Q1: I can see why some would want to get rid of the training center, but...I'm reluctant to agree. For one thing, as people have already mentioned, pet jobs. I'll admit that a few times I've just put some small pets through a few BQs just to help speed things along. But honestly I would much rather let my dedicated battling pets have the exp from BQs and actual battling, and use the Training Center for the ones just trying to progress in their jobs. If that were no longer an option, I could adapt, sure. But I can't say I'd be happy about it, nor would it really change how I felt about training and battling in general.

Secondly, I migrated here from Neopets many moons ago, and honestly, their whole training with codestones method was an absolute pain in the ass. I never got very far in battling there because after a certain point I just couldn't be bothered to hunt down a fresh set of codestones every single time I wanted to train my pet. When I first came to Subeta and decided to try battling here, the Training Center was a breath of fresh air. Consistent sP prices that scaled as your pet raised in level! No jumping through stupid hoops! Just put them in and go about your business! I loved it.

Speaking of business, I have a full-time job now where my internet usage is monitored. Meaning I don't always have a few hours to grind out battles every day, but I can usually squeeze in a moment or two to re-enroll my pets in training. Will it take longer to grow my pet this way? Pretty sure it will, yeah. Do I care? Nope.

In short, yeah, I guess you could drop the training center if you really wanted to, but I strongly suggest considering all the consequences of doing so first. Because it won't just affect battlers. And if what I've read on the forums in the past is any indication, a lot of players would be pissed if they were essentially forced to battle.

Q2: As you can probably imagine from my answer to question 1, I'm fine with all the options we have now. I would like to echo ColdDragon's observation that most people don't know about them, and that most beginners get frustrated because they think that the training center/exp/whatever is the only way to grow a pet. And yeah, if you're only using one method, it can feel sluggish and unrewarding. I don't know if revamping the entire training system would help that; I guess it depends on how it's done.

Didn't go through each post so not sure if this was mentioned already but just to add to my previous post...

For the Training Centre, would love it if we could select the pets that we want to train for whichever stats and then just need to click one button to put them all in training.

And also a similar function for when pets are done training where we'd just need to click one button to take them all out of the courses and the page would list out all the stats gained for each pet.

Right now we have to put pets into training one by one and when courses are done, we have to click Done for every pet and repeat the cycle. It gets pretty tedious and tiring when you're training multiple pets.

Late to the party but:

Q1: I am absolutely in the minority when I say this, but I do not use the training center. If it was mysteriously gone one day, I would neither care nor notice. I only stat up the pets I use to battle, and I primarily gain my stats through daily battle quests, boosters, and battling new opponents (also catching up on the ones I've missed over the past few years). I wouldn't want to see boosters go, because I like earning them from fights and using them to stat up my side pets.

Q2: Intelligence and AP are brutal. I felt punished for not min-maxing my gains or understanding the system when I first started reading books. Garrus, my T8 (who was the first pet I started training) has read nearly 400 more books than Princess, my T12. However, he has half the AP because I a) didn't understand the AP system when I first started training him, b) didn't utilize boosters for intel initially and c) didn't keep track of my intel gains so I could strategically read books every 16 intelligence. This is all to say that with only so many books available and even fewer reasonably priced for me now, I no longer use them to gain intelligence, and I instead keep a stash of them to read when I know I'm close to/going to get an AP point out of it because I feel like I wasted so many books previously by reading them willy nilly. I wish AP wasn't tied to book reading so I could feel like I could stop saving books specifically for AP gains and instead just read them as I get them.

Had a bit of a thought, how about for a method to increase your pet's intel, when you do Library quests, you might randomly get an intel boost between 1-3 points for each quest completed. It goes to your active pet so you just change your active pet obviously.

I'd probably quit battling if the only way to progress was through battling. I do this to relax, I don't want to make this a job. I don't battle or quest every day, but I do train my pets, it's one of the things that keeps me coming back every day.

I skimmed, so I don't know if it's already been said, but in addition to a lot of good points I've seen made- if you just want a pet to have enough stats to attain a certain job title- for example Sag's "Arm Candy" or Quentin's "Secret Keeper" very well may not want to battle those pets at all. Training is THE best way to achieve this!

Q 1: What do you think about a system where the only way that your pets progress is by battling and spending experience

Fuck No.

most of my pets only gain stats via training. battling is a tedious unfun clickfest that exists only to aggravate my carpal tunnel. (maybe the more difficult enemies are fun? i can't win below the first row so i have no idea)

currently, i'm using stats to add more flavour to my pets. keening has strength only; wraithguard defense only. i'm working to getting leare's stats to match his lore. you get the idea.

if you make it so pets can only gain stats by battling, i'll just be hiding the stats thing entirely on profiles and pretending they don't exist because i am Not spending hours every day battling for flavour when i could do literally anything else with my free time.

Q 2: Generally how do you feel about the way that pets gain stats now?

it is So Slow. i actually think you're looking in the wrong direction here: the timer on training should be reduced so it can be done more often.

i also resent the level system.

it's some weird cap on how high individual stats can go and...i cannot understand why it works like this. why does it matter?

why can't a level 1 pet have 250 hp? if this were possible, the pet would still have 250hp - level doesn't Do anything except act as a cap for stats, so the pet would still function exactly the same as it does right now.

if this were possible, it would also allow much more interesting choices in flavour-statting (in particular, i can think of a couple of fancharacters i'd love to make pets of if level were no longer tied to stats)

the current level system only exists as an annoyance. if untying it from stats isn't an option, consider just...outright removing it entirely. it adds nothing.

oh yeah, and why isn't intelligence in the training centre? it should be.

EDIT: i've read the thread and i have more things to say.

i've seen several new pieces of information in this post and understood almost none of it. let me describe to you my battling experience:

i only discovered (or, possibly, rediscovered? i remember almost nothing of my first couple of weeks on site years ago) battling because there's a link to it on the minigames page.

first of all, why is it there? why is it only there? this is a general complaint that i think i've expressed before: navigating this site is a mess. the drop-down menus contain some things; those same subheadings in the sidebar contain other things. some things can only be found in the sidebar, some only in the drop-down. and i seem to recall i had to enable the sidebar in an impossible-to-find submenu somewhere? all i know is if one day it randomly gets disabled, i may not know how to turn it back on again.

i only checked the games link because i was looking for 2048 (the sole minigame i remember subeta having). i might never have discovered battling if i hadn't one day randomly decided i really wanted to play 2048.

battling itself was a mystery to me. i had nothing but questions.

• why does choosing an attack work like that?

• how do i know what any of these pictures do? nothing appears on hover. am i supposed to just pick them randomly? (i did)

• what's the point of using a shield as my attack? all it does is waste my turn and get me killed. why can't i wear the shield? why isn't it just always a part of my armour?

• oh the feather heals me? the feather heals me? what. (now that i know this is a theme i assume all feathers heal but why is this the theme for healing items? it's utterly unintuitive.)

• what are scroll sets? how do i get them? the scroll sets page explains nothing.

• what do those little icons in the armoury mean? do they matter? currently i only care about the number because i have no way of knowing what they mean.

• oh i can pick two attacks per turn? neat. (discovered when trying to change a selection and instead seeing it appear beside my existing choice. i soon discovered shields remain useless because it's far better to just pick two weapons.)

• why does a picture sometimes appear above my pet? what is that? a minipet? what does it mean? nothing appears on hover.

• how do i not die? why did i die? how do i avoid that next time? how do i learn what i need to know to figure that out?

• why are weapons locked to a tier? how do i change my pet's tier? how do i find new weapons? how do i know what tier they are when nothing shows on hover in the fucking shops?

• what is AP? action points? does that effect the number of actions i get per turn? how do i get more? how do i know if i'm using them? i only seem to be able to pick two items per turn no matter what. is AP broken? does it actually do anything?

• why doesn't information about an item's battle-usefulness appear in the hoverbox? i'm probably selling/junking useful items because i literally have no way of knowing they're useful without opening my inventory, opening the item in a new tab, and looking. i'm not doing that for every item that passes through my inventory.

it is only reading this thread that i even understand AP is linked to intelligence. i still don't know the answer to any of my AP-related questions, but it only reinforces my confusion about why intelligence isn't in the training centre.

i still don't know the answer to most of these questions. i have memorised the vague effect of each of my weapons but tbh i'm still picking randomly because i have no real way of comprehending the effect they have so it's impossible to actually use any strategy.

the large text field in the centre means absolutely nothing to me. normally i'm a big fan of text logs in turn-based combat games. subeta's battling text log has two main issues:

it actually feels like it doesn't explain anything and is just telling a story or something. i don't know what any of it means.

it disappears the next turn, so it's not really a log. this significantly reduces its usability.

the only pet i'm able to battle with is leare because tier-locking means it's the only pet i have that can use the weapons i bought. i bought those weapons because they're in a forum thread i found after some googling. i'm not buying new, worse weapons so my other pets can battle. leare, and leare only, is the one pet i will ever battle with.

honestly, battling as it is feels entirely random. i feel like i can't have a strategy because i don't understand it. i can't understand it because it is so agonisingly opaque, denying me information at any turn.

if you're trying to get more players to battle, removing the training centre won't do that. instead, make it both possible to understand battling, and more to the point, actually enjoyable to battle:

have a tutorial that explains how everything works. no, not those forum threads linked in the battle page. they're equally opaque and incomprehensible. an issue plagues guides like these: they only make sense to people who already understand what they're explaining. which means, they're incapable of serving their intended purpose.

improve the text log to be both persistent, and to better explain exactly what happened and what the player did to make those things happen.

add info on hover or just info in general to everything that is presently a meaningless picture.

show the effect the player's selected objects will have before the turn is confirmed.

display a warning when the player's turn is likely to result in their death.

find a way to reduce the agonising clicking. in particular, having selections not unselect themselves each turn would help a lot. keybinds both to select items and to confirm the turn would help too.

here's how battling currently looks:

a lot of the information here is difficult to interperet, and i never really understood the boxes either side of the text. i still don't but they're slowly making more sense as i battle. also, why the max-height? why crop out information?

if i were to redesign the battle screen it would probably look something like this:

• my pet and its actions are aligned with my choices
• it's immediately obvious who had what effect
• it's possible to know what effect the battle options will have
• it's possible to know what an attack will do (i don't know the formula but it is obviously fixed and relates to pet strength/enemy defense; save us the trouble of having to do the maths and just show us the outcome)

turns seem to be simultaneous so as far as i can tell order doesn't matter (how else would it be possible to lose via draw?), but if it does matter then lengthen the boxes slightly (not all the way, say, 70%) and stagger them like a chat display.

i still don't understand some of this information, even though i'm able to edit it into the right line (i hope) but these changes nonetheless make it much clearer what is actually happening, who is doing what, and vitally, what the attack choices do

Would you like me to have a go at answering your questions about the current BC or would you prefer to wait and see if they revamp the BC?

i asked the questions in this thread mostly to demonstrate how difficult it is to learn about; but i would really appreciate answers if you can provide them.

i have been meaning to try to learn more about battling but have had little success with just searching.

Okay, lets start by agreeing that there needs to be more official explanation of how the battle system and it's related parts work and that the current system is not intuitive. So for now you need user made guides. I would say this is currently the best for understanding basics: https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/876467. METROID led the work of revamping the official guide with help from the battle chat community. It intentionally simplified to make it closer to what a new battler would ask and less what a person battling for 10+ years thinks is important. I think reading it will answer most of your questions, but I'll try to help with specific questions. Battle chat can also help if you have more questions.

This system is old. And while there have been additions over the years (modification crystals, Tiers, behind the scenes coding for how weapons and challengers work, etc.) the base hasn't changed in like 17 years. You can either see it as enjoyably retro or frustratingly out of date.

I'm going to say hover wasn't a thing when the fight section was built. It would be nice if it could be added if things are getting revamped. 1.3 Weapons and the Armory and 2.2 Choose Weapons and Scrolls - these section from the linked guide can help with hover in the armory and choosing weapons before you enter battle. Basically you have to remember what a weapon does from the armory (recommended) or use it in battle to see what it does. 3.4 Weapon Icons, Bonus Effects, and More - this section of the guide tells you about the pictures and how the pictures interact with each other in the fight screen. It starts you on the road to correctly "Picking" your weapon/scrolls aka strategy.

3/4 of battle strategy happens before you enter the fight by choosing the weapons and scrolls you take into battle. 1/4 is reacting to what happens in battle (when to heal, when to bomb, when to freeze, etc). The guide can help you read the screen and understand what is going on. Then you can learn from the fight what worked or didn't work and make changes to what weapons and spells you take into battle and when you decide to use them.

You are thinking like this is a modern game that was released as a cohesive product. The BC is 17 years of cobbling things together as part of a larger ever evolving site. Much of said site has little or nothing to do with the battling system. Items were often made to be wearable or just to be items on the site and later someone decided that, yeah that item could be a weapon. You've also had a ton of different staff over the years each going in different directions. So 15 years ago a BA thought it made sense feathers should heal, 10 years ago there was an artist that liked drawing complete armor sets where every little piece could be a different weapon, and 7 years ago there was a trend where BAs thought animal teeth would make cool weapons. None of these things were wrong but thrown together they don't lead to a consistent logical system. They do seem to trying to make it more logical with the coming revamp, the weapon sorting thing they asked us to do.

Sometimes things make sense like a shield is primarily used for defense and sometimes a big pointy sword can actually have better defense than a shield. This means you just have try different weapons and see what they do...Or screw that, let someone who is obsessive do that kind of work. Use one of the many user made guides that recommend the best weapons and scrolls. First three stickied links here https://subeta.net/forums.php/forum/88/Set-Advice https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/814371/The-Weapon-Guide - if you want to look at more good weapon options per tier. https://www.subetalodge.us - look at what every weapon and scroll and modification crystal on site does. Have fun jumping down the rabbit hole.

The first guide I linked: 1.1 Your Pet’s Stats - will explain intelligence, AP and bit about how to get both. 1.4 Scrolls and Scroll Sets - explains scrolls aka spells.

This exists. On the challenger screen where you choose your pet, scroll down to this: Preselection Settings If preselection is turned on, the battle interface will preselect the first two weapons and first scroll in your set on each turn. This setting will be remembered by your browser (so be aware that it may be reset if you change browsers or clear your cache.)

(Depending on what you have selected) Preselection is currently OFF. Click here to turn it ON or Preselection is currently ON. Click here to turn it OFF

[/b]This. A million, billion, trillion times THIS. I can't count the times I've said we need our own Professor Oak so damn bad.

thank you so much, this is incredibly helpful.

you know...i should have figured that out. i play enough tcgs. that's on me.

this explains why i have a hard time coming up with a coherent strategy, though. in a battle, i feel limited by my weapon choices. those weapons were chosen with a combination of "what some other user says works" and "what i already had to fill in the slots" (because some of these good weapons are Expensive)

you're absolutely right. this is probably the root of a lot of my frustration and confusion relating to battling. i can't comprehend the design, because it wasn't designed the way i'm thinking.

and to be clear i don't actually object to thematic choices like "feathers are healing items" - it's certainly different from generic red potions and once i understood the theme it became intuitive. but for a newbie it doesn't make sense, so this is just one more thing that isn't explained as clearly as it should be.

preselection helps a lot...can't believe i missed that.

YES that would be ideal.

thanks again for all the help, and all the guides, maybe i can make better sense of things now

If you lose vs an opponent, perhaps the message could include a link to battle forums, saying something like "Are you struggling in battle, here are some useful links!"

(This post sent before I was done typing, so I edited). Also sorry if it's a necro? Just realized the dates.

Quoted message shortened for space. But as someone newer to the battle system and trying to figure out how to level my pets, I have had a lot of these same grievances mentioned by Antimoany. (And yes I agree with pretty much his whole post).

I'm not necessarily expecting a brand new present-day game. But a lot of the information is exceptionally hard to figure out in regard to what I'm doing. I normally like battle systems and PvP in games. But Subeta is... a bit frustrating, especially regarding leveling up a pet.

Here's how I would answer these question on my own:

Q 1: What do you think about a system where the only way that your pets progress is by battling and spending experience. No more needing to train (or auto train) to catch up. I agree with eliminating or reducing the need for train/auto-train simply because the system is sooooo slow, but not necessarily creating a tunnel-vision approach. I would rather see the battle system made fun. And perhaps that involves diversifying how a person levels their pets. Perhaps to include battling other people's pets in mutually-agreed-upon PvP?

I also wouldn't really throw the baby out with the bath water. What I think of the current system for pet stats is:

Training (including auto training): Do not love. Tooo sllooowww. Spending exp : No preference. Necessary but don't love it. Stat boosters : Battle rewards were nice; I would grind out more if I could. Most of them you can buy are just too expensive in general to be viable.

I like the concept of buying books for my pets to read to increase their intelligence, though. That's something I can fully be in control of and do on my own, in my own time.

Q 2: Generally how do you feel about the way that pets gain stats now? Let me start by saying: I'm currently trying to level 2 pets at the same time. This makes it a bit frustrating like I hit valleys of low EXP after the first 10 battles of opponents with good EXP. So I get a bit of good EXP, spend it, and then sorta have to punch the same guy giving me 10 exp/battle until I eek out a few more levels. (I don't know if this is the intended model), but I do know I just got to Tier 2, and I don't have any motivation to get any higher.

The first attempt to understand battling I gave up for a long time. I turned to the system of auto-training pets once a day because it seemed like I needed to do it for their job promotions. I only tried again recently to understand battling. I was able to do a little more because I got lucky and unlocked a few secret/event opponents. Which sorta bridged the last of the gap I needed to get to T2.

Ways I could see improvement in the system would be to increase diversification rather than taking it away.

Training (including auto training): Could be improved to still be fun and viable if done right! Spending exp : Still a viable option, I have no strong opinions of this system itself. Stat boosters (items) : Could be more fun if they were able to be collected a bit easier. Stat boosters (dailies) : Could be neat to visit a place that randomly might boost a stat here or there in the Subeta world. PvP : Maybe PvP might be another way to increase your stat levels as you battle; just an idea. ^^

I like the concept of buying books for my pets to read, though. That's something I can fully be in control of and do on my own, in my own time.

Dreamtide Just thought I point out that Battle Quests let you battle more and grow your pet faster: https://subeta.net/games/battle/quest.php. With a Tier 2 you may only be able to beat a few challengers but it does reset daily so you can beat the same difficulty of challengers for higher exp everyday. Do it daily, spend the exp each day and you'll be able to see progression as you beat higher levels of challengers with your growing pet. Anyway, hope this makes the current system at least a little more fun as we wait to see if there will be a revamp.

I tried it today. Thank you! That does help.