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I’m also happy to give up critical hits from my dragons. They’re almost never useful.

...which is a sign of a game balance problem...

[quote name="ceiswyn" date="2021-04-20 05:52:39" ] I’m also happy to give up critical hits from my dragons. They’re almost never useful. ...which is a sign of a game balance problem... [/quote] I've found this to be an "issue" in a lot of games where oneshotting is the meta, because crit is generally too unreliable to actually be incorporated into your strategy. Now, whether oneshotting meta is healthy for a game in the longterm is another story, but, yeah

[quote name="BlueJaysFeather" date="2021-04-20 10:13:32" ] [quote name="ceiswyn" date="2021-04-20 05:52:39" ] I’m also happy to give up critical hits from my dragons. They’re almost never useful. ...which is a sign of a game balance problem... [/quote] I've found this to be an "issue" in a lot of games where oneshotting is the meta, because crit is generally too unreliable to actually be incorporated into your strategy. Now, whether oneshotting meta is healthy for a game in the longterm is another story, but, yeah [/quote] to be honest, even in games where oneshotting is the meta, I have found crits to be too unreliable to encorporate into strategy, even when there is a stat that affects the crits.

[quote name="Jemadar" date="2021-04-18 18:09:35" ] Because that is literally in pretty much every single RPG type game I have played. Everything has a trade off. High Strength means your character has low int (or high int/str means low something else). Being able to dodge means you have fewer points to put in another stat, so you could be the unluckiest person in the world (depending on the stats you are allowed to allocate). While the coliseum isn't a true 'RPG' it takes its aspects from that, so there are tradeoffs. If *all* the stats worked like they were meant to, then yeah, the glass cannon build would probably still work, but it would be even more obvious that it has its trade offs. However, to my knowledge, agility and the two defense stats don't work correctly, and intelligence is simply another 'attack' stat. (it is VERY frustrating when all stats are useful to any build in games *pouts*) So, if you have a physical attacker, you only need three stats: str, qck and vit. Also the reason to prevent endless grinding is the same reason we have the captcha: to prevent bots. It also helps, to a lesser extent, to prevent inflation. [/quote] [Quote name="Jemadar" date="2021-04-19 08:36:43" ] It isn't a hatred of Eliminate but rather just acknowledging that eliminate is way over powered, compared to any other stone we have. I believe, based upon the rarity of eliminate (shiny star if I remember correctly), the fact you can't just buy it from the site and a few other factors that eliminate was meant to be a 'end of game' type stone, where people basically used other stones until they finally got an eliminate drop and it would be a 'luxury' to use after that. Instead the playerbase realized quickly how powerful eliminate was and started focusing all their builds around it. Do I want eliminate nerfed? No, I don't, I dislike nerfings even when they are needed, but I wouldn't be upset if it were.[/quote] Coliseum is so [i]loosely[/i] RPG-based that the status dodge holds in it is nothing but a waste of time. I would be fine with the agility-dodge link if literally anything else in the coliseum was complex enough to warrant things like actual strategy and balance, but they aren't so I'm not, and many other players feel similarly. As it stands, dodge is a completely random mechanic, on both dragons' and monsters' sides, and it only serves to disrupt a player's rhythm. It's not interesting, it's not a challenge. With that all considered, however, I will play a little into the RPG aspect you see in the coliseum. The customary Eliminate-focused build is like an Assassin Rogue. You get surprise attacks with Ambush, you hit for a ton of damage, bam. Opponent is wiped out. You're pretty squishy though, and depending on what enemy you're facing, you might be at a type disadvantage, so you could end up taking a hefty chunk of damage just gaining breath. You might need some support backup, which is why some people now level healers for the high-level venues. When you hit level cap in an RPG, you're ridiculously powerful. You have all tools at your disposal, including stuff that can let you OHKO an enemy. Star rarity notwithstanding, I don't think Eliminate is technically endgame, you can apply it to your dragon starting at like, level 10. Finding one takes work, but it's not super exclusive. You can get eliminate drops just leveling from 1 to 25, or you can buy/borrow a leveled team and start farming for them yourself. Heck, you can get them off the AH from other people they dropped for who don't need them because they've already got a fully-leveled, fully-stoned team. Anyway, I've said it already, but I suppose it bears repeating. Captchas are indeed there to handle bots. Therefore, that is a non-issue. Dodge has been a thorn in the side of many players since way before the coliseum got its keyboard update. I also second the part about increasing the power of other stones, rather than nerfing Eliminate, because the last thing we need is double- and triple-dodging enemies [i]and[/i] no easy KO.

[quote name="@Twizz" date="2021-04-17 22:17:59" ] No support for removing Dodge entirely unless Eliminate is either going to be changed to refund breath or nerfed in some other manner. It's less about challenge and more about making sure that people can't grind the Coli endlessly for profit. It's meant to be an obstacle that either impedes progress or encourages quitting and coming back later. This person also basically summed up my feelings about why Dodge isn't as big a problem as players often make it out to be: [quote name="DethJackal" date="2021-04-17 10:09:36" ] Dodge as an ability stone is an interesting idea. I don’t see it as a nerf for Eliminate. The reason people are saying it is, I think, is because the most popular builds rely heavily on a high-breath move with no other powerful options when it fails. And thus, a build vulnerable to dodge, and often a dragon that has zero backup (single fodder trainers). I’ve noticed that my Workshop farmers (a mage and a fighter, set up to help each other) do not have issues with dodge unless they are almost dead. You’d probably have similar results for any build that didn’t rely on OKHO-ing with eliminate to win. That’s the trade off you make when creating a one-trick glass cannon - in literally any game. Stability for power. The Coliseum rewards power (and risk) greatly. Want rewards? Take a risk. Don’t want to die when your attack misses? Go for stability. That’s the trade-off. It’s not really eliminate that’s the problem; just people not understanding that trade-off. That, like I said, is present in pretty much any game that allows for builds. I think the dodge stone idea is very interesting, could add in a new bit of strategy to take advantage of. Really, I’m neutral on it. I don’t see the problem you are trying to solve, but this would be an neat change to the Coli regardless. [/quote] The same would go for if Dodge was assigned to a stat (I don't think assigning it to a stone makes much sense as it's a passive ability and I can't think of any game that doesn't usually make it as such). Players need to decide how much risk they want to take for how much reward. Do they want a faster leveling team that runs the risk of being fragile and being dodged or do they want a more stable team that's slower but is rarely dodged or can handle dodge risks no problem? Min-Maxing the Coli is a player-created problem and can be fixed by players without interference from the Devs. [/quote] I'm still really curious why your idea of dodge is that it's intended to make players stop playing, and that making sure people cannot "grind endlessly" is an important priority. More important, say, than letting them gather resources or level dragons in a timely manner. And for the purposes of this discussion, again, bots are a non-issue. That is what the captchas are for.

[quote name="Pennifeather" date="2021-04-20 21:10:49" ] [quote name="Twizz" date="2021-04-17 22:17:59" ] No support for removing Dodge entirely unless Eliminate is either going to be changed to refund breath or nerfed in some other manner. It's less about challenge and more about making sure that people can't grind the Coli endlessly for profit. It's meant to be an obstacle that either impedes progress or encourages quitting and coming back later. This person also basically summed up my feelings about why Dodge isn't as big a problem as players often make it out to be: [quote name="DethJackal" date="2021-04-17 10:09:36" ] Dodge as an ability stone is an interesting idea. I don’t see it as a nerf for Eliminate. The reason people are saying it is, I think, is because the most popular builds rely heavily on a high-breath move with no other powerful options when it fails. And thus, a build vulnerable to dodge, and often a dragon that has zero backup (single fodder trainers). I’ve noticed that my Workshop farmers (a mage and a fighter, set up to help each other) do not have issues with dodge unless they are almost dead. You’d probably have similar results for any build that didn’t rely on OKHO-ing with eliminate to win. That’s the trade off you make when creating a one-trick glass cannon - in literally any game. Stability for power. The Coliseum rewards power (and risk) greatly. Want rewards? Take a risk. Don’t want to die when your attack misses? Go for stability. That’s the trade-off. It’s not really eliminate that’s the problem; just people not understanding that trade-off. That, like I said, is present in pretty much any game that allows for builds. I think the dodge stone idea is very interesting, could add in a new bit of strategy to take advantage of. Really, I’m neutral on it. I don’t see the problem you are trying to solve, but this would be an neat change to the Coli regardless. [/quote] The same would go for if Dodge was assigned to a stat (I don't think assigning it to a stone makes much sense as it's a passive ability and I can't think of any game that doesn't usually make it as such). Players need to decide how much risk they want to take for how much reward. Do they want a faster leveling team that runs the risk of being fragile and being dodged or do they want a more stable team that's slower but is rarely dodged or can handle dodge risks no problem? Min-Maxing the Coli is a player-created problem and can be fixed by players without interference from the Devs. [/quote] I'm still really curious why your idea of dodge is that it's intended to make players stop playing, and that making sure people cannot "grind endlessly" is an important priority. More important, say, than letting them gather resources or level dragons in a timely manner. And for the purposes of this discussion, again, bots are a non-issue. That is what the captchas are for. [/quote] [s]Alright one more reply since I got pinged back here.[/s] It's not my only idea about Dodge but it is an aspect of Dodge (or rather a purpose that it serves) that I feel gets overlooked because it's decidedly not "fun" but it also relates directly to protecting against inflation and the game's economy at large. Sometimes you just don't want players to endlessly play your game. Ridiculous sounding yes, but it's absolutely a thing that goes into game design. Whether it's to protect an in-game economy (which is the case here) or to keep players from progressing/completing the game too quickly or what have you, as a game designer, you are going to have to consider ways to get your players to just take a break. Because you can't count on them doing that themselves. Especially if the game is fun! Or...if the game is repetitive but has valuable rewards. The Coliseum is all of that. There's no Lucky Streak on the Coli. You can grind items 24/7 if you want. There's lots of valuable things to accrue from grinding and if you add in levelling dragons, you can basically rake in the money. The CAPCHA is there to handle the obvious bots, yes, but it can't stop an actual human being from grinding 24/7 if they really want to. And besides the CAPCHA, the only thing to dissuade an avid Coli-goer from grinding for hours on end (and basically printing money in the process) besides like...eating and sleeping, is the actual act of grinding, which some find to be mind-numbingly tedious but others can do no problem while even doing something else (watching videos, listening to music, etc). There's nothing else. Except Dodge. Players can't tell when an enemy is going to dodge. There's absolutely no way to prepare for it in the turn line-up (so you can't choose to say...use a potion or defend instead of waste an attack). And because you can't anticipate it, when it happens, the entire rhythm of your grinding is thrown off. Add in multiple dodges or if your team is low on energy and it can totally ruin your whole run. These are all things players have explicitly stated Dodge does. It's frustrating, yes. But you know what happens when humans get frustrated? They stop doing the thing frustrating them. They take a break. They walk away. They go do something else. And that basically acts as hitting the end of your Lucky Streak without the Devs actually needing to impose an actual limit because it's controlled purely by human emotion. That's what I mean when I say Dodge is literally working as intended. I 100% believe it's meant to happen randomly, cheese you off, and make you decide to quit for awhile so that fewer valuable items and/or money gets generated in the game. It's a soft limit that works based on psychology. I personally find it similar to how tedious/frustrating people find Familiar Bonding and those that are always asking for a Bond All button. Familiar Bonding is meant to be tedious because if it wasn't, everybody would do it and that's tons more money inflating the game's economy. The best part is, unlike Familiar Bonding tediousness which does dissuade people from bonding completely, Dodge isn't nearly annoying enough to make people who Coli regularly completely quit it. Not when the siren song of basically unlimited treasure will almost assuredly lure them back in and especially not when there's the option of using dragon teams/builds that can handle Dodge with less issue at the expense of being a tad slower if one so chooses. Anyway, tl;dr making sure players either can't or don't want to "grind endlessly" is actually good for the game's longevity, particularly its in-game economic health, by helping hold-off inflation and sometimes in order to convince players not to play your game 5ever you have to cheese them off because humans are a very stubborn species. And again, I support tying Dodge to one of the stats, particularly Agility.

[quote name="Twizz" date="2021-04-20 22:08:17" ] [quote name="Pennifeather" date="2021-04-20 21:10:49" ] [quote name="Twizz" date="2021-04-17 22:17:59" ] No support for removing Dodge entirely unless Eliminate is either going to be changed to refund breath or nerfed in some other manner. It's less about challenge and more about making sure that people can't grind the Coli endlessly for profit. It's meant to be an obstacle that either impedes progress or encourages quitting and coming back later. This person also basically summed up my feelings about why Dodge isn't as big a problem as players often make it out to be: [quote name="DethJackal" date="2021-04-17 10:09:36" ] Dodge as an ability stone is an interesting idea. I don’t see it as a nerf for Eliminate. The reason people are saying it is, I think, is because the most popular builds rely heavily on a high-breath move with no other powerful options when it fails. And thus, a build vulnerable to dodge, and often a dragon that has zero backup (single fodder trainers). I’ve noticed that my Workshop farmers (a mage and a fighter, set up to help each other) do not have issues with dodge unless they are almost dead. You’d probably have similar results for any build that didn’t rely on OKHO-ing with eliminate to win. That’s the trade off you make when creating a one-trick glass cannon - in literally any game. Stability for power. The Coliseum rewards power (and risk) greatly. Want rewards? Take a risk. Don’t want to die when your attack misses? Go for stability. That’s the trade-off. It’s not really eliminate that’s the problem; just people not understanding that trade-off. That, like I said, is present in pretty much any game that allows for builds. I think the dodge stone idea is very interesting, could add in a new bit of strategy to take advantage of. Really, I’m neutral on it. I don’t see the problem you are trying to solve, but this would be an neat change to the Coli regardless. [/quote] The same would go for if Dodge was assigned to a stat (I don't think assigning it to a stone makes much sense as it's a passive ability and I can't think of any game that doesn't usually make it as such). Players need to decide how much risk they want to take for how much reward. Do they want a faster leveling team that runs the risk of being fragile and being dodged or do they want a more stable team that's slower but is rarely dodged or can handle dodge risks no problem? Min-Maxing the Coli is a player-created problem and can be fixed by players without interference from the Devs. [/quote] I'm still really curious why your idea of dodge is that it's intended to make players stop playing, and that making sure people cannot "grind endlessly" is an important priority. More important, say, than letting them gather resources or level dragons in a timely manner. And for the purposes of this discussion, again, bots are a non-issue. That is what the captchas are for. [/quote] [s]Alright one more reply since I got pinged back here.[/s] It's not my only idea about Dodge but it is an aspect of Dodge (or rather a purpose that it serves) that I feel gets overlooked because it's decidedly not "fun" but it also relates directly to protecting against inflation and the game's economy at large. Sometimes you just don't want players to endlessly play your game. Ridiculous sounding yes, but it's absolutely a thing that goes into game design. Whether it's to protect an in-game economy (which is the case here) or to keep players from progressing/completing the game too quickly or what have you, as a game designer, you are going to have to consider ways to get your players to just take a break. Because you can't count on them doing that themselves. Especially if the game is fun! Or...if the game is repetitive but has valuable rewards. The Coliseum is all of that. There's no Lucky Streak on the Coli. You can grind items 24/7 if you want. There's lots of valuable things to accrue from grinding and if you add in levelling dragons, you can basically rake in the money. The CAPCHA is there to handle the obvious bots, yes, but it can't stop an actual human being from grinding 24/7 if they really want to. And besides the CAPCHA, the only thing to dissuade an avid Coli-goer from grinding for hours on end (and basically printing money in the process) besides like...eating and sleeping, is the actual act of grinding, which some find to be mind-numbingly tedious but others can do no problem while even doing something else (watching videos, listening to music, etc). There's nothing else. Except Dodge. Players can't tell when an enemy is going to dodge. There's absolutely no way to prepare for it in the turn line-up (so you can't choose to say...use a potion or defend instead of waste an attack). And because you can't anticipate it, when it happens, the entire rhythm of your grinding is thrown off. Add in multiple dodges or if your team is low on energy and it can totally ruin your whole run. These are all things players have explicitly stated Dodge does. It's frustrating, yes. But you know what happens when humans get frustrated? They stop doing the thing frustrating them. They take a break. They walk away. They go do something else. And that basically acts as hitting the end of your Lucky Streak without the Devs actually needing to impose an actual limit because it's controlled purely by human emotion. That's what I mean when I say Dodge is literally working as intended. I 100% believe it's meant to happen randomly, cheese you off, and make you decide to quit for awhile so that fewer valuable items and/or money gets generated in the game. It's a soft limit that works based on psychology. I personally find it similar to how tedious/frustrating people find Familiar Bonding and those that are always asking for a Bond All button. Familiar Bonding is meant to be tedious because if it wasn't, everybody would do it and that's tons more money inflating the game's economy. The best part is, unlike Familiar Bonding tediousness which does dissuade people from bonding completely, Dodge isn't nearly annoying enough to make people who Coli regularly completely quit it. Not when the siren song of basically unlimited treasure will almost assuredly lure them back in and especially not when there's the option of using dragon teams/builds that can handle Dodge with less issue at the expense of being a tad slower if one so chooses. Anyway, tl;dr making sure players either can't or don't want to "grind endlessly" is actually good for the game's longevity, particularly its in-game economic health, by helping hold-off inflation and sometimes in order to convince players not to play your game 5ever you have to cheese them off because humans are a very stubborn species. And again, I support tying Dodge to one of the stats, particularly Agility. [/quote] Pretty much this. While developers want people to play their games, they also don't want people to *burn out* while playing their games, and that means forcing those players to either go slower while playing or to take breaks while playing. This means putting difficulty, whether 'true' difficulty like harder enemies or harder puzzles, or 'false' difficulty, like RNG forcing you to do something over and over again, into the game to slow those players that would 'power game' their way through. The faster a player can 'win' a game, even in a game like this where there is no true winning, the faster that player is likely to get bored with the game. This is true with any type of game, whether pet site, RPG, strategy etc... The faster a player gets bored with a game, the faster they are likely to leave, or in the case of single player games, the less they are likely to buy further games from that developer. I have been playing games for a very long time, and know that, if they are allowed, there are players who absolutely will burn themselves out on game aspects that are unlimited. They will 'power game' their way to whatever they feel 'winning' is, for instance in this case, say a level 25 team and first year sprites, (or whatever their particular idea is) and once they achieve those, they move on to another game and do the same thing, because once they achieve those they get bored. So, forcing players to pause or take breaks, as said by Twizz, helps keep those players interested in the game longer, which gives them more page views, thus more ad revenue at the very least. A player who levels their dragon up from level 1 to 25 in a single session (not sure it can be done, but I am sure that someone has at least tried) is giving the site less ad revenue than the player who takes breaks and keeps logging in and having to navigate to the coliseum and the specific venue. Beyond that single player leaving after they get bored with the site because they achieved everything they wanted within a small amount of time, there is also the side affect of all the stuff they obtained through their power gaming session being poured into the economy causing deflation of items from the coli and inflation of currency. Re the bot thing. Just like treasure sinks, it is *good* to have *multiple* ways to prevent bots. Yeah, the captcha is there to catch bots, but it probably doesn't catch all of them, so having other ways to defeat bots, IE make them have to be reset or at least slow them down, is good for the site as well. yeah, dodging is frustrating, but so is grinding and not getting the specific item you want. So is running into 2 or 3 bosses in a row when you just want to level a dragon. So is NOT getting the bosses even though you have been grinding for an hour or more when you want them. Basically there is a lot about the coliseum that is frustrating. That is why I support tying dodge to agility, because it would allow players to be able to control whether or not they want to have their dragons able to hit dodged enemies or not. Yeah, there is little strategy in the coliseum now, and honestly I don't want it to turn into a full blown RPG. But, that doesn't mean that adding a little bit of strategy more isn't a good thing. Yeah, it would probably shake up current builds, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if they do it so that the way the coliseum works now isn't really changed, just rebalance the enemies to make it so they need higher agility to be able to dodge. This would mean that some enemies might dodge a lot, but once you do hit them, they go down easily. Others might never dodge but they are harder to take down or they hit your dragon harder.

I still don't support eliminating dodge entirely. I did a test some odd time back when I Coli'd more (pre-captcha), and I found I was only dodged about 3 out of 100 attacks. A 3% chance at dodge is pretty low. I could support dodge not stacking, but no support for eliminating it. I enjoy it when my dragons dodge, and I have built a healer around critical hit healing, and I love how effect she is and would hate to see critical hits taken too.

And, I mean, if dodge were removed...Then how do I say it? What's the point? All the battles are carbon copies of each other. Players could scratch-eliminate or rally-eliminate everything except the very highest of venues and the occasional boss. There really isn't much being done to earn the rewards the Coli is putting out. At that point, FR might as well make a stone called Insta-Death--one click kills all opponents, no breath, no downsides. Because that's what basically removing dodge is asking--no worries about breath once its full, kill all opponents with a single click each, no downsides at all. For me, removing dodge entirely is getting way too close to making the Coli a "Bond All" kind of suggestion.

[quote]No support for removing Dodge entirely unless Eliminate is either going to be changed to refund breath or nerfed in some other manner. It's less about challenge and more about making sure that people can't grind the Coli endlessly for profit.[/quote] This is already what happens. If I wanted to, I could chain coli battles *all day*. I could do nothing but sit here and rack up items, familiars, etc. It's not a difficult mini-game. The boss enemies offer hiccups in the flow but restarting and building back up takes 30 seconds tops. I don't support any drastic change to the coliseum that could inspire the staff to nerf eliminate because...the coliseum is *the* source of my income on FR. I have very limited free time, so I'm not going to do anything beyond leveling fodder most days. You totally can endlessly grind the coliseum for profit. That's kind of what it's for. In my experience, at least. Maybe others have trouble, but I can get 15 fodder leveled in under an hour. If I wanted to, I could drain all of my treasure into fodder on the AH and put 3 hours into flipping the biggest chunk of change I've ever had, lol. It's a better and faster source of income than anything else on the site for me! But it's still not OP. Because it's tedious. If I DID have the free time to devote an entire day to grinding in there, I probably still wouldn't do it. I have a ton of games in my collection that are way more fun than that. I level my fodder, and I go about the rest of my day off.

I do not believe that the devs deliberately set out to make the coli tedious and frustrating in order to prevent players spending much time grinding it for loot.

What I believe is that the devs intended the coli to be a very different experience, hence the variety of different stones available, the initial existence of PvP mode, etc. In that more varied and interesting world, dodging and crits would just have added an element of random chance to keep things interesting.

Unfortunately, what the devs actually built was a game in which there is only one useful outcome - gain as many loot drops as possible - and one set of builds that achieves it far, far better and faster than any other, which are glass cannon equipped with Eliminate. And those just happen to be builds that are disproportionately affected by dodging and not much helped by critting.

The end result of those design decisions is that the coli is boring, and dodge just makes it frustrating as well. What needs to happen is a rebalance that makes more different builds viable and adds some actual challenge rather than occasionally dropping rocks on my head. I wouldn’t mind if the coli were slower, if it were also actually at least marginally engaging.