The tier systems is very useful and adds some challenge, so that it's not money alone that decides about the outcome of a battle (buying a good weapen). Surely it can be tweaked a bit here and there but a tier system is a good thing.

But the 1. battling page is a mess, and the 2. damage/blocking/healing calculations are a mess too. Or maybe not even the calculations itself, but the display and presentation. But I guess that's not what you asked feedback for which is a pity :)

This is gonna be a long one....

The tier system was one of the primary reasons I stopped battling and left Subeta as it was painful and frustrating to lose access to weapons I've earned or spent sP on. I recall saving up and buying a Core and Gelatin Concoction to combine into an ME, it was exciting and I enjoyed battling with it - pushing my tiny pet to the limit on who I can defeat. With the tier restriction and the fact I wouldnt be able to use it for a long time, I ended up selling my ME in the auctions at a fraction of what I spent as demand tanked because anyone who could actually use the weapon already had one.

I believe 'balance' was the original reason for the tier system and the desire to stop small pets from using weapons tuned for more difficult opponents and sweeping everything or winning against higher difficulty opponents. Small pet shouldnt be able to defeat impossible level opponents for loot. Some liked the idea and that it could bring more life to lesser used weapons in lower tiers. Others saw this as a solution for a non-existent problem.

Looking back, I agree that there should be a limit to how far a pet can reach based on its stats - weapons shouldnt leap you into endgame opponents. That said, I am of the opinion that the tier system is the wrong approach / solution to the problem - or rather, its design is incomplete, flawed, and grew worst as the years progressed:

1. Subeta is not an RPG The tier system was compared to leveling and weapon system in RPGs where you need to meet the level requirement to use the gear. As you progress through the game, you earn new and more powerful weapons to challenge increasingly difficult opponents. Old gear is sold, discarded in favor of newer and better items. The thing that's missing is players progression is heavily tied to having the appropriate level of gear.

Subeta is different. Progression is not tied to weapons. When I returned to Subeta during the start of the pandemic, I didn't buy or earn gear for my T8 pet. Instead, I purchased stat boosters and trained my pet to T11. There's no reason for me to waste time, effort, and sP for 'leveling' gear that I dont need for progression and will soon discard. Rewards from any event challengers is hardly enough to for me to throw sP and optimize my weapon usage. While some say the tier system will bring life to weapons in lower tiers, reality says to not waste money. It is far easier to train pass problems and overcome challenges with sheer numbers. What's more, the tier requirements discourages players from investing in gear for the long term since they wont be able to use them - there's no satisfaction in earning a reward or saving for a weapon that you cant use.

In a way, my approach is similar to many MMOs: rush to endgame where the fun is, all rewards in-between are irrelevant. Unfortunately, it take a long, long time (and a lot of sP) to progress a pet to endgame. The idea of forcing weapons as part of player progression simply doesnt work in an environment like Subeta.

2. Weapon variety is non-existent and balance is out the window One would assume weapon performance would follow the tiers. Over the years though, some weapons introduced or restat were so good that it eclipses most, if not, every weapon across multiple tiers (example: Shinwas Quill, Reborn Icewand of Doom). Balance is further complicated by the economics of armies, providing strong, cost effective, and highly available weapons that drown out all alternatives. Today, out of the ~1800 weapons, probably less than 100 are actually relevant across all the tiers.

While accessibility is good, I also find it hardening that a cheap challenger drop like Arrow Harpoon or purchasable RIWoD outperforms combo legendaries. This suggests that weapon performance have little to no value and pricing is strongly driven by other factors such as rarity and overlay. For a weapon, it is ridiculous that its performance have so little bearing on its market value. I recognize that value is somewhat subjective, but for items that are first and foremost weapons, they should at least follow some logical performance growth vs availability / price. This issue also arises across tiers where recent updates to a few T10s (ie. Shinwas Lightning, Halberd of Ill Intent) approach or outperform T11 and T12 items.

3. Tiers are meaningless without content to utilize it Tiers on its own isnt a bad idea. As others have said, it brings a sense of progression. But I think that feeling of progression does not translate to interest in battling. Instead, it provides motivation to train more, climb the tiers, and push through challengers with sheer numbers. There's no content or challenge tied to tiers, making the system feel like a restriction with all the negatives and nothing positive.

So what to do. As mentioned, tiers are not inherently bad - its just not properly utilized and the wrong approach to solving the initial problem. Here's my take:

1. Keep the tiers and relax the tier restrictions Instead of 'pet is not strong enough to use the weapon', it should be 'pet is not strong enough to draw out the weapon's full potential'. In other words, all weapons should be made scalable. Unlike our current scalable weapons, the scaling acts more like a level penalty from RPGs. For example: A T11 weapon would perform 10% less with a T10 pet, 20% less for T9, etc. Ideally, the scaling would not be linear and its performance would fall in the lower end of each tier when scaled. This allows the weapons to be usable and be an okay alternative, but only reaching full potential when pets reach the tier requirement. Rarer weapon could scale a bit better, while common ones not so much.

This relaxed restriction ensures weapons do not springboard small pets into endgame opponents, unties the coupling to pet progression, and keeps on tier weapons relevant.

2. Define performance levels I'm imaging that weapons themselves can be subcategorized with a rarity like Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. Its performance would ideally reflect its rarity and tier. With some number ranges, it would help a lot in keeping things balanced. We could also add some fun things such as named weapon series, ie. Destroyer Gods, Gelatin Weapons, ...

3. Challenging content w/ tiers Provide incentive to utilize a wider variety of weapons and strategies by providing a system that makes battles harder. Perhaps a mode where you 'miniaturize' your pet, scaling down its stats to match the opponent's tier. Maybe even add on and stack player selected debuffs like: disable freeze, disable scrolls, disable heals, begin battle at 1hp, 2x opponent hp, etc.

In all, I dont like how the tier system is today. There is potential and I would not like to see it going away completely. Just needs a shift in perspective in how tiers are utilized.

I basically agree with everything said.

I like the tiers system, I think that it helps new battlers/smaller pets feel their progress. But battling at low tiers is a pain due to the sheer amount of weapons that are just not useful, and/or completely mislabeled (several 'infinite use' weapons in the lower tiers are actually breakable, which can be very frustrating!)

I was around before the tiers system existed, and yeah, it SUCKED to not be able to use the MCAB that I had bought for 200mill only a few months before, but the change needed to happen. The islanders vs pirates war plot challengers were a mess, people being able to beat the highest boss with a completely untrained pet if they had the right combo of weapons was totally bogus (especially because the 'right combo' only existed for one of the teams). I beat Prodigy with a pet that by todays standards would be a T4, it doesn't make sense. Granted, the weapon re-statting also helped a lot to rebalance things, but I don't think that someone should be able to beat 'impossible' opponents just because they spend billions on weapons. If people want to be able to 'pay to win' on subeta, we can do that with tiers through boosting, which I feel is a lot more fair than just having the right weapons alone.

I like that the current tier system requires a combination of both stats and weapons. If we do away with the tiers system, in order to keep things balanced, a lot of weapons would have to be re-stated to be scaling, which would be a ton of work for the BAs.

I really feel this. As someone that disappeared for a number of years but returned with a T10 pet, I looked at all the tier weapon guides with a dropped jaw. I simply can't afford the recommended weapons and I can't unlock the weapons through battling either. It's a bit of a mess, but I'm sure I'll sort it out as I put more time into it.

I don't have a problem with tiers per se. Its a simple enough mechanic to understand.

What drives me to endless frustration is the point made. By the time your pet is a high enough tier - say 11- to beat a certain opponent that opponent drops a weapon that is tier 9 or 10...a weapon you don't need anymore. What's the point of that? I train, I battle, I spend countless sP to improve my pet then get "rewarded" with something totally useless.

I have only played the tier system and I don't want it to go away. It's one of the few aspects of battling that makes any sense to me really.

I would like to be able to see the weapon stats when choosing weapons. In case the weapons I had by default weren't working on a given opponent.

Since some weapons seem to be much more powerful than others, what I'd most like to see is the very powerful weapons remain good vs all opponents, but current low cost weapons be just as useful against a specific opponent. Like, certain opponents are weak to certain powers. And have that indicated somehow on the opponent (defense rating per damage type maybe?) so instead of just buying an expensive weapon and always using it, I can find the right weapon to take advantage of this opponent's weakness with information that's actually there in the UI to see.

Also which weapons in the armory have unfilled slots would be nice. Maybe a menu of options of things to put into the slot with a 'buy now' type button (like in the wardrobe) so one could buy and slot something in. Maybe some cheap slot things that are single battle use would be helpful if it's going to need to be changed depending on the opponent.

Semi-casual battler here throwing in my opinion!

I tend to enjoy battling, but am fully aware I don't exactly have the time or energy for high demand plot/boss battles or even doing battle quests on a regular basis (my schedule is super weird).

I enjoy tiers because it helps give me a sense of where I stand, and the fact that I can idly train at the training center when i'm super busy is also a plus - in fact that's mostly how my battle pet was trained! I'm so close to T12, albeit I probably got here at a snails pace compared to everyone else.

I miss seeing the difficulty recommendations for challengers, and in general I have a hard time gauging what opponent I can actually beat or not. Like many others have already said, I'm constantly running into the roadblock of not having the right weapons to defeat a certain challenger...where by defeating that challenger I would get exactly the weapon that I needed.

I think I have a "decent" armoury, but when all of my potential upgrades are now in the 100 mill + range, I simply don't have the resources to reach that. I think my last big purchase was the trident, and now I have to save up all over again for...I dunno, something like Natasha? The price jump at around T9 is wild for me, and i'm mostly stuck with weapons in the 9-10 range because of it. The few in the 20-40 mill range are eventually affordable to me, but when a lot of the weapons I now "need" are more than triple the price in jump...it gets discouraging. And I feel like i'm at the part where pumping in stats won't get me much further.

I wish there was a kind of bridging gap around the 9/10 to 11/12 range. I wish there was a way I could test out builds and stat distribution without restating my whole pet. Right now i'm running an evenly stated pet because I simply don't know what build is "best" for the type of playstyle that I want, and there really isn't a way to test that. I know most people tend to go all in on strength, but what if I want to do a speed/tanky pet. Is that even viable? I'm enjoying starting to experiment with weapons that scale/change based on the stat distribution (I do wish there was more of that! I think it's fun to encourage different builds) but i'm always wondering...will I be "punished" for not doing the distribution everyone recommends?

For me the problem isn't with tiers, it's with me feeling inadequate within my tier because I can't afford the good weapons and/or defeat the challengers I feel like I should be able to...? Hopefully that makes sense.

My thoughts pretty much echo everyone else’s about enjoying the tier system. Out of everything in battling, it’s the one thing that doesn’t need to be changed!

One improvement would be allowing us to sort our weapons by tiers on the Armory page! I intentionally have a pet in every single tier and it is difficult to make sets quickly because it isn’t easy to find what I need (we’re limited to five pre-made weapon and scroll sets). Everything is just pooled together in alphabetical order.

I'm a little late here, but I generally like the tier system. I think the fact that it makes intuitive sense helps bring a base level of understanding to new battlers, and I think it's a great way to mark training milestones, plus 'lock' good weapons so they can't be used by weaker pets for an unbalanced battle.

As others have said, what I would love to see is 1) how the challengers correspond to those tiers, and 2) armory improvements. I love getting new challengers, but the challengers page is incredibly hard to navigate with how many there are now. Clearer separation of challengers by difficulty (and stats preview for your active pet) would be great. And similarly, the armory has so many potential improvements. I'd love to be able to sort weapons by tier, or maybe even icon or other abilities (like freezers/healers). I'm much more interested in those than the nominal type of weapon it is, like the weapon sorting project suggests might be introduced.

(and while we're at it, please let us create more weapon & scroll sets 🙏 . and the ability to assign different default sets to different pets would be 🔥)