I think that implementing a planned battle component to every single holiday would be a huge boon for building battle up. Like the boppers and Morostide.

Morostide is the best time of year for any battler, new or old, because of the sheer number of opponents that show up. It's so fun to watch Battle ignite with activity! Not every holiday has to be at THAT level, but it'd be nice for guys to show up with new loot as a guaranteed thing.

so you mentioned one of your goals is to make battling more appealing / accessible / approachable to non-battlers. i'd say i fit squarely in that target demographic you're describing, so here's my take on the matter.

[sup](I'M SO SORRY THIS GOT SO LONG I'M JUST TRYING TO BE HELPFUL 😭)[/sup]

yes i have a high-tier pet. yes i battle. no i am not "a battler." i don't like the mechanics of battling. i see them as nothing more than an obstacle to getting items and achievements. which, you know, fair. that's how games work. sometimes you want something and the way to get it involves doing something unpleasant, and you have to decide if you'd rather do that work to get the reward, or shell out tons of money to someone else who did the work instead.

but i guess to lay things out clearly, the beloathed mechanics in question would primarily constitute:

• having to go through all the weapons & scrolls and figure out which ones i should use in my set.
• having to go through all the mod crystals and figure out which ones do what and which ones are the best to use.
• the fact that there isn't really a singular "best" setup that you can just "set and forget," and in fact you're supposed to have multiple different sets, and in some cases multiple different copies of the same weapon with different modifications applied for different types of opponents.
• oh yeah, of course you're also supposed to find some sort of list of all the opponents and their attacks and what types of elemental damage they do so you can plan what to use against them.
• so not only do you have to plan all this out, you have to then acquire all the items and build your sets—mega expensive, but i get it; that's the game ain't it? if you're not willing to shell out for the top-tier stuff, you don't get to beat the top-tier opponents. trade-offs.
• then of course you have to select the right set for the right opponent. the way the "challenge opponent" page is currently set up, you have to scroll down to do this, which isn't so bad in and of itself; it's just that you're gonna be doing this A LOT, so it's a pain in the ass, hence why i don't even bother having more than one set. (and hence why i'm so functionally weak despite my pet's stats.) (did i mention i'm a certified lazy bitch? i am. i don't deny it.)
• then in battle, you can either leave the auto-select on and mash the button (my brilliant technique) or manually select different weapons and scrolls depending on what specifically is going on in the battle, which i guess can be its own point:
• wtf is going onnnn what does this all meannnn. there's flavor text but i ain't tasting it; am i supposed to be gleaning something useful from that? i see pictures for curses / status effects / whatever but you can't hover over them for explanations of what they're actually doing, it's not necessarily clear from the icons what attacks caused what, and so on. the mental bandwidth to parse this all out may be child's play to true battlers, but like i said, my brain just slides right off it, so i don't even bother trying to understand. (why would i want to expend my time and energy looking at all that information i can't even derive any meaning from when i just want to get through this battle and then a bunch more and then a bunch more after that to get cool stuff - slash - my perfectionistic sense of completionism >_<)
• this all sort of coalesces into my last point, which is: the clickingggggg god so much clicking. every shortcut i take is in pursuit of minimzing how much cursor movement and clicking i have to do. grinding out those gelatins gave me so much wrist pain, i couldn't bring myself to go past 500 minis even though i could have easily kept winning. like yeah it's a browser game, clicking is how you get anything done lol, but maybe there's room for streamlining or somesuch?

so ok, let's think this through. literally, i'm thinking as i type here. we're figuring it out together.

what can we do to mitigate those frustrations without just tossing it all out, because most of what i've just listed is stuff i'm pretty sure battlers actually LOVE about battling, and i would never want aspects of the game that people enjoy to be taken away from them just for the sake of appealing to the people who DON'T enjoy those things. because, you know, not everyone HAS to enjoy or want to engage with battling, just like not everyone has to want to dress up their avatar or make profiles & stories for their pets.

i think one thing that jumps out from my list is... lists. you have to go through a lot of them to actually make any decisions. but where are these lists? are they all in one official, centralized, easy-to-find place? can they be easily sorted and searched through based on tier/stats, elemental types, functions, etc? do they display all the information someone would need to make an informed decision? the answer to all these questions is NO! so maybe making that happen for everything battle related—opponents, weapons, scrolls, mod crystals, etc—would actually be a concretely good idea that would benefit everyone.

you also mentioned the idea for some sort of auto-battle system; if possible, i think it some sort of way to automate battles where you so blatantly outclass the opponent (like the mini gelatins) would at least reduce the playerbase's incidence of carpal tunnel...

but, apart from that, i'm not really sure what to make of the other things on my list; like i said, i'm pretty sure battlers actually like all that stuff, hence why i am definitely not one. maybe some brilliant people have additional thoughts on the matter.

i guess my point—if i have a point here, which i'm not sure i do—is that yes, it would be lovely to make battling more accessible & appealing to a broader range of players so it feels less "gatekeepy" as people seem to think it is (i've never thought of it that way; i just figure if you like it you like it and if you don't you don't). and sure, there are a few things we can do to make information more readily available so users can understand what they're actually getting into when they want to start battling.

but i'm just not sure if there's any sort of win-win situation you can finagle for a supposed middle ground between "people who enjoy this feature because of the fundamental mechanics listed above" and "people who would very much like to not have to deal with any of that."

idk idk like i said, just trying to lay everything out as clearly as possible so informed decisions can be contemplated.

Coming from a petsite where the optimal battle strategy is "equip 2 maces and good luck, if you tie use a cheap magnet", yes, Subeta's battle system is kinda overwhelming to say the least.

First of all, I think that there should be a consolidated list of all weapons, the things they do, and a list of opponents with all their possible attacks. This would make it a lot easier to find out the " correct" weapons to use for an opponent, something which I'm struggling with.

Second, the sP costs are insane for late game weapons. I get that high-tier battling is meant to be a long-term achievement, but given that quests are capped unlike on that other petsite, you can get up to 4M sP daily and compared to quests, other things give pennies.

So you can't expect me to shell out billions for T12 weapons. It's already a lot harder to get stats over on the high tiers, why should a single weapon require hundreds of days of grinding with a GA?

Both these things make me not really want to battle even though it might be great. If they are addressed, I'll be much more likely to spend more time battling on Subeta than I do now.

By the time you'll need endgame type weapons, you'll be at a point in your moneymaking where quests are a side order, not the main way of making income.

Most good weapons can be gotten for cheap by winning them. A lot of good ones are achievement rewards for winning battles.

I know I am not farming a CS challenger that I have to pay out precious CSC for!! Now if you want to pay for the CS challenger I will gladly throw a pokeball at it! If it is a Secret challenger I do not mind trying to catch them all🤣 Also if someone does not like battling you do not have to do it! I do not like some of the games but I do not diss them. I just battled for 6 hours for a Fanciful Box.

Regarding the current Unlock & Go vs. changing it:

Being real, if this was implemented with CS challengers I'd be pretty idk the word. Disappointed... disinterested? As a working adult (derogatory) with flighty fixations, I try to keep up with purchasing the CS challengers but I usually don't battle any of them until the stars align (this can take me many months).

That said I wouldn't mind seeing something like "pay 200csc to unlock this challenger now or pay nothing and play the will they won't they game for an unspecified amount of time to unlock it". But that's me personally, as I'd probably consider the free route for easier challengers/those that don't drop books.

I also don't mind the idea of changing up how to unlock challengers. Or tying them to tasks/achievements. Like idk. Toss x items into the rift, donate x items to the donation center, frag x crystals, x blue building quests, x amount of books read, so on so on. There's a bunch of NPCs, and challengers (ie: loot) from past plots, that could be recycled and heck tiers of achievements that could be made for weapons from the past (something like first having to unlock the challenger, then an achievement item to unlock a harder version, etc.?).

Absolutely unrelatedly-related, but in spirit of changing things + mentioning pokemon, I wouldn't mind seeing something like pogos raid system be used as a concept for boss battles... maybe combined with the typical manga/anime dungeon trope?

Pogo has a 1-5 star (tier) system for raid difficulty, and instead of different challengers per tier the tier/boss difficulty/loot would be tied to our pets. Taking a page from anime, dungeons have ranks and usually recommend x number of party members. Combine them and you get x tier 1-13 pets assigned to a boss battle to deal as much damage as possible. Rinse and repeat. I think the randomly selected assignment is already a thing for mystery melody (?) so it'd just be applied to user enters active pet, pet tier is x, once there's x users who fit this criteria enter battle. Instead of huge blocks of time just set a daily limit, like each pet can do a boss battle x times per day/boss is active on site for x days. Gives people in different timezones a chance to see how many people are around/willing in the forums before entering a battle, and let's people with multiple pets/limited time focus on different tier fights.

Assuming that concept would be less stressful on the servers, of course lol.

My gut reaction to the rng/roaming suggestion was a hard no. I come to Subeta in certain moods. I either want to spend my time questing, or battling, or RSing, or playing in my wardrobe. I don't want to have to do other activities in order to earn the right to do the one I was in the mood to do. I'm not sure if that's an accurate portrayal of what is being suggested, but it's what it sounded like to me.

I like the challenge of facing a new opponent and working to figure out what in my armory will combine into a good strategy, and being able to do that in one session (more or less). When you're trying to work out a strategy, having to wait to be "challenged" by that opponent again so you can try something different would be a real turn off.

But sometimes the post-10 wins farming for additional loot can be a real slog.

Would something like this work?

Battles 1-10 work as they do now. Opponent is available right away and continuously (whether normal release, unlocked "secret" release, or unlocked CSC release).

Battles 10+ are on some other system where the primary goal is farming for amulets/tomes/mods or other perks.

Outside of that, some of the things I'd like to see change for battling are just interface items....like equipping potions to a specific pet one by one is the worst. Just put all potions in a collective bucket to be used or not used by any pet in any battle.

I just want to see a button added to allow us to hop back into a battle with the set we are currently using. Still allow us to go back to change weapons if needed but another button to go right back into a fight and skip an extra page.....please I am begging you!

It would make farming during events and what not feel a little more quick!

Along with armory/spell library improvements so you can easily see what a weapon/spell does. Being able to sort by type (freeze steal, ect.), tier, ect. Together these things would go a long way for people understanding how weapons and spells work.

Jess's Challenger Guide, except probably simplified of each challenger page. Instead of saying exactly what each challenger's weapons do give a brief synopsis. Example Challenger X: no freezing, attacks with primarily water and dark icons, blocks primarily light icons and all fire icons. Though maybe an additional option see all weapons for people prefer to know everything. As an option is important because other people like figuring stuff out. Jess's guide: https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/893452

Metroid's seriously in-depth guide that explains ALL the mechanics: https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/876467

I do think a quick start guide for people should also be available for the people that want to jump in and learn as they go. There's a place for both kinds of people in battle.

This sounds fun. Maybe a total power ranking for a team. So I could have my main pet paired with a few other similar pets. Or could be my main pet and a hoard of low levels. As long as everyone is participating I would love to help littles topple a boss.

This comment does not reflect my opinions regarding the opening post or the recent war.

This is a common misconception. I've seen it in the recent war news post as well. You do not have to spend billions on late game weapons in order to be successful in battles. There are weapons that exist that you would have to pay billions for, but they are completely optional. You can earn some good infinite use weapons that block (insert element here) for late game. Just because people supposedly buy/sell these weapons for hundreds of millions/billions altogether doesn't mean you have to pay that price. You can train your pet and battle your way to those weapons. As an example, you can earn the components for Maniacal Essence from the Gelly War. That is a late game infinite use dark blocker. You can also earn the components for Maniacal Slappy Hand from the Gelly War. That is a late game infinite use earth blocker. You can earn an infinite use water blocker called Manifesting Weapon from the upcoming Morostide event. You can earn the components to make an infinite use magma blocker called Cronus from a cash shop challenger Meatslab. You can earn an infinite use light blocker called Hand of Goddessbane by beating the cash shop challenger with the same name. You can earn an infinite use ice blocker called Corrupted Shadow Sword by beating the cash shop challenger Final Corruption.

These are all late game weapons that you don't have to spend hundreds of millions or billions to obtain. You can earn them all from battling. The recent Gelly War also gave out a prize for the fifth win against Hydragellos which is a fire blocker. Assuming nothing changes, that means a late game fire blocker was also added to the list of weapons that can be earned through battling. The previous most 'accessible' late game fire blocker was locked behind a 750,000,000 price tag. I didn't have a fire blocker because of that price tag.

That leaves two elements - physical and wind. You can get a good late game wind blocker from user shops - Swashbuckle. You can also try earning it from Item Hunt, but you may pay more to complete those quests. Physical is the one element at this time that you can't earn a late game weapon to block. The Ether is 400,000,000 in the Millionaire Center. That price tag still isn't in the billions. I'm personally not a fan of it after the revamp because it doesn't dual block. I have done well enough without it.

I wanted to post this to make it clear that you do not have to spend billions or even hundreds of millions for weapons to sustain you in the late game. I sure didn't. Quests are my only reliable source of income as well. It is possible to succeed in battle without billions. My advice is to keep training and battling when you can. Do your Battle Quests and get your pet stronger. You'll be able to earn most of the weapons you'll ever need if you stay committed. Good luck!

For a weapons and scroll database I think it would be INCREDIBLY helpful if we could sort by multiple things like offensive icons, defensive icons, freezers, stealers, bombs, Infinite Use, OPB, heal, curses and blessing. I think being able to check multiple things at once would be helpful. Say I’m looking for a weapon that blocks fire and does dark icons, maybe I’m also looking for a healer, I click those things and get all weapons that apply (or no weapon shows up with that criteria).

Maybe each opponent could have a Recommended hover when you’re going to battle. Say

Recommended: :dmg:dark: :block🔥

The database (and armory too if possible!) could then sort weapons and you could find an optimal weapon.

I keep saying I’d love for there to be a way to make an official army of your pets. And then you can…have like. 4 vs 1 battles. Ideally for a boss: you pick four of your pets from your army to work together to damage the boss. Pet A is focused on healing the group while the other 3 attack as much as possible. Realistically I know that can’t happen, but I would love even an aesthetic thing of creating your army and naming it and so on.

But that’s something that intrigues only me most likely. Is it something we need? Not as much as we need some kind of storage closet for one use items or equipping them faster than how it is currently. Or addressing OP’s concerns about the accessibility of godlies. I would like that to be addressed as well because the OG godlies are easily targeted in cheating. We have witnessed a couple of cheaters flaunt OG godlies they pulled from illegally obtained godly boxes and it’s unfair that this continues to remain unaddressed. I don’t know if because there’s no idea what to do about these cheated boxes or what, but if you’re wary of cheaters, then you need to consider a better way to handle how OG godlies go out.

And I will reiterate what brokesafety said that OG godlies are NOT necessary to be a successful battler. You can have all the best weapons ever and still lose to Biting Cake cause you aren’t paying attention to what is happening in the battle interface. I find that is a major misconception, that you need the OG godlies to be the best at battling, but it’s been said multiple times for years, you do not need them. Why are they wanted then? Because yes they are functionally nice, because they were made that way to appease those who were unhappy about tiers being introduced. And then people also want them for the wearable aspect, which is totally fair. Some even want them for a pet’s TC or a gallery. I don’t know what the best solution is still but I think it’d be interesting to see what everyone thinks could work and if it would really.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Curses and blessings too. And while I respect that people really enjoy discovering this info themselves, I think all info should be available in case someone is getting stuck or hitting a wall. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to understand some mechanic when you've been throwing yourself at an opponent for ages and not getting any new information from it.

Yeah more or less something like that! Basically like the battle party would call for (example) 10 pets from the same tier in order to start, so the boss could be scaled to a specific tier or everyone is dealing similar damage.

A lot of ways that can work. Pogo technically has star/tiers and once it starts there's a set amount in of time to beat it by, but as long as one person is still battling you can heal your pokemon and jump back in. It'd depend on how you wanted it to work (fun vs. less stress on the servers); allotted time to deal as much damage as possible, until the last pet stands, bonus points for accomplishments in the battle(*), etc.

(* raids have some stuff like that for extra pokeballs. Most damage, landing the final blow, some other team/friend bonuses which could but wouldn't necessarily apply.)

But yeah theoretically, if it was possible, it'd be cool to be able to make a private group battle or random selection based off who's online and ready. The latter option helps with being online at odd hours, people who aren't keen on talking to others to be included, or to prevent any of the nonsense that's common with pogo (your party isn't good/strong enough you're just mooching off us to get a win) (not saying it'll happen but not not saying it'll happen).

i would love a page with what each stat booster does; i know you can sort the item directory to show you what boosters exist, but it would be nice if you didn't have to go to subetalodge or find a forum topic to show you what each one is for.

i revamped an old stat booster topic to fix broken scode but i have no idea if each of the items is accurate; i know at least two are wrong but idk if those are the only two... idk, i'm fine with user-run resources for where and how to get things (as in, x booster restocks at y shop or drops as z loot, activity x gives y stat), but a staff-confirmed list of what everything does would just be nice.

The last thing I imagined to come out of this thread was PoGo raids in subeta but honestly here for it.

Just want to say agreed with making weapon/scroll/mods/etc info more visible, agreed with focusing on battling during events (I believe there's lot of storytelling potential here)

Aaaand

Just stepping in to point at my original post again. I know you said your comment doesn't reflect your opinion on the recent war but you gave terrible examples of accesibility. The three weapons you mentioned from the war are now locked behind the achievement for defeating the Supreme Hydragellos 5 times, which is something capped pets are struggling with. Sure you can "earn" them but how in the world is that "accesible".

If we raise the stat cap, admittedly, it doesn't need to probably be more than an additional 5k (I only want the additional 5k to beef up some unique builds). 13 tiers is perfectly fine as is, the 13th is still relatively fresh and doesn't even have a weapon attached to the tier. Which I don't think it ever will, nor should it.

I don't quite understand the thing with seasons though. But i don't play Hearthstone, nor do I care about Hearthstone cause card games are not an interest for me. It's like Pokemon TCG, I don't get it. So I don't exactly get what you're saying at all. Can anyone translate Keith's post into simpler words for me, who is dumb and uneducated about card games.

Well, all I can say is keep training, and next Gelatin War, you should be able to earn those three weapons easily, so long as you try.

I'm sorry but nobody can say throwing 3 t11 weapons behind a t13 boss fight isn't terrible game design. It's not about "keep training", it's about keeping a game fun. Which was the whole point of the thread. If I wanted everything to stay as it currently is I wouldn't have bothered. Things have to change (and they will, thankfully)

Thanks for the updates, excited to see what the future holds. I didn't fully understand everything but until we try the new features, we won't know for sure. And I'm sure it WILL be a lot of trial and error. Also should go without saying, but still want to thank everyone for keeping the discussion civilized. I know it's a topic that carries a lot of strong (ha) opinions but y'all prove the battle community is the best part of the whole feature.