I personally find the pre-selection quite off-putting :( What I like in the old layout is that I didn't feel like the choice of weapon was dictated to me; no weapons were greyed out and they were therefore of equal importance for my consideration. Another problem I have with the grey-ing out is that it makes it harder for me to recognise weapons I have in my set. I work better with images all at their full opacity. Juggling weapons also feels quite clumsy, because if you want to keep one of the two pre-selected weapons, the computer will decide which one to keep and which one to drop, unless you toggle the tiny blue arrow to change the order of priority. So some unnecessary clicking right there, when it is supposed to reduce clicking.

I do hope they will allow for us to choose between pre-selection and manual selection. I feel much more at home and perform more efficiently with the latter.

I get that feel too. I understand that a majority of battling for a majority of people is the daily grind that is battle quests. Yes battle quests are boring and the faster you can finish them the better. However, I feel this new layout doesn't do the tackling of new opponents justice. That is the exciting part,especially for people that have low tier pets they are training. There are a ton of new challengers to take on that require different strategies, a lot of which are based on paying attention to what your opponent does. I also find it a deterrent for new battlers. How does a battler know what two weapons they want in the first two slots? How familiar are they with their set if they can't easily see how many scrolls they have to use? How do they know the difference between pylonics and potions without visual cues? How do they know that battle text can be important if it's being hidden?

I think there needs to be a happy balance between getting through battle quests and using a layout that makes battling exciting for new opponents.

I also feel useless because I can't provide actionable feedback on better engaging players and developing a UI with good design priorities and information flow. All I can do is say I don't like it and am unlikely to use it because it drives me away from battling. And that doesn't mean much because people seem to largely be in love with it. And battling is a linchpin activity for me.

Honestly, it's not the clicking that bothers me about this. It's the distraction. For me, it's sort of like writing a check on magic paper (yes,, I know nobody writes checks anymore :-) ) where the check is already filled out with a default name, amount, etc. Since the paper is magic, the default goes away as I write - doesn't take any more time, right? Wrong. Because the default is there my brain has to process where I'm at and whether what's there is what I want or what was put there for me. I wrote in the payee, but is that the amount I really want to pay, or the default amount? It is really much easier and faster to write on a blank check form than the magic paper.

And it's okay when the battle is relatively easy and I'm awake. But when I'm fighting Surge I already know I will need to battle ten or twenty times to win. I'm trying to battle fast, sometimes it's late and I'm tired, I'm trying to pick which weapons to use, decide on my scroll, figure out if I should spend some sP and throw a potion to make finishing quicker, and whether the odds are reasonable that spending the sP will result in a win, and whether I will spend less or more sP than all the trips to the healer if I don't use the potion, and ... Plus, usually, I'm worrying that I'll beat him and then have to do it again! :-) A lot of those things are still something I really need to think hard about and I just can't seem to handle one extra little distraction. (Like the straw that broke the camel's back?)

Short version - when I'm battling Surge, I'm already more than fully occupied and the weapons popping back from my selection of the previous turn to something else totally confuses me. (At least for me, I don't care whether or not there's a preselection for the first turn. But once I've picked something, I want it to stay picked or be blank, not be replaced by something else.)

I do acknowledge, that I can now mindlessly click through the first 20 BQs super fast and easy (not much fun, but certainly a lot less tedious).

I think there's a pretty good split of some who like it and some who don't. I have noticed that a lot of the people who like it are using it to quickly beat BQs, which seems to be the way it was intended to be used, or have really high tier pets where having a good strategy isn't as important. I feel like it's made battling quicker but not necessarily fun.

I appreciate that, and has been battle-momming me through this.

I don't even have what could be called strategy, but I would never have progressed without reacting to challengers through appropriate weapon, item, and scroll choices. There is such a de-emphasis on the game play elements that trying to engage at any level other than auto-pilot is an aggravating experience.

BQ done! 30/30 😀

- I have been talking with as well. Just let me know anytime if you want to talk or complain. You are definitely not alone.

Goodness can I just give you a hug right now :'( for literally everything you said. I still remember having a hard time distinguishing all the Pylonics when I was around T6 or T8. I still occasionally mix up between the green, stat-boosting Regenerating Pylonic and the red, healing Revivifying Pylonic. Doesn't help that English is not my first language. I swear right now I don't even remember what the black, pink, orange and cream ones are called haha, much less what they're supposed to do. I'm glad that they're considering bringing the visual cues back. That would help a lot for new battlers (and those scatterbrained like me).

nitpick noted and right back at ya! (completely meant in love and humor!!!) :P If you accidentally clicked on the wrong weapon in the old system, it took an extra click to unselect it(The fact that you could accidentally have 3 weapons selected in the old system drove me CrAzY!). So even when you mess up you are saving clicks with the new system! :)

Haha of course you can =P Even just to equip the stuff I am missing, it was easy for me to see which shards and potions I needed to replenish. Now I am looking to see what names I am missing. It was easier the other way knowing as soon as I went into battle what was missing because I couldn't see it.

So the use of the Cobalt and Sancturia Exodin scrolls is basically a gamble then? But is it worth it to gamble for one turn instead of healing? Hmm..

I was only 3 books away from the extra alchemy point, so I went to subetalodge to find some missing ones :) The gotf is awesome on the little ones! I like battling with my smaller pets; with the tier 13 I can just roflstomp most opponents with whatever set. But with the smaller pets I actually need to look what kind of icons the opponent is dealing.

I just looked at my assortment of scrolls; I think I need more diverse icon blocking on my scrolls, preferably paired with some healing. I need to look into that.

Oh well; to continue what I started yesterday:

You Won! You have defeated Filantous 3 times! You earned 8100 sP for beating Filantous! Gode earned 670 EXP Points!

You Won! You have defeated Filantous 4 times! You earned 7290 sP for beating Filantous! Gode earned 744 EXP Points!

You Won! You have defeated Filantous 5 times! You earned 6561 sP for beating Filantous! Gode earned 827 EXP Points!

You Won! You have defeated Filantous 6 times! You earned 5905 sP for beating Filantous! Gode earned 919 EXP Points!

That last one cost me a few losses. Maybe I need to add in another blaster.

I had an interesting thought. If the problem that needs to be addressed is that Battle Quests are boring and need to be sped up so you can just get them over with, then why not address it by really getting them over with? Let me start at any Level I want. If my pet wins that level, give that pet the EXP for that battle and all the skipped levels. To accommodate those who want to do BQs with more than one pet, let me skip (up levels only) at any time. Example - I want to do the first five battle quests with my T3 so she can earn some experience. I choose Level 5 and battle the L5 challenger with my T3. When she wins she gets the EXP for Levels 1-5. Now I want to battle with my T9 - I choose Level 20 and battle that challenger. When she wins, my T9 now gets the EXP for Levels 6-20. She then tackles levels 21 - 25 one at a time earning EXP for each individual level as she goes. No downward skipping allowed. If you just want to make BQs faster, I can't think of any faster than no BQ at all. If you have a T13 pet that breezes through BQs daily, just breeze through Level 30 and done. Why bother boring those people to death making them mindlessly click through 30 battles each day at all? This is actually sort of a serious idea (although I'm sure it will need refinement). What do you all think?

Or else I literally opened a second tab and bought and equipped each potion as I used them. (Did you know you can do that? They don't show up in the current battle, of course, but they appear for the next one. I started doing that for Negating Pylonics after one too many times of going into battle without one when I had used it last time. :-) )

And I'd like to second that hug. You have a really good way of expressing some of these issues.

- congratulations on being able to equip both Aftershocks and GoTF. So glad to hear it's working as well for you as it did for me. Have fun!

Not a gamble, the scrolls offer more protection but that's it. When I use them I lose the extra heal and/or attack I would have gotten by using a different scroll. If I am blocking more per turn, then the added heal becomes irrelevant. The problem becomes when an enemy has multiple weapons that do damage in multiple icons I can't block. For example, I was just fighting saggi with my T9 pet. Saggi does a lot of light and dark damage most of the time, but has the potential to do wind, physical and fire as well. My pet focuses on blocking light and dark, but can't block all of it at T9. If I use the cobalt scroll however, I have the chance to block all the dark, fire and physical he does and partial block light with my weapons. If he instead uses the weapon that deals a lot of wind, then I am in trouble because now I'm not healing as much that turn and will take all the wind damage. Even worse, if he does double damage I want to make sure I will still survive. There are other opponents where cobalt will work 100% of the time because an enemy only ever deals the icons that scroll blocks against. In that case, I spread them out so that I am attacking a couple of turns, then defending with a scroll to allow me to heal with weapons.

Yeah I always hated when I bought stuff and equipped it before ending the battle. If you try to use a healing potion before you hit end battle (which I've done by accident numerous times when I'm in a hurry to start the next battle) you lose the healing potion and are forced to use another one to heal your pet once it's out of battle. I used to get paranoid the same thing would happen to my potions if I was still in battle.

I feel you all, for BQs and with my big pets, it's a blessing. Not so much otherwise.

I like the changes mostly with my big pets because I don't have much of a strat since I usually own the opponents. My small pets are the problems, it's been more of a hindrince than a blessing. Since I have to click extra to open the box and select the scroll that I want to use. I have to mix and match more with them to be effective since I don't have the same strat for every opponent.

You Won! You have defeated Lightning Sylph Cynde earned 1500 EXP Points!

Done for the day. Have a good one folks.

- thank you.

Exactly! With the easier battles there is no strategy and certainly no potions or shards! I just haven't battled with my smaller pets since this has changed, maybe tomorrow with new tbts, but I can see where it's going to be a pain with smaller pets, or larger pets in difficult battles.

Ah, all I can say is it's a good thing I had time to become reasonable and think between first trying the new UI and anyone talking to me about it.

I need to poke Prodigy, because I need to see if there's a sliver of hope or if Chums just gets crushed again. But nope.

Prodigy is a massive jerk thanks to his high strength and speed. What are your pet's stats? Definitely comes down to having the right equipment, strategy and some luck.

The healing potion is for when my pet lost and it was cheaper to heal with a potion instead of the healer. I would heal a small amount with the potion, then fight someone I could on hit kill and heal all the way.