Sorry for the ping if you didn't want it but it felt appropriate as I'm using it as an example.

This was posted in discord. Obviously nothing major but since everyone doesn't use discord - I thought it would be nice to be able to voice your opinion as a battler vs. just those who use discord.

Thanks for posting this! I already answered, but I thought it was weird that he posted it on discord instead of on the battling forum where a lot of the active battlers either lurk or chat o.O

So do we answer here or there?

1. By mechanic does he mean things like enabling or disabling mechanics such as freezing enabled but healing disabled? I like challengers that are a bit on the lengthy side, or change as the battle progresses as they lose health.

2. i consider battling fun all the time

3. Heck yes i would battle other players.

FWIW -

I wonder if he was deliberately trying to draw upon battling experiences from more than just the format Subeta uses and that's why he posted off-site.

My problem with Subeta and battling isn't the mechanics -- I quite like them. I like that it is turn based and doesn't give people seizures. I can grind away and take breaks when I need to. As a mother, I don't get to do things uninterrupted. Heck, just as an adult it's difficult to find a stretch of time.

I don't want to battle other players -- it always comes down to what weapons you have and what tier your pet is. It gives the longest Subeta users the biggest edge. I think that for the battling community to thrive, new battlers have to feel like they can become the best if they work at it and that it's not too overwhelming.

The reason I have decided to take a break from battling/Subeta is that I have been a hard-battling user for close to a decade and I have yet to get a god weapon. Only the very early joining (and far richest) Subeta users have ever had this opportunity. So Subeta responded to newer battlers requests for a shot at God weapons by offering two and pricing them so high that only the people who first could get the weapons could afford it. While users today no longer get interest on savings (and I think that is good) the damage has been done and the earliest users have tens of BILLIONS stashed away from the old policy and the added years. So when the Hustler boxes came out and I found out it was the same story -- and there's no guarantee you can even get a weapon you want -- my enthusiasm dropped through the floor. Once again only the oldest and richest users -- who already have those weapons -- can afford them.

Over the years when I have complained on the battle threads, those who already have everything complain about how kids today cry and whine about things. They don't see what an enormous advantage they have had over the years is and how daunting and disheartening it is for the newer battlers. I would have to work my ass off for another decade to be able to afford even ONE god weapon. No thanks.

Bonita gets at something that bothers me. Battling is a progression system. Do the thing, train your pets and raise their stats, make sP to buy weapons and scrolls, use csc to buy challengers, earn the reward. I missed events in the past, but there's the promise of new events and new weapons to come in the furture when my pets are strong enough to participate.

Except when events don't happen and weapons go into loot boxes that promise is broken. When staff says battlers can't be allowed to win items because that's bad for the site, mini mods say battlers aren't thinking enough about the wants and needs of non-battlers, and the player base says we're the most spoiled, catered to players, I rethink even being here. The message is that I'm selfish.

Battling is expensive. The implicit promise of rewarding progression is empty. What am I even doing?

And you're asking about if I want to face a player with 28,000 intelligence, who knows how many Void scrolls, and the best weapons in the game that only a limited few have access to modded with crystals I can't afford? lols. You have to rethink battling from the ground up to create tolerable PvP. If I wanted 'git gud, scrub' and meta there's places to go for that. Anything from MOBAs to fighting games have that in spades. I'm not here to be someone else's content that they're grinding.

This turned out super negative, and.. I'm sorry about that. Staff doesn't entirely deserve it.

Battling isn't fun in and of itself. I'm here to participate in events, holidays and plots. I'm here because of that promise that progression systems offer: do the thing, earn the reward.

Edit: I don't mean to dig at Evil. Your average capped pet going up against his Nichole Richie is at least as unfair as the average T4 going up against my Guinea Pig. Subeta offers me a ton of agency with my pets. As long as I'm willing to commit to a build, nothing in the game stops me from charging headlong into battle with an all speed pet. PvP requires balance or it ends up a frustrating clusterflub. You would need to consider normalizing stats, and weapons/scrolls with premade rollouts. But the trade off is players who have heavily invested in their pets and armories lose that in favor of creating an even playing field. You probably would have to rethink weapons considering you can lose on turn one even with premade rollouts just by having your attackers blasted.

Echoing the concerns voiced here. The "best" weapons have been locked behind sP gates that only the richest can afford without even offering effective alternatives, giving little incentive to keep battling. Paid for challengers that did drop worthwhile weapons and scrolls had those items locked behind achievements, which is frustrating when some of the weapons even double as wearables. Battle tokens are rewarded but the inventory in the battle shop hasn't changed in years.

The only incentives are the ones people set for themselves to keep battling interesting. I think that's why some people, including myself, have an army of pets to keep it interesting.

I think it would be an interesting concept if you could "buy" mod slots in the battle shop that could be added to weapons. This way even the worst weapons could be made good by farming opponents. This would need a lot of fleshing out though.Any of the endgame weapons that don't need the extra mod slots could be excluded from this, only specific weapons, a limit to the number of slots depending on the weapon, you lose the slots you attach when you remove it from the armory, etc.

1. I hate the stealing mechanic, I find it trollish and unbalanced, the opponent can steal but no more than 1-2 weapons per battle, no reason to find myself weaponless during the battle. Also the disabling health/scrolls /2 weapons etc is unbalanced, it's like "whatever happens happens" the challenger can do whatever they want, without control.

I do love the turn base, I just wish it was a bit faster, for example if we could make a combo of moves per turn,

scrolls are very expensive, complicated and kinda boring, I wish there was more mechanics with them, like quests, and more easy-to-use mechanics and explanations. also their order in-battle is a bit limited, please change the scrolls box to a box like the weapons, scrolling down is annoying.

2. Right now when my pet is T13, I find the low tier challengers kinda a waste of time and boring, I fight them in the last minute during events, I just "click click click" and move on, but I wish I could have spend those minutes on something else, just let me battle once in a full "10 battles" health and get all the prize in one shot. I love the T10-13 tier challengers.

3.I don't want to battle others, this will be a breaking point for me, we're not Pokemon.

1. What is your favorite challenger mechanic?

I can't say I have one, I find the unique mechanics like disabling healing/scrolls to be kind of frustrating but like it's part of the challenge, if these mobs didn't have unique abilities I feel like you'd have people complaining that everything is boring and generic. I find these things keep it fresh though it would be nice if it wasn't as common. 1 shot random crits are also kinda awful, like I suppose it makes sense in a normal mmo that if you can't stop their attack that a fatal crit is always possible but I feel like maybe it should be more % of health based as opposed to a number; Something like that would still super hurt a pet, if you had a critical that took 90% of their total hp it would still be fierce competition but it'd allow a recovery which is part of the whole idea of knowing how to battle vs just mashing buttons.

2. Do you consider any of the battles that you do fun?

I find most of the battles to be fun! I find it gets a bit tedious farming out low challengers for amulets/tomes but I know I was one of the first T12s to beat Amalgamatter and it felt AWESOME helping my cult determine it's baseline. That excitement of rushing to discover things was one of the reasons I really miss events. Also the obvious fun thing is the achievements and the loot, Give me a reason to keep murdering them!

3. If you could battle other players, would you?

I feel like this would 100% be a waste of time. It alienates the community and again only benefits that top 1%. There is no reason this should be on your radar.

I think of all things battling needs to be made more accessible. Maybe not everyone having T13s but it takes a decent amount of time or money to get to a reasonable tier and I think most of the userbase doesn't have the dedication or funds to really push getting a pet up. Granted I have seen some of my friends grind the living shit out of their pets and do quite well raising up the ranks in a good timeframe. However, I think entering the battling scene is a bit overwhelming for new people and almost discouraging even. As a battler with almost 3 T13s and 90 some odd challengers unlocked, I think how I have only lvled 1 pet myself most of my others were adopted and I know how long it took me to get to where I am, wither I was dedicated for that week or not. I also look at the cashshop challengers, and know I haven't even bought them all yet myself, wondering how anyone could possibly get into battling if they know they need to will buy 105 challengers. There is a lot to it, but I know battling is and can be really fun and I feel like we might find more longevity in users if we find a way to make battling easier to get into.

It's been a minute since I've been especially active on here, but I still regard subeta as having the best of the pet site battling schemes, so I'll toss my two cents out.

1. I like opponents who get progressively harder as the battle continues. It gives me an incentive to be efficient, knowing that my opponent is gaining +50 str per turn, etc. It makes the late battle a lot punchier, which is great for my pet who can beat most opponents through brute force and zero strategy. I also like opponents who generate new weapons as the turn counter ticks up. I guess I like battles that change, not a battle that's consistent the whole way through. Keeps a man on his toes.

2. There's a certain base level of fun to all battles, I think. But again, the ones that make me stop and form a strategy are the best ones. Battling is a lot of fun, up until your pet gets too strong. Then it's just "click until you win" which is a shame. I will say that I find weapon stealing, chain freezing, and consistent full/near full heals to be not fun at all. That's only fun when I do it lol.

3. I have no interest in PVP. I'm biased on this as I've never seen the appeal in PVP, but especially not on a site like subeta. I'm an old player with a lot of very rare and very OP weapons that I've gotten by virtue of being rich or being in the right place at the right time. I wouldn't be interested in any fight I'd win by virtue of my armory/scroll library alone. If subeta were to implement a PVP system, there'd need to be weapon bans, not dissimilar to how competitive pokemon battling has bans on pokemon who are too OP for any given tier. A free-for-all would be a mess overall, but a "you're not allowed to use your god weapon set" ruleset would go a long way. That said I still wouldn't participate lol.

I'm not on the discord, but I did have a few other people mention it on other servers, might as well answer here.

1. What is your favorite challenger mechanic?

Probably the Troll! I LOVE doing 0 damage unless there is a specific random weapon in my set that lets me do damage. Especially love it when that one weapon is a one use or breakable weapon. Just the best.

(obviously very sarcastic troll answer. TBH other than the troll, I enjoy most of the mechanics, even the curses that block all my weapons add an extra little bit to the overall battle experience)

2. Do you consider any of the battles that you do fun?

Yes, especially event guys. I don't really enjoy having to beat up all the easy challengers 200 times before getting something worthwhile, but otherwise, I do enjoy battling. Wish I had more RL time to enjoy more of those event challengers (more throw backs would be really appreciated!)

3. If you could battle other players, would you?

No, probably not. For a lot of the same reasons other people have stated.

I agree on this point. I don't really have anything else to say to this point, but I think maybe a fun way to make some of those exclusive battle items 'less' exclusive could be to make fake or replica items, whether they be just wearables with very similar overlays or also lower tiers weapons with similar effects. Not scaling or transformable like the Trident or Minotaur Knocker, but kind of like the Light Sword of Justice/Fake Light Sword of Justice. If it's an event prize, the 'fake' one could go out as one of the lower prizes (ie. doing 5k damage to a boss) or in an event prize shop, and the top one could go out as the top prize (top 20 users/500k damage etc) It could even work in such a way that the 'fake' one could be combined with the 2nd top prize/challenger loot at Genetech to make the top tier weapon for those battlers who fought hard, but didn't quite make the top tier, allowing them to still have the top weapon, but not the extra 'wearable' version.

I'm not joining discord and you can't make me.

1. I don't think I have a favourite mechanic as such. The blessings and curses seem underused and I think there's more that could be done there.

2. Yes, mostly, even if I've been slacking recently.

3. Absolutely not under any circumstances, for all the reasons other people have stated already.

Also I agree with the other comments in this thread. We spent so much time last year helping METROID and Kalkatak revamp the user-written battle guide, trying to help more newbies get into battling and trying to make it more accessible, but ultimately as bonita said the top tier stuff is still out of reach.

I've been a battler for many years now, I have a capped pet and a second almost there, and there are still things I don't have and will almost certainly never be able to get because I wasn't in this position well over a decade ago.

And now the battle community has this stigma attached to us, people see us as this exclusive clique that don't want anyone else to have anything, and it's really depressing because we're constantly begging for things to be re-released or to be earned in new ways.

I'll just c/p my reply from discord here for posterity:

1. actually the same as Jensen's, the challenge of fighting someone when you can only use x amount of weapons/scrolls/whatever makes it interesting.
2. If I'm being honest... eh? I mean, they can be rewarding, but ultimately I'm still grinding to get to T13. It takes a good long while to get there. Some can be fun, most low-level challengers in Battle quests aren't (even when you skip lower 15)
3. No. I actually despise PVP given how toxic it can get (ex-pro player. dealt with way too much of that to ever want to do it again). ~S

gonna put my posts from discord right here and see if i get a forum point

Yesterday at 11:42 AM

1. as much as i like to complain about them, the challengers with a chance of weapon/scroll restriction curse are fun to me most of the time, i like that “roll the dice for a good turn” feeling (on the flip side, i know purge is anti-heal but i do not care for high tier healing restricted challengers)
2. i like battling in general to an extent — the defeat x thousand gelatins style achievement is probably my limit for how hard i want to grind challengers; i know there’s at least one suggestion for putting a chance at good loot in for thousands of wins but i really. don’t want that… it’s like the throw 50k snowballs achievement. possible but not fun
3. i would not like player vs player content

Yesterday at 1:17 PM discord dying ate my other response but yeah i agree with kiarda -- i don't love challengers with stealing enabled (chase, gelatin wizards), i just like the ones with curses that restrict weapons/scrolls temporarily

Yesterday at 1:34 PM (also ultimately i think after being burned by long development timelines for teahouse etc and knowing we're running light on staff, i would really prefer to see more challengers being rerun (throwback thursdays / returning bosses maybe?) over seeing resources invested into pvp battling)

[edit] i did not get a forum point :(

1. I don’t do favorites
2. No, I’m capped. It lost a lot of fun when I hit that
3. No interest in pvp at all

1. I don't have one.
2. Honestly no. I have more fun training then actually battling most the time. Plus good weapons are so inflated it's hard to get most of the ones needed for the insane challengers.
3. Literally not at all. I don't do PvP.

What if, for PvP, you could select a set of weapons provided by the coliseum itself? Maybe you spend 100k to borrow a godly or something. By making it a selection of possible weapons rather than the entire weapon armory of Subeta, it cuts down on some aspects such as owning the weapon outright.

I could see PvP being a thing where you test out your builds then against one another. Pet A has 10k in Def and HP each, but mediocre speed and strength versus Pet B who is evenly trained for its tier.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt. I have a T12 pet and am in the process of acquiring my end game meta armory.

1. What is your favorite challenger mechanic? I love challengers that temporarily limit what I can do with my weapons and scrolls. It makes me reconsider what I'm doing and actually think about the fight!

2. Do you consider any of the battles that you do fun? Battles are more fun when there's thought I have to put into it. Take battle quests for example - I don't like that I can turn on preselection and click my way through the most of the quests with minimal to no set changing. I enjoy unique mechanics and when challengers have "phases" or they scale throughout the battle

3. If you could battle other players, would you? No, and that's coming from someone who loves PvP! Fighting is hella fun, but considering the big sP gate, I feel like it'll be heavily skewed in the favor of those who have a fully decked out armory with all the cool swag. I'm not sure how you could balance that. EDIT: Unless it's something where you're using the coliseum's armory as suggested.

I got into battling a lot later during my tenure onsite and didn't focus on it as heavily as other things for a long, long time. Coming back from my hiatus and it's the sole thing I am focusing my efforts towards. The sP cost is my main gate right now. I am the 57th richest user on site right now with close to 300m sP. While I know there's plenty of money people have invested in items or csc (myself included) and that the ranking may not be an accurate reflection of how much wealth the average user has, I would be and was intimidated by the massive amount of money I needed to spend to really get to the late game. It kept me out of battling for a long time. I'd love to see a future where battling is more accessible for new users. I like weapons like the and the set it's from for example. It was super cool to earn it through battling over time and it gave me more reason to use the battle shop tokens. Similarly, I love weapons that you earn through battling, although scenarios where the weapon you win from the fight is the one you sorta need to do the fight in the first place (lookin' at you Meatslab!) kind of suck.

1. disabling scrolls makes me realize how much i rely on the health gain, so it's humbling in that regard. also, i hate when it happens.
2. not really. i mean, big numbers make brain go brrrr. and it keeps me active on site, but i don't have the patience to train more than one pet.
3. if i wanted a meta based pvp i'd just go play dark souls

1. What is your favorite challenger mechanic? I have no favorite mechanics unfortunately. I do hate when the take all my weapons 3 or 4 times and I die.

2. Do you consider any of the battles that you do fun? Yes, I wouldn't be doing it as long as I have, if it wasn't. I usually have to find the time to do the battles.

3. If you could battle other players, would you? No.