"Lefou, I've been thinking..."
"A dangerous pastime."
"I know."
I actually would have posted this to the "BATTLE! Bring it on!" thread, but someone decided that section was for moderators only. :glare: So I'll just have to start my own here.
Anyhoo, this represents my own biases about game play and such, so take it with a grain of salt; and by all means, please voice your own feelings as I am a feedback junkie. ^_^
On to the subject: I have several characters (which may be a bit of an understatement) ranging in levels from 6 up to 25, so I feel pretty familiar with battling within that range. For most of my characters, their daily routine is to fight 10 battles then spend the rest of their points exploring. Most of them are exploring at the minimum level for them to get XP in order to slow their leveling while building up their Fanucci hands.
Back when I started playing, I happily leapt upon the Fame Farm and milked enough fame cows to get my fame up to 100K for the achievement, and I bought St Quakko's Charms for them all. In hindsight, for me at least, I feel this was a mistake. Here's why: I, in essence, turned my characters into a never-ending supply of fame for the serious battlers out there.
Since my characters got fame without having the AR/DR to back it up, the guys (or girls) who have spent all their time tweaking themselves to high AR/DR values can latch onto one of mine like a leech, battle it every day, and get big injections of fame -- which, once you get over 100K, become tough to find. And thanks to St. Quakko's, I never lose any fame, only increase it, thus the "never-ending" bit.
I dunno*, maybe I'm just too competitive, but I cannot abide logging in and seeing notices from the same one or two or three people nearly every day saying I've been beat up. I mean, I fret about attacking the same person repeatedly when I'm fighting off the lists rather than the random opponents because I don't want someone to see my name popping up every day, like I've decided to pick on them or something, so I try not to pick the same names every time. (Since I don't keep notes, I'm sure my record is spotty at best.)**
So, for me personally, since I'm not really interested in seeing how high I can get in the rankings, I think buying the St Quakko's charm was a mistake. Either that, or hitting on the fame cows was. If all you want is that 100K achievement, my advice would be don't get the charm. Hit a couple of fame cows (really -- two or three is all it takes), get your 100K fame, then let it get bled off by the serious players. Eventually you'll lose enough of it that they'll move on to other targets. If you are interested in climbing the rankings ladder, then I'd say get the charm, but lay off the easy big fame targets until your AR/DR is at least 500 and you have a reasonable chance of getting higher soon. That will keep off all but the most dedicated twinks.
This raises the question: How do you get your AR/DR that high? Of course, the first answer is: Get your gambit up to 100 ASAP. And the only way you're going to do that is grind, grind, grind in explorations, because that's the only place you're going to get cards. The second answer is: Buy big weapons/spells/armor. The only way you're going to do that is to grind, grind, grind in battles, because that's the most efficient way to make money.
At this point, the astute reader (assuming anyone's actually read this far) will notice that you won't really be able to do both.
"But Syl," you say. "I see lots of people, some really low-level, with 100 gambits and high-level weapons. How'd they do it?"
Easy. They did one or more of the following:
1) They stopped leveling around 6 and did nothing but farm for cards in the Dark Forest. Then they either waited to get their gambit to 100, at which point they stopped farming cards and started farming battles, or they got up to, say, 50 and switched to some battles and some farming, probably around 50/50.
2) They got their clan to give them items, which they sold, saved the money and bought items of a higher level than their clan could give them.
3) They spent actual money on coconuts and bought their character money clips. (I don't know how prevalent this last one is, but I'm betting at least some players are doing it.)
Now, here in our clan, we tend to frown on people doing that second thing. I don't have a problem with that policy, but frankly, the only way (IMO) to build up a battle monster before level 20 or so is if you operate that way. Any clan that does support that sort of thing is going to have to a) assume anything they hand out is getting sold; and b) probably get much much more stringent on when and to who they give items; and c) they're going to need the guys (or girls) who have already become battle monsters to be buying those level 10 and 20 items for the clan armory on a regular basis to feed the next generation. Of course, there is a third way: Your battle monster buys items and donates them to the clan with a note to give it to your other, still growing, battle monster-to-be.
Anyway, I just wanted to get all that off my chest. If you made to the end, thanks for reading, and again, please post your own feedback.
* The spell checker has a problem with "leapt" but not "dunno"? Really?
**I wish LoZ had a feature another game I play has, to wit, showing how long it's been since a character's been active. If it was someone that hadn't logged in for a month or more, I wouldn't give a second thought to beating on them every day.
Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:47 pm by derfderf
Subject: Musings on Battle 
