trainers stopping you to battle) that you can't really get yourself in a position where you are fighting so much stronger guardians that the battle is over so quick as a loss. Unless you went into battle with near dead guardians, although then the player should be expecting a loss I would think =) I wonder, do you have data on how many rounds the average player spends in combat? To give you guys some kudos, I think you have done a great job with the gating so that this doesn't happen! Of course, the easy way to fix this would be to simply refund all energy spent on a loss. Since the player didn't gain anything (other than fun and knowledge), I don't see why the cost couldn't be refunded.


2: If the cost isn't based on the number of guardians you are battling how do you limit the rewards and xp given in a way that doesn't mean you lose out by battling one guardian only?
- Given that the scenario in question #1 never happens to me, and seems unlikely in general (of course, you might have data that says otherwise), I would personally not see a problem basing the cost off the # of guardians in a battle, if that's what you wanted. If anything, I think this system gives you more flexibility in the sense that trainers guarding a treasure or an exit could cost more to battle (being a way to throttle how fast players get to things, or the rewards they guard).

3: If the players guardians are more powerful than the opponents and the battle will be over quickly should it cost less? if so how do you determine this cost difference?
- I think this is the most interesting question, because right now I feel like the exact opposite is true. From all the battling I have done, it seems to me that unless I get lucky with critical hits, or face an entire team of the same element (allowing me to exploit the element weakness without swapping) (which you guys generally, if not totally, avoid), the ratio of energy-xp is actually BETTER when I battle weaker guardians.

For example, I took my level 17 Kowa to battle in the Deep Forest. Playing (what I felt to be) optimal, I got around 54 xp per energy against wild guardians (if I got a crit, it was 68 xp per energy). Against a trainer, I got around 51 xp per energy. I probably could have done a little better, though. But if I go to the Southern Forest using a level 17 guardian, I get 76 xp per energy. And it's easy (just use quick attack), and it's not risky. And it's even more advantageous to fight a weak trainer because you can exploit their elemental weaknesses and get energy after you beat them. Hopefully I didn't just let out a dirty little secret =)

So from a min/max perspective, it seems better to just fight lower level guardians and trainers than to fight higher level guardians and trainers. I would argue a fixed system would discourage this, and encourage longer, more strategic battles against harder opponents (what I would say is fun).

I know you guys are in a hard place, because no matter what you do, people will complain about your choices (I've been there!) =P Given that you've said changing the energy system would be too much of a change, I'm not sure what the goal of this post is...

To comment about the strategic nature of the battles at this stage in the game for me: I still feel a little hamstrung. If I want to try something like, using Toughen Up a bunch of times at start of a trainer battle, or using one guardian to Dirt Cloud another a bunch of times before swapping out, I feel like those might be fun things to do, but all the energy required for them makes it not worth it. Especially when I can just run around the lowest level area and plow through the easy fights there. It's not fun, but the min/maxer inside me says it's the "right" thing to do to level up (I don't ALWAYS just do that, but I wouldn't be surprised if people do). Your point that energy refreshes fairly quickly is well taken, but one thing I really don't like is having to constantly return (or feel like I have to) to the game after a short period of time. I would rather play and have fun for X minutes, then come back later in the night and play again. I think a lot of people feel this way. As it stands now, I get more play time (but less fun) out of battling in the lower areas.

Sorry for the long post, if anyone has made it to the end =) I do still enjoy playing the game, although I'm interested to see if/how later content encourages the usage of more than just 4 guardians.

81 Posts

the other thing is I use jellybeans on everything EXCEPT energy. I feel like the way the game is now you play for 25min in the afternoon after work then i play for 6min at night. In fact i can say that i now continue to play only because of the community. I'm not sayin its a bad game just got frustrating very quickly. I just don't understand how you can justify me spending $50 on this game so i can play for maybe an extra 30min. Bush wackers you spend $50 and you can play for most of the day with stuff leftover. I just hope you guys can find a way to satisfy the majority of the people.
V/R Michael O.

339 Posts

in conclusion, you only made whats best for you guys, good to know that :D

301 Posts

Hi David,

Thanks for covering a small bit of what I said and now my turn again. hehehe I'll try not to write another novel here but no promises.

"Most Facebook games operate on a system of free to play for a given amount each day, and pay to play more. The game pays its bills by selling additional play time to players. So if we let players play an unlimited amount each day we would have nothing to sell, and the game could not exist."

I'm not saying to make it a free for all. In my example of Farmville they have ways for you to have/want to spend money for the game and they are still available to play all day. I only made the one example because I thought it would be enough. I guess I was wrong. So another example of games that can be played constantly all day, from here on I'll use free to play, if someone wanted to would be Bejeweled Blitz. In that game you have one minute to make all the matches possible of the gems on the screen. There is no real limit in Bejeweled for how long you can play other then a person getting tired or having other non FB things to do. My other half plays it whenever he's not busy with things like work or sleeping or such things. In Bejeweled they have coins that you can earn or buy in the game. They have a cap on each game with the chance of earning no more then 1500 coins, unless you harvest(buy) a specific rare gem for the game. That might sound like alot for someone who hasn't played but it's not easy to get that many each game also the 5 special boosts for the game that you can buy with the coins while reasonably priced aren't cheap. Their boosts cost 6000, 3000, 4000, 4500, and 7500. A player can choose up to 3 to use before starting a game and they last for 3 games so the minimum you would have to have to buy even the 3 cheapest, I wouldn't suggest this btw having played the game myself, would be 11500 coins, the best combination of boosts I have found however costs 17500 to get. As I said I have played the game too so I can say personally on average I can make 500-800 coins each game without boosts. Also even if you use boosts you don't necessarily get many more coins through the game round. On top of this they have another feature, rare gems, that use ALOT more coins varying from the most common rare gem being worth 25,000 to the highest being 75,000. Simply put you can either play alot to have coins to buy the rare gems and/or use boosts OR you can buy the coins for the game. Also in regards to Bejeweled they also have the option of a independent version that can be installed on you computer to play outside of Facebook you just have to pay a nominal fee to get the full version and as an enticement for people to buy the game to install they also offer a million coins for buying it to be added to your FB coin total in the game. The installable version can be played with ot without connecting it to Facebook also.

Another example is a knock off of Bejeweled Blitz but it has it's own theme based off of a 80's movie, Back to the future. It doesn't have everything that Bejeweled Blitz does but they are an endless gameplay game on FB. Another example of a free to play type game would be Scrabble. The only limit in this game is having the other player there to play. However in Scrabble you can, so far as I can tell, play as many different games as you wish so while the other player of one game might not be online atm other players can be. Farkle is yet another game that is essentially free to play. You have two choices on how to play there you can play unlimited simple games or you can duel with other players who are currently online. The only limit on playing the duels is that games chips, but if you keep winning you keep getting more coins so still sorta unlimited.

The next game I will choose as an example, while it has a set amount of energy with the way it is setup it is virtually free to play but not totally, would be Gardens of Time. In GoT a player starts with so much energy which refills similar to here, only for them it's 1 energy per 3 minutes. The way they have game play setup it takes 10 energy to start a game round and it's a hidden picture game. Once you use up all your energy you can proceed with visiting friends and you get an energy from each friend you visit, until you hit a certain cap, At their place you can "hide" a gift, which is completely randomized by the game, and you get something random for "hiding" the gift at the persons place from simply coins for buying things for your place or another Energy. There is also someone that you can help at their place which starts a free timed game that you can play to get more XP and coins based on how many items you can find. So it is possible to play through your Energy and get it back to keep playing for quite awhile before you would have to take a break. Now in this example you also have the option, for people who don't want to visit friends for energy, to buy their games premium credit to get an energy refill as well. The premium credits in their game also can be used to buy things you can't otherwise have on your place or special boards to play or collection pieces you need or a lot of other things that are there to keep people playing the game. The creators of GoT have also offered a month membership that gives people all sorts of goodies each month to keep giving them money.

I think I will stop with examples of other games here. I hope it makes the point I'm trying to make as far as restricting play in general. I'm also not promoting people leave Mystic Guardians for any of these other games either.

Now as far as what you said about XP. I wasn't implying that people should be able to get to level 50 while waiting for the next area to open up. What I was talking about is how the Players XP is handled AFTER you unlock the soft cap to a new high. (BTW Joe I know what was said in that thread and that you were the one who said it I haven't found the other thread you had been taking about. So when I brought it up here I had figured I'd either be told where the other thread is OR the correct answer and so far I have neither) Now with all that being said can I please have an answer about the XP? I am ONLY talking in reference to the Players XP not Guardians. I have ZERO problems with the way you are soft capping them that makes sense, at least as I understand it they are soft capped as well. My issue would be if from my previous example of being 15 XP short of making 7 before you adjust the cap level is all that XP wasted or does it go towards the other levels? As I understand it when a person levels up all that happens is they get, so far at least, 1 more energy, a Jelly Bean and the Energy refilled if it isn't already full. If there is more to it with the player level up please enlighten us all :D otherwise what is the downside for someone to get the credit they earned?

That covers two of the things you answered out of all my post now for other things you brought up or failed to answer or I forgot to mention in my original post.

I would like to point out that I wasn't implying that you shouldn't try to reap some sort of benefits for creating the game here. All I was saying earlier, here or in other threads, was that there are other ways of getting funds into the game. Also if you happened to catch one of my other posts as far as making money from the game goes I am certainly not against it I just think there are other ways to do it. Like I said in regards to making it easier to play longer it would actually encourage people to buy things like Jelly Beans for example.

Don't get me wrong I DO understand that there isn't alot that is open in the game yet. All I've been saying is maybe more should have been made ready to open the game to start with. So people aren't getting frustrated with the fact that now it is just a waiting game for the next part of the game being opened up. Is there even a estimate on when the next part might be opening up for people to continue playing?

Which brings me to my next point as far as what I said in another post about perhaps locking things I will do a little more clarification on this idea. The way I see it there are a couple different ways this could be done. Either everyone who plays data is saved for where they are what they have levels all that fun stuff and the Beta is closed until all the work can be done OR Don't allow any new players in however the people who are here can be the testers for the game if they choose. I personally would be willing to be a tester for the game heck I'd be willing to come on board the team and help with brainstorming and things of that nature. Yes I may not have the programming or design skills but I do have a great mind that can come up with some great ideas that could benefit the DJ Arts team. *wink wink*

Before I end this I also want to make something clear. I'm not just trying to find things to complain and whine about. As far as I can tell so far I have more or less only really gone on about things that really matter to keeping players from leaving the game. I really DO like the game so far. I see ALOT of potential in the game. I have played many games on FB over the years and I have never gotten this involved with speaking up about things to help a game. I do it here because I think this game has a great start and could potentially take he lead as one of the best/most played games on Facebook. I like the game so far and think these are all some level of importance to solve before the game gets even bigger.

Now I will finally end this with THANK YOU for taking the time to read all my rant here and sorry I guess it did sorta become a novel.

13 Posts

Hi David,

I still can't agree on the decision to limit the playtime: the cool thing about RPGs is that the player is given the freedom to decide the amount of time to spend in the game,so if you have just little time to spend in it, you can progress slower but still on a solid basis. Personally, games that decide for me what is the right amount of time I can spend playing don't match my idea of well thought out games (NOT SAYING MYSTIC GUARDIANS IS A BAD GAME, THOUGH). Now, I'm well aware that any game needs incomes to survive, but I don't think selling playtime is a good idea: we have a barn that could be used for that,selling special crops that produce special items, or adding decorations that boost your money income, exp gained in battle and stuff like that. Also, premium capture discs with higher catch rates. Possibilities are endless.

Now, the soft caps. Well, I can't really disagree with you on this one: a soft cap is always better than a complete cap with no progression at all. I'd just like that this wouldn't apply to the Guardians but only on te player (I'm as curious as a monkey to see how a completely evolved Guardian would perform on team XD)

The limitations about gifts and helps. That's just annoying. This morning I had the possibility to evolve a Guardian, but couldn't because I was able o ask my friends only one evolutionary item. I think the maximum amount should be raised: quite every other games I played on FB lets you send and receive more gifts.

I hope I haven't been offensive, measuring words if you're not an English speaker sometimes can be hard! :)

Carlo