I actually like the tier system and I think it has done a great deal to help the community. It is especially helpful to newer battlers because they can see themselves making progress.

The only suggestion I would have is to perhaps rethink the spacing between tiers. At the higher levels there is a big difference between what a pet can do when they first enter a tier and what they can do by the next tier. While that is probably by design, it can be frustrating when your first pet hits those upper levels.

I don't know how big of a deal that is to others, but it is the only thing I can think of. I really am quite content with the tier system as is. My frustrations with battling lie elsewhere.

I have bias because I only got into battling after tiers were introduced. So I lack knowledge and experience of the previous system. As far as I'm aware, the old system basically was buy the best weapons and it didn't matter if your pet was still considered untrained or only partially trained. Tiers were introduced to eliminate this. On one hand, training to grow in tiers does make you stay committed to training to be bale to earn your way to a weapon you want to use (the grind to T10 for Hanji was well worth it so she can use her iconic hook swords :3).

On the other hand, it means battling is only going to be even more expensive potentially as the best weapons are typically in the higher tiers, so that means a lot of time, effort and money into training, then having to buy said weapon. And the god weapons are pretty hard to obtain (though the new lootbox thing does sorta help that? It's a mixed reception though). Granted you don't need a god weapon, but the majority of good weapons are gonna be up there to some degree in price!

I'd say I'm pretty comfortable with the tiers system, I think the middling tiers need more weapons that provide healing options though. It seems like T8+ is when you get access to more weapons that have a natural heal percent, while the only T7 weapons I can think of atm that have any heal percent is the Panzer Hydra Blade. It is important that healing percentages are there for the lower tiers too, as it's a component that is necessary in battling!

But otherwise, tiers makes sense to me and I think the system works plenty fine, aside from some obvious downsides, but every system is going to have some sort cons that go with it.

I'm all for "New" Subeta being "Simple" Subeta. The casual battler just does not understand the tier system and that 10 light defense does not block 10 light attack. The battle UI has so much redundancy and the "battle text" turns into a book it is just overwhelming.

If removing the tier system and whatever changes the recent "army sorting" project brings means a simpler and easier to use system - I am all for it.

HOWEVER With any change....there needs to be preservation of peoples pets who have spent years getting them to their current build. People's pets and current arsenal are equally just as big investments as any given og god weapons and protecting those investments was considered with the godly boxes. And I don't mean just capped pets.

I more or less like it. Battling is pretty much the only structured activity on this site. It's kind of the only thing you progress at and can't just have or buy unless you're willing to use around 4400 tomes to get it. I think tiers provide an easy shorthand for progression, and going up a tier feels more meaningful than buying stats. I'm also a fan of starting off with baby weapons than a pet with 40 stats equipping two Ballistas and going to town. It creates something of a learning curve for new players and introduces them to weapon and item types over the course of the first five tiers, and then has a bit of buffer time for that to sink in before it really starts to matter in tier 10.

Tiers can also remove pressure to spend a ton up front on the highest end weapons just to speed things up. If your pet can't equip Natasha, then it's just a wearable.

Weapon bloat is where things trip up. Tier 10+ is where things become 'easier' because you're not inundated with a million different weapons, most of which are garbage, and no apparent way to figure out which are actually worth using without a guide. The legendary combos are kind of a trap too- expensive weapons that have limited battle use which eat player resources that would be better spent on end game weapons later on.

If you were considering getting rid of tiers, then you need to just jettison 99% of the weapons on the site because none of them will matter except the best and second best. They become nothing but confusion. You would then need to create new weapons (or just restat preexisting ones) in order to fill in budget holes so people don't jump in and immediately feel they need 750,000,000 sP weapons. Or heck, restat all the things! Make all weapons within 5-10% of each other so there's little functional difference between a Battle Spork and a Sandreaver (You'll probably piss people off if you do this though).

I think the tier system is one of the more straightforward parts of battling. I actually like that it has slowed down my learning a bit. It feels like the lower tiers have introduced me to the basics, and now that I’m rising up, I have to start learning the more intricate sides of the system & customizing my weapons for stronger opponents. The slow buildup has helped me personally, instead of just buying a super powerful weapon at the start, which would have not made me learn anything.

That said I can see it being annoying for players who are already experienced in other battling systems & have to train their pets up from the ground before being able to have any strategic battles. It’s like an un-skippable tutorial. Same with anyone starting to train a new pet I guess, I can’t imagine training another one to battle :o

Thanks for opening all these feedback threads!

I just want to start off by saying thank you and thank you to the battle admins for taking the time to get feedback from both battlers and non-battlers before making any big changes to battling. It is nice to see our suggestions are being taken into consideration in the decision making process. It's a unique opportunity you don't get to have on many other sites and is truly appreciated.

1. Opinion on the current tier system

I like the tier system overall. Positives I've seen over the years: -Gauge for new battlers and old battlers to see how hard an opponent is -Requires more strategy to battle in lower tiers so you can't just overpower an opponent with OP weapons -Scalable weapons that grow with your pet into the higher tiers so you don't have to spend $$$ for every tier as your pet improves

Negatives to the tier system:

• Low tier weapons are too underpowered for their tiers and need a restat. It is often easier to just blow through the lower tiers instead of going through hundreds of different weapons from tiers 1-3 that are not good enough to use.
• Not many options for scalable weapons that grow with your pet so that you don't have to invest for new weapons every tier
• Scalable weapons that rely on specific stats that force your pet into a specific build in order to get the most out of the weapon. This is only a negative when alternate options don't exist. For example, the unstable fairy scroll is dependent on the speed stat. It would be nice if there was a scroll similar to unstable fairy that was instead dependent on strength or defense so that people with different builds have another option.

Overall, I think the biggest issue with the tier system is the gap between the top weapons in each tier and the budget options in each tier. There isn't a good middle ground for a weapon to do decent damage/block, especially for tiers 1 - 9.

2. What would you do to make the tier system better?

• Restat some of the lower tier weapons and add more weapons that scale with pet tiers
• List underneath the opponent if they are easy, medium, hard, etc. The opponents are setup alphabetically and by difficulty in the current system, but it would be helpful (especially for new battlers) if it said the difficulty level of the opponent under the name.
• Add tier recommendations to challengers. A more experienced battler has a good idea what kind of pet or what tier you need to beat certain challengers. However, newer battlers that aren't as familiar with stats or opponents that have gimmicks (stealing, freezing, disabling weapons, etc.) could benefit from having a suggested tier listed for each challenger.

I think the tier system works well, it gives people obvious goals to work towards. As far as tier specific improvements, it probably makes sense to have a few less tiers, probably squish 1 thru 10 into 7? tiers and buff some tier 1/2/3 weapons. But at the same time I'm not sure how people who battle casually feel about the distance between tiers currently. I think the top end makes pretty good sense and overall tiers were just pretty well implemented.

I've just started training a battle pet and I like the tiers so far! Like others have noted, it's nice to feel that sense of progression. Limited choices force me to learn mechanics slowly. It's nice. Instead of feeling like "oh no my pet is so weak I'll never be a great battler, I'll never be able to afford to progress", it feels more like "Oh yay this tier is finally starting to feel easier. Hmmm I should start researching which weapons I'll be able to use next". Battling genuinely feels like something that will keep me occupied for the next few months or even years.

I think the tier system wasn't terrible in concept, but that it was poorly executed.

The tier system could have been a method to make 2 parallel methods for progression by either training your pet and looting weapons or spending a ton of sP and buying powerful weapons once and not needing to upgrade over time as frequently.

Essentially I would make probably the legends, combo legends, some staples like DDS, STS, PQuill, RoTL, AON, RV, Truth Serum, Soma Tablets, CWS, MSOB, Blackmoons War Plate Tierless and be on the power level of tier 8-10 weapons, then fill the tiers with cheap alternatives that unlock as you scale in tiers. Then OG gods vs Loot drop gods probably fit somewhere in between like OG gods becomes T6 weapons and all of the loot drop gods become T11, although I could see them all just staying T11 as well.

That way if your great at making sP, but are terrible at logging in to train you could progress by upgrading gear, and if your better at grinding out time in training or battling, you could progress through cheaper (but just as effective) tier drops.

One of the major reasons given for the tier system by admins was to prevent pets from shooting above their weightclass, but I don't think this was as big of a problem as the perception of it was. There were a few very dramatic examples where a 10/10/10/10 pet could beat saggi (at the time probably the 3rd hardest challenger) by blasting and stealing the right weapons, but the change to defensive weapons to remove all % based blockers aside from the OPB 100% blockers should fix all of those loopholes even if a 10/10/10/10 pet picked up a pair of god weapons it probably wouldn't be able to beat most medium opponents today (except for Tide, but who cares.)

I also don't think the number of tiers aged well either. In tiers 1-4 it feels like you are needed to upgrade too frequently, which is probably why new players tend to think that the tier system is difficult to navigate, and in tier 8-9 each tier is relatively short and the weapons so relatively expensive that it really only make sense to upgrade in those tiers if you have an army of pets that will be making their way through the tiers, otherwise it just makes more sense to save up for weapons in T10 which are cheaper and better upgrades and have some endgame potential.

I think you could justify deleting the tier system, and I think you could also justify extensive revamps and new weapons to try to make it more dynamic.

I like tiers. It gives you concrete goals to work towards. I’m not sure if the amount of different weapons in each tier is balanced and makes sense, and if every weapon is in a tier that makes sense for it, but the tiers itself do make sense and it makes battling a bit more dynamic than otherwise

I'm quite happy with the current system - or maybe I just made it work - and can think of only one downside:

When you battle with several pets in different tiers you have to switch weapon sets frequently. It actually doesn't affect me that much because I usually have one main battle pet and one secondary while others have whole armies. I do switch pets halfway through battle quests, though, and must be mindful to use the correct set when I got a challenge from Ice King when the lower tier set is my default.

I do love the armory and I wouldn't want to go back to equipping pets with weapons and spells directly. Some kind of default set per tier or per pet would be nice, though.

I'll echo the suggestion that I'd like to see tier recommendations for opponents. Apart from that, I'm pretty satisfied with the current tier system. It does give pretty good feedback for how strong your pet is getting, and being to unlock access to stronger weapons is satisfying.

I like the tier system as well. Achieving goals is a big motivator for anything, especially games. Subeta’s jumps in tiers give you small, manageable goals, that keep engagement up and unlocking the ability to use new weapons is the reward.

At first I hated it fullheartedly. But like with most of the many changes I got used to it over the years and am fine with it now. At least we get to use the "lowly" weapons as well and develop different strategies.

I think the tiers system is great for starting battlers. It gives them a good idea of how much they need to train in order to become more powerful; that said, perhaps the tiers could be eliminated for the battle pets who are already at least at tier 10? They are strong and most likely have the good weapons needed to fight and defeat (hopefully) those more difficult challengers.

I've only been on the site for a year, but I like the tiers, it's easy for me to understand and gives me goals to work towards. Especially as a newer player, so many really good weapons are close to unobtainable, so I think having the tier system levels the playing field.

I agree with some other comments that maybe some of the middle tiers could be squished. And I think it would be nice to have some more scalable weapons so it's easier to go from one tier to another without having to revamp your whole armory.

The hard part with tiers (and even to an extent without tiers too) is figuring out what weapons are worth it. What weapons are available in my tier? Are these weapons an improvement over what I currently have? What do these weapons actually do (special effects on weapons should be transparent and accessible, not figure it out yourself). An on site database with sorting functions and filters would be immensely helpful (and probably a whole ton of work sorry) and would allow people to discover new weapons and compare them That way if you get a new tier, you can look at what new weapons you have access to and decide if you want to replace any of your current weapons

im a casual battler.... i don't know all the ins and outs so mine can be taken with a grain of salt

i like the tier system for illustrating the progression, i think having to train to use better weapons is smart, but i often get really confused because i get to a new tier and then look to see what weapons are available to my pet and doing my own mini "casual" comparison, the weapons in each tier dont seem to make sense. there are lower tier weapons that do more icons/damage that i tend to just keep using, for example i have kept my scavenged bow past tier 4 because it does 30 icons when theres stuff in tier 5 and 6 that could do the same purpose but less icons.

i know a more experienced battler would have fun looking at what type of icons and matching up with what opponents do what etc but thats a lot of research to do for a casual, especially when the info on everything is so scattered around (bless anyone who posts battle guides and set reccs but they are hard to pick through and some are just not updated).

having tiers be more clearly defined with power level or having some specific "generic" staples per tier (even if they do less cool stuff than the other stuff) would be really useful imo for the casual just trying to earn items they need/want from challengers!

once again im a casual battler, i think theres a lot of cool nuance in the system now, and thats great for those who like that and can spend the time working with it, but making some more flexible stuff in tiers that a casual can just pick up to progress along with the tier would be amazing

To be honest, I don't really have much of an issue with the tier system. It was a bit frustrating at first, but I do understand how training works and it's pretty straightforward thankfully. I think the bigger issues have already been touched upon, especially by up thread - being able to find and understand the weapons that are aligned with the tiers would be more helpful than changing the tier system. There's also just such a vast amount of low value/low tier weapons that are wholly unnecessary. As others have mentioned, there's only a small set of actually good weapons and most of those are from old plots/events and are now unobtainable (not even touching the box situation honestly).

I think better than redoing the tiers/training/learning system on here would be to tackle the weapons and challengers in a way that everything else makes sense. I don't have a math degree, I can't do upper level math calculations for my pet + challenger + weapons to try to guess what even would be helpful. And I certainly don't have billions to drop to try to buy any of the upper level weapons you need. It's also a bit bonkers that the best way to beat most of the challengers is with weapons that those challengers drop....or to have something from way way back that you can't even get anymore. To defeat Meatslab I have to have Cronus. To get Cronus I have to defeat Meatslab and then combine his Baal drop (which is lovely on it's own) with his previous drops to make Cronus. So to get Cronus I have to have Cronus to use Cronus to defeat Meatslab to win the final ingredient for Cronus. It's a bit....incomprehensible.

ALL THAT TO SAY: tiers are fine, the complicated mathematics surrounding challengers and weapons and damage is less so.